On this week's episode of the Special Sauce podcast, host Ed Levine talks to David Rockwell, the architect and designer behind every Nobu around the globe, as well as multiple airline terminals and the theater in which the Academy Awards are held.
In part two of my Special Sauce interview with Chinese-food and -culture writer Fuchsia Dunlop, we tackle common misconceptions about cooking Chinese food at home. Fuchsia addresses those intimidated about diving in, explaining that "people often think that Chinese cooking is very complicated–that you're gonna need all kinds of weird ingredients–and also there's this idea often that Chinese food's not very healthy; there's a lot of deep-frying and that kind of thing." But, she says, "I think the important thing to remember is that Chinese food is what most people in China just cook at home every night. People there, they don't have a lot of time. They want to rustle something up that's tasty and healthy and within their budget for their family."
The Land of Fish and Rice author also shares how to stock our kitchens with just a few Chinese items, including what she calls "magic ingredients." But she doesn't stop at pantry essentials–you'll hear all about why mud snails are "absolutely divine." They are, I learned, "eaten raw and pickled in rice wine ice cold. You crunch it, complete with its shell."
Even if you're not quite ready to take the mud-snail plunge, though, she has plenty of recommendations for inquisitive minds and palates. She recommends the five-volume Chinese novel that should be required reading for everyone interested in China, and dishes on what famous distant ancestor would be at her last supper–someone I just had to allow, even though I usually bar family from the list. To hear what everyone would be doing on Fuchsia Dunlop Day, you'll just have to listen. I will say that Kenji will be very happy when he hears it.
What a story: A young, food-obsessed British student at Cambridge University named Fuchsia (God, I love that name) heads to China in the '90s to study, and manages to become the first Westerner to attend the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine. After that, she zigzags between China and London and, in the process, becomes one of today's best English-language writers on Chinese cuisine.
That's Fuchsia Dunlop's story, as you'll hear on this extraordinary episode of Special Sauce (part one of a riveting two-parter). Why has she devoted so much of her working life to writing about China and Chinese food, culminating in her latest cookbook, Land of Fish and Rice: Recipes from the Culinary Heart of China? Fuchsia explains: "I really do think that Chinese gastronomy and Chinese cuisine is both an amazing creation as culture and as expression of human creativity and inventiveness and so on. It also has many important lessons for everyone in terms of health. There's no other cuisine, perhaps, that combines pleasure and notions of health and balance like Chinese.... That's something that, in the West, in the whole world, we're struggling with. How do you eat well in a way that's both pleasurable and also good for health and environmentally sustainable? I think we can find many of the answers and solutions in traditional Chinese cuisine."
When you listen, you'll learn, as I did, some Chinese cooking terms that defy easy English translation: zhi jia pian, ma er duo, gu pai pian, niu shi pian. What do they mean? I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to listen to find out.
Welcome back for part two of my Special Sauce interview with Southie street urchin-turned-chef-restaurateur Barbara Lynch. This week we talk a little bit more about her memoir, Out of Line: A Life of Playing With Fire, but Barbara also manages to surprise me with a few additional tidbits of information, like the distinguished company she keeps (one of her "great friends" is an acclaimed presidential historian whose initials are DKG).
Barbara and I discuss what spurred her to continue to open up restaurants ("I get bored easily," she says. "I always have to challenge myself.") And we also touch upon why, despite her expansive success, she's resisted the siren song of opening up a restaurant in Vegas, and the impression she was left with after meeting with mega-hotelier, Steve Wynn.
We also reflect on the pleasures of setting up your employees for future success (for those Serious Eaters who don't know, Kenji first learned how to cook in one of Barbara's kitchens), and on the necessity of keeping a big box of original Cheez-Its in your car at all times.
But if you want to hear about the inspired guest list at her last meal, or about its simple yet entirely appropriate menu, you'll just have to listen.