Food in China

With close to one and a half billion people to feed, the Chinese use all available space to grow food. And what food!!! Amid the rice terraces, you'll find plots of taro.
And one day, while hiking through the mountains, we came across this woman washing these huge vegetables in a stream. What kind of veggies? I haven't a clue.Everywhere we went, there was corn. Corn hanging from buildings...

And corn ears being shucked by a local farmer....Was this corn for the pigs or for human consumption? We never found out. But every little restaurant we went to had fresh food which was prepared when we ordered it...
And of course, there were some restaurants we avoided...(if you can read the sign, you'll know why!)
Congee was prepared on the streets the way pho is available everywhere in Vietnam...
And thank God we didn't have to live without chili!!!

It was definitely fall. You didn't have to be on the streets of Manhattan to smell the chestnuts..
But you knew you weren't in Manhattan when you saw the sugar cane...China is a food lover's paradise. It is a photographer's paradise. It's also a high tech and high fashion mecca. There's so much to say about it that I obviously cannot say it all in one post. But I'll leave you with one thought. Consider this:

Beijing is the size of Belgium.

And that's just the capital. One city.

Nothing in China is on a small scale....

To be continued....

China!

I'm off to China! Flying to Beijing first, and then down to Guilin for a photo tour. It's hard for me to believe that after all these years of practicing Chinese medicine, I'll actually be going to "the mother land"!!!

I'll be back in early October......Until then, tsai chien!

Pie Are Squared

I first heard the term "tamale pie" from a friend of mine who gave me the recipe. I've long since lost the recipe, but the concept stayed with me, even through "The New Mexican Years". Admittedly, this bears no resemlance to tamales, but that's America for you. Grab onto a good idea and run with it.

Because I'm an acupuncturist and involved in wholistic health, people who don't know me assume I'm "pure" - or whatever they mean by that term -- that I'm a vegetarian or a vegan. I'm not, although I often eat vegetarian meals and can whip up a pretty impressive vegan meal. But periodically the carnivore in me emerges, and when it does, anything goes.

This week, the carnivore came out. I found myself at Whole Foods in front of the meat counter, staring at a package of buffalo meat. I decided it had been way too long since I'd made a tamale pie, so I grabbed some of it, as well as some Kosher ground chicken. I was off to make "White Girl Tamale Pie". Let's face it - the words "tamale" and "pie" in that order in a sentence = white girl! Sounds to me like something that's more out of Good Housekeeping magazine than out of New Mexico magazine.

The concept is easy - Just put a layer of corn tortillas in the bottom of a baking dish. Cover that with a layer of your favorite meat, onion and chili, add some black beans and corn, grate some cheese over the top and throw it in the oven at 350 until it starts to bubble. I use Hatch green chili, but you could just as easily use red chili powder. If you buy a tin of chili powder in the supermarket, it will often come mixed with oregano. That, to me, is not what I mean when I say "chili". Chili is a pepper. It can be red or green, but it's a pepper. It's not a mixture of meat and beans and peppers either - though if you're from Texas it is. But if you're from New Mexico, it's peppers. If it's powdered, it's just peppers. When they ask you in a restaurant "red or green?", they're talking about the peppers - often mixed with onion and garlic.

Anyway, since this is White Girl Tamale Pie, you can pretty much turn it into whatever version of Betty Crocker that suits your fancy. Mine turned out a little too mild for my taste, but I remedied that by adding some chopped tomatoes which I picked from my garden, some more green chili and some diced red onion, mixed together to make my own version of salsa.
I think the reason I opted for turning buffalo and canned beans into White Girl Tamale Pie is because I can't think these days. I needed something that could sustain me for several days without my having to come up with something original. You see, my precious cat disappeared the last day of August. It's been devastating. I've had a number of wonderful cats and dogs in my life, and each is special. But then there was Boo.Right now my hope is that someone took her, because there is no sign of anything else in the canyon behind my house. I've scoured it and today a friend of mine scoured it for an hour and a half. Nothing. I'm leaving for China next weekend. My greatest wish is that Boo will show up somehow before I leave....standing at the front door, complaining.

MFK Fisher Revisited...Or...Pass the Wolf, Please..

The news is a constant source of sorrow. There's seldom a bright spot - it's all about job losses and housing prices falling, and people unable to afford health care, and criminal politicians. And all of that against a backdrop of global warming and unending wars.

So it seemed like a good time to re-read MFK Fisher's "How To Cook A Wolf". First published in 1942 against a backdrop of wartime food shortages, the book was written as a meditation on how to live with grace under the cruelest circumstances. With the wolf sniffing at the door, the most practical response is to learn how to cook the wolf. She speaks of the men and women who cooked and marketed their way though the war who "will feel, until their final days on earth, a kind of culinary caution: butter, no matter how unlimited, is a precious substance not lightly to be wasted; meats, too, and eggs, and all the far-brought spices of the world, take on a new significance having once been so rare. And that is good, for there can be no more shameful carelessness than with the food we eat for life itself. When we exist without thought or thanksgiving we are not men, but beasts."

I consider myself among the lucky... I have a job. Well, I'm self employed, so of course I have a job, and even though business is slower than it's been, I still have work. I've seen the wolf in the canyon below my house. My neighbors have reported it in their back yards. But so far, he has not come to my door.

How to Catch the Wolf

A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence.
Aristocracy, Ralph Waldo Emerson

While I'm not always sure about the magnificence, I know that everyone around me seems to be more interested in the notion that food comes from the earth. Small pots of herbs seem to be springing up in everyone's kitchens or tiny side yards. More people are joining community gardens. When I put my lunch in the fridge at work yesterday, I noticed one of those black plastic, one gallon pots from a nursery, sitting next to the sink with tiny yellow and red grape tomatoes in it. Someone's overflow.

Leftovers have become popular again. I've known people who, for many years, wouldn't consider saving leftovers. At the end of each dinner, they'd toss whatever was left over into the garbage. I always stood there in mute horror as I watched perfectly good food being thrown away. Now these same people, while not always creative with their leftovers, are dumping them back into a container and stashing them in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch.

When I lived in New Mexico, I learned about leftovers. Bob would always cook huge meals, even though there was usually just the two of us. But that gave us plenty of leftovers - some eaten "straight up" (just the way they were cooked originally), and some turned into another kind of a dish - a soup, a stew, a curry. One of Bob's go-to solutions for leftovers was pasta or rice. By sauteing an onion and some garlic, he primed us for a meal. If anyone walked in at that point, there was the inevitable "Boy, that smells good! What are you making?"
These are two variations of my standard leftover fare. There's a rice version with some leftover veggies, and a pasta version (about to be popped into the oven) with some chopped up chicken breast (left over from a barbecue) and the remains of some mozzarella cubed over the top. Both could be considered as being made by someone "living on a war budget", but the addition of herbs (fresh from my garden), and/or chili and some rich cheese, yields - perhaps not magnificence - but surprisingly satisfying meals.

A cool summer brings out the baker in me

While the northeast is sweltering under oppressive heat, we in San Diego find ourselves wondering when summer will begin. We've had May Gray, June Gloom, and July forgot that it wasn't June. Now it's August and the sun is starting to poke out in the afternoon. My tomatoes are still green. The basil is in it's infancy still. I don't have enough sun in my yard to plant corn, nor would the infestation of gophers for the last 2 years make that a wise choice.

So when all else fails, I bake.

I had two friends staying with me recently who, when they saw these loaves come out of the oven, declared them to be "Jesus loaves". Gotta love that -- the Jew bakes Jesus loaves! But they do smell divine as they're cooling on the rack. And they're sourdough, so they're perfect for all manner of things - cheese, French toast, or just dipping in some lovely olive oil.

I got the recipe from Peter Reinhart's book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice". The recipe goes on for 3 or 4 pages - and that's after you've gotten your starter (barm) going. So there's no way I'm going to post that here....I'd be up for the rest of the night. But I DID bake a sourdough bread and posted the recipe a couple of years ago. You can read about that here. The picture I took of that one was stunning......I must find that book again!

Mission Valley Acupuncture is now on facebook! I hope some of you stop by and have a look. My posts are about health, but of course, that includes food!

Trouble came and went...and then we ate

My transmission died on the way to New Mexico earlier this month. I was heading east on the freeway, about an hour from Tucson, when I noticed white smoke coming out of the back of my car. I don't understand white smoke. I just knew that when I pressed on the gas, the engine revved up but I didn't go any faster. I checked the temperature gauge and it was normal. I drifted over to the side of the road and manage to coast part way up an exit ramp and stopped on the side. There was a car stopped in front of me.
I pulled my cell phone out and searched for my AAA card. The man in the car ahead of me got out, walked back to my car and told me to pop my hood. I did, but didn't pay much attention to him. I was busy trying to find the phone number for AAA outside of California. Turns out that this man was truly an angel sent to help me. It took over 45 minutes for the AAA man to figure out where I was, even though I was on an exit ramp on a major freeway. The man from the car waited patiently while I tried over and over again to explain to AAA which exit I was on and where it was. The man from the car checked my oil level and fiddled with who knows what before heading back to his car. I noticed him moving stuff around in his car, making room in the back seat. That's when it dawned on me that he was making room for my luggage.
"Where are you going?" he asked me, when I finally got off the phone.
"Tucson".
"So am I. I'll drive you to where you need to go."

When the tow truck showed up, they asked me where I wanted my car towed. How should I know? I told them I wasn't familiar with the area and didn't have a clue. They suggested a Pep Boys in Casa Grande - the closest town. At 6:30 on a Saturday night, I didn't have a choice. I transferred my luggage to the man's car, got in and he followed the tow truck to Casa Grande. After the men pushed it into one of the bays, the man from the car told them "You treat this woman right. Be good to her." They told me they'd diagnose my car the next day.
I got back into the man's car and off we went to Tucson. The logical side of my brain told me that I might have been nuts getting into a car with a stranger, but my heart told me that this man was good and wouldn't harm me. My heart was right. He drove me to my friend's house in Tucson where I always spend the night on my drives to New Mexico. We fed him some dinner, and when he went to leave, he took my hand and said "It was nice meeting you, even under these circumstances. The only thing I ask is that you pass it on to someone else who is in need someday."
Transmissions do not get repaired on Sundays, so I wound up renting a car and driving to New Mexico. That meant that I had to leave for Tucson on Friday morning in order to drop the rental car off and get to Casa Grande before they closed for the weekend. I followed my friend back to her house, spent the night, and drove back to San Diego the next day.
Now, the transmission saga meant that I didn't make it to New Mexico in time to join a couple of friends of mine who drove out a day ahead of me. We were all going to stay at my house and I was going to show them around. They only had a slightly long weekend, while I was supposed to be staying a week. When I got back to San Diego, they were at my house, waiting for me. I drove up and they came out to help with my luggage. All of my stuff was moved inside by the three of us in one trip. This might sound normal to many of you, but for me, it was heaven sent. I didn't have to do everything myself - what joy! And when I got inside, they had a glass of wine poured for me, and dinner was ready.

We started with a chilled melon soup:
My friend Darren sauteed an onion and some shallots until they were past translucent, added some sugar, thyme, and a healthy dose of fresh ginger. Then he added the "meat" of a whole honeydew, some thinly sliced white potato and some chicken stock. After it came to a boil, he simmered it for about 5 minutes and stuck it in the fridge to chill. The food processor churned it into soup, and after straining, he added some sour cream.

Heaven.

And them we moved on to the salad.........
Endive, sliced thinly, white anchovies, ruby grapefruit and shaved Parmesan. He didn't use the tips or the bottom of the endive - just the center part...and then dressed the whole thing with white balsamic, olive oil, dijon mustard, salt and pepper. After tossing and draining it (reserving the liquid), he arranged the slices of grapefruit over the top, squeezed the membrane of the grapefruit into the dressing and drizzled it over the top.

It was, in fact, over the top.

And then came the clams.........

After sauteeing shallot, garlic, sweet onion and fennel in olive oil and salt, Darren added the clams and covered the pot. He cranked it up to high to get them going. When they started hissing, he threw in a glug of cognac and finished it with some fennel leaf.

If trouble had to come my way, it came in the kindest, most gentle way I can imagine. I'm so grateful for the help I got on this past trip. There was stress involved - yes. But I was taken care of too, at every step of the way. How lucky is that?

Fourth of July with Flag Cake

So this is what my sister does when she isn't celebrating major birthdays. Is there any wonder that everyone loves her?

I hope you all had a spectacular Fourth! I celebrated at a neighbor's house, where there was wine and food and even some live music! Everything paused at around 9pm, because from my neighbor's deck we could see the fireworks display over the bay. It's coordinated with music which one of the local radio stations plays. And when it was over, the trio that my neighbor hired began playing again - some original songs as well as some oldies. And the best part was that I could walk home, without having to fight traffic.

And tomorrow I get to sleep in..........;-)