Editors Note: Okay, so I can be pretty judgmental. For example, when women either (a) don’t have their nails painted, (b) have chipped nail polish or (c) only paint their toe nails in the summer, I immediately think less of them. Now of course, some of my best friends are negligent polishers, but that doesn’t mean I forgive them for being an absentee nail painter. See my point? I’m ridiculous.
When I first met Maidelitala all I knew was that she was a vegetarian and didn’t eat cheese (but, the cheese is no fault of her own – she’s a self-IDed “lactard.”) With the no meat, no cheese thing I thought I would have nothing to talk to her about. But, as I very soon learned, she loves to cook and makes really amazing veggie, cheese-less food. So as a part of my own learning process – learning to accept non-carnivores—here is Maidelitala. Oh, and she’s also a very exciting dancer. But that’s another story.
Since I was a wee tyke, one of my very favorite things to eat in the world has been a perfectly cooked plate of fresh broccoli (not raw, not overcooked.) Thus you must imagine my abject horror at Bush the Senior‘s shameful show of disdain for the cute little green trees and my chortles of delight when the Broccoli Farmers of America dumped a wheel barrel of the herbaceous crop on the White House lawn back in the day. Ahhh those were the days, when wheel barrel rolling terrorist farmers could get close enough to the White House to play practical jokes on the mouthy geezer who called himself Commander-in-Chief of this outfit…
Anyway, one of my very, very favorite ways to cook this veg-edible is Taiwanese style with sliced, slow cooked bean curd (a variation on a recipe taught to me by a not so dear roommate – not that she was bad… she was just a really, really loud talker and kept all sorts of pig products in every orifice of the fridge, which was super offensive to my veggie sensibilities. Regardless.)
Even if bean curd is something you really would rather avoid eating (it wasn’t so long ago that the word bean curd made me think of regurgitated legumes,) I promise this is a delicious, simple dish and the broccoli alone is worth making. Believe me, I’ve been a veg-head since I was 10 – I know what I’m talking about.
Read on for this special veggie edition of ES
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