Firepot

This is a traditional firepot. Or, well, it's actually a huo guo. Which in Mandarin translates as "fire" and "pot" so my family just calls it a firepot. :) It has space for a small charcoal fire in the bottom part, a donut-shaped bowl for food, and a chimney. The bowl is filled with soup (usually pork broth), and the table is set with platters of raw food that get cooked in the soup as the meal goes. Through the chimney is how the fire gets stirred and more charcoal added.

Food items include thinly sliced raw meats, green leafy things like spinach and cabbage, tofu, fish balls, other seafood, and things along those lines. Each eater gets a plate with some soy sauce, sesame oil, and sometimes other sauces (we use a lot of sah tsa, which I have no idea how to describe). The meal ends with putting mei fun into the pot, and a bowl on the chimney to smother the fire (if it hasn't already gone out).

Firepot is what we do for festive occasions (in much the same way that most Americans of the dominant culture have turkey on Thanksgiving). Nowadays, because people are more worried about fire hazards, they make electric versions of the pot or just use fondue pots instead. To me, that's just not the same...

Which came first? The sachima or the rice krispie treat?

A sachima is sort of like a rice krispie treat, except not with rice krispies, and not held together by marshmallows. Instead, they're sort of a flour-based poofy noodle, held together by melted sugar - though I'm quite certain I've had some made with honey. They also often include sesame seeds, raisins, nuts, and other stuff. The best ones are very moist and sticky, and freshly made in the bakeries of Taipei.

(I miss the bakeries in Taipei.)


These ones are freshly imported from Taipei to New York City, where John the Scientist bought them (thanks, John! :) ).

Aside from sachimas, I also grew up eating rice krispie treats that also didn't include rice krispies. My mother would make them with other breakfast cereals (captain crunch treats! corn pop treats!) and crispy noodles (like from La Choy; got served to the restaurant customers with the soups). Some of them were pretty good. Others, well, one could file them under "interesting." ;)

As for the title question: I have no idea. Wikipedia didn't say, and everyone else just copied from Wikipedia. T.T But I did find a blog of a western family living in Shanghai that I thought was pretty cool.

Happy Father's Day

I said profound stuff about my father last year. This year, in the face of sudden major life upheavals (more on that in a future post when I can say something organized), this is all I have to offer:

Edy's uses corn syrup as an ingredient in their ice cream! o.O Never again will I stray from my stand-by of all-natural Breyer's.

(Which is an ironic profundity (or profound irony) in itself, about finding something you like and sticking with it from then on.)

Now, back to my bowl of butter pecan...

Domino's Breadbowls: A Review

The new Domino's pasta primavera breadbowl has a description of: "Offers fresh spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms and onions mixed with penne pasta and baked to perfection with creamy Alfredo sauce. $7.99"

On the whole, I prefer Pizza Hut's pizza over Domino's, at least when we're talking about pizza places within walking distance of my home, but thought I'd give the breadbowls a try. I wasn't expecting much with the actual bread, since that would be the same as what they use for their pizza crusts, but figured the pasta might be good. So I ordered one.

Half an hour later, I'm not at all impressed.

It did have mushrooms, spinach and onions in it - but the latter two were barely cooked. That was okay for the spinach, not so much for the onions. There wasn't very much spinach or onions in the thing, maybe about five little pieces of each. There were no tomatoes at all. There was, however, a whole lot of bacon (and, oddly, a piece of green olive). At first I was okay with that, since I'd pondered getting them to add sausage, but decided against spending extra money until I found out how good the rest of it was. However, there was so much of it that (combined with the oversalted cheese sauce) the whole thing was way too salty.

As for the bread. As I said, I wasn't expecting very much. However, I was expecting it to be all the way cooked. This one is distinctly doughy on the inside, and as far as I can tell it never did rise up to surround the pasta with tasty oven-baked goodness like the box says it would. That, added in with the near-raw onions and barely steamed spinach, makes me think they need to work out their cooking method for these things a bit more.

Then there's portion size. It's ridiculously small for the price I paid. For $7.99 at a sitdown Italian restaurant serving real pasta, I'd get two to three times as much food. This breadbowl had maybe five total bites of pasta in it, total.

So, in conclusion: $7.99 (plus tax) down the drain and I'm still hungry, and now must drink lots of water. And I guess I'll stick the empty breadbowl in my toaster oven and see if I can get it all the way cooked.

Dare I try one of their new oven-baked sandwiches? The bread looks like it's something different from their pizza crust bread, at least. Maybe some other time...

Why I'm not smart enough to be a restauranteur

Food stamps can only be used to buy ingredients and raw food, not cooked food, and therefore can't be used in restaurants.

Some people with food stamps may not be able to cook food - e.g. broken stove, no stove, lack of electricity or gas to stove.

Seafood markets are primarily sellers of raw food. They therefore take food stamps.

Many seafood markets in the U.S. southeast will also prepare and cook food upon request. Officially this is a side service.

Some friends of mine (formerly the owners of a Chinese takeout) own and run a seafood market. It's located in a poor part of town. They will fry, steam, or boil nearly everything they sell (for a small fee).

The end result:

There is no actual difference between their seafood market and their Chinese takeout from an order-taking/food-passing perspective, except that nobody ever writes any of the orders down. T.T

There is a big difference at the cash register. Because food stamps can't be used for cooked food, the cooking fee must be charged separately as cash - which can get really complicated with the whole not writing anything down thing. But only to me, because everyone else there can do it in their heads. TT.TT

Soup Without Cornstarch

Today I ordered some egg drop soup from a drive-thru Chinese takeout (not the one I worked at), and asked for it to be made without any cornstarch.

The lady at the window remarked that the kitchen staff prefer it that way too. She had never tried it that way herself, but now she was curious.

I told her that the reason cornstarch is added is because Americans like it that way. Americans prefer their broths and sauces to be thick, so Americanized Chinese food has cornstarch in everything. But Chinese people themselves prefer thin and watery.

("Americans" is the term that Chinese communities use amongst themselves to refer to white people. That or "foreigner" - as in foreign to China. The thought that it doesn't technically apply when all people mentioned are living in America, never really comes to mind. (Black people are just called "black people."))

Of course, then I had to start saying "non-Asians" in order to make sense to the window lady, who was white. I probably still managed to offend her. Doh.

On consumer surveys

Dear Shopper,

Once in a while we carefully select individuals in your community - those whom we feel represent the smartest, most value conscious shoppers. Then we use some of our research budget to find out exactly what these smart shoppers really want.

If our hunch is right, you are such a person.

[...]

When you speak your mind, better products get to market. The companies are happy. Consumers are happy. It's really that simple.

[...]

Sincerely,

Letter with a Consumer Survey where 90% of the Products Don't Apply To Me

I really only have one thing on my mind at the moment. Russer's roast beef was the most awesome pre-packaged deli-sliced roast beef EVER. It was the only one that didn't include sodium nitrite as an ingredient, and the taste was outstanding. It has disappeared from all of my local grocery stores. If the reason it's gone is because Russer has stopped making it, then the opinion on my mind is that they should BRING IT BACK.

I think that covers it.

Beyond that: I used to get paid in cold, hard cash to do these surveys. Now all that's on offer is coupons to products that I don't use, and auto-entries into sweepstakes. I much preferred the cash.

Fusion Cuisine? or Melting Pot?

Across the street from me is a restaurant called the Cajun Cafe and Grille. The menu is:

chicken wings

sesame chicken

blackened chicken

bourbon chicken

teriyaki chicken

teriyaki shrimp

choice of white rice, plain fried rice, shrimp fried rice

choice of one veggie (cabbage and carrots, fried potatoes, mac-n-cheese, corn, green beans, lo mein)

They also sell egg rolls.

The place is run by a group of Hispanics, and the menu bears a striking resemblance to what the Hispanic demographic usually orders from the Chinese takeout. It does not have any resemblance whatsoever to Cajun food.

As I understand it, new arrivals from Latin America don't do so well with most American food. Too much cheese and such. New arrivals from Asia have the same problem, and so somehow, Americanized Chinese food is what they end up eating.

And what they end up serving too, apparently, if they run non-Americanized Mexican restaurants. It's good food, and they give a generous amount of it. But I still wish there were a place selling real Cajun food.

Soups (and some other things)

Behold! I have recipes. :) Mostly soup, some semisoup, one at the end that's not a soup at all.


vegetable beef barley soup


chicken noodle soup


spinach tofu soup


lentil chili

spiffed up ramen noodles

spiffed up canned tomato soup


canned clam chowder as a pasta sauce


lasagna

These are all on eHow, where I've been writing how-to articles since last July. I have 29 total articles so far (on lots of things, not just soups) and have made about $30 on them. Not the most lucrative, but better than I would've expected. ;)

(update: eHow and I had shall we say a falling-out back in May 2011, and now the links point to places on this blog and another one.)

Eating the Moon

Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the more important holidays in Chinese culture. It celebrates the largest full moon of the year, under whose bright light people can bring in their harvests. By the western calendar, this generally happens in mid-September.

Nowadays it's more about the eating of mooncakes.


Mooncakes (lotus seed paste filling) from John the Scientist who sent them from San Francisco, where they're sold year-round. Thanks John! :)

A mooncake is not a cake. It's a dense pastry with a thin outer crust and either bean paste or lotus seed paste filling the interior. Often there is a whole egg yolk in the middle. Bean paste is used in lots of Chinese bakery items that are available all the time, but lotus seed paste is only found in mooncakes. The latter is more expensive but also tastes better.

Mooncakes should not be confused with moon pies. Moon pies (which are not pies) are a popular chocolate and marshmallow snack item in the south-central U.S. They're yummy too. :)

Followups

1. The empty restaurant building across the street from me now has a sign that says:

Coming Soon
Cajun Grill Cafe
Bourbon Chicken !!

So. More chicken then. But at least it's not the battered and deep-fried kind, like the last two places (that failed there). If it's anything like the one at the mall food court, I'll probably eat there regularly. If not, well, I hope it will serve actual Cajun food, which the mall food court doesn't.

2. I stopped using the shoe lift.

You know how when one of your joints needs to be cracked, it feels sort of itchy and naggy (and eventually stabby) until you crack it? Well, that's what happens to an undefinable spot in the back left of my skull after a few weeks of shoe lifting. The chiropractor couldn't reach it. The backup chiropractor couldn't either. It takes weeks after I stop shoe lifting to work out on its own.

I think I'll save the shoe lift for times when I'm doing lots of touristing.

3. She is a dear, sweet little old lady. She was retired and gone, but says she found it not to her liking. Now she's unretired and back, and watching over us all once more.

4. Good things that have ended sometimes have epilogues and sequels.

Business at their wholesale seafood market is slow but growing steadily. The bun that came in February is now in China. The bun's brother, who was in China, is now here. A few of the original takeout customers have indeed found their way there. And apparently my Mandarin has improved due to those eight months of being unable to communicate with the new takeout staff otherwise.

5. The traffic light that hates me still hates me. For a while I was driving through the shopping center to go through the crosslight without having to make a U-turn. Then for a while it looked like it had changed its ways - so I lost the habit of driving through the shopping center. But it was all just a clever ploy! Now, this past week, it's back to the same inappropriate redness as before. T.T

6. Last year I was paid to skulk around a dormful of sleeping children. Last week they paid me to do it again. Next year I'm penciled in to do it a third time. Who says peace of mind is priceless?

7. Not only can I touch my toes without warming up, after today's yoga class I could touch my thumbs to the floor! Yay progress! :)

Wanted: Greater Variety of Restaurants

The restaurants within walking distance to me are:

1. A southern-style diner with late hours. Lots of deep fried stuff. Good crab stew and hot wings. Expensive sandwiches. Fake scallops. Their food quality had plummeted the last couple times I was there, so I try to ignore it.

2. A Japanese restaurant. Good but not great sushi. Run by Mandarin-speaking Chinese people.

3. A Domino's.

4. A Pizza Hut that also has a WingStreet in it. Good wings, better pizza than Domino's, much farther walk.

5. A Sonic. This is a drive-in fast food place with burgers and shakes and stuff. It doesn't usually come to mind when I'm trying to decide on a restaurant to walk to.

Then there's an empty restaurant building. The last two restaurants in it were both deep fried chicken places. They probably went under from competition with the diner. The diner's food quality has probably plummeted due to lack of competition from the chicken places.

Me, I'd be thrilled to see something in it that offers food other than what we already have in the immediate area. A Chinese takeout, for example. Or maybe Mexican - we do have a fair number of Hispanics in the area. Or if someone could pull off an Indian takeout, or a Korean takeout, or Greek. I could do with a baklava stand. Anything besides more deep-fried chicken.

The Return of My Infamous Food Posts Part II: House Specials

Nathan asked:

What's really in the 'house special' fried rice?

At the takeout where I worked, it was chicken, pork, shrimp, and vegetables. You could get each of those separately, or beef fried rice, or scallops if you wanted to pay more. We also had 'house special' lo mein, egg foo young, chow mein, chop suey, and chow mei fun. And it was possible to get sweet & sour pork, chicken, and shrimp together, but we called that a "combo" instead. (Which was not to be confused with our "combination platters"...). Then there was Hunan Triple Delight, which was chicken, beef, and shrimp. And Four Seasons, which was all four of the main meats. There were other meat combination things too that involved various forms of seafood.

To answer the unspoken insinuation in the question that you may or may not have intended: no, we did not serve cat meat. Chinese restaurants don't serve cat meat, they're subjected to the same health dept regulations as every other restaurant - which includes checks of whether food suppliers are approved or not. Chinese restaurant owners are either confused by the concept or insulted, depending on how often they've heard it. Either way it isn't very funny from the kitchen side of the counter.

The Return of My Infamous Food Posts Part I: Soups

Jeri asked:

Do you cook? What do you like to make when you're cooking for others?

I do cook. By far I'm best at making soups. They're easy because it's much harder to burn something while boiling it than by doing anything else to it. It doesn't generally matter how much of any given ingredient is in it or whether I leave it out entirely. Textures aren't very important. They keep well and freeze well (try freezing them in individual portions for high convenience). Pre-boiling prep for the kinds I make tend to be limited to washing and chopping, as opposed to making dumplings or other heavily hands-on things (that is, I'm too lazy to make kreplach, even without chicken livers involved).

For every soup recipe I've developed, the important part is what order to add the ingredients. Things cook at different rates, so they go into the pot at different times. Dried beans take a long time and therefore go in first, while green peas are best if they're barely cooked at all, so they go in just before you turn off the heat. Meat takes a long time to get tender. Corn starts out tender, then becomes stiff, and then if you continue boiling it long enough it becomes tender again. Potatoes are a firm 20 minutes, even if the pieces are really small.

Additionally, almost all soups taste better if you leave it sitting around slowly cooling for several hours so the flavors can meld together. I generally leave it covered on the stove overnight, then move the whole pot to the fridge when I get up. Leaving it out doesn't seem to hurt the soup any, while moving a hot pot into the fridge right away does hurt other food already in it.

My main repertoire these days are Beef Barley Soup, Chicken Noodle Soup, Spinach Tofu Soup, Lentil Chili, and Adapted Canned Tomato Soup. I make these a gallon at a time, and they seem to still be good after two weeks, though your mileage may vary (I have an iron stomach). I used to make a pasta sauce that I adapted from canned clam chowder as well, but then Jim Wright posted an excellent recipe for making clam chowder from near-scratch, so I adapted a version of that into my regular rotation instead. (And speaking of Jim Wright's soups, he just posted a recipe for Sour Cream Potato Soup. I'm looking forward to trying it.) Last summer I often made this bizarre rendition of a gazpacho, but I'm not sure I like it enough to keep making it regularly.

As for what I make when cooking for others: well, unfortunately, I've yet to figure that out. I had a great tandoori chicken with green beans and basmati rice, but then I ran out of the tandoori powder that made it work - and haven't managed to find that brand again (Kissan Tandoori Masala, if anyone has heard of it; my empty bottle claims to have come from Canada). I can put together a decent basic lasagna, but that's not high on the presentation score. Then there's Pasta with pseudo-Alfredo, but I've yet to make it for anyone other than myself. It's colorful and tastes good, I just don't have houseguests anymore, like, ever.

These days, cooking for others mostly means work potlucks, and cooking for something to put on a buffet line is different from cooking a meal to be served at a table in one's home. I don't have a crockpot, which takes out anything that should be hot, such as soups. I'm not practiced in salads because I don't generally eat salads unless I'm at a potluck or buffet. My baking skills aren't worth mentioning (plus we always seem to have 50% dessert dishes). Mostly I just bring a big jug of fruit punch instead.

Butter Pecan

My father's favorite ice cream was butter pecan.

We used to make fun of him for it. No matter how many dazzling flavors there were to choose from (and as kids, we really liked dazzling flavors), butter pecan was all he ever wanted. He had found what he liked, there was no more need to look for anything else, and he was happy to eat the same thing for the rest of his life.

He was like that about food in general. It had to be bland, boring, and always the same. There were the vanilla cookies that he kept in the kitchen to snack on while he cooked, all during the restaurant years. There was the honey water - which is exactly like it sounds, honey mixed with water - which we drank instead of soda. If my mother was elsewhere for any length of time (and forgot to yell at him about it on her way out), we ate nothing but fried rice every day. Pizza was always pepperoni, sausage, and ham.

He did like spicy. Once he concocted something that combined red chili oil, yellow curry, and black pepper - and it was the spiciest thing he'd ever tasted. He didn't like vinegar or anything sour; we occasionally tested this by slipping him food with vinegar in it to see if he noticed ... he always did.

Every day he ate two eggs because when he was a boy, eggs were too expensive to ever have. Of course, back then tofu was cheap and common while nowadays it's considered gourmet. To him, tofu was comfort food.

Most people remember his egg rolls best. They were very big, filled with all sorts of good stuff, and they cannot be found in any other restaurant (I keep looking). They were delicious when drenched in what's now called "duck sauce." But he was most proud of his chicken broth. The way he made it, by boiling twice and dumping out the first batch to get rid of the frothy bits, it came out a delicate, clear yellow.

He died nearly fourteen years ago, on a day early in November. I remember everything about it, from the time I last saw him at dinner (he had a big bowl of spinach soup, with two eggs in it), coming home later that evening and finding him gone, finding out what happened at the hospital, seeing him again there, the funeral a few days later and a house full of his siblings who were laughing loudly and hysterically about everything in their grief. I remember it, and I let the day pass without acknowledgement.

Instead, I celebrate his life today, Father's Day, with a bowl of butter pecan.

Lentil Chili

For the most part, I'm not a big fan of beans. I like some of them when they're made by a really good cook, but those are few and far between. When it comes to chili, I don't like any of the standard beans usually found in them - kidney, pinto, etc. So my version is a bit unconventional...



2 lb ground beef
1 small onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
minced garlic
hot peppers (optional), diced
1 big can chopped or diced tomatoes (plain)
2 cups beef broth
2 cups water
1 cup lentils, rinsed

2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
black pepper to taste
cayenne pepper to taste (leave out if there are hot peppers)

Brown ground beef. Mix in onions, green peppers, and any hot peppers. Mix in garlic. Mix in tomatoes. Add water and beef broth. Bring to boil. Add lentils and spices. Simmer 45 minutes, adding more water if necessary. Turn off heat and let stand cooling on the stove until it's at room temperature, then put in fridge overnight to let the flavors meld. Eat the next day.

Oysters

These oysters are at the edge of the river that runs past where I work.

For an attempt at scale, that tiny island of mud with the plant growing out of it is also visible as a black dot near the bottom middle of the picture on the right.

In coastal Georgia, we eat these things in regular outdoorsy parties called Oyster Roasts. First we shovel them onto a low metal table over a bonfire, cover them with burlap, and hose water on them to keep them wet while they're roasting. Then we shovel them onto high wooden tables (high, because we eat standing up) which are outfitted with oyster knives, shrimp cocktail sauce (red, tomato-based, halfway between salsa and tomato ketchup and nothing like either one), and lots and lots of paper towels. If we're being upscale, there's a big hole in the middle of the table with a trash can underneath. It's sandy and sticky and lots of fun.

(Picture on right was cropped from a picture taken by a coworker.)

Couscous Concoction

This is one of those meals I made in a "gee, I wonder what happens if..." fashion. I had half an onion and a plum tomato to use up, plus a bunch of other random things in the fridge. It came out well, so I thought I'd share.

half a cup corn
everything else diced to the same size pieces as the corn:
One carrot
Half an onion
One plum tomato
One medium-sized red potato

also:
one pint beef broth
one cup couscous
shredded sharp cheddar
freshly ground black pepper
one tablespoon corn oil

In a saucepan, fry in corn oil until softened:
carrot
onion
tomato
potato

Add beef broth right after mixing in the potato. Bring to boil. Add corn. Bring to boil again. Add couscous and black pepper. Cover and turn off heat. Let stand for 5-10 minutes. Serve with cheddar.

If I'd actually planned ahead, I would've started by frying up some diced bacon, then used its grease instead of the corn oil. Good quality ground pork probably would've worked well too.

The taste of duck

Duck tastes nothing like chicken. The meat has a texture and appearance more like pork, except darker. The taste? Like mud.

I've only eaten one other thing that has a comparable taste, and that was mullet (the fish, not the hair). Ducks and mullet are both mud sifters.

Beef Barley Soup

This is my one soup that has always gotten rave reviews from everyone who has ever tried it. I make a gallon at a time.



5 small red potatoes
5 carrots
5 celery stalks
a small onion
a small carton of mushrooms
stir-fry beef (I don't like stew beef; too much fat)
1 cup barley (not instant/quick-cook barley!)
some corn (I use frozen; just don't use canned)
some peas (I use frozen; just don't use canned)
some green beans (I use frozen; just don't use canned)
one gallon beef broth (If it's canned, like Swanson's, I would recommend a 2 cans broth : 1 can water ratio because otherwise it's too salty.)

paprika
black pepper
cayenne pepper
Worcestershire sauce

1. Cut the beef into small pieces. Brown in the bottom of the soup pot with some corn oil. Dice the onion and slice the mushrooms. Add those in too. Saute'.

2. Add the beef broth. Bring to boil.

3. While it's heating up, wash the carrots and celery and chop into small pieces.

4. Rinse the barley and dump it in when the water is boiling. Stir.

5. When it boils again, dump in the corn and green beans. Stir.

6. When it boils again, dump in the carrots and celery. Turn the heat down a bit so it's not boiling as fast. Stir occasionally.

7. Chop up the potatoes. About an hour after you put in the barley and brought it to the second boil, dump in the potatoes. Stir.

8. Twenty minutes later dump in the peas and turn the heat off. (I have an electric stove. If yours is gas, let it come almost to a boil again before turning it off.) Stir. Sprinkle in copious quantities of black pepper and paprika. Not as much cayenne (it's not intended to be super spicy - just give it a bit of a kick). A couple dashes of the Worcestershire sauce, though I've left this out before without any huge difference.

9. Stir and cover. Let it sit on the stove slowly cooling overnight. Put it in the fridge the following morning. Eat for lunch. :)


That last step about leaving it out overnight may sound scary but I've never killed anyone with my soup by doing that. ;) You can stick it in the fridge directly if you want, but you might end up endangering all the other food in there by putting in something that big and hot right away.

Also, it's important to let the flavors blend together. You can eat it right after you're done adding the spices, but it won't taste right at that point. (It'll be edible and all... the full flavor just doesn't show up until the next day.)

The order of vegetables as stated above is important too. Stuff will cook at different rates. It took me a while to work out exactly what order to do it. Total cooking time has to be at least an hour and a half or the beef won't be tender enough.