This is the picture that accompanied the recipe for first meal I ever made my family for dinner; it’s “Fillet Steak Chinese Style” from the Women’s Weekly Chinese Cooking Class Cookbook. I can’t remember how old I was - 13, I think, because my much older sister was living with us that year. The book doesn’t have a publication date or ISBN, but it sold for $3.98.

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Fuchsia doesn’t know about it, though, so don’t go telling her and freaking her out.

I heard about Dunlop’sSichuan Cookery (the US title is “Land of Plenty“) through the first food blog I ever started reading, Though Small, it is Tasty (which seems to be on hiatus). Dunlop also got tremendous writeups at a favourite US blog Tigers & Strawberries (which reviewed her second book, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook here).

I cook from those books at least once a week, usually more. She’s permanently changed where I shop, what’s in my cupboard and what’s on my plate. The picture above shows some new cupboard staples - red (chilli) oil, hunanese salted chillies and sweet aromatic soy sauce.

On Monday I managed to get my hands on a copy of her new food memoir Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, which I’ve been hassling for asking about in bookstores for a couple of weeks.

As isn’t uncommon, the US and Australian covers
are different. Can you pick which is which, though?

Nah, the one with the overblown lychees and those
slightly lewd mushrooms is Australian.

I’m keen to start it but I can’t do that until there’s a
good clear stretch in front of me - judging from past
experience, once I start reading I won’t be doing
anything else for a while.