May 10th: Epic Meal Time -- Leftovers Edition ;P

Making food in a shared kitchen is harder than you'd think. Not only is there the obvious issue of fridge space and cleanliness, you also have to take care of other peoples' leftovers (i.e. turn them into delicious things and feed them to hungry people so that they don't hang around forever) and gauge how much everyone will eat so YOU don't leave leftovers for the next person to take care of, or worse, sit uneaten in the fridge until it goes bad!

AMAZING fried rice with green beans, red peppers, and vege-ham.  I don't know how Putao does it.  We don't even have a wok!

This is especially important for me 'cause I make dinners on Thursdays, and there's no Friday or weekend classes that require meals, so any leftovers will sit until Monday, at which time they are probably not so delicious. But before I get to do anything Putao (the CUTEST little old lady EVER) makes lunch for the daytime Thursday class. It's always difficult to gauge how much will be left 'cause even though there are 50 people not all of them stay for lunch. This particular day she made food for 50 and only 30 stayed, leaving us with a GLORIOUS amount of leftovers. Since dinner is usually about 20 people's worth (sometimes 23-25 if Tingquan and/or another adolescent male shows up) this worked out AWESOME for me :D

May 9th: Taiwanese Ratatouille

But first, a surprise dessert! Lishui brought it back from somebody's house...I can't remember who's, but it's delicious!

White Fungus Dessert Soup with Nuts and Dates

I love dessert soups ^o^ Growing up mung bean soup was my fav, but recently taro has taken its place! I really like wood-ear/fungus too, so this was a really tasty one.  That orange thing is a yam, not a carrot ;P

For Thursday night I planned for ratatouille, 'cause I'd been having some MAD eggplant cravings.  Also zucchini cravings.  TT___TT Apparently the market by my mom's house has zucchini sometimes; the one I live by doesn't.  either way they're hard to come by here, but we DO have eggplants in abundance.  Delicious delicious Asian eggplant~  Guess what I subbed for the zucchini?

May 2nd: AVENGERS

It was a lovely Wednesday to go see Avengers in (accidental) 3D at the Ambassador Theater in Zhongshan!

"Do we have to see it in 3D?!"

Turns out Gracie doesn't like 3D movies.  But it was the only showing at a time we could all meet up, so 3D it was.

Face of resignation.

We met up for lunch first.  Found Kirin Pasta in an alley, and they are vege-friendly! :D

April 28th: Garden + Wa Pizza with Tai and Gracie

 Some weeds flowers in the garden.

These ones close up in the afternoon and reopen in the morning!

Yellow flowers in bloom.

Yellow flowers with buds and fluff head.  Love!

 Food and People after the jump!

April 26th: Spaghetti Galore + 1st Day of Light Messenger Beginner Course

Maggie made super-colourful spaghetti!!! She prepped all the ingredients herself (with some washing & cutting assistance from Zhenxing) and I made up the spaghetti for her ahead of time so it could be sauteed with the ingredients.

Tomatoes, pinch of sugar, herbs, and cheese.

Look at those COLOURS!!! Everything was so delicious!

Balsamic Tri-colour Peppers with Herbs.

I used to really dislike balsamic vinegar, but it's grown on me.  I actually ended up adding extra vinegar to my spaghetti 'cause it wasn't sour enough for me xD

Chopped cheddar cheese, for even more flavor!

My humble contribution consisted of cranberry-orange steamed banana cake with vegan ice 'cream'.

The cranberries were donated by a Chi-mate who'd come back from the States.  They were from Trader Joe's, and they are AMAZINGLY GOOD.

April 16th: A Breakfast of Sorts

April 14th: The Return of the Leaking Bathroom

Self-explanatory title. On the bright side, this time the leak was within the bathroom instead of seeping into the living room :D  It's also appeared to stop leaking since the weather warmed up.  Dunno what's up with that, but whatever~

The leaking corner in question.

The curiously sepia water that leaked from the corner.

JESSICA ARRIVED! Weekend Fun Time with Smoothies and an Excursion to Donghai

After missing her connecting flight in Chicago Jessica finally arrived safe and sound Saturday 'round noon-ish. No pictures 'cause EVERYONE looks terrible after 20+ hours in transit. Instead, oggle at these pictures of Tai and me enjoying smoothies at 79Style Cafe at Taipei Main Station K mall while waiting for her to show up!

Hazelnut Coffee Smoothie.

Delicious and filled with CREAM (topping...not real cream, obviously ;).

Matcha Smoothie!

Delicious but too sweet.  I couldn't finish it Dx Gotta remember to ask for no sugar every time!

Actually we ended up meeting Jessica at Mommy's house, and then Mommy had to leave right as we got there 'cause her brother just came back from mainland and they had to talk about moving my maternal grandpa to Taoyuan. And then we ended up going back to Taipei main station (Y mall this time!) and showing Jessica all the fun otaku stuff. Gracie stayed home 'cause she has FINALS D:< We watched her work on two different projects while we were at Mommy's house O_o  Stay strong Gracie!

'round dinnertime I took a bus to Taichung for fun time Hochi youth class while Jessica and Tai apparently got lost for 3 hours in the city (I have yet to affirm this; this is just what Facebook tells me. And we all know FB speaks the truth.) At the class we did a bunch of meditating and worked on our group projects and worked on the youth camp stuff for over the summer -- I'm in the service group for both, so stuff like finding support staff and making up shower charts and scheduling etc. Gotta write up that script for the how-to movie we're shooting still...I'M SO SORRY WEITING! I PROMISE I WILL GET TO IT THIS WEEK! Look! It's Yi-An and some creeper on their way home from class!

Guess how old Yi-An is!!! Scroll down for the answer!

..
...
....
......
........??

BAM!

Okay she's in high school.  Apparently some people think she's like 25 or something, but I think it's just 'cause she's relatively tall -- she's almost as tall as me!  But it's okay, thanks to the Asian Anti-Aging gene and cultivation she'll probably look like this forever :D  I can't wait to see her as a cute old lady! She'll be the most adorable old lady in the history of forever. /earlymorningblogging.

April 5th: Tomato Thick Soup by Maggie!

The meals for the Thursday Evening youth class have been taking on a rather European theme -- mainly Mediterranean and French. On the fifth we had 2 kinds of spaghetti (balsamic tri-colour peppers & tomato w/ cheese) and this AMAZING soup that Maggie made, along with super-crunchy toasted baguette and hard cheddar. Maggie pretty much made everything (except the bread -- she bought it from a specialist bakery the day before, and even brought her own oven so we could have it toasted!). Like a CHAMP!

This soup is made with nothing but tomatoes and potatoes, simmered 'til soft and whirled in a blender, then spiced with herbs de provence and salt and pepper. She even took the skins off the tomatoes! @_@ So dedicated!

Another picture. Just 'cause.

Taiwanese Ice Cream Truck

In the States when your parents (or grandparents) reminisce about their childhood they'll might tell you about things like running after the ice cream truck as it rounds the corner, its melodic ice cream song heralding the arrival of summertime bliss.

In Taiwan your parents might tell you a similar story about running after the agarose guy as the mechanical 'clack-clack-clack' of his agarose stand announces his presence well before his push-cart is anywhere to be seen.

Actually, this guy had his hooked up to a bicycle -- PROGRESS! Taiwan has it.

We came across this stand right outside an MRT station in Banciao (I can't remember which one...but it's right next to a highway...) and my mom was overcome with joyous waves of nostalgia. Of course we had to get some.

The metal bowls are filled with a slightly firm brown-sugar agar agar jelly.  These guys also tend to sell mochi (the white disks) topped with peanut powder.  Try to get it without sugar if you can manage -- these were very sweet!

The clack-clack-clack is made by this device, whose sole purpose is to let everyone within earshot know that agar treats are only a few steps away.

The wheel at back has two sticking-out-bits at different intervals.  The two steel rods at left have that metal disc in the middle that the sticking-out-bits can catch on.  When rotated the result is a rhythmic clacking as the sticks are raised and dropped on the metal stand below.

This vendor put figurines on top of the two clacking sticks, which are usually just bare steel.

Hello Kitty and Mimi endorse this vendor's delicious agar treats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've also spotted a stand on Xinsheng S. Rd. & Renai Rd. in Daan district, but only in summer :)