Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Fuzhou Eats


I went to Fuzhou a couple of weeks ago to visit my grandmother. Fuzhou is my ancestral province, where both sides of my family is from. I don't know what it is, but it seems like the preference for Fuzhounese food is imprinted in my DNA. Usually, I am not as brave when I visit other parts of the world. I prefer not to eat the street foods, and while there are many parts of the world that I gluttonize over, none compares to feasting on food from the homeland.

Fuzhou is known for its Lake Seafood. There are many different types of seafood there that I have never seen anywhere else, and my family has an addiction to razor clams. Every visit to the motherland involves a big family feast where my aunt and uncle cooks up a storm. Homemade food highlights this time:

-Razor clams
-Fuzhounese fish balls with meet stuffing
-Mashed taro dessert
-Steamed sticky rice with lake crab
-double boiled lake duck

But the most usual thing I ate on this trip is some kind of a crustacean that my uncle ordered at a restaurant. Apparently, it is an endangered species in Hong Kong, that is why we can't get it here. I confess, I ate it, as I don't think it is endangered in China, yet?! Regardless of how something tastes, I feel that it is my duty to boycott resources that are not managed properly. However, I confess, I do want to taste it once it is on the table in front of you. And really, it just taste like a cross between a lobster and a crab. With choices abound in this world, there really is no need to over stuff ourselves with scarce food source, is there?

BTW: I attached that funny crustacean for your viewing purposes.

Monday, May 5, 2008


I made a Salmon and tomato soup with wontons and stir fried yams with garlic and sesame.
Paired it with a glass of Penfolds Riesling. Delish!

Sunday, May 4, 2008

I have finally figured it out!


After years of struggle with balancing weight and my love of food. I took the Anthony Robbins approach, and researched people who love food and are skinny. How do they do it? What is their secret?

I asked people far and wide, and made some assumptions on the way, and ta da.......

1.) They EXERCISE! regularly. You know, they run a marathon before inhaling a steak.
2.) They graze. They eat everything, but only until they are satisfied. Because you know there is something better to eat in just a little while!
3.) They only eat the best of everything. No canned soup for dinner because hey, life is too short to be mediocre.
4.) They cook their food with the best ingredient. Which may help with the moderation idea because heck, good food is EXPENSIVE!
5.) They eat slowly and in small bites so that each morsel is savored. Mmmm.....

So I have decided that every night, I will attempt to make my dinner a treat. So no matter how tired I am, or how lazy I get, I will NOT eat Campbells and crackers, or Terra chips for the evening meal. As fellow singletons may attest to, living by yourself puts your gourmet self to shame because who wants to make all that effort for only one person eating by her or himself?
However, once you have a very nice piece of edible art in front of you, you tend to savor it, instead of stuffing yourself until you are full. Really, exercising epicurean ism is actually a way to a trimmer, slimmer you.

Therefore, I will attempt to post my dinner diary here. For the first entry, here is what I ate last night:

Portuguese clam, pork and bean stew with green salad dressed with homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Okay, I admit, I made the stew last weekend for my cousins, froze a portion and added some canned beans to it. And yes, I believe that every good meal should be accompanied with a glass of good wine. It was a glass of Pinot I had with it.