(no subject)

[oyceter]

I think both my current mainlining of kdramas and actual, home-cooked Chinese food for Thanksgiving and Christmas have gotten me into an Asian comfort food kick.

Prior to that, I was on an American comfort food kick and craving mac and cheese, pie, casseroles, more pie, burgers, chocolate cream pie, corn dogs, and even more pie.

Currently, I have been eating a lot of ramen (my favorite is butter corn, sometimes sans butter); Chinese bentos with their wonderful sides of stir-fried cabbage, tea eggs, seaweed, and dofugan; zhajiangmien; garlicky pea shoots; chicken and salty fish fried rice; dumplings (pot stickers and boiled); and jook. I think if it weren't winter, I would also be craving pearl milk tea. Aaand now that I mention it, I want hot pearl milk tea and hot grass jelly, though all the places with hot grass jelly here aren't so great.

I also want but have not yet eaten: zhajiangmien, jjajangmyeon, Korean spicy tofu stew, bibimbap, onigiri and/or yaki onigiri, Japanese-style curry, my mom's spicy eggplant, beef noodle soup, onion pancakes, pa jun, okonomiyaki, tuna and corn crepes, pretty much any donburimono, and I wouldn't turn down pie either.

I keep meaning to write something about class and comfort food and race, but my brain is dead today. So instead, tell me what comfort food you have been craving lately!

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Egg Fou Yong. If I knew how to make it and had any faith in my ability to make it right, I'd so be having it all the time.

And oh, how hungry this post made me.

[oyceter]

Ok, this is really silly of me, but I actually have no idea what egg fou yong is...?

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Mostly I want my mom to cook for me. Which is so childish, I know, but I don't know how to cook the things she cooks! And some of them are nonstandard (due to years of living in the U.S.), so I wouldn't be able to find them in a Korean restaurant.

I am craving apple crumble something fierce, but Joe will yell at me if I bake some, so.

I miss Texas barbecue and the gumbo I used to get at Luby's Cafeteria and tonkatsu.

[oyceter]

I know what you mean! We made some of my mom's stuff for Christmas, but it was still not the same.

Ooooo gumbo! And tonkatsu! I love tonkatsu, but especially the sauce, which I will eat with french fries and the turnip cakes you get at dim sum.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

Ooh, hot pearl tea. I've had plenty of iced (and I like the pearls a little bit sweetened), but never hot. I made homemade chai the other day, and right before I went to add the cream realized it had gone over, and was Very Disappointed. (And just drank the chai black. It was still good, but not milky.)

Now that you're mentioning it, I desperately want some pho. There are a couple of nice old-school places in the area that make it, and it's like $5 for a bowl as big as your head, and I always get the tripe (n.b. this is the only way I will eat tripe) and it's so satisfying. And I don't know how to make it at home -- I gather it takes like six hours, anyway -- so to get it I will have to go out. Which means, not tonight.

[oyceter]

I love it hot! It makes the pearls really soft and chewy, and they don't get hard from the cold too. The only problem is I always try to drink it too fast and burn my tongue.

Oh! I forgot pho on my list! I have gone out for it two or three times already because I want it so much! I love the soup and the noodles and the sprouts you dump in and the lime.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Great. Thanks. Now I want jook and pearl milk tea. And I don't know where to go to get jook around here, and I really shouldn't have anything milky because milk produces mucus, and I'm full up on that right now thanks.

Nothing has tasted like anything for a week because I've been sick, so I've been scrounging whatever requires no effort when my stomach lets me know I'd better eat something. This means I've been eating a lot of plain, untoasted slices of bread. Today I went out and bought some brussels sprouts. I have a desperate need to eat something green.

[oyceter]

If it helps, I'm also starving just from posting?

Eep, I hate being sick. My stomach was acting up yesterday too, and I couldn't eat anything except white rice, argh.

[hysteriachan.livejournal.com]

...your posts make me so hungry, I swear. And I don't even know what most of those things are, esp. since the Chinese restaurants around here all carefully westernize the food names even when they're on the authentic side (which isn't that often, alas).

I always crave crepes. And dumplings. But I don't know if I have specific comfort foods at all, weirdly. :/

[oyceter]

I know... I am sitting in the office and trying not to fantasize about when I can get out and have dinner.

Ooo, feel free to ask about what you don't know!

I have entirely too many specific comfort foods, and I only seem to acquire more with time...

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Now I want pie! ~.^ My current comfort food cravings are: baked zuchinni sticks, popcorn, cobbler, hash browns (I've been eating tons of hashbrowns), bacon, and cinnamon sugar toast.

Oh, I love Korean spicy tofu stew--the one that is like really rich broth with tons of kimchee, heated in a hot pot? I get that when I visit my brother. Mmmmm.

[oyceter]

You are the one who is to blame with my current obsession over chocolate cream pie! I even got my sister addicted to it, and both of us haven't had it since... I dunno, early childhood?

Oooo cinnamon sugar toast. My ex taught me about that, and it is so good.

Yes to the stew! With those super soft chunks of tofu floating everywhere.

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

I had a *huge* craving the other day for pad siew with tofu. This was easily dealt with, since there's an okay Thai restaurant between the train station and my apartment.

Oh, and Chex party mix. Real, home-made Chex party mix, not the stuff they sell in bags in the chip aisle. I made some of that last weekend and ate the entire tub. And I still want some.

You've also given me a huge craving for Korean food, and there is no Korean restaurant near me. Wah.

[oyceter]

I have been hitting Yelp for the past two hours trying to figure out where the good Korean places around me are!

Ooo Chex mix. I have heard of its incredible powers, but never actually had homemade!

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Brownies! Pepsi! Apple pie! (Warm with the crumbly, sugary top) And even lasagna. Too bad I gave up pop for new years (it makes me sick anyway) and I am trying not to go overboard on desserts either. Also, I don't even like cupcakes, but reading this (http://www.cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/) blog makes me crave them!

[oyceter]

OMG I had the best cupcakes ever over Christmas! I need to make my sister send me the pictures she took of them. They were so incredibly cute.

[heresluck]

Now *I* want bibimbap. ::shakes fist weakly in your direction::

Just last night I made a batch of squash-leek curry, which has been my favorite comfort food since about 2007. I made chili and cornbread a week or so ago, and will probably make pozole rojo and/or a root vegetable stew this weekend. Subzero weather = made for stew. And possibly brownies. Yum.

[oyceter]

My evil plan has succeeded! Now everyone is just as hungry as me!

I love your curry so much and have made it several times for fancy dinner (well, for my definition of fancy dinner... I think it made our New Year menu one year and Christmas Eve last year).

Oh! I forgot to put polenta on my comfort food list. LOVE.

[chomiji]

My late Mom's mushroom-barley soup!

Or duck bone soup from Peking Gourmet Inn .... .

Baked cup custard, with nutmeg on top.

[oyceter]

Ok, soup gets a comfort food category of its own.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I crave egg salad sandwiches from a Japanese 7-11 and Clementine, ochazuke (especially the sort made with real tea, not broth, which I've only had once on my last trip to Japan), hot steamed artichokes with mayonnaise, bacon with maple syrup, pork floss (which I have yet to find in the type I like here), and Chinese-style roast duck with crispy skin.

I am not sure what that list says about my class and race. Possibly that I am from the class that travels a lot and can afford duck.

And also 20-garlic chicken/whatever meat you have, which I shall make that tonight!

[oyceter]

Oh! I need to make the 20-clove garlic chicken dish again. I haven't made that for a while.

I think for me the class bit comes from the fact that I tend to think of comfort food as cheap. Like, not necessarily actually cheap, given how much food costs here, but not-gourmet food. Also, most of my Asian comfort foods are things that are either homemade or bought at cheap roadside places with plastic spoons and slightly sticky Formica table tops and those bright pink napkins that are everywhere in Taiwan.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

What I call lugaw, what most other Filipinos call arroz caldo, and what is called congee in Chinese. That's my ultimate comfort food.

My stomach feels icky!
Lugaw.

I'm cold!
Lugaw.

It's winter!
Lugaw.

I'm sad!
Lugaw.

Lugaw, lugaw, lugaw. It reminds me of my childhood.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I like my lugaw with garlic, green onions, chicken & tripe. In college, I learned the poor man's way of making lugaw using my rice cooker. lol

[wemblee.livejournal.com]

My mom made potato kugel. I no longer have to crave it, for it is here. Or was, 'cause we ate it all. IT WAS AWESOME.

[chomiji]

Hmmm .... noodle kugel ... .

[katie-m.livejournal.com]

Tuesday, when I was on my first day of kind-of-returned-appetite after food poisoning, I convinced myself to eat by making tuna noodle casserole. And not the fancy kind, with a white sauce, or anything crazy and upscale like that, oh no. Kraft macaroni and cheese, with a can of drained tuna stirred in.

Mmm, tuna noodle casserole.

[oyceter]

Oh no, food poisoning is evil! I couldn't eat anything that wasn't plain starch yesterday morning and ended up gorging on pizza last night. And breadsticks. Lots of breadsticks.

canandagirl introduced me to tuna noodle casserole last time we were at Mariposa (I think I may have had cafeteria versions before? But I don't remember), and I think I ate all of it except the two or three bowls Rachel and she had.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Watching kdramas always makes me hungry too.

Actually, when I get cravings for comfort food, it's often as simple as white rice. Which is why I have to watch that I don't eat like three servings of it at once.

I think I'm due to make Japanese style curry again soon.

[oyceter]

Fantasy Couple is particularly bad, because just in the past two episodes, I think they've had jajangmyeon three or four times! And the heroine's asked for it more than that too.

I go on rice kicks, though usually I like it with stuff on top. I should stock up on the seaweed/sesame seed/other stuff Japanese flavorings -- you can sprinkle it over white rice, and it's so good!

[octopedingenue]

Steaming heaps of steak fajitas. And S.O.S. (hamburger gravy on toast; looks like mud and tastes like beige. I love it.)

Remembrance of Ono Grindz Past

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Fry bread. Spam musubi. Roast corn soup. Hurricane popcorn (buttered and salted and then mixed with arare and furikake). Hominy soup. Japanese curry. Saimin. Lemonade or lemon meringue pie...from fresh Meyer lemon juice. Mango bread. Fresh lychees. Huli-huli chicken. Japanese pears. Haupia, with or without red Jell-O on top. Portuguese sweet bread. Starfruit. PROPER teriburgers (and most of the time when I've found 'em on the menu of a mainland restaurant, they're Doing It Wrong.) Strawberry guavas. Mountain apples. Strawberry drink. Fried wontons. Manapua. Rainbow shave ice (with ice cream and azuki paste on the bottom.)

Those are all at least things I can make for myself or occasionally find in the stores here, of course (although some of the tropical fruits are really really sad the few times a year they can even be found, but I'm desperate enough to buy them anyway); but the worst cravings are the ones for things from specific shops that don't even delivery locally, let alone across an ocean and several time zones. There are a few things that, if you're desperate enough, can be shipped out frozen -- like Zippy's chili or Napples pastries -- but far too many of my deepest cravings are for things that had to be picked up and consumed fresh. Guava chiffon cake from Dee-Lite, or ham croissants from Bakery Saint-Germain in Shirokiya, or fresh hot Leonard's malasadas, or pretty much half the menu from various little mom-and-pop restaurants... *weeps*

(Never mind madeleines, I want to taste Okinawan doughnuts again!)

Re: Remembrance of Ono Grindz Past

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Fresh lychees are the best thing in the world. That is not my opinion, that is objective fact.

When I was in grad school, one of my professors hired me to read a ton of books, screenplays, etc written by Indians to see which might make good movies. After several weeks of this, I developed an incredible craving for fry bread... which I had never tasted and, alas, still haven't! In retrospect, I bet my professor would have known where I could have found some, had I only thought to ask.

[kate_nepveu]

Weirdly, I found myself craving udon noodles in soup and tonkatsu the other day, and Japanese food is *not* comfort food to me.

Otherwise it's all been starchy cheesy goodness for me: mac & cheese, improvised acid-reflux-safe pizza [*], rosti (grated potatoes and cheese in a big patty and pan-fried), fried mozzarella sticks. Oh, and skillet-roasted potatoes with no cheese, just pure starchy goodness.

[*] Topped with ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan; we could probably add other stuff to it but are still figuring out what.

Also Cadbury Creme Eggs (which have been in stores for *weeks* now!) which give me acid reflux and horrible sugar crashes besides, so I'm trying to hold out.

[kate_nepveu]

Also, cheese pierogi by Chad's Polish aunt, which we had at Christmas Eve and I could have all winte.r

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Comfort foods, some from and some not from my culture:
Pho (rare brisket, tripe, and tendon FTW), shrimp purses, szechuan style bean curd with extra seitan, kaktogi (spelling? radish kimchee), Trinidadian roti (mmmm), dosas, pani poori, idli, gulub jamun, authentic Mexican tacos, Mexican soda, pupusas, soursop/guanabana anything (see icon), ceviche, sushi, pickled herring, lox and bagels, whitefish salad, matzah ball soup, noodle kugel, corned beef special (Jewish corned beef on Jewish rye with coleslaw and Russian dressing), sour pickled tomatoes, halvah, Jewish apple cake, my dad's lentil soup, eggs over easy accompanied by buttered Jewish rye, rice pudding from Kozy Shack, cream of wheat with lumps in it, lamb gyros/doner, humus and pita, stuffed grave leaves, giant thin pita bread with labneh,...

I could really go on forever, but you get the idea. :)

EDIT: How could I forget miso soup? I could live on that.

I agree with the soup hypothesis above.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Doh! How could I forget chicken pot pie and french onion soup. Bad me.

[shati.livejournal.com]

This post reminded me that I hadn't eaten a real meal all day when I read it before, so I'm glad I did! Lately I've been craving chicken flavored ramen (which I ate once a day for about six years -- I may someday turn into a pillar of salt), my mother's tuna casserole (noodle, tuna, and cheddar soup in a big bowl), potstickers (so much that I made a batch myself, which was a bad idea because I then ate about 15 in one sitting), Coke and Pepsi (well, comfort drink), mint tea, steamed bread, bacon and cheddar baked potatoes, pear slices heated up with cinnamon and sugar, and Domino's cheesy bread (unfortunately, I don't want pizza). I'm all about the cheese, the starch, and the instant noodle flavoring, which is why my diet is not famed far and wide for its healthiness. And now I'm hungry all over again . . .

I'd love to read your post on comfort food and class and race, if you get the brain energy.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Sweet, salty, crunchy, smooth, sticky, soft, cold, hot.

I think that's it.

Ice cream. Fries. The apple fritters my mom used to make me when it was cold out (apples and batter in a little deep fryer with her sitting at the kitchen table draining them on paper towels waiting for me). Bubble tea. Burgers with tomato and pickles. 'Fair' food, elephant ears with Missy Kylee. The way lamb in Ethiopian restaurants tastes.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

southern food (southern american). i was doing genealogy via food w/ saskaia's help, tracing native influences in my family's food. its made me want to eat tons of southern food.

now not *cook* it.

just eat it lol!

[oyceter]

Unfair! I demand specific mouthwatering examples so I can drool over things not very available here ;).

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Utility pizza-- by this I mean the kind of pizza that you buy by the slice, and that has on it generic red sauce and cheese and pepperoni and magically produces orange grease in truly astounding quantities and that you eat while walking. It should cost about a buck ninety-five for a slice or, if you're in Ohio where I grew up, two for a slice and a soda. I like good pizza, but I like bad pizza better. Oh and when you're done eating you go buy a second slice and put it in the fridge wrapped in plastic, and then you can have cold pizza and OJ, which is The Best Breakfast Ever. One problem with living here is that the pizza is just not bad enough.

Big juicy hamburgers with lettuce, real tomato, ketchup, mayo, relish, pickle, sliced banana pepper and a sunny-side-up egg.

Raspberry finger Jello that somebody has tried to cut into fun shapes and then given up on so you just eat it in chunks.

Starfruit.

Eel-egg-avocado maki with a small dab of cream cheese-- we make this at home.

Hot oatmeal with melted maple and brown sugar, mixed, and raisins.

Five-alarm chili-- and more meat than beans, thank you.

Chocolate chip cookies and milk. Black sesame-seed covered mochi. Coconut juice with chunks of coconut. Egg soda. Chocolate ice cream in that stuff you dip it into that hardens to form a butterscotch candy shell. Rose-syrup black bubble tea with whipped cream. Hot chocolate with a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream.

Dammit, Oyce, I just ate! Fortunately, the household is about to have whole kumquats rolled in powder sugar.

So hungry. ;_;

[jabbberwocky.livejournal.com]

I crave what I call "or luah"- omelette with oysters and a sort of glutinous flour mix. My aunt knows me well enough that when she picks me up from the airport in Singapore, we'll go out to eat or luah from the nearest hawker food centre. The best or luah is a little crunchy on the outside and thick and fluffy on the inside. Oh man. <3

Ban mian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_mian)- Hokkien style egg noodle soup, often with dried anchovies and a nice gooey egg in it (hey, I'm surprised there's a Wiki page for it!). It doesn't taste artificial but real, soul-reviving stuff and the noodles are often handmade in front of you. It reminds me of a close friend who now lives in Malaysia, because she took me out to eat handmade ban mian.

...Reading what I've written so far, maybe I just like eggs! Bibimbap is WONDERFUL comfort food and what makes me really like it is that the place where I get it from serves it with an egg. <3

Instant noodles (I guess you call that ramen?) made with chicken broth and an egg thrown in- my sister and I make this a lot when we're peckish or in need of comfort.

Sizzling Japanese tofu with salty pork mince and egg- holds memories because my sister and best friend always order this without fail from Chinese restaurants. Soft, creamy tofu with a thick brown sauce, so good with rice.

And not really comfort food, but I crave kimchi constantly. It's like a vegetable version of coffee and I feel energised after I eat it! ^^

It's been so great to read what everyone else craves! I like eating pho and want to know how to make it because that dish to me is comforting. Man. I feel really hungry. ^^;;

[keilexandra]

Ramen. I've no idea why, but I have terrible random cravings for a good bowl of nonexistent-nutrient sodium-overload ramen.