Wednesday, May 25

Life Plans

i sometimes forget my age.

not because i'm senile or wish i was younger (ok, maybe the latter part). i know i'm getting older, but i tend to forget the actual number that quantifies my age because, honestly, not much has changed for me since i was 26ish. hmm, i don't know if that's good or bad. since i'm in a good mood, i'll go with the former vs. the latter.

aside from the fact that it takes me a full day to recover from hangovers and my growing aversion to clubs and the Meatpacking District, nothing's really changed for me. or at least, it doesn't feel like anything's changed.

but no matter how much i want to ignore or deny it, when one of my best friends from childhood gets married, i have to face the music that i'm getting old.

and i'm still single. *cue 60 minutes stopwatch ticking sound getting louder in the background*

*brushing aside fears and moving on* i've known IJB since we were in nursery school, although i don't remember her from then. i remember actually becoming friends when i began attending public school in fourth grade. or was it third grade? yikes. maybe i am becoming senile.

regardless, if you map the trajectory of IJB's life, it's been pretty storybook. it's the kind of life parents tell their kids to pursue. she attended Wellesley College and then med school at GW, graduating this past May.  Now she's at Brown University for her residency. phew, actually writing all that made me even prouder of her for all her accomplishments.

but academics and career achievements aside, IJB's also been blessed in love. before graduating in May, she got married to her also-a-doctor-extremely-tall-handsome husband. IJB's the first of my close, same-aged friends to get married which made it even more touching and surreal at the same time.

IJB had the wedding and reception at the Madison Hotel in Morristown which is a gorgeous and classic looking hotel and apparently a popular choice for NJ weddings (someone else i know had their wedding there about 8 mths prior).
IJB and Papa IJB father-daughter dance


the ceremony and reception was elegant and had a lot of IJB's personal touches. their theme was the movie Up, and instead of the traditional guest sign-in book, IJB had hand-drawn the house from the movie with various colored ink-pads for people to stamp their thumbprint and initial to represent the balloons that lift the house up. how creative is that?!
Yep, the bride DREW this.

another adorable touch was the centerpieces on each table: IJB had gathered quotes and wedding pictures from various couples and each table displayed a different couple and their quote as centerpieces.  
aside from celebrating and sharing in the joyous occassion that is the bride and groom's nuptials, the best part of weddings is the food and drinks. open bars have become a standard for weddings, and IJB's was no exception. as for hors d'oeuvres, there was a nice selection, although Mrs.VW was cracking me up the way she was chasing down all the waiters. i don't think a single hors d'oeuvre escaped her that night. the food at the Madison Hotel is good in its own right, and i loved that IJB's menu had a little Italian mixed into it with all the pastas and antipasto, although i'm not sure it was intentional but i like to believe it was.
Yum cake!
Holy Bananas Foster. I could've eaten 5 of these, if propriety allowed.
when it's the right crowd, it can be quite the party. IJB's wedding was the perfect balance of initimate and endearing while at the same time fun and rambunctious. i could wax on nostalgic about all the great things about IJB's wedding but pictures speak for themselves so i'll just share those instead.

I thought they were going to drop them!


Bridesmaids on the loose!



Monday, May 9

Bringing Mom Home

Mother's Day (and similarly, Father's Day)are always difficult holidays for me. Honestly, any event involving honoring or displaying "thankfulness" are hard for me. What exactly do you give someone to really show them that you love and appreciate them? Can any thing actually do that?

parents are particularly hard. they are the people you owe the most to and who do the most for you. i don't care what you say, it's true. yes, sometimes (or often times)they annoy you, frustrate you, and irritate you, but, it's always out of love. and while you may forget that sometimes, their birthday and nationally recognized holidays are the few days that you absolutely can't forget. in fact, you're forced to recognize it.

i pondered real hard for what to get my mother this Mothers' Day. she's had a pretty rough 2010-2011 having dealt with her illness and treatment, recent diagnosis of diabetes, a tax return crisis involving Prudential, and taking care of all the kids (my cousins + my overly rebellious sister + even me, sometimes). somehow, jsut giving her stuff didn't seem appropriate, particularly since Mom never really needs anything (except for perhaps a live-in maid or weekly maid service-ooo, perhaps birthday present?). after much thought, i decided to make my mom breakfast/brunch.

i'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill omelettes and toast here. my mom's from Taipei and most of her family still lives there, including her sister, brother, and her parents. her dislike of flying (the 15-17 hour flight time doesn't help) and her work, has made it so that she rarely goes back to visit her family or the Taipei she grew up in. since i can't exactly bring my maternal family over from Taipei for the weekend (perhaps one day, when i'm a Rockefeller), i decided to make her a Taiwanese breakfast complete with traditional Taiwanese foods.

a lot of Taiwanese breakfast foods center around flour and dough. i have no idea why. it's completely delicious, but pretty time-consuming, particularly when working with yeast. and to make Hakka-style Bacon requires pretty much a whole day of marinating before you cook it. it pretty hard to do all that in secret in order to properly surprise Mom so, aside from the marinating, i had to do most of it the  morning of. while waking up on a weekend morning at 7 a.m. is never easy, Mom's satisfaction and stamp of approval on all the foods (which i prepared from scratch) made it all worth it.



Hakka-Style Bacon aka


Shen Jian Bao; although the dough was a little thick, this was well-received, particularly by my carnivorous cousin WongWong.

Breakfast Rice Rolls aka ; these are supposed to be made prettier, but whatevs, they still tasted the way they were supposed to. every Taiwanese child has received these at some point when going on a school field trip.

i also made a Pan-Fried Oyster Omelette aka  but it came out the complete anti-thesis of how it should look. luckily, the taste was passable, but i refused to photograph it based on principle. you can see it, the Sesame Chicken Soup, and Fried Cruellers in the picture below.