Asian food (and how I married an Asian)

With depleting rations and nasty cravings that couldn't be ignored, a trip to the Asian grocery store was in order. I was elected the designated shopper.

A city this size and demographics doesn't really have the market to support a full out Chinatown like SF or NY, but the Strip District is a temporary fix, and we make do. It's an amalgam of Polish, Italian, Greek, Korean, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Japanese, and everything-in-between cultures, with food and specialty items sold in stores lined up shoulder to shoulder along a strip near downtown. (Imagine what a perfect image of ethnic diversity tourists see.) My favorite stores to hit are Lotus Foods, a Chinese grocery store that has two dozen brands of soy sauce and an assortment of kitschy household items, and Sam-Bok, run by an elderly Korean couple, where I get my naeng myun and homemade kim-chi.

Lotus Foods has really come a long way since my first visit there a few years ago. My mother always made me smuggle food from home, from Thai fish sauce and chili paste to dried shrimp to rice porridge seasonings, just because she knew I couldn't get any here. (We never really tried to do it with durian products.) I would cherish my supplies like gold; once, I was reaching for my kecap manis on the top shelf when it fell and broke on the floor. I think I cried. I couldn't stop lamenting how deprived I was; if I couldn't find my favorite Asian food in restaurants, then this godforsaken place should at least let me recreate it in my kitchen, but I couldn't even do that.

So much bitterness, until I strolled down the aisles of Lotus yesterday and found them stocked with things I never thought would ever be found in a 200-mile radius of Pittsburgh. Fermented rice (tapé ketan), red fermented rice, durian ice-cream, banana leaves, Hong Kong bakery style pastries, dried shrimp, Khong Guan crackers, every rice porridge seasoning you could imagine, Owl instant coffee... I was speechless. Where did they come from?? Maybe people wrote to the manager and asked for them. Maybe they realize that as the only decent Asian grocer in town (Lotus is Chinatown), they have a responsibility to be well-stocked for homesick lads 'n lasses like myself.

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I came home with a carload of food that I paid a pittance for. Hubby greeted me excitedly and hovered over the bags like a starved puppy. He only asked for dried mangoes, red bean buns and instant soybean pudding, so his eyes widened when I showed him all that I got. He was practically jumping for joy over the Japanese gummy candy, Khong Guan Square Puffs, spring roll wrappers, Lee Kum Kee sauces... I've never seen anyone so genuinely excited about Sriracha hot sauce. The flurry of excitement upon my return from the store could be best described as if he were, hm, Asian. (Intriguing!) As we shared a mung bean pancake freshly grilled from a street vendor, he admitted that his discovery and growing passion of Asian gastronomy might turn him away from frozen dinners for good. Knowing him, that's saying a lot. :)

This morning I noticed the soybean pudding bag was already opened, before I got to it. One red bean bun and some longan red date tea is missing. I can almost guess what the hubby had for breakfast. If I make kaya toast and egg for myself (a la this cafe in Singapore), he'll be sure to mooch some.

How a boy from the rural hills of Pennsylvania raised on meat 'n potatoes can appreciate chilled sweet mung bean soup, char siu buns, pork floss, and bubble tea more than me, will always be a mystery. But that's why I love him, and hopefully we'll be able to inspire our brand of gluttony in our kids some day. :)