We've been running low on groceries lately as it gets harder for Jodi to go out because of her big tummy.  This has resulted in a few meals scrapped together with whatever we had in the kitchen, which has not been so bad because Jodi is quite talented in that area.  A recent example:

Sliced and chilled tomatoes sprinkled with sugar, meat and lotus root balls covered with steamed rice, and a spicy pea-and-pork stirfry.

The last item goes great mixed together with steamed white rice and as Jodi would say is very 下饭, literally "down rice" because you end up downing a lot of rice with it.

Tonight before I go to bed I'm going to watch the Daily Show and dig into a couple of Shanghai Pies (British-style meat pies made with Australian beef) that are sitting in the fridge waiting to be warmed up in the oven.  Yum.

On Saturday we went to the house of the grandparents of one of the friends that Jodi found for Charlotte online.  They are a pretty typical Shanghainese family, and this is the spread that they laid out for the large group of parents and babies that came to their house that day.   Is this the kind of food you'd expect at a party?

Clockwise from 12 o'clock: a couple kinds of fried and very fragrant fish, frog legs, Pepsi, Shanghainese shengjian buns, chicken wings, steamed jujube cake, watermelon, KFC family bucket, more watermelon, Thai rice crackers, homemade sushi, a mix of steamed rice/corn breads, various kinds of pressed and marinated tofu, boiled soy beans, boiled taro root, slices of lunchmeat sausage, something I can't remember that involved peanuts, and boiled chicken pieces.

Meet dinner:

Dinner a couple of days ago, by Jodi:

A simple and delicious tuna salad with tomato and kidney beans, eggplant fried rice, and chicken legs marinated in a cummin-based marinade.

Brunch the next day, when we were both feeling very lazy:

Light green pepper and hot dog omelet with lots of cheese, and uncut oatmeal (we both prefer instant, actually; uncut is better for cookies) with generous helpings of raisins, brown sugar, butter, milk and, for me, sprinkles.

Until next time, happy cooking.

On our anniversary trip to Xitang we ate some pretty good food.  Here's a sampling of lunch and dinner on the first day:

From top to bottom: absolutely delicious thick-skinned wonton in a meaty duck broth; wok-fried 马兰头, a leafy green vegetable particular to the area; bite-sized dumplings of rice and fatty pork steamed in bamboo-leaf wrappers.  Missing from this picture is another dish of nondescript meat chopped finely with vegetables, wrapped up and fried in a thin Vietnamese spring-roll-like wrapper.  This meal was eaten on the deck of a small double-decker boat permanently moored in a Xitang canal.  At the table next to us a young girl went around the table several times repeatedly and with gusto 干杯ing (toasting) everybody in her extended family.



Clockwise from the top-left: salt and pepper fried pumpkin pieces, probably the best dish in this so-so meal; cucumber slices in vinegar; chunks of water chestnut wok-fried with soy beans; rice, of course; and small river shrimp fried in oil and soy sauce.  Not shown in this photo was the green mung bean "soup" that Jodi got as a dessert, which was yummy.  This dinner was eaten outdoors at a restaurant dining area on the edge of the main Xitang canal, lit up by Chinese lanterns and serenaded by an old couple singing folk songs in the local dialect.