a little chinese take-out

January 26, 2012September 23, 2017 ~ jama ~ 3 Comments

Celebrate the Year of the Dragon with these fine reads. No better time to feast on Chinese culture, history and folklore. Ed Young’s brilliant The House Baba Built: An Artist’s Childhood in China (Little, Brown, 2011), just won the 2012 APALA Asian/Pacific American Literature Award for Best Picture Book. Click here to read an excerpt at the publisher’s website.

Here are the books I’ve featured here at Alphabet Soup:

♥ The Great Wall of Lucy Wu by Wendy Wan-Long Shang (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2011).

♥ Dumpling Days by Grace Lin (Little, Brown, 2012).

♥ A New Year’s Reunion by Yu Li-Qiong and Zhu Cheng-Liang (Candlewick Press, 2011).

Why yes, all this talk of China has made me hungry. I always love to celebrate the Lunar New Year with dim sum. This year, we tried Mark’s Duck House, across the street from our usual place, Fortune Chinese Seafood Restaurant. And we actually liked it better! I have no idea why we’d never heard of Mark’s before. Their specialty is Peking Duck, which we’ll have to try another time.

I was happy they had all my dim sum favorites:

Of course it’s always fun to read menu boards in Chinese restaurants.

I’m wondering about the Cold Knuckle, too.

Can’t wait to go back!

Dragons signify power and good fortune. 2012 is the Year of the Water Dragon, a period of growth and optimism.

I wish you good luck, good health, and many creative blossomings. ☺

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beary christmas in leesburg, virginia

December 20, 2011December 19, 2011 ~ jama ~ 14 Comments

Every year, I crave an old fashioned Christmas. Simple joys are the most meaningful, the most enduring. One need only step back in time.

Leesburg is the kind of place where there are wreaths on every door. Charming, quaint, picturesque — a town where people actually smile more and have time to chat.

You can tour the historic district in a carriage if you like,

wave to the snowman as you go by,

guess what’s in those presents on the porch.

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foodie field trip: hawai’i doggie bakery

December 7, 2011December 6, 2011 ~ jama ~ 6 Comments

Ruff ruff, woof woof!

When we were in Hawai’i recently, Len and I discovered a fun shop where every doggie can have his day.

The Hawai’i Doggie Bakery at the Ward Warehouse Shopping Center was one of our favorite stops on Small Business Saturday. Featuring healthy, handmade, vet-approved doggie treats made from locally grown ingredients, this charming bakery/boutique made us wish we could turn into dogs right on the spot (Len = Dalmation, me = Airedale). Yip!

I’d probably go for a Doggie Bento, cause if I were a cool canine living the good life in Hawai’i, I’d want my treats to be made from the best local foods (homegrown bananas, taro, breadfruit, Okinawan sweet potato, lean chicken) without any salt, sugar, butter or preservatives. I’d have the shiniest coat, the cleanest teeth, and believe it or not, be even spunkier and more lovable than any living person could ever imagine.

*rolls over*

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foodie field trip: my kingdom for a coco puff

December 2, 2011December 1, 2011 ~ jama ~ 16 Comments

How far would you travel for a coco puff?

I’m not talking about the popular breakfast cereal, but the universally adored chocolate-pudding-filled cream puff available only at Liliha Bakery in Honolulu. This sweet confection has been the bakery’s best seller since the early 90’s, something locals constantly crave and visitors make a point of eating whenever they’re in town. Google Yelp or Urban Spoon, and you’ll find rave after rave after rave about these coco puffs — for many, dessert nirvana, a type of pastry you’d sell your second child for.

Now, here’s where I hang my head in shame — though I grew up in Hawai’i, and have been back to visit many times, until last week I had never eaten a Liliha Bakery coco puff (gasp!). This is like admitting to never having eaten shave ice or saimin or spam musubi. Total sacrilege. Don’t ask me why. Major tsk, tsk.

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good times in hawai’i

November 29, 2011September 23, 2017 ~ jama ~ 24 Comments

Hello there!

Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend. Thanks SO much for all your birthday and Happy Thanksgiving wishes! Len, Cornelius and I just returned from 10 days in Hawai’i, where we ~~gorged ourselves~~ feasted amicably with ever-charming friends and relatives.

Every day was a delicious new adventure of visiting favorite restaurants and savoring a nice variety of multi-ethnic flavors — everything from teriyaki butterfish to Italian pasta to kalua pig. Of course my mom served mandu (dumpling soup) our first night there, and each morning began with half a sweet, juicy papaya.

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