The dish starts out as something most people would recognize as a slightly modified Shepherd's Pie, but the story begins when it was served at a typically-contentious family gathering, shortly after my great-grandparents were married.
GGGM Lilly (Irish), sets down a plate of it on the table, at which point GGGM Anne (French), immediately asks "Zo vhat iz zees? Pâte Chinois?" ("Chinese Paste"). GGGM Lilly promptly responded "ZEEEEEEEEES is Shepherd's Pie, not...not...Chinese Pastry!"
What with the worst insult you could offer an Irish-American of that period being to compare their work to the Chinese, and the worst insult you could offer a French person of that (or any other!) period being to misunderstand or mistranslate their language, an inter-family fight immediately ensued. As was typical, for such gatherings.
As was not so typical, the dish acquired a new name in my family.
Yes. "Chinese Pastry". Which is famously neither of those things.
Depicted here, as perfectly executed as ever I've seen. Done by me, about half an hour ago.
The perfect food for proud amateurs. Really, in so many ways, the perfect food, full-stop.
Here's the thing about this blog.
I'm an amateur, at all but one of the things in life that truly interest me. (And I won't be spending much time talking about that one exception...the world has enough techbloggers already, thank you!)
But I'm an amateur economist. I'm an amateur theologian. I'm an amateur political writer. I'm an amateur cultural commentator. I'm an amateur book and media critic, as well as an amateur fiction writer. I'm certainly an amateur chef. I'm even an amateur husband (not that I'd ever particularly want to meet a professional one!).
I've never been credentialed in or meaningfully compensated for my skills in any of these fields, and don't particularly want to be. Yet I have them. And sometimes it seems like the world needs them. And sometimes I just feel like writing about them.
Guess what?
Blogging was invented for people like that.
So here I am.
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