Happy Thanksgiving

For thanksgiving, I ate Vietnamese food. It's pretty close to turkey. As in, it is both tasty, and food.

The similarities end soon thereafter.
But I did like it. It wasn't too expensive, it was much better than being simply 'tasty', and, for reasons I think I might know, my food came with a small loaf of hot, fresh french bread (Vietnam was ruled by the French...?).

And you know what? I found a clever way to beat the crowds to the day-after shopping. Leave the country! Yes, that's right, all you have to do is leave the good old U.S. of A., and there are no lines at the malls! No mad rushes for toys! No crazy people, no unending, mercilessly maddening christmas carols! No problems parking (well, aside from the fact that Taiwan, like many other foreign countries, does not believe in parking lots - so parking is just as easy as it ever is)!
I'm going shopping tomorrow. I think a lot of you would enjoy the shirts they have here; unfortunately, though shirts are cheap (like $3-4), shipping them is not. So most of you will get...nothing. Heh. Well, being good is its own reward, right? Not that I really believe any of you have been staying out of trouble. Scoundrels. No visits from Santa this year. He lost visitation rights, because you've been bad (imagine saying that to a child of divorce. Heheh. Wow, that'd screw him up. Sometimes, do you think, it's best that I'm not a parent? Well, not like I'd intend to get divorced, anyway...but you never know who your own kids would bring back home, right?).
So, anyway, sorry, no presents. Maybe I can bring a few things back with me, and you can get some bizarre goodies then.

I think on some weekend soon (maybe this one), I'll get a chance to actually cook some food. I might even make something thanksgiving-y. Or a pie. Yeah, pie's good.
That reminds me: there are things you'd expect any ordinary country to have. You know, roads, water and sewage systems, a military, pie. Guess which one of these things Taiwan doesn't have! Well, you'd be half-right if you guessed any of them, but the answer was pie. There is none.
Or, if there is, I have never seen it, and I've checked just about every restaurant and dessert place within 2 miles of school (and plenty of upscale places, too). There are cakes, and lots of them (though, like bread, no Taiwanese person has ever been entirely successfully at making one).
According to stereotype, asians are skinny. That isn't true of every person, of course, but there are fewer fat people here than in America. However, it isn't because they're starving, anymore. It's because they don't know how to make decent desserts.
Here in Taiwan, you can only tell that you're eating dessert by some sort of scale that I haven't totally figured out - roughly, though, ordinary food is only 25-50% sugar, while desert is 50-100%. Unsurprisingly, Taiwan has the highest rate of incidence of diabetes in the world.

There's a killing to be made here by any half-decent pastry chef and/or baker. Also, I think Southern style food would be immensely popular here. If you could get anyone to try it. It's worth thinking about.

Well, unlike the rest of you, I don't have a holiday today, or tomorrow, so I've got to go now - enjoy stuffing yourselves. Try to eat a little extra for me.


Cultural note for today: Turkey is very rare in Taiwan. It is also literally called "Fire Chicken" (火雞).