Flying Cow Ranch

We had a fun-filled day with friends at the Flying Cow Ranch: http://www.flyingcow.com.tw/  It's only about an hour drive north-west of a Taichung...in good traffic. I'm composing this post as we sit on the freeway on our drive home :(

We had eight kids with us ages 9, 9, 8, 6, 6, 6, 2, and nearly 2 and they all highly recommend the place! Our six hour visit included feeding all sorts of animals and multiple visits to their interesting playground.

We finished up with hot chocolate at the cafe. I underestimated the chilly, damp factor if Taiwan's 60 degrees and we were quite cold without hats and mittens and warmer jackets! Lesson learned.

The Official Feast

We did get our Thanksgiving feast a couple of days later.
Some friends invited us to their home along with another Taiwanese family who had never had a Thanksgivign meal before. We did our best to make it as authentic as possible:

Luckily our friends found a seasonal service that offers fullly roasted turkeys (it's a rare thing to have an oven over here--we lucked out with our baby oven in our apartment). As with most poultry over here, this turkey kept his head through the whole ordeal. We didn't invite the head to the table, however. 

The foreign import store provided some familiar fixings for our olive/pickle tray.

And we weren't without deviled eggs, candied yams and greenbean casserol :) 

Our only disappointment was to find out the CostCo failed to supply their normal stock of pumpkin pie around Thanksgiving time this year. But complaining wouldn't be Thanksgiving-y, so I won't :) 

Black Friday

Although our Thanksgiving day wasn't very traditional, Ben and I stuck by the Black Friday shopping tradition and hit the markets. We went to a street that was lined with clothing shop after clothing shop [BeiPing Rd] and picked out a few "English" t-shirt gems for Christmas gifts. 

Here is an example of what English verbiage you can find on some shirts here in Taiwan. Hilarious!

We also finally got to one of the jade markets. There were so many beautiful carved pieces of jade and other works of art. We didn't buy much--things were more expensive than we had hoped--but I now have a wish-list started :)

 

Chinese Chicken Soup for Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!
Even more than our Taiwanese Halloween, our Taiwanese Thanksgiving took on new twist. Our main feast with friends will be on Saturday, but today will turned out to be a fun culinary celebration.

Since Ben's pay schedule still lines up with American holidays, he decided he'd still take Thursday and Friday off and enjoy the relatively quiet time with the older boys still in school.
I thought it was a brilliant idea :)

I normally have my Chinese lesson on Thursday mornings so Ben joined me today. Amy already had a fun cooking lesson in the works and was insistent that today was the day to do it seeing as how it was good Chinese medicine for Theo (who has been sick) and Ben would be there to participate too.

Just to ease your suspense--it turned out absolutely delicious!
It was also the first really chilly day we've experienced here so far,
making soup the most wonderful Thanksgiving treat ever!



In typical Amy fashion, she prepared a killer lesson plan: cute pictures to build my confidence at the beginning, followed by a barrage of crazy complex characters that, despite being given both types of phonetic transcriptions, I still can't manage to pronounce well. Oh well.

This meal actually began last week when I bought some dried mushrooms at the source of their goodness: in Xieshen (where the flower festival was). When Amy saw them the following day, she was concerned I wouldn't know how to properly cook with them.
That was the moment her Chicken soup lesson idea came into existence. She called me yesterday to give me the first step in the recipe:

1. Soak the dried mushrooms overnight and absoluely do not discard the water. 

This morning Amy brought a bag with all the ingredients and Ben did his best to follow her every instruction as I snapped photos and tried to manage a fussy 2-year old.

2. Cut skin and fat off of chicken drumsticks
[Amy said that it makes the chicken look "ugly" with no skin
but that it was healthier that way.]

3. Put uglified chicken into a pot of boiling water for a few minutes
to "clean the blood and remove any bad smell." When done, dump the water.

4. Heat oil in fry pan then add conveniently prepared garlic cloves to hot oil to fry.

Amy insisted the best way to keep the garlic frying evenly was to use chopsticks. She was impressed that we, as foreigners, had some but informed us that they were rather short for cooking
[I hope Santa brings us some long cooking chopsticks]

5. Next, it's time to take the conveniently prepared ginger shreds...

…and add them, the mushrooms, its water, the garlic, plus extra water
to fill the pot with the ugly chicken.

6. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for about 1 hour.

7. While the soup simmers, put fresh clams in salted water
and let them enjoy their last moments of life.

[Intermission]
While we waited on the soup, Ben had the chance to experience the thrill of (assisted) competence by ordering some more water jugs. His experience was a little rockier than mine had been because the lady on the other end didn't stick to her part of our prepared dialogue, despite Ben's efforts to follow my advice of keeping control by plowing through his monologue :) 

Back to the soup…

8. Give the clams a quick 1-2 minute dip in their life-ending bath of boiling broth.

9. Be sure to remove them in time before they become tough and rubbery.

10. With the salt from the clams now in the soup, it's time to taste for flavor level.

11. Add convient chicken bouillon liquid packet as needed.

12. Add about a 1/2 teaspoon of dark sesame oil [which Amy says has a nice, strong flavor to use with seafood, "to cover it's smelliness"].


13. et voila! Chinese Chicken Soup success!

Amy said that this is the basic recipe and that there are many Chinese medicine variations depending on what aliments you have. I'm hoping that this basic recipe will cure Theo and keep the rest of us healthy!

The Taiwanese Beauty Mask

When my sweet tutor offers me a couple facial masks to try because they are super popular here in Taiwan, (it's the biggest market in Asia, and yes, you can even get them at 7-Eleven), I'm touched. When she later lets slip that she was concerned because I'm so young (younger than her) and am already getting wrinkles (and she isn't), I'm even more touched by her thoughtful intervention :)

I didn't have the heart to point out that my Caucasian genes doom me to badly aging skin and my 20+ years living in dry climates haven't helped me any either. But who knows, maybe these masks will work their magic. I'll use one weekly, just like she suggests.

 

Ben's Fun

Now you might be wondering what Ben does for fun over here in Taiwan:

He gets to go to (long) work dinners at fancy restaurants on a regular basis. 

And eat interesting things like turtle.

See how much fun he's having? :) 

Theo's Halloween Fun

Let us not forget the fun Theo had at Halloween too:
First, his mom stuffed him into his adorable, hot monkey costume,
then took him to an expat playgroup at a new friend's home with lots of fun toys to play with!

Although he probably didn't even notice, there were fun Halloween treats...

…and games

and the cutest little girl dressed up like sushi!

Now you might think Theo has grounds for an official complaint about always being confined by a 5-point harness--but you'd be wrong. With his highly developed sprinting abilities and a busy city street always a few yards away, he has come to accept it as an expression of his mother's love
and desire for his life to be long and prosperous.

After Theo had spent all his morning solo playing with new and interesting toys (in his monkey pants…the top didn't last long) he had his nap postponed for the greater good of enjoying an American style diner. I got a sandwich! Oh how I've missed a good restaurant sandwich! 

Theo played with his balloon and ate "pizza fries" which turned out to be french fries soggified with marinara sauce and topped with a little melted cheese. He loved them :)