Jennifer J. Chow's Blog, page 70

Foodie Friday: Roast Duck

Roast duck: crispy skin paired with tender meat

Roast duck must be my favorite dish ever. I have happy associations of the cooked birds with their bright red festive color, hanging in window displays. I also have memories of bustling dim sum carts offering plates of the succulent meat to diners.

I know that some people love Peking duck, with its thin slices of meat and slivers of green onions wrapped in soft, steamed buns (or in thin crepe-like wrappers). I still prefer the down-home, simple version of roast duck. It’s a dish made by the right addition of spices and proper baking time (although I’ve tried it at home, and I think the restaurant ovens must possess some sort of unique magic to make them turn out just right).

That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the complementary sauce, though. Roast duck is nothing without the sauce. It’s about the tasty combination of the meat dipped into plum sauce, or a home-made concoction made from the roasting juices.

Above all, though, roast duck symbolizes family time to me. We’ve used it as a treat or in celebrations (a stand-in for the traditional turkey at Thanksgiving). Anybody else have a food that means family to them?

The Art of Sampling

“An old horse knows the way.” – Chinese proverb

~In the spring and autumn period (770-476BC), Duke Huan of Qi went to attack Guzhu. When winter settled in, the army lost their way, but Huan’s minister Guan Zhong had a great plan: They would release their old horses and follow them back home.~

Experience matters, and that is why I’m relying on the collective wisdom of my online writers’ community, Wordsmith Studio, today. This post will be based on their current creative prompt about samples.

My first thought about samples is my wedding dress. I was not one of those girls who had dreamed about her wedding as a child. If anything, I was unprepared for the amount of planning that was involved for the big event. Thank goodness for helpful friends and loving family!

One huge undertaking was selecting the wedding dress. I flipped through countless numbers of magazines before deciding that I wanted a short-sleeved gown with embroidered flowers on it. I remember going to David’s Bridal (my only experience with a wedding store because of past bridesmaid duties). Nothing spoke to me.

Then, I found a boutique store in San Jose. There was a beautiful dress with silver flowers that I loved–in a sample size. That was a 2-for-1: I got to save money and get the dress that I wanted. Of course, it didn’t fit, but I loved it so much that I bought it. A local seamstress tailored it for me, and here’s how it looked:

 

My second experience with samples is from my childhood. I remember going through the trial-size perfume bottles that my mom  collected. We would sniff and spray them on. This became a beautiful tradition.

Fragrance is so weighted with meaning. To this day, I have memories tied to certain scents:

Fresh grass: playing in the yard with my mini-mower while my dad cut the grass
Chlorine: summers spent beating the 100 degree heat by pretending I was a mermaid in our backyard pool
Coconut: fresh tropical juice straight from the husk

When I worked with older adults, I realized that scents could bring back memories, even in people who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease and other types of dementia. Aromatherapy also offered help and hope for those patients (see this study). Like an old horse knows the way, our noses know certain paths, too.

What scents do you have associations with?

 

 

 

 

 

Foodie Friday: Xiao Long Bao

Xiao Long Bao: Chinese soup dumplings

a.k.a. “exploding meatball dumplings”

This is what my brother called them when I first tried the dumplings, and the nickname’s stuck in my head. It’s true, too. If you pop the whole thing in your mouth, the soup underneath the skin sprays right out and scalds your throat. Over the years, I’ve acquired the proper skill to eat xiao long bao. You need to hold the dumpling over a spoon, bite a small piece of it, suck out the juice, and then eat. For visual learners, here’s a video on how to do it right:

There are actually two types of xiao long bao that I’ve experienced:

 The Shanghai-style comes with a thick skin.


 The Taiwanese version features a more delicate outer layer.

Hands down, the best dumpling house I’ve eaten at is Din Tai Fung (I go to the Arcadia branches–there are two right next to each other). At the restaurant, there’s a glass kitchen where you can see the chefs preparing the dumplings. The steaming baskets are on full blast, and many swift hands mold the tiny discs of dough. They place a dab of filling in a circle and twist it into a dumpling with one smooth motion.

I’ve also been to the Din Tai Fung in Taiwan, in Taipei 101. It’s a fancy mall interior with high-end brands and bright lighting.

At first, the setting seemed odd to me because I was visiting Taiwan to glean cultural insight. When I bit into the succulent xiao long bao dumplings, though, I was reminded that I was sitting in an iconic building. Taipei 101 was the world’s tallest building from 2004-2010.

And like New York’s  One Times Square Building with its emblematic ball drop, Taipei 101 celebrates in style and shoots fireworks out of its sides for the new year:

How does food reconnect you to culture?

 

A 626 Night Market Fairy Tale

“The eyes are wide but the stomach is narrow.” -Chinese proverb

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The Tale of the Reappearing Fish:
a 626 Night Market Fairy Tale

 

Once upon a time, there was a princess named Jennifer. The royal chef made plates of Chinese delicacies for her to consume but forbade her to eat until the designated meal time. The princess would watch the fire dance in the pit of the wok’s belly and smell the ginger perfuming the air. Unable to wait before all the dishes appeared on the banqueting table, she would start off with the first finished food, the pot of fragrant, steamed rice. Surely, I’ll have room to taste all of the chef’s delights, she thought. She would heap a pile of soft, fluffy rice onto her plate and garnish it with soy sauce. Alas, she filled herself with so much rice that she could never partake of the royal feast.

Years passed, and Jennifer became the queen. She realized that “the eyes are wide but the stomach is narrow.” Filled with fear that she would gorge herself with grain alone, she issued a royal decree that her meals not start off with rice and limited the amount of dishes served at her table. She also restrained from all buffets, with the exception of the famed Souplantation (which the kingdom’s heirs adored, especially for constructing towering frozen yogurt sculptures).

One day, a new event in a nearby land captured the queen’s attention–a night circus market that magically appeared after dusk. All traces of horse stomping disappeared from the neighboring country’s iconic Santa Anita Racetrack, and instead, an array of festive booths and trucks decorated the space. The queen arrived at the market and examined the exotic wares. She sampled to her heart’s delight and ventured into such delicious territories as:

1. White boba

Milk tea with white, instead of black pearls, but still with the chewy consistency she loved

2. Pork belly egg roll

Egg rolls filled with juicy meat and paired with a flavorful sauce

3. Fried pork chops

Breaded and fried pork chops, spiced to perfection

4. Yam Balls

Delectable puffed balls filled with the sweet root

5. Double sausage

Tender Taiwanese sausage wrapped in a bun of sticky rice

The queen decided the to revoke her rule against limiting dishes. She wanted to try all types of food now and was filled with gratitude for the night event. However, this was not the end of the gifts from the market. No, a local ambassador came and offered a gift to the queen. The generosity of the 626 Country overwhelmed the queen, for there in her hand, she held a plastic baggie which would revive her family’s miniature fish castle, barren for these many past months. Thus, the magic of food was revived for the queen. And the royal pet fish was miraculously restored to the queen’s land, to the delight of the kingdom’s heirs.

 

Foodie Friday: Giant Boba

Giant boba: tapioca found in the world’s largest cup of milk tea

In honor of my love for the bubble drink, I’ve dedicated today’s post to one huge cup of milk tea. I didn’t actually drink this one, but I marveled at its size at the 626 Night Market this past weekend. Check out this video to see how they assembled the 5-inch balls. On a side note, I did purchase a similar but more consumable beverage and discovered white tapioca balls! They’re the same size and shape as the black ones, but a bit less sweet in my opinion. Happy caffeine drinking to all you tea-lovers out there!

p.s. Check out more of my 626 Night Market finds on this coming Monday’s post.

Interview with Robert Lee Brewer

I’m excited to interview the poet, Robert Lee Brewer. He inspired me to create an author platform through a challenge on his blog last year, and I made a wonderful online community because of my participation. He recently released an amazing (see my review) full-length poetry collection, Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53).

Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community, which means he gets paid to edit books, create blog posts, write a column for Writer’s Digest magazine, edit a free weekly newsletter, and lots of other fun writing-related projects. Voted Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere in 2010, he just celebrated the publication of his debut full-length poetry collection, Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He also curates the insta-poetry series for Virginia Quarterly Review. He’s married to the poet Tammy Foster Brewer, who helps him keep track of their five little poets (four boys and one princess). Learn more at www.robertleebrewer.com.

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When did you start writing poetry and why?

It all started with trying to impress a girl in high school. The poem worked, but then she thought I had more poems. So I felt like I had to keep writing to impress her. Then a funny thing happened, I found that poetry helped me deal with other issues in my life–you know, besides impressing girls. It was a life saver.

How did you come up with the title for your collection? Did you select Solving the World’s Problems based on your poem of the same name?

I knew I wanted to use a poem title for the title of the collection, so it really came down to which poem to use. I chose Solving the World’s Problems for several reasons. For starters, it’s an extremely personal poem. Beyond that, it includes all the elements I love in poetry: sound, leaps in logic, and my worldview. I have many other reasons too, but I don’t want to take all the fun out of it for the reader by explaining my intent. After all, I think of publishing as a collaborative art–one that is now in the reader’s hands.
Name the poet(s) who have inspired you.

So many. I don’t know where to start. In my poem, “totem,” I try to pay homage to some of them, including Whitman, Eliot, Dickinson, Ginsberg, Frost, and Dunbar. Those are some of the biggies. Also, Gwendolyn Brooks, Anne Sexton, Jean Valentine, Bob Hicok, Robert Bly, and others–so many others, including my wife, who is the poet laureate of our household.

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

That’s a good question. I’m an introvert, so I’d be terrified of meeting any writer, but… Kurt Vonnegut would be the writer, since he’s from the Midwest. I felt tempted to say Shakespeare, Whitman, or Wilde–but what would I say? Same thing with Dickinson and Sexton. But Vonnegut, I’d probably be able to carry a conversation, though he’d probably be joking his way through the whole thing.

What is your process for creating a poem?

It’s often not much of a process. There are times when a poem comes out fully formed from beginning to end in the first draft, though I still go through the revision process with every poem. Other poems are created from putting together various lines and images and filling in the gaps during revision.

The opening line of “Solving the World’s Problems,” for instance, was taken from the middle of a horrible sestina. However, I loved the line and image–so it stuck around until I could find the proper place for it.




Where and when do you write?

I write almost daily, though it’s more random than routine. I carry paper and pen with me all the time–so I write whenever inspiration strikes. That might be at my desk, the local park, or even the grocery store–yes, inspiration can and does strike at the grocery store.


I have two kids and find it a juggling act to balance writing with taking care of them. How did you manage to do it with 5 kids? Any advice or tips for other parents?

For me, it’s just trying to fit in the writing whenever I can. Maybe that’s why I don’t have a writing routine, because if I tried to hold down a routine at a specific time each day, the kids would probably find a way to monopolize my time. Instead, I write in those brief moments that diapers don’t need to be changed and fights don’t need to be resolved.


Also, I share my writing with them–the age appropriate stuff anyway. They love it, because it kind of gives them ownership of the process. Plus, it motivates them to make their own books.




What is your favorite poem in your collection and why?

I don’t know if I can do that. It’s like picking a favorite child, isn’t it?
Seriously though, I love each individual poem on its own merits, but I also feel this collection of poems is made stronger as a whole. Many of the poems communicate directly with other poems in the collection. Some finish on a line that is the title of another poem.


So they’re related; they’re a family; they’ve got each others’ backs.


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The “World” in Robert Lee Brewer’s Solving the World’s Problems is a slippery world … where chaos always hovers near, where we are (and should be) “splashing around in dark puddles.” And one feels a bit dizzy reading these poems because (while always clear, always full of meaning) they come at reality slantwise so that nothing is quite the same and the reader comes away with a new way of looking at the ordinary objects and events of life. The poems are brim-full of surprises and delights, twists in the language, double-meanings of words, leaps of thought and imagination, interesting line-breaks. There are love and relationship poems, dream poems, poems of life in the modern world. And always the sense (as he writes) of “pulling the world closer to me/leaves falling to the ground/ birds flying south.” I read these once, twice with great enjoyment. I will go back to them often. -Patricia Fargnoli, former Poet Laureate of New Hampshire and author of Then, Something

 

Special 626 Night Market Raffle

In honor of my 626 Night Market reading, I’m holding a special raffle over this Labor Day Weekend. I will select three lucky winners who will get either an Amazon e-card, an autographed copy of my new novel, The 228 Legacy, or 626 Night Market swag. If you win, I’ll contact you via email by the end of day on Tuesday, September 3rd. Enter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Foodie Friday: Minced Pork Noodle

Minced pork noodle: a dish containing those two delicious ingredients

It sounds deceptively simple. All that’s needed is ground pork and noodles. Every time I’ve tried to make it, though, I’ve failed to capture the correct taste. There’s something undeniably yummy about slippery noodles with a slight give to their texture. Then, there’s the savory meat sauce that makes you crave for seconds. It’s the quintessential go-to-dish for a quick snack. In fact, I’ll see if I can find some when I visit the 626 Night Market (the largest Asian night market in the Los Angeles area) tomorrow.

I’ve Been Wearing the Wrong Clothes All my Life!

“A good friend shields you from the storm.” – Chinese proverb

Thank goodness for friends. So apparently, I’ve been dressing in the wrong size for decades. This is what happens when you don’t have any sisters…and you demonstrate a penchant for wearing free T-shirts and loose jeans in your high school years. Anyway, I needed to spruce up my wardrobe for an interview on a local cable channel show, so I asked my friends for advice. I experienced several days of clothing hurricanes; a storm of blazers, cardigans, tank tops, pants, and skirts pelted me. Conversations like the following occurred:

Me: “Are these pants too tight?”

Friend: “Um, no. They’re supposed to fit snugly around your legs.”

Friend: “Oh, I never knew you were this size!”

What did I end up wearing after my fashion makeover? A red cardigan over a white tank top, paired with a black and white houndstooth skirt. If you really want to see the outfit, then you’ll have to watch the episode when it airs on Torrance CitiCABLE 3. I’ll also provide a link to the Youtube video, so look out for it over the next few weeks.

Foodie Friday: Rambutan

Rambutan: a white-fleshed gummy fruit, similar to lychee or longan

Rambutan has a distinctive red outer layer covered with soft spikes. Malayan jungle tribes first cultivated the rambutan tree, and rambut means “hair” in Malay. These tropical fruits offer a grape-like texture (at twice the size of a grape). Like the lychee or longan, it holds a big seed in the middle. However, rambutan is not as sweet as its cousins, and actually gives off a slight sour taste. My preference is for lychee or longan, but sometimes I can’t resist buying this tropical fruit for its spiky distinctiveness.

p.s. Sorry I’m a bit late with this post.