lesson learned

Its been about two weeks in our new place and things are slowly coming together. But, we learned an important lesson the other day. Our dryer kept tripping the breaker for some reason so I pulled the plug and noticed it was warm and melted around one of the prongs. Figuring that probably wasnt good and whats causing the breaker to trip I removed the old cord, proceeding to lose one of the screw down the back of the dryer. I searched everywhere and I couldnt see or hear it moving around so we headed off to Lowes and bought a replacement cord. Lowes, its hard to leave its like being a kid in a candy store. After drooling over everything I wanted I managed to get out the door and replaced the cord, still missing one of the screw to attach the hot lead I searched and searched to no avail. I looked through all of my toolboxes and junk drawer for a replacement and of course couldnt find one that fit.

Just as I was about to give up and drive back to Lowes for a damn screw I tipped the dryer one last time and teh screw came rolling along the inside of the dryer. Success! the dryer worked ....

For about 5 minutes when it tripped the breaker and gena said a spark came out of the outlet. not being one to mess with home electricity and after several warning from family members about burning the house down I had gena call the home warranty company and they sent an electrician. She called me at work and said that the outlet was the problem and it looked like we had a fire in it. He replaced the outlet and checked the other outlets in the house warning us that we have old style outlets that dont meet new fire codes and we should replace them because they are a fire hazard. he also said "youre lucky you didnt burn the house down with that dryer!"

Lesson of the week, when something, especially a dryer on a 220 line trips the breaker, dont pass it off and just reset the breaker without having the problem checked out.

In the Beginning There was Chaos

Soon to be open

So a few things have changed. I dont live in Brooklyn. I live in Taipei, Taiwan and I am pursing food and cooking full force. I am starting a restaurant in The Taipei City Hall section of town, which is fancy to be short. I am not alone here. My pals Catherine and Michael who brought my out last spring are now my partners. I have some other expat and Taiwanese friends here. In fact the whole country is friendly, and loves to drink and eat. I feel pretty good about this move in whole.

So what kind of restaurant am I starting? What will serve? What is it called? All of these facts will be revealed to you in good time. For now lets start at the beginning. My partners found an amazing location which needs renovation. Gutting and revamping has begun. I am told it will take one month. Disbelief is giving way to reality. Construction and labor are affordable and efficient over here. Here is brief tour of what we are working with.

 The front

 The covered entrance, soon to be garden

 Seating area one

 Seating area 2

Counter and kitchen

The nightmare room, or soon to be the vip room

Business in the back 

 Please note the W Hotel in upper left, yes we are fancy.

 Hammer time

Did you see what I see? Use your imagination. Turning raw space into loved and happy space is a great challenge. If inhabiting gutted out dirty dusty buildings isnt your thing, do not proceed to shop for used restaurant equipment. If large industrial spaces with rusted odd and wonderful machines is, then please come with me. My partner, Catherine manged to locate a huge multi-building warehouse of tired and diverse food equipment. Its basically where restaurants go to die, or be resuscitated anew. I like recycling! 

The lay of the land is row after row of different equipment. You could feed all the worlds armies with all this great stuff. 

Koenraad demonstrates the shave ice machine. Ive been wanting to own one of these guys since I first tried mango ice last fall in Taipei. 

And then it really happened. Like meeting your love for the first time. We found our stove. The stove. The stove of stoves. A big 6 burner with 2 door ovens. These are not easy to find new or used. It was there waiting for me under a pile of soot. I am so happy.

Each oven has 4 racks. Each rack is roughly 30x18 inches. Its pretty big. I can really bake with this. I am pumped. Its going to make all the difference in the world.

Stay tuned for more clues about our restaurants identity and menu. Ill try to write some recipe in the mean time. I have so many to share.

p.s. Kitchen equipment photos by Koenraad Hulsker. Thanks Koenraad!

How to Read Nutritional Labels in Chinese

One of the biggest road blocks in my adventure to figure out what Ive been eating here in Taiwan is nutrition labels. The labels offer similar nutritional information as the USA but not identically, and not in the same order, in Traditional Chinese, and serving sizes are metric. There are a few conversations on the age-old Formosa boards that offer some non-helpful tips, and some tips that are totally wrong. No, 7-11 does not list nutritional information in English, *sigh. I also ran across this very detailed but also confusing pamphlet from Hong Kong.

The nutrition labels usually offer the following facts, and typically in this order:

?? (Re4 Liang4) Energy (units = ?? / da1 ka3 / Kcal) 

??? (Dan4 Bai2 Zhi4) Protein (unit =  ?? / gong1ke4 / gram)

?? (Zhi1 Fang2) Total Fat (unit =  ?? / gong1ke4 / gram)

  ???? (Bao3 He2 Zhi1 Fang2) Saturated Fat (unit =  ?? / gong1ke4 / gram)

  ???? (Fan3 Shi4 Zhi1 Fang2) Trans Fat (still legal?) (unit =  ?? / gong1ke4 / gram)

????? (Tan4 Shui3 Hua4 He2 Wu4) Carbohydrates (unit =  ?? / gong1ke4 / gram)

? (Na4) Sodium (unit =  ??/ hao2ke4 / milligram)

? (Tang2) Sugar Not always listed (unit =  ?? / gong1ke4 / gram)

A less than complete list compared to the USA standard. I am not sure why sugar is broken out of the carbohydrate category. I guess you could figure out which fats are unsaturated by subtracting the two listed fats (saturated and trans) from total fat. Noticeably the vitamins and minerals are usually absent. I find foods marketing themselves as nutritious list that out. 

Above you can see the nutrition label for lemon tea, a very common drink in Taiwan. It does not list sugar as a nutritional item, which is a little dodgy in my opinion. Instead it lists total carbohydrates. Knowing that 1 gram of sugar contributes 4 calories we can guess that most of the calories are coming from sugars. Most sweet teas do not contain fiber! 

What is very different if you are coming from the states in serving size. Most often in Taiwan a serving is 100 milliliters (??/ hao2sheng1 /.42 cups) or 100 grams (?? / gong1ke4 /3.5 oz) whether you should actually be consuming that quantity in a sitting or not. For example you would probably not be interested in eating 100 grams of the gooey thick bitter black sesame paste I am using as example here. Alternatively, you would be likely to chug a whole over sized tea carton on a hot day, and may be shocked to realize you drank 6.5 servings. You will probably need to do some additional math as to how much a "you-sized" serving or portion will be. 

Serving size and servings per container are usually not listed above the nutritional facts. Often they are found next door along with ingredients, country of origin, and other details I cant read. Above you can see that the container has 250 ?? (grams) of sesame paste. If you arent confident in recognizing your Traditional Chinese characters go ahead and assume the biggest number is the total grams or milliliter. A containers total weight or volume is also not always listed on the front of the package. Looking to this area pretty much tells you everything  else you need to know. 

A final scenario exists, on occasion food nutrition IS offered in a suggested portion. Here is a can of good ole Quaker oats. It lists 37.5 grams of oats as a portion which would make about 1 cup cooked. You can read up top in Chinese: ???? (mei3 yi2 fen4 liang / every serving) and ???? (ben3 bao1 zhuang1 han2 / servings per container). 

Anyone other special knowledge out there on Taiwanese food labeling? Please share any comments or criticisms.