Cooking

I have always wanted to write about cooking, the why, when, where, what and how about cooking.  The reality, the "how" to cook books are too hard to write as all the measurements take the fun out of cooking.  Furthermore, I don't have many "original" recipes.  Mostly, I steal them off TV shows, restaurants, friends and the Internet. 

The "when," "where," and "what" questions are also too boring to discuss.  I cook when I am hungry, or when my family members or friends are hungry.  Likewise, I cook anywhere and everywhere.  I love cooking in a nice kitchen and BBQ on a nice grill, so my favorite place to cook is in our California home.  I love my oven, my stove, my utensils and my large counter top space!!  Of course, I also love the Webber grill that I got two summers ago. 

There are many reasons why I cook.  First and foremost is that I love to eat tasty food.  After my parents immigrated us to Toronto Canada, I spent many after school  hours (we get off early) watching cooking shows.  The Galloping Gourmet was one of my favorite as with Julia Child, Jacque Pepin, Martin Yan and an assorted other TV chefs.  My brother, Bob, who was effectively my guardian at the time as my parents were still living in Taiwan, was great at cooking all kinds of food.  Nothing was too difficult for him.  He tried to cook everything including making "yu-tell" the Chinese fried dough, and "bao-zi."  Though he may not succeed every time, we ate everything he put on the table.  To this day, I think he has a larger repertoire of dishes then I have, at least in Chinese cooking. 

My cooking activity really took off during University.  Bob had moved out of the family house and into his own house.  So I had begun to cook occasionally for myself and my sister, Joyce.  I always helped Bob in the preparation whenever we have a big dinner party or BBQ at our house.  Cooking became a necessity after business school when I was living on my own.  With my meagre salary, I couldn't afford to eat out on a regular basis.  This is when I tapped my Mom for all of her recipes, for the "lion's head," "chow nien-gao" or stir fried rice cakes, to stewing beef or fatty pork.  Soon, I begun to learn the tastes of different ingredients, sauces and spices.  This skill enable me to "steal" recipes from restaurants and friends. 

After a while, I have developed enough recipes in my head to throw my own dinner parties in my tiny little loft in New York.  The cooking continued after I married Felicia who also enjoys cooking and entertaining.  Our friends in Singapore, Rosa, Lisze also inspired us with new recipes and delicious food. 

Nowadays, we cook almost every weekdays, Monday thru Thursday and on weekends if we are entertaining.  When we are in Taipei, we cook mostly Chinese.  When we are in California, we cook mostly Western food. 

Cooking is fun, most of the time.  It is always satisfying to taste the food afterward and have it turn out exactly how you wanted it to turn out.  So far, my fan base are fairly tolerant to my occasional over- or under-seasonings.  But learning from my mistakes can also be rewarding.