I Made Soup

I decided a few days ago that I needed to go out and buy a few things to make dinner with here in the dorm.

Going out to eat every night, while super cheap here, can still add up pretty quickly.  I wasn't looking to stock a kitchen, just get a few frozen dumplings or something.  Now, as frequent readers will know, I have not met with a great deal of success when I have struck out on my own (as seen in the previous  Chicken Knuckles post).  Thankfully, my neighbor's roommate was kind enough to agree to accompany me to the store.  This has its advantages, like the fact that she knows what the hell we're looking at, and its disadvantages, like that fact that when it comes to Chinese I'm akin to a very formal toddler.  This stunts conversation a bit, and leads to a great deal of nodding and smiling on my part.  On the way there, we had a quite prophetic moment when she tried to explain something, and finally had to express her frustration in English, "I want to explain this to you because it's really funny, but I can't!"  Welcome to my life, sister, welcome to my life.  Anyway, we successfully navigated the store, with her basically pulling me around like a toddler, my fault, not hers.  In the end, I bought some dumplings, noodles, rice, and other basic foodstuffs.  I really wanted to splurge on some vanilla milkshake Oreos, but my frugal, and healthy side won out.  Oh, if you're intrigued by that flavor of Oreos, feast your eyes on the attached image.  We're talkin' birthday cake, green tea, chocolate, mango/orange, blueberry/strawberry, and the list goes on and on.  After returning to the dorm, I set about making some soup with the frozen dumplings, instant chicken stock, and mushrooms that I'd bought.  A note on the mushrooms, I bought these without really knowing what they were, or how to cook them.  It turns out, you don't cook them in soup.  This was laughably simple, but my new found friend proceeded to stand behind me the whole time.  I can't blame here, after the store experience, she probably thought I'd burn the dorm down.  The result of all this labor was a pale broth with dumplings, and some mushrooms that tasted a great deal like wet paper towel.  This did nothing to diminish my sense of accomplishment.  I am left with a sense of anticipation for my next culinary adventure, in which I will attempt to cook the dumplings in oil.  Wish me luck....

OREOS!