BBQ & basketball

My basketball league has been on hiatus for nearly a month now, due to the City of San Carlos' budgetary issues. One of my teammates decided that we should get together anyway, if not for basketball, then for BBQ. She invited us over to her house last Friday, and amazingly, most of the team was actually free.

Of course everyone came bearing side dishes and/or desserts, and I was pretty impressed with the spread. We started with stuffed mushrooms, chips w/ hummus, salsa, and guacomole, and bruschetta with fresh basil, tomato, and mozzarella (courtesy of yours truly and Trader Joe's). With the delicious BBQ chicken and pork ribs we had a garden salad, cornbread, pasta salad, mac & cheese, and corn on the cob. Finally, for dessert, there were brownies, and a banana pudding with Nilla wafers.

Yup, not only can we play, we can cook. Well, some of us. I can only cook.

getting psyched for Jamaica

I'm going to be going to Jamaica for a week in December, to attend a small destination wedding. The bride and groom have been sending out planning details recently, which inspired me to finally go and check out Back-A-Yard, a tiny Jamaican place off of Willow in Menlo Park.

I had the Jerk Chicken plate, which came with salad, two scoops of rice & beans, fried plantains, and of course, the chicken. I was pretty hungry, but the plate was more than enough for me (although I did polish off all of the plantains). The chicken was delicious; less spicy than I had expected, which was good as I was eating with some spice-adverse people, but still spicy enough to be good. I'm told the BBQ items are also quite good, so maybe I'll stop by again sometime before my trip.

tossing traditions

I object to the traditional "bouquet/garter toss" that often takes place at weddings. As I've mentioned before, I go to a lot of weddings, so during wedding season I often find myself explaining why. I've listed my primary reasons below.

Reason #1: Trivializing marriage
In my opinion, deciding to get married is a serious relationship change and both parties should spend a lot of time carefully thinking/talking it out and making sure it's what they both really want. The idea that something as trivial as catching a bouquet or garter could affect such a serious decision at all...well, it seems silly and even insulting to rational adults. Basically, it makes light of the institution of marriage, at an event intended to celebrate a marriage.

Reason #2: Trivializing other committed long-term relationships
This is very similar to Reason #1, but I want to mention this angle specifically because I think it often gets overlooked. People are expected to want to catch the bouquet (and to some extent, the garter). This would seem to indicate an absolute belief that marriage is the "best" relationship state for everyone. I object to passing judgment on people's life choices. Many adults are in committed long-term relationships. Some of them don't believe in marriage. Others are gay and are not allowed to be married in their state/country of residence. Others may feel that they (or their partner, or their relationship) are not ready for marriage at this time. Why would any of these people want to participate in these rituals?

Update: A friend just made another good point corresponding to Reason #2. The bouquet or garter toss defines people who are in committed long-term relationships as "single", thus trivializing those relationships and portraying them as "lesser" states compared to marriage. The obvious solution would be to allow people to define their own singleness, but what ends up happening is that purportedly "single" people who don't consider themselves single are pressured to participate anyway.

Reason #3: Awkwardness
One would think that at a party, the objective of the hosts would be to maximize the enjoyment of the guests. At a wedding reception, the bouquet and garter toss are often the most awkward moments for said guests. I'll focus on the bouquet toss first...

There's this outdated notion that all women want to catch the bouquet because all women desperately want to be married as soon as possible. In this day and age, that's simply not true. Some women are happy to be single, and some aren't. Some women want to catch the bouquet, and some don't.

I think we can define three groups:
A. Women who are happy about being single
B. Women who are unhappy about being single but don't believe in bouquet tossing
C. Women who are unhappy about being single and do want to catch the bouquet

Women in Group A are happy about being single, and thus don't want to catch the bouquet. Women in Group B are are unhappy about being single but think bouquet tossing is silly and thus don't want to catch the bouquet. Women in Group C are unhappy about being single and do want to catch the bouquet. So, the argument could be made that bouquet tossing is for Group C, right? The problem is, Group C women are unhappy about being single. Making them stand up in front of a large group of guests to "fight" over a bouquet only emphasizes their singleness, which is pretty much guaranteed to make them unhappier. Thus, by definition, no one is ever all that happy to catch a bouquet.

In reality, nearly all of the women who participate in the bouquet toss are usually present due to peer pressure or a sense of duty/friendship. I've attended multiple weddings at which everyone ducked the bouquet and it fell on the floor. Talk about awkwardness! More frequently, some poor bridesmaid will sacrifice herself and catch the bouquet so that the bride will be satisfied.

I've decided I'm not even going to get started on the garter toss. My thoughts are pretty much summed up by "ick". It's sad that sexism is so unapologetically rampant at weddings.

living in a bubble

I read the national news, so of course I know that here in California, we live in a bubble. We have higher emission standards than the rest of the country, we have fresher and more organic produce, we have an Asian population of over 12%, we think high-speed internet is a basic utility, and we vote for Democratic presidential candidates.

I didn't fully realize until recently that the Bay Area is a bubble inside of a bubble. In the last few weeks, I've been bombarded by "No on 8" messages: via personal e-mail, in chat/twitter statuses, on Facebook, on mailing lists, etc. A few of my friends have in fact become very passionate and articulate about reminding people to vote "No on 8". (Incidentally, none of them happen to be gay.) I've heard many people express disappointment that such a measure could even have made it onto the ballot.

Then I read the news, and I am amazed to hear that Proposition 8 is currently projected to be "narrowly" defeated. See, I live in such a bubble that I can't comprehend how it can even be a close contest. Here's hoping it's not...I would love if California set a great example for the country on this topic.

(Being a lazy permanent absentee voter, I already did my part last week.)

pet peeve of the day

To all those bikers who for some reason think that they're pedestrians:
1. No, it is not okay for you to ride on the sidewalk and endanger real pedestrians. For one thing, you're taking up the whole sidewalk, which doesn't really allow for two-way traffic, does it?
2. It is also not okay for you to stop car traffic by riding in the crosswalk; you are not a pedestrian and do not have the right-of-way, unless you are off the bike and walking. Yeah, that's why all those other bikers are stopped back there waiting for the light to change.

priorities

My grandparents, who have been visiting here in California for the past month, flew back to Taipei yesterday so that they could participate in tomorrow's Protect Taiwan march. That's just so cool that it speaks for itself, so my only comment is: 外公外婆加油!

oh dear

In my news feed this morning: Pro-independence protesters in Taiwan have attacked a visiting Chinese envoy. There's video and everything.

On the one hand, I understand there is a lot of frustration right now in Taiwan. Ma Ying-Jeou has been pandering to China at every opportunity, and on top of that, people are afraid to eat anything, due to the Chinese milk scandal. Part of me definitely feels like cheering on the protesters. But, in the larger scheme of things, I don't think this incident is going to help Taiwan's standing in the international community.

Then again, the international community pretty much spits on Taiwan, so maybe we shouldn't care what they think.

milestone?

Last Thursday, I think I may have hit a milestone.

I was running on a treadmill, and somewhere near the fifth mile, my legs started to give out, and my lungs were fine. My legs were actually so tired that they refused to move fast enough to keep up with the treadmill's motion, and for a split second I actually felt like I was going to fall off the machine. Yay for increased cardio fitness!

Although, I guess the alternative explanation is that my legs were having a bad day.

seriously

Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama's candidacy today. There had been rumors that he would, so it wasn't entirely surprising.

Like many others, I used to really admire Colin Powell, before the whole WMD fiasco. Parts of his statement reminded me why.

From his endorsement (via Huffington Post):

"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel particularly strong about this because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay, was of a mother at Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone, and it gave his awards - Purple Heart, Bronze Star - showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the head stone, it didn't have a Christian cross. It didn't have a Star of David. It has a crescent and star of the Islamic faith.

And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could serve his country and he gave his life."

The picture:


It's a question I've been asking for months...even if Obama were a Muslim (which he isn't), what would be wrong with that, anyway?

In his endorsement, Powell asked that same question, but managed to state it way more eloquently than I ever could have. And, given that he's a highly public figure and a Republican, I'm sure it was much harder for him to raise the question at all.

I'm trying to express something, or several somethings, here. Resurgent admiration for Colin Powell? Regret that he got screwed by the Bush administration (or wrong place, wrong time, rock and a hard place, whatever). Renewed belief in his statesmanship. (Is statespersonship a word?) Hope that he might play a role in an Obama administration?

Put simply, I found his statement thought-provoking, truthful, deeply moving, and most of all, necessary.

eating well in Hawaii (days 3, 4, & 5)

I think when I left off last time, it was mid-September, and we'd been eating up a storm in Honolulu for two days...

We woke up on the morning of day 3 (Friday) and decided to road trip it to the North Shore, to see if we could see some surfing. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and there were no waves:


So, we just hung out at Waimea Bay Beach Park for awhile. While we were there, one of our friends joined the many people (mostly teenagers and kids) jumping off of a large nearby rock:


We consoled ourselves with some shave ice from Matsumoto's (not quite as impressive second time around) and prawns from Romy's (still fresh and delicious):


After eating, we drove all the way around the island, stopping from time to time to enjoy the views:


Towards the evening, we ventured into Kailua, where we picked up some "chocolate jump cake" from Agnes' Portuguese Bakeshop (looks too sweet to eat but isn't; it's deliciously chocolate-y), and then drove all the way around on the Kalaniana'ole Highway, passing by Diamond Head again on our way back into Honolulu.

For dinner, we went to the Coco Ichiban Curry House, a chain serving only Japanese curry:


We tried the takoyaki, the fried chicken, and the gyoza, but didn't have room for more than that. So simple, so cheap, so yummy. If only they would open a curry house in the Bay Area!

Afterwards we happened upon a street fair on Kalakaua Street, and wandered around watching the performers and smelling all the street food that we couldn't possibly manage to eat:


We met up with some friends from Honolulu at the Westin Moana Surfrider (at their suggestion), where we sat in the lounge catching up and having a few drinks. Very nice hotel and excellent table service, but I'm guessing way out of budget for our trip.

The wedding wasn't until 4pm on Saturday, so we slept in, for once. At the street fair the night before, we had been very surprised to see a sign for Okonomiyaki Chibo at one of the stands. Last year in Osaka a Japanese friend had taken us to Chibo for dinner and we had enjoyed it very much, so we stopped by to inquire, and it turned out that they had just opened a restaurant in a nearby mall, the Royal Hawaiian Center. Of course, we ended up there for lunch, and it was delicious. I've decided I prefer the kind of okonomiyaki where they put noodles into the batter and it turns out a bit crispy.

After walking around for a bit and enjoying a very fruity mango shave ice, we headed to Kaka`ako Waterfront Park for the ceremony. Despite being mid-September, it was sweltering hot that day, especially for the guys in their suits and tuxes. It was a beautiful and intimate outdoor ceremony, but shortly afterwards, during the downtime before the reception, we decided we just had to have some more shave ice (to fight the heat, naturally).

This time we headed to the highly reviewed Waiola Shave Ice:


We had the "Azuki Bowl", which came with milk flavor, azuki beans, and mochi balls. It was very good but reminded me more of Chinese or Japanese dessert than Hawaiian shave ice. A friend added green tea flavor to her bowl and it basically ended up tasting like a modified version of the Japanese dessert of green tea ice cream with red beans.

After finishing our second shave ice of the day, we had just enough time to drive to the reception, which was at the DAV Hall, in Ke'ehi Lagoon Park. At this point I'd been in Hawaii for four days and hadn't actually eaten any real Hawaiian food (except taro chips and poke) so I was excited for the dinner part of the reception, because I knew the bride's relatives (who happen to own a local catering business) were in charge of dinner.

As it turned out, they had the Kalua Pig I'd been craving (and it was excellent), sushi rolls, crab salad, pickled cucumber salad, and glass noodles, as well as some dishes that I hadn't had before: a coconut milk-heavy creamed spinach-like dish, an octopus dish, and a dessert that was kind of like almond tofu but was coconut flavored and was much more gooey. They also had a lot of poi, and well, I still don't like poi.

For dessert, there were four kinds of cake, all of which I managed to try:


I'd never been to a wedding reception quite like this one before. The last time I went to a wedding in Hawaii, the bride had grown up in Honolulu, but she was of Chinese and not Hawaiian ethnicity, so the overall tone of the wedding was much more traditionally American. This reception was very laid-back, and although the ceremony had been small, there were nearly 300 guests at the reception, mostly family. A live Hawaiian band played through most of the night, and various members of the bride's family would get up to do traditional Hawaiian dancing from time to time (and they were all quite good). At one point the groom (who is not Hawaiian) did a dance with the bride's father which he had been learning, and then the bride followed that up with a dance of her own. Overall, it was a very unique and fun wedding to have attended.

Our flight on Sunday wasn't until the late evening, but we had to drop some friends off at the airport before noon. On our way there, by request, we stopped again at Waiola for more shave ice. This time we tried the "Li Hing Mui" (Chinese preserved plum) with custard (basically flan). The combination sounded odd at first but it turned out really well, and in fact I liked it better than the Azuki Bowl we had had the day before.

After doing airport duty, we went to visit another friend from Honolulu. She tried to take us to Tamashiro Market for lunch, but it turned out they didn't serve lunch on weekends. Next we tried Nico's, but they were closed for a private event, so we ended up at Uncle's, which she said was less popular but I had a really decent calamari salad anyway, with large chunks of freshly fried calamari.

I'd already been to Pearl Harbor as a child and didn't remember being particularly impressed, but given that we had several hours to kill, we decided to head over to see the USS Arizona, just before closing. Even after getting there and looking around, I couldn't find any memory of having been there before, so I guess it's good that I went.

I thought this inscription was nice; it's a list of soldiers who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, but chose to be buried with their shipmates later:


(I think the bits sticking out of the water are of the decaying ship.)


Finally, just before heading back to the airport, we stopped by the curry house again for dinner, because I was determined to try an udon dish:


As much as I love Japanese curry, I hadn't ever tried it on udon before. It was very yummy (of course), and I will have to try making it myself one of these days.

eyeballing

I just took this eyeballing test twice and scored 4.15 both times. I'm particularly bad at finding the centers of triangles, and I'm good at midpoints, bisecting angles, and convergence points. I'm amazed looking at the high scores...how does someone score below a 2.0 on this thing?

favorite movies (or, insuring against future data loss)

Back when I signed up for Facebook, I installed a bunch of applications and started to use them. One of the apps was Flixter Movies. I actually sat around rating movies and making a list of my favorites. Then, when Facebook switched over to its new interface, I was suddenly unable to access my movie list (at least on FF/Linux) and it was really freaking me out. I hate data loss of any kind.

Anyway, I guess they finally fixed the app for the new UI, because I checked this morning and I was able to access my movie list. I'm posting my "all-time favorites" list (as of 2007) here so I won't lose it again. It's ordered by date of release.

The Princess Bride (1987)
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
臥虎藏龍 (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) (2000)
The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers (2002)
Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)
The Incredibles (2004)

I also loved Immortal Beloved, but I think primarily due to all the Beethoven music. Hmm, I realize I do have somewhat generic taste in movies. Ah well.

eating well in Hawaii (days 1 & 2)

I did mention that I'd been eating particularly well recently, right?

About a month ago, I went to Hawaii for a week. (For another wedding. Yes, poor me.) After last year's experience, I knew that the food in Honolulu varied wildly, from the overpriced tourist traps around Waikiki to the delicious hole-in-the-wall bento box type places further from the beach, so I did some research in the days leading up to the trip, which paid off handsomely...

We got off the airplane around 7pm on Wednesday, met up with some friends, and promptly headed for a Japanese BBQ place called Gyu-Kaku. It's actually a chain but has only spread to New York and Los Angeles so far, unfortunately. The four of us ordered two set meals, with interesting side dishes like cream cheese salad (good, but a bit heavy in large amounts) and a rice bowl resembling bibimbop, as well the omnipresent ahi poke. We then added a bunch of meat, doubling up on the happy hour special of "harami", or skirt steak in miso sauce. Both the service and the meat quality were quite good, and I would have ordered another rice bowl if I hadn't been way too full already. Then, for dessert, there was a grilled pancake with red bean paste, which is right up my alley.

The next morning, we stopped at a Foodland for some poke:


Then, we headed over to Mitsu-Ken to find the garlic chicken that we had enjoyed so much on our last trip. Even though it was mid-morning, we had to stand in line for a good 10-15 minutes to get our chicken. We took the poke and the chicken and had a picnic of sorts in a random park. I think I really started to feel like I was on vacation when we spent all morning just driving around town assembling lunch.

My friend, an avid quilter, had mentioned before arriving that she was determined to go to Fabric Mart while in Honolulu, and we just happened to drive by it after lunch, so we had to stop by:


I haven't bought much fabric myself since high school, but apparently the prices were about half of what they are on "the mainland" and it certainly looked like the selection was good.

After some sightseeing (Iolani Palace, then Diamond Head again), we decided we wanted sushi for dinner. Luckily I had read online about a place called Mitch's Fish Market, so we called for a reservation, and headed over shortly afterwards.

We were a little surprised upon arrival, as the "restaurant" appeared to be tucked into a row of dark warehouses, and was not too inviting itself. We proceeded anyway, and pushed open the door, only to find a tiny room with a fish counter and maybe three tables seating two or three people apiece. I told the person behind the counter (a bit hesitantly, since I wasn't sure where they were going to put us) that we had a reservation for four, and he cheerfully led us across a dark alley to another building, where we found four cozy tables of four. This room looked much more pleasant, so we relaxed and began to order.

The food was AMAZING. We started with a "ume kurage" appetizer; jellyfish with plum paste. I love sour plum paste, and this dish was very, very strongly flavored with it:


Next up, spiny (Pacific) lobster and toro sashimi:



The toro was strangely cold, and at first I didn't like it too much, but it was very good after getting to room temperature. The lobster was excellent; I am very fond of lobster sashimi in general but I think it may have been the best I've ever had.

Then came some of our favorite nigiri sushi, rolls, and chirashi/sashimi specials for the (still hungry) guys:




I distinctly remember someone saying the negitoro rolls were "sinful" because they were so fatty and delicious. The ume shiso rolls were excellent as well; I wouldn't have thought that I would have liked a vegetarian roll so much.

Finally, the cooked-fish-eaters wrapped up the meal with some hamachi kama:


I myself admired the size of the portion but left it for others to enjoy the taste.

The entire meal came out to about $75 a head, including tax and tip, which is actually very reasonable for sushi, especially given that we stuffed ourselves silly and ordered things like lobster and toro.

More Hawaiian food doings to come...

dinner in "The Dining Room"

I'd been to The Dining Room at The Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco once before, for my mother's 50th birthday, but I hadn't been since they changed chefs and started serving their famous "Salt and Pepper Tasting Menu". So, I was super excited when I was invited by a friend to dinner there a few weeks ago.

The Salt and Pepper menu consists of eight courses, each with a different kind of salt and pepper. The theme extended even to the amuse bouche dishes and the dessert!

The Rundown:

- First amuse: tiny fried mushroom ravioli. I had had them before, but they were still delicious.


- Second amuse: some kind of fish w/ crispy skin. As always, I redistributed any cooked fish dishes to others.


- Third amuse: caviar & egg w/ cedarwood smoke. This was one of the highlights of the meal. I always love caviar, but this dish was really creative. They had burned cedarwood and trapped the (very clean-smelling) smoke in a glass dish, and then covered it with plastic wrap. There was a small hole in the wrap, which was covered with a spoon. When I lifted the spoon to eat the caviar, small wafts of smoke would come out, so the experience of eating the caviar was strongly flavored with the sweet-smelling cedarwood smoke. Amazing.


- First course: kindai sashimi w/ prawn & yuzu gelee. This was my other favorite dish. The sashimi was fresh and yummy, and the prawn heads were fried and served with sauces made of shiso salt (!!!) and pink pepper. Yum!



- Second course: Giant "stupid" clam w/ cucumber and two types of jelly. I was not too fond of the jellies; they were too gooey and not "crunchy" enough. The clam was pretty chewy but the flavor was very good.


- Third course: foie gras on crouton. The foie gras serving was *huge* and in fact I gave half of it away since I always feel like foie gras is wasted on me. The crouton was soaked full of foie gras juice and other sauces and I enjoyed it very much.


- Fourth course: lobster & a thin slice of meat. Unfortunately I remember very little about this dish, four weeks later. I have a vague idea it was good but unremarkable.


- Fifth course: young chicken (poussin?) w/ quinoa and foam on top. As I've mentioned before, I am not a fan of foam, but the chicken was crispy and tasty. The salt was lemon flavored, which I liked.


- Sixth course: ribeye w/ asparagus. I was pretty full at this point and wanted to be able to enjoy dessert, so I only had a bite of the ribeye, but it was nicely cooked (properly medium rare) and I always like pepper on beef.


- Seventh course: sorbet & gelee. This felt like a palate cleanser but was supposedly one of the eight courses. It was a strawberry sorbet and citrus gelee, I think. I liked the yuzu ones better. Even this had salt and pepper in it! The salt was citrus flavored, to match the gelee.


- Eighth course: white chocolate mousse & rum(?) cake w/ fig. I thought I would like the cake better but it turned out too liquid-y (meaning full of liquid, not that it was dissolving). The figs were good but the little chunk of white chocolate mousse was the best thing on the plate. It was served cool, wasn't overly sweet (as often happens with white chocolate) and had good texture.


- Petit fours: At the end the waiter came by with a cart of petit fours and we were supposed to choose which ones we wanted. Since there were four of us, we ended up with one of everything (which was probably like ten or twelve pieces) and then went around round robin until they were finished. There was a pistachio cake-y thing that was quite good and a couple of chewy candies, but I still preferred the white chocolate from the dessert course.


Overall, it was quite an excellent meal. Service was great, as is befitting The Ritz-Carlton, the creativity of the various dishes was really impressive, and I was still raving about the sashimi & prawn course to some friends last weekend. Very memorable evening!

the cheese-eating gene

Last weekend I went back to Marin to stay at my parents' house, since my grandparents are visiting for the month. At breakfast, I noticed my grandmother (mom's mom) was eating her toast with big chunks of blue cheese. My mother, my brother and I are all quite fond of strong cheeses, especially compared to the average Asian/Asian-American person, so I was amused to discover that my grandmother was also a fan.

Incidentally, we've long suspected that this grandmother is partially Dutch (or other European), due to her very light skin and eyes, persistent family rumors, and the fact that strangely mixed ancestry is common in Taiwan (for instance, we know for certain that my father is one-sixteenth English). Maybe we've been passing down a cheese-eating gene for generations! I wonder if there's a way to find out for sure.