attend. Yes, I will. Yeah. Great. That would be perfect. All right. So the recording has started. Excellent.  All right. So I'm calling to order the October 17th meeting of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly at 207 p.m. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. And please see the instructions below. Actually, I didn't even need to say that, but I'm going fast. Okay. No in-person attendance. Members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. And given that we have a couple folks in, I'm gonna do a sound check in just a second. And then we're gonna do a public comment period initially, and then we'll have one a little bit later as well. So let's see if everybody can be heard and can hear. So we'll start with you, Ms. Bridges. I'm right here. I can hear you. Great. All right. And Dr. Rhodes. I'm here. Okay. Great. And Dr. Shabazz. Yes, Shabazz is present. Great. And Hala. Hala is present. Okay, wonderful. And if you could just give me one quick second, please, I'm just gonna put my mute on for once. Alrighty. So I am going to call a period of public comment, and I'll just read our statement here. During the public comment period, the chair will recognize members of the public. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name, pronouns, and residential address. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair based upon the number of people who wish to speak. The AHRA will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment, but we will be listening very closely. So if you would like to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. And Pamela will bring you into the room. Pamela, did you call on me? It's Mora. Yes, you're in, Mora. Okay. I just wanted to say that on Saturday, the Hammers Community Land Trust had a small but productive meeting, I think Irv was there, so he can add to this. We had about 15 people that attended, and it was a beautiful day with lots of other stuff happening. But we did discuss two things that will be becoming coming before our board in the near future. And one is can people who own land trust houses rent rooms in them? And currently, our land lease does not permit that, but we're thinking of changing that. And the other thing is establishing a policy for a repair fund for the homeowners. What kind of things will be covered for repairs and how that will be financed and things like that. So that's kind of complicated, but we need to work out a policy. So and hopefully we will be getting another homeowner for using the first time homeowner supplement in the near future. Thank you so much, Mora. And thank you for, you know, I'm so glad that Dr. Rhodes was able to be there and would definitely love to hear his experience with that. And thank you for sharing. It sounds like it was a wonderful day. All right. So if there's anyone else who would like to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. And we'll definitely come back and we'll have another period of public comment later. So something comes up. Okay. All right. So I was hoping that we could begin the meeting with actually Dr. Rhodes. Did you want to add anything about your experience on Saturday at the wall at the land trust walk? Nothing to add more than what I'm just said. Okay, great. I said tomorrow that I'm really looking forward to us continuing to strengthen the partnership with the land trust and invited them and encourage them to come to our listening session on the 27th. So I was hoping we could start maybe Hala or Dr. Shabazz could give if there is an update from BAM. I know there was a meeting, I believe last weekend. And if there is any feedback or any information that okay, hang on, we just need to make sure we're still think Dr. Shabazz just got he's probably switching over. He's in the attendees. Okay. So we'll just wait for Dr. Shabazz to come back on. So I think there was a meeting of the Black Assembly of Amherst, Massachusetts on Saturday. And I was hoping that Hala and or Dr. Shabazz may want to give an update about that meeting. So I'll start with you, Hala. Is there anything that you'd like to offer with respect to an update from the BAM meeting? Or would you prefer Dr. Shabazz? I will say we had a very thorough and great conversation. I'm sorry, I'm traveling. I'm flying back today. But so I think if Dr. Shabazz, you feel great giving them the updated because we did come to a conclusion that we'd love to share with the assembly. So thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Dr. Shabazz, would you like to add to that? Well, certainly appreciate Hala to come back. Anything I miss from it. But I just would say that it was a small hybrid meeting. We did have some in-person attendance. And it was our first attempt since we've been organized as BAM to try to provide for an in-person opportunity. And so we were at the New Africa House on the campus of the University of Massachusetts. And in that space, we were also able to bring in the Zoom and have the Zoom screen up as well. And so others, more people did attend that way on this occasion. So the discussion was good. The discussion was robust. You know, part of the kind of part of the discussion also hinged around the, what I would call the injury area, what we call the injury area of criminal punishment and ways in which we can be a, you know, in repairing can move toward being a less punitive oriented kind of town. And so some concerns brought in about that and where that might stand, some discussions around the who is owed, the eligibility question or who is owed. But again, I may just not be remembering right at this moment in terms of other kinds of conclusions or points. But we did affirm, you know, the need, the desire to continue in our outreach efforts. And particularly we're looking to turn out and support the event Bridge for Unity is organizing in November, looking at, you know, reparations for our African ancestors. And so I can talk more about that at another point. But Hala, was there something else, maybe more particular? I'm not recalling right now. I was sorry to interrupt you. I'm just going to make sure that Yvonne can be heard and can hear us quickly. Yes. Okay. All right, Hala. Welcome. No, you definitely covered it at the the conclusive thing I was feeling us about eligibility. But yeah, so you covered what I remember. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. Okay. Thank you so much for giving that that report. And you'll see on the agenda today, and this was something that I'm actually going to I'm going to pass it over to Dr. Rhodes in a minute. But Dr. Rhodes sent me an email. He had some thoughts and things that he wanted to make sure that we were getting to the top of our list here. And that included eligibility criteria as well as defining harm. So before we move into our engagement consultation campaign and updates on that, Dr. Rhodes, would you like to share a little bit about the email that you sent to me and why we have these things on the agenda today and what you're thinking? Well, you know, most all of those things came as I said to Michelle and email when these nightly visitations that come to me in relationship to unfinished business and my anxiety surface and come to the top. I have this habit of getting rid of them by putting them on to other people. So I emailed Michelle to let her know some of my thoughts and some of those and Michelle put some of those on the agenda. But the main thing is that I feel a crunch of time coming on and that there are some things that we really just must get done. And so my sense of anxiety was, hey, our expiration date is at the end of June. And there are really important things to have to get done. Among them, chief among them is eligibility criteria, the process for doing out, outlining and confirming the harm that has been done, etc., etc., getting those things done, codified and put down and writing and communicated to the public or whoever may we think will need that, especially obviously the town council. So those are those are the things that were on my mind and some of them are reflected in the agenda. Thank you, Dr. Rhodes. And I think if this is a good transition into talking about our upcoming listening session in the sense that I think we're going to receive, I hope we'll receive a lot of feedback and hear the voice of African heritage residents during that listening session. That will begin to give us a starting point for those discussions to happen. I don't think that means that we need to wait until that happens to start having those discussions. However, so I think more formally in our next meeting, once we've sort of gotten some of this engagement stuff, a little bit more formalized and solidified, then we can start to really have that conversation. One of the things that I heard you say Dr. Rhodes is the possibility of subcommittees. And so I just wanted to remind that and see was there was there a particular idea or strategy that you had in mind with respect to that? Yeah, one of the things that I realize is that there is a lot of work to be done. And we can't expect the chair to do all the work. And it's and you know, since we're limited in terms of the size of a subcommittee, it either have to be a subcommittee or one or two. And and my idea or my thought was that why not break some of these topics that I mentioned down and have them be the responsibility of an individual or two people to start to work on. That's basically what my thought was. Yeah. And so I'm going to check in with Pamela and Athena and perhaps Lynn even just to see what in terms of the number of people in our body where we would be safe, I think it would have to be limited to two to keep us really safe. But I'll get a little bit more direction about that. I also want to welcome Alexis. I'm so glad you're here. Can you hear us, Alexis? Yes, I can. Thank you very much. Okay. Um, so that's, that's great. Okay. And if there are other ideas, like I know that Dr. Shabazz has spoken about some framework for how we might be able to have those discussions. And so I would very much appreciate that in advance of the next meeting so that I can have that framework ready for us for those discussions. Okay, so let's just jump into our community engagement activities here that we have going on. And I'm going to just give you a bit of an update. Just pull up my excuse me. Okay, so I think our engage Amherst project page is looking really good. We've definitely highlighted and brought up our inclusion portal to the top. We've also created a link from the town of Amherst's HRA page back to the community or to the engage Amherst site. So that's something so that if folks are going to the town's website, they'll be able to come back to engage Amherst. And then we have our portal and we're continuing to receive folks that are signing up for the portal, continuing to get the word out about that in various ways. In terms of boots on the ground, I am organizing another effort this weekend with the senators at Amherst College. They would like to get out and talk to folks about the upcoming listening session in particular. So if anybody would like to join them this weekend or knows folks that would like to join them in going to more of the complexes and into neighborhoods, that would be fantastic. Just let me know and I'll make those connections. And then we have our listening session. That's what I really want to spend the bulk of our time finalizing here for us. And really strategizing with you all about how in these next couple of weeks, we can get the word out to as many folks as possible. So I'll start by sharing so far what I have done is it's been in, I think, every paper. So the Gazette Mass Live, the Amherst Indy. It's been in our committee calendar at the town of Amherst. I sent it to at this point, all of the PGOs at all of the schools. And so everybody has it, I've gotten some great response from that that they'll be including the information in their next newsletters, which is really great. And then I've also sent it out to some of our faith organizations. I sent it to the folks who created the Stolen Beam series who you know, through the JCA. And I have so I have sort of a running list of where I'm sending it and how I'm getting it out to folks. But what I wanted to ask is how we might strategize because it's possible that this might be our one and only in person, big listening session for full community. And I really want to get as many folks there as possible from the community, community leaders, town leaders. So I've also, of course, included Cress, Cress and Earl Miller plan to be there and and trying to get it out to other folks in the town as well. So wondering if we might be able to brainstorm like if each of us could identify two or three either individuals or people that we can commit to calling and talking to and and inviting them warmly to join us on that night. Dr. Rhodes. Two things. Unfortunately, this in our event corresponds and with the annual trivia. And that's unfortunate because a lot of community people will be involved with that when I say community people. I mean, the various groups usually send teams. And those teams come from all segments of the community. And a lot of those people are community leaders in one way or another. And and unfortunately, they're they're going to be involved with that. So that's one thought. The other thought is is that it's I know that I have compiled a list of 10 people who I've been firing emails off to individually and notifying them of this upcoming listening session. And I think if each one of us would do the same that that would cover a lot of people. Yeah, I think that that would be really great because we all have different folks from different parts of the community that we can reach out to. I do want to let me go to Pamela first and then I'll continue. Kamala, please. I just wanted to note that you guys are freezing. I don't know if anybody else had a frozen screen for a moment. I only heard a portion of Dr. Rhodes comments. So I will maybe chat with you or send your email later, Michelle, about the segments that I if I miss something because the screen is freezing on my on my on my end. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, for the minutes, absolutely. We can fill in the blanks there. And is anyone else having that problem? Ms. Bridges, yours was freezing as well? Yeah, for about 10 seconds, it was. Okay, just now it did when you were talking. Okay. Yeah, mine is not freezing over here. So I don't know. Let's keep an eye on it and we'll. So Pamela, Dr. Rhodes was talking about the conflict with the trivia be and and then also was talking about how we could reach people. And yeah, I I it's very unfortunate. I've been sort of going through my own personal struggle with the conflict of the trivia be being on the same night as our our listening session. And what's interesting is the trivia be I think has fallen on the same sort of timeframe every year. It's been around for a long time. And it's an excellent I've never personally attended it. But I know that it's a very, very fun event. And it's also for a great cause. However, they announced it very late this year. Assuming I think that that date was sort of a hold. And they didn't put it in the calendar. So when we were looking dates, it wasn't in the calendar. And I wasn't aware of it. And it was not brought to my attention, even with all the places that we put our event into. So it is unfortunate. I think we're still going to have a really great turnout of folks. And we're going to have town leaders and Mindy Dom unfortunately, by legacy, the the the sitting state rep is the host of that event. And so unfortunately, she won't be able to be there with us. So I've really been struggling with this conflict of dates. I am very happy to say that although Alexis was due to be there in her capacity at Amherst media, we were able to work it out with Jim so that Alexis can be with us that night. So I'm really happy about that. And unfortunately, I think Lynn and Anna, who are our council president and vice president will not be able to be there with us. But I know that there will be other counselors and other leaders and staff that will be there.  I'm wondering if if that was okay. So I like herbs idea if we can each come up with a list of five, 10, 15 people that we can personally call or email and invite them to come. I think you all have the materials. So but if you need anything, I can certainly help. And I'm wondering if there are any other organizations other than the ones that I mentioned that Oh, ABC as well is is an organization on my list. And I think I pretty much I think that's pretty much everywhere. Is there any? Oh, survival center, family outreach of Amherst, I covered a lot of bases, but I'm wondering if there are other places that we should be sending it to. And if there are any thoughts on that, or any other strategy about how to reach more folks and invite more folks to be there. I will also by the way be sending an email out to the folks on the portal that have said they want to be contacted, they're going to get a very special invite. And then perhaps, I think BAM has received the information as well. So that that will be happening. And then we'll also send the information out in the reparations for Amherst newsletter upcoming. Any other thoughts on that? Okay. So can we all commit to five, 10, 15 people that we're going to reach out to? All right, awesome. So just finalizing, I wanted to really make sure that we were all on the same page about the way that the evening is going to look. I did have the opportunity to be at the Hitchcock for an event yesterday. So I got to see the space and it's such a lovely place. As I said, the bus will be stopping there will be having temporary bus stop for that evening right in the right in their driveway there. So that that will be good. And so I wondered if anybody has an idea for just sort of the program for the night, how we might want to frame things, I have some ideas, but I certainly would love to hear input on that. Well, I think Dr. Shabazz said it right at our last meeting that this is an opportunity really for the HRA to be in listening mode. And whether that is, of course, I would imagine that we would want to begin with some sort of framework that while from my mind, the way that I would imagine or what I might imagine could happen is that there may be residents of African heritage that are there that want to speak about their experience being black in Amherst, and what reparations means to them, and all sorts of things. And I think we want to have some really good framework in the beginning, inviting that to be the priority of the evening, first and foremost. Yes, Yvonne.  And I think it would be important to have those materials there for folks or distributed beforehand about like, I would say what our charge is and kind of goals at what we're at the information we're trying to get at, not to shut people down, but to actually give some context around what kinds of stories we're trying to gather that would be most helpful. So I think it's important for us to have that in advance and to have someone address that.  I would. But, you know, I think there needs to be this sort of at the same, you know, like, setting up what the framework is, but also being welcoming and really welcoming people to share. Because this, you know, some of these stories are really difficult.  And some of the stories that were shared by the facilitators who happened to be, you know, they were BIPOC. But I found myself tearing up because some of the stories that they were telling about like in adequacy and, you know, systemic racism around housing, which touches, you know, you know, like a chord with me because of my family experience, there's all of these triggers that make it so people will either share or not share. And so I think there needs to be this context around, share what you can. Everything is welcome, right? But we're within this context with trying to get at this kind of information. And this is the stuff that will help move things forward in a productive way.  And then, you know, like, have there be boundaries around like how much time people can talk and what, you know, like if someone is on the rails, it's like, yes, we hear what you're saying, but let's move on to someone else who can give us more information. You know, there has to be that very thoughtful managing of the event because we don't want it so that there's folks there who could talk and they don't. And we, you know, we don't want the time to be taken up with folks who might take up time when we want to get to other folks who have things to say. We're trying to make it so that it's, and I think that should be the number one thing that gets expressed to folks when they show up is that we're trying to hear everybody's stories. So we're trying to manage the time and get at things, you know, in a timely way so that we can get as much as we can. And that this is is one of a few. Like this isn't the only opportunity that folks might be able to, you know, contribute. But I guess my other part to that is I assume we're recording. I think you mentioned maybe like a CTV would be recording. I don't know. And that was a question actually that Lynn had asked me. So, Alexis, I see you thumbing up. Do you are your is someone from Amherst Media coming or? Yes, this intending on coming with an intern to be able to cover the event. But if that if it is too much of a in the with the intent that whoever could not physically come to the event that they would still get the information. But if it is intending on being a space where sensitive information, I don't know, I guess that we could tell them, but also if it's going to create an environment that is not going to be conducive to actually sharing that information, I could either not film certain parts, cut some out or just. Well, my my my idea is often people don't want to be on camera, but they don't mind being audio recorded. So maybe it's about having a audio recording instead of a video recording of of the event. And I mean, I leave that up to the folks who make decisions like that. But often people don't want to be on camera, but they don't mind if their voice, because, you know, you can't necessarily identify people from their voice, but often you can from their image, you know.  This one's important because it's gonna it's gonna set the tone for the future ones that we do, right. So there might be people who didn't want to come or there, you know, I'm gonna go scope it out.  So having it be like, yes, we're doing this one, but the other two, maybe there's one more in the spring, or two more in the spring, and we can tell, we can announce that so folks can plan to bring people with them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, to everything you said, I think the idea of beginning by giving some context to our charge and really uplifting what it is we're trying to do here on this committee, first and foremost, and then also giving some sense of we're here to listen and so that we can listen to everyone, we'll have to have some management of that of the time. Yeah. And so we might think about creating a brief slide show. I'm not a big slide show person, but I can definitely work with somebody to do that just to show our charge and some other pertinent information to set the scene, so to speak, and in the context for the night. And in terms of recording, I really want to hear from other folks on that my preference would be that it would be only for internal use. But I am certainly not I would be very, very curious what other people think about that. I think I saw, hold on, let me just check because I can see what I think I saw Dr. Rhodes and then Alexis. Yeah. I keep hearing sharing and people sharing and the sensitivity of that. And which I applaud the question I have is is is this just for people sharing their stories or is it for gaining feedback from people in terms of the reaction as it regards reparations in general or in specific? Because I was trying to go back and I to find the agenda for that evening that was listed on the material material you sent to us, Michelle. And but I couldn't go back to find it on my phone. So I couldn't determine whether, hey, that was, in fact, going to be the overall objective of the evening or whether there was whether there were other objectives, objectives for the evening. And I think those need to be clarified because when people come they will come with some kind of expectations and we need to know we need to be able to try to manage those expectations beforehand. Absolutely. And I think that will be part of that opening statement and creating the framework. I think we're going to have a combination of people who want to share their experiences of being black in Amherst or otherwise just share experience of being a resident in Amherst. I think we're also going to hear people that have opinions about eligibility, about use of funds. The one area that I want us to be really aware about is the debate on whether local reparations or not local reparations, because as far as I'm concerned, we're doing local reparations already. So we'll be sort of spinning wheels if we have that debate. I think pointing back to our charge of this is what we were charged with looking at and we're already moving forward with the municipal reparations plan. But we may want to even figure out some more detailed framework. And so Alexis, please. Yeah, I was just going to ask, well, OK, I guess the first thing was a desire for like and I forget the word that we used to use at Hampshire, but like community guidelines. So that basically getting to what you all were saying about like, you know, like what happens if somebody is, you know, saying something maybe that's inappropriate or like, you know, how do we maybe like a posted list of guidelines or something that we can point back to something that we would agree. The agreements. That's about community agreements. Yeah, yeah. And so I think that that helps a lot also. My. And I also want to like kick it back to everyone else to hear their thoughts, too. But I guess my intention with the covering of this event, I wasn't intending on including the sensitive parts of it, but more of the informative pieces of it because the last time that we sort of talked about it apart from our entire meetings, which someone would have to watch, you know, be aware of, you know, the progression of it is, you know, a lot of people still are very uninformed about it and hear from us, you know, OK, where are we now? And then also hearing the questions from the community and getting those answers, I think, would be very helpful in sharing that information with our community when we're when we're talking about outreach and we're talking about spreading this information when we're relying on, you know, just the people who get there physically, especially when there's, you know, people are still dealing with COVID, people are still dealing with, you know, being scared to come out. So I think it's a part of accessibility that I don't want to ignore, but I also am very sensitive to the sensitive pieces of it and the the testimonials, though, I guess I'm curious if people and maybe this would be too much work in the in the moment, and maybe it would be too much and maybe a barrier to ask people to consent, but I don't know if anyone would be. Would want to be open and want the community to know what it is like and what people are really dealing with right now and have been dealing with. And and I think that that's potentially a creating a platform to be able to amplify those voices. So I I would definitely like to hear that, but I guess my initial intention was to film the panel and to get the informative pieces for the community specifically. Yeah, I really appreciate that. And I'm just so grateful that we're going to have you there in that capacity. And, you know, we did start to talk about media presence last week. And I think that that sort of is also part of what we're saying here, right, is do do we ask our media partners to be aware of quoting people without their permission or however we might want to look at that. Do we have different segments of the listening session, perhaps a segment where we're giving an overview and we're answering and taking questions about our charge and eligibility? And then do we have a separate segment of the meeting where we're really just listening to people's stories and maybe that piece is not going to be just sort of made available publicly unless that person says that they would like their voice to be amplified somewhere. But I do think it could be a lot in the moment to ask people and they may not know in that moment, you know, once whatever is expressed, it could feel. So, Dr. Shabazz, please. Requesting co-host status, please, to share screen. I formulated a slide to try and express a little bit of what I've been hearing and to see if we have consensus to move in that direction. You see here, what I've noted is and I'm adding this in, but perhaps to begin with a reflection and brief statement about the town's statement of its commitment to instructural racism, which gives rise to the entire reparative justice planning process as a part of the town. Then from, as people have mentioned, to perhaps flesh a slide or mention briefly what our actual charge is to find funding streams and to create a plan that is expected to go before the town via its town council and in general by sometime in June. Perhaps a statement, one sentence or what have you of what reparative justice is and reflection upon one, the town's support of federal action, whether the current House Resolution 40 or other forms of federal action, a presidential executive commission, a presidential commission by executive order that we could also just briefly outline what reparative justice is. Also, this is an occasion to bring up knowing the ropes and reflecting upon our ropes document with its emphasis on respect, on acknowledging oups and ouches that sometimes we might go into an area of saying things, expressing things in a way that impacts someone's feelings and there could be an ouch involved and then vice versa once acknowledging that we may have misspoken, we can say oups and then with the understanding of what that means and be able to kind of move on. And the other points on process being able to pass, not feeling put upon to say anything but that we are here to listen, so on and so forth, brief acknowledgement of knowing the ropes and then the note about the presence of media and whatever ground rules we've laid about that, that no one is to be quoted on the basis of their statement in this public hearing without the media speaking to that person after the event is over and getting their expressed consent to publish any words or any remarks that a speaker makes, that we can just establish this is what we've requested of any members of the media that are present and certainly we wanted you to know that that may be the case. And then finally, overall we've mentioned the need for facilitation. Part of that facilitation is not only the ability to kind of ask someone to pause or to rein it in or to stop if they're going into an area that's clearly out of bounds, that's off the ropes, if you will. But at the same time to just facilitate in the way of pointing to time, that it's three minutes with grace. If you're in a real flow, you're making it in a real point, everybody's kind of hinging on your words. Well, all right, we ain't gonna come in and break the flow and talk about three minutes. But if you are at some point, kind of going beyond what's necessary to make your point, then everybody's kind of starting to tune out, then okay, excuse me, can you kind of wrap up that we'll try to do it as gracefully as we can? Those are some of the things that I've heard so far relative to how we can manage this event and make it a great listening session. And so I just wanted to flash that. The other area is the possibility of as something of a framework to note the five injury areas of systemic oppression and slavery as acknowledged within the reparations movement in Cobra, NARC, other groups, it's within international. Some of this spines expression within international protocols around reparations, but it's the broad areas of criminal punishment, crime and punishment as an area of disparity, our age of mass incarceration that we're in. Secondly, education or the so-called achievement gap, the health or so-called health disparities, public health disparities, wealth, which is often looked at, particularly in terms of land, housing as the most common forms in which people in the country acquire or develop wealth that is money beyond income. The income that you need to live on, that wealth is sometimes talked within the area of the housing gap, the homes and land ownership gaps. And then finally, peoplehood. And I keep deferring to go into that because I could talk all night, but that's where a lot of things like somewhere I was reading recently, this notion of the symbolic conquest of public space, how is public space? Okay, not in the form of land now per se, but public space in terms of public memory, in terms of public, the culture of the people, how are, where's black people in that form of public space in Amherst? So I'll just leave it at that and say, these are just some notes that I have toward the listing session. Dr. Shabazz, thank you so much. That was really, really helpful framework and really great just taking in everything that I heard too. So let's use that, let's save that I think and have that be our framework for the night. And Alexis, yes. Yeah, I'm so sorry that I'm gonna have, I have another meeting at three, but I just wanted to ask if we knew about the audio situation. If not, I, you know, how to reach me, but it would be great to know about that. And if I need to bring any microphones or anything in order for people to be able to hear us or anyone better, it would be great to know in enough time in advance. Absolutely, I am on that. I will contact the Hitchcock Center. There was another matter I wanted to, being at the event yesterday, they had some volunteers helping with parking. I think there are some logistics that we're gonna need to cover. We really have no way of knowing if five people or 500 people are gonna come. And so because we don't have the answer to that question, we have to be prepared, I think. I do think that this is going to be an event that will have a large turn up. And so I'll, I think microphones in that case may be necessary. And so I will certainly check in on that and let you know. Thank you. Dr. Shabazz, I see that your hand is up. I wasn't sure, okay. Sorry. No worries. And so just, we have another item on the agenda, our institutional partners. And I just wanna mention in terms of the listening session, that again, we will have members of the Student Senate from Amherst College. I am going to personally reach out to folks at Hampshire College, which we really haven't connected with at all. Unless somebody has, like Alexis, if you have a contact at Hampshire, then you think that it would be better for you to reach out or you know somebody you'd like me to reach out to, please let me know. Maybe Pamela has an idea about that. Oh, yeah, Pamela, please. Yeah, so Jen and I just met last week with the chief diversity officer who actually has a different title, but the vice president over at Hampshire. So I can communicate with her anything that you'd like for me to share with them. That would be awesome. If you could send the JPEG of the information with the listening session. And you know what? I'll send you a little blurb that I've been using for everybody, Pamela, and then that way you can take from that. That would be really great. I also wanted to share that I had the opportunity last week, I think it was, I'm losing track of time, to meet with the dean of the Fine Arts and Humanities Department at UMass, Dr. Barbara Prothammer and the associate dean Joyce Bowman. And we had a really, really good discussion about ways that the students at UMass can be involved in this process and ways that we can work together to educate our community through the Fine Arts and Humanities Department. And it was a really, really positive. And I believe that we'll have some further development of that and more collaboration as we go along. So Pamela, I see that your hand is still up. Just checking in with you. Good, okay. So let me just take a quick look here. I know there's some things on our agenda because agenda, I think Jennifer was out for a little bit and some, there were some different holdovers maybe on the agenda from that, like for example, the annual stabilization transfer. That is being, we already discussed that. That was unanimously recommended by the finance committee last week in the amount equivalent to the cannabis tax revenue from FY22, and it will be voted this evening at the town council meeting by the full town council. So that's on there. The CDBG should have dropped off a while ago, but that's okay. We'll make sure for next time. And so I'm gonna just ask once again for public comment. Oh, Dr. Shabazz, I'm sorry. I see your hand. Yes, just quickly, in terms of this image here, where are we? Are we on this side? Yeah, so that's exactly right. Like apparently that last night it was opened up. So that can be two classrooms or it can be opened up to one. And so- It's got a like a divider that can collapse. Yeah, that's how I understand it. Yeah. And what's kind of the general capacity we're looking at 60 here or? You know what, that's a great question that I should have an answer to and I don't. So I'll find out, I'm not sure what their maximum capacity is for the two spaces combined. And they do have another, I think third classroom that's separate where the last night the auction items were in. So if there were to be, we should have a plan here if there are more people than capacity and all. There certainly is that kind of logistical matter we might wanna look at, but just going with what we have and just thinking whether, because my last time in there of course, many years ago, pre-pandemic, was an event we organized, Kathleen Anderson, myself, some others had organized their community summit. And I seem to recall us being in a circle maybe, you know, or there could be audience styles chairs and if the AHRA members that can wanna kind of sit in one area up on within an audience framework or if we can go more circular, we'll see there might even be like pillows on the ground you can do, but it's just, yeah, that'll be something to sort of begin cause where are we now? We're with like the 18th today, so this is what in? 17th, yeah. 17th, so this is in 10 days or? Yeah. Okay, so we might have to break down whatever help I can give, I'll just leave it as that, you know, round logistics, just give me a shout what art I can do. Well, you know what would be great, Dr. Chabaz, if I can organize with my dear friend who's the director of development there who has helped us so much with this, if I can organize with her for the two of us to meet there and just go over a plan so that we, you know, have an idea of how we want things set up and things like that, would you be open to that? Okay, great. Dr. Rhodes? Yeah, one of the things that we need to check out with that is whether or not they will set up those chairs or are we gonna have to have some help setting up those chairs? And if so, we need to know that so that we, i.e. people in this assembly, can be present to do that before people arrive. As I remember from events that I have participated in and also sponsored, we had to set those, set that up ourselves and those chairs and things were made available but you need to know where those chairs are gonna be located and how one accesses them and then the second other side of that is setting it up as taking it down. So anyway, there are some tasks that we are gonna have to be tasked with with this in terms of this event. It's not something where they are automatically going to provide all the kinds of services that one would expect. I don't think that's a part of this. You know, you kind of feel bad for us to say, let's bring some bottled water there. Right, yeah, well, I wouldn't suggest that's something else. They wouldn't be happy about bottled water. They're living, building, they're beautiful living, building. Are the Ameson College students available to help with that? I believe they would certainly be happy to help with that and so that's a great suggestion. I'm speaking with Cyrus tomorrow so I'll ask him if he can arrive at six o'clock. I'll bring my thermos. Yeah, yeah, I'll figure that out. I think they have a something or other. I forget, I don't remember, but I'll check in with Kim and see. Yeah, they might have one of those big, like cooler things you fill with. Sister Michelle, you would just say yesterday. I know, but it was a catered event so I will tell you that their toilets take a really long time to flush. I am not joking. These are important items, right? This is what you make yourself. That's right, that's what you get with zero energy building. Yeah, everybody be ready Amherst, because it is something. All right, great. So I think that about covers everything. In terms of future agenda, it sounds like I'm gonna get and remember just as the rule always to send anything to only myself, Pamela and Jennifer in terms of if there's eligibility and use criteria framework that you'd like to be brought forward for the next meeting. And then also, of course, anything else. But that will be on our next agenda and we can start to, which is gonna be on Monday, okay? So we'll have a meeting next Monday, which is the, let's see, the 24th. And that will be right before our listening session. And then. That's the week I can't attend. So I'm gonna be here. I'm gonna be a check for some last check-in on the. Yeah, on the 24th, yep. And there may be a couple other agenda items that are one other agenda item that is coming to mind. But I'm gonna wait to talk about that one until we have, I have more sense of it. So I don't have anything else other than those items right now, but if something arises, please just email me. And are there any other, let me just go ahead and quickly call another period of public comment. If you would like to make a public comment at this time, I think everybody that was here was here when I read the statement. So I'm not going to read it again, but if you'd like to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. All right. So not seeing any public comment. Are there any other member announcements or anything that a member would like to add before we adjourn? Oh, sorry, Dr. Schauss. Just with respect. Yeah. Just mentioning that the HR 40, the commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African-Americans. Sheila Jackson Lee was recently speaking on where the legislation is, where the efforts are.  The study is the roadmap for the physical and mental trajectory of reparations. The bill did, of course made it through a hearing, but has not been scheduled any further in this legislative year. And so it's something that she is still out there actively seeking to push within the Congress. But at that point, she's really calling for, in a recent piece, calling for broader societal acceptance of reparative justice, of working for reparations and that we have to do more as we are doing here locally to try and educate, to try and pave the way for greater societal acceptance of action at the federal level. That's all. Thank you. And that's been on our agenda every week to do an update on that. So as just a standing item, so really appreciate. Is there a recent piece that she, like an opinion piece, or was it a? It was a news coverage five days ago that I can send out to you. Please do, yeah, and we'll make sure everybody gets it. All right, any other comments before we adjourn? All right, well, thank you everyone. It was really another great meeting and I'm adjourning at 3.09 p.m.


Hi everyone, thanks for joining us here with San Francisco Public Library and SFPL Live for our special Lunar New Year edition of Cooking with Chef Martin Yan. Please join me in watching this short video first. This is definitely the largest dragon on earth, long dragon performed by all these young children. It's going to be a fun, you know, travel along the street or market and move around. Beautiful, beautiful, amazing dragon parade. Thank you everyone and welcome again. I'm Michelle Jeffers with San Francisco Public Library and I'm here to welcome you to Lunar New Year with Chef Martin Yan. We're so lucky to have this superstar chef with us again today. Also with us is Leah Hillman, our Biblio Bistro creator here at the library. She's a chef and a librarian who leads cooking demonstrations at the heart of the city farmers market. But before we get started, I want to make just a few quick announcements. First, I want to acknowledge that we are on the unceded land of the Ohlone Tribal people. We acknowledge the many Romitush Ohlone people and tribal groups and families as the rightful stewards of the lands on which we reside. San Francisco Public Library is committed to uplifting the names of these lands and community members from these nations with whom we live together. Back to our show today, of course, Chef Martin Yan needs no introduction. Many of us got our first exposure to Chinese cooking thanks to his legendary PBS show, Yan Can Cook. Born in southern China, Chef Yan is technically a second generation culinaryian who was first inspired by his mother in the tiny kitchen of their family restaurant. He is recognized around the world for promoting and teaching Chinese cuisine. As you know, we've sent out the recipes today and we'll also put links to them in the chat field. I encourage you to also visit his website, YanCanCook.com. He is offering a special cookbook collection and tools with proceeds that benefit our friends, the friends of the San Francisco Public Library. The chef and his team and our own chef librarian will be answering your questions during the demonstration. So please enter your questions in the Q&A field on Zoom or in the chat field on YouTube and watch for other links and valuable information. So here we go. If Yan can cook, so can you. Let's get started. First of all, I welcome all of you friends of the San Francisco Public Library. We have a wonderful, I'm looking at an echo. Make sure we Try again, Martin. Okay, try it again. We're good. No more echo. We're good. We're good. I just want to make sure everybody can listen to me easily. But anyway, we are so fortunate to live in sunny California in the Bay Area. We have great produce, great food, great chef, and wonderful environment. So all of us should make the Bay Area great, the greatest Bay Area on Earth.  We occasionally also do it in the farmers' market in San Francisco. I only get invited once or twice, but you always get invited because you are the best. But anyway, I want to show you how to do a few things that which is very symbolic. You know, you look at all this thing that we have presented to you for celebrating Chinese New Year. You have the New Year candy right here. Coconut, lotus root, dumpling, lotus seed, candy ginger, winter melon, and dumpling. All of these are wonderful. You know, why people in Asia when they celebrate New Year New Year, they celebrate with candy? Because when you start the year with something nice and sweet, your whole year will fill with happiness and sweetness. That's the reason why. And normally they serve this, not as a dessert, they serve this when people come in to visit you. You serve a cup of green tea, a cup of oolong tea, a cup of pour tea, and then you serve along with the wonderful sweet candies. And of course, we'll talk about some of the other symbolic fruits and items that I put it here, why I'm cooking. First, I want to show you how to do, I call it the treasure box. It's like a treasure. You want treasure during the New Year celebration. And here I start with the cabbage.  You just remove these, remove these leaves, and then you just steam them. You see, remove these, you just steam it. Steam it or parboil it, it's okay. Now this is really healthy vegetable, okay?  So once it's done, it'll be nice and pliable so you can make it into a wrap. It turns this into a wrap, okay? Parboil this or steam this ahead of time. Now the other ingredient that I have is very simple. If you want to make vegetarian, this is it, all this vegetable here. I have dried shiitake mushroom. Now this is, I'm quite sure you live in San Francisco, you have used shiitake mushroom where it's dry or fresh. This is the fresh one. This is the dry one, okay? I'm quite sure you have. This is available every single store, anyway, nowadays, okay? Every, all the supermarket, you don't have to go to Chinatown to do it. But of course, San Francisco has the most delightful, most colorful, most traditional, authentic Chinatown. So I would invite all of your friends of the San Francisco Public Library to visit Chinatown, support Chinatown, which Chinatown brings a lot of tourists to San Francisco. So you should support San Francisco tourism by supporting Chinatown. Then you support the tourism of Siberia and California, okay? So when you have dry mushroom, you soak them or parboil them a tiny bit of wine, oyster sauce, and broth, and then you have nice, soft mushroom like this. Normally, this is really hard, okay? You soften it, then you can use either fresh or dehydrated dry mushroom. It's also called shiitake mushroom. Chinese call it dungu, in Mandarin called xiangu. Besides that, I have carrot, I have yellow squash, I have onion, and I have celery. I'm going to show you how easy it is to shred it. I'm going to do shredding, okay? First, you have to have a good sharp knife. This is the knife that I have designed, and it is full tank, triple rivet with a perfect curve. You, all my Chinese friends or Asian friends, you know that, most of the Chinese chef knife do not have this. I specially designed this, you know why? When you hold the Chinese chef knife, you hold it like this, you see, the index finger, your thumb, total control. So when you cut, you're touching here, so it might hurt your finger if you do not have this. Most of the Chinese chef knife do not have this curve. And then we'll show you, sharp knife is a safe knife. You hold on to this, you go one, and a two, and a three. I'm going to show you how thin the slices. This is how thin the slices, okay? How thin the slices. When this is all nice and done, you will line them more up and line them more up like this, okay? Line them more up like this. I'm going to show you how to do julienne. And I want to show you how to do shredding. You line them more up like this, can you see that? And then you hold on to this, you go one, two, three, five. Let me show you, when you cut, this is what you're doing. I'm going to shoot it, I put it right over here. I want to show you how you actually do it. I'll do it at this angle. You hold on to your knife firm, never hold on to your Chinese chef knife or any knife like this. There's no grip, okay? You hold on to it like this, with no control of your knife. You cut the cut, you make one mistake, gone. Okay, you cut the cut, make two mistakes, you never see this again. Three mistakes, this only thing left, you can never find a job in any Asian kitchen or any kitchen as a chef. Now, this is how I will show it.  See, this is how you do it. You julienne or you shred. Julienne is bigger, shredding is much smaller, like this is what I have just come, this is what you call julienne, okay? This is julienne slices.   That's why you get emotional. Okay, now look at me show you how fast you can do it. Okay, here is it on there, roll it up, now look at this. I cut all of these and I'm going to show you how thin the slices, okay? Nice thin slices like this, okay? Now this is all cut up. Now, basically what you should do is, whatever vegetable you have left over in your fridge, do it. I have a little piece of yellow bell pepper. I use it up too, okay? See this? You don't have to chop and make a lot of noise. You can do it like this, look at that, okay? Nice and skeamy like this, look at this. And then you put it around and put it right here. And then, now, how do you do celery? Now, celery, this is how you do it. Shred the shallow, you go look at it. One parallel cut. You see this? See this? And then, once again, parallel cut, parallel cut. Once again, look at that. You just keep on, this is what you call parallel cutting technique. You see this? You see this? All this. And then, the rest, you butter fry this. This is parallel cut, okay?  All of these are shredded, okay? Shredded celery. This is how you do it, okay? Shredded celery. And in the meantime, shiitake mushroom, it's fresh. It's a little bit too thick. This is what you can do is, you slice it horizontally. You see? Slice it horizontally like this. Your fingers always on top of your knife. Never here, always here.  I butter fry this. You see this? And then, I slice it. One, two, three, four, five, you see? All shredded. Now, you have skinny mushroom like this, okay? So, either fresh or dry. Now, you can, all of these things is all here, okay? This is all done.  And this is how you do it. I will show you how to do it. You start from the bottom. One. This is called, you call it parallel cutting technique.  Look at that. And then, you go once again, one, one, push, push, push, push, push, push, push, push, and then one. Look at that. And then, you do it again. You continue to do it. But of course, nobody have to do it like this, particularly when you do it at home. You can make it a little bit thicker. And then, in the meantime, I'm going to do Julian. One, two, three, four, five. You see this? You see this? You see? Now, this is all the Julian. You all cut up like this, okay? And then, you put it all over here. Now, this is the vegetarian cabbage wrap. It's a treasure box, okay? But if you like to have meat, now, this is Smithfield ham. I steam it. I also, now, this is the one that you don't mind to have a tiny bit of meat. Basically, this is for favoring, okay? For favoring, you do, you do not have to add a whole lot. You just, oh, look at this. One, two, and three, and four, and five. All of this is done. I put it right over here. I want to show you. Now, you have all of these cut up. Look at that. All of these cut up right here. And then, in the meantime, I'm going to show you, we're going to have to saute this. Turn this on. Then, put a tiny bit of oil. Now, like last time, I mentioned it to you, there's a lot of cooking oil in the market, okay? But if you do stir-fry it, high temperature, short times. Chef, we lost your sound. Chef, we don't have sound. What is this? We got you back, maybe. Okay, good. Yep. Okay, good. Good, good, good. Now, got echo sound. What is this? Okay. Try again, chef. Now, mute that one. Can you hear me now? It's still echo. We don't hear an echo on our end. It's okay. Okay. Can you hear me now? You cannot hear me. We can hear you, chef. Yeah, you can hear me now, right? Okay, good. And folks want to know about the audio. Okay now.  Can everybody hear me? I cannot hear that. We hear you. You don't hear us. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear us? I cannot hear. I cannot hear. We can hear you, chef, and no echo. No echo, huh? Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, good. Now, let's continue. Sorry. Apologize, because we are not that pet nerve, so I'm just a chef. So, I apologize. Now, when this is ready, I'm going to mention it a little bit more. This is actually organic and virgin press, cold press. Very high vitamin A and also antioxidant. So it's very good, zero cholesterol. So, I use this oil for my cooking. Okay. Now, let me show you. All right. The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to stir-fry all of these, but if you want to add flavor, I'm going to show you how to do it. I have garlic here. Okay. I have garlic here. I have ginger here. I want to show you how to mince garlic and ginger when you have a martini-inch sharp knife. Okay. Peel garlic. All you have to do is press a little bit and the whole thing comes out like this. Okay. Look at that. Very simple. And then, after that, this is garlic. How do you press garlic? Press garlic right here. Once again, press garlic. You see that? You actually press it. And then how about ginger? Press ginger. Press ginger. Look at this. I'm actually pressing, crust the ginger instantly with this knife. Press ginger. Like that. Okay. This is how I do it. Then I'm going to use a tiny bit of this chameleon seed oil. You can use any cooking oil. Okay. Canola oil, corn oil. And then I just about half a teaspoon to a teaspoon. That's all I use. Okay. And then I put this in right here. Nice and sizzle. Okay. And then I stir-fry it. Okay. I stir-fry this. Look at that. This infused, the garlic and the ginger infused my oil. And then let it stew for vegetarily. Okay. Things that take longer to cook, put it in first. Carrot and zucchini. It takes longer to cook. We'll put it in first. Look at that. And then mushroom. Okay. Let it stir for a few seconds. And then we put the rest of the stuff in. Now look at that. Oh, can you see that? Everybody can see that, right? Everybody can hear me? Yes, sir. Good. Very good. Just in case something, you cannot hear me, you need to let me know. Okay. And then put the press bean curd right here. Press bean curd. This is vegetarian. Okay. This filling of the cabbage rope is vegetarian. I want to show you. And we put the rest of the stuff in. Mushroom, zucchini, and celery, everything. So the idea, you know why Asian food is so, in a sense, very healthy? Because you're eating a combination of colorful vegetables in all your meals or in your daily meals. So that's the reason why. And look at that beef. For those who watched the Yankee Cushion PBS and KTVA Channel 9, for 40 years, I have not gained one pound. Look at that. Okay. So stir, stir, and then put it high enough. Now when you stir something over high heat, you should always have some water or broth around. Look at that. So this way, nothing will get burned. But you're not burning it. There's nothing more to it. Okay. You don't want overcooking. And then you add a tiny bit of seasoning. Tiny bit of sesame seed oil. Okay. Simple seasoning. It's healthier. Tiny bit of rice wine. Okay. And a tiny bit of, for this particular, I will use a tiny bit of, my good friend, young man, said it to me. Five spice powder. Young man, my good friend. And then a tiny, tiny bit of oyster paper sauce, if you want. Okay. Tiny bit of oyster paper sauce. Every single Chinese or Asian household will have a bottle of oyster paper sauce. Okay. And then the ham, which is already steamed. So this one, we'll put it all together. Oh, look at that. This is beautiful. And then I slightly keep a little thickening. I mix with one portion of cornstarch to about three portions of water. And I drizzle it on.  Oh, look at that. Beautiful. So this way, it will not be as, there's no liquid. Very dry. This is already thickened. I want to see the final look of this. This is the final appearance of this. Okay. Then we set aside. We'll show you. We get a little clay. We'll set aside. Let it cool down a little bit. Look at that. That means you can literally do this ahead of time. You do not have to do this in the last minute. Okay. And then the next thing we'll show you is, we will show you how to fold it. And, oh, look at it. I'm so appreciative. I'm quite sure of our home team at the San Francisco Library. I'm appreciative of all of you. Wonderful people support the San Francisco Public Library. Okay. When the COVID-19 calmed down a little bit, I will go come to that library and do a presentation live for all of you. Now look at this. This is hot. But since the wrapper doesn't need to worry about where it is hot on cold, so now this is how we do it. We put this over here and we use this. I'm going to show you how to do it. Okay. We put some of these right over here. This is already well-seasoned. Okay. I put this right over here. Wow. Look at that. Just beautiful. It can be vegetarian.  This is the cabbage roll. Look at that. Trash box. Okay. One more time. You put it over here. This is nice and pliable. And I put this right over here. Oh, beautiful. And then you fold it. You fold it. You fold it. And you fold it. And you fold it. And you roll it. You roll it. And you roll it. And then you have an other trash box right here. Okay. Look at that. Beautiful. One more. You always, always use either three or nine or eight. Never use four. Never make four because four is not a good luck number in Asia. Eight, three, nine, 18 good luck number. Okay. You fold it like this. You fold it like this. Just like an envelope. Like a gift package. You roll it. You roll it. You tuck it in. You tuck it in. You tuck it in. And you have a beautiful roll like this. Look at that. And then what I'm going to do is after I finish, I will steam it. Now how do you steam it? Look at that. I will steam this either over here or literally over here. Over a steam wrap. There's a steam wrap here. Now this is the steam wrap. Okay. Every single Asian household will have one of these. You put it over here. You steam it. Since everything is already cooked and the vegetable is already, the cabbage already blanched. Or it takes about three or four minutes to cook. But if you have raw meat cooked for five to six minutes. Okay. So that's the important part. The most important thing is and cover this up and let it steam. In the meantime, I'm going to show you what I'm going to do. Here, I'm going to serve these vegetable rolls right in this beautiful pot. Now look at this. This is pureed carrot. I boiled the carrot and I pureed it. Then I will add a tiny, tiny bit of chili. Crushed chili to give the little kick to it. Crushed chili also for my good friend Yao Ming. You see this? Yao Ming. And then I put a tiny, tiny bit of vinegar. A tiny bit of sugar. And a tiny bit of wine. That's the seasoning. Okay. And a tiny bit of salt. A tiny bit of sticking it up. This is it. Now to save time, I'm going to let it steam over here.  Here is the pureed, cooked carrot.  Now this is a tiny bit of salt. Okay. Yeah, not much. Just enough. A tiny bit of sesame seed oil to flavor. So this is going to be beautiful. Okay.  This is a very unique dish. Okay. Everybody hearing me? Nice and clear, right? We hear you. Good. Look at that. Can you see? Can you? Beautiful. Nice and clean. Okay. And then this will be the bottom. This will be the bottom. Make a special sauce. Okay. We make a special sauce by adding a tiny bit of extra corn starch. Oh, beautiful. A tiny bit of extra wine. This is going to be so good. Now this is beautiful. I love wine. So beautiful. Oh. Now this is very healthy. This is like a red envelope too. Okay. When this is done, we will put this. Now let me show you. This is the sauce. Now this is a dish that you don't see in any Chinese restaurant. I put this pureed carrot. You can use pumpkin. You can use pumpkin. Okay. Look how beautiful. Nice and beautiful. Very flavorful. Okay. And in the meantime, I will use this. Now look at this. Let's see what this is. Most Asian household also have one of these. These are robotic. You can lift the plate and you put it right here. You put it right here. Look at that. Look how beautiful. How wonderful this is. Now in the meantime, we're going to transfer this right over here. Look at that. Wow. Look at that. One. Okay. And two. Okay. And then three. And this is how you do it. Everybody can do this at home. And then sprinkle a tiny bit of sesame seed right on top.  You have a beautiful dish like that. Look at this. This is a very healthy, wonderful. I call it cabbage roll or treasure box because inside here has a lot of wonderful treasure here. If you want to make it nice and simple and cute, let me show you. To make it interesting, all you have to do is get some color contrast. Very important thing. Color contrast. You slice one, two, three, four, five. This is Thai chili from my garden. I sprinkle this right over here. And this is beautiful. Look at that. And that's all you have to do. Beautiful. And if you want, you can actually have a firecracker. Put it right on top like this. Everybody can do it, right? Now, next we move on to, now this is station number one. Okay. Anybody have any questions? Please ask. I'll give you a couple of minutes to ask some questions. Martin, there's a question from Ava who wants to know when your new cookbook is going to be out. Hello? Hi, Chef Martin. Can you tell us if you have a new cookbook coming out? I am writing a book called The Best of Yankee Cook. So hopefully it will be available soon. But right now you know that the pandemic, a lot of the printer, a lot of everything is very slow. Okay? Next dish. Everybody catch up with me so far? Can everybody catch up with me so far? So far, Chef, yes. Good. Good, good, good. Next dish. We serve fish. Now in Chinese New Year or Nuna New Year, fish is a must. You got to have fish. Fish in Cantonese is called yu. In Mandarin it's called yu. That sounds like abundance, plentiful of supply. That's why the Cantonese always said nian nian yau yu, nian nian yau yu. That means every year we have plentiful, plentiful of happiness, plentiful of good luck and good fortune. That's reason why I also do another whole fish. Whole fish with fried cracker, red emerald sauce. This is the whole fish, sweet and sour whole fish. Because it's sweet and sour, I mix plum sauce and Thai chili sauce together and use Thai chili and pan fry the fish or deep fry the fish until nice and crispy. And then I put the sauce right on top. And therefore Chinese New Year, we also have a one pot meal. You put everything, nine different items into one pot. One pot meal. Look at that. One pot meal. Let me show you what I have here. This, the whole family can share. In fact, two years ago, I was filming in the new territory in Hong Kong. They have the one pot meal for 1,000 people, 100 table, abalone, shrimp, duck, soy sauce chicken, mushroom, lotus root, cabbage, shrimp, all kinds of stuff. Everything is one pot.  Let me quickly show you what is inside. This is what you call the one pot meal. Underneath here, I have all kinds of stuff. I have cattle fish ball. I have beef. I have lotus root. I have shrimp. I have cabbage. And I have roast pork. All kinds of stuff. Everything is here. Nine different dishes in one pot. This is what we call one pot meal. And this is often served in many parts of the new territory in the village of, in the old village, in that wall village. And then they always, always use this and have a big one pot meal banquet. Now, just in case you don't have the time to do it, no problem. We are so lucky to live in San Francisco. There are many Chinese restaurants that actually offer this dish for you. They have the smaller one, and then they have the bigger one depends on how many people. For four people, they have about this big. Also nine different dishes. And then for 10 people, eight to 10 people, they have one this big, a little bucket. They actually sell you the whole container.  I understand that a few restaurants in San Francisco actually carry this like a Koi Palace in South Bay, and the Habba Mille in downtown and Guerrero Square. And then also Peninsula Pearl, Peninsula, H.A. Peninsula. They also serve this, and flower lounge, and palate. They all sell this, so one pot meal. This is very, very traditional. And this is the principal actor. This is the main actor at Bologna. Wow, look at that. I have one big at Bologna, and a few smaller at Bologna around. So this is one pot meal. Now, talking about fish, we've got to serve fish, okay? We're going to serve fish, and then and then we will show you the ingredient that we will serve fish. Let me show you. We have fish here from the Chinese name for this. Now, just in case your question, your question, how do you call it in Chinese, in Cantonese? I'm quite sure a lot of people live in San Francisco that speak Cantonese or Mandarin. This is called Pan Chai Poon Choy. Everything is here, filled it up, Poon Moon, Poon Mooner. And that's the reason why it is good luck. Repeat after me, Poon Choy, Poon Moon, Poon Moon. That's what it is, okay? All the things is here. You can purchase it in some Chinese, I think normally a larger Chinese restaurant will offer this. So you don't have to cook nine different things yourself, okay? That's unknown. That is no, no, because you don't have the kind of time. And next thing I want to show you is something very unique. I want to do a wonderful miso glaze, sea bass. Instead of doing it, I'll always show you you can do this kind of fish, but a lot of times people don't like to see the head and the whole fish and the pain in it. You get a filet. You get a salmon filet, cod filet, sea bass filet, and this is Chilean sea bass, okay? This is one of my favorite dishes. And you go to any Chinese restaurant, they always have this dish. All you have to do is crush this and marinate this, okay? Chilean sea bass, okay? Look at that. We will marinate this. This is miso. This is the Japanese miso. Or you can use Chinese miso, a Chinese bean seed fermented soybeans, okay? This is miso. I marinate the whole thing and turn it upside down. Okay, I turn this upside down, okay? Marinate this. You should marinate this overnight. This is very, very popular in Japanese retro, miso glaze salmon, miso glaze fish, okay? Hopefully, everybody can do it at home. This one is also very, very nice to do. Very, very easy. So what we have to do is you can pick them or you can pan fry them. We're gonna pan fry this, okay? Pan fry this with a tiny bit of our Himalayan tea seed oil or any cooking oil that you have available. And I put it here and let it pan fry with the lid. Let me get a lid. This is a perfect lid right here. So perfect. Now this particular miso sauce, I have miso sauce sesame seed oil and sake and a touch of sugar. So they keep that, that caramelization, okay? And then this is it. If you want, no, this is beautiful. And then I'm gonna pan fry this. I'm gonna need my miso sauce back. I'm gonna show you. Look at that. I'm gonna use the remaining miso miso miso sauce to make a sauce to put it right on top. Now look at this. Hot. Let us see it. Oh, use medium high heat. Use medium high heat. Not to allow it to get burned. Put some extra sake first. Let it steam. Oh, and then cook on each side. Depends on how thick. One inch, not a big, about six or seven minutes. Okay. But we use double time. Otherwise, we burn the bottom of the pot and inside it's still raw. Okay. The next thing I'm going to show you is I'm going to put some shredded onion and chili sauce and mix the Korean chili sauce or you can use the Chinese garlic sauce, the garlic chili sauce right here. And then we'll make a sauce. And then I put the vegetable right on the bottom. Any leftover vegetable, you still take and put it right in the bottom. This is really good. Okay. I want to show you. This is onion. And this is celery. All of these that I have left over. That's the reason why Asian cooking is good. Any dish you can use all the leftover. Never have to worry about it. Oh, let me show you how beautiful this is. Okay. Ah, look at how beautiful. Look at that. Nice and golden brown. Once again, we will wine. Oh, this is so wonderful. And then we use medium low heat or you can finish cooking by picking it often. Okay. And then I'll show you how to do this. This is something everybody should learn. Here I have onion. And I want to show you how to cut the onion in half. Line them all up like this. You go like this. Look at that. That's how you do it. And then this you want to stir fry and then pour it in and let it cook to flavor my sea bass. Oh, beautiful. And then I also use a kind of Jin Zhang vinegar or goseme vinegar. Put it right here to give the little vinegar taste. And then also a tiny bit of sugar. Now look at that. I want to show you how beautiful this is. This is going to be so good. I sprinkle the vegetable around. Okay. This is something that you do not see in Chinese restaurant either. Okay. And then this is nice. And then we'll cover this up. In the meantime, I'm going to show you how to make a simple sauce. Okay. Here you have this and the leftover miso sauce, chili sauce and vinegar right here. Just enough. Don't make it too hot. Okay. The tiny bit of sugar. Just a tiny bit of sugar. That's all you have to do.  Look at that. That's the sauce I would put it in. This is a fish that everybody can do at home. You know why I like a sea bass, chili and sea bass because there's no bone. No little big bones. It's very safe. The only one big bone right in the middle. And also it's moist and juicy and succulent. Okay. Never, look at that. Beautiful. When this is done, I transfer this. I transfer this. Right on top of these green beans. Look at how beautiful the green bean is. This is the green bean that I have. Right. Look at that. This is the green bean I have right here. I stack them all up right in the middle. I stack them all up right in the middle. Okay. Now this is the green bean. Okay. And then I will transfer this. Chef, can we ask you a question about the kind of miso you use? Look at that. Beautiful. And then I would put that sauce, that vegetable, the spare vegetable, put it on the side. So nothing is wasted. Okay. It is so beautiful. Nothing is wasted. Oh, look at that. Okay. And then I will make the sauce by using, oh, look at that.  And then the sauce, the extra miso sauce. I will make a sauce out of this. Look at that. This is really, really good. This is the, I guarantee you, you never see a dish like this. That's the reason why, you know, I always tell people, cookbook is good. But cookbook is not the only way that you have to follow. Cookbook recipe give you inspiration. Okay. More sake. Okay. And then when it's already and mix it up, this is a little spicy because of the chili sauce. Okay. And then I will thicken it up. Now when you're thickening it up, the most important thing is always remember, one portion of corn starts to three portions of water. Okay. Mix it up. Oh, look at that. This is how wonderful. This is more wine. Okay. And more either water or liquid. Oh, beautiful. And then when this is done, look at that. This is very, very favorable.  Look at that. Spare, brush it right on top. And this, it is li-ni-niao-yi. That means abundance of supplies because it's fresh. Look at that. Beautiful. Isn't that nice? This is what we have done so far. Look at that. And then you put it right around here. This is the second dish. Okay. Look at that. This is amazing. And this is another one that we will show you how to do it. First, we will show you how to do a Ludo Long Night Ludo Pancake. So far, anybody have any questions so far? Anybody have any questions? Anybody hear me? Chef cannot hear us. We can hear Chef, but he can't hear us. Okay, sure. Okay. The important thing, I want to make sure everybody hear me. That's all. Now, next dish, I want to do Long Night Ludo. In Chinese restaurant, you always, always serve Ludo during special occasions, particularly Lunar New Year, happy birthday, anniversary. Always, always use Ludo. The reason why you use Ludo is because Ludo is long. Okay. Ludo, that means long lasting relationship, wish you long life, long lasting relationship, long lasting good luck and good fortune. That's why you always serve Ludo. And then I parboil this Ludo. Any Ludo is fine. Parboil it and I put it in a slotted container like this. Slotted container like this. And I'm going to either bake them or pan fry them. Okay. I want to show you. I want to bake them or pan fry them and get this ready. In the meantime, we'll show you all the ingredients that I have. Look at that. This is what we have. Shredded meat. If you don't have, if you're vegetarian, use the pressed tofu again. This is peanut butter or sesame seed paste. Okay. Sesame seed paste or peanut butter. Chunky. Okay. And then you have onion and you have shallot. Shallot is extra. And then I slice, slice, slice. Okay. Slice this and slice this. This is that. Very good. This is good. As I said, I am so appreciative to have the opportunity to share with you my passion and love of good food. Once again, I think these are good ingredients to use. Once again, butterfly. Parallel cut. Put it right here. Put it right here. Look at that. Look at that. Look at and then you go one and two. And then this are the wonderful thing right here. And then I also use shallot because I want to have some color and flavor contrast. Okay. Also put it over here. And then if you want color, let me show you. If you want extra color, no problem. How do you open a bell pepper? She saw your knife. Remove the seed. She saw, she saw, she saw, she saw. She saw, she saw. Done. Okay. And then I will butterfly this one more time. Okay. I'm so glad that we are able to not only to share with you my love of cooking, but also have the opportunity to raise some money for friends of San Francisco Public Library. Okay. So color contrast is very important to use different kind of vegetable. Okay. Always, always hold your knife properly. Always. Okay. And this is nice and done. Now, now we have the meat, we have the vegetable cut up with this and then we'll show you how easy it is. It is to do this. I want to show you. I'm going to show you how to quickly deep fry this. Okay. This is what we have to do. I'll show you. You hit this up. You're going to deep fry this. Let me show you how to do this. Okay. You literally check out whether this is ready by putting it in. If it is not bubbling, the best way is how the most Chinese would do it, or most Asian would do it. You put a clean pair of bamboo or wood chopstick right here and if it hits hot up right away with bubble around here, that means the oil is hot enough. Okay. Let me show you. Check, check this out. Okay. Can you see the bubble comes out? Okay. Now, we'll wait for a few more seconds because it's not hot enough. Then we'll do the stir fry first. We do the stir fry first. All kind of walks and turns and right in my kitchen. We heat this up. We do it quickly. Stir fry the meat and this first and put it right on top of the noodle. And that is a wonderful thing to do. That means you can use any meat, turkey, shrimp, seafood, a beef, everything. Okay. Basic marinating. A tiny bit of soy and a tiny bit of pepper and cornstarch. That's all. Cornstarch and pepper. A tiny bit of cornstarch. I want to show you how easy. Cornstarch. Why Asian? Asian. Only the Chinese shop actually use cornstarch as a marinade because it serves three purpose. One, seal in the juice. Okay. Beautiful. Then give that nice smooth texture and the shiny glaze. Okay. Because the gelatin, when it's cooked over high heat and water, the gelatinize. Okay. And then this is all ready and then I'm going to show you how easy it is. Once again, tiny bit of oil of your preference. And then you put this right here. Okay. Stir. Beautiful. The key, the trick about stir frying is when you put it in, don't let it, don't stir it right away. You allow it to sit for a little while before you do it. Okay. So allow it to sear the meat and seal in the juice. And that's very important. Okay. Look at that. This way, nothing gets stuck. Can you see that? Look at that. Nothing gets stuck because I allow it to sear at the bottom first before I turn it upside down. And that's the key to do, to stir fry. Okay. High temperature short time. That's the reason why, look at that. Nothing gets stuck. Can you see that? Nothing gets stuck even though I have corn starch. The wok has to be very, the frying pan has to be very, very hard. Very, very hard. Sear the meat and seal the juice instantly. So look how beautiful. Nice and beautiful shredded. And then I put the rest of the ingredient right in here. Okay. Look at that. Beautiful. Beautiful. That's it. Oh, look at that. And then we want to make a special sauce. This is going to be so good.  This is the oyster flavor sauce. Okay. You can even add a tiny bit of crushed chili if you want. Crushed chili to give that little kick to it. Okay. And then the key. Now this is the key. This is the uniqueness. This alone, you can put it right on top of the noodle. This alone. No problem at all. But I want to use the sesame seed paste to give that nice flavor. And then make a sauce out of these to put it right on top of my noodle. Oh, this is beautiful. Look at that. You don't know how beautiful. Look at it. Look at the sauce. Look at the sauce. Okay. Look at this. This is another dish by itself. Okay. This is another dish by itself. This is beautiful. Perfect. Okay. Now, when this is done, we will put this into a bowl. Set it aside. This sauce is put it right on top. Look at that. This is actually a dish. Very unique dish. So, so far, most of the things that we do have a symbolic meaning and also very, very simple. And then the next thing is we will show you how to make this noodle basket. Now, the reason why I show you is you can have a choice. You pan fry this like a noodle pancake and serve it by itself. But this is more unique. This is something you don't see too much in the restaurant. So, I put it right over here. Okay. Look at that. Look at that. I put this and I, oh, look at that. Nice and nice and beautiful. And it doesn't take too long to cook because these are very skinny noodles. Oh, this is so beautiful. Now, while we're doing this, I will show you some of the symbolism. Okay. Look at this. First of all, during Asian New Year, the married couple or elderly people always give a red envelope with money inside for the young children or the single people. Then they always bring this golden mandarin or tangerine orange to friends and neighbors to wish them good luck and good fortune because this is in the color of gold. When you have a color of gold, you can literally bring good luck and good fortune. The symbol is you're bringing good luck and good fortune to people. And then there's a pomelo. The pomelo right here, there's a pomelo. Pomelo in Chinese in Canton is called luo yao. Luo yao means abundant surprise. That means you are having abundant surprise of good luck and good fortune for the whole year. That's the reason why we have this symbol. Now, this is basically done. Okay. We'll take this out and we will put this over here and I will show you how amazing this is. Okay. First, let us get rid of these and then you lift these up. Look at that. Nice and golden brown. Look how beautiful this is. Nice and golden brown. And then when this is done, you set it aside and put it right over here and you turn it upside down. Now, this is kind of hot. Make sure you are careful. Okay. Look at that. Look how beautiful. And this is amazing. And we'll put this in this beautiful surfing platter right here. And then this is a noodle basket. And then I put this wonderful dish right inside here. Look at that. This is how beautiful this is. Everybody can do this at home. Look at that. So, so far, I have shown you three dishes that have a lot of symbolic meaning that everybody can do this at home and everybody can enjoy it. Right before that, I also can garnish this a little bit right here. Okay. And then I also garnish this a little bit. This is a min, fried min. I put it right on top of here. Okay. And then I also put a piece cup over here. And this is what we have. Everybody can do it. Now, I'd like to take this opportunity to invite all of you to show you when you have a sharp knife like this. You order from here. Let me show you a sharp knife. It's a sharp knife. It's a quick knife. It's a safe knife. Cut. Look at that. I'm going to show you one, two, just to show you how sharp when you have a sharp knife. Look at that. Okay. Look at that. Look at this. Look at that. And then to test a good sharp knife is whether you can cut newspaper with very flimsy. Look at that. Isn't that amazing? So, if you're interested in that, you can log into this. Log into this yankincook.com for more recipes. Or you can log in Facebook, Chef Martinian, Instagram, Chef Martinian, Instagram, Facebook, Chef Martinian. And then you can get a chance to get the knife that I just used with this special gift. All of these, proportion of the proceeds would benefit the San Francisco Public Library, friends of the library. And then easy to sharpen my knife. I have these wonderful, wonderful sharpening steel, diamond sharpening steel. Normally the sharpening steel is round like this. This is flat, diamond stud. When you sharpen it, you go one, two, three, four, five, six. And this is really, really razor sharp. Let me show you how sharp this is. Okay. When you have a piece of this onion, you go, look at how sharp this is. When you have a sharp knife, it's a safe knife. I'd like to take this opportunity to show you all of these wonderful, symbolic, Nuna New Year dishes and also the symbolism and also firecrackers. Let us celebrate our life, happiness. And most important, when you go out, put in a mask, social distance, be safe and be healthy because health and safety is your breast pressure. And I tight like to take this opportunity to thank our staff, the wonderful people, the chef and the host to work with me today to bring you the food that celebrate Nuna New Year. Thank you so very much, fans and members and supporter of the San Francisco Public Library. We all look forward to seeing you and do something in front of you, life, once everything is settling down. And thank you. Good luck. Good fortune. Happy New Year. Thank you, chef. We so enjoyed having you and your team with us today. Thank you everybody for supporting the library. We look forward to the next cooking show with Chef Yan. Thank you. Good night, everybody. Bye-bye.