The Joy of Cooking

My stepdad is probably reading this with the utmost jealously right now. I got to take a Chinese cooking class with a Taiwanese celebrity! Our teacher, Angela Cheng, is the daughter of Fu Pei-Mei ("Foo Py-May"), or "the Julia Childs of Taiwan." Angela is an amazing, repeatedly published chef herself, as well as a former Taiwanese period soap opera star. She is also incredibly kind and gracious, and a great teacher.

Our class meets one Monday a month in Angela's beautiful home.

The kitchen, or as she calls it, her "studio." She has two full sized refrigerators, too. That's the first time I've seen that in Taiwan!

The dining area; we were sitting at the counter, watching her work.

The beautiful living room

Her gorgeous orchids

How cool is that? It's a burner shaped specifically for a wok! As well as a normal hot plate in the demonstration area of the kitchen, and the two stoves she had. This lady knows what she's doing! 

Angela Cheng, cutting up the winter melon for us, which tastes like cucumber.

She showed us pictures of her and her mother; from tv, from her soap opera days, and all kinds of things! It was so cool! Her and her mother are/were stunningly beautiful women, and the clothes and hair was so great!

One of the dishes we learned, steamed fish!

And viola! It was amazing! 

And how to make smaller, simpler steamed fish, using sea bass filets and tender tofu--check out that genius steamer-plate tongs-thing!

Tah-dah! Delicious.

Then there was the amazing pork stew. Holy man was that good. 

Pork shoulder, Chinese yams (which caramelized in the pot--YUM!), carrots, shallots, ginger, several sauces, and heaven. It was seriously SO GOOD.

What was left over of our feast (we had a salad of bean sprout noodles and vegetables, two kinds of fish, cooked sprout noodles with mushrooms and fresh shrimp (yum!), rice, pork stew, and winter melon soup with bamboo. It was amazing!

This is one of her many cookbooks. Her mom had three, and she had 6, I think. This is the traditional comfort food book about meat. 

Also, here's my skirt and waist cincher 1/2 muslin mock up, which Ping Ping approved today!

I love the little duck-butt shape of the 1890s for Hilda!

Oh, and I finished my Hualien banana fiber weaving! The different colors come from different batches of fibers; it dries purple in intense sun, and tan in cloudy sun. 

The wall flowers are blooming!

And I almost stepped on this guy on my walk home...he's the size of my pinky!

That's all for now!