Grown-up Cooking

I gave up on Chinese cooking after Jim and I moved to Sacramento. Jim enjoys sandwiches and cooking for myself was just too much trouble. So, it has been six to seven years since I cooked Chinese dishes. I have learned to cook simpler dishes that use ingredients that don't require too many spices or cooking time over these years.

For the pool party on July 5th, I wanted to make a few traditional Taiwanese dishes for some of the guests to try. However, I didn't know how I was going to do that since there are a lot of traditional Taiwanese courses that should only be attempted by parents and grown-ups that have a lot of cooking experience. These dishes often include ingredients such as intestines, tripe, and body parts such as feet, ears, tails, etc. As you can imagine, making a dish with these ingredients without cooking experience and plenty of pratice can make the course disastrous.

To attempt these traditional dishes, I picked up a small amount of beef tripe, tendon, and pig feet for the party. I was prepared to throw everything away if these dishes turned out badly, which would not have surprised me... I called mom for the receipe and then I washed, pan fried, boiled, and simmered the ingredients in different spices for hours. The final dishes tasted surprisingly good; as if the dishes were made by a grown-up with a lot of cooking experience. The dishes were a hit at the pool party and at the office so I can finally claim that I have it in me to cook good traditional Taiwanese courses like a grown up! I made up my mind to continue making Taiwanese dishes for myself and possibly bring it to the office for others to share...