SNOW FISH IN POT

There were hardly any people there, so I timed it just right. A tableful of European tourists just about to leave, a chunky hispanic couple, two cheerful younger Chinese women at a far table enjoying conversation after lunch, and a Mandarin speaker who barely touched her food and simply needed a quiet place to tend to her cellphone. Over in the far corner, at their usual table, the Cantonese gentleman and his wife who have some kind of interest in the restaurant. We know each other, but I didn't see them until they were leaving.
Otherwise I would have gesticulated a hello.

I had been down at the bank earlier. Having gotten out of the house late, I was peckish.

Truth be told, I was having way too much fun leaving snarky comments about corks on two tobacco pipe pages. As well as appreciating kitten videos and the like. Today was far less productive than yesterday, when I was out of the house for several hours.


紅燒雪魚煲

Snow fish (雪魚 'suet yü') is variously translated. They termed it cod. But it can also mean seabass. It's usually written 鱈魚 with the exact same pronunciation. Snow fish, tofu skin, black mushroom, whole gilded garlic cloves, ginger, scallion, and rice wine in a clay pot, brought to the table bubbling and steaming.

Lunch was very good. The milk tea was excellent. The pipe afterwards, dreamy.

On the bus back afterwards, the elderly Shanghainese woman with the walker wanted me to sit. Well, I do have a cane with me, which helps me stand. And we white folks may look closer to death to many Chinese people, because of our thin pallid skin, as well as, consequently, rickety and breakable. But there is no need, no need.

[And I'm still quite young. Not a sprightly teenager, but the skin under the mask is smooth and unwrinkled, and I feel full of piss and vinegar. She, on the other hand, needed a walker and was at least twenty years older. And much smaller than myself. The other passengers (it was a crowded bus) would have knocked her over. So, being a flexible younger man despite the bum leg, I stood. For some reason even elderly Chinese wish me to sit, but that wouldn't be cricket.]

Despite our language differences she understood me when I spoke Cantonese.
As did the woman on the other side of me near the door.
Which meant a polite and friendly exchange.
Nothing substantive was said.


It has been a fine day.



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