MOVING ON

We feel grateful we have lazy Sundays every once in a while. We work on what we can handle for the day, and we look forward to days when can do some unhurried, honest to goodness homestyle cooking. My roommates, including our landlord, and myself decided we’d like to have a stew for today. We gathered what we have got in the kitchen, and started making the stew. Here’s how I figured how the recipe was for what we have eventually come up for our main dish for the day: 2lbs beef cubes, cut into bite sizes 1 and ½ cups of olive oil ½ lbs all purpose flour 3 large size white onions (sweet variety), cut & diced 4 long stems of celery, cut & diced 2 lbs of peeled carrots, cut into bite sizes 10 medium sized potatoes, peeled, cut into bite sizes 1 can of peeled tomato with basil (1 lb) Parsly flakes 15 beef bouillons 1 & ½ cups pancake & baking mix to make dumplings 1 cup of milk 1 can of mixed greenpeas A very big cooking pot Dump the beef cubes in flour, making sure they’re ...

I've been staying in this household in Stapleton, Staten Island, for nearly 3 months now, and my landlord, Mike, has prepared at least twice his favorite, stuffed pepper [click on the link for a typical recipe found online] . He used to own and run a restaurant offering American cuisine for many years. His version of stuffed pepper is prepared rather quick, and ending to be very yummy. He would asked me to cook the rice that would be included in the stuffing (as I bragged about "cooking rice without a rice cooker is no problem, being Asian myself"). He'd include ground beef, egg, flour, plus some special ingredients. The prep work is done fast, in less than 10 minutes, I noticed. He'd add some kind of a pasta sauce in the baking dish, add some cut pieces of potatoes around the stuffed pepper, cover the dish with foil, and then prepare the sides (usually vegetables, and mashed potatoes). The dish is baked in at least 45 minutes. I observed we can actually spend ti...

One weekend, while I was preparing myself for a shower prior to going out again to meet up with friends in the city, my landlady barged in the kitchen cum dining area in our tiny Chinatown apartment from outside. In her hands was a whole chicken that she soon started chopping finely with a huge kitchen knife, in expertly driven thuds given to the dead bird. I got reminded of my former nasty habit of refusing to eat anything chicken up until I reached high school. When I was still a small boy, I saw a live headless chicken running around the kitchen while our helper was trying to prepare it for boiling before getting it dressed. It was one of the most shocking sights I've seen so far at my young age that time, such that I refused to eat anything chicken based, and I would even cry whenever I'd be forced to eat this flight-less bird. I eventually overcome the habit one party time held at a high school classmate's party, and they had nothing except all chicken-based dishes (...