Your eyes have not deceived you. You read the title of this post right. This Maniac is indeed going to start, or at least attempt to start her own cooking show. No, my unemployment has not made me go mad. I was mad way before I became jobless. : ) So, why you ask? Well, it’s simple. I’ve got this fancy new camera that I haven’t used at all lately, and a bunch of yummy recipes that I think people would like to munch on. Plus, Phil volunteered to be my camera man. Well, actually, I begged, and he finally agreed. So, if you throw all of those wonderful reasons together, you’ll get the same answer I did. Why not? That’s more of a question than an answer, but you understand.

I hope to film my very first episode this weekend after I help Phil move into his new apartment, but I am not going to promise anything. I think I will start with what I know best – cookies and other types of sweets. I’m a mean, green, baking machine, baby! If things go well, I may venture into dinners and what not. I guess only time will tell. So, stay tuned. Soon, I will be showing you all how to make one of my favorite quick treats – fudge cookies. My mouth is salivating just thinking about them. They are so good that they are impossible to keep in my house. My brother keeps eating them all.

I went to the store yesterday to pick up an ingredient for my Mexican Fiesta dish that I had forgotten to get ealier. While I was going, my brother asked me to pick him up some nuts. He gave me five bucks in quarters, and off I went.

I found my ingredient rather quickly, but as I walked the aisles, I couldn’t find the section of nuts. I was about to ask someone to help me find them, but then I realized that there was no good way to say it.

Think about it. These are the questions I thought about asking one of the young men on duty, but thought it sounded perverted.
1. Excuse me, on which aisle can I find your nuts?

2. Could you please point me to your nuts?

3. Where do you keep your nuts?

4. Could you help me find your nuts?

See what I mean, there aren’t any good ways unless you say the specific nut you are looking for, like peanuts.

It would have been funny to see one of the young men’s face had I been brave enough to ask.

Long time no blog.

I have no real excuses.

I am still working on the post about my trip to the Shenyang hospital.  Most of it is done, but I want it to be as perfect as I can get it.  I’m a stupid perfectionist, what can I say?

Lately, life has been, well, life.  I had $255.00 of work done on my car, so now I am really hurting for money.  It took away a month that I could wait on a good job.  So, to make sure that I don’t spend another unnecessary penny, I sleep all day.  If I am asleep, I can’t drive and waste gas and I definitely can’t eat.  Eating cost money unless there is food stashed in the cupboards( I never knew that word was spelled like that).  My day, on most days, consists of me getting up and applying for any and all jobs that I can find online and then waiting for one of the 120 jobs I’ve applied to already to call me back for a freaking interview. 

As you may have read, Phil was offered a fairly nice job at the State.  He was happy.  I was happy.  Blue Cross Blue Shields(an insurance company) however, was not.  They begged and pleaded him to come in for an interview, knowing full well that he already had a job.  He decided to go and appease them.  I mean, what would it hurt to see what they had to offer?  On the day of his interview, they kept him for 3 hours and gave him an offer that the majority of the people on the planet couldn’t turn down.  I can’t quote the number they offered because that would be rude, and I don’t think Phil would appreciate it, but I can say that it was a heck of a lot more than the State cared to put on the table.  Also, it is probably more than I will ever make annually.  So, if I had a Sugar Daddy before, I must have Sugar Daddy Executive now.  Heh.

Also in the news of Gabe, my mother has told me that I am allowed to turn my backyard into berry farm. 

GabbyGirl1981: I found a raspberry plant that grows in the south
dianacarol47: GREAT
GabbyGirl1981: Now I just need a plot of land so I can start growing blackberries, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries.
GabbyGirl1981: Can I just use the back yard?
GabbyGirl1981: like, all of it?
dianacarol47: SURE
dianacarol47: YEAH

I was so happy that I started walking my backyard to figure out just how many plants I could stuff back there.  If you have ever seen my backyard, it’s not very big, but it could probably hold around 60 plants or so comfortably.  Maybe more.  I am going to have to get out there and measure and what not before I order anything.  First, I need cash, which means I need a job.  Hopefully, that will happen before too long.  Once I get one, I can order from a nursery in Georgia that carries southern varieties of raspberries and blueberries.  For 20 blackberry, 20 raspberry, 10 blueberries, and 10 strawberry bushes, it will only cost $234.00, including shipping.  Not that bad really.  My only other cost would be any soil I would have to buy, as well as any other garden needs.  I might be able to borrow a tiller, but if I can’t, I might be able to rent one.  And then, in a year, at max two, I’d have a wonderful crop of berries to sell to my fellow Columbians.  I never said how big I wanted my berry farm to be when I told you all about my dreams.  My backyard would be a start, and starts are all dreams need.

Every so often I get bored and decide to take pictures of myself. I know, I know – how vain of me! Here are the results of my latest session with boredom. They aren’t exciting or anything, but they made me think of the time when I showed this little Chinese kid my eyes in Hangzhou.

Back when we lived in Fuyang, we were invited to go to a food festival by one of Phil’s students. After stuffing ourselves with all sorts a weird, but fantastic food, we were informed that we were going to finish the night by going to a nice restaurant across town. There was no way I was going to be able to eat anything, but Phil and I agreed and promised to eat as much(or as little) as was possible. We thought we were going to be joined by the student’s parents, but neither stayed in the room very long. They were too busy running around the restaurant socializing. They just wanted to give their son ample time to practice his English. In that, they succeeded.

Sometime into the feast(Phil was somehow able to down a rather large portion) another boy entered the room. He was first introduced as the student’s brother, but we later discovered he was just a family friend. I guess he was invited to practice his English with the foreigners. He was shy at first, but before long we had him using what English he knew. We even taught him a few new words and phrases. Somehow or another we got on the conversation of how westerners look different than Chinese.

The boy that had entered the room had never before seen a foreigner’s eyes, so I offered to show him what mine looked like. I stood up and walked to the other side of the table where he was sitting, bent over so that I was at eye level with him, and opened my eyes as wide as I could. It was almost hysterical. The boy jumped out of his chair, nearly knocking it over, as if he had seen a ghost or something. I don’t know exactly what he saw in the depths of my eyes, but he wouldn’t sit back down until I was safely seated in my chair. I couldn’t help but giggle. He acted very similarly when Phil leaned over to show him his blue eyes. I guess he thought all the people in the world had dark eyes up until that moment in time. That would probably freak me out too.

I particularly like how you can see the reflection of the bars of our balcony.

Perhaps this is what the boy saw instead! I’d be pretty freaked out too.

Yesterday Phil and I decided to do our weekly shopping at the Wal-Mart located inside of the SM shopping mall. We’d only been there once before very briefly looking for a modem(which they didn’t have), so we wanted to go back and see what kind of selections that they had in comparison to the other stores in town. We usually shop at Carrefour because it is the closest store to us, but occasionally we will go to the other Wal-Mart(it’s closer than the SM mall), Trust Mart or the very far away Metro(1 hour by bus). Carrefour is probably the most convenient, less crowded of the bunch and has most of what we need, but is often sold out of or doesn’t have what exactly it is we are looking for. This is the case for the other stores too though. All of the stores have the basics, but each one seems to have only one or two of the things that we really like to buy. This of course, makes us store hop until we have everything that we need. If all the stores could just combine – shopping would be a breeze. The SM Wal-Mart wasn’t much different. Like the other stores, it had all the basics plus a few other items that are hard to come by elsewhere. It was however a little different. Different enough to lure me back in a few weeks or sooner depending on how soon I need a refill. Cereal isn’t hard to come by in Xiamen. Even in Fuyang, I was able to get my hands on brands I was familiar with. All the major chain stores usually have one or another brand to choose from in their imported section. Depending on what country they come from effects how much money you are going to have to shell out for them. American brands are always the most expensive, but they sometimes have Korean(I think they are Korean) versions sitting beside them for a much smaller box at a much lower price. The Korean versions to me taste the same, but the choices are much more limited. If I want something familiar – it is either Cheerios or Trix – everything else is the real thing, in a much bigger box, and much more expensive. The real thing being American Cheerios, Rice Crispies, Frosted Mini Wheats, Raisin Brand and a few others. The price on these range from 40 – 50 RMB($5 -6). To you that my not sound like a lot, but in order to save money to travel and to enjoy other luxuries in China, we have to watch the money we spend. If it costs 40- 50 RMB and we are going to eat it – it better either A) last a very long time or B) be damn good. Cereal only lasts so long and it isn’t quite to damn good level yet. Cheese on the other hand is . . . and we only splurge on that every once in a blue moon. So, you can imagine my surprise and disbelief when I spied a HUGE box of Honey Comb sitting amongst the usual suspects with a price tag of 19.90 RMB. My first guess was that it either A) was the box was in the wrong place or B) had expired a year ago. Neither turned out to be the case. I had a lady ring it up to make sure it was indeed 19.90 and then double checked the expiry date. I was so happy to see Best Before August 2007 starring me in the face. I almost chucked two boxes in the buggy, but remembered that there are other more important things that we want to do in China than eat Honey Comb for breakfast.

Nothing reminds me of home like Honey Comb in the morning.

When I walk into Carrefour or any other Chinese grocery store, there are a plethora of choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some are normal, others unusual, and few that just freak the hell out of me. If you are in China, ever been to China, or are coming to China in the near future – you either know what I mean or you soon will. 🙂 Case and Point: Fresh Delicious Brain

Yummy Specimen of Brain for only 4.00 RMB.

I probably shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was to see it neatly packaged in the meat section considering that the Chinese eat just about everything of an animal, but it caught me off guard nonetheless. I stood there for a second staring at it, thinking about how exactly it would taste, and then I had to walk away or else puke everywhere.Once again, I wish that the picture came out better than it did, but I didn’t want the Carrefour workers to come confiscate my camera. Some stores don’t allow you to take pictures or movies, so I took it quick and on the wrong setting without really thinking. At least you can still tell that it’s brains.

Just yesterday, I saw another freaky thing in the meat department. Both Phil and I looked at it and said, “What the hell is that?” “I have no idea what it is,” Phil said. “I could be an awfully big rat.” “Or a kangaroo,” I said. “Want me to ask? “If you want to?” I tapped the lady standing beside it and asked, “这是什么?” (What is this?) I can’t type the Chinese that she said, but she pointed to the weird looking thing, then to her butt and said something about a cow. What we were looking at was the tail of a cow with part of his/her back end attached. Ick. That’s what I said. I just want to know who bought it and how in the world they cooked it. Ick. Ick. Ick.

For the most part, when Phil and I cook, we cook western type food. We haven’t mastered the art of making Chinese food yet. I think that will only come with patience, a lot of practice and quite possibly a teacher. Living in Xiamen though, we have access to a lot of western food. We have to go to many stores to get all of what we want sometimes, but for the most part, life isn’t that much different than it is back home. – save one or two instances here and there.

It was a pretty day out, so Phil and I decided to take a little stroll through Xiamen and see what all the streets and alley ways had to offer. Eventually we plan to stroll through it all, but that I’m guessing will take longer than the time we have left to stay here. That is, unless Phil gets that job at Dell. If that happens, we will have more than enough time to scout out every nook and cranny.

On this particular outing, we began our little adventure by having lunch at Pizza Hut on the 24th floor of a building that over looks Gulangyu – a very cool island uninhabited by buses or cars. We were seated by the window and greeted with a fantastic view. The waitress informed us that it would be a “little hot” because the sun was angling right in our faces, but due to the fact that I would never quite get a view like this elsewhere – I didn’t mind the free sauna treatment that came with our meal.

After lunch we took off down Zhongshan Lu, the pedestrian/shopping street here in Xiamen. If you like to shop and nibble on fancy smancy treats from brand name vendors – this would be the place to go. Me being the backward-ass-woman that I am, I try to avoid this section of town for the sake of my wallet and my inability to spot a fashion disaster a mile away. 🙂 I blame the latter of the two on me having two older brothers who taught me that blowing things up and running around barefoot were cooler than brushing the hair of one of My Little Ponies. But anyway, I digress, like usual.

After running past Nu Ren Lu(Woman Street), yet another street dedicated to those who love to shop ’til they drop, we crested a hill in search for Zhongshan Park. At the top of this hill though, the only thing we could see was some smoke billowing out of a trash can. We stood in awe of it for a minute as the wind factor just made it worse. Soon a well dressed business man came outside and tossed a bucket of water one it. It sizzled and smoked a little more and then it died.

Just down the other side of the hill was what we were looking for – free of dresses, expensive jeans, and bright frilly colors – well, at least in the clothes department that is.

I don’t know, if I was four, I think this plant based
dragon would scare the poo out of me.

After a stroll through the park and watching some guys do some wicked tricks on some Rollerblades, we made off down another street in search of some more cool finds. It didn’t take long to come upon one of the many newly built malls that seem to be everywhere I turn. Xiamen isn’t that big, but man, these malls kick the crap out of the ones I’m used to back home. The one in the picture below was five stories and about as long as the main corridor of the Columbiana Centre Mall that I frequent on occasion back home in Columbia, South Carolina.

Massive butterflies taking flight.

Also, in this ocean themed(or at least it seemed to be) mall, I came across a stretch of sea horses. With only a few clicks left on my camera, I snagged a picture of one of them. Not all that impressive, or Chinese, I know, but it goes with my title.

Under the watchful of a Sea Horsey.

This picture is a little blurry, but I just wanted to give you a visual of how much things cost here. I got these down at the little fruit and vegetable stand at the end of our street. The family that works there is very nice and are always super helpful when I pop in to buy some things. So, as you can see, one day I bought three carrots, four potatoes, three green peppers, four bananas, and one onion. Back home, I imagine that all of this would have cost me $3-4(depending on where you shop), but here in Xiamen, China, all of this cost me 9 RMB or the equivalent to only $1.12. You can’t beat that. I would like to add that if I had purchased these at Wal-Mart, Trust-Mart, or Carrefour, they would have been more expensive, but then again, that is why I don’t buy my fruit or vegetables there.

You’ve probably heard the nursery rhyme This Little Piggy, but just in case you haven’t, it goes like this:

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed at home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none.
And this little piggy went…
“Wee wee wee” all the way home…

That is what I thought of when I saw this picture in a window of Chinese restaurant:

Chris, our friend in Shenyang, told me that it translated into something like this:

“For you I will sit in the pot.”

I of course found it hysterical and had to take a picture. This little piggy may be willing to be dinner, but he sure as heck doesn’t look very happy about jumping into the pot of boiling water. I don’t think I would be very happy either.

So, maybe the nursery rhyme should go something more like this:

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed at home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none.
And this little piggy went…
“Weep weep weep” til the meat fell off his bones …

Whoa, I was just trying to be creative, I didn’t mean to get all Grimm on everybody. Heh, but it was a little funny . . . if just a little bit.

Not much of a story to go with it, but I thought it was cool, so I took a picture of it. It was the decoration on the wall paper at the restaurant in Shenyang where we mistakenly ordered 2 kg of dumplings. I’d never seen so many dumplings in my life! They were stacked over and above my head. No lie! Looking at the picture now, I can’t decide if it’s more a dragon or a sea horse. It sorta looks like a mixture of the two. Technically, I guess a sea horse could be a small dragon. A dragon of the sea. Either way, it’s still pretty neat looking. Just thought I would share it.