Lockdown Day 31: The best delivery yet, from Tramy
This being Sunday, I had my family Zoom call. So I prepared a quick breakfast of my last matcha almond flour cookie and Pu’er tea. Let’s call this breakfast of a cookie somewhat of an Italian sweet breakfast! Only with tea.
Then after the call, I cooked some rice and reheated leftover cangying tou 苍蝇头 fly’s head and chive and egg scramble. Such a satisfying meal! The chive and egg scramble was not very salty, so I could eat that without rice But the cangying tou is meant to eat with a lot of rice!
I also roasted a bunch of my sweet potatoes that have been sitting around. Including this super skinny one!
The entryway leader told us that today we wouldn’t be getting a PCR test. Wow! We’d still be doing our twice daily antigen tests.
This afternoon’s antigen test would be the last one from the box of 25 she distributed a while back. At that time, a box of 25 antigen tests seemed so extreme! Yet, I was on my last test today. So, entryway leader came by and dropped off 15 more tests.
Later in the afternoon, I heard some voices outside, and also carts rolling around outside. I peeked out and saw someone pushing a cart with a few cardboard boxes. Could it be more supplies?
My friend who lives on the other side of the building said all was quiet on her side. And then in our entryway group chat, someone said that they had run out on one side of our community, and so we wouldn’t be getting any!
But eventually entryway leader sent a message to us all to come down and get our deliveries! Thankfully, I had made a lot of progress through my vegetables last week, so my fridge was the emptiest since the lockdown started.
This delivery looked like it was a donation from this Tramy Group - it had a picture of the Shanghai skyline and some kind of motivational message about battles, I think in reference to COVID.
And on this side, “Don’t be afraid, walking together, we’ll surely win!”
The box was like a treasure chest! The first layer were two packages of mantou 馒头, and underneath was a sea of green vegetables, as if they were using the vegetables as packing peanuts.
Taking out more and more vegetables revealed layer upon layer of more goodies.
It was such a thrill digging to the bottom and finding some long hoped-for things!
Here is all of the bounty in one shot!
So the mantou was on the very top - these are milk mantou.
As far as “staple foods” go, we also got fresh noodles 阳春面.
Besides flour products, after looking up the company, I found out that Tramy is also known for soybean products. I was so happy to get this tofu! We hadn’t gotten tofu at all last month. And we got not only very soft, silken tofu, we also got pressed tofu.
Packaged much like the tofu were these packages of … duck blood! I’ll need to check up how to cook this on YouTube.
There was also a bottle of Zhenjiang (Chinkiang as it is written abroad…) vinegar. This is a good brand - I have the same in my kitchen already.
And I was so glad to get salt. I was down to my last crystals! And we also got chicken bouillon granules 鸡精. This is used in so many recipes I’ve seen on YouTube - I can finally cook like the Chinese chefs now!
There was also this Shanghai big red sausage. I’ll need to check up how to eat or cook this…
There was also a zucchini, and a carton of fresh milk. I see lots of people doing group buys of milk, so I’m sure this will be very popular in the community.
Then as far as the “packing peanuts” go - there were a ton of bok choy 上海小白菜. And these were the freshest, cleanest (and driest) bok choy I’ve gotten.
Similarly fresh and clean were these celtuce leaves 油麦菜. It was just so nice to have such fresh produce. In most of the other deliveries, the vegetables might be really banged up or even have rotting parts or close-to-rotting parts. So it was quite amazing that all of these vegetables were just thrown in with other packaged goods, but remained so nice and fresh - and dry! Condensation and water coming off of other products have also negatively impacted vegetables in previous shipments.
This was really a celebratory box.
Entryway leader wrote to us to remind us that those fresh noodles had an expiration date of only 3 days later. I guess I’ll be eating noodles a lot now!
I was already planning on making a kind of kimchi jjigae (stew) tonight, and with the new shipment I decided to change the tofu I have in the freezer to the one we just got. I prepared all of my vegetables, and also prepared my stock - one pollock stock tea bag and a bunch of gochujang, which I’d gotten from the office for free, and finally opened today. Then did my workout of the day (core workout today).
After working out, and then showering, I finished the preparation of dinner. I reheated the rice, and added in my vegetables to the stock. And finally the tofu. It was really the softest kind of tofu! This was one of the nicest meals I’ve made in lockdown so far. The broth was just so nice and strong, but was very quick to make.
Of course, this evening I also had to do my midnight antigen test. This brand isn’t as convenient as the last one, where the dropper cap is already attached to the vial. This one I had to fish out the vial cap from the bag, when I realized the vial was missing one.
