Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I used to like soy milk, and would make it myself every now and then.

But I recently realized that soy milk makes my period heavier than usual, reminding me of the days in my teens when I would have awful periods in which I would bleed heavily for over a week. I knew about the plant estrogens soy contains, but never thought it would affect me that way. I started to worry about what else it would do to me. So, I stopped drinking soy. I have also tried to stop ingesting it. I carefully look at the ingredients on food and soy/soy proteins/soybean oil are in *everything*. I lapsed the other week and had tuna in oil -- soybean oil. And sure enough, my period was heavy again.

I have since discovered that the so-called "health benefits" of soy were originally marketed by (surprise, surprise!) the soybean industry. I Googled around to see if anyone else was affected by soy the way I was and found a website where all of these people also realized what consuming soy has done for them -- none of them good.

I am Asian, and I used to think eating soybeans and drinking soy milk and eating edameme surely haven't affected the Asian countries that have done these for thousands of years. My Asian culture doesn't use soy beans except for soy sauce, so perhaps my genetics is slightly different. So, while the debate rages on about whether or not soy is good for you or not, I for one know that it is unhealthy for me.

A friend of mine owns the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook -- I borrowed it to try out their ultimate brownies. And the cookbook did not disappoint. The brownies were perfectly fudgy (not cake-y), chocolatey, and delicious. I hope I can win this baking book version so that I can repay my friend the favor of borrowing her cookbook version!

When I go to an Afghan or Persian restaurant, I always request a raw egg to accompany my rice.

I loathe pure yellow bananas. They make people's breath smell bad. Bananas that start to spot and brown -- they are really sweet. Love them.

I am American of Asian descent, and people thought I was dangerously skinny, too! I ate all the time, and I still couldn't gain weight. Once I hit my mid-20s, my metabolism slowed and now I can't even lose 5 lbs. even when I have the stomach flu. Therefore, I don't find Kelly Choi skinny at all or unqualified to be a host. If anything, I agree with the other commenters about wishing she'd state her opinion more. Perhaps she has stuff to say, but was edited out in favor of what the masters and the judges have to say. I'd love to see the very knowledgeable Alton Brown as a host, but he's on a competing network.