If you've ever tried to order a spicy dish in a restaurant and been refused (or served a clearly less spicy version) -- this series of audio features on Chopsticks + Marrow is for you!

http://chopsticksandmarrow.com/tag/audio-guide/

The audio pieces in this series demonstrate phrases in several relevant languages (e.g., Korean, Thai, Spanish, Hindi, etc.), which can be used to navigate ordering situations fraught with tricky cultural and language barriers.

In this installment: Christine Colligan, 59, a Seoul native now living in Flushing, Queens, shares two Korean phrases that mean "I like hot food" and "I can eat hot food well":

http://chopsticksandmarrow.com/2013/11/how-to-order-authentically-spicy-korean-food/

I like hot food:
Na  nun (I'm) / Mae un (hot) / eum sick (food) / jo a  ham ni da (like)

I can eat hot food well:
Na nun (I'm) / mae un gut (hot dish) / jal (well) / mug ue  yo (eat)

Photo credit: Soondubu jjigae (spicy soft tofu stew). Photo by Joe DiStefano.

How To Order Authentically Spicy Korean Food

If you've ever tried to order a spicy dish in a restaurant and been refused (or served a clearly less spicy version) -- this series of audio features on Chopsticks + Marrow is for you!

http://chopsticksandmarrow.com/tag/audio-guide/

The audio pieces in this series demonstrate phrases in several relevant languages (e.g., Korean, Thai, Spanish, Hindi, etc.), which can be used to navigate ordering situations fraught with tricky cultural and language barriers.

In this installment: Sajan Saini, 40, of Astoria, Queens, shares a phrase in Hindi / Urdu that loosely means, "I'd like to order my food with lots of spicy green chilies":

http://chopsticksandmarrow.com/2013/11/how-to-order-authentically-spicy-indian-and-pakistani-food

Hindi / Urdu Phrase 1: "Mirchonwali"
English translation: Characterized by ample spicy green chilies
Ordering example: I'd like to order chana masala (aka, chickpeas) mirchonwali.

Hindi / Urdu Phrase 2: "Mirchon ke saat"
English translation: With ample spicy green chilies
Ordering example: I'd like to order chana masala (aka, chickpeas) mirchon ke saat.

[Full disclosure: Saini is my husband.]

Photo credit: Chana masala topped with green chilies. Photo by Anne Noyes Saini.

How To Order Authentically Spicy Indian & Pakistani Food

If you've ever tried to order a spicy dish in a restaurant and been refused (or served a clearly less spicy version) -- this series of audio features on Chopsticks + Marrow is for you!

http://chopsticksandmarrow.com/tag/audio-guide/

The audio pieces in this series demonstrate phrases in several relevant languages (e.g., Korean, Thai, Spanish, Hindi, etc.), which can be used to navigate ordering situations fraught with tricky cultural and language barriers.

In this installment: Nongnoi, owner of Thai Thai Grocery (www.facebook.com/thaithaigrocery) in Elmhurst, Queens, shares several phrases in Thai that will help ensure your next Thai meal is spiced to the max:

http://chopsticksandmarrow.com/2013/12/how-to-order-authentically-spicy-thai-food

To ask for chili powder, say: “Kaw prik pon noi ka [change to kup if the speaker is male]” 

To request fresh bird’s eye chili, say:  “Kaw prik kee noo sod noi ka”

Photo credit: Lao papaya salad at Zabb Elee. Photo by Joe DiStefano.

How To Order Authentically Spicy Thai Food

If you've ever tried to order a spicy dish in a restaurant and been refused (or served a clearly less spicy version) -- this series of audio features on Chopsticks + Marrow is for you!

chopsticksandmarrow.com/tag/audio-guide/

The audio pieces in this series demonstrate phrases in several relevant languages (e.g., Korean, Thai, Spanish, Hindi, etc.), which can be used to navigate ordering situations fraught with tricky cultural and language barriers.

In this installment: Rain Yan Wang, 32, a native of Shanghai now living in Brooklyn, teaches us how to say "I like spicy food" in a mixture of Mandarin and English: "I like ma la shi wu."

http://chopsticksandmarrow.com/2014/01/how-to-order-authentically-spicy-chinese-food/

Photo credit: Shui zhu yu (Sichuan water poached fish) at the Golden Mall, Flushing, Queens. Photo by Peter Cuce.

How To Order Authentically Spicy Chinese Food

If you've ever tried to order a spicy dish in a restaurant and been refused (or served a clearly less spicy version) -- this series of audio features on Chopsticks + Marrow is for you!

chopsticksandmarrow.com/tag/audio-guide/

The audio pieces in this series demonstrate phrases in several relevant languages (e.g., Korean, Thai, Spanish, Hindi, etc.), which can be used to navigate ordering situations fraught with tricky cultural and language barriers.

In this installment: Ignacio Morales, 30, a native of Guanajuato, in Central Mexico, who now lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, shares phrases in Spanish that will help you order your next Mexican (or Peruvian...or Puerto Rican) meal spiced to the max.

http://chopsticksandmarrow.com/2014/02/how-to-order-authentically-spicy-mexican-food/#more-1594

Can you make my food spicy?:
¿Lo (it -- aka, my food) / puede hacer (can be made) / picante (spicy)?

Can you make my food a little bit spicy?:
¿Lo (it -- aka, my food) / puede hacer (can be made) / un poquito (a little bit) / picante (spicy)?

Do you have a spicy sauce?:
¿Tiene (Do you) / una salsa (sauce) / picante (spicy)?

Photo credit: Guacamaya (fried pork skin + avocado + spicy pico de gallo on a bun). Photo by The Mija Chronicles (http://www.themijachronicles.com/)

How To Order Authentically Spicy Food in Spanish

If you've ever tried to order a spicy dish in a restaurant and been refused (or served a clearly less spicy version) -- this series of audio features on Chopsticks + Marrow is for you!

chopsticksandmarrow.com/tag/audio-guide/

The audio pieces in this series demonstrate phrases in several relevant languages (e.g., Korean, Thai, Spanish, Hindi, etc.), which can be used to navigate ordering situations fraught with tricky cultural and language barriers.

In this installment: Kedija Sraje, 30, a native of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and now a cook at Bunna Cafe (http://bunnaethiopia.net/) in Bushwick, Brooklyn, shares a phrase in Amharic that will help you spice up your next Ethiopian meal with fiery daata sauce (shown here) and piquant spice blends, like mitmita and berbere.

http://chopsticksandmarrow.com/2014/02/how-to-order-authentically-spicy-ethiopian-food/

Photo credit: Daata. Photo courtesy of Bunna Cafe.

How to Order Authentically Spicy Ethiopian Food

Fire-breathing beast -- or source of my morning coffee? Funny how our world can *sound* so different than it looks.

Heard Not Seen: Office Coffee Maker

If you've ever tried to order a spicy dish in a restaurant and been refused (or served a clearly less spicy version) -- this series of audio features on Chopsticks + Marrow is for you!

chopsticksandmarrow.com/tag/audio-guide/

The audio pieces in this series demonstrate phrases in several relevant languages (e.g., Korean, Thai, Spanish, Hindi, etc.), which can be used to navigate ordering situations fraught with tricky cultural and language barriers.

In this installment: Kamala Gauchan -- owner of Dhaulagiri Kitchen in Jackson Heights, Queens (http://www.yelp.com/biz/dhaulagiri-kitchen-jackson-heights), and a native of Kathmandu -- shares a phrase in Nepali that means "Make my food spicy":

http://chopsticksandmarrow.com/2014/02/how-to-order-authentically-spicy-nepali-food/#more-1640

Make my food spicy:
Mero (my) / khana (food) / piro (spicy) / banai dinus (make)

Photo credit: Sandheko waiwai from Dhaulagiri Kitchen. Photo by Joe DiStefano.

How To Order Authentically Spicy Nepali Food

Nowruz (aka, Persian New Year) marks the arrival of spring with festivities steeped in ancient Zoroastrian sun and nature worship. Whether you’re in Tehran or Great Neck, Nowruz is a time to clean house, buy new clothes, visit friends and family, and -- of course -- eat plenty of good food.

We spent an afternoon cooking three traditional Nowruz dishes -- Sabzi Polo Mahi and Kuku Sabzi -- with Saeed Pourkay, owner and chef of Taste of Persia NYC (https://www.facebook.com/TasteOfPersiaNYC), a tiny but distinguished Persian food operation tucked into the front of a Flatiron pizza joint.

Check out the full feature + photo slideshow on Serious Eats:
http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2014/03/cooking-with-taste-of-persia.html

And get Saeed's Nowruz recipes -- for Sabzi Polo Mahi and Kuku Sabzi -- on American Food Roots:
http://www.americanfoodroots.com/features/nowruz-offers-renewal-and-special-foods/
Photo credit: Saeed Pourkay. Photo by Mark Rinaldi.

Cooking for Nowruz with Saeed Pourkay of Taste of Persia NYC

Stelios Papageorgiou, 55, recalls how he started his cooking career, after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 forced his family to flee south and take refuge in an abandoned hotel in the Cypriot resort town of Ayia Napa. He and his wife Dora are now the owners of Zenon Taverna in Astoria, Queens.

Read the feature about the Papageorgious and their Cypriot cooking on Serious Eats: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/06/cyprus-grilling-zenon-taverna.html.

Photo credit: Stelios (left) and his wife Dora (back center) are shown here, with their daughter and a friend in 1992, just four years after they took over Zenon Taverna. Photo courtesy of Zenon Taverna (http://zenontaverna.com/).

A Refugee Chef's Story: From Cyprus to Astoria, Queens

Photo: Lisa Rose / NJ Advance Media for NJ.com: http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2014/10/gay_square_dancing_convention_to_be_held_in_iselin_later_this_month_hundreds_of_dancers_expected.html

Keeping Square Dancing Alive (and Gay) in NYC

A short audio doc produced for www.workingnow.org: Most 30-year-olds spend their days working in front of computers. Giancarlo Arcieri, 35, spends his plying wood with knife in his Midtown Manhattan violin shop. His father Carlos Arcieri, also a violin maker, taught him the trade, and Giancarlo made his first violin when he was just 19 years old. The key to good violin making? A love of knives.

Photo credit: Giancarlo Arcieri. Photo by Renan Dario Arango.

WorkingNow.org: Giancarlo Arcieri, Violin Maker

Debra Klaber, 60, of Washington Heights, Manhattan, recalls her mother's Eastern European baking traditions -- which she has passed down to her daughter. 

"I guess dessert has been my upbringing," Klaber jokes.

Photo credit: Paul J. Hintersteiner (left) and Debra Klaber (right). Photo by Emon Hassan, courtesy of Narratively.

Forgotten Foods of NYC: "I Guess Dessert Has Been My Upbringing"

Christina Lam, 68, of Chinatown, Manhattan, grew up in Hong Kong and moved to New York to work in a garment factory on East Broadway. She recalls her adjustment to American food. 

"We have many Chinese vegetables, like bok choy and Chinese spinach and we could not find here." she says. "It [was] a different way of eating."

Photo credit: Photograph from The Rice Bowl, NYC, 1950. Courtesy of Marcella Dear, Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) Collection.

Forgotten Foods of NYC: Learning to Cook and Eat in America

Hilda Baumol, 89, of Battery Park City, Manhattan, recalls two memorable and long-shuttered New York City restaurant chains.

On automats: 
"A little door opened...and you took your food. Then these mysterious hands would come from behind and refill it," Baumol says. "It was very good food. They made baked beans unlike anything you have ever tasted."

Photo credit: Hilda Baumol. Photo by Emon Hassan, courtesy of Narratively.

Forgotten Foods of NYC: Automat Baked Beans and Childs' Chocolate Syrup

Monte Malach, 85, of Battery Park City, Manhattan, remembers a time when soda fountains occupied any busy street corner in New York City.

"Every business corner in Brooklyn and Manhattan always had a soda fountain," Malach says. "I think they started to disappear in the late 50s and definitely [were] gone by the 60s."

Photo credit: Monte Malach. Photo by Emon Hassan, courtesy of Narratively.

Forgotten Foods of NYC: Soda Fountain Memories

Nancy Soong, 90, of Battery Park City, Manhattan, recalls the foods of her childhood in Hong Kong.

"Instead of making noodles by machine [in Hong Kong], they use handmade noodles. It's sort of a labor of love," Soong explains. "They come out about 15 inches long -- every single one by hand. Somehow it's different from any noodles I have tasted."

Photo credit: Photograph from The Rice Bowl, NYC, 1950. Courtesy of Marcella Dear, Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) Collection.

Forgotten Foods of NYC: Missing Hong Kong Handmade Noodles & Winter Melon Soup in NYC

World-class judo athletes train in humble surroundings in a quiet residential neighborhood in Queens.

Photo credit: Arkadiy Aronov, via Spartak Sports Club in Rego Park, Queens (http://www.spartakjudo.org/).

A Basement in Queens

John Franklin Noyes, 93, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, reflects on his life and experiences growing up on a homestead in Wyoming. 

View the full Audio Slideshow at http://www.cityspoonful.com/wp-content/publish_to_web_JohnFNoyes/. (Full disclosure, Noyes is my grandfather.)

John Franklin Noyes - Cheyenne, Wyoming - 2011

Olga Colon, 86, of Manhattan's Lower East Side, arrived in New York City -- from Puerto Rico -- when she was 18 years old. 

Over the years Colon managed to keep cooking the foods she loved growing up in Puerto Rico: pasteles (a steamed packet stuffed with mashed green plantains and stewed meat), rice pudding, sofrito (a blended mix of seasonings and spices used to flavor a dish), even roasted pork. But it wasn't easy.

"You cannot find bananas, no plantains, no nothing. But then they start [a grocery store] in Orchard Street...Spanish people bring a place and they have everything," Colon says. "On Orchard Street everything is bars now. Maybe one place is still there."

Photo credit: Olga Colon. Photo by Emon Hassan, courtesy of Narratively.

Forgotten Foods of NYC: Cooking Puerto Rican Comida on the Lower East Side

Longtime New Yorkers recall a bygone era of NYC when eating out was a rare luxury, and eateries that vanished long ago -- automats, Nedick's (hot dogs), and Gloria Pizza (Flushing) -- reigned supreme.

This piece, featured on Narratively (http://www.narrative.ly/hidden-history/forgotten-foods-of-new-york/), incorporates interviews with Hilda Baumol, 90, of Battery Park City; Monte Malach, 85, of Battery Park City; Debra Klaber, 60, of Washington Heights; and Olga Colon, 86, of the Lower East Side.

Photo credit: Hilda Baumol (left) and Monte Malach (right). Photo by Emon Hassan, courtesy of Narratively.

Narratively: "Eating Out" in Old New York

Paul J. Hintersteiner, of Washington Heights, Manhattan, describes a very different era of food shopping and home cooking -- during his childhood in Yorkville's large German community. 

"The milkman came everyday...and you had the guy going around selling fruit on the wagon," he recalls. "We did shopping, but a lot of stuff was stuff that you...didn't have to refrigerate because...you just had an icebox."

Raised by parents who both made their living cooking in New York City restaurants, Hintersteiner is also a trained chef (a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America).

"[Cooking] was handed down the line...it was in my blood I guess," Hintersteiner says.

Photo credit: Paul J. Hintersteiner. Photo by Emon Hassan, courtesy of Narratively.

Forgotten Foods of NYC: "Well Yes We Have No Bananas Today!" -- Food Shopping in Old New York

Margot Karp, 86, moved with her family to Washington Heights, Manhattan, in 1939  to escape Nazi Germany. 

Karp fondly recalls her mother's strudel-making in her childhood home in southern Germany. 

"It got rolled out in sheets and then you put it down and you pulled the dough and stretched it as far as you could," she says. "They were good at it. That was a favorite dish."

But when Karp arrived in New York City as a refugee at age 14, she embraced American food and culture.

"My drive was to be as American as could possibly be as quickly as possible," she says. "I think my parents accused me of wanting to be too much like everybody else...[but], for me, being told by my parents that I was too American was just what I wanted to be."

(This piece is also featured on American Food Roots: http://www.americanfoodroots.com/50-states/learning-to-eat-roast-turkey-a-jewish-refugee-remembers/)

Photo credit: Margot Karp. Courtesy of Margot Karp.

Forgotten Foods of NYC: Learning to Like Roast Turkey -- Memories of a Jewish Refugee Childhood

Anne Noyes Saini edits economics books by day. In her free time she writes about (and produces audio journalism about) food culture, immigration and the elderly in New York City—especially in Queens, where she lives. She has a Master’s Degree in Journalism from New York University and has contributed to Narratively, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, WNYC-FM, WBUR-FM, and City Limits magazine. Find more of Anne’s work on her food + culture website, City Spoonful (www.cityspoonful.com). 

AnneNoyesSaini

Popular tracks