My great-uncle had a culinary career that he loved, and that loved him back. He was a great man who touched many lives. Without his sense of adventure and his true gift for making people feel at ease in his kitchen, my family would have never come to America.
Hearing old friends who had known him speak helped me to better understand how, exactly, he made such fantastic curry puffs. He earned his toque as an executive chef at four- and five-star restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing. I will always remember the meals that he whipped up at his restaurant in Bethesda. He had some real panache, that guy. After his sons opened up their own places, and he closed his own, he stayed busy and he never gave up his passion for life. He was tending to his prized vegetables, looking dashing for his feisty wife, and cracking jokes until the very end.
After his funeral and the several rounds of kowtow's that we threw in for good measure, I'm pretty sure that everyone was famished by the time we sat down for a late-afternoon wake. We ate some competently-done beef hor-fun, very flavorful Hunan shrimp, perfectly-fried flounder, and dou-miao that was fresh and refreshing. Of course, it reminded me of other meals. But it was a good meal in its own right, and I think my great-uncle would have felt that way, too.
