Year of the Rat

Horrible forecast for this evening's weather, and we were supposed to go to the New England Mystery Writer's meeting. The scheduled speaker was a PI, so it disappointing when stuff is cancelled.

I moved up our Chinese New Year dinner. Orange chicken, I think it's called. Every Chinese New Year we celebrate with a home-cooked feast. Always something yummy. I'm also sauteing pea pods and making a salad with the orange that will be left after the rind is used. And rice of course. Basmati, not Chinese, but who cares?

Sometimes we eat with chopsticks. When my kids were little, they would ask what the writing on the chop sticks meant. We always told them, "it says 'shut up and eat,'" which they believed. I suspect that I was not the kind of mother that will ever go down in history as the greatest. Hated car pools, and didn't much like birthday parties, after a bunch of 7 year old boys spent the greater part of the party on the floor wrestling. Having little kids is stressful, and it's 24/7, plus you can't turn off the beeper. Nope.

Back to Chinese food. Article in NY Times (I think) this week about how none of it is authentic, and I have known people to return from China and say the food was awful, so it's hard to know what' to believe, but the best Chinese meal I ever ate was in New York's Chinatown with someone who knows his Asian food and it was totally wonderful.

We have noticed that in Boston you can't get decent egg rolls, whereas every store front in Chicago had them. The worst I ever ate were homemade. One of life's mysteries. But I'm hoping the orange chicken, which I suspect is not authentic will be tasty. Tastes good and not too many calories and doesn't take all day to make is ideal. My aims are modest.

Since I first went to school and ate the school lunches that were usually yucko, I've liked a macaroni casserole made with ground beef, tomatoes and elbow pasta. When we came to Boston, I discovered they called it "American Chop Suey," which I had never heard of, but now it has a name. A pound of ground beef feeds us for 3 nights, and it's tasty with parmesan cheese and some red pepper flakes for zing. Comfort food.

Enough rambling. Time to do some writing. And then it's off to feed the cows before the storm hits. I think they are starting to accept the new young bull that appeared in place of the sweet faced young bull who sired all the current babies. So far he has kind of been taurus-non-grata with them. Cow culture is hard to understand. But isn't that also the case with our own culture?

Alors,

Grapeshot