Something to do with something

My friend Karen is a regular reader of this blog. When I saw her on Tuesday afternoon, the first thing she said to me was, "I miss Patricio."

On my day off school yesterday, I made potato salad and deviled eggs, and read a large portion of (appropriately red-white-and-blue) American Food Writing, a new anthology by Molly O'Neill. It's filled with all kinds of eclectic essays, poems, recipes, and even fiction excerpts, all dealing with, well, American food. I especially like this quote from Gertrude Stein (a home girl), who wrote this in the New York Herald Tribune in 1935:

Now what has all this to do with anything, well anything always has something to do with something and nothing is more interesting that something that you eat.

So, on to today's class. I think I could get into this schedule: on two days, off one; on two days; off two. At any rate, there were nine students in class today, and we made the following dishes, in less than two hours:

These are pork ribs, and they actually have been marinating since Tuesday. Andy baked them off today.
Here's Dan Dan noodles, made with ground pork and minced Sichuan pickled vegetable, peanut butter, and srirracha sauce:
This is my dish, Yu Xiang (or "fish-fragrant") eggplant. The "Yu Xiang" style applies to a marinade that would be used on fish (thus "fish fragrant"), but it is used on all kinds of meat, seafood, and vegetable dishes. The basic marinade is soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, garlic, and chilies. Once again, I'm finding that I love a dish I'd swear I wouldn't like.
In addition to this hot and sour soup, Chef Rhoda made a wonderful consomme-like broth in a special clay pot with a steamer funnel bottom, like this one: Andy made Ma Po Tofu, and so I loved TWO dishes today that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.Derrick made Kung Pao chicken, which everyone agreed was the best they'd ever had.The tea-smoked chicken was rubbed with salt, Sichuan peppercorns, and five-spice powder on Monday, and today it was steamed, then smoked over rice, tea leaves and brown sugar.
These are dry-roasted green beans: you start by deep-frying the beans, then stir fry them using more pickled vegetable, dried shrimp, and chili paste.
Silvia made Spicy Orange Chicken, one of Chef's favorite recipes, and it's very much like the classic lemon chicken, where the pieces of chicken are deep fried, then tossed in a sweet and spicy sauce.
I don't have pictures of the wonderful sweet and sour fish that Alex made. He kept the crispy fish separate from the sauce, so that you could spoon it over your portion at serving time and still enjoy the crunchiness. We also had a platter of pineapple, oranges, and jicama, but the rice team neglected to make any steamed rice today. "It's okay," Chef said. "We have a banquet here, that's for sure, and you don't serve rice at a banquet."