I’ve toasted them.
I’ve smeared them with cream cheese and jam.
I’ve piled slices of silky smoked salmon on them.
But until now, I had never stir-fried a bagel.
Yes, you read that right.
Of all the recipes in award-winning cookbook writer Grace Young’s new book, “Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge” (Simon & Schuster) that had me running to grab my wok — and there are many — the one that most intrigued me was this unusual one for “Stir-Fried Bagels with Cabbage and Bacon.”
My Mom was like the Chinese-American June Cleaver.
For those of you too young to remember the 1960’s black-and-white television comedy, “Leave It to Beaver,” actress Barbara Billingsley played Mrs. Cleaver, a devoted wife in suburbia, caring for her hard-working husband, and two sons — the elder, Wally, and the younger, mischievous, Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver.
No matter what scrapes Beaver got into, Mrs. Cleaver never had a hair out of place.
And no matter if she was just vacuuming or tidying up the house, June Cleaver was always decked out immaculately in a fitted shirt, bouffant skirt, heels, and pearls.
My late-Mom may not have gone that far. But she was close.
My cousin Gary jokes that at a family barbecue at his house years ago, where everyone else turned up in T-shirts, jeans, shorts or chinos, there was my Mom — in a smart skirt and blouse ensemble, with a jade bracelet on her wrist.
There were no “Casual Fridays” back when she was working, so this was my Mom’s uniform, so to speak, whether she was at work at her office in San Francisco, or chatting with visiting relatives in her living room at home.
Even when she did housework, my Mom dressed in a simple shift, with buttons down the front or a zipper up the back, which she often had sewed, herself.
The idea of sweats or shorts on the weekends never entered her imagination. I don’t recall her wearing a pair of jeans. Nope, not ever.
In fact, I rarely even saw her in slacks. I think she only owned a pair or two. And they came out of the closet only to be packed in a suitcase when she and my Dad would take a cruise.
I look at old snapshots of her now and that’s the Mom that I see. Graceful, delicate, dainty, and neat as a pin.
Which is why whenever I make her dish of “Prawns with Pork and Black Bean Sauce,” I can’t help but smile, because it’s a bit messy.
When I was a little girl, I remember many a dinner that featured a platter of little nuggets of Chinese pork spareribs.
No matter if they were coated in salty, pungent black bean sauce or sweet hoisin sauce, my Dad would root around with a serving spoon until he found the exact piece he was looking for.
As a kid, I would watch him digging around, and would wonder why he took so long to do this.
Only as an adult did I realize what he was actually doing.
He wasn’t looking for the meatiest sparerib, but the scrawniest — the one with barely any tender flesh on it. My late-Dad, who was born to first-generation, working-class Chinese immigrants, was used to scrimping, sacrificing, and making do with less. After all, when he was saving money to buy our family’s first and only house in San Francisco, he voluntarily took on the extra duties of cleaning and sweeping the stairs and hallways of the apartment building we lived in then in exchange for a cut in rent from the landlord.
That frugality carried over into his eating, too. When the Lazy-Susan stopped in front of him at a Chinese restaurant, he’d do that thing with the spoon for quite a few seconds, until he found the piece of chicken or duck or pork that was mostly all bone. He left the meatier pieces behind for my Mom, my two brothers, and I.
He’d use his fingers to gnaw on those bony pieces, savoring every last little bit of meat and succulent sauce. When the bone finally was discarded on his plate, it was clean as can be.
My Dad never wasted anything, that’s for sure. But he also knew a good thing when he tasted it. Those bony pieces of meat had some of the best flavor around. Good cooks know that cooking meat on the bone not only helps it cook faster but keeps it juicier, too. Bones also amp up the flavor of meat. That’s why they make such great stocks, why dogs love to chew on them, and why we all love to pick the tender bits off of hefty prime rib bones on holidays.
When I saw Tuty’s recipe for “Roasted Spareribs a la Scent of Spice” on her Scent of Spice blog, I couldn’t help but think of my Dad.
I’ve made a lot of things from scratch — pasta, cookies, cakes, pita bread, biscuits, marmalade and preserved lemons.
But one thing I often do NOT make myself is Chinese black bean sauce. Yes, I admit I do use the stuff in the jar.
I make no excuses for using the heady, handy, pungent condiment that’s always at the ready in my fridge. After all, it’s so easy to grab a tablespoon or full when I’m making a fast weeknight dish, such as “Stir-Fried Brussels Sprouts and Pork in Black Bean Sauce.”
If you leaf through the new February issue of Coastal Living magazine, you’re sure to stop in your tracks to admire the recipe and full-page, color photo of “Grilled Chinese Sweet and Sour Pork Kabobs.”
Well, at least I hope you do, because it’s my very own recipe — my first one published in the magazine.
It’s part of the story, “Fresh Tropical Flavors! Pineapple,” which I helped developed recipes for.
I solicited well-known chefs, including legendary Hawaiian toque, Sam Choy, for favorite dishes that showcase fresh pineapple.
I also came up with my own — a riff on everyone’s favorite take-out dish of sweet ‘n’ sour pork. Instead of greasy, battered, fried pork, though, I lightened the dish by threading skewers of pork with red onion, green and red peppers, and chunks of fresh pineapple that get thrown on the grill.