Happy Halloween!

So this is not dinner for tonight, but it did seem like a fitting post for today. We got back from Maine and I was lobster-ed out and sugar-ed out and craving home-cooked Chinese food. It was decided that the afternoon activity was to walk to Chinatown and buy groceries for a quiet evening in and watching 'Brothers & Sisters.' Bizarrely enough, when we got back to NYC around 4pm, I was hungry again! We happened to run into Jon on the street, which was perfect, bc I wanted a Vietnamese sandwich, and Jon knew exactly where to get them. We all went to Nicky's in the East Village and shared a pork chop banh mi. Yum yum.



After our little snack detour, we finally made it down to Chinatown. I knew I wanted to make soup, and I knew I wanted copious amounts of vegetables. But as we were walking down Grand, live lobsters caught our eye bc we'd been discussing all weekend long how cheap they were by the lb in Maine, if you bought them at markets vs eating them at restaurants. Lo and behold, they were only about $4.99/lb in NYC too. But more importantly, we saw these little guys.



It put the perfect touch on my menu for the evening.

Boiled live crustacean guys
Chicken Feet Soup
Xian Gan Rou Si - Bean Curd and Shredded Pork(?)
Lots of Chinese Veggies

It was cathartic to cook and soothing to have the house smell of warm chinese cooking. The live crayfish (or whatever they were) were squirming all the way home and almost dead, but still moving, when finally dropped into the boiling water - and looked lovely when cooked.





They were a pain to eat, and I probably won't get them again, but a fun experiment nonetheless.

I also had extra chicken feet from the soup, so I decided to throw together some chicken feet stew. It turned out pretty well, but both Stan and I were afraid of the fat content so only ate a few each. The rest remained as decoration. And the rest of our meal was actually pretty simple - nothing scary about it, just basic, home-cooked yumminess.





Stewed Chicken Feet

12 chicken feet
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine
3 slices ginger
2 cups water
2 fresh red chili peppers, chopped
spoonful of brown sugar

Combine all ingredients and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Easy, huh?