I was born in Honghu and lived there for 14 years. The Yangtze River runs through Three Gorges Dam, then passes Honghu, before it flows down to Wuhan and finally to Shanghai.

I have been living in Tampere for nearly 6 years, the longest time I have lived in one city since Honghu. The decision to come to Tampere was strongly objected to by my parents. It later turned out to be my destiny. I met my husband, who was from here.

I decided to take my husband from Tampere to Honghu this summer, to let him get acquainted with my other family members, the place where I was from and the way I used to live.

Before we went, I told my husband that Honghu people lived off lakes. There are 103 lakes in Honghu city, with a water surface area of 880 000 mu (1 mu = 667 sq m). Honghu itself is a huge lake with an area of 530 000 mu. There will definitely be many kinds of fish for us to eat. But this information was far from sufficient...

Three weeks of living in Honghu really opened his eyes, made him understand the old Chinese saying: “Kao shan chi shan, kao shui chi shui--- live by mountain, eat from mountain, live by water, eat from water”.

At every meal, there was something from the water. Aside from numerous kinds of fish, we were served: shrimp, crab, turtle, soft-shelled turtle, wild ducks, geese, water snakes, lotus root, lotus seeds, lotus leaves, lotus flower, water walnuts, unknown water plants… All these stuff, my husband has never seen before, let alone eaten. Only one fish --- the pike --- was familiar, but it was prepared the Chinese way, so it was absolutely unrecognizable to him.

My favorite are lotus products. June is the season to eat fresh lotus seeds. Peel the green skin, put the white as jade seed into your mouth, it's as sweet and fragrant as having a cup of green tea by the lake on a sunny Sunday morning. Pick one lotus leaf, wrap soaked rice in it, put it in a bamboo or wood steamer. The cooked rice reflects the greenish color, the light fragrance of the lotus leaf, there is no rice in all the world better than this. Or just tear the leaves into tiny pieces, and add into rice porridge.

In June, only baby-lotus-root is available. Nothing more than a spoon of oil and a pinch of salt are needed to get a plate of tasty lotus root. Lotus flower is an incredible dish. It has such an elegant and fragile shape. In order to keep its beautiful shape, chefs have to use a flour and egg batter to coat the entire flower before deep frying it. It is served with some sugar sprinkled on top. This dish really shocked my husband.

Other than water products, Honghu people also dish up pumpkin leaves, flowers, radish leaves, sweet potato stems and many other food materials beyond your imagination.

On June 28, we came back to home to Tampere. My husband was so hungry that he automatically switched on the oven and took out a frozen pizza. How adaptive of him!

I would like to apologize to our readers since there is no specific recipe I can share this month. Blame it on the fact that I didn't cook once while I was in China!