This is like a sport with me. I would be hungry, and turn on lifestyle channel and run into a kylie kwong marathon, and 5 minutes later be full on hate. I really don't have a problem with her actual recipes per se, it's the fact that she thinks it's Chinese cooking. If she would just own up to the fact that, being 5th generation Australian, there is actually very little Chinese left in her apart from the way she looks. Her training has been largely accredited to Niel Perry, who is well respected for being the grandaddy of fusion cooking in Australia. Fusion, not actually Asian, and especially not attributed to any particular country, let alone region. Now in comes kylie, using her Chinese looks and a part and partial knowledge of asian cooking ingredients that are widely available, in Safeway no less, (namely sesame oil, peanut oil and yellow wine which she calls chinese cooking wine, there's about 20 different varieties of chinese cooking wine but what gives right? she only can see the one that gets sold here.) and automatically gets three tv series deals, lifestyle food marathons and books that offensively overtake my Borders.
She doesn't seem to understand that Chinese food as we know it in Australia is largely Cantonese cooking, and she lumps everything together and calls it Chinese. Her palette is quite tame, just because she likes chicken feet, which frankly most of my white friends love, she thinks herself quite daring.
here are some instances:
*She was making san choi bao and she made up some crap about Chinese vegetarianism. which was utter crap, because unless you have the shaved head of a monk, vegetarianism is looked upon with utmost horror, and you'd starve in most places you go. Then as she was preparing the the bok choy she said "choy means green in Chinese, and it's spelled c-h-o-y". there are about 3 things wrong with that. First choy is in Cantonese, it means vegetables, it has no spelling but it's transliterated and not in English, where it is in turns spelled with either a "y" or an "i", and is in fact the same choy as san "choi" bao. Oh and it really doesn't belong IN a san choi bao.
*She then goes on about how there's two types of noodles, egg and rice. she couldn't be more wrong. Just the sheer fact that pasta originated in China and was brought over by Marco Polo would give you a pretty good clue that there are probably some rocking flour noodles in Chinese cooking. I am 350% sure she has never tasted a proper bowl of Eastern Chinese noodle soup. I've been looking forever in Melbourne for a decent bowl and it just doesn't exist. Even Shanghai (the hodge podge mecca of everything that it is) doesn't do it justice. You really have to venture out to Chang Shu, and more specifically to a place that used to exist down the street from where I grew up, for the most amazing mouth orgasm of your life. Every winter I dream of having some hot lamb noodle soup, and it is my absolute favourite thing. It was something I used to share with my grandfather, a love for noodles. I'm always going to miss that.
*Hypocrisy upon hypocrisy, she landed in Shanghai (a land of her past, a place she's never been to but feels like she "knows") and refused to try the stinky tofu. Failing to recognise the stinky tofu for what it is, actually discredits her as a foodie let alone chef.
*and now she's going on about making a Chinese iceberg lettuce salad. Honey please, there is no iceberg lettuce in China, they don't even know what it is. It gets imported to Hong Kong where they use it primarily for san choi baos and that's it. That's as far as the lettuce is used in all of "chinese cooking"
*"Everywhere I go I see familiar tastes and smells" as the camera lingers on a shot of takoyaki. yup. Japanese octopus balls. She didn't even know what they were.
*shen jian bao, pan fried Shanghai mini pork buns. I especially love how whenever she comes across any cooking or food preparation she likes to explain what it is to the camera without asking anyone about it and make comments like "the quality of a pork bun, is shown in how many pleats it has". Absolute bollocks. It merely shows the delicacy of the wrap. Oh and then she made deepfried wontons, which was created by American takeaway Chinese menus as a giveaway item.
my laptop is about to give out so I'll stop it there, and I'll turn the t.v. off. But SHUT UP KYLIE, YOU'RE NOT CHINESE. STOP PRETENDING!
All asians are by nature foodies, and anyone with any knowledge knows how much of a hack she is, she is catered to those suburban housewives wanting to add a little ethnic to her weekly rotation, and it just kinda sorta makes me sick.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Hating Kylie Kwong
Saturday, March 08, 2008
mock jeans
It's about time i made a new post. throughout the last couple of weeks i kept making mental notes on whines and moans to crap on about but really can't be bothered now. first order of business, a spot of geeklicious widgetry. to the left, under my pretty twitter badge, is a drop.io widget. through this you can send me anything you want, pictures, videos, music, documents, and i won't know who it's from. if it starts filling up i could just create a new free account of 100mbs. if it gets good enough i might publish the link where it all gets collected. the site is a really neat idea, you could even leave voicemail for me, it'll be an expensive call to new york to get it into my folder but that's not that much through the magic of skype. probably cheaper than leaving a message on my mobile even. anyway that's enough advertising for them. (and of course all this excitement is happening on the blog and not the facebook imported note)
the mental notes that i have basically consisted of bitching about how astoundingly bad cashmere mafia is (the production value of hollywood blockbusters, with the look and feel of soft core porn and playtime for lucy liu in costumes. lethal lethal mix), how surprisingly entertaining So You Thing You Can Dance Australia is (rhys, the resident flaming queer is the very same M.A.C. makeup artist that helped me pick out my base and powder shades), and horror upon horror, the leggins made to look like pants phenomenon that comatosed me before christmas, is now sweeping box hill, and most likely the nation, available at all good asian owned sock stands in shopping centers. 
that's a pretty bad phone picture, so they might look like denim, but rest assured they all have the spandex and fake stitching of leggings. someone needs to bleed for this atrocity, and my finger is pointed at not linds lo, but people who do exercise. people who think a pair of nike's means it's ok to wrap your lumps in something black and stretchy and go out into daylight.
It was also the opening night of the French Film Festival last night, the full force of Palaise du Como was armed at the ready. finishing at quarter to two and having close to half a bottle of champagne down my shoe, the most unpleasant moment would still have to be when the greased back hair'd first born spawn to the zeccola legacy, my boss's boss, man who runs the Film division of the Palace family said to me (as i was passing trays of food around being attacked by vultures on all sides) "i just want you to stand next to me you're so beautiful". there. it's out on the internet now, i feel better.
thinking of having another movie night sometime in the near future. volunteer your most forlorn dates and we'll hug it out with chips and experimental cinema. speaking of which, my personal demi-god, felicity colman is keeping a new blog for her class this year at screen machine. the lastest lecture apparently touched on Gordon Matta-Clarke whice i blogged about not too long ago, but she included movies! so here i am shamlessly ripping off flick ripping off ubuweb.
Splitting (1974), Conical Insert (1975), City Slivers (1976).
