Years ago I had a decently-curated set of bookmarks of sites where I'd found recipes for specific cuisines and I figured I could trust the source... by which I mean that if I'm looking up a Cajun recipe like a shrimp étouffée, I'm not going to just take the word of a random housewife in Wisconsin (no matter how good the SEO is on her blog... sorry Ashley) or even a home cook you can recognize is a huge foodie by the number of trips they've taken to Louisiana. I don't necessarily doubt their skill, but you undoubtedly get a better starting point for must-have ingredients, important techniques, and trustworthy brands from people who've grown up as a part of the culture the food comes from.

In any case, I lost that collection during the pandemic after dealing with one computer issue or another, and a few that I had committed to memory seem to have gone down. I'm trying to rebuild it now - any recommendations?

Here's some of what I have saved:

Chinese - Chef Wang
Guyanese - Alica at Alica's Pepperpot
Italian(-American) - Not Another Cooking Show
Jamaican - Feed and Teach
Japanese - Nami at Just One Cookbook
Korean - Maangchi the OG, or Seonkyoung Longest
Thai - I used to check ThaiTable but it looks like it's not around anymore?! At least it's archived pretty well
Trinidadian - Cooking With Ria and Foodie Nation

So, any suggestions? Feel free to recommend any specific cookbooks as well. I'm still looking for some resources for the huge cuisines like Mexican, Indian, Chinese... I remember I also found a great YouTube channel years ago with a Vietnamese auntie that may have had an actual cooking show in Vietnam, and I think it even had English subtitles, but now I can't find it for the life of me.

So I recently got back from a very comforting trip to my motherland in Taiwan. I always joke that when I get back from Asia my Chinese gets better by a lot.

One thing I kinda wish I was better at was reading Traditional Chinese, since it's one of the barriers I have for fully communicating with my family and dimishes my confidence when navigating Taiwan.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fluent in speaking, I've had full on conversations with native Taiwanese and they're always surprised that I'm from America.

At the same time I feel like I should be keeping up with the news and general day to day life in Taiwan, since I plan on visiting more often because my grandparents are getting older and I really miss the country a lot.

I know we have a couple of people who are in East Asian countries/Taiwanese/Taiwanese-adjacent, I was wondering if y'all had any suggestions on things like news channels on YouTube or day in the life content that I can follow along with and match characters to practice my reading a bit. I can read at maybe a kindergarten level if that helps LOL.

I really like the "Broccoli in Garlic Sauce" dish offered in Chinese takeout restaurants.

I have a few big Asian food markets near me.

Is it possible to buy the garlic sauce the takeout places use in a jar? If so, what would it be called? I imagine there is more than one type of jarred sauce called "garlic sauce" in the world.