Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

We eat a beef stew over white rice. It's a tradition from when my mom was little. I think my grandmother got the recipe during her internment in world war two.

I love to cook with lemon, and green beans usually get moldy before I get a chance to cook them.. even if they are brand new from the store, I eye them with suspicion.

First let me say, there have been many.. ordering at BCD tofu in hollywood when no one spoke english and I didn't know to push the button on the table.. we waited half an hour before someone noticed us. Or when we ordered "sour bamboo" from an authentic thai food restaurant. oooh, scary stuff.. but the worst was when I was 13, my parents decided to take me and my sister to europe for a week. We had breakfast at our hotel.. and my sister who had just done a semester of french was telling us what everything was. I thought I was getting some salmon with kidney bean pie.. it turned out to be raw salmon in a jar of olive oil and a HEAP of kidneys.. no beans, just kidneys. I was mortified... and starved the rest of the day. I was 13, and it was the worst culture shock of my life..