Hansheng Lee

         Art                 Food                 Garden               ACI

The Art of Everyday Cooking

Welcome to the Kitchen
This is more than a recipe blog—it’s a living archive of flavor, memory, and cultural roots.

Here, you’ll find everything from everyday meals to deep dives into the ingredients and dishes that carry meaning.

 

Expect thoughtfully written recipes, food-focused stories, seasonal tips, and guides to ingredients worth knowing. Some entries are simple and nostalgic; others explore history, technique, or the why behind what we eat.

 

Whether you're here to cook, learn, reminisce, or just get hungry—there’s always something simmering.

Not every meal has to be a masterpiece—but it can still be meaningful. This space honors the full spectrum of eating, from fast weekday meals thrown together between tasks to artfully composed dishes meant to slow you down and savor. Whether you’re cooking with five ingredients or twenty, there’s joy in the act of feeding yourself and others. Here, you’ll find recipes and ideas that fit into your life—whatever time, energy, or intention you bring to the table.

Food is more than sustenance—it's memory, identity, and a vessel of culture passed hand to hand, generation to generation. Every dish carries a story, whether whispered from ancestors or reinvented in your own kitchen. Here, we explore those threads—how flavors connect us to where we come from, who we are, and the people we love. Through recipes and reflections, this space invites you to taste the stories that shape our shared human experience.

What we eat begins long before it hits the plate. In this space, we'll explore how to choose ingredients with care—whether from the local market or your own backyard. From seasonal picks to garden-grown vegetables and herbs, this is a space to reconnect with the roots of nourishment. Knowing where your food comes from and tending to it with your own hands is one of the deepest forms of self-care and respect for the earth.

Or: Why I’m constantly covered in tomato juice and basil.

 

There’s something about cooking in the summer that feels both chaotic and deeply nourishing. Maybe it’s the sheer volume of fresh ingredients coming in from the garden (and the farmers market when I give in), or maybe it’s the urgency of knowing how fleeting this season is—how quickly one fruit or flower fades into the next. Either way, summertime cooking becomes part ritual, part triage, and part experiment… and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

What the Garden Gives

When the garden is producing, it becomes the menu. Tomatoes are rolling in, still warm from the sun, and barely need anything to shine—just salt, olive oil, maybe a little vinegar if I’m feeling fancy. Shishito peppers are blistered in a hot pan with flaky salt and devoured like snacks. Bush beans get tossed with garlic and sesame oil for a quick stir-fry or thrown raw into salads when I’m too tired to cook.

 

Everything’s fast, a little messy, and built around freshness. You learn to eat what’s ready and let go of any rigid plans. It’s not the time for fussy food—it’s the time for food that feels like it grew just for you.

 

Cold Noodles, Herb Bombs, and the Return of the Grill

When the heat hits hard, I lean into cold noodle dishes—Japanese somen with ice cubes and soy dipping sauce, Taiwanese cold sesame noodles with just enough chili to wake you up, or soba with heaps of shredded vegetables and pickled radish. I also keep a jar of what I call an “herb bomb”—a blend of basil, cilantro, scallion, garlic, vinegar, and oil—ready to spoon over rice, tofu, grilled fish, or whatever else needs a kick of brightness. (You can freeze this too...)

 

The grill comes out, too. Summer is when I let fire do the heavy lifting: seared eggplant, skewered mushrooms, charred corn. It’s primal and simple and tastes exactly like July should.

 

Dessert? If It’s Cold, It’s Dessert.

I’m not about to turn the oven on in 90° weather unless I have to. So dessert becomes bowls of chilled fruit, frozen grapes, herbal jellies, or panna cotta if I have the energy to stir milk and not get distracted. Sometimes I make ice—just beautifully flavored ice with herbs, citrus, and flowers—and melt it into tea or sparkling water. And sometimes? It’s just popsicles. We’re not here to judge.

 

The Soul of Summer Cooking

There’s something sacred about this kind of cooking. It’s fast, yes. It’s hot and sweaty and sometimes made with one hand while the other is swatting away mosquitoes. But it’s also full of joy. Because this is food that tastes like sunlight. Like memory. Like childhood afternoons in someone else’s kitchen. Like being alive and tired and grateful all at once.

Summer cooking isn’t about perfection—it’s about presence. About what you can make with what you’ve grown, what you’ve saved, what you’ve stumbled upon. It’s about honoring the fleeting and making it delicious while it lasts.

 

So here’s to messy countertops, too many tomatoes, and the kind of meals that make you slow down just enough to enjoy the season. 

Side note: I'll be adding more recipes as soon as I find a better way of laying them out on here. But I will be putting recipes out via blog format regardless as well as regular food blogs.