BBQ

Some of you who know me are familiar with my love of barbecue. Grilling is really more accurate, because I'm not slow cooking with rich sauces. Regardless of which term you prefer, I pride myself on my Argentine grilling background and being able to turn some big chunks of meat into enjoyable meals and social events with some coals and fire.

A few weekends ago I was invited by my host father to join in the company barbecue just out of the city, in the county. A place called Chengqing lake. The barbecue area was beautiful, down off the road in a wooded area with shade everywhere extending down to the lake.

Sing with the Mayor of Kaohsiung!

Kind of.

As a Fulbrighter in Kaohsiung, the Kaohsiung International Education Resource Center (Bureau of Education) foots half of my paycheck. So, sometimes we get an email from them asking us to participate in certain bureau events, but without really asking us. It's like when Mom used to volunteer me to help out with random high school events or to decorate her offices at the hospital. That is, its really hard to turn down one of these invitations. This turned out to be a great opportunity, actually, because our carrot was that we were going to learn a song in Taiwanese and then sing it with the mayor, Chen Ju. She happens to be one of the most prominent members of the Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan, the pro-Taiwanese independence party. As Americans, I think we can all appreciate independence. Anyways, living in Kaohsiung, you get to hear a lot about the DPP and her in particular. Thiswas going to be a really big moment for me.

Rehearsal for Taiwanese song

Hot pot

A pretty common question I get whenever I have a mildly in-depth conversation with Taiwanese acquaintances is, "so, what's your favorite food here?"

Well, let me tell you, it's hot pot.

Spicy hot pot

Hot pot, legend has it, was invented by the Mongol hordes over or around 1,000 years ago. The story goes that, vegetables and whatever food was available was cooked in boiling water or broth, using a helmet as the "pot."

National Day

10/10/10 is a pretty auspicious day.
So, since this year's national day happens to be a trifecta date force, there was a huge party put on by the government.

Taiwan is a bountiful land

The date itself is pretty cool, but 10/10 happens to also be Taiwan's National Day. It's a little convoluted as far as the difference be "national" and "independence." 10/10 in Taiwan commemorates the Wuchang uprising, which eventually lead to the fall of the Qing dynasty, and the creation of the Republic of China, on the mainland, in 1912. When the KMT came to Taiwan in 1949, they brought the same national day with them.

So convenient

One thing that's been making it difficult for me to get in a lot of cooking or learn many new recipes is the convenience of eating out in Taiwan. Eating out is so convenient, that a majority of the Taiwanese that I have met do not cook. Restaurants are ubiquitous in a way that is quite different than the US. It's plain hard to not find a restaurant within sight. Maybe I haven't lived in enough big cities back in the states, and my conception of eating out is too formed by a smaller town dynamic, but, eating out is just, well, ridiculously convenient here.

Ruifeng night market

I survived the typhoon (and the hospital)

Well, it all started on my birthday.

...scalpel...

I had a terrific birthday dim-sum lunch that my co-teachers Winnie and Sunny took me out to and I thought I just ate too much, which I did. After lunch, we all headed over to the bureau of education headquarters to have our bi-weekly fulbright workshop with all the american and taiwanese english teachers. This was ok. Afterwards at about 4pm, I started having severe pain in my abdomen,

A Message from God

Jade Empress Temple

God laughed at me, then gave me a message.

Baseball is my favorite sport

Well, that's not technically true, I enjoy baseball back home, but its far from my favorite sport. Mostly, I watch Mariners games with Grandma, but I'm not a follower.

But, after going to a short Taiwanese professional game this past weekend, baseball has become my new temporary favorite sport.

Ma Po Tofu

Mapo Tofu

Howdy,

This week has been pretty busy, as with every week so far. As Fulbrighters, we are in the mutual selection process, in which we are grading possible elementary schools that we would be teaching at, while the Taiwanese english teachers (LETs), who we will be working with, are grading us. Last week we had actual teaching practice in which we were able to work together with LETs paired together by their school pairing. It was my first time teaching. I've never taught an actual class before, let alone english as a second language, to 5th graders. So it was great practice and a terrific exercise personally, and I felt like I learned a lot from that. 

Sadly, I haven't made much opportunity for cooking this past week. Luckily, Andy (my former Taiwanese roommate) was visiting and we were able to do a little cooking together. 

So here tis, Mapo Tofu:

Taro Seafood

Howdy,

Sorry if this is a bit late, i got hit with a sudden and unexpected 24 hr bug, maybe I ate too much roast duck last night, something I thought impossible... Seems like I'm doing better now.

Friday night we had family dinner. There are 12 fulbrighters all together, so a potluck style meal ended up being the way to feed all of us. For my contribution, I made "taro seafood." It jumped out at me because Yakima isn't the best place for taro cultivation and has been absent from my cooking repertoire in the past, even though I've enjoyed trying it throughout my travels.

One of the best parts about preparing this was purchasing the seafood (shrimp, squid and clams) from the daily traditional market. It's only a 10 min. walk from the apartments. Kaohsiung has fabulous fresh seafood, and purchasing this the day of was pretty exciting.

My seafood, the shrimp have been blanched already
 and the octopus cleaned and cut into strips.

Made It

So, it's my 6th day here in Taiwan, and it's been a very short week. Long days make for short weeks, and we've been pretty busy. Arriving with all of other Fulbrighters on 8/1 was a good day. We've spent the majority of the week organizing our living situations here, getting cell phones, applying for our alien residence cards, opening a bank account, etc.

Fonda and Alex are both employed by Fulbright here in Taiwan and have been terrificly helpful getting us set up. As Paul, one of my buddies, was saying, it's like having a personal guide, who if you ask for something, has a good answer and will even show you where you need to go to have it done, and instead of us paying her, she's paying us.

Being so busy these first few days with living situation, it's easy to forget why we're here, but today we met with the director of the de facto american embassy in Kaohsiung. It was refreshing to remember that we have a pretty great purpose here and the means to make a meaningful impact while we're here.

(shaved ice with mango and condensed milk)

As far as what we'll be doing, we're going to be placed in 2 elementary schools, and have 16 hrs of class a week that we will be co-teaching (english) with a Taiwanese english instructor. My personal project while here is food related. Basically, I hope to use food as a way to look at a culture, so I'm going to be eating and cooking a lot to try and explore this. Sadly, I have yet to take pictures of the food here, but have had some fabulous meals, including a few very Taiwanese dishes like stinky tofu and oyster glutinous pancakes.

Speaking of which, I'm off to explore a night market tonight, so I'm going to get ready for that.

Laters.

Time to go

Hi guys,

So, I'm going to Taiwan for a year to teach english and cook. I guess the blog thing is the way to go. I'm hoping to post mainly related to cooking ventures, hope to keep in touch.

Peace,

Mark