Long time no blog

Hi everyone.  I'm back.  Thanks to those of you who expressed concern, but it's nothing more serious than a huge pile of grading, a big Thanksgiving dinner and a second round of battle with the lingering evil.  Something had to give, and sadly, it was le blog.  But since there are only two days of class left and all the exams are now graded, my blogging outlook for the future is much better.  So here are some photos to show you the highlights of the past week.

THANKSGIVING DINNER

Like all good things, it began with pie.  I went to every Western-style grocery store in Macau looking for pie ingredients.  In the end, I had to substitute honey for corn syrup, but I think it was actually a step up and will probably keep using honey in the future.  I stayed up (very) late last Friday night making three pies while watching movies with Beth.  Rear Window and Sneakers were our selections and they never disappoint.  I freaked out a little when I cut into one of these beautiful apples to find this inside.  Not a lot of places to get a spare apple at 1 in the morning.  Luckily I had plenty of filling even with seven, so the crisis was averted.

So after sleeping in on Saturday, I got up, purchased the rest of my groceries and made the mashed potatoes and gravy.  We didn't have turkey because our little oven isn't big enough, but I like ham better anyway.  Here's an action shot of the ladies in the kitchen. 

Yum, honey glaze.  Good idea, Angie.  I made my gravy with chicken broth but then added the ham drippings for flavor.  Not too bad, if I do say so myself.  Although you kind of have to be trying to make bad gravy.

Karen made a special dessert soup for the party.  Luckily we have this extra hot plate in our storage so she was able to work in the living room while everyone was finishing up in the kitchen.  

She cut up some purple sweet potatoes and boiled them in water, then started making these dumplings out of rice flour.  The yellowish brown stuff is cane sugar, which came in bars and she cut into small pieces.  She put a piece into the center of each dumpling and dropped it into the soup.  Dumplings with sugar inside - why didn't I think of that?

Carol and Karen, the dumpling masters at work.

Right before dinner was served, Carol made her contribution - boiled shrimp.  She cooked it with the green onion and ginger you see above, and salt!

Finally everything was ready.  We had ham (Angie) and mashed potatoes and gravy (me) and homemade bread (Chris) and the shrimp (Carol) and chicken wings (Karen)...

...and sweet potato fries (Angie) and broccoli casserole (Beth) and pasta with mushroom sauce and carrots (Amanda) and a variety of drinks (Yeow-Tong).  Not pictured, but thoroughly enjoyed, was the mulled wine that Chris made.  Yum!!!  What a feast!

 Here's most of our group at our tiny table.  We didn't have enough dishes so Carol and Amanda contributed.  Did you know it's actually quite easy to eat mashed potatoes with chopsticks?  :)  From left to right: Amanda, Karen, Carol, Angie, Chris, Beth, me.

Getting the table ready for dessert.  I made apple, pecan, and chocolate pudding pie.  Not my best ever, but not too shabby either given the circumstances.  Pictured here are Karen, Beth, Amanda, Sheryl, and Yeow-Tong. 

The soup was delicious!  Thick and sweet and unusually purple - and who doesn't like dumplings?!?

I really like this post-dessert carnage shot.  This and several of the other photos are provided compliments of Yeow-Tong.  Some are also from Carol.

After dinner I fulfilled a promise to Karen and gave her a little trim.  Then we all squeezed in around my laptop and watched Midnight in Paris - a Woody Allen movie.  It was a nice distraction while we digested all those calories.

Unfortunately, my late night pie-making escapade was just the opportunity the lingering evil had been waiting for.  It came back with a vengeance, so I had to bust out the big guns - Chinese herbs.  Back in Berkeley, I'd have to make an appointment, go to the Chinese medicine clinic, get my herb prescription, bring it home, cook the herbs myself and then finally drink the nasty stuff.  Here, it's like fast-food: you just walk up, tell the nice ladies at the counter what your problem is (or mime it in my case), and they'll serve you a steaming bowl of customized yuck in just moments.

This place is just a couple blocks from us and it's open quite late.  Very convenient.

The taste doesn't actually bother me too much any more.  When I first started using it a couple years ago, I'd shudder with every sip.  It does make me kind of nauseous though, and that sucks.  I think there's a way they can adjust the prescription if you have that sensitivity, but not like I know how to tell them.  So I'll just have to suck it up - like this.

My Chinese coworker, Monica, also shared some traditional sore throat syrup with us.  Once I tasted it, I realized I'd had this before back home too, just not in a handy single-serving pouch.  I think I've turned the corner, but I'm still kind of congested.  That's where Western medicine can help. I brought a generous supply of 12-hour Sudafed caplets with me from the States.  :)

And last but not least, some good news from yesterday.  I was accepted to present a shortened version of my thesis at a conference in Hong Kong next spring.  The focus of the conference is technology in various areas - mine is education, obviously.  Pretty exciting - if I'm lucky I might get a publication out of it!  I'll include the link below in case you'd like to read more.

http://www.e-case.org/2012/index.html