Carbohydrates and Life
According to the nutrition model, there are seven types of food. Out of all of them, my favorite is the one everyone shuns – carbohydrates. I just can’t resist all the different types of bread, cookies, spaghetti, Coke, pies, cakes, corn, muffins, or any of those other glorious options. There is nothing like biting into…
Super(stitious) Foods
Every morning, my grandmother, whose mission in life was to feed us, would present me with five almonds in a stainless steel bowl, soaked overnight and peeled. “They’ll make you smarter,” she’d quip, as I gulped them down and ran for the school bus. Before every trip we took – by plane, train or automobile…
Maybe Don’t Look Inside
I’m in first grade. Just moved from England to Oregon. Never heard of it. Never ate it. Peanut butter and jelly. I’m at David’s house down the street. “Try it,” he said. I opened the slices of bread. It was a slimy mess. Red jelly. It was like uncovering a Band-Aid. “Try it,” he said.…
When We were Cool
A crisp night, 10pm, December of 2008 in a mostly vacant Lowe’s parking lot just outside of LA. The awkward three musketeers met up — myself and two old friends. Jackson, tall and pale, was reluctant to line up for a taco, but Bryant pulled his cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. “Trust…
White Friend
I started a food blog, and a white friend went to a Chinese restaurant with me. When we ordered, the server eyed him, saying, “You sure? It’s spicy.” For once the white guy was the one treated like a foreigner! When I blogged about it, I referred to him as “white friend,” and it stuck.…
Spicy and Non-spicy
I went with a non-white friend to a non-white restaurant with a very spicy noodle soup that was somehow listed on the menu they give to non-spicy customers, and the non-white waiter warned me not in so many words that this spicy soup is not meant for people who are not non-white, but my non-white…
Breaking Bread with Mister Squirrel
Caught in the backyard rat trap of two adventurous and skilled culinarians, Mister Squirrel had sustained a broken front leg. His days were numbered, so we decided the most humane thing to do was to eat him. Skinned, gutted, and quartered, I covered the rodent’s haunches with salted water in a restaurant steam pan. I…
The Best Meals I Don’t Remember
My most memorable meal will always be the one I had the night before – because it just happened. I wish I could share with you that meal in Tokyo, when my sister’s friend took me to a hole in the wall, or the last time I ate street food in my favorite neighborhood in…
Takeout Treat: The Sunlight Cafe
“Green deluxe, light sour cream.” When I worked at the Sunlight Cafe, this was my favorite shift meal. I remember scribbling that on paper and leaving it for the cook. As the oldest vegetarian restaurant in Seattle, The Sunlight is more than delicious food; it’s community, it’s family. Since quarantine began, my partner and I…
Fish is Family
My mother, raised without one, vowed to give her two boys the maternal love absent from her childhood. Her love was a bed of eggplant sliced lengthwise to soak up the fatty juices of oven-roasted chicken thighs. Or beef meatballs laced with parsley, layered over Barilla spaghetti, finished with a few shakes of Kraft parmesan…
Dollar Tree Gourmet
After a long soccer game, we walked up to the food truck, grumpy with hunger. A Southern gentleman took our order: Three pulled pork sandwiches with fries. Through the window, I saw him load a russet potato through a hand-cranked French Fry cutter, slice it into long wedges, then dunk them in the boiling fryer…
Love in the Time of Nando’s
After a year of FaceTiming, we met for the first time at Birmingham’s New Street Station and we found our elbows intertwined without any hint of awkwardness. Being in the UK, there was no doubt that our first meal together could be anything but Nando’s – a South African chain, famous for its Portuguese chicken,…
Quarantine Bread
Tonight, day gazillion of quarantine, I eat leftover bread for dinner. I’m too tired to cook, though I haven’t done much. Perhaps my thoughts are a work-out. The bread — dark, crusty, studded with black olives — has been sitting on the kitchen counter for three days. It’s so tough to chew, I doubt a…
Colors of Corn
There’s yellow corn, unsurprisingly, sold off a truck bed the day it was picked, humidity slowing down the sunlight and licking your shirt. We shucked it on my grandmother’s kitchen steps, boiled it quick, and served it to my grandfather in a blue and white bowl with salt dishes and ample butter. Grandfather’s summer rules:…
Coronavirus Baking
In the coronavirus era, I started baking cakes, pies, and cookies – a hobby I began when I was pregnant with my daughter. Now she’s seven and she bakes with me. With baking you have to get everything just right.
The First Time
The warm crunchiness of peanut and curry, the acidity of fermented mustard green, the contrast between soft and crispy noodles, the rich, fragrant chicken. As she closed her eyes she remembered the small farming village in Lampang, Thailand when she first had this dish, kao soi. A myriad of other senses began to flood her…
Secret Ramen
A small package of dried noodles with its silver flavoring packet was how my father showed his love for his family. He must have watched his daughters and wife struggle to understand the food at the table — in this new country, sitting with Americans he met only weeks prior. Every night after our sponsor…
Poutine, Paused
June 30, 1999. “Tomorrow is Canada Day,” my Grandfather said with a wry smile. His eyes barely left the recorded hockey game he was re-watching, reliving a part of himself. “We should go out for poutine!” I rolled my eyes, ran my fingertips across my stomach and felt a familiar scratchy tightness in my throat,…
Adventures in Vegetarianism
I was a vegetarian for exactly 20 years starting January 1, 1992 — a New Year’s resolution. Although I’d like to claim an ethical awakening, it was really that my girlfriend was a vegetarian so I became one too. I’d expected to fight cravings for bacon or burgers but it was much easier than that,…
When the World is Your Mussel
Food foraging is life endangering specifically when you’re twentysomething and believe the world is your oyster—or mussel. One summer day, I packed a group of friends into my car with some supplies including a raw chicken and wine to set off for Neah Bay. With our windows rolled down and Bronski Beat playing from my…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
About Me
Hi, I’m Lillie. Previously a magazine editor, I became a full-time mother and freelance writer in 2017. I spend most of my time with my kids and husband over at The Brown Bear Family but this blog is for my love of food and sharing my favorites with you!
Subscribe to My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
Table Tales - 150 word stories 