Wow! Not one of the major stops for a foreign visitor to the states.
"she’s going to bring one of those teas for me to try! "
Most people are wonderful when given an opportunity!
How long are you there for? Will you be cooking at all and exploring the local provisions? Is there an oven? If not, do you have a 12 step program in place for withdrawal from baked goods? 
If you have the time and do get to explore the food markets please consider posting about it with photos!
Ooohhh i love cold tofu with furikake and soy sauce! Mine absolutely never looks that attractive though…
Gorgeous sunny not sweaty day here finally! Had a fabulous long bike ride and went to get my hair cut which took a lot longer than I thought it would- i nearly dozed off in the chair!
I munched sugar snap peas while waiting for my water to get hot and actually “cooked” tonight! Very fancy trader joe veggie dumplings with some tempeh, added in a chopped yellow summer squash for the last two minutes and topped with soyaki. New batch kombucha was a success!! Whew. Some of that a la carte.
We had a friend over and grilled up some T-bones and scallions from the garden served with green beans amandine, garlic bread, and creamy dilled cucumbers.
To be honest, it’s kind of freaking me out how nice folks have been to us. I’ve read all the horror stories. Last year, many, many Chinese Americans heavily discouraged us from going. I’ve heard firsthand accounts of negative experiences. But it’s been the exact opposite for us.
We’ll have been in China 5 weeks total when it’s all said and done, but the last 4 days we’ll be vacationing in Shanghai. Then 3 days in Osaka, Japan.
I just cleaned the AirBnB kitchen today and claimed it… I think. But yeah, I got my carbon steel wok today, too, (just $3) and hopefully tomorrow I’ll start cooking. Veggies in restaurants are really expensive here for whatever reason. (I’ll try and post an example soon.) And the average stir-fried greens here are, well, very average – i.e., fibrous and hard to chew. There’s only one roadblock: knives are banned from supermarkets here. Most people don’t even realize that, let alone know where to buy a knife. We finally convinced our host today that this is in fact 100% true, so tomorrow she will help us find a knife shop.
Generally, there are no home ovens here. Some people have toaster ovens they use to bake sweet potatoes in the winter. Wealthy people have ovens in the newly built developments. Allegedly, ovens are more common in Shanghai.
I was half joking about missing food at home. I don’t have many cravings. There’s so much to try here, it’ll be a long time before I get bored. Fortunately, non-meat, non-veggie food is ridiculously inexpensive. We tried this type of cake/bread thing today and it was only 2 rmb. A few days ago we tried 豌豆黄, which literally means yellow pea, but refers to a type of sweet made with yellow peas. Someone typed it into my phone when I asked for something unique to Beijing. And I have at least 10 more baked/fried sweet items to try just from that one shop.
Our first apartment rental was in a great neighborhood for this. There were so many real food markets. Small fruit and vegetable vendors with daily deliveries, fresh soy milk, fresh tofu, and so many small “windows” specializing in just a few things. Now we are just surrounded by sterile supermarkets. I mean Walmart is still fun because they have so many things I’d never expect a Walmart to have, but I’d trade it all for that neighborhood. The lychees there were heavenly. The lychees here taste exactly like what we buy at HMart. I keep asking and hopefully I’ll find something nearby. Yesterday a lady responded, “Why do you want to go to a small, dirty market?”
Having said all that, I hypocritically bought dinner at Walmart.
Rice, corn, noodle/cucumber with sauce packet, and seaweed. The corn was good. The seaweed sample at the store was good, so I asked the lady to give me some to take home. But the seaweed is all covered in salt. I don’t know if I have to rinse it, or rehydrate it, or what. Hopefully, I can figure it out tomorrow.
I do love clams. I added a little splash of anchovy juice.
Thanks for your stories. I have never been to Beijing, only to Shanghai and Zhejiang province, that said, I was very sick and was staying in bed most of the time, didn’t explore the city nor the food.
Also clams today. The small ones don’t look so ridiculous, yet. I’m partial to shellfish but I also like fish, especially flat ones. First photo is before blanching. They were blanched for 10 seconds to loosen the skin, cleaning comes right after the ice bath.
Summer food.
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I’m the same. Scalp is an erogenous zone. It’s one of the places that’s full of nerve endings. So nice 
Enjoying your travel stories, @bmorecupcake. I have not looked into AirBnB. Back in 2006 I just used my guide book. Something that makes me hesitate about AirBnB is interactions with the owner and sharing facilities with everyone.
The health departments must have cracked down here. I get sick everywhere. If we go to D.C. to eat. In NYC, in Philadelphia. In Pakistan, the joke is I get sick as we clear customs. But I haven’t been sick even once here. 5 weeks, 5 cities last year. 2 weeks, only Beijing this year. Last year we became friends with Muslim bakery owners and they even let me walk all around their facilties and it was very clean. They are super busy right now because of tourist season, but I got to visit them yesterday. I’ll send pics.
Same here, thats why I was looking into listings for full apartments, and there are many more of those here in China. My current situation ended up ended up being invaluable for my purposes – namely, Mandarin education and exposure – and being here so long, I absolutely need a kitchen and fridge. And it’s cheaper. My room here is $40/day, but if you plan way ahead or are in smaller cities, you can easily get a whole apartment for $50/day.
Pan-seared bone-in pork chop with brandied mushrooms and shallots.
Steamed asparagus.
Wine.
This morning, I saw Finn staring out the open front door.
When I went to look, I found he was staring at Mama Wren on her nest…I hadn’t even realized she had built a nest under the front porch roof the few times I’d gone out there! They usually build under the eaves of the deck.
She keeps an eye on Finn and me when we’re at the door. She also doesn’t like to be talked to by The Human, as she’s busy keeping her eggs warm. Soon there will be peep! peep! peep! out there that’ll drive Finn absolutely nuts. LOL
Those asparagus! I want to snatch the one on top with the salt!
That will certainly provide Finn with hours of entertainment, it’s surprising to see where birds like to nest, that seems like a clever location with some good rain and wind protection.
Between heat and fatigue, I’ve been in a bit of a cooking slump lately.
It was a little cooler this evening, so I made a new turkey burger recipe, which was quite good- https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/turkey-burgers-tomato-jam-olives-feta
I served it with some garden lettuce tossed with aged balsamic, olive oil, salt, pepper, toasted walnuts and goat cheese and a mixed 4 bean salad.
Chocolate chip cookies and milk for dessert.
More sunshine and biking after some cleaning around the apartment. I stopped at the farmers market that is on the upper west side sundays- actually it makes me crazy because the back of stalls are the edge of the bike lane so there are always people not looking and stepping into the lane or flopping a box there.
Just got some gorgeous cucumbers and radishes, anything more delicate wouldn’t have survived the heat and my backpack for several more hours. (And so many of the prices were just silly expensive! Even for nyc)
Dinner was a very unphotogenic bowl of smacked cucumbers and lots of edamame. I had one of the radishes and it was so spicy! Yikes. Maybe i will quick pickle them. Kombucha a la carte.
There’s half a little dark chocolate bar i found hiding behind the extra bag of coffee beans odds are it will be dessert with my tea and new book…
Pretty meh dinner. my first time making deep-fried fried chicken (well, it was in my 10-inch CI pan, but it was almost completely inundated, i just flipped it over.) i stupidly didn’t use a thermometer, and the oil got too hot, so the chicken got too dark - but at least it was fully cooked inside. And i had thought to make a Vietnamese sty[e chicken - marinated the thighs all day in buttermilk, fish sauce, crushed garlic, sliced ginger, lemongrass, serrano chilis, brown sugar, s&p, etc. NONE of those flavors came through at all. The buttermilk made the chicken itself tender, and the skin was super crispy. just too well done.
TJs little artichokes were very unsatisfying - not meaty enough. Wah. served with melted butter and a glob of mayo for dipping.
Corn on the cob was excellent, thank goodness.
For tomorrow, i defrosted a turkey thigh and made a guisado with it - at least that turned out great!
I struggle with this, too. I get better results if I marinate without the buttermilk first, then add the buttermilk.
I have screwed up fried chicken so many times . I love it but I have sorta given up.
Curiously, the cucumbers with fermented black bean sauce were 18 RMB, and really nothing special. Grilled wings and lamb kabob were good. Noodles were great, finished the whole thing.
Breakfast was an Agar pudding and a surprisingly respectable cake doughnut.
Although this place claimed to make everything themselves and fresh every day, I just knew that wasn’t true for everything we had tried. This lady confirmed it, and then went through every item in the cafe for us, explaining why she thought some items were inferior. Some of it my kid could not understand, but I could fill in the blanks just based on food knowledge. It was a lot of fun.
Back in the US since about a week, and kinda glad to have my kitchen back 
The one in the Berlin pad was actually ok, but we def go out more than we tend to cook, so it’s nice (and easier on the budget) to make our own meals again.
Summer, of course, means lotsa grilling, salads & veggies. I’ve already visited my favorite tomato stand last Friday & picked up about $20 worth of tomatoey deliciousness. More to be bought tomorrow
Since I’ve posted on HO on a more regular basis, our town has gained an amazing fishmonger who travels to Maine 2-3 times a week and returns with an incredible bounty of fresh & frozen fish.
We’ve had their Arctic char before our trip to Berlin, and this weekend they had Norwegian salmon for 10% off, so we picked up 1.5 lbs and had friends over for cedar plank salmon & creamy cuke salad.
We also picked up blowfish tails, of which I’d never heard before. Apparently, they are often treated similar to chicken wings (!), so they’re currently bathing in seasoned buttermilk (lotsa kosher salt, TJ’s habanero sauce, onion & garlic powder, paprika) & will be dredged in a little seasoned flour before they go in the pan. Really curious how these lil fuckers will turn out.
Side of COTC, even tho I had zuke/feta/pine nut salad on the brain, but couldn’t find zukes at the stupid market.
I guess I’ll have a tale to tell about those tails
I’ve never seen them and am interested in your opinion. Glad to have you back!
