Buying Flour

by Jimmie on July 29, 2010

Baking is not part of traditional Chinese cuisine. Stir-frying, steaming, and braising are common. But ovens are still very much a rarity in a Chinese kitchen. The fact that I can make bread, cakes, and cookies is amazing to my local friends. They don’t realize how terrible the local bakeries’ bread is because they’ve never had quality bread or desserts. (Well, until they visit me, that is!)

flour white and whole wheatI have to make our own breads in order to have something edible and somewhat nutritious. (The bread here tends to be very light and sweet. I think it is made with water instead of milk, all white flour, no eggs, and a lot of sugar. Think ultra sweet Wonderbread. Yuck.)

Some cities do have Western style bread shops, but our small city still has only Chinese-styled breads, things like buns stuffed with sweetened red bean paste or stuffed with dried meat floss. Things like tortillas, bagels, pita bread, raisin bread are non-existent.

So I use lots of flour. So much flour that I buy it in bulk at the bakery supply shop in the wholesale market. Here is my latest delivery — a 25 kg bag (over 50 lbs) of bread flour and a 23 kg bag of whole wheat flour. I don’t do it so much to save money (although it is cheaper this way) as to save the trouble of carrying home a 5 pound bag of flour every time I go to the grocery store.

The bakery supply shop has become so used to me that they will deliver right to my door. What a convenience! I just call them up when I’m running low. This much flour lasts us about 6 months. I spent 350 RMB on this delivery; that’s about $50.

This time they even brought me some muffin papers. My last package (all red) lasted me two entire years. I don’t know how many are in there– maybe 600? Looks like this cycle will be yellow.

The whole wheat flour has to be special ordered since none of their other customers uses it. (That tells you a lot about the quality of bread in our city, doesn’t it? Four million people and I am the sole user of whole wheat flour.) I store the flour in big plastic bins in my bedroom beside the chest freezer. I’ve never had any trouble with weevils or other pests since the bakery’s flour is much fresher than what is in the grocery stores.

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Blogs With Substance Award

by Jimmie on July 27, 2010

Aren’t I feeling special? I’ve been given the Blogs With Substance Award by Nadene, Barb, and Alex.

AND Colleen also gave me a Sunshine Award.

PLUS Suji bestowed a Versatile Blogger Award on me.

Thanks so much to all five of you. I’m very flattered.

Blogs With Substance Award Rules

  1. Sum up your blogging philosophy, motivation, and experience using ten (10) words.
  2. MY TEN WORD ANSWER–

    Be real but positive; no one likes complainers. Share generously.

  3. Pass it on to 10 other blogs which you feel have real substance.

I’ve already outlined my picks for group blogs at Best Homeschooling Blogs. So I’ll stick with just two individuals’ blogs.

  • Camp Creek Blog — an “out of the box” philosophy to homeschooling that always makes me THINK.
  • Buntglas – an Italian blog, but you don’t even have to understand the words to be impressed. Amazing timelines, nature explorations, and sketches.

I read a lot of great blogs, but these two are ones that you probably don’t know about but that I’d really like you to visit and glean from. With just two (instead of 10) you’re more likely to actually click over, I think. So go click.

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Summer Homeschooling CurrClick Contest Winner

July 26, 2010 Uncategorized

The winner of the Summer Homeschooling CurrClick Contest is Amy @ Hope Is the Word! I had 28 comments, and comment #20 was the randomly chosen number at Random.org. You get your choice of a $25 gift certificate or one audiobook of your choice from CurrClick. Congratulations, Amy! CurrClick will be contacting you soon. Thanks [...]

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Funny Chinglish Signs & Mushrooms

July 26, 2010 Chinglish

Three lovely Chinglish examples for you today. These two are signs near our home. I walk by them often but usually without my camera. They are just too good not to share, so I deliberately took my camera one day. I think this is a fancy name for what is in essence a tea house [...]

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Our Yellowstone Family Vacation and Ultimate Field Trip

July 23, 2010 field trips

Personally I think that our vacation to Yellowstone is the best vacation we’ve ever had. The vacation to Xian ranks second, but it’s in no way a contender for first place after we’ve seen our country’s first national park.  Granted, they are both dream locations, sort of “can’t go wrong” spots. Why did I adore [...]

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Beautiful Feet Support Group

July 22, 2010 Charlotte Mason Homeschooling

We are going to be using Beautiful Feet again soon. The plan (and you know how plans are) is to begin BF Ancients in August. Since there is no BF forum or support of any kind, I began a Yahoo Group for BF users. Please join us if you are a BF user or someone [...]

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Studying the Civil Rights Movement

July 19, 2010 history

Normally I think it’s best to study something and then take the field trip. But when a chance to tour a museum presents itself, I certainly wouldn’t turn it down because we hadn’t reached that part in our curriculum. Actually, for the Civil Rights topic, I think that having our visit to the Civil Rights [...]

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Wrapping Up the 50 States Notebook

July 16, 2010 notebooking

We have been studying American history for a long time now. (I first posted about this notebook in October of 2008.) After the American Revolution, when the colonies became states, Sprite began her 50 States Notebook. My idea was to add each state as it entered the Union chronologically. Well, we are finally finished. With [...]

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Summer Homeschooling CurrClick Contest

July 13, 2010 contests & giveaways

Want a chance at a $25 gift certificate or audiobook of your choice from CurrClick? Keep reading. I’m having a contest. Here comes the fancy introduction… I consider us year-round homeschoolers just because we like to be able to take breaks whenever interesting opportunities come up. That means that we do homeschool off and on [...]

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More Fun in USA

July 11, 2010 travel

Catching up on our fun in America….. We visited a deer farm where we petted and fed deer, rode four wheelers, and the highlight — bottle fed baby fawns. Later, Sprite got her ears pierced! She celebrated her birthday not once, not twice, but three times in USA. Her actual birthday was spent in Yellowstone. [...]

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