I asked my domestic helper for chicken for dinner last night.
Forgive the phonetics but I'm trying to create a little mood:
"Sir, wat CHEEK-en?"
"The live chicken," I said.
"Please 'chop chop' and 'fry fry,'" I added.
"Ah, sir," she said. "I know"
"Dee alibe one."
It is amazing what a difference a letter makes.
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Do they mean very traditional Chinese dish or step off if you don't know how to at least suck the head off a prawn?
Read MoreWhether you are operating in a Shanghainese or Cantonese, or some other food culture, a meal begins with soup because it prevents you from overeating. This is the Chinese way. To have an elaborately brewed broth, that may contain something exotic, or maybe its just the freshest carrots and pork bones available, seems to be an indulgence. But, then again it is just water molecules with flavor.
Read MoreBut if you listen to a lot of researchers, they'll tell you great things are often stumbled onto. The internet grew out of NASA's communication needs. It was a solution to a problem, that was initially cobbled together, and iteratively just happened. But it wouldn't have grown if not for the basic research it grew out of.
So... I think this quandary directly applies to the topic of being mixed.
Read MoreIn three weeks I will mark the 5th anniversary of a quirky tradition I’ve created for myself.
Every year I give up some type of food. It's not a cumulative giving up, whereby I'd slowly exhaust items permissible in my diet, never to return to them. I'm basically on an annual food rotation, cycling certain foods out during particular years.
I don't know exactly how this tradition started. That won't stop me from speculating a little later though.
In 2011, I gave up beef for a year.
Read MoreFormerly known as Pasar Malam Besar, the Tong Tong Festival is the annual celebration of European-Indonesian heritage. At the time I went I was a graduate student at Tufts at the time, in Medford, Massachusetts. It was the Summer between my first and second year. I remembered learning about this event while in college. I always wanted to go. And that Summer I had a chance to visit.
Maybe there’d be some good food too.
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