This turned into a celebratory day. Willy and I had a 1:00 p.m. appointment at
the bank to open his first credit card account, so he would have a credit card
for his trip planned to commence on April 20.
During the morning Willy announced that he had just been accepted as a
graduate student at Dublin Technical University in their Sustainable Sciences
program, which was great news.
After Willy went to the gym for a workout, we went to the
bank and had a pleasant meeting with Willy’s new banker and completed the
paperwork for an ATM card, a credit card, some overdraft protection, and a
checking account, which took the better part of two hours. Willy wanted to eat something different than
oriental food, so we walked across the street to Zinc, but it was closed until
5:00 p.m. We looked up and down Central
and finally I suggested we walk to Two Fools Tavern because I knew that they
had wonderful Fish and Chips. Willy
agreed and we walked the two blocks from Zinc to Two Fools, stopping at
Birdland to say hello to Jay and Paula and share the good news with them. We were pleasantly surprised when we walked
into Two Fools, to see that it was an ersatz Irish pub, so perfectly
appropriate for the occasion, a celebratory meal of Irish food.
Willy ordered a Cobb Sandwich, which was actually a bacon,
lettuce and tomato sandwich with turkey and avocado on it. I ordered the fish and chips. I loved the crisp fish, hot from the deep
fryer served on a bed of fried potatoes.
I ordered a Milk Stout that I had not had before, but loved. Willy, staying in the Commonwealth mood,
ordering a Harp’s.
We talked of EU monetary policy and Willy’s interest in
economics and how his graduate work would include a lot of it, which made me
and, I hope him, happy.
I particularly enjoyed the cup of coleslaw with large chunks
of apple, served with the fish and chips.
After lunch we went home and I went to the Courthouse to
file papers in a case. While at the
Courthouse, I received a call from Max Aragon, who was in town and wanted to
know if I would join him for a beer at Marble Brewery. Since I was only four blocks away, I said,
“yes”. I had a wheat beer to wash down
the fish and chips and enjoyed talking to Max about the successful completion of his new remodeling
project that I had helped him organize with two investors in Santa Fe. Max graciously ordered Nachos with Chili con
Queso and salsa, so I ate some of that.
Then I went home for a meeting with a new client at 5:00
p.m. and took several packages of pork out of the freezer.
Finally, after my meeting at 6:30, I began to think about
preparing dinner. I had bought some missing ingredients
for Ma Po Dofu at Ta Lin on Saturday:
Chinese eggplants and fresh shitake mushrooms.
I was chopping up two large eggplants (about 5 cups of
eggplant) when Suzette walked in and we shared Willy’s good news of his
acceptance at Dublin Technical University. She said she could not cook, so I proceeded to
make the Ma Po Dofu. I cut up a handful of
garlic greens and bottoms we had picked yesterday, ¾ of a yellow onion, about two
Tbsps. of fresh ginger, and about 1 lb. of pork steak. Then I heated 3 Tbsps. of peanut oil and a dash of sesame oil in a large wok and stir fried the garlic and ginger, then added the pork and cooked it for about five minutes until it began to lose its color. Then I added the eggplant and onion and two heaping tsps. of Chili/Garlic paste and a few dashes of chili oil and let that stir fry for about fifteen minutes until the mixture softened and became stew-like.
While the eggplant was stewing, I cut off the stems and sliced four medium portabella mushrooms and four fresh shitake mushrooms. Suzette, who had risen to action, put them into the wok and asked what she could do to help. I filled a pot with about three or four cups of water and suggested that she make chicken stock while I diced ten ounces of medium firm tofu ( I often add 14 or 19 oz. of tofu, depending upon what I have). When I added the tofu, I added enough chicken stock to cover the stew mixture and then covered the wok with a lid. I realized that I had forgotten to add wood ear, so I simmered a small handful of whole black wood ears in the remaining 1 ½ cups of chicken stock until they became very soft in about ten minutes. I then cut the wood ears into threads and cut out the hard parts (where they attach to the trees). I ended up with about ¼ cup of wood ear, which I added to the stew and stirred the stew to make sure all the ingredients were still covered with liquid. When I saw that everything was still covered, I removed the cover so the stew would boil off some liquid and then let it cook for another twenty minutes or so.
There is no specific time required to cook Ma Po Dofu, so long as the eggplant and other ingredients are cooked. When I returned to the T.V area, Suzette said she was hungry, so after watching Colbert interview Bill Clinton, I returned to the kitchen. I heated some PPI rice and fetched a bowl into which I put about 2 Tbsp. of rice cooking wine, 1 ½ Tbsp. of cornstarch, 1 tsp. of sesame oil, 1 Tbsp. of Chinese Mushroom soy and about ¼ cup of chicken stock. I mixed the thickening sauce until smooth and added it to the stew.
Suzette came in and stirred the stew and said it looked
good, so I fetched three pasta bowls and the heated rice and chopped a large
Mexican green onion to use as garnish for the dish. We each served ourselves rice and stew and
garnished our bowls with onion and I fetched bottles of beer from the basement and we enjoyed
dinner together talking about how Willy could alter the course of his trip to include
Dublin to enable him to make arrangements for the fall semester and generally expressed how
happy we were for him.
Willy said one interesting thing, “You know this is just how
it happened when I was accepted to UBC; I had applied and the acceptance just
came out of the blue and I went.”
Suzette reminded Willy that he had had a rough adjustment to
college and we all decided that he was better prepared to take this next step
in his academic career, having finished up at UBC with mostly A’s.
The Ma Po Dofu was really good this evening, perhaps because of the joy of Willy's good news or perhaps due to the
total cooking time of about 1 hour.
Also I did not add any flavorings (other than the garlic/chili paste,
which must be added to the meat at the beginning) during the cooking process until
the very end with the thickening sauce, so it had a cleaner and more eggplant-like
flavor. Also, I added less soy than I
usually do. I am learning from the
Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking Cookbook that reduced seasoning actually
adds fragrance to the dish. It seems that
reduced flavorings also allow the ingredients to shine through; sort of a
California Cuisine approach to Chinese cooking.
Bon Appétit
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