It’s not any particular dish, spice, or occasional parasite that makes Chinese cuisine unbootleg-able (unlike phones, movies, or fashion). It’s the ingredients you can’t put in a recipe.
Pingba
Nóng jiā lè Farm Restaurants
Colonel Sanders, move over. If you want chicken, visit a Nóng jiā lè 農家樂 or farmhouse restaurant in rural Yunnan.
Year of the Octopus
Do students spend more time researching an animal for a report than they do a prospective school?
Guǐ 鬼 Town
instead of wearing traditional Chinese clothing and a silver colander on my head, I would want one where Father Time believed in Daylight Saving Time–make that Daylight Saving Year–Ok, Decade– turning back the clock to when a muffin top was my breakfast choice, not my middle.
Think Negative!
I did find the perfect cure for Covid-19: binge-watching HBO.
Dàbiàn 大便(Gotta go)
Where do you go when you gotta go in China? Not here.
Why do I hike?
When I find myself literally at the end of a rope in China, hiking is the ultimate brain eraser. Either I’m concentrating on the beauty or not slipping, totally forgetting that the snack I purchased for my cat was freeze dried baby birds (I will spare you the photo).
Vote 投票
What is the price to vote in China? Two Wilma Rudolphs and some Navajo jewerly.
Forgotten Wishes
The 26,968 steps to the summit of Mt. Jiaozi were grueling. It wasn’t altitude sickness or the ripping sensation in the back of my calves, but the memories I packed in my backpack. I trekked to the top of this holy mountain once before to make a wish, one that rusted in the wind.
Chinese Hospital Food
I have eaten a lot of strange foods in Asia but this week, my tastebuds ventured to a cuisine that the FOOD CHANNEL has yet to try. Chinese Hospital Food.