Day 14: Cooking Lessons

I asked Auntie to teach me how to make 包菜 (pickled vegetables). The one they make here is sour and sweet, with a little bit of spice (similar to the ones they sell in Chinese stores back home). It took her like a minute to chop one entire cabbage, when I remember taking about 20 minutes to chop one when I made kimchi before. After salting and draining the chopped cabbage, she added sugar, vinegar, chopped chili and some grated carrot for more color.

She also made a lot of breaded pork today. She said it's for customers who have there meals here, and to promote the bottled yang mei juice. She showed me how to cook it sweet and sour pork style. It's actually pretty easy to make. Or at least she made it look easy.

The first batch of tea leaves are done! Uncle said that he had to wake up 4-5 times to keep mixing (?) the leaves that were picked yesterday. Then the leaves were dried using this huge oven. Today, more leaves were picked and dried out under the sun.

Can't believe this is already my 13th day here! Almost two weeks or 1/4 of my stay here!