Breakfast at Liffany's

Here is a beautiful breakfast spread arranged by my dear friend L. So pretty and civilized! Now we can chat over tea and jam and jelly in our faux British accent! So, how do you do?

Food Glamour Shots

Food pictures from this weekend; as you can tell the macro setting of the camera was in overdrive!






After all this, L's friend said I must have tape worms, because it is physically impossible for a little petite woman to eat this much and remain skinny, and when I answered in the negative, she said then I must have a tape snake! Ahhhh! So unfair, some people just have high metabolism!

Zzzzzzz...

Hello all! Not much to report lately, going to DC tomorrow, really need a change in scenary. Too bad I missed the cherry blossoms there. So pretty. In the mean time, I am gonna catch some zzzzzsss... Note to self: remember to tuck in the fluffy tail...

My neighborhood coffee place...

Only if I were still a student, I'd be able to take afternoons off, grab a cup of hot chocolate, read a book, and watch people come and go...besides the barrista is kinda cute, hehe...

Yep, that's the antique typewriter I use to type out all my mystery novels while I sip on the hot chocolate... The Adventures of Cat the Detective! The first installment -- Murder in West Los Angeles! I am looking for a publisher and I am sure it will appear on Amazon soon...

Freedom from Want

I was bored today so I went and opened up all the usual shopping sites and as I stared at the screen, I realized there is nothing I need and nothing I want. I've got everything... reminded me of this Rockwell painting -- Freedom from Want. But unlike these people, I would never turn my head away from food, weirdos...

My Heart's Yearning...

A village by the river, plow the land, cook, eat together in the court yard, have family, raise kids... after dinner, sit outside and chat with neighbors...simpler times...a world lost forever...

Limestone Pinnacles line the Li River
George Steinmetz/National Geographic Image Collection at www.nationalgeographic.com

Happier Times...

Pretty photos from a trip to an area in Yunnan Province that borders T11bbeet... sigh, why can't we all get along?

Colorful T11beetan prayer flags in the wind... so pretty!

Inside a T11beetan Monastery -- I was kind of embarrassed to disturb the monks so I took a picture of an empty hallway.

T11beetan women selling stuff..

Large prayer pagoda

Meili Snow Moutain -- with T11beetan prayer pagodas in the foreground.

Chinglish... the story continues...

I am all for plain English, but eh... can we be a little subtle here...

Don't get the wrong impression, didn't take this picture, didn't have to get my posterior examined, hehe... it's been floating around the web for awhile now.

The End of Innocence

Gasp! I stumbled across these on the net. Dr. Seuss drew racist anti-Japanese propaganda pictures during WWII. How could you Dr. Seuss! Most Asian people don't have super slanty eyes and bunny teeth! (No offense BF.) Can you believe in anyone any more these days? Even Dr. Seuss caved into racial stereotypes. There goes the last drop of my innocence...

The caption says: waiting for the signal from home... oh now I know what fifth column means...

No explanation needed...

Ahhh, the warm and fuzzy feeling...

Finally a warm day here in LA... what has the weather god been thinking? We are not polar bears you know... anyway, given the splendid weather, I looked outside and did a quick survey of my territory.

Traffic going about its business

Rich people playing golf

Shoppers walking in the mall

Lunchgoers, well, eating lunch

Eh, same old, nothing's changed, just another day in Lalaland...

Where was Cat?

Where was this picture taken? When Cat was being swallowed by amoebae? HEEEEEEELP!

NOOO...It's my little Catmobile getting a bath!

Happy B-Day!

Happy Birthday dear H! We all had a great time at Takami and Elevate. One word of advice though, the ice bucket is for ice, not to be used as a helmet :-P

The infamous ice bucket/helmet glowing in the dark...

Russian Soup

Russian Soup (or 羅松湯 in Chinese) is a childhood favorite of mine. Prior to 1949, Shanghai had a large foreign population, including approximately 25,000 Russians. A Russian man, his Chinese wife and their two daughters even lived in the same apartment building as my family. They moved back to Russia after the Communists took over China, though I doubt Stalin Russia was any better. I hope they didn't end up in the gulags, scary times. Anyhow, Russian Soup somehow caught on in Shanghai and bacame a staple of Shanghainese homecooking.

These are the ingredients: a few potatoes, half a dozen or so tomatoes, one large onion, cabbage and beef, cut everything into 3/4 inch cubes or squares.

The cooking part could not be simpler:
1. Quickly boil the beef in hot water and rinse (I do this to get rid of impurities)
2. Combine beef and potatoes and add water
3. When 1/2 way cooked, add onions, cabbage and tomato
4. Cook a little more and it is ready, season anyway you want, I usually put a little salt and pepper

The beauty of this dish is it stays well, you can leave it in the fridge, or freeze it and it tastes as yummy as the day it was made...

Here are a few pictures of Shanghai in the 1920s-30s -- a little bit of cultural background to the European origin of this "Shanghainese" dish.

The Bund

Nanking Road

Siberian Fur Store on Bubbling Well Road

Boot Camp Update II

I am on the verge of getting expelled from Boot Camp -- got there 10 minutes late, forgot to bring dumb bells, jogged half way and stopped, met my camp mates at the finishing line and waved at the instructor ... a host of sins, oh well... hmmm, time to get myself a big fat breakfast burrito, yay!