Somehow showing the bowls and the chopsticks here was important. Was it that we were hip to have owned them, or just the attraction of the design ‘otherness’ was novel? We were clearly still awkward with chopsticks, and I can’t imagine what we ate that had so many rice noodles.

The soup was almost certainly chicken and sweet corn, I don’t remember any other at the time. We had a conversation about cannibalism feeding the chicken to the chooks. Charmain Soloman’s book was available in 1975 but Margaret Fulton’s game changing Encyclopedia of Asian and Oriental Cookery wouldn’t appear until 1985 so we were ahead of the pack (is that a snow pea?).

I can’t remember eating Chinese food  until I moved from the country with my parents to Melbourne (Burwood), and then only takeaway – bring your own saucepans. I can’t remember eating it in a restaurant until I left home to live in Carlton. We also were introduced via work lunches, our two Chinese art directors inducted us to their relatives restaurants,  theTaiping at St. Kilda junction, Fairy Stork in Acland Street, and Num Fong in Swanston Street. It has been an evolving pleasure since then.

Super8.c1974-5