so i asked for tea some months ago… and tea came, from the 4 corners of the world, like an explosion of unexpected flavors in my mailbox! lychee and rose! quince and linden! bubblegum! english rose! gorreana! yerba mate! lúcia lima!
my beloved bodum cup has been working double shifts as i make my way through the loot (and i’m sure i’ll be stocked for quite a while) but it’s been a daily delight, and i’m really happy that i included the tea swap on my 101 list. thank you girls! :)
“It’s late afternoon and you’re exiting the metro into a flock of hawkers; the lady with a bazillion different notebooks, the cart with cages of baby rabbits and birds, and if it’s winter, the yam guy. Then, before you even see the culprit, you encounter a stench that makes you wonder how a beached whale carcass managed to roll this far inland. You spot the source, an idle square of stinky tofu in a wok across the street. And even as someone who professes “don’t knock until you try” and “don’t be an ugly tourist,” when I first smelled stinky tofu two years ago, I just about blurted out, “who the f*** would eat this stuff?”
shanghaiist nails it! :)
we tried it back in 2009, at my chinese teacher’s insistence… you can read what we though of it here.
the search for new fruits goes on, this time aided by the fruit section of local semi-fancy supermarket!
granadilla was lovely. on the inside, it looks and tastes a lot like passion fruit, which was a surprise!
the sweet pepino on the other hand, was a bit of a disappointment – it tasted of honeydew melon, but very mildly and not as sweet. perhaps it wasn’t ripe yet? oh well… the search continues!
after the clouds cleared out on sunday, we made our way to the thai park. the park would be a very normal (and boring) park, if it wasn’t for the the thai community, who gathers here weekly to mingle. the whole thing reminds us so much of the filipino ladies in hong kong!
anyway, as you can probably imagine, it wouldn’t be a gathering without food! happy to feed all nationalities, the ladies there have their tiny gas cookers and thermo boxes ready, smiling at the curious passerby.
here’s what we had yesterday:
clockwise from top-left: baozi, pink lotus buns, crispy slices of banana fried in coconut flakes and amazing pad thai made on the spot!
it was all so good… and the baozi! i almost couldn’t believe my eyes (or my luck!), i’d been missing them :) all of this while laying around in a towel, enjoying the sun and the laughter of our nearby neighbours, buzzing in a language we didn’t understand… it was perfection, the perfect afternoon.
berry farms are a thing in berlin (in germany?) – but i fear they’re the kind of thing that would never catch on in my home country. i can imagine the puzzled voices of my family members: you drive to a farm, pick your own fruit, and then have to pay in the end?! why would you go through all that trouble, when there are so many strawberries in the supermarket?
eheh, the portuguese are nothing if not practical. despite the imaginary raised eyebrows from my family members, we’ve gone berry picking twice now, in a nearby farm, and it was lovely. the first time strawberries were in season, and we brought home a few kilos which we ate and turned into rhubarb-strawberry jam (everyone at home raved about it!). the second time, a week ago, i was hoping to catch some raspberries, but they were all gone… so we brought blueberries instead.
we don’t eat fruit very often, so berries feel like a treat – and getting them from a farm makes them somehow even more special. plus, the advantage of picking the fruit at its ripest (and tasting it as you go along) is very nice. i don’t think i ever ate strawberries as delicious as the ones i picked there, in early june.
now that i am looking at this post, i realise that it berry picking doesn’t look that exciting – you probably wouldn’t do this if you were here on your holidays… but these little things are part of the reason why i like “living abroad” so much, versus “visiting a country”. it’s all in the details!