My Mother Was A Black Woman who Ran A Soul Food Restaurant: The Mirepoix from Hell
Here is a picture of me on my way to clean my mom's kitchen, with the only proven effective tool to budge her kind of grease:
Whenever my mom vacates USBP (United States of Beck & Pelosi) for half a year, I have to take up the chore of cleaning her kitchen. And whenever I do, I always think about white people who are befuddled by the speed at which "chinese" take-out restaurants can bang out their orders.
In order to understand this, you first have to observe the patina on the face of a renown foodie of chinese cuisine vs one of a general american menu. The latter maintains composure, a leisurely pace that alternates between conversation, wine / beer, and a casual intake of the five food groups. On the other hand, the admirer of Asian cuisine is hunched over, forehead beading with perspiration, mouth open to facilitate a feverish osmosis of hot steam vs room temperature, combined with rushed conversation that escalates exponentially in volume, as a result of the same practice being carried out at adjacent tables.
Chinese cuisine is cooked at approximately 25,000° F and consumed, ideally between 24,000° F and 24,500° F. As you can see, the allowance is only 500-1000 degrees, so not only does it need to be cooked at a temperature than can melt through the Alien's head, it needs to brought out fast enough to be consumed (for any true connoisseur of Chinese cuisine) at a range that can melt through 5 metal grate floors.
When you go to the equivalent of the Asian supermarket, check out the tiny old ladies hauling away 5 gallon pails that look like Phantasm barrels containing shrunken souls headed for hell. What is that you ask? "Household Degreaser"
That's two weeks supply.
Even the range exhaust hood. There's the tiny recycle vents on the console (for all you EVOO spray vegan types), to the standard hood exhaust. Then there's the Hi-Powered, and from restaurant supply stores The Commercial Grade. What most people don't know is the grade above that "The Chinese Kitchen Exhaust" (this may sound like sarcasm...but please verify this with any Asian home chef who handles Chinese cooking). The Chinese Kitchen Exhaust can basically lift a fire-engine out of a pool of mercury, or alternately, ruffle Rod Blagojevich's hair.
Br>
check out the well on the stove next to the bowl. It's suppose to be the yellow color of the range top.
How do you get there? Enter my mom's Chinese Mirepoix. A combo of Lard, Corn oil, and recycled pork fat/canola, that when used at Chinese cooking temperatures, can create a grease glacier within two hours. Imagine six months of this. Even the buttons on the coffee machine are stuck in place. We bought a bottle of goo-gone, and the orange miracle gel is afraid to even come out of the nozzle, knowing it will get it's citrus butt kicked.
I once nagged my mom on her grease-laden cooking habits. I petitioned, "why don't you introduce more healthy choices in to your cooking? Try fruits as a starter" The next morning, I could hear the sizzle of fat and the sickening odor that screams "there's a coronary angioplasty party in my arteries!" I rushed over and asked what she was doing,
"Deep Frying Bananas."
Everyone who's ever seen my mom's kitchen has individually arrived at the same exact conclusion: "In a previous life, she was a black woman who ran a soul food joint."
Whenever my mom vacates USBP (United States of Beck & Pelosi) for half a year, I have to take up the chore of cleaning her kitchen. And whenever I do, I always think about white people who are befuddled by the speed at which "chinese" take-out restaurants can bang out their orders.
In order to understand this, you first have to observe the patina on the face of a renown foodie of chinese cuisine vs one of a general american menu. The latter maintains composure, a leisurely pace that alternates between conversation, wine / beer, and a casual intake of the five food groups. On the other hand, the admirer of Asian cuisine is hunched over, forehead beading with perspiration, mouth open to facilitate a feverish osmosis of hot steam vs room temperature, combined with rushed conversation that escalates exponentially in volume, as a result of the same practice being carried out at adjacent tables.
Chinese cuisine is cooked at approximately 25,000° F and consumed, ideally between 24,000° F and 24,500° F. As you can see, the allowance is only 500-1000 degrees, so not only does it need to be cooked at a temperature than can melt through the Alien's head, it needs to brought out fast enough to be consumed (for any true connoisseur of Chinese cuisine) at a range that can melt through 5 metal grate floors.
When you go to the equivalent of the Asian supermarket, check out the tiny old ladies hauling away 5 gallon pails that look like Phantasm barrels containing shrunken souls headed for hell. What is that you ask? "Household Degreaser"
That's two weeks supply.
Even the range exhaust hood. There's the tiny recycle vents on the console (for all you EVOO spray vegan types), to the standard hood exhaust. Then there's the Hi-Powered, and from restaurant supply stores The Commercial Grade. What most people don't know is the grade above that "The Chinese Kitchen Exhaust" (this may sound like sarcasm...but please verify this with any Asian home chef who handles Chinese cooking). The Chinese Kitchen Exhaust can basically lift a fire-engine out of a pool of mercury, or alternately, ruffle Rod Blagojevich's hair.
Br>
check out the well on the stove next to the bowl. It's suppose to be the yellow color of the range top.
How do you get there? Enter my mom's Chinese Mirepoix. A combo of Lard, Corn oil, and recycled pork fat/canola, that when used at Chinese cooking temperatures, can create a grease glacier within two hours. Imagine six months of this. Even the buttons on the coffee machine are stuck in place. We bought a bottle of goo-gone, and the orange miracle gel is afraid to even come out of the nozzle, knowing it will get it's citrus butt kicked.
I once nagged my mom on her grease-laden cooking habits. I petitioned, "why don't you introduce more healthy choices in to your cooking? Try fruits as a starter" The next morning, I could hear the sizzle of fat and the sickening odor that screams "there's a coronary angioplasty party in my arteries!" I rushed over and asked what she was doing,
"Deep Frying Bananas."
Everyone who's ever seen my mom's kitchen has individually arrived at the same exact conclusion: "In a previous life, she was a black woman who ran a soul food joint."