CHINA 2010 TUESDAY 31st AUGUST

I spent more time browsing the shelves in ‘Rainbow’ supermarket today looking for ideas for today’s meal. I was intrigued by the picture of Gulangyu’s hero displayed on a box of cakes and with a loose lid peeped inside to see what looked like very small bakewell tarts, but I know that strange ingredients go into what looks like a familiar bakery item to me, so put it back on the shelf for now. I had no idea what was in any of the other boxes on display either However on a packet of very small cakes wrapped in foil with a paper wrapper round each one stating the variety of cake I thought these might be worth trying. Now I say cake – a quick feel and I discovered the rectangle shape and about the size of a large wrapped sweet was hard, so that too stayed on the shelf. A packet of our favourite honey walnut halves went into the basket! In the upper shelf of the packaged cooked meat section a box with a picture of what looked like dried apricots caught my eye as the writing said ‘Vegetarian Gluten’ and next to that box was a clear plastic bag marked ‘Vegetarian Gizzard’ and then I saw ‘Vegetarian Liver’ in a similar packaging but the contents were white! How do you get vegetarian meat! I’m getting boring and I ended up buying a yellow tuna fish about the size of a trout and lots of fresh prawns, some of them putting up a fight and jumping back into the large tank as I tried to get them from the ladle into the plastic bag to be weighed and priced.
This evening we went for a short walk calling at ‘The Soup Expert’ to get their card as Polly wishes to take us out for a meal on Sunday evening. Amazingly we found more nooks and crannies around our immediate area including a small indoor market where a stallholder was washing down the seafood area at the end of the day. It looks like I can get fresh fish and meat not to mention loose eggs here.
The weather forecast has predicted storms for our area lasting at least 3 days and shipping has been told to seek shelter.