My Fuschia Dunlop moment.

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I read Fuschia Dunlop's food memoir, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, over a year ago, and I was really impressed by her account of an Englishwoman living, eating and cooking in China. Quite a few of her chapters had me going "wow" and until today, I still find myself quoting her insights on the Chinese and their seemingly impassive approach to animal cruelty.

A couple of days ago, I found myself standing in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant, one where the kitchen chatter is laced with foreign accents and rows of ducks (some roasted, some uncooked) were hung, by their necks, in obscure corners. While the chefs and cooks stomped around purposefully in their slip-proof safety shoes, I skidded in in my silk dress and strappy heels (fresh out of a wine lunch, you see), praying with every step that I wouldn't slip and bring a vat of hot oil crashing down on me while trying my damnest to look like I fit in there.

Fat hope. I stuck out like a sore thumb and I was promptly shot some very inquiring looks. I was as comfortable as a zebra in a lion's den, but a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do, in this case clarify the steps in a failing recipe. So I shuffled and plastered my body to the table's edge each time someone came through with a a pot of dangerous-looking liquid (happens every 30 seconds), all the while scribbling furiously as my hands struggled to keep up the chef's seasoned moves. Just then, a chapter Fuschia Dunlop wrote about being the only foreigner in a Chengdu culinary school popped into my head and my little head voice said: "This is probably how Fuschia felt!"

That particular chapter didn't blow me away, but my bizarre mind had apparently decided it was gonna be useful some day. It was, for that  literary recall inexplicably made me feel tons better. And for the record, I didn't fall. On the contrary, I walked out with my head held high and a bag of freshly baked buns swinging in my hands. It was so surreal, but I would do it all over it again. In a different outfit though.