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ByAnnM.Evans SpecialtoTheWodlandDaily Democrat Tiny white plates and bamboo steam baskets of food on double decker stainless steel trollies burst out of the kitchen's double doors. Cantonese-speak- ing wait staff in gold bro- cade vests push their trol- lies around the banquet hall filled with 600 people. This is Dim Sum. Various cultures have the tradition of small plates for a meal. Spain has tapas; the Middle East has meze, and the Chinese have Dim Sum. Coincidentally with the Chinese New Year, which officially began Feb. 19, I had Dim Sum at the Hong Kong Islander with 12 friends from church, includ- ing the intrepid food adven- turer Bob Fung and his wife Debbie, who introduced our family to dim sum San Francisco's Chinatown years ago, and then again in Sacramento through the New Canton Restaurant on Broadway, where one goes upstairs for dim sum. The Hong Kong Islander takes the experience to a new level. Bob's grandfather co- owned and managed a res- taurant in San Francisco Chinatown called Sam Wo. When he was young, his family would stay at his grandparent's house some weekends and walk down to eat dim sum in large, busy restaurants with carts be- ing wheeled through the aisles. He says the Hong Kong Islander recreates those days for him. Bob guided us through the meal, selecting stuffed tofu skins, passing on the chicken feet and pork in- nards (that's liver, hearts, gizzards). These were advertised, he said, in Chinese charac- ters around the room next to the televisions playing a Chinese station. He con- tinued as the trollies rolled by with an order of shrimp noodle rolls and then some lotus sticky rice. I asked him to explain how he chooses each dish. Bob, a minister's son, said, "Dim Sum is like hymn se- lection for church, you want some traditional, some tra- ditional done in a new way, and some new." The crispy shrimp, he explained, was new, but in a traditional for- mat. Other dishes we tried included pan-fried turnip cake, deep-fried sesame scallops, shrimp pasted lotus roots and fried taro root. Bob invited each of us to flag the trolley down on our own and select a dish. I chose dessert. My favorite is the egg custard pies with a short crust, traditional in Hong Kong having been adapted there in the 1940s from a dessert introduced by its neighbor, Macau. We also had baked cus- tard lava buns with a lemon filling and deep-fried ses- ame balls. Of the 86 items on the Dim Sum menu, 15 are des- sert. The joy of going with a large group is that you can try more of the dishes. Bob asked the waiters, in Can- tonese, to cut dishes with four pieces in half. We ar- rived at 11:30 and the place was already full. We had a reservation. Elaine Corn, a friend and food journalist as well as cookbook author in Sacra- mento, also knows her Chi- nese food very well. I asked her about Dim Sum and in typical Elaine Corn style, she nailed the experience. "You stay in your seat," she said, "the food comes to you, you point to what you want, and the food is set on the table. As a strategy for eating, there is nothing like it in the world." Corn said she loves the idea of dim sum because it forces variety. If you don't know what something is, it's inexpensive enough to try, even if you discover you don't like it. She says the ambiance at Hong Kong Is- lander is close to the gran- deur typical of Hong Kong's most popular dim sum des- tinations. As to the size of the res- taurant, it's huge; she's dis- covered there's really no such thing as a viable mom- and-pop dim sum restau- rant. "A store, maybe," she said, "but for great dim sum that's fresh and var- ied, the restaurant has got to be big. Dim sum needs lots of cooks, lots of hands folding and pleating dump- lings, lots of servers and carts, lots of customers to eat the restaurant out of stock so each day starts fresh." As we left, we walked through the entrance hall filled with bright orange kumquat trees in small pots with red paper tags in cel- ebration of the new lunar year. Kumquats, which are from Asia, are the size of a large olive, resemble an or- ange, are almost all peel, have many seeds and are tart. This is kumquat season and both Georgeanne Bren- nan and I have kumquat trees. The Cantonese often candy them, as do we. The fruit is said to lift spirits. Mine were cer- tainly lifted by Dim Sum with friends. If you missed Chinese New Year, it's not too late to celebrate. The Southwest Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco's China- town is Saturday evening, March 7. This is one of the 10 best parades in the nation, and has the very long, colorful dragon as well as firecrack- ers and crowds. If you can't get to the parade, consider Dim Sum in south Sacramento, or candy kumquats and serve them for your own celebra- tion at home. Happy year of the green, wood sheep. CandiedKumquatsin Syrup Thisrecipeisfrom Georgeanne Brennan's book, "Gather – Memorable Menus for Entertaining Throughout the Seasons," (Sasquatch Books, 2009) in which she suggests it to accompany almond pound cake as the dessert for a celebration of Chinese New Year. I like as a topping for a citrus fruit salad with grapefruit, orange, banana and pineapple mixed with fresh squeezed lime juice. The candied kumquats in their syrup balance the tart of this refreshing fruit des- sert. 2cups water 1cup sugar 3/4 pound fresh kumquats, cut into slices, seeds re- moved In a saucepan over medium- high heat, bring the water and sugar to a boil. Con- tinue to boil, stirring, until a light syrup forms, about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium and add all but 2table- spoons of the kumquats. Simmer until the skins are translucent, about 5more minutes. Let the fruit cook in the syrup. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use, then bring it back to room temperature before serving. Ann M. Evans writes and draws in Davis, and watches over her bee- hives, chickens and gar- den. She can be reached at ann@annmevans. com. Georgeanne Brennan lives in Winters, where she writes and oversees her new entrepreneur- ial adventure, La Vie Rus- tic — an online store with kitchen and garden prod- ucts in the French style. www.lavierustic.com. To- gether they have a food and agricultural consul- tancy, Evans & Brennan, LLC. Follow their blog, Who's Cooking School Lunch? (www.whoscook- ingschoolunch.com) Or reach them at info@ evansandbrennan.com. GROUND UP Ce le br at e ne w Ch in es e Ye ar o f th e Sh ee p wi th D im S um COURTESY This is a selection of Dim Sum small plates, with the egg custard tarts in the background. COURTESY Shrimp Dumplings, part of Dim Sum at the Hong Kong Islander. By Heather Hollingsworth The Associated Press KANSASCITY,MO. A butter- fly being considered for fed- eral protection is emblem- atic of the plight that polli- nating insects face in part because farmers, enticed by ethanol mandates, are growing more herbicide- resistant crops, which has stripped millions of acres of crucial plant habitat. Herbicide makers say they're committed to help- ing the black-and-orange insects, whose numbers have plummeted by more than 90 percent in the past two decades. And environmental- ists seeking protection for monarchs under the En- dangered Species Act said restoring milkweed habi- tat would help other polli- nating insects, too, such as honey bees, whose numbers of managed colonies have dropped by more than 4 million beehives since 1947. "My feeling is if the mon- arch goes, it is like the ca- nary in the coalmine," ecol- ogist Lincoln Brower with Sweet Briar College in Vir- ginia said. The U.S. Fish and Wild- life Service is taking com- ments and data about mon- archs through March 2, and a decision on whether to list the monarch as threatened is due in December. Al- though a plan for helping the monarch wouldn't be developed unless it gains "threatened" status, the so- lution needs to address her- bicides as well as mowing public roadsides less fre- quently, Brower said. Some monarch popula- tions migrate thousands of miles from breeding and wintering grounds, but along the route, there is less of the milkweed they de- pend upon to nourish them and on which they lay their eggs, a loss caused by more corn and soybeans, logging, construction and a drought that peaked in 2012. Environmentalists say the butterfly's decline — the overwinter population in Mexico reached a low in 2013 — has coincided with the rise of St. Louis- based agribusiness giant Monsanto's popular weed killer Roundup, blamed for knocking out the milkweed plants. Monsanto then in- troduced Roundup Ready crops, which resist the her- bicide, with a soybean ver- sion in 1996 and a corn ver- sion in 1998. Ethanol gained ground alongside the rise of those crops, and a renewable fuel standard approved by Con- gress in 2007 provided a major boost to the corn- based fuel. As millions more acres of land was cul- tivated, there was an esti- mated 64 percent decline in milkweed plants from 1999 to 2012 in the Midwest, Iowa State University ecol- ogist John Pleasants said. Monsanto said in a state- ment that it is "commit- ted to working with others to put more monarchs in flight," and is working with the nonprofit Keystone Cen- ter in Colorado. Sarah Stokes Alexan- der, who oversees the cen- ter's policy programs, says it's planning a meeting this spring with food compa- nies, grain buyers, the her- bicide industry, farming or- ganizations, federal agen- cies, conservationists and university researchers. "The idea is to better en- gage the agriculture com- munity in the rural areas of the Midwest in monarch conservation and recovery," she said, adding that one goal is to discuss the possi- bility of a collaborative con- servation plan to be imple- mented at the national and state level. Another herbicide, Dow Chemical's new Enlist Duo, is already the subject of a federal lawsuit after the Environmental Protection Agency approved it in Octo- ber. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Center for Food Safety's legal ac- tion raises concerns the her- bicide could harm the mon- arch and cause broader en- vironmental damage. In a statement, Dow Chemical said it was "con- fident" that the EPA con- ducted a thorough review of the product, which is to be used with genetically mod- ified corn and soybeans. It referred monarch questions to trade group CropLife American. 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