Wendyness.com :: Journal

Preparing for Chinese New Years

// February 7th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Everyday, Photos

I spent a few hours doing Chinese New Years related stuff this weekend. Cleaning my apartment took a few hours. I have been rearranging the decor lately and it looks a lot better (more pink? hah). While inspiring, I probably need to spend less time on interior design websites and dream of the things I want to do to the apartment.. Those daydreams help though, because I get even more motivated to own my own home!

The Chinatown Chinese New Year Flower Fair is an annual stop for me, but it wasn’t as exciting as prior years. There weren’t any good food deals and not as many booths giving things out for free. I really enjoy pushing through the tight crowd of people on the streets though, it reminds me of Hong Kong.

I bought myself a small Chinese mumm potted plant and a bunch of gladiolas. Orchids also seem popular for Chinese New Year, but they’re so hard to care for.. Plus I think I’m allergic to them.

I was pretty hungry when I was in Chinatown, too, so I got some street vendor food – curry fish balls and tea egg. So delicious (and I didn’t get sick)! I’m going to make tea eggs for myself tomorrow after I find some cinnamon sticks :)

This weekend was pretty eventful and relaxing otherwise – I went to a SF Beer Week event at Millenium, a vegan restaurant. The 4 course dinner with beer pairing was quite delicious and surprisingly filled me up. I didn’t expect that from vegan food. I also went out to a housewarming party that was full of biotech people who were very friendly, intelligent and totally awesome. This reminds me that I need to pull myself away from tech more because “normal” people don’t talk about tech stuff or pull out their smart phones everywhere they go.

Roasted leg of lamb

// February 2nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Creations, Everyday, Food

Lamb is one of my favorite meats to cook because it’s one of the hardest meats to perfect. It can easily be overcooked, under seasoned (leaving a heavy gamey flavor in the meat) or poorly cut (you end up chewing through fat and muscle more than meat).

Julia Child has a few marinade recipes that work for lamb, but I think the marinade matters less than the cooking method. If you’re making an entire roasted leg of lamb, I’d suggest studding the lamb with garlic cloves – this imparts a great flavor to the meat, without being too strong. Just take a knife, stab the meat and put cloves into each hole. The garlic cloves are pretty well caramelized and edible after roasting, too! You can see the garlic cloves in the meat in this photo:

Cooking method best summed up by Simply Recipes:

Preheat oven to 425°F. Arrange two racks in the oven – a middle rack to hold the lamb, and a lower rack to hold a roasting pan with which to catch the drippings. Place the empty roasting pan in the oven while the oven is pre-heating. Note that this arrangement of racks and pans, with the roast sitting directly on the oven rack, will create a natural convection of heat in the oven, causing the roast to cook more quickly than if cooked the traditional method in a rack in a roasting pan.

Roast at 425°F for 20 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 300°F and roast an additional hour (for a 6 pound roast), about 10-12 minutes per pound.

In the lower pan, put some fingerling potatoes tossed in olive oil. The drippings will give the potatoes flavor and make the outsides crispy. These are the best potatoes I’ve ever had.

Perhaps there’s a fourth piece

// February 2nd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Everyday, Relationships

It’s often said that we seek 3 things in a mate: brains, looks and personality. Let’s break that down.

Brains is the obvious one to me. Intelligence and the ability to mentally keep on par with another in any sort of conversation is probably a key part in my friendships and relationships. I have a pretty low tolerance for stupid people, mostly because it seems like of all the things you can change about yourself, intelligence is the easiest.

Looks equate to physical attraction. Chemistry. This is pretty simple – if chemistry wasn’t a necessity, then I would be dating any one of my friends. However, I am not attracted to any of my friends.

Personality. This is the biggest variable and hardest to figure out. It takes time to get to know someone at heart, but this is what makes someone who they are. Personality is also the one thing I’m willing to be lenient on because it’s not a standard that can be measured. Just because someone has a different personality trait than you, that doesn’t make them “wrong.”

So that’s my short, analytical break down of the three areas in which I judge someone. I’ve met a lot of brains and personalities that I call good friends, a few looks and personalities that I enjoy, no looks and brains that I can recall.. But the saddest is when you meet someone who meets your standards of brains, looks and personality.. And the chemistry between the two of you isn’t there. It’s the fourth piece that is out of your control.

Then again, I sometimes wonder if my idea of attraction actually exists, or if it’s just the length of time and bond I’ve developed with someone that fools me into thinking I like them.

What are you waiting for?

// January 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Everyday

A few days ago, I woke up from a dream. I don’t remember the details of the dream, but I was in San Diego – living in my small bedroom at my parent’s house with my twin bed, cooking for the family, happy. It seemed like nothing negative had ever happened and I had never left San Diego. There was a feeling of carefree and bliss.

Then I woke up. I opened my eyes to see the shelves on the other side of the large room I was in and felt very confused. Was I sleeping at a friend’s house? I rolled a bit in my huge bed and a sinking disappointment took over. Oh. I’m in San Francisco. I am 26. This is my life.

Since then, I haven’t felt right.

It’s not that I’m unhappy with this life I have worked hard for. I kind of have it all – great job that I work hard at, awesome friends whom I love, a family that is proud of me, freedom to go on adventures with nothing holding me back.. It’s all so normal. So painfully normal and I feel like I’m waiting for something extraordinary to happen.

Even I don’t know what I’m waiting for.

So this is my wake up call. I’m going to stop waiting, I’m going to start being proactive. At the very worst, I will at least have had more experiences than I would if I were to keep waiting my life out.

“Now is not about looking for answers because we don’t yet know their meaning. Now is about living for the question and experiencing the answer.”

My question to myself is: what are you waiting for? I can live with experiencing that answer.

Japanese curry in 2 meals

// January 25th, 2010 // No Comments » // Creations, Food, Photos

My latest obsession is Japanese curry. I had it at Curry House in Cupertino and looooved it so very much. Of course, new obsession means I’m going to cook it at least a dozen times until I perfect it.

You can make Japanese curry from the S&B curry bricks or make your own curry roux base and freeze it. Either way, you’ll have curry bricks ready to melt into water for a quick meal anytime!

Above, I made a simple ground beef and onion curry over whole wheat spaghetti. I topped it with sauteed thick slices of zucchini, my favorite gourd, which is an idea I got from a Japanese curry restaurant I went to. One of the topping options was zucchini and it tasted great with the curry! This took about 20 minutes total.

Below, I had potato and onion curry over some of my leftover char siu fried rice from a few days prior. Very simple and helped me get through my leftovers.

A friendly start

// January 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Everyday, Photos, Relationships

I’ve been making a lot of friends lately. [Author's note: ahh the irony of that statement..]

Granted I have made it a point to be more open to new things, including new people, but the rapid rate at which I’m meeting cool people is rather surprising. I think I’ve met more cool people in this past weekend than I did in all of 2009.

On Friday, I decided to attend a party of a girl who lives in my neighborhood. I met her when I went on an extremely awkward date with her friend and thus kept my distance after that. I didn’t want to seem like I was being stalkerish by immediately hanging out with his friends. At the party, I met a bunch of other cool kids from my neighborhood – we all exchanged numbers or became friends on Facebook and that’s that. I’ll definitely have friends to try neighborhood restaurants with in the near future!

Saturday seemed to solidify a tentative friendship. I don’t often find myself becoming friends with someone I’ve dated, but in his case.. We seem to connect very well and I find myself feeling quite benevolent, so I gave it a try. We went to SF MoMA’s anniversary weekend showing, which was great. The architecture and design of the museum itself is a piece of art; seeing the showings on each floor inspired me to redecorate my apartment space (more to come on that in future posts!). Afterwards, we went to my friend Alex’s birthday gathering where I met his cool Russian friends. I even decided to join them at a Burning Man party at a warehouse in Oakland – and if you know me, you know how much I dislike Burners, so agreeing to go party with them was a big deal ;)

So it was a pretty good friend weekend. One common factor I noticed with the people I met this weekend is that they are all in relationships. Perhaps I get along better with people in relationships because they tend to be more mellow and confident? I always find single friends to be boring because they tend to be more interested in looking around while hanging out, rather than focusing on the moment. Anyhow, 2010 is shaping up to be a good, friendly year thus far.

Oh and if you haven’t seen my latest video upload.. Be prepared to laugh at me:

My all-inclusive resolution

// January 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // Everyday

I have a few New Year’s resolutions that I am very much enjoying in action, but I’ve decided that I have an all-inclusive resolution for 2010: not to be so sick anymore. I’ve spent the past 10 days with a terrible case of food poisoning that has led to me losing almost 10 lbs in that time. So to not be sick, I will need to do the following (which were my original new years resolutions anyway):

1. Exercise daily. Obviously exercise is a bit part of being healthy (read: The Hidden Benefits of Exercise). I purchased an elliptical machine at the end of last year so this won’t be a problem! It will also help my next resolution of..
2. Wake up earlier for work. Logically, if I get to work earlier, then I will get home earlier. Working out in the morning should help get my blood pumping and leave me with good energy throughout the day! Plus I get to watch the early morning people waiting at the bus stop while I’m on the elliptical. They’re usually funny.
3. Eat better. I think I eat a pretty balanced diet in general, but I want to control my portions better, which is easily solved by cooking at home more. Starting a cooking blog also inspires me to cook more often since I want to share my adventures! My friend Siqi also got me Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Christmas, so cooking will be even more fun!
4. Spend less money. This won’t make me not sick, but it’s still one of my goals ;)
5. Separate work and life completely. During the last few months of 2009, work stressed me out a lot and that stress led to me getting sick a few times. While I wholly enjoy my job, I think separating work and life more will allow me to leave the stress at work. One of the ways I am doing this is by dressing more professionally for work – if I have to wear button up shirts instead of tshirts, I’ll start mentally distancing “work” and “casual.” Plus I dig button up shirts. In magenta.
6. Try new things: I have resolved to go to new restaurants and bars when I go out, rather than default to my usual haunts. This will make things more fun and fun = healthy mental state! :)
7. Be myself. Sometimes I feel like I get sidelined into playing the character that everyone expects of me, but I just want to be myself. I’m going to try to be that person as much as I can. Again, this means a healthier mental state.

So there we have them. I think all of these things will lend to my being more healthy – physically and mentally – so I won’t get sick as much. 2010 is very much a year for me to focus on myself and how to be the best Wendyness there is!

A new year

// January 2nd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Everyday, Photos

My year ended with my return to San Francisco. In all honesty, I was pretty depressed to return. The 11 days I spent away – loved, warm, cozy, with people I feel unguarded around, loud, relaxed – seemed to be in stark contrast to the large, cold, quiet and empty apartment I returned to. Feeling bummed, I of course decided that my entire San Francisco life was large, cold and quiet.

New Years Eve cheered me up and reminded me that my life here isn’t exactly large, cold and quiet. At least not large and quiet, anyway. Not so sure about this weather. 2009 was a nice year, nothing big happened that I haven’t forgotten by now. I have many goals for myself in 2010 and decided to make it a positive list, as well as a physical list. This should help me better achieve my goals!

I’ll leave you with some photos of my New Years Eve adventures, which I hope sets the tone for the year to come :)

Where’s Wendy?

// December 27th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Everyday, Photos

Not too hard to find in this photo:

It’s times like these when I’m having so much fun with awesome girl friends that I wonder, why did I ever give up my hipster ways and move away from San Diego? And it’s times like these that I don’t have an answer and am severely tempted to move back here again. I had some delusion that I was going to move to San Francisco and be a “normal person” with a “normal” job and a yuppie life. Eff that!

Wrapping day

// December 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Creations, Everyday, Photos

I’m freakishly good at wrapping gifts, so I decided to wrap the 9 bottles of wine I am giving to co-workers tonight. This is my great job and I even had an adversary this year – CinnaCat kept attacking the tissue paper and ribbons! Luckily she gave up when one of the wine bottles fell on her paw.

And that’s how I spent my Monday after an awesome weekend that started with seeing AFI and Muse at Oracle Arena on Friday night! Can’t do much better than free tickets for Christmas :)

Saturday night was a good time at a holiday party, which I love! Dressing up is fantastic :) That was followed by a lazy, rainy Sunday in Berkeley. I’ve never really ventured around Berkeley except once in college when I visited Telegraph Street and the several times I’ve been there to have dinner friends. J was there to show me around his alma mater and we drank our way across campus.