After an adventurous week-long vacation in the Pacific Northwest, I have returned to post entries on the blog.

The vacation was wonderful. I’ll post entries soon.

In the meantime, this needs to be said: Bean curd is still central in my life. I ran errands today and when I returned my wife was kind enough to have this bowl of chicken and tofu soup waiting for me.

First: Thank you. Second: It was delicious.

I would tell you her recipe. But I don’t know it. When I see her, I’ll ask.

Our vacation took us along various stops in and around the Olympic National Park – and near the Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean.

There’s nothing like the sight and sounds of water.

On our first day, when we departed, rain fell from the sky. So, instead of driving my family and parents to Deception Pass State Park to likely sit in the rain for our planned picnic, we adjusted our plans.

We drove to Top Gun Seafood Restaurant, a tasty Cantonese restaurant in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue. We ordered plates of dim sum.

That way, as my reasoning went, if everything else on the trip turned out to be soggy and overcast, at the very least, we could say: Man, that dim sum meal at the beginning of our trip was the tops!

Yes, I’ve dined there before. This time, we ordered Japanese-style bean curd with shrimp on top – a fantastic way to go.

That is one lesson that I learned from traveling to different places: When in doubt, find delicious food, fill your belly, appreciate what you have and smile.

Life can take on its own rhythms. There is the speediness and congestion akin to traveling in a standing-room only subway car in New York City.

And then there is the serenity of standing near water – say gazing at the beautiful scenery at Neah Bay in Washington state or in Monterey County in California.

Whatever you do and wherever you are, remember to make room for soybean cake. It’s just as important as creativity, innovation and the pursuit of happiness.

I launched TofuWatch.com one year ago this day as a way to continue my curiosity and creativity about bean curd, technology news, architecture, the economy, U.S.-China affairs, Asian American news and anything else that entered my mind.

First and foremost, I should say thank you for taking time out of your day to visit and read my posts. I know the attention economy still looms large for the busy and frazzled.

If you’ve enjoyed reading TofuWatch.com, feel free to tell others about it. I’m a freelance writer and can bring high-level creative zing to editorial and online projects.  

I know it’s possible to go deep and fast on a variety of topics circulating in the online world. It’s possible to only follow Tweets or Facebook updates or just read RSS feeds from your favorite information sources.

That reminds me of my senior year as a college undergraduate. I was studying the origins of U.S. civil rights and found myself reading late at night and into the morning essays and books about 18th century political thought.

I was learning so much that I continued to search for writers and information. Finally, my undergraduate advisor told me: “It’s time to leave the 18th century.”

In other words, there were other years, ideas and topics to consider.

In terms of tofu, I’ve noted history, recipes, health benefits, festivals (both current and past), a good place to visit in Oakland, Calif., a tofu haiku contest and just some all around funky stuff that comes with online life and bean curd territory.

Had I not started this blog, I would have never come across a variety of people and topics, including Taiwanese chefs Fu Pei-Mei – and her delicious tofu sandwiches – and Theresa Lin, who was the culinary brain behind all the delicious food featured in Director Ang Lee’s “Eat Drink Man Woman.”

To the right, under categories, are other subjects which might interest you, including robots (both as cooks and journalists), a man who still uses a printing press and a way to remove a dent from a ping pong ball.

I originally planned on posting a new bean curd recipe on this anniversary date. But my wife, who has been a tremendous help in preparing many of the dishes that you see on this site, and I were busy with the stuff that can fill daily life – running errands, filling out forms, figuring out upcoming activities.

By the way, the most popular tofu recipe that she made and we posted on this site is the one for cold, dry tofu. It’s the pressed style of tofu.

But she, my son and I managed to hightail it down to Top Gun Seafood Restaurant, a Seattle-area Chinese establishment for some dim sum – or little bits of heart.

The restaurant building isn’t so spectacular. But the food inside can bring you back for more servings.

We ordered the salt and pepper, deep-fried tofu ($7.95 when ordered as an appetizer) as a small way to mark the launch. We also dined on deep-fried squid ($9.95 when ordered as an appetizer).

Yes, I know: Oil and deep-fried food don’t sit too well with the health benefits of bean curd.

But it was some of the most delicious quick, deep-fried bean curd that we’ve eaten recently. Even five minutes or so after the dish landed on our table, the inside of the bean curd was hot.

The garlic bits, placed on the plate and the tofu, helped, too.

In the near future, I hope to post more home-cooked tofu recipes.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to write about topics big and small. I do so partially to record what I might forget days or weeks later.

Since last year, TofuWatch.com visitors have enjoyed reading about Edith Macefield (the late Seattle resident who has become a property-rights symbol of sorts in China) and my analysis regarding Google in China among many topics.

My old photographs of my visit to Putuoshan, a Buddhist mountain and island off Shanghai, also were well received. I’ve used my digital camera when I’ve traveled in Seattle and its suburbs.

In February, I had fun posting two videos – one with lions and the other with lions and a dragon – of the Lunar New Year celebration in Seattle’s International District. I also found Yo-Yos to be suitable for a video.

Earlier this month, the crew of OAR Northwest reminded me that humans can achieve noteworthy goals – say, rowing across the Atlantic Ocean – by using their physical power, minds and technology.

This is a new world of ideas and technologies.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve logged more than 365 entries on this blog since I started last year.

My writing isn’t purely from the mountaintop point of view. Likewise, it is not solely from the curbside looking up.

It also is not traditional journalism. Media outlets exist and journalists are practicing the craft each minute they’re at the office or in the field.

It’s somewhere in between.

One remarkable creation of the online world is that you can have various entities floating in the ethers. They can use humor, visuals, sound and words as vehicles.

To what end?

That depends. 

Good times, learning, information dissemination and some circular writing (or context, if you will) so that links can be inserted into the online text.

I’ve also been reminded in the past year that institutional confines are certainly needed in the world – for guidance, structure and uniformity.

But remember that the creative mind, tapped in the right ways, can actually make visions brighter, reality appear sooner and economies stronger. 

Keep in mind that nothing can be something.

As a side note, I’m also typing this post on the 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens – a news event that my former colleague, photographer Grant Haller, covered back in 1980.

Oh, yes. If you’d like to visit Top Gun, it’s located at 12450 SE 38th St. in Bellevue, Wash.

Keep an eye out for the restaurant sign and the lions in front of the door.

Image source: tofuhaiku.com and the Toronto Vegetarian Association. Logo made by Marie Poulin, mariepoulin.com

Back in February, I wrote about how the Kapolei Library in Hawaii was hosting what I thought was the mother of all good things – the convergence of tofu and haiku.

A daze, I called it. As in: An actual tofu haiku contest – officially named the Aloha Tofu Haiku Extravaganza - for kids.

But the earthquake that hit Chile sent a tsunami across the waters, alerting those around the Pacific Rim. It touched Hawaii and apparently postponed part of the contest.

Erika Tsuji, a reader of the Honolulu Advertiser, reminds us in her article that the grand finale of the tofu haiku festival took place on April 10.

As I’ve said before when I’m happy: Amen.

The judges awarded top honors to two students, Sarah Yamaguchi and Kapua Miller. Congratulations, of course, to both.

Here’s Sarah’s winning entry:

Happy Little Square
Sitting nicely on the plate
Delicious Tofu!

The Honolulu Star Bulletin had an article in March, giving more details about the contest, selection of winners and the timeline.

It’s not only the haiku that impressed me.

I liked what other food items showed up at the celebration in the form of tales from storyteller Nyla Fujii-Babb.

From Tsuji’s article: “spam, musubi, mochi, and of course, tofu.”

Speaking of Spam, it’s apparently so popular that there’s a museum devoted to it and on Saturday, people gathered in Hawaii for the annual Waikiki Spam Jam.

There’s a game named in its honor and after Monty Python’s famous skit with the food. Musicians have crooned songs after the food product, too.

I digress.

You might have known that I once lived and worked on Guam. I’ve traveled to Hawaii years ago for vacation. I’ve also visited Saipan and Tinian, two islands near Guam.

So, I’ve had some experience with living and traveling through some Pacific islands.

All these foods fit perfectly with places that are between Asia and North America.

Librarian Caroline Coleman, who works in the children’s section, came up with the idea while searching the Internet, Tsuji noted.

About 150 people celebrated the haiku at the event. Students submitted about 290 haiku poems.

Aloha Tofu sponsored the event – and get this, according to Tsuji’s article:

There was also an abundance of free tofu samples of many varieties.

It’s too bad the Seattle area and Hawaii are so far apart. I would have gone.

Finally, what did the grand prize winner receive?

Aloha Tofu kicked in a birthday party for 10 people at Wet’n'Wild, a water park in Hawaii.

Yes, there have been tofu contests and festivals before, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and Toronto.

You really do have to like island style - there’s nothing else like it in the world.

Another nice fact regarding this haiku contest: It blended bean curd and a poetry form together.

Both are centuries old and they inspired kids in Hawaii.

This is a good one. I really don’t know where to start.

So, let’s do it chronologically.

The tofu newsfeed that I get through Google brought a refreshing note today: House Foods America Corp. has decided to install solar technology at its facility in Orange County, Calif. to help the environment – and reduce demand on those good, old-fashioned power grids.

“Great!” I thought. “Bean curd, eaten as part of a balanced diet, is healthy for you. Now, this company is cutting down on its electricity consumption through solar use.”

The news included how many pounds of carbon dioxide will be saved because of the move, 675,000 yearly, according to a post at RenewableEnergyWorld.com.

Then, I thought: “Hmm. I hadn’t heard of House Foods America.”

So, I searched for their company online.

The news even got better because it looks like the company runs its own Japanese-style curry restaurants in the United States, largely in California.

As you know, man, I dig curry as much as I like soybean cake.

The Japanese-style curry sauces that the company dishes up have origins in India. Actually, the company said, the British introduced curry to Japan a century ago.

Also, the company’s curry sauce has over 30 types of ingredients, including cardamom and cumin.

“Excellent,” I thought. “Keep going.”

So much so, that the PDF showing all those ingredients is worthy of a poster.

Then, more curry facts came trickling out from the company:

Many spices in curry are also used in Chinese herbal medicine.

Personally, I lean toward Chinese herbal medicine that is pure and good for the body - and not remedies that might be pumped up with artificial ingredients that could harm y0u down the road.

And just how popular is curry in Japan?

A poll taken in Japan indicates that today, nearly 95 out of 100 people name curry as their favorite food.

“Plausible,” I said to myself. “Very plausible.”

Of course, I am biased – meaning, I’m pro curry.

The company even has a vegetarian menu for visitors to its curry restaurants.

So, what more?

Well, from a bean curd perspective, House Foods America has worked with the incredible culinary genius behind all those fabulous, mouth-watering dishes from Director Ang Lee’s classic movie, “Eat Drink Man Woman.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the movie, have a look below at what I think is an inviting scene to Chinese cooking.

Keep in mind that the clip shows the cooking process from the beginning – so skip this if you’re not interested.

But you know what?

I’ve never been able to cook like this, even though I’ve tried.

I’ve fired up woks to get the high heat and flames that chefs at restaurants can get.

No dice.

I have not mastered the true taste of Chinese cuisine.

That could be one reason why I’ve enjoyed going to China and standing outside restaurants to watch cooks prepare gastronomical delights.

If you’re interested in the trailer for “Eat Drink Man Woman,” have a look below.

It’s a great movie – one worth renting, one worth telling others about.

Did you catch that one clip of the father taking out his own roast duck from the cooker?

It turns out that the chef behind all those great dishes is Chef Theresa Lin, who is from Taiwan.

Many people have dubbed her “The Julia Child of Taiwan,” according to House Foods America.

She worked with House Foods to introduce the public to various tofu dishes – including a steamed bean curd and fish dish and a vegetarian tofu shirataki noodle salad with cabbage, carrots and celery.

It looks like the key to this salad is Sichuan peppercorn oil, which also is used in mapo tofu.

Yum.

On Lin’s Web site, there’s plenty to read about her. You can even watch one of her cooking shows online.

But I went straight to her recipe page. If her site comes up in Chinese, try using Google’s translation service.

You’ll be able to get the idea of what is being said.

Given her talent, I know this is a minor point.

But there was another Chinese chef from Taiwan, Fu Pei-Mei, who has been called the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.

I guess it really doesn’t matter.

It’s all food to eat, especially when your hunger demands taste.

It’s all good stuff.

This is a file photo of tofu from last year. Remember: Fresh tofu is always the best.

There is much news to digest these days – if you’re in the market for this type of information.

The U.S. Senate approved legislation to create jobs, Toyota has its automobile safety woes and Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke predicted the economic recovery will, um, be slow.

That Hummer deal - in which a Chinese company would buy the U.S. brand associated with military-like vehicles – has hit an obstacle has fallen through.

And consumer confidence in the United States has dropped after it did relatively better in the past months.

At TofuWatch, confidence is up (in terms relating to soybean cake) because, well, circular logic, albeit it with ventures into new territory, really can never disappoint.

Instead of Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, the mantra here is: tofu, tofu, tofu.

Plus news and observations. Just like a reel-to-reel feedback loop.

By the way, bean curd can be badass, cool, affordable, delicious, record setting and enjoyed by a sign-language gorilla (who likes it with curry).

And now, it’s poetic – in the haiku form.

Out in the Pacific – in Hawaii - Kapolei Library is hosting a Tofu Haiku contest and will announce the winners on Feb. 27, according to a citizen-written article published on the Web site of the Honolulu Advertiser.

Yes, there’s Facebook chatter about the contest for people ages 7 to 17. Aloha Tofu - which includes an online video tour of its factory – and Friends of the Kapolei Library are sponsoring the event.

I’ll add the winning haiku poems when I hear about them.

Fortuantely, the Toronto Vegetarian Association held its own competition in 2007 and even registered the domain name, tofuhaiku.com.

You can read about the winning poems.

Feel free to submit your own Tofu Haiku in the comments section because, well, we can never have enough.

And here are my two favorites.

1. From Matias Blei of Buenos Aires, Argentina:

This tofu is a raft
wandering free
in a soy sauce tsunami

2. From Martin Francisco of Azusa, Calif.:

in my first apartment
a white cube wiggles
bought for a dollar

It’s been a blast blogging about bean curd this year. I’ll try and post a few new items before the end of the year. I’ll certainly be back after 2010 starts.

In any event, I hope you have a joyous holiday season and a wonderful 2010! And thank you for reading my blog!

This year, I learned much about soybean cake and how humans view it, as well as other odds and ends. Feel free to read previous posts in the archives.

Photo source: Hodo Soy Beanery

The employees at Hodo Soy Beanery in Oakland, Calif. want to make tofu cool.

I’m happy to help them get the word out, especially since they make one bean curd item that I particularly enjoy – yuba, or tofu skin.

As part of that goal, they are opening up the organic tofu company for public tours and a tasting beginning on Dec. 16.

Keep in mind that the tours, scheduled for Wednesdays at 12:30 p.m., will be held once every two weeks. The cost is $10 per person.

The company will give tours to small groups and reservations are required. But you’ll be able to taste freshly-made tofu and learn about soybean selection.

If you’re interested, here’s my original post about Hodo Soy Beanery. If you take a tour, please let me know.

Yes, Happy Thanksgiving 2009!

I hope everyone has time to be with family and friends and to watch some football on TV.

I still have never tasted a Tofurky.

Fox Business Network has an interview with the inventor, Seth Tibbott, who said he started the bean curd substitute because he’s vegetarian.

Jones Soda Co. is giving a nod to the bean curd substitute with a Tofurky and Gravy Soda (plus a metal lunch box with the words “Cirque Du Tofurky” on it).

Recently, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals handed out boxes of Tofurky to people throughout the United States.

On Wednesday, President Obama pardoned a turkey (a real one, weighing 45 pounds), named Courage, and sent it – out of all places – to Disneyland.

The president said Courage will be grand marshal in a Thanksgiving Day parade. He also talked about more serious issues of state.

Have a great holiday!

But Western reporters covering President Obama’s recent state dinner in Beijing with Chinese leader Hu noted it: The high-profile event included chicken soup with bean curd.

If only prosperous, mutually-beneficial relations between the two countries bloom in the coming years, I will point to this meal – notably the soup with soybean cake - as the unifying agent.

You know: “World leaders, Obama and Hu, gather around tofu to talk pressing issues.”

If U.S.-China relations continue in the framework of diplomacy, dialogue and some bumps here and there, I will, nevertheless, note the historic moment.

Hey, I have to write sentences like that: I run a blog about soybean cake and other essential topics.

Really, I was happy to see that bean curd made the final cut for food to be served at that big round table.

The Associated Press has the details.

Some in the media have talked about the music the People’s Liberation Army’s band played at the dinner. 

By the way, when Hu dined at Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ house in 2006, the menu included some Northwest touches, including Alaskan halibut and Walla Walla onions.

I wasn’t able to find out what type of bean curd was used – firm or soft or which company or person in China actually made it.

Or does Chinese President Hu have a staff of personal chefs who made it for this special meal?

Did it come from a tofu master in Anhui province, which the Chinese note is the birthplace of bean curd?

I don’t have those answers.

And it looks like there’s one way that Obama can cheer himself up – other than spend time with his family and dog - when national or global affairs have him down.

He can remind himself that a chef in Japan honored him by making a sushi roll in his likeness.

That’s right.

I came across this image when I was trying to track down information on the type of bean curd soup that was eaten at the state dinner in Beijing.

Japanese chef Ken Kawasumi apparently used black sesame for the hair and fish paste for the teeth. Photo source: MSN

I found it on this MSN page from Japan.

I don’t know when Japanese chef Ken Kawasumi made this roll but it might have been around the time of Obama’s inauguration.

Searching for more information about that bean curd soup dish, I also stumbled upon obamafoodorama.com, which does a great job chronicling food news through the lens of the White House.

Blogger Eddie Gehman Kohan operates the site and has received great attention for her efforts.

She also led me to Zilly Rosen’s Zilly Cakes and her cupcake homage to Obama. Yes, the images were posted on flickr.

Last year, Zilly Rosen of Zilly Cakes made a portrait of Obama, using over 1,200 cupcakes. Photo credit: Shasti O'Leary Soudant, posted at ZillyCakes.com

Obamafoodorama.com has a link to the White House Museum’s page on the White House kitchen.

The blog also has posts about the upcoming state dinner at the White House for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India.

Yes, I realize that I wrote recently about how easy it is to turn to popular culture following the president’s trip to Asia.

Well, what can I say?

I do like balance.

And it is popular for a reason.

My wife and I have had some busy schedules in recent weeks. But the good news is that home-style tofu cooking has returned.

It’s as if our minds are calm.

Yes, her tofu cooking skills remain far superior to my Chinese cooking prowess. I’ve mainly helped in the eating department.

I’ve been pretty successful that I feel I need a promotion. You know, something like: Senior tofu eater.

Her latest brilliant, delicious creation is one that follows the Niang Tofu style – meaning that the flavors appear over a period.

It’s a steamed tofu dish with stuffed shrimp on top in a carved-out area of the tofu slab. The fresh seafood flavor is apparent. The tofu remains moist.

Chinese oyster sauce is drizzled over it at the end to add a nice, light hint of extra flavor.

You can use either the firm or soft style tofu. We opted for the firm style.

In terms of health, we think it’s a great dish to serve: High in protein, no fat and steaming means no oil for frying.

Niang Tofu is popular among the Hakka ethnic group in China. You can find this type of tofu particularly at Cantonese restaurants.

If you’re not a big fan of shrimp, you can use ground chicken, turkey or pork for the stuffing that rests on top of the tofu chunks.

Other options including chopped crab or squid, if you’re hankering for seafood but not shrimp.

Note, too, that after she chopped up the shrimp, she added potato starch, salt, pepper, sugar and cooking wine.

The starch thickens the shrimp mixture up a bit but the other ingredients add flavor.

We used jumbo shrimp from Vietnam that we bought at Costco.

If you already have soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil and other ingredients, we estimate the dish will cost about $5.

For oyster sauce, we used one made by Lee Kum Lee, which has a large factory in Hong Kong but offices in the United States.

By the way, the company has a pretty extensive recipe list and a Twitter feed - and when I looked, Pizza Hut was a follower.

My wife likes the flavor of this oyster sauce, compared to other brands. Lee Kum Lee also has been around since 1888.

The bottle of sauce we have was made in the United States.

The great thing: Since you’re making it at home, you can add more shrimp or whatever filling you use compared to what a chef at a Chinese restaurant might include.

You might have seen this dish at Chinese restaurants, especially ones that serve dim sum. Some places will deep fry it and serve with a sauce.

But nothing, really, beats home cooking.

In my book, this dish is worth it.

I would experiment with it before you serve guests or relatives. But I think it’s certainly tasty enough to make for a special meal.

My wife said that the next time we see my parents, she’d like to make it for them. She knows my mom and dad would enjoy having a taste.

I’ve said this many times, but I’m grateful to my wife for all the delicious food that she thinks of and cooks for our family.

Ingredients:

• Firm or soft tofu
• Six jumbo shrimp – or more if using smaller size
• Potato starch (1 tablespoon)
• Salt (1 teaspoon)
• Ground black pepper (1 teaspoon)
• Shaoxing cooking wine (1/2 tablespoon)
• Sugar (1/4 teaspoon)
• Oyster sauce (1 tablespoon)
• Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Flavored Sauce is an option
• Soy sauce (1 teaspoon)
• Sesame oil (just a touch before serving)

 Steps:

• Cut tofu into 2-inch by 1-inch pieces.
• Scoop out half tablespoon from each tofu piece.
• Remove shells from shrimp.
• Chop shrimp.
• Add potato starch, salt, pepper, sugar and cooking wine.
• Stir.
• Place the shrimp mix inside cut-out tofu pieces.
• Place plate with tofu inside pot, pan or wok.
• Add about 2 cups of water.
• Before steaming, add soy sauce to plate to flavor tofu.
• Steam for about 15 minutes.
• Make sure the shrimp is pink before you eat.
• In a different pot, add oyster sauce and half cup of water.
• Add about 1/2 tablespoon of corn starch to thicken.
• After 15 minutes, drizzle the sauce over the tofu.
• Add sesame oil, if you like.
• Top with cilantro.
• Serve hot.
• Savor the flavor.