Orchid Scripture

Seven days of Christmas treats

2009-12-25T10:25:00.001-05:00

To celebrate finishing off the semester and taking advantage of the time I'd set aside before the real studying for my first comprehensive exam (last weekend in January) begins, I decided to try out a new recipe for something sweet each day as we count down to Christmas. Making something for the first time always entails some challenges, but the bigger challenge is consuming all this stuff, as freezing anything really isn't an option at the moment (see previous post)

Friday, December 18 - Cinnamon Rolls

I halved the recipe and it still filled three pans...

Saturday, December 19 - Red Farm Animal Sugar Cookies
This was actually the first time I'd made simple sugar cookies. Luckily, I got a family recipe from our friend Seleta so I had some direction.

There was a bit of a baking pan fiasco after the first batch - this is our sole baking pan (a gift from our friend Lakshmi when she lived in a NYC apt with an oven that was too small for it) and it's used for everything from cookies to flank steak to granola to sweet potatoes - it's seen better days - days when it actually still functioned as a non-stick pan.

Luckily, Owen's taught me that there is nothing that some butter can't fix...

Sunday, December 20 - Mint Snowtop Cookies

Monday, December 21 - Molasses Cookies
(Recipe from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion)

a good excuse to finally buy a bottle of molasses...

They don't quite taste like the molasses cookies I loved from the co-op in Vermont, but they were good for a first try

Tuesday, December 22 - Red Velvet Shortbread Cookies Dipped in White Chocolate
before being baked, they sort of looked like beets

Wednesday, December 23 - Reindeer Cookies (but I used this recipe for the chocolate dough instead)

These were really fun to make
Thursday, December 24 - Caramel Apple Sticky Buns (for a late night Christmas Eve treat)

Merry Christmas!

Venison

2009-12-20T21:11:00.001-05:00

As I'd feared, once the semester took hold, updating this blog fell by the wayside. As of last Friday, the fall semester was officially over for me and one thing to share about this past fall is that Owen got his hunting license, some gear, and went out for two weekends with our friend Ethan during the season. I honestly didn't have incredibly high hopes of ending up with any venison, but they proved me wrong...bringing home a small doe (about the size of a big dog) the first weekend and a 5 point buck (much bigger) the next. Owen field dressed each on site (autopsy skills coming in handy) and then they brought it to one of the many local farmers who make some extra cash during deer hunting season by processing your deer. One thing's for sure, we'll be eating venison through the spring...

Our Freezer:

Not really room for anything else at the moment...

Defrosted ground venison

Some ways we've enjoyed our deer so far....

Venison meatballs

Served over pasta with a red wine and pan juices cream sauce

Venison breakfast patties

Annie's Mac and Cheese with brussels sprouts, ground vension, and bacon...

Marinating some venison steaks (from the doe...so these are the smallest steaks we have)

Grilled venison steaks, potato-turnip gratin, and spinach salad. Neither of us finished our steaks, but they will make great steak sandwiches in a couple of days...

Keeping Cool 2009

2009-09-01T15:18:00.002-05:00

Last summer in Hangzhou was extremely hot and humid. On par if not worse than Singapore but without the air-conditioning and with more pollution. So, we were constantly ingesting food and drinks to try to beat the heat and posted an entry at the end of the summer showing some of the things we ate or drank in an attempt to keep cool.

At the beginning of this summer, I thought it would be a good idea to make a 2009 version of that post, keeping track of what we ate and drank this summer to keep cool. What I didn't realize back then was that we were going to have a lukewarm summer. There was maybe a week right at the end of May and then another set of arguably uncomfortably hot days a couple weeks ago, but otherwise I can't claim that we were ever searching for something to keep us cool. I'd been holding off for an Indian summer or something to try to get more photos for this post, but as I sit in our dining room with sweat pants, a fleece, and socks on Sept 1, I am beginning to worry that it will be snowing by October and I'd better get this post up before I am buried under both books and snow.

So, below is a collection of some of the things that we ate and drank in an effort to keep cool, or as was more likely the case this summer, just cause we wanted to (and really like ice cream)...

Homemade dark chocolate fudgesicles. Super rich and creamy and probably too big. About half way through they are the best things ever but if you finish the whole thing on your own, it's a bit sickening cause it's so dark and rich.

Fruit-infused ice water

Abbott's Chocolate Custards (with almonds or with sprinkles)

The best "healthy" chocolate-banana shake (pictured along with its ingredients)

This actually was cooling - ice cream at Chase Farms after a morning of strawberry picking

One of several trips to Bill Wahl's Microcreamery, Pittsford:

Cotton Candy Ice Cream and Grape Ice Sherbert

Shortstop, Ithaca:

Two-berry twist (raspberry and blackberry)

Classic chocolate and vanilla twist with rainbow sprinkles

Finally, I didn't actually have the pleasure of eating this, but I saw it in a food court in Manila and am posting it for my family and other supporters of the Milo industry:

Milo dinosaur, meet Milo soft serve

Back to the Books

2009-08-28T19:16:00.017-05:00

I had my first class of the new academic year yesterday. It was the field seminar in comparative politics. The professor attempted to cajole all of us non-first year, non-majors out of the course since there a few too many people in it for the government department's liking (>15) only to welcome us all back this morning realizing that we really didn't have much of a choice about having to learn the material from the course. The mandatory part aside, he does seem to have it structured in an interesting way, bringing in several colleagues to co-teach the themes that are their specialty. I am torn now because last night I'd resigned myself to helping him out and agreeing to just audit it; the upside for forgoing getting credit would be one less paper to write...which would hopefully mean less December stress. With the Chinese language fellowship (= no need to TA), I could still get enough credits by May to be done with the minimum course requirements but that would potentially mean less flexibility in the spring to take courses outside the department that they wouldn't credit towards the government requirement or to take a slightly lighter load...anyways, this has just been an overly wordy tangent to get to the main point which is that school is back on. Back to the weekly (or perhaps bi-weekly this semester) commute to Ithaca and the already-piling up pages of reading, which unfortunately means less time to spend in the kitchen and on the blog (I found out last year that I not really that good at multi-tasking).

Earlier this week, as a final little kitchen project before going back to the books [non-cookbooks that is], I made some whole wheat french bread (using whole wheat flour that Owen had just ground up from wheat berries using our hand mill) and yogurt cheese (which is so easy that it's definitely going to keep being made throughout the school year). Oh, and some undocumented sweetened condensed milk was also made.

Yogurt cheese (app. 48 hours out of the yogurt container)

Fruity cheese for breakfast (yogurt cheese mixed in with homemade and hand-picked black raspberry jam)

Hopefully, we'll still be able to meet our goal of cooking through the weekly CSA bag before the next delivery and have enough energy to keep experimenting with new ways to do it to document and at least sporadically upload. But for now, it's back to working hard for the money... (is it bad that I already can't wait for next summer??)

Meatless mixed grill

2009-08-28T18:58:00.004-05:00

The idea of being a vegetarian didn't seem all that bad tonight. Not with fresh eggplant, golden beets, and zucchini, among other goodies to play around with.

one-eyed, one-horned flying purple...

2009-08-25T19:04:00.000-05:00

Bell peppers. They come in purple. Glad to have made this new discovery.

Still Sated

2009-08-20T13:53:00.027-05:00

We continue to work with what local produce we're provided with each week and have even been able to slash our weekly grocery bill. Here's a quick overview of what's been our own table these past couple weeks.

Above and below: What we've worked with these last two weeks (mainly from the CSA, though the large eggplant above is from the Rochester Public Market and the larger tomatoes are from a friend's garden)

Incredibly fresh sandwiches (you can get a large whole wheat Italian loaf at the Public Market bakery for a mere $1.50)

"Beef hot-sauced lettuce salad". Supposedly a dish one might be served if you found yourself in Inner Mongolia and a quick way to use up a lot of romaine (stir frying romaine has definitely been a good thing to start doing). (recipe from Beyond the Great Wall: recipes and travels in the other China)

eggplant and leek lasagna

Sauteeing beet green stems and red onions, to which the actual greens are added for a great side green (below)

Fresh salsa: sans cilantro [courtesy of a friend]

One thing we've become very familiar with is summer squash, especially zucchini as it always shows up in our bags. I guess there is so much of it around here that you can even find directions for figuring out how to deal with [aka get rid of] your overabundance of summer squash

We've found some ways too.

stir frying it in a wok with some oyster sauce, onions, garlic, and peppers

adding it to boxed macaroni and cheese

making a variant of the typical bruschetta (roasted zucchini, mint, and red pepper flakes)

Self-help

2009-08-14T13:39:00.006-05:00

If you were making a dish from scratch, you could make it more nutritious by adding more nutritious ingredients right? So, can eating a package of nutrient-free ramen be justified by adding an egg and some veggies found in the fridge?

**********

PS. Looks like we aren't the only ones thinking about this...or at least how to spice up what one popular blog calls blahmen...there's even a ramen cookoff in Brooklyn.

Inanimate love

2009-08-12T13:51:00.001-05:00

We walked away from our wedding celebration last summer with several hundred dollars worth of credit from the culinary store Williams-Sonoma and decided to use a good portion of it to purchase a large, fancy kitchen gadget. We narrowed it down to two items at the store: a Breville juicer (similar to this one) and a DIY deli meat slicer (something like this). Until we begin having a craving for thinly sliced meats on a daily basis, I will be very happy that the juicer won.

Why we love our juicer:

Delicious results from fruit or vegetables

juiced greens (beet greens, spinach, and lettuce) with a touch of garlic and apple juice

It catches all the pulp

Which we can then make into bread

Moral Hazards?

2009-08-07T10:01:00.010-05:00

This week's dining section in The New York Times had an article with anecdotes about the potential complications of sharing a kitchen with friends/family/others in a summer rental and advice for easing the pain. In addition to aphoristic statements such as "hell is other people in the kitchen" and solid advice such as "sharing a kitchen should only be tried with companions whom you know to be conscientious and with deep reserves of good will", a key take-away point was the importance of a division of labor.

Owen and I have worked out a stable division of labor. I take the raw ingredients and turn them into something edible for us to eat and he takes the dirty dishes and makes them clean again. One of his favorite things to tell our friends and family is how while there wouldn't be a better system for us, there is nothing stopping me from using more dishes than may be absolutely necessary (or that I may have used if I knew I'd be the one cleaning them).

He'd probably show you the photo below to prove his point.

However, I argue that this isn't typical at all. In my defense, there had been five eaters at the meal.

Two introductions...

2009-08-04T12:28:00.001-05:00

At least another two weeks have gone by, which means two additional bags of fresh veggies to experiment with and talk about. The past two batches have each contained one vegetable that we had previously neither eaten nor even heard about, which is always exciting. We have now acquainted ourselves with the purple kohrabi and yellow cucumber.

Week 4's harvest (the kohlrabi are the small purple and whitish bulbous things in the center)

introducing the purple kohlrabi (taste and inside is the same as the white kohlrabi but the bright purple skin is just an added aesthetic bonus)

Many people talked about eating kohlrabi raw with a little salt, but I tried doing that and honestly didn't really like it. Kohlrabi also seemed to pop up in a lot of Indian and curry recipes so I parboiled them and then added them to some green curry, tofu, and other veggies and they were a great addition.

Week 5's harvest (the yellow cucumber is the almost excessively bright round yellow centerpiece between the green peppers [which were really tasty raw] and golden beets)

Other things in the bag were red onions, green cucumbers, and leek.

The lemon cucumber's solo shot

There was also a lot of talk about eating lemon cucumbers raw and unlike with the kohlrabi, I do concur that this cucumber variety is very delicious when eaten raw. It's got all the benefits of a good, crunchy raw green cucumber but with a bit more sweetness and non of the bitterness you can sometimes get from a green cucumber if not lucky.

****************************************

Though the spotlight has been on these two new veggies, we did enjoy the rest of the bags' goodies, so to close this post, here's some of what we've made at home in the past couple weeks.

lots of beets..simply roasted for about an hour in a foil covering with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh thyme...nothing else needed.

roasted red onions with a bit of a mustard, lemon juice sauce (based on an Ina Garten recipe) but only using the red onions we got and adding the green spring onion tops

zucchini and chickpea pasta (thanks to a recipe from the August Real Simple magazine Lakshmi was reading on her flight up to visit us)

the steamed green beans from the CSA were merely a side dish in this meal featuring a roasted pork tenderloin with apples, but it was a good one and maybe worth posting

straying from the CSA topic even more, nothing in this tart came from either week's bag but the raspberries were from a local farm so I guess it still fits into the eating local category and it was a tasty tart (though once again I ask, can anything with almost two sticks of butter in it be bad?)

This stuff's made in New York City

2009-07-29T15:42:00.032-05:00

With two new rear wheel bearings replaced with complements of the local (45 mins away) Subaru dealership (turns out those parts had been recalled a year ago and were the explanation for the low, loud rumbling that had been competing with the radio for the past few weeks), we packed up the car and the dog and did the 5.5 hr drive southeast to NYC for some good food and family time.

5 floors up was probably higher than Gretch had ever been in her life...she enjoyed checking out the view and probably amused herself this way while we were out enjoying some of our old dining favorites.

One great thing about NYC is that it is not only possible but totally acceptable to sit down for a very late dinner. We got into the city around 10pm on Friday night and with unloading the car and some initial catching up (and getting over Auggie's surprise presence in NYC), we showed up at Tiramisu, a stalwart neighborhood Italian place, just before 11pm and the place was still relatively busy.

The namesake dish (and my favorite version of the once-hip dessert) on the house, complements of the longtime, friendly Ecuadorian manager.

We basically ate on Saturday (though we luckily did make it to Central Park for a reservior run before lunch).

Vietnamese Bo Luc Luc and Pho. Unfortunately, our favorite Vietnamese place Miss Saigon closed its doors after many years (though for a couple of months they mysteriously were still able to do delivery) so we had to try out another establishment. It's not Miss Saigon but it still beats the Vietnamese food we could probably find in Rochester.

Post-lunch Pinkberry. Lines have died down a bit and menu has slightly expanded. Still pricey but my year-old $10 gift card (thanks Lakshmi!) came in very handy.

Dinner was at Artisanal. We went from pulling the late night NYC dinner to the early NYC dinner...sitting down to eat at 6:30pm. The reason was because two of our friends had to catch a train that evening and it was definitely worth the early dinner to be able to catch up with our NYC dinner cohort
I usually get the steak frites but given that we'd only eaten lunch around 2pm, I opted for the moules frites...and it was not a bad choice. (Artisanal's fries are one of my favorites so as long as I got those, it was okay to forgo a steak)

Owen tried the pork chops, which he also approved of

The main part of the meal and the main reason we keep coming back, however, is the fondue. And, with six people, we were able to get double fondues!

Artisanal blend on the left and fondue du jour (which I am totally blanking on now but it included pieces of apricot) on the right

Sunday brunch with the whole family

included...

west coast oysters before noon

range of egg benedicts (traditional, crab cake, and lobster)

CSA - Week 3

2009-07-20T19:05:00.001-05:00

We mentioned a couple posts ago that we joined a CSA for the season and our goal is to eat through the week's veggies within the week. Week 3's bounty included more types of lettuce, spinach, zucchini, and sweet onion with tops. Below is some documentation of how we worked toward this goal last week.

Juicing is always a good way to whittle down the remaining greens. Here's the remaining pulp from our greens that did not make it through the juicer

zucchini casserole and three-lettuce salad

Pizza I (topped with mozzarella and feta). Ribboned red lettuce actually isn't such a bad topping.

Pizza II (topped with cheddar and supplemented with a can of artichoke hearts)

Spinach gratin topped with a bechamel sauce and a pair of hard-boiled eggs. The large leafy spinach we got worked really well.

Nachos with zucchini and spring onions

Berry Picking - Round II (Black Raspberries and Blueberries)

2009-07-17T14:25:00.015-05:00

Our friend Lakshmi came to visit from New York City earlier this week just in time to catch our mutual friend Kristen's final days in Rochester (before a long move to Buffalo) and the very beginning of the raspberry and blueberry picking-seasons.

Lakshmi and Kristen showing off the fruits of their labor...

Black raspberries at different stages of ripeness. The farm had a red raspberry field too but the black raspberry field was where the good harvest was, at least for now.

Our bounty - besides going straight from crate to mouth, these have also been turned into three jars of black raspberry jam, some black raspberry sauce, and great granola topping

Blueberries were just starting to come out, but we were usually able to find at least one ripe one in each bunch

Eating Local

2009-07-11T15:19:00.012-05:00

We joined a CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) for the first time this year. It's a 22 week season that is supposed to start in mid-June, but cooler weather pushed our start date back to the very last Saturday in June and we just picked up our third week's produce a few hours ago.

These first few weeks there has been a plethora of variants of lettuce. I'm not sure if it's because it's the start of the season or perhaps because it has been an excessively cooler and wetter one this year. We've also had a different type of onion each week so far, which includes the entire, long, green portion, which I've been chopping up and freezing in the hopes that it will get us through a year of garlicky chicken dinners.

We split the bag with another couple, which has been a good thing because it would be really hard for the two of us to get through that many greens in a week, even though I have a penchant for cooking for more people than actually live in this house. The goal has been to get through our entire share during the week and use only what has come in the bag for the vegetable portions of our meals (this has been good for testing out new recipes). On the whole, we've been successful...both weeks we had to carry over a bit of lettuce and purchase one or two other produce items...but we are getting really good at integrating lettuce and other leafy greens into our diet.

Frittata made of Week 1's sweet onions and swiss chard

Week 2 (red onions with tops, romaine and green crisp lettuce, red and golden beets, and spinach)

There were only four beets total in week 2's bag, which meant only two for us, but we roasted them and made the most out of them...

and they were a great main attraction (along with homemade blue cheese dressing) on a salad (using the CSA lettuce of course) to go with a roast chicken dinner

Korean bulgogi/pulkogi with lettuce wraps

Juiced greens (lettuce and beet greens...with some apples for some sweetness) along with pure fresh apple juice

Week 3 (picked up today: sweet onions, green and yellow zucchini, spinach, boston and romaine lettuce). Currently brainstorming about what to make this week...

Berry Picking - [Truncated] Round I - Strawberries

2009-07-08T18:51:00.019-05:00

These photos are taken a few weeks ago on my inaugural summer 2009 berry picking excursion (back on the day when Owen was at a non-descript testing center for 8 hours taking Step 1), but I did not post them immediately as I hoped to have records of at least a couple strawberry picking expeditions. Unfortunately, there's been an insane amount of rain this year...causing the farm we get our CSA items from to post stories about their flooded fields and the other strawberry patch I'd been hoping to hit up call a premature end to their season!

Beautiful field on what was a beautiful day

Our friend Hannah working hard for her bounty

Our bounty

Someone else's bounty (most likely an overachiever, manic jam maker, owner of a large freezer, or parent with many little mouths to feed?)

Reward for the morning's work...pre-lunch ice cream and strawberries

*****

The strawberry season was too short this year, but it was fun while it lasted. So long fresh, handpicked strawberries. Keeping our fingers crossed for repeated rounds of other berry (raspberry and blueberry seasons are just around the corner) excursions to report back on...

Independence Day: A Baby Weber Holiday

2009-07-06T19:10:00.017-05:00

No one came decked out in red, white, and blue; no fireworks or flags were raised; the burgers were chicken not beef; the buns were wheat not good old American white; there was a pineapple from Costa Rica, and the Weber grill needed some tag team help (even soliciting help from a French-made indoor kitchen pan...).

the remants of our Costa Rican pineapple (brought to our dinner table courtesy of Dole inc.)

the above picture may explain why the Weber couldn't handle the entire meal

and needed to call on the Le Creuset grill pan below:

Nevertheless, good food and good company still made it a enjoyable holiday experience...

marinated and grilled fresh veggies (mix of public market, CSA, and Wegman's wares)

a seasonal fruit salad that may have rivaled our Weber grill in size

and Sam's Club pink lemonade that was "as invigorating as it [was] affordable"...how can you turn something like that down?

A Tribute to William Penn and his Ilk

2009-07-04T13:45:00.000-05:00

Owen is preparing for the apocalypse and a central part of that preparation means making sure we can still eat breakfast without relying on a middle man. To this end, we have started making our own granola.

Ingredients:

oats

sliced almonds

dehydrated apple slices

light brown sugar

cinnamon

salt

unflavored cooking oil

honey

vanilla extract

dried fruit (usually dates, raisins, cranberries, and/or apricots)

At first we thought we thought we were smart by buying the big carton of oats at Wegmans...that is until we found the 25 lb bag. Using 8 cups of oats for every batch of granola (which lasts us about 2 weeks), this 25 lb bag was a godsend.

Fresh out of the oven

We have different preferences for how to enjoy our granola:

Owen (granola with powdered milk)

Anna (granola over vanilla yogurt with some berry sauce on top)

An Edible Namesake

2009-07-03T20:41:00.013-05:00

The bag of Russet potatoes, having started to grow eyes, kept staring me down every time I went into the back room. It was time to finish them off and we needed a side dish for our go-to garlicky chicken meal. I went to the first place I often look when I want to review old-school ways of preparing staple foods - my mom's 1973 edition of Irma Rombauer's Joy of Cooking. Looking for some sort of baked potato recipe given the type of potatoes I had, I came across an eponymous dish on the page facing the various baked potato recipes which I had (surprisingly perhaps) never heard of that Rombauer describes as "one of the most beautiful of all culinary wares." She was referring to a version of Potatoes Anna made with a lidded copper dish and that called for the use of "a corer the size of a small biscuit cutter" in order to make even rounds. Not having either of those tools at my disposal, I did a quick online search to see if I could find a simpler version of the dish. Scanning the numerous recipes that came up, I settled on a Martha Stewart recipe that merely required the potatoes, just under a stick of butter, and salt/pepper. We did have to eat a slightly later dinner because I hadn't realized that the dish needed to cook for at least an hour in a 450 degree oven.

I wouldn't call it the most beautiful culinary creation, but I was impressed by how the whole thing stayed together after Owen inverted it onto a serving plate (I am way too impatient and not careful enough to be in charge of any transfers from cooking to serving dish so the task always falls to Owen). It was tasty too but then again can you really go wrong with butter, salt and pepper?

Bringing Back Banana

2009-07-03T14:23:00.013-05:00

Banana Pancakes are a great way to put soon to be overripe bananas to use...

especially when you don't get around to starting breakfast until 11am

Owen was proud of his action shot

11:30am...a real brunch

Life after Step 1

2009-07-03T13:13:00.010-05:00

So, we are a bit behind with this whole summer blogging thing. I can't even say that it's because we've been super busy with stuff like "school" or "work" (though Owen has already started his year out as a Pathology intern understudy and it did take us three days to paint our bedroom).

Anyways, Owen took Step 1 two weeks ago Monday and there was an edible prize waiting for him in the fridge for finishing that chapter of his life...

Since then, in addition to Owen's start in pathology and house painting, there has been berry picking, a set of visitors, and the start of our CSA (community sponsored agriculture) that brings us weekly veggies from Porter Farms (http://www.porterfarms.org/). More on all this soon.

Black Magic

2009-06-20T09:05:00.004-05:00

Owen is taking Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) on Monday. This is how he has been studying.

Burgers, part II

2009-06-19T22:25:00.008-05:00

This time it's chicken. After our last post, Owen's sister Emily sent us an alternative burger recipe (see her comment in previous post for the recipe). I have to admit I was a bit skeptical at first given that my only previous experiences (being school cafeterias and summer camps) with poultry-based burgers have been flat, rubbery, dry and tasteless (their only purpose being vehicles for your condiment of choice).

However, I have warmed up to chicken burgers once again...these were anything but dry, rubbery and tasteless. I credit the rosemary-garlic mayo mixture added to the ground chicken before being made into patties.

Unless you have an aversion to rosemary and especially for those of us who had bad experiences with chicken burgers in the past, we recommend trying these out. Thanks Emily for the recipe!

The photo caught him chowing down on corn, but Owen enjoyed the burgers too.

At-Home Burger Fix

2009-06-13T15:32:00.008-05:00

For the first few days after getting back from Singapore, I was craving a good burger. I wanted to go out and get one but Owen convinced me to try to make some at home and I'm glad he did because they turned out really well and totally were what I was looking for. Feeling a bit lazy and since they were on sale (making it just $3 for two patties), I bought ready-made blue cheese and ground beef patties at Wegmans...made on a grill pan, with some good avocado, a locally grown tomato, a couple of sharp cheddar slices and sandwiched within a whole wheat bun, they made me happy.

Oh yeah...we thought it would be good to have some greens (and reds) on the side.

Aged Wedding Cake

2009-06-12T22:24:00.017-05:00

Given that the first post when we started this predominantly food-based blog last summer was about the food we enjoyed over our wedding weekend, it seems apt that the same day I decided to try to start posting again this summer, we received a package in the mail from Grandma Jacquie with the top of our wedding cake, which she'd kept for us in her freezer as it aged for a year in accordance with a tradition that I only learned about just before our wedding.

The red velvet cake top still looks and tastes good, even though it's a year old. Still turns everything on the plate pink too.

Island Eating, one year later

2009-06-12T20:10:00.027-05:00

I'm so happy that it's summer. Having now returned to school, the main reason summer pleases me is that it means no classes and while there is work to be done during these three warm months, I will be sure to have more time to enjoy cooking, eating, and sharing stories about food once again...at least until the middle of August. Once school starts up again, all bets are off.

I kicked off my summer with a short trip to see my family back in Singapore, including a quick 48 hour trip to Manila. We packed in a lot of good meals in the short time I was in Asia...below are some highlights (a lot of seafood since that's something we don't get to enjoy too much of here in Rochester)

Sashimi lunch set for my first lunch in Singapore (just don't really trust the sashimi in Rochester)

Fried baby squid (sotong)

Long Beach Seafood Restaurant - one of the best places in Singapore for seafood...food did not disappoint, though they are trying to go all fancy with their presentation, which is not necessary

Pepper crab, chili crab dipping sauce, and greasy fried buns (best non-seafood item on the menu)

Prawns with salty fish roe sauce (and an overdone plate presentation)

Two noodle dishes from Crystal Jade (left - Dandan mian; right - zha jiang mian)
[fresh soybean milk in the foreground]

********* 48 hours in Manila ********
(Two goals: see family; eat food)

Just some of what we ate for lunch (garlic rice, sisig, filipino style calamari)

Bibinka (with white cheese and salted egg)

Hands down the best meal of the trip (eaten just before going to the airport to catch our flight home). All this food came from a single stall at the food court of a new shopping center...if only the food courts at malls here could do this

Remnants of my oysters and this type of seaweed I'd never had before but would definitely have again.

So Much Food, So Little Time

2008-08-18T04:05:00.087-05:00

I just returned from a whirlwind trip back to Asia. Flew to Singapore, but the main purpose was to make it to Manila to celebrate my grandmother's 96th birthday (and see her since she was unable to travel for our wedding in June). I was gone for 8 days, but taking travel time into account and being home in Singapore for a full day on each end of my trip, I had less than 4 days in the Philippines. My family knows how to pack in a lot of food into a short period though, much of which is documented below.

My mom and I arrived in Manila in the early afternoon on Friday and after checking into our hotel we headed straight over to the nearest Via Mare branch for merienda (afternoon snack).

A tangy salad with greens, tomatoes, red onion, crispy pork, and a salty bagoong (translated as shrimp paste) dressing. The salad makes up with flavor what it may lack in healthiness.

Pancit Luglug (round rice noodle smothered with a thick shrimp sauce with pieces of squid, chicharon, and hard boiled egg)

My favorite part of this meal - hot corned beef (left) and queso puti/white cheese (right) pandesal sandwiches

Got to have your condiments - this one is patis (fermented fish sauce) and kalamansi

A couple hours later we met up with friends for dinner at a new homestyle Filipino food restaurant

Ensalada Talong - eggplant salad. It's served as shown above for you to personally mix to your liking (below). Items in this version of the salad included salty duck eggs, red onion, tomatoes, green (unripe) mango, okra, eggplant, and bagoong.

Soft tofu with a shrimp and chili sauce. A bit of a Filipino-Chinese fusion dish (of which there are many)

A variation on the typical pork adobo. This one is made to have a crispy outer skin and served with roasted garlic.

Back: Eggplant and ground beef omelet
Front: rilled boneless bangus (milk fish) belly

We accompanied our meal with two types of rice. Jasmine rice topped with dried salted fish (above) and fried garlic rice (below)

Condiments at this meal: bagoong and vinegar

On Saturday morning we drove to Tagatay, a highlands region about an hour and a half outside Manila, to spend the weekend with my grandmother and other immediate relatives. First order of business: lunch

The lunch spread (there were six eaters)

Another version of the ensalada talong (no okra in this one, but I liked that the tomatoes were shredded - made mixing it all up easier)

sinigang (traditional Filipino soup with a characteristic sour taste)

Sizzling pork sisig (dish made with head meat and liver flavored with kalamansi and chilis). It's good despite the ingredients...both Owen and I will vouch for it

BBQ squid

A whole array of condiments
Liquids on the left: patis, vinegar, soy sauce
Right: crushed garlic, ginger, chilis, and red onion

The majority of our meals in Tagatay were home-cooked at my uncle's home. This is the best type of Filipino food, especially when the produce comes from your own garden and chicken coop.

How we spent most of the day - lounging and eating (I think this photo was taken sometime between breakfast and lunch)

Chicken coop underneath the house

A mature rooster that I watched be slaughtered for a future meal a few minutes after taking this photo.

An evening meal (lettuce in the salad from a neighbor's garden; tomatoes from my uncle's; the chicken was not their own though)

Freshly harvested and steamed corn

The source of the corn

Other items ready to be harvested in their garden:

long beans

pineapple

spring onion

Lunch on our final day - mainly made up of leftovers from previous meals, with the addition of fresh tilapia steamed in banana leaves (below)

Besides main courses, we ate a lot of snacks and dessert. No visit to the Philippines is complete without this activity.

A sampling of snacks: including sampalok (tamarind candy); calamansi and honey juice, chicharron (pork rinds); dilis (dried anchovies)

so many options...

Buko (young coconut) shake on the left, with Buko juice on the right

Left: Green mango shake
Right: Ripe mango shake

Ube (purple yam) pies

Mango puree and sago (tapioca pearls)

Ube-macapuno (a type of coconut) cake

Queso de bola cheesecake

The reason for my visit - my grandmother is looking good for 96

The Long Road Home

2008-08-15T11:04:00.022-05:00

As we mentioned three posts ago, we had a very long trip home (Hangzhou-Shanghai-Vancouver-San Francisco-Charlotte-Nashville-Huntsville-14 hour drive-Rochester). Below are a few of the things we ate on the way:

1) June 6: Shanghai

Our last real Chinese meal.

Braised Eggplant (with the same topping that is found on ganbian siji dou)

Tender fatty pork with radish shavings on top

Our final dish of niangao...oh how we will miss you

2) Taking advantage of free food at the airport
One of the perks of having done a lot international travel for work is racking up enough mileage points to gain entrance to the Star Alliance airport lounges, regardless of what class you're flying. We had lots of layovers on this trip home...and learned that lounges in airports abroad serve better food than ones in US domestic terminals.

Not a bad spread by Shanghai Airlines

3) June 7: San Francisco - reuniting with friends over a good example of good ol' American-style Italian food

The menu at Emmy's Spaghetti Shack

Heirloom tomato, fresh peach, and mozzarella salad

spaghetti and meatballs

4) June 9: Huntsville to Rochester

No, we did not eat the Fritz. Just wanted to upload this photo to show how Fritz got to live the relaxing life while we pulled off a straight 14 hour drive to get him home.

5) Finally back in Rochester

Too tired to make anything fancy or time-consuming, so we threw a bunch of ingredients together (broccoli, chicken, pepperoni, garlic, olive oil, mozzarella, Parmesan) and rolled out some defrosted dough for a simple homemade pizza.

Keeping Cool

2008-08-13T23:21:00.009-05:00

Southern Chinese summers are hot and humid. Spending the summer in Hangzhou = being hot. Here are some of the many things we ate or drank in an effort to keep cool:

Living in a hot place with non-potable water = lots of bottled water

overpriced but refreshing energy drinks

it's a lucky break when a hotel room has its own water dispenser

watermelon, ice, and aloe

packaged dairy

best juice brand

freshly squeezed juice

barley milk

apple soda

more local sodas

cold mango pudding dessert

minty jelly out of a potentially dirty cooler on a street in Shaoxing - it cooled me down and am glad it didn't kill me too

Chinese style banana split

ice cream galore

guizu xiaojie - a mistake never to make again

yes, this is bubble tea ice cream...(with some pearls too)

alternate forms of bubble tea

an elite version of bubble tea - fresh mango and coconut blended with sago

soft serve over slushies
Coldstone in China...well sort of...it was Shanghai after all

An Introduction

2008-08-12T23:50:00.000-05:00

I discovered Wanglaoji about halfway through our stay in Hangzhou and never went back. It's the most refreshing drink out there. It quickly became my favorite drink in China and I set out to learn more about it. The first thing I noticed was that it is ubiquitous in at least the Hangzhou/Shanghai/Nanjing area. Below are photos documenting the myriad places and forms one can find Wanglaoji, interspersed with Wanglaoji-related "facts" that came up during conversations with locals.

Wanglaoji's can is heavier than a normal aluminum can that a soda comes in, so you often think there is still some liquid left at the bottom when unfortunately you've actually drank it all.

"Wanglaoji is the official drink that unites the 56 ethnic groups in China"

Wanglaoji is best when served very chilled

Wanglaoji has actually been around for a long time but their current popularity and ubiquity started a few years ago when the state company seemed to take marketing into account. The company also supposedly donated a record high amount of financial aid toward the Sichuan earthquake relief effort, which no doubt put them in the good graces of the state.

When we went out to dinner with Zhang Tao and his wife, we had several spicy dishes at a Sichuan place. Owen noted that chilis are known to bring up the heat in one's body, then asked what would be the equivalent item to cool one down. Zhang Tao and his wife immediately and simultaneously responded with "Wanglaoji".

"Wanglaoji is to China what Coca-Cola is to America"

知味馆 - the final Hangzhou eatery

2008-08-12T01:26:00.001-05:00

We haven't posted anything for the last ten days, during which we took a very long route home. We left Hangzhou on August 4 for 3 days in Shanghai at Alex Geertz and Sean Leow's place; flew out of Shanghai's Pudong Airport on August 7 to San Francisco via Vancouver; spent the night in San Francisco where we had a mini ladies reunion and got just under 6 hours of sleep at Alex Wang and Paul Leow's; flew all day on August 8 to a 3 hour layover in Charlotte en route to Nashville where Owen's mom picked us up for a 2 hour drive to their home in Alabama; woke up on August 9, put the dogs in the car and hit the road just before 7am for a 14 hour drive back to Rochester. Had a somewhat restful Sunday, Owen started school on Monday and I got on another plane Tuesday morning for NYC, stopped by my old office and then boarded an 18 hour flight to Singapore for a quick trip home to see my family and mainly to make it to my grandmother's 95th birthday in Manila.

So, we're no longer in China, but we have three final China posts, starting with the last individual Hangzhou restaurant - an established local chain, Zhiweiguan. There is one flagship restaurant and then smaller branches all over the city. They even have a line of frozen food products so you can enjoy the Zhiweiguan flavor in the comfort of your own home.

Ordering our meal

匆油饼 (fried green onion pancakes)

猫耳朵 (a dish called "Cat's Ears" because of the shape of the noodle-like item in the soup)

more stir-fried niangao (rice cakes)

xiaolongbao (soup dumplings)

K歌 +

2008-08-03T00:35:00.021-05:00

Zhang Tao and his wife and a few other girls from Owen's lab took us out for karaoke and dinner.

"And as I wind on down the road..."

干煸四季豆 (Sauteed string beans)

冬瓜 (winter melon)

酸菜鱼 (fish and pickled veggies)

酸辣土豆丝 (hot and sour shredded potato); 蒜容青菜 (greens sauteed in garlic)

铁板日本豆腐 (tofu served on a sizzling platter)

辣子鸭丁干锅 (spicy duck)

黄蛋南瓜 (pumpkin with salty duck egg yolk)

入乡随俗 (When in Rome...)

2008-08-02T00:45:00.004-05:00

Owen has become of one those guys.

A Meeting of Minds

2008-08-01T23:41:00.026-05:00

We leave Hangzhou on Monday. As a final hurrah we decided to invite two of our tutors - one of Anna's and one of Owen's - to fine dining at 外婆家 (The Grandmas).

Gao Xiaoxiao (Anna's tutor) and Zhang Ying (Owen's tutor)

This Hangzhou franchise, always full to the brim (even on a weeknight), teased us yet again with the city's mantra: "卖完了" ("sold out"). This was our second meal at 外婆家; the first time we beat the crowd by having a late (unimaginably late for most people here) 8:30pm dinner only to find out that three of the dishes we wanted were sold out. This time, with our guests Gao Xiaoxiao and Zhang Ying, we decided to play it safe and set a 5:30pm dining time. We still had to wait for about 15 minutes for a table, but that's much shorter than the norm. We ordered a variety of dishes, including their signature 茶香鸡 (translated as "red-cooked chicken with tea flavor"). The other dishes arrived in succession and we patiently awaited the final remaining dish - the chicken. We waited and waited (enjoying our conversation at the same time) and finally decided to inquire about its status. The waitress checked our order sheet and stoically replied "卖完了" ("sold out").

But they did have these wares:

青豆泥 (Mashed sweet green beans)

花菜 (Cauliflower - something I usually disparage, but this particular dish had good flavor)

On the left - 京酱土豆丝 (crispy shredded potato with what was supposed to be a jingjiang dipping sauce, but ended up being ketchup - we used the sauces from the other dishes)

On the right - 辣椒炒肉 (pork sauteed with peppers)

A close-up of the crispy thinly shredded potatoes prepared for consumption

Duck

绿茶并 (Green tea patties)

Here are some of the dishes we had the first time we went to 外婆家, which I never posted:

Left - 桂花年糕 (cinnamon rice cakes)

Right - salty duck egg-crusted pumpkin

Shredded pork and celery

牛柳四季豆 beef filets and green beans

Serving the Queen

2008-08-01T03:42:00.022-05:00

About a week and a half ago, our friend Hou Xiaoting's parents kindly invited us to join their family for a farewell dinner (she'll be studying in the United States for the next two years) at 西湖春天 (West Lake Spring). I just realized that we never posted any photos from that dinner. In addition to good examples of typical 杭帮(Hangzhou) cuisine, we were introduced to some new and innovative dishes, so it's still worthwhile to post them now.

Some classics...

Tea Tree Mushrooms

Crispy Shrimp

Mushroom and Fishball Soup

铁板日本豆腐 (Cast-iron Tofu)

A couple first-time dishes...

南瓜炒粉丝 (Fried mung-bean noodles served in a pumpkin)

煎饺 Fried dumplings with a crispy stringy cover made of some sort of dough...

And the dish that reigned supreme...

Snow-white outer layer....

with an inner mango surprise

Too bad neither of us remember the name except that it maybe had "snow queen" in it.

A Hundred Years of Grease

2008-08-01T03:18:00.015-05:00

It's comforting to know that we can still discover a good place to eat without Dianping's help. We can rest assured that our senses haven't been dulled and we can still feel good about a place we pass on the sidewalk and decide to take a chance.

But then again, with a name like 百年锅贴 ("A Hundred Years of Potstickers" or "The Hundred Year Potsticker" - however you choose to translate it), they'd better be good.

The restaurant namesake 锅贴 (fried dumplings/"pot stickers")

肉丝年糕汤 (shredded meat and rice-cake soup--年糕 is one of the best things Southern China has to offer. If I could bring one thing back, it might have to be 年糕)

Their version of beef curry rice (not exactly what we expected but still okay to eat)

The Copper Pot

2008-07-30T23:06:00.006-05:00

涮羊肉 - Usually translated as Mongolian Hot Pot (as opposed to Sichuan Hot Pot, which was featured in an earlier post - http://orchidscripture.blogspot.com/2008/06/blog-post.html). This sort of hot pot is known for an abundance of various cuts of lamb and the old-fashioned, free-standing, "coal burnin' " copper top pot.

McCain would be happy: no pork allowed

Food Diplomacy

2008-07-27T23:41:00.014-05:00

Singaporeans are proud of their food and for good reason - it's unique and good.

A company called "Prima Taste" has figured out how to package and market this pride, with a range of ready-to-cook food mixes that allow ordinary home chefs to pull together a surprisingly authentic Singaporean meal without really breaking a sweat. (I've definitely utilized a package or two to the delight of dinner guests.)

While perusing Dianping for West Lake area restaurants yesterday, we came upon an entry for a Singaporean restaurant. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a concept restaurant run by the makers of Prima Taste.

We shared an order of Hainanese Chicken Rice and Beef Rendang, two Singaporean staples, to test the place out. Both were quite good, but I wonder whether it was merely a case of two Prima Taste packets being opened back in the kitchen. I wasn't sure how I felt about that possibility at first, but by the end of the meal came to the conclusion that this was a great business idea/model. If you can neatly package up all the spices and flavors and include simple directions for an authentic and fresh result, then you don't need to put a lot of effort training local chefs - which is often a big roadblock for getting authetic cuisine in a foreign place.

Hainanese Chicken Rice (complete with the side of chicken broth and the trio of sauces - ginger, dark soy sauce, and very spicy chili sauce)

Beef Rendang and a glass of lemon barley water

On your way upstairs to the second dining area and restrooms, you can follow the murals for a brief introduction to Singaporean history and culture (including Sir Stamford above).

Learn more about Prima Taste as a company and concept at http://www.primataste.com.sg/aboutus/abtprimataste.asp

The Smell of Europe

2008-07-27T03:03:00.011-05:00

It's been a little over a week since I met my National Committee coworker at The Smell of Europe, a small coffeeshop in Northwestern Shanghai a couple hundred meters from her hotel, for the hour and a half that she was able to escape from the weeklong orientation program she was running for the Committee's longstanding Teacher Exchange Program (TEP).

Nevertheless, the English translations that we found on the coffeeshop's menu are timeless.

Would you feel safe ordering a "fruit vulture"?

We braved it and ordered a fruit cocktail/salad, which actually surpassed our expectations.

You'd think the fries would make you smarter. The weirdest thing is that if you read the Chinese, you know that you are ordering a pasta dish (direct translation is "Napoleon pasta")

Even when the menu seemed to linguistically make sense, we were still in for a surprise . This was the beverage that arrived after Margot ordered an "iced mocha".

Muslim Food from the Black Dragon River

2008-07-24T05:26:00.026-05:00

When thinking of 黑龙江省 Heilongjiang Province, many will envision a vast land of ice and snow where taller Chinese coexist with fellow Russians.

When I think of Heilongjiang Province, I remember my time in Harbin (2001) and I remember good food and lively table conversations. Harbin had a unique restaurant rating system where a restaurant would display a certain number of red lanterns outside their door (these were relatively big lanterns...most restaurants had anywhere from2-5.) I never saw this in writing, but was told that the more lanterns out front, the better the restaurant. There were also a fair number of 清真 or Halal (Muslim-run restaurants where food/meat is prepared in the manner prescribed by Islamic law) restaurants and they were designated by having blue, rather than red lanterns.

Since I often crave a 东北 (northeastern, aka Heilongjiang) food fix, we checked Dianping for a highly rated place near us. What we found was a Muslim restaurant run by a family from 齐齐哈尔 (Qiqihaer), another respectable city in the Black Dragon River Province. Their speciality is grilled lamb of all kinds, but their regular dishes would be worthy of at least a couple of blue Harbin lanterns too. They did use their 清真/Halal status to trick us into paying an extra 1 kuai each for the specially saran-wrapped "sterile/clean" dishware. We were relatively new here the first time we ate there and hadn't realized that it's a racket run by many non-Muslim restaurants in Hangzhou too. We no longer fall for this trick.

Pre-mixed 东北拉皮儿 (Northeastern cold mung-bean noodles)

Mixed and ready to eat 东北拉皮儿 (which now looks more like a peanuty version of 家常凉菜）

The always welcome 拔丝苹果 (found it translated as apple in a hot toffee sauce). They also had the banana and yam versions.

土豆泥 Mashed potatoes? (A Dianping recommended dish)

Their much stronger (saltier) version of 京酱肉丝(sauteed shredded pork in a soy bean paste) with the dried tofu wrappers and in the background is an order of 酱茄子(eggplant with a similar soy-bean derived sauce)

Close-up of the 酱茄子

Their 招牌 ("signature" or what many places here translate as "signboard") dish - grilled lamb

Owen mastering the art of the culinary plastic bag

Staple Food

2008-07-23T05:45:00.011-05:00

We just had the hottest (as in spicy) food we've had in Hangzhou this trip and my lips are still tingling. Once again, we have Dianping to thank for this find (we really should be getting commission for all the free advertising we've been giving the guide).

The place (湘缘饭店) was described as having authentic 湘菜 (food from Hunan Province - one of the two provinces, along with Sichuan Province, known for spicy food.)

Spicy it was.

茶树菇炒腊肉 (Tea Tree Mushrooms Stir-fried with Hunan Bacon - the bacon in this dish being an example of the best of its kind)

神仙豆腐 ( "Immortal" Tofu...probably because you'd have to be out of this world to handle all the spiciness - lead photo in this entry is a close up of the chilis in one bite of this dish)

The Capital of the South

2008-07-23T00:33:00.056-05:00

This past weekend we returned to 南京 (Nanjing) - aka the capital of the south and where we lived and met in 2004.

We spent our two days there revisiting old friends and eateries, with the exception of spending an evening of eating and movie-watching at the new and posh 德基广场 (Deji Plaza) at 新街口(Xinjiekou).

Pre-movie snacking with old friends Zhou Lufei and Zhang Quan at Deji Plaza

Other pre-movie snacks:

芒果冰沙 (Mango Icee)

Hot sago delicacies (first one had fruit and yam; second one had peanut and red bean...another example of when you just need to trust us when we say it was really good)

Post-Movie Dinner at Deji Plaza

(photos taken surreptitiously due to a regulation against visually capturing this restaurant's food)

Selection of cold appetizers (duck, spicy sprouts, and tree ear fungus)

Tea Tree Mushrooms fried with a goose liver-flavored outer skin

Spare Ribs

蒜茸苋菜 (stir-fried amaranth with garlic)

Fish-ball soup with leafy greens

Plateful of food (in the bowl is soft tofu stew with crab roe; plate has the spare ribs, stri-fried amaranth, tea tree mushrooms, and some not yet pictured 粉丝 [bean vermicelli])

Familiar Eateries (spread out among the remainder of our time in Nanjing)

Owen's favorite 香辣鸡汉堡 (spicy chicken sandwich) place

After he got his fill of spicy chicken sandwiches...

I went for some peppery 鸡丝汤面 (shredded chicken noodle soup)

We were full, but it was nice to see that the exploding 包子 (baozi) place was still doing well (and they even spent some of their hard-earned money to get themselves a sign...)

Skyways Bakery moved from Hankou Xi Lu over to Shanghai Lu (and is now even closer to the Hopkins Center). A gaggle of foreigners were still sitting at tables inside.

The Suguo is still in the same location, but also seems to have splurged for a new sign.

The new bubble tea place is called Baida and their signature drink can be described as "bubble tea plus". It's milk tea with pearls and red bean and little aloe pieces and little soft yellow pudding things...and it actually is superior to regular bubble tea. They have everything though from regular bubble tea to fruity icees (冰沙）

Service With A Smile (but no eyes)

2008-07-20T03:08:00.011-05:00

Shaanxi: the great desert land of caves and revolution. Also known for great noodles of all varieties and temperatures.

Another Dianping recommendation led us to the heartland of Shaanxi noodles in northwestern Hangzhou.

Unfortunately, the service does not live up to the flavor. We would like to show you a picture of the soup noodles, but after some delay in receiving our full order--and after numerous inquiries and one confrontation--we were a little bit distracted and neglected to click click.

But we do have a picture of the noodles being hand-pounded. A picture of the 炒凉皮 (fried noodles). And pictures of the 肉夹馍 (meat-wiches) and the greasy bags they were served in.

Would Have Been Worth the Extra 10 Kuai...

2008-07-15T08:29:00.011-05:00

Oh how we love Dianping, let us count the ways.

Dianping lets us:

1) Navigate amongst the myriad restaurants in the western part of Hangzhou to make our nightly excursions into civilization worth the 15-20 minute bike ride

2) Use their recommended dishes to try food outside of our comfort zone or dishes we wouldn't necessarily expect to be good examples of a specific type of cuisine

3) Estimate how much money we need to bring

4) Know whether we'll be going to a nice, quiet place or a loud, hot, smoke-filled place (never go to the latter when not in the right mindset)

Two nights ago, Dianping led us to 香乡馆 Xiangxiang Restaurant（杭州最地道川菜馆之一 [one of Hangzhou's most authentic Sichuanese restaurants]）. There are a few dishes that come to our minds when we think of Sichuanese food (though this might just be because we aren't Chinese and don't really understand the full array of Sichuanese food) - 辣子鸡 (sauteed diced chicken with chili)，水煮肉片 (boiled pork slices in a fiery sauce)，麻破豆腐 (ma po tofu)，干煸四季豆 (stir-fried dried stringbeans)

In this restaurant's Dianping review, however, we hadn't even really heard of two of the recommended dishes and they were both succulent and refreshing.

松仁牛肉 (beef with pine nuts)

茄子滑鸡 (eggplant with chicken) - this had a 鱼香/yuxiang flavor to it, but was definitely superior to your normal run of the mill 鱼香茄子/yuxiang qiezi

The one thing we didn't really like or understand about the place was the misplaced effort the staff put into trying to attract customers. There was always a waitress at the door calling out to random people on the street telling them to come in and try their food. First of all, we really aren't in an area where many people are aimlessly walking around without a destination already in mind (this wasn't like a Hangzhou version of Chinatown or Little Italy).

Moreover, they didn't really need to make such an effort as the place was full, business seemed to be going really well and the food stood up to its positive review. I mean, when we settled our bill they underchanged us by 10 RMB. We realized the error and immediately corrected it, but had we not, the meal would have been worth the extra 10 kuai.

Vegetables Don't Make Money

2008-07-15T07:46:00.007-05:00

I didn't have time to write about the meal we ate while out with Hou Xiaoting (our friend mentioned in the previous text - a girl from Hangzhou who I met in 2006 while working at the National Committee when she participated in an internship program where she spent 3 months at HBO in NYC), so it'll get its own posting.

We ate at a well-known restaurant 天外天 (Tian Wai Tian) located outside the Lingyin Temple. It's been around forever and is one of the three notable restaurants in the West Lake area for Hangzhou food. According to Hou Xiaoting, it used to be a small simple, vegetarian restaurant (one of those restaurants that only uses vegetarian ingredients but imitates typical meat dishes) right at the entrance to the temple that was just known for its good food. Today it's a much bigger, fancier affair - with a big building and real meat dishes. After inquiring about it with the waitress, it turns out that the old restaurant which Hou Xiaoting (who is a vegetarian) fondly remembers wasn't making any money just as a vegetarian restaurant so it sold the business to someone else who replaced the vegetables with profit-making meat dishes. I guess real meat is where the money is in China (especially with the rising pork prices).

Luckily, they still had a few good vegetarian choices and we tried a great 茶树菇炒南瓜 (tea tree mushrooms stir fried with pumpkin) and an imitation meat dish (it was a mushroom based dish that was meant to look and tasted like a stir fried eel dish).

Imitation Eel Dish

Tea Tree Mushroom and Pumpkin (forgot to take a photo until we'd eaten most of it so this may not do the actual dish justice)

Owen and I also had to sample our first 东坡肉 (Dongpo Pork) since it's probably the first dish people mention when you ask about "Hangzhou or West Lake Food". We knew that you order it by the piece, but we were a bit surprised when this tiny piece of meat in a bowl the size of a Japanese tea cup showed up at the table. Regardless, the very fatty meat was tender and not greasy (the fatty part is supposedly really good for your skin) and once we found a knife to actually cut it up (chopsticks were not going to be able to do this job), it was quite tasty.

Lingyin Temple

2008-07-14T21:06:00.032-05:00

We stayed put in Hangzhou this weekend since we haven't spent much time visiting the "famous sites" in our own town. Before this weekend, our Hangzhou sightseeing had been limited to a single walk around the West Lake at dusk during which we had to rebuff several offers from unofficial tour guides who wanted to take us on boat rides in exchange for cash. We did take two token photos by the lake that evening though.

On Sunday, we met up with our friend Hou Xiaoting for a morning at Lingyin Temple - one of the more famous (and judging by the massive crowds there by 9:00am, popular) Hangzhou sites.

Even before you enter the actual temple, the scenic area around it has a number of caves and hills with sculptures of various buddhas from a range of Chinese dynasties (we mostly saw ones from the Northern Song and Yuan dynasties). The tour groups and other crowds were pretty intense on the paved walkways and caves, but once we climbed up into the hills a bit, it was more peaceful. In both the caves and the hilly area, it was quite precarious - there were several areas with low rock overhangs to knock your head on, the ground was really slick, and there were some portions on the steps up and down the hilly areas that were both steep and slick. Basically, in the states this would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. Luckily, we all survived without any slips or falls.

The hand is smooth and dark from years of people rubbing it for good luck

The view of 弥勒佛 (Laughing Buddha) - the favorite Buddha of many Chinese

The view from 弥勒佛 - also a favorite photo op for many Chinese (and these entrepeneurs understand that)

Inside Lingyin Temple

A Smaller, More Serene Temple next to Lingyin

Getting Around

2008-07-14T20:54:00.003-05:00

Most of our Hangzhou food excursions would not be possible without the help of our two-wheeled mode of transportation. They aren't in perfect shape and we probably paid two graduating students a bit more than they were really worth...but in any case, it definitely beats walking or waiting for the bus.

Chicken...as God meant it to be eaten

2008-07-09T22:14:00.015-05:00

If you like chicken soup and you like hot pot, this is the place for you...

It's a chain called 一席地 (Yi Xi Di) and it looks like a hot pot place (tables have the hole in the middle with the burner beneath for the pot to cook on), but instead of the normal spicy/non-spicy choices of broth, each table boils a pot of water with some herbs and other Chinese medicinal ingredients and then a full fresh raw chicken that some guy in the back just took a cleaver to in dropped in. They call it 鸡窝 or "chicken's nest". Each order allows you to choose five of the typical items offered at hot pot places (we chose frozen tofu 冻豆腐, shitake mushrooms 香菇, lotus root, celery, and cabbage) to cook along with your chicken.

1. Let your broth boil

2. Insert the whole chicken

(Swirl it around to make sure everything including the feet and neck cook)

4. Add the other ingredients

5. Enjoy!

Shaoxing

2008-07-09T20:38:00.034-05:00

Our most recent weekend excursion was to Shaoxing, a city just under an hour southeast of Hangzhou by train. Shaoxing is a big Chinese tourist destination since it is full of history, with sites dating back to the Southern Song dynasty and gardens where Ming and Qing dynasty poets and intellectuals hung out. Neither Owen nor I are experts in those periods, but Shaoxing is also the ancestral home of Lu Xun (and it turns out Zhou Enlai), two figures from modern Chinese history which our reasons for paying the place a visit.

Lu Xun Old Town

In 2003, the government reopened the "new and improved" Lu Xun Old Town. Admission is free to explore Lu Xun's family homes, grade school (there were eight students), and a new museum devoted to his life. There was some sort of reservation system to get a free ticket that we never quite figured out - both the website and the electronic board in the visitor's center said that there had been 4000 tickets and 4000 had been given out so there were no more. All the Chinese visitors were hurriedly lining up and upon reaching the front spouting out their ID card numbers to the women behind the desks. We were in the "no advanced reservations" line, but everyone seemed to already have reserved tickets. When we got up there - Owen did the talking (I don't always get the time of day because they think I am Chinese) and we were handed two tickets. We think they must have a foreigner quota or something as there was one other foreigner who also seemed to not understand the system but came away with a ticket. For 60 RMB (just under $10), we got a Chinese-speaking guide who came with us to all the sites and gave comprehensive explanations. It was definitely worth the cost to have her, as we came away with a greater understanding than if we'd just walked through the homes on our own.

Portrait over the entryway altar of Lu Xun's grandfather (surname was Zhou) and his two wives (Lu Xun had good relations with both his real and step grandmothers and actually spent a lot of time as a child with his step-grandmother who was more "cultured" and would tell him classic stories)

Zhou family kitchen

Lu Xun's desk (or at least that's what the sign says)

百草原 (aka Hundred Plant Garden) - a place the child who would become Lu Xun liked to play

塔山公园 (Pagoda Hill Park)

Aptly named, this park had a small hill and at the top of that hill was a tall pagoda. Ascending to the top of this pagoda was enjoyable for two reasons - you had a great 360 degree view of the entire city and there was a nice breeze which provided a break from the intense humid heat down below.

One of the views of Shaoxing from above

Food in Shaoxing

We wanted to try 典型 (most typical or best representative) Shaoxing food. The Chinese guide book we bought said that Shaoxing is known for dried vegetables (干菜), steamed chicken (清蒸越鸡）and a dish we couldn't immediately translate called 霉千张. Not really knowing our way around town, we went to a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet as a place to get good local food. We wanted to order at least one of the three famous types of Shaoxing food. We saw that they had a couple of 霉千张 dishes and decided we'd try one. Upon ordering, the waitress took one look at us and decided it would be in our best interest to let us know that 霉千张 was rather 臭 ("stinky" - a way to describe very fermented foods). We asked her how 臭 it was and her response was "比臭豆腐还要臭" ("stinkier than stinky tofu" - which says a lot). Turns out that this mystery dish is made up of highly fermented tofu sheets and must be a VERY acquired taste. We weren't ready to acquire this taste in one night so we opted for an order of steamed chicken topped with salty fish instead.

We also got a safe order of claypot beef and potatoes

Overall, we think we did everything we set out to do on our short trip to Shaoxing. We'll end this post with a few words of wisdom borrowed from the Shaoxing City Language and Letters Committee:

Speak Standard Chinese (Mandarin), Please Use Standardized Characters

Reducing Equivalents

2008-07-05T09:25:00.018-05:00

In our remote corner of Hangzhou -- Zijinggang -- there is one main drag, a series of shops and restaurants that cater to the university crowd. Pizza is distractingly the rage, as evidenced by the fact that two of the handful of restaurants on the street are Chinese-style pizza parlors.

We decided to stop in and see what all the buzz was about. We sat in a booth for a late lunch and chatted with the manager as we perused the menu.

Our first question: Is this American, Italian, or Chinese style pizza?

The manager's answer: Korean. She initially told us that the owner was Korean, but later clarified that he only learned his pizza making skills in Korea.

Nevertheless, upon noticing our trepidation, the manager assured us with a straight face that their pizza was better than 必胜客 -- the upscale restaurants that Pizza Hut runs in China. She wasn't kidding.

Dianping Speaks The Truth..So Far

2008-07-03T22:24:00.013-05:00

On Wednesday night, we took our sole excursion outside the dining hall and rode our bikes to test out a recommended restaurant in our Hangzhou Dianping Guide (the one referred to in a previous post as the "Zagat" copy).

According to the write-up, the restaurant，杭州蕾蕾水饺店，was supposed to have a wide selection of dumplings - both boiled and fried - and 混沌 (wonton soup). We both like dumplings and were missing the wide varieties which are more common up north, so it was an easy decision to make this the first restaurant to venture out to.

It's a small place where you order at the counter, are given a number, and you then find a seat to wait for your food to be served. I guess being featured in a food guide brings you good business as the place was pretty full and we had to share a table with another Chinese couple (the guy was very friendly but the girl seemed to have decided that she was going to pretend we weren't there).

We ordered beef and mushroom boiled dumplings (香菇肉水饺), fried vegetable dumplings （素三鲜煎饺）and two orders of small wonton soup (小混沌). The food lived up to it's review and it's definitely a place we'll return to. Especially now that we know that you can actually get any type of dumpling made in any style. (After the first couple left, this elderly but rather erudite couple sat down. After they finished a conversation about some sort of incident involving corruption, their food came and they had gotten fried lamb dumplings, which were only listed as boiled dumplings on the menu. We politely asked how things worked and now we know for our next visit.)

Our meal (minus the wonton soups which we didn't get until later - I think they forgot)

The 辣椒 (chili paste) was really good - very northern dumpling shop style

Close-up of the fried dumplings (had to wait a bit to eat them because they were really hot - temperature, not spiciness - and stayed that way since they were served on a cast iron plate)

Back To The Grind

2008-07-02T23:26:00.052-05:00

After returning from the culinary oasis that is Shanghai, we are back to daily life in the sticks of Hangzhou. Due a combination of Owen suffering from a potential stomach bacteria and our days being a bit busy, until last night we'd consumed all but one of our meals at the school dining hall (more than one of my former Chinese roommates have told me that dining hall food is more sanitary than street food..well, that's not hard).

There are a few different dining halls on campus, including a small halal 清真 dining hall with a selection of Muslim food, but the two main ones are in this big white buidling in the center of campus. One (and actually usually the more crowded of the two) is your regular "line up and get whatever food has been made today" slopped onto your tray. We tried that one once, but definitely prefer the second dining hall, which has more of a food court style and really isn't bad as far as dining halls go. There are about 10 different stalls which offer slightly different types of Chinese food for one to choose from, including:

Handmade Dumplings

Range of meat and rice dishes

Vegetables, all varieties of tofu, some meat, fishballs, and your choice of noodles ready to be...

Assigned a basket and boiled in a steaming bath of broth...

With the final product being a hearty bowl of soup

(This has become my favorite stall)

Curries and other savory dishes served on a sizzling iron plate

Typical Chinese Baked Goods (these are two of the non-sweet variety - one has pork floss on top and pork inside and the other if I remember correctly is egg, ham, and green onion). We don't partake in these goodies.

Drinks (from bubble tea to apple Fanta) and more sweets. During the peak meal hours, they bring out freshly squeezed watermelon juice which really hits the spot on hot days.

Some of the dishes we have ordered and sampled (using the most literal translations):

"Noodles with tomato sauce and meat"

Fried Wontons (tasted just like fried round spring rolls)

Stir-fried beef and golden needle mushroom served on a sizzling plate

Meat and Potatoes - this one is breaded chicken, but they also do beef and pork
(This seems to be Owen's favorite stall)

Shanxi cold broad noodles (陕西凉皮)

Breakfast of sweet tofu, soy milk, and a plain piece of corn-flavored bread
(dining hall definitely doesn't do breakfast as well as the morning street vendors do)

You can buy half a watermelon if you are willing to eat it with soup spoons

When you've had enough, just send your tray down the conveyor belt

It gets crowded during the peak meal hours (which are on the early side in China - lunch 11:00am to 12:30pm and dinner before 5pm to about 6:30pm). However, sometimes I stay around and read/prepare for Chinese lessons after a meal and then I get to see what all the workers are eating (and perhaps what the real good stuff is).

Americatown

2008-07-02T21:43:00.034-05:00

We haven't been able to update the blog since coming back from our weekend in Shanghai, so I'm going to start from there and try to get caught up through this week.

As written up in the preceding entry, we tried some authentic homestyle Chinese food our first night in Shanghai. That was basically the last time we ate anything remotely Chinese during our stay. Owen was battling a bit of a stomach bug and there is such a plethora of edible western food that we took a vacation from Chinese food. If you were so inclined, you could live in Shanghai (well at least the French Concession area) like it's the LA or NYC version of Chinatown.

We certainly did for the remaining two days of the weekend. Meals included:

Dinner at Trattoria Isabelle - cozy Italian place where we had the third floor to ourselves and enjoyed food we'd make for dinner at home (food was good but at the same time would not be something we'd go out to eat back in the States since we could just make it ourselves)

Complementary bread with olive oil and vinegar for dipping

Started with a tomato mozzarella salad

With two simple pastas as our main course (penne with garlic clam sauce and traditional penne bolognese)

*******
Brunch at Element Fresh where Owen opted for breakfast with french toast and Alex, Sean, and I opted for lunch with fresh salads and sandwiches. Unfortunately I was so engaged in my Mediterranean chicken salad that I forgot to take a picture, but I did find a photo online of their fruit smoothies, which were as good as they look.******
We didn't have room for dessert that afternoon, but if we did, we could have gone down the block from Alex and Sean's place and had decadent dark chocolate ice cream or cake at Awfully Chocolate.

We did go in and taste the dark chocolate ice cream, and I can vouch that they sell the real thing. Even Alex, who doesn't have a huge sweet tooth, likes their chocolate cakes.

********
Breakfast to go from Paul's bakery, supplemented with a nutella-like chocolate hazelnut spread (purchased from a western supermarket reminiscent of what Jason's was for Singapore in the early 90s) for our train ride back to real Chinese life in Hangzhou.

Six grain baguette, poppy seed roll, raisin crossaint, and chocolate hazelnut spread - not a selection you often see in the rest of China

Better than ordinary 家常菜

2008-06-28T04:07:00.016-05:00

On almost any corner in China you will find a place claiming to serve "家常菜" or "homestyle cooking". Sometimes this means they serve dishes known to the specific city or town, but other times the menu is made up of an array of generic Chinese food. Quality can also range form incredibly tasty to incredibly bad and it's really hard to tell expect from word of mouth or trial and error.

We are in Shanghai this weekend, staying with our friends Alex and Sean, and last night they took us to their favorite Shanghainese 家常菜 place. The place looked like any other nondescript, fluorescent-lit neighborhood restaurant with plastic garbage bag table cloths and dirty floors.

I did see something new though: at the table next to us sat a man, a woman, and a white poodle with a dyed pink tail. Not only was the poodle sharing the chair with the woman and actually sitting "at" the table, but on several occasions the man took a pair of chopsticks (luckily not the pair he was eating with) and fed morsels of his food directly into the dogs mouth! I was in too much disbelief to even try to take a picture of this.

Regardless, the food was really good and with a few small tweaks took ordinary "homestyle" cooking a notch higher. Some of the highlights:

Selection of cold appetizers: golden needle mushrooms, boiled edamame, and 四宝烤麸(have never been quite sure what it actually is, but found it translated as 'marinated bran dough with peanuts and black fungus' - trust us, it's good)

Main Courses: clockwise from top: 吓人豆腐 (tofu with baby shrimp) - a pretty standard dish and probably the weakest of the dishes we had; 橄榄四季豆 (string beans stir fried with ground pork and olives - a slight deviation from the standard stir fried string bean dish and one I really liked despite usually having an aversion to olives); and a tofu dish whose name I didn't catch that was also tasty and different from the standard fare.

Burning Down the House

2008-06-27T23:34:00.017-05:00

This entry has nothing to do with food, but we've decided to make exceptions for comedies of errors. Our most recent adventure was of the electrical kind.

So, our humble abode boasts three lights - a bathroom light, a central ceiling light, and a closet light - all of which are naked bulbs. But, it's not so simple; only the bathroom light works on command. The closet light switch is stuck in the "on" position and we have to physically unscrew the bulb to turn it off. The central ceiling light has one halogen bulb and two empty fixtures; the main problem with this light is that the switch only sometimes turns it on -- presumably because the wiring in the fixture is corrupt.

Error #1
One evening upon arrival home, the central ceiling bulb flicks on with the switch, flashes, and then refuses to turn back one, leaving us with no choice but to light our room with the closet and bathroom light. We called the landlord's lackey; she came, took a look, and promised to call the electrician (who only works from the afternoon hours of 1 to 5) in the morning.

Error # 2 (same night)
Before bed (since coming to China, we've been retiring around 8pm), Owen went to unscrew the closet light. There was a crack, there was a pop, there was a flash like a 1950s reporter's camera, and then there was darkness intermingled with the scent of burnt halogen. The fan went dead, the TV went black, and we were left in darkness with only our mosquito tent to protect us. Not only was there silence from our room, but an eerie quiet throughout the whole apartment, including the rooms of the other two tenants.

We had two choices: one, go to bed or two, scramble around in the darkness searching for the fusebox. We considered that since the other tenants of the apartment -- local Chinese -- also loss their electricity that it would only be a matter of time before one of them reset the fusebox. We were wrong. After an indeterminate period of darkness, we finally heard commotion and the squeak of a cellphone keypad in the other room. They too called the landlord's lackey, who also came up to aid them. Over the next hour, we fell asleep to the melody of them groping around for the fusebox. When we awoke the next morning, the electricity was still not on.

As promised, the next afternoon the electrician did arrive.

Error #3
The landlord's lackey enlisted a diminutive electrician. In order for him to reach the central light fixture we had to stack a chair on top of our hard Chinese mattress and even then it was a struggle for him to unscrew the fixture. Predictably unstable, Owen had to steady the chair for the hour or so that he worked on it.

Error #4

Needless to say, the electrician was shocked at the shoddy state of the electrical fixtures that surely would not even pass the lax standards of the Chinese building code. Still, with a little electrical tape and a lot of ingenuity, he was able to patch together a few wires and restore one of the three fixtures for the central ceiling light.

Nothing that a little ingenuity and cooperation can't fix

Hypermarkets with Chinese Characteristcs

2008-06-24T22:09:00.010-05:00

When moving to a new Chinese city, a useful thing to immediately locate is your nearest hypermarket (American equivalents would be Target, Walmart, etc...). When living in Beijing in 2002, it was Carrefour; Nanjing had Jinrenfa; and the second day here in Hangzhou we found a nearby Century Mart. Not only are these the most convenient places to find a wide selection of clearly organized and sanitarily packaged products from yogurt to shampoo to electric fans to new bicycles, but I find them to be one the best examples of harmonious cohabitation of western and Chinese culture.

Where else will you find:

Chips and Chicken Feet

Hershey's and Haw Flakes

Flank Steak and Pig's Feet

Peaches wishing you prosperity and good fortune

Budweiser being marketed as a world-class, high quality beverage?

(and you can ask an attendant for a trial if you don't believe it)

火锅

2008-06-24T21:24:00.011-05:00

At the bookstore, I bought what can only be described as an exact copy of the Zagat Survey for Hangzhou. (They are online too at http://www.dianping.com/.) I've never had as thorough and well-organized of a restaurant guide in China before, and it's especially helpful for finding restaurant chains or types of food we've enjoyed before that exist in Hangzhou too.

One example is the hot pot chain 小肥羊 (Little Lamb). We actually found a newly opened branch close to our place that was not yet included under the Hangzhou restaurant guidebook's 小肥羊listing and shared a boiling pot of 半麻辣半清 (half spicy/half not) broth in which we cooked orders of 冻豆腐，羊肉，牛肉，金针菇，鱼丸，白菜，土豆，年糕，蛋较，等 (frozen tofu - doesn't translate well but trust me it's good in hot pot-; lamb; beef; golden needle mushroom (enoki); fish balls, thinly sliced potato, "rice cake" - another inadequate translation-; dumplings with egg wrappers, etc).

It may not look good, but it tastes good

Beware: Your breakfast could kill you

2008-06-24T21:05:00.006-05:00

Thursday, June 19: Our first breakfast in Hangzhou

We stayed in a downtown hotel our first night, which included a buffet breakfast in the lobby restaurant. I love Chinese breakfast spreads because outside of a few exceptions, I'm not a big fan of what are traditionally thought of as breakfast foods (waffles, pancakes, omelets, etc...) and except for the few usually unsuccessful attempts at Western breakfast foods, Chinese breakfast buffets consist of various options including dishes such as tea eggs, stir-fried tofu, vegetables, meat, and boiled/steamed/fried dumplings. Both of us especially enjoy a bowl of 粥 (hot rice porridge). This buffet had two types of porridge - I went for the one with the black century eggs in it and Owen went for what looked like plain porridge; in most instances mine would appear to be the more daring of the two, but the hotel's English translator must have been mixing up his food and medical dictionaries, as the plain porridge Owen ate was translated as:

The Good Life in Hangzhou

2008-06-24T20:36:00.010-05:00

We arrived in Hangzhou on June 19 and will be here until August 7. With some funding from the University of Rochester, Owen is carrying out a project at a genomic research center at Zhejiang University's medical school. I'm along for the ride, and actually enjoying this temporary period of absolutely no real responsibility and being in China with no strings attached. There are downsides to where we are - we are in the 'remote' campus of Zhejiang University and even the locals laugh when we tell them where we live; it's hot and humid and the mosquitos are vicious; and I'm still partial to NE China - but we're making things work and I've found several things to fill my days (with the option to sit around and do nothing but read almost always open). We've bought a crappy bike which gets us to where we need to go, found a great breakfast spot (more on that later), have made our bed a mosquito-free haven with the simple purchase of a mosquito net/tent, and I've found two Chinese department tutors from north of here (one even from Harbin!)

This free time should also allow me to keep an active commentary on the food in our life. I've already got a number of entries in my head and photos downloaded off my camera that I'm about to start putting together now. It's been a bit of a delay with blogspot blocked for the first few days we were here, then the search for an internet place where the USB drive wasn't locked away. I think I've found my dusty, dimly-lit place though and while it gets quite busy in the evenings, I can come here in the mornings and work in relative peace with just the hard-core guys who played games through the night and a smattering of other males who make me wonder why they don't need to get jobs.

My workspace

Wedding Weekend

2008-06-24T01:16:00.015-05:00

Seeing that I'm using marriage to rationalize my change of heart about having a blog, our wedding weekend in Salt Lake City seems to be a good place to start.

Thursday, June 12: The actual wedding event

We had a sit-down dinner and of the various aspects to plan, I probably enjoyed setting the menu the most. We were satisfied with the dinner, with one exception: at the tasting, they served us individual soft-centered chocolate lava cakes, one of our favorite desserts. Had I listened to my slight doubt about their ability to hold up for a catered event, I would have been right. By the time they got to the table, the centers were soft no more. So, it tasted like a chocolate brownie cake, which I guess would be fine for those with no expections, but it didn't come close to oozing chocolate goodness.

The only food-related picture I currently have from the wedding is one of us cutting the cake. We went with a red velvet cake since it worked perfectly with the off-white and crimson color scheme. The cake may not look very large in the photo, but even after freezing away the top tier, that cake fed not only the wedding guests, but a significant number of family and friends for the rest of the weekend.

Friday, June 13 - Sunday, June 15: Weekend Festivities (aka "group honeymoon")

Having a wedding on a Thursday is not the most convenient for guests and we really appreciate our friends and family taking time off from work and other committments to join us during the week, but the upside is that the formal event is all over and done with before the weekend even starts, giving us the weekend to kick back and relax with everyone who was still around. Alex found us an amazing house right in the Cottonwood Canyons area, right around great hiking and biking.

The house was beautiful and had a big open kitchen and outdoor grill. It was the first time in over two years that my five Middlebury roommates and I had all been together as a group and Friday night's dinner prepared by Jessie and Eloise reminded me why we really need to have ladies reunions more often.

A new purpose for an old blog

2008-06-20T20:18:00.004-05:00

In the past year or so, I've learned that almost all of our married friends/family have blogs. I'd never really considered "blogging", but I guess now that Owen and I were married for the second time just over a week ago (what we term the first time was a small, official ceremony in his Grandma Jacquie's backyard in March; photos on Emily and Bryan's blog: http://wheelerwonderland.blogspot.com/2008/03/owen-wedding-part-one-photo-blog.html), I now have an excuse to start doing so. I also found out that Owen had an old blogspot account, so rather than starting up a new one, I've usurped his and given it a new purpose: to document our new life together through food.

Out of Control

2005-03-07T02:37:00.000-05:00

I think that I have no access to my own blog (at least viewing it) in the country, but I cannot figure out why. Was it something I said?

Glacial Visions of Escher

2005-01-20T08:28:00.000-05:00

Some people think I'm funny. Some people just raise
their eyebrows.

I think I'm funny.

Haerbin is truly the land of winter and, without
exaggeration, as cold as Dante's hell. If it were not
for my knitted scarf, I would have no neck. Were it
not for my new Chinese thermal underwear, I would be
legless. No matter how many times people told me that
my 衣服 (yifu / clothing) was 不够 (bu gou /
inadequate) before I got here, I didn't believe them
until I was here to experience the 20-30 below (C)
that is the land of Haerbin.

I saw something fascinating today. The bus I was on
couldn't get through this little alleyway because
someone had parked their car (California style with
the lights flashing) very poorly and left insufficent
room to squeeze by. Of course, that elicted many
comments and much controversy from everyone on the
bus, including the bus driver. He hopped out of the
bus and investigated the situation. Finding the car
empty, but the keys still inside, he looked around
confusedly for a moment or two and then jumped in,
reparked the car (he's not as good at the sedan as he
is at the bus, which was noted by most passengers on
the bus) and then retook his thone at the front of the
bus. I've never seen that before.

I was also pickpocketed for the first time today. On
another bus, as crowded as any I have ever been on
(possibly the most crowded I have ever been on), I was
standing there pressed full-body up against people in
every direction. There was some punk kid to the right
side of me and I noticed some strange movement near my
right pocket, but as I couldn't really move and as I
didn't expect to be robbed, I just figured it was
someone shuffling this way or that, or perhaps it was
the movement of the tripod I had slung over my
shoulder. Anyhow, the kid got off at the next stop.
I didn't realize anything was missing until I went to
pay for my phone call to Ma telling him I had
arrived at the entrance to Heilongjiang Daxue. There
was no money in my pocket, just my 房卡 (fangka / room
key). The 贼 (zei / thief) was probably disappointed:
he came away with 26 kuai in mostly one kuai bills.
He probably thought he was getting a better deal. At
least he left my room key. My valuables were in the
pocket that I always keep my hand in (even that pocket
only amounted to about 100 kuai).

I have seen the Bingdiao (Ice sculptures): a six year
journey complete. When I was in Beijing visiting my
people , I mentioned that I was just passing through Beijing,
dropping off a friend less than ordinary and heading
eventually to Haerbin. Zhao reminded me that she
is from Haerbin and said she would have a friend meet
me. This is the fundamental difference between
Chinese and American hospitality: Chinese hospitality
is voluptuously comprehensive whereas American
hospitality is skiddishly uninvolved. I love that
when a Chinese person that I just met (as has happened
on umpteen occaisons) tells to look him or her up when
I come to their city, they are frighteningly serious.
And looking them up means a three day all expenses
paid vacation. If an American does make such an
invitation (usually to a close friend or long-term
acquaintence) the meaning is "Let's go grab a meal
when you are in town." Zhao (unbeknownst to me)
went right then and called Ma (her friend and it
turns out also her husband) who is a professor at
Heilongjiang Daxue to inform him of my arrival. Well,
I called him today as Zhao instructed. In
truth, I might not have called except that I told Zhao
that I would; sometimes the hospitality can be
smothering. The man took me around the whole day and
offered me his home to stay (I declined because I just
met him that day and wanted the freedom that a hotel
affords). We even went out to eat a typical three hour
dongbei style meal with three other professors. It
was great because today has been a superb Chinese day
(you know, some days Chinese comes fluidly and
impressively from one's mouth, some days it dribbles
out like curdled milk) and I impressed them with my
skills. I have a habit (some of you are keenly aware
of this) of lying to people. When asked how long I
have been in China I say three years. I say this for
a number of reasons: first, the truth is too
complicated to explain in detail to strangers who are
just asking small-talk questions (that explains my
answers to many, many questions). Second, telling
people that I have only been in China most recently
for four months and only a total of 14 months if all
my time in the middle kingdom were added together
leaves them very confused because of my Chinese level.
It leads to questions I cannot answer (how did you
learn so much Chinese so quickly) and focuses the
conversation on something that I would rather just
skip over (my Chinese ability). Telling people I have
been here for three years mitigates those problems by
simplifying my answer and presenting a scenario that
seems more in agreement with my Chinese speaking
abilities. But lately I have found that people (such
as Yang Laoshi and about everyone else that I have met
as of late, including mine and Isabel's taxi driver on
the way to the Airport) feel that three years is not a
very long time to speak as I do (poorly in my own
increasingly enlightened opinion). The problem is
that they equate my three years with their 10 years
studying English. I might just have to up the ante
and start saying six years.

I've lost my train of thought. At any rate I am
grateful for the 好客 (haoke / overwhelming
hospitality) of those here in China that I have so
often come in contact with (and that even includes
JB. He's half-Chinese anyway). Ma
guided me through the adventure that is Haerbin and
helped me fulfill my dream of seeing the 冰雕(bingdiao
/ ice scupltures). In return, I paid for almost
everything (I had to fight on each) except the meal
(which was a battle in itself between two of the
professors).

I'm going skiing tomorrow (I've never been). Honestly,
can my life get any more Riley?

One last thing: when I called the ticket office at the
hotel to inquire about a ticket back to Nanjing, the
woman wanted me to give her my name over the phone. I
waffled because it is so difficult to give English
names to people over the phone. I insisted that I
come downstairs to give her my name because it was
hard to write. She was very surprised to see me; she
hadn't thought I was a laowai. She told me later that
she could tell I wasn't from the North, but that she
figured I was from Guangzhou or (get this) Shanghai.
I never know what to make of that because in my mind
(and in the mind of most Chinese)
天不怕，地不怕，只怕广东人讲普通话 (tian bu pa, di bu
pa, zhi pa guangdongren jiang putonghua / I'd rather
lose a finger than listen to someone from Guangzhou
speak the Common language (Mandarin)). I'll take what
I can get, I guess.