mooncakes for mid-autumn moon festival '09

i.
apples have returned to the market and it's time to make mooncakes again.

until recently, mooncake making had been a communal act. grandma, grandpa, and me at our respective posts: grandma with her rolling pin for the dough, grandpa and his scale to portion the filling, me with my wooden mold to shape the whole thing into mooncakes. a big part of the enjoyment of making mooncakes is the stretch of time in spent together in toil; the exchange of an afternoon for a few stacks of mooncakes; the satisfaction of admiring our handiwork at evening time. even when grandma's health declined and she could no longer hold the rolling pin, she'd still be in the kitchen, supervising our mini-production line from her wheelchair. and when grandpa's eyesight got so bad that he couldn't read the numbers on the scale and i started to make mooncakes on my own, it was comforting to know that he was still reachable by car and phone. now that grandpa's gone too, it's become more difficult to muster the energy to take down the wooden mold.

with the dinette only 6 months old, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of good reasons for not making mooncakes this year: payroll, bookkeeping, laundry, a haircut, sleep. but there are plenty of compelling reasons to make the cakes: to celebrate another arrival of autumn; to have edible sweet potato-filled gifts that i can give out to my long list of people to thank; to conjure up my former teachers in my kitchen.

ii.
mid-autumn moon festival '06. for my first year of making mooncakes on my own, i decided to forego my grandparents' traditional mung bean-salted duck egg filling and try a new filling instead. i baked up a batch, wrapped and packed four cakes in a paper box, and brought them home for grandpa.

grandpa: the crust is very pretty. what kind of food coloring did you use?

me: i just used some caramel sauce that you taught me and mixed that with an egg.

grandpa: that was smart.

me: taste it, grandpa.

grandpa: you did put a salted egg in?

me: no, grandpa. just taste one.

grandpa (taking a bite): wha... what is this?

me: it's sweet potato! i know how much you love sweet potato, so -

grandpa: why did you do that?

me: you don't like it, grandpa? no one would make a sweet potato mooncake in vietnam?

grandpa: only during the war, when we couldn't afford mung beans!

me: but grandpa, these sweet potatoes are more expensive than mung beans. and they were dug up just a few days ago.

grandpa: sweet potato filling. such a waste.

iii.
i love it that my innovation is no innovation at all. i love it that my mooncake is a war-time mooncake, and that even during war, my grandparents found time to make them.

good girl dinette makes it into johnathan gold's 99 essential la list!

(photo by anne fishbein, click on curry pot pie and it'll take you to jonathan gold's list)

me (entering the kitchen): anne fishbein just told me that the dinette's going to be in jonathan gold's 99 list.

john (saute): we need more ong choy.

chris (soup/app): we need to come in earlier to prep the line.

hae jung (prep): we're gonna need to make more pot pie biscuits.

caroll (front of the house): if my picture gets in the la weekly, i hope it's sexy.

me (hyper-ventilating): i need a paper bag.

picking up this week's ong choy and opo from mai yang, pictured here holding one of her prized tomatoes.

a few years back, mai told me that the farm might shut down when her parents retire. then a year ago, i saw mai with her father at the hollywood farmers' market and she told me that she's going to continue the yang farming tradition for another generation! thank you, mai!

you can catch mai at the silverlake farmers' market on saturday mornings, or her parents at the hollywood farmers' market on sunday mornings.

finally!: a very spotty account of good girl dinette's first 2 weeks in business

april 6: yumiko and tom of tomco international uncork the ceremonial champagne bottle after we finally passed final health department inspection.

april 10: good girl dinette opens on good friday.

in the kitchen on opening night: john and hae jung work the saute line while i show a new hire how to plate a rice cake with scallion tofu dish.

april 16: hae jung, in hairnet and going in and out of walk-in to make crostatas, is a combination of chilly willy and lunchlady. with hae jung in the kitchen with me, it feels like old times, only better!

good girl dinette in la times

(photo by barbara davidson, click on the rice bowl to go to more images)

one month into opening, jessica gelt of la times writes a sweet article of our new endeavor, accompanied by a gallery of gorgeous photos by barbara davidson.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/27/entertainment/et-earlybird27

a day of grandpas

angel and manny, two veteran electricians, came in early in the morning and worked into the evening to hook up the electrical components of my walk-in. i spent the day working on my computer in the dining room while they wired the walk-in to the electrical panel. i've lived near freeways or on busy streets all my life, so i wasn't surprised that i was able to do my work amidst the drilling and sawing and nailing. in fact, the sound of industry, peppered with angel and manny's frequent laughter, was quite comforting. i worked away at my calculations and projections, blissfully unaware of the reason for my sense of well-being. it was only after i looked at this picture of the two of them that i realized why i felt so carefree and content all day: they reminded me of my grandpa!

clayton at market