Day Five
I haven't always been a good cook, a fact that my husband will happily attest to. In our early days, before I understood anything about cooking, or my husband understood anything about eating, our meals were pretty sad. I grew up in a vegetarian household, long before being a vegetarian was either trendy or convenient. Most of our vegetarian meals consisted of overcooked vegetables and beans served over egg noddles or angel hair pasta. My Mom claimed that it was a special dish she learned at the restaurant she worked in, but we kids weren't big fans. We called it "Vegetable Mush".
When I got older and began working in restaurants, the only place that would hire an under aged, loud mouthed, back talking hoodlum like myself was a Japanese place one town over. My days at Sushi Yoshi expanded my horizons quite a bit. The owner, Richard, was a complete jerk, but a great cook, whose approach to Japanese cuisine was certainly ahead of its time. Of course, the plumbing was hopeless, and there weren't enough dishes to serve a full house of customers, but hey, a job is a job, or at least it was back then. Richard would often come up short on pay day, and to make it up to his younger staff (the ones he could put off paying) he would serve us lavish dinners after the restaurant closed. Filet Sukiyaki, Toro Carpaccio, and all the sushi we could eat. After dinner he would give us the keys to lock up, and ask us not to have "too much" fun. There were nights when we drank ourselves silly and woke up the next morning in the tatami rooms with awful headaches.
After getting jipped on tips or paychecks one too many times I moved on to a slightly more conventional workplace at Kabuki, a Japanese Steak and Sushi House in Danbury, CT. Though my new boss, Tokiko, paid us on time, the restaurant had its own share of quirks. I spent nearly ten years there, off and on, waiting tables, tending bar, and learning to cook whenever I could. I tried for years to become a cook there, but the chefs and owners were old fashioned. Being a woman, and not being Japanese, were just too many hurdles for them to jump. So I spied instead, and learned to cook everything I could at home. Of course, I never learned how to brew my own ponzu or teriyaki. Nor did I ever get to practice breaking down a fish, but there is still plenty of life for me to live. I'll get it one day.
Though I had been fascinated with Japanese food for a long time, it wasn't until I gave up my restaurant job that I began really cooking at home regularly. It was actually more a matter of thrift than it was a passion for cooking that kept me in the kitchen back then. Scott and I didn't make a whole lot of money, and we were in the process of trying to build a better life for ourselves. We'd moved out of our dilapidated rented house, and into a cozy little condo, free from critters, vermin, or drafts. We both had steady jobs, and we'd learned to pay bills on time and to budget our income. We were really growing up, and cooking at home was a big part of making that all work.
What happened next was purely fate. Just as we had gotten a hold of ourselves for the first time in our lives, an opportunity struck. We decided to trade in our safe little life for a chance at something really exciting. Scott joined our friend's band who had just been signed to a Chinese record label, and agreed to move overseas so they could tour hard for the following year. We quickly got married, then packed up our life and crossed our fingers.
Though it didn't work out as we had imagined, and we ended up coming back to the U.S. only after three short months, our time in Beijing changed our lives in many ways. For one thing, it banished any and all food perimeters that we had left by forcing us to eat what was available, for better or worse. Mostly it was for better, since the food in Beijing is pretty amazing. Of course, we couldn't eat out every night, and buying processed or pre-made American style foods was incredibly expensive, so I had to learn to cook anything we wanted to eat from scratch using one burner, a couple of hand tools, and a wok.
When American cooking became too frustrating I decided to take some Chinese Cooking Classes. After all, I was surrounded by Chinese ingredients, and Chinese cook ware. When in Rome, and all that. It was during my first class, Dumpling Making, that I realized just how much I liked to cook. Every time the teacher asked a question I knew the answer. Every time a challenge was made, I gleefully accepted it. It turned out, I was not squeamish about raw meats, nor was I afraid to get my hands dirty when kneading dough, or cracking eggs. I was not afraid of knives, not even giant Chinese cleavers. Handling flaming woks was thrilling, more thrilling than I could have imagined. I loved to cook. How could I not have known it, all those years?
And so, after that I never stopped cooking. I enrolled in a culinary program shortly after returning from China, and started blogging right away. When my husband and I were deciding where to go next, Austin made perfect sense. Food and music, both of the things we love, are in abundance here in our new home. I'm grateful for having ended up here, and for the path that brought us.
Want to see more photos of things we ate or cooked in China?