JadeLuckClub

For many Americans, holidays brings to mind traditional meals including ham, roast turkey, gingerbread houses and dozens of cookies.  These are definitely part of my Taiwanese-American family’s holiday repertoire.  But as with other American customs and holidays, my family also included distinctively Asian food in our celebrations.  During holidays and other special occasions, my family would break out an electric skillet and prepare for a meal of what my mother Americanized for us as “tabletop cooking.”  I didn’t know until years later that this already had an English name, hot pot.  It is still a meal my family enjoys when we get together, though now that my parents are getting less enthusiastic about all the prep work, we are more likely to enjoy this communal meal at a restaurant than at home.

Chinese hot pot or huo guo  literally translates as “firepot.”  It has existed for over 1000 years in China, and is thought to be of Mongolian derivation.  This is probably a myth, as hot pot is not a part of modern Mongolian cuisine.  It originated somewhere in Southern China, and spread to Northern China during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-906).  From China, this meal has spread in many variations in different Asian cultures.  I grew up eating the Taiwanese version, which involves a clear pork or chicken broth as a base, and various meats, seafood, tofu, vegetables and noodles as the ingredients.  Similar versions are Japanese shabu-shabu and what is called Steamboat in Singapore and Malaysia.

Hot pot is basically a meal of choose-your-own-ingredients, which each diner/cook adds to the bubbling communal broth.  The best part is making your own dipping sauce.  In Taiwan, a raw egg is combined with Sa Cha sauce (a soy and seafood flavored “barbecue” sauce) and/or soy sauce,  but you can also add chilies, minced garlic, cilantro, scallions, and any other variety of savories, to your taste.  People can get very creative with the sauce making.

The most distinctive variation of hot pot is served in Southwestern China, in Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces.  I worked for some time in Sichuan, and during my first week there was treated to the local specialty, Ma-La (numb-spicy) hot pot.  Rather than a clear broth, this is a thick, puree-like sauce which reminds me of Mexican mole (with chiles and ground sesame seeds common to both), and gets its name from the Sichuan hua jao (flower pepper), which leaves a not unpleasant numb sensation on the tongue.  Aside from the cooking sauce, the meats offered to me on that visit were also memorable.  I was presented with a platter of interesting animal parts including pigtails (curly!) and rabbit ears, among other offal.  I realized that these tidbits were prized, expensive, and offered to me only because I was an honored guest, but I still couldn’t manage to try them.  Because everything is community property around a hot pot, nothing went to waste; my dining mates were more than happy to partake of these special tidbits.

Thankfully, you don’t need exotic ingredients to enjoy hot pot cooking.  My favorite aspect of eating hot pot is neither the individual ingredients I have chosen, nor the sauce I have created, but how the broth tastes at the end, when the flavors of each person’s choices have simmered together into an unimaginably rich, fragrant broth.  The complexity of this flavor is the product of the contributions of the many cooks who created this group meal, the ultimate expression of communal cooking.

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Taiwanese Hot Pot
Ingredients
A variety of thinly sliced meats (hint: slice while frozen to make paper-thin slices), such as chicken, pork, meat and lamb

Fish balls or fish cake
Shrimp, sliced squid
Tofu
A variety of Chinese greens, chopped (I like whole leaf spinach and Napa cabbage in my hotpot)

Fresh mushrooms
Cubed taro root
Sliced lotus root
Noodles, such as udon, egg noodles, mung bean noodles, rice noodles
Broth, chicken or pork are used most commonly
Condiments: Sa Cha sauce, soy sauce, minced garlic, chilies or chili sauce, diced cilantro, chopped scallions, raw eggs for stirring into the sauce

Equipment

Traditionally, a large wok over hot coals.
Modern home cooks can use a large, covered electric skillet.  (My parents still use the covered electric skillet they received for a wedding gift in 1967– used only for this purpose.)
Technique
Bring the broth to a boil.
Each guest/cook selects a variety of ingredients to add to the communal hot pot.  Based on cooking time, meat is usually added first, vegetables just briefly, and noodles at the very end, because they absorb a lot of the broth.  Make sure to have extra broth or water on hand to replenish the broth throughout the meal.  Adjust the temperature to keep the broth at a gentle simmer.  While the food is cooking, each guest/cook makes her own dipping sauce of a raw egg mixed with the condiments of her choosing.

I was a cooking school for kids called Create a Cook because my girls were invited to a birthday party. Though I’ve been there in the past for the occasional party, I realized that I never actually stepped inside before. There was a huge 2 sided wall display of gorgeous cook books, better than any book store and I purused a pile of them while the party finished up. This inspired me to pull together my own Top 10 List of Best Asian Cook Books from their selection and my own stack at home.

p.s. Thank you to my mom friend Nathalie for reminding me about this one. I have it too!

The Foods of Vietnam by Nicole Routhier

10. The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook: Home Cooking from Asian American Kitchens by Patricia Tanumihardja

This is exactly the kind of food that I want to eat so I guess I better learn how to make it. I

9. Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors by Andrea Nguyen

She also writes for my favorite foodie magazine Saveur which is where I discovered her.

8. The Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore by Grace Young

If you just want one cookbook for Chinese, this is it.

7. The Korean Table: From Barbecue to Bibimbap 100 Easy-To-Prepare Recipes by Taekyung Chung

My mother-in-law taught me how to make a few things but it’s a lot harder than it looks. This book is pretty though!

6. Practical Korean Cooking by Chin-hwa

For authentic Korean recipes and techniques, this is my go to.

5. Momofuku by David Chang

Well, a girl can dream, right? Celebrity chef David Chang showcases his rise to stardom amid a pile of recipes only a few of which can be reasonably recreated at home.

4. Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go by Naomi Kijima

I use some of these recipes as dinner entrees.

3. Hawaii’s Bento Box Cookbook: 2nd Course by Susan Yuen

The birthplace of Asian fusion was Hawaii.

2. Memories of Philippine Kitchens by Amy Besa

This is a fascinating read that covers the history of Filipino food and its many influences.

1. At Home with Madhur Jaffrey: Simple, Delectable Dishes from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka by Madhur Jaffrey

She’s my guide into the complex favors of South East Asian.

To view any cookbook more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book.

Just Kidding Films have an Asian Dad counterpart to Sh** Asian Moms say.

This is their blooper version.

I read this email newsletter for search engine marketing  (SEM) called Search Insider. It’s true that SEM is a kind of new, wild, west frontier that is an ever very rapidly changing landscape. This article by Gord Hotchkiss encourages digital marketers to embrace failure/screwing up/mistakes. He gives good advice that applies well beyond search engine marketers. Embrace your inner “screw-up” because it’s the most efficient way to learn and also has the biggest payoff. Risk = Reward. And it’s a fun ride too if your stomach can take it.

p.s. If you want to know what the pundits think children should be learning NOW to prepare for the next 10 years, here’s a great article from Xeconomy to get a “view into the future at a time of  breakneck technological change and increasing economic uncertainty. Their answers paint a picture of the world that is fascinating, and occasionally, sobering.” Let me put it this way, Tiger Mom Amy Chua’s strategy was to memorize and regurgitate. This doesn’t fly in the new economy if you want a front seat.

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Humans hate making mistakes. But the fact is, making mistakes is an essential part of being human. Somehow, we have to learn to live on the edge of this paradox. For digital marketers, our entire industry is balanced on this particular precarious precipice.

There are a few rules of thumb to “screwing up” successfully:

You Can Only Learn from Others if You’re in the Middle of the Pack

If you’re a digital marketer, you’ve decided to travel at the head of the herd. Congratulations. But here’s the thing. You’ve volunteered to make mistakes. The mark is on your forehead and it’s your job to poke the bushes and test the waters, flushing out danger for others to take heed of.

Humans have a long history of leveraging the principle of safety in numbers. But in that dynamic, some have to live on the edge and let others learn from their mistakes. The advantage of that position is that you’re also the first to take advantage of the unchartered wins that come from conquering new challenges. The risks are greater, but so are the rewards. If this balance doesn’t appeal to you, move back to center and follow the leaders. Just realize it’s a lot more crowded there, and there might not be enough perks to go around.

The More Unstable the Environment, The More Important it is to Make Mistakes

You don’t need the safety of a herd in safe and stable environments. We call it civilization. It’s on the frontier, where things get precarious, that you need safety in numbers. Ironically, it’s on the frontier where the herd thins out and you often have to go it alone. That really leaves you no choice. There is no beaten path to follow. You’re going to have to be the one that forges it. And that means you’re going to make mistakes. Get used to it. Embrace it. Take solace in the fact that while taking action may cause mistakes, not taking action pretty much guarantees you’ll end up as somebody’s lunch.

If You Can’t Get Comfortable, Get Courageous

I often tell aspiring digital marketers that this is not a comfortable career. If you want security, become an accountant. But if you want a challenge, you’ve found the right niche. Digital marketing takes courage. It means trusting your gut and betting on long shots. It means embracing opportunities without a mound of evidence to rely on. To succeed in this business, first you need passion — but courage runs a close second.

Mistakes = Learning

I don’t know where making mistakes got such a bad rap from, but I shudder to think where humanity would be without them (read Ralph Heath’s excellent book, “Celebrating Failure”). You can’t learn without making mistakes. You can’t gain ground without occasionally falling down. I’ve spent the majority of my life as an entrepreneur, which pretty much means the regular making of mistakes, so perhaps I’ve become used to it. But I honestly don’t know why screwing up has been stigmatized to the extent it has.

Learn to “Do It Wrong Quickly”

My friend Mike Moran wrote a book a few years ago calling “Do it Wrong Quickly,” which uncovers one of the essential elements of successfully screwing up: to build learning into the process. Understand that failure is an essential part of the equation (especially in digital marketing), and go in using it as an opportunity to learn quickly, adjust and iterate your way to success. By going in anticipating failure, you won’t be surprised when it happens and can quickly move beyond failure to learning and adapting.

Realize You Don’t Have to Be Perfect — You Just Have to be Better than the Other Guy

Finally, this is a game of percentages. If you bump up the level of activity, you’ll make more mistakes, but you’ll also win more battles. You’ll “fail forward” — and soon you’ll be looking at the competition in your rearview mirror.

My brother-in-law who is not Asian sent this to my husband after he sent him Sh** Surfers Say. My brother-in-law is a surfer so this was in retaliation but it’s hilarious! This is from Just Kidding  Films.

Roy Choi, chef and owner of Chego restaurant and the Kogi Korean taco trucks in Los Angeles, Axel Koester / Redux

Before Kogi, most Los Angeles residents only had only glimpsed food trucks from afar, sitting in a parking lot or next to a construction site. 

This was in The Daily Beast about Roy Choi, the 41-year-old founder of Kogi BBQ food trucks. Now Choi, a 2010 Food & Wine Magazine Best New Chef recipient, has started his fifth food venture called Sunny Spot,  Choi’s take on a Caribbean roadside cookshop.

For the full article, click here.

Choi’s success begs several questions:

1) Where is my Kogi BBQ in Boston?!

2) Indeed, why not more major cities?

3) If he can do it, why can’t YOU? Food trucks can go upscale? Oh yeah! Choi laid the groundwork, now it’s up to you!

4) Is this how social media can spawn new food concepts?

 “It challenged a lot of people’s barriers and definitions of what is clean, what is dirty, what is right, what is wrong, without knowing it,” says Choi. “Before Kogi came out, we called them roach coaches. We called the stuff outside of clubs dirty dogs, danger dogs, death dogs. It’s that Western privileged mind-set: That’s dirty, that’s f—ing underground, that’s ghetto…We took away that ridiculous, passed-on, generational, privileged stereotype towards food that Latinos have been eating for a long time, or street food in general…We’ve stopped downgrading a certain segment of society. That’s pretty cool.” from The Daily Beast

and here’s his concept (that’s where YOU come in!):

The recognition from Food & Wine, the first time the magazine awarded Best New Chef to a food truck, helped legitimize the trend, and, Choi believes, street food is what can save our cities.

“We can take empty gas stations and empty parking lots, we can take under performing centers, we can turn those into little hawker centers like they have in Singapore,” he says. “Then we can encourage small business to come in and make a delicious dish with one thing, like this Cuban sandwich you’re eating. Just make one thing and then just transform our city into a city that’s filled with just small vendors serving the most delicious thing that they can.” from The Daily Beast

p.s. Please start one in Boston!

p.p.s. Thank you to Nathalie for sending this link my way!

p.p.p.s. Here are three recipes by Roy Choi by way of Food and Wine Magazine.

• Midnight Tortas
• L.A. Gas Station Tacos
• Kogi Dogs

I met Chien-Chi Huang through social media and she reached out to me about Asian women and the Breast Cancer Project. My mother is a breast cancer survivor, so I wanted to post her story in the hope that it raises awareness and helps to prevent it through screening.

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My name is Chien-Chi Huang and I was diagnosed with breast cancer just few months after I turned 40. I was shocked when given the bad news because I thought only white women or old women could get breast cancer. I was even more surprised to learn that many Asian American women I knew had breast cancer, but nobody talked about it.

In fact, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among Asian American women and the leading cancer cause among Chinese, Filipino, Japanese and Korean women. Yet when compared to other racial groups, Asian American women have the lowest screening service utilization rate. Language and cultural barriers often prevent people from seeking proper, timely treatment and support, which have a great impact on the survival outcomes.

Many still suffer in silent, feeling isolated and stigmatized.

Cancer is a subject no one wants to talk about, and it is especially hard for Asian Americans to come forward and speak about it. Therefore, it is even more important for people to see others who beat the disease and hear about the resources available in the community.

I am very grateful as I have the second chance to live a productive life. I believe we could save lives by recruiting and retaining Asian American women for early detection services. As a prevention health worker, I understand that personal stories can be a powerful tool to change people’s perception, attitude and behaviors. My ultimate goal is to empower others to dispel myth, reduce disparities and bring hope to fellow Asian American women by sharing their cancer experience and breast health related information.* With the support from the

Massachusetts Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure ® and the Saffron Circle, I will work with health facilities and community based organizations to conduct culturally appropriate educational workshops in the Asian American communities. The project is also funded in part by a matching grant from Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy.

To realize this vision, I need your help to recruit and encourage Asian American women to get involved in the Asian Breast Cancer project’s free workshops.

For the sake of our mothers, daughters and dear friends: please forward this to whoever might be interested in taking part of this effort to raise breast health awareness in the Asian American communities!

I hope you will consider donating your time, talents and resources by contacting me at: abcH2H@gmail.com or (617) 870-4056. Thanks for your attention and I look forward to hearing from you.

* This goal is inspired by the Asian & Pacific Islander National Cancer Survivors Network’s mission to minimize the burden of cancer and improve the quality of life of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders by dispelling myths, reducing disparities and providing hope.

Dear Friends and Families,

Six years ago this time, I just finished my chemo and about to have a mastectomy. My life turned upside down and yet I learned so much about myself and the people around me: I learned that one cannot go on without the
support of her family and friends no matter how strong she thinks she is!

I wish to thank you all for helping me during my road to recovery and I hope I can be helpful to the others just like you did for me.

This year I am organizing a team to participate at the Komen Race on Sunday, 10/30 and I hope to raise additional $1,000 in the next 3 days – would you please make a contribution and help promote our cause via your network (please see attached for some info regarding the Asian Breast Cancer Project and a factsheet)?

Here’s the link to my teampage:

http://www.komenmassrace.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=476445&
lis=1&kntae476445=7F9C52D098714C54AFE5997ADC3D73B2&supId=333371428

Facts Asian & Pacific Islander American Women Need to Know About Their Risk

• Cancer is the leading cause of death of Asian & Pacific Islander (A&PI) women in the United States, with breast cancer as the most common.
• Cancer deaths are increasing faster among A&PI Americans than any other U.S. ethnic or racial group.
• U.S. A&PI rates of invasive breast cancer have increased approximately 1.2 % every year between 1988 and 2005, and have yet to decline.
• Although breast mortality rates have declined among every other U.S. racial groups, they have increased among A&PI women.
• Among A&PI women, compared to others, breast cancer has been found to show a relatively younger median age at diagnosis and early tumor onset.
• Breast cancer rates among U.S. A&PI women are 60% higher than those found in the same women’s A&PI home countries.
• Immigrant A&PI women who have been living in the United States for 10 years have an 80% higher risk of developing breast cancer than their newly-arrived A&PI immigrant counterparts.
• Despite the misconception that A&PI women don’t get breast cancer, the incidence rate of breast cancer among South Asian women living in the United States—along with 3rd and 4th generation Japanese and Chinese American women—reaches that of U.S. white women.
• A&PI American women have very low rates of breast cancer screening, which increases their chances of later stage disease presentation. Multiple studies consistently show that A&PI women over 40 obtain regular mammograms at the lowest rate of any U.S. racial/ethnic group—rates are even lower for low income and recent immigrant women.

My husband pointed this article out in my alumni magazine. Ex-investment banker Chung To quietly goes about his work in China helping “blood orphans,” thousands of children born of Chinese farmers infected with by HIV-tainted blood products spread largely through roving blood dealers.  He started and runs Chi Heng, the longest running private program for  educating AIDs orphans in China. I wanted to highlight him as a really great role model; someone who is truly making a difference.

The full article is here.  One Less Investment Banker: Chung To Quit Wal Street to Sponsor Schooling for China’s Blood Orphans

To learn more about the Chi Heng Foundation, please go here.

To help, please buy an Eco Bag. It makes a great holiday gift!

This beautiful bag – made from 100% cotton – was manufactured by women impacted by HIV in rural China . By purchasing this bag, you are giving these women an income, supporting the education of their children, and empowering communities stricken by HIV/AIDS and poverty.

The drawing, done by three children during Chi Heng Foundation’s Art Therapy Program, illustrated their aspirations —-“I will grow up happily and filled with life, just like this tree.”

Order Information

1. Bag Size : about 40 Height, 35 Width, 10 Depth cm Unit Charity
   • Sale Price : Retail : HK$150/pc
   • Bulk Order ( customized with your own company logo) : please contact us for more details.
2. Free Delivery ONLY for bulk order to major commercial district in Hong Kong,
3. Personal pick up at our at office in Hong Kong.
4. Other delivery arrangement on request at quoted cost.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. 
Winston Churchill

I found this on bNet: Why Failure is the Secret of Your Success by Suzanne Lucas. The idea of failure as a sure path to success is not what a Tiger Mom believes in and that is precisely what I like about it. Think about the old Soviet Union. Do you remember that the old state run factories were never allowed to go into bankruptcy even when they were failing? Like a circle in hell, the factories were forced to stay open, doing the same doomed operations over and over. Contract that with Apple computer. Without the Lisa, there would never have been the Macintosh computer (or iPod or iPad). Learning from your mistakes is a sure path to success and this article addresses kids these days who are never allowed to make mistakes. And that’s the biggest mistake you can make as a parent!.

p.s. If you like this post, you might like Embracing Failure: It’s the New Success.

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. 
Bill Cosby

The full article is here.

Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts. 
John Wooden

The key points:

• What does it take to succeed? Apparently a whole lot of failure.
• Dominic Randolph, who leads an expensive, top ranked private school in New York City, is concerned about students that have known nothing but success. These kids don’t know how to fail because they’ve never done it. Therefore, when things get outside their comfort zone, or they first encounter people more capable than they are, they have no skills for dealing with it. We talk a lot about hard work, but school grading generally ends up being based on how well you did on the test, not about how much effort it took to get there or how persistent someone was.
• As Levin watched the progress of those KIPP (a network of charter schools) alumni, he noticed something curious: the students who persisted in college were not necessarily the ones who had excelled academically at KIPP; they were the ones with exceptional character strengths, like optimism and persistence and social intelligence. They were the ones who were able to recover from a bad grade and resolve to do better next time; to bounce back from a fight with their parents; to resist the urge to go out to the movies and stay home and study instead; to persuade professors to give them extra help after class.
• The ability to bounce back from failure is a key point. But, what if you’ve never failed? What if your parents fix every problem you ever have? What if you never gain this valuable skills? Then you’re far less likely to have true success.  If you’ve never had to try again and again, are you going to assume that the problem is unsolvable if you fail the first time?

 Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street. 
Zig Ziglar

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford

Made in India is a documentary film that looks at the  complex journey of international surrogacy. Is this the next frontier of off-shore outsourcing?

“Made in India,” the story of an infertile American couple, an Indian surrogate and the reproductive outsourcing business that brings them together, is a documentary featured in PBS NEWSHOUR’s ongoing series looking at international issues through the lens of documentary film makers.

Reproductive outsourcing; what do you think about this? What if you can’t afford $25-30k just to pay the surrogate mother (not the mention other costs)? Is this baby buying or surrogacy? What do you think of this form of Medical Tourism?