Jennie

Have you ever known someone who was so awkwardly charming or charmingly awkward...or so awkward that it's charming? Well, whatever her secret is, it works. Jennie identifies as American Chinese by way of Taiwan. I met her at a work conference where we sat in the same pod to table for our respective companies. I knew I liked her because she had just the right amount of cynicism and was the only one who sat with me while the lectures were going on in another room.

 

If love for small animals was a personality trait - well, that would be Jennie's. All small animals are fair game but particularly bunnies. So her dumplings obviously had to be bunny shaped (especially after seeing IG@dishwhimsy's adorable genius). I was v excited about this one too because they are so stinking cute and so simple. I mean... look at them!!!!!!!!!!! LOOK! *sobbing face emoji* with *face with heart emoji* in alternating fashion x100 (<<this, incidentally, is what most of our exchanged texts looks like).

me and jennie

me and jennie and david

UGH SO CUTE.

I almost lost track of what the actual filling should be.

Luckily, her favorite things in the world growing up were also something I'm intimately familiar with: 粽子 [zong zi]. I affectionately describe them as a Chinese tamale, but if you don't know... you really need to know. Zongzi's are a delicious mass of glutinous rice seasoned with soy sauce and enmeshed with savory or sweet fillings, wrapped in bamboo leaves, and steamed or boiled. On their own, they could also be considered a dumpling since the fillings are usually nestled into the center of a sticky rice nest.

Zongzi are traditionally eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival or 端午节 [duan wu jie] in late-May/early-June. The origins are not clearly written in stone, but the stories seem to involve someone important dying in a river, racing out in boats to find the body, and when they couldn't, dropping balls of sticky rice in the water to feed the fish. Some suggest the stories were superimposed onto the already existing traditions; some believe it's less about someone important and more about the importance of dragons; and some think it simply corresponds to the harvest of winter wheat. However it came to be, the Dragon Boat Festival is important enough to be a public holiday in China - and yes it does also involve racing dragon boats.

But Jennie grew up in the white, racist part of Florida... which meant she only really ate zongzi at home. Otherwise, people would jeer at her for eating dog food or something.

...

It was really unfortunate on many levels, but I think the part that hurt the most was now having friends who [are] willing to share this part of my culture with me.

...

This is like the siren song of all immigrant children. Ridiculed for the school lunches our parents packed just to see some of the same types of bullies laud the same types of dishes as adults *eye roll emoji*

So we should choose to be absolutely shameless about our food now.

These guys are classic wheat wrappers filled with seasoned sticky rice, three types of dried mushrooms (shiitakes + 2 rando bags I picked up at the Asian grocery because they looked fun), and boiled peanuts. Vegetarian like bunnies and Jennie (most of the time). Then steamed on carpets of bamboo leaves to get that characteristic zongzi flavor.

Simple, easy(-er than folding a tetrahedron shape), and comforting. They were so binge-able and still brought me back to waiting by the steamer, cutting the twine to gingerly unwrap the geometric bundles, maybe burning my fingers along the way. Definitely burning the roof of my mouth when I'm too impatient to wait to take a bite.

me and jennie and david ...and now dan I guess

Things I would do differently: I can't remember what the consensus was on salted egg yolk and/or how the bunnies ended up without, but they definitely needed chunks of salted egg yolk. Also they did this thing where they expanded in the steamer and then shrunk again when cooled to make wrinkly buns- I would need to remedy this too.

Jennie's complete list:

zongzi

dad's savory egg crepe thing - esp while watching weekend morning cartoons

hot dogs

mountain dew

french fries

KFC

olive garden and red lobster

mister donut

fazolis

captain d's

arby's

mcdonald's

chocolate candy bars