Corinne Trang

I’ve watched Spencer Christian on television since I was a kid. He was the weather man, remember? Well on August 17 I got to cook with him on The View From the Bay (ABC 7), which he co-hosted with Audrey Mansfield. Fun segment, even if it got a little sticky! Just watch the video below…

I had a blast in California. Flew in on Friday August 14, 2009 and went right to Sur La Table for a hands-on cooking class in San Francisco. Enjoyed a full class of eager-to-learn couples. we could have sold this as an “Oodles of Noodles for Lovers!” Every time I teach everyone seems to want the popular summer rolls using rice paper with the spicy peanut sauce for dipping. I’ll make it on television, talk about it during radio interviews, and demo the technique in a classroom setting. Once you learn how to use rice papers, dipping them in water until pliable, you can fill them up with all sorts of fresh vegetables and cooked shrimp or leftover shredded meats, for example. It’s all so much fun to watch them as they learn and eventually perfect the technique.

Enjoyed the next day in Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley at the Seghesio Family Winery where I sampled some terrific Zinfandel’s including Home Ranch, San Lorenzo, and the Old Vine and their new Pinot Noir. These beautiful wines were had with delicious sweet heirloom tomatoes from the Healdsburg Farmers Market. Sprinkled with sea salt, and extra virgin olive oil they not only paired well with the wines, but the local Jack cheese with whole peppercorns as well as a doughy spelt bread. Dessert? some of the most fragrant yellow peaches I’ve ever eaten. So fragrant I could smell them from aisles away.

Heirloom tomatoes from Healdsburg Farmers' Market with Seghesio Pinot Noir. A fine picnic lunch!

Sunday August 16 was a beautiful sunny day when Omnivore Books on Food hosted an event for me…it was a full house in this quaint little specialty book store. Not one seat left empty, instead filled with people who shared the same passion as me. We talked about noodles and so much more in a family-style setting, gathered close together.

I then decided to visit Chef Hoss Zare at his charming restaurant Zare at Fly Trap. This is a man who stands behind his ingredients, allows them to shine through, enhancing but never masking…cardamom, rose water, pomegranate are only but a few flavors to be enjoyed in any number of specialty dishes. I love the cucumber linguini (no wheat in this dish, just Persian cucumber cut into long, elegant strands) tossed with smoked trout and garnished with trout caviar. The smoke-cured pheasant served over crunchy, bitter leafy frisee, peppery watercress, roasted walnuts and refreshing sweet figs, I could eat everyday. This is indeed some of the most memorable foods I’ve had, and the best part was that I got to share it with my friends at Chronicle Books, publicist David Hawk, and editor Amy Treadwell. My heartfelt thanks to Hoss, too!

Sustainable cooking as a matter of course…

While in Los Angeles, I lectured at the 2009 Sustainable LA Conference on cooking “green” or “sustainably” as being the norm in Asian cultures. Many times in Southeast Asian countries especially, no refrigeration means going to market several times a day, where freshly slaughtered meats including offals and all sorts of seafood are on display. Not unusual is owning a pig in Asia. No only is it inexpensive to feed because all it means is giving it kitchen scraps, but when ready to kill, the meat can be cured to last for a long time and feed many mouths, and all the parts are used, from the blood, to the heart, spleen, meat, trotters, etc…I never gave “sustainable” cooking much thought because it is something that is ingrained in me. It’s second nature. Asian cooking is by definition a no-waste type of cooking, and not only when it comes to seafood, poultry, and meat, but also vegetables. I talked about a Japanese home cook I had met while on one of my trips to Kyoto. I recalled her using the crunchy peel of a squash in her stir-fry, while braising the soft spongy inside, and applying liquid soap to the stem-end to wash the pots she had just cooked in. I also talked about our very own food culture often making assumptions about what parts of foods are good versus those that are considered to be less than desirable. As examples I presented the scallion, mentioning how recipes in cookbooks (some of mine included because of some standard dictated by the publisher and current trends) would instruct using the “white parts only,” when the entire scallion white and green parts are perfectly edible and delicious, indeed the green part being more interesting for color alone. I also talked about how often I hear chefs preferring to use only the lower 6 to 8-inches of the lemongrass in a recipe, when again all of it should be used, the bruised leaves and tough grassy parts to flavor a stock, while the meaty creamy 6 to 8-inch stalk grated for marinades, for example. How many times have I seen fish bones and heads tossed in the garbage. In fact there is more flavor in the head of the fish, the cheeks being even more of a treat, than the fillets. The bones are perfect for stock as are vegetables scraps. How much of an onion do we throw out when chopping it? It’s mind boggling when you think about how much waste goes on in the food industry. Hopefully we don’t have to have conferences like these to make such a simple point, rather this simple approach to cooking should be matter of course in every kitchen.

Let’s Get Cookin’…

My California tour ended with a wonderful hands-on cooking class at Phyllis Vicarelli’s Let’s Get Cookin’ school celebrating the publication of Noodles Every Day (Chronicle Books, 2009). I find teaching extremely rewarding on a personal level. To share with others what I know and watch them explore ingredients on their own, puts a smile on my face. We made summer rolls with peanut sauce…I can’t stop making this popular snack. They also loved working with soba and cellophane noodles, watching the latter turn transparent when cooked through. It was an eye opener for the students, and for me another great experience.

I look forward to going to Alabama and Tennessee next.