American in Shanghai

This is another famous dish from China's northwest Xinjiang. This is the "small pan of chicken" or Xiao Pan Ji.  It would feed about 4 people. I decided to take some "to go" boxes for most of it. It is made from hand cut noodles, potatoes, chicken, peppers, onion, carrot and various spices and sauce. It is not a fast food. It takes about 20 minutes to prepare.

Fourteen people squeezed in around the table for another round of Chinese New Year feasting. See what a basket of fruit can do to open doors? In short, my neighbors know how to cook. The eldest at the dinner were his brother and his brother's wife; 76 and 75 years old. Good thing I like jellyfish. It was both fun and torture simultaneously as 95% of what was said was in Shanghainese. Once in a while they would take pity on me and translate into Putonghua or the common Mandarin. And fortunately I was spared from the baijiu commonly drunk at such affairs as this family prefers red wine. They seemed pretty happy with a bottle of Australian Shiraz I provided, calling it "the good French wine" which to them was what they were drinking. I did not try the special dish of "small cat."

The end of another round of holidays looms in the very near future. I am off work for one week, but my vacation includes two weekends, so I am very grateful. Chinese New Year begins on Thursday, February third, ushering in the Year of the Rabbit. I am enjoying friends, parties, practicing, replacing strings, spa, hot springs, biking, cleaning, reading, reflecting, planning and taking my time: the perfect holiday to stay home and enjoy life at leisure. On another positive note, my father who had pancreatic cancer, has undergone chemotherapy and the Whipple surgery and is now home recovering and eating like a horse. It bothers me that an oncologist prescribes more rounds of that detrimental poison for him when no trace of cancer can now be found. I guess if it were me, I would say to the doc, "Well doc, since we can't visibly see cancer in you either, if you take the same treatment as you are prescribing to me, I would consider it."  The problem is statistics and numbers