Welcome to the beginning…and the end. The beginning of this blog and the end of procrastination. So here goes…
I’ll start with something I know like the back of my hand – potstickers. It’s a dish I was raised on, and the memory of it harks far back as age 5. At the dining room table, my mother and grandmothers would fill the round, flour-based skins with meat filling, and pinch them closed. Even if I was too young to partake in the process, I was allowed to take a few skins to play with and pinch along. They eventually entrusted me to be the first step in the assembly line, helping fill the skins with meat before they took over, then wetting the skins, and eventually pinching the little plump purses closed.
I was an expert taster too. There were some batches that were a little more gingery, or scallion-y. A perfect batch possessed golden, crispy bottoms that crunched as you bit into them. I would notice. The few times when Mom was simultaneously attending to my two younger rascally sisters and several other chores, and the potstickers burned at their bottoms, you would’ve thought my puppy had died. My face read incredible disappointment.
Once we all flew the coop, my parents began buying the frozen kind (heaven forbid) for just the two of them, which I’ll admit are actually pretty good. But making potstickers is my thing. And my husband T relies on me to keep the freezer stocked with them, ready at any time to throw down into the sizzling non-stick pan. For me, like folding laundry, the process is therapeutic even if it requires some time. It has even become a ritual every time we visit some of our dearest friends in Auckland, New Zealand. There’s usually a morning and afternoon dedicated to searching out the Asian markets for ingredients and then making them for dinner that night. Even their kids get involved. In fact, so popular they were, that on one of our visits back in 2010, my friend, Michael Dearth, a celebrated restaurateur and sommelier there asked me to go onto a radio show with him to talk a little about my treasured dish as I prepared them for the radio hosts while Michael discussed the perfect wine pairing (a 2004 Vinoptima Gewurtraminer).
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