GRUMPY MAN AT DAWN

Sometimes you wake up with a hecka chonker. And you wonder "what is this odd indentation here, and why does it smell fishy?" Then it moves, and you realize it was merely a figment. Imagination, subconscious, those blood pressure pills. Ghost cat weighing you down.
The figmentitious beast yawned, and its digestive process was obvious.

Why did you feed it freshly caught trout? Why?!?

Because it was with you on that trip to Scotland, that's why.

I cannot explain why I dreamed of Scotland.


When I went to sleep I was wondering what to eat today. I've taken a scunner to a few of my favourite places, because the Toishanese who frequent those eateries are not the most agreeable bunch. When I greet someone I expect to be greeted back.
We've seen each other around for several years.
And I am not chopped liver.

How all of that segued into a Scottish vacation, where there is nothing to eat and everybody talks Glaswegian while putting steak sauce on their haggis baffles the heck out of me.
And after a while all bagpipe music sounds the same.

The ghost cat that haunts this apartment shifted in its sleep and disappeared.

Normally I catch it in the corner of my eye when half awake. This is the first time it slept on top of me. And I'm still wondering what to eat. Ideally, it would be a two-pipe smoking day in Chinatown -- early lunch, pipe, teatime, pipe -- but given that a few of the businesses I used to go to no longer exist, and five bakeries aren't where one can sit and dawdle anymore, it's a bit difficult. Boba tea places charge too much for beverages that are not worth drinking (too weak), and the number of hot and spicy Hunan-Sichuan eateries catering to the yuppie Caucasian crowd has increased at the expense of home town Cantonese.

There are two chachantengs which quirk my interest. But both are quite a bit distant, and would require multiple bus transfers. I'm a grumpy Dutchman with a bum leg, and I don't really want to travel out to the avenues, or Siberia, or Scotland. Not today.



Something I haven't eaten in a long time is 蝦膏蒸豬肉 ('haa kou jing chyü yiuk'; steamed fatty pork with shrimp paste), which you very seldom see on menus nowadays because it takes a while to cook, and as there are a high number of elderly people who have been severly spoken-to by their doctors it isn't as popular anymore as it deserves to be.

The ghost cat would definitely like it too.

Chunked streaky pork, minced ginger and garlic, shrimp paste, jigger sherry, teaspoon sugar, cornstarch, a drop or two of sesame oil, ground pepper. Mix well, steam for ten to twenty minutes depending on how thick you've cut the meat. Garnish with cilantro.
Great with rice and sambal.



Heck with it. Go get congee with a fried bread (粥與油條) somewhere, worry about tea later.
Red Virginia flake, plus a Dunhill bruyere and a shell briar.
Both very jaunty looking.

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