Christmas/New Years post

Feliz Ano Nuevo to one and all! First post of 2007. Feel like I should take a moment to revel in this moment. Mmm. Okay.

** I added "tagging" to this blog, awkwardly I think. The pesky thing about porting a Wordpress template to Blogger is that it looks like Wordpress, but is still confined by Blogger rules, meaning no category tagging. I resorted to a crass del.icio.us hack - not the most elegant solution, but it'll have to do for now. **

Spent the holidays in Connecticut again. We packed the minivan full of wrapped gifts, food, snacks, suitcases, and zipped down the Interstate eastwards. We heard our hosts got a dog, and were worried that Tweety, the family cockatiel, had kicked the bucket at the ripe old age of 22, but we arrived to hear barking and incessant screeching. Good to see the bird again.



Nothing terribly exciting (other than the Boston sidetrip - see previous post), it was another PG-13 family vacation with a few things of note:

• Every year we have a theme, and this year it was 'Down Under', complete with didgeridoos, aboriginal clapsticks, costumes, and a scavenger hunt, where we needed an Aussie slang dictionary to decipher the clues.


• Jess went to the Bahamas and brought back some local rum. Our eggnogs were noggin' real fine.


• We tried cranberry panettone for the first time, and it was incredible! Can't believe what we've been missing all this time.


• Made our own pizzas one night - a regular chicken and vege, and a Hawaiian. To my surprise (horror?), the in-laws have never tried the latter. Sacre bleu! Unfortunately, after trying a piece, they didn't care for it.


• Got a glimpse of how house-training a dog can be fun and a pain in the butt. Lulu, the new dog (Jack Russell/unknown breed mix), has only been there for 3 months; getting to know a dog can be tricky business (pun intended). One of E's aunt's Christmas gifts was the Dog Whisperer training DVD set with Cesar Millan. We watched the entire first disc (after showing the folks the South Park episode with Cartman - we just had to)... wow. Other than being unnecessarily dramatic and a little far-fetched, it was pretty entertaining. But I'm glad we don't have a dog.


• I tried my hand at pottery for the very first time! Very cool. I loved the feel of cold wet clay; making something out of a pile of mud is a lot harder than it looks. My first pot turned out kinda gimpy, it's definitely not symmetrical but my mentor generously said it's "got character".
  
  
  First pot!

And since I'm fond of lists, here's another one for my Christmas loot:

• Sudoku puzzles and... a Sudoku Rubik's Cube! *evil*
• Silk Pashmina wrap
• Fresh Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans - just add rum/vodka to make my own extract (neato)
• Fuzzy socks!
• Barbara K toolbox
• Cool pieces of pottery
• Assortment of fancy tea
• Swarovski pendant
• Homemade honey from Jesse the beekeeper
• 2 Haruki Murakami novels in paperback

Hubby went all out this year. The first gift I opened was a Sigma bike computer - spot on. I rattled the next box, which was pretty light... After undoing the tangle of wrapping paper, the package revealed... an iPod Nano! Probably the most overrated and common gift this holiday, but whatevs. Back when MP3 players haven't become a mainstream must-have, I had gotten E the 4th generation iPod. Recently, I've been taking it with me to work, so I guess this was a clue that he wanted it back. :) Just as I was bubbling with joy, E pointed out the engraving he had ordered on the back, and I started bawling. (Okay, so I'm a girl.)

My gift for him was outdone by the wee music stick, but he still jumped for glee - 1GB of extra RAM for his new laptop. I got 4GB of memory, and he got some too. Fair's fair! (Though it was uncanny how we spontaneously got each other tech toys. A pair made in geek heaven.)


Boy's gift to me


My gift to boy

C'est ca, the Christmas line-up. On NYE, we toasted with the Spumante from our trip to the Finger Lakes and played with too many sparklers outside.

Phew. Mighty post, I'll say... so there you have it!

Asian food (and how I married an Asian)

With depleting rations and nasty cravings that couldn't be ignored, a trip to the Asian grocery store was in order. I was elected the designated shopper.

A city this size and demographics doesn't really have the market to support a full out Chinatown like SF or NY, but the Strip District is a temporary fix, and we make do. It's an amalgam of Polish, Italian, Greek, Korean, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Japanese, and everything-in-between cultures, with food and specialty items sold in stores lined up shoulder to shoulder along a strip near downtown. (Imagine what a perfect image of ethnic diversity tourists see.) My favorite stores to hit are Lotus Foods, a Chinese grocery store that has two dozen brands of soy sauce and an assortment of kitschy household items, and Sam-Bok, run by an elderly Korean couple, where I get my naeng myun and homemade kim-chi.

Lotus Foods has really come a long way since my first visit there a few years ago. My mother always made me smuggle food from home, from Thai fish sauce and chili paste to dried shrimp to rice porridge seasonings, just because she knew I couldn't get any here. (We never really tried to do it with durian products.) I would cherish my supplies like gold; once, I was reaching for my kecap manis on the top shelf when it fell and broke on the floor. I think I cried. I couldn't stop lamenting how deprived I was; if I couldn't find my favorite Asian food in restaurants, then this godforsaken place should at least let me recreate it in my kitchen, but I couldn't even do that.

So much bitterness, until I strolled down the aisles of Lotus yesterday and found them stocked with things I never thought would ever be found in a 200-mile radius of Pittsburgh. Fermented rice (tapé ketan), red fermented rice, durian ice-cream, banana leaves, Hong Kong bakery style pastries, dried shrimp, Khong Guan crackers, every rice porridge seasoning you could imagine, Owl instant coffee... I was speechless. Where did they come from?? Maybe people wrote to the manager and asked for them. Maybe they realize that as the only decent Asian grocer in town (Lotus is Chinatown), they have a responsibility to be well-stocked for homesick lads 'n lasses like myself.

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I came home with a carload of food that I paid a pittance for. Hubby greeted me excitedly and hovered over the bags like a starved puppy. He only asked for dried mangoes, red bean buns and instant soybean pudding, so his eyes widened when I showed him all that I got. He was practically jumping for joy over the Japanese gummy candy, Khong Guan Square Puffs, spring roll wrappers, Lee Kum Kee sauces... I've never seen anyone so genuinely excited about Sriracha hot sauce. The flurry of excitement upon my return from the store could be best described as if he were, hm, Asian. (Intriguing!) As we shared a mung bean pancake freshly grilled from a street vendor, he admitted that his discovery and growing passion of Asian gastronomy might turn him away from frozen dinners for good. Knowing him, that's saying a lot. :)

This morning I noticed the soybean pudding bag was already opened, before I got to it. One red bean bun and some longan red date tea is missing. I can almost guess what the hubby had for breakfast. If I make kaya toast and egg for myself (a la this cafe in Singapore), he'll be sure to mooch some.

How a boy from the rural hills of Pennsylvania raised on meat 'n potatoes can appreciate chilled sweet mung bean soup, char siu buns, pork floss, and bubble tea more than me, will always be a mystery. But that's why I love him, and hopefully we'll be able to inspire our brand of gluttony in our kids some day. :)