Overcast, with patches of umbrellas and isolated lettuce

A photo from the archives showing a not-too-uncommon sight in China - people finding a patch of land just about anywhere to grow a batch of veggies for themselves.

More Beautiful

Because, really, can't we all use a bit more Ve in our lives?

Squiggly Snacks

You know how in America, you get all kinds of packaged snacks that are sweet and stale and utterly disgusting, yet also totally compelling and delicious at the same time?  One cool thing about China is that you can get that same exact snacking sensation, but without all that extra packaging.  Yum!  Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go get me some of those...

Look, Honey, it's our friends the Mangosteens!

...and the Rambutans, and the Dragonfruits....why all sorts of our friends from China and Southeast Asia are here!  What are you all doing in Canada?



Seems like I took these photos in Toronto's Chinatown back during a visit there in the summer of 2008 - right about the time when we were considering a volunteer position open in Egypt.  That would have been interesting, would it not? 

(Spoiler alert:  The Egypt thing didn't work out.)



Now that I look at the photos, I do remember thinking "What the heck are these strange mutant things?", and we talked to a Chinese guy who was really excited to find what I now know are longans (the little brown ones in the photo above), which didn't make it to Toronto that often, apparently. 

 

Wow, a sign that our whole Asian adventure was predestined after all! 

Or, more likely, a sign that I've always been attracted to strange-looking tropical fruit...

Mmm, Mock Indonesian!

Okay, are you a vegetarian sitting around your house in China over the weekend and not really inspired to have the same old same old rice with some kind of vegetable for lunch or dinner? Is your 10 pound bag of pasta that you bought at Metro five months ago starting to run low? Don't want to stick around for the couple of hours that it takes those pinto beans that you found one time at the local market and bought, like, a wheelbarrow full, to boil?

Well, my friends, have I got the answer for you. Mock Indonesian, a cuisine whose moment is about to arrive. Detractors might say, "Hey, wait a minute! This is just leftover Chinese food presented in a different shape with a bit of peanut butter thrown in as it's reheated." To which I say, Hey. This is China. There are no detractors here.



Here's how you do it:

1. Make some rice. If you're doing white rice, add a little more water than usual to make it stickier. Fried rice is cool, too, of course. Add in all them other leftovers that were starting to migrate to the back of the fridge, while you're at it.
2. Make some veggies. Leafy greens are the best. A peanut sauce is even better than the best.
3. Pack the rice into a small bowl, then invert the bowl onto a plate. You should have a perfect mound of rice right in the middle. Did it fall all over the place? Oh-oh, that one's for you. Repeat until you get three perfect servings for the kids.
4. Arrange the veggies artfully on the side. Top with a bit of peanut sauce and roasted peanuts, if they're handy.
5. Serve to great fanfare, and watch your kids gobble it down repeatedly, weekend after weekend.
6. Of course, you're welcome.
   

Ordinary Stuff - Mmmm, Cherries...

It's cherry (and mulberry and waxberry) season here in Sichuan...



Hmmm, where have I seen these before...?



Thanks, China, for providing a flashback to a game that I loved when I was... three? four? and haven't thought about since. Take that, Marcel Proust!

Out to the farm

Another "current event" report that's not quite current, but I'm posting anyway because the photos turned out nicely - we went with our friend Jessie out to our friends the Gao family's organic farm last month when they had their twice yearly open house for their customers.


The kids usually get the media attention in our household, so leading off is a photo of Jane and me and Jessie.



...which doesn't mean that the kids weren't entertaining ...





Here are Xander and friends doing dishes. "Rinsing" the dishes in a basket of old rice husks first gets rid of the grease and eliminates the need for extra hot water - important when everything is cooked over wood or charcoal.





At the time (early April) the 油菜 (youcai - rapeseed or canola) were in bloom, so we were surrounded by a sea of yellow blossoms.



Jane got a lot of good pictures of all things blooming - here are a few:





Spring has since started to head full blast into summer around these parts, but I figure that in a lot of places where people are reading this, it's still going on or just getting started. Happy May, everyone!

All's Fair

Every March 16th, our local "village" of 红光（Hongguang, pop. ca. 280,000) celebrates the anniversary of a visit by Chairman Mao, who stopped by this area (then called Hexing) in 1958 to visit a few collective farms and to talk with the locals. He suggested a few changes, told the provincial government to set up a university in the area, and the rest is history. After the visit, the residents of our town changed the name to mean "Red light" - Honguang in Chinese.

The celebration took the form of an immensely long county fair / shopping bazaar, which stretched along ten blocks of a side street not far from the University. Of course, we were there, and Jane and I found ourselves continually asking each other for the camera, because there were all sorts of picture-worthy sights (and sites). Here are a few of the better ones... (as always, click on the photo to enlarge)

What Jane's really been up to

Okay, so my wife really hasn't ever been a professional custard taster. But she has been known to get up in front of large groups of people to talk about worms lately. Specifically, the red wrigglers that reside in our worm composting bin that we set up last fall.



As a matter of fact, worms, CSAs (Community Sponsored Agriculture), organic farming, and Earth-friendly living in general were the subject of a talk that she gave at the US Consulate in Chengdu a couple of weeks ago. Go Jane!

Oh, and here's the article in Chinese, just because it looks way cool...)

How much food will a dollar buy?

Ten organic blueberries, apparently. Or a McDonald's cheeseburger. From a project by Jonathan Blaustein, who has simply photographed a dollar's worth of different foods available near his home in New Mexico. Would be very interesting to see what this project would look like here in China, as well. Maybe I'll put it on my to-do list? Oh, wait a minute - I see a homework assignment coming up....!


http://www.ecoliteracy.org/blog/how-much-food-will-dollar-buy

When cultural relativism flies out the window...

Presenting, for your gustatory pleasure -


...pork floss Dunkin' Donuts, and...


... grilled seahorse (or scorpion, or starfish) on a stick.

Notable not only for their Western "yuk!" factor, but for their rarity - these particular, um, dishes don't seem to be very popular here, either.

I myself haven't tried either of these two - guess I'm leaving them for my nonvegetarian friends to check out. Though I think that Dunkin' Donuts may be sitting on an untapped gold mine with that pork floss doughnut concept. Sweet, salty, porky, and flossy, all in one bite!

Ordinary Stuff - M is for Mantou

Mmmm, mantou! Jane took this picture of one of the workers at the new mantou shop that opened up on our market street last fall. Mantou are steamed buns, and a godsend to hungry vegetarians on the way to the bus or running a bit late to teach a class in the morning.

Hey, we've been there!

Customers eating at Yang Yang, Chengdu. Image from Eating Asia (see links below)

Another post on Sichuan cuisine by Eating Asia, this time featuring Yang Yang, a restaurant that we've been to a couple of times when we've been to downtown Chengdu. Their review of several ritzy new Sichuan restaurants in the New York times is also worth a look and a read, though all of the other places they mentioned are a bit beyond our budget....

Oh, yeah, Happy Thanksgiving!

As I'm wrapping up on lesson planning this last Thursday morning of November before heading to teach four hours of classes this afternoon, I'm reminded that back where I came from, it's a holiday of some kind or another. Oh, yeah, Thanksgiving!

As you may have gleaned from a post or two back there somewhere, we had our (turkey-less) turkey day a couple of weekends ago, hosting 27 people from our organization at our campus for an early American and late Canadian Thanksgiving. We had a couple of awesome breakfasts featuring pancakes and homemade granola, a load of interesting books and magazines hauled over from the States by our fearless leader, a game or five of Chinese chess, a field trip into Chengdu, and, most importantly, some great fellowship with our fellow teachers and friends. I can tell how busy we were before and how much fun we had during by the relative lack of photos that we have of the event. Below, a small sampling:


Shelly and Jane, showing their amazement at real (okay, artificial, but still...) maple syrup.


Bob the coffee warrior, going at the beans with a rolling pin because our newly acquired hand-powered second hand coffee grinder turned out to be a bit of a let-down.


Ysa hitting it off with Emily, who, along with Bob, is one of the new teachers that's joined our group this year.


Some distinguished folks in our apartment at breakfast time.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Have you had your yak encounter today?

Did you know Jane milked a yak last summer? From the videos I've been uploading, a short video clip that she took then as a peaceful start to your morning (or afternoon or evening, depending)

All the pretty little oranges

A week and some ago, we hosted 27 fellow teachers from our organization at our campus for a joint American / Canadian Thanksgiving. As part of the festivities, Jane went out on Friday afternoon and purchased around eight different kinds of the fifteen or so varieties of oranges and tangerines that are available at our local fruit vendors this time of year for an orange tasting at our apartment last Friday evening. She also took photographs of many of the varieties, which I'm posting below for your viewing pleasure.