My kitchen faces the hallway of the building, and so it’s become commonplace for people walking by to do a double take and peek in to see what’s going on. Sometimes they will start conversations. There’s this one old fellow, a retired army guy, (we’ll call him Mr. Li) who often carries on for quite some time while I’m doing dishes, cooking simple things, or cleaning up coffee grounds that I spilled all over the place in a morning stupor. I rather enjoy these conversations. Recently we had the following exchange:

Tony: Why Hello Mr. Li, have you eaten yet?

Mr Li: Me? No. Oh, I see you’re making Italian Noodles again.

Tony: Yes, it’s one of my favorite things, and I can eat a single batch for a week.

Mr Li: That’s so very troubling.

Tony: What? No, I really like doing this.

Mr Li: No, I know… I used to have to cook for myself when I was stationed alone at a post outside of Beijing. Such a sad time of life.

Tony: But. I’m not sad.

Mr Li: Ha-ha! So troubling. So troubling.

This could just be a matter of me misinterpreting the colloquialism (辛苦), but I’m pretty sure I got the gist of it. Speaking of Italian Noodles, here’s a picture of the special sauce. All you need to do is add yon wine to anything, and deliciousness increases in direct proportion to the quantity used (not unlike the general correlation between liquor and happiness):