Monday, August 26, 2013

What the? Why did the posting stop mid sentence? Chinese Cooking Class

I have no idea why the post stopped or how to continue the last post..but, as I was saying..brought back conch from St. Croix.  There was a time when all kinds of food stuffs could be brought home from so many places.  That was part of the fun, being able to bring things home to cook that you have someplace else..and now though so many things are available here..like

My first cooking class was held in Beijing for a month, every day, in 1989, just after Tinanmen Square. Talk about fresh..they certainly didn't have refrigerators at home..much less many with no kitchens.  I think one of my favorite ingredients was garlic shoots...they now call them snapes..or what ever..it was years before I could get them here.  We were taught to blanch them first and then stir fry..I generally like them with a little ground pork..and seasonings..who measures?  and the seasonings change with my mood.  But oh, what a pleasure.

The chef who taught the class at a very large school did not speak English but we did have an interpreter.  Sometimes we would have a slight difficulty as the interpreter was not familiar with some of the words that chefs would use in describing ingredients or how to prepare..but, it was all great as first the lecture, then his demo, then each of the three of us cooked the same dishes and he would critique and then lunch along with a number of other dishes that his Chinese students cooked for us.  Now, I did write down the basic amounts of incredients when he cooked as if you just wrote down the ingredients you would not be able to duplicate the dishes much later.  That's it for today.

Where's the Chef

Well, on top of all the rain..I couldn't remember my passwords.  I certainly hope that I am not the only person who forgets.  I had it written down but for some reason it wasn't working.  So where have I been?  I can't remember that either.  CRS?  Perhaps.  Does that mean I haven't been cooking?  I don't think so, but sometimes not really sure about that either. 

But, recently I did make the Carrot and Daikon Pickles..julienne.  That is for here although I stopped at the Vietnese cafe yesterday and had their pork Banh Mi with their Carrot & Daikon.  I did take off the fresh jalapeno but that didn't stop the slight tingle on the lipssssss....just love the fresh crusty bread.  I think I will have the same for tonight for supper since I have some left over thin sliced roasted pork sirloin and all the remainder of the ingredients.

On top of the lunch spot did stop at the Hong Kong Market and the Mega Mart...missed the Great Wall and the Hmart but perhaps will hit those this week.  There is nothing more pleasurable that 'gliding' through the isles getting whip lash looking at all the wonderful ingredients and thinking about all the things to make.  It has been years before all this has been laid out before us here...years of having to travel around the country to buy the ingredients.  Yes...Brooklyn for the Middle Eastern products, New York for the Asian, SF and LA for the Chinese (in fact that is where I bought my first cleaver, probably about, well, you really don't want to know how long ago that was).  Of course then there was the conch from