HIT ME WITH A PILE OF RICE

About five hours after the booster I started feeling a little bit physically down, seven - seven and half hours afterwards and I was achy and irritable. But by late evening I was full of vim again. A nap and strong tea helped. As did Belgian chocolate - almond cookies. They're brain food. I'm sure the black bean bitter melon beef (凉瓜牛肉飯 'leung gwaa ngau yiuk fan') over rice I had had for lunch also had a lot to do with that. It was delicious.

Many Anglos wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, as they do not associate bitterness with edible plants. Vegetables, the average person of British Isles heritage (even the Scots) will assert, must be sweet. Like corn and peas or carrots.
Personally, I don't like carrots.
Or peas.

All vegetables are best bitter and properly cooked.
Add chopped garlic, ginger, and chilies.
Plus something savoury.

Bitter melon, plus whatever, and plenty of rice, is a meal for champions. It will fortify your savage beast and give you the drang to rebell against the bourgeois yuppie torment of modern society. It gladdens the Dutchman within.

Surely you have a Dutchman within? If you don't, there's something wrong with you. Maybe you're an Anglo. Have you been checked? Perhaps see the doctor.


Another thing which everyone remembers from when they were still college students or marginally employed draughtsmen on the edge of of Chinatown / North Beach is canned dace with black beans (豆豉鯪魚 'dau si ling yü'). It helped them through some hard times.
That and a pile of rice, cappuccino and a pipe afterwards, and life was golden.

Dang that bittermelon beef was good. Nice fatty meat.
I'll have to have it there again.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================