100 Days

For my daughter’s 100 day celebration, we hosted a dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant.

Being from Hong Kong, we really would have preferred to celebrate the “full moon” (one month) rather than the 100 days that seems to be more common these days, but the timing really didn’t work out with the holidays (Christmas then New Year then Chinese New Year!), so…

In retrospect, the extra time also allowed me to fit into some of my old clothes again so I didn’t have to show up wearing stretchy yoga pants.

It also allowed me to recover some sort of “me”, at least to feel like myself enough to make a cake for my baby.

And I went all out.

Up to this point, I had never attempted a multi-layer cake or covered a cake in fondant because both were really intimidating tasks that left very little room for error. But for her, I was willing to try.

I also wanted an elegant yet girly look as opposed to my usual cartoonish designs, because, you know, in case I haven’t repeated myself enough, this was for my baby.

I think I did a pretty good job.

Scratching Up Thanksgiving Dinner

It’s not easy cooking holiday meals when you have a small family, but I did my best this Thanksgiving to try and create a meal that resembled the traditional Thanksgiving feast that I grew up watching on sitcom television (but sadly never experienced).

With such a small party, there was no point cooking a turkey unless we were okay with eating leftovers until Christmas.  So I subbed the big bird for a smaller bird, namely a cornish hen.  I tried out an herb and lemon rub using the ingredients in the house (garlic salt, pepper, dried chives, olive oil, lemon juice) and it turned out really well, although I did have to baste it twice during the cooking time.

I paired that with a BIG pan of roasted vegetables, throwing in endives, cauliflower and carrots.  All Fall veggies, I googled!  A butternut squash soup to make use of my new immersion blender, and an apple crumble for dessert rounded out my Thanksgiving dinner for two.

I couldn’t resist the oyster appy though, as my favourite Fanny Bay were on sale at Whole Foods.

Apple crumble… in retrospect should probably have made this in a cup

Perhaps the most fun of the night was having my mom take part in making the dinner bread with me.  I tried some adjustments to my previous recipe, and mom had fun adding in figs and nuts while rolling out the dough.

Birthday Cake

Cake making, Take 2

What occasion is more perfect to practice than someone’s birthday?

Rather than the dense chocolate cake that I used last time, I substituted it with a Japanese style chocolate sponge cake instead.  This type of cake is much lighter, since it’s made with very little flour and oil and depends mainly on egg whites to get its rise.  The problem is not letting it sink back down.

But I think I did a pretty good job!

Dinner at the Boathouse on English Bay, the weather cleared up just in time for this beautiful scene.

The restaurant even gave us a piece of mocha mud pie as a birthday present 🙂

On the Road to Fame

How exciting!

Last month, in honour of Canada’s Asian Heritage Month, I organized an event and exhibit at the International Village (read about it here) which was simply a blast.  A girl never gets tired of playing dress up, and it was a really great feeling with all the support I got from locals, on both personal and organizational levels, who really did more than their part to help ensure that the show was a success.  Our centre court on the Day of Celebration was packed with people, and I also lost my special “event manager” chair because there weren’t any more seats!

And I even got to practice my improv skills when one of the performing groups cancelled that morning, and spent a good hour with my emcee introducing the various displays and vendors of the show 🙂

Even more exciting was when Emily Larson of LAT Multilingual Translation & Marketing contacted me because she thought the show was a great display of the diversity that we have in the mosaic cultural fabric of Canada.

Long story short, I’ve been featured!!!  Well, kind of, but it’s still very exciting!  Read Emily’s article on LAT’s blog here.

Asian Heritage Lessons

It’s been an interesting journey putting together the Asian Heritage Month Exhibition and Day of Celebration.

I learned a lot about the various Asian cultural groups that exist in Vancouver, and unearthed a surprising amount of historical tidbits about their history in Vancouver and Canada. And I was really gratified by the response that I’ve gotten from everyone, from the media sponsors I approached, the tenants and even just people who happened to pass by as I was setting up the various displays. So many people interrupted me in the middle of set up to ask about the event and the display, and it was so nice to be praised for planning the whole event.

What really amazed me was how many people stepped forward to offer to lend me genuine traditional outfits from their closet, so that their culture would be represented. They made it possible for me to go from only having one outfit per the top three Asian minority groups to being able to present twelve whole outfits. It really made me feel that the event was worth all the craziness and lack of sleep that I endured for the last three weeks. It was even kind of fun trying to wrestle the mannequins on stage in the middle of the mall, and trying to follow YouTube videos to put the outfit on correctly.

Looking forward to tomorrow, even if it does mean having to work on a Saturday!