What my childhood tasted like.

Milky Ways

My candy of choice when playing Nintendo with my uncle.

Slices of American Cheese

I liked folding them in half and half again until it would eventually break apart. Then I would eat them, but just eating them straight out of the wrapper in its perfect form wasn't nearly as satisfying.

Soba Noodles

I used to call soba noodles, "black noodles" because that's what they were, black noodles dipped in black sauce. I could eat about 3 bowlfuls of soba noodles in one sitting, and I liked my sauce with ice cubes and tons of chopped scallions

Celery and mayonnaise

Something about the creaminess of the mayonnaise combined with the crunchiness of the celery…

Tampico

So it wasn't real orange juice, but I loved the fact it had just as much Vitamin C! Plus I liked it had no pulp, but I love pulp now.

Mocha cake

I hated mocha and was always disappointed when my mom walked out with one at birthday parties.

Rainbow Ice Cream

Thrifty scoopers made cylinder-shaped ice cream scoops and I was intrigued by the trigger mechanism that would push it out. Plus rainbow wasn't as describable as say, mint chocolate chip. I loved the ambiguity of it. I still don't know what flavors are in rainbow ice cream.

Nilla Wafers and cream cheese

What I always took to dance class. I was absolutely addicted to it, and so were my friends. Recipe: 1 Nilla wafer and 1 travel packet of Philadelphia cream cheese. So easy! (and so fattening, mmmm).

Giant California hand rolls

What my mom made practically every week. Recipe: rice, dried seaweed, artificial crab, cucumber, pickled daikon. It would be so stuffed that when you try rolling it rice would literally be about to burst through the seaweed.

Boiled dumplings (Jiao ze)

My mom would roll out the dough and I would take my best shot at stuffing the dough circles with filling. The tricky part was pinching the edges together to seal the dumpling by making it ruffle like a bonnet. Mine never came out as pretty as my mom's.

Dumplings with red beans (Bao zi)

When I was young I could eat, 2, 3, 4 of these in one sitting. It was one of the few dumplings I could eat without being tempted to take out the filling.

Steamed pork dumplings

With this dumpling I would only eat the white outside, and then my mom would yell at me. Eventually I grew to like it with the filling, but it wasn't because I got yelled at. ^^

Apples and honey

I went to a Jewish elementary school so I usually went over to my friend's houses to celebrate all the Jewish holidays. During Rosh Hashanah, it was tradition to eat apples dipped in honey. For Passover, there was a Passover table set including parsley dipped in salt water. I hated parsley to begin with, but parsley dipped in salt water? Yugh.

Fried rice

With ketchup and no peas please!

Minced Beef with raw eggs over rice

I had a passion for everything egg as a kid – steamed eggs with dried shrimp, stir fried eggs, scrambled eggs, green-onion pancakes, but I was perfectly content with just raw eggs over rice with a little bit of soy sauce. My cholesterol must have been very high as a child.

French Toast

Again, another egg related dish. My typical breakfast on a day to day basis. Wonder bread only! God, I hated wheat bread.

Hawaiian Bread

My mom would come home with those pans of Hawaiian bread sold at the market and I liked to eat it all with milk watching Barney or Sesame street.

Betsy's Bakery

This is a Filipino bakery I started to with my mom when I was 5 and I still go to get my yellow bean hopia, custard tarts, and giant ensaymada rolls with cream cheese here. 25 years later and until this day their recipes haven't changed. And they better not change! I would be very very disappointed…

Korean pastries

Mmmm...carbs - roasted chestnut bread, sponge cakes, Butter cream sandwiches, sausage wrapped croissants, pizza pastries, and those rainbow colored rice cakes you eat on special occasions. Asians do pastries best! Paris Baguette in Koreatown *drool*. Beard papas *drool*. I would've been a very fat kid had it existed during my childhood.