My obsession with Chinese five-spice powder rages again. I found this recipe for Spiced Cream Cheese Dip. I swapped the cinnamon with the five-spice combo, which is much bolder by comparison. The brownie is just the carrier for the dip or spread. (Tammy Quackenbush photo) Spiced Cream Cheese Dip adapted from original recipe by Monet…
Recipe: Rosemary garlic walnuts with smoked olive oil
This recipe took quite a journey along the way from one blog to another, each food blogger added and deleting ingredients as the recipe meandered its way to me. It reminds me of the old game of Grapevine, also called Telephone, Broken Telephone or Chinese whispers. One person whispers a word or phrase into a neighbor’s…
Secret Recipe Club: Spicy Mushroom Soup
Mushroom soup brings back recollections of getting my wisdom teeth pulled in Korea. But for some reason, that memory is not as dismal as one might expect. Drawing by Taryn (tarale), Flickr (Creative Commons license) I had been living in the country for about six months when one of my wisdom teeth really started bothering me….
Restaurant review: Seoul Garden, St. Louis
I haven’t visited St. Louis in 18 years, and I certainly don’t remember the city for its Asian food. So it was a treat to eat at a Korean restaurant there during a recent 20th high school reunion trip to rural southern Illinois. St. Louis is the nearest major metropolitan area with a sizable airport…
Considering the crock of kimchi
Onggi photo by Adam Field It’s crazy to try to answer important, thoughtful questions in Twitter‘s 140-character limit. The microblogging service handles Korean groups of two to four characters as one, so 140 characters could be a short novel. I refuse to butcher English spelling and grammar for the sake of texting: “I need 2…
Black and White Wednesday: Korean radishes
Black and White Wednesday has resurrected my love of food photography and allowed me to show you some of the photos I’ve taken that didn’t make the final cut in other posts but deserve their own little spotlight. These Korean radishes were found laying around in front of the Korean Central Market in Anchorage, Alaska,…
Black and White Wednesday: Cafe Gratitude Vegan Bibimbap
Cafe Gratitude’s dish called “I AM WHOLE.” A more accurate name would be Vegan bibimbap. (Tammy Quackenbush photo) I have a love-hate relationship with food photography. Blogs are such a visual medium that readers expect at least one photo in each post. I don’t mind taking pictures, really. What annoys me is that the current…
Acorn Squash Soup with Asian Pear and Ginger
Korean pears, which are commonly grown throughout Northern Asia in slightly different variations, are a delicious autumn fruit and they are in season again. Korean pears are so large that one pear can easily weigh over a pound. That’s a lot of fruit in one package. “Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it,…
Review: New Bibigo retail sauces in Korean tacos
ZenKimchi Food Journal was approached some time ago by publicists for CJ Foods, the owners of the Bibigo restaurant franchise. CJ Foods is also a subsidiary of CJ Corp., one of South Korea’s largest food manufacturers. They offered free samples of their new line of grocery products. Note: I have not received any compensation for…
Sunshine vitamin may mitigate muscle and joint pain in breast cancer patients
A University of Washington study found that breast cancer patients on aromatase inhibitors (estrogen-lowering drugs) who also took 4,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D per day and 50,000 IU of vitamin D per week experienced significantly less musculoskeletal pain than women taking only 4,000 IU per day and a placebo. The high weekly dose…