Devil’s Dyke was the best walk I’ve had in a while. As much as I love hiking, I would be motivated to go more often if there was a “Hiker’s Rest” in the middle of every walk serving delicious cream teas (with amazing clotted cream) outside of a 19th century barn.

Since England has sort of become my second home it feels important to learn about the Chinese immigrant experience here.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Chinese immigrants came to work the seaport as longshoremen. They established associations as support centers for Chinese people arriving in England. These associations would help one get on his feet by finding him housing and employment. They were also social centers, as associations were made up of people from the same provinces who spoke the same dialect. The See Yep Association in Liverpool is made up of four counties from the province of Guangdong, where both sides of my family originated.

Chinatowns are all more or less the same to me, but my visit to Liverpool was rather significant. My grandfather immigrated here before bringing back my grandmother from China to live here. I wonder if my grandfather, who died long before my mother was even married, ever went to this association, or “gung soh.” I stepped into the hallway but all I heard was the sound of mah jong tiles from upstairs.

According to her birth certificate, in 1940 my Scouse mum was born in this building on Derby Lane, about five miles from Chinatown:

It’s a medical office now, but it was a cafe with living quarters above, where my mother and her family lived. My grandfather wasn’t a longshoreman but owned and operated the cafe below.

My mom remembers my grandma going across the street to fetch meat pies and recalls that the aroma was the best thing. I didn’t see any pasty or pie shops around. Just houses, take aways and hair salons.

It felt strange to retrace my Liverpudlian history, when I never experienced any of it myself.

Photo: mysupermarket.co.uk

A few months ago, I had some dark, leafy greens at the Hawksmoor served braised with a Sunday roast. They were tender like mustard and collard greens but sweeter and without any of the bitterness.

Suspecting that these “Fresh British greens” were the same greens, I gave it a go — they are just as delicious sautéed in olive oil and garlic. I also added them in risotto. I am sure they will be starring in some gratin, stir-fry and noodle soup very soon.

But I still don’t know what they are. It’s a bit unfair that something this good is given such a generic name that googling it will pull up anything that’s fresh, green and British-grown.

Anyone out there have any idea if there’s another name for these greens?

The fried morning glory salad with pork larb was my favorite. I’ve never had morning glory fried like tempura before. It was a revelation.

Crab fried rice is my new Thai food staple.

By coincidence, that same week I was commissioned to write a story on a new Thai restaurant in the up-and-coming neighborhood of Peckham in South London.

Prior to leaving for Italy, at my favorite Italian deli in Islington, which also happens to be my favorite eatery in all of London, Merv and I said to the waiter that we were afraid that the food in Italy wouldn’t taste as good as the food in the deli. To which the waiter guy, who has this angelic looking face and awesome Italian way of speaking responded calmly, “Every place in Italy has good food.” That definitely made me feel less anxious about our trip.

Arche Scaligere

The ironic thing is that in all my adult years as a traveller, our first meal after stepping off the plane is the first time I remember totally walking into and eating at a tourist trap. I totally felt duped. It’s too traumatic to even recall here the events that led up to eating in this tourist trap; let’s just say that the experience was such that for the rest of the trip I dreaded walking into restaurants for fear that I’d have a repeat experience. But like most things in life, it was an isolated event and thankfully, we ate really well for the remainder of our time in Italia.

I don’t want to dwell too much about the food since it was all good and Italian-tasting but I just wanted to remember the places I visited in Verona. The Arche Scaligere, above, was a Gothic tomb of the Scaligere family that ruled Verona from the 13th-14th century. Just behind it is a square that has a statue of Dante, who lived in exile in Verona. Only a few metros away is Romeo’s family home (the Montecchi house) which confuses me since Romeo was a fictional character. Not far from his house is the Juliet balcony, which is definitely fake and built in the 1930s to attract tourists, who to this day, still gather and take loads of photos. Most of the tourists were Italian, by the way.

The best thing I visited in Verona was this Italian Renaissance garden not far from the Roman amphitheater.

Giardino Giusti

I think there’s beauty in every tended garden, because no matter how cultivated they are, how can nature not be beautiful? So you have the green bits and the really pretty flowers but then you have this — statues that are shielding their faces from the sunlight, labyrinths and tamed shrubs and Cypress trees that look like they’ve been trimmed but just grow that way. Okay who knows, maybe they have been trimmed, but I had just seen a 16th century painting that had Cypress trees in the background and I refuse to believe that they  had the resources to trim all of them back then, in the countryside.

And even though I ended up getting bug-bitten everywhere, including a bite on the forehead that swelled into the size of a golf ball, it was worth lying on the bench and just dozing in the shade.

Venice looked even more surreal than the Venetian in Vegas. We all know that the Venetian is a fake city made to look real but Venice is a real city that is made to look like a movie set. It’s hyper-real and this view from the Campanile makes Venice look like a toy city.

While we were at St. Mark’s we saw a Chinese lady slip in the water right by where the water taxis pick people up. She was completely soaked and there were so many tourists around that no one really noticed but that probably didn’t make it any less humiliating for her. On Friday I was at the Norton Simon Museum looking at a painting by some guy who painted the exact same spot two hundred years ago. Nothing had changed, except that there were probably a million more people and a lot of water taxis. But it made my day, that I was looking into this painting and I saw both the past and the present (technically they were both from the past, but you know what I mean) and I had to laugh out loud (or LOL as one does these days). I mean this painting just had loads of peasants in it; imagine telling them that two hundred years later their town would be full of bourgeois tourists.

I have to say that I had the best risotto spinach ball at a small little bakery. I ate it right before I had my now-most favorite meal — spaghetti alle vongole. Just thinking about it is literally making my mouth water, and it’s 12:30 am and I’m usually not hungry at this hour. The waiter also spoke Italian, English and French fluently.

And Venice is surrounded by water as you know, but here’s a photo that’s not of a canal. We took a water bus at one point and I was freaked out that we hadn’t validated our bus ticket. Merv said I was silly to stress over it. But seriously, once you get caught not having a bus ticket, you will never not validate your ticket again. (At least if you’ve ever been caught on the MUNI. The penalty fee is ridiculous.) But I was happy to sneak onto the complimentary Hilton shuttle bus, since I felt like I was sticking it to the man (and Paris Hilton), whereas now I feel like I’m being a bad citizen if I don’t pay for public transportation.

One thing about the coffee. It truly is amazing how quotidian it is, but in the sense that it’s good everywhere and it’s just the way things are. It was shocking how everyone was able to pull a great cappuccino, from the dude in this boring, run-down cafe to the bus boy at the hotel. It’s astounding when people in London and LA make coffee into this high end craft. I wish everyone just had good standards about basic things like coffee instead of making it a precious work of art.

You know what a big part of it was? The pictures. I hate taking pictures! I know that’s not something one should admit in this world of Instagram and photo sharing, but I hate taking pictures. I don’t want to think about how to compose a photo. I just want to look at things with my own eyes and not have to think about uploading photos when I don’t have a smart phone. Even if I sorely regret not taking photos later.

As I get older, I will probably forget the things I’ve seen as I won’t have any photographic reference to trigger those memories. It’s already happening now. Ann will tell me things we used to do in high school and I can’t even recall them. It’s like moments from my life fifteen years ago cease to exist to me now. I probably should have taken more photos as a teenager.

So now that I’m re-committed to this blog, I start with Writer’s Tears. At a whisky bar in Dublin, I was totally overwhelmed with choice. Once I saw this bottle, I had to have a taste. I don’t remember what it tastes like, to be honest, but doesn’t it make a good photo for a blog by a former journalist? The end.

The last time I won anything was a telly, which my parents made me return it since we already had one in the house. A few weeks ago I entered a drawing at La Vie Eclectique and won these gorgeously posh chocolates from Recchiuti, a San Francisco chocolatier. This time around, I was keeping this prize to myself. A great thing about being an adult: you can eat chocolate for dinner if it’s what you fancy.

Check out Lisa’s blog, as she’ll be doing more chocolate giveaways! Miam!

Speakeasy of genever, here’s my latest bit of reporting on the Dutch spirit, for Toque.

Prior to this interview and trying out the goods, Scotch eggs would not have made this American’s list of Top 5 Delicious British Foods. I was initially suspicious of these eggs since they’re usually eaten cold or at room temperature — what’s the point of frying something if it’s not eaten right away?  But I was wrong. These things are delicious. And the Scotch egg has officially knocked meat pies off my list.

After a few tries in London, I was ready to show off my new British egg trick to friends back home. I made them for a potluck at Bettie’s in LA and people loved them. They also marveled at how exotic they seemed. So to my fellow Americans readers out there, here’s a quick primer to making a Scotch egg.

Boil an egg for seven minutes, then quickly immerse it in an ice bath. Carefully remove the shell.

Flatten about 90 grams of sausage meat (roughly a small link taken out of its casing) per egg into a circular shape. Massage the meat around the egg so that the egg is completely covered in the ground meat. Let the covered egg sit in the fridge for about ten minutes to set.

Dredge the meat-encased egg in flour, then in beaten egg and finally coat it in breadcrumbs. (I use panko.)

Then deep fry the whole darn thing, for about 5 minutes.

My flatmate and I had a little supper party and we served Scotch eggs as the starter, alongside with greens and crispy root vegetables.

YUM!

I play around with different kinds of seasonings for the ground pork whenever I make them: fennel, pasley, chives or for a lazy cook like me, whatever herbs and spices I had on hand.

It’s a bit time consuming but it’s a lot of fun to make and they’re worth the effort. While you can find a dodgy factory-made Scotch egg at every petrol station in England, it’s trickier to find them in the US. Totally worth making at home to take on a picnic.