THE PROBLEM WITH AN ANTIPASTO THAT TASTES THIS GOOD, IS…
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A SANDWICH THAT HAS NO STORY…
IT’S JUST REALLY TASTY.
YESTERDAY, the last day of Jason’s 3-day-business-trip to Hong Kong, Jiaozi/Dumpling pulled a performance of his life at 10 in the morning, in a theatrical masterpiece called – This Is It. Good bye, mom and dad. Limping and whimpering, wordless but powerful… his flawless craft of showmanship efficiently triggered a wild response from the only audience, and prompted an emergency change in Jason’s itinerary for an earlier return. Then. This morning. Suspiciously and miraculously so, he was moonwalking lively around his “feeding zone” – I’d imagine singing the Smooth Criminal – barking and dancing for his personally prepared chicken liver-rice. Celebrating the success of his pathetic ploy… he ate a shit-load.
I know, I know that I shouldn’t project reasons and meanings behind animal behaviors when there’s probably none… He’s just an cunning old, sneaky wavy-haired boy Maltese. It’s just sometimes, it’s really hard not to do that.
But what does that have to do with today’s sandwich? Absolutely nothing.
THERE are many virtues about Beijing, and as far as I’m concerned, they are all true. The widely studied, highly evolved lung-capacity of its residence to withstand extremely volatile air molecules is among the most celebrated. The profound unity and rewardless participation in the national sport of competitive spitting, for god and country, is none but true patriotism. Then, perhaps the most famous although not as extraordinary as the former points, that it’s true, these fine citizens do know how to roast a damn duck.
Like actually actually.
But the most extraordinary things are those that go unadvertised. The best-kept secret, the silent do-er in this fine metropolis is tucked away in every unknown streets and corners, and I mean every streets and corners. It’s the most note-worthy and representative of Beijing street-food scene, and as far as I’m concerned, it is this word – 串.
I recently took a class from Harvard called Science and Cooking. I did it without ever taking an SAT exam or having an IQ above 140, all while wearing my slouchiest PJ and tucked in the comfort of my bed with a can of soda and a tub of gummy bears on the side, and burnt through 5 lectures straight in 1 week… Oh God bless bootleg DVDS. I was once again basted in the youthful hunger of my tender college years when hope was alive and the world was shiny…, as well as the exact reason why… I slept through half of it. Dude, there’s something about the echo? bouncing off the lecture hall?… that’s 10x more potent than sleeping pills on the deepest cellular level and sends me into a baby-state coma. But relax, I still overheard something in between my wee-wee breaks to share with you all.
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Ahum… so. I was totally going to unveil my-first-time-ever… ground-shaking… storm-wielding… SALIVA-BURSTING TWO-TIER CELEBRATION BAKE that’s, gonna, rock, your, world!
But I fucked it up. Yep. Just, you know, the typical shit that happens to all of us, the cake batter crashing… buttercream breaking… bananas being bananas and the entire cake wiggling in a funky move like it was the 80’s and finally steadied itself in a very unattractive slant. I’m not sayin’ this with disrespect cuz I’m angry and all… but seriously, you bakers out there are fucking crazy.
Thus, brings us to this.
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Previously on Lady and Pups, the bloodthirsty 9-days marathon of recipe-massacre was mercifully ended by the heroic Jasmine green tea granita, thus temporarily closed the tormenting gap between culinary imagination and reality. But the narrative failed to mention the other type of food blog-limbo. One that’s even more ill-hearted, ironic… a humorless prank that leaves the subject, in this case me, in a helpess panic with all hope diminishing after each and every other attempts to right it. In this episode, we are going to closely examine this type of sucker.
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This week both me and this blog turned one-year older. As how I count my years since the age of 25, I am now only 17 years away from menopause. After 30, realism is the new optimism. But forget me. Lady and Pups is one-year old!!! Gosh! How did that happen and look what we’ve accomplished? 1100+ likes on Facebook!?? Practically legendary really… 187 followers on Weibo?!! China has NEVER seen such crowds… OH, stop it… But the most amazing of all is the birthday gift this DARLING city was carefully hiding from me all this time, a WHOPPING BONIFIED BLUE-SKY DAY all ribboned up for me to wake up to!?! Nothing but VISIBLE HORIZON and BREATHABLE AIR!? Aww… Beijing, you shouldn’t have! It is MY day but I still want you to be the intolerable filthy asshole that you are…
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The demonic cold that has left me muted lingers… In my thirty-some years of exceedingly LOUD life I was never able to prove that “silence isn’t louder than words” until yesterday when I tried to instruct the mailman on the phone to simply leave the package by the front door. “…eeev….eeeh… by… eh… oore…”. “Excuse me, miss?”. “(regrouping my voice)… Leeeee… ehh by… UUH.. OOOORE…UH!”. That went on for a few moments but I got the job done… Even though my head feels like a loaf of stale bread brined in flaccid cola then baked in a 375ºF oven which will eventually turn into an inedible pudding…, a warm message from a D.ear reader gave me a shot of medical positivism and reminded me that, no matter how small and insignificant, I have a recipe to share.
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