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Dan Dan Noodles


This dish, a combination of sweet, sour and spicy, used to be a very popular street snack in Sichuan before the Cultural Revolution.  The name Dan Dan, refers to the pole venders would carry over their shoulders, their ware… Read full post »

Veins and Blemishes

a leathery leaf - evergreen
red pulsing
neon green glow

the woods

the woods waited for me
I could not say the same
shadows and light
a path - concrete river
turning

the sea of grass

nature repeats
still swells
in a sea of grass
shadows of limbs

twisting limbs

c… Read full post »

scene in which the girl escapes

(for myself at sixteen)

The girl got off of the bus and walked into the bar
because she saw lights and was tired of darkness
because she wanted to have a coke
The narrator watched her walk lightly through the butterfly/… Read full post »

Earlier this week, I settled in to my kitchen to make a three course meal for my family.  The weather in Seattle had turned cold and a few snowflakes fluttered down to complete the illusion of winter's last grasp. 

Pork belly is a very cheap cut of meat.  The Chinese,… Read full post »

 The Snake-Handler’s Daily Ritual

I am her audience in this dim hour
time of singeing winter elms
stretched like wooden aunts
and lost embers among tree trunks
in the brown grass of October

Her thin birch fingers
yellow-tinged
unclasp her taciturn bun
and auburn currents fall
loose with/… Read full post »

Hippolyte, Roman Sculpture

For awhile during school, it seemed I always needed summer school for math, that awful thief of June summer mornings that left me returning home in the oppressive heat of the day. One summer when I was eleven, it was decided that I would… Read full post »

Abalone Soup

In Chinese cooking, soup is the first course, so it is usually a light and tasty affair.  For the busy chef, making a three or four course meal nightly is too daunting a task, so here you have my take on a traditional Chinese soup.  I modified… Read full post »

Every Chinese New Year my father would take my sister and me down to Washington DC’s tiny Chinatown.  We’d ride past old brownstone row-houses.  I’d admire the glittery dress of the women, not knowing they were prostitutes, at least according to my mother.  Some of th… Read full post »

I was in a pinch the other night and needed a quick starch to feed the family, so here you have one mother's desperation turned into a recipe.

1 package pea or potato starch noodles - thin - Japanese variety

1/2 cup raw sesame seeds

1/4 cup… Read full post »

This is an adaptation of a recipe I got from Gourmet on the wonderful site www.epicurious.com.  This site has taught me a lot about cooking.  Of course I changed some of the flavors.  These are small, but packed with joy!

plum jelly 1/2 cup (I used a… Read full post »

 Motherless Daughter

(after Abbot Handerson Thayer’s Virgin Enthroned)

Her gaze is into herself

Into a field of grass

Into a light of God

That she holds in her skull

Like a lantern

 … Read full post »

Watching My Mother Brush Her Hair

I am her audience in this dim day hour

time of singeing winter elms

and lost embers among tree trunks

I have waited for her thin birch fingers

to unclasp her taciturn bun

for her auburn currents… Read full post »

This may not be a Chinese recipe, but it is the most killer thing I made recently and it was my own fusion invention.  The recipe is below.

 I Put the Lime and the Coconut in the Chicken Salad  (serves 8)

8 boneless chicken thighs

1 head… Read full post »

Seattle’s Chinatown

The number 23 hurtles forward

My son’s eyes, blue sapphires

seek out the car carrier, the bridge joints,

the ducks skittering the pond 

My daughter, still with her baby chub

fidgets on my husband’s lap

wiggling and burrowing… Read full post »

As I sit drinking my hot pot of tea , while the dishwasher drones and the children watch their afternoon movie, I am thinking of the history and preparation of the beverage which has become my favorite.  It not only energizes, it relaxes.  It enables the day's fog to temporarily clear… Read full post »

Geologic-Looking Hundred Year Old Egg

 Century Eggs, also called Hundred Year Old Eggs, Preserved Eggs and Horse Urine Eggs, are a Chinese delicacy.  I am not a fan of using the foods of other cultures for shock value in my own culture.  For many the taste of the Century… Read full post »

When the weather is dark, I crave the fruits of the sea the most.  On a Saturday when rain pelted the windows in a way that is not typical of Seattle, I turned to my kitchen for comfort. 

My most important advice to you is to buy your fish fresh. … Read full post »

 Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces,Guangxi, China, photo by Mel

According to an ancient Chinese proverb, the precious things in life are not jade and gold, but the five grains and that rice is the finest of these.  Polished white ri… Read full post »

I had all that lovely, lovely duck meat to use.  I decided to try Gloria Bley Miller's Stir-Fried Roast Duck With Lichee Fruit I. 

 1 to 2 lbs roast duck 

1 can lichee fruit  

1/4 lb snow peas or organic sugar snap peas, if they are in season, which… Read full post »

Neitzche wrote "One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."  Evidently, the same applies for delicious pork soup.  The day was crazy.  The mother's helper, who comes once a week, like an angel descending to our house, couldn't make it.  The ki… Read full post »

The most essential key to good soup is good stock, which can only be made, never bought.  Here is what Miller writes about stock, "Stock is essential in Chinese cooking.  It is the liquid in which meat and bones have been slowly simmered until their natural sweetness and goodness have been… Read full post »

Seattle's Chinatown

Northwest from southwest

My son’s eyes, blue sapphires in pale settings

seek out the car carrier, the bridge joints,

the ducks skittering on the pond 

My daughter,… Read full post »

I have failed.  I knew this wasn't going to be easy.  I woke up yesterday without the sherry for the perfect stock for pork soup.  I couldn't use the cooking sherry, glowing amber in its bottle.  I couldn't use the left-over tequila from New Year's Eve.  I got in the car… Read full post »

As a child, I eagerly anticipated my family's monthly visits to China Garden.  It was not only the exotic bright red columns and Chinese lanterns,  I salivated over the sweet and sour pork, dry bits of meat smothered in bright red sauce.  When I got older, it no longer appealed to… Read full post »