April 18, 2016 RECIPE / A.C.E. THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 13 A.C.E. CALENDAR Continued from page 12 created in response to a car bombing on Baghdad’s ancient booksellers’ street on March 5, 2007. A discussion follows the poetry reading. For info, call (503) 786-7580 or visit . “Decked-Out” RICE REPLACEMENT. Smoked Salmon and Parsnip “Rice” Sushi Rolls are seen in Concord, New Hampshire. Finely chopped and sea- soned raw parsnips can make a surprisingly delicious alternative to traditional sushi rice. (AP Photo/J.M. Hirsch) Can parsnip “rice” sushi hold its own against the real deal? By J.M. Hirsch AP Food Editor H YDE PARK, N.Y. — As hauntingly good recipes go, anything with parsnips as the main ingredient seems an unlikely candidate. Except for this one. During a recent meal at Pangea, a so-called “vegetable- forward” student-run restaurant on the campus of The Culinary Institute of America, I was served a sushi roll made entirely from vegetables. The “salmon” was an amazing rendition made from slices of tomato. I know. I was just as dubious. Until I ate it. The rice? Made from finely chopped and seasoned raw parsnips. I know. I was just as dubious. Until I ate it. Let me put it this way: I’m a happy carnivore and I love real — really good — sushi. But these rolls were so good, I’d gladly eat them at a legit sushi bar. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say, I’d gladly have traded the entirety of the rest of my meal for multiple orders of this sushi. So kudos to the students (and no doubt their hardworking instructors) for nailing this dish. In the weeks following the meal, I found myself wishing I had more of that sushi. So I decided to see whether it could be reproduced at home. Because as lovely as the school’s campus is, most of us can’t get there just for the vegetable sushi. After reading the school’s recipe for the tomatoes — a multi-day marinating process — I decided the tomato “salmon” wasn’t in the cards for most home cooks. That’s fine. I like real smoked salmon. And since I’m not vegetarian, who cares? But the rice? That was totally doable. In fact, it takes far less time to whip up a batch of the parsnip rice than it does to prepare true sushi rice. As long as you have a food processor, the rice can be prepared in five to 10 minutes. It then can be combined with nori (seaweed) sheets and whatever fillings you like to make excellent sushi rolls. Smoked Salmon and Parsnip “Rice” Sushi Rolls Start to finish: 20 minutes Makes 6 maki rolls (about 8 pieces each) 1 1/2 pounds parsnips, peeled, trimmed, and cut into chunks 3 tablespoons tahini 3 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar 1 1/2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce 6 sheets nori 4 ounces smoked salmon, cut into thin strips 1/3 English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into thin strips In a food processor, combine the parsnips, tahini, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. Pulse for 20 to 30 seconds, or until the parsnips are finely chopped and resemble grains of rice. One at a time, set a sheet of nori on a sushi rolling mat or a sheet of kitchen parchment. Scoop one-sixth of the parsnip mixture onto the nori. Wet your hand, then gently press and spread the parsnip mixture until it covers about 80 percent of the nori, leaving the edge furthest from you bare. On the edge closest to you, arrange strips of salmon and cucumber. Using the mat or kitchen parchment to help, start with the edge closest to you and roll the nori up on itself to create a roll. Before completing the roll, wet your fingers and run them along the bare nori, then continue rolling. The moisture helps seal the roll. Set aside and repeat with remaining ingredients. When all of the rolls are assembled, use a serrated knife dipped in warm water to cut each roll into eight rounds. Nutrition information per roll: 210 calories (60 calories from fat, 29 percent of total calories); 7 g fat (1 g saturated, 0 g trans fats); 30 mg cholesterol; 300 mg sodium; 26 g carbohydrate; 6 g fiber; 8 g sugar; 15 g protein. Apr 30-Oct 2 (Tue-Sun), 10am-4pm; Apr 30, 10am-7pm (opening day); Pacific Bonsai Museum (2515 S 336th St, Federal Way, Wash.). View “Decked-Out: From Scroll to Skateboard,” an exhibit in which street art and bonsai collide. The display features skate decks painted by Pacific Northwest urban muralists in place of the traditional hanging scrolls used in bonsai displays. For info, call (253) 353-7345 or visit . Kodomo no Hi May 1, 10am-noon, Portland Japanese Garden (611 SW Kingston Ave, Portland). Celebrate children or being a child at the Portland Japanese Garden’s annual Children’s Day event, Kodomo no Hi. The family festival features a host of activities and entertainment including a koi parade, taiko drumming, a scavenger hunt, and more. For info, call (503) 223-1321 or visit . Mike Curato & Ruth Chan May 1, 11am & 2pm; 11am, Green Bean Books (1600 NE Alberta St, Portland); 2pm, Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing (3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton, Ore.). Join Mike Curato as he presents Little Elliot, Big Family, a children’s book about Elliot, who feels very much alone. As he explores busy streets, he sees families in all shapes and sizes in a city of millions and finds he has a family of his own. Also featured is Ruth Chan’s Where’s the Party? Chan’s picture-book debut invites readers to answer to the most important question of the day — Where’s the Party? — with Georgie and friends. For info, call (503) 954-2354 or visit (Green Bean Books), or call (503) 643-3131 or visit (Powell’s Books). Seattle Asian-Pacific Islander Heritage Month Celebration May 1, noon-5pm, Seattle Center (305 Harrison St, Seattle). Join the festivities at Seattle Center Festál’s Asian-Pacific Koto player Mitsuki Dazai is performing on Saturday, April 23 at the Beaverton City Library as part of a Music in Small Spaces presentation held in celebration of National Poetry Month. (AR Photo/Jan Landis) Islander Heritage Month Celebration. The event includes cultural dance groups, youth drill teams, martial arts demonstrations, art, and more. For info, call (206) 684-7200, or visit or . “Skills of the Ninjas” May 5, 7-8pm, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Stimson Audi- torium (1400 E Prospect St, in Volunteer Park, Seattle). Attend “Skills of the Ninjas,” a talk by Yuji Yamada of Mie University in Japan about ninjas who actually existed. The lecture shows what real ninjas were like, based on professor Yamada’s research in historical documents. For info, or to buy tickets, call (206) 654-3210 or visit . “May Day is Lei Day” May 7, 10am-6pm, Clark College, Gaiser Hall (1933 Fort Vancouver Way, Vancouver, Wash.). Celebrate the arrival of spring at the “May Day is Lei Day” festival. The event features live Hawaiian/Polynesian music and dancing, lei-making, Hawaiian food, shave ice, arts and crafts vendors, and more. For info, call (360) 718-2100 or visit . Pioneering winemaker finds early success in Myanmar hills Continued from page 16 statistics showing that Burmese, per capita, drink just one-tenth of a glass of wine per year. Compare that to eight bottles of wine per year for Americans, 18 for Germans, and 35 for the French. Leiendecker grew up on a family vineyard in Germany’s Moselle region and spent 24 years in the European wine business. Like Morsbach, he was looking for a new challenge and took a big paycut to come to Myanmar. “Today, there is still no real wine culture in Myan- mar. It needs one genera- tion. It takes time,” he said. “Some Burmese still drink wine like it was a soft drink, finding themselves under the table in 15 minutes.” Nonetheless, sophistica- tion is slowly bubbling up among Aythaya’s prime customers: the expanding middle class. “If you want to show that you have arrived in society, you sit in a restaurant with a glass of wine in your hand, not beer,” Morsbach says. The winemakers are also hopeful that wine and democracy will prove a good marriage, further spurring their enterprise. Once the right contacts were made and the bureau- cratic barriers breached, they said operating a 70- year-lease under the mili- tary regime has actually proved satisfactory. But Leiendecker said reforms are still needed since for- eign businesses face oner- ous restrictions, including an inability to secure loans if, like Morsbach’s enter- prise, they are 100 percent foreign-owned. “We should hope that the new government will bring in international standards of doing business,” Leien- decker said of the April 1 regime change to a govern- ment led by democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party. The main challenge ahead is to shore up enough profits to allow for the investment needed to turn out truly outstanding “new q latitude wines,” those vin- tages coming from non- traditional wine-producing countries like Brazil, India, and Thailand, where the grape is not a native plant. Aythaya found only seven of the more than 50 classical grape varieties able to adapt to the tropics, where daylight is shorter and the fungus-bearing rains are longer and more intense than in wine- producing Mediterranean climates. Morsbach said they’ve successfully wrestled with such problems and condi- tions are otherwise excel- lent, especially for white wines. Some critics agree, with R. James Mullen, veteran wine writer for Thailand’s The Nation newspaper, saying the sauvignon blanc “would hold up to almost any on the international market.” “I am convinced that one day Myanmar can make the best wine in Asia,” Morsbach said. “It’s my karma.” Vietnam warns of dire impact from planned Mekong dams Continued from page 16 than $760 million in Viet- nam and $450 million in Cambodia. Fish catches would drop by 50 percent for Vietnam and Cambo- dia, and 10 percent of the delta’s fish species would either disappear from the region or become extinct. The incomes of fishing and farming villages would likely fall by half. Laos is behind many of the new dams proposed for the lower Mekong and went ahead with construction of the Xayaburi dam in 2012 despite the concerns of neighboring countries. It wants hydropower exports to become a mainstay of its economy, which is among the least developed in Asia. The river commission said the Vietnamese report will help its own study, which was commissioned in 2011 and is expected to be completed next year. 2 5 6 6 5 7 3 3 8 4 3 8 4 1 1 3 6 4 MEDIUM Difficulty 2 5 1 4 7 3 3 8 level: Medium # 16 #25663 Instructions: Fill in the grid so that the digits 1 through 9 appear one time each in every row, col- umn, and 3x3 box. Solution to last issue’s puzzle Puzzle #14529 (Easy) All solutions available at . 7 2 6 5 1 4 8 3 9 3 4 5 9 7 8 6 2 1 1 8 9 6 2 3 5 4 7 4 5 1 2 3 6 7 9 8 2 6 7 1 8 9 3 5 4 8 9 3 4 5 7 1 6 2 9 3 8 7 6 2 4 1 5 5 7 2 3 4 1 9 8 6 6 1 4 8 9 5 2 7 3