Saturday, December 27, 2008

Bad news for my "hips"

This is the latest view from my favourite seat at Starbucks. Clearly I am being tested. How long before I start drinking Cookies 'n' Cream Americanos? Don't ask, don't tell.


Thursday, December 25, 2008

My Christmas posts are confusing. Let me explain

It's because I'm so excited. If you scroll all the way down, you can start from the beginning of my day and work your way up; I broke this into a bunch of pieces because I have so many pictures I want you to see. But first: a review of the peeps populating said photos, and their contributions to the breakfast potluck.

Representing...

Hungary:
Barbie (bacon)

Poland:
Julia (with Poppy, champagne & orange juice)

Germany:
Anja (maple syrup)
Jenny (with Conny & Linh, cocoa, milk, and extra cooking/eating equipment)
Conny
Linh

Scotland:
Poppy

Colombia:
Carolina (assortment of fruit, excellent coffee)

Christmas, Part III

Kelvin and Anlan picked me up this afternoon for afternoon tea at a local dim sum restaurant with my aunties, who presented me with a handknit sweater and a down jacket (the whole family is intent on keeping me warm - Kelvin and Anlan, remember, gave me a space heater shaped like a penguin). We lounged and chatted and they deposited me at home just in time for me to chat with Laura in Newfoundland, tidy up from the morning, and wait for it to be late enough to call everyone at home. So, while I'm waiting, I shall mix a cup of HC&B (though I do wish there was eggnog here to make last year's invention, Noggley's, a jubilantly calorie-unconscious holiday beverage innovated in Laura's kitchen in St. John's). Merry Christmas to you all, with lots of love.

Photos:

14. Me in my new sweater, knitted by Neu Neu in two days flat
15. Kelvin deciding what to order...
16. ...under pressure from Anlan, Na Na, and Neu Neu



Christmas, Part II (b)

More photos:

10. Barbie's beautiful smile
11. Julia, Anja, and Carolina savouring hot chocolate
12. Carolina getting her coffee fix


Christmas, Part II

Secret Santa was lovely and Conny and I had drawn each others' names out of the hat! I knitted her a neckwarmer, and she made me earrings and a mix CD of Christmas tunes, wrapped with an assortment of adorable little things you could only find in China. My favourite part of the morning, though, was Julia's introduction of a Polish Catholic tradition in which every person takes a small sheet of communion wafer-like cracker and exchanges bits of it with every person in the room, along with her wishes for the other person person in the coming year. The result was a series of small but earnest expressions of everyone's Christmas spirit, and it was really wonderful to realize how much we care about creating a meaningful Christmas with those we have known for such a short time. If we couldn't have our own regular holidays at home, we definitely made the most of our Christmas morning in Shanghai, and I feel headed into the new year knowing that I have made some dear friends here.

Photos:

6. Hanging in the living room/bedroom/dining room. From L to R: the back of Jenny's head; Linh; Julia; Poppy; Barbie; and Conny
7. Linh opening her Secret Santa gift from Anja: chocolates just for her
8. Julia demonstrating how to use the Polish wafers to spread Christmas cheer
9. Julia, Barbie, Conny, and Carolina being sweet






圣诞节快乐: Merrrrry Christmas!

In case any of you were worried about not having a great Christmas, don't worry, it's all under control - we've already had it here, and it was fantastic. Last night turned out differently than Poppy and I had planned; we wanted to go to Christmas Mass and sing the Christmas hymns, but despite our best print and Internet research skills, we couldn't find info on where to go. Concluding that higher powers had decided we weren't meant to crowd with the masses, we cut our losses and picked up Sleepless in Seattle, which we watched snuggled under my duvet while sipping hot chocolate and Bailey's (miss you, Laura).

I woke up today to gorgeous sunshine and generously mild weather - it has been really chilly here lately. Poppy came over early to open prezzies together, and although most of my parcels were returned to Canada due to a faulty address (thanks, landlord), I did have two to rip open, revealing highly-coveted books, magazines, coffee, a Starbucks french-press mug, smoked salmon, chocolate, a month's supply of energy bars, tea, and Icebreaker long underwear! Thank you, thank you, Dad and Gregor! Before long, our friends began to arrive for our breakfast potluck and a secret Santa gift exchange. With many cooks in the kitchen and contributions from everyone, we managed to produce a feast of pancakes, strawberries, whipped cream, oranges, pomelo (yummy Chinese giant citrus), and bacon, with hot chocolate, Columbian coffee, and mimosas to drink. It really doesn't get any better.

Photos:

1. Present bonanza with Poppy before everyone arrives
2. Me, Jenny, and Linh on pancake duty
3. Check out the spread! Can you spot the snowman-shaped marshmallows? Adoooorable...
4. My plate. The diamond of a wholly terrific food week
5. We are territorial about our mimosas





Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Mom, look what I made!

Very exciting news requires a real-time update. I am so proud to be sitting here with a full tummy from a self-cooked dinner that I just HAD to share with you the details of what I feel is the first truly nourishing meal I've eaten since... well, I can't remember, a pretty good sign that I should be cooking more often. Restaurant food is really cheap here, and hotpot and street pancakes are all good, but sometimes I feel like an urban hunter/gatherer. As my current mantra/new year's resolution is "Don't Panic," I figure there's no better place to start than in the kitchen. The monetary cost incurred making my own meals with familiar ingredients can't be anything compared to the abuse inflicted on my adrenal glands as I struggle to read take-out menus and have my broken-Chinese order heard among a dozen highly aggressive other voices.

Anyway. This afternoon, I headed to Carrefour and Parkson - the two biggest grocery stores - and found green curry paste and canned chickpeas and lentils. Chickpeas! How I have missed thee! I simmered everything in coconut milk before throwing in spinach and ten million green beans. (I confess I did not make my own rice - I can't entirely rob the restaurant downstairs of the profit they've been making off me.) The result totally approximated Mom's cooking. In a good way, ha ha. Really, it made me feel all homey and accomplished, and there's even enough for lunch tomorrow. I shall forage no longer.

Just posted the photos and realized my creation actually looks pretty gross. Well, beauty/beholder/etc., clearly.



Sunday, December 21, 2008

Chinese cuisine: the highs and the... less highs

So my friend Katie is going home to Minnesota tomorrow, having had enough of the programme here and wanting to get her life started in the States. I'm going to miss her a tonne because (among other reasons) her love for Starbucks and for sarcasm at art openings is rivalled only by my own. Anyway, I always think when you want to say something, you should say it with food - so we took her out to eat hotpot. A lot of hotpot. At this particular restaurant, every customer gets her own little pot of broth, which is brought to a boil by a tiny flame underneath. Everyone shares the raw ingredients, which you throw liberally into the pot, fish out a couple minutes later, and devour after dipping into one of your two custom-made sauces. It's pretty much heaven. Lamb! Beef! Green vegetables! For once, a meal with vegetables AND without oil.

Conversely, if you feel like fried carbs with an extra shot of cholesterol, you can always head to one of the bazillions of pancake stands on the streets here. This one by Donghua University is probably my favourite, because the guys crinkle the pancake at the end with such zeal (see blurry hand movements). The process: first, they mush one of those fatter, smaller dough patties flat on the grill, then crack an egg on top and flip the pancake over, rubbing more grease into it than one would think possible. At this point, you can opt to add bacon, but I usually shy away as I never like to overdo it. (Clearly.) When it's all cooked, there is a flurry of pancake crinkling - perhaps to add volume before the hot sauce is added. Finally, the whole greasy mess is swaddled into a little paper bag and you're sent on your way to figure out how to eat the thing and still look at least a little dignified.

So, Katie, look what you're missing in Minnesota. On the other hand... eat a salad for me!


Sunday, December 14, 2008

Weekend update: subtitles are the best

Katie came over last night to hang out and watch a movie. We wanted to see Zack & Miri Make a Porno, which is supposed to be sweet, despite what the title might suggest. Unfortunately, there was no sound, but the subtitles alone were almost worth watching - the one below wasn't even the best one.

(We settled on Pineapple Express. It had sound, but was sucky. Don't bother.)


Today, I had a crafty evening as my near-bare Christmas tree was starting to depress me; I made more snowflakes (ventured into green this time, having abandoned my palette of pink and red - the pink looks too red when the light is low) and little bows. I miss hanging the ornaments from home and wish mine had a little more history and variety to them, but I'll work on it... still twelve days to go!




Thursday, December 11, 2008

My favourite things: puppehs and Christmas markets

Christmas is coming so seriously soon, I am starting to freak out. I still haven't found a way to hang the silver and pink balls from my ceiling, which is apparently made of solid cement; I can't find any pine-scented anything; and my attempt to melt chocolate for pretzel-dipping resulted in a first-degree microwave disaster. Thankfully, though, SOMEone has it together and organized a German-style Christmas market outside Shanghai's most ginormous German restaurant/brauhaus. The little huts were adorable, and even though most of the wares for sale were priced beyond our reach - Y45 ($9) gluwein (mulled wine)! Come on! - I did make an exception for a set of three gingerbreadmen cookie cutters. How I will bake the cookies is still undetermined, but I feel like I'm halfway there.

Our Y25 entrance tickets entitled us to a Y25 discount off anything on the (highly expensive) brauhaus menu. We poor-studented it and each ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, delicious potato-sausage soup, and shared a pretzel. The restaurant could best be described as a homey palace - all wooden beams and grand staircases (see photo).

The puppy? My favourite sight of this week. I'm not usually a small dog person, but look at his tiiiiny nose and pensive gaze! He reminds me of Oliver, my old dog.




Saturday, December 6, 2008

Family and cuddly sweaters

Last night I went for dinner with not only my usual companions, cousin Kelvin and his wife AnLan, but, for the first time, my entire family here: my two aunts Na Na and Neu Neu, my two uncles by marriage, and AnLan's father, Jimmy. I've been feeling homesick lately, and it was the best reminder I could have had that Shanghai isn't full of strangers. I didn't speak any Chinese the last time I saw my aunts and uncles, so it was really neat to be able to communicate with each other - they told me about their trip to Canada and the States (they were in Edmonton for ten days last month, and I never knew!), and I told them about my hopes for living and working in Shanghai next year. We had a fabulous Shanghainese dinner at a restaurant called 021; pig snout and eel were among the many dishes sampled - pig snout is a little chewy.

Na Na
invited AnLan, Kelvin, and I up to her apartment after dinner to try on her endless supply of hand-knit sweaters, which she knits in her spare time and then stores in her closet, unworn. Apparently Na Na is quite famous for her knitting - she published a book about twenty years ago that was made into a calendar, she says, and I do remember her knitting up incredibly complicated sweaters for me when we were visiting Grandma Sue in Nanaimo at the same time. Anyway, I was deposited at home with a full tummy and a soft, fat, red-and-grey cardigan under my jacket.


Photos:

1. The fam in front of a rather dazzling "ice" castle, positioned imposingly in front of 021. From left to right - AnLan, me, Na Na & husband (name to be determined - I didn't want to ask), Jimmy, husband (also ntbd) & Neu Neu.

2. Sweater party! AnLan and Na Na wrestle approximately one-third of the collection back into its duffle bag, to be stored in the closet again; the closet door to the right is concealing three shelves of mohair cardigans and pullovers.

3. My SUPER-COMFY new sweater. Kelvin says it took Na Na about three days to knit. (In three days, I knit a dishcloth.)





Shanghai crafternoons

I've really been missing last winter's Wednesday crafternoons at Steeps, where I and other introverted girls worked on needlecrafts and other projects while chatting about life. It's great that crafts have become trendy, because I really think making stuff with your hands is extra-gratifying when your fingers have become most comfortable on a keyboard or punching text messages into tiny phones. So, I was super-happy to have Poppy and Julia over this Wednesday afternoon for Christmas-related craftiness - I needed to start decorating my wee tree, Julia needed to wrap presents, and Poppy was determined to make enough teeny paper stars to make a chain. I felt bad that the herbal tea I brought from home tasted more like paper cup than blackberry, but we had a good time anyway. Love you, Martha!

And then, on Friday, our Reading teacher let us spend a whole class learning how to make friendship bracelets. Huge treat: we all pushed our desks together (reminded me of elementary school when we had "work tables" instead of desks) and knotted together string to the jingling of the tiny bells we added on. Jenny and I chose the same colour and pattern; her creation and water-bottle innovation below.








Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Tour guide training

A treat this Sunday: entertaining my first out-of-town visitor, Mike (Amanda's husband (Amanda, with whom I progressed through Industrial Design, and who has Ty-Pennington-like renovation capabilities as well as a highly evolved sense of humour... excellent things in a woman) and who teams with myself and Amanda to form a formidable Speed Scrabble trio).* In China for business, Mike landed himself a day in Shanghai at the end of his trip and I tried my best to show him around a few of the places I've become well-acquainted with since I arrived here: Taikang Lu (the art street), the fake market at the Science & Technology Centre, and the riverside walkway near the Pearl Tower in Pudong, where we warmed up with a wholly un-Chinese Starbucks coffee. Along the way, we found the World's Most Balance-Challenging Outdoor Restaurant Seating, as well as the World's Teeniest Green Chair. Thanks for the good times, Mike! And especially for the tabloid magazines, specially imported for those of us who need celebrity gossip like a baby needs a bottle.





*Please excuse the paranthesetic experimentation - a guilty but satisfying indulgence. You should really try it.