A Holiday Present

After I got home from work yesterday, I opened the mailbox and found a package. One look at the sender's information brought a smile to my face - I did not need to wonder at the content of the package. My long-awaited home-made sausages finally arrived, all the way from a friend in Boston!

She told me a while ago that she was making sausages from scratch based on the recipes from her mother. Now this is a friend whose diversity of skills and interests is on the same order of magnitude as my lack thereof. While she is an amateur photographer, as far as I can tell, she’s a better photographer than those who put up exhibitions in museums. She does pottery, and I have a beautiful vase that she made. She draws and paints and travels, and she’s a Ph.D. biologist with a full-time job. She might even have gained a couple more skills since I last saw her. By contrast, I can’t think of one thing I do that’s worth mentioning – does watching movies count as a real hobby?

I showed the sausages to the nanny, who’s from Chengdu and is a pretty good cook. She immediately recognized the sausages when I asked her to boil them, “where is your friend from? They look like the ones that we would make back home in Sichuan in the winter. In fact, right now is the time that my family would make sausages and cured pork.” I asked why they would not simply buy such things from the stores, and she wrinkled her nose, “well, I would never eat those things sold in the stores. You never know what kind of meat they used. Plus it takes just a little more effort to make something that tastes really good, so why not? You cannot find the same thing from the store anyways. If you buy some pork belly meat, I can make cured pork here for you.” When it comes to cooking, I am notorious for emphasizing the quantity and speed over quality. I would usually gladly accept worse-tasting food if it means just a little less effort.

The sausages were boiled and then sliced. True – you cannot buy such sausages from any stores. The meat was mixed with some red chili peppers and probably some other ingredients that I can’t name. In short, they tasted wonderful. If sausages from the stores or restaurants could taste like that, I would be eating sausages often myself. My only regret is that we finished them all too quickly, long before I remembered that I promised to share some with another mutual friend close by.

The next morning, I went to Ranch 99 to buy pork belly meat. Now I am eagerly awaiting the result of my nanny’s pork-curing effort.

Again, one more data point to show that people from the south are more resourceful, talented and industrious than people from the north!