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It's Saturday Night And I Ain't Got No Bok Choy

Added on by Lisa Homa.

OKAY, AS USUAL, I'VE BEEN COOKING MYSELF INSIDE OUT, LATELY. Today, I decided to step back from the stove and dive into a cleaning frenzy. My husband Bennett and I spent five hours cleaning our son Ellis’ room. Saturday night is upon us and we’re still waving around rags and a vacuum. Clinging to the days of yore, when Saturday night meant partaay! – or at least some form of enjoyment; the stuff you lived for all week – I’m starting to feel that all of this is just very wrong. It’s SATURDAY NIGHT! At the very least someone could cook for me – quickly and not in my momentarily clean kitchen. 

Bennett’s first, and usually second, suggestion is “Let’s order Chinese.”

“Fine,” I say, “just please get some greens – steamed – no sauce to supplement whatever greasy stuff you order. I’d love some bok choy.”

The order arrives with a container of steamed white chunks – the base of the bok choy. NO GREENS! What the hell? I call No. 1 Chinese (they can't all be No. 1!) and demand to know from the lady answering the phone “Where are the greens?”

“Bok choy white," she says.

“Where?!” I ask. I'm dumbfounded, apoplectic. “Who?! Why?!" I spit into the phone. "What do you do with the green part? I mean, it’s most of the plant for God's sake!” I repeated that “What do you do with the green part?” mantra maybe a 10 or 12 times. She parried right back by repeating “Boy choy white, bok choy white.” This went on until Bennett and Ellis individually and as a team threatened to commit me.

​Bad Bok Choy

​Bad Bok Choy

​Good Bok Choy

​Good Bok Choy

Since I was a kid, I always had a thing for greens. I would not only willingly but joyfully make the salad for our nightly dinner, which was never complete without it.  My love of greens became ingrained.

Okay, so I admit, I may have over-reacted. Scratch that. No, I didn't over-react. The punishment should fit the crime, and for the sin of serving all-white bok choy, No. 1 Chinese got me.

But I would still love to know what they do with the green part of the bok choy. I envision the No. 1 Chinese folk sitting in the back for a staff meal, with glorious mounds of sautéed, glistening, emerald green bok choy, laughing and loving it. I pass this place everyday, and I can't help thinking they know. "It's that crazy bok choy lady," they whisper and nudge each other as I pass their door. 

I think it’s criminal that they would de-green a beautiful head of bok choy and try to pawn it off on somebody. Will they think twice next time they behead the bok choy? Not bloody likely.​