Food in Xi'an

Shopping for food in Xi'an is always an adventure and it is at the top of our list of must dos. After all we like to eat. Within a block or so we have great little green grocers that we visit every couple of days. We bring home our fresh produce and after a 15-minute soak in disinfectant water, we have good things to cook with.

We also visit a little hole-in-the wall where we buy fresh eggs, a shop on the street which actually has a fridge! where we buy fresh beef and have it ground for us on the spot. If we get desperate we head to Walmart or Vanguard--larger grocery stores, though to tell the truth so little is recognizable it is a bit of a challenge there as well. In the grocery store with all the labels in Chinese it is a process of hunt and peck to find the necessities. I make use of a little audio Chinese dictionary and when my pantomiming doesn't get through I look up a word and play it for a clerk and generally--if I have chosen the right meaning of the word to play her--see a light bulb come on and am led around the store to find what I need or am told (in Chinese, of course) that they don't have it--at least that is what I am guessing I am being told.


We occasionally buy hot food on the street or even go to a restaurant when I simply don't have it in me to cook, though that is more rare than not.

As soon as we arrived I added a number of items to our very sparse kitchen to help me in preparing food that we might recognize. We bought a little toaster oven in which I produce heavenly artisan bread in pint-sized loaves (the Chinese bread is terrible--worse than Wonder bread even). My branch president kindly hauled an immersion blender back from Hong Kong for me that a friend bought and dropped off at the temple for him to pick up. Now we have the luxury of pureeing many wonderful soups and I can whip cream (when I can find it . . . another adventure in a trip to the restaurant supply shops where I can find a quart in a fridge tucked between lots of fresh fish shops that also have other squirming things in baskets. Ugh). Just this week I also bought a little pressure cooker to speed things up at the Laings.

Our university recently took us to get our faculty cards that allow us to put RMB on the card and use it in the cafeterias on campus. We went for the first time Friday for lunch. The food was very tasty and very cheap, 5.50 RMB (about $.75) for a wonderful flavorful bowl of noodles, veggies, and broth. The Chinese really know how to blend flavors. It isn't like American Chinese food but much of what we have tasted is really good. The cafeterias have a huge variety of items which we simply don't recognize but are timidly trying one by one. At least there we can see what we are getting.

My favorite way to go shopping is on my bike since I have a basket that can be loaded up with a BIG can of Italian tomatoes when I stumble across one as I did at the cream shop yesterday. Eggplant Parmesan coming up! Each discovery is a huge accomplishment for which I am justifiably proud of myself.

One of our favorite ways of eating is sharing food with friends in our hovel or theirs. We have three plates and a pie plate but have managed to feed a neighbor once and CTP friends once. We also enjoyed dinner at the Monsons in their apartment (which they refer to as a boxcar. Ours is spacious by comparison--WE have a dining room table afterall! When Dave Monson asked our CTP directors if they thought he should ask his school for a second tiny desk, he was told that when they were in China they just used their dining room table for a desk, to which Dave responded "We would too, if we had one!") Still we enjoyed a wonderful dinner on their coffee table which Julie had produced in her pint-sized kitchen. Good friends, good food, good fun! We laugh a lot about our mis-matched dishes and utinsels which are few in number in both our apartments. It is amazing what you don't really need when you don't have them.



No one is starving here so all is good in our little Chinese corner of the world. Hope it is for you too