Bread Pudding

Yesterday’s cooking class was on stuffed French toast (basically a sandwich made with cream cheese and jam or Nutella and bananas and dipped in French toast goo before frying).  Some of the students noticed that the bread was past its sell by date.  That’s great for French toast which should be made from stale bread.  But the students were very concerned.  Several were convinced that they should not risk their health and well being on out of date bread.  Sigh.

That left me with half a loaf of stale bread.  This morning I tried Mark Bittman’s Maple Bread Pudding.  Yum!  Particularly with a banana sliced on it and a little cream drizzled on top.

Maple Bread Pudding (adapted from Mark Bittman’s Quick and Easy Recipes from the New York Times)

• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
• 1/2 pound white bread, cut or torn into chunks no smaller than 1 inch in diameter
• 2 cups milk
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 banana
• heavy cream to drizzle on top

Butter a square baking dish and put the bread in it.  Cut the remaining butter into bits and combine with the other ingredients.  Pour the milk mixture over the bread and be sure all the bread is pushed down into the liquid.

Bake 45 to 60 minutes (until just set but not dry) at 350.  The top will be crusty and brown.  Serve with sliced banana and heavy cream and maybe some more maple syrup.

Looking Over Taichung

When Mom and Casey were visiting we took them up to the temple above the school.  It was a relatively clear day (better than the last time we were there) so we were able to get some pictures that better show how large a city Taichung is and how it laps into the mountains.

And a few shots of the statutes at the temple.

 

Lion’s Head Mountain

(another guest post from Casey)

I spent much of the drive up to Lion’s Head Mountain with my head hanging out of the window like a puppy dog. There is a large temple on the mountain and also beautiful, lush, jungle.

My dad and I, the half of the expedition without canes, clambered up the tricky, uneven stairs to the top of the temple.

I kept admonishing the view to ‘stop it’ since everywhere I looked was over the top, ridiculously picturesque: mountains rising up into the haze, colorful dragons on top of orange tiled roofs, flute music wafting through the air, tropical flowers, etc.

 

When I was a small child one of my favorite places ever was a plant conservatory in Vancouver. The air smelled delicious, the humidity would cause strangers to remark on my curly hair (relieving me of the responsibility of insisting that my hair was, in fact, curly in the face of well meaning, “what lovely wavy hair you have” comments), and since the whole place was a relatively small bio-dome, I could wander around by myself in what felt like my own personal jungle. I adored it, and secretly hoped each time we had a vacation that we would go back and visit it again.

With that in mind: the drive up to Lion’s Head Mountain and the surrounding area are a giant, real version of my perfect childhood place. There are even butterflies! My dad, the great naturalist that he is, pointed to a butterfly and said, “I call that one a ‘white butterfly!’” (Please feel free to make fun of him for this.)

There are vendors spaced around the temple selling food, trinkets, walking canes, and musical instruments. I got a little distracted by the musical instruments. I was entranced by the flute music and asked to try one out. The straight flutes were tricky to get a sound out of, so the man selling them handed me a smaller one that played more like a recorder. He tried to teach me to play a scale and started singing solfege syllables to me. Since I speak solfege we had a common language! I wasn’t allowed to leave until I could play “happy birthday” without messing up.

 

Standing on the top of a mountain, surrounded by tropical mist, smelling burning paper, struggling to play an unfamiliar instrument while being patiently taught by a man I share a total of eight common words with.

Lightheaded and out of breath we continued on trying to figure out if we could snake around the back to get back to my mom and grandma. We were unsuccessful and instead found another flute seller.

 

ETREMELY light headed (I am not a wind instrumentalist) we made our way down the mountain and found the rest of the family.

Sounds from Home – online radio

We brought plenty of movies with us from home, but we didn’t bring our music.  The “program your own radio station” websites we used at home (usually Pandora) do not work here due to copyright issues.  But there are several excellent online radio stations that we listen to all the time.  Even though we sampled stations from all over the world, the best stations we found are from our hometown, Seattle.

When we moved here we searched for a good classical music station online.  We tried ones from Switzerland, the UK, and Australia.  Now we know.  The best steaming classical radio station in the world is our hometown station, KING.  KING plays complete music selections (not just frustrating snippets) and their announcers are both unobtrusive and informative.  The music is always excellent and often unfamiliar.  They don’t just play the standards (over and over and over again).  And as a bonus they play music from local groups (Seattle has many excellent classical music groups).  Sometimes I am delighted to unexpectedly hear my friends in Choral Arts.

Today I was sitting in my corner of Dan’s office at school when I heard another familiar radio program.  It was after 6pm Sunday in Seattle and time for John Kessler’s All Blues program at KPLU.  Ah, the sounds of home.  John does such a good job of finding and explaining great blues music. I love this program.

Casey and Laine have both been surprised to find how many people they know in other parts of the world who are also big fans of KEXP, yet another fantastic, innovative streaming radio station from Seattle.  Most of these fans have never been to Seattle, they just recognize a great radio station when they find it.

There is wonderful music of all genres coming out of Seattle. And we get to hear it in Taiwan.

People Watching

We had a great visit with Mom and Casey.  They both wanted to see what our daily lives were like so we took them along to school to help teach (very helpful to have their insights and assistance in class) and to gatherings with our friends (such warm and generous friends we have), and to our favorite weekend escapes.

One of the things we loved to do together is sit and watch the people go by, particularly here where so many things are familiar and at the same time so much more is new and different.

This town square in Lukang was one of the best places for people watching.  Plenty of space for children to run around and a bubble toy seller to give them bubbles to chase.

The Sounds Of Taiwan

Everything here has cute little sounds. The doorbells chirp. The washing machine plays a charming little ditty as you put your clothes in. The garbage trucks sound like more pleasant ice cream trucks. (Loudly. Every night.)

We walked by two schools yesterday and I whipped my head around trying to figure out what was going on: a bell like tune my mom and I finally decided was the school song (that went on and on and on.)

This post has very little content; I just wanted to share. -Casey

The Cats Are Very Cat-Like

Casey here: Yesterday we went on a shopping excursion that included $1.00 wrist watches, delicious boxed cakes, window shopping for ukuleles, and shoes. I’ve needed shoes for a wedding that I’m a bridesmaid in later this month and accidentally bought three more pairs as well just because. In any case all of the shoes came in boxes, and as we were leaving for dinner this happened:

 Looie was very graceful about trying to get into this tiny box while we all watched and laughed. It’s hard to tell from this angle how much he really doesn’t fit. Here’s what he looks like with an aerial shot:

 We left him like that and went off to Safe and Save for small poorly worded notebooks (my favorite is a composition book for school titled: Go Ahead And Guessing), electric fly swatters, and groceries.

We ate at the teppanyake restaurant across the road. I would have pictures for you except that I was so enthralled with the whole process that the camera didn’t come out at all. I know Betsy has mentioned this before- but it is fast, delicious, fascinating, and cheap. I spent most of dinner with my elbows on the table and my chin propped up on my hands, staring at the grill and trying to figure out what you would have to modify in order to start a chain of these in America. I mean, in between stuffing my face with delicious, spicy food.

We came back tired and happy to be greeted by this:

 Please note the baleful stare and cardboard destruction. Also, the fact that Cricket fits much more readily into the shoe box than Looie did.