What is this the "Iron Chef"?

We pretty much holed up in our apartment for two days. Well I did anyway.

Good ol' Typhoon Morakot ended up hitting the south a lot harder than everyone had anticipated. It was supposed to come right over Taoyuan, but the worst we got we a little rain and some winds that didn't seem very bad.


Up in our fifteenth floor apartment, we opted for throwing paper airplanes out the window to see which way they went. (Straight up until they were destroyed by the wind, rain or both, by the way.)


A long exposure on Friday night. The sky looked so awesome.

Apparently the storm actually killed 10 people and caused several landslides, etc. Not to be insensitive, there is no way you would believe that if you were here in Taoyuan.


Taiwan is also no longer nearing a drought after getting over a meter of rain in two days.

Meanwhile, school was cancelled both Friday and Saturday. Thursday night Katie and I went ot Carrefour (and so did the entire population of Taoyuan City) to grab the essentials: water, flashlight, food, booze.

I think our tiny little refrigerator had more green and brown glass bottles in it than it did food.


This is 7 a.m. Saturday. Strange considering the storm hadn't even passed us yet. It looked incredible.

Saturday night we had Megan over for dinner since it would be the last time she got to see Tess (insert sad face here). Tess is going on vacation and won't be back until after Megan leaves to go home (and then the White House, eek).

We had decided earlier in the day that we would each make one thing. Justin and Katie made black bean burger patties and a mango curry sauce to go on top. I made (an awesome) mango salsa. And Tess made a salad with cabbage, carrots, cucumber, broccocoli and mango.

Notice a theme?

It actually happened sort of by accident but I swear it seemed like an Iron Chef dinner. You know, they have one main ingredient that has to appear in every dish.

Merely a couple of weeks ago I decided I didn't really like mangos. I think I should alter than slightly. I don't like mangos by themselves, but mixed with the proper ingredients, they can be incredible. You can find the recipe for the salsa on my food blog Cathartic Kitchen.

And, yes, I know that blog is in dire need of some work. I started putting it together before I realized I would be moving to Taiwan instead of D.C.

Now that's it's Sunday, all of my roommates have left for vacations. Tess is back in Canada for two weeks and Katie and her boyfriend, Justin, are in Peng Hu.

What should I do with an apartment to myself for five days?


Probably clean. Our pile of shoes next to the door is nothing compared to our kitchen after a million people showed up last night. Impromptu parties are the best.