BRIEF INTRODUCTION

In all honesty I do not know what my readers are like, as I haven't met more than a handful. Other than the obvious tobacco fiends who read the blather about briar pipes and what to put in them, or the folks deeply and narrowly interested in peculiar subjects (how to cure herring or make fermented shrimp paste), there are no unifying themes here.

They cannot be much interested in me, because I am fundamentally not interesting, and lead a fairly pedestrian existence. I accumulate pipes and dictionaries, consider myself fairly decently educated in politics, history, odd bits of literature, as well as Asian languages, (Cantonese, Indonesian, Malayo Polynesian in general) and hang out at some places because the people watching is good.

I've done mechanical drafting, Chinese seal carving, credit and collections accounting, and briar pipe restoration. My drawing and painting skills are mediocre, much like my ability to get along with other people outside of a structured environment.

My quarters are filled with books, pipe tobacco, and stuffed animals.
My apartment mate likes two of those three things.
Neither of us have a pet.

Almost always I eat by myself. Hot sauce with nearly everything. A single man, verging on monastic. Flawed. Slight hearing defect. Grey eyes.

Not the most social of creatures.

Frequent Wikipedia reader.


The following posts on this blog are as good an introduction to my style or genre, if it can be called that, as any. Bear in mind that these are the most often visited essays, for reasons I cannot fathom.


LINGERING PLUM FRAGRANCE
SUNDAY, AUGUST 12, 2018
The lyrics to the song 胭脂扣 ('yin ji kau') from the movie of the same name ('Rouge' in English), which starred Anita Mui (梅艷芳 'mui yim fong') and Leslie Cheung (張國榮 'jeung kwok wing')


HO SI FAT CHOI 好事發財 DRIED OYSTERS WITH BLACK MOSS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 01, 2011
Obviously food-related, specifically a Cantonese good luck dish. Though not Chinese myself, my food environment is mostly Cantonese, as on my days off I head over the hill into Chinatown for Hong Kong Milk Tea and meals, and I speak passable Cantonese as well as read pretty well. When I cook at home, it's mostly Dutch Indonesian Chinese mixed.


ABALONE SAUCE: 鮑魚汁
FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2014
A happy discovery five years ago. Abalone sauce is now more common than then, but it's still a relatively new ingredient, well worth experimenting with.


EXPLODE FRY PADDY CHICKEN
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019
One way of cooking frog.


DIM SUM: KINDS, NAMES, PRONUNCIAT​ION, DESCRIPTIO​N
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2012
An extensive reference list of dim sum.



With the exception of the first item in this list, they're all about food.
I haven't cooked for other people in years.




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