homemade

The other night Megan and I made the version of Mexican dinner we created in Huai'an, complete with broiled peppers, homemade salsa and homemade tortillas. (There ain't no Pace Picante or Mission tortillas in China, peeps.) We'll save the refried pintos for another time; last night we opted for the can of whole beans.

The tortillas are delish. I hope I never go back to buying them. Our friend Amorita probably has some insight on this topic, but I'll go ahead and share the recipe so you can try it out, which hopefully you do.

In other kitchen news, our cousins' Cooking Club started on Monday, with an attempt at our favorite summertime Chinese lunch, cold noodles. Didn't go very well. We'll have Allie pick next week's menu.

* * *

Flour Tortillas
Adapted from Low-Fat Flour Tortillas
by Ninfa Gonzalez Soltero, found via TexasRollingPins.com

Ingredients:
3 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. butter
about 1 1/4 cups warm water

Mix the dry ingredients together. Cut the butter into the mixture. Add the warm water bit by bit and knead until the dough is soft. Pull dough into 12-14 small dough balls. Let sit for 10 minutes.

On floured surface, roll out each tortilla. They'll be lovely homemade shapes, perhaps reminiscent of Spanish-speaking countries if you're weird and bored while rolling.

Over medium heat, warm the tortillas one by one in a dry pan. The top will begin to bubble; flip the tortilla and let it bubble on the other side. (This only takes a few seconds; it will have nice brown spots when it's ready.)

Voila!

The penthouse kitchen table in Huai'an. Homemade salsa by Megan; Uruguay, Colombia and friends by yours truly.

does a body good

A few days ago Allie, my mom and I drove north to Fair Share Farm to help out for a morning. We started out picking kale, and bunching the leaves for the share boxes that'd get picked up later in the day. Then we moved on to the tomatoes, trimmed and cleaned garlic, started putting together salsa packs, and then hopped in the back of the truck to go out to the bean field. The 96-degree heat wasn't so bad with the steady breeze, and we all appreciated a solid morning of solid work. It's good (and so fun!) to get up close and personal with your food.

Allie in the beans

In addition to farmhanding, Al & I have been doing some yoga. I love an enormous sweat in a hot yoga class. It feels good to feel good.

(For the record, Patron doled out by a young dad at the Peanut does not do a body good after a night of charity event's cocktails. I should stick to farming, yoga and one breed of intoxicant per night. I miss my youth.)

my dad takes me on the best dates

Just about exactly a year ago we went to see Neko Case at the Uptown, which was awesome of course. (And it was his idea because he's that much cooler than me.)

A few nights ago we headed towards downtown to sit on the rooftop at Hamburger Mary before heading to the Tivoli to see Micmacs.

Being, like, out of the country and stuff, I had no idea what Micmacs was, and didn't do any googling before we went, but if you like the quirk and piano of Amelie, I think you'll like this one too (same director). Lots of laughs.

feels good to be home*

Dad: You know the first thing your mother's going to say when she walks in the door.
me (hopeful, cappuccino on the brain): "Wanna go to the Roasterie?"
Dad: Nnno....
me: uhh...
Dad: "Where are we going for happy hour?"

*more on that later

"you brought all this just to spend one night??"

-- Lucy Andrew, spunkiest first grader in Shanghai.

 

We packed up on Sunday and moved out of our Huai'an penthouse on Monday amazingly smoothly; the only obstacles were our disbelief that the time had come and our lack of motivation to do anything about it. The other teachers will be picked up at the apartment, driven to Shanghai and be put up in a hotel by their school later this week. We woke them up to say goodbye on our way out and were lucky to have Tim and Thomas awake enough to carry some bags out to the front gate, where we caught a cab the 3km to the bus station, where we loaded onto a bike taxi to the steps of the station, where Vence met us to join the spectacle and help us carry everything to the gate. 

 

Teary goodbye, last sights of our city, and a six hour bus ride later we got to Shanghai. It was "mei you, mei you" at the train station for our tickets to Gansu, and on top of schlepping six bags across the province and some bully taxi drivers, we were terribly relieved to pull up to the tranquil cul-de-sac of the Andrew family's home here on the Pudong side of Shanghai. Lucy sat on the porch watching us unload our lives onto her sidewalk and followed the above question with, "Are you going to change like every second?!" The St. Louis natives are kindly hosting us, and mostly our belongings while we set off for a last exploration, before flying outta this country on the 30th.

 

Since the train plan didn't work we booked flights leaving tomorrow morning, and even though we spent an extra night here, we're gaining a day in our original travel plan, getting to Lanzhou a day before the train would have. The itinerary includes the Tibetan monastery in Xiahe, the Mogao Caves outside Dunhuang, sand dunes, and hopefully at least one yurt and/or horse trek. Doraemon, a fave, advised that during this trip, "You should just go have a funny time. Not learn so much." I think we'll do both.

 

So much has happened in the past couple weeks, and will in the next...I hope I don't forget any of it. 

impressions of the US

Cleaning out my teacher drawer and came upon some students' impressions of the US that I had them write at the beginning of last semester...

• The United States is a democratic country. The American advocate freedom. In my impression, the American like to eat fast food and they are very white. The United States is a developed country.
• I like to see American moive, in particular the moive made in Hollywood. They're very perfect and cool.
• It's a young country, for China. It's democratic country. Most of Americans thinking are open. Many Chinese people want to American. Because they thought many chance in American.
  
• rich
• The United States is located in the middle of North America. Canada is in the north of America it's capital is Washington. There are about 30,000 people in America in 2006. American people are friendly, humble, romantic, general and easy-going. Compared with Chinese people, American people are independent especially pursue equality
• America has 50 continents
• I haven't been to America, but I think they are rich and friendly. One day if I have chance, I will go and have a look at it. That would be a nice thing.

greatness

along our 4.5 hour hike from 金山岭 Jinshanling to 司马台 Simatai. Zip line at the end!

The Chicago visitors spent three full days in Shanghai, two days here in Huai'an and then five days in Beijing. My class could not contain their excitement about meeting three new Americans. It wasn't until a week later that I realized what an oddity it was to have five non-Chinese people standing in one little classroom in a nothing college in a nothing town in the great big country of China: an actual once-in-a-lifetime experience for most of those kids. But, a cool thing for the visitors, too, to be able to meet and talk and play basketball with a bunch of Chinese students on their whistle stop tour of the Middle Kingdom.

We had looked forward to having these visitors for so long that we didn't spend much time looking beyond their trip to our own rapidly approaching trips out of here. The good-byes have already started, which I can't believe. In just a few days we'll head to Shanghai and set off for Gansu Province, then be on homeward bound planes June 30.

You CAN do a-n-y-thing for ten months!

tomorrow!

These faces will be together! Can't wait. Weekend in Shanghai (luxuries, here I come! fried goat cheese, soup dumplings, and proper beer to name a few), special guests in class next week, and then overnight train to Beijing for more of that Great Wall and Mao worship.

It's all downhill from here.

(There's supposed to be a picture of me and KATHLEEN up there but I seem to be having technical difficulties.)

happy about this

The National's High Violet

"sports meeting"

Yesterday we had no class because of the "sports meeting," an event you may know as a track meet. We missed the "most wonderful part!" which was the opening ceremony, including a parade, dancing and singing, because it occurred at 7am. But we rode our bikes out to school a couple hours later in the first warmth and sunshine we've had here in months and spent the day reliving our youth as tracksters.
It was so typical that there was a teachers' race we weren't let in on (they knew we would win I guess), but we had a chuckle at the men's and women's 50 meter dash.

Above, Elvis (one of my fav freshmen) jumped so far and so fast that my camera totally missed him. But here he is after, with fellow fans and classmates, Rocket and Will.

journaling

March 20, after a tearful goodbye to Simon at Pudong airport I made my way back to the trashy bus station for my 7:30pm bus to Huai'an. This is from my journal that night...

From the Maglev I took Line 7 (new for the Expo, sleek, pretty quiet) to the Changshu stop to walk to Bistro Burger because a) eating a real hamburger was a priority on my Shanghai itinerary b) Simon unloaded some of his renminbi on me and c) I didn't have an appealing dinner alternative. The owner lady is very friendly and said "of course" I could get a burger to go. I had already browsed the menu so forgot to ask the next important question, how long will it take? It was already 6:40 by the time I got there. The tables outside were so enticing I headed straight to them to sit in the warm nearly-spring evening, wait and play with the wireless on my new *iPod!*

Let me back up and say that as soon as I got off at Changshu I knew I didn't have enough time. I thought, fleetingly, of getting whatever dumplings I found en route to the Bistro. Didn't see any.

The burger took 15 minutes. I didn't get the fries I thought accompanied it, but I did get a free vanilla milkshake they had made by mistake for someone else. My backpack and frantic disposition must've betrayed my poverty and desperation. Trying not to spill the shake or dismantle the burg, I trotted as quickly as I could in Danskos, too many layers, a pea coat and laden with my oversized backpack. I think I got to the Shanxi metro station at 7:05. My bus was at 7:30.

Everything unfolded without wrinkles: metro ticket, security check, train. Stand. Wait. Consume milkshake. Arrival at the railway station stop at 7:18. (The bus station is situated just north of the train station.) I ran. As fast as I could. Sweater, scarf, knee high socks, heavy backpack = overheated spectacle of a foreigner dashing through the train station's metro stop. I'm out of shape.

I had jammed 10RMB in my back pocket to take one of the scooters usually poaching the long passageway from metro to bus station. But no one was there. So I ran again. Tried, anyway. Thank heaven both the metro and bus stations were sparsely populated. I don't know how I didn't have A Dansko Incident, the frequent ankle twisting, balance toppling moments those shoes tend to give on uneven surfaces, while dashing through the construction rubble that must be what Kabul looks like.

Navigating the terrain and dodging the people in China is like you're inside a video game. If anyone else was playing, I was definitely winning.

The bus station guards waved me through the entrance. Barely breathing, sweating, I heaved my bag onto the security belt. I thought my ticket said the bus was leaving from the 2nd floor but I've never left from there before so I wasn't sure. Luckily the first floor was totally dark, so I just bounded up the stairs and bumbled down to gate #5. They were still calling out 7:30pm departures so at 7:28 I thought I was okay, but when I thrust my ticket in the gate agent's face, his eyes bulged, "Huai'an!??" and he pushed through the crowd at the door to chase down the bus. He looked back to make sure I was following. "Xièxiè!" I gasped, and he pounded on the window as the bus pulled out of its space.

The whole bus was quite surprised to see a panting weiguoren and I was quite surprised to see the whole bus consisted of three drivers and four passengers. I slumped across two seats, peeled off my layers, and as soon as I could think clearly and breathe at the same time, thanked my lucky starts at the good fortune of not only making the bus but having such a luxurious ride.

But of course, nothing is as it seems.

Approximately seven minutes later the bus putt-putted to a stop along the road, two of the drivers got off, and three minutes later, we five passengers were ushered off and on to a new bus that had pulled up behind us.

I was slow to gather my heap of belongings but all the drivers showed me the way and I stepped up into the new bus, which, I made sure, bore the characters of Huai'an as its destination.

Ahhh, yes. Now this is what a night bus to the sticks should look like, I thought, peering down the columns of weather-worn brown faces craning their necks, peering back at me. Packed to the gills. The ticket I had purchased proved I paid for a seat, and seat #1 at that, but I had lost possession of it between the worried gate agent and curious bus drivers #1, 2 and 3. I just stood at the front trying to spot an opening anywhere.

A hard-working man in the front row was nudged and forced to a seat (I hope a seat and not a stool in the aisle) somewhere in the back, outraged that he was booted for a laowei, though I didn't catch much of the exchange besides that word. I took the seat and we finally set out. The men in the seats nearby poked their heads around to get a good look at me and my belongings. I didn't pack in an old rice sack.

Shortly after, an argument breaks out in the back of the bus between one of the new drivers and who I assume is my seat martyr. All I gathered was the entire bus was now engaged in debate over the fairness of me getting the man's seat. I just contemplated my pathetic, well-traveled burger, not having to try hard to look clueless, and hoped everyone would calm down.

Eventually, they did. Before hitting the main expressway we stopped two or three times to pick up even more passengers, though I don't know where they were put and I didn't want to turn around.

All of this wasn't even the reason I got out my journal in the first place: As we pulled through a busy toll a woman approached the driver and he stopped beside a semi. The woman and another man got off the bus. Did they really only need a ride this far? We didn't continue driving after they left. Looking out the window between the passing trucks I saw the couple popping squats in the triangle bounded by the guard rails of the on ramp and toll exit. Their hunched figures intermittently were spotlighted by passing headlights. After a few minutes the woman returned and we continued to wait. Some of the drivers chuckled. Eventually the man finished his shit. He trotted back and we carried on.

My seat neighbor is dozing into my personal space. Thankfully the driver is going the 100 km/hr limit. I'll be happy to see my pillow.

someday

I MUST experience this: home cooked Italian meals with the "Cesarine" chefs themselves, right in their dining rooms.

"...Home Food, an Italian organization dedicated to, as its promotional literature states, 'the protection and increase of the value of typical Italian gastronomic and culinary legacy.' That is, it’s all about preserving and showcasing the cooking of individual Italian families. ... Home Food seeks out exceptional home chefs, puts them through a training course and dubs them Cesarinas — little Caesars, emperors of the kitchen. Then, a few times a month, the Cesarinas host dinner parties at which they open their homes to strangers." [The New York Times]

Sign. me. UP.

And then tell me why no one else has copied this genius idea. Where are the 小皇帝 [xiǎo huángdì] in this gastronomic dreamland?

Oh wait -- that's right -- just down the street at the four tops connected to their bedrooms.

[I'll refrain from a google image search to illustrate because I should really have my own picture of this... consider it forthcoming.]

she posts

Please see what she gleaned from our Saturday evening dinner guest because I cannot compose a more illuminating recap.

All I can add is that we cooked a box of our Shanghai purchased pasta, of which Lin Qiang ate 5.5 bites since he was so busy talking. "I am very excited!" he explained. Had we not subjected ourselves to the hell of Club Seven the night before we probably would've been more excited too. As it was, he was thoroughly enjoyable and educational company, one of the most vivacious Chinese I've met. The majority of Chinese have a somewhat irritating habit of modesty: "You know my English is very poor," "No, no I am not very beautiful," etc. Lin Qiang is refreshingly very candid: "See?! I am a good teacher!"

We'll be having him over again.

you know you live in china...

when a toddler at the campus track is toting nunchucks.

lucky

heh, to counter the bitter supermarket cultural misunderstandings, here's another supermarket episode that's a bit sweeter:

On a recent evening trip to the store across the street I picked out a bunch of bananas, and took it over to our smiley fruit weigher friend. (You bring your bag of fruits and veggies to the respective weigh station and have it priced and sealed up.) She printed the sticker, clamped the bag and then showed it to the darling old man standing next to me. All I could understand of his commentary was "pretty" and he looked up at me, said something, and I had to reply with a hopeless smile, "听不懂," [loosely translated: I know you're talking to me but I have no clue what you're saying!] which is my automatic response to almost any Mandarin tossed my way.

I heard the fruit lady say something about "three" but I definitely had more than three bananas. I just shrugged apologies for being in their country and not speaking their lengua, took the bananas and left them smiling and chuckling.

It wasn't until I got back to the apartment and unpacked everything that I realized the bananas cost 8.88RMB, and the lady was showing the man the price tag with the three eights. In China people pay extra money for phone numbers or license plates with 8s because they're "auspicious" (their favorite word). The Mandarin for "eight" is "bā" which sounds like the word for "prosperity", "fā." So they believe eights are blessings of fortune. How lucky were my bananas! The Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony began at 8:08pm on the eighth day of the eighth month, in the year 2008.

I'm bummed I didn't try a little harder to figure out the circumstances at the fruit stand. But I guess it's called a language barrier for a reason... Too bad I couldn't have hurdled this one with a display of gratitude at my great fortune. They must have thought I was a terrible waste of 8s!

beware

A wild animal is on the loose here in Huai'an. It's abnormally tall with odd coloration. It wears clothes that are made in China but do not look Chinese. It sometimes responds to calls in its language. If you see it at the supermarket inspecting tofu with the provided tongs, you should clap and squawk in its face and remove the tongs from its hand, because wild animals certainly do not know how to handle tofu. Plus, there are obvious codes of conduct around here, evidenced by the hundreds of pounds of meat laying in open air being picked and prodded at by all passersby, and this creature does not understand public health measures or human etiquette.

Additionally, if it attempts to add money to its cell phone, you should look at it in repulsion, take the phone and press all the buttons, and then ignore the Chinese message that plays when you try to make a call and informs you the account is out of money. Just look at the other customers and hope they will remove the beast from your service counter. If it refuses to go away, wave in its face and turn your back. It will eventually get the message that it's not welcome.

Maybe the creature needs an attitude adjustment, but it just wasn't in the mood.

aha.

take that, cybercensors! We invested in a new toy that gets us around internet restrictions so now I can actually access this blog baby instead of emailing tidbits out into the ether. Pardon the delay while I figure out how to use all these gadgets; it may be ugly around here while I freshen up and get my face on.

resuscitation

finals, visitors, travels, visitor, start of semester, excuses, excuses.

We're already a quarter of the way into second semester. My freshman class has shaken the dust off their atrophied English skills since vacation and my 9 sophomores have solidified their hatred of the language. I have one writing class with them, which I really enjoy thanks to the writing textbook Jeff & Claire left behind for me to use, and my other five classes are all Listening & Speaking, four times per week with the freshmen and once with the sophs. (I should have two writing classes with the sophomores but they hate it, and usually me, and I don't love them, so I dropped one and am waiting to see how long it'll be until someone "important" confronts my liberties with the schedule.)

Everyone came back to school with new shoes, new coats and freshly sculpted anime hair: curled, swooped, frizzed, straightened, black, purple, or "blonde," which, properly translated, is "orange." The magic of having a foreign teacher has worn off for most of the students, except the ones who aren't actually in my classes, and only see me in the dingy hallway of the writing class building, grabbing their friends' attention to stare and giggle or call out, "Hallooo! Nice-tew-mete-yooh!"

Spring is at winter's back door with fickle temperatures and mostly gray skies sagging with showers, but Megan was lucky to get 68 degrees on her birthday a couple weeks ago. Simon and I came to her class to play shark pit and "the circle game" (that's what I'm calling it anyway) outside, which was a lot more fun than when we repeated the event the following week with my class, who, true to form, cheated. The freshmen boys are bedazzled by my new and awesome iPod; Jack pointed and said, "How much," and Martin held out his hand and demanded, "Give to me." Jack had the same question-as-statement last semester of my running shoes that I brought in for show and tell (hard to believe, but I do teach college and not kindergarten) which was followed by Martin's charming show of his pack of cigarettes, and tell, "I like smoking. That's all." Boys.

Hopefully we'll have some committed spring temperatures by next weekend for Easter/Qingming Festival aka Tomb Sweeping Day (interesting coincidence) when we get Monday off (and don't have to make it up!). Some of us are thinking of getting a bus down to Hangzhou, the lovely city near Shanghai where Megan and I started our winter vacation travels. Loreta's stipulation is a church and Tim's is beer, and thanks to Google (.com.hk, mind you) we know Hangzhou has both. All I need to do is figure out exactly how much I overspent by on our travels -oops- and see if I have the funds to go.

mango melee

Last summer while visiting Renee and her homeland we went to the annual Mango Melee in celebration of this wondrous fruit. My love of the mango developed in Voi, where the Sisters plucked them off their trees and served them for dessert, and then my dear island roommate taught me how to properly peel and cut my own (Pick 'n' Save purchased) mahngoes (how Beth says it in Latin American hangover). Well, lucky for us, it is mango melee somewhere in this part of the world because the supermarket bins are bursting with them.

In the fall when we last had mangoes we attempted the oh-so-delectable Thai dessert of mango and sticky rice, but we never quite perfected it before winter settled in on the produce section. Now we have mangoes again, and between devouring them at every meal and snacktime, we've cooked up coconut sticky rice twice in the past week. Tonight, we perfected it, and let me tell you, it's a DIVINE trio. If you have the means, you must rush out to the nearest Thai restaurant and get some for yourself. Or buy your ticket, come over here, and I'll make it.

hiatus

as Megan and Maria Carlota would say, "obviopo..." because clearly this on-again-off-again blog has been switched off lately.

The parents have blown through China and settled back in their spot of the world after whirling around it, and Megan and I are exploring the Southwest corner before school starts again in two weeks.

The nutshell: Beijing is as awesome as fabled, Xi'an is filthy, but the Warriors (and Muslim Quarter) are worth the trip, traveling around Spring Festival is chaotic, Shanghai is still super cool and Yunnan fare is best.

More to come when the dust settles in Huai'an, around the 27th.