Day 3

Breakfast - tang yuan and sesame tang yuan. Kinda like mochi, these are glutinous rice balls, some not filled and some filled with sesame.

Lunch - wonton noodles with vegetables, chicken, pig feet, peanuts, mushroom and soy sauce egg.

From the other side:
Mrs Lin arrived via Alice's parents. They took her to the Chinese grocery to pick up things she would need to cook. They arrived with a caravan of food: a fruit stand, a vegetable stand, pounds of fish (sea bass!) and many many chickens. It took a few trips for Alice's dad and I to get it upstairs. And then with amazing efficiency and absolutely no help ("not appropriate!", she yelled at us when we tried to help) she managed to fit it all into the fridge and freezer, set up a pressure cooker, hot pots, stews, teas and start to cook. She didn't see her room until night time.

Day 2

Breakfast - barley, longyen, date "oatmeal" with brown sugar. Tastes like those glutinous rice canned desserts. This is supposed to help breast milk production.

Lunch - noodles with pork and bean sprouts and chicken and mushroom soup with ginger.

Dinner - fried wontons for the husband, but I can have a few too. Liver, which is supposed to replenish my blood supply, Chinese spinach, chicken and mushroom soup.

Day 1

Dinner - Simple clean broth with seabass, noodles and vegetables accompanied with a special tea made with dates, goji berries, ginger, brown sugar and a few other things I couldn't understand.

Apparently the sea bass has very nutritious qualities to help heal the surgery.

The tea on the other hand is the only drink I'm supposed to drink, I think. Mrs. Lin and my mom both said no water, because I am swollen and it retains in your system.

Zuo yue zi ~the introduction

This blog will be dedicated to the food of the first "30 days" of care postpartum in the Taiwanese traditional sense.

In Taiwan, after you deliver your child, the first 30 days is called zuo yue zi, translated to sitting place, I think.

Although I was born and raised here as a Taiwanese American, I have decided to hire a live in nanny to zuo yue zi for me.

This entails eating special meals with herbs and different proteins and drinking special drinks. The purpose is to help you heal faster and produce nutritious breastmilk.

I had a beautiful baby girl on Saturday, March 16. After a 5 day stay in the hospital, I arranged for the nanny to arrive on March 22, so my first 30 days begins there.

I can only understand about 80% of what the nanny is saying so I may miss ingredients here and there. This blog isn't going to capture detailed recipes, but just a fun way to remember what I ate during these 30 days.

My nanny, Mrs Lin is 72 yrs old.