Popo's wild green wonton soup

The garden looked a wild land that spring. There were a hundred kinds of weeds growing everywhere.

In the previous winter the lawn was turned over every inch by a group of policemen and red guards. Nobody dared to ask them what they were looking for. They did not find anything except a metal cover for the sewage line.

While Didi and Dudu were digging dirt to trace ants, Popo was inspecting weeds. She had a little wood stool, a pair of small scissors and a bamboo basket with her. she cut a small green from the bottom of the stem and smelled its tiny triangle white flowers. She showed the little weed to Didi. This is called Ji-cai, a wild herb we used to look for when living in countryside. Didi liked the smell of this little weed. The shape of its tiny flowers made her think of the fragrance purse Popo made for Duan-wu festival.

By the time to make dinner Popo's basket was full. Didi and Dudu were helping her to spot Ji-cai among a hundred kinds of weeds and they became experts of that.

Popo washed the green leaves and chopped them into a small green mound. She made a dough and turned it into a pile of wonton wraps. She folded the wrap three times to enclose the green fillings and several dozens of wontons quickly lined up in a big bamboo tray. She put wontons into boiling soup, and told Didi when wonton is done it floats up to the the surface. Didi watched wonton dancing and rotating in the soup, and floating up with the fresh green color of the fillings showing through the translucent wrap. The perfume of the wildness of spring filled the kitchen.

Fava beans, magic beans

Popo got a handful dried fava beans from a street vendor who came from a village outside of the city. The dried beans were brownish and as hard as little rocks. She socked beans in an old bowl shaped like a five-petal plum blossom.

In a spring day, Popo sowed beans at far side of the garden and marked the boundary of this small bean field. Fava beans grew really fast. They were extending their stems and vines crowding and hugging each other.

Popo harvested a lot of fava beans and piled them up on the kitchen table. Fava bean pots were waxy green and big, as long as Dudu's whole hand. Didi asked Popo how she would cook such big bean pots. Popo said we need to shell them to get beans out. She twisted the shell and squeezed three beans out. Didi and Dudu followed her and soon they got a full bowl of green fava beans.

Didi picked up one and looked at the funny looking bean, on the smooth skin there was a thin curved pattern on the top, kind of like a smiling mouth.

Popo started to peel off the thin skin on the shelled beans, and she said fresh fava beans would taste a little bitter if cooked with the thin skin on. It was a lot of work and progressed pretty slowly. Didi tried a few beans and got impatient.

Popo told Didi and Dudu that if you only tear the bottom part of the bean skin and squeeze the bean out, the top half of the bean skin is a perfect finger tip cover, with the smiling mouth on it. Didi and Dudu liked the idea and they carefully made a bunch of green finger covers. On one side of the bean skin Didi used a pen to draw eyes and nose. They put them on and when they move fingers with the smiling faces, they suddenly had a really fun finger puppet show.

Finally the bean shelling was done. Popo saved a few beans with skin on. She cut a small red chili into bead like shape. Then she threaded fava beans together with the red chili bead, it became a colorful bean necklace!

On the dinner table that evening the family enjoyed a big bowl of green fava beans so tender so fresh. Didi wore the bean necklace, and Dudu kept her bean shell finger covers on.

Firecracker Chicken Soup and Birdies

Popo had been very busy in the kitchen preparing the big feast for the lunar New Year. Early in the morning of the New Year Eve, some rooster and hen could be heard making noise in the back alley outside the kitchen side door. By the time DiDi and other kids got up, the birds were already dead and blood was drained in a bowl. DiDi looked at the birds in a big copper basin on the kitchen floor, she was a little frightened, but also fascinated at the same time.

Popo lifted a big water kettle from the stove and poured hot water into the basin, and asked Didi to hold a small bamboo tray for her, “ you can help me here, I will make something special for you kids for the New Year”. Popo pulled over a little wood stool, sat down, started to pluck the colorful tail feathers from the rooster, and put them on the bamboo tray. These feathers were long, curvy, with dark golden and black patterns. She also picked a few feathers from the wing that had thicker barrel. Then Popo plucked a pile of feathers from the hen, those were short and fluffy. “Now let me work on the birds and feathers, you go to play with your sisters and brothers.”

The pale winter sun was lowering behind the bare trees on the far side of the garden. Clothes on the clothing lines across the neighbor’s outdoor stairway were tumbling in the chilly wind. Children came back in from their jumping rope game, smelled the wonderful scent of fresh chicken soup from the kitchen.

Popo cleared some fabric and her sewing bundle from the low table,“ everyone sit down and you will have some special treat”. The boys and girls sat down and waited excitedly. Each one got a steaming bowl of golden colored chicken soup in front of them. Then Popo put a big bowl of steamed and roasted rice in the middle, ” sprinkle some crispy rice on the hot chicken soup now”. Little hands all went in the big bowl and crispy rice flying all over the table. Some, however, did land into hot soup bowls, and made very happy crackling and popping sound. “ Wow, this is like we have tiny firecrackers on the table!” “You will have real firecrackers if you can stay awake till midnight today. Now drink your soup before it gets cold”. The soup was delicious and crispy rice was juicy and soaked with flavor.

Didi helped Popo to carry empty bowls to the kitchen, and asked: “ this firecracker chicken soup was really fun, but what happened to those beautiful feathers? “ Popo picked up a cloth bundle sitting on the bamboo chair, and opened it on the table. “ I made some birdies for you boys and girls to play shuttlecock.” Didi could not believe her eyes. The birdies Popo made were so beautiful, they stood there proudly showing off their colorful feathers just like birds alive. The base of the birdie was made of a Chinese coin wrapped and sewn with layers of fabric, a short tube of one feather barrel was cut in cross slits at one end and sewn standing up on the top surface of the base. a bundle of rooster feathers were arranged like exploding fireworks out of the feather barrel stand. The other kind with hen feathers looked like a soft fluffy ball of giant dandelion. Popo gathered the birdies and gave one to each kid, fluffy ball kind to girls and firework kind to boys. She said that when she was a kid, boys played shuttlecock the kicking birdie game, and girls played birdie with a piece of hand held board to hit the birdie in all kinds of dancing poses without letting it touch the ground.

Children cheered and ran out to the terrace, in no time the birdies were flying with all that beautiful feathers flapping in the air.

Purple moon beans

It was a very hot summer. Didi and Dudu were taking a nap on a straw mat on the floor. Popo was siting on a rattan chair near the window mending a shirt. Every a few minutes she had to stop to cool herself with a banana leaf fan.

Didi listened to the loud chorus of cicadas and wondered how everything outside would be in the afternoon heat. She slipped out of the door into the garden.

There had been a food shortage those days. Every morning Popo had to go to the market on T street before dawn, and waited in long line to buy rationed food. Popo planted some vegetables in the garden. In a spring day she sowed a few pale green seeds near the fence and Didi watered the patch. Now green vines were all over the fence, and a few lavender colored flowers nodding in the hot breeze.

The dazzling sunshine made Didi squint. A yellow butterfly and some bees were busy flying around. She followed them to the fence and spotted a half moon shaped bean pot hanging from a vine hidden under leaves. It was half green and half purple.

Didi had not seen a bean like this before. She was very excited and ran into the house to tell Popo, there is a bean pot on the vine! Popo asked what shape it was. It was like a half moon. Popo told Didi that was indeed called purple moon bean.

A few days later Popo harvested a small basket of purple moon beans and made a stir-fry of them with black bean sauce. It was delicious.