You want me to do WHAT with that banana leaf?!

Jessi found herself with a lot of writing and picture loading for the upcoming posts so it's Mark to the rescue! 

After our action packed trip to the Philippines a few short weeks ago we decided we wanted our Cambodian experience to be slow-paced and schedule free. This turned out to be an amazing choice. Instead of looking for free time for laundry and rest, we were instead looking for creative ways to fill our days. We did the obvious, several visits to the Angkor temples, and we explored the town, and it's many, MANY bar and restaurant offerings. So what else could we do that is unique to Cambodia? The answer came easily to us after all of the delicious food we ate. Let's take a local cooking class!

The day started with a van pick-up at our hotel. The driver took us across town to a very nice cafe/restaurant, Cassia, where we met the owner and his head chef. After a short wait, we were taken by the head chef via tuk tuk to the local wet market to learn about the local produce and spices that are used daily in the restaurant's menu. 



The little green vegetables in the bottom left corner are eggplants.


All the ladies selling would sit on these tables while they hacked apart the seafood with large knives. I kept expecting a finger to be cut off!



The sights and smells were amazing and sometimes overwhelming! I had a small sneezing fit after taking a big whiff of the Khmer curry powder. On a side note, Khmer curry is my favorite local dish. It has the same general flavor (flavour- for Brian) as other curries, but it is not sweetened as much with coconut milk. It is a richer, more savory flavor overall. 

After the market we went back to the restaurant for a pre-cooking latte. We were given the recipe book for our class that included several dishes, and we were told to study up!



#1- fresh spring rolls with pork

#2- green mango salad with dried shrimp

#3- sour soup with fish

#4- Amok with fish

#5- dessert (banana with coconut tapioca)

We chopped and stirred, folded and measured, and each dish came out looking amazing (even mine, miraculously). The worst part is that we wanted to eat each one as we finished it, but had to wait until they were all done. Also, making origami-like bowls out of banana leaves and bits of toothpicks made Jessi laugh at me. :(  I tried my best!



Finally, we sat down to a delicious five course meal prepared by us! 



Spring rolls in the front, soup in the blue-streaked ceramic pots, green mango salad behind, the amok in the infamous banana leaf packages in the back.


Just to be clear, Jessi's banana leaf box was prettier, but leaked more. Mine is the cleaner one on the right. So there!

Don't worry, we got to keep the recipe books so we will be sure to treat you to at least one of these dishes at some point. 

Bon appetit!

Guest Post... A Table with a View!!

Last Friday I woke up early and called my parents on Thanksgiving to wish them a good day. They were just about to sit down to a delicious dinner with my whole family so I was lucky enough to get to see all of them and say hi to them all! It reminded Jessi and I how much we miss all of you and how much we missed Thanksgiving this year. To make matters worse we had to be on the bus at 7 to drive across town for some professional development! UGH!!! The day started with some large group meetings followed by two short workshops presented by SCIS Honqiao teachers (we are SCIS Pudong). I won't bore you with the details. Next came lunch, a half hazard attempt to create a thanksgiving meal by serving turkey and canned mashed potatoes. I appreciated the effort but the lack of Sue's squarsh, yes squaRsh, made us miss home even more. After lunch I had a meeting with all of the music faculty from the SCIS system to brainstorm plans for a festival. Little did they know that my partner, Tracey, and I already have a festival on the calendar this spring and three American college professors booked to be our guests! I love showing off sometimes! Finally, at two o'clock came an awesome reminder of why our school is a great place to work. Our administrators threw a party on the soccer pitch with beer, wine, and hours devours. They even provided several sets of bocce balls for our entertainment. Maybe professional development isn't so bad after all!

Since Jessi and I were already in Puxi (the west side of the river), and since it was our 7th anniversary (of our first date) we decided to head downtown for a fancy dinner. At first we had two friends that were going to join us but they ended up going back home to Kangqiao (our neighborhood). It was just going to be the two of us for a date! That never happens! While in the cab I made a reservation for Mercato, an italian restaurant on the bund. It was a recommendation from a friend and boy are we glad we took it. It was on the 6th floor of and old building and every seat in the restaurant had a great view across the river to the Pudong skyline. After such a long day out and about we both settled into our comfy chairs in the dark lit room and prepared to relax and celebrate. Jessi ordered an Old Fashioned and I got a Margarita with chiles and basil on the rim. It sounds weird but they really helped cut the sweetness of the drink. The waiter brought us some bread and oil, standard for an italian place, but there was a mysterious second container of oil. It was olive oil infused with the small, red chile peppers that we see all over Shanghai. It was incredibly spicy and delicious! To start, we ordered a salad made with arugula, apples, walnuts, peccorino. It was simple but amazing. Next, I ordered rigatoni with meatballs (second only to Grandma's) and Jessi got spaghetti with pesto. The noodles were homemade in house and the sauces were perfect. To finish it up we split a slice of cheesecake with passion fruit gelato. With all of the Thanksgiving neglect we had endured so far this meal really hit the spot!

                                Pudong skyline with a bus whizzing by...

                                Finally sitting with a drink!

                                I think I just drooled on the keyboard
       

                                My mom is jealous of this margarita... even if she doesn't know it.

                      The Bund

    Cutie!!

Turkeys and 'Taters and Stuffing, Oh my!

As you are gearing up for your Thanksgiving celebrations, here's what went down during ours on Saturday!

I actually got the party started the night before. No, not exactly partying. More that I was making those potato buns. The only problem was that we also had rehearsal on Friday night from 7 to 9:30 in Puxi (the other side of town). After singing Messiah, we got home around 10:30 and finally started making a double batch of buns (since I was the only one signed up to bring bread).  This is what that process looked like at 1:30 AM...

It was a gigantic lump of dough, and I was getting a bit loopy. Mark, of course, felt the need to document. I'm actually surprised that you can't see all the flour smudges... They don't call me "Messy Jessi" for nuthin'!

The next morning was a flurry of bun rolling and rising and an even bigger mess. I got to take a break to go to a tailor appointment as well as a trip to the fake market.

Here's what our Lower School Commons turned into for our dinner:

Please note the girls table....

And the boys table above....

I'm not sure why it turned into a middle school dance, but there you go.

We had a million different types of mashed sweet potatoes. Well, close to a million. We had two kinds of purple mashed sweet potatoes and then four kinds of normal mashed sweet potatoes. Only one kind of stuffing, one dish of green beans, one dish of carrots, three regular potatoes, and then my buns. No squarsh! (That's for you, Miller family!!)  :o)  If you see the gigantic basket with the handle sticking up, that's the basket that was holding the 100+ buns. I felt a little filled up with the potatoes, but really, one can't help but gorge on any Thanksgiving feast. 

On with the recovery process!

Good luck with your own preparations! Can't wait for us to get together once again, and do it right! ;o)

Buns Away!

Saturday is the Thanksgiving celebration at school. (You might remember me fishing for good recipes.)

I decided to try out an old standby: potato buns.

Ok, ok. It's a standby for my mom. First experimentation for me!

Behold!

Tada!

They turned out!

The process wasn't so pretty... Looking up every measurement in milliliters because that's what measuring implements are here... Measuring out 118 (ish) ml for a 1/2 cup of butter... Not to mention mashing sweet potatoes is never clean. My ipad definitely needed a wipe down!

Flour was/is everywhere, needless to say. I didn't exactly want to document the experiment!

It was a lovely taste of home and holidays for us. The only problem is that with half the batch gone, I have to make more for Saturday's gathering!!

Nuts.

More street food

We were exiting the back side of Wanda Plaza the other dark evening and noticed dust and bright lights rising from behind this large brick wall. Finding the entrance, we find that it's actually an organized selection of street food. I wouldn't be too nervous about trying it! (We only had a little because we had just eaten dinner.)

Nice green peppers...

I had grilled orange, rice gluten balls. I weirdly liked them. A little crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, slightly sweet, and easy to eat many.

These were grilled green somethings. Not onions, kinda bean-like. Not asparagus-y... Tasty!

We would definitely take you here to eat.

Mystery lump, anyone?

Just when I was asking for advice...

Last night, Mark and I went to dinner at Wanda Plaza. We think it's a Thai place, but it's good nonetheless.

As a celebration of finishing a crazy busy day (first day of choir!), we ordered dessert with our meal. Naturally, it came first! That, of course, makes it an extra special celebration. :o)

Black rice and white rice with mango and coconut milk in the spoon. 

Afterwards, we stopped by the ATM to pull some cash. Maybe this is a British translation?

It just makes me giggle that you ask for advice from the ATM. 

Coming right up!

Thanks for the advice ATM!

Now I can pay for the trench coat I had made at the fabric market. Hope it looks good!

Feed Me, Seymour!

I have musicals on the brain!

Anyhoo, no picture today, but I need some help. There's a massive Thanksgiving that the teachers do together coming up in a few weeks (though Canadian Thanksgiving already happened and only Canadians were invited!). We're supposed to bring an appetizer, side dish, or dessert, and I don't know what to bring!! I want it all! Buns, stuffing, cranberry... We have mashed potatoes at lunch, but we're pretty positive that it comes from a can (other than that, school lunches are pretty good!). 

Do you have any ideas??

On another note, I'd kill for some good Mexican food. Green chile...refried beans... Guacamole... Corn tortillas... Black bean and roasted corn salsa.... Everything!  I mean, we have Cantina Agave and Pistoleras, but those places are only so-so. Sufficient, but not satisfying. Bring on El Taco de Mexico! (Please go to Santa Fe and 7th and enjoy yourself for us!)

Yikes! How am I hungry at 11 pm?!

Off count tacos in my sleep...  

Zzz...slobber...

And you thought convenience store food was bad in the US!

We stopped into a Family Mart the other day to grab water. This is a convenience store that is everywhere in Shanghai, and they all play the same little theme song that plays every time the doors open. (Mark has it figured out in all keys so if you want to know what it sounds like, ask him!  I've been blocking it out.)

Waiting to pay, we see this tempting display of snacks. 

A closer look at the menu... 

Oh, I don't know... What looks tasty??

Oh dear... Maybe I didn't need a snack after all!

Can-didly speaking...

Oh, the puns!

Check out what I found at a convenience store down the street!


Amazing the things that get imported, right?

Like every other United Nations Meeting...

Except with a potluck.

So Friday we had an assembly to celebrate the United Nations International Day of Peace, which was on September 21st.  Before school started for the year, they had asked me to teach the kids a song to sing at it.  I was all, "Yeah, sure, I got this!" thinking that it's a small school, how big could it be?

It was pretty big.

This was before it started...  All the kids in the school came out and had to split up into countries.  Minor chaos reigned for a good 15 minutes.  I was actually impressed it was that quick! :o)

Oh, Canada...

This pumpkin stole my hat. I had to give her "The Eye."

I don't think she cared much. :)

Japan got the award for the cutest marshmallow.  

I mean, "younger brother."

She loves that my Grandma was born Catherine Murphy because her name is Murphy Katherine.

I love her commitment to representing her country. :o)

The reason I bring this all up is because after the assembly, we had the best potluck I ever had.  

Ever.

I'm guessing a good 40 tables were set up with delicious, delicious goodies.  

This portion of the afternoon also turned into a bit of a mad house, but only because everyone wanted to try everything.  You can't blame them/us/me!

Among other tables not pictured: The France table with the crepes.  I was too busy eating them all!

Why, yes. Yes, you do see Ikea catalogs on the Sweden table.

This day really reinforced my desire in world peace!
(Maybe there is something to that whole "food reinforcement" after all...)

*burp*

:o)