Asian Heritage Month Gala Performance of Asian Canadian Artists

Posted on May 21, 2013 by jmah

Wino #34 Preview

Posted on May 10, 2013 by jmah

Mouse over the bottle to see the description.

中國首先環球航行、測繪世界 – 糾正六百年歷史錯案

Posted on May 8, 2013 by jmah

In 2010, the University of Minnesota purchased a 1602 world map with Chinese text. This map presented to the Ming Emperor Wanli 萬曆 has been attributed to Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit who went to Macau in 1582 and died in Beijing in 1610. After examining the map and comparing it with 600 maps drawn between the 14th and 18th century, Dr. Siu-Leung Lee concludes that most of the information on this map is not from European sources, but is derived from Chinese sources around 1430, especially from the voyages led by Zheng He 鄭和. Thus, the Chinese had completed circumnavigation of the world more than 60 years before Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas. Dr. Lee refutes in great detail three commonly accepted dogma in conventional western history: 1. Columbus discovered America; 2. Zheng He did not go farther west than East Africa; 3. Ricci introduced cartography of the globe to China. Most Western textbooks covering the last 600 years of world history should therefore be corrected, and should give due credit to Chinese navigators as pioneers of world exploration……(Lecture at Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto)

Treasure Hunt – the Discovery

Posted on April 28, 2013 by jmah

The Chinese Grocery store is a place well worth an adventure. The stores have so much variety and the qualities are generally satisfactory. Asian cooking does not have much taboo as Western cooking, especially North America. The living standard in Asian is high and people pay more respect to food. We eat almost anything. Things that run, fly, swim we devour. One type of food attracts the general admiration is the seafood and shellfish. Chinese grocery stores have particular sections built around the supply of seafood. Continue reading →

Home Cooking Made Simple – More Equipment

Posted on April 24, 2013 by jmah

When you have the knives, you need the cutting board.

There are lots of designs for cutting boards on the market. The most common ones are the ones made of wood. There are treated bamboo ones, and there are ones made from resin or sanitized plastic. There are also disposable ones. Choose whatever material you desire but choose a fair size one. A workable size would be 24 x 18, and it should be 1 to 1.5” thick.

You do not need to be so elaborate to use the checker design but the little cells can serve as measurement when you are baking and measuring the dough or puff pastry. The measurement also comes in handy if you are carving a roast. You would know how many slices you can get out of the roast. A plain old fashion cutting board should be good enough. We choose the depth because we need the thickness to cushion chopping. Continue reading →

Home Cooking Made Simple – Your Knives

Posted on April 16, 2013 by jmah

Your mother never taught you this. Her mother never taught her either. The skill has always been passed down through practice and experience. Most people would spend a quarter of their life time preparing, watching and doing it. There had never been any written rules or records of how it is done. There had been no formal cook book or written manual either. Of course we are talking about cooking skills.

Sure you can explore and find recipes on websites, journal, books, videos, tapes and many other forms of media that gives you knowledge about what ingredients to use. The fact still remains this cooking skill problem is more complicated than it appears. Continue reading →

WYKwino Report No. 33

Posted on April 12, 2013 by jmah

Wino #33 was held in Mon Sheong Court on April 11, 2013. Click here to read the food report from our Master Chef and here is the link to the menu and the pictures. The wine report with a personal touch can be found here.