Cooking and Gardening

Everyone in the world knows that Chinese are good at cooking. Chinese not only cook super delicious food, but also combine their arts with the food. Our meeting with relatives, friends and classmates means diner after diner and banquet after banquet. I’ve gained five pounds in a month!

China has several cooking styles. In Dongying most of the dishes belong to “Lu Style” that was originated in Shandong province.

My dad has some fruit trees in his yard, and I wish I could grow them Kuwait.

The hills and the birds were made of arrow roots and carrots

Sushi dish

Fish fried like swallows

Scallops

Dad's fig tree

Dad’s pomegranate tree

Baby red pomegranate

White pomegranate flower

Red pomegranate flower

Peony and Rose

After moving into our new home in Calgary, I have been digging and landscaping in our backyard over a decade. The short four-month-no-frost season each year and the warm confusing Chinook wind in the winter could not stop my love for gardening at the foot of Canadian Rockies through numerous failures and fruitful perseverance. Out of hundreds of hardy plants in my garden, my favorites are various Peonies and Alberta Wild Rose. In the early mornings of mid-July I always pick some fresh peonies and put them on the kitchen table. The fragrance mixing with the green tea vapor, I enjoyed the moment of reading a book by the bay window that frames abundant roses waving in the Alberta sharp blue sky, listening to the birds singing on the purple Choke Cherry trees, watching wild rabbits sitting in the lawn and nibbling my Blue Bell buds, and chipmunks hopping among the apple trees and Saskatoon berry scrubs.

Sensing this would be the last summer in Calgary, I tried to hold on to the fond memory into the photos of my garden almost every beautiful morning. In the mean time, I also dream to have grape vines, lilac bushes, orange trees, fig trees and many other exotic plants in my Q8 garden, while my husband teased me, "Maybe the only thing you can grow is cactus over there." Well, if there were no dreams, there would not be any that come true.