Cuccidati.......

When Michael and I go home we have lots of friends and family to catch up with.  My summer holiday usually consists of flying into Detroit solo, while Michael stays in Nanjing and works.  I stay with my friends in Detroit for a while and then drive down to my friend Barbara's in Ft. Wayne, IN.  After Barbara's I come back to Detroit and Michael usually is on his way into town by this time.  We stay in Metro Detroit for a week, while Michael works out of his office in Detroit.  We then proceed to our parent's houses.  My parents live up North and Michael's family lives in the Buffalo, NY area.  Needless to say, we get around.  We see lots of people and eat lots of yummy American food! ;o) 

Michael comes from an all Italian family.  His parents are Italian.  His grandparents are Italian.  His great grandparents are Italian and so on and so forth.  So we get lots of yummy food in Buffalo.  Both of Michael's parents can cook really well and I have learned lots of tips and tricks from them on how to improve on my own cooking. 

This year Michael's mom baked some traditional Italian cookies called CUCCIDATI., for us to bring back to China and share with my family.  The only way I can think to describe them are like fig newtons but 1,000 times better.  They are really yummy and not the easiest thing to make.  They are pretty labor intensive.  I have made them once and have not attempted them again.  When I move back to the U.S. maybe I will start up again as figs and dates are not anywhere to be found in Nanjing. 

Michael's mom made a lot of cuccidati.  We took some to my family and they ate them up in a hot second.  We also carefully packed some to bring back to China and share with Michael's co-workers.  They were a real hit. 

Chinese do not really eat sweets.  And if they do eat sweets, they are not really sweet.  At least not by American standards.  But they really liked them.  Here are some pics to prove it.

Cuccidati....they look pretty good for coming all the way to China in a suitcase.

Yi Ning...our driver

Hmmm...what do we have here?

Yummy to my Tummy

I love Italians!

ummmm....Do I really have to eat this? ;o)

The classic Chinese pose when having your pic taking...fingers in a V shape...stands for Victory or so we have been told.  Kids from 1 year of age to adults do it. 

Haochi....means good food or delicious

Did you just take my picture?   I was not ready ;o)

Thumbs up for Cuccidati!

Ni hao everyone!

Hi everyone.  Sorry about going so long between posts.  I guess I have been saying that in my last few posts ;o(.

Not much new here.  Since my last post, we went home for our summer holiday and had a great time seeing our family and friends.  It went by too quickly.  It is amazing how so much has changed in my friends lives....new babies, new boyfriends, new jobs.  Yet I love that our friendship has remained the same.  And we can still talk and laugh and cry just like I had never moved to China.

Here in Nanjing we are experiencing the hottest summer that they have had in 120 years.  That is what my language teacher tells me.  The measured temps have been about 100 for at least 2 weeks straight, but with the humidity they say real feel temp is more like 115.  Needless to say it is hot, hot, hot!!!!  I have never lived in heat like this before.  I go to take Coco for a 30 minute walk and I come back looking like I ran a marathon.

The Asian youth games are also here in Nanjing this summer, so the city will be crazy busy for the next 2 weeks.  Even more so than it already is. Next summer Nanjing will host the Junior Olympics next summer.  I think this is kind of a trial run with the security and the facilities.  They have implemented a lot of new security and they are also enlarging the metro line as well.

Michael is working a lot.  He is also traveling more these days.  He has been traveling at least 2 of the 4 weeks we have been back.  So he is a very busy guy these days.

I am back to my old schedule and just trying to stay cool.

We are in the process of planning our October holiday.  Michael gets a week off for the Chinese Moon festival or Autumn festival.  We are going to Vietnam, so I should have some good pics coming up soon.

I will leave you with some pics of a new painting I am doing.  I am trying to document the process from beginning to end, so you can kind of get an idea of the Gong Bei process.  The picture quality is bad because I took them with my Iphone.

I'll be back soon! ;o)

Step 1 is tracing the painting I want to paint.  That is a paint brush, not a pen or pencil.  This process is the hardest for me because you have to have a steady hand.

Step 2....Laoshi "washed" the paper with a background color.  It is hard to see in this photo...but at the bottom it is blueish green and toward the top a light purplish.

Step 3 I start painting the center of the flowers a dirty yellow, greenish, brown color.   All white flowers start out this way.

This pic shows the completion of the center of the flowers.

Step 4 is painting the white on the flowers.  Here the white is mostly completed.  I will need to go back and touch up some of the white and make it a bit brighter.  And the stems I did start painting a little green.  But they will have more color added as well. 

I will take more pics next week in class to update you on my progress.