food | The Hexacoto

July 22, 2013

Sorrowful Rice 黯然销魂饭

I tried making my own char siew, or Chinese barbecue roast pork, for the first time today. People usually buy them because nobody owns a spit and a fire pit, but I learnt that you can actually cook it in the oven, and char it on the stove top!

Given that I now have a batch of char siew, a natural dish to make with it would be what is known as “Sorrowful Rice” or 黯然销魂饭. The dish is essentially regular ol’ char siew rice, or char siew over steamed white rice, with a side of a sunny-side up and some vegetables.

“Sorrowful Rice” is actually the name of a dish from a movie, God of Cookery (食神).

In it, the protagonist Stephen Chow competes in a competition and strives to create the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted. He reaches into his sorrow and memory of a woman, who made him a bowl of char siew rice when he was downtrodden, and she supposedly took a bullet for him. With that, he created the “Sorrowful Rice.”

The sorrow is apparently onions.

I reach into my sorrow and create my own “Sorrowful Rice.”

Grandma, you never got to see me graduate college. You never even got to see me off as I left for New York later that year. You never got to see me do the ‘triumphant return.’ I have yet to return, and it seems I am becoming quite the prodigal son. Will you still be proud of me, even if I am struggling to make something of myself and having racked up a colossal collegiate debt?

What will you say, if you learn that I do not wish to return to the land where you are buried?

On 28th May, 2009, at around 5 AM, you passed away in the hospital. I remember, because I wrote it down.

I also wrote down having heard you cry when Great Grandmother died. It was really painful.

A grandson should never live to see his grandmother cry. Or any old people cry.

I wrote that down in my logs. In my mind, it seemed impossible that you were one to sob uncontrollably, for you were my stoic grandmother; frustrating at times, but always well-meaning and grandmotherly.

I also remember, and wrote down when your youngest son, my uncle, passed away. By traditions and customs, you were not allowed to attend his wake. I can only imagine what grief it must be — grief I didn’t want to imagine, because I remembered the grief you had at Great Grandmother’s funeral.

Many times whenever I am doing something, I would think, “What if she could see me now?” And then I remembered that you can’t, and I am reminded of the finality of death.

Uncle (叔叔), I wrote down what you told me when I visited you on 12th April, 2008.

The first few things he said to me were, “Is the army stressful?” and then he went on about how I should learn to take things easy and learn how to let things go. However I feel that it was more for the benefit of himself, as if he were repeating these to remind himself exactly what he has to do.

But he seems ailing in his road to recovery. He doesn’t wish to pick himself up, saying how exhausted he is and all, and all he does is lie in bed. He doesn’t move much, not even to leave the room or to sit on a sofa. That is bad.

Hope he perks up soon? I’ve even offered going out with him for photography as bribes.

What I did not write down, but I always remember was when you asked me that day, “So what are your plans for college?”

“I’m probably going to apply for college in the United States,” I said.

“That’s nice. What are you going to be studying there?” he asked.

“Journalism.”

“Journalism? That’s good. I wanted to be a journalist too when I was younger, but I never studied hard, and I couldn’t be one. You should study hard and become one for me.”

You passed away a week later.

I graduated journalism school, but I have yet to find a job in journalism. I am going to keep trying, uncle. With the memories of that robot dinosaur you gave me as a kid, and also that toy guy that you disabled the recoil feature for because it scared me, I will become the journalist you couldn’t be. I could not keep the promise to go do photography with you, but I will try my darndest best with this one.

I should ease up with the onions. This is too much sorrow for me.

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July 8, 2013

Cotton bread

Instead of the one-dollar cheapo sliced bread I usually get from ShopRite, for some reason I decided to buy this loaf labelled “Italian Bread” that cost 50 cents more, and it looks pretty good. It was sliced, had sesame seeds studded all over it, and had a good heft to it.

When I prised a slice loose from the loaf, it was the softest, fluffiest bread I’ve ever felt. It couldn’t be real: its white porous body yielded to my gentlest touch, I could roll it up and it would stay unbroken.

I hated it.

Seriously, why are sliced bread in America so soft? They flop around like limp, floppy fish and are useless against hardy condiments such as crunchy peanut butter. Have you tried applying chunky peanut butter against soft bread before? The moment a knife with a load of crunchy peanut butter meets soft bread, there is no way it can be spread because any attempt to do so results in a messy mutilation of the bread, where it ends up dented, misshapen or torn.

Are these bread made from cotton plants? Most bread I’ve had in Europe are much sturdier, as far as I could recall, so much so that stale bread become acceptable substitutes for frisbee throwing. Or for making knedliky’s (bread dumplings).

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July 6, 2013

To unicycle or not to unicycle, that is the question

“Can you help me water my plants while I’m gone?” My friend texts me, already in California.

“Sure, leave beer in the fridge!” I replied.

“There should be some left in there,” he said.

That exchange of words led me to consider now something I have never done before: Whether or not I should unicycle to a friend’s place to help him water his plants because it would rob me of precious calories; calories that cost money that I do not exactly have right now.

It’s been a week since I sent out some applications for positions at various publications and news places, and that’s probably nothing in terms of the job application process. However, considering the fact that one of the ways a freshly-graduated, but woefully-unemployed person was going to secure housing in the competitive New York City housing market was to offer to pay rent upfront. That I did, and the management company gleefully took all of a year’s worth of rent in a go.

It is as if I jumped headfirst into a noose, but instead of the sweet escape of a snappy death, I am experiencing a slow tightening of the rope around my neck as I watched my dollars and cents trickle away. Yesterday, I was relieved to have gathered $18.50 in all the loose change I’ve amassed and deposited them into the bank. That should probably buy me another two weeks worth of groceries.

No wonder I am nickel-and-joule-ing every single calorie right now.

I figured if I ate something starchy and carbohydrate-y I should be fine, right? Does unicycling in the hot sun consume more calories than if I were to do so when it is less hot? I didn’t want to be cycling in the hot sun anyway. But I couldn’t wait till it got dark, owing to the fact that I sat on my glasses and broke them a couple days prior, and can’t afford to replace them. I can’t see much save for maybe an outstretched arm’s reach distance. I mean, I can see vague shapes and lights and colours, there just isn’t any definition to anything. It’s akin to living an impressionist painting, I suppose. I am able to see traffic and all that, I should be fine. I should probably leave soon if I am going to fulfil the favour I promised my friend.

Thank goodness I stockpiled on pasta that cost eighty-eight cents a box weeks ago at the ShopRite in Midwood. Well, whatever I bought two weeks ago is going to have to last me another two or so, I fear.

For a chronically broke person, I thankfully had the luxury of choice of what pasta to cook. I chose macaroni elbows. I added some frozen carrot-and-pea mix, and some canned corn, and since I probably needed sodium and stuff, I decided to make it ‘Asian’ and used soy sauce and sesame oil. And that was breakfast/lunch. I set out for my friend’s place.

I had been unicycling for about eleven years at that point, and I am no stranger to unicycling on the streets of New York. I’ve gone both uptown and downtown Eighth Avenue during rush hours, I’ve gone through the Fashion District when trucks are unloading, and I’ve even ventured the roads of New Jersey, all on one wheel. These five or so miles are nothing to my extra-seasoned, extra-basted legs. But these five miles were the scariest five miles I’ve experienced in a while, not because of the traffic, not because I had to cycle through Bedford-Stuyvesant, but because of an unfortunate allegory playing in my head as I was cycling.

This is how it goes:

I don’t have my glasses, and I can’t see. Thus, I’ve had to pay extra close attention to the immediate patch of road in front of me, as any crack that I unknowing cycle over can potentially throw me off my unicycle. I look at my immediate front to the exclusion of many things, ignoring the pretty houses and kids playing in the park that I pass by. Aren’t I already living such a life? Taking one day at a time, worrying about whether I’ll need to spend money today or not, scarcely thinking about tomorrow. I can’t afford to think about next month or even next week, always paying close attention to my immediate present. The finer things in life can take a backseat for now.

I arrive at my friend’s place. Gee, he sure does have a lot of plants to water. I sit down and think of writing whatever I’ve thought up into a book. “This will be in a book that will make me famous!” I toyed with the idea in my head, though a thought came after, “Yea, but you won’t get to publish this book until you’re already famous.

I leave for home. Shit, I’m getting hungry. I can practically envision that pot of pasta in my stomach rapidly vanishing into the ether. “Fuel tank low! Please refuel!” cries the warning blinkers that are my stomach growls. I yearned to speed up to return home to make food, but my legs would go no faster.

“Does that thing take a lot of balance?” Some folks at the steps of my building ask me about my unicycle as I approached.

“No, just a lot of practice.” I didn’t stop to chat. I went up and made more pasta, this time with beans and tons of scallions that were three bunches a dollar in Chinatown.