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CHINESE FOOD | CLAY POT COOKING

Chinese Clay Pot Pork Ribs, Fully Loaded Fried Rice & Sweet n’ Sour Chicken.

A Chinese Take-Out done at home with all the flavor at a tenth the cost

Arpad Nagy
Kitchen Tales
Published in
9 min readMay 8, 2023

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Photo by Author.

During my time as a professional chef, I worked in a hotel kitchen whose breakfast brigade was run by a tiny Chinese woman named Mrs. Kim, although everyone referred to her as “Mama.” Behind her oversized glasses, she wore turquoise eye shadow and had a small mouth painted in ruby-red lipstick. Whenever I spoke to her, she responded with a brilliant smile and spoke broken English with the sing-song voice of a small bird.

Everyone loved Mama.

Her team consisted of two other, equally as likable Chinese ladies who spoke even less English than Mama and her dishwasher, an elderly Chinese gentleman who spoke no English at all. His name, of course, was Papa.

It always amused me when our executive chef, a platinum-haired Spaniard with a Clark Gable jet-black mustache, approached Mama with a request–never a demand.

Everyone respected Mama.

In late January, excitement began to build amongst Mama and her team; Chinese New Year was fast approaching, and it was a huge deal.

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Kitchen Tales
Kitchen Tales

Published in Kitchen Tales

A publication for those who know the kitchen is the most important room in a home

Arpad Nagy
Arpad Nagy

Written by Arpad Nagy

Shortlisted for 2024 Northwind Writing Award in NF/Fiction. New owner of First Line Fiction. Editor @ The Memoirist, AoE, Book Cafe, Short Place, Kitchen Tales.

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