Spice

I have been craving some serious Chinese food recently.

Food with wok hai, food that is like mother's milk,
But that is not so sweet as to be mistaken for dessert.

Food that will put hair on you chest (if you are so inclined)

But I have yet to find that kind of Chinese food here in Israel. 1950's and '60's "Canadian-Chinese", or "Kantonese", everything flavoured with Osem Chinese style soy sauce, which is artificially flavoured and coloured as far as I can tell, and has no relation to naturally brewed soy sauce, or even LaChoy's lacklustre version. And everything tasting exactly the same, no matter if it is called Mandarin, Hunanese, Cantonese Szechuan, Hong Kong, Shanghai or Peking style.

And then, to add insult to injury, in order to eat pathetic pseudo-Chinese you have to take out a mortgage and still be careful to not order anything that has seafood in it. That is, of course, if the restaurant isn't Glatt Kosher…

Family legend has it that I first tasted Chinese food aged 6 weeks – when my mother fed me a sip of wonton soup. Ever since then I have been hooked. I remember going to the original Toronto Chinatown on Dundas Street. This was back in the early 70's and Sai Woo was considered to be the epitome of authentic. My father, in a generous mood, let me choose any dish on the menu, and me, aged about 8, and having been influenced by National Geographic articles written by Euell Gibbons, I chose an abalone dish. I don't remember how they cooked it or even the texture, but what I do remember is that it was tinned and that was a big disappointment. I had expected something that would taste special and worthy of National Geographic, but I could have been eating tinned clams, or textured SPAM or Dinty Moore chicken. That's what eating Chinese food here is like... a big disappointment.

Personally, my favourite dim sum treats are chicken's feet and tripe. Fat chance finding either of those here. Instead, I am assaulted by limp ravioli noodles filled with sweetened sweet potato {yes, you read right – sweetened sweet potato} doused in olive oil and spiced with dried coriander and cumin. I really don't think that this could be considered even bastardized dim sum. But then again, this is Israel, and nothing is sacred.

I digress.

I love Chinese food. Really love it. And really miss the real stuff. In desperation, I have managed to achieve almost authentic tasting Chinese food in my own home.

But I still wish I could just wander down the street and have my cravings satisfied...

Spicy Chicken with Cabbage and Noodles
This is flexible and you can play with the quantities to suit your taste and the number of guests {I made enough for 2 and I love spicy food}. Just make sure that you don't overload your wok and make sure it stays very, very hot.

• Egg noodles, blanched and tossed with oil to keep from sticking then allowed to drip dry
• Peanut oil or corn oil
• 1 inch ginger sliced into very thin match sticks
• 3 cloves garlic smashed and sliced very thin
• 5 Green onions sliced into 1 inch pieces.
• 1 star anise
• 10 tiny dried bird chilis
• 1 tsp whole Szechuan peppercorns
• 2 tbsp dried shrimp
• Sesame oil
• 3 tbsp {approx} dark soy
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp hot sriracha sauce
• 1 tbsp cornstarch or ricestarch
• 3 tbsp Xiao Xing wine or sherry
• 2 boneless chicken thighs, thinly sliced, sprinkled with a generous grind of black pepper
• 1/4 red cabbage thinly sliced
  You can also add bean sprouts, very thin matchstick carrots, mangetouts, or almost any other vegetable that you like, just so long as they are cut to cook extremely quickly, this was just what I had on hand
• Fresh hot red pepper – to taste –
  Mine was really hot - I used 1/2 of a 4 inch one that was the size of a medium carrot

Mix the starch, sugar, wine or sherry, soy and sriracha sauces together with a little bit of water.

Heat some peanut oil in a wok until it just starts to smoke, then throw in about 1/3 of the ginger and garlic, swirl it around the wok and then throw in the noodles and give a quick toss. Let the wok regain heat and then toss the noodles again. Basically you want the noodles to start getting a bit browned, and even lightly scorched and crispy in places. Use chopsticks or forks to help separate the noodles. When the noodles have lots of crispy, browned bits, throw in half of the green onions and a small splash of sesame oil, toss around to mix thoroughly and then put onto a warmed serving plate and keep warm in the oven.

Heat some more peanut oil in the wok until it just starts to smoke, then throw in the anise, Szechuan and dried peppers, swirl around until they get toasty. If you like spice leave the chilis and Szechuan peppers in the oil, but if you like your food on the milder side, scoop them out now. Add the dried shrimps and then the rest of the ginger and garlic, swirl around again and then throw in the chicken. DO NOT STIR.

After the chicken starts to turn a bit brown, give it a quick stir and wait until the chicken looks almost cooked. Throw in the starch/soy sauce mixture and stir thoroughly, throw in the cabbage and toss again, then cover for a minute. Toss again, then add some sesame oil, the rest of the green onions and the fresh hot pepper {saving some for decoration}. Toss one final time, and then tip out onto the waiting noodles. Sprinkle with the remaining green onion and fresh hot pepper.

Serve with cold beer and a smile.

Muffins

I love muffins...

I don't know anybody who doesn't.

They are THE easiest thing to bake. Incredibly forgiving, you can measure by eye, not by gram, make lots of substitutions, make them lean and mean, full of fibre, or an embarassment of riches topped by a melting pat of butter or some heavy whipped cream.

There is a very basic ratio involved, wet to dry. Once you know how to make a basic muffin you can play with the recipe and turn banana muffins into gruyere and sundried tomato muffins.

Basic Banana Muffins (adapted from the Joy of Cooking)

• 1 cup AP flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 medium egg
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup mashed banana
• 1 heaped tbsp yoghurt or sour cream or the equivalent in milk, cream or buttermilk
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil or 3 1/2 tbsp melted butter

1. Heat oven to 375f
2. Grease or line a 6-muffin tray
3. Mix wet ingredients in a large bowl
4. Mix dry ingredients together very well in a separate container.
5. Add dry ingredients to the wet ones. Barely mix them together - it's ok if there is still a bit of dry flour showing. I NEVER stir more than 20 times, and usually only about 13!
6. Fill the muffin tins 3/4 full and then put the tray into the preheated oven.
7. Check the muffins after about 15 minutes - when tapped a muffin will sound hollow and a toothpick will come out clean.
8. Let the muffins cool for 2-3 minutes after they come out of the oven and then take them out of the tins.

Enjoy hot, warm or toasted the next day, smeared with butter, jam, honey, sour cream, butter or just plain.

The muffins in the pictures substituted stringy halvah for the sugar {I actually used about 2/3 cup halvah because it is not as sweet}, and exchanged 1/3 of the AP flour with wholewheat flour, I also threw in a bit of lemon zest and real vanilla.

I also made these in mini muffin tins and ended up with about 20 3-bite muffins

Grated carrots can be substituted for the banana, or grated apples, mashed persimmons, orange juice or part lemon juice part yoghurt {not forgetting to include the zest}.

Or try this using grated zucchini, mashed feta cheese, chili flakes and fresh thyme and/or oregano.

A Birthday Party

Well, birthday parties aren't what they used to be...

Nowadays, they come stocked with dj's and mobile menageries, professional face painters, bouncy castles and more chemicals than you can shake a stick at (in the form of candies, chips, snacks and pop.

I feel my age, and older, when I go to a child's birthday party.
Because they make me remember what it was like to be small...

When I was young enough to go to birthday parties that were taken seriously, the entertainment was homegrown all the way. Pin the tail on the donkey, hot potato, blind man's bluff, musical chairs. Admittedly my family did things a bit differently. We were given the most amazing scavenger hunts to go on, with my parents hiding elaborate clues, complete with hand drawn pictures and maps, arrows chalked on the street and on walls, and balloons peeking from between the leaves of the apple tree.

I don't remember the final prize, but I do remember the hunt for clues. A flock of little, screaming, giggling girls running from tree to tree, lamp post to lamp post, looking under rocks and through post slots, racing each other through the neighbours' yards to see who could find the next clue. And when it was found, we would all gather around trying to figure out what the clue meant. It was so exciting.

And then I grew up and the wide eyed innocence of youth became something that was not cool to have. Of course, now I know better, and wish I could revert to that time of unconditional belief in everything. Where there was good and evil and everything was cut and dried, black and white. There were no shadows then, except for the long evening shadows of mid-summer, telling us that bedtime was soon to come and that a bedtime story with a happy ending would be our just desserts for existing.

Nowadays, like most adults, I live vicariously, enjoying watching joy light up the face of a child as a grubby hand reaches out for a heart shaped marshmallow. Or the unashamed participation in a puppet play, yelling at the hero that the villain was just behind the curtain, hands partly covering eyes in anxious anticipation of what was to come.

Or the tightly screwed up eyes as the all important wish is made before the candles on the homemade birthday cake are blown out.

If I could remake just one wish, what would it be?

I wish I could regain the feeling of not having a care in the world and being absolutely, supremely confident that everybody loved me just for being.

Not: just for being me.
Just for being.
There is a difference...

But as we all know, you can't tell anyone your wish or
It won't come true...

Oh well.

Beans Beans...

Beans.

Are they good for your heart?

Are they a magical fruit?

Are they a vegetable?

Well, in French they are a vegetable - legume,
but only if you translate literally.

Or would that then be figuratively?

And are lentils a bean?

Corn isn't a bean,
But popcorn is always beside the beans in stores...

And succotash is lima beans and corn...

Are mung beans still considered beans

once they sprout?

Do kidney beans have tiny little organs?

And what about edamame?

Congratulations!

Hello Tal of Chicago.

Thank you for participating in this years Menu for Hope.

And thank you for giving me the huge compliment of choosing
My prize!

These are just a few neighbourhood photographs
so that you can see where your prize is coming from.

These were all taken within a 5 minute stroll of my apartment.

Sunshine doesn't ship too well,
Otherwise you'd be getting some of that in your parcel too!