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Quote by Helen Evans Brown

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Helen Brown's West coast cook book

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Helen Evans Brown

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“Saturday afternoon she deboned chicken breasts and put the raw meat aside; then she simmered the bones with green onions and squashed garlic and ginger. She mixed ground pork with diced water chestnuts and green onions and soy sauce and sherry, stuffed the wonton skins with this mixture, and froze them to be boiled the next day. Then she made the stuffing for Richard's favorite egg rolls. It was poor menu planning- Vivian would never have served wontons and egg rolls at the same meal- but she felt sorry for Richard, living on hot dogs as he'd been. Anyway they all liked her egg rolls, even Aunt Barbara. Sunday morning she stayed home from church and started the tea eggs simmering (another source of soy sauce for Annie). She slivered the raw chicken breast left from yesterday- dangling the occasional tidbit for J.C., who sat on her stool and cried "Yeow!" whenever she felt neglected- and slivered carrots and bamboo shoots and Napa cabbage and more green onions and set it all aside to stir-fry at the last minute with rice stick noodles. This was her favorite dish, simple though it was, and Aunt Rubina's favorite; it had been Vivian's favorite of Olivia's recipes, too. (Vivian had never dabbled much in Chinese cooking herself.) Then she sliced the beef and asparagus and chopped the fermented black beans for her father's favorite dish.”

“SALSA VERDE. A sauce made primarily of finely minced Italian parsley and cured anchovies... it is often a garnish for grilled meat or vegetable dishes... and is considered a staple sauce in Italian cuisine. "What was he thinking? This was supposed to be a Japanese dish! Making something Italian means he automatically fails!" "No, he does not. This salsa wasn't made from cured anchovies. Instead, it primarily uses uruka, a specific type of shiokara sauce made from sweetfish. *Shiokara is salted, fermented fish viscera.* Uruka typically requires over a week to make. However, this is an "instant" version, is it not?" "Correct! Wash sweetfish viscera and boil them in saké for two minutes. Then flavor with soy sauce, salt and mirin. The result is a quickly made, yet still rich and appropriately bitter, uruka. "Instant uruka?!" "I didn't know that was possible!" "That wasn't the only place he was creative. Instead of parsley, he minced Japanese perilla leaves and green onion to give it a bright green color and refreshing kick. And since garlic is hardly used in traditional Japanese cuisine, he chose yuzukosho, a seasoning made from chili peppers, yuzu fruit peels and salt, to give it a distinctly Japanese flavor." "Exactly. With instant uruka as its base... ... I made a Japanese-style salsa verde!”

“I peered at the bowl, which was piled high with shrimp and vegetables, little cubes of what looked like meat or fish. The broth was a beautiful golden color, with little circles of orange oil floating on the surface, near the edge of the bowl. My heart rate slowed, oblivion averted. "More chances at wishes. But also, this looks damn good." I realized I was still holding the spoon with the dumpling, the steam not wafting out like a volcano anymore. So I closed my eyes and readied myself for another bite. This time the heat took a step back and allowed everything else to come forward. The savory richness of pork, a bite of ginger and scallions, the broth. Oh, man, the broth. I hadn't ever tasted anything quite like this before. I chewed the dumpling, which was starchy but also managed to melt away, letting its texture dominate. For a moment, I wanted to reach for something beyond the flavor, but failed. Would I recognize the taste of magic, if magic even had a taste? Then I let the flavor itself take over.”