中 國 雜 貨

For the past several years, instead of attending church held in a church building we have been gathering together with other families and holding church services in each others houses.

And every week, whoever is the host provides the main course for a meal that we share together afterwards, and it just so happened that this last week was my turn to cook.

And no, I did not make pork and cabbage soup from my recent post but what I did make was the only thai recipe that I know how to cook...and that is Suhkothai Pad Thai. 

Now, I do not make this dish very often as on the difficulty scale it is rated a 6 with 1 being the easiest.  And the way my recipe scale rating works is how many pots or pans does it take to make it which was 3, and then how much prep work which was lots so I added another 3 to make it a 6, and in comparision, my Butternut Squash soup recipe was a 1.

So figuring I needed help, I called up my son, Billy, to enlisted him as my prep chef. I was pretty confident that he would help me as I know that he does work for food... and is especially fond of his Momma's Suhkothai Pad Thai.

So, once he confirmed he was available and would be helping, I needed to go shopping for the ingredients.

Now days, almost all of the grocery stores have the different ethnic cooking sections but it seems that none of them have all the ingredients that I need. take for instance, spicy pickled radish, you just can't find that in the asian section at any supermarket!

But that is okay because we are so fortunate to have in our town this really awesome...

I love going to this store as I have a downright fascination for different ethnic cuisines, not the americanized versions but the real ones, what people around the world really eat on a daily basis.

Take for instance, Aborigine's who eat wichetty grubs. Now I'm not saying that all Aussies eat them but there are some that still do.
Or there are native tribesman living in the jungles of South America who consider a trantula to be a delicacy. (Gag! ewww! I can't believe I was able to write that! *cringe*)

And there are also those fringes of America who are not to be outdone... so here would be the Americanized version of trantula! And, no... I could not bear to watch this through.

Now after writing that, I will emphatically let you know that I am not nearly brave enough to even touch those things let alone trying to eat them! Bleah!

Well, enough of that... lets get back to my happy place...  the Chinese Grocery!

So not only do they have all the ingredients that I need but the prices are so much better than any of the regular supermarkets.

And to me coming here is almost like taking a mini vacation to China... well, almost anyway.

It fascinates me to look through all the different kinds of foods and even reading their labels translations can be quite entertaining. In the above picture is all of their different sauces and below is their Noo Noo isle (that is baby talk for noodles... right Massey?).

And of course rice! You can't have a Chinese Market without rice and there is lots of it too!

And then there is the freeze dried vacuum packed octo 

It is the stuff like this that intrigues me... I wouldn't know what to do with freeze dried octo?

And preserved vegtable... I wonder what kind of vegtable it is? But whatever it is it says that it is 'HOT'

And I am thinking that sour bamboo might be like pickles?

Then there was the refridgerator section where they have things like...

fish... heads? Hmmm... I think he might be looking at me?

Sorry Dude, I can't take you home with me today... you're not on my shopping list.

Moving on... in the next cooler there were these really cool looking quail eggs.

It almost makes me want to get some quail... just to have eggs like this as our eggs are not so speckley!

but once again... not today.

And then their tea isle was packed with teas of different flavors and for all different kinds of ailments and even tea for exercising, relaxing, or dieting.

But the tea that definately caught my eye was this one...

Baby tea?... really? Even babies drink tea in China?

The first two ingredients listed on the back are sucrose and dextrin (so it is loaded with sugar, Yum! My kind of baby tea!) and then there is Yi Yi Ren (never heard of it), germinated rice, hawthorn fruit (sounds edible), henom bamboo leaf, leech (ummm... leech? hmmm... I don't suppose that would be a typo for leach... would it?)  and etc. (etc? I wonder what kind of ingredient is included in the etc. catergory?? Oh well, as long as it is loaded with sugar, who cares? Ü)

 Now, beings it was 'produced meticulous'... 'with most up-to-date equipments and technique' I just had to buy it.

So after I got home, and while I was cooking up my pad thia, I made up a serving of Baby Tea, added some milk and gave it to the baby... no... I didn't put it into a bottle and give it to Malachi... I gave it to Noah instead... and he really liked it too... Go figure?

And, who knows... perhaps one day I will share with you my pad thai recipe but for today my trip to China is enough... besides I am exhausted *yawn* I think jet lag is catching up to me... but I wonder... perhaps a cup of Baby Tea would help?

Ü