Zesty, spicy and sweet in equal parts, Thai beef salad may be the ideal dish for spring. Though it might simply look like beef plunked on top of greens, its almost-invisible ingredients -- lime juice, minced red chiles and fish sauce -- lend it a flavor profile we crave again and again. Packed with protein, it also features enough veggies that one can walk away feeling a bit lighter on her feet than after, say, downing a porterhouse.

We were reminded how much we love this salad when we came upon La Fille de La Ville's photo. Why La Fille de la Ville? It's pretty literal, we discovered when we emailed her: "I'm just a girl of the town!" she exclaimed. Sounds like a typical New Orleans resident smitten with her city. She's a newbie there but sounds pretty darn enthused about NOLA's "epicurean delights." Find her recipe -- and breathless gastronomical reports -- on her site.

I posted about Shochu recently, and one person commenting noted the difference between Shochu, a Japanese liquor, and Soju, a Korean liquor. (They are similar-tasting, and some Shochu is labelled Soju for marketing purposes.) Not long ago I tried a really interesting citrus liqueur made from Soju called TY KU. TY KU is made from yuzu, an Asian citrus, honeydew melon, ginseng, mangosteen, an Asian superfruit, goji berry, green tea, Soju, and Sake. It's refreshing, with totally exotic flavors that are hard to describe because they're unlike most drinks found in America.

Let's be perfectly frank: the liqueur is quite good. In fact, it's so good that a group of six of us polished the bottle off in one sitting (it's only 20 percent alcohol, so don't schedule an intervention!). But I don't normally write about liqueurs, so in the spirit of honesty, I'll share with you why I'm raving about this bottle.

It has an LED light in the bottom that lights up the liqueur inside, taking me right back to my college days when everyone in the dorm had a lava lamp. The light makes the green liqueur glow irridescent, a perfect conversation piece for a cocktail party (it was for mine!).

Also, apparently TY KU is a celeb favorite. Denzel Washington, Patrick Swayze, Leonardo Dicaprio, Jaime Foxx, and Paris Hilton have all been spotted drinking it.

After the jump, a couple of TK KU recipes (though seriously, it goes down just fine alone).

At the San Antonio New World Wine & Food Festival last month, I ate lunch at Oro in the Emily Morgan Hotel, which is just across the street from the Alamo. We were sitting around chatting about up-and-coming food and drink trends when our hostess, Jeanne, asked, "Have you tried Shochu yet?" We hadn't, so she promptly ordered up a couple of small glasses for us to sip.

Shochu is a clear spirit made by distilling barley, rice, sweet potatoes, black sugar, or even more exotic ingredients like milk or pumpkin. It's served diluted with water, with fruit juice, or on the rocks, and typically has about 25 percent alcohol, making it stronger than sake but weaker than some spirits.

Oro has hosted several special events to introduce Shochu to the San Antonio area, where it's a new item. While Shochu has been a staple in Japan for centuries and has outsold Sake there since 2004, it's just beginning to make its way into the States. You can probably find it easily on the west and east coasts, but it will be harder to track down in middle America.

If you can't find it at your local wine and spirits store, ask if they'll order it. For one thing, it's fun and easy to mix into cocktails, like the recipes after the jump. For another, it's what our hostess calls "sake light"--a 2-ounce serving of Shochu only has about 35 calories, compared to 80 calories for a 2-ounce serving of Sake and 120 calories for the same amount of vodka.

After the jump, some Shochu cocktail recipes.

If you're prone to chef crushes, you could do a lot worse than Matthew Kenney -- and that's solely on the basis of his food. Though Kenney is now a primary practioner of the raw food movement, foodies who found themselves in SoHo during the late 1990s/early 2000s will remember him for Canteen, a restaurant that emphasized the fusion influences that pre-date his raw food conversion and are the highlight of Big City Cooking. But don't be intimidated: Kenney's magic is in revealing the essence of a flavor, an ingredient, or a technique, and thus, though it is essentially a restaurant cookbook, Big City Cooking is very easy to understand and use -- always with delicious results.

The thesis of the book is that the abundance of ingredients and mash of cultures in a city can be the inspiration for a cook's creativity. That's a great idea, and a true one, but I don't believe that fusion influences are specifically urban -- in this day of super supermarkets, including those online, one doesn't have to live in a big city to have za'aatar in one's spice cabinet or, accordingly, on one's flatbread. (In fact, most of those "urban" ingredients or techniques originated with indigenous cuisines.)

The strength of this cookbook is the dishes themselves, which are organized by technique and which highlight a diversity of ingredients. Thus there are sections on raw and steam cooking, sauteeing, grilling, roasting, and stewing. Within each are recipes from appetizers and salads straight through to desert, all of them accessible to the home cook.

Dotcomedy.com's Sean R. recently took a jaunt to Bangkok, Thailand. Being an avid carnivore, he took his camera on a long, languid lap around a market's sausage counter. Come and take a stroll with him, why don't you?


Seven Deadly Seans

Next - Midnight Sausage: Paris

In a funny post on a Seattle Post-Intelligencer reader blog, blogger Christina Hyun talks about growing up in an Asian household, and how her friends always told her that her house smelled better than their's did. On the flip side, Hyun always marveled at the huge quantity of bread/cereal/cookie products in her Caucasian friends' houses.

I can't relate as much to the cultural aspect, but as a kid, I was definitely envious of my friends' kitchens. My own mother tried to keep our diets pretty healthy, and flat-out refused to buy certain products (Fruit Roll-Ups, Ssips fruit punch, and Cookie Crisp cereal immediately come to mind). Other kids' parents often commented on my "healthy" appetite, as I downed cakes, cookies and fruit punch like it was going out of style. "Oh - my mom won't let us buy this stuff," I'd say, mouth half-full of Tastykake pie, red goo stuck to my chin. The mothers would nod warily as they added "Tastykake pies" to the grocery list.

As I got older, the rules loosened, and I heard rumors that my mom even allowed soda in the house - after I went off to college, of course. But by then the thrill was gone, and fear-mongering about obesity and diabetes had taken its place.

What about you? What products did other kids' kitchens have that made you green with envy? (Or were you that "other kid?")

Like they say, ain't no thang like a chicken wang. Er, rather chicken wing.

I realize that we're posting about main dishes all day today for Slashfood's Super Bowl Week, and traditionally, chicken wings are eaten as appetizers. However, if you eat two dozen chicken wings the way I do with a small bowl of rice on the side, you can pretty much consider these chicken wings a main course.

These wings are based on a recipe that I first manipulated out of a college roommate, who got it from her friend's mother. I took lecture notes, my roommate gave me the recipe. Now, it's a very loose set of instructions, since I first got it form a Korean mom, and there's no such thing as "recipes" for Korean moms. There is always room for customization, which I had to do last night because my guests are on a low-spice diet. I know. Could there be anything worse than a low-spice diet?

My friend and fellow blogger Joe Distefano is always going on about Asian snacks and candy. We try to beat out the other in finding the best, strangest, and tastiest Asian snack to munch on and talk about. I remember when I dared him to buy a bag of small candied crabs a few years ago and put them in a candy bowl in his desk at work to see what the reaction would be.

Well, today I ran across a tasty little snack when i was out shopping. I have been suffering from the flu related blues for a few days and had to get out of the house. Most people go shopping for clothes or power tools when they need a pick me up. I go food shopping, especially at ethnic markets. This snack is Asian Best brand "Crispy Snack Sesame Anchovy Fish." They are headless anchovies that are fried, candied, and covered with a chili powder and sesame seed coating.

They look kinda strange, these 1-2 inch long golden, shiny fish all studded with sesame seeds with red hints of chili powder. The smell is slightly fishy but the taste barely makes you think of fish at all. They are crunchy sweet at first, with the sesame taste coming through like those sesame brittle candies. Then the chili burn comes along, followed by a hint of fried fish. They are super tasty little snacks and great beer or cocktail munchies. Surprisingly they are low in fat and calories, and have tons of calcium. I can't wait to put them out as snacks at my next cocktail party.

If you're planning a fantastic Chinese feast this weekend for Chinese New Year, don't fret one bit if you're a little (or a lot) rusty with chopsticks. You could, of course, go the way of stabbing your dumplings and winding your noodles of long life with a fork, but we have a better idea. How about some chopsticks are a little easier to use?

Now, if you're a already a professional, then you might just need your own personal set of portable chopsticks. These aluminum chopsticks slide out of a fabric pouch and snap together. Not only are they pretty, but this keeps away the problem of disposable chopsticks creating waste! ThinkGeek also has a pair that screw together.

For an even more "green" Far East feast, the Bird's Eye Maple chopsticks are perfect, which are also fastened together with their very own chopstick rest. They are available from Porterhouse Crafts for $23 for two pairs.

One of my favorite items to order from an Asian restaurant is General Tso's Chicken. If you've never had it, the chicken pieces are battered and fried, then covered in a sauce that is both sweet and spicy. You'll probably find that most recipes call for thigh meat, but I personally use chicken breast - really, it's your call. Either way, make sure the chicken is boneless, and any skin or fat has been trimmed off.

I've found this dish is generally served with broccoli, though I made it with a mix of vegetables as you can see in the image above. Regardless of the vegetable you choose, served it over a bed of rice. You can find the full recipe after the jump.

Every year, over $20 billion dollars is spent on snack foods in the US, so it is easy to see why the snack industry is so interested in trying to find the next big product - or better yet, the next big flavor. Most snack products have been around for a long time and are met with only slight variations. Popcorn is healthier or more indulgent and cookies can be chewy or crispy. The flavors, however, can be used across the board in all different types of snack foods. Cheddar, for example, is a very American flavor and everything from chips to popcorn to aerosol "cheeses" come in cheddar flavor, making it one of the most popular snack flavors around.

In their efforts to come up with the "next cheddar" the snack industry uses snackologists, who observe the snacking habits of their target audience "to identify flavors the public will like and then find ways to package those flavors into irresistible morsels." A lot of research is done at restaurants, where trends are introduced to the mainstream. Chipotle and jalapeno were some of the most recent snack flavors to spring from the restaurant industry and snackologists are now pondering whether teriyaki, curry and other Asian flavors can make it into the US snack mainstream successfully. These masters of munching aren't going to reveal anything more specific just yet, but you'll know who the idea came from the ext time you see the word "New!" emblazoned on bags in the snack aisle.

After acquiring a really tasty bottle of dipping sauce from Trader Joe's this week, I realized that Asian wraps, rolls and other dipable items are found in takeout containers more often than they are made in the home kitchen. Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course, especially if you know a good takeout place, but making the food is part of the fun of eating. This is especially true of finger (or chopstick) foods.

Asian Wraps & Rolls uses easy-to-follow, step-by-step tutorials and techniques to walk you through the process of making these fun foods at home. The book spends a lot of time going over ingredients, some of which may be unfamiliar to you, as well as popular sauces and condiments, before getting into wrap construction. Recipes include Warm Mango and Shrimp Rolls, Wok Fried Wontons, Vegetable Spring Rolls and Pork and Betel-leaf Wraps, just to name a few. Once you have the basics, you can always use the methods used in this book to branch out and try your own flavor combinations.

The four nesting layers of these lunch pails were inspired by an Asian design of stackable lunchboxes. They are made of food-grad stainless steel, and are a very adult way to take your lunch to work.

The advantages to such a lunch box are mostly that the things in each container are kept separate and that the containers can be joined together and carried as one unit. While you could achieve the same type of separation with Tupperware, you won't end up with the same easy-to-carry stack. If you're not taking a lunch, the containers can be used for snacks, like M&Ms, nuts or dried fruits to get you through a long after noon. On top of that, the design is simply beautiful. The disadvantages are that you'll have to find things that fit in the boxes, so sandwiches might be out, considering each layer is 5-1/4" in diameter and 2" deep. The boxes are also not insulated, so they will have to be refrigerated if you are carrying anything that cannot be stored at room temperature. Whether the bad outweighs the good is up to you, but it's definitely a better choice if you tend to take salads and leftovers for lunch, rather than chips and sandwiches.

I don't work for Zyliss. I have used and own several of their products.

There are plenty of ways to peel garlic. If you are a garlic lover, then you probably add finely minced or pressed garlic to a dish shortly before serving, thus preserving much of the racy flavor we garlic lover's crave. If you're looking to simply peel garlic for chopping, I recommend a roller or your bare hands (cut the butt off, pinch the clove and remove skin). However, try the Asian Rose pressed onto hot pizza, or directly into creamy soups. My uncle brought me some Asian rose earlier this summer, grown in Napa. Hadn't tried it, won't forget it. I haven't had much luck growing my own...but I do use plenty, and this is the tool I turn to. If you have another press that you swear by, let me know and I'll check it out.

As for garlic on our breath, well, anything for love.

I noticed that Trader Joe's recently started stocking the type of noodles used for making pad Thai, and even though I now have a bunch stocked away in my kitchen, I can't get motivated to make anything with them. Thai cooking is time intensive and, while worth it in the end, you can't always dedicate a lot of time to cooking during the week. Quick & Easy Thai: 70 Everyday Recipes delivers recipes that you can make even when you are relatively short on time that still have all the great thai flavors you are hoping for. The recipes are easy to understand, so it is also a good starting point for someone who wants to get a feel for the basics of Thai food and flavors. One of the best features of the book is that the author provides lots of substitutions, so you will be able to work with most of the recipes even if you don't have access to a well-stocked Asian market, though some staples (like fish sauce and sriracha) will definitely have to be added to the pantry. Recipes include Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce, Green Curry Chicken with Zucchini, Spicy Cashew Salad with Chilies, Cilantro and Lime and Sticky Rice with Mangos.

For a less "quick and easy" look at Thai cuisine, try author Nancie McDermott's Real Thai: The Best of Thailand's Regional Cooking, which offers a few more techniques, more curries and some more exotic/less common recipes.