The web is truly a time sink. All I was doing was minding my business, looking for a recipe for buckwheat cookies, only to get sidetracked by this blog and this one showing fabulous pictures of yummy looking cookies.
It's not even the holidays yet, and I'm wanting to do a cookie swap. . . anyone?
24 May 2007
22 May 2007
Ode to Tea Eggs
This weekend, I made tea eggs with Patita.
Although I cook semi-regularly, I can't remember the last time I've boiled an egg, much less attempt to make tea eggs. In fact, I actually did not know that to boil eggs, one has to put them in the water while the water is still cold.
We threw--er, gently placed--the eggs in cold water and started to boil them. I feel like boiling eggs should be a very simple straigthforward process, but I managed to crack some eggs before the eggs were fully boiled. (Since the recipe called for cracking the eggs anyway, I hailed this as a time-saving measure, rather than regard it as a sign of my incompetence and inability to perform the simple task of boiling eggs.)
At this point, we decided to just throw in the tea bags and some random and not-so-random collections of spices. Pretty soon, Patita's whole kitchen filled with the delicous aroma of mystery spices--a wonderful melange of cardamon, Sechuan peppers, star anise, black tea, bay leaves, peppercorns and other fabulous flavors. We let the concoction brew for several hours, while we sat around like old Chinese ladies and made jiaozi and talked about travels.
Three days later, I cracked open one to eat for dinner. They turned out absolutely beautifully, replete with the cracked design.
But after soaking in our mystery broth for three days, they still tasted kindof bland. Thus, I stood in my kitchen, hovering over our masterpiece, torn between choosing aesthetics over taste. However, after taking my requisite photo as evidence of aforementioned lovely cracked design motif,
I decided that taste won out in the end and placed them back in the broth after cracking them open. Thus tomorrow, I shall look forward to eating some no-longer-aesthetic-but-(hopefully)-boldly-flavored tea eggs.
Although I cook semi-regularly, I can't remember the last time I've boiled an egg, much less attempt to make tea eggs. In fact, I actually did not know that to boil eggs, one has to put them in the water while the water is still cold.
We threw--er, gently placed--the eggs in cold water and started to boil them. I feel like boiling eggs should be a very simple straigthforward process, but I managed to crack some eggs before the eggs were fully boiled. (Since the recipe called for cracking the eggs anyway, I hailed this as a time-saving measure, rather than regard it as a sign of my incompetence and inability to perform the simple task of boiling eggs.)
At this point, we decided to just throw in the tea bags and some random and not-so-random collections of spices. Pretty soon, Patita's whole kitchen filled with the delicous aroma of mystery spices--a wonderful melange of cardamon, Sechuan peppers, star anise, black tea, bay leaves, peppercorns and other fabulous flavors. We let the concoction brew for several hours, while we sat around like old Chinese ladies and made jiaozi and talked about travels.
Three days later, I cracked open one to eat for dinner. They turned out absolutely beautifully, replete with the cracked design.
But after soaking in our mystery broth for three days, they still tasted kindof bland. Thus, I stood in my kitchen, hovering over our masterpiece, torn between choosing aesthetics over taste. However, after taking my requisite photo as evidence of aforementioned lovely cracked design motif,
I decided that taste won out in the end and placed them back in the broth after cracking them open. Thus tomorrow, I shall look forward to eating some no-longer-aesthetic-but-(hopefully)-boldly-flavored tea eggs.
20 May 2007
Frivolous and substantive friendships
Most of the times, I probably come off as being serious and reserved-- probably that East Coast in me. Or maybe that Asian/Japanese in me, though I am so atypically Japanese (as my Japanese friends would say), that I'm going to blame it on my East Coast upbringing. I cherish being able to have substantive conversation with my friends. However, I also need my time to be frivolous, which is probably not a side of me that many people see. Or maybe I am flattering myself into thinking I'm more serious than I actually am. . .
It's like you get into these certain modes with certain people and then to a certain extent, people sort of expect you to carry on in your expected persona mode. Like at work, for example, to certain people, I am gay.
This isn't exactly schizophrenic, nor am I being disingenuous (well, except perhaps at work), but with person A, I might be more sarcastic, while w/ person B, I might be more serious, etc. etc. But in general, probably my serious to frivolous ratio is about 4:1 or something like that (if one can quantify such things).
However, with certain people, this ratio is closer to a 1:1 ratio.
Sagacious Broccoli is one such person who seems to bring out my frivolous side, but without stifling my contemplative/serious side. With her, I can be both frivolous one minute, and have a substantive conversation with her the next. Or better yet, sometimes the conversation is seemingly absurdly silly, but we are talking about very serious things--like satellite friendships and surrogate or imaginary boyfriends and criteria for lifetime partners (being able to speak Chinese is on my list, for example, even though I barely speak a word of Chinese. :-P) and jet-lagged pee. I mean, with whom else can I have a meaningful conversation about jet-lagged pee?
For two short days, I got to spend time with her and see how she lives it up in one of the world's largest cities. She took me all across town--to her favorite shops, hutongs, street food stands, and to fabulously grand restos that serve yummy worm-like things that aren't really worms and fantastic faux smoked chicken. (She even tried to take me bar hopping the day I flew in from Saigon on an allegedly direct flight at 3:40 a.m.!) In the 36 or so plus hours I spent with her, we spent a lot of time talking and catching up about our respective lives, thoughts, dreams, etc., and even more time giggling and being our silly selves.
I don't know why, but she seems to be able to bring out that side of me more than most of my other friends. (I mean, if only she knew how serious I usually purport to be!) Maybe we are not really that funny, but when the two of us get together, we find humor in the most mundane things, all without the aid of any mind-altering drugs or stimulants.
Not counting the time I spent with her in Hanoi, it had been about 8+ months since I've last seen her, but it was like we could pick up from where we left off when we last saw each other.
I sometimes worry about the inevitable process of drifting apart from friends that I'm currently very close with, especially when they move far far away, as Sagacious Broccoli did. To a certain extent, as we grow older, as we move from one place to the next, as our life situations change, and as we ourselves change and evolve, perhaps this is unavoidable, and I accept--and sometimes embrace--this. On the other hand, as was the case with Sagacious Broccoli, some friendships seem to elude such passage of time and evolution.
Which is not to say that in forty years, when we are both nearing retirement and the new "fifty", both of us may not have changed so much that we may no longer have a silly-yet-meaningful friendship. (Actually, I am not sure this sentence made sense. The basic structure of the sentence should be: ". . .which is not to say that we won't change in forty years. . .")
But in the meantime, here's to frivolous and substantive friendships. May they live on into my old age. . . (or until I've perhaps matured a bit.)
It's like you get into these certain modes with certain people and then to a certain extent, people sort of expect you to carry on in your expected persona mode. Like at work, for example, to certain people, I am gay.
This isn't exactly schizophrenic, nor am I being disingenuous (well, except perhaps at work), but with person A, I might be more sarcastic, while w/ person B, I might be more serious, etc. etc. But in general, probably my serious to frivolous ratio is about 4:1 or something like that (if one can quantify such things).
However, with certain people, this ratio is closer to a 1:1 ratio.
Sagacious Broccoli is one such person who seems to bring out my frivolous side, but without stifling my contemplative/serious side. With her, I can be both frivolous one minute, and have a substantive conversation with her the next. Or better yet, sometimes the conversation is seemingly absurdly silly, but we are talking about very serious things--like satellite friendships and surrogate or imaginary boyfriends and criteria for lifetime partners (being able to speak Chinese is on my list, for example, even though I barely speak a word of Chinese. :-P) and jet-lagged pee. I mean, with whom else can I have a meaningful conversation about jet-lagged pee?
For two short days, I got to spend time with her and see how she lives it up in one of the world's largest cities. She took me all across town--to her favorite shops, hutongs, street food stands, and to fabulously grand restos that serve yummy worm-like things that aren't really worms and fantastic faux smoked chicken. (She even tried to take me bar hopping the day I flew in from Saigon on an allegedly direct flight at 3:40 a.m.!) In the 36 or so plus hours I spent with her, we spent a lot of time talking and catching up about our respective lives, thoughts, dreams, etc., and even more time giggling and being our silly selves.
I don't know why, but she seems to be able to bring out that side of me more than most of my other friends. (I mean, if only she knew how serious I usually purport to be!) Maybe we are not really that funny, but when the two of us get together, we find humor in the most mundane things, all without the aid of any mind-altering drugs or stimulants.
Not counting the time I spent with her in Hanoi, it had been about 8+ months since I've last seen her, but it was like we could pick up from where we left off when we last saw each other.
I sometimes worry about the inevitable process of drifting apart from friends that I'm currently very close with, especially when they move far far away, as Sagacious Broccoli did. To a certain extent, as we grow older, as we move from one place to the next, as our life situations change, and as we ourselves change and evolve, perhaps this is unavoidable, and I accept--and sometimes embrace--this. On the other hand, as was the case with Sagacious Broccoli, some friendships seem to elude such passage of time and evolution.
Which is not to say that in forty years, when we are both nearing retirement and the new "fifty", both of us may not have changed so much that we may no longer have a silly-yet-meaningful friendship. (Actually, I am not sure this sentence made sense. The basic structure of the sentence should be: ". . .which is not to say that we won't change in forty years. . .")
But in the meantime, here's to frivolous and substantive friendships. May they live on into my old age. . . (or until I've perhaps matured a bit.)
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