The Pancake Fiasco!

(Emily)

hello everyone! saturday started with an attempt at making pancakes. the previous evening, i announced that i wanted to make pancakes for my host family; after all they have done for me and all the great food they've fed me, i wanted to show my gratitude by cooking something for them. pancakes sounded easy enough. i started off trying to get the measurements right....without measuring cups. i looked high and low and there wasn't a single measuring cup to be found.... so i tried to eyeball it. i'm no paula deen or giada, so this in itself was disastrous. not even the butter had measuring increments on it. oh, and the milk was from a box (i.e. juice box...except milk....milk box?). i punched a hole into the box and squeezed what i kinda guesstimated was the right amount. and i measured the flour with a paper cup.... it was a mess. i figured if i could at least get it to the right consistency that everything would be fine. i mean, how bad can you mess up pancakes? evidently, pretty bad. the batter started off waaay too thick, so i added more milk. the batter was a gloppy mess that wouldn't spread out in the pan (it just sat there....looking like jabba the hut). oh, and i was using a wok to fry the pancakes. i couldn't find a frying pan (at the end of cooking the pancakes, my host mom produced a pan out of the bowels of the cupboard). then, i added peanut butter in an effort to make it less gross. bad move. however, they did turn out....mildly edible. my host parents came in and picked at it, making the standard "mmm" noises and trying to pretend that they weren't as bad as they actually were. after eating a couple pieces, i wasn't hungry anymore. this was almost as bad as the time i burned the thanksgiving soup (i believe it was squash and leek for anyone who was curious). all this being said and done, i'm not that bad a baker. i can make pastries and cookies. but alas, many chinese families do not have ovens. to quote eve: "why would you have an oven if you could go out and buy pastries easily and cheaply?for lunch, my family took me out for noodles! i had pigs foot with the noodles (apparently it's good for your skin...it's a little too fatty for me though). at this point i'm pretty unfazed by anything. after trying cicada (it was tasty and a little spicy, but the amount of labor required to get a little piece of bug innards isn't worth it) and blood (like tofu...but red....and...bloody), i've gotten used to trying (almost) anything (i haven't tried stinky tofu yet but richard says he's never had it because of the smell so i don't feel as guilty not trying it). after lunch, i met up with cady and ella for a day o' retail! there, i learned that cady had coincidentally tried to make apple pancakes for her family. it was a similar tale of woe and hearbreak; she added 3 tablespoons of lemon juice instead of the correct 3 teaspoons and her pancakes were rendered lemony deathcakes. but she says that they added peanut butter, which made it a little better. we started off at the intime department store, which sold high-end clothing (like the equivalent of bloomingdales). we then progressed to wulin street, which is known as a women's fashion street. it was amazing. so many cool little clothing shops of all different sorts of tastes. ella took us to her favorite store named 2%. it soon turned into our favorite store. the walls were covered with sweet comic book graphics and the clothes were funky. perfect for cady and i. cady picked out a baggy turquoise sweater with a skeleton on it, among other things. the graphic t-shirts were all unique. cady also got a sparkly superhero t-shirt. i opted for a neon yellow t-shirt that has a knitted pattern on the front. at the very end of our expedition, we found boots for me! surprisingly, they were cheaper than my t-shirt. ella and cady helped me bargain it down from 210 yuan to 120 yuan. after a long day of shopping, we were all pretty hungry. we met ella's dad at a thai restaurant that was on the west lake. ella's dad is really nice and reminds me for some reason of tom hanks (maybe from the way he smiles). cady disagrees and says that he reminds her most of richard because he's so good natured and always smiling, which i agree with. the thai food was delicious! hao chi, if you will. we had mushrooms in a peeled pumpkin, beef with cashews, crab curry, and green beans. my favorite dish was the crab curry. the crab was excellent- probably the best crab i've had on this trip- and mixed with the curry sauce, it was even better. after eating to our hearts' content, we bid farewell to ella's dad and waddled our way into a taxi that then took us to the traveler's bar, where we met up with nick, drew, terry, derek (an english teacher- extremely cool), and his friend rossi. the traveler's bar was very pirates of the carribean (in an authentic way- not hokey), down to entrance door (it had a grate at the top and an old fashioned latch). at each solid wood table there were two little red candles and at the center of the bar was a huge cast iron chandelier which i swear was burning real candles. true to its moniker, there was art hung up from all over the world (we sat upstairs by some egyptian pieces). we were on a balcony, looking down on the stage. the live music was excellent. the people who sang had voices comparable to signed artists. as a backdrop for the stage, there was a mural with famous people in a band. included were osama bin laden, saddam hussein, george dubbya, and yasir arafat. derek treated us to drinks (think ginger ale, sprite, and tea) and popcorn (kettle corn to be exact) and we alternately watched the musicians and watched rossi do magic tricks for us. rossi was extremely good looking in an artsy way (this isn't just me talking- i have terry, cady, and ella to back me up). he had longish floppy hair that was wavy and slighly curled at the end with intellectual looking glasses (very 'i own an art gallery') and very straight teeth (i didn't pick up on this, but cady swears by it). rossi also has a sweet job: basically, he trains the ronald mcdonalds and comes up with new tricks and whatnot for them to do. he was quite a character and his english was really good, so we were able to catch all his jokes and the narratives to his magic tricks. cady and nick said he's like a chinese greg bornstein. he did an array of card, coin, and rubber band trick. but that's not all- he also then whipped out a bag of balloons and started to blow them up and make animals for us. he made monkeys, pigs, bunnies, flowers, dogs, and mice. quite sick. at the end of the evening we were all exhausted an at around 10, cady ella and i bid everyone goodnight and we took a cab back to where cady and eve live. ella lives 5 minutes away, so she was able to take the same cab back with us. i slept over at eve's last night because penny lives further away from the bar, so getting back late in the evening would be a little difficult. i had a fitful night's sleep and here i am, writing to you from the teacher's room. this is emily ahn- you stay classy, ds! p.s. we met the kids coming to america!!! they're awesome but i'll let whoever's doing today talk more about them (i think it's cady).