Out of Sorts

It sometimes surprises me how quickly I can become unaccustomed to things. I've been living up in San Francisco for over eight months now. Prior to my move, I lived in LA for 26 years, also known as my entire life. It's amazing how a few quick months can undo two and a half decades of learned behavior.

I'm currently in LA, visiting with friends and family, before starting my new job. And in my time here so far, these are some things that I've already found myself unaccustomed to:
1. Traffic.
2. Driving 30 minutes to get anywhere (and that's not considered far).
3. Temperatures above 75 degrees.
4. My mom.

For the sake of brevity, I'm going to skip numbers 1 through 3 since I feel that those are rather obvious and don't need any explanation. Let us focus on item 4.

Living at home with mom and dad as an adult can be a considerable challenge. When I moved home after college, unemployed and poor, a lot of work was required to live peacefully under the same room. Even after starting work, I stayed at home but was able to develop the ability to tune out my mother and the questions, the nagging, the guilt trips, etc. in order to deal with her in a mature and healthy fashion.

I don't know how to do that any more. How did I lose that ability so quickly? Because I need it back. Now. Because I have five more days here. Help.

It warms the soul. And my feet too.

It's something I've come to take for granted. Growing up in an Asian household, rice is what you have with almost every meal. We never had dinner rolls, bread was reserved for toast at breakfast. Pasta was for "American food night" where we specifically deviated from the norm. The norm that is rice.

Now that I'm not living with my parents, I'm not having rice on a daily basis. But I still can't imagine not having it on a regular basis. Somethings like fried rice or a egg over easy on top of rice with a dab of butter and a splash of soy sauce serve as comfort food to me. A big pot of juk, or rice porridge, is perfect for a cold night.

And fucking cold it's been. Over the past few years, my parents have become obsessed with a new use for rice. When I got my wisdom teeth removed, my doctor recommended using heat to promote healing and recommended microwaving a rice filled sock to do the trick. Ever since then, my parents have kept a dozen or so socks filled with rice around the house. Tense shoulders? Here's a sock. Cold feet? Microwave a sock! Menstrual cramps? A sock will help!

Over the holidays, my brother-in-law Chris came to appreciate all that is the warm sock. He spent the week with a sock draped over his shoulders and another one to warm his hands and/or feet. Enthused, my parents went sock happy and made a dozen more for Chris, Felisa, myself and even Ju Yon. So I now brave my cold apartment equipped with my sock, filled with rice.

How to make your own heating sock:
1. Get a clean unused sock.
2. With rice fill up the sock.
3. Make a knot in the sock.

And that's how you do it.

A New Beginning

So it's happened. I've moved. I'm now officially in the 415, but I'm keeping it real to my roots and sticking with my old cell phone number. 562, can ya hear me? Holla! w00t w00t!

I've now been in my new place for five nights now. It's weird making the transition out of my parents' home. So many things that I took for granted, like having a soy sauce pourer or a ladle. It's not that it can't be easily remedied, but it's just those things that are so simple and overlooked that you don't really appreciate their worth until you don't have them.

In addition to adjusting to life in a new apartment, I'm getting used to the whole unemployment situation. I told myself going into this that I wasn't going to put too much pressure on myself and enjoy this time. How often in your life do you get a large amount time off before retirement? (I don't want to hear it Julie!) I know once I start working that I'm going to wish that I wasn't. I think it's just the uncertainty of it all. But I'm trying to enjoy this, I really am.

I'll post pictures of the apartment soon so you can get an idea of what it looks like. Come and visit!

D) All of the Above

I know! I know! Why won't I update dammit???

I fully intend to blog about my European experiences, full of stories about toilets, gelato, throw up and much more, fully illustrated!! Well, maybe not the barf, but definitely the toilet.

But in the meantime, I need to pack. Throw my life into boxes, tape them up and shove the whole lot of them into the minivan. That's right, I'm moving out and up! Literally! I'm moving out of my parents' house (finally!) and up to the Bay Area. It's nerve racking, it's exciting, it's a pain in the ass! Whatever it is, it's happening. This Friday to be exact.

Wish me luck.

I Heart Farmers Markets

I like Tuesdays. It's the day I ditch my boring packed lunch and head out to get some food, fresh air and sun at the Torrance Farmers Market.

I seek out Farmers Markets. On vacation, locally, just about anywhere, I'll stop to peruse the stands and check out the local produce. It seems each market has its own personality. Some are small and intimate with just a handful of vendors selling fruits and vegetables. Others, like the Torrance market, have stands selling various cookedfoods, from tamales and pupusas to omelettes and my favorite, Kettle Corn (!!!), making it a popular spot for a lunch hour bite. Then there's the destination markets like the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Markets and Santa Monica's on Third Street Promenade that draw chefs, home cooks and tourists all together to enjoy the farmers' labors.

I sometimes go to a Farmers Market just to walk it. I just like to stroll from stand to stand to see what's being offered. Right now, cherries are in season, though only for a few weeks because of a bad season. Strawberries are starting to taper off a bit, but that means summer stone fruits are coming (cue drool). Peaches have started, but they're still rather small.

This is probably my favorite time of the year for Farmers Markets. There's so much possibilities. The multitude of berries to make a berry shortcake or the summer squash to mark on the grill. Also excellent on the grill are peaches and plums, to die for with a brush of butter and a sprinkle of brown sugar. Asparagus and peas are in season, perfect for a simple stir-fry.

And that's exactly what I love most about Farmers Markets - the potential that it holds. The fresh fruits, vegetables, cheeses, herbs, breads, EVERYTHING! hold potential to be turned into something great. It's a cook's palette of colors. It's a place that I like to let my imagination go...

LA Times did an article last week about the beginnings of the Farmers Market concept. Find a market near you (if you live in Socal)!!!

Flashback to the 80's

Remember the 80's? Or for those who are my age, the second half of the 80's? Big bangs were in, as were jelly shoes and puffy paint shirts. People listened to "Rock Me Amadeus" and girls swooned over Patrick Swayze swiveling his hips in Dirty Dancing. Bob and his Big Boy fed us. Some things were best left in the 80's.

Granted, I have to admit there were great things that the 80's produced. "Say Anything" is still one of the greatest romantic movies and Depeche Mode's songs from that decade still rock. But a good chunk of that memorable decade are best left as that - memories.

I had two flashbacks to my childhood on Saturday.

This past Saturday, the day before Mother's Day, I participated in the annual Revlon Run/Walk for Women's Cancers. I've been walking it for the past six years and raising money to help fund the cause. It's always a great event, lots of people gathered for the same reason. As it's sponsored by the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), they always have celebrities to cheer people along. And every year, they have a short concert at the finish line in the Colesium. Usually it's not anyone that I really cared about so this year I didn't bother looking into was performing.

To my surprise, as we finished the race and entered the Colesium, who was rocking out on stage?

THE BANGLES!! THE FREAKING AWESOME BANGLES.

Their Greatest Hits album was the second CD I ever owned, after Wilson Phillips. Actually, I got them at the same time as a birthday gift from my sister when I turned 12 (I think), but I listened to the Wilson Phillips CD sooo much more, so the Bangles get second billing on order of CDs owned.

As I crossed the finish line, I was singing along to "In My Room." The only point in which I stopped singing was when I was grining stupidly as I received my medal from the cute firefighters who were medaling racers as they crossed the finish line (great new addition to the race!!!). The two highlights of my day in one awesome moment. Ahhhh....

The rest of the set included "Walk Like an Egyptian" with "Mrs. Robinson" mixed in and "Eternal Flame." It was so great. I want to see them in concert now.

That was the good. Now, onto the bad.

So after the great Bangles performance and oogling at the firefighters, my family (aunts, uncles and grandmother) decided to go eat lunch. Walking back to the car was almost just as long as the 5K we had just done. Then we got stuck in traffic. Bah.

But what tops it off is where we ate. Our original destination was to be Grinders, but because of traffic and all, it somehow was decided that we'd go to Sizzler. SIZZLER people. Yes, it was right there. Yes, we were hungry and yes, we were tired. But, but, is there really ever a good enough reason to go to Sizzler?? Name one!!

I don't even want to go into the details of the meal. The place grossed me out in general. The off colors of everything made me suspicious that everything around me was infested with bacteria and covered in a film of greasy dirt. I reluctantly ate some fruit, fearful that it hadn't been washed and had E. Coli colonies growing on it.

I'll rather deal with the pain of jelly shoes and wear pink lipstick than eat at Sizzler again. Unless, maybe, if the Bangles were performing in the restaurant itself...

Silence is Deliciously Golden

I love the food television. Since I was young, instead of waking up to watch Saturday morning cartoons, I'd tune into PBS for cooking shows featuring some well-known chefs such as the two Jacques, Pepin and Torres, as well as obscure shows like the one with the flamingly gay host that would whisk his way around the world annoying everyone he met. Bad or good, I watched them.

Nowadays, it's no different, but now I watch Food Network instead of PBS. I love the noon to 1:30 pm block that starts with "Everyday Italian" with Giada De Laurentiis, followed by the "Barefoot Contessa" after which comes "Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello." It's a solid hour and a half of television that I salivate continuously through.

As much as I love food television, the Food Network has a slew of shows that I can't stand. Emeril is at the top of that list, followed microscopically closely by the entirely disgusting "Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee." I used to hate Rachel Ray, but have grown indifferent to her, though sometimes, I want to shoot her when she says "E-V-O-O" and giggles. And as much as I hate some these shows, I will still tolerate sitting through them simply because it's TV and it's about food.

But there is one thing that will make me turn off and walk away from food television. My mother. Never can I sit through a cooking show without her constant commenting. It ranges from her amazement that "Americans" can actually properly cook to the ingredients used.

Her generalization of American (read: white people) cooking comes from dining at places like Sizzler, Macaroni Grill and Hometown Buffet, which consists of overcooked food all around. Obviously food is going to taste like the mold that grows on shit at those places. But her assumption that ALL American food taste like my toe jam prompts exclamations like "Look! They know not to overcook the fish!"

The other comments that she makes, that even bothers me more, is the tsking over the quantity of ingredients used with comments like "Ay, look how much oil she's using!" (a whole two tablespoons) and "Too much sugar. Too sweet." I understand making those comments during Ina Garten's "Barefoot Contessa" where a sauce starts with two cups of mayo, followed by one cup of sour cream, mixed in with two sticks of melted butter and rounded off with a gallon of half-and-half. But if we're not watching Ina getting fatter, please.....SHUT UP!!

But instead of actually yelling, I get up and walk away.

My mother, what power she wields.