Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! The Year of the Horse starts tomorrow, and being a Horse myself on the 12-year Chinese Zodiac cycle, this is only the second time it’s happened in my lifetime. It also–disturbingly–means that according to the Chinese calendar, I’m 24 years old. At 24, my dad was gearing up for his
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Life & Travel
The Lunar New Year is upon us! Though back in the U.S. we don’t get so much as a sick day off for this holiday, here in China, we get a week off work. Beijing has emptied, as most of the city’s residents headed back to their home villages to see family. This means that we
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Before two of us moved to Beijing in 2011, we were relatively new to traveling in China. We’d made one trip in 1997, and went back ten years later in 2007. But that was about it. Now that we’re living the expat life, however, we take advantage of every opportunity to travel the country. Thankfully,
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This crispy duck wrap dish is a bit more complicated than most, but it’s worth it. The duck legs are braised to perfection, de-boned and then wrapped in a scallion pancake blanket and pan-fried until crispy. We then used the braising liquid to make a French style sauce making the dish a luxurious dinner. If
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We’ve been making some version of this vegetable five spice tofu stir-fry dish for dinner once a week for as long as we can remember. It’s healthy, vegetarian, and very easy to make. Recipe Instructions Wash and julienne the five spice tofu and vegetables. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in the wok over high heat. Stir-fry
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Frittatas are traditionally an Italian dish, but the Chinese have a similar chive frittata dish, often using Chinese or garlic chives. You can find them at the Chinese grocery store, and if you can get the seeds, they grow like grass. We have five chive plants out in the backyard, and we just trim them
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This is pumpkin granola is our family’s favorite granola recipe. It’s relatively low in sugar and fat compared to other similar recipes, and the inclusion of the pumpkin gives the granola the perfect crunchy, slightly “clumpy” consistency. We’ve tried the egg white trick that other cluster-loving bloggers and granola aficionados have suggested, but I’ve found
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This easy mushroom noodle stir fry is a great dish for mushroom lovers, as well as vegetarians and vegans alike (just leave out the pork). We were looking for a simple dish to try out the black mushrooms we recently dried on the window sill. It’s only been a few weeks since we dried them,
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