Author Jiang Qing picking mushrooms in the forest, (Ya Nan/Photo)
On May 2, 2020, I opened the computer at my home in Sweden early in the morning, and saw Wang Dong's letter from New York: "I just heard that Yu Lihua died of the new crown virus, it is very sad, after all, a friend, it seems that no matter how expensive the nursing home is, the collective life is still not good, I will never enter the nursing home in the future..." I was stunned by this sudden bad news, and spent the whole day in divine sadness and sorrow. Pear Hua's cheerful and lively voice and smile, and our interactions for nearly half a century, have always flashed in front of our eyes and minds.
According to an open letter from LiHua's younger brother Yu Zhonghua, we can know that Yu Lihua began to feel unwell about a week ago. The son is an infectious disease specialist, the eldest daughter is a senior medical reporter for the Washington Post, the child and brother decided not to send Li Hua to the hospital to suffer, and finally the doctor prescribed painkillers, so she did not suffer too much, and died at home at about 11 pm on April 30, 2020.
I think this is the greatest blessing in misfortune, what a rational and wise humane decision. They felt that the only regret was that when Li Hua passed away, her relatives could not say goodbye to her and wish her a good journey. Seeing this open letter from Yu Zhonghua, and later learning that one of the nurses had infected her with the virus, made me even more restless, thinking that my cousin's brother-in-law recently died in New York, did not go to the hospital in time after getting the new crown virus, and died in the hospital just two weeks later without my family. He was in middle age, leaving behind his beloved wife, children and all his relatives and friends, and I cried out for him! After the epidemic began, I no longer dared to find someone to clean the apartment regularly, for fear of being infected, anyway, there were no visitors who did not care. But what about moms who have daily contact with caregivers in New York? Can I not be afraid to think of my son who is on the front line day and night?
After getting the bad news, I immediately wrote a "Lihua Dream Back to Qinghe" to commemorate her, and I wrote at the end of the article: "Dear Lihua, go all the way! Don't you always say, 'In a foreign land in the United States, I can only fall leaves and can't return to the roots'? May you return to your hometown in your sleep, the Qinghe River, listen to the whispers of the Qinghe River, and see that the Qinghe River has a long history. "Alas, how can one green on the left and one green on the right?" After writing it, I, the young man, realized it.
It was completed in the early morning of May 8th, May 8th is the second birthday of granddaughter Leah, we can't meet, I can't go to the street to buy gifts for the little baby, I've been thinking about how to celebrate?
Hanning said he would go to work on May 8, but could go home at five o'clock in the afternoon. I remembered that in previous years for Christmas, I was most afraid of eating American turkey because the meat was too woody, and I didn't like the Swedes to eat the whole roast ham dry, every time I tried to "change", The eight treasure ducks replaced the turkey, the braised leg of lamb instead of the roast ham, the result was very popular every time, and it was also a scene, 2019 Christmas Eve I spent with the Hanning family, I burned the whole braised lamb leg with white radish and carrots, Hanning took me to his house as the main dish, Leah got a piece of lamb bone, screamed happily and then grabbed it and nibbled it, Caught and photographed by her mother in time, I treasured it, and I felt sorry for the thought of seeing it, and my mother also liked this photo the most, saying to me: "Your granddaughter is only one and a half years old, how can she be as delicious as her grandmother?" "Then on her second birthday, I can also do the same, make braised leg of lamb, plus the pine nuts she likes to eat fried corn, let the baby eat a birthday meal made by grandma, isn't it very good?" Thinking it was a good idea, my son agreed to take the cooked food outside my house after work.
So I wore a mask to go to several nearby supermarkets to buy leg of lamb, but there was no stock, in fact, leg of lamb is not easy to buy, generally eat leg of lamb in autumn and winter. It turned out that there was a supermarket with stock, but it was too far away. Thinking of the well-meaning Margaret, I told her that she was celebrating Leah's second birthday, and she immediately volunteered to drive me to purchase, saying: "Leah was celebrated by her when she was one year old, and this year we can't get together because of the epidemic, but doing something is equivalent to giving her a birthday gift!" "Masks are hardly available in Sweden, so I took two packs (a pack of ten) masks sent from other regions and gave them to Margaret, and the two of us sat in her car wearing masks, looking at each other and laughing, saying in unison; "I hope the nightmare will end soon!" ”
Celebrating LiYa's second birthday, her little hand held up her grandmother's roasted leg of lamb bone and smiled.
Before talking about the dish of stir-fried corn with black pine mushrooms and pine nuts, I would like to tell a few stories about mushrooms, which is a signature dish of my family, mainly because the black pine mushrooms are collected and dried by themselves in the autumn on the island, and the special aroma is rich and the black color is also beautiful with corn. Dried black pine fungus is easy to collect, because it is self-produced and easy to bring, and I often use it as a souvenir to give to relatives and friends. Dried black pine mushrooms taste more pure and individual than fresh, and I like to make creamy mushroom soup with other picked mushrooms; grind black pine mushrooms into powder and put them in the sauce when making black pepper steak; or stir-fry them in butter and put them on toast; in Shanghainese, I mean "one ding" top croak. Fried bean sprouts, eggs, and slices of meat with fresh black pine mushrooms are delicious; roasted tofu or placed in the meat filling adds a lot of flavor. I especially like the fun of collecting mushrooms, of course, wandering in the woods and looking for foraging.
In 1977, I first learned to pick mushrooms on Lynx Island, Birell was my enlightenment teacher, which is also one of his hobbies, in order to identify mushrooms, there are at least more than ten illustrated Swedish monographs on the island, he saw that I was enthusiastic about picking mushrooms, and Bought a few English books for me, so I can study hard. From late summer to early winter, a variety of mushrooms grow in different directions on the island according to different seasons, and there are too many tricks, too much learning, too complicated to distinguish, and too high a chance of looking away. At first, I used to take a big basket and go back to the house triumphantly, and when he saw that ninety-nine percent of them could not be eaten, he always said, "You can't just look at the appearance of beautiful, and think it's good, just like looking at people..." Gradually I collected more, listened to Birrell's more troublesome analysis, became familiar with the geographical environment of the island, and began to know what kind of mushrooms could be eaten in which place and at what time, and the mushrooms below three stars, Birrell told me not to pick, saying: "The level is not enough, it is not worth eating, there is no need to waste time." "He knows my habit of cherishing food, and he will never let go easily when he sees what he can eat." Seeing my mother gleefully collecting all kinds of wild berries or mushrooms on the island with me, I would often laugh and say, "Your men are merciful, and those that cannot be harvested will be regenerated next year." "Nowadays I am sure about the seven or eight kinds of mushrooms growing on the island, but the most favorite mushroom on the island is also the most mushroom on the island - the five-star black pine fungus (Swedish: Trattkantarell), which is the black pine mushroom season from the end of September to the end of November every year, also divided into large and small years.
In the autumn of 2008, the reception after Birell's funeral was held at home, and it was Birer's repeated instructions before his death: "The reception after the funeral must let friends eat and drink well, and don't be sloppy!" "My good friends, Ingle & Åke Håkansson, are veterans of the Swedish restaurant industry, and every detail, including menus, settings and cutlery, is taken care of for me. The multi-time female conductor Kerstin Nerbe is a master of cooking, using the rich flavor of black pine mushrooms collected from the island with garlic, cream and brandy sauce, which she knows is Birrell's favorite and the most popular food for her guests, especially on The Lynx Island, which is unique in Birrell. Everyone praised the exquisite food of the reception, and I only remember the large pot of black pine mushroom sauce swept away in the blink of an eye. I said, "This is Birell's last feast, and I am just fulfilling the entrustment he has entrusted to me..."
After Birrell left, I returned to Live in New York after the usual summer, first, my mother was old in New York and had not come to Sweden in recent years, although she was obsessed with island life and the Swedish Midsummer Festival; second, in New York I was in love with the theater to see all kinds of performances, listen to music, watch opera, plus a variety of galleries and museums, not to mention a variety of delicious restaurants. Autumn and winter live in New York, have missed the mushroom picking season on Lynx Island for many years, it seems that this year I will stay in Sweden, I did not expect that the epidemic actually has a positive side - leave me to pick mushrooms, looking forward to this year is a big year.
This is a very dramatic story about eating mushrooms, many years have passed, the parties are together, and whenever they talk about the shocking things that happened in that year, they can't help but laugh.
In the 1990s, I was busy choreographing and solo performing in various places, and I had very little time at home in Sweden, but if I came back, I would always care about my friend who had come to Sweden as a visiting scholar for a year, and Göran Malmqvist often needed to pay attention to after the death of his wife Chen Ningzu. Therefore, one day I proposed to invite a distant friend and Ma Yueran and a few friends in the sinology circles who could talk about it to have a light meal at home, Birrell had just gone to New York, we could talk about Chinese, more free and happy.
In order to show the sincerity of hospitality, it is also a bit flavorful. The first dish served that day was creamy mushroom soup, the main course of which was grilled on the table. First, I was too busy to list authentic Chinese food, and second, to chat, if the guests came to the table to eat and the host was in the kitchen, it was really annoying. Before the meal, I happily chatted with the guests upstairs and drank a lot of whiskey. When they went downstairs for dinner, they praised the mushroom soup as delicious, and I estimated that the soup was probably less cooked, so I tasted it so that the guests could eat it happily.
Ma Yueran was in the study.
Before dinner, Mette Siggstedt of the Oriental Museum felt unwell and asked to spend the night in her guest room, closing the door without dessert. The other guests also seemed to have a good time and chatted, and after the meal, everyone left together.
Unexpectedly, the guest began to vomit as soon as he walked the virtue, and it was quite serious, and he turned back to the bathroom before returning to the bedroom from the bathroom, and as a result, I found a basin and took it to the guest room, so that she would not toss back and forth all night. In the middle of the night, Chen Maiping called and told me that he sent his friend home, and his friend couldn't help but want to throw up on the subway, and I thought that maybe he was in a bad mood recently, and drank a little more wine, didn't care, hung up the phone and fell asleep.
The next morning, Virtue could not get out of bed, she always had the habit of getting up early; Mai Ping also called me and asked me: "After sending my friends home, I also vomited a lot, will there be a problem with food?" "But my son Hanning and I are all right!" Although I replied in this way, I immediately felt that the situation was serious, and I could not take care of the jet lag, so I called New York to find Birrell for help. Birrell was woken up by the phone in his sleep, and as soon as he heard the description, he knew that it was serious food poisoning, and asked me what I had eaten? I reported them one by one, but stressed that Hanning and I were completely fine, he said: "My son does not eat mushrooms, then the problem must be on the mushrooms." What about you, didn't you drink? "Of course I drank it, but where can I not drink it?" Speaking of this, I suddenly remembered that last night I saw that the "sales" of the soup was so good, I was afraid that the portion was not enough, so I only symbolically tasted a bite, all left to the guests, so I told the truth, Birrell heard about this matter is not trivial, anxiously said: "You don't remember that I have repeatedly told you, this black trumpet mushroom can be eaten, but it must not be eaten at the same time as the wine, and it will become highly poisonous when it is matched!" As soon as I listened, I took a breath, sweating coldly, thinking of Yueran and the guests drinking one glass of whiskey before dinner, and looking back to see a pile of empty wine bottles lying in the corner of the dining room, too anxious to speak. Birrell asked me to call immediately and tell everyone to go to the hospital without delay.
As you can imagine, the situation was completely proportional to the amount of alcohol and mushroom soup drunk last night. The friend won the championship, vomited and lay in bed for a full week, and he also told Mai Ping that he thought he really couldn't survive; Ma Yueran was the runner-up, sick for more than three days, and he was anxious to find his doctor's son for help; the others did not drink too much spirits, the alcohol content of the wine was low, and after one day they could probably go to work; and I, the original culprit, was safe and sound. Later, my friend smiled and said to me, "Probably you have a good heart and a good reward!" Later, when I saw everyone again, I really had nothing to say about my carelessness except to say "I'm sorry" directly.
On my granddaughter's birthday, Hanning called me after work to say that I would leave immediately, and under normal circumstances I would come to my house within fifteen minutes, and I would take away the original pot of roasted lamb legs, leaving a small bowl of marinade and a few pieces of radish to prepare for tonight's granddaughter's longevity noodles, and I did not move the meat on the leg of lamb, so as not to destroy the "image" perfect. Even if you are not willing to be alone during the epidemic, the reality is so that you have to accept it calmly.
Putting the iron pot for leg of lamb and the box of fried corn with pine nuts on the car lane at the door, Hanning stopped to pick up the dish, I had a distance from him, and had to shout: "The dish is still hot, go home and cook the noodles immediately, eat it quickly!" "Got it, you hurry up, you're so loud, the neighbors are watching." "I don't care!" Watched his son drive away. I went upstairs to cook my granddaughter's second birthday noodles, cooked noodles in a marinade with radishes, drizzled with homemade chili oil, added some coriander, lit candles, and enjoyed a birthday party that was too simple to be easy. An hour later, on the computer, I received a photo sent by my son to their family to celebrate their daughter's birthday, including a photo of Leah smiling with a leg of lamb bone in her small hand. Looking at the granddaughter's satisfied smile in the photo, I was drunk!
Jiang Qing