After a long night of anything, be it drinking, partying, sex,
sleeping; I love the simplicity of garlic fried rice. I try to have
a pot of rice at hand at all times, and when it goes cold it isn’t
the end of the world, it’s just a totally different universe. I get
excited knowing that the cold rice can be enjoyed with soup, made
into dumplings, or turned into fried rice.

While Snuffy buttered his rye toast, I pounded ginger, garlic, and
salt. As he crunched, I fired up the aromatics in a bit of vegetable
oil, browning them a bit, then added the cold rice. Not offering to
share my precious fried rice, he walked away as I mashed big clumps
of rice so that each grain was fried and covered with the flavored oil.

With a well seasoned pan one doesn’t have to worry about rice
sticking, so I let the bottom crisp up and slightly char which gives
the whole dish texture. Fluffy seasoned rice, with crispy bits of
garlic and ginger, and shards of crispy rice. If made properly,
while serving up this rice you can hear the crispy bits pinging
against the bowl.

I finish by topping the whole thing off with a sunny side up egg —
this is Asia’s answer to soft boiled eggs and toast points.

I write this on the eve of Chinese New Year in Eastern Standard Time.

I’m not Chinese and Snuffy keeps reminding me of this fact, ok I’ll admit to that but I’ll happily commodify a culture so long as it recommends me to eat sticky sweet foods. The lovely thing about Asian sweets is… they’re aren’t too sweet. They are all lovely and subtle and don’t leave you in a coma.

sweet sticky sesame balls

egg custard tarts

steamed sponge cake

When selecting a bag of M&Ms from the vending machine, I noticed a
sweetly familiar site. Squatting down on my heels to take a better
look… I saw my childhood flash before my eyes. Oh my sweet Jesus,
Coffee Crisp is in the United States. As you may or may not know, I
grew up in Canada and some of my fondest memories are tied to food.

I did not realize that there was a grass roots effort to get the
Canadian confection over the great white border. [link] Had I
known… I would have been a vocal supporter to get Nestle to get my
sweet treat over here a long time ago.

One huge perk at Snuffy’s job is that a lot of gift-bearing Asian
vendors come to visit his company. This time around the import snack
of choice is an assortment of arare, rice crackers. I can imagine
that these aren’t very popular and expect some of the crass
individuals turning their noses up at this ” ass-fish tastin’ ” snack.

There are four flavors in this package prawn, seaweed, wasabi, and
sesame. True to form in Asian snack foods, there’s a large sachet of
“do not eat”, “do not open”, “do not make wet” silica desiccant that
easily doubling the mass of the package.