Beijing Roast Duck

One of the reasons I love food so much is the way it brings people together. You can share a meal with complete strangers and in the end feel like family. It's a commonality that connects us all.

I've been thinking a lot about the intro to this recipe. I could tell you a nostalgic story about my family and keep this place clean from current events and politics for fear of alienating some of my readers, but ultimately that's not what I want my blog to be. I want to talk to you like real people who live in the real world. I want to tell you about my struggles, and I want you to tell me about yours. I can't blog about the food that's supposed to bring us together while the world we live in falls apart. So here goes:

I don't want to live in a world where people are murdered while driving home or selling CDs because they are unfairly judged by the color of their skin. Or a world where the officers who risk their lives to protect us are gunned down in retaliation because of the uniform they wear. Or a world where families celebrating a national holiday are mowed down by a terrorist in a goddamn truck.

I wish we as a human race could have more empathy for each other. That sounds so childish to say, and I understand we will never live in a peaceful utopia where hunger, poverty, and racism don't exist, but is it really so naive to ask for an end to the senseless violence? What can we do? What more can we do than post some heartfelt words on Facebook that will be all but forgotten in a week? My answer is I simply don't know. But I will try my best to figure it out.

Pork Chop Over Rice

I have a confession. I misled you. That last post about tea eggs...it was actually a teaser for this post right here. Although those marbled beauties are fine and dandy to eat alone, their real destiny is to play a supporting role in this plate of porky goodness.

When I was a teenager and lived with my parents in the Dallas suburbs, we used to go to this hole-in-the-wall Taiwanese cafe that served shaved ice, pork chop over rice, and a bunch of other Chinese street food that I don't particularly remember. I woke up one day about a month ago with a serious craving for those same fried pork chops from my days of yore. And instead of wandering over to Manhattan to find a place in Chinatown, somehow my squirrely brain went straight to the least logical resolution: I have to make it myself! This is the recipe I finally landed on (with some help from this amazing YouTube channel).

Chinese Tea Eggs

There are certain memories I have of my childhood that are more vivid than most. I remember my mom used to spend an entire day stewing an astronomical amount of food to eat that same night and many more nights to follow. It was usually things like seaweed, tofu, different parts of a pig (ear, tongue), and occasionally she would throw in a few hard boiled eggs and let them soak up all the flavors the previous occupants of the stewing liquid imparted.

Those eggs weren't the exact same thing as these tea eggs, they weren't delicately cracked to create a perfect marbled pattern (my mom is far too practical for that), and I don't actually think the stewing liquid she used had any tea in it, but the other aromatics were very similar. The first time I made tea eggs myself, the smell elicited an overwhelming feeling of childhood nostalgia. So even though they're not the exact same thing I ate growing up, they're pretty darn close.

Beef Noodle Soup with Oxtail & Chard

Beef noodle soup is so entrenched in the Chinese food culture, I feel like you can find a different version of it almost everywhere you go in the country. Though usually made with shank, brisket, or chuck, the last time I was at home visiting my parents, my mom introduced me to a version made with oxtail. Since oxtail has a lot of fat and connective tissue, the meat becomes very tender when stewed for a long time. It is so delicious.