use real butter

Recipe: fish-flavored pork

Fish-flavored pork is the translation for yu-shian ro-tse, a tangy and spicy Chinese stir fry of pork, water chestnuts, tree ears, and other fragrant ingredients. My mom makes this dish to perfection with her hands tied behind her back. Whenever we would go home to visit my parents, or if they came to visit us, they would invariably end up cooking a feast of our favorite Chinese dishes (and for Dad, he would do his western specialties like Bouillabaisse or roast rack of lamb). This happens to be one of Jeremy’s favorites. My mom is the type who, once she learns what your favorite foods are, will do everything in her power to make those for you. Got a little strange when she got me and Kris mixed up and kept buying gallons of cranberry juice for me when I’d come home from college!

One day, I thought to ask my mom for the recipe. Nothing is ever measured out in my family and documenting a recipe is an even more ludicrous concept. It’s all intuition with them because they’ve been cooking for decades. So I’ll sit on one end of the phone while mom says things like “a little sherry” – “well, how much sherry?” or “and some green onions” – “how many green onions?” I know I don’t cook this as well as my mom does. It will take a few decades to dial it in the way she has, but every time I make the dish I think of her and I feel a small tug from inside pulling me in the direction of my culture and my mom.

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. I am definitely on the mend although not 100% back to normal. I really can’t stand being ill, but to add insult to injury is my loss of appetite, which I guarantee rarely happens.

Peabody mentioned that she likes pears in salad a while back, and that got me thinking… It’s pear season and pears are everywhere. A couple of nights ago, I thought I’d follow a good suggestion and added it to a favorite salad. It’s quick, easy, but full of a lively array of flavors. I tossed baby arugula with a light dressing of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then I topped it with a few shaves of Parmesan, some slices of ripe pear, and a couple of thin sheets of prosciutto. Thanks for a great idea, Peabody!

Recipe: roasted brussels sprouts

Generally, when I don’t feel so hot, I find comfort in spicy or acidic food. I know that seems counterintuitive to many people. Jeremy is the opposite – he says dairy settles his stomach. Good lord, dairy would have a disastrous effect on me, seeing as I’m lactose intolerant. I didn’t figure out I was lactose intolerant until I got into college, believe it or not. That probably explains a lot of evenings spent lying on my side, unable to move. Like my father, I treated my stomach like it was made of iron. Unlike my father, I couldn’t stomach everything I put down my gullet. I could stomach most things, just not *everything*, like the time I was six years old and mixed vanilla frosting in 7up and wound up with a stomach ache that lasted for two days. Crazy kids, huh? I know!

I’m all for food safety, really. Just that, growing up in the 70s and 80s, my family didn’t practice that whole food safety thing too closely… or at all come to think of it. When I began to cook, I was the one who urged my mom to take care when handling raw poultry and raw pork. She was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing for a looooong time. I definitely have a strong constitution when it comes to salt, spice, and sour. No problem. Iron stomach! There have only been a couple of occasions when I was laid out in serious stomach pain and I think they both involved Jimmy Dean sausage, a trip to the ER, and drugs that knocked me out for several hours (probably to shut me up from moaning). So yesterday… yesterday I scarfed down three Chinese dumplings that had been sitting out for a few hours. I mean, I’ve done this for decades with no ill-effects. And yet, my tummy felt progressively worse and worse until I was lying on the couch all yesterday afternoon, staring at the dog trying to telepathically convince her to let herself out to potty.

**Jump for more butter**