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 :) 

Halloween: Taiwanese style!

Halloween in Taiwan was an interesting experience. Even though it didn't have the recognition of the masses, nor the permissible door-to-door candy gathering that normally defines the holiday, it will still go down in our family history as the most involved Halloween ever!

According to my tutor, Halloween products have been creeping onto the store shelves in Taiwan more and more over the past 5 years.  Originally mainly made in Taiwan to begin with and then exported, they have recently needed an additional market to deal with surplus. So back over the sea they've come. Eager marketing efforts have gone to work to convince the local people that this is a fun time to buy lots of candy, decorations with scary-faced pumpkins and spiders,
 and to dress their little kids up in cute costumes.

I was thrilled when I saw a small section of costumes for little kids at our grocery store and was able to snag Julien an Incredible Hulk costume. Ryley's size wasn't as easy to find and he had a specific "black ghost with red light-up-eyes" request, so his costume I ordered on Amazon Prime and had shipped to his grandma to send in her Oct care package.

Both the boys' bilingual schools hammed up the Halloween celebrations and offered parties on the night of Oct 31. Parents were invited required to be there so Ben and I did a divide and conquer.

Julien's school had had activities all afternoon, including a mini "trick-or-treat" down the row of shops by their school. What I think they did was deliver candy to the shops beforehand and then had the kids in their costumes come ask for it :)  That evening from 6:30 to about 8 pm, there was a masked carnival at his school where every student (around 75 total) got to walk down the red-carpeted catwalk with his or her parent to show off the masks they had made, and--as stated on the school flier--to give them confidence and practice in public performance. Afterwards there was a very organized and long-lined carnival game time. Julien loved every minute of it and was bouncing up and down with excitement as he introduced me to all his friends.

 

 

 

 

Doraemon (Julien's new favorite Japanese cartoon character) made an appearance!

 I was able to hang out with Jeff's de mama, whose name I found out is Jackie. Our relationship continues to baby-step forward :)

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Ryley's school also had a carnival where all the classrooms had been decorated for Halloween (done by the parent committee volunteers) and each had games and candy.

The care package from the States ran into some customs issues and didn't make it in time for Ryley to have his costume, but he didn't seem to care in the least.
He was also bouncing around with excitement as he and Ben did the activities!

A classmate lent Ryley a hat for this photo :) 

Ben and Ryley ran into our Korean friends who were crashing the party (??)

 

 

 

 

This is Ryley's tutor Teacher Sandra's classroom. 

On 11/08, our care package finally arrived and Ryley tried on his Halloween costume...which is now all set for its grand debut at next year's Halloween!

[Yes, Theo is jumping on bubble wrap in the background. Package day is the greatest!]

Fall Flowers

I had to recalibrate a little on this one: scratch the falling leaves, bring on the blooming flowers. I guess that's what Taiwan's late autumn time is all about. With the intense heat gone, gorgeous flowers come.

Not too far from where we live in Taichung is a place that offers a festival each year called "Xinshe Sea of Flowers." It's set in open fields with waves of different colors. On the outskirts are bussling markets with all sorts of fruit, deep fried stuff, and mushrooms to buy (this area is also known for growing mushrooms).

I went with the International Women's group on this day tour and met many new people (love that!) In this group is a lady originally from South American, one from Japan, 3 from Singapore and one from Taiwan.

Next to the natural growing fields of flowers is a more artistic display of planted floral designs
 and flower sculptures. 

I dedicate this one to Ben. What a perfect comination of two wonderful things: flowers and biking :)

I really liked these intensly bright colors.

Theo's captured look of naughiness is spot on. He unfortunately wasn't allowed to be out of his stroller very long. Throwing dirt and grabbing flowers weren't festival-approved activities.

To properly recognize the Fall season, here is a photo of a fallen leaf that Theo found in the park. Its size should make up for the fact that there aren't whole piles to jump in!