The Asian & Chinese cooking pages contain cookbooks, recipes, and cooking techniques.
The following table is sortable, just click/touch on a column header. Click/Touch here to restore original sort.
| Date or Sequence |
Event or Action |
|---|---|
| 1945-1958 |
I recall eating several times at a Chinese restaurant (most likely Cantonese) once in a while probably during the early to mid 1940s because I also remember taped car headlights to prevent headlights from showing up in the air...air raid protection! All I remember were the LARGE fried shrimp with catsup and Chinese mustard (although I do not remember if I ate the mustard)! Of course, I was small so it is definitely possible that the shrimp were not really that LARGE! |
| 1958-1959 |
My first year of college at Loyola University, Los Angeles, all I did was eat at the cafeteria and heat canned food in the dorm except for Chinese food cooked illegally in the dorm by a Chinese student. I also had my first Korean meal when my best friend, Paul Wan-Soon Kim, a Korean senior, took me to a Korean woman's home where she cooked home style meals for Korean students...at that time, there were no Korean markets or groceries in L.A.!!!! |
| mid 1960s | I ate Chinese food at a restaurant in S.F. China town with my compadre, Harold Martin, several times a week after playing music in San Jose. I also had my first experiences with sushi! First, a Japanese man from Hawaii opened a cafe across the street from where I lived and I discovered inari-zushi...big handful sushi...2 for $ .25! I thought this was sushi, so a couple of years later after the cafe had been closed, I got a craving for inari-zushi so I stopped at a Japanese restaurant/sushi-bar and ordered 10 or so pieces to go. When I got home, there were no inari-zushi...just raw fish, squid, octopus, etc...I was disappointed but I ate it all any way! I also had my first frog legs...Chinese style take-out from a restaurant just up the street from where I lived. Fantastic! |
| mid 1970s | Probably when I first began cooking Chinese. Among the first Chinese cookbooks I remember and still have, although published in 1970s, were:
I mainly shopped at stores in Oakland's China Town where I also bought my first wok which I still have and keep well seasoned and my big aluminum Chinese steamer. In addition to various groceries and teas, I also bought various raw dim sum to steam at home on a regular basis. I cooked Chinese virtually every day for about a year using those 3 cookbooks. And I had a looo pot on the burner simmering for most of that time. During my Chinese year of cooking, I did whole chickens...boiled, honeyed and air-dried. 2016/04/11: I cannot find any description of air-dried chicken the 3 cookbooks...can anyone provide me with a recipe or reference? My wife and I ate Chinese dishes with steamed rice almost every night and lost weight! |
| 1980s-1990s | Ate lunch frequently at Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai restaurants with co-workers. Also ate at Edwin Schumacher's restaurant on a regular basis and once a month for a special fixed menu
gourmet meal. I got to know him quite well and he allowed me to do some prep work in his kitchen. I had
watched him make a zabaglione, and one night at home, I got a craving for it. I made it from memory,
but because my oven was broken, I cooked it in a microwave oven...it came out very good except for the
merengue which was like rubber |
| late 2000s | After my retirement, I began Asian cooking again and eating at Asian restaurants on a regular basis. Started building up my Asian Cookbook Collection. |
| 2009/01/00 | Began cataloging my Asian & Chinese cookbook collections. This is a continuing project. |
