Dan's oldest sister came to visit for a week this month. Dan was travelling and so we had her all to ourselves. We just mostly hung out, did our studies and projects and enjoyed her phenomenal cooking. That week also went a long way toward lessening the 'American Bubble' problem as Da GuMa (as the kids refer to her) doesn't speak English. I saw a big improvement in everyone's ease of conversation, the general fluency, even if our vocabularies are still lacking.
We got to enjoy great dishes like bai jiao and doufu gan - I haven't any idea what bai jiao is in English, the dictionary says it's "wild rice shoots" but that doesn't make sense, plus it's a large piece of plant compared to what I'd expect a rice shoot to look like. Doufu gan is tofu, pressed and seasoned.
More tofu, this time little tofu-puffs with bok choy (bai cai or qing cai in Mandarin).
Yummy soups, with dong gua (winter melon) or daikon radish, tomatoes, sometimes meatballs...
...and just a generally fabulous spread. I tend to cook extremely simply - the most you'll ever get out of me is probably 4 dishes since I don't multitask well in the kitchen (I can only oversee one cooking thing at a time unless things are supposed to be burnt).
We were all reluctant to let her return to Hangzhou. Perhaps we'll be able to visit all the family over the Chinese New Year holiday next year.
We got to enjoy great dishes like bai jiao and doufu gan - I haven't any idea what bai jiao is in English, the dictionary says it's "wild rice shoots" but that doesn't make sense, plus it's a large piece of plant compared to what I'd expect a rice shoot to look like. Doufu gan is tofu, pressed and seasoned.
More tofu, this time little tofu-puffs with bok choy (bai cai or qing cai in Mandarin).
Yummy soups, with dong gua (winter melon) or daikon radish, tomatoes, sometimes meatballs...
...and just a generally fabulous spread. I tend to cook extremely simply - the most you'll ever get out of me is probably 4 dishes since I don't multitask well in the kitchen (I can only oversee one cooking thing at a time unless things are supposed to be burnt).
We were all reluctant to let her return to Hangzhou. Perhaps we'll be able to visit all the family over the Chinese New Year holiday next year.
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