me? i have horrible food presentation skills.
this is a super tasty roasted thyme chicken dish with hollandaise sauce (yes! i even held the egg yolk over a double boiler and kept it at temperature!)
i really need to learn how to make a dish presentable.
another chinese new year is approaching, and for the second year in a row, i’ll be heading to my favorite city in the world, hong kong.
now, granted, unless you have family in hong kong (or like me, am happy just to be there) chinese new year isn’t the greatest time to visit, as many restaurants and shops are closed for the holidays.
but this is just a long-winded segue-way into some photos. my parents recently sent me this slideshow of old hong kong photos – put together by some guy in london named ray tse. i think they’re pretty fantastic.
so, as mentioned here and here and here last night was the boys climbing ropes record release party (support by duck fight goose). having missed the andrew byrd show to attend a birthday party, i absolutely wasn’t going to miss this show at yuyintang.
this absolutely awesome shot of xiao punk from the halloween show by gregory perez
photo by gregory perez
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every group of friends has one friend who is the center of energy, fun, and crazy ideas. for 2 years my friend zafar filled that role until he returned to california.
luckily for us, he was back this weekend on a whirlwind tour through shanghai. mayhem ensused, including a bottle of whiskey consumed in the afternoon over pool and bowling as well as several meals.
it’s always good to have zaf back in our lives, even if it results in hangovers, bad behavior and chaos.
andrew lining up a shot: Keep reading…
if you’re in china, sometime some of the sites you might want to get to are blocked – some of these might be twitter, facebook, or most vexing – youtube.
some ingenious chinese programmers have now come up with youtubecn – which is a shanzai version of youtube. we’ve talked around shanzai around here before – here’s a shanzai website.
the address is youtubecn -dot – com
have fun for the few days its up. it has most of the contest of youtube as far as i can see.
for example here’s a link to “pants on the ground”
(h/t to my co-worker craig for the tip)
what next?
good thing i have this handy decision tree/flowchart.
while i was in new york, my co-workers took me to see a knicks game, at the world’s most famous arena, madison square garden.
so after a couple of weeks of watching iron chef america back in the states, i came back to shanghai inspired to cook some new things.
after watching battle cheese, i figured homemade ravioli would be an easy choice – especially since the “making your own wrappers” can be short-cut-ed by using pre-made jiaozi wrappers. (i’ve made my own pasta before – it is a LOT of work and very time consuming. buying a pack of wrappers is a huge time saver)
i didn’t have a solid idea of what i wanted to use for the filling, but walking around city shop, i chose lardon (french streaky bacon), ricotta cheese and peas.
i’m unabashed in my love for all things university of california, berkeley. oftentimes, this leads to sadness when putting one’s hope into our various sports teams, other times, it leads to confusion and perplexed feelings, when some groups on campus opt for activism of a wholly non-productive type. but, always, there’s a feeling of pride in having attended one of the world’s great institutions of learning – doubly so as a public school.
so while the state of california tries to legislate itself out of the worst governmental financial crisis in quite some time, i took some time to visit uc berkeley – or as we alumni/students call it: Cal.
sather tower from sproul plaza at night: Keep reading…
after spending my christmas and new year’s holidays in (relatively) sunny california, i hopped on a plane headed eastwards for new york city.
unfortunately, as this was a work trip, i didn’t have all that many free meals, but i knew that with one of my meals, i wanted steak. big thick american cuts of steak. i had obsessed about having steak since reading ruth reichl’s garlic and sapphires and about her search for the best steakhouse in new york city.
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