Peanut Butter Adventure

Just to let all you readers know, for the first 21 years of my life my peanut butter, spread between two pieces of white bread, was always accompanied by classic JELLY. After I married Renee, she began to refine my palette to begin eating the better things in life…like JAM. So as of the last 6 years, I have been enjoying my peanut butter coupled with various kinds of jams. Well, now that I am well into my 27's and heading straight towards my 28's, I figured I would go out on a limb and try some different variations to my peanut butter sandwich. In the last two days I have gone with two different variations. Yesterday I went with a peanut butter and banana sandwich. This is a sandwich of myths that I remember seeing on the plethora of kids shows that I got to watch growing up. It was quite enjoyable, but it was not quite on the level of peanut butter and jam, sorry Chiquita. Today I went with the ever loving peanut butter and honey combination. Maybe it was the honey that I used, but it didn't bring out the peanutty flavor that jam brings out. So thus far my adventure has shown me that a good ole peanut butter and jam sandwich is the way to go.

Feel free to shoot me any suggestions for combinations with my peanut butter (be realistic). Not sure I will try a peanut butter and bologna sandwich, but I am pretty open to non-meat combinations with my peanut butter.

Heart Breaking

On Sunday morning, Maddie was sitting on our bed as we were changing our little guest. All of the sudden, Maddie started saying that her stomach hurt and that her back started to hurt. We asked her what was wrong with her and, in classic form, she replied by saying, "I think…I think…I think my heart is breaking." I had to stand there and try to hold myself back from laughing really loud as this was a classic line. I guess I can contribute her knowing about heart breaks to her watching those Disney Princess movies, but it was still a classic line.

Food-Extravaganza

One last thing about my San Francisco trip was some of the goods eats that I got while I was there (and not busy).

In n Out Burger – Proclaimed by many to be one of the best (if not the best) fast food burger out there. Actually the last time I went to In n Out I was a little disappointed by the regular Double Double. Not to be one that just gives up on places, I decided to venture towards the not so "secret" menu and get a Double Double Animal Style. This was my first night back in the US and it didn't disappoint, in fact I was thoroughly impressed. This thing had all the right things in all the right places (wait, am I talking about a hamburger?). This burger put me back on the In n Out bandwagon, I can't wait for my next one.

Darby Dan's – I usually stay in South San Francisco (SSF) when I go to the US and, in addition to the city being the self proclaimed "birthplace of biotechnology," it is also a hub for really good HUGE deli sandwiches (see the picture, not taken by me). Now I am not saying they can compete with the folks in NYC, but these sandwiches each come with their own personality and one of the places that I have glommed onto is Darby Dan's. This time around I went for the Sleeper, which is basically turkey, ham, provolone and bacon with all the weird fixin's this place puts on their sandwiches. This is by far one of the best sandwiches I have ever had, it was absolutely stupendious. If you happen to flying into SFO airport (which is also in SSF), you might want to make a quick detour to this place, it is a true experience.

Patxis Pizza – Chicago deep dish pizza right in the heart of…Palo Alto? Okay, maybe not the mecca of Chicago deep dish, but these guys must have spent some time in the windy city as they know what they are doing. For me, the Chicago deep dish is all about great sauce and great crust and this place is doing a good job with both of those. My only complaint is the crust is a little salty, not sure if it supposed to be, but I almost remember seeing deer outside the shop licking a pile of crust…oh well, this was another solid choice.

La Tapatia – In a land where there is no even halfway decent Mexican food, I come back to the states with Mexican food on the mind. La Tapatia is a tacqueria in SSF that is leaps and bounds above any kind of Mexican I can get on the east coast (China of course I can't get anything good). This time around I decided on the carne asada burrito, and this was a great choice. Everything that I could wish after living in the desert of Mexican food, very delightful.

So if you are ever in the bay area, all of the places noted above would make for a good stop, too bad when I am living in China I am over 6,000 miles away from these places and when I live in the US I am over 3,000 miles away from these place…oh well.

#201

Okay, so I guess I completely missed my 200th post. It is most likely because I tend to post multiple posts at a time. Well it took me longer then I thought to get to 200, hopefully 300 will be right around the corner. Nonetheless, I give myself a pat on the back for at least updating this thing once a month.

LaRouche means La Crazy

On an earlier post, I mentioned that I sat next to an Australian guy who was a part of the Larouche Youth Movement. This movement is an underling of the "infamous" political/economist Lyndon LaRouche. I had no idea who this LaRouche guy was when his name was mentioned on the plane, but after doing some research, I can see that the guy I was talking to worked for a crazy man. In my discussions with the guy, I noticed that he had some weird views about some current political and economic issues, so I tried to counter point all his views (not argue, just inquire with counter points), but they seemed to be brushed off, a sign that the guy really had no answer to my counter points, mostly because the counter points were logical and his views were not.

The only other thing that was really weird was that this youth movement he is a part of gets their message out via African American Spiritual singing. When he said this to me, I just fell silent... as I typically do not respond to crazy.

Happy Birthday

A big happy birthday to my wife (one day late here in China, but right on time in the US). I have no idea how my wife spent her birthday as I am away on a business trip. Anyway, to the love of my life (I couldn't think of a better cliche) a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY...LOVE YOU!!!!

It's been a while

Over the last couple of months, I seem to be apologizing a lot for not posting on my blog. I just got back from a business related trip to San Francisco along with now being outside of Guangzhou. I had a lot of prep for my San Francisco trip, so that took up my free time, so again I apologize.

I will try to catch you all up on things going on since my last post. First story related to my plane flight to/from San Francisco. My flight went via Beijing, so there was a small layover in Beijing. While I was walking through Beijing's new terminal (two quick things to note about this, Beijing's new terminal is actually made up of many new terminals and is pretty much a new airport, also I came from Shanghai's new terminal, so I am just walking through all kinds of new terminals...now back to the story), for some reason I was thinking what I would do if someone wanted to switch seats with me on the flight (flight duration is 11.5 hours). I came to the resolution that I would give up my seat if asked. Not sure why I was thinking this or why I came to that conclusion, but thus are the thoughts when you have free time in an airport terminal.

Well, you can guess, when I got onto the plane someone sitting in my aisle seat said that he was sitting next to his friend and asked if I could switch seats and he pointed to the middle seat in the row in front of him. My first thought, 11.5 hours in a middle seat, my second thought was to quickly scan the people who I would be in between....a petite middle aged Chinese women and a red haired normal sized Australian (at least I found out the Australian part during the flight). But I went with my conclusion from sitting in the terminal earlier and said it was okay and sat in the middle seat. Actually it worked out okay, the middle seat is not that comfortable, especially for those long flights, but I had a good conversation with the guy I was sitting next too. Note that he worked for this economist Larouche that I had never heard of, but he had some pretty interesting views on things (not always the right views as you can see from the website, but it made for interesting conversation).

To wrap up this story, it should be noted that on my flight home from San Fran to Beijing then from Beijing to Shanghai the plans were not more then 1/4 full, so on both flights I had a full row to myself. Some may say coincidence, but I am convinced it was because I gave up my seat that the planes home were empty. Actually the person checking me in said the plane is rarely this empty...so there you go.

Just some pictures

A "friend" of ours has been busy as of late so we have had the opportunity to look after their baby (note that this is "un-related" to an earlier post). Attached are some pictures of the baby for you all to enjoy:

Soulfood in Shanghai

I really really hope this post doesn't come up for anyone who is truly looking for soulfood in Shanghai, because if you are, then I'm sorry, I can't help.

Even though more and more American style foods are becoming available in the grocery stores here, the items are fairly expensive since they are imported from the States (not to mention the 17% customs tax added to it). As a result, Renee has been trying to make things from scratch. These things include homemade corn tortillas, homemade biscuits, homemade cornbread (no, this is not a picture that i took), homemade chicken pot pie, etc. In fact, while our domestic helper, Fen, cooks Chinese for us most of the week, she has begun to pick up some recipes from Renee and try to refine some of her cooking to include western items that we like. Hence, when I look back on this week's array of foods that I sat down to eat at home, I noticed that we had quite the American spread. Our meals included such Southern comfort favorites such as fried chicken, ribs (Chinese style), and biscuits and gravy. Throw in a spattering of homemade Gung Bao Chicken (in the US it is referred to as Kung Pao Chicken) along with rice, noodles, and some vegetables and I guess we are not really suffering for good food over here.

So if you happen to have found this posting by a google search, just come on by and you might have a chance of having some good soulfood, you might even have luck and come when we are serving Chicken Fried Cat...it's da bomb.

Three Guests, Two Birthdays, One Sleepless Night

Yes this all happened over the past 3 days, so needless to say it was a pretty busy weekend. A big Happy Birthday to Maddie and Jacob (Maddie turned 4 on the 28th of June and Jacob turned 2 on the 29th of June). Here in Shanghai most of the expat families have begun the exodus back to their home countries, so we didn't have big parties for them, we will try to put something together at the end of the summer when all her friends come back to Shanghai.

On Saturday we began turtle watching...yes turtle watching...for our neighbors upstairs. We will be watching their two small pet turtles for the next week. They are really easy to take care of, basically we have too feed them once a day and just keep them out on our porch, basically these are the type of guests I wish would come and visit us more often.

The one sleepless night related to the third guest that has come to visit us. I am going to be very cryptic with this next paragraph of blogging, if any of you have questions, just get in contact with Renee or I (or leave me a comment and I can get back to you). I am being cryptic because there are people that don't need to know certain things, so I am not going to reveal anything too detailed. This third little guest might be the subject of some upcoming blogs, so I feel that I have to at least mention the guest. The guest led to a long sleepless night last night, but the guest has been really fun to have around thus far. Anyway, running on fumes this morning, but I think I can make it through the day.