Girl and City

Part of 30 Days of Me.

I’m a pretty good cook, because I love food and I have sensitive taste buds. I cook a lot of Asian food, and usually that doesn’t require recipes, but I still like looking over a recipe to validate what I have in mind. I never follow the amounts in a recipe though, I just add as much or as little of something based on my own sense of smell and taste. I think the only times when recipes are meant to be strictly followed are for baking, which would explain why I’m not as good a baker as I am a cook.

One of my favourite dishes is duck stewed in beer. Delicious. I’ve made this at dinner parties before, definitely a hit. My other go-to dishes are chicken coconut corn chowder, ma po tofu, spicy eggplant, and sweet and sour pork ribs (the traditional way, not that breaded fried pork in red sauce stuff).

Duck Stewed in Beer

Ingredients:
1 whole duck
1 bottle of beer (12oz)
1 head of garlic
2 tbsp ginger
2 star anises, broken up
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 stalk green onion
1/2 cooking onion, chopped
8 baby carrots

Instructions:

1. Chop the duck into big pieces with a cleaver. Slice the garlic and ginger.
2. Heat up the iron casserole pot and add some oil (1 tbsp). Put duck pieces in the pot, and stir-fry for 5 minutes till they become golden.
3. Add the garlic, ginger and anises, and then stir-fry for 5 minutes more.
4. Pour the beer in and boil for 5 minutes. Add soy sauce, salt, sugar, onions, and carrots, and cook for another 5 minutes. If you are using chicken, you can stop at this point as the chicken will be fully done (the meat should be half-hanging to the bones). If you are using duck, continue to the next step.
5. Preheat the oven into 250F and put the iron casserole pot with the dish together in the oven to roast it for 1 hour. Then open the cover and add onions in it. It will be cooked after being roasted for another 15 minutes.

Do you follow recipes? What’s a favourite recipe of yours?

Part of 30 Days of Me.

The longest commitment I’ve ever made to a hobby, I would say, is blogging.

I’ve been blogging since 2002, when I was 13 going on 14. Back then, blogging wasn’t so much the main attraction, I did it because I liked website design so I kept a “personal website.” I moved from hard-coding HTML entries to using MoveableType (MT). Although at that time, I was still coding HTML by hand to create website designs and then integrating them with MT code. I created over 40 layout designs in total for my first “personal website.”

Since I started using WordPress, I’ve only designed two website templates from scratch. Instead, I’ve shifted my focus mainly to the content of my blogging as opposed to the design. Or I’ve just gotten lazy.

You would think I would’ve amassed a lot of readers over eight years, but I’ve actually started over several times to protect my anonymity. Since I was only in my mid-teens at the height of my first blog’s popularity, I divulged too much personal information on that site that it became a risk factor. When my parents found some emails that I had exchanged with a boy that was reading my blog, they lectured me on keeping myself safe on the internet. Although they were being paranoid, I heard their message loud and clear. I closed my first blog, bought a new domain, and started over under a new alias.

The second time I started over was because people from high school had started reading it. I made the mistake of giving out my blog URL to two or three close friends, but somehow that spread to people who I wasn’t close with. Although there wasn’t any gossip on the blog about people in my high school, there was plenty of information for them to gossip about me.

The third time, I suspected my parents were reading my blog, so I turned it into a password-protected blog (which I still keep), and started a new free one at wordpress.com. Then I got the opportunity to buy a new domain, so I bought girlandcity.com (April 2009) and started this blog. By now, I’ve learned my lesson about the importance of anonymity (especially with work coming up) that I have created aliases for everyone I mention on my blog, and I try to avoid posting pictures in which someone could be recognized.

Does that hinder me from forming real bonds with my readers? Does it affect the credibility of my blog? Maybe, maybe not. I do my best to be a real, genuine person, just an anonymous one. I have met some incredible people through blogging¹, people that I can chat honestly with over email or IM, people I worry about, people I try to cheer up or who try to cheer me up, and people that are there for me when I can’t or don’t share things with my friends in real life. In a way, it is easier to trust a stranger than it is to trust someone you know. I do share real information with those select few that I’ve gotten to know outside of my blog, because trust is a two-way street. However, as far as revealing my identity publicly on my blog, I would rather minimize my risk of being dooced.

Would you consider blogging a ‘hobby’? If not, what is a hobby of yours? If so, has it solved problems for you or created problems for you?

1. I even went to one girl’s wedding. Remind me to talk about “people I’ve met through blogs” on Day 24. [↩]

Part of 30 Days of Me.

I really can’t think of a talent. I mean, in the past, when forced to perform at talent shows, I think I sang. Or played the piano. But I wouldn’t say music is my talent because 1) I’m not dedicated/passionate about it, and 2) there are a billion people better at it than me.

Does sense of direction count as a talent? Because I have a great sense of direction and often times it has nothing to do with keeping mental track of where we are. On my Europe trip, I’d often emerge from a metro station totally disoriented, and yet still be able to walk in the right direction.

This “talent” is incredibly useful not only when I’m traveling, but also when I’m driving. Often times, if I hit a traffic jam or if the GPS is giving me nonsensical directions, I can still find my own way just with a vague idea of where I want to go.

What is your talent?

Part of 30 Days of Me.

I did a shoe inventory yesterday, you know, to see how many pairs of shoes I had and how many I could take with me to Singapore.

At age almost-22, I have 42 pairs of shoes¹.

What. The. Fuck.

I don’t even consider myself a ‘shoe person’! Maybe a ‘dress person’, definitely an ‘earrings person’, but not a ‘shoe person’. How the hell did this happen?

Do I have a shopping problem? No, that can’t be it. The shoes must be having shoe-babies in my closet. That’s the only plausible explanation.

Shoes are so bulky and awkward to pack². Narrowing them down was tough however, especially considering I have at least 6 pairs of shoes I’ve never even worn. How can I leave 6 brand new pairs of shoes behind? I also have 3 pairs of shoes I’ve only worn once. And then there are 6 pairs of shoes that I just love and wear on a regular basis. I mean, how can I leave my BCBG stilettos behind, even though they’re worn out? Or my Nine West patent leather pumps that I’ve only worn once? Or my Lacoste sneakers that I bought in Europe?
So it’s a miracle that I managed to cut it down to about 12 pairs, +/- 2. That’s decent, right?
The upside is, the fewer shoes I take with me, the more shopping I can do in Singapore! Wait, no. You didn’t hear me say that.

But with shoes out there like these, how can I resist?

Damn you, shoes.

Do you know how many shoes you own? How many is too many?

1. Here’s the breakdown: 10 pumps, 2 boots, 4 booties, 3 oxfords, 3 stilettos, 3 platforms, 8 sandals, 5 sneakers, 4 flats. [↩]
2. Yes, I know I can stick things inside my shoes, but that only helps minimally in terms of taking up space in my luggage. My socks and underwear won’t take up much room anyway. [↩]

Part of 30 Days of Me.

Since I just returned from Europe, I have plenty of “favourites” from each museum that I went to. You all know I love Impressionist paintings, so here’s something a little lot different.

The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault (1791–1824)

It is one of the most memorable paintings from French Romanticism, and depicts “a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of today’s Mauritania on July 5, 1816. At least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation, dehydration, cannibalism and madness. The event became an international scandal, in part because its cause was widely attributed to the incompetence of the French captain acting under the authority of the recently restored French monarchy.” (Source: The Raft of the Medusa)

There is so much to say about this work, but the first thing I noticed about this work was how it reminded me of Caravaggio, who had died almost two hundred years earlier. The lighting in this painting was stunning, as was its size. And when I learned that this was an un-commissioned work, it became all the more impressive. It was one of the first paintings of its time to depict real people as opposed to mythological Gods. In addition to being based on a real piece of history, it was also considered to be a criticism of the French monarchy at the time. If you have time, the story being depicted in the painting is quite interesting to read.

What is an interesting art piece you’ve encountered recently?