Zhen(1) Kuai(4) a!

How time flies!

We've had eight visitors from out of town in the last six months. I've decided I'm going to charge for my private tours of Hong Kong starting in 2010. I've also decided to eat at home more often as Shanghai hairy crabs (along with clams in black bean sauce, mantis prawns, abalone, typhoon shelter crabs, razor clams...) are quickly catching up to us in both budget and waistlines.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about eating out here in Hong Kong. The food is too damn good. But after all this decadent eating, I'm starting to feel more like a glutton than a gourmand. So, the tentative plan is to buy more groceries, eat more fruits and vegetables and less meat, and try to order takeaway less than twice a month.

Tonight, Stu decided to make a lamb stew (no pun intended here, folks) with a nice piece of lamb shoulder, freshly flown in from Australia, that he had dressed and frozen the week before. After, cutting off most of the fat, there wasn't too much meat left, but we were okay with that. Less meat is good, right? I guess he was really getting into the whole budgeting thing because he picked up a trio of simple but classic root vegetables for the stew: potatoes, one onion, and some carrots. He threw everything in a pot and let it gently simmer away.

The results were less than inspiring. His stew was a dismal, Dickensian meal fit for an 19th century orphanage or maybe a soup kitchen in a recession. I searched for the lamb meat between the mounds of potatoes and carrots; no sign of an onion which he had sweated and melted into the broth for my benefit (I hate onions, but don't mind the flavor, but it's more complicated than that; I have a whole manifesto on the subject). We didn't buy enough lamb meat to make a good stew and forgot to anticipate how much the meat would shrink when cooked.

After I finished my bowl of root vegetables, water, and one tender, succulent bit of lamb meat, I held out my empty bowl and said in my best Cockney accent, "Please, sir, may I have some more?"