A Few Nibbles and a Bit of News

The reason I have been missing in action on here is I have thrown myself into the last few months of work for the launch of the new and improved Spice Doc site. It will still live at www.thespicedoc.com but not too long from now you will be directed to a fresh new site, with lots of exciting functions that will be unveiled when it's up. Who knew it could take so much love and work to build one of these? I have had my phenomenal friend, artist, and designer, Patricia Callison, imagining away at this for over a year now. If you want to see her incredible work go to Made in Mind. And about 6 months or so ago, Conor Browne, the Spice Doc programmer, joined and has been making Trish's beautiful ideas come to life with his own brilliance. In the meantime I chip away at the content little by little.

While I've been doing that, I've also been cooking up a (medicinal) storm with all kinds of herbs and ingredients, studying Mandarin 4 hours+++ every day, and have begun to translate medicinal cook book recipes into English. A few chefs have opened their doors for me to show me one on one their secret medicinal recipes. And many more people have shared what they've learned from their grandmothers, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, doctors, etc. in terms of the strongly ingrained culture of medicinal cooking here in China. Every day I'm learning something new. There's not much more you can ask for! I can't wait to share that with everyone, TCM practitioners and laymen alike.

See you very soon!

The Three S's : Soups, Salad, and Spring

(recycled from 4/11/2010)


Now that Spring is arriving, it's time to lighten the food load a bit, and increase your fresh vegetable and fruit intake. However, it is still incredibly important to avoid going all raw and salad-crazy just because the weather is warmer. Your digestion is still like a furnace, even in the summer months, and works at it's optimum when you treat it kindly with warm foods. If you begin to plow yourself with one salad after another, many of you will find yourselves in the grips of gas, bloating, loose stools, phlegm attacks, sluggishness, or wrap around headaches.



A great way to protect your digestion but also crunch away on a crispy light salad, is to make a warm light soup to have before, or with, your salad. I prefer to keep the soups lighter and vegetable-based and I add a warm piece of cooked protein (such as fish or chicken) to the salad to add another warm element. Spring is a time for renewal and cleansing and evolving with the seasons makes sense for your health. Many people ask me about doing detoxes during this time, I don't personally recommend heavy detoxing if you are still living your life as usual, working, running around, and stressing, so I often recommend an "eating fast" which you can find information about here.



Below you will find the recipe for a vegetable, vitamin, and mineral rich soup (Spinach, Roasted Red Pepper, and Yogurt Soup) to pair with whatever your favorite salad might be. Spinach is cooling in thermal nature, with a sweet flavor. It is a wonderful vegetable for moistening and nourishing the body, especially in conditions that create thirst and dryness (such as diabetes) and also at the end of a long drying winter. Spinach can also treat constipation and urinary difficulty and is of course known for being high in vitamin A and calcium. Red peppers are excellent in treating stagnant digestion (often the case at the end of a winter full of cloying heavy foods), as well as being high in vitamin C, and increasing circulation. Plain yogurt adds good dairy as well as some probiotic action. Roasting the red peppers adds more energy to the food (or yang energy as it is referred to in Chinese Medicine), while still maintaining the moistening and yin quality of the food.



Spinach, Roasted Red Pepper, and Yogurt Soup

Ingredients: 1 bunch of spinach, 2 red peppers, chicken or vegetable stock, 1 sweet white onion, plain yogurt, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper

1. Roast red peppers either over a low flame or under a broiler. Wash and place on a baking pan and make sure to turn each side as it blackens. Remove from oven and rinse under cool water, peel off outer layer of skin and slice into thin slices.
2. Chop up one whole onion and saute in extra virgin olive oil on a low heat until they begin to caramelize, add rinsed spinach and stir until it begins to soften.
3. Add 2-3 cups chicken or vegetable stock plus 1-2 cups of water (depending on how thick you want the soup), add salt and pepper to taste. Add roasated red peppers and let it sit on a slow boil for a few minutes so everything melds together.
4. Add one cup of yogurt and mix in. Remove soup from heat and let it cool. Blend into a thick consistency and reheat before serving. You can add an extra dollop of yogurt and minced cilantro and crunch sea salt on top before serving or just serve as is.

Enjoy!

Ramp(ing) up for Spring

(recycled from 4/22/2010)


Spring time is a yang time in Chinese Medicinal terms, while winter is a yin time. Many of you have heard and seen yin and yang theory thrown around loosely, adorned on tshirts, plastered on dorm room walls, imprinted on spa paraphenelia, carved into Acupuncture logos, and so on. Yin and yang theory is one of the major philosophical bases of Chinese Medicine and that little black and white swirly globe actually has some very beautifully simple and yet complex meaning. Simple and yet complex, this sentence is very indicative of yin and yang theory. There is a sentence that explains why it is both : "All that is yin is yang, all that is yang is yin". This sentence is very similar to "what came first, the chicken or the egg?" in that while something may be yin in nature, it can not exist without yang. In essence there is no day without night. Thus, simple yet complex.

As it pertains to food and the body, yin is the liquid and nourishing aspect (blood, saliva, water, etc.) and yang is the energy (electric synapses, physiological reactions, movement, etc.). We need both, but sometimes you need one more than the other. Spring is the time when we're moving from a long cold spell where you were more focused on yin foods and doing yin things (i.e. eating warm slow cooked foods whilst hibernating and conserving energy) and on into a more yang time where you require the energy to literally pop your head out of the ground much like all the young bulbs (in particular for today, ramps, which are part of the Allium family and sometimes are considered wild leeks)! Garlic already has many medicinal qualities that I have discussed here before, but if you want the medicine without so much bite, then a ramp is your friend and it is only here for a few weeks before it becomes scape season, then just plain garlic bulb season.



While yin and yang theory may be flying over your head into esoteric yaya land, once you understand it, you can self-treat and balance yourself out when you need. For these purposes, you want to put a little more bite and spark into your food to wake up your digestion while your life requires you to be outside more, shedding layers of clothes, getting sun, and interacting with people more frequently. Ramps grow from March to late May and sometimes June. You can eat them raw or lightly cooked. I used the pungent white portion to stuff under the skin of a young red cockerel, and I used the sweet green leaves to add to some roasted potatoes towards the very end so they just slightly wilted and melded in. The cockerels and potatoes were served alongside young asparagus which is also just starting to pop it's head out of the ground and will continue to do so for another month or so.



Roasted Red Cockerel with Ramps, Lemon, Olive Oil, and Sea Salt

Ingredients : cockerels or chickens (approx. 4-6 lbs), ramps (ie. young garlic), lemon, olive oil, sea salt, pepper

1. Rub cockerels with olive oil, lemon, sea salt, and pepper. Make a few tiny holes and also loosen the skin around the neck and bum of the cockerel - slip in the white portion of the ramp under the skin. Slice lemons and place in cavity. Place one whole ramp in the orifice of the neck. Let the cockerels sit for 1 hour to 24 hours (overnight).




2. Pre-heat oven to 250 degrees F. Place cockerels in uncovered, breast side down. Roast for one hour at this temperature. Raise to 300 degrees F and roast for 1.5-2 hours more (depending on the size of bird). Cockerels should come out browned and crisp but juicy inside, with a lovely hint of sweet garlic flavor.



How do you use yin and yang theory to treat yourself? If you are feeling excessively yin (lethargic, sluggish, tired, slow, damp, cloudy-headed), add more yang foods into your food (red meat, liver, bones, leeks, chives, scallions, garlic, carrots, lotus, radish... pungent and bright foods). If you are feeling excessively yang (hot, flushed, anxious, wired) add more yin foods into your diet (pork, chicken, almost all vegetables except the particularly pungent ones and those listed above).



If you want more recipes using ramps go here or here. Ramps have a long history of culinary and medicinal use in the U.S., especially in the south. There is even a ramp festival held every year in Tennessee called the "Cosby Ramp Festival". Apparently in the Appalachian region of the U.S. ramps are thought to ward off winter ailments, which is perfectly in line with the Chinese Medicinal use of adding some yang energy into your food to bust out and get ready for summer!

Butternut Squash Soup with a Hint of Spice

(recycled from 1/5/2011)


Yellow and sweet. The color and taste which treat the digestive system in Chinese Medicine. If you're feeling anything like I am at the moment, your digestive system could use a little tender loving care after the whirlwind that is November through December with Thanksgiving followed by one Christmas party after another. Instead of making daunting New Year's resolutions by starving yourself, this soup will soothe you and your stomach without breaking the scale further.



Right now root vegetables, gourds, and tubers are in season. And, eating in season is the best way to truly eat medicinally. Butternut squash tastes precisely as it has been rightly named. Buttery (without butter), sweet, and meaty in it's own right. This soup takes no longer than 30 minutes to make and you can freeze batches of it if you plan to reheat whenever you need a little more tender loving care for your stomach, which is precisely what the Year of the Rabbit (coming up on February 3) is all about, gentle and soothing after the fire of the Year of the Tiger.



Ingredients: 1 medium or large butternut squash, 1 white onion, 1 garlic clove, 1 leek, 1 tbspn tomato paste, salt, pepper, curry powder (or use a combination of cumin, tumeric, dried chile), 1 tsp fresh ground ginger, cilantro, plain yogurt (my preference is Greek yogurt), chicken or vegetable stock, 1 bay leaf



Directions:
1. Peel squash and slice through the center, de-seed (you can keep them to toast and eat if you wish). Chop into large squares.
2. Slice onion into moon slices, wash and slice whole leek, mince 1 garlic clove, mince up 1 tsp of ginger, have all other spices and ingredients on hand.
3. Saute onion, leek, and squash until they both get a little soft and have color (about 5+ minutes), add minced garlic, 1 bay leaf, 1 tbspn tomato paste, 1 tbspn curry powder or aforementioned combination of spices (you can add this to taste), keep cooking all together until it's well mixed then add 2 cups of chicken or vegetable stock.
4. Bring to a boil and cook for 10-15 minutes until the squash is soft, add 1 cup of plain yogurt (if you wish to have a thicker creamier soup, add 1 cup of coconut milk instead). Boil together another 5 minutes, pull out bay leaves and then let the soup cool for a few minutes before blending together (either with an immersion blender or in a regular blender, in which case you would need it to be at room temperature).
5. Reheat and serve with a garnish of cilantro if you wish and a sprinkle of crunchy sea salt.

Kitchen Medicine

I'm going to be missing in action for a little while here. I have to pool all my resources and energy into finishing a big project, soon to be unveiled, and it requires all my attention.

Before I leave (and I will return before you know it), I wanted to share some recent colors in the market. As well as some old and new medicinal cooking tricks. There's so much to digest (literally and figuratively) since my move to Chongqing as per the medicinal cooking that there isn't enough room on here to share it all!



For those that aren't TCM practitioners and reading this, if you don't know about the five elements and how that correlates to medicinal cooking as per TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) then it's important for me to briefly lay it out as it's the building blocks upon which the cooking begins. I discussed it in a post a few months ago here. Above is a picture of foods and their correlates, and below is a list of the basics. At first glance it's so simple and beautiful, and then you begin to realize that it gets all intertwined and a bit wild like a creeping banyan tree's roots which climb all over each other. For example, you might wonder if red and bitter treat the heart and small intestine, then a red chile would make sense? It's red and bitter. But it's also spicy, which falls into the category of the lung and large intestine. Don't over think it too much. As a layman you don't need to decipher it to that degree. If you're designing a treatment plan for a patient with a serious chronic (or acute) illness, you will of course need to be more fastidious with the plan. However, if you are just simply eating in a normal way, to be healthy, to be preventative, and to enjoy your food while you have a go at it, then just think this simply : colors and flavors correlate to particular organ systems.

Black & Salty = Kidneys & Urinary Bladder
Red & Bitter = Heart & Small Intestine
White & Spicy = Lung & Large Intestine
Yellow & Sweet = Digestive System (Stomach & Spleen)
Green & Sour = Liver & Gallbladder

You will do no harm by thinking in this way and you will definitely hit all your target vitamin, mineral, and all that other jazz that they like to throw out at you in today's nutritional requirements dialogue. Sometimes you wonder, how did we survive before when we weren't measuring out calories, B12, saturated fat, unsaturated fat, carbohydrates, sodium levels, vitamin D, etc. etc. etc. There is a time and a place for that, of course, and that's mostly in the classroom not in the kitchen. It's confusing and makes you, me, all of us riddled with a subterranean angst wherein more often than not, you miss the point of the whole thing. Interestingly enough, every week an article will pop up expounding on a new study with the news flash that (something you could have derived from the chart above) actually does good for one of the organs linked to the flavor and color.

The next level of TCM medicinal cooking theory is that everything is broken down into warm, hot, cool, or cold. This too gets a little confusing. Or coRnfusing as a friend loves to say. You might initially only think in terms of a hot soup versus a cold cucumber, and while this is true in terms of being warming (soup) and being cooling (cucumber), you might not think of how some meat's are hot (beef), some are warming (chicken), and some are cooling (crab), though you can eat all of them warm. There is the thermal nature of a food (cool/cold/warm/hot) which is what I am referring to here, and then there is the way you eat it (cold or warm). Suffice it to say, it's a lot to memorize and in the case of cool/cold/warm/hot, the best way to approach this (unless you want to dive into the academics of it) is to know your constitution and then be conscious of how you eat according to that. If you tend to run really hot, and have a red flushed face more often than not, then avoid heat-inducing foods that might exacerbate your condition. If you run cold, and are weak and lethargic with loose stools, don't go on a raw cucumber binge. Having said that, I will mention that in TCM you do rely on the general premise that eating warm foods (as in the temperature - such as a soup, not necessarily the thermal nature as in beef or chiles which are hot) is important for good digestion.

I learned a new thermal tidbit last week, which is common layman's knowledge here in China. Oranges are cooling and tangerines are hot. The interesting thing is that people know this here, and they abide by it. If they run hot, they don't go wild for clementines (considered to be in the tangerine category) in this season. If you have insomnia or red inflamed acne, you might want to watch out too!

And lastly, a cooking tip I learned as per fresh water fish (any non ocean fish) : take your fish, do what you need to do it (keep it whole and gutted or filleted) and submerge it in water with vinegar (not too much, a tablespoon for a medium size fish will suffice) for 24 hours in order to cleanse the blood of the fish, sweeten it's flavor, and help it to hold it's integrity in the cooking process. If you're on my facebook page, you've heard about this tip twice already, so apologies for the repetition!

And with that, I will be crawling into my office to peck away at the final stages of my project. If I don't get here before the holiday madness, remember to drink something bitter after a meal to help you to digest all the goodies you'll be partaking in and see you in 2012!

Perfect Persimmons: The "Other" Apple

I didn't eat my first persimmon until 2002. I remember this because it was an event, that's how delicious persimmons are. I had been wondering what is that odd looking orange'ish-yellow tomato that's not a tomato sitting amongst all the fruit in China Town in NYC. Well, as it turns out it's a delectable piece of fruit that is sweet, but not too sweet, pliant yet still crunchy (unless it's really ripe, then it is a bit like a tomato/mango), and it has a hint of sour to hold itself up from becoming too cloying. Anyway, it's irrelevant what it tastes like to me because taste is subjective. It's good.

Persimmon is also a TCM medicinal food (referred to as Shi Zi, 柿子) that is used to treat inflammation in the gut, (hot and dry) lung ailments, and if slightly unripe it has astringent properties which cause not only your mouth to pucker up but also restrain diarrhea, coughing and/or vomiting blood, and reduce hypertension (P. Pitchford). Persimmons are cooling, sweet, and target the lungs and digestive area. They can moisten the lungs while at the same time reducing phlegm. In addition, you can use the calyx and fruit stem for treating hiccups.

Though I am not always a huge fan of breaking foods down into micro nutrients and hailing them as the next "super food", I was happy to see that persimmon's got a little media attention in 2001 in the Science Daily "A Persimmon A Day Could Be Better For Your Heart Than An Apple" having been found to contain "significantly higher concentrations of dietary fiber, minerals and phenolic compounds - all instrumental in fighting atherosclerosis". Eating one a day is supposedly enough to fight atherosclerosis according to the study conducted by the department of medicinal chemistry in the School of Pharmacy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel mentioned in the article. A persimmon a day keeps the doctor away?

Persimmon's are originally from China but spread to Korea, Japan, Brazil, Israel, and on from there, reaching the United States in 1856. There are over 40 different kinds of persimmons, some of which are more astringent than others according to the degree of pollination and the amount of ethanol produced in the seeds (if you are like me and have tried a persimmon that is sweet and crunchy one day only to bite into a soft, ripe, super mouth-puckering one the next day and wondered why, this is why!). In Japan to remove the pucker in a persimmon they place them in former sake curing casks and let them rest there for a few days. Or you can alternately (not having access to a sake cask) just let them ripen naturally to further remove tannins, though if they are of the kind that is more susceptible to this, then there is not much you can do. The puckering is of course indicative of a higher level of astringency, increasing it's ability to treat conditions such as dysentery, diarrhea, and spitting or coughing up blood. Apparently, the Native Americans had their own medicinal uses for the persimmon as well: as a poultice for warts, in the treatment of bloody diarrhea, and as a mouth rinse in the treatment of thrush.

Persimmons are in season right now (from October - December) so if you can find them somewhere, stock up! Keep them around to keep your heart healthy, or to treat that dry cough from too much artificial heating this winter, or simply just to enjoy!

Congee : Digestive Healer

Congee is by far one of the most prevalent examples of medicinal cooking's marriage with commonplace kitchen knowledge in Chinese and Asian culture(s) at large (in Thailand it's Khao Tom, in Japan it's Zohsui or Kayu, in Korea it's Jook/Juk, and so on). Everyone eats it. You learn about it growing up. You learn about it in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) school. They serve it on the street, they serve it in the posh hotels, they serve it at school. You know when to eat it, and what to add to it to cater more specifically to your current needs.

Chicken is more tonic for the qi (energy) and blood. Sweet potato will add to the digestive function. Da Zao (red dates) also come to the aid of the energy and blood. Gou Qi Zi (wolfberries) improve eye function while working on the liver and kidneys. Huang Qi boosts the immune system. Pickled and fermented green vegetables work on the liver and digestive function. A splash of chile sauce opens up the lungs and fights off a cold. Fresh scallions dropped over that hot tasty soup right before ingesting, fights off that cold even more than that chile sauce (or in combination thereof!). Ginger boosts the digestion, combats nausea, warms you up, and fights colds (too). There are endless combination's for congee, in fact so many that Bob Flaws, a well known author and scholar of Chinese Medicine wrote a book called "The Book of Jook" with a whole slew of the different recipes for congee (or in his case, the referenced jook). Call it what you may, it works, and it works well.

If you're of the digestively compromised faction (of which there are many), congee is your best friend. Eating warm is also of the essence in this case. Your digestion is like a furnace, if you put ice on that furnace, it will not stay "lit" and in turn cook your food for you so it can be transformed into the miconutrients and energy we so love to discuss in biomedical nutritional terms. The base for congee is simple and you can also quite simply just eat the base without anything else. You cook rice in water, at 1 part rice to 4 to 5 parts water, depending on how soupy you would it to be. Bring to a boil on low heat for at least 1 hour. Imagine that it's helping your body by breaking it all down beforehand so you don't have to do so much work once it goes in. Then decide what your flavor is going to be. Is your stomach a little extra sensitive? Add some ginger. Want a little more flavor and energy? Add chicken (cook it with the bone). While I have been enjoying the Chinese congee with a few pickled mustard greens, a sprinkle of salted peanuts, and a splash of chile sauce, I am a huge fan of the Thai Khao Tom, perhaps from growing up there or maybe because it has a little more panache to it.

Here is my recipe (an amalgam of many versions of Khao Tom learned throughout the years), it is great if you're sick, fighting a cold, having digestive troubles, or you just want to eat something clean and simple :

Thai Khao Tom

Ingredients : rice (long grain or short grain, your call), 1 chicken breast or 2 thighs on the bone, tang chai (pickled shredded cabbage - can be easily found in many Asian stores), scallions, cilantro, garlic, fish sauce/nampla, rice vinegar, Thai bird chiles or other fresh chiles, ginger, sesame oil

(serves 2)

1. Bring to a boil 1 cup rice with 5 cups water, 5 thin slices of ginger, whole chicken breast/or thigh(s) with bone (added immune system boost), 2 teaspoons of tang chai, splash or two of fish sauce (or use 1+/- tablespoon of sea salt if you don't like fish sauce), and 3 whole sprigs of cilantro with the cleaned roots still attached. Cook for 1 hour.
2. Take chicken out around 30 minutes and shred meat off with fork, place bones back in soup to continue boiling.
3. Chop 3-4 cloves of garlic up and fry quickly until lightly brown in sesame oil, set to side in a small bowl.
4. Chop fresh chiles up and place 1 tbspn. in a small sauce bowl with fish sauce and another tbspn. in a small sauce bowl with rice vinegar.
5. Chop up cilantro and scallions, also place in a bowl to the side.
6. Once soup is cooked, serve in a bowl, top with shredded chicken, chopped cilantro and scallion, a bit of crispy garlic, a bit of vinegar and/or fish sauce (depending on your taste and needs).

*Some people add crispy fish, some people cook Khao Tom with ground pork or shrimp, there are again, endless varieties. Have fun playing with it.

Purslane, the Underappreciated Weed

There will be no recipe with this post as I am in the midst of moving madness (to Chongqing, China) and can barely put two pieces of bread together with something in between let alone concoct a proper meal. This says a lot as I am decidedly not a sandwich girl to begin with.

Nonetheless, I managed to hit up the farmers market one last time over the weekend and to my joy I came across some fresh and wild purslane that one of the purveyors was selling. I had never tried fresh purslane, but I have studied it's medicinal uses in Chinese Medicine as it is part of the Materia Medica, known as Ma Chi Xian. As it turns out it is also a culinary delight in many places around the world (Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Mexico). In the U.S. it is considered a weed and some refer to it as pigweed or little hogweed, I am not sure if this is because pigs like it or for some other pig-related reason, but it is certainly an underappreciated edible weed here! You can chop it up fresh, saute it lightly, or use it in soups. I must admit, I have not had the opportunity to do anything but rip off a few of it's generous arms, rinse, and nosh on them in front of the computer or as I run off to take care of one last moving logistic, therefore I can't share a recipe as of yet. I can say that it is delicious, and that I enjoyed it very much in it's raw and simple form, it is indeed sour and a bit sweet. Mainly it starts sweet and ends sour. In the future I am going to toss it in a salad with some feta like the Greeks do (one of the recipes I managed to peruse online).

In TCM you use Ma Chi Xian to treat dysentery, hot or bloody genitourinary conditions, and topically for wasp or snake bites. See Kamwo Pharmacy's reference guide for more on this if you'd like.

And with this, I leave you, to run to do. One. Last! Thing! See you in China.

Tomato Time

I feel like I am about to write this post a few weeks too late for those that haven't been relishing in this season, in tomato season. Not that you can't eat tomatoes in the winter, as there are many a freshly canned (sans preservatives beyond salt) brand and given how we consume, you can find them all year round anyway - but they really don't taste as good as they do right now. They truly taste like the sun in the summer, without the mealiness of 100's of miles of transport and refrigeration. In any event, there are still a few weeks left of tomatoes in all their plump juicy glory and this isn't a post meant for chiding. Tomatoes taste really good now, that's all.

In Chinese Medicine tomatoes are considered thermally cooling (meaning if you're HOT, they will cool you - makes sense for summertime), they have a sweet and sour flavor, and they target the liver and stomach organs. There are many different takes on the actions of tomatoes in the context of these attributes, but I am borrowing from J. Kastner's description, "clears heat, enriches yin (especially liver yin), produces fluids and removes dryness, cools and cleans blood, strengthens stomach, promotes liver network activity". For those that are not TCM practitioners, you may be wondering what in the world does "promotes liver network activity" mean anyway?! Well, each organ system (liver, stomach, heart, etc) has it's own set of areas in the body it works on. The liver (as it pertains to TCM) manages the sinews and muscles, detoxification, anger management (or lack thereof), purification and holding of blood, and problems with it (the liver) manifest in the eyes and/or nails (you can have red eyes if you have "liver heat" or you can have brittle nails if you are blood deficient). This may be too much information, or maybe it'll help to relate to how medicinal eating and cooking comes about with these types of links.

Back to the tomato. Given it's still summer, you may be having some heat signs that either relate to the liver or stomach that can manifest as : red eyes, dry mouth, thirst, vertex headaches, general dryness, or even elevated blood pressure. A tomato can help! A few normal sized ones a day in fact. If you are having digestive issues with cold foods, then this isn't your food, avoid the tomato for now. Otherwise, indulge away!

Simple Tomato Salad We've All Had

Ingredients : cherry tomatoes, basil (I used African basil, but use what you like), buffalo mozzarella, shallot, aged balsamic, olive oil, fresh cracked black pepper, sea salt

1. Cut up the tomatoes and mozzarella. Drizzle the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Mince at least half a shallot. Sprinkle the salt and pepper and you're done. Maybe you've had this, multiple times, but I'm putting it up here anyway. This can be served on a baguette with all the juices seeping and sopping into the bread if you like.

Welcome to Chongqing

Since I will soon be relocating to Chongqing (formerly Chungking), which just so happens to be Chicago's sister city, I thought I'd share a few snippets of the life and food there. There will be more as the years go by and I delve even further into yao shan (medicinal cooking) which is a big part of why I am going there. Chongqing lies in the heart of China in between the rich agricultural provinces of Sichuan, Hunan, Guizhou, and Hubei. It is the fastest growing city in China, which may really mean, in the world. Already there are 30+ million people living there and those figures don't account for a lot of unregistered people. The city is both inexorably new and old at the same time, a clash that makes for a vivid experience that literally slams into all your senses ... taste being one of them in the ma la (numb - spicy) variety of Sichuan cuisine.

Already on this short reconnaissance trip, I learned a few new medicinal kitchen tricks and recipes. I'm working on learning the 8 hour (sometimes it's 3 days) triple steamed Fritillaria bulb (Chuan Bei Mu) and Pear soup that I was lucky enough to taste at a very special welcome dinner for us. Because it was SO hot (Chongqing is referred to as the "furnace city" in the summer months) I did not partake in their own special style of hot pot, huo guo, but as soon as the Fall chill enters, I'm sure I'll be happily eating many a huo guo meal. For the time being, I'll leave you with a little taste of Chongqing, in no particular order..



La jiao, making chile sauce, the magnificent awakening smell led us there by our noses.


Huangjueping, artist community in Chongqing.




Zhen Zhu, pearls for making Zhen Zhu Fen (pearl powder), a TCM medicinal which treats heart, liver, and skin ailments.



View of the Jialing River from our future balcony.



Ginger outside a little noodle shop.



Winding mountain roads in the old part of Chongqing, Ciqikou.



The famous Sichuan Dandan mian/noodles, spicy and fragrant.



Year of the Rabbit, 2011.



Ciqikou, old part of Chongqing.




Jiefangbei, the new part of Chongqing, in the evening.




Umbrella culture to save yourself from the burning sun during the summer months.




Hillside vegetable garden, beautifully done.



Grape season.




Watermelons, xi gua, to cool you off.