Thursday, March 20, 2008

Weekly Mandarin: 34

34th edition: Zuo Fan

This one's really going to make you think I've turned into Sally-Home-Maker. But keep reading for another update;)

The food here is pretty good. There are some real culinary gems but, honestly, the cohort and I have been getting a little fed up with the food (gosh, I am so funny). So, I've turned over a new leaf. I'm learning how to zuo fan, or cook. If taken separately, the characters mean "make" and "rice," but actually there's a separate verb for "making rice" and zuo fan refers to cooking in general. This brings to mind the whole thing about Eskimos having so many words for snow.... there's that much rice here.

Anyway, I've been going at it pretty much with trial and error. There's fresh produce here, and the kitchen in our neighboring apartment of foreigners is a decent size. We are, however, limited by things like the lack of real oven, lack of time, having two almost-vegetarian best friends, and not understanding most of the labels in the grocery store. But I'm learning to make a pretty awesome veggie stir fry. We even got adventurous with pineapple and shrimp this weekend and it went fabulously!

On a completely different, non-nesting, note: I'm thinking of applying to an internship with UNESCO in Paris. It would be working for the World Heritage Conservation office on increasing accessibility and financial viability of some of the WHC sites. I won't know anything until June, and since the only competitors are also Fulbrighters, it's pretty likely I'll be back in Philly for good after June, but... we'll see;)

1 comment:

Nomad0921 said...

We will have to sample your cooking upon your return - based on the wild success of your cookie recipe I am looking forward to trying your cooking! Of course, an equally viable alternative would be to try some French food in Paris - we'll have to wait a bit to do that from the looks of it, but to quote a famous coach - YOU CAN DO IT!