Wantons, Actually.

I sacrificed two nights of sleep for my very first dinner party, that is, my very first attempt to cook a full meal for loved ones here in L.A. One night worried stiff that it would be a disaster and everyone would be left starving or poisoned, another night ecstatic over its success. Samuel-ah, eggplants missed you so much!

I added fried wantons as the staple dish last minute, and spent 4 hours making all fifty of them in the kitchen. Blasting Dizzee Rascal's newest album on my ipod and with both the fan and air-conditioning blowing at me, I had a screwed up 'Eat Drink Man Woman' moment remembering my beloved mother making these dumpling dishes for us ever so often. How she manages to always make everything herself including even the dumpling wrappers beats me; the filling itself took me nearly two hours to prepare. But these are the magical ingredients: tofu, mushrooms, carrots, bak choy, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and lots of garlic... and voila! After I test-drove the first four wantons -- the trick is not to overfry them and expose the fillings -- I could have almost cried. Yes, the myth that Shao cannot make anything more elaborate than eggs or oatmeals could be said to be challenged. My party was becoming a reality!

And so were my pimples; human skin have to give way to perfectly golden wanton ones. From the arrival of the first guests to the last, I was more or less stuck in the kitchen making the last preparations: the spicy eggplants, spicy tofu and of course, the wantons themselves. The kitchen is of course, always ironically the place of starvation for the cook. The happier I was as the night went by looking at my fed guests, the hungrier I became. Luckily I am as fast an eater as I am with my wine glasses.

Would I do this again? Undoubtedly yes! Hopefully the next time with more finesse and less pimples. The party accomplished what I really set out to do: to stuff friends with "tasties" in lieu of everything they have done for me in making L.A. my second home, and become the Auntie-ah I've always wanted to be, constantly telling her guests to "eat more, eat more!"

Cliché, Well-Oiled

Seriously, I love stepping on the gas and hearing the sound of that engine. But guess this addiction only lasts till I get the LA freeways on its regular setting, i.e. as "parking lots" as Hector calls it.

More Cheerful Things

Even though my summer paycheck is still one month late, I've gotta keep up with the sun here.

Finally a real drawer unit complete with coasting wheels and all for my room + sleeker shelving/media unit for our living room + fun driving lessons with Hector ("Don't give me sushi stops")the Argentinian driving instructor + Nian Nian crisis has come to a détente now + dinner party on Saturday = onwards to eggplant paradise.

I cried over the phone and told him I would kill myself if they ever send Nian Nian away. And I fucking mean it.

Okra and Parsley Run Away from School

I planted the bags in someone else's car last Sunday. And remembered, how four years ago you said the seeds, dead in a paper bag, were symbolic of our Real.

Echo wächst vor jedem Worte
Wie ein Sturm vum offnen Orte
Hämmert es durch unsre Pforte
[Echo grows with every word/Like a storm from open places/It is hammered to our doors](qtd. in Derrida, Politics of Friendship 167).

Mucho L.A

So I've left my love behind and am back in the land of automobiles and palm trees, which will accordingly all be christened Nian Nians. "It's even worse this time," I warned Lindsay, "they don't even have to be white, fluffy or sprightly." Heck, Nian Nian is a Kantian Idea (not yet Hegelian).

Cathay Pacific Airway's vegetarian food is awesome: sticky rice and dim sum for breakfast, hor fun and mushrooms for dinner. But if I had known this was the price for the loss of my luggage, I would have hurled it all out, together with whatever all other passengers ate. Fortunately, they returned it within two days. Meanwhile, I made my temporary nest at Eddie's, which was wonderfully crowded after more than two months of skype and long-distance calls. While he went to work, I made my way to Universal Studios for some reading, only to buy a Lamb Chop soft toy back for myself. Yes, my brain is still fried from laksa, spicy eggplants and nian nian lovesicking. Tomorrow after I finally lug myself back to the apartment for major summer-cleaning and unpacking, I shall attempt to devise plans of running away from school while sipping my bloody marys at Cha Cha with the rest of the kids.

Sardines, Sardines!

Obviously I have learnt nothing from traveling all these years, especially not from the big move to LA (all 70kg of it) last August.

Looking at my already over-packed suitcase, half of which were clothes I brought back and which I hardly wore, last year was like a failed rehearsal in all senses of a "full-dress."

I wear fish.