I love chocolate!

I just love chocolate! There is so much to love about it. It's pretty, it's got antioxidants, and and and...it's just so yummy!!!! When I was looking at these, I was salivating and was captivated by them, particularly the minty green ones.....but to my surprise and probably yours too, I didn't get any. I was put off by the pretty person behind the counter who rudely told me that I was allowed to take only 1 picture. Hmmm...did she think I was taking a picture of her?

Is it time for breakfast yet?

What's for breakfast tomorrow? Vegan Banana Walnut Chocolate Chip Muffins of course! It's one of my favorite recipes from The Joy of Vegan Baking. One of my favorite gifts of all time. Everything I've tried making in there is so yummy that most people can't tell it's vegan.



Mix together bananas, chocolate chips, walnuts, canola oil,..... flour and... wham! you got banana muffins, it's almost that easy.




Here's a trivia. Did you know that banana is the most consumed fruit in the world? (It's one of Mr. P's favorite because it's the most convenient to eat, of course haha). You're probably thinking, banana farmers must make the most money. Sadly, that is not the case. Most banana farmers receive a low price for their produce because of corporate control. To help these farmers get their fair share of profit, look for a "fair trade" label on your bananas whenever possible! Click here for more details.

I can't stop thinking about food...

I can't stop thinking about food and it is not surprising that my thoughts are currently on "what's for dinner?", "hmm...what's for dessert?". When I woke up this morning at 9:45 (that's really 8:45!!!!), I was thinking, hmmm..what should I eat for breakfast, but unfortunately, since I was running late so I wasn't able to eat my breakfast (bad audrey! breakfast is good for you!). So for dinner, this is what I'm thinking, Tofu Skin Rolls with Sesame Ginger Dip, and Stir-fried Vegetarian Rice Noodles from my newly bought cookbook, Quick & Easy Asian Vegetarian Recipes. Yes yes, I must have that for dinner.

Let's see, is it really quick & easy? The recipe looks kinda complicated. What's a complicated recipe? It's one where there's lots of ingredients and where most require chopping and slicing. But it's from the quick & easy cookbook, therefore it must be quick right? We'll see... haha

it's been a long time...

Wow, it's been a long time since I blogged. Let's see, at this moment, I'm sitting in my cube, waiting for my ride home and sliding my chair back and forth to look out the window, and thinking wow the sun is still up! I love daylight saving even though I lost an hour this weekend, it is worth it.

So what I am up to lately? I still love to cook and bake. I still enjoy taking photos (I haven't taken much pictures lately probably because I haven't gotten any inspirations and I want that new camera, Canon 5D Mark II, maybe it'll inspire me to take more pictures ha ha). I'm still learning the violin. Did I mention that I pass the level 1 (performing and written) test? I'm currently preparing for my level 3 test (wish me luck). I'm still playing my MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) but not as much.

And, I'm still a vegetarian. It's been 1 year 3 months and 9 days! I've been craving dim sum, more so recently than in the past year. I've been scouring the internet for vegetarian dim sum recipes (not too many unfortunately) and cookbooks (none). After an exhaustive search, I finally bought a traditional dim sum cookbook by Ellen Leong Blonder. Her book mainly caters toward making traditional dim sum (lots of meat and seafood) but she does have a few vegetarian recipes in there (thank you so much Ellen Leong Blonder) for remembering folks like me. Here's a link to her book, Dim Sum, The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch . I know I know, dim sums are such a hassle to make, why don't I just go satisfy my dim sum craving at a restaurant? Well, the problem is, not too many Chinese dim sum restaurants cater to special diets. So I gotta make it myself. Over the next few weeks, I will be making dim sum (perhaps after work), one recipe at a time, and freeze them for later. And then eat them all in one shot over a weekend! What do you think? Dim sum, desserts and tea anyone? Sounds like a plan eh?

Okie Dokie, looks like I have to end my blog for the day here. My ride should be here any minute.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Automatic White Balance

Can you tell which of the above pictures was from using the camera's automatic white balance and which was from using custom white balance? If you guessed that the one on the left was from the camera's automatic white balance, you got it right. When it comes to white balance the camera gets it right most of the time and this is usually when you're taking pictures outside. When you're indoor, like in this example, the artificial light creates a color cast. Your brain, using references (what you know to be gray or white) will automatically adjusts the color you see to what you know to be correct. The camera, which doesn't have such a reference, will try to its best capture the color. So it's best to either use custom white balance or some of the camera's built in white balance (most camera has tungsten, cloudy, shade, etc) to offset color casts than to rely solely on automatic white balance.

What are some of my favorite things from today's wedding? The view and the Raspberry Sorbet! Wow!





and and my favorite favorite, most favorite part was...the vegetarian entree of course! It's so nice when the bride and groom remember to take care of the vegetarians. I forgot what the name of the entree was, but it was delicious!

Being a vegetarian...

Being a vegetarian is hard. But being a vegetarian at a Chinese Wedding Banquet as a photographer's assistant is harder. Why is that? Well, if you're a guest, you can simply let the bride and groom know ahead of time and can take care of that for you. Anyways, so what happens when you're a vendor? You're pretty much on your own. That was the scenario today. What did I do today? Starve myself? Hell no! I ordered steamed veggies ($9!) and ate that instead. So I sat there with my steamed veggies while courses after courses (of meat and seafood) were brought out. Then when the waiter brought Stir-Fry Abalone with Bok-Choy and set it down, he said to me, "this is vegetarian, no meat". Whoa, a vegetarian dish? Are you kidding me? Being a vegetarian is hard, but having to explain to a Chinese waiter that abalone is not a vegetable? That is super hard!

Congratulations to Lisa & Sen!

oh, look, the florist decorating the wedding cake! hehehe

And here's what it looked like afterwards.

The center piece

some pictures from the trip...

My favorite picture


That's me trying to look like a photographer!


That's me feeding..feeding a deer!!!! Fun!!!


adorable deer!

bejitarian

5.22.2008
bejitarian muke menyu wa arimasu ka? That translates to "Do you have a vegetarian menu?"



Some cute stuff..

wakari masen

wakari masen...it translate to I don't understand and to say it politely, it's "sumi masen ga, wakari masen". And, "eigo o hanashi msau ka?", which means, do you speak English? These are probably the most important phrases. And the next important thing is body language, and bow bow and bow. The Japanese are so polite! Image hundreds and thousands of polite people swarming around the city, that's what Tokyo's like. It's kinda scary since I come from a country where the majority of strangers are brutes!

5/21/2008

View of Tokyo from Tokyo Tower


Imperial Palace - Kyokyo


Sensoji Temple


Ginza at night

recital

I was so nervous about the recital. It was my first recital ever. I think I only played like 60% of the song because I got so nervous, I blanked out. And on top of that, my hands started shaking and the bow kept touching other strings. It was a disaster! Hopefully I'll do better next time.

Birds are funny animals...

...they are such clowns. I've been watching Scratchy from work over the webcam to monitor her since she is sick. Watching her makes me laugh, they are so funny. Her new treat/food tray has a mirror on it and it looks like she's staring at her face all day long. hehe... well, Scratchy is doing better but not completely back to normal yet. Today's the first day that she can perch. Yay scratchy! The vet said Scratchy's a miracle. He said rarely does he see a bird get better after being in so sick. Keep your fingers crossed!

Poor Scratchy.....

Poor Scratchy has lost 20 grams. We first noticed something was wrong Wednesday night. We brought her to the emergency room that night and was told that she might not make it and that they would call us if that happens. That night, every time the phone rang, my heart would sank. I was mad at myself for not noticing sooner that scratchy wasn't feeling well. I didn't notice that she was losing weight, fluffed up, and was always sitting in the corner. Since she was laying eggs, I thought she just wanna sit by her eggs. The vet said that Scratchy most likely has pneumonia because from the x-rays, it showed that there were fluids in her lungs. We're still waiting for the results from the blood test.

nerves.....

I stumped over the G major scale and G arpeggio during my level 1 test! Actually, I stumped over lots of other parts of the test. You see, I have this problem, it's call nerves.....I got so nervous. I've been preparing for the level 1 test since late January. 3 months of hard work. I think I might have failed it.....waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!! Now it makes me wonder if I really should have a recital... I might get on stage, and freeze.

my goldfish lantern

Did I wake up and that spring has past and summer has arrived? Then did I wake up again and spring has returned? The weather hasn't made up its mind. Hot one day and cold and windy the next. If the weather has a gender, I would say it's a she, so fickle!

Well, the other night, I believe it was Sunday night, it felt like a hot late summer or early autumn night. I flopped myself down onto the bed, which was next to the window with a fan running. Feeling a bit of a cool breeze and hearing people talking outside, I suddenly remembered a night many years ago, if my memory was correct, it was the night of the mid autumn festival. Across the pacific, on the other continent, mid-autumn's day was a big deal. I don't even remember how old I was, probably not more than five. I remember me holding my goldfish lantern with a candle inside. I remember staring at the candle flickering, making the red-orange goldfish bright. I wonder if they sell them here in the US....It was a night like Sunday's, hot and neighbors were talking....

New Spring Project

Ever cooked something and needed a tiny teeny bit of fresh herbs but ended up with a bunch of them? Happens to me all time. The store forces me to buy more than I need!!! What to do with the rest of herbs? Well, 1 of 2 things happen, I either put in too much, way more than the recipe calls for or I start putting the herbs in everything I make for the rest of the week so I won't waste it. Options 1 & 2 are both no good. So option 3 it is! Option 3 is plant your own herbs! So this spring, my project is just that! Look, it's sprouting!

Some minor road blocks at restaurants

Majority of the time, when I'm at a restaurant, there're usually some vegetarian options. This however, isn't always the case when you're at a Chinese or a Vietnamese restaurant, err rather these hole in the wall Asian restaurants (the only exception are Thai and Indian restaurants). "Veggie-terian?", they repeat after me as if it's a word they've never heard of, hmm...maybe not... as most of them don't speak English very well. "Oh you want only veg-git-able, no problem", except that of course, they use chicken/pig broth or they use sauce with chicken or pig flavoring. So, I try to be careful and I ask them what's in a dish or if the dish has meat or dairy or eggs in it and most of the time, these waiters/waitresses get irritable with me, which upsets me, I mean what's so wrong with telling me what's in it and what if I have food allergy? So, to go around this problem, I simply don't want to go to these Asian restaurants (usually these hole in the wall place that I used to love so much cuz they're so good) unless the menu has vegetarian options and that's that!

What a tragedy...

This morning as I turned into 24 Hour's parking lot and going down my usual aisle to find my usual spot, 2 pretty new Mercedes were blocking my way. Apparently, they had rear ended each other while backing out of their spots. It's too bad I missed the action. Well, they were arguing over whose fault it was. These 2 people, they could have been a couple, one driving a 340 series and the other a 540 series (??) and both wearing designer sportswear outfits. I really couldn't see any scratches from where I was. But seriously though, if there were some scratches, they should still just stop arguing and suck it up and move on. They can stop buying designer outfits and use their own money to get touch ups and move on with their morning. That way they can stop wasting each other's time and oh, ya, my time as well.