Wednesday, April 20, 2011

New Life in Bhutan

Where the hell is Bhutan you might ask? It's one of the last remaining kingdoms in the world. It is located between China and India near Nepal and Bangladesh. Called "one of the last Shangri-la's" it is nearly impossible to find much information about the country anywhere but from inside the country (a little ironic I know). Its been nearly three weeks in this gorgeous country and I wonder why more people don't know about it... Then I remember that there is only one airline that flies into Bhutan (their fleet consists of 2 planes), visas are difficult to get and extremely expensive ($200 per day for tourists), and it sits between two of the most populated countries in the world...

I came here to fulfill a dream of mine (to live and work in a different country) and to experience something new. Adjusting to life has been difficult, modern conveniences of home are almost non-existent here, save for a few TV's and the internet in certain areas. The new chapter in this life begins and I am ready to cook and eat my way through as much of Bhutan as possible and hopefully the rest of Asia in the future.

Food pictures and posts will follow soon. For now, landscape photos will have to suffice...

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Homemade Pho


Thanks to my annual Asian grocery shopping trip, I was able to make Pho and it was delicious. ( sorry for blurry cellphone picture )

Friday, April 8, 2011

Mock Foods, Why?



So I went on my yearly pilgrimage to an Asian grocery store in Massachusetts earlier today. And as usual, I found a wide variety of goodies from fresh Asian produce to dried fish and chinese sausage. But I also found a couple of things that was quite interesting and confusing at the same time. There they were, next to the produce section, a wide varieties of vegetarian/vegan products. The ones that really caught my eyes were these "vegetarian kidneys and tripe. My immediate thought was "wow these are cool and weird, who would buy these?" Then I was confused because from what I've seen time and time again, vegetarian/vegan products are often made to mimic products from real animals. Why in the world would you want to turn vegetable protein into a tripe/kidneys looking thing. Are there actually vegetarians out there who wonders what tripe or kidneys tastes like? I mean I just don't get it, seriously. There is no way a piece of tofu will taste like veal kidneys, so why make it into the shape of kidneys? I mean "mock duck" doesn't taste like duck so why make it look like pieces of duck meat? Maybe one day I will see "Mock kidneys" or "Mock Tripe" on a menu at a vegetarian restaurant.... but hopefully not.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

New Reading Material


Due to my fondness of anything anything that has to do with dumplings, raviolis or other filled pasta/dough, I recently purchased a book called Asian Dumplings. The book is great because i think when most people hear "Asian Dumplings", they automatically think of things like Chinese dumplings and gyoza. But amongst your typical dumpling recipes, this book contains recipes for things like BBQ pork buns ( char siu bao ), Curry Puffs and Har Gow. The recipes are easy to follow, though some of the ingredients may take some researching to obtain. Overall, I am happy with this book and will be trying many recipes from it. And if you are obsessed with dumplings like I am, this is the book to get.

Monday, April 4, 2011

when the budget is tight, I hang out at bookstores.

So basically I found that when my budget is really tight, and I don't have money to spare on books that I want to buy, I just go and hang out at book stores. I really do love the fact that I can just grab my laptop and go hang out at a bookstore for a few hours on my day off. I usually find lots of inspiring recipes from browsing through cook book and whatever ideas pop up in my head I just type away on my laptop. It's a great way to save money and just relax and lose myself in the books. I'm actually at a book store right now...
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