As with all the best plans, my diet has not quite gone as I’d intended. A good dose of some icky virus/chest infection has had me coughing to the point of losing my voice and bruising my ribs and all thoughts of diet went out of the window. And somehow, I still lost 3 lbs. Not a method I can recommend though!
My sickness enforced rest has given me the opportunity to indulge in one of my favourite pastimes though – reading cookery books. I love those books where there are lots of pictures and a strong narrative as well as recipes. I very rarely actually follow a recipe – I take a look at the general idea of how to make something and the ingredients and then put the book away and get on with doing things my own way. I’m a bit stubborn like that!
I’m going to be moving house soon and have been packing away some of my many books in order to make the place look a little less cluttered and in doing so came across some old Chinese cookery books, I haven’t looked at in years.
Chinese cookery was really the thing that turned me on to cooking in the first place. I think that wok cooking was probably the first introduction to cooking for many people of my generation – it was all the rage in early 80s. Now I’m more likely to cook Thai or Malaysian food than Cantonese but it was really interesting going through those old books and remembering the flavours of my teens.
The first Chinese restaurant I ever went to was in London’s China Town. I’d been tutoring a younger girl for some exam or other and when she passed, her parents took us out to the theatre and for a meal. I had duckling in sour melon. I can’t remember what the flavours were but I do remember really loving it, so much so that I’ve searched every Chinese menu I’ve come across since for the dish. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen it again and haven’t managed to find the same restaurant in my many trips round China Town since.
My book reading lead me to a Google search and whilst I’ve not found anything with sour melon, I’ve discovered lots of recipes for bitter melon, which I presume must be the same thing. I’m so happy – just need to do a little shopping and this weekend a trip down a culinary memory lane will commence.
The thing that started me cooking Chinese food was living in a very multi-cultural flat in central London whilst at college. There was a Chinese girl who knocked up the most amazing smelling dishes in her wok every night and a Malaysian girl who spent days on end cooking curries so gradually, almost by osmosis, I learned how to cook. The first thing I cooked was a sort of chicken chow mien with burnt carrots……I’m going to have to reproduce that too. This is so exciting!
