local and delishuss

as it is the holiday season, things are pretty busy at the varkenpalace. so i haven't been able to post all the fabulous ayi pix. i've been skipping lunches and doing my due dilligence at the local markets for all sorts of xmas goodies. NONE of them included fud.

but, we did go on a fambly/company outing on saturday. to famous Yangcheng lake, where THIS famous dish is grown and served. hairy crab.
this is the time of year for the males to be eaten.
lemme tell you, this was more a feast for the eyes than the stomach.
more pix later, as i get them off the camera. now is the time for last minute FOOD shopping. i don't think i can tackle the traditional white xmas polish feast tonite - we had waaaay too much "seafood" yesterday. and we're all feeling a bit queasy yet.

leftover day

yes, i know, technically this isn't a blog about the food SANDY cooks, but i was gone for lunch today and i decided to heat up a little left over beef stewishness cooked in red wine (hong jiu - if i remember correctly). (yes, i DO eat meat - especially when i know less about how they hacked it up - or WHERE they hacked it up - eg. out in the open air market where there's lots of coughing and sneezing going on) TIC, dontchaknow... even jack liked this the first go 'round.

was going to have a lovely piece of crusty bread i baked to go with it, but i think the varkenfather ate the rest of the loaf for breakfast. sigh...

but i did use some of our fresh veggies in the initial offering. nothing green today either.
carrots - hu luo bo (hoo loo-oh boh)
mushrooms - mo gu (you know this - moh gooh)
tomatoes - xi hong shi (shee hong shhhhhh - don't forget that soft ending!!)
garlic - da suan (dah sooy ahn)
cow meat - niu rou (nee-oooh - ryooh)

and yes. i am quite aware that the plate is one of my tapas plates. but i didn't want to eat much. and it certainly is a change of plate pace, eh?

just as aside, today was the day the pork liver was cooked. i think i made a very wise choice heading out this afternoon...

kelp soup

yum.

i simply do not know what to say today. lunch was certainly a feast for the eyes. and the condiments? -- to die for.
where are my green vegetables???

i take back what i said yesterday about the spoon. i got one today. two days in a row something served in my special polish bowls.

i think it's sea kelp again. definitely brine shrimp. the kind that we used to feed the newts. watery, yet with a mild fishy taste. and not so warm. but definitely glisteny. i guess the floaty little green things are my veggies today.

and these glistened, too. for deep fried zhu rou, chinese cabbage (bai cai - yah, it's all pretty much the same to me) pieces and moh gu, it tasted pretty good. but verrrrrry greasy. what really gets me is the choice in condiment. i actually still have a few bottles of american HEINZ ketchup in the chinese fridge (and in the pantry). ketchup wouldn't be my first choice (or even my fourth). i wonder if these were left over from last week's takeout. i certainly dont see ayi smuggling in mccormick ketchup packets...

and when you wake up, the new day is TUESDAY

more noodly noodles and zhu rou today. what a surprise.
but here's what WAS the surprise. she found my IKEA plastic children's trays and decided to serve my lunch on that. how festive. plus, as a change of pace, we had something served in a bowl! a BOWL!! (and not just any bowl - i think mom and i discovered these polish gems a few years ago. and they've travelled all this way, just to have noodly noodles and zhu rou served in them.



you did notice the obligatory glass of water (at least i get mine served relatively cool - tepid, perhaps. thank gawd it ain't hot, like i'm told it SHOULD be).
methinks these are the only chopsticks i have that ayi knows how to find. or maybe she just thinks these are the lunch chopsticks (i never get a spoon or a fork. EVER).

notice the glistening soup? i tell ya. if it's got a vegetable innit, it's gotta glisten. how many teeny tiny pieces of zhu rou can you spot today? don't worry - there were many many more hidden under the bai cai (buy tseye - that's the green baby bok choy you see in there. i swear, i go to the market and i see what looks to be all the same baby bok choy and they're all labeled differently. when i'm on my own (and really want to pay more money than ayi pays - "tai gui le" she exclaims when i come back on my own - "too expensive!!") i buy some different labels of the same green baby bok choy looking thingies. and guess what? it tastes the same. i think i have a relatively discerning palate. whassup w/dat?

ok ok. so the noodly noodles were in a tasteless broth served with watery slimy mushrooms (mo gu - moh goo - i ate it - you learn it). i do not understand why she keeps buying the same brown slimy mushrooms (i mean, mo gu)?

i ate all my greens. some of the noodles, a few slimy mushrooms, and yah... a few zhu rou slipped past my uvula, too.

no. i do NOT know what this was. something akin to kimchee. but we're in china, not korea, so they must call it something else. i know they were vegetables. i know they were pickled. and they were served cold. rather crunchy, too. not BAD the first time, but all afternoon it's been repeating on me, so not so good the next few times.

oh. and lest you thought i forgot.... chinese eggplant - qie zi (this one's harder to pronounce --chee-eh zzzuh. allthough the zi is just a soft ending - you don't really hear it at all. soft endings are not easy for me. zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, ri.)

oh yah, it's monday

monday, back to work. fud look any different to ya? um, yah. me neither. we generally start out our mondays reviewing the various vegetables that were purchased at the cai shi chang (tsai - shee - chahng) vegetable market. (((would it help if i attempted to put up the TONES for pronounciation? cuz that just effs me up good. my second and fourth tones are not so good, according to my 25yr old chinese teacher. at least i practice *almost* every day...)))

anywayze, we try to review the vegetable purchases IN chinese (this is supposedly for the greater good - mine). and then we "discuss" the cost. i can barely spit out yi bai kuai (eee buy kw-eye or -100rmb) and make it understandable. and then i pay the ayi for what she spent (down to the mao (dime) - cuz they no longer have pennies).

today - monday, i spent 67.8 kuai in veggies and various meat products for the week. all zhu rou. but one i noticed and freaked out. said i was absolutely not interested in eating - and it took almost a half an hour to figure out EXACTICALLY what it was.

pig liver.

pig liver, pig intestine, pig kidney??? gawd, we went thru all the body intestinal parts. and finally i pulled out my handy dandy tranlator (which doesn't translate pinyin - only hanzi - which is chinese character). why oh why did i buy a translator made for chinese english learners????? in china??????

oh, according to ayi, apparently chinese people LOOOOVE pig liver. i attempted to tell ayi *I* don't loooove pig liver. as a matter of fact, i don't think many cultures around the world ENJOY pig liver (calve, veal, goose, duck, OK!! pig? not-so-much.)

not sure what meat was served today, to tell the truth.

ok, so plate presentation wasn't so bad. looks like any other plate presentation or perhaps i should say it looks like EVERY other plate presentation. and i have sooo many plates. but her favorite seem to be the indestructable IKEA square plates i picked up in shanghai while waiting for my sea shipment to be delivered. yet.... white is, um, elegant?

can you even differentiate one meal from the others yet?

one green, one brown.

one bit of white rice, one glass water. same bamboo chopsticks.

here's the green. (lu).

i saw these raw and straight from the veggie market (who remembers??? -- cai shi chang) and i THINK they were garlic sproutie thingies. just sauteed first in the peanut oil that she loves to glisten my vegetables with. i LIKE green vegetables. i even eat the sauteed lettuce. not much flavor. but a whole helluva lot more appetizing than the main...

and here is the brown.

no. i'm not sure what this was. i had at LEAST 10 garlic cloves in it though (yes, i'm ok w/ the garlic - good for something in the body, according to the chinese - i just haven't figured out WHAT part yet). and cabbage. and chinese eggplant (i saw a faint hint of purple while i was piecing thru it). plus, i know that ayi purchased 2 long and skinny chinese eggplants. and NO. i DON'T know what chinese eggplant is yet in chinese. i'll put that on my list.

oh, and guess what ELSE was in my brown slop today? teeny tiny pieces of zhu rou. they keep getting smaller and smaller (like i'm not gonna notice them).

i swear to gawd she wants me to learn to like this shiite.

stay tuned... (and hope that xmas and my new camera come soon!!)

sunday lunch at yu yuan (garden temple)

sunday is ayi's day off, so it's off to exploring the city and forraging for fud for us (plus, mark was home, so he felt the need to force the children to explore the city and forrage for fud). we head to the temple at yu yuan garden (or it's yu garden temple or - heck, i'm not quite sure what people call it - big tourist spot - fun. but rainy)... so, the temple is 500 plus years old (i think built in 1500 something).

and the fud?? - well, it left a little (lot) bit to be desired, as well. although we have eaten the famous soup dumplings here in the past, the line to the desired 3rd floor botulism haven had a line out the first floor door. and we weren't about to wait hours this time (although it is the most famous soup dumpling restaurant in shanghai). so we chose restaurant #78. very famous noodles (it said so - who am i to disagree??)

noodly noodles in soup. oooooh. now there's something original. on the menu it SAID it was bbq PORK (there's that dang zhu rou again!!) 2- fatty pieces - (yech) in ramen soup with pickled vegetables. but it left much to be desired when it came to the table.

that said, it tasted MUCH better than it looked. and the egg? tea smoked. they're actually quite good.

and THAT said, my order was the *best* of the fambly fud. most of my meal went to sabina...

these chicken wing thingies? well jack ordered them. he thinks he can find ANYTHING western on ANY menu. well he's partly right. but they sort of fileted these buggers (yet kept the bones and the gelatinous, fatty skin) and stuck bamboo skewers thru them. and called them bbq chicken wings. too much gelatinous, fatty skin. how do they GROW these things???? jack left a coupla skewers on the table (there were only 4 delivered). guess he wasn't fond of THIS western fud.

oh yah. and the pan fried dumplings. mark ordered these (knowing he'd hafta eat sabina's fud cuz she eats next to nothing). i'm sure they look huge here. trust me. they're were'nt. but that made sabina love them even more. i don't think mark got more than one or two of these. because sabina would not eat this: (look down)


looks great. looks fabulous, actually. presented well (no, my camera does not do it justice - although the picture of the soup ramen was quite spot on - ewww, eh?). tasted like seaweedy nothingness. no soya sauce. no ginger. no sesame oil. no mushroom sauce. where did they get the great color? it just tasted fishy from the sea kelp they pulled from the inland river. dirty. muddy. disappointing. left most wholly on the plate.

but lest you worry that those varkenkidlets left yu yuan hungry... varkenkidlets finished their lunch with a hot chocolate from the yu yuan's own fabulous STARBUCKS!!! and then we went home and ordered a fishy tasting pepperoni and cheeeze pizza from papa john's and watched TWO episodes of HEROES!!! (i think we're almost caught up w/ the states now).

saturday lunch

so, i may not have the best photography skills. but here goes. todays lunch was quite the variation on a theme. zhu rou. almost always zhu rou. that's PORK for all you that need to polish up on your mandarin.

today's zhu rou was of the mostly bone and fat kind. deep fried in a sort of sweet/sour vinegar sauce. with yang cong (pronounced yahng tsong) and qin jiao (chin jeeow), which, respectively is onion and green pepper. although red and yellow peppers are called the same thing, so one must be careful sending someone out to the market...

and my veggies? always glistening always varying shades of green-ness. more qin jiao. and i have no idea what the other pale greenish white thing is. maybe bamboo shoots??? no whole cloves of garlic - which generally seems to be almost a given. more zhu rou. ayi likes to hide it in almost everything she gives me. she says "little bit" i say "too much" at least now, my rice bowl is getting smaller and smaller. now i get about an 1/8th of a cup along w/ every meal. i still don't eat it all. but every day it's still there.