Saturday, October 13, 2007

ALLELUIA!!

Today I went with one of my colleagues to Topu (or however you spell it--the small town between here and downtown). There is a morning market there, where, we were told, they sell fresh tofu. As it turns out, they also sell fresh everything, including jumping shrimp and tilapia that are still flexing their gills. At the tofu stand, we looked up the word "firm" to ask for firm tofu, and the seller complemented our Chinese pronunciation. Much more exciting:

So exciting it deserves its own paragraph: The Topu market has a grain seller, with tons of different kinds of beans and grains. I found chana dal, which is basically like lentils, but a little smaller. LENTILS!!!!!! Chana dal is oblong and yellow, but definitely curry-able.

Another colleague lent me her slow cooker. I had some pintos soaking overnight, so I decided to try to cook them in a slow cooker, instead of cooking them for two hours on my gas stove. It worked wonderfully, and the whole place smelled delicious.

After a meeting with my Chinese tutor, I left for town.

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