This post would not be made possible without the help of my Mom. Who graciously turned the oven off and propped the door open as I ran around stuffing Christmas presents into my carry-on bag, who patiently waited for the cheesecake to cool in the refrigerator while I caught my flight back to Miami, who wrangled the sides of the springfoam pan off without mishap, who showed self-restraint in digging in to take pictures for my blog. For all this and more, thanks Mom! I owe you...one big cheesecake with coconut and almonds and chocolate crust...enjoy! (And please, one more thing, freeze me a piece to try.)
So now to the cheesecake! Creamy on a chocolate graham cracker crust with lots of cinnamon, a pinch of salt, a shake of ginger, and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Dreamy with coconut and chopped almonds baked inside. Brown with a...brown? is the cheesecake top supposed to be brown? that brown? or was I suppose to move the rack down?
Every Christmas my Mom, sister, and I make sugar cookies - the same recipe baked by the sheetful and slathered with colorful butter cream frosting. It is one among many traditions that my Mom has instilled in our holiday, although it is the only one I know that pre-dates the arrival of her kids, and the only one with a necessity I have never really questioned.
When my Mom was about 16, she decided to bake sugar cookies. I can just see my Granny looking on with a look of quiet observance, as if she would neither be surprised nor moved if the cookies turned out to be the best in the world or if they caught fire in the oven. My Mom continued to bake the same recipe every year, giving them to the multitude of relatives and friends that comprised her small town. One year, so the story goes, she doled out 150 cookies. It may have been the first thing my Mom did in the kitchen that was hers - without help, without guidance, without it being her father's favorite or her grandmother's best dish. Unlike my maternal great-grandmother, my sister, and myself, my Mom was never a culinary spirit. She doesn't particularly enjoy preparing or creating food. Her enthusiasm about these cookies is unrivaled. My sister and I picked up on this at an early age, and have since always tried to display equal enthusiasm, even in teen years on a pertual diet or miles away in China where my sister missed out on the cookies this year but was with us in spirit saying that I should write about them on my blog.
SUGAR COOKIES (makes about 40-50 cookies)
As a child, I didn't touch the cookies without the rich butter cream frosting. I also liked to make the colors as deep and psychedelic as possible. I'm still crazy with the food coloring paste but also like the cookies bare. 
I also experimented with popping the dough in the freezer between bakes to facilitate a nice, lovely, round shape. It worked pretty well although I think I just need to get a melon scooper.
These yummy shortbread cookies left my hands all buttery, smelling like a dairy farm or an expensive hand treatment, or both.
There is a lot of meat in Chinese cuisine, but also tofu, so as a pescetarian I didn't have any real difficulties...except in actually communicating "no meat please." The Lonely Planet food section was very helpful as I pointed to the Chinese characters for "I am a vegetarian" and "spicy tofu." Many Buddhist temples had vegetarian restaurants attached with lots of scruptious mock meat dishes and bean pastries. Some restaurants had menus in English although the descriptions themselves were sometimes confusing or vague. A lot of dishes simply said "meat," since the Chinese word for pork can also be used for meat in general. In addition, there was "fish like squirrell," in which the fishtail curled upwards to the ceiling (quite tasty).
I also loved the roasted chestnusts sold on every street corner. And the milk tea! And the little steamed baotze balls filled with cabbage or a darker, kale-like veggie! 
In Beijing, my sister and I found a night market with an entire street of food vendors lined up with fried noodles, fried ice cream, fried scorpion, fried beetles, fried centipede, fried starfish, fried dough, fried dumplings, fried rice, fried honeybees, and the list goes on. Yep, no oil spared here my friends. I partook of the fried ice cream and fried banana balls (which btw, contained absolutely no banana) while my more adventurous (and carnivore) sister nibbled on crunchy centipede and scorpion. Yes, many pictures were taken. 
Things I want to try:
