Dressed Up Chicken

The Haas avocados we bought 2 Sundays ago finally ripened. It's time to use them. We also wanted to use the dried unknown "lemony" peppers (small red like jalapeno size). So we thought some kind of Mexican would be good.

I thawed some chicken (4 or 5 small breasts), cut in strips, browned them, then added chopped dried peppers, 2 cloves of garlic (minced), 1 chopped white onion, 1 chopped red bell pepper, juice of a lime, water, salt, and spices. (Later a handful of dried Marion berries for fun.)

Spice mix: half table spoon pico de gallo seasoning, half table spoon California chili powder, 1 tea spoon cinnamon, ground oregano, ground coriander, cumin. Add some tequila.

Chopped dried peppers: 2 "lemony" peppers, 3 pickled jalapeno pieces, half of an ancho (dried pasilla/poblano).

It tuned out to be very good and not hot (unless eating the pepper seeds). I guess it's not true Mexican but close enough, ha!

We put the chicken on warm corn tortillas, melted Cheddar cheese, and avocado slices. Excellent sauce from the dish and no extra salsa needed.

Mushrooms

Wed 06.16.2004 ?

Cooked 1 morel mushroom with canola oil, plain, no salt or pepper. Very good, Better than cooking with olive oil. Goes well with Malbec.

We had mushroom medley from Farmer's Market and a package of Crimini Mushroom from Trader Joe's, so I thought making soup would be good.

Saut� mushrooms, add a bit vermouth, tofu, about half gallon water, 1 tablespoon pico de gallo seasoning, chicken stock seasoning.

I can't remember other details. Very good soup.

Tofu Egg Foo Yung with a Twist

John said it tasted like a quiche without crust.


Thu 06.10.2004


Need some vegetarian food tonight since we've been eating beef for the last 2 days. My brain quickly picks the box of tofu we had in fridge for a week. John has no idea how to make tofu and we are out of tomatoes to make my classic "Tofu and Tomato Stew."

I've pan-tried Tofu with egg wash before, which only needs a simple sauce to go with. Then again, do I really want soy sauce or ketchup?

Nope.

Here's a little twist I think I can make, kind of like Egg Foo Yong. Mix in thin sliced tofu (small rectangular shape) with egg mixture. Fry tofu first and then pour in remaining egg mixture and let the egg set. It's like an omelet or Tortilla de Espana with tofu instead of potatoes.


Egg Mixture:

3 med eggs
some water
some dry Sherry
some graded Parmesan cheese
dash of salt, black pepper, ground oregano, paprika, pico de gayo seasoning, dried basil leaves

mix canola oil and olive oil for frying, about 6~8 tablespoons (possibly more, I can't remember)

1 block of tofu, cut half inch thick

Soak tofu slices in egg mixture for 20 minutes.

Put in all tofu slices when oil is not too hot yet. (Put all tofu slices in 12 inch pan, should fit.) Medium high heat should be fine for frying.

Flip all tofu slices when the first side is golden. Wait until the other side is about golden. Turn down the heat. Sprinkle cheese. Pour in remaining egg mixture. Cook until bottom done. Put the pan in oven 350 F for 2 minutes the top layer egg mixture should set and the result should look like a flat cake.

Cut and serve. (No extra sauce needed.)


It's great! We eat it with bread and salad. John says he can't taste any soy because sometimes some band of tofu having that soybean (bland) flavor. It actually has a little meat flavor to me. Very successful experiment!


Note:

Why do I try tofu first instead of just cook the whole egg mixture together (with tofu in it)?

Well, cooking tofu is kind of tricky. Sometimes it requires longer cooking time to absorb the flavor and softens, especially firm tofu. I don't want the egg mixture to burn...

There are several ways to spell Foo Yong. Fu Yung, Fu Yong, Foo Yung... you get the idea.

Greek Eye

(Got up. Went to Farmer's Market, Water Lady shop, and Trader Joe's.)

We thought we'd go to Greek Festival on the last day of the 2-day event. And we seemed to have good luck streak for parking, just across street from the Greek Orthodox Church (on Park Ave).

As soon as we entered the festival, I saw a jewelry vendor and decided to take a look. Normally I don't buy jewelries. There they were: numerous glass Eyes that I've been looking for 3 years.

The "Evil Eye" is a good luck charm, which is supposed to look out for you, countering evil or envious eyes from others. My best friend P visited Greece 11 years ago and brought me a blue Greek eye as a gift. I'd been wearing it for all those years until about 3 years ago it finally broke.

I tried to search on the Internet and bid on eBay; however, the one I bought on eBay wasn't exactly the style I wanted -- a simple round blue eyeball. My mother-in-law knew I'd been wanting the eye for a long long time. She mentioned to me that one of her cousins working for US Olympics Committee and she would ask him to buy an eye while he's in Athens.

Well, I bought one right there at the festival ($15). The new one was slightly larger than the one I had before and the prong was 14k gold instead of sterling silver. I couldn't believe my luck.

The scale of the festival wasn't very big. I tired the grape leave things. John had lamb plate and 2 stuffed filo dough things. Oh, I couldn't remember what they were called. John had $9 lunch and mine, $5.50. Plus we each paid $2 for entry "donation."Greek food in town seemed to be expensive. The Greek Restaurant on Adams, for example, serves entrees for about $10 a plate.


***

After Greek Fest we went to the Harbor Marine Supplies shop in Little Italy for getting a neat T-Shirt for John's dad. It's closed. I also wanted to get a few things from Fillipi's. Afterwards we went for some Gelato. John asked me if I wanted to take the ferry to Coronado. It's only 10 to 2pm but I was tired already. (Not recovered from previous day?) Still, I agreed to go. The ferries ran on every hour and we missed the 2pm one. It'd run too late for other things we wanted do for the day. We didn't know where to call water taxi but later got the phone number from the info booth.

We went back to Normal Heights and would like to shop for some 2nd hand books. But most bookstores were closed. We went in one but John didn't find anything he had in mind.

After we got home, John took a nap. I organized a lot of printed articles and downloaded pictured to my computer.

John did dishes and later I made pasta with green bell peppers, sun dried Cal olives, artichoke hearts and vermouth, for dinner. John topped the baguettes with anchovies. We tried to pair foods with Duck Pond Pinot Gris, Columbia Crest Chardonnay, and Chianti. Pinot Gris went the best with anchovies; Chardonnay held up to the strong flavor of the olives; Chianti matched with the dish quite well overall, surprisingly with artichoke hearts. John said nothing worked for the olives because the flavor was too strong.

LA and Detroit (NBA Championship series) game was on and that's pretty much the entertainment for the night. I was still sore all over.

8 Hours of Fun

70 degrees at the coast. We left home 11:30 am and shortly after the bank (getting money) we went straight to Torry Pines for a hike on Broken Hills Trail, which we never been to, then headed the beach. The waves were a bit big and I'd love to try my new boogie board again, so we walked all the way back to parking (along the hwy, very lucky) to fetch the board.

I had 1 or 2 great runs, which made a novice very happy. 40 minutes later, there were some scratches on my legs and belly; I had to stop. It's better to wear one-piece bathing suite or wet suite for this sport, I suppose.

John said the waves were very strong and seemed to have rip current. And it turned out true. The news guys kept surfers alarmed.

We brought along our new snorkel gears thinking it might be a good day to try. Despite big waves at Torry Pines we thought it's worth to check it out. After drying off under the beautiful mid-day sun, we drove miles south and found a parking spot at the La Jolla Cove near the coffee shop, another lucky try. We wondered how we got all the luck in the world today? Perhaps people were all going to Del Mar Fair (SD County Fair), which was just open.

Water at the Cove was generally calmer and colder; however, there were a few big waves crushing in from time to time. Though I was determined to give it a shot, I couldn't help shivering (nervous and from the cold water too).

John promised to be by my side the entire time. The first time I tried, I was no more than 5 feet from shore. Basically, an older kid could stand up fine in such sallow water. Somehow the water got in the snorkel tube. I got really nervous and ran away from the activity.

Another wave of white waters came in. I decided to wait until they were gone. As I stood on the shore, John snorkeled since he couldn't while helping me. There was a young, very tanned Latino man with perfect American accent asked me if he could borrow my snorkel gear for 10 or 15 minutes.

"I'm not from around here. I don't know about the spot... I saw some fish in the water earlier but it's difficult to open eyes in salt water..."

I thought I had to wait anyway, so I lend him my gear.

Soon after, John signaled to me that there were some fish close to shore. I didn't go to him so he came up shore to find out what's going on.

I told him I lent my gear to a stranger and he wasn't pleased.

"Why you let a stranger put the tube in his mouth? I wouldn't do that!"

"Well, if we rent the gear, I wouldn't know whose mouth it's been either... I just didn't think it's a big deal."

Anyway, it's too late to change my mind. I pointed the person (in the water) I lent the gear to to John.

That person came up to shore only 5 minutes later. I asked him if he saw any fish. He told me yes and suggested me to try. Then he also said water got in the tube a lot.

John's ready to have me try again.

I washed the gear in the ocean first as he instructed and then went in the water. This time I saw a silvery fish with purple stripe swimming before me. It's quite exciting! As fun as it could be, water got in my tube a couple of times. I became very nervous and start struggling then quickly asked John to take back to shore. It's very embarrassing because I was probably 3 or 4 feet from shore and I could easily help myself.

As I finally stood up in the sand, I turned around and wanted to talk to John. There was an orange fish so close to the shore that I could see it with naked eyes above water.

"It's the state fish." John exclaimed.

There's no way I'd go back to the water. I had to let the orange silhouette go. John snorkeled around and went as far as the kayaks. Later he told me as the water got deeper, the visibility turned poorer, no fish in sight and better to stay close to shore. He said it's funny to see me going in the water. My eyes were wide open and my breaths were so heavy.

I suggested that we could finally check out the French Bakery since last time we missed the store hours. But first, John wanted to stop at Beverages & More in La Jolla. We bought Franciscan Cab 2001. 20+ blocks later, about 5:30 pm, 2 hungry people walked in the French Bakery. We bought a loaf of bread and 4 pastries, total about $12.

Then we stopped at Trader Joe's at PB for grocery. Again, no trouble with parking, the opposite to usual scene. But before shopping we happened to meet the special hours (5~7pm) of the sushi bar next door. I thought grocery shopping with empty stomach wouldn't be good. We walked in the sushi bar for a quick snack. Our sushi master was a white guy who apparently spoke good Japanese. We had special Cal roll (inside out) with masago, which definitely needed to be specially ordered, tuna roll, and spicy yellowtail roll. About half hour later, we went shopping and then headed home.

As we pulled in our parking space, John looked at the digital clock just below the dashboard -- it was 7:30pm.

"Wow, we've out for 8 hours. Imagine during weekdays, I'd be sitting at work the whole time."

Since we had sushi already, dinner needed not be much. We opened a bottle of Chilean cab and the bottle we bought today, comparing Cal cab and Chilean cab. The Franciscan cab was excellent, cedar and oak merging with classic berry flavors. The Chilean cab reminded me of Bordeaux and also wonderful. Besides wine, we had baguette from the French Bakery, cheese, and canned red salmon. I honestly couldn't remember what we ate. John was still a bit hungry and emptied some leftover, I guess...

It's late for a new movie, which required more concentration. We played Manhattan again and both fell asleep in front of TV.

7 u 8 Mares

A day of mourning for Ronald Reagan. The public pools were closed. Fortunately we went Thursday night and got part of our weekly exercise done.

We talked about going to the taco shop across street from City Heights Pool before, so we went for Friday's dinner. They had 7 Mares on the menu but 8 Mares painted on the shop window. John wanted to compare how good were the ones we could get in the States to the one we had in Ensenada, BC, Mexico.

We never ordered this caldo (broth or clear soup) because it's always one of the most expensive items on the menu in any Mexican restaurants we'd been to.

It's a tomato-based soup (red anyway) and there were shrimps, fish (probably cod), squid, crab legs, oysters, scallops, chayote (squash, a vegetable), and potatoes. You could call it 8 treasures soup but there were only 6 mares (sea, meaning seafood). The broth was tasty and not too spicy for my liking. You could tell it's been cooking long time since the chayote pieces were nice and soft. It's quite a big bowl, full of broth and we had 4 corn tortillas to eat with. $7.99 wasn't bad, I guess. We also had a fish taco, which was ordinary.

The 7 Mares soup we had in Ensenada was from a little eatery not intending on getting any business from tourists. A small bowl for 55 pesos (we were charged for $5.5 dollars), full of seafood, including mussels, truly 7 mares without vegetables. Frankly I don't remember if there were any vegetables in the soup. We had chopped onions and cilantro for soup toppings, and also plenty (huge) chips and salsa. It was wonderful!

I know we will be looking for the best 7 Mares in SD.


Note:

u (Spanish) or, used instead of "o" before o-, ho-
Example: siete u ocho / seven or eight

Boba Gone Mainstream?

Stuff I wrote last year.

Sunday 8/10/2003, Sunny, 90+ (?)

I have noticed the trend that some coffee shops starting offering flavored iced tea shakes or smoothie.

Take Starbucks for example, they have Tazo Berry and Tazo Citrus on the menu, which I enjoy a lot (without the cream). Last Saturday, we went to Dietrich Coffee in Hillcrest before heading Trader Joe's for grocery. I saw their posters of new Tea Latte (ice blended drinks), which came in Green Tea, Mango, and Star Fruit flavors. So I asked the clerk how they were prepared. Basically, it's tea flavor mix (powder) with water and ice blended. Since it's called "latte," I asked the clerk if it contained any dairy. He's sure of the Green Tea one for it was to be made with milk (or soy milk upon request); however, the other 2 he could only guess that did have some milk powder in the mix.

Later, we went to Fashion Valley Mall shopping, in the food court, there's a D*Lush beverage place (they called themselves D*Lux Beverage Joint). I couldn't remember what was at the same location before. For all I know, it could always have been D*Lush. Anyway, it looked like a new business to me.

What caught my eye about this place? To be precise, it was what caught my ear. They blasted dance music that everyone in the Food Court could hear. We were very thirsty and I thought we could get something from D*Lush. As we approached, we realized it was packed with teens. The clerks were teens; the sample people were teens. And they behaved as if it had been a party.

Then I checked out the menu, delightedly to discover that boba (tapioca pearls) were on the menu, � la carte.

(Hey, I could add penny-sized tapioca balls to any drink I wanted. Hmm... that's a thought.)

Frankly, I was intimidated by the crowds, music, and the enthusiasms of the sample tasting youngsters. Half way scanning through the menu, I was ready to split. I didn't need a three-dollar-glittering beverage that badly. Iced Tea from Starbucks 10-feet away would be just fine.

Spanish Dream

Stuff I wrote last year.

Sunday 8/10/2003, Sunny, 90+ (?)

Returning from camping trip in Blair Valley of Anza-Borrego, we stopped in Julian for breakfast. Buffalo Bills sure provided inexpensive meals for two. We had Apple Pancakes and Eggs/Hash/Toasts.

Unusually hot and humid in San Diego, we took a nap then could not do much but lying in the living room sweating. While I was napping, I dreamed that John and I went to a Mexican restaurant with open porch (rather shabby looking hut). He approached the porch and there was a small, thing, and old Latina lady. He said to her: "No habla Espa�ol. No esta bien, no?" The old lady giggled for a while. Then John went into the restaurant. The owners were a couple of Americans (husband and wife). The husband whispered to the wife (in English): "He won't last long." (Meaning he won't last long in this Spanish-speaking region or country.)

It was a very amusing dream and worth noting! It is the first dream I have in Spanish (the one I could remember after waking up anyway.) Although I know very few Spanish, those words are in my consciousness now. It is said to have dreams in certain language indicates the proficiency of that language. I'm far from proficient but I know I understand by heart what I have learnt. It is part of me now. Qu� breno!

Farewell Rosy Cheeks

The America I knew was Reagan's America.

Like hundreds of thousands teens around the globe, my first American experience was through pop music, not movies, nor blue jeans. In those days, I was in school uniform and studied all day. The only escape was foreign rhythms broadcasted on the radio, which I often hid behind my father's back to listen to.

Despite poor English ability, I thought a nation produced such wonderful music must have been magnificent. It was during Reagan's Administration I first learned about the country, people, and culture of the United States.

What would a mid-teen kid know about politics? Let along international political climate? My thought of Reagan was that he's a popular president and a great public speaker. Also, the unforgettable cheeks. The impressions I had of Reagan and the country lead by him were as ROSY as his cheeks. The color seemed to illustrate the vigor of a 70-something man triumphed in this youth-obsessed culture; it seemed to reflect his undying optimism. It could, perhaps, simply be make-up.

When he said good-bye to the White House, I said hello to college. In a couple of journalism and communication courses, his speeches were selected as text materials. I began to get in touch with the praise, such as ending the Cold War, and the criticism, fruitless Drug War, for example. He was, in my college years, one of the most admired US presidents in the same league with FDR, JFK, etc.

The year he announced that he's afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, I came to US and have lived here ever since. In the past decade, I had opportunities to view news clips of him to really understand what the "sense of humor he had" meant. Never before, I became familiarized with disapproval of his "trees, seen-one-seen-them-all" attitude toward environmental issues. Or cultural impact like, while serving as California governor, he practically terminated "public supported" bohemian lifestyles for those who sought after California as a haven for enlightenment and diversity.

The budget deficit could not erase the rosy view I have of Ronald Reagan. The shiny new America image he had projected for his countrymen and the world rooted in new immigrants such as myself. The Alzheimer's disease may have claimed him but he will not fade in America's memory. Whom will you name that personifies America? In my mind, it is Ronald Reagan. He was the America I first knew.