Turkey Follow Up, and More Recipe Stuff

The turkey was nooot good. Serves me right for believing I could make a better turkey than the masses. The turkey was not very salty, tough, and did not exhibit enough carmalization on the skin.

Lessons learned:
(1) the turkey needs to be a few inches from the heat coil at the top of the oven. The "Joy of Cooking" said to lower the rack to the lowest setting. But the turkey was so small, it was too far away!

(2) No more free-range/organic turkey. It was tough.

In other recipe news, I learned how to make my Mom's Chinese turkey stew.

Ingredients:
dried shitake mushrooms soaking in water
dried wood ear mushrooms soaking in water
preserved cabbage, shredded, in a can (yellow and red can labelled "Preserved Cabbage")

Instructions:
(1) Boil the carcass in a pot. Also possible, a thigh leg. No carcass necessary
(2) Lower the soup to a simmer. In the meantime, cut the mushrooms and wood ear mushrooms into slices, taking care to remove the woody root of the wood ear. Slices can be 1/8" thick.
(3) Put 1/2-3/4 can of the preserved, salty cabbage into the soup and simmer for a few hours.
(4) Put julienned carrots into the soup. Simmer some more...
(5) The soup is done when the wood ear mushroom makes the soup gelatinous. Serve into a bowl with some Chinese black vinegar (optional).

Roasted Brined Turkey, November, 2008

As you may well know, we take food very seriously in this household. Mark was a former cook, and has spoiled me with his sublime Italian cooking. One of his culinary habits is precision, both in material selection, as well as in following process parameters. Some of his habit has soaked into my cooking style through osmosis. In this spirit, I have begun to write down recipes, so that I can learn and iterate upon them to satisfaction. Sometimes, a little bit of extra effort is required to set oneself apart from the ordinary!

In hopes of eventually perfecting my roasted turkey, and improving from the one I roasted in March, I will be recording the process of brining and roasting this Thanksgiving's 7.22 lbs turkey.

Brining
I did not use my redlined notes from the brining recipe from the "Joy of Cooking", which in retrospect was not a huge mistake since the "Joy" recipe calls for a 6 hour soak, instead of the overnight brining I performed for this turkey. This year I used an adaptation of Emeril Lagasse's brine recipe online:

1.5 gallons of water (24 cups)
3/4 cup of brown sugar (or golden sugar in my case)
1.5 cups of kosher salt (or 3/4 cups of table salt)
2-3 tbs dried rosemary

I hope there is enough salt. The Joy of Cooking recipe called for twice as much salt.

Roasting
Veering slightly from the "Joy of Cooking" instructions, I will be stuffing the turkey with a shallot, a carrot, and a celery stalk. The shallot is taking place of the onion due to the smaller turkey cavity. To encourage browning, the turkey skin will be covered with melted butter.

Per my March turkey blog, I will be roasting the turkey at 325 deg. F on the lowest rack setting. The turkey will be positioned on a wire rack on a disposable, aluminum roasting pan, with a cup of water at the bottom of the pan to discourage burning of drippings. Because this turkey is less than half the weight of March's turkey, it will be difficult to guess how much oven time I will require. To be conservative, I will cook the turkey for even less time than I proposed in my March blog:

The turkey will be breast side up for 1.25-1.5 hours, and then breast side down for 25 minutes, or until the center of the thigh is 170 deg. F (according to the "Joy", this will help ensure the tenderest of breast meat, but the thigh meat will be a bit pink, but still thoroughly cooked).

Resting
I will be resting the bird under a tent of aluminum foil for 15-20 minutes.

To be continued...

Books, Their Owners, and Book Elitism

Today, my local library hosted its annual book sale. This was my second year attending, and like last year, I really piled up on the $1.00 books. I left, loaded down with 18 books, some bursting out of my canvas bag, some stacked in my arms.

What also transpired at the book sale was a sly observation of the humans attached to the books. People at the book sale were checking each other out: the size of their book stacks, and their titles, and what that might reveal about their inner character. There was a grizzled gray haired guy with a book stack that extended from his waist to his forehead with obscure titles. There was the Asian engineer with such varied titles from Exercises for the Golfer, to a textbook on Calculus.

There was also my cousin, Alicia, newly minted Stanford Grad, who had a select 6 books in her arms that were meant for the informed literati. She explained that she had already read all of the popular books on offer.

My coworker, Qian, was also in attendance. For 20 minutes I watched her wander the piles, and not pick up a single book. Maybe she felt self-conscious about her taste in reading. I wasn't being very helpful. I showed her my growing stack of self-help and chick lit books so that she wouldn't feel too embarrassed by her reading choices. I guess she might feel self-conscious somehow. I cannot understand why, what with my shallow and unintellectual book choices.

Here are the books that I bought.

1. Age if Innocence, by Edith Wharton
2. Bergdorf Blondes, by Plum Sykes
3. Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work, by Jack Canfield et al.
4. Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck
5. The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Stories, by Henry James
6. Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi
7. The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, by Melissa Bank
8. Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby
9. Le Divorce, by Diane Johnson
10. The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx
11. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
12. Mars and Venus Together Forever, by John Gray, Ph.D.
13. The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
14. Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer
15. Cave in the Snow, by Vicki Mackenzie
16. The Best American Travel Writing 2006, edited by Tim Cahill
17. Living History, by Hillary Rodham Clinton
18. Sharks & Rays, edited by Leighton Taylor

As noted previously, some shallow and unintellectual books, but others that are more challenging. There are some "chick lit" selections (Bergdorf Blondes, Le Divorce), as well as a share of sappy self help (Chicken Soup, Mars and Venus). Finally, there are the classics that I feel I should read (Age if Innocence, The Turn of the Screw). My cousin, Alicia, drily observed that a lot of my book selections were books with movie adaptations (Cold Mountain, The Shipping News). I can't tell if she was being condescending or not. Well, hey, I never pretended to be an intellectual.

I will post my progress on these books in the near future.

Our Island Wedding, Part II

This blog entry is a continuation in a series about our wedding on Catalina Island. Read the previous entry here.

One of the best things about our wedding (if I may say so myself) was the itinerary we set out for our guests. There were a total of 4 days in our itinerary in which we loosely listed where we would be. Guests were welcome to join us, or were free to wander and enjoy the island on their own. If a guest is travelling far to attend a wedding, they usually want to maximize the amount of time they have with the bride and groom. That was why we arranged for 4 days of casual kicking back with which to socialize with our guests.

Every morning, as part of our itinerary, Mark and I had coffee at our favorite cafe on the island, C.C. Gallagher's. Family members, coworkers and friends co-mingled over their morning lattes. It was stimulating (and a bit stressful) to see all the important people in one's life thrown together in this casual setting and left to their own devices to start conversations.

Coffee at C.C. Gallagher's

In place of a "rehearsal dinner" (a rehearsal dinner wasn't really necessary since we had no wedding party or anything to rehearse!) we had a beach barbecue. The barbecue was at the Descanso Beach Club, a wonderful beach with tiki torches, a bar and a grill where you can buy and grill your own meat. All guests were invited. Seated on the sand, with the music playing softly in the background, and with the mountains rising steeply around, one felt transported far far away from everyday life.

Guests Grilling Dinner at Descanso Beach Club

As mentioned in the previous wedding blog entry, we concluded each night at the El Galleon, a famous Catalina Island bar. This occurred even on the night of our wedding. Everyone kicked back with their beers, looked through the songbooks, and chit-chatted. Occasionally, some brave guests mounted the stage to sing. It was brilliant.

Singing Along to Karaoke at El Galleon

The town of Avalon on Catalina Island is so small, that even when no event was outlined in our itinerary, we would still bump into our wedding guests on every block.

Olivier, Coco, Kurt and Mark sharing coffee

In their off hours, the guests took advantage of being on a beautiful island to explore. Some of the more athletic visitors rode bikes up a steep road to enjoy the harbor views.

Johnny, Javier on their Bike Ride

Guests Relaxing at the Beach House

Other guests took advantage of their off hours to relax and enjoy the ambience of the Beach House, the site of our wedding.

To be continued...

Honeymoon Scuba Destination Decision Matrix

I am going around and around in circles with my honeymoon planning process. Where, oh where, are we going to go? I really want to have a honeymoon focussed on scuba-diving. Also, the destination should have a certain panache, not a run-of-the-mill vacation spot. It shouldn't be that hard, right?

Well, when I calculate the true costs of travelling, I found myself making compromises. For instance, instead of booking an expensive liveaboard trip which will certainly maximize our scuba diving dollar, I was contemplating a land-based option... I was beginning to lose track of the true vision of what I had wanted as my once-in-a-lifetime vacation. So, in order to refresh my memory on my original goals, I am posting my original decision matrix from 2 years ago. (Bear in mind, that this decision matrix was about places that I wanted to travel to two years ago, not honeymoon destinations. I don't think THAT far in advance.)

In the table below, I have posted some potential dive destinations in order of my desire to visit them from two years ago. The more desirable the destination, the lower the score.



In the table below, I have posted the same group of potential dive destinations, except this time, sorted in order of Price/Proximity. The higher the cost of travelling there, and the farther the destination, the lower the score. I find that the Price/Proximity score is somewhat related to that "panache" factor.


Finally, when I multiply the score together, you get the combination of ideal vacation spots:



The above table shows that my top 3 destinations (at least from 2 years ago) are:

1. Galapagos, tied with Fiji/Tahiti/Micronesia
2. Great Barrier Reef

This is still consistent with my current honeymoon goals of going to Palau and Yap.

What this also tells me is if I wanted to reduce the price of our honeymoon, I could aim for the dive destinations in the middle of the list:

1. Thailand/Philippines/Indonesia
2. Cayman Islands
3. Baja California (Cozumel was eliminated because we went there last year)

On Obama and Race

I did not have the opportunity to vote this election year, since I was in China on election day. However, if I had been home, I would have voted for Obama over McCain. I just cannot vote for someone who is not pro-choice. Also, under McCain, I believe the nation would have continued on this path of the rich getting richer and at the expense of the middle class.

However, I have not been carried away by this feeling of euphoria in the air since Obama was elected, despite the fact that I, like Obama, am a fellow Chicagoan, and a fellow minority. Or is it because of it?

I am still smarting from Hillary Clinton's loss, and still think she is more experienced than Obama. However, there is more.

When I look deeply into my heart, I begin to see the misgivings that I have. As a young Asian girl wandering around the streets of Chicago, I have been the focus of racism. It was subtle racism from the part of the Whites. But the most blatant and traumatic racism I have ever experienced were from the part of African American people.

In my Hyde Park neighborhood, walking home, a group of teenage Black men walking on the opposide of the street, taunting: "Chink... Chink..."

In a high-end, Chicago grocery store just a few years ago, while checking out, the Black bag clerk: "Ching Chang Chong hong..." I complained to the store manager, however, the White manager makes excuses for the boy, "Oh, he is just immature." More racism, this time from the White guy.

I am not saying that Obama is one of those ignorant, underprivileged, blacks. On the contrary. I believe that he is tolerant, race-blind and extremely intelligent. It is that his election has thrown the racism that STILL exists in American into high relief. I don't believe that Obama's winning the presidency means that the country is enlightened and race-blind. No. I believe that many of the whites and blacks who voted for Obama are still racist, may turn around and be racist against Asians. Has Oprah ever had an Asian guest? Will there ever be a hit movie starring an Asian and a Black that did not involve racial jokes? With Obama in the presidency, I wonder if Asians will now take the third or 4th tier behind the Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. I think this way, because as a child in Chicago, and recently as an adult visiting Chicago, I have been the victim of racism. If just as recently as a few years ago, I experienced racism, can a country really be that race-blind?

I will get off of my rant, now, and try to believe that the country really is better... (By the way, some of my friends in grade-school were Black.)

High Low Hong Kong

The title of this blog is "High Low Hong Kong". It is titled so because in Hong Kong, there are areas wallowing in absolute luxury, while just across the street there are neighborhoods full of ancient tenement apartments where you can order a bowl of noodles for $1.

Having Afternoon Tea on my Relative's Yacht

I am currently on a business trip in Shenzhen, China. On my short weekend off (I, like many other Chinese, worked on Saturday), I was able to enjoy some sights of Hong Kong.

On Sunday, we had a "launch picnic" on my relative's yacht. He has a giant 84 foot Azimut yacht with 4 bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room and living room (a picture of us snacking can be seen above). He also has a full-time crew despite only using the boat on Sundays. This is a dive boat if I've ever seen one!

At the Helm of My Relative's Luxury Yacht

We launched out of the port at Tsim Sha Tsui and made our way to Lantau Island. There, we had some of the best dim sum I've ever had at the Disney Hotel. On our way back, I took the helm of this huge boat. Strangely enough, my relatives have never attempted to drive the boat despite enjoying outings on it almost every weekend! I was of course naturally drawn to trying it, and asked my family if I could try it. Unfortunately, they told me it was probably illegal without a license. But I was undeterred and asked the captain whether I could turn the steering wheel for a bit, and he obliged! Perhaps some of that natural, questioning, American spirit that asks "Why not?" is unusual in some areas of the world.

Temple St. Night Market

Later that same night, we strolled through the Temple St. Night Market, an open air market where trinkets, pirated DVD's and clothing are for sale for a few dollars. I could tell we were barely skimming above the underbelly of Hong Kong when one of the streets emptied out onto a group of streetwalkers. I saw one ancient White tourist follow a prostitute up the stairs of a brothel.

A bit hungry from our walk, and happy to have absorbed the high and low life of Hong Kong in a single day, we ended the night with a bowl of wonton noodle for $1.20.

Mollusks on Display at the Night Market