The last couple of weeks have been busy with work and my
bf.  We watched Lang Lang’s performance a
couple of weeks ago.  It was a very good
performance and well worth the money.  I’m
not an expert at classical music and I was absolutely mesmerized by his performance.  The 2 hours just flew by all too quickly. The hall was very busy that night.  There were many parents who brought their kids
to the concert.  The boys spanned the
spectrum of formal wear.  White shirts
with sleeves that never seemed to fit billowed out of the pants while others
were neatly tucked in.  Some boys had
ties but most didn’t.  Most wore sneakers
to finish off their attire.  I can
imagine mom or dad reminding them before the concert that if they practiced
harder, they could be like Lang Lang.  We
also got our CD’s autographed by him after the concert.  The ushers told us as we were lining up that
due to the huge crowd and the time constraint; he was only going to sign his
name – no personalizing the CDs and/or books.  
He had another reception to attend afterwards.

The concert brought back memories long ago when my mom and
dad took us to our first concert and ballet. 
We always sat in the back in case we became disruptive.  A cadence of stern warnings were issued days
ahead of the concert and reinforced just before we entered the concert
hall.  We had to behave, no talking, no
laughing and no fooling around.  We even
had an afternoon nap so we didn’t fall asleep during the concert.  The nap didn’t help.  The ballets however fascinated me.  Actually it was the “bulges” in the male
dancers fascinated me.  Well, it was also
the movement and how the ballerinas could flutter across the stage on their
toes. 

 

Packed into the past week was another feast with my bf’s
family.  The little one is so cute.  He is generous with sloppy wet kisses much to
everyone’s amusement (except when they are on the receiving end).   My bf and I also had a good dinner this past
weekend.  The sashimi was fresh and
generous.  The lychee martini (our first)
was nice.  I guess it would be better if
the lychee was fresh and the glass a bit colder but I’m being fussy.   

Here are some of the dishes that I had. 
Shrimp and scallops with snow peas

Birds nest soup with crab meat and shrimp

We also had Peking Duck, this was the 2nd part with lettuce (not shown here)

Crispy skin chicken - tender, moist and the skin was so good (yeah... I'm sure my doctor would have frowned on me eating it).

The "closers" a) E-Fu noodles, just the right amount of firmness.

and b) fried rice - the rice wasn't sticky and had a very good "wok hay" (this is hard to translate - it literally means the breath of the wok)  Check the link for a better explanation. 

I was going through some of my old pictures and came across more food stuff.  By the way, this is NOT what I eat every night. 

This is shrimp (grilled?) but it has a bit of blue cheese inside.  It sounds strange but it works.  It didn't over power the shrimp. 

Fried rice - mmm... one of my favorite dishes.

Crispy skin chicken - the meat was very juicy and tender.

Scallops with mushrooms and ham.

After gorging out on the dimsum in the previous entry, I have to start cutting back.  So my servings are now this size.  I could eat several servings in one sitting. 

Finally - a chopstick holder that I picked up from either Hong Kong or Japan.   You just lie the
chopsticks across the sumo wrestler's tummy.  Yeah, I'm a bit strange. 

A quick and lazy entry... dimsum!   Sorry for the lighting - I didn't use the flash - the pictures have this yellowish tint. 

This is a rice roll with fish and pea sprout inside, the rice roll is green instead of white.  The fish was very nice and not fishy at all. 

Shrimp dumplings with pea sprouts in a clear broth.

This is a sesame seed ball with roast duck, taro and pine nuts inside.  My bf took the other one
before I could snap the picture.

Deep fried tofu with abalone, mushrooms and minced pork inside. 

The sauce was pretty good - a bit too much starch though.  This is the only decent shot of the
inside.   It was being  cut up when I took this shot. 

Tempura with a wasabi mayonaisse (where did that mayo go?)

Another dumpling in soup with shrimp and baby bak choi.

Potstickers (I almost burnt my tongue!)

Fresh egg tarts with birds nests on top.

I was so stuffed afterwards and waddled out of the restaurant.    Now I gotta go hit the gym.

This may sound a bit odd. 
But I still get a bit apprehensive and nervous when I subscribe to someone.
  I
always ask myself, what if they don’t like me? 
But of course, that's silly.  No one knows who I am. 
All they see is this picture of a sailboat (or a wonton in my old
pic).  There’s minimal information in my
profile.  When I first started, I only
subscribed to blogs in my blogring (Asian GLBT).  Everyone was brand new to me at that time.  If I liked what I read, then I would quietly subscribe to them. 

Gradually I started to read blogs from other people who weren't in the same blogring.  I think Jonas was the first straight
guy I subscribed to.  He was also the
first Xanga celebrity I subscribed to.  I
figured with all those comments he gets, he won’t notice me.  I wondered though if he ever felt
uncomfortable that a gay guy would subscribe to his blog.  But I was pretty sure I wasn't the first gay to subscribe to his blog. He’s always been very polite, pleasant, humorous, good natured and never made it an issue.  Eventually he subscribed to my blog (wow...I thought).  We’ve been exchanging comments back and forth
since then.   About the only bad thing I can say about Jonas
is that he’ll never turn down a cupcake.  
Sorry Jonas… I hope I didn’t embarrass you. 

There were many others who offered encouragement, a kind word, suggestions and feedback.  One of those that stood out was Kelvin.  If it wasn't for him, I probably would have just plodded along.  I hope I see him back in blog land soon. 

In fact, no one in Xanga has made my
race or sexual orientation an issue.  I’ve
only had one hate comment from some angry person ages ago but that was it.  I wonder if I’ve been simply fortunate or if
everyone pretty well has had a pretty good experience so far.  Maybe Xanga is doing something right? How's your experience in Xanga so far?

Now for some pics…

This pear tree isn't from some farm.  It's from my bf's backyard.  I don't know what they feed that tree but it was just overflowing with pears.

I think this is commonly referred to as fuzzy melon.  They've got three growing in their backyard. It remindedme of my mom's garden.  This was one of her favorite vegetables to grow.

The clouds looked a bit scary on Sunday afternoon.

French toast with maple syrup from the farmer's market.  Mmmm.... of course, it cooled off by the time I finished taking the pictures.

I've been trying to make this dish.  It's minced pork with salted duck egg.  I can't seem to get the texture of the pork right.  It's still "rough".  But the flavor is starting to get close to how my mom made it. 

Sometimes I don't know how my bf puts up with my corny jokes.  But I've always believed having a sense of humor is important.  I use it effectively at work to help smooth things over.  Here's one of the corny things that I do with my bf.

My bf is the numbers guy and in his job – he deals with
business cases, financial results and all those things that go blurry in front
of my eyes.  Ledger, credits, debits,
accruals – these have no meaning to me.  Unless
of course, you want to make a deposit into my bank account.     

So I tease him with nonsensical things. 

 “I have a great idea.”

He rolls his eyes “Uhm… ok, what is it?”

In a very serious tone, I tell him  “I’m surprised no one has thought of this yet.  I had to think out of the box.”

He hangs on to the steering wheel as he’s driving.  “Go ahead… I’m listening.”  But I know he's thinking "Oh gawd... pls make this quick.  I hope I don't hit something or someone when I'm listening to him."

“Well, you know how people have to pay lawyers and others to
be the executors of their will?”

 “Yeah?"

“I’m going to show people how to save money. They can be the
executors of their own will – cut out the middle man and save lots of money!  No one else has thought of that!  Now that’s thinking outside of the box.” 

He shakes his head while I laugh like crazy. 
* * * * * * *

We also have this routine when we go grocery shopping.  The Chinese supermarket we go to charges $1
as a deposit for their cart (yeah – I know, it’s outrageous!).  I always let him get the cart so he can pay with his loonie. But I always return the
cart.   So you’d think I have been earning lots of money by returning the cart.  Well, so far I've only made $1 in god knows how many years.  That's only because someone left a loonie in the cart and didn't know how to get it out.  I could walk back into his car buck naked and he wouldn’t notice.  He would be waiting for that loonie.  I could blab about something to distract him
and he won’t start the engine until the loonie hits the little coin box.  Sometimes I will say “clink” and pretend that
I’ve thrown the loonie into the coin box but that hasn’t worked either.   I know,  it's silly but it  helps breaks some of the monotony when we do chores together. 

Ok - I think I can see everyone rolling their eyes.

Here are some food pics.  This is from the recent Ribfest out in Mississauga.  It was ok - I had higher expectations. 

                                                                                                     
                                                                                                    
  

                                                                                                   

Ok - this isn't rib but I've been making use of my little herb garden.  This is just pasta and shrimp in a tomato sauce (from the farmer's market).   The string beans are also from the farmer's market. 

Here are some food pics – which means, this is a lazy entry. 

The beef, zucchini, potatoes were from the local farmer’s
market.  The beef is a steak and I just
cut it into small pieces and pan fried it. 
The oyster mushrooms are organic but were from the supermarket. 

Fresh asparagus – they were picked the day before the
market.  I just blanched them in some
water and they were very sweet.

 

Cherries – also from the farmer’s market.

 

This is a whole wheat and flax – not dry at all, very moist
and has a very rich taste – almost like eating beer.  It’s also from the farmer’s market. 

 

I’ve also picked up muffins, tomato sauce, jams and a bunch
of other veggies every week.  It's a small market but it's got a bit of everything.  Some of the vendors are here from last year.  So it's nice to see some familiar faces.

I'm also seeing a lot more young families here too.  I always thought it was just mostly singles and couples in this neighborhood.  

 
Sometimes a picture doesn’t always tell the truth.  This is fried rice but the rice wasn’t cooked
properly.  I’ve been trying a different brand of rice and the grains were a bit hard after I fried it.  Oh well...

              

I just know in my next life, I will live in a world of Mondays.  Everyday will be a Monday.  There aren't any long weekends.   People will be cheerfully telling me, we have a 3 day Monday coming up - isn't that great!  Although today is Thursday, it just feels like a Monday. 

Today was to be a quiet day so I wanted to work from home and write my reports.  But lo and behold, a construction crew has set up across the street and there are small tractors and dump trucks just below my window.   Even with the windows shut, I can still hear them.  To top it off, the network response at home is slow this morning.  It was tough accessing some of the applications at my company's site.  I also got an error message "The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax."  Yes, that was very helpful error message.  

So before I pack my stuff up and head into work, I thought I would share some food porn.

I made this beef chow mein for my dad last week.  He was puzzled why I would take pictures of  my cooking.  "The food is getting cold!"  I added some shitake mushrooms, yao choy, carrots, garlic, spring onions and shallots. 

I haven't had a lot of success making steamed minced pork.  I tried doing this with dried / preserved mustard leaves.  I wasn't happy with the texture of the meat although the flavor was ok.  I would give this 2 / 5. 

I'm still around although I haven't been updating.  Work has pretty much overwhelmed me.  In addition to this, I'm looking for another job internally.  It's never easy but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  It also doesn't help when my manager and I don't have a trusting relationship anymore.  The only consolation is that he's located in a different city so I don't have to see him when I'm at work. 

My bf had a bbq last weekend.  He prepped the food and someone else assembled the brand new bbq and did the grilling.  I simply ate and played with the kids.  The baby let me feed him and drank water out of a cup while I held it.  At first, I didn't want to tilt the cup too much.  When he didn't get any water, he looked at me, turned his palms up and shrug his shoulders as if to say "where's the water?"   It was too cute. 

The older kids played hide and seek. One of them tried to hide behind me as I sat on the couch.  He crawled behind the cushions and hoped that his sister wouldn't notice.  She did.  When it was his turn to be "it, I watched him face the wall as he counted out while the others ran frantically around to hide.  He would count "1, 2, 3, 4, *peek*, 5, 6, 7, *peek*, ...."   I guess I did that too when I was a kid. 

So moments like this go a long way to cheer me up.  My bf also is getting noticed at work for his contributions and hard work so that's pretty awesome and it makes me happy. 

Here's some stuff that also makes me happy - food porn:
Ribs - my sister made these. 

                                                                                                                                                  

Steamed chicken, the veggies were simply steamed / boiled.  I made the ginger, spring onions, salt in hot oil to accompany the chicken.  The veggies had some sesame seed oil and oyster sauce.  It's simple and easy.

                                                                                                                                                     

Green tea Kit Kat.  I saw it at the Chinese supermarket.  It was ok. 

I went to bed shortly after 11:00 and woke up shortly after midnight.  Sometimes when I'm really tired and exhausted - my body doesn't want to sleep.  I'm sure my head will be drooping tomorrow as I struggle to keep awake while writing my reports.  So I did what I haven't done in a while.  I rolled out of bed and wrote a bit.  I keep several files.  Some just contain a couple of sentences while others are better developed.  They are like little seedlings.  Every so often, I add a few words, prune some more, stare at it and hope for an inspiration. Lately though - not much has happened. 

It's not easy to write when you're stressed.  The past few months at work haven't been easy.  I find I write best when my mind is at ease.  It's not something I can multi task in between reports, emails, presentations and chores.  I hope to find my "writer's voice" soon.  I fantasize that someday, I'll publish a book and doing the rounds of interviews and book signings.  My parents used to tease each other when they talk about winning the lottery.  My mom would say "Well, you better go to sleep early tonight."  I asked her once what she meant.  My mom chuckled "If you go to sleep earlier, then you can start dreaming sooner."   On that note,  I'm going to hit the sack.  And I hope to see some of you at my book signings - just don't wake me up from my dream. 

Here's some food pics.  I'm still stuck on beef.  This time, it turned out to be very nice.  I picked a different cut of beef (sorry - can't remember what it was but it was right beside the flank steak).  The meat was very soft when I cut into it.

This is beef with string beans.  There's some shallots, garlic and ginger as well as oyster sauce. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Beef in satay sauce with Udon noodles.  I added an onion, spring onions and ginger.  I rarely cook with satay sauce and used it sparingly.  I think I can add a bit more next time.  The dish was a bit oily though but it tasted fine.

As odd as it sounds, the time off recovering from the cold
was actually refreshing.  I didn’t really
take any time off – just worked at a lot slower pace.  I wonder what my body is trying to tell
me.  I keep hearing and seeing
signals and signs almost every where.  At lunch the other day, my colleague
told me his weekend was quite an experience. 
He got to spend all day with his grand children.  He adores his grandchildren and I can see
they bring a lot of joy into his life. 
The next day, he visited a friend who was recently diagnosed with
pancreatic cancer.  The cancer has
already spread into the lungs and liver.  

I keep telling myself life is precious so cherish it.  I am trying to find a better work life
balance.  A lot of the things I’ve done
to get me this far at work such as working long hours and outworking
everyone else aren’t working for me anymore. 
Sometimes you just have to stop hitting your head on the wall if you don’t
want anymore headaches.   

Here are some food experiments.  I don't eat a lot of beef so this is the most beef I've had in a few months. 

I had some flank steak which is a lean cut of beef.  I marinated it and did a stir fry.  I like those sizzling hot plate restaurants
so I kept that in the back of my mind as I was preparing this dish.  I had lots of green onions, regular onoins and ginger so I
was very liberal in using them.  I also
added some spicy sauce from my bf’s mom and a bit of chili oil just to give
it a bit more zest.  The carrot was there for mostly for color but it did add a bit of sweetness.  Overall – it was
ok.  I still can't figure out how restaurants can get their beef to be so soft and tender.
 

 

 

I’ve been trying to get this dish right.  My mom used to make minced meat using beef
over rice and drizzle it with oyster sauce. 
This is from the same flank steak as the other dish.  I just split them into 2 meals.  I haven’t gotten the right texture yet but I’m getting closer with the
taste.  I think I put it into the rice
cooker a bit too early.  I added those
preserved / salted turnips, some ginger and green onions.  I had some zucchini as a side dish.