3 . I was ten years old at that time. It was a hot, summer afternoon and I decided to _______ by swimming in the river where the water was cold. After a while I grabbed my _______ and headed back up to the house. I knew that _______ would be ready soon.

I _______ in slowly and saw my grandmother busy cooking. Two freshly baked loaves of Italian bread smelled wonderful. My grandmother was _______ her special sauce (调味汁) without noticing my arrival. It had been slowly _______ for hours. Potatoes, pieces of chicken, and meatballs had been quietly cooking in it. Grandma _______ a wooden spoon, stirred the sauce and brought up a bit for a _______. She made a face and shook her head. Something wasn’t quite _______. She added some salt. Then she shook in a little more garlic powder. She ________ stirred the sauce for a while longer. ________ she took another taste. This time her ________ widened and she nodded her approval of her ________. I smiled too. I knew it was going to be another ________ dinner.

Looking back I think grandmother was such a ________ cook because she not only seasoned (给……调味) her food with the right ________ but also seasoned it with her love. She was a true ________ when it came to cooking and truly wise when it came to living. I still ________ her every single day and I am so thankful for all the ________ she taught me. Life is so much tastier when you ________ it with joy. Be the chef of your own life then.

5 . How to make Chinese pancakes

Chinese pancakes, also known as “spring pancakes”, can be used in many different ways in Chinese cooking. You can use these pancakes to wrap moo shu pork, Peking duck or any other meat or vegetables you like.     1    

To make Chinese pancakes, first you should gather the ingredients (原料). You need 2 cups of flour, I cup of boiling water and 2 teaspoons of cooking oil.

Then, in a large bowl, combine the flour and boiling water, starting with 3/4 cup of water. Begin stirring (搅拌) it immediately, adding a little more water at a time until a shaggy dough (表面粗糙的面团) forms.     2     If the dough sticks to your hands, add some flour. Then leave the dough in the bowl for 20 minutes.

    3     Cut the dough in half to form 2 balls. Use a lightly floured rolling pin (擀面杖) to roll each half out until it is 1/4-inch thick. Afterwards, use a cookie cutter to cut out 3-inch circles of dough. Brush 1/4 teaspoon of oil over the top of 2 dough circles. Lay one pancake on top of the other, so that the oiled sides are together.

Roll out the pancakes together to form a 6-inch circle.     4     By the way, don’t forget to cover the prepared pancakes with a slightly wet towel, which can keep them from drying out while you are preparing the remaining dough.

Finally, heat a frying pan over a medium heat. Add one of the pancake pairs and cook until browned on both sides.     5     Remove the paired pancakes from the pan and pull them apart while they are still hot. Cover the pancakes to keep them warm. Continue with the remainder of the pancakes. Serve immediately.

6 . Rosario’s Peruvian Restaurant in Longmont has become well-known in the Denver metro area (都会区), Colorado over the last 10 years. The restaurant’s owner Rosario Cardenas spends seven days a week at her beloved restaurant, joking that she calls it her “baby”. But how she made the restaurant a success is no joke at all. It is her determination and passion to turn a vision into reality.

Rosario’s is a little place but for the last decade it has been serving up big, bold flavors from recipes Cardenas brought with her from her home in Perú—recipes that have helped her solidify a status for many as the best Peruvian restaurant in the Denver metro area.

As a former teacher and school principal, cooking used to be just a hobby. But when she immigrated to the U.S., she couldn’t use her education degree here, so she decided to use her talents to share her country’s unique dishes with her new community. “I have always said, if you can dream it, you can achieve it, and for me, the restaurant was my dream,” Cardenas said.

Rosario’s isn’t just about delicious food, it’s also serving up slices of Peruvian culture. It’s part of Cardenas’ vision to help customers feel like they’ve taken a trip to her home country. At her restaurant, she created a concept on her menu called “tours”, where guests can have samples of all kinds of Peruvian dishes.

Cardenas has regular Latino (拉丁美洲人) customers who will drive special three to four hours, some even from Wyoming, not just to enjoy her cooking but also to find a restaurant that represents their own culture in the metro area.

“Food is a great way to connect, not just with the Peruvian community, but every single community. We have people from Mexico, Columbia, from all parts of South and Latin America.” Cardenas explained, “So, having me and my restaurant be that connection between these people and their culture and their heritage, I think it’s just beautiful.”

7 . When I graduated from college and moved to Washington, D.C., in 2017, I left all of my friends behind. Treating new associates with home-cooked meals was my best attempt at making new friends and curing my loneliness. Soon enough, everyone was asking me for the recipes(食谱), which is how Bun Bo Bae, my Vietnamese cooking blog, came into being in 2019.

I’ve probably been destined(注定的) to start a food blog. I spent most of my childhood in the kitchen with my mom. As a child, I’d sit and watch her cook. My duties started with just passing her the ingredients(配料). Soon, I was measuring, steaming and stir-frying my way toward kitchen mastery. I left for college before I could learn my mom’s best dishes.

Studying abroad, I was desperately homesick in the beginning. So, I started calling my mom and asking for the recipes for my favorite dishes. It turns out that my mom doesn’t have any recipes. She grew up in the kitchen with her mom too, and my grandma passed on her knowledge orally(口头地).

Bun Bo Bae was initially a space for me to put what I learned into writing. I didn’t want all of the secret knowledge behind dishes like my mom’s bún bò hué (a spicy beef and pork noodle soup that inspired the blog’s name) or my dad’s thit bǎm sôt cà chua (a pork-based tomato sauce) to vanish one day if the oral tradition ended. I wanted to write down every piece of advice I was given in detail to make sure people could keep creating these dishes as authentically as possible. As my food blog and follower count grew, so did my confidence in the kitchen.

Bun Bo Bae also promoted my confidence at work. I taught myself social media and web building, and the skills helped me land my job at NPR (National Public Radio), where one of my recipes was served in Sound Bites. I even hosted a cooking class for my colleagues to celebrate AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Heritage Month.

8 . Lilly and Audrey are younger than most cookbook authors. But they have been developing their kitchen skills for more than half their lives. When they had just learned to walk, they loved to hang out in the kitchen while their parents cooked dinner. At age 5, they made their first dish without help: pumpkin muffins.

Audrey can still remember the way the muffins rose in the oven (烤箱), the painful wait for them to cool and the sweetness of the fresh-made treats. “It was super exciting to make something so delicious almost all on our own,” she says.

Their parents are not very skilled at cooking, so Lilly and Audrey turned to other people for cooking advice. Auspiciously, they live in Sonoma, California, an area that is known for its farms and restaurants. One local cook gave the twins (双胞胎) lessons on cooking techniques, such as how to use knives; those classes taught Lilly and Audrey how to use kitchen tools safely.

In 2009, they started a blog (博客), on which they share photos and recipes (菜谱) they have created. Though the twins love creating sweet foods such as muffins, they also think about healthy food. They hope their cookbook will encourage kids to make better food choices by making them more knowledgeable.

“Knowing more about your food and where it comes from certainly causes you to know more about what you eat and to put the best food in your body,” Lilly says. That has been true for her. Lilly used to avoid eggplant at all costs, until one day she tried cooking it for herself. Now it’s one of her favorite vegetables. “If you make something yourself and give it a try, you’ll probably like it,” she says.

9 . Do Lobsters Feel Pain?

The traditional method for cooking a lobster (龙虾) — boiling it alive — raises the question of whether or not lobsters feel pain.     1    . Lobsters go bad very quickly after they die, and eating a dead lobster increases the risk of illness and reduces the quality of its flavor. However, if lobsters are capable of feeling pain, the method and others, such as storing the live lobster on ice, raise moral questions for chefs and lobster eaters alike.

    2    . Lobsters have a peripheral system like humans, but instead of a single brain, they possess nerve cluster (神经簇). Because of this difference, some researchers argue lobsters are too dissimilar to vertebrates (脊椎动物) to feel pain. Nonetheless, lobsters do satisfy all of the standard for a pain response. Lobsters guard their injuries, learn to avoid dangerous situations, respond to anesthetics, and are believed to possess some level of consciousness. So most scientists believe that injuring a lobster causes physical pain.

    3    , so it is now becoming illegal to boil lobsters alive or keep them on ice. Currently, boiling lobsters alive is illegal in Switzerland, New Zealand, and the Italian city Reggio Emilia.

The most humane tool for cooking a lobster is the CrustaStun. This device electrocutes a lobster, making it unconscious in less than half a second or killing it in 5 to 10 seconds.     4    .

Unfortunately, the CrustaStun is too expensive for most restaurants and people to afford. Some restaurants place a lobster in a plastic bag and place it in the freezer for a couple of hours, during which time it loses consciousness and dies.     5    , but it is probably the most humane option for killing a lobster before cooking and eating it.