When we first moved to the province of Sichuan. . . we knew the food here was famous for it’s spiciness. We have fallen in love with it! We seriously can’t get enough! So, we eat Western breakfasts, and Sichuan Chinese food for lunch and dinner. . . We have already been talking about how much we are going to miss the spicy sichuan food when we move, and that’s a year or more away! Our tutor is constantly laughing at us for several reasons – 1) the words we remember best are associated with food in some way, or our experience at a local restaurant 2) we eat the spiciest and even the numbing spicy foods/sauces like the best of the Chinese she says. All the shop owners love it when we leave a spotless plate or bowl.

I’ve probably said this before, but the first time I ate fish with chopsticks I thought it was a lot of trouble because the fish are full of teeny tiny bones. . . but alas, my favorite dish has turned out to be this fish with tons of chopped veggies and peanuts in an extremely spicy sauce! I think David and I have finally figured out how to get the meat off the bone huh?

Now this egg you see pictured is called “century egg, thousand year old egg, hundred year old egg, or millennium egg.” The egg (which can be chicken, duck, or quail) is covered in some type of mixture of clay, ash, salt, quick lime that hardens and looks like cement. Somehow, this mixture hardens around the egg and results in a cured edible egg rather than a spoiled egg.

I most note. . . neither of us really cared for this special food.