The Morning After

Once the smoke settles from the fireworks that were lit to celebrate the official start of the Chinese New Year the night before, you pry yourself out of bed and dress nice. Then, you take your hungover self out to visit all your older relatives. You start with the oldest and work on down to the younger ones, bringing each a gift of some kind. If you haven't yet read about last year's old people visits, better go here to check it out.

Each year, we have brought beer. It's always well-received. Chinese people sure love their beer. I can't say I blame them. MIL of course had the dumbest present of all. Well, I thought it was dumb. She would of course pick the lamest thing to give someone - a giant box of eggs. Yes, chicken eggs. They sell them in these huge, red boxes around this time of year. I think because she's a boring old lady, she has to give out a gift as dull as she is. Maybe the recipients are happy to get eggs but I suspect the beer is a much more treasured gift.

We went to pick her up from her and FIL's house, just a few blocks away. Jeremy went upstairs to get her while I waited in the car with Raelynn and Seoul. FIL had to stay at their house to receive the visitors that would come for them. MIL's 2 boxes of eggs were almost as large as our 2 cases of beer. She wound up having to ride with them on her lap in the front seat. I stifled a chuckle as she struggled to figure out the seatbelt. She has this problem EVERY time she rides in the car and Jeremy has to help her. I didn't realize seatbelts were that complicated, but there you go.

Anyway, we went to MIL's older sister's house again.

She's the one in the light pink on the left. Notice I said pink. MIL is wearing bright pink and I forget how the one in the middle wearing actual red is related to everyone. Keeping Jeremy's relatives straight is very difficult!

This year, the smog situation was much better. You could actually enjoy the view from their 19th floor apartment.

 Hello, Qingdao!

Unlike last year, Raelynn is now happy to pose for photos with the relatives. Good girl!

I kept having to restrain Seoul from trying to grab at the coffee table. It's customary to put out little snacks of fruit, nuts and seeds. Additionally, you serve tea to your guests. It's kind of nice.

After about an hour and a half, we then packed up and ventured to MIL's older brother and his wife Jumu's house. But this year, there's an exciting twist...they moved! Yes way!

See, Jumu grew up in the Taidong part of Qingdao. I've mentioned it before as it's a great place to shop. According to Jeremy, Jumu missed the Taidong area and wanted to move back. Never mind that her dumpy apartment was just 15 minutes away. In any event, now they're renting a new place. I'm not sure what they've done with the old place, which they own. Maybe they are renting it but I cannot even fathom who would be stupid or crazy enough to rent that place out. Yuck!

So, I bet you're wondering how Jumu's new place looks? Of course you are! Come see!

I'll start with the most shocking of all - they have a nice, big bathroom! A real toilet that flushes! Amazing!

 And a real sink. No bucket underneath it to catch the water. That's real plumbing!

The entry behind me isn't too bad. So much better than what they had before. You could barely get in or our without smashing into the walls.

 I believe this is a new sofa. Or new coverings for it. It was much cleaner than in their old place.

And now, feast your eyes on this! It's that special alcohol with ginseng and opium! I asked to give it a try. Jumu and her husband were happy to pour me a glass. You know I had to try it. As they poured me a glass, Jeremy explained that there was a seahorse somewhere in there. I kid you not. Still, I had to give it a whirl. Seahorse, a bunch of weird Chinese herbs and things, and supposedly opium.

How did it taste? It wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It was just a bit spicy in the way alcohol can be. How about the opium? Well, after a few sips of this stuff, I felt really pleasant and happy. I have no idea if it was caused by the opium or if it was just the alcohol (or the seahorse! aren't they happy?). Jumu kept offering me food to eat with it since Asians tend to eat food and drink at the same time. They find it odd that Westerners don't always eat while they are drinking.

Jumu also offered me cigarettes! Ha! I don't want to smoke, thank you, and even if I did, I would never ever EVER do that anywhere near my children.

Jeremy chats with a cousin of his.

Now Jeremy gives me that I-know-you're-taking-photos-for-your-blog face. I think he's still upset about that haircut.

Raelynn plays with a sliding door to a room after ingesting more candies than we'd have liked. Everyone kept giving them to her. Sigh.

Here's MIL's brother and Jeremy's cousin sitting about, drinking tea.

This mug made me laugh because of how completely far off from the real definition of "coy" it is.

Shriveled testicles? That's what I thought when Jumu set this down in front of me. But it's something much more benign. It's dried figs!

Hello, dried figs. I am so glad you're not testicles!

Raelynn's face here says it all. Remember the bad cook lady? Well, now Jumu has stolen the title of worst cook from her. The bad cook lady is in 2nd place, and MIL is now 3rd. Jumu insisted on feeding us. I had declined repeatedly, saying I wasn't hungry. And this is precisely WHY I kept declining. I had a feeling the food would be gross. I was right. Jeremy ate a few dumplings to be polite, as did I. And some of the chicken. I would not touch anything else. It's just all so nasty. You know it's inedible when MIL won't eat it. It seriously was the worst food I ever had. To top it off, crazy ol' Jumu put coins in some of the dumplings for good luck so she said to be careful eating them. She says this after I put dumplings on Raelynn's plate. Thank goodness she hadn't started eating before I cut them all open. None of them contained coins, thankfully. That's the most bizarre custom I've ever heard of here. Then again, this is Jumu we're talking about.

Finally, we get to leave and when we do, Jeremy takes us to KFC. I happily snarf down a sandwich and fries, and share a hot fudge sundae with Raelynn. We take MIL back with an extra sandwich to give FIL. But now we're being forced to go upstairs....noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I don't want to go there! Gah! Not again!

At least Jeremy had fed me KFC first or I would have been completely stabby. Now he was handing me a beer while MIL was trotting off to make gross food. But nothing could ever top the grossness Jumu served up, and for that I was grateful.

It's some meat dish with those rubbery black mushrooms and some other weird vegetable, perhaps bamboo? It wasn't too terrible but after KFC, I did not want this.

 She served a xifan which she didn't offer me. She's learned I don't want to eat it. She's also served up tofu ribbons with bits of green vegetables in it...I think it was bok choy. This was so bland this time around. I hate when she makes something that looks good like this and tastes so blah.

 And then finally, we were able to go home. Seoul needed a nap, and so did Mommy.

Chez Puke

On Sunday, after we left church early (much thanks to Raelynn's ultra-embarrassing behavior that caused us to scoop her and our coats up faster than Superman), we found ourselves in some truly ridiculous traffic. Trapped in the car with one bratty child and a small but sweet baby, we spent part of that time lecturing Raelynn about how she should behave and the rest trying to decide what to do once we extracted ourselves from the gridlock.

Jeremy suggested going out to eat but after the tantrum Raelynn threw, I didn't think it was a good idea to sit in a restaurant. Then he suggested we stop by the wholesale market near our home so we could buy a few cases of beer for Chinese New Year gifts for the relatives and also take home some street food. That was a good plan, perhaps the best plan of all simply because Seoul had fallen sound asleep so us gals could just wait for him in the car.

He's not gone long. He comes bounding back about 10 minutes later with a happy young guy in tow behind him, helping him carrying 2 of the 4 cases of beer. See, on the day after the big Chinese New Year celebration, you have to go around and visit the older relatives. Like we did last year.You have to bring some sort of gift or it's considered very rude, probably as rude as not going at all. All over the city now, gifts of cases of beer, baijiu (a very strong Chinese liquor), teas, fruits and all kinds of things are being bought up as quickly as they're sold for this occasion. You could wait until you venture out to visit these relatives but then you're at the mercy of whatever few stores are open and the incredible markups they put on their price tags.

As the young guy helps Jeremy put the other 2 cases in our car, he spots me. He asks if I'm Russian. No, she's American, my husband tells the guy. "Mei guo ren! Li hai! Li hai!" or "American person! Awesome! Awesome!" he shouts. Yeah, we are pretty awesome, us Americans.

It's now that I notice my husband has no street food for us. He explains all the vendors are nowhere to be found, likely because they've already taken off for the holiday. and then he says something horrible: "Hey, let's go to my parents' for lunch!"

Suddenly, I hear screaming. I realize it's coming from me. One of those long, slow "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" screams. The baby had already woken up when the beer guy was loading up the car. She was intrigued by this wailing of mine. "I'd rather eat out of that garbage can!" I sulk, pointing out the window at an overflowing trash receptacle. Jeremy pats my hand and tells me if we just have a casual lunch with them, he can get them to leave us alone for the rest of the holiday, excluding the big CNY dinner of course. He's off work now for the holiday so he doesn't want his parents intruding on our time together either. Knowing that I'm still sad about my parents having to cancel their trip, he also offers me the most blissful gift of all for having to endure a meal at their horrible home...he says he will take me out to Shangri-La later this week. Ok, I tell him, but if I wind up with diarrhea, you owe me 2 separate Shangri-La dinners. He laughs at this but agrees, knowing full well this might be a possibility.

I also negotiate that he immediately pour me some alcoholic beverages once we get there. I wanted to attempt to be cheerful and let's face it, being around them does NOT make me a very chipper person. As we clomped up the stairs to their stink shack, I remembered that I could at least amuse myself by taking photos for this blog.

I haven't been forced to dine at Chez Puke, also known as my in-laws' house, in a year. Not since the last CNY. They rearranged the furniture but it's still all kinds of gross. Have a look...

Jeremy shows me where he sat for that ill-fated haircut of his. FIL has inexplicably covered most of the mirror on the wall behind Jeremy too. It made the place look bigger. Not anymore though.

This is their 2nd bedroom where the bed they gave Raelynn once was. Don't get me started on that bed again. And it seems all Chinese people's houses I've ever been to have a ton of random stuff that no one ever uses but they pile up for some day that will never arrive.

This tangle of cords on the floor is very typical style for my in-laws.

Here's MIL and FIL's bedroom. I looooooooove that they have this giant version of the insane acid trip sheets they gave both of our daughters. What, was there a special on this fabric? It feels like burlap, incidentally. I will never understand these people. Anyway, Raelynn and Seoul are playing and FIL is dutifully ensuring neither one of them falls off the bed. Their bed used to be up against the other wall but now there is space on 3 sides instead of just 2.

Oh, and check out what MIL is wearing!

She assembles the ugliest outfits ever. That green vest and those orange pants look like they were hurled into a vortex from the 1970s and somehow landed here in China. Gah!

Say, this looks familiar! At first, I thought it was the one they gave us. I thought they realized that we didn't like it when I'd casually moved it into our entertainment center shelf way in the back where it can't be seen. But I checked when we came home and ours is still there. So this is their very own evil bunny rabbit! I should just make hideous things like this and sell them here. I'd make millions because people here seem to buy the most atrocious of things...like that bed sheet that causes hallucinations from the other photos I just posted!

This is their table. Yes, they eat off of here and supposedly just ate before we came over. And now here is where we must eat. God. I can't even. And see the luo bo?!? Why do they cut up so many of them and strew them around?!? At least they do it in their own home too but it makes me insane that my in-laws and my own husband too will cut up several different luo bo and leave them around. JUST CUT UP ONE AND EAT IT ALL FIRST! GAH!!!!!!!!

FIL gave me this to try. It's some kind of Chinese alcohol. I expected it to be gross. It wasn't too bad though and it took the edge off, making it much easier to tolerate them and their house of mess. The funniest part was I offered to pour him some and he tells me that he's already had some. I was sincerely not at all surprised as I'd already suspected that to be the case. Of course he'd already had some! Sigh. Well, at least he doesn't smoke so there's that.

 And now for the food! She plops this mess in front of us...some cellophane noodles, cabbage and unidentifiable meat. Oh good. I grimace. I don't want to eat this. My husband deftly grabs a few pinches of this with his chopsticks and drops it like a bird turding onto a car right onto my rice. Ugh. It wasn't as nasty as I was expecting but in no way can I call this good.

 Zucchini and some sort of clam or scallop shellfish creature. This one wasn't bad. I simply feared for my stomach regarding the seafood. Had she stored it and cleaned it  properly? Well, if not, I would get another meal at the Shangri-La.

 OMG...MIL cleaned her kitchen! What? This is clean, for her.

 This is the floor along the kitchen wall by the way. Helppppp...

And now for some tomato, egg and shellfish. And slop! Ha! The slop is actually a primitive la pi dish. La pi is potato noodles in a garlicky, peanut-flavored sauce. It is very good. It's just very unattractive. Perhaps she's practicing for the big CNY meal because Jeremy asked her to make it for that occasion but to formally be la pi, it needs some vegetables tossed in there. The tomato and egg thing is just a typical dish Chinese people serve here. It's not a bad dish. But she has made it better than she did on this day. When I got my hair done, she made it then and that night, she made it awesome.

MIL also busted out a plate of that Western-style ham. Raelynn is happy. She likes this stuff. Most of the time, she eats whatever MIL serves her. You'd think maybe the kid has no idea what good food is but she really raves about Jeremy's cooking and mine too. As long as she's eating all kinds of food, I guess that's what matters.

Anyway, stay tuned for my big Chinese New Year post in the next few days. I will be documenting the whole holiday for your amusement.

Well, I'll Be!

Sometimes, MIL amazes me. Like when she made this...

Why, it's not barf in a bowl! It's yu xiang rou si, my favorite pork dish! It's thin slices of pork, potatoes, green peppers and carrots in a spicy yet sweet sauce. It rules. And hold on to your hat because I'm going to say something I very seldom say: MIL rocked it.

Yes. She really did. It was better than in any restaurant. No, I didn't bang my head on anything. I really, truly mean it. Remember, she does a wonderful job cooking for the Chinese New Year celebrations. So why then does everything else she makes look and taste like vomit? Jeremy may have found the answer.

She's lazy. He said he was talking to her about her cooking. She expressed disappointment that I was unhappy with her food. She didn't know what to make for me any more. So Jeremy reminded her that I don't like to eat the same things every single day and that I like variety. She complained that I don't like Chinese food and that's where he set her straight. No, Jennifer loves GOOD Chinese food. You keep slopping together things like you don't care about the ingredients. He told her if she made this dish, I'd be thrilled. Good job, Honey!

I wonder how many times she'll make it this week though. Oy.

MIL might have had some success with her cuisine this evening, but she did leave a bunch of questionable crap in the kitchen of course.

 A severed luo bo! Oh joy! Thank you!

 A partially used carrot. If we had snow (oh how I wish!), we could use this for a snowman's nose.

I'm not quite sure what's up with this. It seems to be the mixture she'd put into a dumpling in the same bowl as a raw egg. It's rather odd, even for her.

$10 says this hot mess is still out when I come home from work tomorrow.

Hey-la, Hey-la, The Barf Is Back!

For tonight's dinner, as I approach the table, I find chicken wings and a seaweed salad.

Nothing wrong with those items. But our large serving bowl is out, with the lid on top. Gingerly, I lift the lid, and this is what I find...

The barf! It's back!

Well, to be honest, it looks like a different kind of barf. But it's still barf. Blech!

The Good Stuff

I always liked Chinese food growing up. When we went to our favorite Chinese restaurant, which was a place right around the corner called Jade Garden, I was always delighted. I loved the shrimp with lobster sauce. If you ask my brother and my dad, they'll have slightly less found memories because I didn't want to share my shrimp with anyone. If they tried to take a shrimp from my plate, I cried. Sounds like Raelynn, huh? Anyway, I still get teased about this. Except when they come visit me IN China because at least here in Qingdao, there is no shrimp with lobster sauce.

Yes, Chinese food in America is quite Americanized. But that doesn't mean that all of it is made up to pander to our American palates.

You might think based on my Someone Made Me Eat This posts that I dislike authentic Chinese food. True that I grow weary of it if I have to eat it daily, I truly like Chinese food. When it's prepared properly. And we've seen how MIL prepares it. Jeremy laughs every time I tell him his mother makes me hate Chinese food. And he also smiles big when I tell him he makes me fall back in love with it.

My husband knows a thing or two about flavors. Plus he's lived abroad in Korea before and he's eaten food from other countries. So when he cooks, he really makes things taste good. I wish he'd show his mom how to cook.

Sure, she makes some things good. Her dumplings are pretty good, especially the ones she makes with leeks and pork. But I hate that she uses the flour that she uses. It makes everything taste very gummy and glutenousy. Jeremy once didn't understand my complaint about the flour. Why couldn't I use it to make pie crust or bread or all the other stuff I wanted to make with it? Why did he need to buy more flour when we had a giant sack of it? Now he knows better. But she still doesn't. She insists the flour she buys is the best. Of course she does.

On weekends, we like to go out for a meal. We're mostly saving our money for America, but we can afford to eat out somewhere at least once a week. Places that serve Western food are usually much more expensive so unless it's a special occasion or I'm dying for something I can't make at home, we usually go out for Chinese food.

Even though MIL cooks for us 4 days a week, I really don't mind going out for Chinese on a Sunday afternoon. Because we always go somewhere good. Like the Sichuan place.

That's what I call it. There are tons of Sichuan restaurants here. This one is close to Minjiang Road. It's always got gobs of people in it. My friend Jon and his wife introduced it to us and we keep going back because it's really quite good. They've got lots of spicy things, which is why we're thinking of taking my parents there when they visit in February, if it's still open during the Chinese New Year that is. If I want to eat there, I just tell my husband "The Sichuan Place" and he knows what I want.

Sometimes, I simply request barbecue. Chinese barbecue is so popular in Qingdao. There are lots of good places. I just let Jeremy use his expertise as most of them can be dirty. And by that, I don't mean the floors (most places in China have dirty floors) but the food. My husband says that many barbecue places will use rotting meat or lie about where the meat came from. He looks for places where you can see the kitchen and where it's very crowded. We're currently trying to decide which place will be open during the Chinese New Year because squid on a stick and beer will make my dad the happiest daddy ever.

But my favorite of the casual Chinese places in Qingdao is without a doubt the one I call "Ugly But Delicious." This place rules.

Excuse the craptacular photo. I was sitting in the car with the children while my husband ran in to get an order of dumplings on our way home from church the other day. I'll get to those in a moment.

This place is called Jiaozi Guan, which Jeremy says basically means "House of Dumplings." It has other stuff too. It's a hole in the wall, as my folks would call it, but if we have a chance, we'd love to take them here. The decor is blah and the floors are often scary but the food is served up by a chef that's quite famous in Qingdao. I admit, the first time my husband took us here, I was very skeptical. Then I took a bite of the food. Since then, I often request we eat at this place.

They have pepper steak, which you'll find in Chinese restaurants in America and it is SO good. The Sichuan Place I mentioned before also has that dish but this place does it much better, much cheaper and gives you a larger portion too.

Because of MIL, I feel kind of blah about dumplings now. Unless we get them from here. Especially if they are filled with cucumber and egg. I know, I know. That sounds barfy but let me just tell you how fanfreakingtastic those are. I am entirely serious when I say they are the best dumplings I've ever had.

Unlike MIL, they use a good flour and they focus on the filling, not the wrapping. When Jeremy told his mother how wonderful these dumplings are and how we like that the casing is so light and not too thick she told him that they were being cheap for not using enough flour. I'm not joking. I laughed so hard I cried. Even Jeremy laughed. God, she's hilarious, right? Yes, that's it. Because flour is so expensive. NOT! MIL flies through flour and oil like the world is coming to an end and she needs to use it all in one night.

Anyway, if you're in Qingdao and reading this, Jiaozi Guan is on Jiangxi Road. Take a Chinese person with you if you cannot read or speak Chinese as the menu is completely in Chinese with no photos. It's worth it though, I promise. Amazing food, and great prices too.

Oh, there is one more thing I've found to love about food here in China. And that's these little snack sandwiches. We had them at a barbecue place not too long ago and I fell in love with them. While out shopping in Taidong the other day, Jeremy saw a place selling them and picked us up some to try. He watched as they were prepared, mentally taking notes so he could try to make them for us at home. The ones he bought us were really delicious. That night, Jeremy made us some more.

 Here's Jeremy's Chinese sandwich after a few bites. Very tasty!

 My husband, the sandwich model.

Mmm...mmm...mmm! That's one tasty sandwich! It's slow-cooked pork chopped up with onions and peppers. Only we didn't have onions and peppers so he left that out this time. It was still good though, but I am looking forward to his next batch. Thanks for helping me enjoy Chinese food again, Honey! I love you!

Someone Made Me Eat This: S.O.S. Help Me

I haven't done a S.M.M.E.T. post in a while. I've just been too lazy to keep track of all the crappy food MIL makes for us. Thankfully, none of it has been as THIS meal. Lately, she's made things I like but the problem is she makes those same things over and over. Like every day. To the point where I just want to cry. If I wasn't breastfeeding, I was just starve myself, but Seoul needs me to eat, and thus, my torture begins.

Today I decided that no matter what, I'd be sure to photograph our meal. So here you go...

 Augh! What is that? Vomit soup? No, it's just MIL's cabbage and egg soup. It looks far more disgusting than it tastes, which I guess is a positive. Still, it's not anything I seek out to eat and I resent being told it's delicious and I have to eat it. Tell me it's delicious and I have to eat it one more time and watch how quickly you will be wearing it.

 Um...what? Are those random picked-clean bones in there? It's scary, isn't it? It kind of reminds me of the owl barf pellets that we had to pick through in middle school science class.

What's extra funny about this is that last Sunday, I'd made roasted chicken with vegetables using the poultry seasoning my mom sent. It was perfect and Jeremy and Raelynn devoured it. Jeremy told me 5 times while he was still in the process of eating it that I should make it again as soon as possible. So I did yesterday but with pork because MIL has been overdoing it with the chicken lately. And again, it was heavenly. I guess my husband relayed this information to his mother who did her best to duplicate my special Sunday dinner.

Can't blame her for trying, can I? The good news is that it only looks disgusting. It tasted great (though nowhere near as wonderful as mine did). The bones you see are from the chicken she cooked in there, which she cut up into pieces and scattered throughout the dish. Why leave the bones then? So weird, but then again, so is she.

 Close-up of chicken bone. Mmmm...not!

And here we have fried and greasy fish with lots of bones in it. I hate how people eat these tiny fish here. I'd use this to catch a big fish. The worse part is my husband makes me eat it because "fish is good for you." Yes, that's true, when it's not fried in gallons of oil. At least he picks out the bones for me. But I resent having to eat this. I like cooking and it makes me happy when I get to cook and eat things that I like. Instead, 4 days a week I am forced to eat Chinese food, which I used to like until I had to eat her substandard retchtacular puke on a plate. When Jeremy cooks or we go out to a good Chinese place, it's amazing how much happier I am to eat the cuisine from this country. I promise I'll blog about that very soon but for now, Mommy duties are calling.