It was by chance that I came across information for the Museum of Food and Drink in Brooklyn. I visited New York at the end of January this year due to an awesome flight deal, and because I had been there several times, I decided I ought to look up events going on the week I'd be there. An exhibition popped up in part of my search and upon seeing that it was about the science of flavor imitation in foods, my geeky self cried out with a resounding "YES!" The museum itself is still fairly new and definitely one of a kind so I was glad to be in the vicinity (my brother lives in Brooklyn) at the time. If you are in the area and interested in the history and science of food, I highly recommend taking a quick jaunt through whatever exhibition they have going on at the time (it rotates in topics).

If you've ever wondered what would prove a good vehicle to deliver deliciousness into your mouth, you've surely concluded that any kind of stuffed pastry makes that easily handheld. For your savory cravings, there is nothing like a convenient meat pie of any origin. In a behind-the-scenes experience we recently had with Chef Dave Larsen of C4 Deli in Santa Ana, their particular one was the Argentinian empanada, derived from the owner's family recipe and full of tasty goodness. Paired with housemade chimichurri and stuffed with plenty of filling, it hit the spot and we needed to see why.

As the year draws to a close, many look back at what they've experienced or accomplished in 2015 and here the two of us think about what amazing things we've eaten and cooked. Sometimes it's difficult to recall what happened when and where all we drove our faces into food but without a doubt, we had the best meal of our lives this past year. As we consume more and more on food adventures and plate after plate of creative dishes, we start to see the pattern and trends emerge among chefs. Occasionally, there are lulls of eating where the food no longer tastes inspired but rather follow a train of thought that was already seen at another restaurant. Innovation, where are you? we ask every once in a while.

That was not the case a the end of July though. No, we had a reservation at n/naka in Los Angeles. I had just come off of a flight from New Orleans where fantastic food is bounteous. Duc picked me up from the airport where I had changed into an appropriate evening dinner dress, and we headed to the notorious restaurant with a friend...and it was mindblowing.

As you might have remembered, Duc has become obsessed with jerky lately and making it to satisfy the salty snack urges he gets from time to time. Easy for me if he makes his own - I don't have to worry about doing anything! He recently discovered biltong, a South African jerky, through one of the jerky subreddits he subscribes to (yep, Reddit has everything) and purchased a sampler pack right away. I have had biltong in the past and really enjoyed it but he hadn't before so this was an exciting venture. It was like opening an early Christmas gift for him when the package arrived in the mail.

Anyhow, from what I understand, there aren't many places that make biltong outside of South Africa so finding a company in the country that did was a neat find. The packages we bought were from Warren Pala at Braaitime which is based out of New Jersey; the flavors were Traditional, Peri Peri, Cajun, Garlic and Parsley, and BBQ Mesquite. If you're curious what makes this South African jerky unique, you should know that it is nothing like traditional American beef jerky. I would liken it more to bresaola or a dried prosciutto. It is tender but not juicy, flavorful but not salty, and not at all chewy. What's also interesting is that Braaitime's particular product is hand-sliced and all-natural.

"You always offer chai. It doesn't matter what time of day it is or if it is 100° out."

I don't remember exactly when I first started hearing about chai or when it became so ubiquitous but I did know that I initially did not enjoy it. There - I admitted it. However, my confession is not without reason. I want to say that the first time I had something "chai," it was astringent on my tongue, positively sharp and strong in aroma, and yet felt saturated in sugar. The scent of cinnamon was pervasive, and it just left a bad taste in my mouth overall. I'm not even sure where I first tasted it but it was not a pleasant first experience.

Then I started working for the couture events company I did a few years ago which had a basis in Indian weddings and celebratory events. Chai was everywhere, and I fell in love with the taste. Cast off your thoughts of "chai tea lattes" and "pumpkin chai Frappaccinos." Real chai is extraordinary with strong cultural significance to boot. We were extremely excited for the unique opportunity to join Chef Shachi Mehra of ADYA in Anaheim back in her kitchen to learn how to make masala chai the way she serves and drinks it. In addition to getting a behind-the-scenes look into how the drink is made, we then became privy to just how important chai is to the Indian culture and heard Chef Shachi's many memories surrounding the soul- and heart-warming tea.

(Note: YMMV stands for "Your Mileage May Vary") There has been an influx in recent years of meal prep and full meal services that offer convenient, local pick-up locations or complete doorstop delivery for its ever-busy working customer base. People claim to be inundated with the day-to-day doldrums to the point that putting together a memorable (or at the very least, decent) meal seems a lengthy chore. Is there not enough time in the day to cook? There must not be as we've seen these meal services thrive and have, ourselves, tried some based on invitation. Some deliver the raw ingredients needed to make a meal while others provide the entire dish as is. We recently heard about Chef'd because of Chef Rahm Fama whose two dishes we tried. Our experience with Chef'd? There were definitely great and poor aspects to making the two meals.

This is actually a guest post by Duc himself who very rarely participates in actively cooking or making food and even more rarely in writing. Photographing the food is more his style. However, he somehow fell into an obsession over making the "perfect" beef jerky for our taste preferences and wanted to contribute. I was all for that, and hey, anything that gets him cooking is good enough for me. I love that he's getting into this all AND has some thoughts to share below so read on!

I'm an impulsive snacker, and I'll grab whatever is nearby that seems like it would satisfy my random cravings. With all the health craze going on, I figure I should have more control of the quality of snacks I have available. Beef jerky sounded like the best option: it's manly, simple, and doesn't require hard-to-find ingredients. Perfect for a beginner like me!

Thanks to the Google gods, I have combined and adapted my own recipe for beef jerky. Credit goes to Food Wishes for inspiring the base of this recipe. It has a short heat kick to it and is beefy enough to satisfy that meaty, salty craving. And it's great for gifting! It also is much more cost effective to make your own than to buy. Grocery stores have jerky for nearly $2 per ounce (Costco has the best pricing at $1/oz)!

So let's get started, I'll break this post into commentary from my point of view.

I recently read a post somewhere that incited quite a lot of comments from the readers. The author stated that the majority of bloggers' recipes out there are trash. I do not have the link handy to share but I am probably watering down his/her opinion a bit; I believe the actual claim was that all were worthless. Is this post of mine a retort to the claim? Not necessarily. I would have to agree that sometimes, there are bad eggs out there and not every single thing posted is perfect whether from a well-known or small-time blog. S/he also pointed out that the pictures are taken to draw the reader in but the recipe does not hold up a majority of the time. It's a pity, really, but I do have an example to share in today's post. Reference the picture above.

[Giveaway has ended - thank you to all the participants!] I remember that my first impression of Nekter Juice Bar was, "Wow, they are everywhere," and this was apparently only during their first year. The company only recently celebrated its fourth anniversary but already boasts nearly 50 locations across 5 states, the majority of which are in southern California where it was founded. Blame the health craze that has been sweeping the nation; as people seek to reverse the damage their bodily neglect as done, they have taken to juicing and indulging in fruits and vegetables. Nekter launched in a beneficial time for growth in this area. I have always been a huge fan of juices in general but never considered juicing. What I didn't realize was that Nekter also carries several different products that would easily make me a repeat visitor like their acai bowls...yum! Their juices follow the cold press method, and a big part of the company's draw is their offering of a juice cleanse. We initially had gone in to try out their juices, smoothies, and acai bowls but my curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to challenge myself to do the cleanse, and Nekter agreed. Check out my three-day journey on their Classic Cleanse and maybe you'll figure out if it's something you'd do too!

Opened in early 2013, Harlow's Fine Cuisine & Crafted Cocktails in San Juan Capistrano has been making an impact in its community and has even been attracting clientele from far away. Perhaps it is their commitment to make as much from scratch as possible or their focus on a contemporary Californian cuisine with as many organic and local ingredients as possible. Live music on the weekends can also be a big draw though it doesn't hold a light to just how good both the food and cocktails are. The location used to be a local pizza joint so when Harlow's took over, it was reconstructed from the ground up with even Executive Chef Aaron Anderson joining others in painting the walls and ceilings and using the jackhammer to work on the floors. Now the restaurant has a historic European vibe with some jazzy elements but don't be fooled - the food is still exquisitely modern. To gain more insight into what makes Harlow's a budding hot spot, we decided to sneak behind the scenes and get right into the kitchen and cook with Chef Aaron. Lucky for me, he was gracious in sharing the space.

I preface this post by pointing out how rarely I do these non-food posts. However, when it seems particularly interesting or important to me, the topics will find their way to Much Ado About Fooding (MAAF) and I apologize if they don't fit your fancy. Feel free to ignore this one then, folks! Anyhow, what is this post about anyway? I was mentioned/tagged by my blogger-friend Sandi over at Fearless Dining to participate in a blogger "writing process" unveiling series where I expand on what inspires pieces for MAAF and how writing happens. There is a list of questions to answer, and then the author "tags" three others to move forward with this "blog hop." As you probably have seen, I try to get four posts out in a week and that, as you can imagine, requires a lot of writing! So if you're interested in briefly delving into what gets this all going, keep on reading. If not, I've got plenty of other fun pieces for you to dig your teeth into!

This post is one of several as part of the Mushroom Council's 30-day weight loss challenge called the #MushroomMakeover. I am being financially compensated for my participation as an ambassador for this program but the opinions and anecdotes posted are my own.

This is it - the final post. How quickly the Mushroom Makeover challenge has gone by! I am so honored to have been part of this great group of bloggers who were participating and to also have been a participant in a live Google Hangout session about mushrooms. If you haven't seen the past posts, I have just finished this Mushroom Makeover challenge held by the Mushroom Council and Mamavation where I replaced mushrooms for meat (or just make mushroom-centric dishes) four times a week in addition to followed some dietary guidelines and a defined workout schedule. Last week I didn't lose any weight but this week, I dropped off 1.2 lbs. While the total amount for the past 30 days might not seem impressive (2.6 absolute loss), I know that the progress has been much more impressive on my health. It is a definite truth that mushrooms are great fillers with less the calories than meat.

In addition to my weight in pounds, I was also asked to measure myself progress at specific areas. I had some interesting changes between Day One and the end date. As aforementioned, 2.6 pounds were lost but I would suspect more has been. It is very possible that doing all of my workouts has built out muscles and therefore made little progress on what is lost, numerically. I lost 2" off of my waist but gained .5" on both my hips and thighs (leg workouts and muscle growing?). I also managed somehow to lose about 2.5" from my chest! Throughout the journey though, the weight loss was secondary to getting my health back on track. With help from Corinne Dobbas, our dietitian during this program, and Mark Segedie, our physical trainer, I think I have done a good job kickstarting myself back to a healthier me. This week's meals involved some help from others in the family as they wanted to get in on the mushroom action - check the photos after the jump:

This post is one of several as part of the Mushroom Council's 30-day weight loss challenge called the #MushroomMakeover. I am being financially compensated for my participation as an ambassador for this program but the opinions and anecdotes posted are my own.

I am absolutely shocked that I am still sick! Well, I say sick in the sense that I still have sniffles and cough every once in a while. Other than that, I feel fine so it's a bit of bummer since I appear to others sicker than I really feel/am. Dang. What it has certainly also done is made it a little bit difficult to get through my workouts through the Mushroom Makeover schedule but I PERSEVERE! I'm still getting through them one by one. This past week, I spent most of my days in San Diego at the Social Media Marketing World conference so I admit that I did not have much of a choice in adhering to the guidelines 100% when it comes to the lovely nutritional plan given to us by Corinne Dobbas. Nevertheless, I still managed to get my mushrooms in! I would attribute my straying from the plan to why I did not lose any weight this week but I would credit the workouts to why I also did not gain. That's right - I stayed precisely the same to a tenth of a pound. Yay, no gain!

If you haven't seen the past posts, I am heading into the final week of this Mushroom Makeover challenge held by the Mushroom Council and Mamavation where I replace mushrooms for meat (or just make mushroom-centric dishes) four times a week in addition to following some dietary guidelines and a defined workout schedule. So far so good, and I have been losing some weight along the way. Given that they are low in sodium and quite filling though lesser in calories than other protein sources, mushrooms are a great way to go when it comes to making meals. I was already a fan of the fungi but after these past few weeks, am a bigger fan! For Week Three, I had gone a little bit in the direction of comfort food. Check out the recipes after the jump:

This post is one of several as part of the Mushroom Council's 30-day weight loss challenge called the #MushroomMakeover. I am being financially compensated for my participation as an ambassador for this program but the opinions and anecdotes posted are my own.

How long is it that people say you need to do something daily before it becomes a habit? After Week 2, this Mushroom Makeover feels more like a habit which is fantastic. In fact, I think both Duc and I are starting to get the hang of it, eating mushrooms often and filling our days with healthy foods. If you are just tuning in on this post about the #MushroomMakeover, I'll give you a brief rundown - for 30 days starting March 10th, I have been participating (along with other bloggers) in a weight loss "challenge" by the Mushroom Council and Mamavation where I have to replace four meals per week with mushrooms, follow a dietitian's food plan, and participate in a workout plan. It was a tough start at first just because I had to find ways to add in workouts to my already jam-packed days but it has been great since I need that kind of structure to get back into shape!

For Week 2, we found some beautiful mushrooms in a local Asian supermarket that we know as a good source of great produce. This resulted in our abundant shopping cart that held several varieties of mushrooms typically used in Asian cuisine so I decided to do an Asian Week for the Mushroom Makeover! Luckily for us, there is already so much umami in mushrooms and a lower salt content that I didn't have to worry too much about seasoning my dishes. I was also surprised at how quickly these dishes came together, and I absolutely recommend working some mushrooms into your meals. As for the physical progress, I've lost a total of 1.4 lbs since the last weigh-in last week so whoohoo for that! Our dietitian, Corinne Dobbas, has been a fantastic and supportive resource these past two weeks. Anyhow, recipes below!

So something random happened the other day - I got tagged for the Liebster Award. What even is that? The lovely Megan over at Yumology seemed to think it befitting to round me up with a few other people whom she felt should get the nomination. I was humbled to see my name tagged along with some other great ones and to even think that she thought of me! Thanks Megan - hugs and cookies your way for sure.

Anyhow, there are rules to play by for the Liebster Award, and it is almost like a chain letter that gets passed from blog to blog. Who knows how spread out the network has become over the years?! The neat thing about this "award" is that it gives both the tagger and the tagged blog's audience a bit of insight into the tagged person no matter how droll that may be (hint hint, possibly me). So yeah, here we go:

This post is one of several as part of the Mushroom Council's 30-day weight loss challenge called the #MushroomMakeover. I am being financially compensated for my participation as an ambassador for this program but the opinions and anecdotes posted are my own.

Wow. The first week is over already? I can hardly believe it. I started the Mushroom Makeover Challenge just last Monday but I have definitely learned a lot more about myself than I thought I would. I posted last week about what the program was about but in short, it's a 30-day challenge sponsored by the Mushroom Council and hosted by Mamavation for 15 bloggers to replace at least 4 of their meals' meat with mushrooms. I love mushrooms so I was more than happy to be a part but then I started learning more about their nutritional value, their overall health benefits, and creative ways to use them. We also have the lovely guidance of an oh-so-helpful dietitian, Corinne Dobbas, and a personal trainer, Mark Segedie, who both have meal and workout plans ready for us!

So what's been happening so far? It's called a weight loss challenge, right? I weighed myself at the start of the program and want to track that progress weekly. Bodily measurements, I'll be checking at the end of the 30 days to see where they've gone. For Week 1, I'm actually quite happy to say that my weight stayed exactly the same to the tenth of a pound. Why am I not disappointed in that? Well, with the workout plan in place, I know for sure that I have been building muscle back in my body and muscle "weighs more," as in it is denser than fat. If I'm regaining muscle mass but my weight hasn't changed, I must have lost weight somewhere (is my logic right? haha). I'd say that's pretty good considering that a sore throat came on Friday afternoon and I had to miss that day's workout! Aside from the exercising, a good food regimen helps manage the weight, and having mushrooms fill me up just the same as meat does while taking in less calories is a major bonus. I've got my mushroom meals posted after the jump!

This post is one of several as part of the Mushroom Council's 30-day weight loss challenge called the #MushroomMakeover. I am being financially compensated for my participation as an ambassador for this program but the opinions and anecdotes posted are my own.

All of us need a kick in the butt every once in a while. At the start of 2014, I told myself that I would be more focused on my health this year because the food blogger habits were catching up on my waistline and sleep schedule. I am the biggest now that I have ever been, and that is troubling to me. When I went to my first blogger/media event in late 2012, I took a look at the copious amounts of food we would be tasting and promised to Duc and myself (he promised too) that we'd continue to stay fit throughout all of the events. Less than two years later, we look down at ourselves and know that we broke that promise long ago.

The problem is...it's so much easier to gain that weight than lose it, isn't it? Working full-time (with an hour-long commute each way!) and running Much Ado About Fooding while trying to balance other responsibilities doesn't leave many hours in the night for sleeping nor time for exercise. Even though I said 2014 would be a huge change, I've only done little things here and there that are different. Then came the #MushroomMakeover challenge.

I think I have been quite fortunate throughout these years when it comes to cooking. Perhaps I have not cooked enough times to propagate more failures in the kitchen but I'd like to think that I'm just lucky or have a good grasp on cooking basics. I can probably count on my hands how many times I have terribly ruined a dish (maybe even just on one hand!) for which I am grateful. It's tough to devote time into something only to have it backfire but as many say and I myself think, you have not truly failed unless you quit. The rest are just opportunities to learn what went wrong. I tried making tonkotsu ramen the other day. It was meant to be a test run for the quarterly themed potluck dinner my friends and I hold. Japanese was the theme chosen this time, and my task was ramen. Because I had never made it from scratch before, I wanted to do a test run a few weeks prior to the night just in case. I'm so glad I did.

Photography by Duc Duong. More photos available on Facebook here.

The simple joy of feeling the warm crunch of fresh bread betwixt your teeth is difficult to accurately describe. It is a sensory experience that you can either relish in the moment or later but you all know what I mean when I recall memories for you of crumbs on your fingers, the smell of dough, golden brown crusts, a hearty tearing sound, and the taste of comfort. In every culture too, there is a different type of bread consumed. We made an interesting visit a few weeks back to BREAD Artisan Bakery after running into founder and owner Jonnie Peckham on several occasions at several events. Located in Santa Ana in a commercial warehouse area, the bakery was in the full swing of things once we arrived in the evening - the prime time for preparing for the next day's fresh deliveries. Had we not known the address and seen the office light on amid the darkened warehouse buildings, we might have missed the bakery which had to undergo a build-out (and was still under some construction) to accommodate the special factors needed to make a bakery work including adding walls to create separated, enclosed rooms.


I know without a doubt that you have had some of Jonnie's bread before based on who her clientele is but I won't disclose that information too early. You'll just have to found out! Officially BREAD Artisan Bakery has been around since 2010 though bread-making is no new skill or industry for Jonnie whose father used to own a bakery as well. In 2008, Jonnie stepped in to help with increasing production and eventually created her own business feeding the bread-hungry people of Orange County. She found a space in San Juan Capistrano to sublet which was a fully equipped bakery but eventually made the move to Santa Ana. As she spoke, we started to see how obvious it was how dedicated she was to her bread, never settling or going public until she had come to the bread she wanted and was proud enough of to sell. Now, as she says, the biggest part of the job is keeping the product consistent as the company grows. As we walked around the grounds trying to stay out of the way as much as possible (her staff was all working hard to meet their 3AM deadline), she pointed out their recent addition of two bread ovens for a total of five double-racker ovens which each house full structured racks that rotated slowly when loaded inside.


Of course throughout our tour, we each donned hairnets but we must have missed the memo on putting on our whites. One step into the room where all of the dough was being mixed and formed showed how apparently out-of-place our attire was. BREAD employees were systematically and efficiently moving around the room finishing each task as we peered curiously into commercial-sized mixing bowls and sneaked looks around machinery. We stared at machines that constantly whir all day, turning and feeding dough around the clock, and tried to fully process what was going on in the brain of the room as workers mixed, cut, divided, shaped, and more. Producing 20,000-30,000 individual units per day is certainly the tall task but Jonnie credits that feat to her second-in-command (the head baker) who is able to keep every single recipe and worker on track whether or not he is physically present. As she told us, that's where bakeries fail and crack but Yonick keeps everyone and every thing on point. Not only are there thousands of units to make every day but there are hundreds of variations based on each client's proprietary needs seeing as everyone wants something a little unique to their businesses (for example, Pelican Hill uses rosemary on their square potato bread as opposed to others who may have it unadorned).

"They're all amazing. He's amazing. I don't know how he does it but it's where other bakeries fail. They crack without a strong head baker."

Outside of that room, we also learned a bit more about the differences in the styles of bread that they produce and how those are prepped for baking. Some require double fermentation to achieve their signature tastes such as sourdough and French baguettes; these have a bubbly exterior because after being shaped, they are put back into the refrigerator for a secondary fermentation that retards the bread in the cold (no rising!) and produces the crust. Particularly for artisan breads, a proof box is not used, unlike rolls and buns. They use a deck oven for those tasty, crunchy breads but the entire process does take a few days after the mother dough is first used. We found the techniques fascinating and also thought it was a bit clever seeing a large paint sprayer used for egg wash (but it frequently gunks up apparently!).


As aforementioned, the production has a 3AM deadline before their drivers start showing up. Packaging is done in a separate room where workers will pack them 6, 12, or 24 to a bag based on client. I wondered why there isn't a larger volume package in which to send off the products, and Jonnie pointed out that bread would easily crush if packed too tightly. I should have thought of that - guess I'm not going to package bread anytime soon! Another reason is that some orders are on a smaller scale. They can have orders as low as $40 or high as $3,000+ apparently. Sometimes clients, especially hotels like St. Regis, will purchase parbaked bread to keep in the freezer and those may go out by the caseload. The variety keeps the bakery happy though because it doesn't force them to put all their eggs in one basket; you'd want a variety of customer types for your clientele to ensure you are always busy.

Jonnie noted that a lot of the smaller clients are her own friends and smaller scale chefs whereas the bigger clients are hotels. Their biggest client? Surely you'll know them. It's Disneyland. That's right. I bet you got as giddy reading that as I did hearing it. Main Street Bakery, Carsland (garlic chive roll!), Carthay (Jonnie's proudest of this one as her country rustic bread is used as their table bread), Club 33, Adventureland, Fantasyland, New Orleans, you name it. You've probably had her bread there. She also enlightened us in knowing that Disneyland has strict rules about the type of food brought in including that there are no GMOs, trans fats, etc in their food so I guess we should all feel a little better knowing why prices are so high in the parks! After we discussed some of these clients, we discovered that the deck oven was being handled for lovely ciabatta sandwich squares so we had to go watch the process.


Another piece of equipment that we got a chance to preview was one I had seen before at other bakeries - their proof box. This, however, was another item Jonnie was proud of as it was the one piece of brand new equipment they bought for their move. If you are unaware, proof boxes keep doughs at constant temperature and humidity so that there are no variances due to weather changing. As aforementioned, artisan bread is not the type that goes into the proofbox but burger buns, which they do a lot of, are prime candidates for this controlled pampering.


I asked Jonnie how they determine what they make on a daily basis, and she noted their fax-or-call-in process. Orders taken from their wholesale clients must be received by their early afternoon cut-off time to even be considered for the next morning, so yes, there have been occasions where people don't get their orders because they didn't make the deadline. At the time of our visit, they were just selling to other businesses but in recent weeks, BREAD Artisan Bakery has announced their public sales. If you're curious yourself about their beautiful breads, you can catch them at 1943 E. Pomona St in Santa Ana on Thursday from 4pm-7pm and/or Saturday from 9am-noon. I'd highly recommend it.


We really appreciated BREAD Artisan Bakery's time and letting us in to tour the operations. We always love seeing more in-depth where food comes from and how it is produced before it hits the table; seeing how a bakery operates (and especially the TIMES they operate) is just one of the ways we can better understand our meals. Thank you to Jonnie, Vishal, and all the rest of the bakery staff for allowing us access into your world. The fresh ciabatta sandwich squares we got to munch on after the deck oven finished working its magic was oh-so-heavenly, and the loaves we took home to freeze found their ways into even our Thanksgiving stuffing! We're absolutely looking forward to more bread from Bread. Go check them out!

Photography by Duc Duong. More photos available on Facebook here.