Steaming Vegetables

Steamers. Bamboo vs. steel? My bamboo steamer is broken.

Steaming vegetables is a healthier route, because it’s not cooking as such. It’s a nudge, just a nudge: put carrots or broccoli in the steamer, go and answer the door, let visitors in and remove the pot from the stove. They are cooked. I kid you not. Of course, time varies. Sweet potatoes need a little nudge, but potatoes take longer in the steamer.

What happens if your steamer gets tired, calls it quits? As you can see in this blog photo, the bamboo is loose. I wonder how they fix it in Yunnan, one of the 22 provinces in China, because steamers are as old as their mountains. They use them to cook dim sum, which looks like little dumplings and a whole lot of other things.

It was time to get a new steamer, because this loose piece might stab me when I wash it. I found this basket one. It doesn’t have two levels like the Chinese one, but it will do. I can put two vegetables that need the same nudge nudge e.g. snap beans and pumpkin. How about prawns and asparagus? As for me, asparagus is a no-go area. Let me live a little, and not kill myself with eating upright weeds.

People who live on the internet, literally live there might not agree with steaming food. Some of them are into a no-cooking diet. No heat of any kind. Power to them, but I’m like the character in Big Business, an old movie starring Bette Milder. A man from a small U.S. town looked at the sushi the New York waitress placed before him and said.

“Maam, can you put a fire to it?”

Nonqaba waka Msimang

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