my darling, my wonton

February 2, 2012September 23, 2017 ~ jama ~ 8 Comments

Last year, when I first read The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, the wonderful middle grade novel by Wendy Wan-Long Shang that recently won the 2012 APALA Asian/Pacific American Children’s Literature Award, I noticed something interesting in the Acknowledgements:

No acknowledgement would be complete without recognizing my sources of support: my mom, who told me I could do anything; my dad, who made me believe writing was in my blood; my husband, who wrote ‘writer’ on our tax forms and has never (never!) once wavered in his support; our three beautiful, funny children; my amazing extended family; Fairfax County Public Library; A&J Restaurant, which makes absolutely inspirational bowls of soup. Get the Shanghai-style wonton soup.

Is there anything more exciting than a writer who cites soup as a source of inspiration? If you’ve read the book, you know it opens with a restaurant scene and contains many food references, including a reverential beef noodle soup as well as homemade dumplings. Yum!

Continue reading →

pasta peril, or the possible end of soup as we know it

January 19, 2012September 27, 2017 ~ jama ~ 18 Comments

Dear Earth’s Best,

Oh no!

No no no no no. OH. NO.

For the last four years, the pasta of choice here at Alphabet Soup has been your Sesame Street Organic Alphabet Pasta. These friendly letters have been used exclusively for the many bowls of pub day celebration soups featured in my ongoing Soup of the Day series.

Recently I discovered you’ve discontinued this product!

*weeps*

I had been faithful to your alphabets for good reason. Not all alphabet pastas are created equal, and Earth’s Best really was THE BEST!

AS Kitchen Helpers give Earth’s Best six paws up!

It had nothing to do with being organic, or that cute picture of Grover on the box (he still does a happy dance whenever Carrie Jones’s name is mentioned). No, it has to do with strength.

While not the biggest letters once they’re cooked up, these guys stood up to being boiled, drained, sorted, then carefully lowered with toothpicks into soup without breaking.

If you accidentally dropped them, they’d giggle and happily bounce off the floor, all the while remaining intact. If you placed them a little too much to the left or right, they didn’t mind being pushed over a smidge or two. Once refrigerated, they retained their fresh appearance for two weeks, anxious to star in future soups.

But now, they’re gone. *bites knuckles*

Apparently you discontinued them sometime last Fall (?), but I only found out recently when I got down to my last half a box.

Oh sure, there’s some kind of replacement available with the same distributor listed. It goes by the brand DeBoles, Kids Only! Yeah, a red box, also organic, with slightly larger letters than before.

Imposter!

I don’t mind the larger size, but these letters are thinner and tend to break if you just look at them the wrong way. Wimps!

Behold imposter DeBoles along with store brand.

Earth’s best (left), teeny tiny store brand (center), DeBoles (right)

We’ve shopped around for other brands — our local Giant has a store brand, but the letters are just too small. Amazon offers several others, but you have to buy a 12-pack for $40 or something. Can’t risk that.

Why, oh why?

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Now I may need to get a new job, like selling vacuum cleaners or something. I just can’t see myself making any more pub day soups without my favorite alphabet pasta. 😦

Earth’s Best, I’m hard pressed (and screwed).

Gone to pot,

Jama Rattigan
Former Head Soup Maker

(Formerly your biggest fan who bought so much of this product I practically owned stock in the company.)

P.S. If anybody out there can vouch for Ronzoni, DaVinci, Hello Kitty, Racconto, La Moderna, Eden Organic, or any other brand, please let me know. I’m looking for medium sized letters that can stand a little handling, don’t plump up too much after cooking, and will photograph nicely.

Thanks!

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a favorite excerpt from Grace Lin’s Dumpling Days

January 9, 2012October 5, 2017 ~ jama ~ 8 Comments

#7 in an eclectic collection of notable noshes to whet your appetite and brighten your day.

So, as I was reading and drooling through Dumpling Days, I came to the part when Pacy’s cousin Clifford explains how you can tell wontons from dumplings — dumplings are shaped like ears.

He tells the story of a very famous Chinese doctor who supposedly invented dumpling soup. Ah! I had never heard this story before and found it not only fascinating, but quite uncanny, as a character in my picture book, Dumpling Soup, thinks dumplings look like elephant ears. Little did I realize the very first “ears” had great medicinal benefits. Totally cool!

STORY OF DUMPLING SOUP

Once there was a famous doctor, Zhang Zhongjing, who lived by the river in a cold part of China. He treated and cured many things, but in the winter, the things he treated most were people’s ears! That sounds strange, I know, but where he lived in China, the winters were particularly cold. The icy wind whipped and burned any exposed skin.

It was so cold that when a villager joked that his breath froze into pieces of ice in the air, all believed him because even if the cold did not freeze one’s breath, it really did freeze people’s ears. The doctor was kept busy during the winters treating frostbitten ears. He knew that people with frostbite needed warmth to heal, so he began to make a remedy that would warm peoples’ insides as well as their outsides. He cooked meat with warming herbs and finely chopped it. Then he wrapped it in thinly rolled dough and boiled the pieces in soup with more herbs. When the mixture was finished, he called it “soup that takes away the cold,” or “qu han jiao er tang.” He then served it to his frostbitten patients, who not only healed quickly, but enjoyed the soup so much that they continued to eat it.

People made the soup at home, usually eating it in the winter. They say the dumpling is the shape it is because it is made to resemble an ear, in honor of Doctor Zhongjing’s treatment of people’s frostbitten ears. The name of the soup, qu han jiao er tang, was shortened to jiao er tang, and the dumplings were eventually called jiaozi.

~ from “Story of Dumpling Soup,” Dumpling Days by Grace Lin (Little, Brown, 2012), page 119.

Zhang Zhongjing (150-219 AD) was an eminent physician in the Han Dynasty and is extremely well known in modern Chinese medicine.

*Take two ears and call me in the morning.*

He wrote China’s first book (actually 16 volumes worth), combining medical theory with his own experiences as a practitioner, analyzing causes, symptoms and methods of treatment. He recorded some 300 classic prescriptions, many of which are still used today. For his first dumplings he boiled mutton with warming herbs like chili (cayenne), which improved circulation and promoted healing. His “Warming Ear Soup” is traditionally eaten on the nights of Winter Solstice and Lunar New Year’s Eve.

♥ More Tasty Tidbits here.

♥ In case you missed my review of Dumpling Days, click here.

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winter balm: soup day by melissa iwai

February 2, 2011December 7, 2017 ~ jama ~ 7 Comments

Why, hello. You’re just in time. We saved a place for you at the table.

Here we are in the depths of winter, when snow, sleet, ice, and slush are the order of the day. As we try to brave the elements, stave off cabin fever, and satisfy our color-starved cravings for something to nourish our bodies and warm our hearts, we realize the immense power and magic of SOUP!

Yes, we love soup. We want soup. We need soup NOW!

Well then, put on your bibs.

In Melissa Iwai’s Soup Day (Henry Holt, 2010) — clearly a story with my name written all over it — a little girl describes step-by-step how she and her mother make a hearty batch of soup together.

One snowy day, they set out for the Green Market, where they select the freshest vegetables with the brightest colors — celery, onions, carrots, potatoes, zucchini, mushrooms and parsley. At home, the girl helps to wash the veggies while her mom chops everything into different shapes — squares, circles, cubes, and confetti. Everything is sauteed in oil (sizzle!), and then stock is poured into the pot (sssssss!).

While the soup simmers gently on the stove, the girl and her mother pass the time playing games and reading. “Before long, our home smells like yummy soup.” Mmmmmmmmm. The mother adds some spices, and then the little girl gets to select what kind of pasta to include (from 9 different varieties). Guess what she picks? Alphabets! (I love this girl!) Once her father gets home, they all sit down and enjoy every drop of their soup together.

I love the charming simplicity of this story, and the subtle way little teaching moments are incorporated into the narrative. Hungry munchkins will be eager to help with soup-making from start to finish. The grocery store affords untold opportunities for recognizing colors, counting items and ingredients, and learning to make wise choices. Watching an adult slice veggies into various shapes is fun, too, and if old enough, a child can try cutting soft veggies like zucchini and mushrooms with a plastic knife. Of course there’s also the fun of identifying the different types of pasta (fettuccine! farfalle! rotini!).

The satisfaction and pride of eating something one has helped to prepare, as well as quality time spent together, are equally important seasonings for this nutritious, heartwarming soup. Iwai’s bright, cheerful acrylic and multi-textured collage illos clarify the process and capture all the warmth and coziness of this special soup day, where mother and daughter bond, new skills are learned, and good memories are forged.

This gentle story, perfect for preschoolers, is Melissa’s first self-illustrated title, and was inspired by her own experiences cooking with her son Jamie. It’s received glowing reviews, including a starred review from Kirkus, which praises Soup Day as “Ordinariness made extraordinary.” When the winter blues set in, or any time you need an extra dose of comfort and joy, reach for this uplifting, feel-good book. A recipe for Snowy Day Vegetable Soup (which I’m going to try very soon) is included. S – L – U – R – P ☺!

Here’s a video of Melissa making it.

SOUP DAY by Melissa Iwai
published by Henry Holt, September 2010
Fiction for ages 4-6, 32 pp.
Cool themes: Family, sharing, cooking, togetherness, mastering new skills, counting, colors, shapes, nutrition, vegetables.

♥ Be sure to visit Melissa’s official blog for more spreads and to learn about her other books. You’ll also find activity sheets, crafts, and more soup recipes! You can also learn about her process when illustrating a picture book.

♥ Don’t miss Melissa’s delicious blog, The Hungry Artist, where she shares easy, health-conscious recipes you can make with your children. Melissa is a self-taught chef, who won Cooking Light’s Ultimate Reader Recipe Grand Prize in 2010!

♥ Click here for Melissa’s guest post at Cynsations.

♥ A few blog reviews: Brimful Curiosities, Great Kid Books, Booking Mama.

♥ Quick! For a chance to win a copy of Soup Day, there’s still time to enter this contest at Val’s Kitchen (deadline: Sunday, February 6).