January 3, 2008

• A couple of weeks ago when I had dinner with my dad and my sister, I noticed a table near us with 3 women in their 60's and a man, also in his 60's.  There were 2 boys about 4 and 7.  Judging from the snippets of conversation that drifted over to my table, they were the grandkids.  The grandmother sat between them making sure that they behaved.  She kept telling the older one to stop playing with his Nintendo and the younger boy to stop fidgeting.  The grandmother and grandfather spoke perfect English.  I figured the 2 other women were probably her sisters. 

  One of of the older women showed the older boy how to use the chopsticks.  But I'm sure it wasn't his first lesson.  The younger boy eventually stopped fidgeting and finally sat down.  His tiny head barely cleared the table.  The grandfather walked by our table to grab a booster chair for him.  I glanced over at the table periodically.  I figure, this is perfect fodder for my blog.  But every time I looked over at them, I was met with a stern glare from the grandmother.  It was the look that she had perfected over the years.  I knew then who wore the pants in that family.  She clearly didn't want me looking at her table and on her grandchildren.  Because of her, I have nothing to write about. 

  Actually, I'm trying to write another short story.  I am about 3/4 done with the first draft.  As expected, it's all over the place.  It looks like my hair after I just woke up.  I reread it a few times and made some notes on what to do with the next draft.  But some nights, I can only seem to get only a few sentences done.  Sometimes a story line will come to me when I'm very busy with work. But at night, I'll stare at my screen and wonder why the ideas aren't flowing.   I wonder if real writers struggle like this. 

  Here's a dish I was experimenting with the other night.  It's bitter melon with ground pork in home made black bean sauce.  It was a bit salty.  I had marinated the ground pork with soy sauce, pepper, sesame seed oil and corn starch. I also added some finely chopped preserved vegetables (turnip?) to the ground pork as I was intending this to be used for another dish.  I changed my mind at the last minute when I remembered I had bitter melon in the fridge.  It went very well with a big bowl of rice.

  

  • 11:04 PM
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