Floor Time
/flôr tīm/
noun
the 15-60 minute time period spent laying on the floor in the middle of the work day, typically as a relief from the soul-sucking reality of corporate America.
I’ve been in chef mode for the past two weeks. Maybe it’s because having 1-4 hours of busy work is a great way to spend time without looking at a screen. Or because it’s cold enough outside1 for me to use my oven again. Or because it keeps my mind from overthinking (a la Lara Jean’s wisdom). Or perhaps most importantly, because I’m training for holiday cooking.
The good news is, Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I LOVE Thanksgiving. I come from a family of decent chefs (my mom in particular) and because we’re ~*POC*~ I never really thought of Thanksgiving as a meal that lacked a) texture and b) heat (which it does, famously). Around the Cho family dinner table, we’d typically have staples like mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potatoes with marshmallows2, cranberry sauce, and gravy. One year my mom made the world’s best pumpkin soup (my late uncle’s recipe ♥️) that I still rave about and beg for to this day. We’d sometimes do turkey, but honestly I’m more of a ham girl #hamgirl3. But in addition to that, MaMa (my late grandma ♥️), would often make sticky rice. And we’d always serve my PoPo’s (grandma on my mom’s side who is a life-long vegetarian) tofu skin and veggie stir fry featuring her homemade protein made of mushroom root and other deliciousness—that I would happily pick out as if it were M&Ms in trail mix. All that to say, we’d have a wide spread of comfort foods around our Thanksgiving table.
Despite becoming a significantly better cook during COVID, I am not yet at the level where I’m able to replicate my family recipes. And for the past 5 years, I’ve spent Thanksgiving in New York, not with my family. This year will be no different–so it’s forced me to reckon with being the “new adult” here and try to put together a dinner that rivals the one my family will have back in California. I also want to carry on the tradition of incorporating Asian flavors on Thanksgiving. Though I’m still refining the menu, I’m sharing some recent festive favorites I’ve been workshopping. Think of these as my curated finds that finally beat the “blandless Thanksgiving food” allegations. If you try them, please tag me in a photo so I can see / please tell me if you end up loving or hating them.
Thanksgiving Chili Crisp
The must-have at every Thanksgiving fall dinner from now until eternity is this Thanksgiving Chili Crisp. This is a Williams Sonoma product that—you guessed it—Wishbone Kitchen aka Meredith Hayden revamped as a Chinese chili crisp (spice at the Thanksgiving table, unheard of!). I am currently running through my second batch in three weeks because it has changed my life. Wishbone’s recipe calls for the crisp on a homemade squash gnocchi (which I have also made twice now). But I have found it works well on a myriad of dishes—eggs, stir fry, toast, etc. It’s just like Lao Gan Ma—she belongs on everythinggggg.
Cucumbers
It has recently come to my attention that a lot of ya’ll don’t know Logan the Cucumber Guy (unofficial title). This iconic Ottawan lives and breathes appreciation not appropriation. He became viral for “eating an entire cucumber” where he’d mandolin (a little too close to the sun if you ask me) an entire cucumber into a deli container and add various seasonings (“and MSG, obviously”). To me, this cucumber side reads as an easy Thanksgiving banchan. Easy way to add some heat to your meal, and if you incorporate kimchi as he does in this video, you’re helping your microbiome for those Black Friday poops.
Mashed Potatoes
To me, mashed potatoes are a Thanksgiving-only food. If I don’t frame them this way, I’ll eat way too much year-round and having made them before, I fear putting that much heavy cream in my body more than once (or twice hehe) a year. All that said, ‘tis the season! Genevieve Ko’s recipe is for sure the fluffiest one I’ve tried. I personally like my potatoes to have a bit of herb, so I add rosemary to this to give it some fragrance. And hey, another great opportunity for the aforementioned Thanksgiving Chili Crisp to shine as a topper.
Sticky Rice + Squash
As I said before, my late MaMa would make sticky rice, or Lo Mai Fan. I ate this a ton as a kid—not just at my grandma’s but at home, too. It’s a one-pot easy-to-make-in-a-rice-cooker recipe, perfect for a weekday meal to feed the whole family. Kristina Cho (no relation) is a 2x James Beard Award winner bringing traditional Chinese home cooking to the next generation. I love making her recipes on any given day of the week, but I especially love her twist here on Lo Mai Fan as a Thanksgiving dish. The addition of the squash, in her words, provides “a creamy texture and vegetable sweetness to the otherwise rich and savory stuffing.” I’m definitely making this next week.
For Leftovers: Congee (Juk), Phở, other Soups
My mom has never wasted an animal carcass4. Costco rotisserie chicken carcass? The base for congee that fed us for a week. Turkey carcass at Thanksgiving? Gravy, then a clear soup that fed us for a week. I think this practice is common in a lot of cuisines, but for sure in Asian cooking where there are broths a plenty. Cassie Yeung is another young Chinese American chef that I follow and look to for easy weekday recipes. Almost every one of her recipes takes less than an hour—because she gets it. We live busy lives! She makes this phở recipe look super simple and attainable post-Thanksgiving.
Something I Thought of in the Shower
Lorelai really wasn’t that great at parenting in a lot of ways.
Something To Laugh About
Here are this week’s gems:
This woman addressing an issue that we don’t hear enough about tbh.
Watching this stressed me out because it was a little too much of being inside my own head 🙃.
This wins for the most delightful thing I saw all week. Also because this wallpaper has been on my moodboard for like three years and she just made it so much better.
By the way this is the usage of social media trends at its finest.
I actually spit out my food—this video dragging whatever *gestures* is happening with Ashley Tisdale on the Wicked red carpet…
Something for Clarice
Hey! This newsletter is free and I intend to keep it that way. That said, if you love it and want to show your appreciation, buy me a coffee :)
Something Pretty
If you don’t follow me on Instagram or TikTok, good for you. If you do, you know that I won’t shut up about this cake I made for my friend Raph’s birthday this week.
By the way…I’m reading this.
Activated Christmas mode this week with this little novella from the Molly the Maid series.
And I’m watching this.
I know I’ve already mentioned before, but season 2 of Shrinking has been so good so far. The latest episode 6 had me crying, then laughing, then entering an existential crisis about whether or not I’ll ever see my parents in therapy (which we will, iconically, talk about in therapy)…it’s so, so good. And it’s so rare to watch an ensemble show where I care about every character’s storyline. Tune in!
Happy Thanksgiving warm-up, friends. Hope you’re taking care and giving yourself the grace to take things slow as we enter the darker months of the year.
‘Til next time, turkey lurkeys5. Your friend,
Clarice
because we’re all in hell and it’s freezing over!
which should be BANNED from modern society, by the way
you’re gonna look at me and tell me that honey-baked is worse than turkey? be so for real.
hmm…that read strangely
my Roman Empire btw