Cooking: I can haz it

[oyceter]

I started learning how to cook around when I graduated from undergrad, for the obvious reasons, but I didn't really try it much until around 2005, when I was inspired by coffeeandink's forays into cooking to try myself. And then grad school hit, in which I would cook and wrap dumplings during the first month of each semester and gradually move toward take out, EZ Mac, and pizza as the semester wore on.

I enjoy cooking, but it may be one of those things I enjoy more when I have a lot of spare time; when I get a job again, we'll see how much I keep doing it! But so far, I feel like I've been learning how to cook all over again in the past few months. On the plus side, I think I've actually gotten to the point when I can kind of stare at the fridge and throw things together, which was my target way back when.

The really big difference, though, is that I've finally learned how to cook Chinese food.

I tried when I first started to cook, but I didn't trust most English cook books, and despite watching hours and hours of Good Eats, I had zero knowledge of the basics of Chinese cooking. As such, I could make around 3 dishes, and they all didn't taste very good. I eventually ended up mostly making vegetarian and Mediterranean inspired food when I took up cooking in 2005, largely due to the recipes my flist was posting.

For some reason, I thought I should just know how to cook Chinese food somehow, and not from recipes. I also have not the best relationship with my mother, which meant making her talk me through everything wasn't always feasible. (Sometimes I can deal, and sometimes it is just too much contact; also, as usual, please no advice or suggestions on dealing with my mom.) I got a few tidbits from conversations with my mom, but always in bits and pieces, and it was especially difficult translating ingredients from Chinese to English. Ranch 99 makes this less difficult, because the signs are often bilingual, but it's still a little frustrating. I mostly gave up after a while.

In 2008, before starting grad school, I spent the entire summer in Taiwan. My mom and her friends were going to cooking classes at that time, and I got to tag along. I never really put any of those recipes into practice, so I always thought I had forgotten most of it. My roommate in grad school was also from Taiwan, and she cooked a lot more (and a lot more Chinese food) than I did. I cooked some more Chinese food in grad school, going from 麻婆豆腐 and curry to 米粉, curry, and dumplings. A lot of dumplings.

My dumplings were terrible at first; my mother's reactions when she heard what I did was: "How much meat did you buy?" (4 lbs. ahahaha) "What do you mean, you put sesame oil in it?" and "Cornstarch what?!" I had made them before with my sister during Thanksgiving (dumplings are our school's Thanksgiving tradition), but mostly spinach and not so much meat. I then had a few dumplings parties with rilina, in which we cobbled together assorted online Chinese and Korean recipes, experimented with percentages of tofu and ground meat and totally vegetarian dumplings, and we eventually got pretty good at it. I watched my roommate make her vegetarian dumplings (so labor intensive!), then had a few more dumpling parties with Rilina and thistleingrey and troisroyaumes, in which we all found out the different ways we wrapped dumplings and the different things we put in. I don't even have a recipe now, but when I make them, I generally know what to put in and in what proportions. I can't even articulate what the proportions are, just what amount of green onions or ginger or garlic looks right with respect to the meat.

On a side note, I also discovered why my pork dumplings always used to be dry. I told my mom I had figured it out, and she asked me what I did. "I bought the fattier pork," I said.

"You can put in oil and water to..."

"Yeah, the fattier pork still tastes the best." (50/50 also works fine.)

Dumplings don't sound like much, but I think that process of trial and error, of cobbling together different recipes and spending time with friends wrapping and snarking over kdramas, all that made cooking something that was mine, not something I performed, which is always how I feel when I execute unfamiliar recipes. Non-Chinese food has the element of the unfamiliar; I know the techniques from Food Network and Cook's Illustrated, but I have very few childhood memories associated with them. (Except baking. But even then, we didn't bake much until high school, because no one had ovens until then.) But dumplings are something I've done ever since I can remember, from before moving to Taiwan. We didn't make them as often in Taiwan because it was so easy getting good, homemade dumplings there, but they were omnipresent. There was a period of time in high school when I refused to eat 水餃 because I got them in my lunch box so often. (Also, sometimes there were pieces of cartilage in the filling.) And then, after living in the US for a while, I had 水餃 again for the first time in a long time, and OMG. It was the Best Thing Ever. That said, I usually make 鍋貼 instead of the boiled ones, largely in case my dumpling wrapping doesn't hold up to the water bath.

I can't even tell you how many times I made terrible 米粉, from the time it was kind of pink and there was no soy sauce in Mariposa to the time I put in too many carrots and the entire thing was orange. Then my sister started sending me Chinese recipes, and a family friend who is much less Americanized than me moved here, and they cooked 家常 stuff, easy stuff, stuff like my mom used to make. And I started to as well in the past few months, using random recipes from my sister and friends, or from googling recipes in Chinese (I still don't much trust recipes in English, though this mistrust could be totally unfounded). When my sister stayed over for Christmas, we cooked for ourselves a fair amount of the time, and a lot of the cooking involved staring at the refrigerator and figuring out what we could do. (And we bought more meat than I have ever bought at a single point in my life, much of which is still in my freezer.) We did things like, "Mommy always says to do [blah]" or "Just cut the ginger into pieces and freeze them and take them out when you need," tips and tricks passed down through friends and relatives and personal experience instead of television or magazines.

Don't get me wrong, the tips and tricks section of Cook's Illustrated is my very favorite section. But it's nice to finally get some from people I actually know, to feel like part of a tradition.

Suddenly, in the past month, I was making Chinese food that wasn't dumplings. And it actually tasted pretty good. I have also learned more about cooking with meat, especially pork, although I still haven't tried stir frying it—my attempts at doing so out of undergrad were so disastrous I mostly stew. I was so surprised at making Chinese food that actually tasted good, that tasted right; I was so used to making it wrong and feeling less Chinese because of it. And even though I still like baking and making other kinds of food, there's something about making Chinese food that feels so homey and so right.

I don't actually eat Chinese food that much when I'm in the US, partly because it sucks eating Chinese food in a restaurant with just one person, partly because it makes me incredibly homesick, and partly because food in Taiwan is so cheap and so amazingly good that I'm usually disappointed with Chinese food here. And suddenly, in the past month or so, I've been eating more Chinese food than I ever have in the US, and although it still does make me a bit homesick, the comforting value is much higher. It's particularly satisfying being able to identify the nice smells from childhood as being cooking soy sauce, or 被爆香的蔥和薑. Is there a term for this in English? When you throw in the aromatics (ginger and scallion in this case) first to ... make it smell good/get the flavor out? Ditto with 把血水去掉... something about putting meat you're going to stew in water and boiling it first to get rid of the blood/fat/impurities in the meat.

But you see what I mean? I think mostly in English, although a week or so back in Taiwan brings back my Chinese fairly quickly. And I learned most of my Western food techniques from Food Network, again in English. But with things like this, I don't have the vocabulary or the phrases in English, because so much of it is from ahyis and my mom and Chinese friends, food names are from Chinese menus. And my spices and herbs are half in Chinese and half in English, because before 2008, I couldn't have even told you what spices are herbs are most commonly used in Chinese cooking. Scallion and ginger and garlic, of course, but I hadn't known much about 八角 or basil or cinnamon or nutmeg or 五香粉 or 陳皮 or what went into 滷味 (I do not actually know what this is in English. It is what you stew meat and eggs and ... everything in and has a bazillion spices and soy sauce?) and assorted 醬. I'm still not at the point where I can figure out what spice tastes like what and goes with what, but I was never there in other cooking as well.

Some of me is sad that it took me this long to learn, but most of me is just happy that I am cooking Chinese food that tastes and smells right, that I am cooking something where I know exactly how I want it to taste because I've eaten it so often, even though I'm not quite sure how to get there. I won't say I've never had that experience while cooking, because I love food, and I love eating, and I have very particular ideas of what everything should taste like, but there's a variety of what meatloaf can taste like for me, whereas with some things in Chinese food, it tastes like home or not like home. During cooking class, my mom and some of the ahyis would say that the teacher's 餃子 or her 滷味吃起來很舒服, and though I understood it before, I really get it now.

The other great thing is that so far, cooking is something I can talk about with my mother that isn't too fraught (although nutrition and weight and etc. still comes in). I am now making her hand write a ton of things she makes and mail it to me, since she hates typing in Chinese. And it's so good to I think I am finally at the point where I can get a list of ingredients and generalized instructions and actually know what to do with it.

When I'm in the US, I don't think about how much I miss Chinese food, because it makes me want to go back to Taiwan too much, or because I end up in restaurants here that aren't bad, but aren't home. And now, it feels like something has broken open, and the house and kitchen finally smell right. It also puts my mom's cooking habits in perspective; she cooked a lot when we lived in the US, but stopped making a lot of things at home when we moved to Taiwan. There are some things that are so time consuming to make that when she finally got somewhere she could buy something just as good (or better) than she could make, she stopped making it. And now I'm back in the US, and even though the Chinese food now is probably exponentially better than it was when she and my dad were grad students, it's still not the same.

Would people be interested in my completely off-the-cuff, untested, and very generalized recipes?

Also, switching between languages to type is SO ANNOYING. Hopefully I will soon memorize the bopomofo keyboard on Windows (pinyin on Mac is so much easier for me).

Comments

[littlerhymes]

I love cooking and recipe posts, I hope you post them. :D

Thanks for this post too, it rang some bells. I still find myself calling my mum for advice on how to cook a fish or choose a brand of tofu or, recently when my rice cooker broke, how to steam rice in a saucepan! (Turns out it's actually really easy.)

[oyceter]

I will definitely do so then!

Zomg, I remember when I saw my first non-Asian kitchen around college and went "O_o! They have no rice cooker...?"

I wish I could call my mom up more! Either there's the time zone difference, or, more, I balance need to know with how annoying she might be. And OMG figuring out brands! I can never do it, and almost all my ahyis live in Taiwan, so half the stuff they have isn't available here =(.

[trinker]

Oh, yes, please do post recipes, however off-the-cuff!

Do you make your wrappers from scratch? I've only ever used store-bought thin wrappers to make Japanese-style gyoza.

I remember my relationship with cooking changed radically when I went away to boarding school, because all of a sudden, 1000 miles away from home, my mother's attitude of "food is love" meant something vastly different. I loved the care packages she sent that were full of Japanese convenience food.

But I have never, ever cooked Japanese food from recipes. That's for everything else. (My brother learned to cook Chinese food via 10,000 Chinese recipes. I've been relying on extrapolating from Japanese cooking, but I suspect the results are Sino-Japanese.) I learned more about Chinese cooking by rooming in with a Taiwanese friend during my jewelry school days. Unfortunately, I had no idea about the depth of specifically Taiwanese cooking until I was in Boston and Montreal, years later. I still want to learn more culinary Chinese, so I can read the specials boards.

[oyceter]

I haven't made wrappers from scratch yet, although I really want to try! My sister said she and her friends tried one Thanksgiving, and it was incredibly labor intensive... but hopefully I will have enough people over for New Year Eve that I can try it because the store-bought dumpling skins are really just not as good. I might also just try making baozi from scratch first (my sister said those skins are probably a bit more forgiving).

I also used to complain about eating Chinese food! And then I went to summer camp in the US in tenth grade, and I had American cafeteria food for 4 weeks, and by the end of it, I was listing out all the Chinese food I wanted to eat. I can go without Chinese food specifically for a fair amount of time, but I can't go without eating Asian food for too long.

But I have never, ever cooked Japanese food from recipes.

I am jealous! I always wanted to be at that level of proficiency, except all my beginning attempts to cook Chinese food with no recipe ended in total disaster! Right now I kind of use recipes, but more to look up ingredients and a general methodology, and then I muck around.

I suspect I mostly cook Canto-style or Zhejiang-style, since my mom's family is from Guangdong and my dad's is from Zhejiang, so she tries to make Zhejiang dishes too.

[bravecows]

I'm so glad you have figured this out and reclaimed your food heritage. <3 Especially if it means you're going to be posting recipes! :D

My family's not a very cooking one -- we eat very simply at home and tend to go out for anything more elaborate, because you can get such good food for super cheap back home. Also both of my parents worked outside the home for most of my childhood. So when my friends and I have learnt to cook things we remember we often learn it on our own. Fortunately the Malaysian food blog contingent is pretty well-developed; I can usually find recipes for anything I want to make (provided I know what it's called!). The only issue is ingredients -- am too lazy to travel to Chinatown for my weekly shop, so I end up making Western food quite a lot.

[oyceter]

Ahaha, sadly, my learning to cook involves things like stir frying veggies. I always used to add soy sauce before and then wonder why it tasted different!

I suspect if I were still living in Asia, I would so not be cooking! It's so easy and cheap to get amazing food, and then there are the street stands, and... getting homesick, heh.

Ugh, ingredients! I have been getting a bit better now that my fridge is more stocked up with herbs/spices/sauces, but these few months have been running to the Chinese supermarket once a week. I'm hoping once I figure stuff out better, I can get more of the ingredients (well, meat at least) at a closer by supermarket.

[estara]

I may not cook them, but I'd love reading them ^^. Also yay for being able to cook well at all - I haven't got the patience!

And thanks for doing this thing where you have the ideographs and then on mouse-over I get to read the English and the the correct Chinese pronunciation (if that's what it is... I'm guessing).

[oyceter]

Yup, that is Chinese pronunciation! My pinyin is kind of lousy, and sometimes I get the tone wrong, and I was too lazy to look up everything after abbreviating it all too.... So... *crosses fingers* let's hope I am not misleading too many people.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Is there a term for this in English? When you throw in the aromatics (ginger and scallion in this case) first to ... make it smell good/get the flavor out?

Depending on how high the heat is when you're doing that, it could be either just a sauté, or "sweating" the aromatics -- http://www.readyprepgo.com/sweat-the-small-stuff

Ditto with 把血水去掉... something about putting meat you're going to stew in water and boiling it first to get rid of the blood/fat/impurities in the meat.

Parboiling -- you can do that both to just get something partially cooked before you finish it off some other way, or like you describe to reduce off flavors and/or skim off blood or fat from a piece of meat, especially if it's going into a soup or stew. It's similar to blanching, but with blanching your ingredient is usually in the water for a much shorter period and then you drain and quickly rinse in cold water or put on ice to make sure the cooking stops -- parboiling may take longer and you're typically taking the ingredient more or less straight from the boiling water to some other heat source.

(I do not actually know what this is in English. It is what you stew meat and eggs and ... everything in and has a bazillion spices and soy sauce?)

This sort of soy sauce-based braising? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_cooking

I think of that as "red cooking" because that was the English term used in the cookbook where I first learned there was this whole larger category of "delicious stuff cooked the same way as shoyu chicken", but judging by all the alternate terms listed just in that Wiki article I don't know if there's really any sort of consensus on what that's called in English? I've seen a lot of other pages that just call oh-so-literally "soy sauce braising". (And I need to stop looking at recipe pages or I am going to drool all over my poor laptop!)

[oyceter]

I think it's more a saute? I heat the pan first, and when water scatters on top, I add the oil, and when the oil is heated, I throw on scallions/ginger/garlic depending on what I'm cooking. I was mostly curious to see if there was a specific term re: sauteing the aromatics first. The Chinese is "爆香," which is literally "explode" and "fragrant" (really really roughly). I always figured the French would have a term for everything!

Ah parboiling, yes! I was looking it up online, and most of the references I found were for Korean and Chinese cooking (I was trying to make seollongtang), so I wasn't sure if it was an (E.?) Asian thing or not.

滷味 isn't actually 紅燒 (literally "red cooking"); it tastes more... hrm. More mild to me? I don't actually like red-cooked stuff as much because the soy sauce is so overwhelming, but 滷味 has a lot more herbs and spices. The pre-made spice pack I got at Ranch says it has star anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, basil, and bay leaves, and another recipe I has puts in star anise, Szechuan peppercorn, cinnamon sticks, cloves, dried ginger, cumin/fennel seeds, black cardamom/nutmeg, dried orange peel, licorice root, bay leaves, and white peppercorn.

You usually saute the garlic and scallion and ginger first (another recipe added shallot), and then add water, rice wine, soy sauce, stock, maybe sugar, and some salt, and then the spice pack and just let stuff steep for a few hours.

Oh! Pictures, yay!

[loligo]

"Yeah, the fattier pork still tastes the best."

My mom and I came to the exact opposite conclusion about our native dumpling tradition *g*. In fact, we were just talking about that at Christmas. Latvian pīrāgi are tiny dumpling-shaped bacon rolls (baked, made with a yeast dough). The traditional filling uses the fattiest part of bacon and hardly fries it at all; the Americanized version uses well-fried bacon and lean ham. My mom always made the Americanized version when I was little, which we all LOVED, but when we'd go to parties at the Latvian club the pīrāgi were always made by the little old ladies -- oh, what a horrible bait-and-switch for my sisters and me!

I was just looking for recipes online, and it looks like most Latvian-Americans have had the same experience *g*. A quote from one recipe blog: "I should mention that Latvians complimenting Silvija's piragi always exclaim, 'Oh! So much meat!'" But you know, I think it's not just about the greater availability of cheaper meat here -- the taste for soft fat as a prized delicacy just somehow didn't survive the trip across the ocean.

[mme_hardy]

That's a big deal in some kinds of English food, too. There are a lot of desserts based on suet, and they appreciate fatty pork for breakfast.

On the other hand, I bought some bacon at Whole Foods and although it was deliciously smoky, I fried six slices and the pan was dry. Not a single drop of oil in it. And because I wanted the grease to flavor black beans and stewed greens (New Year's Day!) I was cross.

Oyce, I am sorry to dominate your comments; mmmm FOOD! Do you mind if I link tigerflower over here, if she isn't on your flist? She is a demon Chinese cook and refers to the dishes in (bother, I can't remember the word -- transcribed? Anglicized?) English and will be able to help you with translations.

[oracne]

Great post! And I think you should post recipes. I was just thinking about posting recipes again, since I haven't done that in a long, long while.

I've heard "sweating" for when you cook the onions/garlic/whatever first and the flavor leaches out into the oil.

[oyceter]

I don't quite think it's sweating, because the heat is a lot higher and it's much faster (the Chinese uses a character for "explode" or something), but the principle is similar, yeah.

You should definitely post recipes again too!

[m_pig]

This was really beautiful to read, thank you for writing about your cooking experiences!

[oyceter]

I am glad you enjoyed it!

[vito_excalibur]

I think that process of trial and error, of cobbling together different recipes and spending time with friends wrapping and snarking over kdramas, all that made cooking something that was mine, not something I performed

Yes! I remember that in my process of learning to cook. Well not kdramas specifically, but the point at which cooking became part of my skillset, something I could bust out in response to the need to eat, rather than merely following recipes.

[mme_hardy]

I was absolutely astonished when I started cooking with my fiance (now husband) and he just made meals up. I came from a recipe family; you twiddled seasonings, but that was it. My parents are very good cooks, but traditional cookbook-style. My husband just thinks up things that would taste good together and goes from there.

[umadoshi]

Recipes would be amazing. *^^* I love this post! So informative, which is great, but it also reads like you're glowing with happiness.

[oyceter]

It makes me so happy! I've so missed feeling like this!

[mme_hardy]

This is an AWESOME post and I want every one of your recipes, please.

"I do not actually know what this is in English. It is what you stew meat and eggs and ... everything in and has a bazillion spices and soy sauce?"

Red-cooked, I think? That's what Mrs. Chiang's Szechuan Cookbook calls it.

[oyceter]

I will post them! Uh, currently my repertoire is very small, but hopefully I will get mail from my mom soon and expand it.

I don't think it's red cooked... more explanation here so as to not retype.

[rushthatspeaks]

I would certainly be interested in recipes, and thank you for the mouseover text!

I've been spending a lot of time making dumplings since we moved to Texas and suddenly in our town there is No Asian Food within a reasonable drive. I have found that making my own skins is time-consuming but not actually difficult, if that makes sense.

[telophase]

The availability of Indian, Chinese, and other Asian restaurants there goes in boom-and-bust cycles that seem to be either 2 or 4 years: what I think happens is that someone whose family is in the restaurant business comes to the university for grad school, and their family comes along and opens a restaurant, and when the student graduates, they leave.

There was one Chinese place that had a 2-year cycle that had a menu where one side was labeled Chinese and the other labeled Traditional. Mom and I immediately ordered off the Traditional side and had three people come out and ask us if that was what we wanted, because it was traditional, you see. I have no idea what we ate, because the English translation was too generic, but it was delicious!

[eisoj5]

Recipes? Yes please!

My husband and I were just talking about dumplings and bao zi and all kinds of things last night. I have six packs of dumpling wrappers in my freezer still.

[oyceter]

Yum!! Now I am so craving bao zi! They are such a comforting winter thing.

[kate_nepveu]

Hooray cooking and smelling right!

[telophase]

Chiming in on agreement with the "Recipes, please!"

[crossedwires]

I love reading about cooking and recipes, even though I don't really cook. ♥

[oyceter]

I read (and watched, and read) about cooking and recipes for years and years and years before this bout of cooking. I feel it all accumulates in the back of your head if you eventually do decide to cook (and I also get not cooking, since it takes so much time and energy sometimes!).

[troisroyaumes]

I loved reading this; it's so much like my own experience of trying to recreate my mother's recipes. My mother has actually stopped laughing at me all the time for attempting them (though she still laughs a lot as my cooking skills are not that great). Please do post recipes!

[oyceter]

Hee!! Your 떡국 tasted very homey to me, but YMMV! (Also, still impressed by the eggs!)

I think my mom is currently trying to just encourage me, since I didn't cook for so long, and so I spam my entire family with photos of what I eat. I think I will not tell her that I just made a giant pot of beef noodle soup... with beef that I think is causing food poisoning! Have tested, and it should probably be thrown out, SIGH.

[jinian]

What a great post. I'm so happy you're able to home-cook for yourself! And of course I, like everyone, want to see recipes.

[oyceter]

It makes me so happy! Kitchens!

[rachelmanija]

I suck with recipes, but I would love to cook with you some time - I don't really get cooking until I actually do it with someone who already knows how. And I love dumplings and have no idea how to make them.

[oyceter]

OMG ok we are making dumplings when you come over for FOGcon! (And if we get enough people to come over, I will make lemon souffle too!) Dumplings are kind of time-consuming to make, but if you get a lot of people together for a dumpling party, everyone takes some home, and you all sit and watch tv or gossip, and it's a fun and productive way to hang out.

[forthwritten]

This is really interesting, thank you for writing it.

I should cook more Indian food and get good enough at it that it tastes like my Mum's cooking.

[oyceter]

Thank you! Oooo Indian food YUM!

[colorblue]

My dumplings were terrible at first; my mother's reactions when she heard what I did was: "How much meat did you buy?" (4 lbs. ahahaha) "What do you mean, you put sesame oil in it?" and "Cornstarch what?!"

ohhh, this resonates a lot with some of the stuff that my mom and other relatives/friends say to me about my Indian cooking! (I am much much better at eating the food than I am at cooking it still.)


I don't even have a recipe now, but when I make them, I generally know what to put in and in what proportions. I can't even articulate what the proportions are, just what amount of green onions or ginger or garlic looks right with respect to the meat.

*nods* I don't use recipes, either - you just kind of know! And also, what you said about non-Chinese food having an element of the unfamiliar, and tips and tricks passed down through friends and relatives, and being disappointed with the Chinese food here as well as its comfort value, and knowing what something should taste like.

Anyway, this post made me smile a lot, and a lot of it resonated with me, and I think it's awesome that you're feeling like part of a food tradition and that your house and kitchen finally smell right.

[oyceter]

(I am much much better at eating the food than I am at cooking it still.)

ME TOO! Although hopefully now my mistakes are less of the "WTF were you thinking?" and more "Wrong proportion of ingredients" or "Didn't get cooking times of various things correct in relation to each other." But yeah, I told my sister and an ahyi about the 4 lbs. of meat for dumplings, and they nearly fell off their chairs laughing.

But yes, yes, to tradition and not quite feeling like you fit with everyone else's and to rediscovery of your own and etc.

[thistleingrey]

Hee, I went through a determined mandu phase, with lots of frowning at the results. And yes and hurray re: the kitchen smelling right....

I wish my father knew at all how to cook, even a tiny bit, because there are a couple of restaurants here(ish) where the food tastes kind of like nostalgia (we visited his hometown several times when I was growing up), but I have zero idea how to make it myself. All the reproduction of foodway internalization is on my mother's side. :/

[oyceter]

Oooo, yeah. I also wish both my grandmothers hadn't both passed away... now that I am cooking, it would have been so awesome to get their recipes and techniques too. I suspect I have more of my maternal grandma's because of my mom (despite the language barrier, where my maternal grandma was most fluent in Canto, which I don't speak), but every so often, my mom or dad will mention some dish my nainai (paternal grandmother) would make, and I barely even remember it.

[vom_marlowe]

Hey, speaking of Oyce recipes, I still make your mom's onion pork from time to time. GOOD STUFF. Omnomnomnom.

So, yes! Especially the dumplings, because I adore dumplings. And if you had a char sui bao stuffing recipe, I would die of bliss. Because I can't get that here. WOE. (I'll probably never manage the whole steaming thing, but if I could just the filling I would be happy. Happy happy happy.)

[oyceter]

OMG awesome! Bwahaha, I have, uh, actually never cooked that one. So embarrassing!

OOoo, I don't have a char sui bao stuffing recipe (YET), but I do have one for homecooked char sui? I've been meaning to try it myself for forever...

[laurashapiro]

This post made me hungry. I can't wait to eat dumplings with you tomorrow.

Also: the comment about cooking no longer being a performance really resonated with me. I know just what you mean.

Also also: still bitter about missing the forthcoming festivities! Wah! But seriously, I am happy to cook/eat with you anytime. Chinese food for one is too damned depressing, as you mentioned.

[oyceter]

I know, I was getting so hungry, and then I remembered we are having dumplings tomorrow! Yay!

I also love cooking as performance, which is why I like cooking for people at Thanksgiving, but cooking with my sister for just us felt like a missing piece of the puzzle, if that makes sense. And eating it... it was that scene from Ratatouille, where Anton has the dish and flashes back.

[minnaway]

Awesome post. And that is v. neat that it gives you and your mom a bit of common ground.

[oyceter]

I know! I mean, I am sure it will end up in an argument sooner or later, but it's nice for now!