New Year, New Day

The large brush laden with water is drawn from the bucket by the old, steady hand and moved in deliberate strokes across the pavement. One stroke, two, three or more until the complete character develops. Luminous lines, black on grey stone he moves onto the next character. The words from the ancient Tang poem begin to take shape. Even in the afternoon sun its bone … Read more

Goose Fire Pot on a Wintry Day

I love to eat hot soups and stews to chase away the chill of a cold day. Asian soups are wonderful for this purpose. From Korean Doenjang Jjiggae to Central Asian Shurpa, Asian soups are hearty, delicious and offer unusual flavor combinations for warding off winter weather. The Chinese have a dish that is an intermediary between a soup and a stew for warding off … Read more

Peking Duck in Beijing

Crisp, amber skin atop moist, flavorful dusky meat all carved and rolled into parchment-like pancakes and brushed with sweet bean or hoisin sauce: Peking Duck is perhaps the dish we most often think of when imagining Chinese cuisine. It is listed in brochures and books as being the “must-have” dish for travelers to Beijing, where preparing it is still considered an artform. I grew up … Read more

There and Back Again

We returned home from China a few days ago, my mind is still awash with all of the fantastic food I encountered on our combination family vacation and food research trip. We sampled a wide variety of food from fine restaurants in big cities serving national and regional specialties to street vendors dolling out snacks for a single yuan or two. We toured outdoor markets … Read more

The Best Hot and Sour Soup You’ll Ever Make – This one goes to 11

We have been having some cool and wet weather to usher in Autumn – barely topping 50 degrees Fahrenheit by mid-day. On days such as these, there is nothing that warms body and mind better than a big bowl of homecooked soup. Sometimes it’s a bowl of Central Asian Shurpa, sometimes a hearty Korean soup like Doenjang-jjigae, but the effect is the same – a … Read more

The Origins of Tea in Burma . . .

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river . . . And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China . . . I grew up hearing Leonard Cohen croon these words over and over. Telling perhaps about my age and background, but important as an introduction to the history of tea as well. As a global drink, … Read more

Silk Road Sojourners

The University of Pennsylvania Museum displays artifacts from Caucasian travelers on the Silk Road. In a desolate, eastern world of salt and sand, where blinding windstorms were common and potable water was rare, the mummified remains of people from the west have been found. Why they died, where they came from and where they were traveling to is unclear, but for a short time, they … Read more

A Mosque of One’s Own

Muslim Communities in Central China have female religious leaders as well as their own unique food culture.    Despite a deep historical tradition of female religious leadership beginning with Ayesha, the wife of the Prophet Mohammed, modern China is one of the only countries in which Muslim women are widely accepted as heads of their religious communities.  These female religious leaders also fulfill most of the … Read more

Schizandra – the Five Flavor Fruit

In answer to a question recently posed to me by the New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, Colorado, this week’s offering on the blog is a primer on the food uses of schizandra – berries widely used in China, the Koreas and Japan for coloring and flavor in food and beverages. Schizandra berries are the fruits of the magnolia Schizandra chinensis or Schizandra sphenanthera that are … Read more