Resolution

um, yeah. so since july a lot has happened and i have found i am not meant to be a blogger as you can tell from my neglect the past several months.

however, i have made a resolution...no need to wait for the new year. once a week. blog. anything. just blog. when we go home, we always forget all of the interesting things that happen to us and stories to tell. it's hard to recall all of our experiences in china, especially as they become more and more "normal" for us here, even though for our family and friends they are far from it. so i am trying to look upon china with fresh eyes and begin taking more photo/video of the life we live to help others see why we love it here so much.

so each week, i have decided to post SOMEthing. maybe a food we ate or a daily ritual, or a little story from work/school. a glimpse into our lives since we rarely are able to share it with you all other than a skype chat here and there.

so...here it goes. please feel free to hound me if i slack off in the coming weeks.

LOTUS root. a delicious and strange looking food that i have come to LOVE in china. erich has other feelings towards the vegetable, but we won't go there today. i first discovered it cooked in a soy type broth with carrots, onion and celery at school lunch one day. i was a little scared to bite into the large hole-y unknown, but as i did, there was a crunchy, fiberous texture that made me go back for more. i actually thought there was a hair in my food the first time i ate it, because as you bite into it and break the surface, the millions of little fibers inside are broken and separate, looking like little hairs on your food! the lotus root is what grows under the water of the lotus flower (of which there are TONS in our neighborhood let along all over china). Here is a photo of one blooming earlier in October around the corner from our apartment . there really isn't a ton of flavor to the vegetable itself. it just takes on the flavors of whatever you cook it with.

i kept wondering where people bought it in our town, as i never seemed to see the little slivers of swiss cheese looking veggie in the market or stores. until last weekend. elaine, a local friend and one of the TA's at our school, took me shopping and taught me how to cook some traditional chinese dishes. i asked her about the lotus root while wandering through the market and she showed me this. it was a series of many long, zucchini-shaped pieces joined together. the holes that are its signature had been camoflauged from me all this time.

anyway, we took it home and she showed me how to cook it with mushrooms, onion and tofu as well as some salt and oil to make a simple but tasty chinese dish. yum...thanks elaine!