Owner Of A Broken Face

I’ve finally finished the last chapter (or recipe) in my Sichuan cookery book, a book that isn’t really a book, for can it be a book when it’s only online? If not, what should it be called? A look? It’s taken me a year where I worked really hard for two days, then didn’t do anything for 11 months and then worked really hard again for five weeks. I feel I deserve this short weekend in Guangzhou (廣州 Gong Jau – Broad, Wide Open Space Municipality) that I’m on.

But I’m not here to ‘relax’. One of the last lunches I cooked for four guinea pigs, I horribly, embarrassingly and completely inexplicably ran out of dried chillies in mid-cook! In the middle of a dish, to be exact. The dish was Four Seasons Fried Beans 乾煸四季豆 (gon bin sei gwai dau – dry fry four season bean) and it looked completely wrong and naked with only one or two chillies staring emptily into space.

Ahhrghhh – how could I ever live it down? I couldn’t. Fortunately the other dishes weren’t dry-fried so I got out of it with face semi-intact. But I never want to face such an abhorrent scenario again.

50 RMB’s worth of chillies; that should see me through a couple of weeks at least.

But don’t come to Guangzhou if you’re looking for dried chillies. I bought them all.

Chillies: 辣椒 (lat chiu – hot peppers)
Dried chillies: 辣椒乾 (lat chiu gon – hot peppers dry)
Sichuan food: 川菜 (chuen choy – river vegetable/dish)