https://thewoksoflife.com/category/how-to/ a culinary genealogy Tue, 19 Dec 2023 15:43:49 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.2 https://thewoksoflife.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/cropped-TWOL-favicon-4-32x32.png https://thewoksoflife.com/category/how-to/ 32 32 https://thewoksoflife.com/dongzhi-festival-winter-solstice/ https://thewoksoflife.com/dongzhi-festival-winter-solstice/#comments Tue, 19 Dec 2023 15:41:00 +0000 https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=69628 The Winter Solstice in Chinese is 冬至 (dōng zhì in Mandarin Chinese), which translates to “winter arrival.” As you may already know, it’s the shortest day of the year and the longest night. The Dongzhi Festival is an important Chinese holiday, but it’s sometimes forgotten—overshadowed by the Lunar New Year (AKA the Spring Festival). In the ... View Post ]]> https://thewoksoflife.com/dongzhi-festival-winter-solstice/feed/ 17 https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-whole-chicken-recipes-guide/ https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-whole-chicken-recipes-guide/#comments Sat, 16 Dec 2023 08:39:00 +0000 https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=76892 With Lunar New Year coming up, many a Chinese table will soon be graced by a whole chicken. Whether it’s poached, braised, or salt-baked, a whole chicken is a deeply symbolic food in Chinese culture. Today, we have a complete guide to preparing a whole chicken in the Chinese style, so you can keep this ... View Post ]]> https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-whole-chicken-recipes-guide/feed/ 12 https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-grow-watercress/ https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-grow-watercress/#comments Mon, 27 Nov 2023 09:53:00 +0000 https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=76221 Welcome to our How to Grow Chinese Vegetables series. It’s the last post of the 2023 growing season, and we’re talking about how to grow watercress, or xīyáng cài (Mandarin)/sai yeung choy (Cantonese) – 西洋菜. My dad used to pick wild watercress with his family in the streams and brooks near where he grew up ... View Post ]]> https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-grow-watercress/feed/ 12 https://thewoksoflife.com/farm-update-fall-2023/ https://thewoksoflife.com/farm-update-fall-2023/#comments Sun, 19 Nov 2023 08:17:00 +0000 https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=77630 Welcome to our latest farm update! Somehow, we’re again at the end of another growing season at our farm (well—our “working mini-farm,” if we’re being technical about it).  In between writing about food and showing how to cook it, we continue in our valiant efforts to grow it, too. It’s been another year of experimenting ... View Post ]]> https://thewoksoflife.com/farm-update-fall-2023/feed/ 46 https://thewoksoflife.com/the-hostess-gifts-holiday-gift-guide/ https://thewoksoflife.com/the-hostess-gifts-holiday-gift-guide/#comments Wed, 08 Nov 2023 06:50:00 +0000 https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=77086 Host or Hostess gifts can be so much more than a bottle of wine or other alcohol! A gift for the host of your evening (whatever gender they may be) is a lovely opportunity to preemptively thank them for the fun you’ll have and retroactively thank them for the time, thought, and effort that went ... View Post ]]> https://thewoksoflife.com/the-hostess-gifts-holiday-gift-guide/feed/ 2 https://thewoksoflife.com/gift-guide-kitchen-and-garden/ https://thewoksoflife.com/gift-guide-kitchen-and-garden/#respond Wed, 08 Nov 2023 06:50:00 +0000 https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=77139 It’s our Kitchen and Garden gift guide, full of the select items we reach for again and again—for that cooking and/or gardening enthusiast in your life. The Kitchen and Garden Gift Guide Around the holidays, we often get questions from family and friends on the “best of” cooking tools. What’s worth it, what’s not, and ... View Post ]]> https://thewoksoflife.com/gift-guide-kitchen-and-garden/feed/ 0 https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-grow-kabocha-squash/ https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-grow-kabocha-squash/#comments Thu, 26 Oct 2023 07:27:00 +0000 https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=76674 Kabocha squash is one of our favorite squashes/pumpkins to enjoy in the fall! It has a lovely texture—almost like a cross between butternut squash and chestnuts. The skin is also edible, so you don’t have to peel it. Let’s talk about how to grow Kabocha Squash in your garden. This post is part of our How ... View Post ]]> https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-grow-kabocha-squash/feed/ 6 https://thewoksoflife.com/low-sodium-chinese-food-cooking/ https://thewoksoflife.com/low-sodium-chinese-food-cooking/#comments Sat, 14 Oct 2023 07:55:00 +0000 https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=76199 We’ve gotten lots of questions over the years about how to cook low sodium Chinese food, especially as it pertains to the many fermented and salted ingredients you might encounter, from soy sauce to spicy bean paste.  In this post, we’re going to talk about keeping sodium levels down in Chinese cooking—and recipes that are ... View Post ]]> https://thewoksoflife.com/low-sodium-chinese-food-cooking/feed/ 32 https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-grow-choy-sum-yu-choy/ https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-grow-choy-sum-yu-choy/#comments Fri, 29 Sep 2023 05:31:00 +0000 https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=76153 Welcome to our How to Grow Chinese Vegetables series: Choy Sum edition! In this post, we’ll talk about how to grow choy sum or cài xīn (菜心), AKA yu choy or yóucài (油菜). We have professional insights from Christina Chan, farmer and owner of Choy Division, a regenerative Asian vegetable and herb farm in the ... View Post ]]> https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-grow-choy-sum-yu-choy/feed/ 12 https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-celebrate-mid-autumn-festival/ https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-celebrate-mid-autumn-festival/#comments Thu, 14 Sep 2023 14:37:00 +0000 https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=59092 The Mid-Autumn Festival is the second most important Chinese holiday of the year (after Lunar New Year/Spring Festival). It’s a time to get together with family, eat, worship the moon, and celebrate the fall harvest! In this post, we’ll talk about how to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival with friends and family! Note: This post was originally published ... View Post ]]> https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-celebrate-mid-autumn-festival/feed/ 18