Dim Sum Days Continued

My wife, who recently added Chinese cuisine to her ever expanding culinary prowess, decided to put on a dim sum feast to celebrate our daughter's engagement. The 2 test runs went well as did the excursion to 99 Ranch (or Ranch 99, I'm not sure which), an Asian supermarket in the Pacific East Mall located in the adjacent town of Albany. 99 Ranch is a cook's fantasyland, with aisle after aisle of exotic foodstuffs including an entire aisle devoted to noodles in every form imaginable (Italy's got nothing on China) and a fresh seafood department that looks like the Monterey Aquarium with all kinds of strange and familiar fish - big and small - swimming in tanks, and as many again lying out on ice appearing as thought they had been caught that morning. And so we gathered rice vinegar, bean pastes, preserved beans, sesame oil, wonton wrappers, rice paper wrappers, water chestnuts, and so on, enough to make Marco Polo's head spin.

Yesterday (Sunday) was the big day and so, armed with several towering bamboo steamers, a brand new wok, and a bevy of beauties assisting her in the kitchen, Sydney turned out an array of delicious and beautifully wrought dim sum throughout the afternoon, much to the delight of the three dozen or so guests whom I meanwhile plied with sangria in the garden (sangria? with dim sum? believe me it worked). There were steamed pork ribs, siew mai dumplings, steamed Shanghai dumplings, flower dumplings, pot stickers, steamed barbecue pork buns (with her own whole wheat pastry flour dough that she adapted - fabulous), spring rolls, Crispy wonton-wrapped shrimp, amazing steamed rice balls, a giant salad made of mung bean sprouts, peppers, herbs and I don't know what else. She put our son Alfie in charge of making several sauces for dipping, including sweet cilantro dip, ginger soy dipping sauce, chili sauce, plum sauce, and an exquisite lime fish sauce. There was dessert as well. Adapting a mango pudding recipe, she used some sample products that I had received for review to marvelous result. I had been sent 8 different flavors of fruit puree from Perfect Puree of Napa Valley and these were used in place of fresh fruit, but not so you would notice. And so in addition to the traditional mango flavor we had strawberry, passion fruit, peach, blood orange and pomegranate, along with a topping she devised, a raspberry whiped cream. When it was all over and the last guests departed I found my self wondering if they really eat this well in China. Someday I'll have to go to China and find out, but for now I'll be quite happy with our Berkeley-style dim sum. Now, what will we do for the wedding!?