Chances are when you meet me you'll love me.
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Trains in China are so much better than Amtrack in NYC, short movies, news, reclining seats, clean bright areas, and usually pretty quiet. Oh yeah and a ticket from Shanghai to Hangzhou is about 14 USD.
Going Shopping
Going shopping in Shanghai as a foreigner can be a bit of a difficulty especially when you want to make something from your home country. My specialty is Italian American cooking and getting the main ingredients of fennel, fresh mozzarella, semolina, cold pressed olive oil from Spain (you wouldn’t believe how many people here think you can cook with virgin olive oil), fresh green olives, sundried tomatoes, new world eggplants, and good quality hard cheese.
In China there are three types of places to buy food: wet markets, Chinese style supermarkets and Western / import supermarkets.
Wet markets are usually open air or in a concrete sort of block / warehouse area where you usually have fish tanks, fruit sellers, vegetable sellers, arbiters where you used to be able to find a live chicken of choice and have it pared down nicely and quickly to feet and bills. The upside to the wet markets are that there is one in every neighborhood, cheap and as a foreigner a good place to practice your Chinese. The down side is that places like this is probably where the latest outbreak of bird flu started because where you kill the chickens is usually not clean or well ventilated and the birds often aren’t too good looking. Also the open fish tanks and rotting produce and fruits can lend an unsavory air to the surrounding blocks.
Chinese style supermarkets are laid out similar to those that you would find at home except with the obvious focus on Chinese ingredients. Once again the prices are reasonable, the selection is seasonal meaning that the fruit, veggies and even seafood is pretty flavorful and unlike the wet market you can get dry ingredients like some awesome dried fruit, interesting Japanese snacks and a large amount of Korean sauces. However, the downside is the butchers’ sections features a lot of open air access to meats (especially pork and beef) were you are encouraged to grab and bag with your own hands. Also because this is considered the middle / upper class Chinese shopping option you often have to fight the crowds and mow down old ladies to get what you want.
On the upper rim of food shopping are the Western / import stores where you can find almost everything you want from your home country. Ice-creams, beers, wines, cured meats and cheeses from Europe, baking supplies from the states, coffee from Indonesia, candies from England and sort of the best of the best from around the world. However, the prices tend to exorbitant and almost impossible to do as a weekly shop. When Alan and I first found out we were expecting we decided to go out and splash out on a weekly shop but at City Shop THE western import store here. What would normally be about 250 RMB shop (41 USD) at a Chinese supermarket was 690 RMB (111 USD) and although it was wonderful to have all of the fun things we’d normally get at home, but it was incredibly insane the price.
However, lately through some skimming on the internet I found out about the Avocado Lady. Her small shop (maybe about 100 square feet, is a wonderful combination of Western and Chinese supermarket. I can get all the Western things I want (including amazing cookie sandwiches, sausages, sun dried tomatoes, basil (both Thai and Italian), cereals, pancake mixes, and although the orientation is a bit of mess or a treasure hunt depending on your viewpoint it is a great place to get everything I need with a similar budget to the Chinese supermarket. I love taking the Man with me because he gets a bit flustered at the small spaces which suits me and B.B. perfectly because even at an expanded waistline of a size 6 and 151 lbs I can still get in between racks and into freezers which sort of elude the man because he’s a bit too tall. However, he enjoys giving me the chance the chance to be happy by looking, talking, smelling and getting to interact with food.
Supermarkets and Shopping
Going shopping in Shanghai as a foreigner can be a bit of a difficulty especially when you want to make something from your home country. My specialty is Italian American cooking and getting the main ingredients of fennel, fresh mozzarella, semolina, cold pressed olive oil from Spain (you wouldn’t believe how many people here think you can cook with virgin olive oil), fresh green olives, sundried tomatoes, new world eggplants, and good quality hard cheese.
In China there are three types of places to buy food: wet markets, Chinese style supermarkets and Western / import supermarkets.
Wet markets are usually open air or in a concrete sort of block / warehouse area where you usually have fish tanks, fruit sellers, vegetable sellers, arbiters where you used to be able to find a live chicken of choice and have it pared down nicely and quickly to feet and bills. The upside to the wet markets are that there is one in every neighborhood, cheap and as a foreigner a good place to practice your Chinese. The down side is that places like this is probably where the latest outbreak of bird flu started because where you kill the chickens is usually not clean or well ventilated and the birds often aren’t too good looking. Also the open fish tanks and rotting produce and fruits can lend an unsavory air to the surrounding blocks.
Chinese style supermarkets are laid out similar to those that you would find at home except with the obvious focus on Chinese ingredients. Once again the prices are reasonable, the selection is seasonal meaning that the fruit, veggies and even seafood is pretty flavorful and unlike the wet market you can get dry ingredients like some awesome dried fruit, interesting Japanese snacks and a large amount of Korean sauces. However, the downside is the butchers’ sections features a lot of open air access to meats (especially pork and beef) were you are encouraged to grab and bag with your own hands. Also because this is considered the middle / upper class Chinese shopping option you often have to fight the crowds and mow down old ladies to get what you want.
On the upper rim of food shopping are the Western / import stores where you can find almost everything you want from your home country. Ice-creams, beers, wines, cured meats and cheeses from Europe, baking supplies from the states, coffee from Indonesia, candies from England and sort of the best of the best from around the world. However, the prices tend to exorbitant and almost impossible to do as a weekly shop. When Alan and I first found out we were expecting we decided to go out and splash out on a weekly shop but at City Shop THE western import store here. What would normally be about 250 RMB shop (41 USD) at a Chinese supermarket was 690 RMB (111 USD) and although it was wonderful to have all of the fun things we’d normally get at home, but it was incredibly insane the price.
However, lately through some skimming on the internet I found out about the Avocado Lady. Her small shop (maybe about 100 square feet, is a wonderful combination of Western and Chinese supermarket. I can get all the Western things I want (including amazing cookie sandwiches, sausages, sun dried tomatoes, basil (both Thai and Italian), cereals, pancake mixes, and although the orientation is a bit of mess or a treasure hunt depending on your viewpoint it is a great place to get everything I need with a similar budget to the Chinese supermarket. I love taking the Man with me because he gets a bit flustered at the small spaces which suits me and B.B. perfectly because even at an expanded waistline of a size 6 and 151 lbs I can still get in between racks and into freezers which sort of elude the man because he’s a bit too tall. However, he enjoys giving me the chance the chance to be happy by looking, talking, smelling and getting to interact with food.
Photoset reblogged from Simply Charming with 22,762 notes
This is about how I feel when I have to go into work on my day off…
Source: sweetshibes
Photo with 4 notes
To show all of my family that I indeed do eat and can cook a super awesome BBQ drumsticks from scratch (including sauce).
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