Day 8: August 2021

On one of my first days in China in 1998 , a group of us set out on our newly purchased bicycles. A classmate who had been to Beijing before wanted to introduce us to a restaurant at which he had previously eaten. As a 16 year old, Paul’s Mandarin was already impeccable and his charisma unstoppable; of course, we would follow him blindly and trust that he would not lead us astray. And he did not (unless, of course, you count the scrape on Hannah’s knee from when she crashed her bike into a moving car, and we did not). We wound up down an alleyway, in a small restaurant with signage in a script that looked vaguely familiar and not at all Chinese, and gorged on noodles and lamb— my first taste of Uyghur food.

In August 2021, I made Uyghur lamb noodles and barbecued some 羊肉串. It was not Beijing. I was not 17. No bikes or scraped knees were involved. My mind was not blown. But it was all delicious. Best of the month, hands down 🐑