Journey into Asian America
Hi! Welcome back to the SituAsian Room! On this episode, Emilie and Zach begin with bringing some new dishes to the “Dish It Out” table, and then meet with special guest, Dr. Calvin D. Sun, to discuss the topic, “Our Lives & The Coronavirus” for part 1 of the 2 part interview.
As a young Asian American, I didn’t have many other Asian faces to look up to. I spent my younger years obsessed with Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan because they were some of the few famous Asian roll models that we heroes on screen. But there was always one hero on TV: Grant Imahara.
For this episode, Emilie and Zach bring some of their favorite foods to the “Dish It Out” table, and welcome Dorothy Chan into the SituAsian Room to discuss the Journey to the Motherland and Identity. Join them as they discuss the experiences of traveling to the countries where their families are from, the conflicts of growing up Asian American and traveling to Asia as an American, and more.
How does no-churn ice cream work? Don’t you have to aerate it? These questions swarmed my head as I thought about making it. After working at a Dairy Queen for almost four years, I was so accustomed to soft-serve ice cream and the humming noise of an ice cream machine churning the mix (liquid ice cream mixture before being frozen). Churning allows the mix to aerate, which is what most conventional ice cream machines do to your mix with a simple plastic blade. Instead of churning, no-churn ice cream aerates the mix with a baking mixer instead.
How can beans be a dessert? How could they be sweet? These are the questions my friend Daniella asked me when I tried to convince her she needed to try something with red bean paste. Daniella is of Puerto Rican descent and moved around between Spain, Miami, and Southern California, where she developed in a love for Asian food. But when I tried to convince her to try red bean desserts, she immediately associated red beans with Puerto Rican beans.
Puerto Rican beans are also red but unlike Adzuki beans, they’re usually prepared stewed with spices and vegetables to go with rice…not quite a dessert (but still delicious!) I promised her that red bean paste from Adzuki beans is nothing like Puerto Rican red beans. I told her to think of it like a third bean flavor to chocolate and vanilla because those are both beans too!
Lumpiang Shanghai, or “lumpia” for short – the crunchy, savory, bite-sized appetizer that’s always the crowd-pleaser. When it comes to this Filipino-style egg roll, this …
My boys were growing weary of our meals at home and missed buying baos every Sunday in Chinatown. Char Siu Bao is one of those things which I am just nostalgic for. As often as we can when we go back out to NY, we hit up spots like Mei Lei Wah and Hop Shing for dim sum and at least a dozen of their baos to take home. It is a taste of my childhood. The baos are fluffy and sweet and the meat to filling ratio is just right with the crunch of sautéd onions. That being said I like recreating flavors. The char siu is a recipe passed down to me from my mom, I’ve picked up other recipes and techniques from chefs and home cooks alike. Nothing beats mom’s. It’s a tried and true dish in our household.
This week in The SituAsian Room, Emilie and Zach “Dish It Out” with more Asian cuisines from their cultures, talk about ICE’s new regulations* to …
The new surge in hate towards Asians and Asian Americans is based on the premise that Asian Americans cannot be equated to a real American. We’ll always be foreigners, despite our birthplace, citizenship status, and contributions to society, and culture. The idea that people of Asian descent cannot be American stems from the notion that to be “ethnically” American, you must be Black or White. Nevermind that I was born in Pennsylvania, miles from Independence Hall and I’ve never left the country. For those in the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI), and many in the Latinx community, we’re left out of the picture of what an American looks like.
We discuss the origins of the Model Minority Myth, how it impacts the AAPI community today, and we share our own experiences with it.