Glimpses of Gold

In July, my friend asked if I would help her with some photos for a cookbook she was writing. Megan and Adrian came along as taste testers.

I learned a lot about photographing food! We took pictures outside and moved them around to keep them out of direct sun. Jen and I had a lot of fun getting the pictures to look right before the children swarmed in to critique the samples.

Yesterday, Jen gave me a finished copy of her book. The Gluten-Free Casein-Free Soy-Free Cookbook. It looks very nice and it is exciting to see pictures that I took on a published book cover! As Megan looked at the book, she stated she wanted ice cream. I said that we had some at home. She informed me she did not want that ice cream, she wanted the ice cream from the cover. She had tried in it July and thought it was wonderful. She was supposed to share, but she ended up eating most of it. Adrian was partial to the strawberry pie.

Even though I have not personally made many of the recipes, we have enjoyed several at Jen’s house when we visit. Everything we have tried is very good!

P.S. If you are interested in this book, Amazon claims it it out of stock right now, but you can preview it. You can find it here, but you can’t look inside.

When Daddy was in high school, he played the french horn and the trumpet.  Growing up, I remember Daddy playing the trumpet some evenings, but it was not until a few years ago, that Daddy took up the french horn again.

Yesterday we went to listen to him play in a Christmas concert.  We have gone for the last few years, and it is a nice relaxing way to start December.  Last night we were surprised to discover that Santa Claus came to enjoy the concert too!  Megan was not sure what she thought of him, but Audrey and Adrian talked with him for a few minutes after the concert.  They both are requesting lots of packing snow for Christmas!

Since Mark first met Andrea, she has been one of his favorite people.  As they grow, their friendship has grown deeper.  They have a wonderful relationship, siblings and best friends!

This morning we had breakfast together at about 7:00.  It was a huge buffet.  I do not think that Country Buffet would even come close.  There were many different types of fruits and veggies.  Lots of pastries and meats.  I had some bamboo with peppers, a rice flour cake (very good), pears, peaches, watermelon, sausage, bacon and two eggs, cooked over easy “while-u-wait”.

Now that it was light, I was able to get some outdoor pictures of where we stayed.  It was a nice surprise to open my curtains thsi morning to have an inlet of West Lake right outside with a gazebo and a canoe.  The hotel often catered for high state officials and their meetings.  There is a main building where we checked in last night and then several separate hotel units, one of which we stayed in.

After breakfast, we were off to visit a potential porcelain supplier about an hour and a half away.  Though we were on the freeway most of the way, I do not think that we were out of sight of multi-level appartment buildings, many of which were eight or more floors high.  Often we would go over a street perpendicular to the high way, lined with multi-level homes and apartments bordered by very large rice fields.

The porcelain coating company was very interesting.  It was quite shabby looking as we went in.  All the buildings were cinder block as are most buildings here and a lot colder inside than out.  We were taken into a large room that opened out to the outside and it looked like there were several of these large rooms in the building, most were used for storage or part of the production.  For those of you who might be familiar with African school buildings, this one reminded me of one of those.  But the one we were taken into had a large desk with windowed cabinets all around with products in it.  They contained such things as porcelain coated pot, roasting pans, trays, and in the corner were a couple of stove shells and tops.

After some discussion and a couple cups of green tea we when on a tour.  One of the new buildings at the back housed a fully automated line and a semi-automated line.  Unfortunately, production here was more like you would expect to see in the third world.  People seemed to be treated well but still a ways away from what would be permitted in the US.

While we were on tour, a young lady joined us with a little one about 18 months old.  Remeber, that little ones are rather rare to see since there is only one child for each couple.  Very cute little one.  After the tour, she joined us for the remaining discussions before lunch.  Come to find out, the 51% owner’s daughter is going to university in Minnisota and this other young lady is the daughter of the 49% owner and was very actively involved in the discussion.

Anyway, we went out for lunch with both owners and the wife of one of them and really enjoyed our time.  Lots of food shared on a large “Lazy Susan” in the middle of the table and, as usuall. reach into the dish, grab a peice and eat.  Had the standard place setting of tea cup, cup, small bowl for desired sause, larger bowl with spoon used for soup, noodles, rice, etc, a pair of chopsticks, and a plate which is usuallly used to re-adjust food in the chopsticks and hold the few unedible parts.

Here I got my first taste of rice wine.  It was very good and they tried hard not to let my cup get empty. If they felt that I was not drinking fast enough they arranged a toast which required me to take a sip.  It did taste quite good but it was rather strong so the sips were rather small.

The meal consisted of a lot of items.  Most was normal food but maybe fixed in a different way.  I liked the bamboo dish that has some sort of green veggie with it.  The fish ball (white fish rolled into a ball) and mushroom soup was pretty good too.  Best was the fried pork rib dish and a dish of cooked then sauted lima beans.

The trip to Wuhu, Anhui was rather uneventful  I tried to get photos of the little village that we went through on our way back to the highway, but that was a little tough as we bounced down the road.  We did go through a lot of mountains with many tunnels.  I hope to more pictures of these on our way back to Shanghai on Friday.  We arrived at Sunshine Peninsula Hotel, Wuhu, Anhui at about dusk.

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This morning we had breakfast at the hotel (Howard Johnson – Huaihai) in the French Quarter, checked out, and headed to the office which was on the 19th floor of a 28 or so floor building.  The office itself consists of one large room and a glassed in conference room in the corner.  The remaining space is taken up with five cubicles for the team with a copier and supply corner and a coffee/tea and fridge in another corner.  The view was very impressive.

Pretty quickly, Eva and I headed out to visit and tour the testing facility that will be testing some plastic material used in one of my projects.  It was quite a large lab with the ability to test almost any plastic material spec desired.  The equipment looks very well cared for but the space was pretty well full so they were acquiring a second location nearby to effectively double their floor space.  I was invited back in a few months to visit and see the new addition.  Maybe I can use that one year, multi-entry visa.

We picked up some of the rest of the team and headed to lunch.  It was quite the spread and new dishes just kept coming.  There was beef, mushrooms, red sweet potato, and shredded greens.  More interesting though was the 2 x 2 x 2 in pork pieces with three distinct layers of 1/4 skin, 1/2 fat, and 1/4 meat.  Sorry kids, the fat was yummy.  Another surprisingly good dish was the dried, salted, whole fish.  Yep, the whole fish was good.  We also had a whole white fish soup that was decent for a guy that prefers fish grilled of the salmon type.  Probably the one that I thought would be hardest for me to stomach was the eel.  It wasn’t so much the eel, since I’ve had it before, but the size and texture; having a look and feel more of dark, wide noodles..  It was okay but I stuck with one serving.

Chopsticks are the standard place setting with a large ceramic spoon used for soupy items.  So, when in Rome…  This was my serious introduction to eating methods of the Chinese.  There were a lot of giggles and instructions as I stumbled through the basics.  Our driver, Lynn, seemed to always be on the look out for me, re-showing me how to hold the chopsticks and on occasion suggesting I give them up for the spoon.  Eventually, someone did find me a knife and fork which I did not use until the very end when my hand got tired.

The restaurant was different than we are familiar with.  It seemed to be designed for group dinning and each group is given their own room.  In this case there was a long hallway with several rooms with double doors on each side.

After we returned to the office, I spent about an hour with Lulu discussing wire harnesses and what she needed to be successful in sourcing material for our manufacturing facility here in China.  I think in that hour I was able to learn, understand, and communicate more information than weeks on a similar project done a few months earlier.

About mid afternoon five of us jumped into the van and headed to Hangzhou, about 2 1/2 hours away.  We are staying at Xiha State Guest Hotel on West Lake and it is a very beautiful location.  So much so, that it is said this place is next to heaven.  Unfortunately, by the time we got to town, it was dark.  I also found that everyone needs ID to check into a hotel; at least the ones that we visit.  Foreigners are required to show their passports and here they were photo copied and visas were confirmed.  No passport, no bed.

The room was nice and, design wise, about like the room the night before but the bathroom was much smaller and without a tub.  There seemed to be a lot more “special” touches though.  On the desk was a 10 x 12 x 2 inch covered box with all sorts of office supplies, including a stapler.  The coffee table had a supply of fruit with a couple of plates and a knife wrapped in a small towel.  There was a little tea/coffee nook in the hallway with a little covered box holding the tea and coffee items.  Wine and wine glasses were on an upper shelf.

We had another “different” meal, at least for me.  The restaurant was in a separate building from where our rooms were.  A tablet was used to review the foods and make the selections and I think, once complete, wirelessly sent the order to the kitchen.  They made sure that there was at least a bowl of fried rice and a dish of beef on the table for me.  In addition to that, we had a deep fried shrimp dish, a cabbage dish, a bamboo and pepper dish, battered and fried whole silver fish (looked like battered onions), little artichoke like dish, mushroom soup, and most interesting, jelly fish, soaked in soy sauce or without.  Of course, lots of tea and again Lynn kept an eye out with helpful chopstick hints.

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