Archive for July, 2007

A Childhood Friend

July 31, 2007 at 4:18 pm · Filed under Family & Friends

I received an email from a childhood girlfriend telling me that she’s engaged. Wow, finally :-) I guess after so many years’ looking, she must have found someone she really wants to make a lifetime commitment.

She also sent me a photo of this happy couple holding Champagne glasses to celebrate this special moment. I found myself actually have no clues about the man on the photo. I guess, in the past a couple years, we had drifted apart with the separate lives going on in different countries. I never had ringed up to ask how she’s doing with her personal life in US and I, pretty much had settled in AU, down under this hemisphere, and had been very lazy to care for other people’s life.

Time flies by…. It’s been a while since the last conversation on the phone. She is at the same age of mine. We met in school when I was in Year 4, let’s say, about 10 years old. We’d been together for two years or so, and then she went to Shenzhen with her parents.

During those two years, we shared a lot of girl things which are supposed to be done at that age. We did as Japanese TV series “Volleyball Girls” to play a handmade cotton volleyballs; we played the violin after school and shared our little Chinese writings; we walked 40 minutes to go to a special place where we can buy shredded ice cream and then did our showers in a public bathroom, …Lots of memories! After she’s gone, we had been keeping in touch by letters since then until I graduated from the Uni and she went to America for the bigger dream.

Theoretically speaking, we are 24 years friends and should connect each other in some ways, but I don’t know why our boats of life had floated apart so far from each other, even to a distance that I feel difficult to pick up again :-( I guess it’s the nature of a human being to complete the whole circle of one’s life. We were born, and grow up, go to work, find the other half in crowd, get married, have kids and family, then get old. You make a move, people make moves as well. After having experienced all the changes in our life, I wonder how many friends would end up being with you the whole lifetime. Sadly, at the end of the day, it’s quite often that the only thing that you can keep for a life time is yourself. A lonely soul!

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Sunday Dinner

July 30, 2007 at 9:59 am · Filed under Food & Cusine

Very unintentionally, Sunday’s dinner ended up so seafood, including the steaming Basa fish fillets, deep fry squid rings and a pot of Tofu-fish and fish ball soup.

At first place I was just trying to get some squid to try out a new recipe I saw from Women Weekly the other day. However, the Basa fish fillets looked very appealing with fresh pinky colour. It once again reminded me Jessie’s easy recipe. She invented this recipe and I, every time I do it, I amended a bit, sometime add extra fresh chilli, sometimes add preserved vegetable, sometimes I even added cooking wine into the water underneath so when water is vaporised, the flavour of wine can be absorbed by fish.

Preparation of Steaming Basa Fish Fillets

I love the easiness of preparation of this dish. Soft Japanese Tofu underneath, then pinch of salt sprinkle on tofu, if you like, you can add some preserved vegetable (榨菜沫) here, then slice fish fillets and put them on the top, sprinkle with chilli. Steam for 8 minutes. Before serve, top with two tablespoons 蒸鱼豉汁. At last, sprinkle finely chopped coriander or shallot.

After 8 minutes steaming and before serve

For deep fry squids, I used sea salt and chilli flakes mixed with bread crumbles. There are two key factors to make a perfect deep fry. One is to use enough oil; Another is to first coat squid rings with plain flour. Most people dip the squid directly into beaten eggs then coat them with crumbles. It doesn’t work well (It’s been proved since I had tried lots of times). The crumbles would not attach well on the surface of squid and would get off quickly when deep frying in the oil. I am glad that I used chilli flakes and sea salt this time. The flavour is really great and rich. Squid is perfect for hot spicy ingredients, so feel free to use as much as you like.

Deep fry squid rings with chilli flakes and sea salt

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Squint Eyes

July 29, 2007 at 5:07 pm · Filed under Daily Living

Lately my frustration on driving practice mainly comes from the actions related to parking. I suspected that I probably have really bad squint eyes. Every time I tried to park the car in the middle of two lines, I ended up parking it leaning to one side or not in the middle.

I swear that it wasn’t that I acted up and didn’t want to make a perfect movement (trust me, I badly wanted it to be done perfectly). But I found that what I see from inside the car is not what I see from outside the car. Every time after I got off the driver’s seat and checked the car’s position, I felt so depressed. Then I was overwhelmed by desperation and confusion :-( It’s almost devastating. Think about it, if a person can’t see properly, how could s/he act properly, upon his/her vision and judgment?

In the past, I never had a doubt about my eyes. However, my eye vision deteriorated days by days, but I don’t have any problem in daily living, except I do have to wear glasses to read subtitles when watching DVD movies.

Now, I feel that I am like an innocent but retarded kid who has no idea about experiencing some developmental delays, but one day finally found herself got hurt in the reality, and then started to realise that there might be some generic problem exists from the beginning :-) I wondered how other people would deal with it?

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Roast Sweet Potatoes

July 28, 2007 at 6:25 pm · Filed under Food & Cusine

To roast sweet potatos, you don’t have to prepare anything, no extra ingredients, no marinade, even no need to wash. Well, I do wash a bit :-) but just rub outside in running water for 5 seconds to remove the dirt.

Usually I cut one sweet potato to half, but it really depends. If the size of sweet potato is huge, you can cut it to 3 even parts.

Put them on a shallow roasting tray. Temperature needs to set to about 200-230 degrees. Then set the timer to 40minutes to 1 hour (depends on how many potatos you are roasting).

Now, go somewhere to do something else. When the timer buzzes, sweet potatoes should be ready!!! Warm, freshly made, naturally sweet flavour and soft texture. Skin is separated from the flesh and you can see the sugar had become liquid and flow out, which reminded me those roasted sweet potatos cooked from those big and dirty bucket by those peasants, with equally dirty hands, who came from rural areas and made their living by selling roast sweet potatos in Beijing.

Now, taste it!!! Yummmmmmmm………Can you ever think of a roast recipe that could be easier than this one :-)

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My parents worth millions

July 27, 2007 at 9:41 pm · Filed under Family & Friends

Mom and Dad got back yesterday. I had been worrying about them since they took off to Europe. I wasn’t sure if they would be able to handle 10 days’ fast rhythm of travelling around in many different countries and cities, as well as those small things like time difference, climate or food. What if they got too tired? What if they got sick? What if they had falls?

I guess that after having been working in the area with aged people in so many ways and being able to talk to them and get to know their personal stories, especially those things related to their health conditions and difficulties in their daily living, even though I know my parents are very healthy and strong for their age, I still can’t help being paranoid. Probably it’s because I know too many people at their early 60s had already had their health deteriorated and suffer a lot every day.

Dad is 76 this year and mom is 4 years younger than Dad. Mom had been working full time until she reached 70 in 2005. Dad retired early at his 60s, but he probably got even busier than the time when he was working. Apart from that he had developed glaucoma in the past a couple of years, there is nothing really bothers him. Actually I don’t often link their age to their lifestyle. But when I come to that point, sometimes I was amazed by the fact that how they are managing their lives so well, and what they have been taking the responsibility of looking after others.

Last night on the phone, once again it was proved. Mom and Dad sounded full of energy without a bit tiredness. According to my sister, during the whole trip, she had to keep an eye on my father as he was actually too active. He carried his camera, ran around and tried to shoot the photos from different angles. Well, that’s typical…of my dad :-) But my poor sister, worried that he might get lost. So she had to chase him to everywhere all the time, like a kindergarten teacher chasing 5 years-old boy:-) no kidding….

But, you know how much healthy parents mean to their kids? A lot….probably much more than million dollars or the value is simply countless. I found that actually I am an extremely lucky daughter to have parents like my Mom and Dad.

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Morning and Evening

July 26, 2007 at 9:39 pm · Filed under Daily Living

8:05am. Courtyard. Morning sunshine. Sky and clouds. Trees. The boldness and the bareness. Fence, lightened by golden beams. A pair of slippers stepped out the laundry door. Fresh air. Then a deep breath. The chords of birds’ singing. Shadows, cast on trunks and move from one to another. The darkness and the brightness. Contrasting, the essence of beauty. Camera out. Not for looking down, not for looking about, only for looking up. UP there, has everything :-)

5:05pm. Main road. Sunset. The same sky and more sophisticated clouds with red, orange and brown shades. The last and the most impressive. Traffic, with people rushing home for a rest. Tired or just desperately wanted back to the nest? Shoes walking. Fresh air. Deep breath to smell the evening, smell the busyness and the aroma from dinner. Home, the motivation to keep the life marching. Camera on. Not for looking back, not for looking forward, only for looking in the moment. The moment now, has everything but the mind, can bear nothing :-)


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