A little homesick...

I think it's because Ron's gone. I haven't really established a strong support system here. We've only been here a few months & we'll be leaving (unless Erin can convince me otherwise ;D) by the fall. We have a couple of home school families we get together with once or twice a week. Being mostly an introvert it's a little hard for me to make friends. Although my children have helped me to be more sociable. C can make friends with anyone, he's so gregarious. He certainly didn't get it from me or Ron.

I also think the homesick has to do with me thinking about my mom. It started on Friday. We decided to make Asian food for a late celebration of B's birthday. Ron made yakisoba & I made potstickers. We don't call them potstickers, but I don't know how to spell what we do call these dumplings. My mom used to make us all sorts of these yummy foods while we were growing up. I still hear the sound of her cleaver against the wooden cutting board, cutting duck at Chinese New Year. She tried and tried to teach me the finer arts of Taiwanese cooking. I'm just not gifted in the culinary department. That would be why my husband is the gourmet.

C helped me Friday fold the potstickers. My mom would have been proud. Just to hear that they ASK CONSTANTLY for them would put her over the moon. After making all the dumplings, I had a bunch of Chinese cabbage and rice noodles (it's my own thing, don't tell her put rice noodles in them, she'll freak). I hate to see it all go to waste. I mean have you SEEN how big napa cabbage is? It's more than twice the size of a western cabbage. That's a lot of cabbage! So, I decided I was going to make bihon. This was a first for me. Again, my mom has explained it to me no less than one million times and I've yet to make it on my own, afraid I would mess it up. But, there was a recipe on the back of the rice noodles. I can follow a written recipe better than my mom saying, "You just add this and this, cook it for a little while, then..." Yeah, I can't cook that way. I did, however, remember HER way of doing things. Not adding, for example, oyster sauce as the non-mom recipe suggested, but adding shiitake mushrooms like she does. So, I did it. And it wasn't bad. It definitely needs some work, but it wasn't as horrible as I had thought. And now, I miss my mom. LOL. Love you, mom!