Thank You Mrs. Neilson

That's my best friend, Warren. We grew up across the street from each other, but back then, he didn't have monkey friends, just a Chinaman. Every Thanksgiving, I think about someone I'm thankful for and this year, it's his Mom, Mrs. Neilson. Warren’s family was a big influence on my taste in food. I used to hate Thanksgiving and Christmas at home, but the Neilson’s taught me how to celebrate and in a lot of ways, what it was to be American.

It began with Warren eating at our house most week days. The kid was so damn hungry all the time, he'd eat at our house around 6 and then at his house around 9 cause they ate later. My mans never rang the door bell, we gave him the garage code so he just walked in the side door and right into the kitchen. Every time like clock work, it'd surprise the shit out of my Mom, but we’d set him up a plate, a chair, and some chopsticks, which he got really good at cause he actually followed instructions unlike myself. My Mom used chopsticks the wrong way holding them with her knuckles instead of fingers so I picked up the bad habits. Warren learned from my Dad and those red chopstick paper instructions though so he was pretty ill. I remember my brothers or Mom mumbling in Chinese, “This guy is taking the food so fast!” Me and my Dad loved it though. Warren was the only American that'd come to our house, try our food, understand, and appreciate it with gusto.

Before meeting Warren, I remember Thanksgiving at our house would consist of hot pot or some strange spread of sauteed Chinese items, cranberry sauce cause Mom liked it, sweet potato casserole from Boston Market, and sushi from Publix cause I guess it really made the table pop. A lot of friends I talked to like my homegirl, Kassie, STILL eat hot pot every year for Thanksgiving. You go girl. These days my Jamaican friends have turkey but it’s flanked by ox tail, beef patties, rice and peas, cabbage, etc. Simon and Kenny, the Fukes haha, have turkey with lobster steamed over e-fu noodles, salt fish fried rice, and dumplings. But at the time, I felt left out of the American experience and really didn’t like Thanksgiving until I went to Warren’s. Every Thanksgiving, I’d walk in through Warren’s garage door and get hammered by the smell of roast turkey, chicken cacciatore, biscuits, boudin balls, and of course Mrs. Neilson’s green bean casserole with fried onions on top. That was her dish. I remember seeing it come out of the oven with golden fried bits of onions on top, covering this stack of fresh green beans mixed in with cream of mushroom. It was a simple dish, but somehow just perfect. The savory, meaty, umami like flavor coming from the mushrooms, the body from the cream, texture from fried onions, and the snap of the green beans. I took an entire plate home to my Mom that had a bit of every thing.

“Mom, look it’s Thanksgiving!”
“Oh, I don’t want American food.”
“Try it! It’s really good! I promise.”
“No, no, no, American food makes me feel funny. Too much salt and cream.”
“Mom, come on, you are missing out! I ate it and it’s awesome.”
“Fine, fine, fine, what’s this?”
“Green bean casserole.”
She was sitting at the kitchen table just drinking tea so I put the plate down and she picked around the green beans with her chopsticks. Lifted it to her mouth, took a whiff, and bit it carefully.
“Oh! Oh! Oh my God! What is this?”
“I told you! Green bean casserole.”
“Casser-who?”
“Casserole, mom. Like when Cantonese people put stuff in clay pots. That’s a casserole.”
“What’s it mean though?”
“I dunno, it’s just casserole.”
That was me with cooking terms to this day. I can identify a casserole, but I still can’t tell you what it actually means and I’m too stubborn to look it up.
“We need more! How do we make this casserole?”
“I don’t know, I’ll call Warren.”

Later that day, Warren came over with a huge dish of green bean casserole for my Mom. He was so happy she liked it since she was so picky most of the time. For the first time, my Mom was eating food from a non-Chinese home and she loved it. After that day, I started taking over Thanksgiving and Christmas cooking at our house. Every other day of the year it's Mom, but on those days, it's my kitchen thanks to Mrs. Neilson and her green bean casserole. Every year, we make her dish and every year we think of her. Wherever you are Mrs. Neilson, I hope Warren is there to tell you the Huangs love you, and we're thinking of you.

Always,

Eddie

Tales from Canal

Eddie Huang, "Tales from Canal Street" from Eater NY on Vimeo.

Reebok

Nightcall

Things on Eater usually don't bother me. I've been called a chink and they've taken it down even though I told them they should keep it up. Racism is every where and the only way to deal with it is to see it. I don't mind people who talk shit about me, Baohaus, Asians in general, etc. If we were to keep count, I spit more fire than anyone so it's part of the game. But, humor is only really good when there's truth to it... Tragedy is easy, comedy is hard. So, if yall are going to come correct, let's get a few things right.

It's blatantly unfair for people to expect individuals from a certain race to speak a certain way and any deviation from that speech pattern is an attempt at being something else. Language is 100% learned and conditioned behavior. The way you speak, if it's real, is a collection of your experiences, the people you've met along the way, the people those people met, and the things you've seen and heard. Without YOUR language, what do you have? The reason we don't have a National Language is because there are a few good men/women still out there who understand this is an immigrant country and language is at the root of it. You are fool to think that you are SUPPOSED to speak a certain way. Language is your opportunity to be yourself and represent the things you stand for. If you read military history or strategy, one of the first things conquerors do is convert the natives to their language. It's a disgusting, nasty, imperialist technique but it cuts right to the core and rips your native tongue out. When you tell people to "speak" like they're supposed to, that is what you're trying to do. Luckily, I'm not a basic bitch who succumbs to it.

When I write, I am cognizant of my word choice. Every thing is done with malicious intent, other wise I'd just be throwing darts and you best mother fuckin' believe, I'm shootin' every time I write. If you aren't cognizant of word choice, you're a fool and you should stop writing. I have gone so far as looked up the root and history of words and if I don't like what it comes from, I won't use it. If a certain word is something that has been "claimed" by a reference group I don't subscribe to, I don't use it. I'm fuckin' word certain.

I left the law because I didn't want to work in an industry I couldn't culturally identify with. It had every thing to do with social strata and corporate conditioning. White shoe firms break you down as individuals and make you a robot in their world using the words they've reserved for that industry. There are entire books on "Legal Writing" and how you're supposed to write. I refused to work in a place where there was no room for artistic expression, shit was just cold. Before you know it, you move the way they move and think like a hooker with a corner office. I met a lot of good people and there wasn't anything wrong with individuals, it was the rules of engagement in that business that I couldn't get down with.

The only reason I'm saying this and giving you any sort of insight is because it's blatantly unfair to people in general to suggest that there is a prescribed method of action because of skin. Anyone who made it to 10th grade got a lesson on nature v. nurture. I'm sure a lot of you can understand how tattoos or clothing are the things you show the world to identify yourself, but, nothing you do says more about you than the first time you open your mouth and say a word. From Pygmalion to My Fair Lady to the first time we heard Nas say "Straight out the fuckin' dungeons of rap..." we understood that the first google maps were your mother fucking words. Yiddish, Chingrish, Ebonics, Boricua, whatever it is you speak, sing that shit. The next time you come to me with this rotten banana/twinkie bullshit, put your computer on death and come to 238 e14th St so I can show you where the fuck I'm from.



Now, if you have nothing better to do than make fun of the kid, here are a few good ones

1) I have large aereolas

2) I love the McRib

3) I sing Justin Bieber at karaoke

4) I still want to fuck Lil' Kim

5) I'm a Knick fan

6) I thought Jin was going to go platinum

7) I think Cam'ron is one of the top 5 rappers of all time

8) When I sweat it smells like orange chicken

9) I once bought these boots and thought it was a good idea

10) I'm convinced there's a shawty out there for me who has pussy that tastes like red and green gummy bears... where you at?

PAY STUDENT ATHLETES

The NCAA is weighing $2000 grants to help student athletes with the actual cost of attending college. I like it, but to me, it's still not enough. The athletes playing football and basketball bring so much revenue to top-50 schools, it's straight robbery that they don't share in it. But, schools are balking because its a significant investment since every single student athlete is being included in the proposal. You've seen those commercials they run during Saturday College Football games "I'm a Student Athlete" and it shows a bunch of random olympic sports no one pays attention to trying to convince us that all athletes are created equal. They're not. And if you disagree, please tell me how many Javelin throwing meets you've been to this year.

I understand that there are principles and ideals involved with college education and that you don't want to show students that some sports are valued more than others or some individuals are more important, but it's childish. In four years, when these people go into the real world, it will become very apparent that there is a social hierarchy when the only cross country running this athlete's going to do is down 10 floors to Starbucks and back. If under water basket weaving doesn't bring in TV revenue, well, they probably shouldn't get the $2000 grant.

Colleges are a business. Why is it that colleges want to pretend they aren't business when it comes to student athletes? It's business when they negotiate with faculty, it's business when they bring Chick-Fil-A into the school, and it's business when they ask alumni for cash. But, it's all about the moral high road when explaining why the school should reap the benefits of TV Revenue but the athletes should be happy they get a "priceless" education for free. Look assholes, this is propaganda. Education is NOT priceless. Any parent or kid on loans can tell you there is a VERY tangible price tag to school. And there is a very REAL collection agency that gets on your ass when you can't pay it. Stop fucking around and keep it real. Every one with a US News and World Report magazine knows how much each college costs. How is it that the media gobbles up this Hallmark Card defense about how education is priceless?

I don't even use most of my educations. Yea, my educations, cause I got more than two of them joints. "Boise State president Robert Kustra urged supporters of the plan to look at the support that Division I student athletes receive, and compare it to 'the rest of our students, who are making minimum wage, collecting tips, trying to find their way into their next semester at the university ... Go back and examine the life of a student athlete in intercollegiate sports in America today, and see how privileged they are to be where they are and the opportunities they have.'"

Yo Kustra, I'm going to use my legal education for a hot second and make a few distinctions for you:

1) Your bus-boy student makes money collecting tips for HIMSELF. No one is broadcasting his 8 hour shift at Shoney's refilling ketchup bottles just like no one broadcasted me stealing sweet potato casserole at Boston Market. You get no revenue from people buying Denny's jerseys cause no one fucking wants a Denny's jersey with some kid's name on it from Creative Writing 101.

2) Your student athletes ARE directly making money for your school through ticket, jersey, memoribilia, tv, radio, and ad sales amongst a myriad of other things. They are also indirectly making money for your school by raising attendance because no one fucking heard of Boise State besides Matthew Barney before you cracked the top-25 a few years back.

3) I went back and examined the life of a student athlete at Boise State and I'm pleased to announce that it is an entirely unprivileged position and their are no opportunities. What the fuck are they going to do after they stop playing football? Pick potatoes? If you google the words: "Boise Job Market" the second hit is a link to the discussion "BOISE JOB MARKET DEAD?"

So yea, Kustra, eat a bowl of blue pubes.

Lastly, if none of my appeals to logic strike a nerve. Just watch the video of De'Sean Butler at the top blowing out his knee for his University. He got paid ZERO for that game and saw his future go down the tubes. Don't tell me that he "got an education" dude should have gone to the NBA when he was 19 and got paid.

New Complex Article!

Peep the new article up on Complex. I hit 3 restaurants in DC: Peking Gourmet, Fast Gourmet, and Toki Underground.

Blunted in the Walk-In

I woke up two weeks ago and thought to myself, why don’t the magazines or websites I read have restaurant reviews? And if they did, what would I want them to look like? Would Benzino want a review of No Pork on My Fork for the Source? #SantanaMoment #AlliterationHomie

So, I hit up Noah, Jack, and Ross at Complex. By 3pm today, you'll see our new column in Complex’s City Guide: Blunted in the Walk-In. I’m going to break a lot of the rules. It’s probably not possible to eat in the city anonymously at this point so that’s out the window. I will be quoting dining guests, and I’ll also ask other diners in the restaurant for their opinions. In essence, you'll hear the room.

It has a different purpose than other restaurant reviews. In fact, it’s not really a restaurant review. It’s more a recap of a night out. First, like all writing should, it will seek to entertain. Second, it will inform our generation. If you don’t get the references, that’s your problem. A lot of us grew up reading shit that referenced actors and movements that we have no connection to, so, it’s our turn. Third, it will give you a blueprint to navigate a night out at that particular restaurant. The goal of the column is to show people how best to enjoy a meal in that space. Going out is supposed to be fun. I think a lot of people go out on a quest to do their best impression of professional critics. They pick, diagnose, and at the end forget what they came for. I know what I came for: jokes, money, cash, hos. We have no idea where this exercise ends up. It could last 3 weeks or 3 years, but there’s no agenda and we’re gonna let it ride.

Stream of conscious raps, yes
Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Lil’ Wayne, T.S.
If you thought terror squad, then I’m sorry, God bless.