No Produce? No Problem! | The Alt-Weekly, Issue No. 33 (Patreon)

Notes, News, and Nerdiness from JKLA World HQ

This week was an exciting one. We started it out with a live event in Los Angeles with our partners at Our Place celebrating the re-stocking of our super-nitrided carbon steel wok. Thank you so much to everyone who has bought and enjoyed the wok. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and I hope it continues to serve you well in years to come.

During the event we set up a wok station at the Our Place + Cafe in Venice and did some live demos making dumplings, stir-frying tangerine beef, as well as batches of my vegan mapo tofu while chatting with fellow wok fanatics and noobs alike. Thank you so much to everyone who made it out!

After Los Angeles, it was a whirlwind stop in Chicago where I gave the opening keynote for the Institute of Food Technologies annual conference. As usual, my initial reaction was to feel extremely out of sorts and under-qualified speaking to a room full of practicing research scientists who are on the cutting edge of food technologies (or food "solutions" as they were referred to throughout the conference) at a conference with over 15,000 participants. But once I focused, started cooking and talking, and stuck with the script I wrote about the relationship between science and creativity, and how examining things from a micro to macro scale is essential to making that link, things started to flow.

Giving talks and presenting in front of a large audience is a skill that is not natural to me, but that I've been practicing and improving at over the years. I still get insanely nervous before every live appearance, but reminding myself that all I've ever done is tell my own story, and that I was invited to speak because my own story is interesting enough always helps.

Here's a bit of advice for anyone who is practicing public speaking: your audience is almost 100% different every time. If you land on a metaphor, joke, or other passage that works with one crowd, do not hesitate to use the exact same line with future audiences, perhaps tweaking it a little to make it even more focused. Realizing that what may seem repetitive to me is likely fresh to everyone in my audience, and getting over my personal stigma against repeating a joke that appears impromptu, has been instrumental in allowing me to work on and refine presentations and talks from even to event.

We're past the longest day of summer in the northern hemisphere, which always makes me a little worried about how fast time is passing, but also grateful that we have so many beautiful summer and fall days to come.

In Stock? It's the Wok!

As mentioned, the Kenji López-Alt x Our Place Carbon Steel Wok is finally back in stock! With its Super Nitrided surface, it's 3x tougher than carbon steel. It's more robust, easier to clean, and virtually nonstick straight out of the box (no pre-seasoning required). Grab yours today on Our Place's website.

Cook Your Produce, Kids!

If you live in the United States and you've been following the news recently then you, like many people, might be avoiding certain types of fresh, raw produce to avoid a certain type of parasitic infection. (And if you're not in the U.S., well, let's just say it's not pretty.)

We're not here to provide advice on what produce you should or should not be avoiding or enjoying—or, really, any health advice at all—but we can provide some vegetable-forward recipes that you're welcome to cook until they reach a safe 158°F. And frankly, some of these will probably end up a touch overdone at that temperature... but it's better than the alternative!

An ol' reliable for cooking down veg will always be fried rice. For a summery version, try this chorizo, corn, and shishito iteration.

This braised chicken with carrots, tomatoes, and kale will provide you with some of those greens you've probably been craving.

Likewise, stew feels heavy for mid-July, but it's a surefire way to be able to cook down a lot of leafy greens. Try this spinach and chickpea stew, add some greenery to this sundubu jjigae, or go all out with this ropa vieja that can be served over rice, folded into tacos, tucked into sandwiches and more.

Zucchini alla scapece, despite being a fried dish, is lifted up by mint, vinegar, and garlic into something bright for the season.

Eggplant Parmesan Cutlets. Enough said. Just trust the process. Actually, maybe don't trust the parsley garnish here. We can't really be sure.

Another dish that might be best served garnish-less, these crispy-edge green enchiladas will still turn out pretty delicious.

Peppers are a vegetable right? Does that make this seared cheesesteak a vegetable dish? Probably not, but you have a pretty good excuse now to try it out nevertheless.

And finally, the perfect summer dish: Seattle-style chicken teriyaki and rice. Sadly, it might be best to forgo the teriyaki shop salad for now, though!

Seriously though, if you decide to try out one of these dishes, or while you're just cooking in general, make the necessary alterations to keep it food-safe in the kitchen. More information on how to prevent Cyclospora can be found online, including this article via NPR.