Sticky Rice Cake

Ingredients: (for 7-8 sticky rice cakes)
Sticky Rice Flour    2 Cups
Water                      1 Cup
Red Bean Sauce  
Oil                           Enough to cover the pan

This sticky rice cake is one of my favorite desserts back home. I remember having it every Mid-autumn
festival at my grandma's. My grandma comes from Shanghai and is really good at making things with
sticky rice. It is not something that passed down through our family but something almost everyone
knows how to make. I am not saying it is easy to make (it took me 1.5 hours to make 20 of them). It is
something that gathers my family. I remember we would go to grandma's house 10 o'clock in the
morning and started preparing the dinner for the big family, and this "Nuo Mi Bing" is part of it. I
would always go and "help" her, even though I messed up all the time. She never got mad at me,
instead she always gave me the dough left to play with. As I grew up, I became more curious about the
whole process and asked her to teach me. I still remember the first sticky rice cake I made, it was good
to eat but looked really bad. Grandma's always there, taught me the right and the efficient way to make
it. Of course, we have moon cakes too, but this Sticky Rice Cake is another thing that always reminds
me of the best part of my childhood.

My family's eating habit

Living in Shenzhen (an urban city near Hong Kong) in China, my family shares something in common with the Dong's family in Beijing.
Both my parents cook. My mom tends to cook more often and focus more on everyday food. But whenever my dad cooks, he can always make something different. He is the one who can be sometimes creative about cooking, the one who always tries new things. He can even invent his own dishes and name it Li's Favorite. And here is a look of the kitchen.

One thing you may notice in the kitchen of a typical Chinese family like mine is that there is a range hood. It is because we stir fry a lot and that process usually generates much smoke. And also almost all of the Chinese family have rice cookers in their kitchens. As the starch of Chinese, how can we live without rice!

Below are receipts of my family's spending on food in a week or so. When added together, we spent about $417.04 and that's for a family of five (including some cleaning supplies). But notice that this week is the celebration of Chinese New Year, so we tended to spend more on food. Chinese people aren't big fans of weekly shopping, because a big component of our diet are vegetables. And vegetables can't usually stay fresh  for all the week. So what we do is that we will do a big food shopping once a week and get nonperishable stuff like oil, snacks, drinks, flour, rice etc. We spent about $90 on vegetables in this week (about  20% of all the expenditure), and $120 on meat and seafood (my family is a big fan of seafood, about 29%).  Since it is Chinese New Year, I also notice that there are about $60 spent on ingredients making dumplings (it is kind of like a  tradition to have dumplings on New Year). One thing stands out to me is that we have a relative healthy eating habit, with only $11 spent on snacks such as candy and chocolate and sodas. Another thing surprises me is that we spent about $56.5 on Camellia oil ("the Olive oil of Asia"). The reason why it is so expensive may probably be the great health benefits it has. And just for giggle, although my family's eating habit is relatively healthy, although it is not on the receipts here and although it is in China, my parents had Mc Donalds once in this week and spent about $10.

In a traditional Chinese family, people dine together almost every night. For my family, we would sometimes wait for all the family members to begin our supper. Here are pictures of my dining room. It is relatively small compared to some of the "Long Long Tables" I saw here in the U.S. However, we never feel crowded sitting together. It gives us just enough space and makes us feel more closely related. And maybe, that's how we build up our family connections.

What a Chinese family of four eat in a week?

According to the book, a Chinese family normally spends $155.06 on food per week. Among this, the family spends most of its money on beverages, with Fish, Meat and Eggs come second. They also spend a significant amount of money on dairy like milk, yogurt and ice cream. When observed carefully, you may find that money spent on dairy are not spent on a great variety compared to other categories. This may probably because dairy products cost more money. There is a big proportion of fruits, vegetables, nuts, about 421.5 oz in total, and a lot of different condiments. For example, they use 1.1qt peanut oil in a week, and that is probably because they cook almost every day. They also eat a lot of rice, about 11lb per week, which is typically Chinese. About 35% of the food are fresh, and 35% are proceed food. Eel strips and Knorr Chicken bouillon are the only two food that need to be warmed up. And all the vegetables and meat need to be cooked. Besides that, I also notice that even though it's in China, they can't stay away from the temptation of American fast food. There is a small amount of spending on burgers and fries. From the picture and the breakdown of the food they consume per week,  I estimate that they take in a small amount of fat, an adequate amount of sugar and protein,  and a great amount of fiber and starch.

RPS Food and Culture

Imagine a community where people have origins from all over the world, Italy, Britain, Spain, China, Ireland, India, Africa, Korea, and Germany etc. It is pretty diverse right? And now, think of the food they eat, how different can that be! But since I am focusing on the RPS community, (and let’s be honest, no matter what we eat here, it’s American,) I am going to tell particularly about the food made at the dinning commons.

Personally, I think the food here is fine. What I mean by fine is a 5 or 6 out of 10. It offers a variety of food, and when I say variety, I mean a variety among different cultures. You may see Spanish Tacos one day, or Chinese stir-fried tofu, or typical American burgers and fries. I know they tried hard, but as a Chinese myself, all the Chinese style food I had here were “American-Chinese food”—either too sweet or too plain. In general, they are not real Chinese, at least not the kind of food I would eat everyday at home. But there is one thing I find most familiar with, the soup. Not because they make fantastic soup, but there are a few spices in the soup that can always remind me of home.

I know someone who is not a big fan of the “American-Chinese” food here. And the way she deals with it is to make herself something Chinese with what she can find at the dining commons. One thing is to put soy source on the eggs. Honestly, I have never tried that. But she said that’s one of her favorite ways to eat eggs back in China, so I guess that’s something real Chinese. Another food that seems to be Chinese for me is the fish. I don’t know why most Americans don’t like fish (they think it’s gross). But frankly, you can find a fish dish on almost every dinner table in China.