cooking mutations

Have Leftover scrambled (raw) eggs? Whip up a rice-crusted quiche. Was delicious, although the rice was chewy (I was impatiently hungry!)

Went for a very special ladies only night to M on the Bund for my friend's birthday! She is pictured in front of the dragon truck- she knows the cool spots, makes amazing food, and is one of the people who saved our lives in Sept!

Fast forward 1 week to today. Preparing for thanksgiving. We (15 of us) will be getting our turkey from the marriot, comes with potatoes and pies....so what to make?

I begin with the idea for cocktail shrimp, simmered in tangy spicy broth. Being pre-dinner and highly delusional I failed to realized how small the shrimps in my bag were. They ranged from small to teeny... so once I removed them from their zesty broth, I realized I had hardly anything to serve as an appetizer. (though delicous, I started at them for 20 minutes telling myself to "be creative" and figure what to do with them. [I just finished reading Paul Arden's "Its not how good you are, its how good you want to be" Where they talk about different interpretations of "Creative" p104, but I'll get into that later.

So after chatting with T, we though making into a spread/dip was the best way to salvage our thanksgiving contribution. Cream cheese, mayo, plus some of the broth lent to a greatgreatgreat spread!!! (We'll see what everyone thinks tomorrow)

hooray!

Ok, now rewind to Sunday. I wanted to end the post with this image, of our friend singing a solo with this church choir. Although he's trained to sing italian and french operas, we had the honor to hear him sing in Mandarin (At least one of us could understand). It was beautiful, they had a strings section (8 violins and one cello) and did about 15 songs, some with audience participation. I managed to pick up one song, because it was actually just one line sung over and over and over again. "zai Ye su li, wo men shi yi jia" It was a big room, full of people robustly singing, and really magnificent to experience the energy and enthusiasm.

Some doodling

While T's away in the States, I had a productive weekend preparing for winter, cooking, and some water coloring with carrots. (Little Lotta jansdotter inspiration!) I nearly burnt my biscotti's trying to get Glee to load while doing yoga. (Because being productive means doing lots of things at once, har har)

I also managed to call a shop and see if they sold screen printing ink, in CHINESE. This is BIG. She understood me until I said, "AWESOME!!!" They sell ink by the half kilogram- converting everything saps my brain energy.

T has been having a great time visiting people, eating donuts and other american goodies! He's now in Atlanta for a conference.

T and his boss were written up in one of China's news websites. The doll their holding is the Sina mascot. Very cool.

winter is here

its freezing!!!!!!

More expo

France


India: the biggest bamboo dome in the world. It had a 3D projection animation that we couldn't figure out. (how it worked and what it was about. All in chinese)


Morocco: Beautiful handcarved border lined each of the three stories of this pavillion. There were palm trees in the center courtyard reaching to the ceiling and fake sky. On the second level was the "Marketplace" where they had small rooms to peer into of their crafts: shoes, ceramics, spices, carving and a respective film in each showing how it was done.


"Welcome in the Nederlands!" is what the sign said. This was my favorite pavillion (and second time going!) brightly colored houses cantilevered along a elevated spiraling walkway. Each with a different exhibit and description (in english too!!)


This was the beginning wall in the Polish pavillion.

World Expo post!

After my third time at the Expo, its about time for a post of photos! from Thursday evening. I got off work and traded two daytime passes for 4 night time passes for my three design buddies who came to visit. Evening is the best time to see the expo because the crowds get tired and go home and the pavilions are lite up beautifully.

Quick rundown of the evening:
-Poland
-Morocco
-India
-Nederlands

Germany had shut down, and Japan and UAE were both packed to the rim. Saudi Arabia's line was so long it basically wrapped around India's pavillion.





Inside Poland. Lots of intricate "paper cut" style walls, backlit, and we sat and watched a very odd film. A family was cracking walnuts around their kitchen table, when suddenly a crowd comes in with flutes of champagne and everyone began to waltz to the next room.


German pavilion side view. We didn't get to go in. long line!


Melee at Nederlands stamping station. There were two rubber stamps strapped to tables and people were frantically trying to get their expo(or real) passports stamped. Including my two buddies you see in the center (White guy and fellow in glasses to the left). At one point my glasses friend yelled "CRAZY WHITE MAN COMING THROUGH!!" in which everyone stopped for 1 second before continuing in chaos. I couldn't even see them, and took this photo on my extender arm to find out!


German and Chinese working together sample bamboo house. Really cool, but we missed it.


whew! tiresome day.

more visitors

Fellow americans-living-in-China came to visit us in Shanghai, and we went to Sheshan for the afternoon to hike and explore. We visited the Basilica of Sheshan on the top of a small mountain (they building cement steps all the way to the top) and also visited a bamboo amusement park- a series of obstacle courses built on a hill between bamboo forests, plus monkeys, archery range, and giant maze. Very cool.





Design pals in shanghai!!!

weekend

Saturday mornings mean pancakes.Pancakes with blueberry topping, whipped creme, on our new closed balcony! Closed balcony, is basically putting windows around a normal balcony- keeps out bugs and our laundry from flying away.



This is our new place:



It was China national day, so we naturally celebrated the way American celebrate any other holiday: playing football!

Guys played tackle and girls played powder puff (two hand touch) We both very sore.



Meanwhilist we are still organizing and setting up home- books, papers, etc. This bamboo cabinet I spotted at a antique shop, and thought it was very cool.