New Year Snapshots

Last week, Mr. A gave a Chinese New Year presentation to M’s 1st grade class.  I had mixed feelings about it initially, but after M came home from another parent’s Hanukkah presentation saying “Mama!  We learned about Hanukkah today! We at latkes!  It was sooooo cool.  I wish I was Jewish!!”, I changed my mind.  I decided first graders are probably pretty positive about new things if it is presented in a fun (and delicious) way.

So Mr. A went to school and did a presentation (I was there as a crowd control helper).   As the teacher introduced us, she said “This is Mr. A and Ms. AmFam.  They are Chinese New Year EXPERTS!”

At that point, M piped up: “My MOM isn’t an expert in Chinese New Year because her ancestors are from EUROPE!”

Mr. A read a couple books, made the kids kowtow for a chocolate coin filled red envelope, used a puppet to demonstrate a lion dance and taught them to use chopsticks to eat a big marshmallow.  We also gave them a cup of Mr. A’s famous noodles (aka long life noodles) and a M’s beloved Taiwanese shortbread cake. For the most part, the kids were great.  A few of them balked at eating unusual things, but the majority tried and liked the snacks.

My favorite comment of the class was made in response to one boy’s grimace and statement that he was NOT going to try that cake and it looked gross.   Another little boy said “Evan, you should try it!  I thought it would be DISGUSTING, but when I tasted it, it was DELICIOUS!”

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Yesterday, we went to China Day, which is a big festival of Chinese culture put on by a variety of Chinese organizations in our state.  In previous years, M performed her Chinese dance at that event, but since we are Chinese School drop outs, we could all relax this year.   After a thousand hours of incredibly boring speeches, proclamations, banner presentations, the girls enjoyed a lion dance and dance performances.

There were a lot of different cultural activities on the schedule.  My personal favorite was “How to guide your kids to study math.”   I pointed it out to Mr. A because I thought it was funny.  He failed to see the humor and was disappointed we weren’t going to be able to attend that session due to a scheduling conflict.

When we went to get a snack.  Mr. A saw the college students who performed the lion dance and went to talk to them.  He was hoping they might want to perform at a big fancypants  Asian Lawyer function later this year.   It turns out the lion dancer guys were members of a new Asian fraternity.   Mr. A asked several of them who he should contact to book them and they all just mumbled and shrugged.  Finally someone told him to ask Everett.

When he tracked Everett down, Mr. A introduced himself.  Everett did a typical frat-boy head nod to say hello.  Mr. A went on to explain about the fancypants Asian lawyer event, which caught Everett’s attention.

“Asian Lawyers?  Here in our city?” he said.

Mr. A said yes.

“You a lawyer?” Everett asked.

When Mr. A said yes, Everett immediately dropped his eye contact (which according to Mr. A is a sign of respect in Asian cultures).

Then Everett smacked his hand on his chest (kind of gang-symbol like), nodded his head again and said   “Respect, yo.”

Mr. A thought that interaction was seriously hilarious and repeatedly said “Respect, yo!” to me all evening.

February 21st, 2010 | Category: All About Me, All We Can Eat, Girl's School, Marvelous Miss M, Mr. A, Race and Culture | 8 comments

Three

Three is a wonder.  Last week, living with L was like living with a ticking time bomb.  Everything we said or did had the potential to set her off on the fast track to tantrum land.  This week, she is amazing: giggly, pleasant, and full of silly jokes.  If I didn’t know better I wouldn’t believe it was the same kid.

Tonight during M’s Chinese Club, L had a date at the local children’s museum with my parents.  As the middle grandchild (M and my older niece are close in age so they are treated as one and the same, then there is the new baby who is 7 months old),  L often gets the short end of the stick where one on one attention is concerned.  She had an awesome time with my parents and charmed the pants right off them.

L is getting so big and capable, she isn’t a baby any more.

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Dinner tonight:

Jiaozi Two Ways (aka Jiaozi showdown), Sugar Snap Peas.

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The Jiaozi on the right are the Zhong Crescent Dumplings from page 100 of the Sichuan cookbook.  There dumplings were boiled (shuijiao).  I generally like the texture of the skin on boiled dumplings the best, not matter what the filling is.  This filling was kind of bland, but good.

The jiaozi on the left are Three Sisters Dumplings from page 63 of the Hunan cookbook.  I didn’t read the whole recipe before I chose it.  Once I had the meat mixed up, I realized I was supposed to use rice flour wrappers. I didn’t have any so I used the plain wheat ones as the other dumplings.  They were still pretty good, though I steamed them and they were a little dried out around the edges.  The filling tasted a bit like sesame oil, which I do not love, but overall they were ok.

The family’s consensus was the boiled ones were better for both skin texture and filling flavor.

I made a quick and easy dipping sauce of diced ginger, japanese seasoned rice vinegar and soy sauce.

The snap peas were cooked by dicing some ginger, sauteing it, then adding the snap peas and a pinch of salt.  Yum.

When I asked the family what they thought, M said the dumplings were “Hao, hao, HAO CHI!!!” She also ate four snap peas under duress.

L ate only one bite of dumpling because she ate a taco with my parents earlier.  I expect her to eat the leftovers for breakfast tomorrow.  She generally likes dumplings (and anything else we allow her to dunk in dumpling sauce).

Mr. A said (and this is a full quote) “They taste so good and I love them so much, it makes me want to have sex with you.”

Alrighty then.  I think they were a hit.

November 20th, 2009 | Category: All About Me, All We Can Eat | 7 comments

Chinese Food Mini-Project (Day 1)

Ok, you asked for it.  This is what we had for dinner tonight.  Both are from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Sichuan cookbook.

The top picture is my own modification of Homestyle Tofu.  The tofu was boiled, not fried.  I also, I didn’t remember to take a final picture after I added the scallions and corn starch, so imagine it has green specks and a thicker sauce.  Even though I followed the directions for the sauce, I didn’t really dig this dish tonight.  I have made it before with better results.  I can’t figure out what I did wrong.  (The answer is probably that I would have preferred to be eating Mapo Tofu, but since that isn’t what I chose to cook, this is what I had to eat.)

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These are vegetarian Dry Fried Green Beans.  They could have used some bacon and I probably should have cooked them longer.

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Mr. A snarfed his share up. M ate massive quantities of rice and took only one bite of beans and one of tofu (under duress).  L ate two bites of tofu, a few bites of rice and drank a big glass of soy milk.  That is par for the course for her these days.

November 18th, 2009 | Category: All We Can Eat | 9 comments