nostalgia_stomach ever dumbening the visceral pit of memory 011205 ... birdmad reverie reflux? 011205 ... ClairE pouch-like bag phantom limb almost a lover 011205 ... unhinged gets heavy and disturbed with the thought that childhood came to a very abrupt end with nothing to show for it but a wet t-shirt sleeve 011206 ... mental indigestion every little flashback is a little mental cud to chew 011206 ... god i vomited, then i forgot all about it. 011209 ... ever dumbening Summer, 1997. Colleen and I were preparing to head off to Chengdu on our eventual way to Lhasa. Her small-world-story friend in Beijing (someone she knew back from Granger, Indiana) Mark had lived in Chengdu. He insisted that we go to this one restaurant that had a Cultural Revolution theme. The Cultural Revolution was certainly no Great Leap Forward in terms of tree bark consumption, but it was no festival of tounedos in cream sauce with wilted greens either. So we were a bit skeptical. Apparently it had something to do with the naming of the dishes. Following directions in China is an adventure in the best of situations—signage is pretty spotty—and having to translate from one kind of Chinese to another (as our European-named language tape friends, Gubo and Palanka, were of little help in the pronunciation department when it came to toothless Sichuan residents) just added to the cirles around the lovely Stalinist streets. "Didn't we just pass that statue of Mao? Or is this a different one?" Being hungry and tired can compound the issues of orienteering as well. Rarely did we find ourselves not hungry and tired in China. There's always a reason for the doubly vexing state—from arguing over prices, to tape worms taking your hard-earned food away. Well, I never really had tape worms (just Giardia, twice), but hunger was omnipresent. Sometimes being hungry and tired can cloud one's judgement of a meal—a la Eddie Murphy's Ritz cracker (though he was really just talking about sexual droughts). But when you stumble across that one meal, or even one dish, that is just so damn perfect, you know it has nothing to do with hunger. The menu was indeed quite wonderful. Some kind soul had taken the time to translate the menu, so we could all enjoy the humor of the Cultural Revolution. [Yes, the humor of the Cultural Revolution.] The dishes all had funny plays on the old terminology in their names. Stuff about running dogs and the hearts of the enemy. Ming ming bai bai. Very clear. After all the silliness of the names settled down, along with getting a good laugh out of the guy in full Maoist regalia (not that there weren't regular folks still wearing that type of get up; but they were rare and lacking the intentional irony) it was time to order. Even with strong Chinese skills, or in this situation an actual translated menu, ordering can be tricky. A dish could be called 'golden rainbow lotus' in one restaurant and 'long life three treasures' in another and contain the exact same ingredients. We did however see the word crawfish; and since the last place called home before Beijing was New Orleans, we dove right in. Just because you know something is going to be hot doesn't always brace you for the full flaming terror. Sichuan is known for superior heat (though the Hunan folk have a funny word-play claiming an even greater affinity for culinary fire). Still, we were shocked when the dish was placed in front of us. The top layer of the bowl was a good half inch of oil. Underneath was a devillishly red-brown pasty broth surrounding nothing but crawfish tails and hot peppers. Our grinning, blue-suited cook re-emerged from the grotto-like kitchen to show us how to take a tail out, peel it, then dunk it back into hell with the chopsticks to seal the deal. Chengdu summer sweat. Pepper sweat. Tears of joy and pain. Wait, am I going into anaphylaxis? No, I just need another cold beer. Xiaojie, zai lai yi ping! It will be a long time before I forget that little bend in the street. 040107 what's it to you? who go blather from