Simplicity

These days I find myself relearning the basics.
Using fewer ingredients, keeping things simple.

As the world goes on to demand much and more, I try not to forget how to choose fresh fish at the market, how to fillet it, make the best of its briny flesh and extract flavor from every last bits of its bones. I fry an egg, make it crispy around the edges and toss my favorite soy sauce with thin noodles. When I come home hungry with nothing else but cold rice, all a Chinese really needs is a wok and some spring onion.

Often we confuse simple as easy, laborious as difficult.

We say simple is boring and complicated is creative. Let's think of something new, do an interpretation of this. The fundamentals are forgotten. How our ancestors farmed, cooked and ate discounted as traditional, not quite enough for our (seemingly) evolved palates.

In almost every culture, our prior generations have created things that worked. Dishes passed on to us that make us feel almost broken should we be deprived of them for just a short time. The French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese, they didn't have much. They didn't need much to create the best things with flavors and textures which has come to haunt us for our lifetime and those of our children if we're smart enough to preserve these gems.

We, what have we created?