IT'S A ROUND OBJECT

When the lady at the bakery asked if a lo po beng was enough to eat, I assured her that indeed it was, just a (tea time) snack, I had already eaten earlier. But I lied. I hadn't even felt a twinge of hunger. Breakfast, which was drawn out over a four hour period, consisted of two pipes after two cups of coffee, plus walks to smoke said briars and then doing an illustration for a previous post. Imperceptibly it slid into lunch -- news and reading several articles on history and antique shiznit on Wikipedia -- after which I realized that I needed to buy groceries in Chinatown.

Vegetable shop, general food store, then bakery for tea shortly after four.
And one must have a nible with one's cup of hot milk tea.
A lo po beng (老婆餠) is just the ticket.

Long chat with a friend.

Followed by a smoke while wandering the alleys and Grant Avenue after dark. The pipe was a jaunty looking item from the day and age when there were still Latin tutors and non-business majors in college towns, and football was not considered a scholarly activity but an energetic past-time for over-excited hormonally charged young fellows without girl friends or chess to keep them occupied.

Back when graduates could still spell 'Nietsche' and 'Kierkegaard'.

Before my time, in other words.

CIRCULAR THING

Dinner, when I finally cooked some, contained linguiça, mustard cabbage, yellow curry paste, dried flounder for a bit of salty savoury fishy flavour, chili paste, and stock. Served over boiled Shantung style wheat noodles. With some mango pickle and sliced salted squeezed blanched bittermelon (凉瓜 'leung gwaa'; sopropo) on the side.

[Linguica: 葡國式辛辣香腸 'pou gwok sik san laat heung cheung'; suillam-fumus sanavit farciminis. Mustard cabbage: 芥菜 ('gaai choi'); brassica juncea. Yellow curry paste: 黃咖哩醬 ('wong kaa lei jeung'); pulmentum conditorum flavo colore. Dried flounder: 左口魚 ('jo hau yü'); exaruit paralichthys. Chili paste: 辣椒醬 ('laat chiu jeung'); condimentum piper rubra. Stock: 高湯 ('kou tong'): juscullum. Mango pickle: 芒果泡菜 ('mong gwo pou choi'); mango muria. Sopropo: 凉瓜 ('leung gwaa'), 苦瓜 ('fu gwaa'); handalum.]

A man on a college football scholarship wouldn't have recognized any of it -- football players are a rather "innocent" bunch -- but sadly, his Latin tutor (assuming that business or basket weaving requires any Latin credits at all) might have a hard time identifying all the parts too.




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