Good Morning Vietnam!

G'day everyone! It's been a month since I had my surgery and it's a beautiful Saturday morning or should I say almost afternoon? I am alright now and back to my normal self. I did it sooner than I thought I would. So the pay-off, I am greeting everyone a Good Morning Vietnam!

Few more days and I will celebrate my birthday and my one year anniversary here in Vietnam. I think it's my first time to say good morning Vietnam since I came here last year. Never too late to say it again and again starting today. One more day and I am set to go back to work. Does that mean stress is coming or fun and excitement will begin again? The answer, I still have to ponder on eventually. Things randomly happened very fast and I didn't notice that one month has passed by. My operation was a success. I had to undergo a surgery where in they have to remove a cyst somewhere outside my uterus and ovaries. Luckily it's just dangling outside so my gadgets inside my tummy are perfectly fine and complete. It's not what others think of, that I lost everything. The doctor said I am ready to conceive in four months because everything is fine now. Sooner or later I have to quest for that boyfriend and make him my husband so that the conceiving idea will get materialized. My big laugh out loud now.

To wrap this post I'd like to thank few people who really did remember me and made me feel better during my recuperating period after the surgery. I'd like to thank Xie Hao for bringing that lovely cake during the days when I can't hardly walk. Mr. Mischu Zolot for visiting and bringing some grapes and pear that made me cook a special dessert out of those fruits. And I was overwhelmed and happy to receive the yummiest French Vanilla Ice Cream in Saigon that again Mischu brought me. Anneleen Berlingen visited me also at home and in the hospital and gave me this bell gift. She's very concerned on how I will call my Dad from my room to the other room because I can't walk and scream after the surgery. My officemates from Brand Maker who visited me in the hospital and brought me fruits and juices. My Sky Garden Friends namely Quinn Donato, Oliver Salazar, Yeng Reyes, Obee Ham, Ivy Sorreda & Vianca are the people who visited me also and very helpful and constantly accompanied me and Dad in all our dinner out and adventures. Thanks to them Dad gained new friends! And to Ampy Rio, Oji Valencia and Kate Bayona thanks also for the visit. To my boxing trainer Alvaro LealdelaTorre and to my Aussie mates Mr. Ashley Groom and Adrian Ammendola for remembering me as well. But most of all I have to thank my Dad for taking care of me all the time during his stay here. I owe him a lot ...

Thanks Saigon peeps, I am back on track :-)

hugs,
joanie xxx

Surprise and delight me

I like meat. I like beef stew and goat curry and tandoori chicken and pork carnitas tacos. I like melt-in-your-mouth marrow and lamb shanks and kefta kabobs and turkey sausage. I like crispy chicken skin and crispy bacon and ballpark franks and cajun shrimp and kielbasa. I like grilled trout and raw tuna and salmon and gravy covered turkey and salami sandwiches. I could go on for days talking about all the different kinds of meat and fish I like. But the thing about meat is that it's easy to cook and make it taste good because, well, it tastes good!

So I don't spend a lot of time here writing about it and talking about, and if I ever mention something meaty I don't have a lot to say other than that it was good and you should make it. But then, you should make everything I tell you about.

It's vegetarian food that inspires me in the kitchen, that, when made well, can surprise and delight me. Main courses made with tofu or mushrooms or beans can be bland, but they can also be fantastic.
I'll write another time about spicy tofu or tofu in peanut sauce or mushrooms tarts, but today I'm going to praise my favorite bean, the garbanzo.


Last week I made these little chickpea (garbanzo bean) patties, mostly out of curiosity. They're still raw in this picture. I like chickpeas and have experimented with black bean patties and sampled other vegetarian burger alternatives. I feared these patties would be dry and tasteless. What I didn't expect was that they would be spicy and tender and I wouldn't be able to stop eating them. (My recipe excludes the rice that was in the original recipe, simply because it takes longer to cook the rice than to make and bake the patties. Thus the patties are not as firm as they could be.) When I drizzled tahini sauce over them, I scarfed down three patties without stopping to look for the meat.

Chickpea Patties with Tahini Sauce (modified from The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen by Rebecca Katz)
Makes 6 patties, 3 servings of 2 patties each

Ingredients for Tahini Sauce:
2 tablespoons tahini
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 large garlic clove, minced and mashed to a paste with ½ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
1/3 cup olive oil

In a blender blend together the tahini, lemon juice, garlic paste, and cayenne. With the motor running add the oil in a stream, blending until the sauce is emulsified. Season with salt.

Ingredients for patties:
One 15 ounce can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/8 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced fresh ginger
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons finely diced red bell pepper
1/4 cup loosely packed minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the chickpeas, salt, turmeric, paprika, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, olive oil and lemon juice in a food processor and process until smooth and well combined, scraping the sides occasionally. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and fold in the bell pepper and parsley.

Moisten your hands to keep the mixture from sticking, then shape the mixture into 1/4-inch-thick patties about 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Place them on the prepared pan and bake for 22 to 25 minutes, until the patties start to get dry and crisp on the outside. They will firm up as they cool.

Serve patties with salad of mixed greens. Drizzle tahini sauce over patties and salad.

Sabbath Rest

“ Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.  For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
Exodus 20: 8-11.

This week was so busy and hectic that I am so thankful for the Sabbath rest. God really knew what he was doing when He created the Sabbath, don't you think? 

Live From St. Martin

Here's what I found in the Grand Case grocery store today:

Local hot sauce

Locally roasted coffee

Blood orange juice

French butter with fleur de sel

Goat yogurt from France - in glass jars, no less

Need I say more about why I like this place so much?

Three opening parties

April 16

I went to three restaurant openings this week, all on Wednesday, and all in the course of about two hours.

I started on the really touristy part of Bleecker Street, between Thompson and LaGuardia, at the "green carpet" opening of a place called Otarian.

The ‘O’ in the name is meant to represent Earth. Because it’s round.

"Tarian" comes from words like "vegetarian." So the whole name is meant to indicate that people who eat there care about the planet.

The food is "low carbon cuisine."

Pretty much everything we eat is actually very high in carbon, except for the inorganic compounds salt and water (sodium chloride and dihydrogen oxide), which don't contain any carbon.

Fats, proteins and carbohydrates, the three main components of everything we eat, are all made from carbon-based molecules.

Carbohydrate, if you remember your chemistry class, means carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Fats, or, more precisely, fatty acids, are carbon chains with hydrogen atoms hanging off of them. Proteins are chains of amino acids, which are in turn complex groupings of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Unless you're just sitting around drinking salt water, you’re not consuming low-carbon cuisine.

But I know what they mean. It’s low-carbon-footprint cuisine, and Otarian claims to be the first global chain with carbon footprint menu analysis.

Except, according to its web site, it’s not a chain at all. The Bleecker Street unit was the first of four restaurants listed on the site, but the only one that has opened yet.

Where I come from that’s not a chain. That’s a restaurant.

Another restaurant is supposed to open in New York next week and two London restaurants are “coming soon.”

Where I come from that's not global.

But they did get a good turnout for the opening party. They offered to send a hybrid car to my office to bring me there, but I told them I’d use a greener conveyance, the subway, which I did.

I walked past the paparazzi who were busy photographing Vanessa Williams (I don’t know why she was there, but the publicists did promise that the event would be star-studded) and got a green tea Mojito from the bar.

Then I spotted nutritionist extraordinaire and occasional party-goer Marion Nestle from New York University.

She had just arrived from out of town and said she would have accepted the party host’s offer to pick her up at the airport, but she got the e-mail too late.

We both wondered why they wanted us at the party so badly and chatted about the big food news of the week, KFC’s introduction of the Double Down — two breaded chicken breasts sandwiching two slices of cheese and two pieces of bacon.

There’s a picture of it at the beginning of this blog entry.

The anti-fast food crowd has declared the item a travesty. Sam Sifton called it "disgusting,” which isn’t very nice, but at least he tried it. If he found it disgusting, then that’s the way it goes.

Other people, especially those commenting on Marion’s blog, figuratively threw up their hands in disgust without going near the thing. That’s not just rude, it’s stupid. (Read their comments; with a few exceptions I’d call them retarded, but retarded people generally don’t continuously carp about things about which they’re ignorant).

Marion said she didn’t know what the big deal was. It’s comparatively low in calories for fast food, and as Marion argues all the time, the biggest problem with the American diet is that we eat too much. It all comes down to calories, she says. It doesn’t matter whether the calories come from fat or carbohydrates or protein, what matters is that we’re in the grip of an obesity epidemic, and people gain weight because they consume more calories than they burn, regardless of where those calories come from.

The people from Otarian were sure that Marion would love the place, which is not just low-carbon-footprint but vegetarian, and they were thrilled to have her there.

Marion told me that whether it was nutritious or not all depended on what they did with those vegetables.

Otarian’s a fast-casual place, so it has a menu board. But we couldn’t get close enough to read it because Vanessa Williams and a throng of people who wanted to be near her were in the way.

I did sample a mini-burger that tasted like it was made from falafel. It didn't seem particularly healthful, but it tasted good.

Marion was asked for an interview by someone from CBS Radio, so I took my leave and walked the few blocks to SoHo, to the opening of Lizarran, a new tapas place owned by a man from the southern Spanish city of Seville, who insists that all of the 200 some-odd tapas at the restaurant are Spanish.

"No fusion,” he said. Indeed, it is part of an actual Spanish chain, with 200 units, according to its web site.

I grabbed a glass of wine and a slice of Serrano ham, air-kissed food writer Kathleen Squires and said hello to food writer Margaret Shakespeare.

Lizarran is a long, narrow restaurant that opens up in the back. It’s dark with red walls and it seemed to me that it might be a nice place to spend an evening with friends eating tapas, but after sampling a tasty little garlicky chicken open-faced sandwich I decided to let others enjoy the rather packed space and went around the corner to opening party number three, Beba.

Beba’s intended to be more of a nightclub than a restaurant, really, but publicist Steven Hall said the chef, Tom Papoutsis, was a great talent who had yet to work at a venue where his cuisine could really shine.

Maybe so, but, it being a Hall Company party, the crowd was beautiful and fun, the booze was plentiful, and the food was not so available.

Steven knows I’ve said this about him before and he got me some meatballs and a bruschetta or two.

But you can’t judge a restaurant by the food served at an opening party, and I think Steven knows that. You go to get a feel for the place and to just kind of know that it’s open.

So Beba’s open. It has a front lounge and a middle bar area and a restaurant space in the back and then a bigger lounge downstairs.

I was out of there some time before 9 p.m. I walked to Chinatown for a bowl of noodles and went home.

I guess I really should have gone to KFC to try a Double Down.

call me ms.Grey :D

Gue benci perpisahan, sekalipun itu bukan akhir segalanya

Yes, we are friends in all the way we have.

Yes, we are family in all happiness and sadness we have.

Yes, we are friends in all the situation between.

yes, we are family, because that we are.

Yes, now, the time is calling us to being mature.

Yes, we need to separate, but we dont need to forgeting each other.

It'll be hardest thing, to facing a good-bye-time.

you, and all of you, is the best things in the world.

Thanks God, i still alive, thanks God i have them, Thanks God.

Gue enggak pernah nyangka, waktu akan secepat ini menjalani hidup. Gue masih belum bisa terima sebenarnya soal akhir dari sebuah masa. SMA, sekolah menengah atas, masa terakhir dimana seseorang dinyatakan sebagai anak-anak dan setelah itu dia akan terus disebut orang dewasa, sekalipun mentalnya tidak mencerminkan. Seperti sebuah opera yang terus menguras tenaga dan emosi dalam jalannya, selalu membuat terkantuk-kantuk, membuat hati menegang, bahkan membuat senyum usah dihapus. Sayangnya sebah waktu di masa berseragam putih abu-abu itu telah berakhir. Dengan waktu yang kurang dari 365 hari smeua dinyatakan usai. Menjadi perjalanan terberat dan paling indah dalam sejarah. begitu pun buat gue.

Balada masa SMA. Seperti sebuah sinetron kedengarannya. Mungkir terbayang sebuah judul sinetron yang saking makmurnya mencapai season ke sekian. tapi ini berbeda. Objknya terus berjalan, bahkan kadang tidak terdefinisi. Gue sekarang diambang sebuah pertentangan soal perasaan. Satu sisi gue sangat senang menyambut sebuah libur panjang, di satu sisi gue berat meletakkan seragam dan mengucapkan perpisahan. Hari esok, tiada lagi umpatan, cacian makian, sumpah, dan serapah gue terhadap orang-orang dewasa yang membimbing ratusan murid dalam gedung persegi sempit berwarna hijau berlabel "SMA Negeri 65".

Sewaktu SMP, gue kaget mengingat gedung sekolah gue berlantai 4 dan luasnya bisa 3 kali gedung SMA gue. Lalu ketika SMA gue terperangkap dengan gedung dua lantai yang kalo buat mengulet setelah tidur saja mentok sana sini. Kecil. tapi jangan salah, hiruk pikuknya yang berada persis di garis nadi perekonomian jakarta barat membuatnya amat tersohor. Sampai gue keki sendiri mendapati tanggapan seseorang, "anaknya pasti pintar, soalnya sekolah disitu *menunjuk 65* soalnya yang masuk situ yang pintar-pintar doang." terharu? tersanjung? tersedak? tersandung!

Rasanya sekolah ini begitu sesak dan sempit. Denggan orang-orang penghuninya yang seperti sebuah boneka. Berlaju itu-itu saja! setiap langkah bersua lagi, lagi, lagi, lagi dan lagi. Rasanya bosan. Beggitulah hari-hari di murai kecil berwarna hijau, yang konon katanya unggulan Jakarta Barat ini. Dan lihat, hingga sekarang gue masih terus mencaci dan menyumpahserapahi sekolah gue. Gila! Tapi ini adalah bentukk kecintaan gue yang mendalam terhadap sekolah gue.

Rabu, 14 April 2010, jam 12.00 WIB. Hidup gue bagai tertohok. Ya, itu adalah hari terakhir gue mengemban kewajiban sebagai siswa SMA Negeri 65 Jakarta. Semua ujian telah terlampaui dengan manis, hanya tinggal menunggu hasil yang Insya Allah tidak mengecewakan pihak manapun. Amin.

Sekarang perpisahan benar-benar di depan mata. Sekarang gue juga belum tahu gue lulus atau enggak. Sekarang gue juga belum tau akan kuliah dimana gue. Masih ada dua minggu hingga pengumuman kelulusan, masih ada sebulan untuk pengumuman simak. Semoga Allah memberikan hasil yang paling tepat. AMIN.

Gue benci perpisahan, meskipun bukan akhir dari segalanya.

Gue akan sangat merindukan masa-masa gue tidur di kelas, enggak dengerin guru, bercanda, berbincang soal bahasan tujuh belas ke atas, ngatain orang, madol bareng-bareng, wisata kuliner, nyontek, sedih bareng. aaah. enggak ternilai harganya. Sekarang semuanya benar-benar cuma akan jadi kenangan. Harus siap menempuh hari-hari baru yang lain. beraaat sekali rasanya.

Sayang, semua teman-temanku, teman-teman SMA-ku, maafkan bila selama tiga tahun ini gue banyak salah, gue banyak bikin ulah, banyak berkonfrontasi. Terimakasih untuk semua pengertian,semua perhatian, semua pengalaman, semua canda, semua pelajaran, semua penghargaan. Sebuah kata-kata yang sulit terucap, tapi akan terus terasa, terimakasih.

Semua guru-guruku yang bijak dan sabar, mohon maaf untuk semua prasangka, doa, dan ucapan yang buruk. Maaf karena sebagai murid kami dan terutama saya kurang menghargai peluh anda. Terimakasih untuk semua ilmu, bimbingan, kesabaran, cerita, pengalaman. semua yang tidak pernah terbeli. Sekalipun berat, Terima kasih bapak ibu.

Waktu yang ada haruslah gue manfaatkan. gue benci melepas status gue sebagai anak SMA. Menjadi anak kuliah membuat gue merasa tua dan terlalu dewasa. kalau soal dewasa sih enggak apa, nah kalo tua? pernah mikir enggak sih, sedewasa apapun lo di SMA, lo tetap dianggap anak SMA, anak kecil, dan kita enggak suka itu. Tapi gue suka. Kalau udah kuliah, enggak lagi anka kecil. tapi orang gede, tua! Sekalipun sebenarnya bisa aja mentalnya engggak sesuai sama umur. gila! gue masih mau menjadi seorang anak SMA, tapi bukan berarti gue rela enggak lulus.

COMPLICATED!!!!

Selamat tinggal seragam putih abu-abu yang tersayang, selamat tinggal batik biru yang usianya belum genap setahun. Semoga kalian akan menemui aku semakin baik setiap harinya. Amin.

ini foto-foto yang diambil di hari-hari terakhir sebagai kelas 3. dari yang UN, pas intensif, yg US, dan ujian praktik. hari-hari yang gue rindukan.