Photos by MJ Klein, including some food photos in this article.
Many of you might remember last year’s Ghost Month activites in our neighborhood. I spent most of my time at Shao-hui’s place.
One of the offerings I photographed on the way to Shao-hui’s.
Photos and Food by MJ Klein
Many of you remember my last cooking experiment – the one I did while in the US on our recent trip. Upon our return to Taiwan, I decided to give it a go again and see what would happen with a few refinements.
Lump charcoal starting up – a good sign of things to come….
Photos by MJ Klein – Attention: FOOD PHOTOS!
UPDATE: I’ve added some video to the end of the article.
It was another great weekend in Taiwan. The weather let up on us a bit and it got something approaching cooler. So, when Becky invited us up to their cabin in Miaoli, well we knew it was a great time in the making!
The ride up was spectacular as we took the mountain road that comes up behind the cabin. We brought our friend Ed with us and he’s very well traveled. His comment is that he’d never been on a road like that one before and the mountain view was one of the top things he’s ever seen. We agree! Taiwan is incredible but you have to get out of Taipei to find out.
Photos by MJ Klein and Hui-chen – ATTENTION: FOOD PHOTOS!
This series is a bit out of order. It doesn’t really matter because we did write about some things just as they occurred, such as our 2 trips to Cabela’s. So, to set the timeline straight, now would be when we went on the road trip up to West (by God) Virginia and to Cabela’s.
After we returned to North Carolina, Hui-chen and I relaxed for awhile before my brother John arrived from Florida. Hui-chen decided to make some more Taiwanese style food, since we were really missing home.
This is Hui-chen’s famous stew, with pork and vegetables. It’s as good as it looks and even better!
Photos by MJ Klein Caution: Food Photos!
As most of you know by now, Hui-chen and I went back to the USA for about 3 weeks. The reason for this trip will become apparent in future parts of this series. In Part One, I want to introduce you to a few people and places.
Photos by MJ Klein
While here in the US I was itching to try some cooking experiments that hopefully would lead to a new dish (for me). I love cooking and recipe sites, but when I am experimenting I like to try things on my own instead of downloading a recipe from someone else. This kind of cooking is different than trying to cook something already known. Here is a photograph of the pre-cooked experiment:
Pictured above is a whole chicken that I’ve coated. The main ingredient of this dish is peanut butter.
Photos by MJ Klein
Recently I’ve been hearing people say they are going to “barbecue” something over the weekend. Naturally this is the time of year when people spend time by the grill, enjoying the outdoors. But, is that really barbecuing?
Here is Taiwan “BBQ” is a common phrase for grilling food. Often I’ll walk into a grill restaurant and the staff will start parroting “bar B Q, bar B Q” trying to communicate what they do (as if having grills on each table isn’t clear enough). Normally I reply by saying “no, this isn’t barbecue” but because of the blank stares, I give up.
So, what’s the difference anyway?
Photos by MJ Klein – Attention: Food Photos!
The weather has been great for the past few days so we decided (of course!) to have a party up on our roof! We invited Andres and his family along with his friend and co-worker Rich. We had a great time with good company and good food.
I have been wanting to build some kind of an outdoor cooking table for some time. I wanted one that could hold a Dutch oven and also a grill and do everything I needed to do in connection with cooking outdoors on the roof. So, I went to B&Q and bought some stuff, and spend a few hours on Friday putting it all together. Take a look at what I built:
This is the far end of the roof at the back of the house. This is the cooking table that I made from ordinary shelfing materials you can buy in Taiwan. We also picked up the small black grill in the left corner. It’s basically a copy of a tried and true US design.
Food Photos by MJ Klein
I know it’s been awhile since we showed you any homestyle Taiwanese cooking. So, we’re going to make up for that right now! Hui-chen’s sister Hui-ling and her son were visiting. The sisters decided to do some cooking, so they made a ton of dumplings, including wontons.
Without any further delay, let’s get right into the photos!
This is the base meat, consisting of ground pork and spices.
Food Photos by MJ Klein
Hui-chen and I are off in China and Hong Kong on business for a few days. We’ll be back soon with some great photos and stories to tell! In the meantime we’d like to show you some dishes that Hui-chen’s mother cooked during Chinese New Year.
By now, everyone knows that these are the family specialty. Hui-chen makes her own version too, and they are great.
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