RecipeMuncher

On days like this, I’d like to think I might have been a butcher in a past life.
You know, a quintessential old-fashioned butcher: stout, white-haired, stained apron, big cleaver, enthusiasm for chopping things up.
I have the cleaver and the enthusiasm. That’s a start, I guess.
In a perfect world, I’d quit my day job and apprentice [...]

A few days ago I went to see a massage therapist in Chinatown after hurting my back at work. People around me kept warning me of this kind of therapy saying things like: “You can’t take the pain, you wuss!” or “This ain’t for gwai lo’s!” (white boys) or even “You’ll cry like a baby!”. This is the kind of treatment where the therapist adds to the already existing pain by pin-pointing and rubbing the most painful spot really hard with eucalyptus-scented oils and other mysterious elixirs. Of course, I didn’t want to pay attention to all the scary stuff people were telling me because I wanted relief from that pinched nerve and I was ready to pay the price, although I learned later the only currency accepted there is pain. How much pain can you take? How much can they give?

So I went to pell street in the heart of Chinatown to the third floor of an old building and got my Chinese back rub. Whoever warned me wasn’t kidding. Gosh it was painful! Mind-b…