It sounded like gunfire but it couldn’t be. I wasn’t in Chicago, I was in China. The sound was coming from across the street, not in an alley with gang bangers but a group of old men spinning their tops, an activity they call tuó?luó, pronounced tow-ah-low-ah. ?? These guys crack a whip at an old school over sized top, […]
Chinese Whippersnappers
Shruāng is wrong!
Shu?ng ? , or frost, is my Mandarin word for the day. It rhymes with “wrong”. And that’s exactly how it looked covering all the flowers on my walk through the Kunming Horticultural Expo this morning on my way to school. Coming up with goofy sentences is my approach to learning new vocab. And that giant monkey you see near […]
Chinese Funky Chefs
As a head cook, I began each morning chopping fifty onions. But not in China. Employees gather in front of the restaurant before their shift and do a quick exercise and get their cha cha on. The one guy in red doesn’t look happy that I’m filming.
Szechuan Peppercorns 花椒鹽
Hu?ji?oyán , better known as Szechuan Peppercorns, are the culinary equivalent to firecrackers. Here is a Chinese boy’s description of this explosive spice. Remember, hu?ji?oyán are not a toy! You could blow your taste buds off.
Airline Math
How do you pick a good flight to Asia? Even a good priced ticket to China makes you cringe when you press the BUY NOW button. But if it’s less than 24 hours door to door, it’s worth every penny. By door to door, that includes, schlepping to the airport and down time between connections. It even includes security checks, […]
Pickle Bucket Pancake Warmer
It sounds like one of the gadgets you can only buy at Christmas time along with a Chia Pet. A pickle pancake warmer. No batteries or assembly required. All you need is an old pickle bucket, bubble wrap, hot leftovers and a heart for the homeless. We had the idea today in the kitchen when we had a surplus of […]
Kitchen Bitchen
There are a few phrases I hate muttering in the kitchen. Today it was this: If you drop a spoon in the coffee grinder, don’t wait a week before getting it out. Here are a few other gems I hope I never have to say: #1. No eating out of the compost bucket. #2. If a clean plate touches your armpit […]
Chinese-American Test Kitchens
The four letter word terrifies me. Rice. Every time I pull a pan out of the oven and peel back the aluminum lid, I cringe. Will it be fluffy or mush? Rice is the standard by which cooks in our kitchen our measured. There are roughly seventy two hundred grains of rice in a cup, and in our industrial size kitchen, we literally […]
SWIPED!
These guys are slick. They swipe your ATM card info on Monday, then wait until the weekend to use it. That way, the banks won’t be monitoring suspicious activity. And you won’t get the SUSPICIOUS ACCOUNT ACTIVITY alert in your inbox until Monday…or two thousand dollars worth of withdrawals later. And of course, the phone number on the email in your inbox […]
Off the Grid
The words were stuck in my mouth like a dry piece of dressing. Not even the green Jell-o could help out. “No, I don’t live in a shelter. I live with people who operate the shelter.” “Are they homeless, too?” “None of us are homeless,” I tried to explain. “We live in an intentional community…by choice.” I thought about the weird […]