The sweet and creamy truth

This week I will talk about the capital of chocolate, Belgium.

They make all kinds of decadent sweets in Belgium but it is known best for its creamy-rich chocolate truffles.

 I am not going to lie. Belgium chocolate has completely ruined me. I'm no longer able to enjoy a simple Hershey's bar anymore. I swear I can now taste the wax in the popular and cheap treat. Who do I owe for this act of ruination (I know it's not a word)? I blame Belgium chocolatiers. Chocolatiers are the ones who decide how the chocolate is made and make sure it's done right. Most chocolatiers make their chocolates by hand.

Finding chocolate in Belgium is no hard matter. They produce 172,000 tons of chocolate per year--please refer back to the part about them making chocolate by hand!

Though there is probably a chocolate shops on every corner in Belgium, that doesn't really help us in America. That is why I was very happy to find Guylian Belgium chocolate. Guylian was probably the first Belgium chocolate that I've tasted. Even though I was a bit hesitant to bite into the cute sea creatures, that they shape their chocolate into, it was so worth it. It is soft and creamy and just melts in a person's mouth. Belgians take a lot of pride in their tasty treats. They want to make sure everyone knows how to enjoy the experience properly.

Everyone can see in the picture how clean and neat the store is. Appearance is very important to Belgians. It's a matter of national pride for them. Another thing that is important over there is family. Obligation to the family is on the top of their priority list. I can just imagine a little shop that have been past down from generation to generation. It has a very romantic feel to it.

I hope everybody has enjoyed my blogs!

Until we meet again, good-bye.

It's time to have a fiesta!

Hola everybody! This week I am now going to venture into the personally unknown territory of Spain. We will just have to learn together.

I have had the hankering to go to Spain for a few years now. It seems everywhere I have the desire to go they loves their food. Is everybody seeing a pattern? I know I am.

When looking for foods to make from a different county, I tend to try to find the more traditional recipes. I like to find the food that isn't readily known and is authentic. No, I will not be talking about Spanish rice (which, by the way, is just rice and salsa).

Paella

Here's what I found-- Gazpacho is a very popular Spanish dish. It's a cold vegetable soup that people eat on those hot summer days. It's very different for me because I'm used to hot soups. I bet it's still a nice way to feel refreshed and cool down. I also found Paella! Paella is my kind of dish. It's a slow cooked rice, vegetable, and meat dish. The great thing is that there isn't just one way to make it. Anyone can make it to fit their own taste. I would probably make it without seafood. Even though the ingredients vary, the two ingredients that are key are saffron and olive oil.

One of the weird things I found about food has nothing to do with food someone would eat. One of the odd fiestas in Spain is the Tomatina Tomato Fight. It happens on the last Wednesday of August. People gather in the streets from 11am-1pm and have-for lack of better words-a food fight. I can't say that I would be interested in going to Spain and having random people smash tomato in my face, but maybe with some friends it would be fun!

Well, that's all for today. Adios amigos!

Happy people

Talofa! (Hello!)
(By the way, this is where a person would yell it back to the greeter. Come on, it's tradition!)

I know it's been said before but I just have to say it again--I love food. It's very appropriate for me to say it again because this week I'm going to tell everyone about Samoa. Being part Samoan is probably one of the big reasons I love food.

Taro amd Palusami

Samoa is one of the many Polynesian islands in the Pacific Ocean. Now, being on an island it has a lot of tropical kinds of foods that people are very familure with like bananas and coconut. Some of the foods many might not recognize is things like oka and taro. Oka is a way that they eat raw fish that has been marinated in coconut milk. Taro is a potato like root that is used often in their cooking. They also use taro leaves to cook some foods like palusami.

My all time favorite dish is koko laisa (cocoa rice). It's like hot, chocolate pudding with rice in it. It is traditionally is made with coconut milk. It gives it a more rich and sweet flavor. Coconut milk is often used in their cooking.



Fire dance

The great thing about being Samoan is that a person always has family. It doesn't matter how distant that person is related to them. They are family. If someone is at a Samoan family reunion they will be referred to as: cousin, uncle, aunt, great uncle or great aunt. It just depends on what generation that person comes from.

People in Samoa are very friendly. People can tell by the clothing they wear and their smiling faces. Their clothing is made in bright rich colors. Instead of a hula skirt they wear things like lava lavas. Lave laves are thick material that is tied around their waists. Samoans are also very happy and cheerful people. It's because they celebrate life to the fullest extent.

Samoans don't just celebrate with food. Another way they celebrate life is with dancing. My favorite dance is the fire dance. Men perform the fire dance. It's where someone has a stick with fire on both ends. Many might recognize it from the movie Lilo and Stitch.

I hope everyone found this post interesting and cool. I had lots of fun writing it!

Lights in the sky

The topic today is going to be China’s Spring Festival probably known to many as Chinese New Year. This is going to be a hard one for me to write about because I am working on an empty stomach at the moment. Please bear with me as my stomach starts to make unearthly noises.

The Spring Festival starts on the first day of the lunar New Year. Unlike us in the west and having just New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day the celebration continues for 15 days, beginning on the New Moon and ending on the Full Moon. The last day is known as the Lantern Festival. To go somewhere that has this festival would be so cool because during the Lantern Festival they string paper lanterns all over the place. Does everyone remember in the movie Tangled when they have the floating lanterns and it's all pretty and cool? Well it is totally real and in some provinces in China that's what they do for the Lantern Festival. In hopes to stay on my main topic please read more about it here and here. 

My family has always celebrated Chinese New Year but never as elaborate as they do in China. We have adopted the western style of celebrating the eve and day of the holiday. Even so we still keep some things traditional. We gather as a family and make food, play games, and just enjoy one another's company. One of the things that my Grandparents do, which is very traditional, is give us leisees, which are red envelopes with money inside them. Who doesn’t love that? Really, our favorite part of Chinese New Year is the food we get to make and eat.

Cha siu bao, is one of my favorites and one that many have never heard of. It is a Chinese bun that my family has recently added to our permanent Chinese New Year menu. Cha siu means barbecued pork, which is the filling, and bao is the bread the surrounds the meat. Now remember that barbecue is a style of cooking and not a sauce. (Many might not like these if they bit into one thinking it was going to taste like the barbecue we have here in America.) I have seen this bun made two ways -- steamed and baked, but I'm sure there could be more ways out there.

Cha siu bao is only one of the many treats eaten during the Spring Festival. Please try some traditional Chinese food. Here are some ideas for everyone.

Until next time, Zai Jian (goodbye)!

The Great Melting Pot

My name is Kimmi. I want to tell everybody about food from around the world and about where those foods came from. I am absolutely in love with food. I have been able to enjoy some foods that people aren’t really familiar with, because of my heritage.

I have been able to learn various amounts of cooking styles from my parents and my grandparents, who have in turn learned from their parents and grandparents. Because I am part Chinese, Samoan, and various European countries I am exposed to lots of different eating styles. Sadly, I have never been to any of the places that my ancestors come from.

That is why I love being able to go to places like San Francisco’s Chinatown. There, I can eat food and go to the places that someone could find in the real country. Even though I love food, I do not eat all food. I understand that just because I don’t eat it doesn’t make it less of a food that someone else might enjoy.

One of the fantastic things about living in America is that we have so many cultures around us and we have the opportunity to try lots of types of food. The US has been referred to as “the great melting pot”. People have come from around the world bringing with them parts of their homelands to us. Food says a lot about who they are, what their circumstances are and what their cultures are. There is so many things the set us apart from each other. I could make a mile long list of the differences we have between each other, but I want to show people how even though there are these differences we have the awesome opportunity to come together and learn about each other through food.

See? It’s one big melting pot of yummy goodness.