Musings on a First Day

I'm back in NYC for the moment, and it is 8:47 am. I don't have much time before I have to go into the shower and then fix myself up to look professional before heading off for my shift. Yeah. It is my first official day of real work of sorts. Oh, I didn't get a job per se...I'm volunteering at a film festival/market here in New York City and there's a bunch of industry people around so we were carefully instructed to look professional and act professionally. I didn't give it much thought until this morning that it actually feels like a real job and now I'm kind of nervous to tell you the truth. Not because I can't do it. Quite on the contrary...I've been professional before to great success...it is more about having to do it for a 6-hour shift. All the jobs I've had I've basically gotten at places where my parents have friends on staff so I already knew someone and felt at ease. This is a completely new experience, where I have to impress everyone because nobody knows me. In proper business clothes (which aren't the most comfortable thing on the planet I think). Scary. Very scary.
On other notes, I've been back up in the town where my college is (up in the middle of the scenic Hudson Valley) visiting some friends who are still at college, J (from Pinapple Tacos) and my best friend N (who I've mentioned quite a few times in this blog). It was an incredibly eventful, dramatic, complicated, but ultimately satisfying trip I think. There were a lot of things that needed airing that got aired and I was finally able to really let go of some baggage I've been carrying about for a while. It feels fantastically liberating. But it was good to see J and N and some of my old professors. I got a slew of compliments from my professors (they all think I'm very brave, doing well...taking all the risks...haha...I don't know. I don't feel brave. I just feel like I'm doing what I need to be doing. I feel like I'm doing the right thing to do for me at the moment) and cooked Squash Dumplings (饺子) with my friend Si Si. J and I went to the pub one night and watched Cowboy Beebop while taking the leafs off dry mint stems in the company of his roommate (who is also really awesome). I went on long walks in the woods with N and had a Batman marathon (yes, we watched some Adam West Batman...oh God....) and stayed up all night talking.
Right now I am at M's house. Musing. Musing at M's house...haha.
It is good to see old friends. It is always good to think about them.

Categories: college, film, J, M, N, New York, work

Foodie Central

I found it.
It is in San Francisco!
I went there the other day and did the sightseeing tour (the downtown loop and the loop that goes through the Golden Gate bridge and to Sausalito). It was quite cool. I was underdressed though. Nobody told me that San Francisco temperature in September is the equivalent of temperature in the Hudson Valley around thanksgiving. A thin cardigan from Zara did NOT cut it. Especially on the Golden Gate bridge. I became an icicle with all the wind on that open-air bus. Every other tourist, however, had the sense to wear some fleece for that. I was the only stupid person without warm clothes, so I can't even attribute it to being a tourist. But after defrosting a bit across the bay in Sausalito the way back wasn't so bad. Anyways, I decided that to thoroughly complete the defrosting process and follow my tour guide's suggestion and duck into the fish market at fisherman's wharf for a good bit of clam chowder served in a San Francisco sourdough bread bowl.
Un-freaking-believably good.
Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was the coziness of the place, maybe a lot of it had to do with the fact that the sourdough from San Francisco is absolutely fantastic anyways but that's probably the best clam chowder I've ever had. It is probably even better than the stuff I had in Boston when I was visiting colleges (back in the day when I thought I'd hopefully end up at MIT rather than the place I did end up at which is a gazillion times better). Anyways, highly recommendable in my book! I of course took that meal with a nice glass of Californian white wine, straight from the Napa valley vineyards.
So after that delicious meals I wandered through the streets of Fisherman's Wharf and bought what seems to be a truckload of saltwater taffy for my brother L in about 30 different flavors and then hopped back on the bus with plans to explore the farmer's market and gourmet food market inside Ferry Building. The tour guide had spoken about the wonders of the market in that area so I decided to give it a visit. Wow. It turned out to be foodie Mecca!
First of all, there's a spectacular kitchen supply store in there which helped me populate my imaginary apartment with the most fantastic kitchen gadgets I could ever want. Including a bright green KitchenAid food processor, a number of quality pots and pans and utensils, and classy wine glasses. Of course, this is all still only in my imaginary apartment but a girl can dream, eh?
After extricating myself from the wonders of the kitchen supply store, I wondered down through the market to see what else was around and browsed through a vegan doughnut shop (I'm not vegan, but it's really cool to see everything that's available for people who have dietary restrictions - I have a number of food allergies and eat mostly vegetarian so I always appreciate it when places find ways to make their vegetarian selections of food interesting), a Californian wine shop (if only my luggage weren't already dangerously near the airline weight limit...), and a traditional Chinese tea shop! I hadn't seen one of those since I was in Qingdao and I remember really enjoying them. A well-brewed pot of tea is really something else, and so I was happy to discover that they do serve tea on the premises (as opposed to only selling the leaves). The Pu'er tea I had there allowed me to sit and enjoy the beverage while writing in my journal for a good hour. One gloriously blissful hour. At the end, I bought some loose-leaf pu'er and walked out of there refreshed and ready to keep going. And that's when I found the cheese store. As M will attest to, cheese stores are particularly dangerous for me because I will not leave without buying something. I love love love cheese. In this store I found the creamiest, freshest chevre goat cheese I've ever had. I bought about $3 worth and decided that would be my dinner.
After that, I hopped back onto the downtown loop and went back to the fisherman's wharf. I wandered into a Gap and then caught the night tour and got off at Union Square. To kill some time, I went into Macy's and found my way to the Esteé Lauder counter. Esteé Lauder is the only kind of cosmetics I will use and like. And I'm a third-generation customer (my mother and grandmother use it). I really wanted another color of eyeshadow because I only own two colors (cinnamon and ginger drop) and while they are very good, I've been thinking about mixing my look up a bit, especially now that I have to do business meetings and everything. I asked for some advice at the counter and as usual, they were absolutely fantastic. It is one of the things I really love about them: the salespeople are always super friendly and helpful. I left the counter with a new eyeshadow color (I think it is called emerald green), some concealer, and a refill of the eye cream my mom wears for her. I know I sound like an ad for them, but I'm not much of a girly person but I like that I was able to get some good advice on how to use make-up in a way that is comfortable for me with a brand that brings three generations of my family together. Haha. Ok, I'll stop talking about it.
At night, I rode the CalTrain back to Sunnyvale where my very gracious hosts picked me up. Ajit and Geeta and their sons Anish and Arjun are some of the sweetest, nicest people I've met. And they cook such fabulous Indian food. I ate so so so much good authentic Indian food while I stayed with them. I also bonded with their young sons - especially with Anish who at the end of my visit proclaimed me as being really cool (I played a lot of soccer and flight simulator with him) and hoped that I would come back and visit them again soon. I also promised them that I would someday make a film suitable for kids so that they could watch it. So cute! :D
Anyhoo, I have to get back to business.
Until next post!

Categories: cheese, foodie, sourdough, tea

Smart Car

I want it.
When I have $$$, after getting an apartment, I am getting myself one.
Our love affair goes back 9 years....



I can already imagine myself going ZOOM! :D

Categories: car, smart car, zoom

What the hell is a Melon Berry?

So I've been milling about several airports today (read: I spent an awful 6 hours killing time at Miami-Dade International Airport...my favorite airport in the world! NOT.) and so I spent a lot of time browsing magazines and deciding whether or not getting candy was a good idea. This made me come across with some candy flavors that aren't real fruits at all.
Can someone explain to me what the hell a melon berry is and what it is doing in the Skittles Very Berry pack? Oh nevermind. I googled it. It turns out it is a kind of Mullberry. However, the flavor from the Skittles pack tastes like actual melon, which leads me to believe that the people who make Skittles are making fruits up. Or think melons are berries.
Other two flavors that peeved me (and usually do):
(1) Blue raspberry - again, what on Earth is a BLUE RASPBERRY??? I'm sure that it's one of those things when it is actually just raspberry-flavored but they ran out of colors because berries are all the same color more or less so they decided to make raspberry blue...but why not make it blue and just say it is raspberry? A raspberry's true color is closer to blue than
(2) Pineapple Passionfruit Skittles that are BLUE. What the hell? Neither Pineapple nor Passionfruit are BLUE. I would not eat a blue pineapple or passionfruit. If a pineapple or passionfruit is blue, it is probably overrun by bacteria and thus should not be consumed. Just my two cents on that one.
Anywhoo, had to rant about that one. Weird flavors like that get on my nerves. Shrimp-flavored chips in China I can accept. I can even accept the even more bizarre lychee-flavored chips (why you would want a potato to taste like lychee is beyond me but whatever), but making fruits up is a whole other set of weirdness.

Categories: candy, miami airport, skittles