Sunday's Magic Kitchen (transcribed and edited from email)

Today is Sunday, a laid back day where we start the day by going to the flea market in San Jose on Berryessa Rd. This flea market sells only new things and is not like the ones in Canada where they only sell used things that are even too sketchy for a second hand store. It's a massive market stretching for a couple of city blocks, like the night market like bangkok. It consists of mostly mexican vendors (and now gradually more and more chinese and vietnamese vendors now). You can find virtually everything there... the independent vendors sell everything from apparel to furnature, household items, jewlery, toys, carpets, sculptures and even fresh produce! we come here every second weekend for their fresh and cheap produce. The must have for each trip are napeles cactus leaves, which my mom does an amazing job stir-frying to make one of my favourite dishes that I can only enjoy when I'm back in San Jose. Other than the vendors here, there are stages spread about the entire market where you can catch glimpses of colourful sombreros and hear whisps of spanish guitar. It's like a constant festival there with small vendors selling beer and drinks as well as fresh fruits and various mexican food such as tacos, burritos... etc. I love walking through the produce market. It's always bursting with life with vibrant mounds of fruits and veggies that are in season. Being there is like stepping into a whole different world with vendors yelling musical phrases in spanish advertising their various products. I love the spanish language, when vendors yell well practiced phrases with such pace linking all the product names together, they make the words dance across the air. I learned a new word today- "cherisa" it means cherry in spanish.

After we return home from this trip followed by our usual stops at costco, and lion's mart (a chinese grocer), our kitchen and fridge is flooded with a sea of fresh produce. Then my mom would sigh as usual and come to the conclusion that we don't have that much room to put away everything to we must cook as much as we can and eat them as soon as we can. This marks the start of our concuctions. Digging up as many recipes as I can that uses our newly acquired ingredients I begin chopping, mincing, frying, mixing, baking and boiling alongside my mom who have differing ideas of what a good meal should be. Soon our kitchen is filled with smells of butter, onions, cumin, soy sauce, seseme oil, lemon and unique combinations of eastern and western smells that are a little less easy to identify. Today my mom baked some kind of cumin/soysauce chicken and stir-fry beansprouts with chinese parsley as well as a chinese veggie with garlic. Oh and she also made black glutinous rice pouridge with coconut milk for dessert like the one we always have at sheares hall upon my recomendation. While I one the other hand made a nice potato-carrot-egg salad with home made tuna mayo in addition to a baked fish with fried onions, celery, garlic, basil, parsley, pepper and lemon juice. Everything turned out amazing. So we ended the evening being overly stuffed, with a mountain of dishes that I just finished doing, but everyone was happy.