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Hanover, NH

I spoke on a panel at Dartmouth College a couple days ago, as well as ran a zine workshop. New England tends to feels a bit itchy to me – something about the mix of colonial revival architecture and spring pollen and in Hanover, the somewhat overbearing J. Crew sort of whiteness. It is beautiful, though, and I had a very intimidating cruller french toast at Lou’s.

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Hourly Comics Day

Hey, ever wondered what my day looks like when I’m not travelling? Well, I participated in Hourly Comics Day, where us cartoonists try to draw what we’re doing every single hour we’re awake! Here’s mine(it was February 1st).

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lavender shortbread

I’ve been meaning to write a bit about how I eat while I travel. I love food, and surviving on a diet of ramen on the road is absolutely unacceptable to me. I stay in hostels fairly often, so a kitchen is generally available to me!

Anyway, I haven’t had time to finish my comic about road food, but here is one of my favourite recipes(I sometimes just bring the dry ingredients on the road so I can make a little treat for friends I’m staying with, or to make new friends at a hostel…). It’s really simple and portable(the food processor is not 100% necessary – just mix well), and sometimes it’s just nice to make some biscuits when you’re tired and miss home.

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Nasi Lemak, and some other Malaysian foods

I feel weirdly self conscious about writing about my home country, because I’ve been gone for so long, even if I still visit every two-three years or so. Still, during my last visit a couple months ago, I did a batch of drawings of my most favourite foods.

malaysianfood_nasilemak

Nasi Lemak

When I was a kid, growing up in Malaysia, I ate nasi lemak in the most finicky way possible. I’d eat most of the rice, eat the peanuts and ikan bilis individually and save the cold cucumbers for last. I’d avoid everything spicy. I learned to love sambal and chicken curry in the Philippines, where my family and I were expats for six years, at a resort hotel restaurant that had a Malaysian chef that would make laksa for my dad, even though it wasn’t on the menu.

I still eat nasi lemak in a very finicky way, making sure each spoonful has the right balance of rice and sambal and curry. The ikan bilis and peanuts get eaten separately, still. The cucumbers are for when the spicy gets too spicy.

I’ve tried to cook the rice many times, and it hasn’t turned out right – the coconut milk affects the moisture and it sometimes ends up too dry or far too wet. I finally got it right with the recipe from the Lucky Peach cookbook(Lucky Peach Presents 101 Easy Asian Recipes), and being absolutely reliant on my rice cooker.

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