Pass the Fish Sauce

Summertime is grilling season and in case you missed it, listen to my chat with Francis Lam on the Splendid Table. Our July 4 episode was all about grilling! We’re also in sandwich season and my favorites are banh mi and tomato-mayo. The two were born in different places on our planet but they overlap in their reliance on mayonnaise. The synergy between mayo and Maggi seasoning sauce heavily defines the rich umami of a good banh mi.

Hello there! California’s Napa Valley wine country is dreamy but it’s also expensive. A couple weekends ago, we went to Napa for a friend’s 90th birthday party and we were astounded by the prices. So, I’d leading off with pointers gleaned from our recent experience there. 💎 Do go on Sunday through Thursday when hotel prices tend to be lower. On a Saturday night at the tidy Best Western Plus, we [ahem] paid $400‼️ (tax and fees included); the midweek rate is about $140.

Hello there! We’re heading into a long weekend so I’m heading things off by sending this early. You won’t hear from me on Sunday but I’ll be back next week. A zillion thanks to all the folks who’ve registered for the virtual “Banh Xeo Fry Off” cooking class on July 19! Seats are still available. 😁 Join me! The United States has its problems and we are divided on many issues.

Wowza — I’m thrilled that so many of you are interested in the July cooking class. I worried that it was summer and you’d not be available. But I was wrong! Coincidentally, Joseph Barrett and I have been chatting about the challenges of making bánh xèo well. He has used my recipe in Vietnamese Food Any Day but hasn’t gotten satisfaction so he signed up for the class! Sometimes you need to watch someone to get all the moves and pointers so you can finesse your own cooking.

One of my 2026 goals was to teach more online cooking classes! It’s taken so long to open a class because I’ve been fine tuning a recipe for bánh xèo — Vietnamese sizzling rice crepes. They are a classic Saigon treat that many people swoon over. To make bánh xèo thin, crispy, and light is a feat normally left to professional street food chefs or tenacious home cooks. But, you can rival them.

By now, you know Vietnamese nuoc cham dipping sauce, well yes? I shared all my tips and recipes for how to make the versatile sauce in a March PTFS dispatch. I hope you’ve made good use of the recipes👇! All You Need to Know about Nuoc Cham, Vietnam's Go-To Dipping Sauce Let’s boost your Viet cooking game with dipping sauces that are sort of an insider’s secret. They’re popular in Vietnam, where people buy them and make them at home too.

I can’t remember if we had El Nino or La Nina last year but the weather yielded a bumper crop of apricots in Santa Cruz. One of my neighbors is out of the country and I’ve been gleaning the fruit that’s fallen off his trees. Successive windy days knocked lots of the delicate Royal Blenheims off his trees. So far, my windfall ‘harvest” has yielded about 30 pounds of apricots.

Woks were invented in China about two thousand yeas ago but they remain a mystery to many cooks. That’s why my stir-fry recipes specify that you can cook the dish in a large wok or skillet. My recipe developer’s heart is always hoping that you’ll use a wok because that’s how the dish was meant to be cooked.

For those of you who wondered how long the Taiwanese sesame noodle sauce lasts, I’m confirming that it’s freezable. I froze a jar of it for a week, then drove it to my mom’s house in Southern California where I whipped up the noodles for a fast lunch. The sauce tasted like it was freshly made! So go ahead and make a double batch of the cold sesame noodles sauce and use one now. Freeze the balance as 1/3 cup (80ml) portions for single servings and faster thawing.

Recipes cleverly use nuts and seeds to easily enrich warm weather fare It’s been a nutty and seedy time my kitchen these days. I mean that in good culinary ways. Two recipes got me thinking about how we transform nuts and seeds to use their lusciousness in foods. More often than not, we think of chopping nuts. Seeds are added whole to dishes. But if you take a minute to pound or grind nuts or seeds, you’ll release their aroma and oils so they can efficiently enrich dishes.