The Blue Notebook
autoportrait by the author
Editor’s Note:
The following text is an excerpt from The Blue Notebook, a notebook documenting the family recipes of Zhang Shuzhen, a retired middle school teacher, and writings of her grandson, Jiang Chen, a research marine-biologist at the University of Qingdao.
Born in 1940, Zhang Shuzhen has spent her entire life in Zhenjiang, a harbor city which lies on the southern bank of Yangtze River. In 1967, during The Cultural Revolution, students at Zhang’s school organized a strike, traveling to Beijing to in support of Chairman Mao’s leadership. As a result, Zhang devoted her free time in homecooking, recording her personal recipes of traditional southern Chinese cuisine on the front pages of the notebook.
Gingko, Snow Peas, Water Chestnuts
1. Find water chestnuts
2. Peel, cut in half
3. Wash snow peas in cold water
4. Boil gingko seeds until they burst
4. Stir-fry peas in hot oil
5. Add water chestnuts, gingko
6. Add salt, sugar, corn starch, chicken stock
7. Reduce
Pickled Vegetables
1. Set sliced carrots, radishes, and cucumbers aside
2. Cover with salt
3. Heat water, sugar, white vinegar into a clear broth
4. Mince ginger, little chilis
5. Add into broth
6. Drain vegetables
7. Mix all ingredients in a clay pot
8. Store in shade
Steamed Ribbonfish
1. Remove gills and innards
2. Still a whole fish
3. Marinade in cooking wine, ginger, leeks
4. Add sesame oil
5. Boil water
6. Steam fish over boiling pot
7. Serve when water is almost gone
Candied Lotus Root
1. Peel lotus root
2. Cut off root of the root
3. Add water, brown sugar, dried goji in a pot
4. It’s a syrup
5. Cook lotus root in syrup
6. Serve when very soft
In 2008, the notebook was discovered by Zhang’s Grandson, Jiang. While researching on shellfish farms in various locations along the Oriental Coast, he repurposed the notebook as his journal and planner on the back pages of the notebook.
Upon publication, the translator wishes to remain anonymous.
Feb. 8 2008
Speculation:
Big boats
So the bay was shallow
Should I write a novel?
Noon Salinity lab test #1
(18 samples)
I like the way she says estuary
I bought her lollipops
3:30 Meet with professor Liu
Show him a random chart
From capsoid to coccoid
I thought those algae only grow in cold water
He said no
Feb. 26 2008
Hard substratum beneath the sediment
Artificial reefs
10:00 Basketball match
(We lost)
Stay away from the pelicans
4:00 pH test #2
Chlorophyll measured as a variant
Alkaline is blue
Mar. 5 2008
Subjects:
Predatory urchins
Various mussels washed ashore
11:00 Salinity lab test #6
West of water:
Strata
(Tell the age by how wet they are)
Bivalves as ecology’s threshold
I wish I knew
Idea for a novel:
A farmer, whose left eye was stung by a bee,
lost half of his vision. On a melon field,
all the plowing has gone oblique.
3:00 Fish samples arrive at dock
There must be a peal in one of those oysters
Mar. 29 2008
In the intertidal zone
Light becomes consumable energy
at an instant
I won’t question it
Saw her crossing bridge
with a small cactus
10:00 Anatomy lab #2
Sectioned specimen
A little pressure on the tentacles
5:00 Data filing
There’s an easier way to estimate
the amount of oxygen dissolved per cubic meter or to count the bubbles
Idea for a novel:
Mushrooms. (Maybe a chapel)
Cauliflower Stir-fry
1. Take apart the cauliflower
2. Rinse in cold water
3. Mince garlic, ginger
4. Remove seeds from green peppers, cut into chunks
5. Stir-fry cauliflower, peppers in hot oil
6. Add garlic, ginger, water
7. Reduce
April. 8 2008
Haliotis rufescens:
Orangey sea snail
Recurrent on a different coast
Idea for a novel:
Toward the end of his career, there’re still things
the florist has yet to grow. Trumpet blossoms,
for instance. Or the ear-shaped buds
that are merely transplants.
10:30 Pigment analysis
three parts solution
one part dye
She’s already at the sea
Rice, Pumpkin, Dates
1. Soak rice twice in a pot
2. Discard the water
3. Skin, cut pumpkin into chunks
4. Remove the pits of dates
5. Add pumpkin, dates onto rice
6. Cover with water
7. Cook as usual
(This page is intentionally left blank)
July. 4 2008
Coral assemblage:
Transparent lining
Some cellular units strained within
9:30 Anatomy lab #5
Discard everything but green
Case study:
In a landlocked country
The presence of these two species
doesn’t prove so much
4:00 Grant meeting
Dinner at department
Seven inches isn’t long for a clam
I’ve seen it
July. 19 2008
Within a reliable kelp forest
Sufficient labor yields in every temperature
9:30 Turbidity lab test #3
I could barely care
Idea for a novel:
Porcelains in the dark room.
3:00 Field study
Shuhai: home of the most handsome sturgeon
Submerged in 1976
Now there’s only precipice
Chicken & Winter Melon Soup
1. Slice ginger, winter melon
2. Blanch a small hen, side aside
3. Bring water to boil
4. Add chicken, yellow wine
5. Add in ginger, sugar, star anise, dried mushrooms
6. Turn to low heat
7. Add water, salt
8. Repeat
9. Add winter melon
10. Serve tomorrow
July. 24 2008
Post-monsoon:
Scheduled harvest
Acres of microfauna on the outskirt
Idea for a novel:
January 1997, Lieutenant Suzuki runs away
from a warm creek. Deer follow him,
blue-collared, south-bound.
Hypothesis:
Imaginary gulf for the continent
One volcano is enough
7:15 Documentary screening
Wear a baseball cap
I don’t have a blow drier
She loves me not
bio by the poet:
Tino Zhang is a poet and painter based in Iowa City. He is currently an MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. IG: teanaux
bio by the poet’s friend:
Tino often wears a long purple leather jacket, always has poppers and is a gift to iowa city.