CATSYNTH

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Tag: fish

  • Weekend Cat Blogging: Hannukah

    For this holiday edition of Weekend Cat Blogging, we present some of our images from Hunnukah, the Jewish festival that concludes at sundown tonight. Our menorah, not surprisingly, has both musical and modernist elements, with a band of musicians behind the candles.

    Menorah with musicians

    As one can see, this was taken on the seventh night, which for a variety of scheduling reasons ended up being the main night on which we were able to celebrate. Luna received her gift, a blue fish toy – it is our personal tradition that designated Hannukah gifts have to be blue.

    luna_blue_fish_c

    She seem to quite enjoy this toy, and immediately took to batting it around th floor; and play hunting with it by pushing it underneath the table and then pouncing on it. I was able to get some videos of her play:

    Weekend Cat Blogging #237, Holiday Edition is being hosted by Samantha at Life from a Cat’s Perspective.

    The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted by Kashim, Othello and Salome. We wish Kashim a happy 11th birthday.

    And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

  • Blog about dinner

    We begin the recap of my extended weekend in Shanghai with another “Blog about dinner.”

    It seems the custom with most Chinese meals at restaurants here is to order ridiculous amounts of food. This is what almost all of my Chinese friends here do when we go out to eat. Below is just a sampling of dishes from last Friday’s dinner.

    As discussed during the first trip, Shanghai, and the entire Yangtze River delta region are known for seafood. The fish is very fresh and flavorful, but you have to accept that there are going to be lots of bones. Variants of fish cooked in wine sauce, as pictured below, are a common item on local menus.

    Non-fish seafood is also plentiful. This squid was presented to look a bit like a fish.

    The sauce in this dish was of course rather flavorful and complex, as are most of the sauces I have had in China. The range of sauces, spices and flavors is much richer than one experiences in Chinese food in the U.S.

    Even something that seems prosaic like tofu in chili sauce becomes a unique experience. This one was served hot, both in terms of temperature and spice:

    Indeed, the goal was to try and eat it before it stopped sizzling, as it is considered to lose much of it’s flavor as it cools.

    Finally, something a little different: Crab meat in shells, again with a very unique but more subtle sauce:

  • Blog about dinner

    Well, we at CatSynth took Jacksin’s comment not to blog about lunch as a bit of a dare, so here is a brief post about last night’s dinner 🙂

    Pictured above are (from clockwise left), a local root vegetable, jellyfish, and smoked fish. Dinner every night has included a wide variety of dishes, and this was only the first round. We also had a wonderful local small fish cooked in a stew – it had a very rich and buttery texture, and a mild, sweet flavor, one of the best fish I have had in a while. Additionally, there was another fried fish and an interesting pork soup. This particular meal featured local food from the Suzhou and Shanghai area. Previous nights focused on other regions, including famously spicy Szuchuan Cuisine.