Remember the nice photos I posted of my newly setup veggie bed?
Well, the arugula has been eaten by a dozen caterpillars a few months ago. They looked beautiful, grass green with bright yellow stripes on their back. When I discovered them it was much too late. A woman from the local gardening society told me that they would turn into beautiful butterflies. Little bastards!
They also ate the Kailan (Chinese greens). The Japanese cucumber and string beans climbed up the bamboo sticks and look pretty, but there is not a single pickle nor bean in sight.
The surprising winners are the cocktail tomatoes and carrots from seeds I bought in Germany. Thirty juicy and sweet tomatoes and a dozen small but very orange carrots. I also put supermarket ginger into the ground and it sprouted. However the lemon grass, which was such a success in Dubai, withered and died.
I knew it would happen. Gardening is about learning and sticking with the winners. It takes time and experience. Next year my compost will be ready and I will dig it into the very clayie veggie bed. Every morning I will search for caterpillars. I will construct a raised bed, because tropical downpours will turn level veggie beds into ponds (with tiny cute frogs). And I will plant German carrots and tomatoes and maybe have a second go at Japanese cucumbers.
While the caterpillars munch the rest of my veggies, I watch a BBC series Around the world in 80 gardens. It’s enlightening. Gardening is like religion, so different around the world, but the concept is the same, we all like it and it makes us happy, in a weird BDSM kind of way.
I have been fifteen years in Hong Kong, but having this little garden around the house has been such a pleasure and new discovery. The veggie garden is a work in progress, but the rest, the so-called weeds, the plants that just sprout up after each rain, they are so pretty. The ones I like, I transplant to prime spots where they will strive and grow.
Whereas gardening in Dubai was about watering thrice a day, gardening in Hong Kong is about cutting down plants you don’t like at least once a month. I feel like Tarzan in a jungle with a machete… ok, huge -made in Germany- garden scissors. I also spray myself with “Deep Woods” mosquito repellent. It lasts for about 15 minutes until a colony of these little devils break out in laughter and descent on me.
And then they are the palm-sized spiders, and the creepy crawlies in the compost pile, and at least three geckos inside the house. I was raised by a mum who threw the spiders from the ceilings under our bath tub to eat the silver fish. Nature is about balance, and we are a part of it.
Little man and I observed our bedroom gecko tonight. George the Slow climbed up the wall, ambled past the curtains, and then stumbled behind the TV. The insect population in our bedroom will be kept at a minimum, my task in the equilibrium will be to wipe the gecko shit away.
Tomorrow little man and I will leave for Berlin where we will take care of my Dad’s garden. He is in hospital and half of his right foot is amputated, but in spite of this, and because of this, his tiny allotment garden is Eden and I will help my mum to take care of it. I am so ready for the pleasure of a temperate garden in summer. A bit of grass cutting and watering, how hard can it be?
I was waiting for little man at the school bus stop. A little Dutch girl who was waiting for her brother together with her mum said “I don’t understand why Chinese eat dogs”. Another daddy (Australian, with Fido on the leash) said “At some point in time people had very little to eat, so I guess they started to eat dogs”. Little girl: “I still don’t understand. These poor little dogs. Just imagine. It’s as if they were eaten by GIANTS!”. Mum of little girl: “Lots of people around the world eat unusual foods. For example Germans eat horses” and looks at me with challenging eyes.
Lol… ok this was a new one for me. I usually have to deal with liverwurst and Hitler. How to respond? Yes, there is horse meat available in Germany, though you have to look for it really hard, and most Germans alive today have not eaten it, me included. But then I thought, what’s the difference between a cow, pig, chicken, dog, frog, monkey, or horse? It’s only in our minds and cultural upbringings. Many Chinese don’t eat beef, because they view cattle as loyal helpers that plow rice fields. It is very unlikely that I will ever eat horse sausages, dog drumsticks, or monkey brains, but I will not look down on people choose to do so, because I eat bacon, steak, and chicken breast, and like them. And liverwurst.
Me: “ Yeah, Germans are not the only ones. The French eat it too.” (Lame, I know.)
Little girl: Yeah (turns to her mummy). Do you remember? When we were in France, the people also ate snails… escargots.
Dutch mummy: Yes, with parsley butter.
Me: Have you tried snake?
Dutch mummy: No I haven’t. Is it any good?
Daddy from Alaska (“We don’t like Sarah Palin!”) stares at all of us opened mouthed.
Me: Tastes similar to chicken, almost the same like frog legs. I had it in a soup.
Little girl: The good thing about having a dad who is a pilot is that he brings you many different things from around the world. Clothes, toys, food.
Dutch mummy: Yeah (looks pained because she and daddy are in a nasty divorce)
Little girl: Do you remember when he brought emu and kangaroo meat from Australia?
(Australian dad smirks)
Me: Have you had Impala?
Dutch mummy: No
Little girl: What’s Impala?
Me: A gazelle, really tasty.
Gazelle eater. Dutch cheese lover. Sarah Palin… only well done.
The weather has been unusual this year. I follow a few spots around the world, just a consequence of being an expatriate and having friends and loved ones at strategic points around the globe.
My parents in Berlin just lived through an unusual cold winter, despite global warming. Dubai was unusually wet. Hong Kong has been hot-wet- cold, hot-wet-cold, hot-wet-cold one time too many. What’s going on?
My veggie garden has not been a success. Butterfly worms have feasted on the arugula and gai-lan. The rest has not even sprouted from seeds. Volcanoes break out and stop airline traffic.
Nature rules, and she is telling us. We can’t eat money.
The toads are croaking so loud that I can’t sleep, snails are everywhere, a thunderstorm has just drenched the laundry I painstakingly hanged outside, a colony of ants has discovered little man’s too sweet cocoa pops.
It comes every decade or so, doesn’t it? Too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry. To remind us that we are an important but fairly small part of the picture, and that finding the middle ground in our life is an objective worth keeping.
The previous year was not a good one. I can tell from stepping on the scale. I have gained 8 kilos. Don’t know about you, but I gain weight for two reasons. When I am unhappy or when I am pregnant. I am not pregnant.
Other mothers-to-be crave pickled cucumbers, I craved Moevenpick ice cream. It was a delicious pregnancy. When little man was out, the scale was where it had never been before at 80 kilos (wow!). Ok, about four kilos went to Elsie (left breast) and Luise (right breast) to feed insatiable tiny man, but the rest attached to the bum, the belly, and (most bothersome of all) the face. I am pretty tall for a girl at 5′8, but 80 kilos dragged me down to snail’s pace. I felt tired and had no energy. Having a baby and a job was stressful and left little time, but after two years I draw the line. I started to go to the gym, even if it cut sleep from three hours to one. Exercise had always helped to loose extra kilos. Not this time. It gave me more appetite. Now I was 80 kilos and had the stamina to run 5 kilometers every day. Great, but not what I had hoped for.
A chat with my brother-in-law who had lost 20 kilos and a little bit of googling on the internet brought me to this site. My brother-in-law told me that he lost weight by counting calories. He had tried the Hollywood star diet (only tropical fruits) and other gimmicks, but nothing really worked until he wrote down what he ate and limited his calorie intake every day.
On the side, I normally hate my brother-in-law. He has about half a dozen girlfriends at any given time, a terrible temper, and an ego to match. However, I value his diet advice. Someone who has the need to attract women a dozen a night ought to know.
So I found the Hacker’s diet, and it made sense. I downloaded the Excel spreadsheets and adjusted them for my needs (grams instead of ounces, goat cheese instead of American cheese, etc.). I lost 15 kilos, was my pre-pregnancy self, and felt great.
Then 2009 came. Can we all agree that it was not the best of years? I was in Dubai, and hated it. Somehow food became comfort and a curse. 65 kilos, 68 kilos, 70 kilos (gosh), 73 kilos (no!!!).
So I am back to what worked before, an Excel spreadsheet where I put in all the food I eat, and I strictly stop at 1500 calories per day. It’s easy, geeky science. A woman in the prime of her years needs about 2000 calories a day. If you eat more you gain weight. If you eat less you loose weight. And depending on what you eat, 1500 calories does not need to mean a growling stomach. If you eat lots of veggies your stomach is going to feel full all day, and even a bit of chocolate is ok.
You may think it’s strange and over the top, but I know it works and I know what the alternative is. My dad is 73 years old. He is the best Dad in the world. He has been overweight for most of his adult life. Not obese, always active, just with a little pot belly the sun shone on. But diabetes runs in the family. In his sixties he began to need insulin injections, then the pain in his legs started, now the nerve damage is so bad that one of his toes may need to be amputated.
I am worrying about my Dad, trying to get him doctor’s appointments with the best specialists, wanting the best for him, but in the back of my mind I know that everyone of us needs to take responsibility for his/her own health. So while I am prep talking Dad over the telephone, I am busy putting the calories of my lunch into an Excel spreadsheet.
It would also be nice to be able to breathe again in my favorite pair of jeans.
Life is a string of knots, and freedom is unraveling the knot and moving on to the next.
We are all born into a subtle net of strings around us. I don’t think any of us is truly free. At times these strings become like a straight jacket from which we want to break free, but at other times we wrap ourselves in them for comfort, security, and guidance. We need them. Without them our lives would be empty.
I look at other people’s life and don’t understand there motivations, their strings, don’t understand why they scramble like mad to achieve things that for me have no meaning, and I am sure the same happens the other way around.
I am bound by my fears and weaknesses and bound by love and happiness. The strings in my head and in my heart will not go away. I find it very hard to decide which strings to hold onto and which one to slash, but I have comfort in knowing that I am not the only one having that problem.
Welcome to the year of the tiger, a marvelous beast at the brink of extinction. It’s going to be a powerful year, and I – in the hidden, quiet corners of my mind – have decided to survive.
This is turning into a food blog, and that’s how it should be. What do you really need? Love, of course, and other nourishments. And is there a better way to share and tell that you love, than cooking and eating and savoring food?
This is a Thanksgiving post from a professed atheist, though I know that God loves me nevertheless :).
I was craving for food that I grew up with. I am quite adventurous with new foods. I eat what smells good, and that is 99% of the food I have encountered. The big exception is Durian, but one day I will be brave enough to try it too. It smells of dogsh*t, but people tell me it’s as good as custard. Maybe, one day, I will try it.
I was dreaming of calf’s liver. In Berlin, it is dusted in flour and seared shortly on each side, and served with fried apples and onions on top and mashed potatoes. My mum makes yummy calf’s liver.
Some people get grossed out at animal innards, frankly I don’t get it. If you eat a steak (which necessitates to kill an animal), you should also be able to eat its innards, especially if they are as tasty as liver. Isn’t it more humane to eat as most as possible from an animal, you kill for food?
I know people who eat goose liver (expensive, French, you need to force feed geese to get it) but turn their noses up at liverwurst (cheap, German, you only need to quickly kill the pig). I eat both of them.
Where am I heading? Gosh, I don’t know, but the oxtail stew (the very end of a cow) cooking away on my stove smells lovely. I can’t get calf’s liver in my neighborhood supermarket, but fortunately they have oxtail, and chicken with the heads still on, and other animals that we eat but sometimes don’t want to know we eat.
One thing I admire about Asian Food, and there is lots more that I admire, is that they are still aware where the meat comes from. In western-style supermarkets, more often than not, every reference to the animal is removed. Clean cut steaks, minced beef and pork, cutlets, chicken breasts. We have that here too, but you can also get chicken feet, whole chicken with their heads on, and fish that is taken out of the tank and killed for you. Sounds gross? It’s the reality. If you don’t like it, become vegetarian.
I eat meat as a treat. I use meat to flavor, not to get full. I remember the pigeons, rabbits, chicken, and pig at my grandmother’s neighbor’s house. We ate them, they tasted lovely, they were prepared with care, they were prepared as a rare feast.
I have a sweet tooth for cooking shows. Is there anything better than arm chair traveling around the world with a little salivating on the side?
APPETIZER
I can’t watch Food Safari without munching something myself. Maeve O’Meara, the presenter, has the best job there is. In every show, she eats herself through one of the “immigrant” cuisines of Australia, and in the process has eaten herself around the world. Thailand, Lebanon, Spain, Malaysia, Pakistan, Hungary…
I also love that she goes shopping and learns about essential ingredients before digging in.
<
MAIN
Food is love, and Rick Stein shows how delicious it is. He travels around Great Britain and Continental Europe in search of simple, good, local food, and because his restaurant is located in a sea side town his show often features seafood. Mmmmmm!
DESSERT
It needs to be sweet, sticky, gooey, and full of chocolate.
“Who wouldn’t want this? Look at this ravishing… pool… of chocolate. It’s quite mesmeric.”
Oh yes, it is. Are there language courses that teach Nigella’s accent?
… posts I mean. The meme is stolen from Lime. I wrote down the first words that came to mind.
I know….left from right
I believe… no, not really
I fought…. windmills
I am angered…by self-righteousness
I love…you
I need… a coffee
I take… three of each
I hear… the wind
I drink… too much wine
I hate…early mornings
I use… mascara
I want… slow sex
I like… bell peppers
I feel… your skin
I wear… a sarong (yep, HNT this Thurday)
I left… home
I do… avoid doing dishes
I hope… we will argue like an old couple in twenty years
I dream…. weird things lately
I drive… you insane
I listen… carefully
I type… real slow
I think… too much
I wish… you were here
I am… crazy
I regret… not having listened to my gut feeling
I care… about you
I should… not worry so much
I said… no sweets before lunch
I wonder… if the windows will break
I changed… the water bucket under the aircon five minutes ago
I cry… very easily
I lose… my bearings
I leave… now
If you see your life as an adventure and from a distance, at least once a while, it becomes much more enjoyable.
Because the risks and downsides that your security loving and rational mind can’t cope with become much more palatable. That’s the state I am in, and I have decided to just go with the flow. If I am not too lazy, I will write a book when I am 83, and enable my grandchildren to live off the royalties.
So, the landlord of our 1,350 square feet flat just send us a letter. He wants double the rent we are paying now. He asks for US$3,600. Expats in Hong Kong will now say “Wow, that’s still cheap!” (maybe not, if they work for Lehman Brothers Asia), the rest of the world says “Are you sure you got the numbers right?”.
I am just stunned. Rents are falling, the flat needs renovation, how stupid the landlord thinks I am?
I don’t know what to do, but on thing is for sure I will not pay US$3,600 every month for this flat (leaking pipes, out-of-order aircons, peeling paint, non-closing windows, kitchen and baths in dire need of renovation) even if it has been our home for the last seven years.
And I need a job that pays rent, little man’s school fees, and allows us to eat. The trouble is that the only field I have qualifications in is in dissolution at the moment.