western shopping paradise

It is decidedly autumn in Tianjin. Until about a week ago, the weather here was very much like Kansas in the summer. Hot. Humid. Not cool in either the shade or the evening. Then, last Monday, a cold front moved in, the skies opened up, and rain fell for about 18 hours straight. Ever since, the temperatures have been in the 60's and low 70's in the day, and even cooler at night.

I love this kind of weather. Even if it is damp, I would rather be a little bit cool than hot and sticky all the time. Even if it does get up into the 70's during the day, you can rest assured that the temperature will drop back down to the 50's and 60's in the evening, and you will wake up to a brisk cool morning the next day. One of the things I love best about this weather is that it is baking weather. I love making cookies, quickbreads, yeast breads and cakes all year round, but especially as the temperatures drop. There is something so comforting and warming about eating home-baked sweets when it's cool outside.

Unfortunately for me, most Chinese kitchens do not have ovens. Chinese cuisine isn't exactly notorious for its baked goods. An increasing number of families are buying small ovens (like toaster ovens) for their kitchens these days, but ovens are certainly not a standard feature as they are in the U.S. Most of the time, this isn't a problem. We have a microwave and stove-top, and between those two appliances, we can cook almost everything we want.

However, as the temperature began to turn, I began to be very sad about our kitchen's lack of an oven. I didn't want to spend the entire year being unable to make cookies, brownies, or breads. So, Ben, being the sweet, considerate, generous guy that he is, came home from school one day and said, "Let's go to Carrefour and buy you an oven."

As we stood in the aisle at Carrefour, looking at the four options, ranging in price from about 350 yuan to 700 yuan (about $50-$100 USD), I had a mental image of my culinary life in China changing completely. Of course, I would still take advantage of the readily available and incredibly inexpensive Chinese food at the restaurants and food vendor stalls all around me. But with this oven, I would be able to make casseroles! Cookies! Western-style breads! Just beyond the door to our apartment, the world might still be spinning wildly beyond our comprehension, but within our apartment, within our bellies, we would at times be able to experience the comforts of home.

It was not until we got home and began unpacking our newly purchased oven that I realized: we may have an oven, but I may not be able to use it, or at least not the way I would like to. Here, it is not so easy to find many of the ingredients we consider standard stock in the kitchen. For example, I had not seen cinnamon at any of the supermarkets I had been to. Or chocolate chips. Or cocoa powder. Or most kinds of cheese. Or even yeast, which I thought was baffling, considering the fact that I had seen bread at both foreign and Chinese supermarkets.

Thank goodness for my brother's friend, who I will call J. J has lived here in Tianjin for about five years, and last weekend she offered to take me and Ben shopping at some places where we could buy Western baking pans (also very difficult to find) and Western cooking ingredients. The very first place she took us to was almost unreal! It was just this tiny hole-in-the-wall shop in an alley behind some apartment buildings, but it was completely stocked with every Western food you could wish for but never find in China. Tortillas and tortilla chips. Cheeses. Duncan Hines brownie and cake mixes. Bread and muffin mixes. Smoked bacon. Hershey's Cocoa powder. All kinds of spices, including cinnamon. And much, much more--more than I can even begin to list here.

After about 15 minutes there, our kitchen was fully stocked and ready for baking. My most prized purchase was two cans of pumpkin puree. Before I saw them at that little store, I had visions of me trying to roast an entire pumpkin in our tiny little oven, in order to make my favorite fall treat: pumpkin bread. But now I'm all set. My biggest problem now is trying to decide what I should bake first!