I made a dish I adore and which is featured on the cover, Dan Dan noodles. While I have certain ingredients like both dark and light soy sauce, Chinkiang vinegar and Shaoxing wine in order to make this particular dish I went ahead and purchased some sweet fermented sauce and embarked on a search for find ya cai. Ok, this is where is gets complicated. I searched high and low at every Chinese grocery store I could find and there was no ya cai, a kind of preserved mustard green. In fact one store told me they hadn't carried it in a long time despite requests from restaurants. I did find lots of other preserved vegetables and Tianjin preserved vegetable another kind of salt pickled cabbage with garlic which I used instead. It's a delicious savory vegetable that adds a really nice texture to dishes and is fairly easy to find.
Long before I was a cooker, I was a reader and a writer. I was one of those kids who had to be told not to read at the dinner table, and I was writing “novels” on my red Olivetti Valentine typewriter in fourth grade. The reading and eating experiences are paralell for me insofar as I reject “junk” in both areas of my life (most of the time). This doesn’t mean that I am re-reading all of Shakespeare on a monthly basis, any more than I eat nothing but seared Ahi tuna and flageolets with shaved truffles. I read all of the Twilight books, I read mysteries as an escape when I am stressed, and I used to enjoy the odd Cheeto and french fry before they were banned from consumption in this life. Mostly, though, as I prefer a well-prepared meal with beautiful, whole ingredients, I prefer a well-written book with beautiful, thoughtful ideas. After consuming either of these, I am well nourished.
When my lovely daughter, Hillary was a Malibu pre-teen, I gave her what I thought was a total slam-dunk-she-is-going-to adore-it-Christmas present: A beanbag sofa in the shape of a large sneaker bought from the Neiman Marcus catalog. Fortunately, Neiman’s has always been gracious about returns, but my daughter still hesitates before she opens a gift from me. Bill and I on the other hand bask in the unexpected delights of her choices… though, how does one carry a 1000 page book (in small print yet) in a back pocket?
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