An American In Taiwan

Doesn’t sound too appealing, does it? Well, that’s what I made the other day. And no, I didn’t mean to.

Recently, I’ve been on a bit of a health-kick. The Abs Diet, to be specific. Smoothies for breakfast (which are, to my surprise, far from the ground-up-chalk taste I was expecting); turkey and Swiss sandwiches for lunch (or hamburger, or leftover pasta, or chili, or whatever else I happen to have sitting around); hamburger, or salmon, or pasta, or chili, or whatever else I want to make for dinner. Throughout the day it’s almonds, oranges, leftover smoothie, Kashi granola bars, that sort of thing. I feel like I’ve never ate so much in my life, but it’s like there’s a huge fire inside my gut, and all this food is just coal getting tossed in. It’s amazing. I suggest it for anyone who wants a diet that even a lazy, forgetful academic like myself can follow.

Mulling over what to have for dinner, as I was out of leftovers, I decided on doing some fried rice, but I wanted to use brown rice for the health benefits. I had everything set out: egg, veggies, even that really good shredded, dried pork called Rousong () that looks like carpet fibers but tastes wonderful. Problem is, I’m rather forgetful, and I couldn’t remember the exact proportions of water-to-rice when using the lady’s electric rice maker. She told me, but I forgot. Plus, I figured brown rice was different than white rice, because of the different levels of fiber and whatnot (like glucose? Am I just making that up?).

Did I mention I’m forgetful? I looked it up online, and was told that it was 2 1/4 cups water to 1 cup rice. Cook. Wait ten minutes. Enjoy.

Not so much.

All keyed up and ready to eat, I opened the rice maker and stared at, quite literally, rice soup. Well, more specifically, rice at the bottom of a bowl of water. Now, I might not know a lot, but I know what I like. That did not look appetizing. Now, I consider myself a decent cook. I’m no Alton Brown, but I know my way around a kitchen. I watch a lot of cooking shows, anyway. Jamie Oliver is a personal hero of mine.

I digress.

Long story short, I put everything back in the fridge, went to Taco Bell to get some Volcano tacos, and watched an episode of House. I consider that my “cheat meal.”

Do they get House in Taiwan? I wonder who does Hugh Laurie’s voice in Chinese…

Tags: adventures, Food, mistakes

This entry was posted by 美國人 on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 11:45 and is filed under Daily Life, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.