A Spoonful of Ginger

What a way to spend an evening! Last night I was fortunate to have a media pass to the Joslin Diabetes Center A Spoonful of Ginger event at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

A Spoonful of Ginger is a tasting of food from the Boston area’s most renowned chefs to benefit the Asian American Diabetes Initiative (AADI) at the Joslin Diabetes Center.

Joslin Diabetes Center’s AADI Web site is a one-stop comprehensive diabetes resource dedicated to Asians and Asian Americans affected by diabetes. Available in multiple Asian languages (English, Chinese and Japanese currently), this site offers innovative and interactive tools that are culturally relevant to help make diabetes management an easier part of life.

I didn’t know this prior to being invited to the event, but diabetes is a very rapidly growing health challenge among Asians and Pacific Islanders who have immigrated to the US. Joslin aims to not only work towards finding a cure but also to make diabetes in its patients more manageable.

After meeting Michelle on the train, we headed to the Museum of Fine Arts where we snapped a few shots of the majestic museum before heading inside.

Once inside, we saw Chelsee and Susie from We are not Martha and checked in at the media table and then got started making our way around the beautiful Art of the Americas wing at the MFA.

There were so many tables featuring exquisite food that I certainly didn’t get to them all. I’ll share the highlights, and for more, maybe I will see you at A Spoonful of Ginger next year.  

We had a nice chat with Chef Jose Duarte of Taranta as he made us lamb tamalitos. Chef Duarte spoke to us briefly about his use of QR codes ON his food to share information on things like the origin of the fish. Chef Duarte is a leader in not just using QR codes but in  the green restaurant space. I have never eaten at Taranta, but based on our interaction with him and the delicious tamalito, I need to make a Taranta visit happen soon!

Flour Bakery and Myers + Chang were both well-represented, both in the food sense and the honoree sense. Joanne Chang was one of the evening’s honorees.

Flour’s Pavlovas were simply gorgeous.

Fried catfish strips from Darryl’s Corner Bar and Kitchen. Darryl’s is another restaurant I have been meaning to try, and their fried catfish with a spicy Russian-dressing like dip definitely left me wanting more.

A Spoonful of Ginger offered many tables of beautifully presented food, but one of my favorites, both for unique flavor and presentation, were Changsho’s green tea infused deviled eggs.

We couldn’t pass up the Blue Ginger table, where Chef Ming Tsai was busily prepping gingered sweet potato soup. 

It was divine.

I also sampled this chilled lemongrass chicken with vermicelli and a side of peanut sauce, some of my all time favorite flavors.

Bravo at the MFA was my last stop. A fluffy Pavlova topped with pineapple, with a drizzle of basil-infused syrup was the perfect way to end an evening of tasting. I expected this to be crunchier than it was, but it was light and airy. . . and got all over my face. You can’t take me anywhere.  

From the elegant space in the Art of the Americas wing, to the many gracious and welcoming chefs and event staff, to the tasty samples, A Spoonful of Ginger was a great way to spend an evening mingling and eating while learning about the challenge of diabetes in the Asian-American community.