Popular Posts

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Suffering Succotash

Of all the Thanksgiving traditions I bring to my Brits in China, succotash is the one I don't really have a personal connection with. My mom never made it. I don't recall any Thanksgiving I've attended where it has made an appearance, but for some reason...

Maybe it's the name. It just sounds like the Native American names from home. Maybe it's that the Brits don't know it, so it's that much more fun to explain it to me. Maybe it's just that it's so American, and I do miss America. Maybe it's that I miss the South, too. Yes, the first Thanksgiving was in New England, but I've only ever eaten succotash at Elmo's Diner. God bless Elmo's.

The thing is, it's practically impossible to get lima beans in Beijing. I think I used cranberry beans the first year. Last year, I found lima-Bean-esque beans, but (like all vegetables in China) they were grown to obscene proportions. I don't want to eat a bean as big as my nose. It ruins the whole bean to cream ratio.

This year, I swore no succotash unless I found limas. And there were no limas to be had.

And then I saw them: canned butter beans. I had a momentary flashback to Harris Teeter in Chapel Hill. I was with my roommate and her family, and her mother was looking for (fresh) butter beans. I had some idea they were like green beans. Obviously, I had no idea what a butter bean was. No, I was told, they were more like lima beans.

So I bought them.

I Googled it tonight, just to make sure. Turns out, when you Google "butter beans" you get told they are "lima beans" (well, with only mild, minor differences). Yes, I cackled like a kitchen witch when I read that. My neighbors must think I'm dancing on the burned bones of a dead baby in my blood-spattered pentagram (which, I'll have you know I had to rely on auto-correct to spell correctly, just in case you think I really have a five-pointed star on my living room floor). But that's just how evil my laugh was.

I mean, come on. I just found lima beans in Beijing. I really am that awesome.


- Do you really care this was posted using BlogPress from my iPad?

Location:Beijing, China

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Popsicle Toes

As you might know, since I harp on it every year, the heat is not turned on according to the weather, it's turned on according to the calendar. The date the heat comes on is November 15 and it goes off on March 15, regardless of actual outside conditions. Of course, I'm lucky enough to live north of the whatever river because of you live south of it, you don't get any heat at all. Also, since this is state-sponsored heat, it is landlord paid — by law.

But it's cold. I've been cold for a good two and a half weeks. I've been wearing wool socks for twenty-four hours a day (that's right Celess, I put the socks on in the morning and only take them off when I wake back up and hop in the shower). I get home and, in Mr. Rogers fashion, change out of my work clothes and into, not a zip-up cardigan, but a down puffy.

It's the awful dread of the icy grave that pains...

Well, this morning I woke up to my cold apartment, got dressed, ate, and headed out to school — only to discover that it was raining. Ugh.

I took a moment to deal with my frustration and considered my options. A taxi is possible, but would involve waiting outside for a taxi in the rain. A bus involves the same thing, and while the bus is cheap, it takes two buses to get to school and there's always the possibility of running into a train. A taxi has the same problem, of course. So biking is really the only way to go, even in the rain. It's just so much quicker, and I really had to go to school.

Fortunately, I remembered that I had (fortunately) brought my rain pants (rain trousers?) with me. So. I switched out my fur hat for a ball cap, unzipped. Y hood, and donned my rain trousers and headed out.

Fast forward to my return journey. It was later. Darker. Colder. And raining harder. I'm not scared of the rain having once spent ten days of the bicycle in the rain, but it's nicer when the apartment is warm in the other end. Still, I have a stellar hot water heater and plenty of dry clothes (and a supply of wool socks and a down puffy).

I walked in the door, stripped off my wet clothes, and headed to the shower — only to realize I forgot to bring my slippers with me. Standing on the cold, tile floor with bare feet is not fun. So, even though I had already removed my socks, I figured it would be better to get my slippers before getting warm in the shower.

I stepped out of the bathroom. Wait, this tile didn't feel so cold. Wait, my laminate floor didn't seem so cold, either. Hold on. Hold. On.

Is the heat on?

I scurried back to the bathroom (which has an old school radiator) to check said radiator. It was warm!

Yes. I have heat. I suspect I have the 18th National People's Congress to thank for keeping us all warm and sedated here in the capital.

- Do you really care this was posted using BlogPress from my iPad?

Location:Beijing, China

Friday, November 2, 2012

The British Are Coming!

So, all this "thankfulness" talk on Facebook has inspired me to write a "month" of posts about what I'm thankful for. (Or, to let me expound on my Facebook thankful posts because I like hearing myself think, one.)

So, for today's easy "I was going to write this anyway but really didn't have a good reason, and it's short, too" post, I give you:

The Top Five Things the British Are Good At (or: Why I'm Secretly Thankful I Spent Two Years Working with a Bunch of British Blokes)

5. Taking over the world
4. Cheese
3. Pop rock (as in rock 'n roll, not the candy)
2. Use of the word "piss"
1. Mystery novels


- Do you really care this was posted using BlogPress from my iPad?

Location:Beijing, China