Thought some of our readers would enjoy these clips. The first one comes from my online chat with our Travel Editor,
Nana Chen, while we were getting the new edition of
e-Marginalia ready to publish. And the second one is an excerpt from an email she sent to me (in New York City) afterward. Two good, too good exchanges to let slip into obscurity! The back story, in so far as one may be needed, is that Nana was shooting some images (in Taipei) to accompany her brother's (in Los Angeles) "Thailand's Tom Yum Kung" story which appears in the current edition.
Nana: Okay. I've got the shots. Will pass you the images. Not many but pleased.
George: Great!
Nana: Please check your email.
George: Ok, let's see…
Nana: 8 images.
George: Got them. Yum. Thank you.
Nana: So pleased.
George: Your dad made that?!?! What a STUD! How'd it taste?
Nana: He said to me, "Tell George that I will make it for him from scratch sometime."
George: I accept! Thank him for his offer for me.
Nana: They are really amazing chefs, both of them.
George: Is that why your dad only goes to restaurants a couple of times a year?
Nana: Yes. They cook. They love it. Betty says, "It's almost as if your father has a relationship with meat. He really knows it and understands it and I don't want to say it, but when he cooks it, it's almost as if he's making love to it."
George: Hmmm... can we put THAT in the blog?
Nana: Sure. Go ahead.
George: Cool
George: What can we call your dad?
Nana: Chief pop.
George: Chief pop? Not chef pop?
Nana: No. We can call him Chef Humi Chen…Humi is his Japanese name; most kids during Japanese occupation era had one.
George: I know he's owned restaurants all over the world and chef'ed in all of them. What's the mini version of his chef-ing history?
Nana: Chef Chen started his career as a pig feed salesman. One day it dawned on him that maybe pigs wanted food that tasted good, just like people. Out of curiosity, he experimented by adding food flavoring to the pig feed. Soon the pigs increased their appetite and the pig farmers started grinning like their pigs.
George: * BIG smile *
Nana: Chef Chen then developed his skills, learning chemistry on his own and engineering new flavorings, this time experimenting on himself and his children. They too started to grin like piglets. One thing led to another until Chef Chen built a food flavoring consulting firm in Taipei. Then he gave in to his nomadic impulses, left the company to his brothers to travel around the world, tasting new flavors and opening his first restaurant in Buenos Aires in 1987.
George: Wow! What a tale… Thanks for the summary. And after Buenos Aires how many other restaurants followed?
Nana: All together six including Atlanta and Los Angeles
George: Thanks for sharing the story. It's definitely blog-bound. Now go eat your dad's meal.
Here's the amusing email excerpt:
Louie sent an email saying he loved the images and wished that he could eat the subjects. By the way, the papaya salad in the group of pictures nearly killed me it was so spicy! I find, if something is too spicy, don't stop. Keep eating at a rapid pace, then suffer all at once afterwards. I took a wad of brownie and compressed it to my tongue. The sugar and the sponging effect did wonders. I asked my pop afterwards why he didn't eat any. "It's too spicy!" he said. "I added extra chili to give your pictures more color."
Just a little levity to pass around the globe. Now back to
travel…
