Back from Vacation

Finally back from my long vacation from blogging. There had been a lot going on during the last post I did. I went on a path of a self-realization and self-reflection. There were many times during break that i wanted to update the blog, but the little lazy dark-winged figure told me hold off for more brownie supplies before I resume the blogging.

I found out that I am not as young as I used to be. I found out the hard way by playing basketball. Brain was there to do the ordering, but the muscles refused to move, as it fell in love with the new immigrants called fat. well, not totally new, just comparative to the relationship that my brain and muscles had. This new relationship ended tragically the next day like Romeo and Juliet. I was barely moving with body aches all over.

I also had my first serious sickness in the last few years. The last time I had same degree severity was during the phase known as Alison Allergies(A^2). This time wasn't about the allergy though. It was my poor shiny head unable to adjust to the PMS weather changes. The sickness wasn't pretty. It started off with sore throat and turn into heavy coughing and yucky stuff. At one point, i even saw trace of blood. Good thing, it went away after. Took me nearly 2 weeks to recover. I am definitely getting old or maybe I needed a new supply of immunity from street food in tw.

In terms of food aspect, I have successfully reverse-engineered two new pasta recipes with some my personal kinks to them. I will post them up afterwards if i ever find the elusive digital camera.

There are two weddings I attended during the break, more details are coming up in the following entries with my personal in depth insights to the darkest secrets of the grooms and brides.

Day of Revisiting Lost Youth

This is a recollection of my memory a few weeks ago. I have been really busy finding excuses and activities to write this down :P

Few weeks ago, on a beautiful sunday afternoon, a rare treat in the winter of Vancouver, a call awoke me from my sweet afternoon nap; my brothers asked me to enjoy the sunshine in Stanley Park. With long negotiation and hard struggles, I was forked out of my comfy bed and into the chilling sea breeze.

My captors were right. It was a wonderful day to be out in the open. With windows down and 70's chinese songs(鄧麗君) flowing in the car, my body had started to revitalize from its slumber. My friend figured that was a great way to start the afternoon and, in the same time, educate the young the goddess of chinese music history. =.=" we had a new participant today who is almost a decade younger than us. Damn.. what happened to our youth~~~~ We swore to capture that was lost, today !!

The biking started out as enjoying as the fresh scent of trees and sea water surrounding us. There were many people crawled out of their warm covers to take a peak at the incoming spring. "wow, she is gorgeous", "man, she is hot", "dang, what a nice *beep*", those were the thoughts going through my mind as I toured the seawall of Stanley Park; biking had become a very difficult task to master with all these distractions. Am I getting this desperate or spring is really coming?! I quickly crossed that out of my head as I rode towards the incoming tree. The result of my "super shoulder check" almost ended in utter humiliation. Nevertheless, with these pretty eye candies around me, it was rather hard to learn from the mistake few minutes ago. Man, I need help!!

English Bay was lively as ever; the winter did not seem to affect the crowd at all. We stopped for a breather and decided to go visit Granville Island for the last hour stretch of our tour. Out of nowhere, the smell of delicious smokies had interrupted our group huddle. I swear those damn hot dog stands are evil!!! They know, when and where to stand, to cloud your judgment into buying their food. With the clock ticking and a long lineup of hot dog slaves, we had no choice, but to give up on such atrocious seduction.

We sped down the coastline and up the steep hill, in order to cross the Burrard Bridge. Our age had begun to catch up to our willing spirit. Everyone was panting, sweating, and losing will to go on. Aaah.. my legs sore... my back hurt..... can't breath..... but must go on.... sweet fish and chips, oyster burger and a nice glass of beer is waiting for me on the other side of the bridge. My foody sense is tinkling~~ they are close~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time and aching body were not on our side. We had to settle with the nearby Starbucks. I did rejuvenate myself with a cup of "grante extra hot latte", my daily shot of stimulant. I felt like a stim-packed marine, ready to go, "ooh yeah..." The effect, however, did not last for long. The stupid Burrard Bridge was harder to ride through than imagined. We raced through the streets and cross-walks like one of those Indy 500 games. We arrived at the bike shop with 20 seconds to spare. phew~~~ almost lost another 10 bucks from being over time. The result was rather fatal. Everyone could barely walk. We must had looked like four recently risen zombies, dragging our feet back to the car.

In the end, we did regain our lost youth for a few moments at the cost of sore muscle pain and inability to move in the next few days, but it was worth the effort.

Mission accomplished!!

- Feb 24, 2008

Wii-ly of "Three Box Boys" Squad

Sunday breakfast @ IHOP

There are things that if you don't do usually, it is probably a good idea not to do them. For example, having breakfast early on a sunday morning at IHOP was one of them. It was a bright and shiny morning. I dragged my ass painfully out of my warm comfortable bed and prepared for something I don't usually do... Early Breakfast on weekend. After the emotional struggle, I got out and was happy that I am going to be on time. In fact, I was 'early' according to the taiwanese gathering tradition. When I went up to the lovely front desk personnel and asked for seats of 9 people, the waiter replied me with something that totally shocked and destroyed my morning. "How many kids seats would you like to have?" *dun dun dum(as the music plays)* I was sent to the dark abyss of my shiny despair. =.=" The waiter stared at me for about 5 seconds before I could recover from the trauma. "none?!", that marks the end of an awkward conversation and my happy sunday morning. *sigh.....*

Anyways, the breakfast was rather pleasant with spectacular insights into human physiology. We talked from automated needle treatment of chinese medicine to ingredients of chocolate fondue. One of the girls claimed that chocolate goes well with chinese meatball, as well as chinese sausage. That inflamed a debate of salty food vs sweet sauce. There were some very disturbing instances of actual marketable combination, such as strawberry jam with sausage. One of the girls even recommend, from personal experience, peanut better and rice. The awe of human creativity and stomach susceptibility bring to the end of my delightful sunday brunch.

Happy Valentine's Day: Me and My Steak!!

~My Beautiful Work~

Today's Menu: Roasted Vegetables, Spinach & Tomato Pasta, and Steak

Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone~~~

After a long day of sending out Anti-Valentine's threats to my fellow couples, I decided make myself a well deserved dinner. Cheers!! Glory to Anti-Valentine Federation!!! and Damn you stupid Lovers~~ Booooo~~~~

With the hate out of my system, it seems like this year's Valentine's rather depressing. Many of my friends aren't celebrating it or having trouble deciding what to do. Could this be the aftermath of last year's year-end massive break-up terror? It's a troubling time for people in love. Perhaps, the wedding heatwave in May will flourish those who seek love. Damn, I think I will have to attend those weddings by myself. Aaaaah that sucks.

This is Wiii-ly Wuwu reporting Live from Brownies-less Home

Daddy, that's my chicken nuggets!!!

Today's proposed schedules were rather interesting. I had offers from either photographer shopping with a soon to be married couple or Valentine's gifts shopping with a troubled friend. Neither were fun for a single guy, so I decided to sleep until my hunger awaken me. When my stomach mumblingly chanted, "food! food! food!!", I knew it was time to pay my friend Wendy's a visit.

While waiting for my not-so-fast fast food, there was this little 5 year old girl telling her dad what she wanted to have when her dad asked. She was really decisive on her meal plan, kids' meal with chocolate milkshake. Upon the arrival of her colorful kids' meal bag, with sparkling eyes, she jumped for joy and yelled "Daddy daddy, that's my chicken nuggets!!" She continued her excitement for a while with the same expression, which got me thinking about adults' definition of happiness, why adults' pleasure harder to satisfy.

To a kid, happiness can simply be a decorative paper bag filled with greasy junk food and a little plastic surprise. That little girl knew exactly what she wanted and was extremely happy with it, why can't adults do the same. What happened to us? As we grow older, our vision to our desire seems blurred and our taste for happiness seems numbed. I know a few people who struggle to find what they want and are depressed by it;I can safely say they are not the only ones on earth. With so many depressed people in the world, rich or poor, I think perhaps it is time for us to sit down, re-evaluate ourselves and get in touch with our inner child. Why get depressed by trivial matters in our daily lives or something more serious like love(or lack of it :P). Time to look for that magical paper bag. The simplest form of happiness is inside that bag and that bag can be anything around us, if only we look closely enough to discover it.

~tribute to those with broken souls

The Freezer Part 2

I was contacted by the owner of the opening joke of my freezer.
She wanted to make a come back and redeem herself with the newer and improved version of her deadly chill

問: 打開優格會看到哪一個歷史人物??

Quote from Sylviology

The Freezer

最近天氣眞冷, 一直下雪, 真是XX你的XX.

既然那麼的冷, 我想乾脆就大開我的冷凍庫讓大家一起冷一下!!

這個冷笑話是在某個秋天剛開始的時候,從一個我不太認識的女孩子考倒我的. 讓我在那無風的秋天裡感到一絲絲的寒意.... 到現在想到時,我還是會忍不住的發抖~~~~~

"Holy Bean", 請猜一部大家都知道的經典卡通? ( Especially guys)

Tribute to Sylvia of Boston

Chicken strip w/cheese filling and ZB pasta

This experimental recipe has been cooking in my mind for a while now. I decided to put it to test today.

Ingredient:
Zucchini: 1/3
Bacon: 1 strip
Chicken thigh: a few chunk? haha
Mozzarella Cheese: a few slice
Pasta of The Day: Fettuccine

I am still working on experimental procedure. I will post once I got something going.

For the chicken strips, I sliced chicken 1cm thick and sandwiched it with the cheese. I used egg and flour to stabilize the shape and seal in the flavor. I fried the chicken slightly and cook them in the oven.

For the pasta, I wanna go with something lighter. First, I stir-fried the garlic with the bacon. When the bacon is half cooked, I took the strip out and chop them into bacon bits for the color, and then throw them in with the sliced zucchini. I mix them well with the pasta and add salt and pepper to taste.

The soup of the day is French onion soup, accompany by a glass of white wine.

Lost of Soul for Brownies

Few days ago, I was presented an opportunity to obtain some devilish Brownies. Miss Devil's advocate offered me the deal for details of my illicit activities during the winter holiday break. Jan's Brownies are to die for; it is hard resist the godforsaken temptation. After few seconds of soul searching, I decided to give in to what they asked for. Even after agreement and preparation of the photographic evidences, my guilt had interrupted my sleep and forced to negotiate for a separate arrangement for the poor victims. Dear God, please have mercy on my soul. What am I supposed to do to resist such devilish temptation. My condolence to the poor for my weak will.

I curse you, Jan Chan, for baking such addictive brownies.

NooOoooooOoooooooooo ~~~~

Poor slave Wu Wu,

Shrimpy Mozzarella Pasta v1.2

Yesterday, I attempted to improve my mozzarella recipe by altering some of the ingredients and cooking order. The result was rather interesting. First, I tried to blend in the flour with hot water first and stirred into the melted butter. It didn't work out well. Once I mixed the flour with the hot butter, the flour formed little pieces of pastry-kind mixture instead of fusing with the butter. I decided to go back to the original plan with less flour, but, this time, I melted the cheese into the paste before adding milk. It was a big mistake. I don't know if I didn't have enough heat to fully melt the cheese or the cheese became little clumps(similar to first flour trial) due to the saturation. Tmd, I was rather pissed off. The sauce wasn't thick enough as well. Still need a lot of work.

With the disappointment aside, the new ingredients were quite pleasing. I decided to added 1 piece of bacon, and few slices of zucchini. First, I blasted the bacon, cut them into bits and throw them into my sauce. I used the remaining oil to cook my vegetable. Good pork fat really makes stuffs smell nice. However, my attempt to "grill" the vegetable did not work so well. Maybe I need a real grill. (cough, birthday gift? *pointing @ brownie master*) I definitely need one more pan just for the sauce. I find mixing everything at the end, makes it look kind of disgusting. :P It tasted good though. Anyways, I will post a picture next time if I manage to perfect it. I got my dish layout and camera all ready!!

The Lightbulb and I Theorem

This theorem came to me once again during my field trip to Emerald Dream. I ran across a certain memory that took place on New Year's Eve. I stayed over at a friend's house. We decided to play through the whole night, but we could not last against the sleepy eyes and fell dead on the couch. During middle of the night, my friend woke up and told me that I could sleep better on the longer couch in another room. He and his girlfriend were sleeping on the couch beside me. At that time, I was half unconscious and could not interpret the signal, so I decided to disregard the "suggestion" and kept sleeping. Until this morning, I suddenly realized what he attempted to signal me. Pretty Slow, eh? Anyways, I did a little recollection of the number of times that I "exhibit " as a 300 Watt light bulb; the result was rather staggering. Upon such alarming observation, I decide to formulate a function that describe how Shiny a light bulb can be.

B(I) = ∑ F(f,t)*k*I

B= Brightness, F(f,t) = Friend's date with frequency and time
k = Universal good guy constant, I = Mr/Miss Light Bulb Variable

Note: For those with western background, being a light bulb in a couple's date is the same thing as being the Third Wheel. Hopefully, I did not get the saying wrong.

Many of you may wonder why I put "k*I" inside the summation. From my numerous experiences in the last few years (Yes, I am an artisan Light bulb), I found out that one can improve the power and efficiency of the light bulb as the amount of dates intruded increases. For someone like myself, I can even be a light bulb when I sleep. This mastery of light bulb proficiency is rarely achieved.

If I were to seriously calculate my Brightness, I believe I posses the power equivalent to a Nuclear Powered Reactor .

What's Yours?

ps. just of the record, most of those light bulb appearances were unwillingly participated by me. I don't know how, but I always end up being the light bulb when my friends asked me out. I am the poor victim here!!

Further Insight into 1st Theorem

Yesterday, I showed my friend the launch of my new theorem. He was utterly confused with the concept and, at one point, he asked me to double check my math. =.=" I guess that being a graduate student in University of Taiwan requires a certain amount of inquisition at things unfamiliar to them. (or I think he just want to piss me off .... &#$^#$^#$%$#)

Anyways, Let's back to the main topic.

P = T*S(ƒ)²

Perspective, a point of view on a specific topic, is a function Time and Space.

Why Time? Why the specialized Space function?

Time changes how we look and feel at things in our lives. Things that used to bother me don't affect me as much anymore. Is it a type of a maturity? or just getting old and lacking energy to fight back? The passage of time changes our perspective like water drops on a rock. Each drop shapes and alters our mindset in a subtle way, but, surely in time, it will change us. Of course, there are instances where rock just split open all of the sudden. That's why we call those people EMO! or touched by the HANDS of God!! Either way, it's pretty crazy.

Space can be interpreted in two ways, physical space and space of heart. This function came to me when I notice the amount of broken hearts around me, all caused by Space. From my observation, even with a little space, people can change how they look at each other, especially lovers. This exponential growth rate seems to be a mortifying impact on our perspective, but I realize the existence of an unsettling factor that nullify the modulation. I call it, flexibility. Flexibility of the mind appears to solve the problems caused by space. If one of the lovers were willing to make the change or sacrifice for the other, the relationship could be saved. If my friend were willing move to another country for his girlfriend, or his girlfriend were willing to step down from her life dream and stayed, this heartbreak could be saved. Many things can be changed for a better tomorrow, if people were flexible. However, also the reason behind flexibility being an unsettling factor, staying flexible may not be all that wonderful; things could head to a worse direction if we don't stand firm on our belief. Only time will tell.

Life is complicated, isn't it?

Shrimpy Chicken Ravioli with white mozzarella sauce

This recipe came to realization as I wander between reality and the emerald dream. I have been experimenting with white sauce on several occasions, but I was unable to create something remotely close to an acceptable level. Hopefully, this attempt will result in something more favorable.


Ingredient: serving 1 person
Shrimp: 6 ~ 8
Red bell pepper: 1/4 ~ 1/2
Button mushroom: 1 ~ 2
Garlic: 1 clover
Salt: sprinkles
Dried Basil: sprinkles

Sauce:
Butter: 3cm of bar
Mozzarella: 2cm of bar ( they both come in a shape of bar block)
Flour: 2 tsp
Milk: 1/2 cup
Cognac: 1 tsp

Pasta:
Chicken Ravioli: amount of your liking
Olive Oil: 3 tsp
Salt: 2 tsp

Proposed Experimental Procedure:

1. Boil a pot of hot water and pour in the olive oil and salt. This is to keep the pasta from sticking to each other and an extra flavor. Cook it for about 5~10min, depending on the type of pasta. In this case, I cooked for the full 10 min.
2. While the pasta is cooking, melt the butter into a sauce pan with low heat. You don't want to burn the butter.
   
3. Slowly stir in the flour and keep stirring to make the paste look silky smooth
4. Time to add in Cognac, milk and mozzarella, slowly. The difference in the new addition will make the sauce kind of blocky. Same thing, you want to keep stirring until they melt with the sauce. sprinkle a little salt to your tasting.
   
5. Turn off heat and let it thickens.
6. Minced the garlic. Slice up the bell pepper and mushroom at size of your liking.
   
7. heat up the pan with cooking oil and medium heat. I have habit of overcooking my garlic. Once heated, throw in the garlic.
8. When the garlic looks brown, lower the heat and throw in the sliced bell pepper and stir it for a few min. It seems bell pepper requires a certain amount to burn away the raw smell and to bring out the natural sweetness.
   
9. Throw in mushroom and shrimp and sprinkles the ingredients with salts to your liking.
10. Pour in the drained pasta into the pan, and turn on the heat back up to medium to cook off the extra moisture. Sprinkles in the basil for extra flavor. Don't cook it for too long. 30sec should be ok.
    
11. Pour the sauce back into the pan and mix them well at low heat. That's it.

Result and Comment:

This time, the flavor of the creamy sauce turn out to be pretty nicely. Mozzarella really bring out its taste once heated, mild but savory. I was really surprised because I tried the cheese in its solid state and tasted like nothing. I wonder if I should have added more Cognac next time. I wasn't able to smell the fragrance of the Cognac. Aside from the flavor of the sauce, the texture of the sauce is still something that bugs me. I can still taste little sandy kind of texture in my cream sauce. Is it because I did not stir hard enough for the flour to fully blend in? or I am using the wrong type of flour? or should I use different type of medium to thicken the sauce?

Bell pepper turned out a lot better than my previous attempts. However, I was unable to bring out the same flavor as the roasted bell pepper I had at Antons. I wonder if I really have to roast the outside skin to have that kind of flavor.

I still need to work on the amount of my ingredients in a more detailed measurement. So far, I am working off a feeling. ha ha

Introduction to 1st theorem of Relative Wuthology

General Theories of Relative Wuthology is a collection of thoughts and experiments that I have gathered over the years of my unruly youth. Through countless attempts of trial and error at various obstacles in life, I have arrived at this proposition.

P = T*S(ƒ)²

Perspective varies as Time and Space fluctuate. This theory will attempt to describe the interaction between people and how variants in life change the way they perceive such connection. In a broader point of view, this theory also can be applied to many aspects of the world we live in. I hope, as time goes on, to discover new findings and to rectify my list of still incomplete General Theories of Relative Wuthology.

Will