Which leads me to this cartoon, aptly titled "Old people's dreams":
Cartoon provided by the genius archives of Quantz.
Friday, March 27, 2009
sad but true
After graduation my friend L worked in Philly for briefly for Teach for America, a job that was riddled with stress, strife and "You won't believe what happened at school today" horror stories. One particular story that still sticks out for me was when a student brought a jar of urine to school as a prank and spilled its contents in a high-traffic hallway. The entire episode caused a huge mess and smelled horrible. While she was telling this story, the first thought that came to my head was, "Urine? That's such a legal liability." The next thought that came to my head was, "Wow, I'm soooo old and boring."
Which leads me to this cartoon, aptly titled "Old people's dreams":
Cartoon provided by the genius archives of Quantz.
Which leads me to this cartoon, aptly titled "Old people's dreams":
Cartoon provided by the genius archives of Quantz.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
lost and found
" SUBJECT: FOUND: slightly used mug and plate with original food remnants still intact
I think someone may have misplaced the following on my desk:
- 1 W+K green kit mug, slightly used. 1/4 full with tea (umber brown color) and accented by Lipton’s brand tea bag (tag, sunshine yellow color; tea bag, chocolate brown color). Note: Tea is cold.
- 1 white, ceramic plate with neo-dada like arrangement of bread crumbs and ambiguous butter smears.
I know that these possessions are probably really important to you so please stop by my desk on 4th to retrieve them. In case you left these as a surprise present for me, next time, I prefer my tea to have milk (and for the mug to be unused and for the tea to be filled to the top and hot).
xo
=d="
you can donk anything!
Awhile ago I posted about a new musical genre called Donk. I'm sure many of you had readily assumed that this particular song fad would fade out as quickly as skorts and crocs; however in the weeks that ensued from that original post, mentions of donk continue to surface. Sure the mentions mainly originate from one, rather enthusiastic donk supporter but still...
The latest and greatest in the donk world is this, a website where you can take donk into your own hands and put a donk on any song within your music library. Best part is, when you're done you can share it with friends (but probably more likely enemies and/or frenemies) via facebook/twitter. Technology is ingenious!
The latest and greatest in the donk world is this, a website where you can take donk into your own hands and put a donk on any song within your music library. Best part is, when you're done you can share it with friends (but probably more likely enemies and/or frenemies) via facebook/twitter. Technology is ingenious!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sticks and Stones
A family friend of my parents was in town for 48 hours. She called me today and wanted to meet prior to her leaving town to give me a "present." Upon seeing me, her eyes widened and she immediately announced "You've gotten fatter."
Awkward pause.
"...a lot fatter. hahaha!"
And then she gave me this:
Talk about adding insult to injury.
Awkward pause.
"...a lot fatter. hahaha!"
And then she gave me this:
Talk about adding insult to injury.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Five Famous Chinese Food Believe it or Nots
5. Cardboard Pork Buns
What's really in these?
Technically "proven" a hoax and the offending journalist sentenced to jail for a year, the cardboard bun scandal of 2007 is an oldie but still a goodie. Just to give a bit of context for those who are not aware, in the summer of 2007, an investigative reporter went around Beijing and discovered that certain street vendors were stuffing their buns not with low grade pork (too expensive!) but cardboard that they softened with chemicals and pork flavors (cost effective!).
This created a massive outcry and panic through the city since buying pork buns from a street vendor in China is as routine and ubiquitous as picking up a morning coffee at Starbucks in the States. Luckily for everyone the Beijing authorities were on the case and hey! No need to panic citizens, the whole story was made up by a meanie head writer out to do a smear campaign on China. All the pork buns in the city are safe! Go Beijing Olympics!!
So was it a cover up or was the journalist really just out to get China? The thing is either is entirely possible. That's the thing with China. You just never really know what to believe. After an initial paranoia, the public soon returned to its old routine and street vendors selling piping hot steamers of pork buns relined Beijing streets. So far the media hasn't reported any deaths by pork bun so I guess everything's fine?
4. Fake Eggs
Um...is it supposed to do that?
DVDs, CDs, clothes, bags, furniture, cigarettes, money, computer programs, electronics, water. If there's a real thing, China's got its fake, less expensive doppelganger. Counterfeiting has become such a part of popular culture that a special Chinese slang word has been created just for it - "shanzhai" which translates to "mountain village edition." So ingrained is piracy that last month when authorities tried to raid popular Beijing fake market, Silk Street, the vendors actually fought back and protested (NOTE: for China users, you'll have to use a proxy to open this site. Thanks net nanny!).
"Oh, you're mad at us? We'll we're now mad at you. How are them apples?"
With a flotilla of Shanzhai goods on the market in every shape and size, you may think that there was couldn't possibly be anything else to add to China's fake product portfolio but then you'd be forgetting that in life, our capacity for innovation is infinite. As far back as 2006, intrepid inventors in Hebei have taken nature into their own hands perfecting the art of making shanzhai'ed eggs. After all, chickens are dirty and noisy and take up space and sometimes die. Nature is so fallible!
Using a mix of gelatin, alum and other mystery chemicals, these forward thinking capitalists create and sell their fake eggs at a fraction of the cost of the real thing without ever having to deal with a real animal (remember SARS? Who want's to deal with that again?). However, another thing we should remember is that usually man-made substitutes compared with the natural thing is like comparing a Hollywood movie to the actual book it was based on - it's just never as good. Cotton is better than polyester, Godiva is better than Hersheys, All the Pretty Horses via Cormac McCarthy is better than All the Pretty Horses via Ted Tally and so, unsurprisingly, real eggs are better than the manufactured ones. Not only do real eggs taste better, it's rumored that the excessive ingestion of alum (a key ingredient in the fake ones) can lead to dementia. I guess you get what you pay for. Or maybe not.
3. Mutant (but discounted) Fruit
More cushion for the pushin'
Speaking of getting what you paid for get a load of these discount pomelos recently purchased off the street. First reported in China Smack, these pomelos apparently are not the only fruit with thick skin.
Looks good doesn't it? Yum yum.
2. Lamb Flavored Cat Skewers
Smell's like lamb, looks like meat...
On any given night in China, you can find street vendors fastidiously fanning their charcoal grills sending billows of tasty smelling, meat laced smoke up into the sky. Next to them are coolers stockpiled with skewers of vegetables and meat. In the pageant of street snacks, lamb skewers or yang rou chrua'r are definitely the crowd favorite; however, even as you slide that hot, grilled piece of meat off the bamboo skewer and taste its juicy, gamey lamb goodness mixing with your saliva your brain can't help to think, "How can this possibly only cost RMB1?" But by that time you're in no mood for sensible thoughts and so the subsequent line of internal monologue ignores the possiblity that the meat is probably pretty poor quality or that the meat may be extremely old or that the meat may be discarded from dubious sources.
Instead, that voice inside your head yells, "You're hungry! There's delicious meat in front of you! EAT IT!!" And so, you chomp down on not one, not two a dozen or so meat skewers. After all, you're having a good time right now, carpe dieming the night and all that. Sure this skewer might be bad for you but how bad could it be?
Well, it could be cat.
Cheap and delicious!
While the consumption of cat is acknowledged to be acceptable in southern China (even local Chinese people sniff with an air of disgusted wonderment, "Those people will eat anything." whenever Guangdong is mentioned), it's become a widely rumored fact that cunning street vendors outside the designated we-actually-like-and-want-to-eat-felines areas are selling cat dressed as lamb. It's street molecular gastronomy- the cat meat is cured in a lamb's stomach to infuse in the flavors.
While some might cry foul, this whole bait 'em and switch 'em scheme seems perfectly in line with China's unique and enthusiastic capitalist-with-a-communist-slant spirit. Just think - in order to herd livestock you've got to have land, grain, farmers. It's an activity that can only be done by the elitist few.
Lambs are for elitist whores
To herd cats, you just need to run around at night with a net, an activity that could be done by the people. Ideologically sound AND efficient. Now that is impressive.
1. Baby Mice
2 cute 2 B Not eaten. LOLZ!
It's a good rule of thumb in cuisine that any dish called a delicacy is probably going to be gross. The grossest delicacies in China mostly hail from the Guangdong province. Remember the saying Chinese have for the people there? However, given this particular delicacy, you can see how most snide sayings are grounded in truth. Called Three Squeaks, this particular dish involves eating baby mice... raw.
The first squeak comes when you grab the mouse with your chopstick, the second when you dip it in sauce and the third when you bite off it's head. I would have thought it was just an urban legend except for the fact I once saw an article in a Chinese magazine about it. My written Chinese is pretty poor but the illustrations told a million words.
What's really in these?
Technically "proven" a hoax and the offending journalist sentenced to jail for a year, the cardboard bun scandal of 2007 is an oldie but still a goodie. Just to give a bit of context for those who are not aware, in the summer of 2007, an investigative reporter went around Beijing and discovered that certain street vendors were stuffing their buns not with low grade pork (too expensive!) but cardboard that they softened with chemicals and pork flavors (cost effective!).
This created a massive outcry and panic through the city since buying pork buns from a street vendor in China is as routine and ubiquitous as picking up a morning coffee at Starbucks in the States. Luckily for everyone the Beijing authorities were on the case and hey! No need to panic citizens, the whole story was made up by a meanie head writer out to do a smear campaign on China. All the pork buns in the city are safe! Go Beijing Olympics!!
So was it a cover up or was the journalist really just out to get China? The thing is either is entirely possible. That's the thing with China. You just never really know what to believe. After an initial paranoia, the public soon returned to its old routine and street vendors selling piping hot steamers of pork buns relined Beijing streets. So far the media hasn't reported any deaths by pork bun so I guess everything's fine?
4. Fake Eggs
Um...is it supposed to do that?
DVDs, CDs, clothes, bags, furniture, cigarettes, money, computer programs, electronics, water. If there's a real thing, China's got its fake, less expensive doppelganger. Counterfeiting has become such a part of popular culture that a special Chinese slang word has been created just for it - "shanzhai" which translates to "mountain village edition." So ingrained is piracy that last month when authorities tried to raid popular Beijing fake market, Silk Street, the vendors actually fought back and protested (NOTE: for China users, you'll have to use a proxy to open this site. Thanks net nanny!).
"Oh, you're mad at us? We'll we're now mad at you. How are them apples?"
With a flotilla of Shanzhai goods on the market in every shape and size, you may think that there was couldn't possibly be anything else to add to China's fake product portfolio but then you'd be forgetting that in life, our capacity for innovation is infinite. As far back as 2006, intrepid inventors in Hebei have taken nature into their own hands perfecting the art of making shanzhai'ed eggs. After all, chickens are dirty and noisy and take up space and sometimes die. Nature is so fallible!
Using a mix of gelatin, alum and other mystery chemicals, these forward thinking capitalists create and sell their fake eggs at a fraction of the cost of the real thing without ever having to deal with a real animal (remember SARS? Who want's to deal with that again?). However, another thing we should remember is that usually man-made substitutes compared with the natural thing is like comparing a Hollywood movie to the actual book it was based on - it's just never as good. Cotton is better than polyester, Godiva is better than Hersheys, All the Pretty Horses via Cormac McCarthy is better than All the Pretty Horses via Ted Tally and so, unsurprisingly, real eggs are better than the manufactured ones. Not only do real eggs taste better, it's rumored that the excessive ingestion of alum (a key ingredient in the fake ones) can lead to dementia. I guess you get what you pay for. Or maybe not.
3. Mutant (but discounted) Fruit
More cushion for the pushin'
Speaking of getting what you paid for get a load of these discount pomelos recently purchased off the street. First reported in China Smack, these pomelos apparently are not the only fruit with thick skin.
Looks good doesn't it? Yum yum.
2. Lamb Flavored Cat Skewers
Smell's like lamb, looks like meat...
On any given night in China, you can find street vendors fastidiously fanning their charcoal grills sending billows of tasty smelling, meat laced smoke up into the sky. Next to them are coolers stockpiled with skewers of vegetables and meat. In the pageant of street snacks, lamb skewers or yang rou chrua'r are definitely the crowd favorite; however, even as you slide that hot, grilled piece of meat off the bamboo skewer and taste its juicy, gamey lamb goodness mixing with your saliva your brain can't help to think, "How can this possibly only cost RMB1?" But by that time you're in no mood for sensible thoughts and so the subsequent line of internal monologue ignores the possiblity that the meat is probably pretty poor quality or that the meat may be extremely old or that the meat may be discarded from dubious sources.
Instead, that voice inside your head yells, "You're hungry! There's delicious meat in front of you! EAT IT!!" And so, you chomp down on not one, not two a dozen or so meat skewers. After all, you're having a good time right now, carpe dieming the night and all that. Sure this skewer might be bad for you but how bad could it be?
Well, it could be cat.
Cheap and delicious!
While the consumption of cat is acknowledged to be acceptable in southern China (even local Chinese people sniff with an air of disgusted wonderment, "Those people will eat anything." whenever Guangdong is mentioned), it's become a widely rumored fact that cunning street vendors outside the designated we-actually-like-and-want-to-eat-felines areas are selling cat dressed as lamb. It's street molecular gastronomy- the cat meat is cured in a lamb's stomach to infuse in the flavors.
While some might cry foul, this whole bait 'em and switch 'em scheme seems perfectly in line with China's unique and enthusiastic capitalist-with-a-communist-slant spirit. Just think - in order to herd livestock you've got to have land, grain, farmers. It's an activity that can only be done by the elitist few.
Lambs are for elitist whores
To herd cats, you just need to run around at night with a net, an activity that could be done by the people. Ideologically sound AND efficient. Now that is impressive.
1. Baby Mice
2 cute 2 B Not eaten. LOLZ!
It's a good rule of thumb in cuisine that any dish called a delicacy is probably going to be gross. The grossest delicacies in China mostly hail from the Guangdong province. Remember the saying Chinese have for the people there? However, given this particular delicacy, you can see how most snide sayings are grounded in truth. Called Three Squeaks, this particular dish involves eating baby mice... raw.
The first squeak comes when you grab the mouse with your chopstick, the second when you dip it in sauce and the third when you bite off it's head. I would have thought it was just an urban legend except for the fact I once saw an article in a Chinese magazine about it. My written Chinese is pretty poor but the illustrations told a million words.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
tall buildings shake, voices escape.
Click here for original picture
After a week of sunshine, we had heard dark rumors of rain this weekend; however after a short lived, rainy stint this morning, it seemed like clear weather was here to stay. At precisely a quarter past 11, it has started raining again in Shanghai and oh how it's started! All day today the air was warm and humid but nothing could have even started to hint at the ferocity in which this sudden lightening storm has struck.
It's as if Shanghai suffers from weather bulimia, binged itself on too many a blue sky during the week and is now spewing its guts out. One minute you're getting ready to go out on a Saturday night, next minute you're nervously watching flashes of white light explode across the sky followed by bangs and cracks so loud and sharp that your entire apartment shakes. The clouds above are like massive water balloons that are now being popped all over the city. It's literally raining buckets.
In the face of this sudden downpour my evening plans have been thrown a big, wet curveball. Rather than meeting J and A at Logo, I have instead switched on my Light playlist in iTunes (Belle and Sebastian, Sade, Air, Wilco, Death Cab and a dash of Elliot Smith), shoved a load of laundry in the machine, started on a book I've been meaning to read and, just in the last two minutes, become a human sofa for my cat Simon. All in all, it feels like it's a pretty good start for a now washed out Saturday night. Happy rainy season everyone! xo.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
hold it in, let it out
The air is humid with a new warm dewiness. Could it be Spring? I hope so...
Juliane Eirich, Balloons
Found on my new favorite image site.
Juliane Eirich, Balloons
Found on my new favorite image site.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
sun, bike, what's not to like?
I had a particularly wholesome day last Saturday with my pal H. We went bike riding all the way to the Shanghai zoo. The entire trip took one hour. Highlights include dimsum, losing an earring, finding a hidden private garden and me falling off my bike and nearly faceplanting into some old woman's cart. Deciding that one near death experience wasn't nearly enough for me, once at the zoo, I convinced H to ride the Scariest Ferris Wheel ever.
We were (ok, fine I WAS) totally fooled by the colorful exterior. But as soon as that door slammed shut and we heard the lock click from the outside we both regretted it. Our rusty, jail-like carriage slowly creaked its way up in space swinging precariously the entire way. After what felt like the longest 5 minutes ever, we emerged ashen faced and blood pressure significantly higher but pretty much unharmed. Whew.
We were (ok, fine I WAS) totally fooled by the colorful exterior. But as soon as that door slammed shut and we heard the lock click from the outside we both regretted it. Our rusty, jail-like carriage slowly creaked its way up in space swinging precariously the entire way. After what felt like the longest 5 minutes ever, we emerged ashen faced and blood pressure significantly higher but pretty much unharmed. Whew.
Watch out ladies, a killer's loose. xoxo.
The following is an email sent to the Swedish Embassy by a jilted Chinese girl. The last line is the best (how much is "too much"?) Apparently the guy lives in Shanghai and the girl was kind enough to include a picture. Human flesh search anyone?
From: XXXXX
Date: XXXXX
To: XXXX
Subject: Please Help Protect Chinese Women From This Man
From: XXXXX
Date: XXXXX
To: XXXX
Subject: Please Help Protect Chinese Women From This Man
I am writing you to inform you of the perverse and inexcusable behavior of Johan Otto Englund who is studying chinese at Shanghai Jiao Tong University now. In Early February of 2009, Johan visited me in my hometown of Changsha city in china. We met online several months earlier and established a cyber relationship ( He contacted me there firstly. ) Johan said to me he was studying International politics in sweden before, who is very interested in chinese politics . He need to see Chair Mao's, Lei Feng 's home town in Changsha.
He asked me if i will show him around and meet him in person in changsha. He said to me in letters and phone calls at MSN. I was friendly to see a western friend from overseas to china who is special to see Characteristics in Changsha. I was enjoyed and be proud to be his tour guider that's all my feeling.
When i was leading Johan to Hunan Museum, Changsha Museum and Martyrs Park , Johan said he was thinking to being a nurse in Africato help poor ppl and he was working in Nursing home in Sweden, taking care of old ,retired ppls. He traveled lot places in Europe, Africa,South Asia . He will work in European Unions or United Unions forhuman rights. He is also a Vegetarian who doest want to kill animals.
Tour on the road, Johan was sincerely talking about the price of Mineral water, food, travel fee was expensive, he is thrifty . I respected his honest, Sympathy with his student status. I paid myself, sometimes I also paid his travel fee and food.
He said to me many beautiful words all leading me to believe that he is a noble humanitarian wanted a chinese girlfriend as Capable as I. His words persuaded me that he was falling in love with me and I liked him in lot in his noble Integrity. It seems Johan and I were happily togather after this so, I relented to his demand.
I taken Johan to my home twice . My mom cooked dinners for himduring Spring festival to Lantern. My mom was very happy to see awestern ppl can speak chinese to her and Johan said ,he 'd love to have Table Tennis ' competitions with my mom . My mom laughed lot andgave him expensive gree tea and good fruits as gifts. Johan didnt give me or my mom anything. He was very enjoyed visited my home and praised house's decoration deluxe and my mom's wonderful cooking.
I sent Johan back to Shanghai from airport in changsha . Then i havnt hear any informations from him. I called his cell phone , firstly nobody answer. Later, Johan said, he is busy and has a new gf in Shanghai. It is too late for me but, I hope in all my heart that you will be able to do something about Johan Otto Englund so he will not be able to hurt other girls like he has hurt me. Please do not let him hurt more chinese girls 's kind heart and friendly respect to ppl from other countries.
P.S. Johan gave me bad flu and asked too much sex.
Name: Johan Otto Englund Pass & Visa No. xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Food review: Urban Soup Kitchen
When I was eight I wanted to be a teacher, when I turned twelve I wanted to be a marine biologist, when I was in high school I wanted to be a lawyer (mostly because of Ally McBeal) and ever since I turned 21, I've wanted to be a food critic. I love food, I love getting paid, professional critisizing combines my two interests. What could be better? Unfortunately, a ton of other people think the same thing and have higher culinary and writing credentials than I.
Since moving to China, I've weaseled my way into the good graces of the Dining editors of City Weekend, a local expat listings magazine. It's no New York Magazine or Sunday Times. Actually it's not even a Creative Loafing, but it lets me entertain my fantasy of being a food critic. While real food critics get large columns and ample word counts, I struggle with quarter page blurbs trying to compact my thoughts into a pithy 150 sound bite and by struggle I mainly mean ignore. The pattern goes a bit like this: They give me word limit, I ignore word limit, they cut and splice through my review until it's a pale semblance of the original writing.
Thank goodness for personal blogs where I can ramble on to my heart's content taking up valuable pixel space with my inability to write concisely.
Below is my review of Urban Soup Kitchen in it's full, verbose glory:
Cold comfort
Who doesn’t like soup? It warms you up on a cold day. It picks you up when you’re down. Truly, there are few foods in life that are as universally comforting as soup is.
Soups come in abundant variety - stews, chowders, bisques, thick soups, thin soups, soups with meatballs, with cabbage, with won tons, the list never ends; however, despite the infinite varieties of soups I find that most tend to fall in either one of two catagories. The first catagory of soups are forgiving dishes. At their best it’s something you’ve thrown together because you want a simple, hearty meal. At their worst it’s a stew of leftover ingredients, things that you’ve left too long in your fridge but are too cheap to waste. These soups are simplistic, easy to make, edibles that even a monkey (albeit probably a highly trained one) with a blender could do. The end results are nice, filling, comfortable.
The second catagory of soups are those that serve as a testament to the cook's talent. Instead of masking flavors, this soup puts them on full display, coaxing them out in the slow simmer so that every spoonful tantalizes your taste buds, making you want to savor it in your mouth til you sip it down slowly like you would a fine wine. Have soup from the second category and it'll shake you, coating your insides. It'll make you recall what it feels like to fall in love.
One weekend the sun was shining and the sky was blue. It was an idyllic day for a light lunch, a perfect day to check out this gourmet soup and salad place we heard about near Xin Tian Di. We arrived at Urban Soup Kitchen with high hopes and empty stomachs. Soups started at (YY28) and combos (soup and salad or sandwich) are a fairly reasonable (YY40-60). We were ready to dive and drink in the love.
Right off the bat a caveat to hungry diners, get ready to get your food to go - operating mainly as a delivery service, the only seating offered in this severely tiny nook of a restaurant are four bar stools set along a high narrow bar...facing the wall. Ever undaunted, we ordered two combos and took our food to Fuxing Park where we eagerly chose a bench and tucked in for an impromptu picnic. Before we left, the owner warned us that the shop was just starting out so they were still finalizing some of the recipes and for us to go onto their website to give them our feedback.
Initial feedback: please get better bread to dip into the soup. Our soup bread had the consistency of dry cotton and tasted of wood chip. Additional feedback: for the love of God take seafood bisque off your menu until you've managed to make it edible. Salty without having much flavor, the bisque tasted distinctively of not very good tomato paste and generic seafood. “This bisque tastes like dirt,” griped my picnic buddy, his lip curling, “I’m going to just pick out the meat.” In all fairness, the seafood bisque had a healthy portion of shrimp and he spent the next fifteen minutes fishing it out of the broth, his aggrieved air of someone who had been wronged by life dissipating slightly.
Despite the bisque and soup bread, the rest of our food wasn’t bad. The wild mushroom bacon soup was rich and fairly creamy, the massive chicken breast wrap was flavored well and the smoked duck breast salad finished with a lovely citrus twang but it didn't make us remember what it was like to fall in love, it didn't even remind us of a playground crush. It reminded us of an all-right date. Not bad but not something you absolutely can't wait to do again. The whole meal was something akin to what you’d make in college if you wanted something nice for lunch and had an hour or so of free time.
That being said, most of us have left college and don’t have that hour of free time (and just think about how you’ll have to clean up afterward!) which makes Urban Soup Kitchen is a serious competitor if all you want is a soup and sandwich. That being said, given the size of the market in Shanghai for exclusively soup and sandwhich places, they are also pretty much the only ones in it.
Since moving to China, I've weaseled my way into the good graces of the Dining editors of City Weekend, a local expat listings magazine. It's no New York Magazine or Sunday Times. Actually it's not even a Creative Loafing, but it lets me entertain my fantasy of being a food critic. While real food critics get large columns and ample word counts, I struggle with quarter page blurbs trying to compact my thoughts into a pithy 150 sound bite and by struggle I mainly mean ignore. The pattern goes a bit like this: They give me word limit, I ignore word limit, they cut and splice through my review until it's a pale semblance of the original writing.
Thank goodness for personal blogs where I can ramble on to my heart's content taking up valuable pixel space with my inability to write concisely.
Below is my review of Urban Soup Kitchen in it's full, verbose glory:
Cold comfort
Who doesn’t like soup? It warms you up on a cold day. It picks you up when you’re down. Truly, there are few foods in life that are as universally comforting as soup is.
Soups come in abundant variety - stews, chowders, bisques, thick soups, thin soups, soups with meatballs, with cabbage, with won tons, the list never ends; however, despite the infinite varieties of soups I find that most tend to fall in either one of two catagories. The first catagory of soups are forgiving dishes. At their best it’s something you’ve thrown together because you want a simple, hearty meal. At their worst it’s a stew of leftover ingredients, things that you’ve left too long in your fridge but are too cheap to waste. These soups are simplistic, easy to make, edibles that even a monkey (albeit probably a highly trained one) with a blender could do. The end results are nice, filling, comfortable.
The second catagory of soups are those that serve as a testament to the cook's talent. Instead of masking flavors, this soup puts them on full display, coaxing them out in the slow simmer so that every spoonful tantalizes your taste buds, making you want to savor it in your mouth til you sip it down slowly like you would a fine wine. Have soup from the second category and it'll shake you, coating your insides. It'll make you recall what it feels like to fall in love.
One weekend the sun was shining and the sky was blue. It was an idyllic day for a light lunch, a perfect day to check out this gourmet soup and salad place we heard about near Xin Tian Di. We arrived at Urban Soup Kitchen with high hopes and empty stomachs. Soups started at (YY28) and combos (soup and salad or sandwich) are a fairly reasonable (YY40-60). We were ready to dive and drink in the love.
Right off the bat a caveat to hungry diners, get ready to get your food to go - operating mainly as a delivery service, the only seating offered in this severely tiny nook of a restaurant are four bar stools set along a high narrow bar...facing the wall. Ever undaunted, we ordered two combos and took our food to Fuxing Park where we eagerly chose a bench and tucked in for an impromptu picnic. Before we left, the owner warned us that the shop was just starting out so they were still finalizing some of the recipes and for us to go onto their website to give them our feedback.
Initial feedback: please get better bread to dip into the soup. Our soup bread had the consistency of dry cotton and tasted of wood chip. Additional feedback: for the love of God take seafood bisque off your menu until you've managed to make it edible. Salty without having much flavor, the bisque tasted distinctively of not very good tomato paste and generic seafood. “This bisque tastes like dirt,” griped my picnic buddy, his lip curling, “I’m going to just pick out the meat.” In all fairness, the seafood bisque had a healthy portion of shrimp and he spent the next fifteen minutes fishing it out of the broth, his aggrieved air of someone who had been wronged by life dissipating slightly.
Despite the bisque and soup bread, the rest of our food wasn’t bad. The wild mushroom bacon soup was rich and fairly creamy, the massive chicken breast wrap was flavored well and the smoked duck breast salad finished with a lovely citrus twang but it didn't make us remember what it was like to fall in love, it didn't even remind us of a playground crush. It reminded us of an all-right date. Not bad but not something you absolutely can't wait to do again. The whole meal was something akin to what you’d make in college if you wanted something nice for lunch and had an hour or so of free time.
That being said, most of us have left college and don’t have that hour of free time (and just think about how you’ll have to clean up afterward!) which makes Urban Soup Kitchen is a serious competitor if all you want is a soup and sandwich. That being said, given the size of the market in Shanghai for exclusively soup and sandwhich places, they are also pretty much the only ones in it.
Friday, March 13, 2009
please. stop using the word bespoke. it sucks.
The summer of 2001 harked a great many things for me. It was the summer right after high school ended and right before college started. It was a summer of sunshine, soft Georgia nights, goodbye parties and the new prickling feeling that we were about to leave childhood forever and Grow Up. It was also the summer when pointy toed shoes from the fashion houses of Europe enacted a swift and irreversable coup that changed the face of women's footware as we knew it.
My friends and I viewed the trend when it started as a passing fad. Pointy shoes? Really? Shoes that make your feet at least an inch and a half bigger? Shoes that squeezed your big toe into your other four? Shoes that were basically a Western answer to Eastern foot binding?? They were impractical, witchy looking, stupid, not for us. Sure they were all over the catwalks but surely they'd be the kind of fad that was only Good For Magazines...and Europeans.
Over the course of two short months, I watched, with increasing dismay, as all around me rounded pumps were replaced by severe, pinched stilettos. On the streets, women's walks shifted from the easy, bouncy gait afforded to them by sensible rounded toe shoes to a dainty teeter in their new, shockingly pointy Fendi's.
I started noticing, to my horror, how one by one all my friends fell to the trend, their shoe collections changing by the minute to accomodate their new purchases. Pointed toe flats, pointed toe heels, pointed toed going out shoes, pointed toe... flip flops?! Well, we all know how the pointed shoe trend has manifested itself - now women everywhere are joined in solidarity as they they gingerly pry their oh so cute but painful shoes off their blistered red feet at the end of a long day. Awesome.
So back to the original purpose of this post. Like pointy shoes infiltrating closets everywhere at the start of the millenium, the word bespoke has insiduiously infiltrated the word scene. Bespoke as a past tense of the verb bespeak is actually a really nice word; however, bespoke as in the adjective for customized is incredibly pompous and obnoxious. I first read it in a british Vogue, where the word was used not just in the headline but also no less than 10 times in the actual body of the article itself. I had discounted the overuse of a rather ugly word as a freak occurance in a badly-written passage, a British colloquialism perhaps.
This was three months ago.
In the past week alone, I have heard it used both verbally and in emails around my office, written in various online blogs which I respect and enjoy AND in magazines that hail not just from England. Shocking and terrible. Bespoke sucks and is totally overused by not very clever people (sorry co-workers, this doesn't apply to you) trying to sound smart. Please people, stop the madness. Let us remember the pointy shoe infection of 2001. Ten years down the line do we really want to sound like overpuffed windbags using ugly words? I think not.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
on light shows and ruining family vacations: hk trip conclusion
I have many pictures on my camera. It is out of batteries and I can't find the cord that links it to my computer. Once I get more batteries for it and find the cord, I will be able to finish off my HK updates. It'll be worth the wait. Or maybe it won't. I guess no one will know until I finally get my act together. Ha! I'm in the driver's seat.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming with this special announcement
Take your vitamins!
xo!
xo!
on strawberry daiquiris and pork belly: hk trip pt. 3
One of the things I love most about traveling is eating, especially after a long day of walking. Since good things come in twos, here are my two new favorite food discoveries on my recent trip to Hong Kong.
1. Crispy pork belly dim sum
Being from the South, I'm naturally inclined to like pork but there's no pork quite like Cantonese fried pork belly. It has the richness of bacon combined with the meaty tenderness of a pork chop finished with a layer of crispy crackling. When dipped in spicy mustard, these cubes of fried heaven dissolve away in your mouth while snapping awake your taste buds all at the same time. I can't believe I've been in China for so long and never discovered these until just last week.
My heart probably won't be happy about this new food find but my stomach will be.
2. Strawberry daiquiris at Feather Boa
Once a hidden gem, this small, violently sky blue, bohemian-chic bar has been outed like a Republican senator in an airport bathroom. While it still retains it's unassuming facade with only a small placard saying "Private Members Only," on any given weekend night, this place is packed with tourists, douchey expats, and douchey expat tourists.
Despite it being effectively Hong Kong's worst kept secret, FB still tries to maintain it's members only image by asking for a "Membership Card" before they fill your order, an inane practice since if you don't have a FB Membership Card, any form of ID will do: Georgia driver's license? OK! Diner's Club card. Um... OK! Basically, if you have the money to buy their drinks, you're a member of the club. The only thing more obnoxious than a members only club is the pretension of being a members only club.
The people combined with the bar's fake air of exclusivity and very real air of self satisfaction would make this place an instant write off it it weren't for the fact that they serve perhaps the most delicious strawberry daiquiris in all of Hong Kong...nay, dare I say it? The world.
The lighting in this photo is pretty bad. I'm fairly certain that the lights at FB were purposefully kept just above a low flicker probably to make the douchey clientele look more attractive to one another. Each pomello sized glass is dipped lavishly with cocoa powder and filled with a frothy smoothie of fresh strawberries and rum. Each mouthful was like tasting spring tinged with chocolate kisses. It was absolutely delicious.
Jamie and I gleefully lapped up the cocoa powder at the edges of our glasses like children who broke into the jam jar until our mouths were covered with chocolate. When I was in elementary school, I once read a book called The Search for Delicious where a boy sets off to find what epitomizes delicious is. At the end, the boy discovered delicious to be "a drink of cold water on a hot day." I'm fairly certain he came to this conclusion because he'd never had FB's strawberry daiquiris.
TOTALLY UNRELATED BUT AWESOME AND BLOGWORTHY FOOD PHOTO FIND
3. The Hello Kitty Cupcake
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
on mini objects: hk trip pt. 2
I love mini objects to an almost obsessive extent where I fear I may become one of those crazy cat ladies who lives by herself in an apartment lined with menageries filled with tiny things.
Aside from being full of mini old people, J and I managed to find a couple more mini things during our trip to Hong Kong:
1. Mini guns that shot mini plastic bullets that we bought from a street vending machine. After we bought them, the rest of our day was filled with us firing shots at one another on the bus, in restaurants and on the streets. At one point, we put on sunglasses and tried to shoot them at each other's eyes. We were like children. Massive 25+ year old children.
2. A mini toilet in the women's bathroom in a mall somewhere in Hong Kong called "the peak." It came up to our knees. Squeee!
Aside from being full of mini old people, J and I managed to find a couple more mini things during our trip to Hong Kong:
1. Mini guns that shot mini plastic bullets that we bought from a street vending machine. After we bought them, the rest of our day was filled with us firing shots at one another on the bus, in restaurants and on the streets. At one point, we put on sunglasses and tried to shoot them at each other's eyes. We were like children. Massive 25+ year old children.
2. A mini toilet in the women's bathroom in a mall somewhere in Hong Kong called "the peak." It came up to our knees. Squeee!
Monday, March 9, 2009
on bus stations and running through airports: hk trip pt. 1
After being in China for over 3 years, I took my very first trip to Hong Kong last weekend with J. In an effort to save money, we convinced ourselves it would be a good idea to go to Hong Kong via Shenzhen. It was not a good idea. It wasn't even a bad idea. It was perhaps the worst idea ever. In saving what ended up amounting to less than $100 total we spent over 16 hours traveling (round trip) in one of the most circuitous routes ever.
Three highlights from the journey there and back again. One there and two back again.
1. THERE: The stop over in mystery city en route between Shanghai and Shenzhen.
We were made to get off the plane (the only one in the entire airport apparently) and wait in a one room building that resembled a bus station:
The state of the art flight board:
2. BACK AGAIN: Running at full speed, pell mell, family-in-Home-Alone-2-Lost-in-New-York style, through the Shenzhen airport after getting off at the wrong terminal with only 40 minutes to check in and board our flight.
We made it, panting and sweating only to sit on a plane that was delayed on the runway for 20 min. To add insult to injury, in between us sprinting from our bus (OHHHH yes, we took a bus from HK to Shenzhen, we are SOOOO cheap...) to terminal A to terminal B to gate 2 to plane seat 35 D/E, neither J nor I got any food prior to our 10pm flight and as the adrenalin slowly drained from our systems we started to realize just how hungry we were. So hungry that when the Air China snack trolley rolled by, we both actually cried, "WHEEE!" at the sight of these:
They tasted about how they looked but we ate them anyways. By God we ate them... and then drank tomato juice pretending it was tomato soup. Sad.
3. BACK AGAIN: Getting locked in at the Pudong International Airport.
The Pudong airport in Shanghai is a major aviation hub in Asia occupying a 40 kilometer square site. It's sends off and lands in an average of 60 million passengers a year and provides the world's first commercial high-speed maglev service to downtown Pudong in 7 minutes and 20 seconds. It is big, it is new, it is shiny and it is supposedly open 24 hours a day.
Last night J and I learned an important lesson about airports: just because one is "open," it does not necessarily mean it is functioning as we found ourselves, plus 300 other Air China, passengers locked inside Pudong Airport.
After 20 minutes of calling people within the airport and being assured that someone would be there "right away," the crowd decided to take matters into their own hands and in a scene worthy of Lord of the Flies should it have been set within the confines of an airport, anarchy broke loose:
Amidst the crowd came cries of, "Don't, don't! Too dangerous!" someone climbed up onto the railing in a futile attempt to climb over the glass wall. Fueled by the first man's subversive spirit, another rallied the crowd to yell for help in the vain hopes that if we made enough noise, the airport had to notice.
Man: "ONE! TWO! THREE!"
Crowd: "SAVE US AHHHH!"
Man: "ONE! TWO! THREE!"
Crowd: "SAVE US AHHHH!"
Man: "ONE! TWO! THREE!"
Crowd: "SAVE US AHHHH!"
On the second round of yelling for help, someone (or maybe multiple people) kicked the door open with brute force.
Crowd: "YAYYYYYY!"
We all surged out in one heady swoosh and ran for the exit but alas, the freedom was a false one. In between us and freedom stood a row of customs desks flanked by confused but stony faced custom officials. Some of our 300 tried to pass only to be rebuffed by officials since our flight was not an international one. J and I broke about fifty international flight laws by claiming we had come in on an international flight hoping to get in on the merit of our foreign passports. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Unfortunately neither her nor I are very good liars and were similarly turned away. The fleeting sweetness of freedom pricked even sharper in the face of this bitter defeat.
In the 60 minutes that ensued J and I saw one man pounding at the fire alarm, grown men kicking things like 4 year olds losing it at the grocery store, a group of smokers sullenly smoking in the middle of the terminal, people running up the down escalator (ok, ok, me and J running up the down escalator...) and a lot of angry people yelling at various officials. In a crisis you really start to realize how the majority of people are, at their core, all the same. Despite the yelling people being from obviously disparate groups in terms of age, dress and social hierarchy, they screamed the same five words/phrases: asshole, ridiculous, one hour wait, you ARE responsible, I'm going to get you fired as if they had rehearsed for this moment their entire lives. Once they had exhausted their five thoughts, they started over and repeated the list in a slightly different order, their voices rising an octave with each successive remuneration. Once in awhile someone would think of a new insult and the others would quickly add it to their repertoire of verbal barbs.
While it was easy, at the start, to feel bad for the hapless airport attendees, none of which were actually at fault for putting us in this situation, as the minutes dragged by we felt less and less sympathetic. Towards the end I was filled a gleeful stab of malicious pleasure every time I heard a new abusive epithet hurled. Finally, one official led the crowd back to our original holding pen. The door on it had closed, ironically keeping us out from the very place where we were trying to break out from just an hour prior.
A group of enterprising passengers, high on presumably on righteous anger, attacked the glass door yelling, "GIVE US THE PIN CODE OR WE'LL TEAR DOWN THIS DOOR!" and then, just when I thought things could not get more surreal, I watched as the guard lean down to his walkie talkie and say this to the person on the other end, "Hurry up and give me the code or the crowd will tear this door down." World goes insane, the mob rules supreme. A reply came back crackly and indistinguishable from the other end but it was too late, the door few open with a crack and bang and all 300 passengers flooded into the pen where they had once flooded out.
The culprit to all of this? Someone had opened up the international corridor rather than the domestic one. The domestic corridor door was pried opened and we ran towards freedom laughing like madmen. Finally at 2am, I sat with J in a cab watching the lights of the Pudong airport fade behind us. Welcome home.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
ridiculous conversations when taken out of context
In reference to this post on CSMB on this phenomenom, below is a snippet from the conversation that ensued. Snippet being way more entertaining when taken as snippet vs when read in the context of the overall conversation:
sammy6000: but i dont have a donk
D: lame
sammy6000: :-(
I know
I could make one and we could take it with us to a normal night at shelter
sammy6000: but i dont have a donk
D: lame
sammy6000: :-(
I know
I could make one and we could take it with us to a normal night at shelter
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
please buy this for me
Combining my two great loves: chocolate and sharpening pencils, I saw this and immediately "OOOHHHH'ed" way too loudly while working at my office.
"Chocolate-Pencils is the product of a collaboration pairing Japanese architect and designer Oki Sato with patissier (and Iron Chef champion) Tsujiguchi Hironobu, the man behind Tokyo's boutique dessert shops Mont St. Claire and Le Chocolat de H." Coolhunting.com
Monday, March 2, 2009
new home
Ahhhh, the early days of March. Despite the (still) dreary weather, I'm keeping the faith alive that this month will be way better than the last. Considering the fact that February totally kicked my ass, it shouldn't be too hard a goal to reach. New month, new changes. First and foremost, I have moved accounts, departments and desks. I'm back to Accounts working on Coca Cola (Atlanta holla back!). New account = new desk or in my case, my old desk back on the 4th floor next to the illustriously mean spirited Jenn Wong.
I spent the majority of the morning redecorating my old desk or "nesting" as Jenn oh so cleverly commented. Everything has been put into it's original place, although my mini food collection has expanded quite a bit over the last few months I was up on the 5th floor and I seem to have accumulated a kind of unhealthy number of wooden magnets. Anyways, I'm all moved in and ready to rock it.
Our friend Yaya has made the switch to Accounts and has moved down to our table for six as well. It's all girls at the table except for Sosuke, a Japanese planner prone to sarcasm and the occasional (and totally awesome) ranting emails written in all caps. As a result, the 4th floor today has been filled with an abnormal amount of gossip followed by cackling. Queen bee!
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