A home cooked meal

The other day I had a couple of friends over for dinner without planning ahead of time at all. With 15 minutes of mental preparation, I whooped out dinner for four people in less than 15 minutes (patting myself on the back).

Appetizer: Mozzarella Cheese dipped in olive oil and basil

Vege Platter: Carrots, Celery, and chopped cucumbers

Entree: Red Bell Pepper, Onions, Baked Chicken in Mozzarella cheese sauce

Bread: Garlic Naan Bread

Drink: Mixed Berry Smoothie

Soy sauce and red wine steak

This recipe is super easy to make, you don't need fancy topper ware to make this possible, just a fresh piece of steak from the supermarket.

Ingredients:

- Steak

- Salt and pepper

- Oil

- Soysauce

- Any kind of red wine

- Butter

Instructions:

Sprinkle small amount of salt and pepper on both side of the steak. In a skillet, spray olive oil to cover whole pan. Turn on medium to high heat to warm up skillet for 1 minute. Place steak on skillet, do not move the steak. Place lid on skillet for faster cooking. After 2 minutes, flip the steak, again, do not move the steak after it has been flipped. Place lid on skillet and cook for 5 minutes. By this time the steak should be rare. Transfer steak onto a presenting plate. With the leftover juice remained in the skillet, mix in 3 tablespoonful of soysauce, 3 tablespoonful of red wine, and 1 tablespoon of butter. Let it melt together in the skillet, then pour sauce over steak.

The total process making this steak should be less than 10 minutes, and it tastes great!

China Garden in Rosslyn, Virginia

China Garden in Rosslyn serves pretty authentic dim sum in the morning. I went there with friends on the weekend mornings and it was very crowded. Attendance is mostly Chinese families that stretches out three or even four generations. Even now and then there would be waitresses walking around with carts of different dim sum options. The laid back atmosphere forced me to take longer on my meals. My stay here was definitely longer than just one or two hours. This restaurant features festival style tables and grand chandeliers that hover over your heads. I know that all dim sum places look like this, but was never able to figure out the rational behind it.

Shrimp dumpling, flat noodles, and radish cake was definitely a typical dim sum dish. We also got some weird ones like shrimp paste stuffed mushrooms and grilled shrimp pancakes. I wouldn't say it was the best dim sum I have had, but knowing that this is Washington, D.C., I have no complaints.

Juice Cleanse

I have heard about juice cleanse for a long time. It used to be a hipster thing, but now it has successfully transitioned itself into a health nut necessity. I looked into some of the commercially available juice cleanse, and discovered that they were unrealistically expensive. Some juice cleanse packs come with comprehensive instructions for a three-day juice, while others just dump you a couple bottles of juice. I was not even thinking about a juice cleanse until I felt perplexed with a large meal of junk food I had the night before.

The ingredients for a juice cleanse are pretty much fiber, just like a salad. The idea was that the indigestible fibers can run through your system without putting too much stress on your digestive system in the form of a juice. They can absorbed faster and clean out your system at a faster rate. So I put carrots, celery, and kale in a blender with water, and took it to work the next day.



I had five bottles of these, and was drinking one bottle for every 1.5 hours. They taste absolutely awful, but fills you up pretty quickly. I didn't necessarily felt overall better after the cleanse, but had a reduced appetite for the rest of the day. Some websites suggest slowly introducing protein in your diet at the end of the day and the day after, but I went on and had large doses of healthy protein that night.

Crabstick Sushi

I made this yesterday when I was half awake. It came out pretty tasty, but might be due to the fact that I was half awake.

Ingredients:
- Crabstick
- Jasmine Rice
- Sushi Vinegar
- White pepper powder
- Seaweed

Instructions:
In cooked jasmine rice, pour in sushi vinegar and white pepper powder depending on your own likings. I added 4 table spoons of sushi vinegar and 1 tea spoon of white pepper powder for 1 cup of rice. Lay a piece of seaweed onto sushi roller. Lay and spread rice onto seaweed so that the rice covers one half of the seaweed's surface. Place crabstick right in the middle of the rice field. Then roll it up! I usually place a few pieces of rice at the end of the seaweed just so that the seaweed can stick on and remain as a roll. Let me know if you have any questions.

Mushroom Congee

Ingredients:
- Dried Shitake mushrooms
- Jasmine Rice
- Scallions
- Salt for seasoning

Instructions:
In 6 cups of water, add 1 cup of jasmine rice. Boil rice with water under medium heat, occusionally stir to prevent rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot. This process is long and brutal, so make sure you have patience. Place Shitake mushrooms in water in a seperate container to rehydrate. After 15 minutes, take out mushrooms, rinse with water, and cut into fine pieces. After 30-40 minutes of boiling, the rice should be broken down and water should appear white and gooey. Add salt depending on your likings. Add shitake mushrooms into the rice and continue boiling for 10 more minutes under medium heat. Add scallions at the end, mix, and serve.

Tip:
If you want the congee to be more flavorful, you can add chicken pieces or pork for seasoning. Add at the same time as the mushrooms. The miscellaneous orange object in the photo below is fried dough, it is a common breakfast in China, and goes very well in congee.

Wisdom teeth extraction

I have had wisdom teeth extractions a couple of years ago. From my aged memories, it was not that bad. I just remembering my face swollen up for a couple of days and not that much hardship had I experienced. The other day I got my wisdom teeth pulled out again, and did not think it would be that much of a big deal. It was a quick surgery, both teeth were out in less than 15 minutes. I felt numbing for half side of my face, but still in a good state to grab prescriptions and walk home. But after the numbing, comes intense pain in the back of my gums. It got to a point that it was so intolerable that tears started coming out. I was naive enough to believe that I can go through the post surgical recovery without any painkillers. I ended up taking some pretty strong medication and slept through two entire days. Now that I think about it, aside from that pain that forced me to take painkillers, it was a pretty pleasant recovery time for me. And that is an example of how I forget all the pain and sufferings I go through in life.

Tuna Tasting

I was shopping at H mart the other day then I came upon this:



At first I was not sure what was going on. It was positioned right next to the seafood section, but doesn't quite make sense for it to placed on a table as a display rather a merchandise. Later on I realized that it was having a tuna tasting with the chef cut off fresh tuna from the fish in front of you. I wasn't sure if I would feel comfortable to enjoy the tuna seeing it being taken off from another animal. Even through I eat tuna quite often, but seeing my source of protein coming off from the scarifies of other animals is not what I often imagined. Perhaps this is the reason why people transition into vegetarians -- through the shock they have seen after slothering another animal.

Finding the balance

Balance between having a social life, work, things I actually want to do, and things that I actually need to do, has been quite difficult for me. There are only 24 hours in a day, and there is one of me. Often times I face the option of choosing between hanging out with friends whom I had not seen in a long time, going to the gym and be more healthy, go to work to get some additional work done, or stay home and study for important exams. I realized that it is actually quite easy to get lost in endless of fun with friends, to a point that I just want to quite my job, give up all my dreams for something greater, and stay in my current state. It is also easy, to immerse myself in work and studying, and tighten up my brain muscle to reject all sort of fun and excitement in my life. 

Finding a balance between the two, is suppose to be healthy. However, it takes quite some work to transition from work mode to fun mode. It takes even more work to switch from fun mode back to the seriousness of research and business. Worse case scenario that you are jaded by the work stress and dying to get out of jail-like offices, or standing surrounding people who are having fun while worrying about all the things you could have done better at work. I started to notice a trend: one month of work focused life followed by one month of fun. It's a cycle, fluctuating in between and never stop.

Urban Thai in Crystal City, Virginia

Urban Thai calls themselves advocates for modern Thai cuisine, but I think they should advocate themselves as "just another Americanized Thai restaurant". Did that sound overly critical? Well, this place is pretty comparable to Siam House in Cleveland Park, Washington, D.C. Yet I think Siam House might just be a little bit better. It is a nice sized restaurant with relatively high cellings. The interior of the restaurant reminds me of those small restaurants in asia - minimal decorations, juxtaposed tables and chairs, and some outdoor seating just for the sake of being there. The restaurant was very clean, cleaner than most of the asian restaurants I have seen. We sat down at a corner, for some quiet conversations away from large crowds.

Company and I got seafood spaghetti, and drunken noodles for our main entrees, and spring rolls as appetizers. The seafood spaghetti did not taste of Italian spaghetti, which was what I was expecting. Indeed, it had a nice taste of Tom Yum -- sour and spicy. The seafood was not fresh, but I would not judge for the amount of price that we paid for these dishes. Drunken noodles was delicious as other drunken noodles, however, the chicken was hard and brittle, which seen overcooked. The spring rolls were mediocre, but I will give it an A for appearance.

A for Appearance

Let's just say that I am not really good at baking, indeed, I haven't been baking since a couple years ago. Last time I baked was from brownie mix boxes. Compare to the brownie mix boxes, making cupcakes from scratch was quite difficult. I admit that I was being too ambitious: adding chocolate pieces and marshmellows into the base, making cream cheese icing that can serve 20 people, adding my own creative spin onto the original cupcake recipe, etc. Those are not good ideas. I ended up with cupcakes over flowing on the pan. Some cake mix got onto the oven. Melted marshmallows sticked the aluminum foil onto the cupcake pan, and made the cupcakes immobile. It was quite a disastrous scene. 

Vietnamese Hospitality

I had always thought pho noodles were something that only restaurants can make. Little do I know, that it is a common dish made by Vietnamese households, all the time, without much difficulty. Friend's family invited us all over for some noodle lunch. At first I didn't know what to expect. Having images of instant pho noodles in my mind, I kept on telling myself to smile no matter what comes up to my face. And when I got to the house, not only was I pleasantly surprised with how nicely decorated the house is, I was also excited with the omnipresent smell of beef broth. Aside from the raw basil, scallions, bean spouts, oyster sauce, and Sriacha that were offered in restaurants, those beef/chicken broth were even better. Steaming broth with fresh scallion, onions, and softly boiled rice noodles -- deliciousness.







We were offered ice cream for dessert. But I didn't feel like having ice cream during the day. So instead, we had a bottle of Moscato that we got from Costco. I am never a heavy drinker, and only appreciate Moscatos that contained less than 10% of alcohol content. It was a nice bottle of Moscato d'Asti with 5% alcohol content. Sparkly and fruity, just the way I like it.

Ocean City in October

I was in Ocean City earlier this month, and was surprised to see so little people mingling around the beach when the temperature drops 10 degrees. It seemed like a ghost town -- extremely different from what it was like a month ago. Noted it was a quite gloomy day, the ocean water was rough, waves were larger. No one was walking on the boardwalk, and some stores were even closed. I wonder if the cafes, bars, clothing stores ever make money in the winter, and how they can pay for their rental fee whole year long.





Without human traffic, I can run on the boardwalk without any stopping. It was nice running while looking at the ocean -- calming and therapeutic.







And before I notice, I have hit the 2.14 mile mark that stretches out down to the theme park. With some smells of steak fries and seafood happy hour on the way as temptations, I was able to complete an out door run of 2.14 miles without stopping. Pat myself on the back.

The Awkward Situation

I have recently been in some awkward situations before: at the gym, at work, etc. Most of times I was able to take care of it with ease and laughter after craking a few jokes here and there. There is, however, one incident that stuck me pretty hard when I was hanging out with a close friend of mine. Let's just say it was a closer friend than normal. And let's say we don't have any over-lapping friends. When a solo person gets introduced to a group of close friends, it is always difficult for the person to mash into that group. Why? Because the group of close friends have already developed their own ways to communicate with each other, their own backstory, and their own habits.

I ran into situations like that recently, and I just did not know what to do. I ended up sitting there frozen, avoiding eye contact with the other curious eye sights. I didn't know what to say, and was overly sensitive to my own behavior. I wanted to make a good impression, but was afraid of judging. I wanted to say something nice, funny, and clever, but couldn't think of anything. I was sitting there, feeling a mixture of anxiety, and disappointment at myself for not able to mash into the group of people. Eventually it grew too uncomfortable for me and for them that I stood up and left the scene. It reminded me of all those awkward situations when I first came to America and learning English. It was a feeling that I do not fit in, that I was the oddball. Awful!

Uncle Julio's in Bethesdsa, Maryland

Uncle Julio's (pronounces: Uncle Hulio's) is a Mexican chain restaurant around the eastern half of the country. The one I went to is located in Bethesda Row. It is a nice corner property with outdoor seating on the side of the pedestrian road, making outdoor seating very pleasant in a nice fall day.



I don't know much about Mexican food, but I am pretty familiar with burritos. I have been to a number of Mexican restaurants in the past. All I know is that those Mexican dishes always fill me up pretty quickly, and I always ended up taking home a whole bunch of food. Part of the reason might be due to their delicious unlimited chip with salsa.



We ordered the Beef fajitas special for two. And again, it was a large portion that they provide: beans, rice, nicely grilled beef, and sautéed pepper and onions.





It was absolutely delicious. The beef was nicely grilled to medium rare. Along with the guacamole and the sour cream, it made quite an impression on me. The sautéed onions and peppers, on the other hand, were not fully sautéed. The peppers were crispy, but the onions were spicy.

Oh, the pop songs.

No doubt do singers, artists, and song composers obtain their inspirations on a hit-pop song from their personal experiences. When writing short stories, I sometimes find certain sparks from moments of my life when I decide to incorporate into a short story. That specific moment would be a climax scene within the story, then I expand from there on. I guess for song composers, they do the same thing. They experience through a heart break, then transition their strong feelings towards their song. This ability to transform their intense emotions into successful work energy is something I have admired for a long time -- since it is something I am unable to do.

I started listening to the pop song station on Pandora when I thought that the happy melodies and energetic beats would somewhat improve my mood after my hateful heartbreak. But, surprisingly, no. Listening to the hit music station made me realize that many other people, noticeably those song composers, too, are going through the same heart break as I was. Listening to their songs restated the painful memories that I was trying to forget. Their lyrics speaks the feelings that I kept so hard to myself in my inner dialogue. One song after another, breakups after breakups. The music of feelings dominates me, as if the songs were controlling how I feel -- transitioning my mood from anger to sadness, from sadness to indifference. And from their on, I believe I have completed my musical therapy of the day.

Power Breakfast Smoothie

Power Breakfast Smoothie

- 3 strawberries

- 1/2 banana

- 10 blueberries

- a few raspberries

- 1 cup of milk

- 1 teaspoon full of honey

- 3 ice cubes

- whey protein if possible

Put all ingredients in a blender and grind them up, now you have a healthy breakfast smoothie filled with fiber and protein!