home cooked

As much as I can put away, my host family claims that I eat too little, too slowly, and obviously not enough meat. "those who don't eat meat don't have enought energy, they get sick easily, and quickly get hungry again."

also, things that don't have meat in them don't taste good, so host mom likes to add "just a little little bit of meat", which is even less helpful than "a lot of big meat chunks" because it is impossible to pick around! and when I try and carefully select sections of food that don't have very small meat chunks, she thinks I am a fool with chopsticks and heaps a big pile of small meat chunk-full food on to my tiny rice bowl. But she doesn't mind that I watch her cook every meal, and she is patient about explaining everything that goes in a dish (mostly oil, salt, and MSG).

Here are a few choice close-ups of some of the dinner foods. You can see pics of the meals in their entirety in my china picture album. If my formatting is at all correct, they are, in clockwise order starting at the top: cucumber, tomato and egg stir fry, mushrooms with chinese leek stalks, and just the wee-est amount of pork, and very soft egg custard type food, a puree of boiled fresh soybeans, and eggplant stir-fried with garlic, hot peppers, scallions and cilantro. "wallah!"