TP on a tray

Yesterday night, we were at Partyworld again, and we ran out of toilet paper. (In Asia, pretty much every KTV room has it's own private bathroom.) We rang the service phone, and two minutes later, a server arrived, carrying a roll of TP on a tray, waitress-style. We were quite amused. Then again, we'd been drinking Suntory.

must stop drinking (and eating)

Apparently, "let's meet up in Taipei" is code for "let's get together every night, stay out late, and eat and drink like crazy people".

This year, somehow everyone decided to fly to Taipei for the holidays. Several of us arrived around 8pm on the night of the 23rd, and after dropping off our bags and taking a quick shower, we promptly headed for BarCode, a bar/lounge near Taipei 101. Originally the plan was to check out Room 18 as well, but then we heard several reports that it was full of teenyboppers and we didn't want to be the sketchy old people in the 18+ club. The cocktails were really quite good, and not terribly expensive, I had a "Honey Berry Royale" which had berry juice, vodka, and champagne in it, which only cost about $10, and several people had a "Healthy Happy Sexy" drink (or some similarly badly named), which was excellent. Around midnight we thought about heading to a club before deciding we were starving and headed to a cheapo restaurant nearby. Good decision; the cover for the club would have been 800 NT (about $25) per person, and instead we ended up spending a total of $50 for ten people to have second dinner. The restaurant (one of many on that street) served porridge with tons of side dishes; my favorites were the Japanese tofu, the fatty pork, the marinated clams, and the pickled bean sprouts. I had no jetlag problems at all and felt into bed exhausted around 3am.

The next day, after a five-course Christmas dinner with my family at one of my favorite Western-style Taipei restaurants (亞里士), we headed to the Partyworld KTV in Shi Men Ding. Since there were ten or twelve of us again, and we had a F&B minimum of 100 NT ($3) per head, we ended up staying four hours and going through five pitchers of Taiwan Beer and a bunch of Smirnoff Ice. Several people headed off to Mint (club, basement of 101) afterwards, but I decided 2am was late enough, since I had to be up at 8am.

Today I woke up feeling full already, but we nevertheless stuffed ourselves silly in the basement of the Breeze Center, eating beef noodle soup, shredded beef wrapped in soft pancakes, ramen, Japanese fried vegetables, and of course, dao whei (soft tofu in ginger syrup), which I ordered with peanuts. Only five hours later, we had Peking duck and dim sum at Long Du (famous for their duck), before heading over to the Shi Lin Night Market. There, I ate a bag of egg puffs, pork jerky, and part of a fried pork dumpling, before conceding to the physical limitations of my stomach. We ended the evening playing silly carnival games for cheap prizes. I finally headed home around midnight, feeling old and tired, and walked in through my front door twenty minutes ago. I should probably go to sleep now.

Christmas cookies

After two years of thinking about it but not doing it, I actually managed to bake and distribute Christmas cookies this year.

I baked three types of cookies: Chocolate Chocolate-Chip with Mocha Cream, Ginger Lemon, and Almond Tuiles. They turned out pretty well, except the Mocha Cream, which was gooey and messy except when refrigerated. Without modifying the recipes, I ended up with enough cookies to fill 12 cellophane bags, with each bag containing two chocolate, two ginger lemon, and one almond cookie. That doesn't include the 10+ cookies that I broke during the baking process; I realized after I had already started that I was out of parchment paper, and with only one Silpat and multiple baking sheets, several cookies had unfortunate accidents. I chalked it up as a learning experience and ate the mishaps over the next two days.

fun birthday

My birthday party this year was a tripleheader, starting at 3pm and ending at 2am.

We started at the Scharffen Berger factory, where we had an hour-long private tour, during which we tasted three kinds of chocolate: the 70% bittersweet, the 62% semisweet, and the 41% milk chocolate. After we ended the tour (in the gift shop, naturally), we tasted two others: the 82% extra dark and the milk chocolate nibby. Apparently a "nib" is a cacao bean which has been roasted and peeled but not yet crushed. I found them yummy, but some people didn't like that they weren't sweet at all. I also managed to try smaller samples of the milk almond (41% with sea salted almonds), the 99% unsweetened chocolate, the limited edition (75% Antilles), and the 62% mocha, as well as the zante currents (chocolate-covered champagne grapes). In the end, my favorites were the limited edition and the nibby bar.

After selecting a few bars to take home for later, we headed next door to Cafe Cacao for more chocolate. I had a slice of the famous tribute cake, as well as a bite of the raspberry truffle cake, and some espresso, to wash it all down. I much preferred the tribute cake, which was barely sweet at all; it was pure chocolate-y goodness.

Immediately after chocolate came sushi, at East Bay favorite Sushi House. Somewhere between Berkeley and Alameda, I started to feel a bit lightheaded, probably from the huge overdose of chocolate and sugar. Luckily, once I got some sushi in my stomach, I was fine, except that I wasn't able to have my usual tempura ice cream for dessert.

Finally, a bunch of us finished up the evening at Music Tunnel, where the hard-core among us ended up staying until 2am again, before making our way home. It was a very fun day.

chicken marsala

I've modified this a bunch from the original recipe over the past year. Here's my version:

Chicken Marsala

1. Boil 1 small can of chicken broth for ~20 minutes until reduced by about 2/3.

2. Chop up one whole large shallot and saute in butter until it starts to brown. Add a small container of mushrooms, a spoonful of sage, salt, and pepper, and cook until the mushrooms are soft and brown.

3. Take a pound of chicken breasts and split them in half (so they're thin). Tenderize, season with salt and pepper, dredge in flour, and then saute each side in olive oil until the chicken is cooked. Set aside.

4. Add 1 cup marsala wine to mushrooms and bring to boil. Add reduced broth, 1/4 cup cream, and one lemon's worth of lemon juice.

5. Arrange the chicken on the serving plate and pour the mushrooms mixture on top.

Sometimes I add a little more Marsala wine at the end.

and now, for the depressing post of the week...

I read two things this week that made me sad.

The first one was a reminder on a women engineers' mailing list, that December 6th was the anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre. What massacre, you ask? I'd never heard of it, so I checked on Wikipedia:

The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, occurred on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five year-old Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife, shot twenty-eight people, killing fourteen (all of them women) and injuring the other fourteen before killing himself. He began his attack by entering a classroom at the university, where he separated the male and female students. After claiming that he was "fighting feminism", he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. He then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targetting women to shoot. He killed fourteen women and injured four men and ten women in just under twenty minutes before turning the gun on himself.

I had to look twice at that date. 1989 is the same year as the Loma Prieta quake, so I would have been in sixth grade, and I definitely would have been reading the news by then. How did I not hear about this before? Maybe the US news media doesn't care about Canada? And, how, in North America in the late 20th century, does someone grow up hating women? Ugh.

The second item was an article in the NYTimes, sent to me by a friend who is a lawyer in New York City. It seems that for about a year now, the elevators at the Bronx Family Court have been so bad that people wait for hours outside the courthouse, in lines that go all the way down the block:

In some cases, warrants have even been issued for people who are downstairs waiting for an elevator; judges know only that they are not in the courtroom, said Bill Nicholas, the assistant attorney in charge of the Legal Aid Society’s office at the court.

The judges have less trouble getting upstairs because they use a bank of elevators reserved for court personnel. The public is not allowed on those, and may not use the stairs because of security concerns. Among them, there are no cameras in the stairwells, and the narrow stairwells are impractical for small children or people pushing strollers. So they must wait.

I usually hate personal stories from random people in news articles (abuse of ad hominem!), but this one kind of broke my heart:

Bernard Wilkerson, a construction flagger for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said his custody and child support case against his wife had been dismissed three times because each time he was delayed in line and missed a hearing. Each time he had to petition again to restart the case.

Now he carries the court clerk’s number with him, so he can phone in when he is downstairs. Even with the steady rain beating down on his coat, he said this morning wasn’t that bad.

He was standing only 20 yards from the entrance of the building. Even with the long line inside, he would probably be upstairs in about an hour, certainly less than two. The thought cheered him.

“Sometimes I arrive here and I am standing outside Law and Government High School,” he said, referring to the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice several hundred yards away.

RIP 6.170

6.170 is (was) the Software Engineering Lab class at MIT. Apparently it's just been scrapped. Its content will be replaced by the new 6.005 (Principles of Software Development) in conjunction with a "series of new software laboratory classes, numbered 6.17*".

I'm sure this plan is all carefully thought out and everything but I'm kind of depressed about it anyway. I really liked 6.170, especially the month-long team project at the end, which is apparently not going to be included in the 6.005 class.

salads

Here are some salads that I've made recently and liked:

Apple Salad

1. Cut up 3-4 apples into slices and add to a bowl of mixed greens.

2. Add dried cranberries, sliced almonds, and feta cheese. (Pinenuts, chopped walnuts and dried apricots are also good.)

3. Toss with a cheesy dressing, like Marie's Blue Cheese Vinaigrette or Annie's Artichoke Parmesan dressing.

Greek Salad

1. Cut up a cucumber and a few tomatoes, and add sliced red onions and sliced green peppers.

2. Add canned black olives, capers, and feta cheese.

3. Toss with salt, freshly ground black pepper, oregano, and a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil.

It appears that I'm quite fond of feta cheese.

clothing challenge

Yesterday morning, I spent at least ten minutes thinking about what to wear. For me, this is not a common occurrence at all.

The problem statement:
I was going to a birthday party at the Exploratorium which included a visit to the Tactile Dome. I hadn't been to the Tactile Dome since I was about ten (school field trip) and definitely didn't want to miss out. So, I needed to wear something that would allow me to crawl around on my hands and knees in the dark. I also wanted to look somewhat reasonably well dressed at Davies Symphony Hall, two hours later.

The solution:
I ended up wearing a purple knit dress with black jeans underneath, and I took off the jeans before heading to the symphony. I also changed my shoes from sneakers to pumps.

I think if I were a guy I could have just worn khakis and a button-down shirt to both. Not quite fair, is it?

Incidentally, we didn't make it to the late birthday party after the symphony yesterday. I'd made post-performance reservations at Jardiniere, and we ended up meeting there with some friends who had just come from the opera. After several hours of sitting around chatting while enjoying our espresso, dessert wine, port, and generous helpings of dessert, we decided that it wasn't worth heading over to Suede since we'd only be there for an hour before closing. Next time!

holiday party

This post will not include a recipe, I promise.

Yesterday night I went to the annual holiday party. I was actually debating whether or not to go; last year's was super crowded, noisy, and there was an hour-long wait for parking. This year the party was moved from the city to Mountain View, so I figured I might as well give it another shot. That turned out to be a great decision; the theme was much better (outer space, very well executed, versus last year's very random Greek god theme), it was less crowded due to having split the party across two nights, the venue was divided into only three large rooms rather than five or six smaller rooms, and the food was significantly better, probably due to lots of people complaining after last time.

When the party started to wind down around midnight, we headed to an after-party nearby, which was awesome; it was a much smaller crowd, there was great music (lots of 80's), delicious hors d'oeuvres (tiny hamburgers, chocolate cupcakes, and various canapes), and real drinks, as opposed to just wine and beer. I walked in and was promptly handed a glass of Rockstar and SoCo, which was surprisingly good but really strong. We stayed there until about two and then decided we better go home if we were going to make it through today; the plan is to go to three birthday parties (12pm, 3pm, 11pm) and see the SF symphony (8pm). I should probably go and take a nap.

A few photos (main party):

chicken karaage & spinach salad

I tried this recipe for the first time yesterday night, and ended up eating a lot of fried chicken. I probably shouldn't make it very often.

Chicken Karaage

1. Cut up 1 lb of chicken thighs (about 4 pieces per thigh).

2. Marinate the chicken for 30-45 minutes in: 3 parts soy sauce and 1 part sake, with one piece of ginger and several cloves of garlic, minced.

3. Dredge the chicken in cornstarch and then fry in oil until the crispy exterior starts to look golden.

I thought I should eat some vegetables too, so I made a cooked spinach salad.

Japanese Spinach Salad

1. Boil a bag of baby spinach for a couple of minutes. Drain and then dry with paper towels.

2. Add white sesame seeds and equal parts sugar, soy sauce, and sake.

pineapple roasted ham

When I was a kid, my mother always baked ham for Thanksgiving, because my great-aunt always made the turkey. Consequently, I know way more about baking a ham than roasting a turkey.

This is what I did with the ham for this year's pre-Thanksgiving party.

Pineapple Roasted Ham

1. Buy half of a spiral cut honey ham. It'll probably be around 8 pounds.

2. Use a knife to score the surface of the ham in a criss-cross pattern. Each line should be about an inch away from the next line. Then, take a jar of cloves and stick one clove in the center of each cross, over the entire surface of the ham.

3. Open two cans of sliced pineapples. Pour the juice from the two cans into a saucepan, add maple syrup (~1/4 cup) and brown sugar (~1/4 cup), and simmer. Using the pineapple slices, cover the surface of the ham, using a toothpick to secure each one.

4. Sprinkle a good amount of brown sugar over the ham (probably 1-2 cups), and use a spoon to press the sugar into the crevices between the pineapple slices. Then, pour half of the pineapple-sugar mixture over the ham.

5. Bake the ham at 350 degrees for about 2 hours. Every 30 minutes, take the ham out, baste with the juice in the pan, and add a little more pineapple-sugar sauce.

To serve, remove all of the pineapple slices and all the cloves, then cut the ham and arrange on a plate with the pineapple slices.

chocolate bread pudding

I had leftover egg bread after having made a pumpkin bread pudding for a Halloween party, so the next day, I decided to improvise a chocolate bread pudding recipe. It turned out pretty well, probably because I put a lot of brandy in it.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

1. Cut up a roll of egg bread into 1-inch pieces.

2. Melt half a bar of bittersweet baking chocolate, then add 1 cup cream, 1/4 cup brandy, and maybe 1/4 cup sugar, and stir until well mixed.

3. Fold the bread cubes into the chocolate mixture, put into a loaf pan, and let stand for 15 min.

4. Bake for about 20-25 min at 350 degrees, or until the center passes the toothpick test.

(All of the amounts are estimates; I was using leftover ingredients so I just finished off what I had.)

apple crisp

This year, I've been using a lot of "recipes" that are either significantly modified, very vague, or made up entirely. I'm a bit afraid I'm going to forget some of them, so I've decided I'm going to start writing them down.

Here's one that I invented out of necessity, because the apple tree in my backyard is hyperactive.

Apple Crisp

1. Peel and slice enough apples to fill up a 8 or 9-inch round pan. Soak them in salt water while peeling and slicing, so they don't brown.

2. Toss with a generous amount of brown sugar and cinnamon, plus some nutmeg and half a lemon worth of lemon juice, and set aside.

3. Melt 6 tablespoons of butter (3/4 of a stick) and add flour and brown sugar until the whole mixture is crumbly. I usually use a bit more flour than sugar.

4. Fill a small plastic bag about 1/4 full of pecans, and use a meat tenderizer to crush them. Mix the pecans into the crumbly dough.

5. Top the apples with the dough and bake for about an hour.

mmm, cupcakes

Over the weekend, I went to a baby shower where they served mini cupcakes from Sibby's Cupcakery. They were super cute, and yummy too.



There were four flavors:
- vanilla w/ chocolate frosting, decorated with pink ribbon icing
- chocolate w/ coconut flakes (very generous w/ the coconut topping)
- chocolate w/ pink frosting, decorated with sprinkles and a candy flower
- red velvet w/ vanilla frosting, decorated with a pink pig, since it's the year of the pig

I managed to try at least half a cupcake of each flavor (red velvet was the best), and ended up eating a total of three cupcakes, which was definitely more than my fair share.

It's too bad that Sibby's has a minimum order of 1 dozen cupcakes (2 dozen, for mini cupcakes); they don't have an actual store, only a warehouse of sorts, where you go to pick up the cupcakes when they're ready.