Articles from the original happyjelyfish.com website

川菜!Sichuan food! The best in the world!

IMG_5559

Yammmmm! Yam me doooown! That’s right, I don’t spell the word you say when something tastes good, with a U. I prefer the letter A. Take a word like 蚊, (man, meaning mosquito but also dollar). Most of my native English students would spell that ‘mun’. But the next time they read that word, they invariably pronounce it like ‘moon’, presumably because it sounds more Chinese, and also because of the spelling of stuff like Tuen Mun. So I would always spell the ‘AAH’ sound with an A.

IMG_5547

So anyway – yesterday. Four guests, four dishes. It was the hottest day of the year so naturally I cooked heavy, starchy and oily food. And after ten years, I think I may have cracked the secret to cooking good Four Seasons Beans (四季豆 sei gwai dau). But I’m not going to share it here. You can read all about it in my next book, Cook It, Sichuan Food Made Easy.

IMG_5552

川菜,(chuen choy, Sichuan food), truly is the best in the world, 世界第一 (saigai dai yat, World Number One). I love having guests, it’s the only way I get to taste a lot of dishes.

P.S.
The kitchen is running all summer, but why not take a crash course in Chinese menu reading first?

A Movable Feast (But not very far)

Table laid with dog

Saturday night! What a brilliant night. Above is the table just before the hordes (12 people) started pouring in. I hosted, cooked Sichuan food for and expressed my life through the medium of dance (optional) in front of a bunch of people who didn’t know each other and some of whom I’d never met! It was the same on Thursday night. I had met only two of the nine people who turned up then. Excellent! There are SO many great people around and I want to meet them all.

14055633_10209901440283299_1424743520_n

Then the people started trickling in and I became rather busy with the precision cooking. Sichuan food: 95% preparation, 5% cooking! (And then about 200% cleaning, but hey).

IMG_1164

So it was chew, chew, swallow, swallow, drink drink for a couple of hours. As I stood precision-cooking in the kitchen, I heard peals of laughter coming down from the roof. That always makes me happy. Of course during precision cooking I never have time to take photos, but I did manage to snap Ma Po Dau Fu (Pockmarked Hag Tofu) before:

IMG_1154

and after:

Ma Po Doufu

Yum! Yum! Yum! and double YUUUUMMMMM

14060288_10209911963346369_516974778_o

Wonderful people, good fun and they gave me beer! Then it was time to trot off to Tap Tap for some more beer and being drunkenly explained about addresses by the local postman. That’s what I call a brilliant evening in and out. Thank you very much for coming, people!

You can take cooking lessons from me and/or come to the next Meet New People Extravaganza on September 3rd. However on that night it’s vegetarian/vegan food only. Still good! The protein will come from dau fu (tofu), beans and peanuts.

禮拜六夜晚 – Lai bai luk ye maan (Saturday night)
麻婆豆腐 – Ma Po Dau fu (hemp/pockmarked old woman/grandmother bean rotten)
郵差 – Yau chai (postman)

Running Interview Live from Garden Café

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed the beautiful and delightful Zein Williams, mother of three and tireless champion for the Nepali people about her life and work – with the earthquake victims especially –

CantoNews Live From Oi Kwan Hotel

Oh Cassette! Two weeks ago we went up to Guangzhou to see him live in his stand-up glory at a place called… Panda something? No! Paddyfield, an Irish pub right behind the Garden Hotel. Cassette

Bit More About Wetlands

I’m not a property owner but even if I were,I think I would still find it difficult to fathom how, when someone looks at the above vista, he thinks: I can dump a lot of

Enemy at 12! Avoiding Foreigners in China

Just for the record, in the first sentence of this column I wrote “.. black family that has – gasp – managed to become middle class and live in a posh neighbourhood.” I think the

Wetlands Lament

Above: BEFORE. Halcyon days of yore, etc. A part of the interlinked Pui O wetlands in 2012. A lovely, lush vista scattered with grazing water buffalo, egrets, starlings and other creatures, even fish have seen

New Programme on Radio Lantau

IMPORTANT!!! When you click on the link, scroll down to the alphabetical archive and click on C. Then you’ll see both my programmes. This isn’t strictly about Cantonese and it certainly isn’t about me, but

Bye, Bye, Column

All good things come to an end, apparently. Even life! Yes, compared to dying, losing a twice-monthly column in an increasingly obscure Asian newspaper is certainly a small thing. But oh! I loved that column.

CantoNews2 – now with airplanes!

It’s up and running on Radio Lantau – CantoNews 2! The sequel! No, just the second programme in Cecilie and Nick’s Cantonese course, the finest course currently available on cassette. http://radiolantau.com/programme-archive/cantonews/C/7-cecilie-gamst-berg/4-cantonews/60-cantonews-2 This time we discuss

Careful What You Wish For

I must write about Lantau again, because yesterday I interviewed Merrin Pearse, the leader of LIM (Living Islands Movement) whose introduction to the government’s “vision” for Lantau’s and therefore the people of Hong Kong’s future

FINALLY!!!!

Ohhh this has been a long time coming! I didn’t realise how much I’d been missing Naked Cantonese and ah-Sa (mine co-host of yore) before I started to make podcasts – properly – again only

Cabin Fever

Rain, rain and I’m stuck in my office writing a book. I like books, I like writing, but I don’t like being stuck! In times like these, my thoughts inevitably turn to travelling, especially thundering

Let’s Meat, You Cow

I’m fortunate enough to live in a place with water buffalo all around. This morning when I took my dogs for a walk, I reflected on how the rain makes the water buffalo 水牛 (seoi

川菜!Sichuan food! The best in the world!

Yammmmm! Yam me doooown! That’s right, I don’t spell the word you say when something tastes good, with a U. I prefer the letter A. Take a word like 蚊, (man, meaning mosquito but also

Consistent Service

I’ve almost given up going to restaurants in Hong Kong. I find the food tasteless, the chefs complacent. But there’s one place right here in throbbing metropolis Mui Wo, the venerable Rome Restaurant, that I

Local Uncle Writes Own Language Wrong!!!!!

I have just (“just” meaning three weeks ago) come back from Norway, and while I was there I sent various postcards, among them to an uncle in my village. What, your uncle lives in your

Card Playing – the Elixir of Life

Learn Cantonese Through the Medium of Cards

I started learning Cantonese back in the mid-90s. Every morning I would take the 07:00 ferry to work and play cards with the swearing workers. I realised this was the best and fastest way to

A Visit To Splendid China

Splendid China is exactly that – splendid. Only 15 to 20 minutes’ drive from Lo Wu is a world of semi naked guys dancing and dancing, Chinese opera shrieking through your bones and every famous

Mainland Improves Everything

Come with, come with on a Cantonese language seminar to Guangdong province! Before it disappears.

Celtic Canto Extravaganza

A Nog, bored with being from Norway Who wanted to be born in Galway Bought dog collars green From an Aussie colleen And went to the St. Patrick’s ball, wei! What kind of poem is

SONY DSC

SONY DSC

Contact us today

Email info@learncantonese.com.hk

to find out how you can start learning Cantonese.