Day 218 (Jian Bings)

Tom has been talking about these "gem bing," 'jenbing." "jem beng," things for months now, 'cuz he used to get them from the street vendors for breakfast in Beijing, and he claims it was one of the best food he's ever had. All he can say is that it's a chinese breakfast burrito with eggs, a sweet brown sauce, and "crunchy things." I've tried to look this up before in every possible spelling permutation that I could think of, but had no luck. Finally, I was struck with inspiration this morning and did a search of "chinese breakfast." Lo and behold, "jain bing" was one of the things listed on the Wikipedia entry for chinese breakfast foods.

I can understand his confusion now, because it's a crepe, with a layer of egg actually cooked onto it. It has green onions and yes, a sweet brown sauce, I figured hoisin, and "crunchy things," which I have since decided were fried wonton skins.

Being the lazy but adventurous cook that I am, I decided to start with lumpia wrappers instead of trying to cook crepes. I don't have the correct cooking equipment anyway. The stiff and brittle lumpia wrappers became very pliable when egg was cooked onto it. This pancake-like concoction was very tasty when served with green onion and hoisin sauce. I don't know how authentic it tastes, because I've never had the original thing, but I at least have something interesting to share with Tom after I get back from spring break. I'm thinking this new food is going to become a staple of my diet. It is simple, cheap, and quite delicious!

In other news:

Showed Christina more of Ventura County: Reagan Library, CLU, T.O. mall, Beadiak (a bead store in Agoura), and TIFA chocolate and gelatto shop.

Meg and Channel (two people that I worked with at Nationwide Medical) just happened to be at the chocolate shop, and they insisted that I make an appearance at the office. That was fun, but took an hour and was somewhat draining. There was a whole new suite that I had never seen before and a ton of people that I never met. But, it was fun to see and catch up with all of my old friends.

Got my mouse fixed at the Apple store. (Thank God!)

Picked up the nephews and played Magic with them at the house.

Brought the kids back home at 8:30, then hung out with Kelsey and Christina and told ghost stories until 11:00.

Spring break just isn't long enough.