Having (been) volunteered for a store lead position at one of Pudong’s Carrefour stores (since I live in PuJersey) as part of a food drive volunteer project, I was very curious to see how locals would react to a bunch of Caucasians standing at the door passing out flyers like street hawkers, trying to convince them to donate food to disadvantaged people in southern Anhui. The store staff said they had never heard of anyone doing anything like this, and were dubious about the possible effectiveness of the engagement. Thankfully it seems to have been a success; though I have no appropriate benchmark for which to judge. Exhibit 1: 400kg of food loot:

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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):

Someone must have written about this already – but, if you are trapped in Asia it may prove useful: tonight I made a big batch of simple veggie pasta for the week (7 tomatoes, 3 green peppers, boatloads of garlic, something that looked like a cucumber, assorted other greens). Basil / other normal spices were nowhere to be found, so I substituted liberal amounts of 料酒 (liaojiu), generic cooking liquor. It turned out exceptionally good – not too different in principle from Vodka sauce, but way better. Also used sunflower seed oil instead of olive oil. More experimentation required. It was delicious. Additionally, if you are into Chinese cooking, adding lots of a cheap red wine into your 地三鲜 (‘Three Treasures of the Earth’) also makes it unexpectedly tasty.

哇赛! 这些狗肉做的非常好，但是鸡心更好吃! 再来十个!
wā sài! zhè xiē gǒu ròu zuò de fēi cháng hǎo, dàn shì jī xīn gèng hǎo chī! zài lái shí gè!
“Wow. Dang. That dog meat was very well done, but those chicken hearts were delicious. Bring me ten more!”

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Busy weekend, several discoveries – the part about the chicken hearts is especially true. Previously dubious, I stand converted. If you ever have the opportunity to eat them, do so.