3 . If you haven’t taken down your Christmas tree yet, no worries. Here’s an idea: have you ever thought about eating it?

Julia Georgallis has some recipes. Over the last five years, she’s been preparing carefully for Christmas dinners in London with a friend. “How can we make something sustainable around Christmas time? What can we cat? What’s the thing that no one eats and that somehow represents Christmas? And then we just decided on Christmas trees,” Georgallis says.

She turned it into a book, How to Eat Your Christmas Tree. And her idea is that it’s not that odd. Some people enjoy Christmas wine. Some people like to go shopping and most people can get behind saving the planet.

“What I aimed for this book to do, really, was to get people thinking about the odd ways that they can be more sustainable in their daily lives,” Georgallis says.

“Eating Christmas trees isn’t going to save any animals in danger or freeze any ice caps. But if we start to think about everything that we do as a whole, then that builds up, you know, and that helps,” she says.

Most of the recipes in her book use the needles from the tree. “You’d use the needles like a herb,” she says.

“And different Christmas trees kind of have different flavors. They’re quite subtle, but they do have different flavors. So fir (冷杉), which is a really popular choice of Christmas trees, gives people better feeling and atmosphere. And then you have pine, which is a little bit more delicate.”

A warning: some Christmas trees are poisonous if eaten — like cypress and cedars. And be sure your tree wasn’t sprayed with pesticides (杀虫剂) and other chemicals. “So if you have any doubt that your Christmas tree might not have been grown to eat, then maybe don’t eat it,” Georgallis says.

And, of course, don’t even think about eating your artificial tree!

So, with all those instructions and with the appropriate tree, what could we cook? Well, Georgallis’ book has all sorts of recipes for different foods and drinks. Let’s open up the world’s cuisine with simple ingredients!

4 . As a well-recognized chef, television star, and restaurant owner, Joyce Chen introduced Chinese food to America. She made such a(n) ________ impact on American culture that her photo was included on a US stamp.

Joyce Chen was born in a ________ family and discovered her enthusiasm for cooking at a very early age. Her father ________ a family chef that cooked all of their meals. Chen ________ Chinese cuisine simply by watching their chef cook in their home kitchen. By the time she was 18 years old, she organized and cooked her first ________ dinner. This was the beginning of her career in the ________ industry.

In 1949, Chen and her family moved to Massachusetts. While ________ near Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she frequently met Chinese students that ________ the food they’d grown up with. Chen’s children attended Buckingham School and she would often cook food to be served at ________ events. Her meals quickly became popular among the students. This ________ Chen to open her first restaurant in 1958. At this restaurant, she often served “buffet-style (自助式的)” meals, allowing customers to ________ samples of everything.

Chen rose to fame as a(n) ________ and began holding cooking classes. She released her first cookbook and ________ in “Joyce Chen Cooks”, her own cooking show that aired world wide. However, she began to ________ her brand by marketing various cooking items as well as ________ and selling Chinese sauces to supermarkets. In the early 1980s Chen began to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease (阿尔茨海默病) and passed away in 1994.

5 . Sean Sherman, aged 49, has dedicated his career as a _________ to celebrating Native American cuisine. For his efforts, he received the 2023 Julia Child Award, which _________ those who make a difference in how people cook and eat. He is the first Native American to be _________ with the award which comes with a $50,000 grant.

Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, was born and raised in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. When he was a teenager, his family _________ the reservation to Spearfish, South Dakota. He began working in local restaurants and fell in love with cooking.

_________ working as a cook early in his career, Sherman noticed that the food of _________ people was not featured on menus and that native American restaurants were not _________. He dedicated himself to studying his culinary _________, including learning to use clay grills, grow corn, and source local ingredients. He used what he learned to _________ The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous kitchen and to start a(n) __________ organization to teach others about indigenous food for free.

In 2021, Sherman opened Owamni, a restaurant in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that __________ modern indigenous dishes, such as venison tartare, smoked whitefish, and mushroom stew. The restaurant quickly became __________ and was named Best New Restaurant in the US in 2022 by the James Beard Foundation.

In his __________ statement on receiving the Julia Child Award, Sherman said he is a longtime __________ of Julia Child (1912-2004), a beloved chef for whom the award is __________. “I saw the impact food can have on the world through Julia,” he said. “I’m excited to continue her legacy through my work.”

8 . 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.