A-Shang-field and the Tactile Trajectory of a Dumpling

When they're not lying, stats reassure. Solid, replicable, objective. So, stats first.

Ashfield in Sydney's Inner West has 19 Chinese restaurants in a 1 kilometre stretch of Liverpool Road. Pretty much each of them serves some form of dumplings.

Among the Chinese dumpling varieties: buns, xiao long bao (soup-inside dumplings), won ton, and gow gee.

Their fillings span a spectrum of species and sensibilities: pork and chive; spicy crab; curry crab; wild vegetable and shrimp; beef and basil; poached pork with chili; pork and prawn; string bean and shrimp; pork and Chinese cabbage; cabbage, mushroom and chicken; bamboo, prawn, spinach and pork; prawn egg and pork...  It's a bit like all those "infinity point" pictures that get lots of "likes" on Instagram.

And, lots of ways to make them: boiled, steamed, pan-fried, deep fried, and pot-sticker (which are first steamed and then pan-fried).

The stat that I like the most: 6 of the 19 restaurants is fully Shanghai'd. There are two "Taste of Shanghai"; two "Shanghai Nights"; a "New Shanghai", and; a "Shanghai Dumpling". 

The two "Tastes" like each other - same owners. The two "Nights" are (some say) bitter rivals; it's apparently lawyers at fifteen chopstick lengths about who is the right "Night".

Until recently, I've always gone to the same place - the original "Night". The same place that was Ashfield's / Little Shanghai's first dumpling house. 

The same place I where I came upon Chinese dumplings in the mid-90s, and was convinced (not really) they'd pinched them off my Ukrainian ancestors. 

Indeed, the same place where I used to be able to order from a Russian language menu, as it's the same place that used to cater for the ultimate "hyphenated" community, eg, Shanghainese-White Russian-Australians. 

And, the same place I'd order the same thing: pan-fried pork and chive dumplings, a plate of beef fried rice, and a Sprite. The three boundaries of my comfort food comfort zone.

Then, one day, I noticed. It actually sucked. I didn't like it anymore. Or, rather, the dumplings of Sydney have over the last 20 years or so just become outta sight better. A bit of half decent dough and pork no longer do. A new dumpling dawn has left my "Night" in the dark. 

The joint down the street - or the dozen or so joints down the street - be warned that I am on my way.  

Oh, I'll go back to the "Night" with its lady owner who would probably like being described as hard, with its blackened pots stacked in the toilet, and with its under-the-counter VB beer sales... In the same way I'm a Mets fan and a Newtown Jets fan - there are things you pick and stick with. It's my trajectory.

And that's not an easy trick for me. To have that trajectory into the future, but to also have a tactile feel for our daily occurrences. It's not a force of my habit, as many years were spent picking and sticking while putting a line through other possibilities of the soul and the universe. Many years were spent being so certain in my strong-headed ways that the great value of the unknown and the uncertain, the slow and the silent, was never realised. 

In some ways, I went with the numbers, the established probabilities of what constitutes success in life, the safety of what most choose, and went away from the mystery. Stats lied.

So, while I still take comfort from counting my eateries and their offerings, I now reckon it's really that one dumpling at a time that counts the most.

(The next blog will be on the very awesome one pictured at the top of the blog that I found at Ashfield's "Shanghai Dumpling" here pictured at the bottom of the blog.)

Yum Chatting @ the new Black Stump

Nowadays, yum cha is as Sydney as the Opera House. Where Aussie families once went for family meals to "safe-as-houses" Black Stump Restaurants, they now head to suburban yum cha palaces filled with fearsome fish tanks, chaotic cash register counters, and ceaseless stacks of white tablecloths in the corner. The foreign has become the familiar.

Without really trying, I found myself this morning at my third yum cha - or dim sum as Yanks call it - session in less than a couple of weeks. 

Session #1: with a mate at Kam Fook in Bondi Junction in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Topic of discussion: how banning the should charge tackle in rugby league makes some people happy and some people unhappy. Which obviously led to: how middle aged guys survive divorce by loving their kids.

Session #2: with my adult daughter for Father's Day at Tingha Palace in the Parramatta Leagues Club in Parramatta, Sydney's booming second CBD. Topic of discussion: the intrigue of old hand-painted advertisements for Bushell's Tea on brick buildings in country towns with names like Gulgong and Canowindra. Which obviously led to: what we would do if we won Lotto and could do anything we wanted to do.

Session #3: with my partner in "dumpling diving" and life at Fortune Palace at our local shopping centre, Carlingford Court, where specialty dried seafood stores and exotic soft drinks have literally replaced the Black Stump and a suburban roller skating rink. Topic of discussion: what's on for this week. Which obviously led to: whether to follow head or heart in deciding to quit a job.

The ladies in blue hospital-like smocks push banged-up metal carts stacked high with brown bamboo steamer baskets. A poster for a political candidate at the entrance continues to fight yesterday's battle. Another white middle-aged couple waves at the cute babies and smiles at the crinkly old ladies at a neighbouring table as big and round as the deck of Star Trek's Enterprise.

And, our conversations move from the mundane to the meaningful. We go from staring at our own lives to sharing them with people we care about.

Maybe, it's cos at yum cha, there is no self-consciousness about menus, who's ordering what, how much it costs... There's only happy and gentle "negotiation by nodding" about this cart's goodies or that one's - or let's just have both. Or, everything. 

Prawn and pork dim sims - packing a punch of protein. BBQ pork buns - sweet and crumbly as sunset in an apple orchard. Fried fish balls stacked on eggplant, capsicum and tofu - Cirque du Soliel on a plate. Gow gee with spinach and prawn or scallop - the snappy g'day of a happy God. Sesame prawn rolls - the dish that says "there's really no point at cooking at home in Sydney".

Or maybe we talk good at yum cha cos there's no hard borders, high manners or stolen glances between one set of diners and another, or diners and servers. Rather, it's got all the raucous joy of playing "stacks on" in the school playground.

All-in and all-good makes the chin wag. When we are fundamentally not alone, we are together. At yum cha, we shine as we dine.

As Suzi and I headed back to the car park, I notice a poster for scholastic tutoring on the wall beside the old escalator. I'm sure they do a great job giving the local Asian kids great test scores, but today I'm okay with every kindergarten teacher's lesson. For, sharing is truly caring.

On Prosperity Dumplings (Chinatown, NYC) and on prosperity

Two middle age guys meet outside Prosperity Dumplings (46 Eldridge Street, Chinatown, New York City, www.prosperitydumpling.com) in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. My old college roommate and me.

I go into order. Prosperity in name but not size. It’s as big as four filing cabinets stacked together.

My calculation reckons $2 per serving buys say 2 maybe 4 dumplings.

But, as the hipsters start to line up for lunch orders, I’m too proud to ask. $2 buys 8 dumplings, it turns out. We mistakenly end up with 64 of them, and a bunch of stuffed pancakes too.

We carry them down the street in two overstuffed plastic bags, past abandoned TV repair stores and restaurant supply places. We struggle to find the entrance to the local playground, its concrete tables, old Chinese guys playing chess…

We haven’t seen each other much since college – many years, many relationships and many kilometres between then and now.

Between drunkenly playing dead for the 35mm SLR camera on the linoleum floor of our college town supermarket to our adult lives and concerns.

Between sharing games of bad pool to sharing stories of bad divorces.

Between a limitless youthful universe to middle age’s quiet constraints and considerations.

We work our way through pork and chive, Chinese vegetable and beef – it seems a numbers game with the odds stacked against us.

The stuff that drew us then still draws us. We are two guys from pretty basic backgrounds trying to “divine” what’s worthy in a complicated world in a complicated time.

A time, he explains, when American jobs seem to go if they don’t go cheaper.

A time when it’s all about the “knowledge economy” but teaching and sharing knowledge – what he used to do and still wants to do – is something for cutting in budgets.

I’m not sure how the hell he’s surviving without a regular job for so long. I admire how he can get up everyday and just persist. No choice, he reckons. I feel dumb for all the damned dumplings.

We look to culture and to nature for ways to explain. He’s looking for a visit from the park’s resident hawk. I’m looking at the supermarket trolley that the homeless guy pushes through the park, all rigged up like an urban pirate ship, filled with refundable deposit bottles and cans.

Across the street is the old headquarters of the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper that broke the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Now, it’s upmarket condo’s for people working on Wall Street.

I wonder about America’s changing prosperity. I wonder when the stuff that’s still important to my friend – the value of education, fairness and community, the stories and photos of how folks lived and strived – maybe stopped being so important to the whole.

He talks about his plans for getting through the summer. Subletting his place in the City, going to the country to build a place for friends, paddling his canoe on a clear lake with his kids, and riding his old motorcycle.

In my heart, I wish him peace and prosperity. In practice, I sit there with a pile of too many dumplings between me and a decent guy, hoping for the right words.

Flying Dumplings, Fathers and Sons

I am flying to a meet a flying dumpling.

A jet plane from Oz is taking Suzi, my wife, and I to meet our 20 year old, Tim, somewhere along the white blazed trees of the Appalachian Trail, the 3000 kilometre “meander” along the east coast of the United States.

Starting in Georgia in April, Tim’s been doing the full distance and that makes him a “thru-hiker”. According to trail tradition, some of whose rituals would make any worthy rabbi, imam, priest or medicine man proud, “thru-hikers” take a “trail name” by which they are known for the duration.

“Pyrogi” is Tim’s chosen “trail name”. No prizes for guessing, “pyrogi” means dumpling in a slight riff of the Ukrainian language of Tim’s grandparents.  Tim reckons hardly anybody gets it, but those that do are most bemused.

At present, “Pyrogi” and his hiking pal, Molly, are well and truly flying along at some 25 miles (or more than 40 kilometres) each day toward their epic goal of Mt Katahdin in Maine – before the leaves turn.

When folks ask me what Tim’s doing, and especially if he’s at university, I tell them he’s doing something more important. He’s walking. Hardly anybody gets it, but those that do are most bemused.

Walking is what has always got me to the good shit of the heart. Where fancy constructs fade.  Where steps matter more than thoughts.

I take great pride from Tim’s trek and, rightly or wrongly, am honoured by what (I hope) is the special code of his “trail name”. My struggles as a dad – ranging from years of blindly bumbling about to other years of well-meaning clumsiness – seem to have thankfully not worked out to plan. Rather, Tim does a great thing and he’s kind enough to let us join him for a while next week.

Tim and I have done long walks since he was nine or so - places like Cradle Mountain, the Larapinta Trail and New Zealand. Our walks were usually the small patches of slow and simple in a world that I – and maybe he – sometimes found too fast and too furious. We’ve shared some risks, long silences, sleeping bags and Spam in splendidly beautiful places.

Now, at a distance, I have been watching him walk as a man. A vibrant and caring being - following a light and pursuing a rite to its conclusion. I make out it’s not a question of finding oneself – but daily creating and being oneself. With every step, with every packet of Ramen noodles mixed through with peanut butter over a camp stove, with every small American town with old guys in jeans talking about the weather (as Tim described it in an email) – there’s grace and there’s guts. There, there and there.

I think of Gibran who said “my children are not my children” and say Amen for great blessings.

Dear friend, you who comes here to read of dough and fillings and wonderful food, you may not get much of this.  Fair enough. If you do, here with “Pyrogi” and us at the bottom of the blog, thanks for being bemused. 

Who Woulda Thunk It? Canberran Prawn & Pumpkin Dumplings with Spiritual Spin

I like “who woulda thunk it” moments. 

Those instances where, as Tim Winton says, we are “moved from a fixed position”.

Who woulda thunk it? Pumpkin and prawn dumplings at a joint in Canberra, the Dickson Dumpling House (2 Cape St, Dickson ACT). Outstanding. 

In the one corner, we have pumpkin which I think of as “foona” – food as comforting as a heavy doona on a cold night (something Canberra specialises in besides politics).

In countless cafes during countless lunch hours, Aussies count on pumpkin to make things better in the ever-available pumpkin soup. And, in many homes from Parramatta to Coolangatta to all the other atta’s, it’s still the stuff that binds families together during Sunday roast dinners.

In the other corner, baby prawns (a.k.a, shrimp on the "Up Over" side of the planet). I reckon there’s no food more celebratory than the prawn.

The excitement of Aussie Christmas. The pink mountains on ice at a special-occasion hotel buffet. The guilty pleasure of a bowl filled with prawn shells after we stuff our “just one more” faces down at the Pyrmont Fish Market.

Here we have them together in one morsel. Joy and reassurance. Exuberance and stability. The celebratory and the day-to-day. East and West. Big night out and at home on the lounge in front of the telly.

You madly run around the playground with the prawns and then you get to jump on your mother’s lap with the pumpkin.

Or, the prawns are the screaming guitar solo to the pumpkin rhythm section's steady beat. (At Dickson Dumpling House, the bass was beautifully played by a Malaysian beef fried rice heavy on the tomato.)

So, yeah, I liked ‘em. They were yum. And, they sent me into a spiritual spin.

Here’s something to shock you. I sometimes struggle to make my beliefs (and my writing) orderly.

Indeed, I can be described as “Christian by faith, Ukrainian Catholic by culture, Buddhist by practice, and Islamic and Jewish by respect”. I wonder aloud if it’s self-indulgent – this bespoke Bushido of mine.

A friend with a big beard, a big hat, and a big heart gently reminded me of the luxury of my musings this week. (He isn't the serious dude making the Canberra dumplings pictured.) 

And, I’ve listened to a fine and fired-up preacher point out that when we abandoned core truths, when everything becomes personally-determined and relative, there can be a world of hurt. Bottom line: when we become our own god, right and wrong and obligation to others are seriously at risk.

Smart blokes, them. God guys. Humble guys who know tradition and history. I need to get them around a bowl of pumpkin and prawn dumplings but.

Here we have this fusion; here we have this new and improbably good thing that is created by different traditions; here we have been given, as no other generation before us, this opportunity to experience so much of the world and it’s wisdom so readily.

Are we wrong to dabble? I dunno.

Maybe, some stuff just works to get us out of bed. To remind us to be kind, helpful and thankful in our daily lives. To inspire us to build and beautify. To appreciate the divine in the little. Indeed, in the dumpling. 

Who woulda thunk it?

Loud-Mouth White Dude Descends on Dumpling Factory

When I am lost in the dark, sometimes I go faster and make lots of noise. Or, in the inverse of what American novelist E.L. Doctorow recommends, I drive beyond the high-beams.

So it was in the closet-like kitchen of Beijing Dim Sim Food Pty Ltd (51 Adderton Road, Telopea, NSW, Australia), which I basically crashed into earlier this week.

A very large and bearded white man being ever more exuberant and hyper-curious, as five Chinese dumpling makers went about their gentle trade of making gow-gee, dim sim, shallot pancakes, spring rolls, and pork buns.

When you point with your chopsticks (and show really bad form) at the cart rolling past at a some crowded yum-cha palace in western Sydney on a Sunday morning, it’s likely that you have Annie to thank for the magnificent morsels that come your way.

Since 1997, her Telopea-based, dumpling-making shop-front factory supplies dozens of Chinese restaurants and Asian grocery stores. Looking like snowballs in a Glad bag, some retail dumplings are also sold out the front. 

To get my admission into the kitchen, I bought a bag of fish-filling gow-gee and a bag of pork-and-cabbage gow-gee; the latter are Annie’s best seller.

“30 per cent pork. 70 per cent cabbage. Salt and pepper. Little bit soy sauce. Very healthy. People want very healthy,” Annie tells me.

I am glad that something healthy, nourishing and profitable comes from a hard heart. Not Annie’s – Telopea’s.

If Telopea doesn’t mean ‘lonely ass place’ in an Aboriginal dialect, maybe it should.  Housing Commission blocks like mouldy loaves of bread. Tree trunks covered in graffiti. Junk mail from Kmart blowing across the tracks of the train that comes through only once an hour.

I’m riffing with all this in Annie's kitchen - which means I’m really anywhere but the kitchen. So, what comes out are ever louder and stupider questions. “So what’s the Mandarin for rolling pin?”

I somehow squeeze through to near the best dumpling maker – 2000 plus per day. Roll, palm, place, seal. The whole action in under 5 seconds. 

Each dumpling identically formed and plump and resting in neat rows on a metal tray dusted with flour.

She’s so calm and smiling. With no English, just flicks of fingers as she continues packing her parcels, I’m invited to settle and watch. 

But, I’m still caught in my mental beach rip about how much Telopea sucks. Then, the migration status of Annie’s employees. Then, why are migrants  blowing things up in Boston and I hope my cousin and her family are safe... 

The good old monkey mind basically pushes the button for the ejection seat and I hurriedly leave the Beijing Dim Sim Food Pty Ltd shop in Telopea. The guy who runs the local grog shop next door smokes out the front and flicks the fag in the gutter as he sees me.

The soundtrack in my head is saying: “Wow, you really are an enormous dickhead.”

Then, an old Chinese man comes walking down the street. He’s got a portable speaker slung over his Lowes tracksuit top and it’s pumping out what I make out to be an exercise routine. There’s the screech of Chinese violin and a sergeant-like narrator barking orders by which to flap arms and lift legs.

He stops at the cross-walk and smiles when I ask for a photo. The pause button on my mad world is pushed. Stuff just gets calm and centred.

“Stop, revive, survive,” I am reminded of a lesson part of me just doesn’t seem to learn. Maybe, I need to go make 2000 dumplings.