Chung King

This is what passed for "Chinese food" when we were kids. It seems unbelievable, but I didn't eat in a real Chinese restaurant until I was in my 20's. I remember having sweet and sour pork with that sticky orange sauce and thought it was delicious.

In the 1950's, fast food hadn't really been invented yet, we lived in a small town and families seldom ate out. It was just too expensive. John says he remembers having Chinese food once or twice growing up, but he lived in the metropolis of Columbus, Ohio. 

Mom was a good home cook, but frugal by necessity. She had to feed a family of five on a shoestring, at a time when groceries were a significant part of the household budget. With mayo and celery, she would stretch a single can of tuna into five sandwiches or make a supper casserole: mushroom soup, canned peas, crushed potato chips. Oh, I still remember that smell.

Mom also made us many good things from scratch and especially liked baking, but like most housewives of that generation, she took full advantage of the convenience of canned and processed food.  The meal I dreaded most was canned chow mein with those crispy noodles. Something about the combination of hard noodle with the slimy canned vegetables and weird brown sauce. John says his mother also made it, and being a supremely picky eater, he probably refused to eat it. But believe it or not, he likes these crunchy noodles.

Because I love him, I bought a bag and said I'd make him some old-fashioned chow mein. We have stir fry at least once a week, always with brown rice. The chicken chow mein recipe on this bag had more crunchy vegetables like celery, water chestnuts and bean sprouts, so I thought I'd try it.

 

Stir fry isn't hard to make but it's definitely hands on cooking, so you have to enjoy messing around the kitchen.

 I always fry the chicken pieces first in a very hot wok...

 Then the vegetables get a quick stir fry...

 Finally the cooked chicken goes back, along with the sauce to thicken up...

 And then, a crazy expensive pile of bean sprouts.

It was good and John liked it. I skipped the hard noodles.

Well, the weekend is almost here and it looks like a doozy. A big rain and windstorm predicted tomorrow, right about the time Amanda and family return to Seattle.  But today is the calm before the storm, dry and 65 degrees, so I took a steak of of the freezer to christen the new grill.  A little break from all the chopped up, braised and stewed food we've been eating lately.