Here’s a quickie for the last of 2015! I’m in Taiwan awaiting a red-eye flight home, watching the Chinese version of David Attenborough with my mum and grandma. Landing in Taipei on the 25th, the only mention of Christmas was from our cheerful Dutch cabin crew upon announcing local temperatures and baggage claim numbers; literally overnight, everything’s gone from mulled wine and ice skating to… Continue reading St. Lucia Saffron Buns (Lussebullar)
Since the beginning of October—and for ‘up to’ eight more weeks—my Tier 2 visa application has been sitting somewhere in the Home Office, slotted into a stack of bureaucratic paperwork. Aside from the weekly sign-in required of international students (mostly inconvenient, slightly demeaning, and eventually repealed), I never felt like my existence in London was… Continue reading Autumn Romesco Roast & Visa Limbo
Some notable food-related bits have occurred in the past month; here’s a loosely curated deposit including magazine spreads and food cooked on a Blacksmith’s 1200ºC forge. A spread from my chicken-and-storm-filled cycling trip appeared in Issue 07 of Root+Bone. The original recipe for the Banana Oat Energy Bars was on Wandercrush in April, but I scraped some new words together for the feature: “You… Continue reading Cycling Stories & Forged Apples
Ever since January marked the unravelling of a dissertation-FMP-degreeshow-graduation-Pentagram-LIFE spool, I’ve been mashing together a panoply of announcements and happenings into one post per month, which creates this sort of illusory quality>quantity justification to ease my mind. But even as I turn my attention to the next thing—whether it’s as immediate as laundry or longterm as job applications—Wandercrush hasn’t become an obsolete obligation because it’s morphed… Continue reading Massaman Curry (แกงมัสมั่น)
June has come and gone along with the first half of 2015, it seems. The degree show has been curated, painstakingly built up (and all-t00-easily taken back down), my wonderful Mother came to visit, and tomorrow I start at my first full-time job in London. I wonder what to do with Wandercrush, which was started and maintained over two… Continue reading Analogue Madrid & Baked Sea Bream (Besugo a la Madrileña)
HELLO ALL. The past two months have been absolutely consumed by my Final Major Project on endangered language education in Bangladesh (more to come in a future post). Particularly in the two weeks leading up to hand-in, my entire lifestyle changed to accommodate the workload and constant fluctuation between a state of panic and of exhaustion.… Continue reading Almond-Encrusted Cauliflower & Creamed Spinach
Happy, happy Easter Sunday. My super-non-food-related Final Major Project is rendering these posts fewer and further between, but it does mean that I get to pack more into each one. Today I bring you photographic documentation of a 5-day cycle trip, Windward bananas mashed into oaty energy bars, and collection of freshly laid Lake District eggs to cook over our… Continue reading Banana Oat Bars & Easter Bike Touring
Only a handful of posts into 2015 and it's already mid-March; the end of my final undergraduate year is no doubt leaving less time to chase the sunshine with my camera and elaborately garnish every bowl of soup. Regardless, there is always time for a birthday cake. Wandercrush only just turned 1 in 2014 and, much… Continue reading Blood Orange Baklava Cake & 2 Years of Wandercrushing
Before I starting this blog, I always imagined food bloggers whipping up daily feasts and hosting frequent dinner parties, sending off leftovers to all the neighbours and family friends, feeding the nation with their overflowing kitchens. Alas, real life is chaotic and last-minute; often, even my own flatmates are out of the house when I have… Continue reading Italian Wedding Soup
It's one thing to take liberties with something as unfamiliar to the Western world as ndolé or zemlovka, but tacos have been the brunt of fusion cuisine. I've therefore always hesitated when it comes to Tex-Mex on the blog, for fear of half-heartedly singing an overplayed tune. But some melodies are overplayed for a good reason, and who am I… Continue reading Vegetarian Tacos with Riced Cauliflower
Happy 2015! I would add ‘belated’, but it seems that 2015 lasts all year. Considering graduation is only six months away and the heavily design-devoted time that will be necessary up until then (and long after), I'm drafting up a new approach for the purpose and identity of Wandercrush. It's already developed and morphed naturally over the course of two years, but circumstances… Continue reading Beetroot Stuffed Parathas & Apple Chutney
Imagine my delighted surprise when I was approached with a guest post proposition—by Rika of Vegan Miam, the wanderlusting queen herself! For every frankenstein recipe I dream up, she’s already been in and out of several countries, vegan treats and beautiful photographs in tow. So here I am: humbled, honoured, and excited to share this variation… Continue reading Cashew-Peanut Stew (Ghanian Nkhatenkwan)
For an old city, Kraków feels young. Sure there are plenty of wizened folk walking their matching dogs, plenty haunched over their breakfasts or selling obwarzanek krakowski, but Kraków itself—as a cultural centre and urban dwelling place—feels young in the sense that it's just getting back on its own two feet. Even the old Jewish Quarter is tickled by early gentrification, riddled with great bars… Continue reading Christmassy Poland & Kraków Bagels (Obwarzanek)
I always wondered how the smell of gingerbread spices is so universally Christmassy. It must be something about the sweet warmth of the cinnamon-ginger-clove-allspice-etcetera combination that evokes some sort of human response that resonates with fairy lights and a layer of fresh snow on the ground. Of course, cross-cultural trading comes into it; an Armenian monk brought… Continue reading Vegan Tangerine Pepparkakor (Swedish Gingersnaps)
I am thankful for one-pot wonders that work beautifully with a hectic schedule. I am thankful for buy-one-get-one brussels sprout stalks and a holiday to celebrate the under-appreciated Brassica oleracea. I am thankful for a steamy kitchen warmed by the oven and all 4 hobs going at once. I am thankful for friends who are afraid of tinned cranberry jelly but not… Continue reading Thanksgiving Turkey Tagine (with Mash & Cranberry Brussels)
The first dissertation draft has been handed in! Strangely enough, I managed to eat well during my weekend academic quarantine. Usually it’s all too easy to make bowl after bowl of instant oatmeal and spoon in a mouthful between each bibliography citation, but I think I managed to make myself think of mealtime as an… Continue reading Pumpkin Cornbread Baked Bean Casserole (& Full English Breakfast)
Halloween and Guy Fawkes have come and gone, along with daylight saving time. In belated celebration of the former, here's a scarily good pie with protruding lamb shank bones and mummied up in puff pastry. In less enthusiastic acknowledgement of the latter, here's a set of photographs that betray England's coy winter sun, which now slips away behind the trees around… Continue reading Lamb Shank Pie with Swede & Chestnut (Root+Bone)
Letting go of summer and embracing autumn can sometimes seem like two very distinct moments. There was the ode to the last ripe blackberries and now, a month later, the first warming soup of the season. It's one of the tell-tale signs—buying a new box of earl grey tea, wearing leggings under an outfit, craving hot soup for dinner... This… Continue reading Moroccan Harira
In my initial touristic excitement before moving to the UK, I made a mental list (okay, also a physical one...) of quintessentially British foods to try as soon as possible. Usually I'm stubbornly efficient about working my way through a complete list before repeating any one item but—two years later—I’ve surely consumed fish & chips… Continue reading Kipper Kedgeree & Guardian OFM Award
I moved to New York City more than a year ago for one semester and, and as we now begin our final academic year in London this week, that term abroad seems like eons ago. As my classmate noted this startling anniversary and we reminisced in a chorus of ululations, I realised never wrote one dedicated "travel post" for NYC. I lived and studied… Continue reading Mini Knishes & New York Nostalgia
This is for every wild blackberry bush we bypassed in Pembrokeshire, each tainted with an unripened August blush and not yet ready for picking. This pancake is to commemorate every Swedish meal of the bygone summer, which fades further into memory with each cloudy morning and fallen leaf. The strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries of summer have disappeared… Continue reading Blackberry & Brie Ugnspannkaka (Swedish Oven Pancake)
This summer break—possibly my last as a student—didn’t feel like much of a holiday. The end-of-school anticipation for London summertime seemed to have brought about more excitement than the calendar months themselves, but who can really complain about excessive travelling, dream internships, and a slew of new personal projects, however relentlessly time-consuming? Nearly two months… Continue reading Pembrokeshire Coast & Wild Camping Recipes
The charm of analogue photography is something a digital camera, no matter how many megapixels in strength, cannot replicate. I miss the rickety clicking of sprockets as the film is advanced after each shot, the mystery of whether that perfect moment was captured with the right exposure, squinting to decrypt small rectangular negatives against a… Continue reading Maryland Crab Soup
I was familiar with Fig Newtons long before I knew what a fig looked like—and much less how the honeyed flesh of a fresh one tasted! Little did I know, they're Nabisco's non-exotic lunchbox versions of the ancient Egyptian fig roll. With Charles Roser’s 1891 patent for a dream machine that would systematically spit out fig rolls, mass… Continue reading Sticky Fig Roll Cake
When learning about a foreign country, one of the most telling and fascinating aspects to observe is the natives' treatment of the cultural minorities there—how they are spoken of, interacted with, portrayed by the media. Where I left behind the late-night Cuban diners of South Florida, I discovered streets swimming in the aroma of curry spices; and although it's painfully hard… Continue reading Jamaican Ginger Cake
Since uni officially let out for the summer, I couldn't remember the last time I properly set aside a whole morning to experiment in the kitchen. The bulk of my travels are over now, but this new internship is keeping me busy and my weekends have been spent in a daze of seeing two of my favourite musicians play… Continue reading Cauliflower Courgette Moussaka
I've been going on and on (and on) about my ultimate wandercrush, which has culminated into this final photo essay on Sweden. From the moment I stepped foot into Louise's seaside home in charming little Nyhamnsläge to the moment our VW camper van pulled up to their schoolhouse-turned-missionary-church-turned-lakehouse in Bjälverud (yep, you read that right), I knew that capturing the beauty of the Swedish waterfront in simple… Continue reading Swedish Countryside & “World’s Best Apple Cake” (Part III)
Continuing on from Part I of a recent Scandinavian foray, a photo essay and recipe dedicated solely to the pleasures of picking wild summer berries in all their countryside abundance... I've recently expressed some thoughts about the trendiness of homegrown local produce, but longtime gatherer Richard Maybe extends it elegantly into the realms of foraging: "To the cynical the… Continue reading Foraging Sweden & Wild Strawberry Jam (Part II)
If revisiting Taiwan required a conscious effort to overcome nostalgia and habit-induced travel bias, then my first foray into Scandinavia required levelheaded quelling of the massive expectations resulting from personal obsessions and displaced cultural hype. I’d somehow developed early-onset Scandimania years ago, which is to say that I was a hipster predecessor to those sipping lingonberry beer from… Continue reading Copenhagen, Stockholm, & Crispbread (Part I)
To append my recent recipe-lacking travel post on Taiwan, this is perhaps THE kingpin recipe, loaded with all the nostalgia and symbolism that you'd expect out of a blog post with "Grandma" in the title. Out of her many signature dishes, zongzi (粽子 / sticky rice dumplings) most epitomise traditional, familial, ceremonial, and festive fare; the Chinese… Continue reading Grandma’s Zongzi (粽子)
In terms of jetlag immunity and high layover tolerance, perhaps my travel bug owes a lot to near-annual Taiwan trips since the tender age of one and a half; my ears don’t even bother popping from the altitude anymore. That being said, I never really categorised my twice-removed homeland as another country to explore in its… Continue reading Revisiting Taiwan
People tend to respond with bewilderment upon finding out I’m from Florida, eyeing me warily as though my mental state must be questionable to voluntarily leave the Sunshine State. “Why would you trade THAT for THIS?”, they demand as they gesture incredulously around to incriminate any cloud in the sky. Perhaps with equal unfairness, I… Continue reading Sopes with Radish Pico de Gallo
Any sort of breakfast is considered a luxury in the midst of final deadline week, so you can imagine my initial reservations and feelings of preemptive guilt when my flatmate spontaneously suggested a belated birthday brunch one morning. From hardly having time to grab a bruised banana for the convoluted commute to the printers' hellhole to hardly having… Continue reading Huevos a la Flamenca (Andalusian Baked Eggs)
More birthday parties, exploiting of the ever-versatile spring onion, early summer BBQs, & impending deadlines. An inordinate amount of my life is occupied by this final self-directed design project, a philologic study of the letters A & B...but even so, probably not nearly enough time. Ten days, two hand-bound books, a handful of all-nighters, and one more… Continue reading Stuffed Portobello Burgers & Birthday BBQ
One day I'll achieve the "stiff peak" stage of meringue-whisking by hand. Until I acquire a shiny copper bowl and rock-solid forearms, though, I'll keep borrowing electric blenders from my high-tech friends. Ruby red rhubarb season is at an end, and given that first romantic encounter last spring, I couldn't let a year pass without… Continue reading Rhubarb Meringue Tart
Ah asparagus, kingpin of fleeting seasonal veggies—when its tender green spears shoot from the English soil straight into the canvas totes of rabidly early farmers market risers, everyone knows it's the month of May. How did a year manage to happen so sneakily since I last made a quiche out of these stalks? These weeks… Continue reading Lemon Asparagus Farinata (Chickpea Flatbread)
You might recall our household's thing for cacti. When a dear cactus-crazed friend and flatmate has a birthday, find one as tall as she is and decorate it with origami bananas. If she also happens to be a mayo connoisseur extraordinaire, make some from scratch and chuck in a few extra flavours to assemble a mayonnaise care package. When you're invited… Continue reading Birthday Mayonnaise & Curried Egg Salad
No craving strikes like a starch craving. Waking up the other day, I had an all-consuming (literally) urge to eat inordinate amounts of potato salad. Luckily, it's the peak season of Jersey Royals. Unlike the rest of UK potato crop that is more or less sustained and stored yearlong, Jersey Royal potatoes are a seasonal gem… Continue reading Bavarian Potato Salad (Kartoffelsalat)
It's hard to believe I was in Greece a year ago, lamenting over the fact that their Orthodox calendar meant Easter celebrations wouldn't coincide with the length of my stay. It was still able to experience the Cretan springtime, though, and made up for lack of tsoureki by consuming enough χόρτα ("horta": wild leafy greens) to grow… Continue reading Easter Torta Pasqualina with Spinach & Samphire
Here it is, as promised: a way to use those pickled turnips of yesterpost, along with some purple sprouting broccoli beauties, a springtime delicacy I first sampled during my first bright-eyed year in London. Too enamoured to disfigure my new discovery, I stir-fried them Chinese-style to preserve the colour. This year I've gotten a bit bolder but… Continue reading Springtime Sprouting Broccoli Pita
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