December 2009

The Archives

• Christmas, holidays, less food-related, students, teaching

  ******mas

  12.30.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Chinese people like to compare Christmas to Spring Festival, the Lunar New Year, the Chinese Holiday of holidays. Over Spring Festival, big cities are abandoned as people go home to see their families. Even in Beijing, which is renowned for its abysmal traffic, the streets are empty. All over the country businesses close, train [...]

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• Christmas, baking, butter, home cooking, huzhou, mysterious ingredients, recipes

  The Bun Also Rises

  12.27.09 | Permalink | 3 Comments

  Every year for Thanksgiving, my family and I headed out to the desert for a potluck lunch with my grandparents’ friends and their families. Though the location changed a few times, we were always out in the desert, eating turkey and hiking and playing volleyball.
  Every year one of my grandmother’s good friends, Susan, would [...]

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• Parks, cooking, huzhou, out and about, students

  A Chicken On Every Stick

  12.22.09 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  I tend to make my job significantly more stressful than it should be, especially since I teach a whopping 12 hours a week. Instead I’m haunted by constant doubt that my class is evenly remotely interesting and that I’m teaching my kids anything at all. There are some days, walking up the steps to the [...]

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• huzhou, less food-related, musings

  The Sound of Intimidation

  12.17.09 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  On the road that leads into the downtown district, right where the traffic starts to get heavy, there’s a place called Fumiao. Or rather, a place that used to be Fumiao. Until June it was a warehouse of stalls, where one could by anything from candles, clothes, and motorcycle helmets to plates, bedding, and suitcases. [...]

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• cooking, holidays, home cooking, huzhou, recipes

  The Huzhou Food Jew is a Lonely Eater

  12.13.09 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  If anyone in my life has influenced my cooking, it would be my paternal grandmother, Nana. Both my mother and father are good cooks, but with the triple whammy of an ultra-picky daughter, working, and, you know, raising two kids, they didn’t have a lot of time to devote to culinary endeavors until I was [...]

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• less food-related, out and about

  Fierce…?

  12.08.09 | Permalink | 7 Comments

  This is why Tyra would kick me off America’s Next Top Model:

  (Though I might penalize the photographer for shooting from an angle that make my hips look HUGE and make me look like a giant.)
  I have one look.

  And I don’t do it particularly well. Just what is in the upper corners of an elevator?

  Though let’s [...]

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• Thanksgiving, dessert, entrees, holidays, housecleaning, huzhou

  Martha on the Scrounge

  12.04.09 | Permalink | 3 Comments

  Though it’s been a week since the Thanksgiving party, the remainders were around for days afterward. The dishes sat in the sink, unwashed, til Wednesday night. Something sticky that spilled on the floor didn’t get cleaned until my ayi came on Thursday. A week later, my apartment still smells like booze. And, of course, the [...]

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• Thanksgiving, baking, butter, cake, chocolate, cooking, dessert, holidays, home cooking, huzhou, recipes

  Pre-Pear-ed

  12.02.09 | Permalink | 5 Comments

  Western/American holidays in China have a totally different meaning than they do at ‘home.’ Having a Christmas party or a Thanksgiving dinner is, at least for me, more about nostalgia and comfort than about the actual holiday. I didn’t have a big party at my house so that we could all think about the Pilgrims. [...]

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Plate of Wander

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