beautiful duck eggs from Dog Mountain farms

a not-quite-traditional dish of preserved duck and duck egg fried rice, topped with another duck egg

pork jowl slivers with bok choy, asparagus, and spicy black bean sauce

I swore I would take the day off from the kitchen, but instead I relaxed by cooking the simple food we normally eat at home. My husband and I typically cook rustic Chinese dishes, so today he made fried rice with a preserved salted duck leg (part of the suitcase-full of Chinese ingredients my parents bring us every time they visit) and the duck eggs we bought from the farmer’s market. I made a side dish of pork jowl (which is basically guanciale in its uncured form), bok choy, and asparagus with spicy black bean sauce. This was a “clean-out-the-fridge” type of lunch, but it was delicious. I also thought it would be a nice way to introduce you to the kind of cooking we normally do at home–simple, tasty, and usually comprised of inexpensive ingredients. It is the type of food we both grew up on…I guess you could call it Chinese peasant cooking.

And what about you, dear readers–what sort of food did you grew up eating? What is the food you make most often at home?