Asian Win

Funny how things work out. I am browsing through “Arthur” and come across a famous chef, Ming Tsai! I might have been delayed on the news about this, but this is quite impressive.

He was raised in Ohio, where he learned how to cook from his parents at their family-owned restaurant. After attending school at Phillips Academy Andover (a boarding school), he went on to Yale University and also traveled to a cooking school in Paris one summer. He learned of different cuisines, under renowned Pastry Chef Pierre Herme in Paris and with Sushi Master Kobayashi in Osaka. He eventually opened a restaurant, Blue Ginger, in February 1998 in Massachusetts. His cooking style is a blend of Eastern and Western cultures. As Tsai puts it, “My food is based on the ingredients and cooking techniques of both the East and West. Too often, however, so-called fusion cooking (con-fusion cooking, some of us call it) produces chaos on the plate and in the mouth. To avoid this, I have an enormous sense of respect for each culture’s ingredients and traditional techniques. Successful East-West cooking harmoniously combines two distinct culinary approaches. Take my Savory Braised Oxtail with Preserved Lemon Polenta recipe: When a dish is not just new but better – when I can find a superior way to celebrate oxtail’s earthiness, say, or the deep sour tang of pickled lemons, and then join the two – that’s real East-West cooking.”

His website is very resourceful, giving monthly recipes that you can follow, as well as other recipes you may have missed here. In addition, he has his own TV show, called “Simply Ming,” on Create TV. This broadcasts on Mondays and Fridays at 7am, 1pm, 7pm, and 1am EST.

If you’re still curious about him or his restaurant, check out his website here. Most of the questions you may have should be answered there.