A haircut

The Chinese New Year was on Thursday, Feb. 3. Chinese believes getting a haircut before Chinese New Year brings good luck for the rest of the year. Something along the line of getting rid of the old and welcoming the new. This year, getting a good haircut is not easy as it used to be, ever since my hair dresser moved back home to Ventura County.

Having a good hair cut, like having a good massage or facial, is a very personal business. I have learn not to choose a new beautician lightly, or I would end up being upset for a long time. So I did plenty of research before calling for any appointment, and once I picked a beautician that I like, I wouldn't let go unless he/she let me go.

The weekend before Chinese New Year, I was so desperate that I called all the hair-dressers close to home, to see who could give me a haircut on Sunday. Most of the spa/salons nowadays don't have any receptionist and the professionals are independent contractors to the salons. This is either something to do with the economy, or it is just a new way people do business now, I am not sure. So instead of calling the salon to make an appointment, you have to call the hair-dressers' phone number, leave them messages indicating your need and the time you want, then wait for them to call you back.

I did that on Saturday when I was waiting in the theater to watch The King's Speech, which turned out to be an absolute delight. I must have called 5 different ladies. A couple of them called back saying they didn't work on Sundays and suggested someone else or suggested a time during the week. I reluctantly made an appointment for Wednesday, which would be New Years Eve just in case.

Sunday was absolutely miserable with rainy weather, so we stayed home instead of taking the dogs out for their runs. Around 3 PM, after I finished all of my house chores, I bit the bullet and called a salon in Half Moon Bay downtown to see if anyone was working there. I was pleasantly surprised that I got an appointment for 5 PM with the owner of the salon. I was excited.

I had a good hair cut, but I am not sure if I would go back to her. The salon was nice, and I was offered tea when I got in. The people there were way too chatty. There were totally 3 hair dressers working at the time, and they were having so much fun making 'smart' remarks about people. The other two stylists seemed to kiss up to the salon owner a lot, and the owner surely enjoyed the attention. After all, she did own two upscale salons around the neighborhood. As for me, I am just happy that nobody messed up my hair.

The search for my stylist shall continue.

The magical ice

During my snowboarding trip to Lake Tahoe over the MLK holiday weekend, I jammed my thumb twice, and was saved by ice!

The first time was on Saturday. When I pushed myself off the lift chair, somehow my left thumb got caught on the edge of the chair and it hurt! It was the beginning of the day and I was already injured. It wasn't fun, because the rest of the day I fell many times on my arms or my butt, and I needed to be careful not to hurt my thumb any more.

It was definitely a workout. Since I haven't gone snowboarding for two years, I started to realize what I "missed". In this regard, I much prefer kiteboarding, as in kiting, I fall into water. Not that kiteboarding didn't have its moments.

That day when we got back to our hotel, both of us were so exhausted we didn't want to move a muscle. Jack told me I should ice my thumb to see if it helped. I was like: "Do I really have to?"

"For all I know, you might have broken your thumb." The scare tactic works on me every time.

Reluctantly I dragged my aching body out of bed and went to get ice from the ice maker on the other end of the building. I put some ice in a towel, and wrapped it around my left thumb.

"How long does it take?" I asked.

"Until your hand freezes." Jack said.

"Oh bugger. My hand is already freezing after 1 minute." I grumbled.

"Then hold it for 7 minutes and rest, then do it again."

It actually worked!! I was totally amazed how this simple, annoying treatment worked like magic.

The second day we went back to the mountain. Toward the end of our day when we got off the last chair lift to go back to the gondola, I fell on my left thumb again, ouch! I boarded down the mild slope and got out of my snowboard. This time I just picked up some snow and put it around my twice injured thumb. One the way down the mountain, I was relieved to feel that I survive this snowboarding trip, and I very much enjoyed the view of Lake Tahoe from the gondola.

The next morning we got up early to pack for home. Jack slipped on the ice by the car and he screamed. He hit his shine on the car while balancing himself on it. We got back to the room, and put some ice on his shine for 10 minutes.

In fact, everyone should always remember the rule of thumb for treating muscle injuries: ice within 48 hours and heat therapy thereafter.

Yogurt is the new rice

Yogurt just beat rice to become my new number one comfort food, at least for now. For a southern Chinese girl, that means a lot. It is our habit to eat rice in every meal, and it is a part of our lives.

Recently I started to have frequent upset stomach. No matter what I ate - home-made or otherwise - my stomach would be unsettled afterwards especially after lunches. Other than that my health was fine: I kept exercising, had normal sleep, and no other abnormal problems.

I pondered about it for a while, read some books about healthy-whole food diet, but couldn't find any answers there. I even thought about seeing medical help.

Last weekend we went shop at the local Indian market. I looked at the pint size plain yogurt in the refrigerator and wondered if that would help to calm my stomach. Well, yogurt is basic, so it can't be any harm. So I bought a pine of plain yogurt and just to try it out.

I never really like yogurts, because most of them were too sweet. The plain yogurt wasn't very bad. I ate 3-5 table spoons of plain yogurt everyday for the last few days, and amazingly, my stomach was fine ever since! I could even eat at restaurants and no problem. It worked like magic.

Indian buffets always include some kind of yogurt side dishes, and as a habit, my Indian friends always eat it to to accompany their food. Now I know the reason for it and I will eat yogurt everyday religiously.

There is a reason why people say yogurt is a super food.

Guru

Ask me what Jack has been up to last month.

He has been setting up a home media server. He used PLEX as the media server software running on a Mac Mini, Drobo as a data storage (a fancy disk drive), a new A/V receiver to connect these pieces together along with our TV set, DVD player and speakers. In addition there are totally 3 Ethernet hubs having physical connections to various hardware, and 5 2 terra-byte internal hard drives to the Drobo. He went under the house a couple of times to drill holes into the bedrooms, office and living room to hard wire the ethernet cables to the equipments.

After the hardwares and software were setup, he loaded movies to the hard drive - we have over 400 DVDs, and he was done with half. He has been troubleshooting the quality of the streamed movies, so he went online to join the PLEX user's forum. He had so many problems streaming movies onto the TV. First the video was OK, but the audio didn't come up, then both the video and audio were normal, but they were out of sync. Then the video quality had to be improved. Those were the most frustrating problems, so he often said he had to consult the "Gurus".

Up to last Monday, he posted 15 questions and (self) answers to the forum. So on Monday morning when we were having our coffee, he proudly announced that he was promoted from a "Newbie" to a "Member" on the forum.

"You mean they label your seniority on your posts?" I asked. I think it sounded very much like geeks would do.

"Yes." He explained that after "members", there were "dedicated members", and "developers" and then the "Gurus".

A compliment

Jack gave me the best compliment on Monday night when we drove to the gym. He said, "one of the most attractive things about living in the Bay Area is there are so many different good restaurants where we can go for good food. Now that your cooking is so good, it is not much of a concern anymore, because you can always cook good food anywhere you go."

The Blog Name

I have to change the name of my blog "My state of chaos", or at least qualify it, as my life is not at all chaos comparing to what is happening at work, in the city, state, and the country in which I live, or the rest of this world. I can only compare my state with myself, or with the state I prefer to be in, which is such a smaller scale comparatively.

I'd like to keep the peace within myself, and cherish what I have at this moment.

What is a satisfying life?

I felt that I wrote about food and eating too much, so I must add a new non-food related posting on the top of my blog. This is just a rhetorical question.

Emotionally and intellectually fulfilled

Around good friends and lover

Eating and entertaining well

Continue to explore the unknown

Grow emotionally

Maintain good health and a flexible, pain-free body

Be productive and creative

Yummy Kung Pao Chicken

I made kung pao chicken last night, and it was the best ever. Here are some tricks I found.

My version of Kung Pao has a lot of vegetables - why not take advantage of cooking at home and put all of our favorite things in one dish?

Cube the following veggies:

1 green pepper,

1 red pepper,

1 jalapeno,

some celeries,

some mushrooms,

1 onion,

mince garlic (as always),

Cube some chicken, making sure to trim the fat.

Cooking steps:

1. (Trick #1) Stir-fried the vegetables with peanut oil, but don't cook them too well. Place the cooked vegetables in a bowl, then clean the wok.
2. (Trick #2) Stir-fried the chicken meat, making sure the chicken is well done.
3. Mix the vegetables and chicken together and spice with salt, pepper, kung pao sauce (Lee Kum Kee brand), and spicy sauce to taste.
4. (Trick #3) Heat some hot oil in a small frying pan in medium heat, then add some chilly flakes and a handful of peanuts to the frying pan. Cook the peanuts for 5 seconds.
5. Mix the peanuts with the chicken.

The good thing about cooking this way is, the vegetable is not over cook, and adding the spiced peanuts would add extra spice to the dish. Also, don't cook the garlic for too long, add it in on step 3.

Since Jack helped on the peanuts and he enjoyed the food a lot, he insisted it was our kung pao. I think it is good for him to have a sense of ownership to this dish.

Jake's 2nd birthday

Yesterday it was sunny, and we took the opportunity to take the doggies out for a walk at 3rd even though the temperature was in the 40's. It was Jake's 2nd birthday, so we bought a double cheeseburger for Jake and a cheeseburger for Amy from Burger King. The doggies enjoyed the burgers at the parking lot. I let Amy lick the mustard off my fingers, but she wasn't interested. After the burgers, we all went to the north end where we launched the kites. They were so happy, because they didn't go there for a long time.

Jake was bouncing around on the path, jumping up and down trying to get his favorite orange ball from Jack. Amy swam which was her favorite. Sometimes she quietly swam after the ducks, and when she crept up to them, they smartly flew away a few feet just to tease her. When we got to the north end, we let the doggies ran and swam to their hearts content. It was my favorite to watch the doggies having fun.

The pups slept in the car on the way back home. Jake put his head on Amy's back, and he took up most of the back seat. We gave them each a piece of dog bone when we got home, and they were very quiet the rest of the evening.

This morning we heard sirens from Highway 1, and we heard Jake howling at the patio. I sneaked out to the kitchen and saw Jake standing in the patio doing his howling thing. Instead of howling at the moon, he was howling at the ambulance. Even though he was doing this adult and masculine thing, he still looked very cute like a puppy. I still remember a 6 pound fuzzy puppy who wiggles and kicks around when I tickle him on the belly, who nip me with his pointy puppy teeth and slept for hours afterwards.

How to make tasty beef

After many trial and error, disappointment, and research, I finally stumbled upon a recipe that makes a tasty beef. From none other than the Essential Asian Cookbook, under the Chinese food section.

• To make tasty beef, you have to buy good quality and fresh beef.

Good beef doesn't have to be expensive, an if you cook it well and eat it when it's fresh, it's well worth the money, right? I buy beef for stir-fried in Asian markets, e.g. Ranch 99, for around $4 - $5 per lb. The important thing is cook the meat when it's still fresh - within 5 days if you refrigerate it! The color of the beef should be reddish pink; it should not have any foul smell, and when you hold it, it should not be sticky or greasy.

• Also make sure to allocate at least 1 hour to marinate the meat.
  

• Ingredients for marinating 1 lb of beef:

1. 2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2. 1/2 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
3. 1/2 tablespoon hoisin sause (this will give sweet taste to the meat, if you don't like your food too sweet, put less, or counter it with more soy sause)
4. 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
5. 1/2 tablespoon peanut oil
6. 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
   

• Cutting beef

Trim the meat of any excess fat. Slice it across the grain (this is very important), into thin slices, let's said 2 inches long and 1/4 inch thick.

• Combine the marinate and the beef in a bowl, stir to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

• Cooking

1. First stir-fried half of an onion with 2 cloves of crushed garlic until the onion is soft and golden. Remove the onion and put it aside.
2. Clean the wok!
3. Put some peanut oil in a hot wok, cook the meat in batches over high heat until browned but not cooked through. Return all the meat to the wok and add onion.
4. Add soy sauce and sherry (or Chinese cooking wine). If the dish looks too watery, mix some cornstarch in water and slowly add the mixture into the wok in high heat until it is thickened.
5. (Optional) Add threaded green onion at last to add color and freshness to the dish.
   

Hong Kong Style Milk Tea

One of the irresistible pleasures to me is to go to the Hong Kong bistro to have a cup of Hong Kong style milk tea.

You mix strong black tea with milk and sugar to taste. At bistros, you can get it with sweetened condensed milk, and it is very smooth, sweet and yummy. The bistros use a special kind of black tea powder, which makes the tea very dark and strong. A cup of that during lunch would wake you up for the rest of the afternoon.

My mom makes her variation of HK style milk tea. She uses Lipton black tea, 1 tea bag per cup; some warmed up evaporated milk, and some sugar. It is very tasty too, and is perfect for afternoon tea with some biscuits.

I never really liked the milk tea I made, because it was either not strong enough or not rich enough.

Today after lunch, Jack was comfortably seating in his reading sofa reading his favorite Bourne book. When I cleared the tables, I asked him what I could get for him to drink. He said: "something hot, maybe I'll have what you have."

I just made myself a milk tea with sweetened condensed milk, and it was seating at the kitchen counter waiting for me. OK, I thought to myself, I would just make him a cup.

I put 1 Lipton tea bag in 1 cup of boiling water, I took care not to put too much water as I usually do for making regular hot tea, because it would dilute the black tea too much. I then added 1 tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk to the tea. I took the tea bag out, stirred the milk so it dissolved, and gave it to Jack. He loved it and asked for a second cup.

So that's the Jack-approved Hong Kong style milk tea for you.

Enjoy!