The only way to eat French toast

People, I've invented something wonderful.  You know when you crave French toast 'cause it's comforting and also reasonably protein-rich, but you also crave reading time, 'cause it's comforting and you've recently overdone it with America's Next Top Model?

Well.

Gone are the days when your reading is interrupted by toast-cutting, and syrup gets all over your fork when you flip the page.  Behold: the French Toast Stick.  Simply stack yo' toast and hack it into strips.  Pour maple syrup into a wee dipping bowl, and SHAZAM!  You're ready to read and dip, read and dip.  You can even work the couch into the equation.  At the end, you're full of comfort food for your tummy AND your brain.  Now, that's just efficient.

My powdered sugar went moldy, but just use your imagination.

Rainy Saturday bliss: a simple equation

+

Toaster oven-scale roast chicken and veg

 

+

Gravy, obviously

+

Tiny bread pudding

+

=

People In My Neighbourhood: the seafood family

One of my favourite neighbourhood shops is the very small seafood store close to where I tutor on Tuesday nights.  The family who owns it always smiles and says "Nihao!" as I approach, and then "The foreigner again" when I'm walking away.  But in a friendly way.

Of course, business demands that they do horrible, murderous things to fish, meaning that you really have to watch your step as you pass.  But October is hairy crab season in Shanghai, so today all hands were on deck for less gory work - plucking wee crabs from a cooler and swaddling their little legs to their bodies with long blades of grass.  As per usual, this was all happening on the sidewalk in front of the store.

Hairy crabs are found in the lakes and rivers around Shanghai, and are a major delicacy.  According to my Shanghainese cousins, crab season is a big deal because it's an opportunity for wealthy businesspeople to gain face by treating each other to crab feasts at exorbitantly pricey restaurants.  I've tried them.  They're super-yummy, though the crab smell lingers on you for at least a day, even if you exfoliate three times.  I've always wondered if this eau de crab also has caché in the business community.

Nooooo! *flailflailflail*

Oh.  Okay.  (Apparently, they keep the grass long so it's easy to pluck them out of the steamer.)

The dad explained that they wear gloves so the pinches hurt less.  Ouch.

Their little boy kept jumping in front of the camera, and then darting around to see the photo on the LCD screen.

Lessons in yeast

Just another normal day on Claire's kitchen counter.  Got my rice cooker over there, my O.J., my ginger tea, my favourite cat coaster, and - oh, that?  THAT'S what happens when you put bread dough in the fridge overnight with naive plans to roll it out into cinnamon buns the next day.

Apparently even the highest-quality Tupperware - and I make no compromises when it comes to container quality - is no match for dough determined to make its second rise.  Well.  I've learned.

I was GOING to save the debut of my newest domestic skill - bread-making! - for when I'd made my first perfectly-formed loaf.  But you know what?  The Internet is full of intimidatingly flawless DIY baking/crafting projects, and I'm pretty sure the road to those gorgeous cupcakes and yak-yarn iPod snugglies was paved with... well, things that looked like my first loaf of bread: 

But you know what?  It might be crooked with a gaping air hole in the middle, and the crust might be marred by two burn lines from my toaster oven's top elements, but that bread is freaking DELICIOUS.  And it was practically free.  Ugly wins!

Recipe here - but reduce sugar, boost salt, IMHO.

Update on sad-sack sickness: thanks in no small part to all the Get-Well lovin' I received electronically, my gross cold is now only a cough!  Hooray!  I sound like a baby seal with SARS, but I can retire the hankies.  Thank you for all your kind emails.

Sweet, sweet cupcake success!

Finally. After a string of failures culminating in the Chocolate Cupcake Disaster of March 29, I've pulled cupcakes out of my oven that aren't dense, vinegar-flavoured messes. I've chucked my Six-Minute Chocolate Cake recipe out the window in favour of Katie's accurately-titled Never-Fail Chocolate Cake:

1.5 c white sugar
0.5 c cocoa
2 c flour
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
.75 c oil
1.5 c milk
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla

Mix all in bowl. 350, 35 minutes in greased 9 x 13" pan, or about 10 minutes for cupcakes. Easy!

I also concocted some super-yummy chocolate icing. The process was something like this: put cocoa and a bit of butter in a saucepan, mix over low heat, adding as much milk as necessary to make stirrable. Take off heat and mix in enough icing sugar to make stiff. It's not scientific, but it's certainly delicious: more chocolatey than sugary.

The cupcakes' success may have also been aided by the wee wrappers they are snuggled in. Check them OUT! I can't even handle the baking supplies here; I just found out that I can order 10,000 customized wrappers for, like, $100. That's a lifetime of "CTB"-swaddled baked goods, people!

Road trip! 2: MIDI music festival

Wu Yi, or May 1, is a big deal here - a long weekend that gives everyone a chance to realize that it's pretty much summer, yay! I ended up having the entire three-day stretch off work (rare - I usually tutor straight through weekends), so I joined Poppy and Julia on an expertly organized two-night trip to the MIDI music festival. MIDI is a three-day event that's historically been held in Beijing but was moved this year to the conveniently close city of Zhenjiang, only three hours away. Well, six, if you're caught in traffic on the way there like we were. Not to worry, though; entertainment was provided by way of music and light refreshments like beer and candy, served by our gracious - if hairy-legged - in-bus hostess Anita.

We were all a little concerned about what kinds of accommodation we'd be facing for the trip fee of Y50/night (Y33 for J, P, and I, who were all bunking together), but when we arrived in Zhenjiang, we pulled up to none other than the Super 8 Motel. Man, Super 8 always impresses. Our giant-windowed room was decorated in a winsome turqoise palette, and the cleaning ladies were super-generous with the toilet paper and extra blankets. Not bad for $6, no?

And the festival? Awesome. It was so low-pressure: with only two stages - one for the main acts and one for dance music from an impressive line-up of DJs - I never had that panicky Folk Fest feeling when you're sure the best show is not the one in front of you, but the one on Stage Seven, a ten-minute jog away. The music wasn't always to our taste, but bands like Cold Fairyland (Chinese folky trancy alternativy awesomeness, http://www.myspace.com/coldfairyland) and socalled, Hollerado, and Jets Overhead (all Canadian) made up for the weird prevalence of death metal.


Day 1: Getting there

1. On the road through the Chinese countryside: farmers tending fields amidst random acts of highrises.
2. The lovely Anita makes her first round. The apron was reserved specifically for snacktime.
3. Dao le (we're here!): The Super 8 welcomes us.
4. The rustic but effective hand-wash station on the festival grounds.
5. The "rock out" finger-horn thing is totally popular here. Wicked!
6. Buying corn-on-the-cob from one of the many food vendors. Because most Chinese people don't drink much, there was only one tent for beer - and about thirty for food. The result was a snacking bonanza tempered by meditative line-up breaks for drinks. It was very balancing.

MIDI, Day Two: Nausea prevails over cuteness, fun muddiness

Photos:

1. Trying to get going over a breakfast of... fried noodles. I'm pretty sure they're what caused me to bail at 6 p.m. for Pepto and Vinyl Café at the hotel.
2. It rained overnight. You first, Poppy.
3. Drama! A hole in the wall yields a stream of sneaker-inners.
4. I always end up kissing some wall.
5. Adorable couple alert! Apparently we missed the BYOTiny Stool, Backpack, and Strawberries notice.
6. Most photographed individuals were not the band members. They were the foreigners. I shoot back and everyone feels famous.

MIDI, Day Three: funny vehicles, meat on a stick, and groupies

Photos:

1. The bus - specially coated in a giant sticker for this very trip - drops us off and we almost get smoked by THIS awesome contraption.
2. The Y120 (~$22) weekend pass was crazy cheap for us, but a lot of money to people here. Fortunately, the wall planners were short-sighted (ha! ha!) and people get the exact same view from the other side.
3. Our expertly-labelled tablecloth tarp protects our bums from the still-damp ground.
4. A Canadian contingent shows its pride as Jets Overhead plays.
5. Meat on a stick: our main source of protein throughout the weekend. Poppy bought so many they started giving her freebies.
6. MIDI spirit from the skaters of the crowd.
7. Socalled, from Montreal. http://www.myspace.com/socalled Superly awesome and definitely the crowd favourite. How to describe: klesmer hip-hop? We hung out with a couple of the guys from the band afterwards, which was fun, not least because they let us use the palatial (read: clean) VIP bathrooms. It's really hard to overstate that luxury. Did you know Port-A-Johns come in a "squat" version?

So, it's back to school and daily life again, at least for the next two months. We're in the last quarter of our studies now, and time's swiftness is starting to feel very real for me and the friends I've made here. Lots of good times left to be had, though; don't worry, I'll keep you posted!

P.S. Don't forget to join the contest below! I'll leave it up 'til this weekend, but don't miss the chance to incite jealousy in all the other readers when you wow them with your amazing caption.

Project 2: Dinner chez moi

Midterms finished on Tuesday, and Julia and Poppy came over with the idea of cooking a real. Dinner. Like, with courses. The theme? Carbs and butter. So Julia made her trademark and highly delicious onion soup with freshly toasted croutons; I made macaroni and cheese and a side of potatoes mashed with spinach, to break up the beige colour palette; and Poppy concocted her Scottish bread-and-butter pudding, which took two hours to bake but which was entirely delectable, especially when eaten with cream whilst watching "The Sound of Music." We sang along, obviously.

Spot my new favourite cutting board under the (somewhat superfluous) slices of baguette.

Also included: produce bounty. This is what you can buy at the fruit/veg market down the street for just over three Canadian dollars. Note delicious mango at centre stage.

Photos:

1. Another reason to love China: I can afford my vitamins
2. First course: soup, croutons, and wine from the Open House caterer, who was so horrified that we usually drink Y30 bottles that he gave us a much nicer one to take home
3. Macaroni and mashed potatoes baked toaster oven-style: that means double-decker skillz
4. Second course: Julia means business

Tiny apple crisp and the other highlights of my weekend (um, all food)

Here's the thing. There are some dishes that should really be available in individual portions, and apple crisp is one of them. Sometimes you just have a craving, but you don't feel like peeling five apples and baking a huge dish that you'll probably eat in its entirety in the middle of the night. It's not that I don't love the rogue thrill of standing over an empty Pyrex with a soup spoon at three a.m. as much as the next person - let's just say that there's a reason God invented miniature Le Creuset dishes, and it's so you can whip up a wee dessert to enjoy whilst reading your new book on a Friday night when it's been a long week and you don't really feel like doing anything particularly social.

Photo trilogy below. The book, which I highly recommend for weekend reading despite its slightly flaky title and worrisomely purple cover, is "This Charming Man" by Irish author Marian Keyes.

Then: Saturday night. Having satisfied my longing for a.c., I felt a hole in my diet - one that could only be filled by m.a.m.p.* BUT I barely ate any vegetables last week and needed greens. BUT I didn't feel like polluting my Comfort Meal with boring, boring spinach. What's a girl to do? MASH THE GREENS AND POTATOES TOGETHER! Le Creuset made a comeback. Some say adding foreign textures to m.p. is a heinous crime. Some say it's purely efficient. Discuss.

THEN: Easter! China doesn't do Easter at all, but we are used to making do; a laid-back early-afternoon brunch included pancakes, mango, donut bits, bacon (to celebrate the end of Poppy and Julia's long and sad meatless Lent), and menacing but delicious fruit skewers. Julia dyed beautiful eggs - the trick to getting them this glossy is to rub 'em with a bit of butter - and we all enjoyed the sunshine, especially Isa, who lounged on the terrace.

Happy spring, everyone! Hope the Easter Bunny brought lots of stickers and yummy chocolate, as he used to do for me.

*meat and mashed potatoes

More Easter pics

Gorgeous Polish eggs, courtesy of Julia; gorgeous Polish Isa, courtesy of sunshine and admirable personal style.

It had to happen sometime:

the ubiquitous "Funny Chinese Signs" post. Hey, I'm not making fun of anyone for messing up a foreign langauge; God knows how many Western lower backs are tattooed with "cow" or "cultural appropriater," not "strength" or "harmony." But these Shanghai signs were too good not to share, and I think you'll agree that the best ones are actually due to the visuals, not the written content.

Update on me: I lost my wallet last night (no, NO!) and with it, my local and foreign bank cards, my student ID, my health insurance card, and the best passport photo of myself that has ever and will ever be taken. (It's for my own good, it was making me vain.) But my Matt & Nat wallet? Low blow. I'm pretty sure it dropped onto the floor at Starbucks, where someone scored it before I realized it was gone. I feel like an idiot.

Good news: Lindt chocolate bars are on sale at my grocery store for Y9.99 ($1.82 ). Hoardhoardhoard!

Photos:

1. This culinary delicacy is available a mere half-block away from my apartment
2. Fine print: *manky baby costumes may compromise cuteness*
3. Not sure how "Chunk Fun" got past the Lipton PR team
4. Prado Frappuccinos to follow
5. Erm.. hard to know. Points for cute diaper icon

PS. Does everyone know you can make the photos bigger by clicking on them?