After walking the busy streets of the mainland side of Hong Kong this morning, we had a bite of lunch at a dim sum restaurant at the Royal Plaza hotel before heading to check out the Yuen Po street bird garden and flower market.




At the market you can purchase any type of song bird available as well as all of the accessories that go along with raising a bird—hand carved cages, seeds, bells, and toys. Interestingly enough, the bird market also serves as a classroom for birds. Should you desire your bird to sing a particular tune or phrase, you can hang your bird's cage alongside a neighbor bird that already knows the song. After several weeks of lessons, you should have a proper songstress.



[1-4. c. lynn]

I visited J and K in Washington D.C. two weekends ago and I'm just getting to post one of our many adventures!

We had a great time in D.C., visiting the Library of Congress, the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorial, feasting on my first bowl of pho and enjoying a superb Vietnamese coffee, viewing the Watchmen at the IMAX theater, visiting the Constitution and Declaration of Independence at the U.S. Hall of Records.

But I must say that one of my personal highlights was going to the Chinese market with J and learning about all of the new produce at our fingertips. She showed me dried bamboo, malabar nightshade, bean leaf, red amaranth, Chinese yam, yam tips, bitter melon, Chinese eggplant, whole tamarind, dried lychees, as well as which kinds of fish were best for steaming. We picked up lots of spices for my kitchen back in NY, like good wet spice rubs for preparing crab, hot chiles, Chinese peppercorn, ginger, along with rice wine, and this great Chinese sauce that her husband said was good on rice alone.

When we got home we prepared a feast! Bitter melon with salted preserved egg, Chinese eggplant with ground pork, stir fry whole fish, stir fry crab with a delicious spicy marinade, stir fry silken tofu with chiles, and lots of vegetables including malabar nightshade and red amaranth. To drink, her husband prepared rice wine with ginger, and a few bottles of beer.

It was a lot of work and took us most of the afternoon to prepare all of the vegetables, but it was a job well done.

Here's the recipe for our crabs:

Ingredients:
6 blue crabs (or any crabs you can find fresh at market)
1/2 bottle of Chinese beer (or any light beer)
Dash of garlic salt
2 tablespoons cooking oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced ginger
Chinese chili crab rub
1 or 2 chopped green onions

For the Chinese chili sauce:
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar

1. Use only the freshest seafood, which will mean that your crabs should be alive when you get them from the market. After the crabs are dead (ours died in the sink while we were out visiting the Lincoln Memorial), clean and soak them in cold water and cut in half with a mallet or cleaver. Soak the crab in about a 1/2 cup of rice wine and garlic salt for 5-10 minutes. You could also use beer.

2. Place a wok over high heat until hot. Add oil, swirling to coat sides. Add crab and stir fry for 2 minutes or until orange in color. Take pan off the oil and remove crab; reserve for later.

3. Place wok over high heat again. Add oil to coat the sides of the pan. Add ginger, green onion, and garlic. Let sweat for 1 minute and add Chinese chili sauce and the beer. Add crab to mixture and stir fry for about 1 minute then reduce heat to low; cover and simmer, stirring once or twice, until crab is cooked, 6 to 7 minutes.

4. Pour sauce over all crabs and garnish with green onion. Serve immediately.

[1-8. ACS]

This weekend I am back in New York and very happily so.

I spent a few hours at work yesterday, but mostly dreamt about being outside. The office was so stuffy and unbearably warm, and the air outside smelled like spring. I felt almost like an indoor cat who had caught the alluring scent of a bunch of flowers inside the house and was crazed to get a closer whiff of them.

I managed to get outside and walk around the green market in Union Square. I cannot seem to help myself from shopping at each stall in a market where there's such an abundance of fresh produce on offer. Artisanal honey lures me in and a rustic-looking loaf of bread completely overwhelms me until I have it in tow. This time I ended up with a bunch of snap dragons, fresh kimchi, loose spinach leaves, and a few gala apples.



Today went equally well. I made a trip to GRDN in Boerum Hill--one of my favorite garden shops--with the notion to repot the herbs from the farmer's market that I had picked up about a month ago that were still sitting snugly in their plastic pots and becoming root bound. I ended up picking out two identical pots by Ben Wolff with little copper plates underneath for drainage. They look really gorgeous on the window sill and I cannot wait to see them in their full glory when the herbs fill in.

PS: Check out the father and son potters, Ben and Guy Wolff on MS here.