Here we go, the count down begins.  We put together our top 10 favorites from our website for the stocking stuffers, Hannukkah presents, or just something small and delightful.  Happy Shopping!

1. Chinese food erasers - these cute puzzle erasers come as individuals or as sets.  We promised you they will love them.  They are huge amongst the 1st thru 4th graders according to our cutest customers we met at a local school.
2. Kai-Lan books – The newest Chinese character has quickly become a favorite!
3. One-Piece learning chopsticks – they come in cute farm animals, dinosaurs, and sea creatures.  They are fun to use as chopsticks, and also make great party favors!
4. All Purpose Mat with map of China - this cute mat is great to use for meals, activities, or anything to protect your table.  Dishwasher safe too!                                                       
5. Dora DVD - if your little ones like Dora in English, they will like her in Chinese too.
6. Discovery DVD - perfect for the curious animal lovers.       
7. Origami paper in beautiful pattern - spend some crafty, quality time this winter making some origami projects, especially for those cold days.
8. Design your own Paper Fan - another great craft idea.  The package comes with 2 fans which is perfect for the siblings.              
9. Classic Fairy Tales DVD - hot chocolate, fire place, popcorn, movie night for everyone.
10. Origami Playset - Last and not least, these origami playsets are so adorable with a pop up scene for the pretend play.                                      

Happy Thanksgiving – 感恩节快乐 – gǎn ēn jié kuài lè

This year, like prior years, I will be heading to my sister-in-law for our Thanksgiving dinner.  She announced that she is serving Tea Eggs as one of the appertizers.  I am not complaining since her tea eggs are delicious!  So it got me thinking, what other Chinese twist can I add to our Thanksgiving eating feast?  I can’t say that I am the most inventive cook, but I am good at looking for recipes.  I did find some pretty cool ideas, check them out!

1. About.com has an interesting Roast Turkey recipe using soy sauce, oyster sauce, and five spice powder.
2. Sticky Rice will definitely make a good side dish!  Thank you The Asian Grandmother Cookbook for the wonderful idea.
3. Scallion pancake will be another great appertizer!
4. Leftover turkey will be perfect to make congee, I found this great recipe from It’s Just Money.  I will probably be following some of the ingredients on this recipe, but will most likely just wing it.  It warms up my tummy already just thinking about it.
5. Now this is a new one, Turkey Wonton, using leftover turkey.  I’ve never thought about that, but that sounds like a wonderful idea.  Thank you Homemade Chinese Soups.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m usually not a planner, and often do things at the last minute. This year, I decided to start my Christmas shopping a little earlier, as to try to get myself more organized. This is also prompted by all the “pre Black Friday” sales promotion I’ve been getting from all sorts of different retailers. As I stroll through the mall, and navigate my way around the internet, I was reminded of this bilingual book about Christmas called The Best Christmas Ever.

It’s a story about Christmas at the Bear family household, where Father Bear and Mother Bear don’t have any money for Christmas presents this year. However, Mother Bear and Father Bear create holiday spirit by adorning their home with decorations sewn from outgrown clothes and a tree assembled from gathered branches dusted with flour. Little Bear worries whether Santa will come and ultimately proves to be the most resourceful to ensure that gifts are under the tree. On Christmas day everyone has a present — a mended kite for Brother; a once-missing umbrella for Sister; a favorite old hat for Father; and, for Mother, a long-lost button that has been conspicuously missing from her red dress. This charming tale demonstrates that even the smallest person can give big gifts, requiring only love and ingenuity.

So this year, I’m going to challenge my husband to do the same. Instead of buying new games and toys for our boys, I’m going to try to “shop” at home. I’m pretty sure I can find un-opened toys and wii games from the past, and maybe just one of two books they “really” need from the book fair.

Hot Pot – 火鍋 – huǒ guō

I had a very lovely dinner with my dearest friends this weekend at my house, and our meal of choice was hot pot.  This is one of my favorite meal growing up, and still is.  Hot pot is usually eaten in winter, so we were probably a little bit too early, but the food was very good.

Hot pot is like fondue for Chinese, minus the cheese.  There are many variations in terms of what types of food to serve, but in general, hot pot refers to a metal pot of stock simmering at the center of table while various ingredients are being cooked right at the table throughout the meal.  Then food is being scooped out when they are cook, and everyone serves themselves by dipping into their favorite sauce.  Typical ingredients include wonton, fish balls, meat balls, tofu, dumplings, noodles, vegetables, mushrooms, thinly sliced meat, and seafood.  Basically, it’s whatever you like to eat.

It’s actually a pretty long meal, as you put the raw ingredients in, you will have to wait for the food to cook.  This will then usually transform into some nice conversation.  As the best hot pot requires many different types of food, so you will usually invite a few families over to enjoy all the food.  This actually makes an awesome and easy party/gathering without too much preparation, since most ingredients don’t require much work except buying them from the Chinese grocery store.  So next time when you are planning to host a gathering, consider doing hot pot.  Oh and one last thing, beer and white wine go REALLY well with hot hot!  Enjoy!

In the streets of Barcelona, just steps away from Las Ramblas, one of the most famous streets in the city, I came across this little eatery called Wok to Walk. The place is tiny, and is what most people would call a “hole in the wall”. To me, some five thousand miles away, it was a treasure! (yes, I was craving for some simple Chinese/Asian fare after 10 days of tapas and various fancy food on the cruise ship)

The decor is modern, in an Ikeaish Northern European minimalistic kind of way. On one side is the open kitchen, with 3 wok stations, and built in faucets directly above the  wok for easy cleaning.  Next to the stoves are the ingredient counter, which offers fresh vegetables such as broccoli, mushrooms, and bean sprouts. In addition, there are also chicken, beef, and shrimp.

The concept is really simple, for about 5 Euros, or $7.50, you get a stir fried rice or noodle with eggs, basic vegetables, and a choice of 8 different sauces. For an additional 1 or 2 Euros, you can add chicken, beef, shrimp or tofu to the dish. Brown rice and wheat noodles are also available as choices.

My favorite sauces are Shanghai, Bangkok and Saigon. Both noodles and rice was made in front of us in about 1 minute, and came out piping hot and delicious. Even my pickest eater enjoyed his plain egg fried rice with Shanghai sauce without vegetable.

So, the next time you are in Barcelona, be sure to check out Wok to Walk. For those of you who don’t have plans to visit that city, not to worry, there is one in the Village, right by NYU in NY city. I haven’t had a chance to visit, but I can only imaging the mouth watering food there waiting for me to eat. For more locations, you can visit Wok to Walk’s website. Bon Appetit!

Mahjong – 麻將 – má jiàng

I can’t believe Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  Ever since I met my husband, I’ve spent almost all of my Thanksgiving with his side of the family.  Mostly because he grew up celebrating Thanksgiving, and that his family would actually serve turkey and have traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  As a little kid in Hong Kong, we didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.  After moving to New York, my family celebrated Thanksgiving in Chinese style.  Chinese-Thanksgiving consist of a big dinner serving, surprise, Chinese food!  I don’t remember ever having Turkey, we would usually have chicken instead!  This is going to be a topic for another day.

There is one thing we always do as a family though, playing Mahjong, 麻將.  Whenever we have a big group of people around, we would play Mahjong.  It’s the way our family communicates with each other, over the Mahjong table.  Mahjong is very popular within the Chinese community, and it’s such a popular game that most people have played on the computer nowadays.  But I really see it as a social venue.  I grew up watching my mom play Mahjong.  So instead of going shopping with her friends, she sees her friends over the Mahjong table.  They get to talk about families, friends, news, celebrities, anything; however, it’s not always necessary to come up with topics because then you can also concentrate on playing the game too.

The Mahjong sound maybe noisy to some people, but to me, it’s one of the most endearing sound.  The sound of the tiles hitting each other, with lots of laughter and with lots of Ai-ya.

On a recent family trip to Europe with the in-laws, my kids were doted-on with lots of food, (yes, that includes cookies, chocolates, potato chips, ice cream, and all the other junk food one can imagine). Despite my protests, as I was trying hard to maintain certain boundaries, I was out-voted each time.  In fact, my 7 year old declared that, while on vacation, they should be allowed to “live a little.”

However, the best part was how my 4 year old kept on testing his grandmother’s Chinese. Grandma happens to have been a Chinese Literature major in college. While strolling the streets of Barcelona with a plethora of street performers and vendors, whenever he saw something familiar, he would ask, “Nai Nai, do you know what is chicken in Chinese?” “Do you know what is fish in Chinese?” etc etc. His easy command of Mandarin Chinese was certainly a change, which can be attributed to his attendance of Chinese school over the past 2 months.  Ok, maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself, he’s not quite speaking fluently in Chinese, but I’m overjoyed to hear him initiate the use of the language. It really is music to my ears!

I’ve always been amazed and awed by stories of the Soong sisters, I’ve read the book, and watched the DVD from our Soong Sisterspost.  Of course I am not going to miss out the new biography about Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, written by Hannah Pakula.  This book maybe a real challenge for me though, with 681 pages of text. 

The New York Times gave it a great review this week.  It praised the author for the amount of research, and telling a beautiful story at the same time.

I always admire her for her beauty, for her help to bring modernization to China, for her fasinating life, and for her power to influence thousands of people, even to this day.  From reading the many reviews so far, it seems that this book also provides a glimpse of Madame Chiang’s dark side.  I am eager to find out more about this elegant lady, so that I can continue to be awed by her.

Inspired by Debbie’s recent post on pumpkin, and how she made pumpkin seeds, I actually made pumpkin seeds this year for Halloween. I must say that it was quite delicious.

My childhood memory of melon seeds is eating them for Chinese New Year, which is a tradition we will talk about when we get closer to the New Year. The first word 瓜 means melon, and the latter 子 means child, son, seed. In Northern China, the melon-seed most commonly used is the larger white kind; while over in Southern China the most common seed is the red seed. I am more accustomed to the red ones. They must be hulled like sunflower seeds before eating, and the hulls are very hard and are a pain to eat. Once you get the hang of it though, it is very addictive, and they make a perfect snack in front of the TV.