Chinese New Year Celebration @ Blue House

This year we made Chinese New Year dinner at the blue house again, but with a much more intimate party. With 7 peeps and Emil, we had Fat Choi Ho Si (traditional Chinese New Year dish that wishes for getting rich and good things happening), chicken and veggie stir fry noodles, year cake (traditional Chinese New Year dish that wishes for growing taller/ achieving more every year), Susan bought cha siu and siu yuk and OP made egg tarts for dessert.

Dinner was delicious and we had a great time chatting away about relationships. Susan and Peter also got to meet Emil for the first time.

Hula & Emil

It wasn’t easy to get a group picture where most people look fairly normal. At least this one it looks like Ani is very, very happy.

The Dinner Party

It was a good evening of celebration. I still miss celebrating new year in Hong Kong though. One of these years I’d make the trip…

Happy Chinese New Year!

May the year of the rabbit be a prosperous and joyous one

Cold Remedy

or perhaps I should say, more specifically, cough remedy?

I had a cold last week and had really bad coughs. I’d get one cough, which triggers a full on cough attack that runs for a whole minute and sounds like my lungs would come out. Even the chef at Island Soul Caribbean Cuisine came out with a special made ginger honey drink personally.

Hanging out in an Indian household (namely, my boyfriend, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend, whom, like me, hangs out there), I realized that (perhaps) every Indian kid gets fed this special cough remedy when they were growing up. Turns out they all know of a drink that combines honey, black pepper, turmeric and water (correct proportion unknown).

The one they made for me had… 1/3 a mug of honey, a pour-ful/ bottom of mug visible layer of black pepper, unknown amount of turmeric, and topped off with hot water. It was impossibly spicy and I felt like I drank as much as I could but the mug was still full at the end of the night (because I kept topping it off with more water).

But it did gave me my voice back the morning after!

FIUTS CulturalFest – Travel the world in a day

CulturalFest is a great opportunity to be entertained, exposed to world culture and interact with students from around the world, all while supporting UW students and a long standing non-profit. CulturalFest is a collaboration of FIUTS (Foundation for International Understanding Through Students) and student leaders at the University of Washington (“FIUTS Student Board” )

CulturalFest is a day-long celebration of the diversity and vitality that international students bring to our region. CulturalFest features more than 30 interactive display booths produced by University of Washington students from countries around the world and a special performance night of global music and dance. CulturalFest is produced by the FIUTS Student Board, a student leadership initiative of FIUTS, the Foundation for International Understanding Through Students.

This year’s FIUTS CulturalFest is going to be extra awesome for the following reasons:

• It will be in Meany Hall, one of the region’s premier performance facilities.
  In the past few years the performance had been in the Ethnic Cultural Theater which holds very little audience. Each year the tickets are sold out in advance and people line up outside that evening hoping to sneak in for a peek. With a much bigger venue this year, not only can we accommodate more audience, the performers (such as the Husky Wushu Team) also have a much bigger stage to perform on.
• There will be a pre-show VIP reception, which includes appetizers and beverages, a silent auction, and access to exhibit booths.
  In the past, exhibitions are only available during the day (11 am – 1 pm) so many can’t attend (and can’t bring their children) because of conflicted work hours.
  The VIP reception provides an exclusive opportunity to preview the country booths in the evening before the performance, bid on unique silent auction items (such as canvas paintings of Hong Kong, accommodation and travel consulting for Bali, and exquisite Turkish tea sets) donated from supporters all over the world, and meet the performers while supporting UW students. Reception tickets also include admission and priority seating for evening performances!
• Tickets are available ONLINE!
  You can now buy tickets not just in person at the FIUTS office, but more conveniently, online! What can be better than that? * I’m super excited about this improvement *

CulturalFest will be on February 10 2011. Artist Reception & Silent Auction is 5:30-7:30pm, followed by Cultural Music and Dance Performance 7:30-9:30pm.

Buy tickets now!
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/browse.html?keywords=culturalfest

More information:
http://www.fiuts.org/educationoutreach/culturalfest.html

CulturalFest is sponsored by Team Diva, Zipcar, STA Travel, and the University of Washington Department of Global Health

Why support FIUTS?
FIUTS has done great work for over 60 years. I learned a lot as a student facilitator during the Fall International Orientations and as a Student Board member. I have also gained valuable insights and opportunity to help new students as a Homestay host.

Macaroni & Cheese Challenge

Ever since I was introduced to Mac & Cheese during my freshmen year in college, I have been obsessed. To me, mac & cheese has always came in a box. Initially it came in a plastic bowl where you just add hot water.

My friends gave me a Costco size 15-box Kraft mac & cheese housewarming gift just over a year ago when I moved into my new apartment. It was definitely a step up as stove-top cooking and milk and butter are required.

One of my birthday presents this year is a recipe book called “Now Eat This!: 150 of America’s Favorite Comfort Foods, All Under 350 Calories” which was purchased mainly because it contained a recipe for mac & cheese from scratch.

I gave the recipe a try as my contribution to our Thanksgiving dinner (butter and milk are replaced by an onion & garlic puree), but it came out real dry and doesn’t taste much of (if at all like) Mac & Cheese. I was very disappointed

Meanwhile, I have been following the blog of Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman for a while. I came across her cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks at Barnes & Nobles and found that she had a recipe for mac & cheese (“hmmm country recipe for M&C, how could it go wrong?” ). So I came back to her website and searched for the recipe online (I decided I won’t get a new cookbook until I have gone through the 2 that I got for my birthday).

I think I’m going to give these two a try some time:

Basic: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/04/macaroni-cheese/

With Panko: http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen-blog/2010/08/a-tasty-recipe-mac-and-cheese-and-panko/

hmmmmm mac & cheese

Beecher’s also have totally awesome mac & cheese (just thinking of it makes me want to walk over to Pike Place Market for a bite, at 3 pm)

http://www.beechershandmadecheese.com/shop_frozensides_macncheese.html

Ice Cream Pie Recipe Trial

Saw this recipe for ice cream pie a couple days back in Ice Cream Pie? Um, Yes Please! . After receiving approval from friends, I decided to give it a try last night, for desert at a BBQ tonight. I don’t have most of the stuff that the recipe asks for, so I ended up buying a bunch of new ingredients (and therefore, having a bunch of stuff that I don’t usually use, for better or worse).

Per the recipe, you’ll need:

• 3 Tablespoon Butter
• 2 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
• 1/4 cup + 6 Tablespoon Karo syrup
• 2 1/2 cup Rice Krispies
• 1/2 cup Peanut Butter
• 1/2 cup Ice Cream Fudge Topping
• 6 Tablespoon Karo Syrup
• 1 Quart of Ice Cream

*except for brown sugar, I needed to buy everything else.

• I use butter only when I bake (oatmeal raisin) cookies
• I’ve never used corn syrup, and have no idea how I’m gonna finish the rest of the bottle unless I repeat this recipe
• I don’t usually eat rice krispies (or any other cereals, for that matter)
• I don’t usually eat peanut butter (esp not the creamy ones for bread spread); boyfriend doesn’t approve the recipe due to the presence of this ingredient…
• I never use ice cream fudge topping, whether I’m home or outside…

Leah also suggested use of a 9 inch round cake pan. I used my 8×8 square pan and it worked too, and ended up piling on 1.5 quart of ice cream to fill the pan (figures the more the merrier) :p

I’m not a whiz in the kitchen, so this turned out to be surprisingly easy and fool-proof. We’ll see tonight if it gets the nod from the BBQ party.

————Trial Verdict—————
Friends enjoyed it (although the pieces were cut a bit too big, so they probably all got a sugar rush). I personally didn’t like the gooey crust too much, and the peanut butter/ chocolate fudge was a bit too thick, so the dollop just slide right off the top of the ice cream *whooop*. Next time I’ll try another recipe with graham crust (like this one) which should be less gooey. Probably just use the fudge alone instead of mixing it with something else… I don’t know what it’d take, but I’d rather the topping drizzles. And perhaps something less sugar intensive.
——————————————-

Meanwhile, since I have all these rice krispies left and no prospect of eating it like cereal, I’m considering making the “Original Treats” . Very tempting bad goodness…

But now I’d have to buy marshmallows…which I don’t usually eat.

First 5 Days in Hong Kong

Day 1
Left Seattle for a 2-week visit home last Thursday afternoon. After 20 hours of traveling (with some layover + 1 hour delay in Narita, Tokyo), I finally got home after midnight (Friday). Kicked off the vacation with a 20km cycling trip to and from Tai Po and Wu Kai Sha. We biked along Shing Mun River, where there are a couple of boat houses for rowing as well as dragon boating and canoeing, kayaking. Swung by offices to see if there’s an opportunity for a drop-in row. Left some contact info and haven’t heard quite yet. Probably won’t get a chance; they seem to be quite a closed community and requires memberships, etc to be involved. Had lunch at a road side restaurant: got dim sum and beef stir fry noodles and started to head back. Thighs were super sore that evening; in lots of pain when we went out for dinner at a fancy modern Vietnamese restaurant called Rice Paper and browsed around shops in the mall (ordered transition lenses for Uv protection). Applied lots of Ben Gay and went to bed early.
Day 2
Mostly recovered on Sunday. Visited ancestor’s grave Sunday morning before heading to dim sum lunch with Ki suk suk and family at Yau Yat Chuen. Went home for rest afterwards and went out again for dinner @ Harbor City’s Habitu, a fancy Italian restaurant by the (not very romantic) pier. Then met up with Elaine and Dawn for drinks (white wine) at Spasso, a fancy lounge resturant with outdoor seating. Talked lots till 11:30 when they are closing, and decided to head over to Dawn’s to chat through the night. Caught up on some junk food from the convenience store as well. Slept for 2 hours at 5 am and had breakfast with Dawn before heading home Monday morning.
Day 3
Monday morning went with Mom to her new gym for an Easy step class; quite hilarious. the instructor was awesomely energetic and funny. The class was fun even though neither me nor my mom could quite follow all the steps and the turns plus enthusiastic poses. Definitely sweated out.
A visit to Hong Kong in April is definitely quite a change than ones during December/ x’mas. Not only is it warmer (from 10 – 15 degree celcius, to 20+), it’s also much much more humid (98% humidity) which makes it all the more (to put dramatically) suffocating. Perhaps also due to the humidity and warm weather, it also seems a lot more smoggy. It’s been almost always gray sky because of the smog. Lots of smokers every where; didn’t help that it’s also a more populated city. It’s more comfortable when we were out cycling, with nice breeze and fresher air.
Went to a shanghai restaurant (a chain with branches all over Asia called Jade something…) for lunch after gym. Then mom took off to get Susan’s watches fixed while I stayed in TST for some browsing (or as I call it, ‘re-discovering’ the city). Didn’t really buy anything (other than a few small things from Muji); lots of shops with lots of little knic knacs, nothing too interesting to buy. Mostly just go into tiny shopping complexes and spin up the stairs, window shop through each level and spin back out. Cosmetic stores (and consumer electronics, and just about anywhere else) are constantly packed with tourists from mainland China. Apparently they like to come to Hong Kong and stock up as the RMB (Chinese currency) is now more worthy than HK$ :’( (RMB$1 = HK$0.8) A bit turned off by the crowd (and thus lack of service staff attention) so didn’t really stay any where mostly). Totally crashed in bed before dinner and blurred through my first home cooked dinner before some more sleep right after. roasted pork and sai yeung choi soup were delicious *sleepy eyes*
Day 4
Tuesday went to gym again for ‘stretch it out’ with mom. Kinda lame. Yoga class with lots of people who ache even from sitting, before putting leg over head. Lunch at Arirong, our favorite old time Korean restaurant. Checked out digital cameras, sales at Fortress (electronic store) recommends Olympus stylus 7040 for my all weather-proof and panoramic function requirement. HK$2200 for the 5x optical zoom version; $300 – $400 more for the 7x one. Seems a bit expensive especially I’m probably taking dad’s ‘spare’ camera, Fujifilm Finepix s1000 fd, but it’s too bulky for every day use. So, still thinking. Got my new lenses and went off to more rediscovering in Yau Ma Tei/ Mong Kok with mom. Didn’t really get to take time looking at things as mom has never been to those little shopping complexes filled with teenagers and not very comfortable. Got lots of fruits along the way. Headed off home soon to get ready for running class in Kowloon Bay at 7 pm.
Running class turns out to be a lot of fun. Did an 800m warm up run around the tracks with mom, then followed the basic class for posture practices. Then mom accompanied me for the time trial for 400m, 800m, 1000m. Following mom’s pace helped me finished them all comfortably at approx. 60% effort. Time is probably not great but I’m glad I didn’t keel over and not finish 1000m. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be and group/ class running turned out to be quite fun as there are others to chat with and cheer on. Fridays they would practice long runs on streets. I wouldn’t go to any both because I’d die if I try and because we’re off to Taipei this Friday and I’ll be back in Seattle the next. May go back for another Tuesday track run next week Home cooked meal around 10 pm. Hot soup was awesome.
Day 5
Mom’s taking kung kung to his doctor’s appointment and speech therapy today so I get some time off from daily exercises and will be heading off to CWB in the afternoon with Dawn. Hopefully would get to buy some pretty clothes or what not. More home cooked meal in the evening.

Had an Awesome Birthday

Happy birthday to me! Yesterday was awesome (despite a bit of angst in between, but what’s high in life if there’s no low?). Got up to row in the morning. Weather was (relatively) nice, sun was out (a bit) and it wasn’t raining. We had 2 quads and a double out, rowed through the cut and back. I stroked for my quad yesterday, quite rare as I typically bow and cox in quads (come to think of it, even more rare is for me to be in 2 or 3 seat). Felt pretty good to lead overall.

Digits were a little frozen after rowing so we went to Le Fournil’s with our rowing buddies/ classmates for a Mocha to get warmed up. Gossiped a bit about somebody who got blacklisted from a class. It’s a very strange scene, since people are typically very nice and friendly in the rowing world.

We then went over to OP’s for brunch. She made pancakes and waffles with fruits and we brought over bacon and sausages and eggs and made some omelets. Invited Adriana too. OP also made parfait but we were pretty stuffed after numerous pancakes and waffles and eggs, so I just had one Spent the rest of the afternoon getting the remaining accommodations for Puerto Rico and Florida booked, while watching Battle of the Wedding Planners on TLC and mimicking their evil laughs. Then we went to Target so Ani can do his returns and we picked out a couple of games (Funglish and Madgab) for the night. Rushed home got changed vaccummed up broken bulb and dashed over to Kingfish Cafe for dinner. We had drinks and chatted during the 1.5 – 2 hour wait (they don’t take reservations). Food was DELICIOSO and portions are good enough to feed 4. Mac and Cheese hmmmmmmm Thank you kutti for ordering a side. Even though it’s supposed to have onions and peppers (gagh) I only got bites of cheeeeeessseee and macaroni. yuums! and My gumbo was super tasty and gigantic. Barely took a tip of the iceberg.

Hula and Nanna got me gift cert. to JL Racing

We went to Susan’s for cake and Funglish afterwards. Cake was chocolate with custard filling super tastttty and Funglish was hilarious. We had a good time.

Woke up this morning thinking it was Monday and dreading a bit about what to wear to work and why I didn’t set my usual 6:30 am alarm. Then my 7:00am alarm came on and I suddenly remember that’s the alarm for rowing, i.e. IT’S SUNDAY! yaaaaaaay. Thank god for Sunday.

Had a good row this morning. We had 3 singles in the class, rowed out to Lake Union all the way through Fremont Bridge and down the channel. Water is sooooo calm once we passed Gasworks park and just glassy after the Fremont bridge. It was beautiful. We got some really good practice in. My hands didn’t freeze today, probably also because I was busy rowing around It started drizzling when we were heading back from Fremont, but overall it’s a nice morning.

Drunken Sausage and Pasta Recipe Trial

I have been following The Crepes of Wrath ever since my discovery of the wonderful Snickerdoodle Blondies.

Last night we tried out the drunken sausage and pasta recipe and I got pretty good feedback The audience very much liked the idea of sausage and beer lol. The recipe was really simple, quick and yum. I have also thrown in a can of mushroom pieces.

Of course, I ran into a little portioning issue again… (like the time I attempted to make a big Chinese New Year dinner). He joined the party at the last minute so we had 6 instead of 5. I got a pack of 5 sausages (which I decided it’s easier to deal with when chopped up). and we used the full pack of spaghetti (10 servings). Plenty of pasta left, not enough toppings. Can never go wrong with too much toppings…

Next time I should just double all the ingredients (instead of just the pasta). haha.

Weekend and Furniture

Chilled on Saturday, went for some Costco shopping (bought a boat-load of dried mangoes), followed up with Asian groceries. Awesome to realize that they are so close to each other. We have to start planning our grocery shopping every fortnight.

It’s was snowing the whole weekend and we were hoping that we could make it to Snoqualmie (closest and relatively safest) for some skiing on Sunday. However, when we were leaving Seattle around 8:30 am, it was snowing even within the city limit. We could tell that the visibility in the mountains would be no good for driving or skiing, so we gave up

Turned around and decided to pay the French bakery on Eastlake a visit. I’ve heard Susan talk about it and finally had a chance to try their infamous croissant. It was really tasty, with crispy crust on the outside and cheese, ham and egg on the inside (think he got the breakfast combo, I just stole a couple of bites hehe). It was a nice and quiet early Sunday morning, and we were inside with warm coffee in hand, watching it snow on the Seattle streets.

As I’m moving in less than 2 weeks, I’m working hard at finding some furniture to help make my 1 bedroom apartment more comfortable and homey. Since we didn’t have anything else planned for Sunday, I convinced him to go window shopping at IKEA with me. He ended up buying a few closet organizer (FINALLY! AWESOME!) and kitchenware (I get to try out his wok before deciding on owning one yay. It’s pretty good so far $10). I realized they no longer sell the 5-color tea light candle holders that I loved (they got ruined by melted candles) but I found some other nice looking ones.

So far I’ve settled a deal for 2 outdoor folding chairs + bowl that could be used for floating candles at $20. One of my friends have a spare round table which I would check out soon. Also looking at a couple of mattresses/ couches. Mostly have to figure out the logistics and pricing; we’ll see how that goes.

hopefully this would all pan out nicely.