This is my version of a sweet-and-sour cabbage dish from north-eastern China (not to be confused with the more famous Chinese hot-and-sour cabbage). If you imagine this dish as Slavic cabbage rolls that have been gutted of their meat before being sent through the office shredder, you will not be too far off the mark. In its preparation, thin slices of cabbage and a little salt are first stir-fried aggressively in oil for two minutes, then covered to steam gently for five. Once the cabbage is removed from the wok, a simple sauce is made quickly there with stewed tomato, the squeeze of a mandarin orange, rice vinegar, sugar, and soy sauce, all thickened with a little cornstarch. It is a green vegetable with sauce prepared in less than fifteen minutes.
I shall leave you with the poetry of Henan-born Du Fu (712-770CE):
A poet should beware of prosperity,
Yet demons can haunt a wanderer.
Ask an unhappy ghost, throw poems to him
Where he drowned himself in the Milo River.
From ” To Li Bai at the Sky Send” by Du Fu, as translated by Witter Bynner in The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929. Li Bai was also a poet of the Tang Dynasty, and a friend of Du. The drowned poet of the verse is Qu Yuan, who wrote centuries earlier during the Warring States Period.
beautiful photo, and beautiful poem.
at one stage in my life, i collected poetry books from around the world (though translated into english). i have a few snippents of chinese love poetry. my attitude towards books has changed now, though. it is now more communal, rather than personal as before. i want to see books used, and loved, rather than forgotten on my shelf.
I have to admit to being a collector, all of it second-hand (cheap like the budgie). I’m getting pickier about what I read as I get older. No doubt part of this is having less time in the day. It’s also about less time in the lifespan: it’s not like one can read it all. My taste is broadening, but my patience shortening.
i know what you mean. i used to read all the time, and very quickly, but this has now changed, due to lack of time. I’ve always been picky about what I read, though now I read more non-fiction.
your last sentence sums up adulthood, I’d say. :)
ok, i collect/hoard cookbooks. my excuse to myself is that i use them, so they’re not sitting on the shelf, forgotten. At the moment, I’m actually doing that.