[Sca-cooks] Chop, chop, Master A, was: New topics for discussion...

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 04:19 PM 8/5/02 -0400, you wrote:
>[Although, not to leave topic or anything, has anyone else noticed
>that the prep work in Chinese take-out (and in restaurants) is simply
>not what it was 10 or 20 years ago? Everything is in much larger
>hunks, either because it's faster and less skilled a task, or because
>it takes up more space in a quart container, or for some more
>esoteric reason, but the days of the 1/16 inch uniform shred seem to
>be dying out, except in the really high-quality restaurants (seems
>like Shanghainese and Taiwanese places go in for this, at least in my
>area). Is this a personal peeve for anyone but me?]

My guess- lack of skilled workers, and lazy western fingers that can't pick
up anything smaller than bricks with chopsticks.

James and I took my younger daughter and her boyfriend out to our favorite
Chinese restaurant recently- the poor kid. Young Henry was not familiar
with chopsticks, and he's left handed so I really couldn't help him. He
gave it a good try though, and it was some time before he gave up and went
to a fork and spoon. Have to say- I'm rather proud that all three of my
kids can use chopsticks adequately. Maybe not elegantly, but the food gets
where it belongs.

'Lainie
-jonesing for some of their Garlic Chicken... oooohh...
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Sometimes Life makes drastic changes without our permission...