Hello from Shanghai on the northeastern coast of China. Still feasting my eyes and mind and everything else on this extraordinary and delicious adventure. Here's a quick note on our doings: Soup dumplings are a big thing back home now, and have been in China, and particularly Shanghai, for a long, long time. This little shop is just around ...
Nancie McDermott
Best Cookbooks of 2015: Nancie’s List!
I love cookbooks and could not begin to count how many I have in my kitchen and office, on my bedside table --- even a few in the pantry. Despite this abundance, I take pleasure in finding new ones, and wish I had more time to read them and cook from them each week. The year 2015 brought an exceptional number of new cookbooks and food books into ...
Thai Coconut Ice Cream with Caramelized Pineapple: A Sweet Vegan Treat!
This beautiful photograph graces my new cookbook, Simply Vegetarian Thai Cooking: 125 Real Thai Recipes, but I assure you it is not how I serve luscious coconut ice cream at home. I love the beautiful way professional food photographers and food stylists present food, just as I love the atmospheric travel scenes in fashion magazines, and the ...
My Thailand Adventure, July 2012
This gilded red doorway loomed majestically before me when I stepped from a long, meandering jetway into the G Concourse of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport just before midnight on July 10th, 2012. What a glorious sight, soaring up twice as tall as me, placed to greet arriving passengers first thing. I felt perfectly, handsomely ...
Traveling to Thailand
That's me, 23-year old Peace Corps Trainee, working on an ESL lesson plan during practice teaching at a school in the northernmost Thai province of Chiang Rai. It was March of 1975, the beginning of my time in Thailand. I returned in 1989 to do research for my first cookbook. Now I am heading to Thailand again, this time to to join festivities for ...
Vietnamese Chicken Salad with Shredded Cabbage and Fresh Mint
Like chicken soup, chicken salads have a place of everyday honor in cuisines around the world. I adore the mayonnaise-dressed versions of my Southern childhood (and adulthood), but I'm in love with this Vietnamese take on the cool-chicken off-the-bone dish, with its ribbons of crisp raw cabbage, fish-sauce/pepper kick, and bright refreshing ...
Taiwan Summer Travels
After a long but diverting and worthwhile journey across one continent, one ocean and a good chunk of a second continent, we arrived in Taiwan at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday night. Though I slept only a few hours on the plane, the excitement of completing the journey and Being Here!!! at last dissolved my exhaustion. I stayed awake unpacking, planning ...
Happy Father’s Day: Remembering James P. McDermott, The Man Himself
With Father's Day 2011 landing deep into the month of June this year, I've had many reminders of it in the form of advertisements, family conversations and themed stories in magazines. At our house, the day will start with breakfast in bed for my husband, presents (watching for that UPS truck today to deliver a brand new...oh, no, wait, my husband ...
“Southern Pies”, now out of the oven and onto the bookshelves and countertops!
Though I've had my author copy for a month, and the Chronicle Books warehouse has been shipping out advance orders for a couple of weeks, today is the official start of publicity month for my latest book, "Southern Pies: A Gracious Plenty of Pie Recipes, from Lemon Chess to Chocolate Pecan". I haven't gotten over it yet, not even close --- still ...