DearOne Photography: July Recap

How long we’ve been here: 9 months 21 days or 281 days in total

Favourite thing to eat:

Dave: This is always tough to answer each month because I work in a Taiwanese kitchen 3 nights a week and also am the Chef at BUS7 Café I sample many different foods every day. I guess the month of July would be a toss up between roasted duck(Bejing Peeking Style) or Taiwanese Sausage. The Taiwan sausages are very different than what we make back at the Burt Farm Butchershop. Maybe I will get a chance to get back into the cutting room and experiment with Max when I get back. This special sausage is made with traditional salted hog casing, pork and fat and is packed full of flavour with a mixture of Asian 5 spice, ginger, garlic, rice wine vinegar, and cane sugar for sweetness. I think this maybe a special dish I make in the future for my French/Taiwanese fusion Menu im here working on right now.

Steph: Fruit!! Right now Passion Fruit is just coming into season, but our fridge usually has a selection of mango, guava, pinapple, dragon fruit (my new fav!!), watermelon, etc etc etc.

Greatest accomplishment/ Coolest thing this month:

Dave: The Café has been doing great and this month we exceeded our expectations with over 1300 customers enjoying the new breakfast and lunch menu. I got to experience Shark Fin Soup and make the soup with my Chef at Rongyuan. This dish is very expensive around 300 Cdn for 600G and also very controversial as it used to be that fisherman would catch sharks and cut the fins off of them and then throw the sharks still alive back into the water where they couldn’t survive and then would die. This used to be common practice here in Taiwan until it was outlawed and banned in 2011 due to animal rights activists and a lot of bad publicity for Taiwan as we were one of the biggest consumers of shark fin in the world. Now only whole commercial caught Sharks are harvested for their entire meat and are allowed for sale here in Taiwan. Many Tourists come to Taipei to experience this very rare soup. Its really isn’t anything spectacular and the cost is really crazy just like Kopiluwak Coffee which I also tried when I was in my final year of Culinary school.

Disclaimer: Gordon Ramsey did a segment on shark fin soup and how it's made. You can see it here. His first stop is Taiwan. Viewer Discretion is advised.

Steph: I was asked to co-host our Kindy graduation ceremony this year. Each class (we have one yoyo, one little, two middle and two big classes every semester) has a presentation (songs for the two younger classes, skits with singing, dancing and speaking parts for the older classes), and the older classes have extra dances and music to perform. It’s a HUGE deal, as parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles all show up, as well as top HESS people from the area. Needless to say there was a little bit of pressure on everyone to make things perfect, so a great many hours in the months, weeks and days before the ceremony were spent practicing and in rehearsals.

Even with two classes and hosting duties, the most difficult part actually seemed to be finding something to wear! One of my coworkers took me to the department store, and three hours later we finally found a dress that fit and was appropriate for the ceremony. It wasn’t easy though!

Favourite place you’ve visited/ Favourite thing you’ve done:

Dave: Typhoon DAY! The best part about this day was watching the entire Oceans Trilogy in one afternoon. This sounds like a terrible thing being lazy and all but when you work as many hours as we do in one month it was super nice to be lazy for one entire day and I got to make home made pizza for my beautiful bride.

Steph: July was a bit of a blur, with extra classes to teach and practices, but I did get to go on two outside/ field trips with my classes- the Confucious Temple with my middle class and the train station with my yoyos. My babies LOVE trains and the song ‘Down By The Station’ so we gave an impromptu performance for the people waiting for the train!

Also, we had our very first Typhoon Day!! Dave and I stayed in our pjs and watched the entire Ocean’s trilogy, made pizza and all sorts of delish foods, and in general just got to spend the day together. It was FANTASTIC!!

Thing you’re looking forward to most:

Dave: River Tracing in Pingtung up in the Mountains – I hope to jump off a waterfall!

Our Holidays to Australia is only 90 days away and Steph and I cant wait to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary trip in the land down under

Steph: Pretty much the same as Dave. I’m a little apprehensive about the river tracing, but Australia is coming up!!

Favourite thing to listen to: We’re in love with Rend Collective right now. The song ‘Joy’ is our fav!!

Easiest thing to get used to:

Dave: driving the scooter through 6 inches of rain. Almost flooded it two times this week we got around 530mm of rain in 3 days (convert that number J )

Steph: Good question. Maybe the rain? I loooove listening to it when it pours, but it can be tricky staying dry sometimes!

Something you’ve learned:

Dave: Talk Slow, Be Patient, I sometimes can be very direct when working on the Line and when busy in the kitchen as this is part of being a Chef and managing the flow of food when where busy. One thing I have learned and am learning is that the Taiwanese culture doesn’t always understand The English Tone and I guess sometimes I can come across mean even when I don’t want to be. I continue to ask the Lord for Grace and his amazing Patience when learning and working this all out.

Steph: Dave mentions patience but it’s true! So many things get lost in translation. And right now I’m in the process of saying goodbye to my middle class as I’ll be teaching a new yoyo class and moving with my now yoyos up to little class. Another teacher will be taking over my middle class, and while I won’t be their teacher anymore I know I’ll still get to see them every day, it’s not the same as having them as my kids. I’m going to miss them!!

Maple leaf earrings (a pre-Taiwan gift from Dave's mom!!) for Canada Day!!

When construction happens, it's ugly. The solution? Cover it up with a photo!

Like every time Steph tries to take a picture of her kids. Maybe they're trying to see inside?

Checking out the train.

Fried squid at the market. (Side note: You can really tell which ones were taken by our phones and which by our DSLRs!!)

Night Market dinner date. On the menu: our absolute fav, Taiwanese steak and noodles with egg. It's smothered in this delicious pepper sauce that we both absolutely love.

Mmmm....

Mango smoothie for dessert.

Night market!!

Steph bought a bike!!

Foreshadowing I never noticed before. Fishing for lake trout indeed!!

One of my (Steph) coworkers had her student's mom ask to make an origami frog. I helped. Then played with my creation by making it hop back and forth across my desk.