Mom went home :( But at least I can cook now

Well, I'm on my own now for the first time in a month. I'm okay, but it just doesn't feel right making hot chocolate for one, you know?

P.S. Claire's hot chocolate (new recipe): tons of cocoa, a little sugar, extra-creamy milk, and fresh grated ginger. Careful, the ginger makes the milk froth to twice its volume, so be ready to swipe the saucepan off the stove while bleating "Ahh! Ahhhhh!" like I did the first time.

A dash of cayenne is fab as well.

So, Mom and I had a great time in Beijing, Qingdao, Hangzhou, and Xitang. We spent most of her last two weeks in Shanghai finding new cafés, doing in-depth research on local foot massage establishments, and cooking soup. I am now the proud owner of a Westinghouse rice cooker that also has a darling steamer attachment. Rice cookers are amazing! I've been eating brown rice with milk and cinnamon and raisins for breakfast, and stirfry with white rice for lunch. Will experiment with a combination for dinner and report on findings.

I'm going to post my favourite pics from the first part of our trip; Mom, I forgot to get the Shanghai ones from your camera before you left! Oh no!

Thank you to everyone who is still following me after these weeks of erratic posting. Laura and I will be sure to get our pictures up ASAP!


Photos:

1. The beautiful Lama temple, apparently one of China's most important Tibetan Buddhist temples.
2. Beijing duck (the close-up)!! Yummy yummy yummy. You take a little piece of duck and put it in the middle of a warm, thin pancake (plucked from the slightly limp bouquet on the right); then you add hoisin sauce and onion, roll it up, and EAT IT. This was a contemporaryish place, which meant they gave us three sauces and tiny slices of interesting fruit to put in the pancakes. Mmmmmm.
3. Mom dug it.
4. Bug kebabs at the night market. Eughhh
5. Lovely candied fruit sticks. Those I can handle.