Happy Birthday to Wah Toh!

Wah Toh, for the mouse who has it all (food-wise), I baked you a mouse cake and wish you much cheese in the future!

Love you lots,
nn

Halloween Adventure, Day 1

Today, MonkeyPig left early to go to a medical conference in San Francisco, but that didn't stop her from complaining. I had meticulously crafted a schedule of things we'd do and eat during her visit and the first grumblings have been submitted to me via text message. Wah Toh will appreciate this because of a similar incident which happened during the whale watching trip a month ago (not blogged--sorry). This is also an opportunity to reinstate a modified version of the highly popular Chinese Idiom of the Day feature but only for the limited time of one week--the duration of MonkeyPig's stay. The modification will be: I will disclose the meaning of the idiom and you need not guess it.

Chinese idiom of the day: 貨不對辦
Transliteration: product not match sample
Phonetic: fo3 bat1 deoi3 baan6
Meaning: bait and switch

Back in September, MonkeyPig, Ca Loc, and I travelled to Wah Toh's neck of the woods for a whale watching vacation. Prior to arriving, MonkeyPig had requested that Wah Toh make "gwei deou" for her first night there. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Wah Toh and MonkeyPig had gone to different schools in Saigon, each of them had a different idea of what "gwei deou" should be. Apparently, each of these schools had a street vendor standing outside, and who had made completely different styles of "gwei deou." On arrival, MonkeyPig sensed that something was not quite right when the dish of gwei deou was presented to her because it was in the style of Wah Toh's school's street vendor, and not MonkeyPig's school's street vendor. Compounding the problem was that MonkeyPig had requested an additional dish of salt-baked chicken, which arrived as a different type of chicken. To be fair, Wah Toh also had to accommodate other guests who were not into salt-baked chicken.

But the damage was done. At this point, MonkeyPig proclaimed, "貨不對辦!" Throughout the trip, MonkeyPig used this idiom like a war cry.

Aggravating the situation was a family friend who very nicely offered to make MonkeyPig's style of "gwei deou" for her and even invited MonkeyPig to stay at her house on the next visit. This prompted Wah Toh to say to MonkeyPig, "When you leave at the end of this trip, remember to delete my number from your phone. The next time you visit, you can stay with your new friend and eat her food. Maybe I'll send some eggs from my chickens to you at that time--but maybe not."

Thus, "貨不對辦" has enjoyed renewed popularity in conversations among the sisters.

Today, I am on the receiving end of MonkeyPig's accusation. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I had meticulously crafted a schedule for our Halloween Adventure. I am not posting it here because it's so detailed that anybody who would want to harm us could easily find us using the schedule, but I trust the The Nu Warren Friends, so if you are a Friend (you are if you receive the email pings for whenever I post something here), and if you wish to see the schedule, please email me for it.

But back to the 貨不對辦. On this schedule are suggested restaurants, two of which serve curry (a Japanese curry house and a Pakistani restaurant that happens to have "curry" in its name, but I really want to go there for the roasted chicken). This morning, I received the following text from MonkeyPig:

I have a complaint on the agenda. Why so much curry.

Not having received a response from me, MonkeyPig reiterates her complaint three hours later but this time with urgency:

Why are we eating so much curry? I want a refund. The meal portion of this vacation sucks. If i want "phor butt dui ban," I might as well as go to Wah Toh's house. Oh, I get the overwhelming amount of Indian food. You want to pay tribute to the large Indian population in Silicon Valley.

So. Will we eat curry on our Halloween Adventure? You'll have to keep reading to find out.



UPDATE
Text from nn:

First of all, there are only two curry places I suggested and one is Japanese the other is Pakistani. I thought you might be interested in Japanese curry. It's kinda interesting. The Pakistani one, I really want you to eat the oven roasted chicken there. Not the curry. The oven that they cook the chicken in is authentic. It was broken one time and they had to buy a new one. They needed three days to let it cool down before they could remove it and swap in the new one. That's how hot it gets. Took another three days to get the new one hot enough to use. That's why I thought you would like to try it. Besides, the chicken is delicious.

Text from MonkeyPig:

Ok. It they were in Afghanistan, they could've heated up the oven with IED (improvised explosive device) quickly. Parki curry place ok.  Japanese curry--I've not been impressed when I was in Hawaii.

Woo the Wonder Dogby MonkeyPig, guest blogger

Woo is a wonder dog.

I don't think many dogs can say I've been to almost the four corner of the United States. She's left her marks, and I do mean marks, at the beaches of Kaneohe Bay, Jekyll Island, Redondo beach, and St Petes in Florida. She's never been to the New England states. But. she's been to Seattle. She criss-crossed the US no less about 4 times.

She was a wonderful companion. She was considerate. Even up to the very end, she struggled outside to poop because she doesn't want to mess up the house for Mommy and Baysee.

She is a dog with will of steel. In February 2011, despite her arthritis and hip dysplasia, she slowly inched up a 45 degree incline hill of about 300 yards during one of our afternoon runs. We can't use the usual empty street because it was a work day. We went to a large empty field where Baysee and I ran. She did her usual thing to explore and light exercise. Baysee and I was running up-and-down that hill. As we came back the second time around, Woo was slowly hobbling up that hill as if to show us that she can do it, too. This is Woo - strong willed to the very end. I wish people are as strong as her.

She was really happy to see all the Aunties in May this year. It was supposed to be just Ca Loc, Wah Toh and Leung Gor. But, Nonny Nu, 3Fish, and So Ba Sing showed up to surpise Monkeypig. Woo was the star of the reunion. It was like when we were in the old house.

Even at the very end, on Wednesday, she mustered up all her energy to spent time with me. I fed her and stroked her back and gave her tummy rubs. The vet let us go outside. It was a sunny day. We spent about 20 minutes outside. She propped her head up to look around. She was so weak that I had to support her whole body for her to poop and pee.

When the decision was made, though she was very weak, for a few minutes, when she heard my voice, she looked into my eyes giving me permission and telling me to not worry about her as Sushi had reserved a bunk space for her.

She laid in my arms and went into a peaceful slumber around 1 AM.

The folks, like her Aunties, Cousins, and the Nu Warren family who had shared in our adventures, I thank you for your supports and love.

I encourage all of us with pets to view them like family and give them love. The funny thing about dogs and cats is that even if you don't love them, they unconditionally love you to death.

I put together this video as a chronical to Woo's life over these past 3-4 years. For those of you who are i-woo-literate, Woo is the black pit bull with the white streak up the nose and white chest. The younger brother Baysee it the funny looking brown down with a wrinkly forehead.

Woo, don't steal Sushi's food as you did mine.

Self-Portrait and Magnets

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

This morning, I rode the rails with Cl. Panic and dribbled tea all over my sweater because my beautiful Jane Austen inspired travel mug sprang a leak.  But all is well because someone at work gave me an enzyme stain remover wipe.  It works ok, but not as good as a Tide Pen.

Anywho, the moral of this story is:  I got a new magnet!!

Whenever I or one of my friends or sisters go on vacation, we bring back refrigerator magnets to share with the people who we left at home.  My very first refrigerator magnet was one from Seattle, but I will tell you how I got that later in this post.  Check out my office minifridge and my magnet collection (you can see a reflection of me taking the photo)!

I can't remember the order in which I received the magnets, but I know that the first one I got was from Green Thumbs McGillicutty.  It was from one day trip she took from San Jose to Seattle just to make the miles to keep her in some sort of airline "best customers" club or something like that.

I also have ones from San Antonio (from when I went to my niece's wedding), another one from Green Thumbs when she went to Philadelphia for a deposition, and another from myself when I went to visit MonkeyPig in Georgia (the little fish pictured was from Cl. Panic for our unfortunate but thankfully temporary stay at Drones 'R Us).

This one is from MonkeyPig when the sisters went to Georgia for a surprise visit.  And, this one is also from MonkeyPig from a few years ago when we had a sisters reunion in Washington, DC.  We ate at the Supreme Court's cafeteria and I saved my ticket stub!  The two Tinkerbell magnets holding the stub are from L. Woods when she visited Disneyworld in Florida.

Now, this one is an international magnet from Heidelberg, Germany, where L. Woods visited on business a year ago.  Note the giant gummy bears attached.

And, then, there is my most recently acquired one from Cl. Panic and A-Dog from when they flew to the Pacific Northwest recently.  It is from the actual Tillamook cheese factory and is 24K gold plated brass.  The magnetic bunnies are from Cl. Panic.  They got very hungry and attacked the cheese (they are not partial to giant gummies).

Finally, this one is not a magnet, but is nonetheless a sentiment from a dear friend who had gone afar and kept me in mind.  It is a keychain of a polar bear dressed in a UK t-shirt from when Mr. Nonny Nu went to London recently.  The bear has the Harrods' "H" stamp on the bottom of its foot.

So many little treasures!  I think my most prized items in my office might be my magnets and keychain.

Georgia Vacation

Last week, I went to Georgia to visit MonkeyPig. In fact, all five sisters went, even though MonkeyPig was only expecting two sisters! We had an awesome time. Below are some photos of the interesting and memorable moments.

First night's dinner was a special Vietnamese noodle soup that MP had painstakingly prepared. It was delicious.



The next day was full of fun because MP planned a wonderful barbecue at Pointes West Army Resort. We had kalbi, rice with onion oil, bread, and corn. It was a lovely, lazy day. MP, Wah Toh, and I went canoeing but I don't have photos of that.







We also went to Wormsloe Plantation where they filmed the long drive up to Twelve Oaks in Gone With The Wind. We brought MP's two kids with us!




It was a wonderful five days. Added bonus was our brother-in-law, Mr. Wah Toh, was able to join us and served as the official photographer. The above pics are mine. Mr. Wah Toh's pics are way more professional.

In case you all didn't know, MP is an accomplished doctor and officer in the Army. Here are the coins that generals and high officials give out for major accomplishments. As you can see, MP has a lot of them.


After this trip, on behalf of Tai Wui (the board--i.e., the sisters), I bestow upon MP this coin for a job well done:

Dishes from Mostly Scratch

I've discovered that I'm not so good at cooking from scratch, but I'm not bad at sprucing up instant stuff to make it into a meal.  You've all seen my handiwork with the udon noodles.  Now, I will show you what else I cooked a couple weekends ago.  They are all dishes from my childhood.¹

Chinese people love soup, and my family especially love it.  So, I made a lotus root, red and white carrot soup² with jujubes (a.k.a. dried Chinese dates or "hung tsoh") in chicken broth.  I also just blanched some watercress in the soup after it was done.  For the meat dish, I made spicy chicken steamed with preserved mustard (Chinese: tzah tsoi) and chili sauce.  For the soup and the steamed chicken, I asked Wah Toh for advice.  I followed her instruction exactly for the soup but I messed up on the chicken.  She told me twice: "Don't over-steam the chicken."  TWICE.  So what did I do?  I over-steamed the chicken.  Anywho, the dinner came out not bad.  The soup was delicious (sweet from the jujubes, but chock full of veggies).  The over-steamed chicken was tough so I didn't finish it.

An observant person would ask, "Where's the rice??"  And, I would have to answer, "I jacked that up, too.  Too much water in my newly bought $12 rice cooker."  But, I really loved the soup.  That made up for everything.  I was so full from the soup that I didn't have room for dessert.

Instead, I had the dessert for breakfast the next day.  I had gluten rice balls filled with black sesame and peanut (each rice ball is filled with sesame or peanut, not both), in a brown sugar and ginger sauce.  Super super good when accompanied by some hot jasmine tea.  The rice balls come frozen³ and you just drop them into a pot of boiling water.  When they start to float, they are nearly done.  The harder part (but not that hard) is the sauce.  You have to get the "slice sugar" (Chinese: peen tong) that is sold at Chinese stores--the packaging said "brown sugar."  You put the sugar into a sauce pan with a little bit of hot water and melt it over medium heat.  Then, you add some more hot water and a few slices of ginger.  All of this is to taste, so you would use more/less sugar and water as you see fit and based on the consistency you want.  Also, if you want more ginger taste then add more ginger.  Anywho, when the rice balls are done, you take them out of the boiling water with a slotted spoon, put them into a bowl and poor the sugar ginger sauce over it.  Like this!  I had the same dessert that night after dinner.

Okay, now, the last dinner that I made.  I chose something that was easily made and that required almost no work at all, and then a dish that required a little bit of work.  First, the easily made dish was steamed Chinese sausage.  This comes in a vacuum package and my favorite brand is Kam Yen Jan.  I have only a pic of the "white fat" variety but there's another variety that has a yellow pagoda stamp on it and it has duck liver in it as well.  I know, I know, the health conscious folk are slitting their wrists right now, but this stuff is REALLY GOOD.  You just prepare your rice and stick a few sausages in the rice and pop the whole thing into the rice cooker.  When it comes out, cut into smaller pieces and then drizzle with a little soy sauce.

Second, I made stir fried Chinese broccoli with beef.  Just cut into bite sized pieces, separating the stems from the leaves because the stems have to go in first.  Heat oil with chopped garlic and ginger, and then add the stems.  Season with salt and fairy dust⁴, and then add the leaves.  Now, you add a splash of rice wine.  (The ginger and the rice wine is what makes this dish.)  At the very end, add the sliced beef, preferably marinated lightly with salt, pepper, and soy sauce.  After plating, add some white pepper⁵ on the top.  You're done!

I supplemented with the soup from the night before and this time the rice came out great.  A complete meal!

¹When I was growing up, my chores were food prep and clean up. I never was assigned with cooking, so, unlike my older sisters, I never really developed the cooking skill. This is why I'm way better at sprucing up stuff than I am at from scratch cooking.

²White carrot is also called daikon.

³I Mei is the best brand for sesame and peanut tong yuen.  You'll be sorry if you get another brand.  You'll end up with an "old pastry" taste in your mouth and the sesame is course.
Note:  Mr. Nonny Nu will likely have a comment about the phrase, "[t]he rice balls come frozen."

⁴MSG

⁵Ground white pepper is not the same as black pepper.  It's finer and therefore is better at melding with the food.  While black pepper tends to give off its flavor, white pepper tends to melt into the food itself.  I like white pepper better because I never "bite into" a piece of pepper and get an unbidden explosion of spiciness in my mouth.  I got the Chinese white pepper with the wooden lid this time.

Dunkin Herds Chickens

Wow!  Look at this talented doggie!  This is Dunkin herding Wah Toh's chickens back into their coop.  Just like Babe the Pig.

Wah Toh's Egg Harvest

Message from Wah Toh: Finally all my feathered friends have joined the work force and are being productive. :-)

Congratulations to Coop No. 2 for fulfilling their destiny! The road to egg production hasn't been an easy one. At least one of their colleagues sacrificed her life for the cause. Let's remember those chicks who have come before and paved the path with a moment of silence.

...

Now then, who wants omelets?? I do!

Happy Birthday to Wah Toh!

Dear Wah Toh,

Normally, for birthdays, I find a nice cake and post it on the blog.  However, I feel that fish ball noodle soup is the best thing for you.  You (and I) would love it much more than a piece of cake.  The problem is, I haven't been able to find a picture of the kind of fish ball noodle soup that Uncle Ball used to make.  You know, the kind where the soup is clear and fresh, there are pits of cilantro floating on the top.  The noodles lurking under the surface whispered, "Eat me, eat me!"  The best part was the fish balls.  Uncle Ball's fish ball noodle soup had sliced fish balls, and each slice was lightly fried.  That is the key, people, but nobody seems to take the time to make it like that anymore.

So here's my birthday wish for you:  I wish that you will have a wonderful time at the next reunion where you can make Uncle Ball-style fish ball noodle soup!  Here, instead of a cake, I've assembled the main ingredients for you.

Chicken (for broth)
Fish balls
Cilantro
"River" rice noodles
My hands (I'll help!)

nn

R.I.P. Polka Dot (2010-2010)

(From left to right: Dunkin'*, Snow White, Polka Dot.)

The above photo was taken by Wah Toh a couple months ago.  Polka Dot met an untimely death on July 21.  Her mom, Wah Toh, and her family are in mourning.  What follows is Wah Toh's account of the incident.  We will miss you, Polka Dot.

*The full name of the doggie pictured is "Dunkin' Donuts."  We call him "Dunkin'" for short.  Many people mistakenly believe that his name is "Duncan."

Dear Family,

We finally located the body of Polka Dot and have retrieved her remains.  It was a sorrowful sight (pics available upon request).  The suspect mutilated her head and wings.  Part of her torso was torn.  In the absence of DNA evidence, all circumstantial evidence points to two possible suspects:  one suspect wears a mask and the other is believed to possess nine lives.  The victim did not have a trespassing habit.  She is very mindful of boundaries.

In order not to have Polka Dot lose her life in vain, we have decided to use her remains as bait to lure the criminal.  If caught, we will be sure to use the criminal's body as a sacrifice on Polka Dot's altar.

We inspected the crime scene and found lots of feathers from both Polka Dot and Creamy Espresso (not pictured).  After giving Creamy Espresso a physical check up, we noticed that she also suffered head and eye injuries.  No other wound was noted.

Please join us in mourning this tragic event.  We will update you as the investigation develops.

Wah Toh

Update: Additional photo of Polka Dot, courtesy of Wah Toh:

Happy Birthday to Ca Loc!!

Happy birthday to Ca Loc! Thank you for all the times you gave me a bath in that yellow vat, and for trying to feed me dinner after Wah Toh took me to eat fishball noodle soup. Here is a pair of jeans to replace the ones that Jean Cutter ruined in Vietnam.