For Daily Application: Chinese Holiday?

As I'm sure you can imagine, many, MANY things are different in China. Grocery shopping turns into a bit of a scavenger hunt, a knowledge of taxi-cab Mandarin (or an iPhone app) is essential if you want to get anywhere off-foot, Shanghainese men are found more often than not (gladly, at that) toting their lady's handbag and everything, I mean pretty much practically everything is price-negotiable. Clothes, shoes, purses, sunglasses, incense on the street, you name it (even shots at the bar, this I witnessed Saturday night).

In my 25 years I've spent most major holidays with my family, and to say I missed them this past Thanksgiving is a serious understatement. A mixture of holiday nostalgia and moving half-way across the world five days earlier will do that to you... take it from me. I woke up Thursday morning in China (Wednesday night in America, we're working with a 13-hour time difference) greeted by this from our balcony...

Anthony left for work and I was tasked with the job of finding us a pseudo-American Thanksgiving spread, Shanghai-style. Luckily for us, the American population is substantial enough in Shanghai that many restaurants were offering up traditional Thanksgiving fare. We opted for Boxing Cat Brewery, http://www.boxingcatbrewery.com/enter.html, one of Anthony's new favorite places, which put out an impressive buffet with all the usual suspects; turkey, glazed ham, truffle mashed potatoes (maybe not so usual), green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole and of course pumpkin and apple pies. Christmas music blasted throughout the 3-level restaurant, even A Chipmunk Christmas, my personal favorite (right Mom?) made the playlist. To really drive home the holiday, pre-recorded football games (notably Teebs vs. Sanchez) played above our heads. It doesn't come close to Thanksgiving at home with our families, but it was our first one together, and one I'm sure we'll always remember.

The next day we had a home-cooked Thanksgiving feast hosted by Ken (Anthony's boss by title, friend for all intensive purposes) and his wife, Vicki. Needless to say it was delicious and I could barely sit up straight (or keep my eyes open) by the end of the meal. I contributed 2 desserts; Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies (I smuggled over a jar of canned pumpkin from the States, necessary for T-giving in my mind) and Carrot Souffle. The recipes I used are below (if I may say so myself, both were met with rave reviews). Enjoy :)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/george-duran/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe/index.html

Carrot Souffle:

2 large carrots (14-16 oz.)

1 stick marg or butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 t. baking powder
3 T. flour
1 t. vanilla
Wash, peel and chop carrots. Melt butter, pour in food processor (I used a blender). Add carrots and rest of ingredients. Mix until smooth. Pour in greased casserole. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Nom. Nom. Nom. Make them. Next time you're feeling fall-like.

Since it's too good not to share, I'll leave you with this. As I mentioned above Shanghainese men are known by all other Chinese as the most... whipped? (for lack of better term) by their women (this was confirmed by my Mandarin teacher, Jing, who hails from outside Beijing). While I can't quite get Anthony to carry my purse (yet), I can get him to side-braid my hair...