I started my day early again with a boot camp class at 6am. Whenever I have these early classes I usually go back to sleep when I get home. Today, I fought hard against my sleepiness and made a breakfast pita, and then watched The Romantics with a nice cup of hot water. Right away, I knew I was going to love this movie no matter how good or bad the direction, writing, or acting was going to be. The look and the wardrobe already had me sold. I wanted to wear everything everyone wore and I wanted my future home to be decorated with everything seen in the movie. I'm not going to review this movie because my reviews are usually yes I enjoyed it, no I didn't enjoy it. Besides, I was too distracted by the aesthetics. IMDB tells me that the book, as always, is much better than the movie. It's got a Big Chill vibe to it, but at the same time, it's nothing close. I took a nap an hour after the movie.

I'm still a Katie Holmes fan (last man standing?), and if are you too, you should see this.

Earlier this year, Aaron and I went to our friends', Mike and Krista, place for dinner. Mike served up a fantastic Indian themed meal. I'm not huge on Indian food because I've had some bad experiences. Well, I've never had bad experiences with any of my friends' mom's cooking, but I've had bad experiences with eating out. So when I normally get Indian food, I get the white washed butter chicken. Anyway, Mike's dinner inspired me to give it a go and I thought if I can control what goes into the pot, then maybe there's less chance of chaos. The result: delicious! I still have to say, Mike's curry was much better because 1: His recipe came from Vij's and mine came from Jamie Oliver who described his recipe as "a bastardized British dish". And 2: Mike is a better cook than me. I'll continue to try to perfect my curry paste!

Some ingredients for my vindaloo paste posing with my lovely bamboo cutting board (from Aaron) and my incredibly precise knife (from Jordan). You can't tell here, but I can cut slivers of onion slices with that knife.
Our dinner from last night. The big success of the night
were the bhajis (shredded carrots, onion, and ginger with cilantro all deep fried).

We had some leftover curry so I took it home for lunch today. I layered the curry with some freshly cooked rice and fried onions in my rice pot and baked it for 20 minutes. I enjoyed today's leftovers more than last night's fresh pot. It may have been because yesterday's curry was a bit too watery and the extra rice from today probably took away some of the moisture. Also... I love rice.


Update
I almost forgot about yesterday's lunch. I prepped some pasta I made Tuesday night. I mixed the dough with cooked and blended spinach, and rolled out the sheets with the Kitchen-Aid machine. The pasta was hand cut so I could get the ho fun-like thickness. I had to preserve my energy for that night's dinner, so I stuck with a simple canned plum tomatoes recipe.
Fresh basil with leftover snapper.

I enjoy making pizza from scratch. From the dough to the sauce, but not the cheese. That's too much work for something that doesn't always make me feel great. As much as I love kneeding my own dough (brings me back to pottery class), I was happy to be introduced to personal pita pizzas (thanks, Amanda and Jesse!) I was still able to get the satisfaction of building my own pizza with the toppings. Since I already threw out the "from scratch" theme with the dough, I went ahead and used Newman's Own Marinara pasta sauce and mixed in some chili powder and garlic.

Toppings: red onions, broccoli, jalapeno peppers, diced tomatoes, spinach and snapper.
Another friend, Darryl, gave me a great tip for making vegetable stock. Most people make it whenever they're trying to clear their fridge of old vegetables, but Darryl added that his stock consisted of discarded veggie peels and stems. Him and Meg would throw their peels and such in a bag, and at the end of the week they would throw the collected peels and any old vegetables into a pot and then boil down the water to make a cup or two of stock. Some add salt to give it more flavour, but I leave that out because one of the main draws to homemade for me is to avoid all the sodium in the store bought boxes. No, I'm not trying to be better than people who buy boxed stock... I'm doing it to offset the fact that I'll be eating bags and bags of extremely salted corn nuts in the near future.
Freezing almost three and a half cups of stock

Yesterday I made my first pasta without a tomato sauce base. I was uncertain balsamic vinegar would taste good with pasta and when I measured it out, its dark colour intimidated me more. It was another Jamie recipe, so I had to trust it would turn out okay. It turned out way better than I expected. I wish I could brag about my cooking skills, but it would have been a bigger surprise had I screwed up this two step meal.



The lunch menu for today was set for pea soup (Jamie). I always forget to check for all my ingredients before I start chopping and cooking. I was so sure about there being peas in the freezer because we're never low or without it. Today we were without. I had to improvise and went with corn instead. It tasted fine, but when my stomach is set on eating something, it doesn't like to settle for anything else- no matter how great the replacement dish.

Behind the soup is a snapshot of Char and me. This meal was sort of dedicated to Char.
I'll never forget the time she projectile vomit corn soup. Chunkeh.

First day, first meal off Wild Rose.

7 am at Kam Do for breakfast.
I had the $6.95 Good Morning Special. One iced lemon tea + two sunny side up eggs + one slice of ham + spaghetti with BBQ pork in soup.

I made sure not to order breakfast sausages. You see, breakfast sausages at Chinese cafes are just hot dog wieners. The tiny Schneiders kind. I always remember the story of my Gong Gong being extremely peeved when he received the hot dogs instead of the traditional breakfast sausages. I don't mind them, but I had to stand by my Double G and chose to go with the ham and eggs instead. The ham was a warmed up slice from one of those Schneiders packages. I'm not sure why I expected anything else.

My mom didn't care about food, she just wanted her coffee with CREAM.

I love eating and I love cooking, but I'm only good at one of those. Correction, I'm great at it. Ever have one of those All You Can Eat dinners where you and your friends are sitting around the table, looking at all the excess food that was ordered? Even after hiding pieces in tea pots and napkins there's still too much on the table to not get charged extra. Well, I'm one of those people who will take a deep breath, pull my sweater over the waist of my jeans, undo the belt and button, and keep chewing and shoving food down until there is enough to not be charged. I've puked on two occasions. That may be seen as a defeat, but I was a champion during those moments I helped clear the table.

Cooking on the other hand... well, like I said, I love it! I can make food that is okay enough for me, but never good enough to serve, even though I still do (poor friends and family). My biggest problem is that I have no patience. I feel like food should be ready NOW. I'm slowly learning. I'm getting better at letting things marinate longer so the flavours can really come out instead of drizzling and sprinkling more and more sauces, juices and spices because I can't taste the flavours right away.

I'm a big admirer of Jamie's Food Revolution. We won't see McDonald's going away anytime soon, but I think it's important that kids (and parents!) understand that strawberry milk doesn't give you the same nutritional value as milk. French fries shouldn't be counted as part of your suitable veggie intake. It sounds simple, but you'd be surprised to hear what some schools are serving the students. Let's make one thing clear though, I'm guilty of eating crap. I told you, I love food. I love my Panago pizza, take out calamari, shawarma plates and cheap hot wings, so I can't preach to any one. I'm just saying, Jamie Oliver knows what he's talking about and he has influenced me to eat less of those old favourites and to look for healthier options that could eventually become my new favourites (if I cook it right).

Today, I took Jamie Oliver's gnocchi recipe. This is my last day, second to last meal, of Wild Rose so I did have to modify it. No flour, which meant there was less hold, but I liked the slight mushiness! And no parmesan. Even without those two it was pretty darn good. I could only imagine how much better it would be with cheese.



(Pardon the jumpy layout and formatting. I should have decided on a template before I started but I really wanted to get started. This was a canned layout, so expect it to change again.)

I discovered a drink nine days late. I've been "suffering" with water. I was so desperate for flavour that I gave unsweetened soy milk a try, but it tasted like crap. Yesterday, my uncle introduced us to red granadillas. The first scoop was sour, but each bite after got sweeter and sweeter. I've wanted to make a fruit drink for a while, but all we had were apples and I don't know about mixing apples and soy milk. I also had a hunch the granadilla and soy milk would be a good pair because the soy would counter the sourness of the fruit. And oh it did.

Magic Bullet doing its job again.

Today's lunch. As much as I wanted to make white rice, I stuck to The List and went with brown.

My dad's been having salads every day for lunch. I don't know how he does it. I love salads but I can't love it with the homemade dressings that they allow. I went out to dinner for my cousin's birthday on Friday and ordered a green salad. "Yes, I will have the Nice Little Salad, please. Hold the croutons, the cheese and the dressing." What am I left with? Lettuce, cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced cucumbers and radishes. You'd be surprised to know that that wasn't enjoyable. While I refuse to use their dressing, I'm still making it for my dad. Threw an egg yolk, freshly squeezed lemon juice, garlic, pepper, salt and olive oil into my Magic Bullet and bam! Caesar dressing.

A bit waterier and bubblier than you'd want. Eh, I try.
Lunch today was awesome. Yesterday's poorly made chili included an avocado salsa recipe. I didn't bother with it because nothing additonal could really save that pot of mush. Charmaine assured me it was something I should try, so I made it today to go with my salmon steak. Avocado, tomato, onions and, again, freshly squeezed lemon juice. I let it sit in the fridge while my salmon baked in the oven. Each bite of salmon was partnered with a bit of the salsa to give it a warm, cool crunch. I think I'll be making avocado salsa very often after I'm done this Friday.

I tried to make chili today within the Wild Rose parameters. It lacked flavour. I tried not to use salt, but I had to cave. Still, without the bacon and refried beans, it just wasn't the same.

Half way through. The last six days are going to be exciting...ly painful.

I forgot how much I loved their song "In The Sun" until Char played it on my iPod yesterday.

Day 5 of Wild Rose. The list of food isn't much different from my normal diet- the pizza and greasy Chinese foods are missing- but whenever I start this, I start craving food I don't normally eat or want. All of a sudden I want a milkshake. I've had maybe one vanilla milkshake in the last four years. It's true, we want what we can't have. Oh I want soy sauce so much. Kikkoman, I miss you and your red chapeau.

I'm not suffering yet, but I am counting the days until I can sip an ice cold beer. The worst part of WR is there isn't a big variety of beverages. Sometimes I add excitement by varying from hot to cold water. Soy milk, which I love, is allowed but it has to be unsweetened. The most tolerable brand so far has been Silk. Char described it well, "It's like you're drinking melted ice cream." We're not fans of melted ice scream.

Another plus about WR is being able to concentrate on prepping and cooking all my meals. It's about knowing exactly what we're putting in to our bodies. I attempted a salmon chowder that turned out to be salmon mush. Not pleasant looking but I loved it! I took a stab at hummous. I struggled with the consistency because I added too much sesame seeds (wasn't sure if bottled tahini was acceptable). It still tasted fine and it's been a good partner for my veggie snacks.

My hummous looks sort of like cat puke.
Halibut and veggies. Mom made.

I'm a planner. Not a good one at that, but I never like to "go with it". I sometimes claim to be easy going, but I always like to have a plan as safety. I will climb high heights, but only when knowing I'm attached securely to an anchor point. Again, fearless, I am not.

Recent research for a trip to Vegas (stageeette!) has brought Last Minute Deals to my attention. I love to travel, but I haven't done too much. The saver in me speaks too loudly (same song- I'm also not great at it). A trip to Europe means another delay to moving out of my room of 20 years and putting a smile on Mr. Lum's face. I'm hoping I'll be one of those people who travels like crazy when they're old. Yes, I am optimistic that I will be able to retire (no set goal for age of retirement, no set up for disappointment).

From my X Canada road trip. I miss trip'ing, I do.

I've done some thinking. My work is contract based, which always provides weeks of unemployment. I could better use those weeks by indulging the spontaneous side of me that never gets to step out to give a quick a hello! I figure, I could go without a couple shopping sprees a year and instead grab a $300 trip to... wherever! Okay, my wherever is secretly Disneyland, but it's not enjoyable by yourself. I'm eagerly waiting for someone to convince me that's not true.

I'm afraid to add this one goal to 2011, but here goes: Take at least one last minute trip before the end of this year.

6:15am class today. I had the option of waking my man after my workout to use his shower before going to work, but I thought it wasn't fair to make him get up an hour earlier than he normally would. Also, that meant I'd have to drive the whole three minutes up to his place, then wait two minutes for the elevator to take the one minute ride up. Too much time. Showering at the gym seemed like the least time consuming choice.

I'm a pretty conservative person when it comes to the locker room. All through elementary school and high school I was one of those girls that would change underneath a shirt. I tried changing in the washroom stalls a few times, but that felt gross. I also wasn't nimble enough to stay balanced on the top of my shoes as I tried to change from my shorts to jeans. Too many times my foot got caught in the leg holes. There was always a recovery attempt where I'd hop frantically on the shoe trying to regain balance, but my foot (sometimes bare, without sock) would eventually touch the cold tiles. The cold tiles splattered with, if I was lucky, dried urine.

Back to the morning locker room. I was not happy to find that the showers didn't have hooks or a seating area to place my clothes within the stall. That meant I'd have to walk out with a towel into the common area. Ugh. Did I really need to shower? I mean, not many people are going to be at work today anyway. I could keep a good distance away from everyone. Bah! I sucked it up. Today was a first. Today, I walked out of the locker room shower to my locker in a towel. Look at me! Fearless! Too bad I walked out to an empty audience. That's also probably why it felt so easy. I didn't get too ambitious. I still changed with my towel on, but I was still very proud of myself for overcoming my prude-ness. I blow dried my hair while looking in the mirror, still proud and ready to face today's challenges. Just as I started picturing myself running in the Underwear Affair, in the mirror I spot an older woman naked and having an animated chat with her friend. And just like that, I remembered another reason why I choose to change in washroom stalls. I'm not only uncomfortable with exposing my body, but I'm also not cool with seeing naked people at the gym. And I don't discriminate against age or size. I hate all of it. It makes me want to drop everything I'm doing and start walking as far away from it as possible. Sure, if I don't like it then I don't have to look at it. I tried! This wasn't someone who undressed and went straight to the showers. This woman was busy and had stuff to do before she had to shower. Some of that stuff included grabbing some tissue and organizing her make-up case beside me.

And that is why.

What? Did you think I was going to post a photo from the locker room?!
Day 3 of Wild Rose and I want to jump through the office window for a sandwich
from across the street.

It's time again for the Wild Rose Detox. Sort of. I don't take the pills. I'm not a fan of forcing things to happen. I really enjoyed it the first time because it helped me realize I am lactose intolerant and it also taught me that I didn't have to drench everything I ate in soy sauce and hot sauce.

I don't remember it being too difficult the first time I gave it go. The second time I tried it, I failed about three times. I kept popping gum into my mouth because of the heavy amounts of garlic I would have to use to give flavour to my meals. Every time I took in a chewy wad of sugar I'd have to go back to day one. After the 3rd reset, 10 days since my first day 1, I threw in the towel. This time may be a bit easier because 3/4 members of my family are suffering together. Less food hanging around that will make me develop cravings.

Good luck to me. 10 more days to go. I want a California roll. NOW!

I thought I had 6:15am boot camp class today. I didn't. I was dressed at 5:45am and luckily I had a bit of doubt and checked the date. March 4th, not February 4th. Idiot.
I could have went for a jog instead, but I thought about the cold morning air and before I could even start negotiating with myself I was already back in bed.

I wasn't looking forward to work today because I was afraid I'd have another day of sitting at my desk and pretending to be busy. I only had one task to do and I ended up taking over half my day trying to complete it. I'm happy I'm back to not doing work right now, but I'm disappointed at how long it took me to punch in a bunch of numbers.

I'm also disappointed that because I was so busy double and triple checking my work that I went straight through lunch without having a lunch. It's too late to go grab a booster juice (that was my plan when I woke up), so I'm eating a toasted bagel and washing it down with a diet Pepsi. Three things wrong with that. I'm drinking pop, it's a Pepsi, and it's diet. I shouldn't be drinking pop because it makes my stomach go crazy bubbly, but if I were to I'd go for a Coca Cola. I've always hated how a lot of Pepsi's ads are played out as Pepsi vs. Coke. I choose polar bears sharing a coke over that any day. Or Tyrese singing on a bus.

Maybe I didn't think too much about food because I'm still full from yesterday's hot pot. I mentioned that I was going to hot pot yesterday, right? Tonight is pot luck at my home. I look forward to fighting my relatives for the last pieces of cha siu, see yow gai and siu yok.

I started this in November and never returned. I got scared. Was I expected to blog every day? Do I have to sound clever? What if nothing ever happens to me? I can't post about waking up, showering, going to work, eating lunch, going back to work, driving home, eating dinner, watching TV, going to bed EVERY DAY!

Why am I back? Because I'm bored at work. What do I have to say now? What's changed? What exciting news do I have to report and make heard? Nothing. Like I said, I'm bored at work.

Last year I tried to go paperless and did my best to organize my life on my blackberry and iPod touch. 2011, I return to apologizing to every tree I see. I can't be without an agenda.

Forgot my lunch today. I'm trying my best to not eat out when I'm at work, so as of now I've had three tiny mandarin oranges, three rice chips (there were only crumbs in the bag), and five chocolate koala bears. I'm ready to cave and grab a Japadog, but the big New Year dinner is at 7:30pm. It's hot pot. I can't ruin my appetite for hot pot. My stomach deserves to be filled with the soupy offerings of hot pot. Did I mention I'm going to hot pot tonight? Hot pot. Hot pot. Hot pot.

*Update: Had some more rice chips from the kitchen. They were so good that I said, "Mmm." out loud.
*Update #2: I didn't realize it was November 2009 when I posted my first entry! Perhaps I am only three months late for my annual blog.