Evidence of Cooking 2

Today I had to cook a one-dish meal for myself. I kinda felt like bolognaise but didn't have proper tomato puree and cheese, so I thawed out some ground beef and made some of Grace's special sauce! Onions, peppers, Japanese Mirrin, a dash of mustard, some tomato puree, salt & pepper - and I had my very own Singapore bolognaise sauce. Today's pasta was farfelle, on offer at Target and I think when the bows cook, they actually look quite pretty.

Perry Street on a Friday Night

One night we did the New York thing. We made reservations in a

michelin-star restuarant in the West Village - and had the prix fixed dinner menu. It was great, the food was delicious and we ate while the sun came down over the Hudson.

So we got started on the carparccio (it was beet which we mistakenly read as b-e-e-f, and wondering why on earth the

meat was so purplish and jello-ed) and the table next to us fills up.

Party of 4 middle-aged Americans looking like they were ready to enjoy an evening of relaxed catching up. Sometime later, the conversation starts (and I can't help it, because you know,

Americans speak really clearly and firmly over many things...).

Pregnant Lady: "So, you know, I'm already 40 and I thought since I've always wanted to have a baby, why not now? So I talked to my really good friend and he's really cool and very understanding (both he and his partner) and its like yes, you know, I want to know who the donor is, at least. And we thought we'd go ahead. So I didn't tell anyone until it worked, cuz you know, its amazing the reaction from everyone - and well, its been amazing,...yes I'm 4 months now."

Friend 1: Wow! Congratulations, so you worked out everything else?

Pregnant Lady: Yeah, pretty much. Mike's really sweet about it but I told him that I really wanted to take care of all the rest myself, you know like daily expenses and bringing him or her up which I know I can do. And he offered to see if he could cover, like the big items..

Friend 2: yeah, you know like the Ivy League education *Laughs*

- Table laughs -

Friend 1: So did you pretty much have to repeat the whole story to everyone? I can't imagine their reactions..

Pregnant Lady: *laugh* telling the office was the one - I mean I just KNOW they had all these questions and were like not sure how to ask, I got alot of "So was it planned?" which is pretty much "So who's the father?" which is what everyone Really wanted to know. Mich's parents don't know yet, they Irish, which is...yeah [Friends nod sympathetically] ...first they had to hear that their son was gay, and this is gonna be..yeah

And the evening goes on, from entree to main to dessert, J and I are pretty much munching on our food and their conversation. I guess I am surprised at my naivety in thinking that these things only happen in celluloid - like in an episode of SATC. And I tell myself, that's exactly why I am here, to understand that there are 6 billion people in the world who operate on very different planes, and life can be viewed and lived so differently.

Evidence of Cooking 1

This is Yaki Udon which didn't taste so bad at all - and a BIG thing for a girl who doesn't cook at all.

In a New York Minute

Now that some time has passed, I've finally gotten a timetable of sorts. I like it because it is a routine, but with chunks of time that I can still decide what to do with. So I thought I'd document my activities here as useful material for future scrapbooking projects!

Monday
9.00 - 12.15 - MBA Class: Private Sector and International Development
1.10 - 2.25 - Art History: East Asian Art

Tuesday
11.00 - 12.15 - Art History: The History of Modern Art
2.00 - 5.00 - Volunteer: World Vision New York Office

Wednesday
1.10 - 2.25 - Art History: East Asian Art

Thursday
11.00 - 12.15 - Art History: The History of Modern Art

Friday
School Holiday

In between, Wednesday is usually housework day and Saturday designated for laundry. Weekends are for completing my readings for the week. Most weekday nights are for cooking projects and making sure that I graduate from pure survival cooking to semi-gourmet cooking (I use the word gourmet very loosely!). Keeping my eyes and ears open on the non-profit job scene in London also makes sure that I know what's going on in the next continent I'll have to call home. Slide pound! Keep sliding!

Shopping is incredibly good in US, it's amazing the value you can get for your dollar. It's so easy to go on a shopping frenzy because you can get designer labels slashed by half everyday. Plus, there are ways to get discounts to almost every chain store here if you're careful enough to trawl websites for coupons before hitting the shops. It is really hard to stop comparing the prices and the selection here to the incredibly marked up prices and paltry choices at home unless you, through sheer force of will, clear your head and ask yourself, "do I really need another pair of shoes, even though they are less than $20 bucks?"

Reading "Three Cups of Tea" reminded me that when you're living for a purpose other than yourself, the pursuit of more and materialism doesn't have to be the overriding, hypnotic force that governs your life. It's so easy to go back home everyday, wishing you had that something that you stopped yourself from buying, or you had something that someone else bought and then think, "aiya...why I have no money ah?"

Gosh, now I'm even eyeing girls who come out holding their H&M plastic bags, wondering what they bought and whether there was a discount. That IS sad. But I guess it'll never end unless I put a stop to it.

Yes I know for a fact that when you deliberately keep life simple and focus on what is important, it doesn't need to be like this. And darn it if I don't make that happen here, even in the capital of materialism of the world. I remember again the wonderful thing about working in a non-profit is that you meet wonderful people with simple lives, but far from simple or simplistic goals.

The doormen of 434

Student housing is like russian roulette or Da Xiao. You place your bets, wait for the magic numbers to show up and see whether yours is a winner!

We were so blessed to be allowed an apartment on the corner of a main street that was very near school. Its a great little place that is quiet (not so near the subway but its okay). To me, the best thing about our apartment are the men in blue-trimmed uniforms who greet us with a little wave, a smile, or the day's weather report, at different times of each day.

There's Nick - the daytime and regular fiesty cigarette-smokin' Greek (not Italian.."I Can't believe she called me an ITALIAN!") whose father worked on the Burma railroad when he was getting a private school education. Nick always gives us the news - AND then The News. He's shared with us his conspiracy theory on rich Jews, immigrants and the Congress.

And Orlando - the elderly half-deaf hispanic man with the white beard. We always greet each other with "Hola!" because I suspect he hears little else. He comes in for the evening shift and always turns on the heating fan for his feet under the table.

Then there's Bill - my favourite door man because he looks just like a kindly grandfather and says "hi sweetie" whenever I come in. We hear about a son but never about his wife. Bill stays alone in a rented room around the Bronx and comes in on the weekends and odd hours. He always tells us to bundle up and have a great day.

Somehow there's something really comforting about their constant presence at our lobby after a cold, mad day out on the NY streets. They hand us our parcels that come in the mail from the little room that they unlock when we show up. Last year, I was surprised that the husband remembered our doormen when it came to buying gifts during the holiday. Now I understand why.

Unidentified Flying Chicken

I'm not a big fan of chicken wings. But the husband is on a quest to find the best chicken wings in NY, and I am thinking, eh why want to eat chicken wings in NY huh, since we have the real (and cheap) stuff at home already? (start from Commonwealth market, then travel 2 miles to Ikea, then if you want travel across causeway to eat Ayam Goreng, then got time go north and eat Gai Yang in Thailand then..)

Anyway, THE place to go to is K-town's Bonchon Chicken, only opens from 4pm onwards and like everything else, is just a little more expensive being in Manhatten. That explains why I haven't gone, like who goes to K-town just to eat chicken wings?

After some investigation, it was revealed that the REAL Deal could be found at Unidentified Flying Chicken, which had landed in a Koreanised part of Brooklyn we had yet to explore.

So we (I reluctantly) schelpped down to identify this place with the ridiculous name. 3 subway transfers later, we found the place - once, just to make sure it existed, the second time to actually order the wings.

20 wings came with 2 free sides. We got garlic soy and tangy mustard flavours with baked fries - the salad just to ease the guilt. It WAS good. Crunchy and juicy even tho they were oven-baked. Flavourfully salty with a touch of sweet.

After 13 wings and 2 sides, we packed up the rest for dinner ...and more for lunch the next day. I felt sick for the rest of the day because I've never had 8 pieces of fried chicken for lunch before. But I guess the chicken wing outing was a good way to learn, when it came to wings in an angmoh place, Koreans really ruled the roost.

A Conversation between Mother and Son

I like children. I like them as people because they are funny and most importantly, most children I know receive the best care ever from parents who love them to bits (thankfully). While walking from school on a chilly evening, this was what I overheard from a mother-and-son pair next to me.

Mother (tall woman holding the hand of a little 5-year old): "I didn't know it was going to be so cold today. It was fine when we left home this morning wasn't it? I think if it gets colder, maybe you should wear your fleece, don't you think?"

Boy (walking studily and bundled up in like a ball in an anorak): "I don't think..cold..Is it very, mommy? Well, can I? Maybe yeah okay."

Mother (walking purposefully with now-skipping boy): "And, also I want to apologise for being so cranky the other day...."

By this time, I had outwalked the pair and dodged into the warmth of a nearby store. It struck me then that this Mom could have been speaking to a 5, 15 or 25 year old. She sure got it right by ditching the baby-talk. Second, to hear any parent apologise to a child (and a very small one at that!) appealed to my asian sensibilities. So very refreshing - not to mention unheard off in our confucian world. I think children learn and internalise most of their values and worldviews from the home and their parents. What a good way to teach a child to speak properly, plainly and truthfully.

Swagger Like Us

Photo by Eleny M. Ynoa of Harlem

Depending on who I speak to, I say live on the Upper West Side, or (more accurately) around Harlem. Someone was correct when he said that we're not so much West Side but the Western Frontier and so even though I try not to scare people from visiting me, I still get concerned looks from non-new yorkers when I tell them my street.

But l love it that I can get to Harlem as fast as I could get from West Coast to Clementi (alamak at home I tell people I in live West Coast, they also say ulu) . There I can buy Clorox, kitchen wipes, socks and various other household handies for a buck or two. I like it that I can find T-mobile, Old Navy, Aerosoles, Nine West (the warehouse) H&M and 1.99 Depot all on one street.

So what I do when I get down the M60 bus is to hitch the bag up my shoulders, stuff my hands in my black jacket and swagger down the street like Harlem is filled with asians (are you kidding :P) and that I come to the neighbouhood all the time (I don't). The first thing to do here (and everywhere actually) is to look like you know where you're goin and you just wanna do your thang...

So then, if you see a little chinese girl walking down Martin Luther King Jr Street with hands in her pocket in the middle of the afternoon - yup, its probably me.

Trader Joe's

Trader Joes is my weekend-only supermaket because it's located all the way down on 14th Street at Union Square. They have some great in-house buys that are pretty yummy. My favourite pick ups are the Brioche buns, bake-it-yourself French bread (great for thick soups), rice (that tastes like what we have at home) and 99 cents Coconut milk. Definitely better than the pretend-to-be-organic supermart opposide my flat that sells it for $2.69. Wah piang.

The lines are ALWAYS long and the staff all look like teenagers that are having fun hanging. Check out the name of this fruit bar - it's so corny I love it. This BlueBerry Walks into A Bar..$1.69

NYC Recycles

I'm happy that recycling so easy here, and in our basement there are these huge garbage cans nicely labelled PAPER, BOTTLES/PLASTIC/GLASSES (no caps) and TRASH. I usually stack up my cereal boxes, hand soup bottles, apple juice containers weekly and bring them all downstairs during laundry time in the Trader Joe's supermarket paper bag. All mom's good influence!

Here's my favourite recycled item, the electric blue Sake bottle that we thought would make a pretty vase. Here it is, with Peachy (the peach coloured rose I named) on the living room/study table.

A Cool and Dry Chinese New Year

If Christmas is a time of rain, lights and avoiding the Takashimaya tunnel, then Chinese New Year is definitely about being bloated on hot afternoons and trying to erase the Dong Dong Dong Chiang you heard from the Chinatown Countdown earlier on TV.

This year, not only was I sadly un-bloated (chinese mah so being bloated is a sign of fortune), I was minus the TCS Chinatown Countdown and definitely not feeling the heat (both from our strong equatorial sun and giving out my first angpows - heng ah)

For the first time in my life, my (not-so) new year clothes included a down jacket and boots. The sunday before Chap Goh Meh, J, Ah Boy and I had walked from East Village, meandered past mid-town and somehow ended up at Chinatown. We headed straight for the Char Siew Bao shop near Mott Street like there was this Bao homing device strapped on us. The Lion Dance troupe played on the next street-which was where most of the crowd was gathered thankfully!

While J popped into the shop, Ah Boy and I stood outside to watch Chinatown in a swirl of colours. Kids terrorised each with party poppers, zooming back and forth. Entrepreurial roadside Uncles pushed their gold confetti guns to kids, then promptly sold them to harrassed parents. When J came out with 2 Char Siews and 1 Leng Yong, Ah Boy and I had bits of confetti in our hair and clothes. Even though it was dry and uncrowded, this was probably my closest experience to partying at Chinatown. A very surreal one too.

Back In The City

So I've made the shaky transition from B-school girlfriend and landed in a more permanent place as B-school wife. Yes, to all B-shool girlfriends out there, it IS possible to survive the required late night parties, endless networking sessions, cut-throat recuitment rounds, intensive internships - across the miles AND plan a wedding! (Praise God! And thank your girlfriends for the therapy sessions!)

Along the way, you pick up information you're not sure what to do with. I now know what a carry trade is, how CDOs work and the names of 2 dozen Hedge Funds and Private Equity groups (that may soon cease to exist) - and of course the remaining I-banks and their remaining stock prices.

I guess it's a great way to get acquainted with a world that I had little interest in. A year ago, my keywords were sustainability, advocacy, development, communications plans, presentations, e-blasts, timelines, 157gsm/4-C/gloss lami and web 2.0.

Oh well, I suppose that's all part of life-long learning (ha! I keep thinking of the WDA campaigns) but this is the kind that the School of Life teaches you; where you dont really have a choice in picking the modules you want. Yup, another class I'm taking up, Cooking 101 (elementary). Hopefully, i'll chalk up enough dishes to graduate to more advance levels *tries to look optimistic*

Since there's a university so near me, its great that there are some things you can choose to learn - East Asian Art History is in 1 hrs time *yay*. Today we're still on Song ceremics and celadon.