The Mara of Taste

Colanders of summer vegetables cover the countertop of my kitchen. The people who sit with me on Sunday morning are joining me for a Labor Day lunch tomorrow. Two couples that I had wanted to join us couldn't make it so this morning I revised my grocery shopping list. With Thakor not coming I don't have to have a strictly vegetarian menu.

At lunch I went to Feng's Sichuan restaurant in Carmel. I have been assiduously eating meals at home and had not been there in a month. 8 China Buffet re-opened a month ago and it was great having their Saturday special lunch buffet to indulge in again. Their Sunday seafood dinner is wicked cool, the best seafood treat in the city, Asian or otherwise!

The recently concluded Olympics in Beijing has filled us with images of a resurgent, vibrant new China. The marathon raced through the city's avenues lined with impressive buildings old and new, and landscaped with trees and shrubs. The games were an explosive coming-out party for the most populous country in the world that appears now to have caught up with the industrialized West. China moreover has the advantage of its massive human resources and a socio-political history of a strong-armed central government. The people however seems to have sincerely bought their government's perception of the rest of the world. They are no longer just automatons. They have assimilated the politics of Mao while the country's opening to Western ideas in the last 15 to 20 years combine with that recent history of restraint and control has combined into what perhaps is the most dynamic socio-economic force in the world today!

These two Indianapolis restaurants embody for me the new China.  There are still dinosaurs of Chinese-American restaurants in the city like Chinese Ruby with its old-style menu items. These two new Chinese restaurants are much more inventive while also, because of the availability of authentic Chinese ingredients, expressive of China's incredible culinary heritage.

8 China reminds me of the coastal fast-paced Chinese cities like Shanghai and Hongkong. Sichuan food to me is food I would encounter if I toured the inner towns and villages of the country. The 8 China buffet is a magnificent display of hundreds of dishes including specialties we only usually expect at specialty restaurants—shio-mai, lotus-leaf-wrapped sticky rice, white-cooked, cold cuts of chicken breast, tiny chive pockets, pig knuckles in brown sauce, etc. 

Having just sampled the Sichuan offerings celebrating that restaurant's food is the reason for this blog entry. Eating there turns me into a food poet. Tiny morsels of food embody delicacy and elegance of flavor that makes me grateful for human civilization. Mara or no Mara, the gustatory experience for the moment defeats what aspirations I might have to reduce craving! A sliver of green onion is a veritable taste sensation. That tiny piece on my tongue invokes all the richness of Chinese cuisine. There are the usual flavors of garlic, chives, fermented black beans, ginger, hot chili peppers, and the more unusual flavors like that of star anise, but all are seamlessly combined for what I can only describe as heavenly and ambrosial!

After Mike and I come back from Lowe's, I'll start cooking. My menu is not Chinese. This being the official celebration of summer's end in Indiana, my eyes were drawn to summer vegetables when I shopped at Wal-Mart this morning. I have two kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, acorn squash, and celery. I plan to make an Italian stew of my own devising, a Midwest American three-bean salad (to evoke summer picnics), tomato-Jalopeño pepper salsa, corn tortillas, and, if I get around to it, Mexican pinto beans cooked in fried garlic a la Philippine mung-bean soup.

Sunday Turkey Supper

Today was one of my most enjoyable Sundays. For lunch I went out with three people from the Sunday sitting group to 8 China Buffet. I was not really craving Chinese food but we had agreed two weeks ago to go out to lunch today so we did.

We were at the restaurant three hours! Minda dropped off her eight-year-old son, Ken, at Chucky Cheese before joining us at the buffet. She is quite a gal, animated, open, and obviously sincere. Very nice company. Frank spoke up a little with Audrey not in our company. She had bowed out of this morning's sitting after not being able to sleep last night.

Back at home, I worked on learning more techniques on Photoshop. It has a less effective tool for straightening photos than Aperture. The Photoshop routine is serviceable but disappointing. I went to the gym and then walked around the lake four miles before dropping in at Borders to get a Blu-Ray copy of the BBC production, Wild China.I'm looking forward to watching it after being wowed by the BBC series, Planet Earth. The cinematography on that series is simply stunning!

I was not going to have a thoughtless supper after such a great day. I cut up green onions, a stalk of celery and the breast remains of a turkey roast from last Thanksgiving. I heated olive oil in a stick-free skillet, quickly fried the veggies then added the turkey that I cooked until the edges were golden crisp and the skillet gave off a surprisingly bewitching aroma. I added dollops of my home-made basil-tomato sauce and removed the skillet from the stove. I toasted half a foot of Marsh baguette, laid red-leaf lettuce on the open halves and piled up the re-cooked turkey. Two slices of bright red, ripe tomato were a perfect garnish for a feast, and with such miniscule effort! On the TV was the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Going out with the two Filipino women was what I think made the day so enjoyable. It's not something I normally would do but I am learning how to spend my days now that I am into the eighth month of my sabbatical. No clinic work tomorrow, and only the movie on China to look forward to as an apt ending for a great weekend.

Quick Kitchen Art

Late yesterday I went to purchase a few ingredients for lunch with Tony today. Marsh had a pound of raspberries for $4.49. 

Throughout the year, despite storesin Indiana now getting their produce from as far afield as South America, we still experience seasonal abundance and consequent cheap prices that I like to take advantage of—whether it is asparagus or Florida oranges or Mexican mangoes or, in this case, Michigan raspberries! I like the idea of my diet corresponding in some way to the seasonal cycle of the part of the earth I inhabit. It also lends creativity to my cooking.

Anymore I cook without recipes. For lunch I fixed the raspberries with hand-torn, red leaf-lettuce, lightly dressed with aged balsamic vinegar, olive oil and fresh squeezed lime juice and a few grindings of fresh pink, red and white peppercorns. I've dispensed with salt altogether and don't miss it at all. 

For the hot part of the one-platter lunch, I made a simple stir-fry. I reheated chicken-breast nuggets I stir-fried the other day. Having ingredients like this in the refrigerator makes putting together whole meals a snap. I added strung fresh snow peas, sliced green onions, and shelled whole peanuts and a couple tablespoonfuls of Trader Joe's Thai green curry simmer sauce. 

TJ simmer sauces are a quick way to make something special. I ignore the directions on the bottle and use them as part of my flavoring armamentarium. A shelf-full of dried spices, fresh herb cuttings from the garden, a supply of various sauces, kitchen stocks of pre-cooked ingredients, and, of course, imagination: this must be how restaurants manage to serve the variety of dishes on their daily menus!