Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Mid-Autumn Festival Banquet
Photography by Ron Boszko
In Chinese cultures the Mid-Autumn Festival is the most anticipated holiday after Chinese New Year. It is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which fell on September 14th this year. While my family celebrated on that day with a traditional family gathering and an evening of sumptuous food and mooncakes, I am using this opportunity presented by FoodBuzz to celebrate again with my “extended family” in my new neighborhood of Harlem USA.
The word is out! There was a reason why I’ve been working so hard at making these mooncakes. Take a look at what 
Following in the footsteps of the 
After I published my homemade mooncake post, my dear friend Lee Chin Hock, who is now living in Hong Kong, left a comment on my Facebook post. He sent me links to a 
All my friends thought I was out of my mind when I told them I was going to make homemade mooncakes. Well you see mooncake is one of those things better left for a professional bakery to make. Making them is time consuming and can be very tricky to handle. But the idea of making them at home intrigued me, and I was determined to make an attempt for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival this year. In fact I wanted to experiment with more modern and innovative flavors. So, I got on Amazon and ordered two 
and made my very first homemade mooncakes: Earl Grey Tea Mooncakes with Egg Yolk and Pine Nuts.
A few days ago I received a bagful of freshly picked long beans (豇豆) from a friend’s rooftop garden. They were bi-color, crisp and just absolutely gorgeous. Legumes are at their peak during late summer, and I was once again reminded of how we’ve lost the custom of eating locally grown food in season. 
Guess what I found when I was in New York’s Chinatown last week. This beautiful looking hulu! I’ve not seen them before in New York nor anywhere in the U.S. Hulu (葫蘆) is a bottle shaped gourd often seen in Chinese brush paintings. Sages or monks carrying hulu flask are common themes in Chinese art. But these sinuous shaped gourds are also delicious as vegetables. 
I often wondered what I would do when someone tagged me for a meme. I’ve read quite a few memes along my online travel. Although I find them to be fun they can be rather silly. Then Bron at 
During my 
Have you ever wondered why the wine lists in your average Chinese restaurants are so limited or non-existent? One would think that with a cuisine so wide-ranging and creative, there would be a sophisticated wine culture accompanying Chinese food. Well, there is. It’s just not the same wine we know of. When mentioning “wine” to a Chinese you need to differentiate between the indigenous “grain-based wine” made from rice, sorghum or barley and the imported European “grape-based wine.” But it doesn’t mean grape wine is not fitting for Chinese food.