Madame Wong

Last night I felt like eating some chinese food. I pulled out my copy of "Madame Wong's long life chinese cooking" by T.S. Wong and Sylvia Shulman and made her spicy eggplant recipe. I switched cabbage, bamboo shoots and onions for the eggplant and added a bell pepper. The spicy sauce works well for any veges so this hit the spot with some jasmine rice on the side. I bought this cookbook around 1978 and took the class taught through UCLA extension by Madame Wong. For some reason Madame Wong was not available to teach the class that semester so her co-author and one of her faithful students Sylvia Shulman ran the class from her beautiful Beverly Hills mansion close to campus. Sylvia was a great teacher and an ardent fan of Chinese cuisine. She was the wife of Samuel Shulman the President of the Seattle Supersonics. This class ran for a period of several weeks and we all participated in making the dishes and having a dinner party at the end of each class. We went on shopping tours to China town and I purchased my first wok and learned how to cook 8 course chinese meals.These meals took a long time as one prepares only one dish at a time, serves the guests then returns to the kitchen to make the next dish. In those days Mike was a graduate student and busy working on his dissertation so I busied myself with many cooking classes. I hosted many multiple course meals to our friends. After we married and had children I rarely cooked these meals. This book and the memory of that time however remains close to my heart and I still pull out my copy of this book whenever I want a solid good recipe for a chinese dish.