Dumplings

Aim your Internet search engine at "dumplings" and you'll come up with hundreds of recipes from all over the world. You also may discover a strong preference by sophisticated computer users for Chinese dumplings, a fact noted in the New Hacker's Dictionary\ (http://www.netmeg.net/jargon/terms/o/orientalfood.html): "Hackers display an intense tropism toward Oriental cuisine, especially Chinese, and especially of the spicier varieties such as Szechuan and Hunan. This phenomenon . . . has never been satisfactorily explained, but is sufficiently intense that one can assume the target of a hackish dinner expedition to be the best local Chinese place and be right at least three times out of four.

Perhaps the name is the problem. Dumpling sounds so dense, like something better thrown out than eaten - a culinary cannonball ready to pack on unwanted pounds. But a successful dumpling is just the opposite: a puff of batter that virtually evaporates on the palate before it can be swallowed, and one of the most versatile preparations in all of cooking. Dumplings are a part of every cuisine - pot stickers in China, gnocchi in Italy, quenelles in France, spaetzel along the Danube.

It's a fact. Times are tough and money is so tight that even supper from the local fast-food place makes a hefty dent in the budget. So what's the answer? Eating well on that shrinking dollar means cooking at home. And home cooking is in - just ask career couples, single people (young and old) or young families. They'll agree that dining even in a neighborhood spot is just too expensive to make it a habit. Now we're discovering that cooking is therapeutic and sensually satisfying.

The menu had it as dumpling soup, so we were surprised when our server arrived with a huge bowl filled with cloud-white balls of dough resting in what appeared to be simply water. A quick taste proved that it was just that. Plain water. "[There's] no flavor outside of dumplings," our waitress explained in a matter-of-fact manner. "Flavor is just inside dumplings. " We couldn't argue with her. The water had no savory qualities, but the dumplings, stuffed with coarse-ground meat, were super palatable with a very interesting soft-chewy quality.

The room was awhirl with frolicking children chirping gaily, the magenta, green and purple ribbons in their hands along for their wild romp of delight. Amid the random blizzard of color bobbed Chrissy Nesbitt, 12, her two ribbons tracing synchronous circles and figure eights. "It's supposed to look very graceful and flowing," she said, eyeing a boy entangled in his streamer. Over the last year, Chrissy has learned Chinese arts - including the ribbon dance - at the Main Line Chinese School in Radnor.

Lakeside Chinese Deli was the kind of restaurant that often looked closed even when it was, in fact, still open. So I figured reports of its demise must have been mistaken. The old hole punched into its sign and the frequently half-drawn window blinds were simply the ideal camouflage from Chinatown tourists who weren't adventurous enough to pass through its unassuming door. For those that did, Lakeside was the ultimate joint. It was home to some of the best hand-crafted dim sum I've ever eaten.

"Name me a culture that doesn't make dumplings, and I'll show you a people who don't know how to boil water," declared my friend, the dumpling aficionado. "Every culture has its dumpling. " The dumpling is the universal comfort food: soft and spongy, it's the primal pillow of the culinary world. The basic dumpling recipe is nothing more than flour, water and a pinch of salt, simmered in a liquid until cooked. Throughout the centuries, men and women have improved upon this simple formula, adding shortening, eggs, baking soda and seasonings.

Everyone knows a pig can't fly. But what about a "pabbit"? The mythical creature has certainly given a charmed lift to Pub & Kitchen, the new gastropub at 20th and Lombard whose creamy brick exterior sports the high-soaring silhouette of a rabbit-headed pig. More likely, the hour-long waits and endless blogger buzz that's been stoked by this replacement to Chaucer's is due to the presence of Philly's hottest young trick chef, Jonathan McDonald....

It seems that duck tongue is every Chinatown foodie's double-dare dish these days. Its mere presence has become a sort of hallmark of authenticity in the neighborhood's new guard of regional-minded restaurants. This is one delicacy, however, that I clearly wasn't meant to savor. It's not that I'm unadventurous. And I believe Sakura Mandarin owner Jack Chen when he says that nothing evokes a Shanghai snack quite like munching the wine-poached taste buds off those bony little cluckers.

It's easy to get distracted by the sideline pursuits of Michael Schulson's culinary career, from hosting B-list TV food shows such as TLC's Pantry Raid and Ultimate Cake-Off to a spice-company endorsement and his mail-order line of frozen dumplings. But beyond the poster-boy tousled hair and brand-building ambitions, Schulson has also proven to be a cook with legitimate skills, an Asian fusion ace as adept at truffling edamame dumplings as he is at tracking the spotlight.

Chinatown's Michael Chow and his Sang Kee noodle machine is in rapid suburban expansion mod, branching out simultaneously into Cherry Hill (where he's co-owner) and Newtown Square where he's just consulting). Crafted in the modern spirit of his successful Wynnewood locale, the Cherry Hill space is a sleek but tiny 45-seat BYO with no reservations. But a recent weekend meal showed why there are steady lines already. South Jersey has few Chinese kitchens that can match Sang Kee for its fresh, affordable, authentic Hong Kong flavors.

Here is an excerpt from Craig LaBan's online chat: C.L.: Anyone visit the Vendy awards in the Piazza Sunday? We've got video of the event, shot by one of our intrepid interns, Greg Thomas (Philly.com/vendys). I was tickled to see that one of our veteran food trucks, Gigi's, was the Vendy Cup winner, not one of the nouveau fusion additions. It would have been so easy for Guapos Tacos to take that prize, but ... I just had a FAN-TASTIC Caribbean lunch from Gigi's.

You've probably heard by now that some folks believe the apocalypse will get under way Saturday evening, with the four horsemen already clip-clopping up to the starting gate and the seven-headed beast tugging at the leash. Chances are, most of you aren't buying it. Suit yourself, but it never hurts to be prepared. So, in case the end is at hand, here are a few recommendations for music, TV shows, movies, meals, poems, and books (short ones, natch) you might want to sample before time runs out. And if the sun comes up tomorrow, no harm done.

I see in the listings in the calendar of months in my copy of The Dumpling: A Seasonal Guide that, along with bacon and sage roly-poly, and always-popular beef-stuffed plantain balls in a cassava-corn soup, the cheddar cheese and potato pierogi (and its lentil-onion version of Polish parentage) gets a shout-out under October. This, it turns out, fits neatly with the trajectory of my latest pierogi safari, begun this summer at Silk City Diner, the hipster hangout on Spring Garden Street, where a now-departed chef turned me on to a short-rib-stuffed pocket, and a secret of his frugal Polish grandmother: Use the water the potatoes cook in for the pierogi dough.

It's easy to get distracted by the sideline pursuits of Michael Schulson's culinary career, from hosting B-list TV food shows such as TLC's Pantry Raid and Ultimate Cake-Off to a spice-company endorsement and his mail-order line of frozen dumplings. But beyond the poster-boy tousled hair and brand-building ambitions, Schulson has also proven to be a cook with legitimate skills, an Asian fusion ace as adept at truffling edamame dumplings as he is at tracking the spotlight.

Not that you would call him svelte. By any means. But I ask Mitch Lipkin, 60 now, hasn't he lost some weight? "I lose some. I find some," he shrugs. He is leaning over the counter at Lipkin's Bakery (est. 1975, "before the Bicentennial"), at Castor and Rhawn, which is to say the deep Northeast, the streetscape tending to workaday two-story storefronts, or lower. A Pizza Hut sign looms at the corner, hogging the view. Such as it is. It has been 14 years now since I talked to him at any length.

If you are a movie buff, you've probably seen the 1933 black-and-white classic version of "King Kong" with Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong. And there's the successful and flashy 2005 remake with Naomi Watts and Jack Black. Michael O'Halloran, chef/owner of Old City's well-regarded Bistro 7, brings "King Kong" to mind in the fun name of his newly debuted Northern Liberties restaurant, Kong. O'Halloran and his wife and partner, Sophia Lee, wanted to create a restaurant inspired by the Chinese street food of Hong Kong that is part of Lee's heritage.

If you are a movie buff, you've probably seen the 1933 black-and-white classic version of "King Kong" with Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong. And there's the successful and flashy 2005 remake with Naomi Watts and Jack Black. Michael O'Halloran, chef/owner of Old City's well-regarded Bistro 7, brings "King Kong" to mind in the fun name of his newly debuted Northern Liberties restaurant, Kong. O'Halloran and his wife and partner, Sophia Lee, wanted to create a restaurant inspired by the Chinese street food of Hong Kong that is part of Lee's heritage.

It seems that duck tongue is every Chinatown foodie's double-dare dish these days. Its mere presence has become a sort of hallmark of authenticity in the neighborhood's new guard of regional-minded restaurants. This is one delicacy, however, that I clearly wasn't meant to savor. It's not that I'm unadventurous. And I believe Sakura Mandarin owner Jack Chen when he says that nothing evokes a Shanghai snack quite like munching the wine-poached taste buds off those bony little cluckers.

On the screen set up off center court at the Reading Terminal Market, the last of the Mohicans were having their say Saturday evening, giving accounts of the old days - the tremble in the rafters when trains still ran above, the buckets kept handy to accommodate the leaky roof, razzing one another, albeit gently, about the drinkability of fresh buttermilk. The stars mingled with the assemblage - tuxedoed Domenic Spataro, 92, bent but unbowed, who has cut back to six days a week at the sandwich stand now run by his son; the iconic butcher, Harry Ochs, just turning 80, with 62 years of meat-cutting under his belt; and, among others, Carol and Willman Spawn, customers since their first date here decades before their hair turned gray.