Slice of Home

Okay.  Maybe "Cup of Home" would be a better option.  

I've been making a point to immerse myself in Taiwanese culture as much as possible for the last couple of weeks.  I've had traditional food for almost every meal, I've always used chopsticks (though that isn't a problem for me anyways), and when I can I've spoken mandarin (which is hardly ever, but I try!)  My coworker and friend Andrew has been doing the same and by this week we were simply aching for a little bit of home.  A friend of ours through Morrison Academy volunteered to take a few of us out for some American food.  It turned into quite a lot of American food over a few days time but it was exactly what we needed!  

Monday we went to Pizza Rock and had "American" pizza.  The Taiwanese have pizza but the sauce is usually quite sweet (vs tangy or spicy in the states) and they put really bizarre things on it.  This place has Italian American style pizza.  The thin, hand pulled crust that they cook off in a brick wood fired oven.  It has great flavor, really good chew, and goes splendidly with toppings.  I had my favorite with pepperoni, mushrooms, and black olives.  It was really, really quite good.  

 

Commence drooling.

Oh.  And the root beer.  I am a big root beer fan.  It is far and away my drink of choice when it comes to soda.  They DON'T have root beer here.  I was so excited for A&W (my aunt and uncle should be proud) and it went really well with the pizza!

Tuesday night we went out for burgers.  Morrison Academy has been kind enough to let us use their weightlifting equipment while we are here for the summer so we are attempting to get fit together, as a house.  In direct contradiction to that the majority of us could be firmly classified as "foodies" and I love to cook and bake.  Anyone else see a problem here?  Me neither ;)  Anywho, after working out really hard all of us were craving true beef.  The Taiwanese are not huge into beef and when they do use it it is always cut up into small pieces or strips.  I guess you don't realize how great biting into a slab of beef with delicious toppings crushed between two amazing orbs of bread is until it isn't an option anymore.  

We needed burgers.  It wasn't a question.  Burgers had been suggested earlier in the day as a potential for dinner and by the time we were done working out all anyone could think about was beef.  Just lots and lots of BEEF.  Where's the beef?  Bring it on.

It was brought.  The place we hit up was aptly named Burger Joint.  Creative, eh?  It was opened by a Taiwanese man who spent some time in the American restaurant business and his Western friend.  Eventually the Western friend stepped back and it is just a Taiwanese man doing the best that he can.  Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is made fresh.  He has high standards of his staff and he loves when Westerners come in and they can size up his burgers to home and give him feedback.  Let me tell you.  It blew my mind.  It was really, really good.  I had a bacon cheeseburger with sauteed mushrooms.  It was cooked perfectly and so juicy.  The mushrooms were sauteed with bits of spice and it really added another dimension to the flavors of the burger.  That, paired with true french fries and ketchup, dear me I was in heaven.  

Erm.  Excuse me.  You have a little drool... yeah, right there.  Yup.  You got it.  

 Here is Andrew showing off his magnificent burger.  I don't remember what it was called but I remember it was spicy.  The kid likes spice.  You can probably predict by the way he is gazing at it that the burger was gone in approximate 2.5 minutes.  Mine was too.  

Right at the bottom you can see the top of some of my fries.  So good. 

He actually asked me to get out my camera to take a shot of his burger.  Clearly he knows beauty when he sees it!  

After a few more stops Tuesday night, we rolled ourselves home gingerly and swore up and down we would workout hard on Wednesday.  Mmmhmm.  Not so much. 

We had some decent thunderstorms today so our original plan of going for a swim got swept away.  Instead we braved Asian Costco.  Holy guacamole!  It was exactly like Costco (or Sam's Club) in the States except it felt like someone transported 400 Asian people into it.  It was packed wall to wall with people.  The first thing we did when we got there was send someone with a cart to stand in line to check out.  Then the rest of us went out on little missions and would bring stuff back to the cart. Even after we got a printer, 25 notebooks, 5 reams of paper, 125 juice boxes, and about fifteen other things we still had time left to spare.  Consequently two of us headed down to the food area and started waiting in line there to order food.  Just as we began to order the folks who were checking out reached us.  Then we spent ten minutes hawking people's tables until they got up so we could have a place to sit.  It was insane.  Absolutely insane.  

By the time we got back I was exhausted.  I laid down for a short nap and then felt like trying to get something accomplished but was also craving a little more of home.  I decided to make us a treat.  I whipped up a chocolate cake.  Rather a few of them.  In coffee mugs.  In the microwave.  Ever done this?  It is really simple, takes no longer than 5 minutes, fool proof, and very, very dangerous!  At least for those of us who are trying to get fit!  

Exhibit A.  And B.  And C.  And... well isn't this all the evidence you need?

Gooey, chocolatey goodness is at the tip of your fingers folks!  I made a simple chocolate ganache to go on the top but that was only because I didn't have any whipped cream.  I strongly suggest you try this with a dollop (:-o) of Reddi Whip or (GASP!) Cool Whip.  

Here's what you need:

4 Tablespoons Flour (I used cake flour but only because that is what I had - all purpose works just fine)
4 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa 
1 Egg (room temperature ideally)
3 Tablespoons milk
3 Tablespoons Oil (I used grape seed oil again because that is what I had but regular vegetable or canola would be fine)
Splash of vanilla (let's be real - two splashes of good vanilla will do!)
2-3 tablespoonsDark chocolate chunks or chocolate chips (Optional)
1 large coffee mug

Here's what you do:

Put your dry ingredients in the mug.  Mix them together with a fork.  Add the egg.  Mix that in.  Add the milk, oil and vanilla.  Mix again.  Scrape sides clean.  Toss in your chocolate chunks.  Mix them if you'd like or just leave them on the top.  Whatever your preference.  Microwave for three minutes. 

Don't be afraid.  The mixture will rise above the top of the mug while it is cooking but as soon as it starts to cool it will fall back down.  This version will be very, very fudgy.  Very chocolatey.  Very delicious.  Cut back on the cocoa or omit the chocolate chunks if you aren't a super duper chocolate trooper.  I also think you might get away with a smidgen less oil for those of us who are trying to be good, but I haven't tried it so don't take my word for it.  I might try to work out a vanilla version of this for the non chocolate folks.  I also heard tonight that there is a gluten free/cane sugar free version floating around out there, I will try to obtain a copy of it and pass it along to my GF friends (wink wink Heather) I'll get back to you.  

Okay.  This little piggy needs to roll herself on to bed.  I've been teaching some private classes this week as well as prepping for the real summer session.  It's been tiring.  I can report though that I am absolutely loving it here.  I adore this country so far.  You all might have a Taiwanese blog to read for a while yet! ;-) 

What do you think your "Slice of Home" would be if you were far away for a long time?  What couldn't you live without?