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Recipe: rui tsai (lucky ten ingredient vegetable)

Chinese New Year fast approaches and it is time to prepare for the festivities which almost always revolve around food. When I was growing up in Southern Virginia, I hated being Chinese because I looked different from everyone else. We ate food that was completely foreign to my friends. My parents spoke to (yelled at) me in Chinese in front of my friends and I just wanted to disappear. I endured plenty of teasing and bullying because, well… kids are assholes. I did everything in my power to avoid being seen in public with my parents. I wanted so badly to be Not Me.

I won’t bore you with my path to accepting my identity, but once I was there and donned my status as an ABC (American Born Chinese) you couldn’t stop me. Happiness comes from within and baby, I got it. That’s not to say that living the balance between western and eastern cultures is easy, but I’ve come to embrace what I used to reject as a child. Okay, I could do without the constant *guilt* in the never-ending quest to be a Good Chinese Daughter, but otherwise I have to say my Chinese culture enriches my life and I’m glad for it.

Which leads me to the food and superstitions and traditions. There is a veritable boat load of foods you eat for the Lunar New Year and each one means something! I am probably familiar with a mere fraction of them. My family does a giant hot pot filled with ingredients that all signify good things: money, health, happiness, luck, promotion, success, more money… You get the idea. Dumplings, as I’ve mentioned before, are supposed to represent money and in some instances having sons, but let’s not go there. Tofu is luck. Rice cake means a “higher” (better) year. A whole fish means happy starts and endings (head and tail, get it?). Eat something sweet first thing on New Year’s Day so sweet things come out of your mouth all year (I can hear the guffaws of all of my friends…). And there is a lucky ten ingredient vegetable dish called rui tsai. Ten is the lucky number. Eat this dish and all good things will come to you in the new year.

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: reuben sandwich

My first (food) love is sushi.

My second (food) love is a sandwich. It’s a beautiful thing, really. Totally flexible yet wholly satisfying and comforting. Sandwiches can be cold, hot, both, crunchy, mushy, gooey, spicy, tangy, sweet, open, closed, stacked, dainty, behemoth, you name it. I love me a Good Sandwich.

Oh, but a little business before I go on about my love affair with The Sandwich. Thank you to the person(s) who nominated this blog for the Death by Chocolate competition on Culinate. I am flattered, to say the least. Unfortunately, because of my treatment, I am unable to travel and feel it isn’t appropriate for me to enter. Not to mention, the entries are by some of my absolute favorite food bloggers like: Peabody, Bea, Helene, Anita, Jaden, and Meeta… just to name a few! I encourage you all to go and look, drool, and vote.

Thanks also to all of you for your kind words of support. I think my tastebuds are somewhat recovered (had an infection to boot). I’ve just accepted that my fooding will be boned until treatment ends in several months. So, no worries. I shall still attempt to cook and hopefully post. Things just have a way of improving or sucking very quickly here and I have to go with the flow day to day. Stick with me on this. We’ll go places, I promise. xxoo

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: blueberry muffins (cake)

My days have been up and down. When they are down, I lay low and listen to my body and just try to recover. When they are up, I’m brimming with ideas and raring to go. Yesterday was a seriously up day for me. I was able to cook a ton of food and feel as if the kitchen was mine once again. Of course, there were a few changes to work through – like the fact that my taste has been heavily wankered, that my GI tract now rejects about 70% of what I typically love to eat (spicy, sour, salty, fatty, all that good stuff), and that I can’t eat berries. Well, I CAN eat berries, but I’ve been strongly advised to avoid eating raw berries (among other raw foods) for my own well-being.

I had bought some blueberries before my treatment began last week and Jeremy was taking a hell of a long time to finish them off. I really wanted those blueberries. And then I really wanted some… cake. And then I began flipping through my cookbooks and wondering what ingredients I had to make some cake with blueberries. I mean, if they’re cooked then I can eat them, right?