New (light) verse

I recently woke up from a dream in which my legs were lettuces and, among other things, i was being chased down the street by a herd of sheep ...

my apologies for the rhymes; if i had chosen the topic, my legs could have been some nice rhymable thing like beans or leeks or ... but lettuces they were

also, apparently "peckish" means something completely different in US English; in British English it means "slightly hungry"

enough! here's the poem:

The Day My Legs Turned to Lettuce


One day, I woke to find my legs had turned to lettuce,
completely green, from my toes up to my … belt-ish,
well, that was no problem as I was feeling peckish,
so I simply showered in vinaigrette and ate green salad for my breakfast.

I opened a self-grown self-serve vegan restaurant,
serving hippies from Lisboa to Sebastapol,
and I also raised packs of long-haired rabbits,
from which I took wool and made alpaca jackets.

I had to take care, though, when going out of doors,
or I’d be chased by herds of herbivores,
by cows and sheep and other animals,
as well, of course, by those damned hippy cannibals.

[CHORUS] One day, I woke to find my legs had turned to lettuce
well, there was no problem when I was feeling peckish,
so long as I did not succumb to that habitual menace,
of ending up as food in caterpillars’ bellies.

A polite Polish policeman once doffed his hat,
as a leder-hosened German enquired “Kaufs du kopfsalat?”,
meanwhile a salad-mad French artist named Toulouse,
screamed at me “Je voudrais manger your bloody let-ouse.”

[Chorus] One day, I woke to find my legs had turned to lettuce,
well, there was no problem when friends were feeling peckish,
of course, come winter, things could get quite hellish,
as only Russians still eat salad when the weather’s wettish.

With my lettuce ankles and lettuce knees,
I needed to hide my legs from ravenous Cantonese,
from chopstick-wielding Japanese politely saying “itadakimasu”,
and cabbage-missing Koreans hoping to make their kimchi at last.

[CHORUS] One day, I woke to find my legs had turned to lettuce,
well, there was no problem if I was feeling peckish,
and some day, I know I’ll find true love, perhaps in Venice
from a dirty-minded Italian with a green-foot fetish.

Maybe I should look for love within my kingdom,
for someone with baby-corn fingers with no ring on,
or whose own legs are slender asparagus spears,
but preferably who does not have cauliflower ears.

Sometimes I hide my legs when I go on a date,
elsetimes, I just lean back and spread them on a plate,
nonchalantly saying to my sweetie,
“Darlin’, if you’re hungry, you go ahead and eat me.”

[Chorus] Well, that’s all to tell about when my legs turned to lettuce
completely green, from my toes up to my … belt-ish,
my story’s done, there’s no more to embellish,
unless, of course, it’s you who now feels peckish.

[end]

Copyright Jiyue Publications 2012

new verse: no more jeans

No More Jeans


No more jeans, or, at least,
no more jeans-and-trainers combination,
well, definitely no more jeans, trainers, t-shirt and baseball cap,
no more 1,000cc-motorbike dreams,
or cruising a convertible down country roads,
an MG, VW or even a Saab,
no more indecision about choosing a career:
athlete, scientist, poet or explorer.

No more staying up through the night staring into girls’ eyes,
no sore arm or sore neck from the back row at movies,
no more public kissing at all,
at least not tonguey ones,
no more inappropriate erections,
all the way from Edinburgh to London,
no more fumbling in the dark with bra fasteners,
bootstraps, belts and buckles.

No more crushes on cousins,
babysitters, teachers or friends’ sisters and mothers,
no more beer-fueled dances,
sauvignon-inspired romances,
whisky-powered philosophies
or gin-induced tear-filled soliloquies,
no more bud, bongs, buckets,
acid, E or H.

But, with luck,
many more glasses of OJ,
cups of cinnamon-flavoured coffee and home-cooked breakfasts,
like this morning, here with you.

new (light) verse

If dogs wrote poetry

If we dogs wrote poetry,
no meandering iambic trot,
but galloping dactylic pace,
or else, we’ll do the spondee strut;
no host of golden daffodils,
but oak or elm each forty feet,
or lamppost, hydrant or park seat;
no odes to nightingales
but rather odes to rubbish dumps
or as we call them, the long free lunch;

ah, if dogs wrote epicurean poetry,
please, no blackbirds in a pie
but raw, still warm, beside the road,
though as familiaris we’ll acquiesce
to eulogize freeze-dried, chicken-flavoured lumps
or beef or lamb,
or liver, turkey, rabbit, venison,
however made and marketed,
we’ll wolf it down,
swallow it whole,
then lie all day before the fire
dreaming of composing couplets.

If dogs wrote epic poetry they would not
tell of Norway’s Amundson versus England’s Scott,
but rather would recall the victory
of Greenland Dog over Siberian Pony.

If dogs were meant to write love poems,
then why the hell do you have us done?
“done” – what an idiotic euphemism
for nothing short of castration,
just one more sign of your slave-owning mentality,
like the kennel and collar and leash,
or words like “down” and “sit” and “fetch”,
without ever so much as a “please”.

If dogs wrote modern poetry,
in more abstract lines we might debate
the merits of silent movies versus talkies
but only to set up a rhyme for walkies,
and likewise, Gysinesquely sample
the boundless imagery of Keats,
soulful fugues of Ms. Simone,
religious thoughts of Apostle Paul,
and communism espoused by Marx,
but only so we might make mention
of treats and bone and ball and parks.

But we dogs do not write poetry
because nothing rhymes with grughh.

Grughh grughh, grughh grughh grughh, grughh ...

Eating in the New Year

GT (http://www.globaltimes.cn/www/english/travel/themed-tours/2011-01/618482.html):

"In operation for 26 years," one sign reads; "Family-run for 35 years," another states, while yet another proclaims they've been "Selling the best foodstuffs for more than half-a-century." In Taipei's Dihua Street, tradition is everything, and this is never truer than during the annual "Southern and Northern Product Fair" that runs for two weeks leading up to the Lunar Calendar New Year's Eve (falling on February 2 this year).

Families get together, neighbors and friends visit, and since Taiwanese are nothing if not hospitable, a good supply of food is essential for the holiday.

Street Life

Supermarkets and department stores do a roaring trade in specially packaged lihe (gift boxes), and bottles of wine or whisky with free customized glasses. But most people, even if they normally buy their groceries at supermarkets, like to go to a street market to get in some traditional xiaochi (snacks) in the days or weeks before New Year. In Taipei, this means a trip to Dihua Street, in the Dadaocheng district to the north of the city center.


New Year's Eve kicks off with the traditional family weilu ("get-together around the stove"), for which hot pot is a popular dish. To perk up the usual meat and vegetables, this will contain a variety of dumplings, mushrooms, tofu and seafood, all of which are on sale.


On New Year's Day itself, cooking is taboo, so pre-cooked meat and preserved vegetables are in great abundance. Most traditional are the larou (cured pork) and lachang (sausages), since la means both "curing" and is also an alternative name for the last month of the lunar calendar. Also seen in giant heaps are beef, pork and cuttlefish jerky, rousong (shredded pork), smoked duck - a specialty of Taiwan's northeastern Yilan County - dried fish, shrimps, scallops, shark's fin and abalone.

Vendors compete vigorously: some wear costumes - either traditional Chinese apparel or eye-catching animal suits - many shout, and all offer free samples to tempt shoppers.

"Around three-quarters of a million people will visit the market between January 15 and February 1," Chen Shih-Che of Original Creativity, a privately run marketing company, told the Global Times. "This is significantly more than in previous years," he added.

Original Creativity helps Taipei City organize the annual event, including bringing contemporary pop, dance and even rap acts to a small stage in the middle of the market.

But this is really just a new face for a long-established tradition that existed for decades before the government got involved. Nanbei huo, that is, the best "produce from South to North [China]," has been sold in Dadaocheng to the north of Taipei Railway Station since before the Japanese colonial authorities instructed local shopkeepers to build porticoed brick buildings in the 1920s, and even before the railway was built in the late 19th century.

Temple Fair

One of the oldest areas of the city, it dates from the migration from the even-older district of Mangka (now Wanhua), slightly further south along the Danshui River. This influx of population was perhaps the result of fighting between rival Fujian immigrants or maybe due to silting up of the river, but whatever the reason, Dadaocheng's wharf became a key northern Taiwan center of import/export, and the local streets boasted many of the island's finest houses and company buildings.

Indeed, several of these still stand, as does the Xiahai Temple at 61 Dihua Street. Dedicated to the Lord of Walls and Moats - more commonly known as City God - and with half-a-dozen altars bearing statues of several dozen different Daoist and Buddhist deities, at other times of the year the temple organizes walking tours of the historic neighborhood.

During the two-week fair, however, it concentrates on offering free "blessed tea" to flagging shoppers, while conducting its usual business of marshalling the services of The Old Man Under the Moon - a Daoist deity - who is said to help find prospective mates for single worshipers.
Most shoppers bypass the temple, however, as there is still much shopping to be done. Having bought hot-pot ingredients and dried meat, they perhaps focus next on the fruit, nuts and candies that relatives and friends will pick at between meals over the coming days.


Once more seen in great piles, and as always available to taste, are quantities of peanuts, pistachio, almonds, variously flavored pumpkin seeds, dates, figs, sun-dried persimmons, chestnuts from Tianjin, and the Taiwanese people's beloved pineapple cakes. One stall even sells Chilean cherries, showing that "North-South produce" now applies to all over the world. Most traditional, and still most popular, are ju (small oranges), since their name sounding like zhu (to offer good wishes) in Mandarin and ji (auspicious) is prized in Minnan Taiwanese - and also they are tasty, nutritious and symbolic of good fortune over the year to come.



In a similar vein, Taiwanese like to give gifts of pineapples, since its Minnan name onglai is homonymous with "prosperity has come." At one meal during the New Year celebrations, a fish will be eaten, since niannian you yu (every year have a fish) means "every year have a surplus," another auspicious saying. Naturally, both are on sale in the Dihua Street market.

Everybody's talking

Minnan is the language of the street, though of course everyone speaks Mandarin, and, since the stalls are staffed with temporary student workers, they are happy to practice English on foreigners. "Try one, it's free," is the usual opening phrase.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin spent two hours at the market on January 21, not to shop but to enjoy the atmosphere. "It's great to see events like this revitalizing the oldest parts of our city," he told the crowd, before handing out thousands of spring couplets for people to hang at home.

For those not lucky enough to receive the mayor's gift, there are stalls selling couplets, lanterns, paper cuts and other traditional New Year ornaments, most of them red and many bearing rabbit images, in keeping with this year's Chinese horoscope animal.

Several parcel companies run stalls and promise to deliver fresh produce in temperature-controlled bags to relatives and friends anywhere on the island within 24 hours, as does the local branch of the post office. Even the police get in on the act, with the local precinct taking advantage of the large number of visitors to promote anti-corruption and other public-service campaigns.

Somewhat incongruously, there are one or two shops selling objects such as belts and needlework supplies, not because these have any connection with the upcoming festivities, but because their stores are here year round.

In fact, Dadaocheng is a fascinating area to visit any time of year, such as at City God's birthday in the fifth lunar month, or when the district's puppet museum and theater has a new exhibition or show. At all times, the stores will still be selling the "best from the South to the North," and visitors are guaranteed a taste of Taiwan from times gone by.

recent food pics

out and about for cycle trips, and amcham (here) and Global Times articles (here)
so lots of food photos for JBB recently

such as this possible chapter title page for Taipei City:

















grilled tofu stall in Sanchong Night Market:
















and baked sweet potoato vendor, outside Liuzhangli MRT Station, Taipei City:
















a pig-ear chef in Dihua Street "south-north provisions market":
















a peanut vendor in Taipei's Wanhua District:














and while looking for New Year delicacies at Luzhou Market, some women buying "lucky red underwear":

new verse

last night i broke open an egg and found a double yolk,
which hasn't happened in a long time (if ever)

broke open the egg and found a poem too:

雙黃房

很晚
很累
但是肚子有點餓
想炒個蛋炒飯
沒有米
但有馬鈴薯
好
炒個蛋炒馬鈴薯
蒸薯
爆香
破蛋
哇妳說
就像我們
雙黃蛋在雙黃房

does this work

another chapter heading photo
but is it too close



and a farmer watering her crop in Kinmen's afternoon heat:

one small step forward; food-wise

ok
well that's a whole week and what did i get?
frankly; not one photo per day for "Jia Ba Bwey"
here's a possible title page photo for Yunlin County

I will finish

back on bicycle tour ("of the hilly bits")
hoping for some (is one per day too much to ask?) photos for JBB book
(which i WILL finish next year; though i say this every year)
here's the best from today:
rice harvesting in Taoyuan County

i don't eat chicken, but if i did, it wouldn't be this chicken

China Post editorial:


Fast-food firms need to be pushed to help consumers

As of July 5, fast-food outlet KFC will no longer be giving away toys with children's meals, the corporation announced last week. This is to be commended, because parents, lawmakers, government agencies and NGOs have long been concerned about the way in which KFC, as well as its various competitors, intensively target children in the promotion of their products.

In addition to the small plastic toys typically included in the decorated, boxed meals, KFC, McDonald's and others spend around 50 percent of their advertising budgets targeting children, as well as placing their products in Hollywood films and cartoons made for young viewers.

In the United States, where NGOs and legislators are also locking horns with the big fast-food providers on a number of issues, the targeting of children through free toys has been described as undercutting parental authority and exploiting children's developmental immaturity to induce them to prefer foods that damage their health. One U.S. mother wrote to McDonald's CEO that his company's marketing had the effect of conscripting children into an “unpaid drone army of word-of-mouth marketers,” causing them to pester their parents to take them to its outlets. “I try my best to educate my kids about healthy eating,” she wrote, “but they always want to go to McDonald's because of the toys.”

This is something every parent in Taiwan can relate to. At the end of a hard day's work, or when tired after taking the kids out to the park, museum or shopping, the last thing anyone wants is a battle over steamed fish and green vegetables as opposed to a burger, fries and a carbonated, sugar-laden drink. The latter packs anything from one-third to more than one-half of a child's recommended daily caloric intake, and can easily contain more than half a day's salt allowance and more than a whole day's sugar allowance. Getting children habituated to eating such food is correlated to increased risks of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other disorders later in life, campaigners argue.

The good news, however, is that these companies are not impervious to public opinion. Trans fats, which are widely used because they are cheap and convenient but which are now known to increase the risk of heart disease, have largely been phased out of use in the fast-food industry due to pressure from NGOs and legislators in the United States, the home country of many of the fast-food corporations operating in Taiwan.

hard cheese (the Taoyuan way)

Visit to a hard ("dried"?) beancurd (豆干) factory in Daxi (大溪), Taoyuan County,
where they hand make "soft" hard beancurd,
<--wrapping it in cheese cloth

then later marinating it

-->

fish of the day

reader ("blog follower"?) Huang Yun-ju from Taipei sent these fish pics from her recent round-Taiwan trip

many thanks

(p.s. not my dog, though it does look a bit like Flounder)

fish of the day

飯店活煮雞遭罰，活煮魚是否也違法，引發爭議。農委會畜牧處 8日表示，遭罰飯店是因為公開表演，傳統市場及海產店並非公開屠宰或活煮，不違法。中央社記者孫仲達攝 99年4月8日

China Post ran this story today, but i cannot find the photo&text on CP's website,
the above is from the CNA original.

Whether it is legal to cook live fish at seafood restaurants becomes a controversial issue after a hotel was fined for a cooking performance where a live chicken was slaughtered and boiled last month. The Council of Agriculture said yesterday the hotel in Taipei County was fined because the chicken was slaughtered and cooked during a public demonstration. It is lawful to slaughter livestock at traditional markets or cook live fish at seafood restaurants, because the acts are not done in public to attract crowds of spectators.

today's China Post editorial:


For our global health make Mondays meat-free

Meat was very much in the news last week.

First, the chairman of the Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy called on citizens to eat less meat. Citing Council of Agriculture statistics, Eugene Chien told the Council for Economic Planning and Development that, in consuming an average of 77.1 kilograms of meat each year--more than 200g per day--the Taiwanese ate the most meat in East Asia. This is 27 percent more than that eaten in China, almost double that eaten by Japanese and Koreans, and very similar to the figures for Germany and the United States.

This bad for our health: Taiwan's average life expectancy has risen to around 78.6 years, similar to that of Germans and Americans, but is still far behind the 82.6 of Japanese. Moreover, since producing one kilogram of beef causes emissions of 36 kilograms of carbon dioxide as well as more than 100 other air pollutants, Chien said, it is bad for the planet too.

A 2006 report from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization surprised many people with its findings that animal food production was responsible for 18 percent of climate-change emissions, more than those of all forms of transportation combined. It is now thought even that figure was too low, and that production of meat, milk, eggs, cheese and so forth contributes as much as half the effects of all such emissions, largely because the methane and nitrous oxide produced are far more potent global-warming gases than carbon dioxide.

It was less of a surprise, therefore, when Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel-prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, called on people around the world to eat less meat. He described becoming vegetarian as the single most significant action an individual person can take to reduce carbon emissions.

While some meat-eaters responded directly to this challenge, others felt it was too great a cultural leap. As a first step towards this goal, therefore, some advocate eating no meat one or two days a week. In Taiwan, this was taken up by, among others, the Meatless Mondays movement.

Part of an international campaign initiated in association with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, this group admits that cutting meat consumption by 15 percent would only be a first step. It targets therefore Mondays for abstention since this is typically the first day of the working week and psychologically acts as a new start. It hopes that the vegetarian habit will thus encroach further into people's lives.

The second meat-related report in these pages last week came from Taiwan's own Nobel laureate, chemist Lee Yuan-tseh. The former president of Academia Sinica said that global warming would be much more serious than scientists previously thought, and that Taiwanese people needed to cut their per-capita carbon emissions from the current 12 tons per year to just three.

This, he said, would take more than a few slogans, turning off the lights for one hour, or cutting meat consumption. In fact, Lee claimed, “We will have to learn to live the simple lives of our ancestors.” Without such efforts, he said, Taiwanese will be unable to face the next generation.

Be that as it may, a third report, reproduced from a scientific publication, presented more reasons for giving up meat. The craving for junk-food that can drive some people to overeat operates through the same molecular pathways that cause addiction to drugs, researchers found. As the body became less sensitive to the “feel-good” brain chemical dopamine, there was a progressive worsening of the reward response, and more frequent stimulation was needed, they said. Hence the slippery slope from casual drug use to addiction and the similar transition from over-eating to compulsive indulgence.

As Meatless Mondays campaigners point out, the case against meat, and not just fast food, is convincing. Taiwanese people's 200-plus grams of meat is almost half more than the recommended daily maximum, and meat typically contains more saturated fats than plant foods. These saturated fats are responsible for numerous preventable illnesses, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancers. Consumption of red and processed meats is particularly correlated to lower life expectancy. This is an issue which affects everybody, since treating these chronic illnesses costs the Bureau of Health Insurance billions of dollars a year. Consequently, some more radical campaigners are demanding a tax on meat.

Finally, since meat production requires around 10 times more water than equivalent quantities of soy and around 20 times as much fossil-fuel energy per calorie of protein produced, with the earth's finite water and energy resources coming under increasingly bitter dispute, these are concerns that will not go away.

So, whether one agrees with Pachauri that eating less meat might save the planet, or with Lee that we need to head back toward the Stone Age, perhaps a meatless Monday would be a good start. Perhaps today is that Monday.

fish of the day

SATURDAY, 03 APRIL 2010

Japanese ramen restaurant, Jiaoxi (礁溪), Yilan

another step towards "Jia Ba Bwey"

FRIDAY, 02 APRIL 2010



making molded pineapple cakes, Jiufen (九份)

fish of the day

and before we leave Sun Moon Lake (though actually I left on Wednesday, to tell the truth)
there's still the "president fish" (總統魚; actually曲腰魚 Erythroculter ilishaeformis), but better known by its nickname as Presidentissimo CKS is said to have been very fond of it (eating it i mean)

three poor photos (apologies as usual)
1. advertising a restaurant:
2. on a plate: (not mine, of course, not at NT$60 per 兩 as the photo shows, that is, about NT$1,600 per kilogram)

3. in a tank:

fish of the day

治大國若烹小鮮
"Administer a large nation as [you] would cook a small fish"

(from the Dao De Jing 道德經, attributed to the "Old Master(s)" 老子 of the 6th century BC; but more probably from the 4th or 3rd century)

a tough assignment

Article in Amcham's TOPICS magazine:

Microbrewers Stake out a Market Niche

BY mark caltonhill

[Photo: Author carrying out research at Taipei's Breeze Center]

Wen Li-guo likes beer. He likes beer so much that he decided to try to make some for himself, and so in 2002 he attended a course in home brewing organized by Duan Kwo-jen, professor of food science at Taipei’s Tatung University.

Wen liked the beer he made, so he made some more. Wen’s friends liked the beer he made, so he made yet more. In fact, they liked it so much they suggested he give up his delivery job and start his own brewery. In June 2003 he followed their advice, and his North Taiwan Brewery (北台灣麥酒; Tel: 2299-7991) sold its first batch in August the following year. It now produces around 2,000 liters of fruit-flavored and Belgian-style beers every month.

But until eight years ago, what Wen does was illegal. Even his home-brewing hobby fell under a gray area of the law, since for the best part of 100 years, the manufacture and sale of alcohol in Taiwan had been a government monopoly, along with tobacco products and, originally, salt, camphor, and opium. This Monopoly Bureau was started during the Japanese colonial administration of the island (1895-1945), and then taken over by the incoming ROC government as a nice little earner that contributed as much as 8% of the total national budget revenue. Only with Taiwan’s entry into the World Trade Organization was the monopoly dismantled and licenses issued for private alcohol production. Several hundred of these licenses have been issued to date, but Wen estimates fewer than 100 have been for beer, and of these fewer than a dozen are currently making and marketing a product. And at least one, and not one of the smallest, has already gone bust.

Taiwan Beer, which as the monopoly bureau’s brand once commanded 100% of the market, still dominates with around 75%. It is followed by imported American, European, Japanese (mostly now brewed in China), and Chinese beers, which share almost another quarter, with Wen and his fellow microbrewers accounting for less than 1%. Clearly they are not called “micro” for nothing, though they generally prefer the term “craft beer,” claiming that their smaller quantities allow them to focus more on quality.

Aiming at the under-40s market, 41-year-old Wen and his two employees make lychee- and melon-flavored brews at 4% strength, a “White” wheat beer at 5%, and two “Abbey” beers at 6 and 8%. The fruit flavors are his biggest sellers, particularly popular among Taiwan’s growing population of female beer drinkers, so he is working to expand his range with apple and other flavors. He is also formulating a stronger beer, probably around 10%, having noticed a trend in male drinkers for beers with an extra kick.

“None of these will appear until I am certain about the stability of their quality,” Wen says. “For a small producer trying to establish myself in a niche market, quality is paramount. Also, it might entail significant investment as I would need larger premises.”

North Taiwan Brewery is currently located in Xinzhuang in Taipei County, just across the Danshui River from the city proper. “It is illegal to brew beer in Taipei or any other Taiwan metropolis,” he explains, “only in industrial zones.”

[Photo: Le Ble D'or with distinctive swing-top cap from Jason's etc]

Similarly, while the main outlets for fellow microbreweries Jolly, Deluxe (www.deluxebeer.com.tw), and Le Blé D’or (www.lebledor.com.tw) are located in Taipei City, their beers are brewed in Taipei County’s Zhonghe, Tucheng, and Sanchong respectively. Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp., the corporate, post-WTO incarnation of the former Monopoly Bureau, has also had to relocate its beer production from the prime Jianguo factory in central Taipei to Linkou and elsewhere.

Wen had originally wanted to call his beer “Taipei Beer,” but this was rejected by the licensing authority on the grounds that the Jianguo brewery was also known as the Taipei brewery, he says. His next application, for “Northern Taiwan,” was accepted, however, and he feels this is almost as good, since Taipei (台北; “Taiwan north”) and his “Bei-tai” (北台) brand merely have their characters reversed.

[Photo: LR Connie Guan of Guandu's 92 Shuiniao restaurant with her Shuiniao (Waterfowl) beer made by North Taiwan Brewery]

Around 70% of Wen’s outlets are in the Taipei area, he says. So far about 70 to 80 restaurants and shops are selling his bottled brews, either under his own brand names or their own, such as the Shuiniao Restaurant in Guandu that offers “Waterfowl” (水鳥) beer. Wen claims that these outlets contact him, and that he isn’t desperate to find more because that would mean expanding his operations and finding larger premises.

Nevertheless, with his beers gaining a growing following and with the apple-flavored brew almost ready for launch, Wen might not have much choice in the matter. Future plans also include a draft version of his beers for sale in bars, and with the shipment last month of the first export order to Singapore, overseas sales could be set to take off.

All in all, Wen gives the impression that he’s doing something he loves, but perhaps he’d still rather be making and drinking his homebrew than touting it in the fickle and faddish Taiwan marketplace.

Eddie Chang, founder, owner, and master brewer of Jolly Brewery and Restaurant (卓莉手工釀啤酒+泰食餐廳; www.jollys.tw), also clearly loves what he’s doing. But that’s about all he has in common with Wen Li-guo. Chang comes from the other end of the Taiwan-microbrewers spectrum. Rather than a hobby brewer turned professional, he’s a graduate of restaurant management who spotted a vacant niche in Taiwan’s densely populated food-and-beverage market and so turned to brewing. “To tell the truth, I don’t really drink beer,” he says. “Two small glasses get me drunk.”

Nevertheless, as a student in southern California he became fascinated by the microbrewing scene, with bars making beers in their basements and competing with the big players through local marketing and distinctive flavors and styles. Under the wing of one of his professors, Chang started experimenting with home brewing.

When he returned to Taiwan at the age of 31 in 1997, the monopoly was still in force, so he took a job with Thai Town restaurant. Chang knew that the alcohol monopoly would end one day, and probably sooner rather than later, so he continued his homebrew experiments courtesy of supplies sent by his Californian contacts. Finally, once the WTO negotiations were nearing a conclusion, Chang returned to the United States for an 18-month intensive qualification as a brewmaster at Siebel Institute of Technology.

The monopoly formally ended in January 2002, and by September of that year Chang’s Jolly Restaurant in Neihu (內湖) sold its first commercial beer. He says he chose Neihu because rents were cheaper than in central Taipei, and he found a suitable location in the new Donghu Road area where apartments were being purchased by professionals in his 30-45 target age range – people with sufficient disposable incomes and perhaps some knowledge of and interest in specialty brews. In 2005 he opened a second branch, this time in the downtown district near the Nanjing-Fuxing MRT station. “Qingcheng is a very unusual street, right near the MRT, but blocked off at one end so there aren’t too many cars, and with broad pavements suitable for walking,” he says. “So it is busy but not too busy.”

Jolly started with three brews: a 4.6% weizen, 5% pilsner and 5% pale ale. A stout at 6% was added in 2004, and a Scotch ale at 7.2% in 2006. In addition, Chang offers a “special brew.” In 2008 this was a Vienna-style lager, but Chang says he wanted to promote local produce, so in 2009 he switched to “honey ale” at 5.7%, and in July 2010 it will again change to passion fruit.

Chang says he listens to his customers’ suggestions a great deal, not just in regard to the next special brew, but for the layout of his restaurants, contents of his menus, and especially for the taste and quality of his beers. “This is something a small brewer can do more easily than a big company,” he says. And, as a consequence, his beers have matured over the years.

“I’ve altered some of the ingredients slightly,” Chang continues. “For example, I started by using dried yeast but later switched to a culture. I’ve also made changes to some of the timings and temperatures. Originally the mash temperatures were the same for all the beers, but altering them up or down within a two-degree range has helped improve the flavors.”

Jolly’s weizen beer has always been the customers’ favorite, accounting for around 25% of all sales. “It’s not too bitter, so it suits Taiwanese tastes,” Chang says. Second is the pilsner, perhaps because it is closest to the beers Taiwanese drinkers are most familiar with, or perhaps just reflecting the fact that pilsners are the world’s most popular beers. The stronger Scotch ale – Chang’s personal favorite for its malty, sweeter flavor – comes next, followed by the pale ale, with the stout and special brew bringing up the rear at about 7% of sales each. Still, Chang has no intention of dropping them from his beer list. “I want to offer customers as wide a choice as possible,” he says.

He brews a 1,000-liter batch of weizen every three weeks or so, and one of stout every couple of months. Last year he produced around 43,000 liters of beer for his two restaurants, though some is discarded so that only the freshest beers reach his customers.

“We don’t filter the beer or use high temperatures to kill the yeast, so it’s still present in the beer, adding to the flavor. This does mean the beer has a shorter shelf life than commercial brands, however, and needs to be stored at less than 5℃,” Chang says. This also explains his reluctance to move into bottled beer. “Yes, we could increase our profits by tapping into the huge take-out market, but at a risk to our quality and therefore a risk to our brand image.”

Nevertheless, he is looking at that possibility, but the most likely next move for Jolly will be opening another branch, perhaps in Taichung. Like most microbreweries, Chang would like to brew on the premises, not so much to save on transportation costs, but rather to put on a show for customers, and even to teach them something about home brewing.

Despite the Californian bars that were his early influence, Chang has designed his spaces with families in mind, making them well lit and using lighter colors for decoration. The name Jolly is meant to personify this atmosphere, and it is the attitude he tries to instill in his staff. Moreover, the bars do not dominate the restaurants; indeed, these are restaurants rather than pubs. He decided on Thai cuisine, partly because of his experience in that field but also because the spicy and sour flavors were similar enough to Chinese food but still exotic. Unfortunately for him, Taiwan has seen an explosion in Thai restaurants since Jolly opened in 2002, many of them selling cut-price cuisine. Nevertheless, Chang’s restaurants are always busy and he hasn’t considered switching menus.

“Thai food and beer makes a great combination,” he says. “And although I don’t drink much beer myself, I get a lot of pleasure watching customers enjoy their food and drink.”

So what is the future for Taiwan’s small microbrewing scene?

Not much, according to Michel Blanc, owner of The Tavern and Capone’s bars. He doesn’t sell them himself, although he says he would like to, and has long dreamed of having his own label on a locally produced microbrewed beer. But consistency remains a formidable challenge for the microbrewers, he says. “They cannot maintain a stable quality, and they won’t be able to while they produce such small quantities – and they won’t be able to produce large quantities because there simply isn’t the market for it.”

This is something of a catch-22 situation for the microbrewers. With their low capitalization, they cannot afford the promotional activities of the likes of Taiwan Beer or Heineken. But with only word-of-mouth, their growth is slow. Twenty-something Jenny Chiang is typical of Taiwan’s new generation of drinkers, opting for a sweeter, lower-alcohol, fruit-flavored beer when she goes out at the weekend. For her this means drinking an imported beer, however, as the only Taiwan beer she has ever heard of is Taiwan Beer.

Nevertheless, the microbrewers might be threatening to make a small dent in Taiwan Beer’s market, because the former monopoly brewer has recently launched a “craft beer” available at its Hualien Winery plant and selected outlets. On the other hand, one of the first new companies to start up after the WTO-led breaking of he monopoly, Taiwan Micro Brewing Company based in Kaohsiung, which made designer craft beers for restaurants and bars in Taiwan’s four largest cities, has already closed down. So recently did the Deluxe bar in Taipei Arena.

And what about Taiwan’s home brewers? Will one of them emerge as the next Wen or Chang? To judge from the lively discussions on internet forums, many foreign visitors to Taiwan, particularly those in the recently graduated English-teaching crowd, are keen to keep up their home-brewing hobby. But these threads mostly end in frustration, since ingredients such as malt and hops, as well as equipment, are not readily available in Taiwan. Even when they are obtained from abroad, the island’s tropical and subtropical climate is not conducive to most types of beer making. The best bet seems to be making ale, which ferments at around 18-24℃ compared with 10℃ for lagers, and doing it in the winter. The only good news is that the former gray legal area is now clearly articulated in black and white: Anyone can make batches of beer up to 100 liters, even in Taipei City. Happy experimentation.

A day in the life ... (Part II)

Feature article published in Amcham's TOPICS magazine

A Day in the Life of a Chef/Restaurateur

BY Mark Caltonhill

Thirty-two-year-old François Parveau is a chef from Pompadour in the Limousin region of central France. He first came to Taiwan four years ago to visit his girlfriend, whom he met when both studied at the Institute Paul Bocuse in Lyon. He stayed on, they married, and Parveau became a freelance chef catering for French consular events, business dinners, and other clients. He opened the LAB restaurant in Taipei’s Minsheng Community in March 2008. Taiwan Business Topics contributor Mark Caltonhill spent a day with him in early December.

9:30 a.m.

Turnips are the first thing on François Parveau’s shopping list. He’s running a little late – a group of customers spun out their last glasses of wine the night before – but he’s not in a hurry. He wanders around half a dozen stalls at the Binjiang vegetable market checking the turnips for size, shape, texture, and above all freshness, before returning to the second stall, where he selects just two. He repeats this process for cabbage, carrots, potatoes, asparagus spears, apples, lemons, tomatoes, and so on.

“No, Madame, I don’t want the imported potatoes,” Parveau says in accented but fluent Chinese. He uses local produce wherever possible, because of taste, freshness, and those deplorable carbon-footprint miles. But mostly because of quality. “If the potato cells are too big, they’re full of water and have little taste,” he explains in English.

“Quality first, second, and third,” he continues. “Still, you have to care about the cost, otherwise they’ll charge you crazy prices.” Parveau occasionally rejects a purchase because of price, but on the whole he reckons to get charged the same as locals. Most stallholders greet him, many by name. He’s obviously a feature here. He should be: he’s been coming here six mornings each week and has barely had a holiday since he opened his restaurant. (He had planned to take August off, like many restaurateurs in France, but fiscal realities made him reconsider. He will take three or four days at Lunar New Year instead.)
Parveau also greets fellow restaurateurs similarly shopping for their daily or weekly supplies. Although he says they treat him suspiciously as competition, he is happy to share information and help them with queries about French cuisine.

With all the vegetables and fruit on his list purchased, and nothing unusual catching his eye for an impromptu canapé, Parveau steps across a back street to pick up half a dozen sea bass he’d ordered by telephone from his car on the way over. Most of his fish and meat products come through suppliers, however. He says the standards at the market can be unstable, and claims of “high mountain” or “organic” less reliable.

10:30 a.m.

Back at his restaurant, Parveau puts his purchases into storage and then heads off across the Minquan Bridge to the flower market in Neihu. “Flowers are my one luxury,” Parveau confides. “Or I could say they are the most important thing. A form of respect to my customers.” He spends around NT$600 every two or three days on flowers, and around two and a half hours to buy and arrange them.

In fact, though he originally took responsibility for the flowers, their selection and arrangement are now undertaken – under his watchful eye – by his assistant and sole employee, Tiffany Cho. “She is an artist, and wanted to learn about flowers. Now she has surpassed my expectations,” Parveau says later, displaying her creations.

On the drive back, he says Minsheng was the only area of Taipei that he considered when looking for a restaurant location. “With its tree-lined streets, gardens, and low-rise buildings, you can see some daylight, making it possible to live here. A restaurant must be located in an area whose standard matches the standard of the food. It is not a noisy district, and as you walk down the street you can hear people playing music, practicing the piano, and such. I like that.”

11:30 a.m.

Parveau and Cho carry the flowers into the back part of the kitchen. Cho then starts cutting and arranging them; Parveau makes a cup of coffee and starts telephoning suppliers and customers. He taps his calculator buttons as he places orders in Chinese and discusses menus and wine choices in Chinese or English. Margins are tight, he explains.

Recently Parveau redesigned the concept for LAB. Originally he only catered for private groups, drawing up menus to meet their specific needs and charging anywhere from NT$3,500 on up per head, averaging around NT$5,500, he says. At the end of 2009, he switched to offering two cheaper set menus – in consideration of the economic downturn, particularly the crisis in the financial sector in which many of his clients worked, and more importantly the opening of the highly publicized L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon under the name of the Michelin 3-star French chef, which drew away a lot of business. Before its December relaunch, LAB did not even have a sign outside.

It now has a sign advertising its presence in the neighborhood and a sample menu that is browsed by passersby. Parveau is visibly pleased. One local woman even sticks her head through the window to ask if this is in fact a restaurant. It’s hard to believe LAB opened more than 18 months earlier.

12:30 p.m.

Parveau makes a run to the bank and post office. “It’s a little time-consuming going to the bank almost every day, but I cannot bank online as I don’t read Chinese. I need to stay on top of my accounts. It can be a little problematic as most suppliers don’t use receipts and invoices, and without them, I cannot claim the costs back against tax. Even those that will write me a receipt automatically charge an extra 5%.”
He discusses his relationship with the banks, which under the current circumstances is somewhat delicate, especially since the vicissitudes of his first two years in business have seen him fall behind his initial business plan.

Tiffany Cho starts to make lunch for herself and Parveau.

1:00 p.m.

Parveau returns, puts on plastic gloves and fillets the sea bass, carefully picking out the occasional bone missed by the vendor who has already removed the scales and innards. He cuts the fillets into 18 regularly shaped pieces for the 18 servings he will have available for customers of his more expensive “Connoisseur” menu. The scraps he gives to Cho to include in their lunch.

1:30 p.m.

Cho sits down to eat. Parveau should too, but he is constantly interrupted by deliveries and phone calls. Morel mushrooms from one supplier, edible flowers from Holland from another, and his prized celery root from a third. “It’s not easy to find,” he says of the celery root, “but for me it’s an essential accompaniment to the frogs’ legs.”

A man from a company providing what Parveau calls “the most expensive coffee in the world” turns up to check and service the machine and deliver supplies. “It costs me around one Euro per cup, but my customers expect it.”

The coffee man is followed by a husband and wife who are booked in for Friday. They discuss some aspects of the menu with Parveau and drop off a box of bottles of wine they plan to drink with their guests. For a fine French restaurant, LAB is unusual in allowing customers to bring their own wine. Previously it was even more unusual in not charging a corkage fee either. “Some customers abused my generosity, however,” Parveau says. “Sometimes they would bring ten different bottles, and I’d spend the evening washing 150 glasses for which I’d get paid nothing.” Since the relaunch, he charges NT$400 per bottle. Ideally he’d like to sell wine himself, but his customers’ taste for bottles costing tens of thousands of NT dollars means he cannot afford to stock them.

At the time of the interview he was drawing up a more modest wine list, and said he planned to offer nine wines in the NT$2,000-$4,000 range: one Champagne; three whites (Burgundy, South Rhone, and Bordeaux) and four or five reds (Burgundy, South Rhone, Bordeaux, and something Chilean or Argentine).

The couple is followed through the door by a laundry worker delivering tablecloths and uniforms. Eventually, bite by increasingly tepid bite, Parveau finishes his lunch.

3:30 p.m.

Preparation of the evening’s fare now begins in earnest. Cho, who trained as a pastry chef in Ottawa, does the cakes, while Parveau, who spent three of his seven months at La Chevre D’or in Eze between Nice and Monaco elbow deep in the icy waters of the fish department, finishes preparing the sea bass.

Over the next three hours, both work constantly, multitasking between peeling and preparing vegetables, steaming and sautéing, whipping and pureeing…and always tasting. Windows are opened as the kitchen heats up, and timers sound out incessantly, demanding Parveau’s attention at one or another burner or oven. The two do the washing up as they go along. “Sometimes I listen to music while working, but mostly not,” says Parveau. “Hearing is an important sense in making food too.”

Most suppliers and customers seem to know not to disturb him as opening time approaches.

4:45 p.m.

Parveau personally irons each tablecloth. “I’m probably the only chef who does this in Taipei,” he jokes. “But for me it’s part of the mutual respect between chef and diner.”

He then brings out the flowers and places them on each table, beside the entrance and in the restrooms, praising Cho’s handiwork as he does so. He finishes laying the tables, checks the overall appearance of the dining room, and heads back into the kitchen, which he refers to as the “stage.” Between the two is a large glass window, allowing the diners full view of the kitchen.

“The diners see something, they see themselves, and are seen. So it’s the theater.” They even get to see Parveau and Cho do the washing up. “I wanted to do the washing up in front of the people, so they know it is not a shame to clean.”

It sounds like Parveau is on a mission. “I want to learn something every day, every day of my life. This is a huge school. That’s why I called the restaurant ‘Lab’. We’re doing research. This choice is not the easiest way, and it is not the richest way for making money, but it is the richest way for knowledge.”

So he is learning, and he hopes his customers are learning too, about French cuisine and French culture, but more broadly about appreciating the fine things in life. That’s why his two new menus are titled “Neophyte” and “Connoisseur.”

6:00 p.m.

The first diners arrive. LAB doesn’t officially open till 6:30, so they are shown into the small marquee erected in the converted first-floor apartment’s parking space. They are served Champagne and canapés: on this particular evening Comté cheese and beetroot, cucumber stuffed with mustard mayonnaise and topped with a butter-roasted shrimp, and fish mousse. The various finger foods must match each other as well as the courses to follow, as “harmony at the table is paramount,” Parveau explains.

6:30 p.m.

The lights go on and Parveau adds the position of theater director and star actor to his earlier roles of producer, costume and set designer, and playwright, not to mention vegetable cutter, floor sweeper, tablecloth ironer, gardener, and so forth.

Interestingly, Parveau says he did consider studying theater design, following one year spent in the study of pharmacy, another of drawing, three of architecture, and one more of art history, before plumping for cooking at the suggestion of a friend who had tasted the creations he served up for his fellow students.

Squid and caviar risotto with veal gravy follows the canapés when the diners are seated. The risotto rice comes from another supplier with a grip on Taiwan’s limited market. “Many restaurants make what they call risotto using local rice at one-tenth the price, but that isn’t real risotto,” Parveau maintains.

After a suitable pause, he and Cho serve a dish of scallop poached in oolong-flavored oil with angel-hair noodles and oolong-flavored grissini. Parveau makes the grissini himself, but the bread rolls available throughout the meal come from La Fourviere. “I simply don’t have the space for a fermentation chamber and other equipment needed to provide a consistent quality of bread. Consistency is paramount in fine cuisine.”

The customers, his audience, then watch Parveau put the finishing touches to his steamed sea bass filet under breadcrumbs with fennel-based consommé and green beans. The use of fennel is typical of southern French cuisine, he says.

His beloved celery root next appears in a confit of frog leg in black truffle on celery root smoothie with poultry gravy, which is followed by the sixth course, free-range mountain chicken leg confit with morel and as a sausage with duck liver, accompanied by sautéed seasonal mushrooms and parsley.

Although the meal runs to ten courses, each averaging about 80 grams, Parveau insists this is not degustation, a current trend in Taiwan and promoted by Robuchon. “I am not offering these as a ‘taste’ of the dishes on the main menu. These are designed menus, with all items in harmony, intended to help ‘neophytes’ and ‘connoisseurs’ learn about French cuisine.”

Next, the morning’s carefully selected turnips reappear as beef steak with garlic confit potato, black truffle turnip stew and port-flavored gravy. Parveau engages at length with one customer about the relative merits of U.S., New Zealand, and Australian beef, which eventually focuses on the difference between grass-fed and corn-fed meat. They agree to differ.

It is time for dessert. The sweetness of chocolate fondant with Chantilly cream and mini crème brûlée is followed by a slight sourness of raspberry mousse on pistachio biscuit with sautéed kiwi fruit with sliced almonds. “I believe in ending the meal with a sour fruit,” Parveau says. “It leaves diners feeling satisfied.” Nevertheless, there is one last mouthful of a sweet served with coffee or flower tea.

10:00 p.m.

The last diner leaves, and Parveau enjoys a post-performance cigarette on the back doorstep.

11:00 p.m.

Although they did most of the washing as they went along, tidying up, sweeping, and storing leftovers takes the best part of an hour. Both Parveau and Cho are clearly exhausted by their 14-hour workday.

So is it worth it? “I’m sure I’m doing something good,” Parveau says, “something very different. And I’m still learning, still experimenting.”

LAB is at No. 20, Lane 12, Xinzhong St., Taipei. Tel. 0936-480151.