MOHГOЛ XOOЛ

After my last post about food, I was asked if I ever eat any "Mongolian food." I don't really. Not at home anyway. When we do our weekly Friday dinner, I sometimes get veggie khuushuur (a mashed potato/carrot/green onion mixture in a fried pocket) or veggie buuz (steamed dumplings with shredded cabbage, carrot and onion), but for the most part, it's just too much a pain to make for one. That being said, I was CRAVING some veggie tsuivan so I took a crack at it Saturday night. It turned out pretty damn good. And just so you know, any food you get State-side that claims to be Mongolian isn't. Not unless it's meat soup, meat khuushuur, meat buuz or meat tsuivan. If there's any kind of sauce, seafood, or non-root vegetables, it's NOT Mongolian. HuHot is a (delicious) lie!


First, make your dough (just flour and water) and let rest while you chop your veggies (and meat if desired). I used carrot, potato, cabbage, onion and garlic.


Next roll out your dough. If you've never made noodles before, sorry, it's a feel thing, you just gotta know.


Then slather your dough in oil and fold it onto itself.


Slice the dough into strips.


Pull the strips apart a bit.


Now start your veggies over low heat. Probably the meat too.


When the "hard" (carrot, potato, onion) veggies are starting to soften, add the "soft" (cabbage, garlic) veggies.


After just a couple minutes, add enough water to cover the veggies and turn up the heat. The seasoning is Mongolian "Universal" seasoning, which kinda tastes like Ramen seasoning.


When the liquid is reduced by about half, drop the heat to a low simmer and add the noodles to the top. Cover and finish cooking 'til all the liquid is gone and the noodles are done (not chewy).


The delicious finished product. Yum!

ГAP БϴMБϴГ

Wrestling is supposedly the Mongolian national sport. I beg to differ. Mongolia has a hardcore love affair with volleyball. All ages and abilities play all the time and they play for keeps. This isn't your summer rec league, and this sure as hell isn't a "loser buys the pitchers" league. They play hard, and they take it seriously. I love it. For the last two weeks my teachers and I have been cancelling classes and staying after school to practice for yesterday's aimag-wide tournament. We didn't do so well, us girls going 2&4 and the guys going 4&2, but we sure had fun! The next tournament is in January. I can't wait!


Shine Hogjil Men's Team


Goin' up for a big hit!


He killed it!


Shine Hogjil Women's Team


I don't remember what was so funny, but I love this picture!

Mongolian Diet

I am the incredible shrinking woman!



I don't know how much I've lost, all I know is I no longer have to undo the fly on any of my pants to remove them. I've also had to poke a new hole in the belt I bought about a month ago. Apparently eating well and exercising works. Who knew!? ;) My diet on a typical day consists of:

Breakfast: Coffee (instant, with 1 tbs of sugar and a splash of soy milk), kash (Mongolian baby food: it's like that rice cereal stuff for babies in the States, only way better) and a container of yogurt.

Lunch: Two pieces of bread with butter/garlic & herb salt and an apple or orange.

Dinner: Pasta with packaged red sauce or stir-fry veggies with rice or a fried egg with rice or mashed potatoes with fermented green onions or bean/lentil/veggie soup. I've made a few other things, but these five seem to be the staples cuz I can make 'em quickly.

I'm only eating meat when we go out for our "All Volunteer Dinner" on Friday nights. Handling/preparing meat still freaks me out (poor Bambuul gets smushed up sausages [with rice and carrots] cuz I can't stand to cook her "real" meat).

Notice an absence of junk food/munchies? Yeah, that's because it (culturally) doesn't exist here. And what is here (Pringles, Snickers) is pretty expensive. Please send me junk food! Ha!

As far as exercise, well, I walk EVERYWHERE. It's about 15 minutes one-way to my school, plus walking to my site-mates' apartments, running errands, classes/clubs at the library/other schools, etc. I also play volleyball with my teachers 2-3 times a week (every day right now as we're preparing for a big competition) and I coach the teen girl's team.

I remember dreading the food situation when I learned I was coming here. Luckily I'm in the city where I can get fresh (organic) produce year-round, and even tofu on occasion. It's not an authentic Mongolian diet, that's for sure, but I'll live. ;)

Community integration

I'd say I'm integrating quite well...



My friend Zoloo and I, just hangin' out with a dinosaur one fine evening. This IS Mongolia after all, land of a bazillion dinosaur fossils...I named it Sinclair. You know why.