Social Niceties and Survival Skillz

Last week was the company picnic and of course I did not attend.  This is because I am somewhat of a misanthrope. In general, I do not subject myself to situations where the quotient of friends to non-friends is less than 1.  I make exceptions if it's an opportunity for me to display my gift of song/skillz on the dance floor and if there's awesome free grub.  Most of the time though the only place I like to go is home.

Small talk ranks high among things that I do not do. It's up there with sports and drugs.  Sometimes there's no escape and there's just nothing to do but nod and smile and repeat the last 3 words the other person said.  Over the years I have developed a coping mechanism that I call the Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  DB&B is a memoir-turned-movie about a guy who used to be an asshole and then suddenly got paralyzed and lost all mobility and motor control except for one eye, and as a result had to retreat into his inner world of torment and imagination.  It got some Oscar buzz which means nobody saw it, and it was doubly cursed since everybody spoke French, except for the main guy, who blinked his one eye. 

Years ago, before I learned this important life skill, I was at a party at my friend's house and I was cornered between my good friend James and another person we went to high school with.  At this point we had  finished the grubbing part and moved on to the hanging out part so I couldn't break away to stuff my pie hole.  From earlier encounters we had already covered the basics of catching up and discovered our divergent religious paths--she was religious, I'm not. at. all.  So here we were, kicking back in the living room, she's trying to get a conversation going again and I really didn't want to participate and was trying to figure out how the F I was going to get out of this jam.

Similar to what you're supposed to do in bear attacks, I laid down and stayed down.  But instead of pretending to be dead in a bear attack, I pretended to be asleep.  This totally got me out of talking and I was congratulating myself on my own ingenuity but James who I was really tight with, knew that I was acting, and was fuckin pissed at me for leaving him hanging like that and so periodically would poke and prod me to show that he knew whassup and that I better fuckin stop playing and bail him out.  As in the cases of bear attacks, if the bear comes and checks you out and starts pawing at you to check whether you're truly dead, you're supposed to roll with its punches and not let on that you're pretending.  So I tolerated the violence that James was unleashing on me and stayed the fuck asleep.  To this day he is still incredulous that I left him hanging as I did.

Daily Wonders

I go to bed excited about consuming coffee and breakfast in the morning. Sometimes I begin looking forward to it seconds after finishing dinner.

Anytime is a good time for swing time

Swinging is the shit. I love it. Me, you, and everyone else in the world loves it and that both unites and divides us. Back in the day when I was a kid in primary school in HK, recess was friggin short, like 15 mins and the whole school took it at the same time so there weren't nearly enough time or swings to go around.

To top this off, I had a conflict of interest as I also fuckin loved to eat . We had a shitty snack bar managed by a coupla old cranky guys who spoke with a thick country accent and dirty fingernails that disturbed me even as a child. Despite the abysmal customer service and questionable hygienic standards of the operation, I was still pretty excited about grubbing and almost everyday I would pick the eats over the swing and would run my chubby little butt to the skanky snack shack to grab me some snack(s).

One day in the middle of Mandarin class, I asked for permission to go to the restroom and as I made my way to the facilities, I made a detour to the playground and decided to jump on the swing. We only had Mandarin class once a week and the teacher was an elderly lady who never remembered anybody's name. While 99.9% of teachers in HK are humorless and joyless disciplinarians, Mandarin Teacher somehow escaped that mold, very possibly because she was not a trained teacher and was only there part-time to teach weekly classes by virtue of her impeccable Beijing accent. This means I didn't consider Mandarin a real class or her a real teacher and really didn't feel qualms at all for cutting out in the middle of class and making a go for the swings. It was awesome. I swinged the shit out of that bitch.

From then on whenever Mandarin class got too boring or whenever I damn well felt like it, I would go for the swings under the guise of a bathroom break. This lasted for a few weeks. The jig was up when some classmates got hip to what I was up to and wanted to join in. It was easy to get away with shit when it was just me but it got suspicious when a bunch of critters go missing for 5-10 mins. We got busted.

That's the way it goes. You get a good thing going. Then bitches come and fuck things up for you.


Photo courtesy of Emily, who saw this and said it reminded her of me

I love Pandas!

I love pandas! Today while talking to Nancy I was reminded of my "thing" for 熊貓, that's the proper nomenclature in the native tongue, which literally translates to "bear cat". At one point I joined a fb group called "Fuck college. I wanna be a panda." They are quite possibly the most adorable creatures to walk the planet and most definitely are the cutest and most lovable creature from China. They don't want any trouble. All they want to do all day is sit and eat a shit ton of bamboo.

When I was growing up, Sanrio of Hello Kitty fame came up with a character called Badz-Maru. I never knew what species he was supposed to represent but the Sanrio website says he is a penguin (he does not look like a penguin, they did a much better job with Tuxedo Sam, which I lurrrrved). But what makes him interesting is not his indeterminate origins, but the fact that he always rolls at least 2 deep in his posse and one member of his crew is a panda called Pandaba. I did not know Pandaba's back story or gender either but he/she rocks my world. Just take a look. No matter what the rest of the posse is dressed up as, Pandaba is inevitably rockin the tutu. The guys could be out on a picnic, space travel, whatever, Pandaba stays strong and commits to that tutu outfit and half open eyes.

While cribbing this photo from the Japanese Sanrio website, here's what I found out about Pandaba. Pandaba is a she, from a rocky mountain in China, has "quite a twisted personality, and she responds well to flattery", her skills include speed eating dumplings and can fit 100 in her mouth in one time! and she listens to rap music. Wow. Tell me we are not the same person/panda!

So in summary, pandas rule. I fuckin love pandas.

Dinner Party Recipe Roundup

Over the weekend I had the bro and cousin Ga Wai's fam over for dinner and as is my style, I went the whole nine with my food selection. I l.o.v.e. to eat and when you love something, you gotta learn everything about it and try to do it yourself. And no half-assing either. It's gotta be hard core all the way. This is a trait that the MaMe passed on. Make no mistake, I am hardcore--from cooking/entertaining to my 10k cello practice time goal. But I don't even come close to the iron will, unwavering commitment to perfectionism that my mother shows in all aspects of life: from her perfect pitch, memorizing the Qs and As to her U.S. citizenship test despite not speaking English, to making the best chicken soup, tying the perfect bow, and cleaning a dish to sparkling spic and span.

So here's what was on the menu: Portabello and button mushroom salad over baby argula with shaved Parmesan, white truffle oil and coarse sea salt; Italian bread baked from scratch; wild mushroom and shrimp risotto with fresh thyme; clams with cajun andouille sausage, sage and Thai basil; peach cobbler (from scratch) with Haagen Daaz creme brulee ice cream.

I cribbed the salad idea from La Poubelle, from when Emily and I went after finding out that our favorite watering hole was closed for a private party. This turned out excellent!

The clams was an idea I got from Steelhead Diner. The last time I made this dish it was a lot more flavorful and this time it was a tad too watery, probably cus I put too much water in. I blame this from not having the right pot. I normally would use a wider pan but I used a 4 qt saucepan this time around. And I wanted to make sure that everything cooked so I filled up the pot with water.

The risotto was a combination of 2 recipes I found on epicurious and turned out excellent.

The last 2 baking items were from the Food Network website. I have very mixed feelings about it. The Italian Bread was Emeril's recipe and had a user rating of 5 stars. It turned out ok taste-wise and gave great tips on how to make a crispy crust but it took 30 more minutes than the recipe said. Also, he failed to mention the enormity of this sucker! I'm talkin the size of a 6 mos. old baby! The texture was also more dense than I normally like, def would not give this 5 stars.

The peach cobbler was Paula Deen's recipe. A whopping 862 ratings of 5 stars. Maybe my taste differs greatly from the rest of the users but this was maybe a 3 if I were being generous. She asked for a whole stick of butter and it was a lot. It was still oily when I served it. Paula Deen, you let me down. Southern food is your expertise. 862 foodnetwork.com users, you let me down too.

Art Installation

I've been playing with the idea of putting up paintings at my place instead of sporting the ascetic bare walls for the last few months but I haven't been able to find anything that really speaks to me. And when I did find something I mildly like, the price tag was prohibitively high. Like thousands of $$$. Then a few weeks ago, at my bro's behest, I watched 10 mins of the Bravo reality art contest show, which features a bunch of a-holes and d-bags, and pretty much confirms all the worst stereotypes I already have about artists--annoying and full of shit, which might even be forgivable had they possessed a crazy amount of talent. However, as with most a-holes and d-bags, this is not the case. So while the bro was kicking back and busting his gut with deep belly laughs, I'm sitting there with scornful distaste thinking that I could do what these mothereffers are doing, but minus the assholery and jackassery. Sadly also minus the TV appearance but that is what the internet is for.

Last week I serendipitously came across a 40% off coupon for any item at Michael's, and it was a golden opportunity to get my supplies. One of my trademark characteristics is that I love bargains and I love to shop. Some say I am cheap as shit but what they don't realize is that this is trait that is deeply ingrained in my people. You will be hard pressed to find any Asian person who does not love value. Anyone can buy something full price, but not everyone can find the best price. To my peeps, you are an idiot if you pay full price. By extension, the deeper the discount you score, the more you command respect. It is a value that my parents instilled in me from birth. This is also taken to Olympian heights in the case of my bro.

I had to take a bus to buy the canvas since it was too big to fit in my car. It was not a very pleasant walk from the bus stop to my house while lugging that 60" x 48" canvas in 100 degree heat but I did save $40. Savings is even more substantial when compared to what I would have to pay for a gallery painting. All in all, this has been a win. Here's what the finished products look like.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=194485&id=611088068&l=490b3efc61