Yes, I Made Them

Japanese Mackerel boiled on a bed of sea salt with a squeeze of lemon - perfect with a glass of fume blanc. Many thanks to Andrew for his generosity.




Morning Pastries baked with help from the Pillsbury's dough boy, so can't really claim this as my creation. No time to play with yeast. I'll try making them with my bread machine next time.

Everyday Quiche made with leftover crab meat, spinach, and mushroom. Helpful hint: always keep pre-made pie doughs in the freezer. They come handy.





Dutch-Oven Roasted Pork Stew slowly roasted in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour.







Edible Gifts are ideal to show appreciations - made from the heart.







Mussels with White Wine Sauce easy to make yet looks and tastes totally gourmet.







They're actually pretty good, believe it or not.

So We Like to Drink and Eat

Dummies for Wine: Thanks to Sandra's generosity, we always have plenty of new wine tastings at our parties. But, nope, we have never become sophisticated wine drinkers - heck, we don't even know how to describe the tasting properly, just good, yummy, woo, wow, ahh, light, buttery, cool, this is soooo good, and give me more - but we always have loads of fun and that's what counts.

Just Desserts: Julie always signs up for bringing desserts and she always goes all out. She did good again this year (summer party, 8/25/07). THREE fabulous looking desserts to complete the fun. No surprise that the cakes were all gone, not a scrap left. What do you expect with 30 tummies that somehow stayed hungry even after shrimp cocktail, smoke salmon and cheese, french breads, garlic breads, pot stickers, egg rolls, chicken nuggets, fruits, salads, hot dogs, meatballs, 15 pounds of BBQ meat, 1 huge red snapper, 2 dozens of krispy kreme donuts, shaved ice, sodas, beers, coffee......

Thank you Sandra, Julie, Sandy, Julia, Linda, Patty, Robert and families!!! This is the good life.

A Wedding Toast

My 2-second fame: Patrick and Julia got married on 8/11 and my Flickr photo album of their wedding day was featured in Julia's blog (see her 8/15 blog). Wow! Who would have thought my name would appear in an award-winning blog. Thank you, thank you very much!

Check out their wedding story at http://www.modernmuse.blogspot.com.

Out of the 200 guests, I only knew a few. So naturally the photos were taken from an egocentric angle. It was more about ME and my buddies having a good time at the wedding. How about the others? Yes, the bride and the groom had a great time too.

Happy life, Patrick and Julia!

Hello New Paltz

My second NY visit in June: Brian was so sweet. He offered to pick me up at JFK and wanted to show me his city, New Paltz. Little did I know that New Paltz is far far away in upstate New York.

It took Brian and Terry 3 hours to get to the airport and it took us another 2.5 hours to go back. I had an hour flight delay and Brian got lost in lower Manhattan so by the time we got to New Paltz, it was about 10:00pm. After a late supper and a night tour through the sleeping town, we got to their house around midnight.

I saw closed shops and dark houses.

The place was quiet and calm. Ahhh... so tranquil. But when I learned that we would have to leave around 5:15 am in order for me to be back in Manhattan by 8:15am, I rattled the place!

What? A 3-hour drive? Briiiaaaaaan, why didn't you say so?

The morning was beautiful though. I had my first good look of their house and the surrounding. It was like being in a park. The morning sun was already out and birds were chirping away. These pictures were taken around 5am on the property.

The drive back to Manhattan was longer than the evening before because of the morning traffic. Oh, I missed my 20-minutes BART ride!!

Brian wanted to pick me up and take me back to New Paltz again after work because I didn't get to see anything the night before. Huh? What Brian? Are you out of your mind?? Are you thinking of going home and coming out in the afternoon and going back and out again in the morning??

What's wrong with that picture? Should I stay at my hotel that was right next to the office building? Do fish drink water?

Until next time, New Paltz.

Take It As Is

Black coffee: dark, rich and distinctive. The first sip has to be just right - piping hot, fresh, strong, unsweetened, and no burned smell or metallic taste. Ahh… a good sip means a good day.

Why black coffee? I had to go back to when I was 16 years old when I should have been drinking hot chocolate at that age. It wasn’t by choice. Hot chocolate was not served at this fish and bait shop by Galileo High. I went there every morning before class to get something hot to chase away the chills. And what was I doing at Galileo High? I was crazy to take an early morning BASIC/COBL computer programming class that summer when I could have and should have played lazy. And Galileo High was by the piers and wasn’t even that close to home. What was I thinking?

Anyway, back to black coffee… the fish and bait shop never seemed to have cream and sugar. I guessed the fishermen didn’t care about that. Gulp it down and out to the sea. In the beginning I would always ask the weathered owner for cream, and the answer was always a baritone NO. ”Sugar?” I would asked next hoping for the next best thing, but the answer was still NO.

Instead of walking out, I joined the fishermen and took my coffee black. By the end of the summer class, I was one of them!

Talk about a coffee experience… Beat that, Starbucks!