We're back

It was an great trip! Six days in Hong Kong and four in Shanghai. We walked countless miles, and still managed to put on 15 pounds between the two of us. We've got tons of pictures that I've only just started to sort through, but we were overdue for a blog post about the trip. Rather than go through the entire day-by-day rehashing, I'm just going to give you a few snippets:

1. For some reason, both Hong Kong and Shanghai like to put corn in everything. Countless opportunities to pull out the old Brad impression: "It's got corn." There's corn on the pizza, corn in the noodles, corn cups at McDonalds, coconut sticky rice dessert accented with a single kernel of corn on top.... I ordered eggs and toast for breakfast, and out it came, with a little cup of corn on the side.

2. Hong Kong's residents really know how to "queue up", but Shanghai's residents do not. In Hong Kong, you would see orderly, single file lines even at bus stops. In Shanghai, it's every man for himself.

3. I think that the national sport of Hong Kong must be shopping. Everywhere you turn, there's a shopping mall. Every subway station, ferry terminal, and large building seems to be a shopping mall. Every street is lined with small shops. Even the alleys are full of stalls selling things. It's like a never-ending shopper's paradise, with everything you could ever want.

4. In Shanghai, the "Bund Sightseeing Tunnel" is absolutely one of the most bizarre, trippy rides you'll ever take. I wish I had a picture of our faces as we were riding through. To quote Lonely Planet, "Stepping from the trains at the terminus, visitors are visibly nonplussed, their disbelief surpassed only by those with return tickets." We only rode it one way.

The Curse of the Lettuce Monster

Last post, I mentioned that we had joined a CSA. Each week we receive a box of fresh produce from a local farm. The first few weeks we received a lot of greens. This week, we got more variety.

Here is what was in the box this week:

A large head of broccoli, some daikon radishes, and a pint of baby squash

A kohlrabi, some spring onions, and a large head of tatsoi

And two heads of lettuce (one red, one green) and a quart of strawberries

Every week, we have received two giant heads of lettuce. It's lovely lettuce, but it's taking over the refrigerator! And although I like salad, I don't love it so much that I want to eat it every day. Earlier this week, in desperation, I made lettuce soup. It wasn't particularly tasty, but it used up a lot of lettuce, so I was finally feeling that I had tamed the lettuce monster... and now I have two more heads to deal with!

The baby squashes are going to be fun to use, and the broccoli looks great. I've never fixed kohlrabi before, so that should be interesting.

Eating local

We've recently joined a CSA that provides us with a weekly box of fresh local vegetables. It's been a challenge, trying to cook all of the greens we've been getting. If anyone has any suggestions for how we can use up 2 large heads of lettuce without eating salads every day, please let us know!

I've been reading a lot lately about eating locally. It's an interesting idea, and one that makes sense. Why buy strawberries that have been shipped all the way across the continent instead of strawberries grown 30 minutes away?
There really are a lot of local food options for us here in the Lowcountry - seafood, meat, rice, grits, tea, honey, fruits, and veggies. Which brings me to the subject of our dinner last night: Cheeseburger salad.


Hamburger with mozzarella cheese, red and green leaf lettuce, daikon radish, and roasted beets. All the ingredients were grown and produced within an hour's drive from our apartment. Served with local beer and a semi-local salad dressing.

Other odds and ends:

-Mike will be finished with school on Friday!! Hooray!!

-Our trip to China is officially on, we'll be leaving on the 19th. We've gotten our shots, and we'll hopefully have our visas soon. I'm trying to learn a little bit of Cantonese, but it's tough. Thankfully, I think I'll be able to get away with just English in Hong Kong. The little Mandarin I know seems to be coming back to me, which may be useful in Shanghai. Then again, the odds are that if we're really in a bind, my ability to order a beer in Mandarin is probably not going to be that useful.

-We visited Atlanta a week ago. Got to do some shopping, eat dim sum, and visit family. It was a nice break from the usual grind here.

My favorite vege-tables

Yesterday, I was shopping at Stono Farm Market and the owner mentioned that they would be opening their U-pick strawberry fields today. That's one and a half months earlier than expected (thanks, global warming!). Since Mike and I love strawberries, I figured I would check it out.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and I managed to restrain myself and only picked about 2 pounds of strawberries. Hopefully we'll be able to eat that many without getting sick of them. And I definitely plan on going back again several times.

When I got home, I baked a batch of shortcakes and whipped up some cream.
Ladies and gentleman, I give you the first strawberry shortcake of the season:

And, as I was paying for my berries, I noticed that they had a table of other produce from the farm. They had some various lettuces, and these carrots:

Only about 2-3 inches long, they were too cute to pass up. I'm looking forward to seeing what other cool fruits and veggies we'll get as the summer approaches.

Oscar Picks

For whatever reason, making Oscar predictions really hasn't been that exciting this year. I'll definitely watch tonight, and I'm sort of excited about Jon Stewart hosting, but there just aren't many categories that I had a difficult time with. So I'm posting my picks here, with the usual disclaimer that I reserve the right to change my picks until the start of the Awards broadcast. However, I don't really anticipate changing any of my choices.

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men
Best Actress: Julie Christie
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem
Best Director: The Coen brothers
Original Screenplay: Juno
Adapted Screenplay: No Country for Old Men
Foreign Language Film: The Counterfeiters
Animated Picture: Ratatouille
Art Direction: There Will be Blood
Cinematography: No Country for Old Men
Costumes: Atonement
Documentary Feature: No End in Sight
Documentary Short Subject: Sari's Mother
Editing: No Country for Old Men
Makeup: Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End
Original Score: Atonement
Original Song: "Falling Slowly" from Once
Animated Short: I Met the Walrus
Live Action Short: Tanghi Argentini
Sound Editing: Transformers
Sound Mixing: Transformers
Visual Effects: Transformers