And When The Beat Comes

I don’t know how many of you have the privilege of knowing my Mom. If you have never met her, I’m sad for you. She is an incredible lady. Both incredible and a lady. Lest I write myself into a meltdown, let’s get back to the point.

So my mom, the incredible lady, is also a phenomenal chef. I say chef because I’m her daughter and I live in China and she’s not here to make me change it. Baha, I would like to think that she and I are alike but she is much much more gracious, kind, funny, lovely, and sassy than I am.

Focus Ana. This is ridiculous.

A major difference between my mom and I is I am both naive, impetuous and slightly over confident in my cooking abilities. How come palates are not genetic? Ok I wouldn’t say over confident. More, I will try to make anything one time. Then I get extremely discouraged because my food is not the beautiful works of art I grew up with and quit. (hello fault o’ mine).

So. In my over zealousness I asked my mom to send me recipes for 2 of my favorite things she makes.

1. Biscuits

2. Tortilla de patatas. (Not yet attempted – I have to build up my courage first).

As of today I have attempted the biscuits one time. They ended up looking like fat pancakes. Like little baby hippo pancakes. Which let’s be honest. There is not one single sad person here about the fact that the biscuits looked like fat little baby animals. Do you know me at all? I’ve decided the quintessential biscuit shape is over rated.

How much does it cost me to bake in China?

1 normal sized bag of flour – 29RMB = $4.73USD

1 cup of butter – 17RMB = $2.78USD

Cornstarch – 35RMB = $5.71USD

Chocolate Chips – 55RMB = $8.98USD

Salt (one of those big pouring containers – do not blame me for your lack of mental picture on this one) – 25RMB = $4.08USD

Yeast (500g of the instant kind) – 39RMB = $6.37USD

2 lbs of White Sugar – 19RMB = $3.10USD

1 lb of Brown Sugar – 10 RMB = $1.63

Baking Powder – 29RMB = $4.73

If I was a true cook than I would know what is missing from this list.

Since I am not, here’s an iphone picture of chocolate chunk cookies I made from this site today.

For the record, these are not as good as I expected them to be and I take full responsibility for this fact.

Lets bring it full circle. When I grow up, I want to be like my mom. Otherwise my poor babies are going to be malnourished, spastic, and have no idea what good food is unless Mama Lu comes to visit.

In other news, today I witnessed a woman pop a squat on the side of the road and do her business. New firsts every day.

Today’s title brought to you by Ben Rector – The Beat. (hello obsessed).