Driving With John Chow

As my son and I were driving back from Costco this morning, I saw John and Sally in his Mercedes Benz as we were turning into West Yale Loop. They were waiting to turn left into Alton. Irvine is not that huge. We do bump into each other occasionally. At that moment, I was guessing that John was taking Sally out for lunch, may be to BCD Tofu because it is one of John's favorite restaurants.

What I didn't know was that John was actually filming a video for an episode of his Driving with John Chow. I realized it when I was on my Facebook and watched the episode on his website. I know precisely the moment that my car would appear in the video and as you can see from this picture below, the driver of the car behind John is actually me. I had my head turned to his car with my finger pointing to them and at the same time telling my son, "Look, there's John and Sally."

Picture taken using screen shot from the video.  

How to Boil Asian Yali Pear Soup

I learned to make this soup from my Mother-in-law. She's from Macau and she knows how to many a lot of different types of soup. Yali Pear is only available during the winter time. I haven't seen them available at the Asian grocery market during the summer time. You can also called this soup the Asian Pear Soup. Yali Pear Soup is good for winter time especially in our Los Angeles dry and cold weather. This is a sweet/savoury type of soup. If someone in your family has a cough, make this soup for them. The 'chuin bui' (Bulbus fritillariae cirrhosae) (川贝母) in the soup will help to reduce cough, reduce phlegm and nourish the lungs. Now let's look at the ingredients:

• 2.5-3 quarts of water
• 1 pound of pork loin and pork ribs, blanched and rinsed
• 3-4 yali pears, cored and sliced
• 1-2 carrots, peeled and sliced
• 2-3 honey dates
• 1 sliced of fake abalone strip
• 1-2 dried scallops
• 1-2 tablespoons 'chuin bui'
• 1-2 tablespoons of South Almond
• Salt to taste

It is easy to make. You don't have to follow the exact amount of ingredients in the recipe above. The recipe acts like a guide what you need to have. If you don't like it to be too sweet, reduce the carrots and honey dates. Soup boiling instructions:

1. Use a 6-quart pot to boil the 2.5-3 quarts of water.
2. In another pot, blanch the pork loin and rib in boiling water for a few minutes. Rinse through cold water. Set aside.
3. Sliced the Yali pears and carrots. Set aside.
4. When water is boiling, put in all the ingredients except salt.
5. Let it boil high for 15 minutes then turn to simmer for 2.5-3 hours.
6. Add salt to taste before serving. Serve hot.