A Trifling Experiment with Cheeseburger Pie

You may imagine from this blog that I only ever eat out at restaurants. It's not true. Sometimes I eat out at other people's houses.

I have met lot's of Americans here. And some of them have been kind enough to invite me for dinner. And they cook American food. American food is cool! Way cool. I mean come on, 'Cheeseburger Pie' – what an awesome name!!

So the name is sort of descriptive, if you translate it into American. 'Cheeseburger Pie' is a cross between a cheeseburger (in that it contains burger meat) and pie (if by 'pie' you mean a pasta bake crossed with toad in the hole). It's apparently very easy to make. You fry up ground beef (I.e. minced beef) and onions, and add some 'seasoning mix' (no idea exactly what it contains but some kind of chilli powder, plus salt and pepper, and various E numbers I guess?). Then you pour over a ready made box mix of something called 'Bisquick' which makes a biscuit mix (or a kind of doughy substance similar to yorkshire pudding). Finally you top it off with grated cheese and stick it in the oven. Yes, my American friend has an oven. She also bakes cakes and cookies (I mean biscuits)!

And voila! Cheeseburger Pie is served. I liked it. Crispy on top, lots of red meat with a kind of Tex Mex chilli con carne flavour that American's do so well, the sort of doughy stuff that binds it all together. I had thirds.

For dessert another friend had experimented with trifle. In a kind of 'well I don't have sponge cake, or jelly, but I have custard and random biscuits and some fruit. Lets's sort of throw it all in together and see what happens' way. It tasted good! Custard with all sorts of exciting bits of fruit or biscuit lurking where you least expect them. Plus the top was covered with 杨梅 (yangmei) or Yumberries. I had never eaten them before. They are slightly sour and tangy, but sort of sweet as well. They went nicely with the custard, bringing a tartness to the sweetness of the trifle.

Aren't you all impressed with my new American food vocabulary? Yeah? Oh weeeell, it's reeaal naaice of y'aaall to saiy so. [I never said my American accent was any good!!:)]

Sticky Hairy Apples

When you have a set class schedule you also have set lunch buddies. And our campus has limited restaurant options. There are two decent restaurants, so we alternate. And sometimes, yes, we get bored and order strange things for a little variety.

This week it was toffee apples. A group behind us had them and my colleague said they were good. So, some minutes later a massive pile of hot toffee apples appeared on our table.

They are not your traditional 'apple on a stick coated in toffee and wrapped in red cellophane' variety. These are much nicer and slightly easier to eat. They are freshly cooked pieces of apple, battered, and then covered in toffee. They are served with a bowl of cold water because the toffee is so fresh that it develops these fine toffee hairs when you pick it up. You have to dip it in the water to cool the toffee, and stop the hairs from growing, then eat it slowly – because it's still really hot inside.

But you have to eat the dish quickly. Because once the apples get cold, they solidify into hard lumps that stick together and break your teeth! And of course, this is China, so the apples (dessert) always arrive before your main course! The worst part is, I'm starting to enjoy the sweet as a starter. I'll come back to the Western world having learned to spit bones onto the table, eat dessert first, and yell for the waiter without even looking. Oh dear! You just can't take some people anywhere!!