Medium Rare and Half-Baked

Recently eaten: homemade ragu, tapioca pudding
Recent annoyance: post-nasal drip

From the homeland, I have found some savory dumplings of strange news.

The Special Tonight is Ass
"The cat is out of the bag at a restaurant in northeast China that had been serving donkey meat spiked with tiger urine in pricey dishes advertised as endangered Siberian tigers.

Local media in Heilongjiang province got wind the restaurant was offering stir-fried dishes and medicinal liquor made from tiger meat and bones, sparking local police and health inspectors to pounce, the China Daily said today.

"After inspection, the owner confessed that the so-called tiger meat was donkey meat that had been dressed with tiger urine to give the dish a 'special' flavour," the newspaper said.

The restaurant had been charging as much as $131 a dish for the illegal, "rare" fare, tapping into traditional Chinese belief that tiger meat has aphrodisiacal properties.

The report did not explain where the tiger urine had come from or how it was collected."

Chinese cuisine is dealt another blow at a time when the cat and dog-eating myths were waning. Now we've got to deal with donkey meat in tiger urine. I can't even try to defend this one, except to say that it is true that we will eat just about anything.

Bruce Lee a symbol of unity in divided town
"The ethnically divided Bosnian city of Mostar has agreed to erect a new symbol of unity -- a statue of kung fu legend Bruce Lee, worshipped by Muslims, Serbs and Croats.

He said Mostar, scene of fighting between Muslims and Croats in 1993-1994, needed a symbol of justice, mastery and honesty -- virtues upheld by the late Chinese-American actor.

The statue, cast in bronze and showing the martial arts master in a typical fighting pose, will be designed by a local sculptor and put up in central Mostar."

What better tribute than to unite warring factions simply with your likeness? Unfortunately, the statue erected in the West Bank of Jackie Chan has not had the same effect.
The Beauty Products From the Skin of Executed Chinese Prisoners
"A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.

Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to 'make such a big fuss about'."

A few notes:

1. Totally awesome that they still shoot their condemned prisoners
2. Chinese people must have fantastically beautiful skin
3. Gross
4. Like the British can be so high and mighty...I saw Dirty, Pretty Things. I know all about the black market human organ trade
5. Gross