Rachel: Měi Shí jié kuài lè!

My bread is rising, I just put some beans out to soak and my husband is at at the gym so I can finally commandeer the computer for awhile for the sake of writing a blog. It was a toss up between starting the pasta sauce or blogging...you can see which one came out on top! Yes, I'm drawing on all my "Little House on the Prairie" knowledge but seriously, if one wants to eat something other than Chinese food, there's no such thing as popping around to the store and buying canned beans and bakery bread! And as my family can tell you, cooking doesn't come naturally to me but its amazing what one can do when one puts her mind to it! A suggestion was made on the weekend (the suggester will remain anonymous) that I can be very stubborn...um...I like to think of it more as 'persistent' or 'determined'...the suggesters are usually happy with the results when it pertains to cooking I might add!

Not to mention the health benefits. Or the taste benefits. Ah, but the time...health, taste, time...yes something's gotta give! Its like a delicate balancing act...

Sparrows are a Nanning delicacy

Tang Bao -- Shanghai cuisine basically meaning 'soup inside bread' -- pretty clever actually!

Speaking of food, we do live in China and we do enjoy some culinary delights that our city has to offer. Lǎo yóu fěn is a spicy rice noodle dish (or noodle rice as my teacher likes to call it). Getting them to omit the pork is the trouble. I also like the Bái lóng qiézi -- eggplant in a sweet and sour sauce. But I think our favourite is the shāo kǎo -- Chinese BBQ. Half because I can always get what I want and half because it really is just delicious! And they don't necessarily burn things to a crisp like Australians usually do. It could be all in the secret sauce but give me shāo kǎo qiézi (eggplant), yù mǐ (corn on the cob), and some dòu fu pǐ (tofu skins) "Kěyǐ wēi là" (mildly spicy, can) and I'm a happy chappy!

Sweet black sticky rice from somewhere in South East Asia

BBQ something or rather...

Several years ago, I was at a table with some omnivores who were discussing the most adventurous (ie, the most disgusting) things they have ever eaten. It seemed that the more screwed up or green the faces of the audiences, the more one was hailed as either brave or an idiot (I'm really not sure which). I don't rightly remember what was the most disgusting appetizer in the end but I do remember that tofu didn't seem to come close (although these days I'd say green smoothie and see what kind of look that would get). Which is funny really because do you know how many people I know who refuse to eat tofu because they think its utterly revolting? And personally, I think vegetarians and vegans on the whole eat more weird food daily than most 'adventurous' omnivores. But somewhere between sheep's testicles and monkey brain I thought, someday, I want someone to be totally grossed out by something I've eaten too. Which is hard when you're a vegetarian.

Making rice noodles

Inside is 'Dirt Chicken' -- yes its covered in mud

Chinese Muslim bread -- really good!

Squid

Then I heard in Cambodia, they eat tarantulas. Fried with Cambodian BBQ sauce none-the-less but it still looks like a tarantula. It's not technically an animal -- it's an arachnid. And it doesn't have muscle. And I would only eat it once (unless I really, really like it, in which case I might eat two and then go back to my vegetarianism).

Not really sure but it seems to be some kind of glutinous rice desert

Now I live in China where they eat everything that moves...and if it doesn't move, they wiggle it and then eat it...except for bugs (unless you count the colony of weevils that I breed for protein purposes in my pantry). Everyone kept telling me, wait till the Nanning Food Festival in October (Měi Shí Jié) and you'll be able to get your bugs there. So I had high expectations for this festival. Now, let me preface this by saying Nanning people LOVE meat. If it has muscle on it, they kill it and eat it any which way (there is even documentation that they were cannibals in these parts up until not that long ago...insert eebie jeebies here) but especially shāo kǎo style. Now I should've known this by now but we rocked up to the food festival to be totally overwhelmed by maybe a hundred (mostly Islamic style) BBQ grills grilling...animals. Yuk. Well, Jason didn't think so -- he was totally at home. After an hour of scouring the place up and down looking for the promised arachnids and insects, Jason finally settled on some crocodile and deer (my brave knight in shining armour) and I had to settle for...black corn. Which is sticky and very glutinous and doesn't have much flavour at all. Kind of gross in a rather ironic way but it still isn't going to win me that contest! I couldn't even find Durian! (Durian is supposedly 'King of the Fruits'. It also has a subtitle: Smells like Hell. I'm not kidding.) However, it was fun even though it turns out Nanning people are not such adventurous eaters after all...looks like a trip to Cambodia in the near future...