If you’ve known me over the past year, there is a very good chance you’ve heard of my goal to cook one dish for every letter of the alphabet – I talk about it a lot. For each letter I would ask friends, coworkers, and uh… the Snapchat AI bot for ideas before setting out to Star Market or HMart where 90% of my time was looking for one obscure ingredient hidden somewhere between the Holy Grail and ranch dressing. After each dish, I would take a photo and proudly share it with people with the final goal of making this very blog post.
I recognize for some people cooking the alphabet sounds like something you might do on accident over the course of a few months, but for me it was a 15-month odyssey that exposed me to countless cultures, taught me new skills, and challenged me to grow as a person. When I graduated college, my culinary repertoire ended at scrambled eggs, box pasta, and Digiorno. I’ve come a long way since then, and with this alphabet even though some stuff turned out better than others, I’m super proud and encourage you to check out what I made 🙂
Arepas
First time trying to knead dough on my own. I can’t find the words to describe how bad this was.
Broth
I bought a whole raw chicken to make the broth from and few things compare to the grossness of that process.
Creme Bruleee
This was fun! Thank you to Max (not related) for the recipe.
Dumplings
These dumplings I made from scratch with a ground turkey / bak choi filling. I was super happy with how they tasted!
Enchiladas
This was one of my favorite things on the list. The homemade enchilada sauce was fun to make because I put in tomato sauce and apple cider vinegar and thought, “There is no way this will be edible” and in the last 5 minutes it turned out great.
Fritata
It’s just eggs baked in an oven. Epic.
Gnocchi
I have to come clean, I didn’t do the alphabet in order. Gnocchi was the second thing I ever made and my kneading skills still had a long way to go. It tasted good but those little suckers had less integrity than a US congressman.
Honey-Glazed Salmon
This was great. Slay. The asparagus were roasted with parmesan cheese and olive oil. Also, at this point expect more selfies because otherwise how will you know who made it?
Indian Curry
I’ve always wanted to make curry before, but when I finally got to it I was ignorant to the fact that there are dozens if not hundreds of curries across India and the world. I make another curry later in the list, but this was a good start.
Jambalaya
WOWZERS. I know the picture doesn’t look like much but this was freaking amazing. There was so much involved in making the paste for this and it was 100% worth it.
Kimchi
Terrible! I hate kimchi but I didn’t want to back down from a challenge. It’s hard to know if I even did it right cause I wasn’t going to like it anyway. This gave me an excuse to go to HMart for the first time though, so I’m grateful for that.
Lemon Chicken
No photo for this one but imagine breaded chicken with lemon slices on top. It was good!
Mushroom Risoto
Master Chef Max? This one was probably my favorite thing on the list. It made me discover how I love portabella mushrooms and rice with butter on it.
Noodles and Bone
Special shoutout to Karis for sharing with me a special household staple from her childhood. This dish is egg noodles and peas combined with tuna. I think Karis’s version had the actually bone from tuna fish baked in the casserole but that was one step too gross for me so it’s just tuna from a can.
Orange Chicken
Wow Max – you really know how to make a dish look appetizing. Just 6 chicken nuggets in a bowl. Nothing else. Anyway – the orange chicken recipe I used was amazing and I promise I made more than 6 and that I had rice with it.
Paella
Yummy. Next!
Quiche
YES! Amazing. I’m telling you – the grape tomatoes roasted in the oven could’ve been the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eve they were that good. And a graham cracker crust you can’t go wrong.
Ratatouille
As Chef Gusteau put it in the animated film “Ratatouille” about a cooking rat, “Anyone can cook”. Felt appropriate to try this one out and I’m happy it tasted really good.
Sushi
Dealing with sticky rice is the worst! I have so much respect for the time and energy it goes into making sushi rolls. Thank you to Rai as well for lending me a rolling mat 🙂
Tortellini
Oh yeah baby. This is my redemption for the all the mistakes I made making the dough for the gnocchi and dumplings. These were filled with ricotta cheese and were wonderful.
Upside Down Cake
If you were wondering what was the hardest letter to find foods for it… it’s U. This is technically Pineapple Upside Cake but I changed the title and lied to you so I could move on. It might not be the prettiest cake or the tastiest…
Moving on.
Vegetable Soup
Official MaxTalks.blog taste taster Rai ❤
Wonton Soup
I think this Wonton soup commemorated my familiarization with HMart because while I was getting ingredients for this I felt like a pro already knowing where most stuff was. This turned out so delicious. The wontons were filled with ground turkey, mushrooms, ginger, garlic, and green onion and the soup was mostly chicken broth with soy sauce, rice wine, and rice wine vinegar.
Xacuti
My second Indian curry was xacuti from Goa, India. It uses fresh coconut, chili flakes, poppy seeds, and onion. The actually sell coconuts at Star Market so I opened one with a nail and hammer for this dish. I messed up the texture of the curry paste but it was still the best thing I’ve tasted all year.
York Pudding
Leave it to the British to make one of the most unappetizing desserts imaginable. Baked dough with meat drippings. I thought it was gonna be like fun vanilla pudding but no, it’s really just a biscuit without the butter.
Zucchini Bread
A yummy end to a long list of food items.
You made it to the end! I know this journey has meant a lot to me, and I appreciate you scrolling to the bottom. My final thank you goes to my grandmother Bunny for gifting me “The Joy of Cooking” which was a major help throughout this process and for inspiring me with her own cooking she always did around the holidays.
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