Hot and sour soup sounds so deceptively simple.  Hot. Sour. How difficult can that be?  Well, plenty, at least for this home cook.  In the past when I've made the soup, it's turned out, ehh. A few problems emerged: the delicate ...Read More

In Pursuit of Hot and Sour Soup Perfection

If potstickers are origami, wontons are paper airplanes: 10 times simpler to construct. That's partly because the shaping and crimping of potstickers is more intricate than the folding of wontons, and partly because rather than make wonton wrappers from scratch, ...Read More

Shrimp Wonton Soup

As a kid, the thought of split pea soup is revolting.  For one thing, the soup's green; it's also thick like baby food; it has the word "pee" in it (okay, different spelling, but to a kid, the words are ...Read More

Easy Split Pea Soup

Last year I wrote about meeting competitive eater Eric "Badlands" Booker at Coney Island.  Badlands once held the matzo ball eating record, gobbling 30 matzo balls in 5 1/2 minutes.  That's pretty badass, and fairly disturbing, considering how matzo balls ...Read More

Matzo Ball Soup

I talked myself into going to Epstein's Kosher Deli yesterday. Well, that's not quite accurate -- makes it sound like I put up a fight. Here's what led up to a no-brainer of a decision: 8:30 am:  Met Team in Training ...Read More

Epstein’s Deli, Lunch of Champions