mumbai

In the midst of rushing work before noon, organising a surprise bday bash for B, stocking up volvic, masks, and alcohol wipes and catching a plane to Mumbai in an hour. I felt as though I was on the verge of exploding. I was running errands while organising work and private matters with my blackberry. The pace of HK suffocates me at times like this.

Is my blackberry a blessing or a curse? Blessing is being able to connect with friends in US or wherever through bbm. Curse is the addiction. I am sure I am the millionth person to blog about it. (Stanley Bing from Fortune wrote some funny ones also)

Airport, checking in, typing away, "check in?" asked the check-in lady. "Yes", head down, typing frantically with my thumbs. If my thumbs were two individuals, they would be super duper in shape by now. My thumbs would breeze through the Namibia desert.

Passed custom: blackberry miraclously backed onto my hands, sucking away my energy

Airport lounge: blackberry got a rest as there were computers and free food

Off plane, on a car to hotel: head down, typing away, a rush went through my head to find people leaving me bbm messages after 5 hours of plane ride and began chatting

Hold on. Where am I? It's been over 10 years since I stepped foot in India. What is going on here? Where's that young adventurous girl who's hungry to absorb every new sight along the way, hungry to memorize every little details she sees, eager to hit and strike off all the places on her lonely planet guide. Instead, I am a crazy woman who has all her energy focusing on this little grey gadget. I took a deep breath, shoved the blackberry into my bag and began to look out of the window...

I love the evening dusk of Mumbai, the skyline is a lot lower compare to Hong Kong and you can  see the sky without obtrusion and high rises. I love the vast blue skyline infused with exotic Indian smell. 

At traffic light, a woman with her long braided hair down to the small of her back in a beautiful pink sari walking across the road. Coming across an old man walking with no shoes but balancing a big white bag on his head...

I am in India for the weekend and I should make it a worthwhile one.

suze orman

There are many experiences I encountered at work that I want to blog about for memory sake.

For instance, there are some general misconceptions about my job. B loves to argue with me with what I do (for me to get a better sense of "the other side") He loves to point out the inherent misaligned interest between my client and myself. One of the books he gave me has a killer first chapter "fire your investment advisor"... that, my friend, is what you called true love.
My personal defense as follows: I feel quite connected with Suze Orman on CNBC. Sometimes, I imagine myself being Suze Orman of HK one day. Last night, there was a Minnesota NFL backline player asked Suze for financial advice for his large savings in the bank. There are a few interesting tidbits. For example, the average career lifespan for NFL player is 3.5years. The NFL player on the show will be unemployed in his late 20s. Before Suze began advising this young man, she went on a lengthy diatribe on investment advisors. She challenged whether his advisor asked him questions about his career lifespan and future income stream (which any good bankers will do). She was adamant about his investment advisor not having his real interest at heart. "If you can't feel that they care about you, then you are probably right." (with her hands just keep touching on her chest )
The truth is, clients know when you have their interests at heart. They know whether you are churing their accounts. You don't have to reject the notion of having an investment advisor, you simply reject the bad ones with your own instinct. After all, your business acumen brought you to making all that money in the first place, haven't it?

swap 10 friends for a free whopper

2 articles on new york times inspired me to blog over chinese new year holidays.

Burger King has created an ad campaign on facebook where you get a free Whopper for severing friendship with 10 of your friends. The idea sprung up for people who felt they have too many people on their friend lists.  This campaign motivates you with a burger, sifting out those who haven't contacted for years or those only met once at a party. On your activity feed it will say "You have been sacrificed by Mary for a free Whopper". I get paranoid when too many random people pry into my life. Oversharing is not my strength (unlike BabyBri). Looking forward to a Lan Fong Yuen ad campaign where I get to sacrifice someone for peanut butter + condensed milk toast.  

Another article was a new support group created in New York called Dating a Banker Annoymous (yes, only in New York). For the fellow girlfriends / wives / ex-wives whose got their bergdorf budget cut off or having to deal with over stressed partner. Honestly, there is only one thing I want to say: suck it up! Count your blessings that money can't buy.

steamed chinese turnip cake

Took dim sum cooking class at Grand Hyatt this weekend. It was quite an experience to meet and see my favourite chinese food chefs in action. Apart from demonstration of steamed rice roll, scallop dumpling and barbecued pork bun. We made 3 common dim sum dishes. 

steamed chinese turnip cake with preserved meat (蘿蔔糕)

chinese turnip 1200g
preserved pork (diced) 110g
preserved sausage (diced) 110g
dried shrimp 110g

seasoning:
sticky flour 450g
water chestnut flour 93g
salt 26g
chicken powder 26g
sugar 49g
peanut oil 75g
sesame oil little (around 2 tsp)
pepper little

preparations:
trick: cut turnip but don't shred and boil it briefly
boil preserved pork, preserved susage and dried shrimps also
mix all seasoing with 800g water
boil 1000g of water, add all ingredients. add seasoning mixture and stir to mix well.
steam for 30 minutes over high heat.

steamed chinese sponge cake 馬拉糕

plain flour 187g
bread flour 19g
custard flour 19g
caster sugar 187g
baking soda 2g
egg 5 pieces
evaporated milk 93g
baking powder 11g
butter (melted) 56g
peanut oil 37g

preparations:
combine plain flour, custard flour and sugar in a big bowl, then slowly add egg
add evaporated milk
add melted butter and peanut oil into the remaining mxture to mix thoroughly(add slowly)
trick: take out a small cup of the final batch and beat it with baking powder instead of pouring all baking powder into the whole batch
after beating with a small cup of mixture with baking powder, pour it back into the whole bowl.
pour mixture into a cake tin and steam over high heat for 20-25 mins

The last dish was deep fried chinese new year dumpling. It was like making a crossiant so not worth making at home in my opinion. My mom had a lot of fun making them in class though as it reminded her of her youthful days of making them 30 years ago

latisse

Latisse, the first federally approved drug to grow your eyelashes longer and fuller. Interestingly, Latisse is owned by Allergen. The health care company which also owns BOTOX, beauty blockbuster.

Interesting fact to know: BabyB was named after an Opthamologist, the inventor of BOTOX, who originally used it to treat crossed eyes and fluttering eyelids. Allergen took a different turn and transformed the drug into a multi billion dollar cosmetic business.

On the website, they have studies demonstrating the progression of using Latisse on eyelashes. By 16th week, you are left with thicker, longer, fuller eyelashes. Fascinating. Maybe J. Lo should do this instead of putting on red fox fur on hers. An added value proposition for Latisse is saving little animals from J.Lo's mink blink.
Purely on aesthetic point of view, Latisse maybe great news to women. The key to transform your facial feature is through enhancing your eyes. The more mascara the better. Another trick is putting on fake eyelashes. The more the merrier. Quite a lot of Asian women go to salons religiously to have eyelash extensions or eyelash perm done. With Latisse coming out this month, they might be changing their calling to pharmacies and perform a DIY at home.
For me, I don't have the courage to try out Latisse as much as I want the luring effects prophesized on Latisse. Capitalised words marcomedia flashed before your eyes: Grow your eyelashes... LONGER... *flash* FULLER... *flash* DARKER... *flash* I am almost converted. However, the 3.6% chance of getting allergic reaction with the solution is equally unappealing. I guess no sultry eyes for me. : (
Instead, I am going to study Allergan to see the potential in reviving my sunken stock portfolio. This maybe my blockbuster stock afterall...

ricotta cheesecake cupcake

I found an interesting SITE for online book shopping today while searching for where to buy my automatic letter opener for my new room (a must have!) This site seems much more fun than amazon or barns&noble.

food for thought:

"An over-expansion of credit can enable the capitalist system to sell temporarily more goods than the sum of real incomes in created current production, plus past savings, could buy but in the long run debts must be paid. Since these debts cannot be automatically paid through expanded output and income, capitalism is destined for a crash "

The above quote is essentially an interpretation of Karl Marx theory on capitalism. His textbook on communism "Das Kaptial" published in 1867 has become recent bestsellers again in Germany, Japan and Korea after last year's global credit crisis and economic meltdown. People seem to be interested in what Karl Marx has to say as his theory on capitalism from 200 years ago came true today.

I need to get back to my Time Paradox as Baby Bri is starting to get impatient with me on holding on to the book for so long.

P.S. I have decided to use the recipe of the day on my Cupcake Calendar as my Blog Title for that day.

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

3 tbsp. margarine, melted

2 tbsp. honey

2 1/2 cups part-skim ricotta cheese

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar sifted

1 tsp. orange extract

1/2 cup walnut halves

sweet and sour ahi tuna

One of my new year resolutions is to keep track on dishes and cakes I make in order to solidly improve my "cooking skills". In order to make this work, blog maybe the way to achieve my goal as I have always greatly admired those artisans who blog about their baking processes and those amazing, mouthwatering cakes they come out with.

I am going to make something simple today. This is from my christmas present recipe book "Hawai'i's Favorite Pineapple Recipes"  (Thanks to Dr. & Mrs. Wong)

sweet and sour citrus sauce 

1 cup orange juice

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced

1/2 cup ketchup

1 tablespoon cornstarch, dissolved in 1/4 cup

Brush tuna fillet with canola oil, season with salt and pepper and pan fry! mix green pepper, red repper, button mushroom, bean sprouts together to cook.