是誰還在繼續

突然間，很想聽雷光夏的《黑暗之光》…

是有海潮聲的那一個版本。

我曾經有的，可是有一天不見了。

在 Youtube 又找不到，唯有退而求其次。

海靠近我，空氣濕了，
黑暗溫柔，凝視著我。
繁星亮起，回憶浮動，
曾經存在，如今隱沒。

該不是我的心，還在小聲唱著，
該不是這場雨，一直都還沒停，
該不是我的心，還在思索結局，
該不是這場夢，是誰還在繼續。

海靠近我，空氣濕了，
美麗的夢，請別遠走，
繁星亮起，宇宙甦醒，
黑暗溫柔，改變過我。

食品技工

星期六，終於有機會睡足六小時了。

過去的一個星期，每天都睡不好也不足。肩頭以上的東西全然酸痛。

昨天在 lab 時割傷了手，然後同一個傷口給熱鍋灼傷了。

真的來個禍不單行。

那個 mayonnaise 更要命。因加了不該加的水，令醬汁不企身。活該。

結果？ 用了比別人一倍的時間手力，才勉強完成。

可是手也快斷了．．．連我的同學也看不過，幫我攪了一陣子。

Chef 說 "Absolutely no flavour!" 我才想起忘了試味！

四個小時的 lab 沒有時間上洗手間，一丁點水也沒有喝．．．加上要應付一個連 olive 是啥也不知的同學．．．

只有兩個字：「要命！」

我正努力完成 Kitchen Confidential，裡面說作 cook 的只是 craftsman，不是 artist ("Cooking is a craft, not an art." pg. 62).

No wonder this program of "Culinary Arts" has no class that deals with "arts"--all the courses are named "skills" and "techniques"....

And providing an opportunity of working in a food factory...

My cooking journal

The banquet/large quantity class is a cooking event that has a special theme each week: the first week we had chicken, last week we had lamb, and this week? Pig! And I really love the habitant pea soup my fellow classmate and I did--it's just awesome! The secret? put aaaaaa lot of fat in it :-) We put in 75+ grams of butter, 150+ gram of slab bacon, and two big chuncks of ham with bone and all the fat attached!

I didn't like soup too much, but now my impression towards it totally changed :-)



And on Monday's dessert class, we made some cookies. I was too hurry and ate a few cookies without really chewing on them :-) And the result? I think I hurt my throat badly.

I'm glad I didn't choose to become a pastry chef though, since making good pastries is really not easy! Afterall, I'm not a detail oriented person.... the chocolate lines, for example, were way too thick!



***

Talked to a chef today who coordinates the Italian program, but he said I need to work in a good kitchen and get recommendation from the chef...

Looks like I need to start working next semester.

千里共嬋娟

祝快樂！

有若浮雲

The wine tasting class was pretty fun. We spent the first two hours on theory, which had enormous information. During the last hour we tasted eight wines...

and I finished all the 8 ounces without taking any food.. :-) and I was like riding a cloud back home after the class...

Here's my first tasting notes:

Sancerre Henri Bourgeois 2006 AOC. 12.5%
Aroma: peppery, lemony, fruity
Taste: dry, medium light body, citric flavour, savory, tart
Food pairing: chef cheese, fresh water fish, avocado, asparagus, mussels

Cave Spring Riesling 2006 VQA 11.5%
Aroma: tarry (apricot), floral, berrylike, green appley
Taste: medium dry
Food pairing: veal, cheese, fresh water fish, Turkey

Brouilly Georges Duboeuf 2002 12.5%
Aroma: sour cherry, banana, buckwheat
Taste: medium to light body, dry, cherry, peppery, hot syrup
Food pairing: salty dishes, cheese, salami, chicken sandwich, spicy food

High Field Pinot Noir Marlborough 2004 14.5%
Aroma: Smoky, fermenting cheese, leather, raisins, tobacco
Taste: dry, medium light, spicy, full body
Food pairing: truffles, duck, venison, game meat, escargot

Cotes Du Rhone E. Guigal 2003 13%
Aroma:
Taste: dry old finish, dusky
Food pairing:
*Note: There was a sever heat wave in France in 2003. This made the to get matured a lot earlier

Dry Sac Sherry 19.5%
Aroma: roasted vanilla, pork!
Taste: nutty
Food pairing: grilled sardines, olive

Canadian Raspberry 13%
Aroma: Raspberry
Taste: chocolate
Food pairing: ice cream

Cava Champaign Spain
Aroma: nutty, biscuit, ocean
Taste: dry
Food pairing: anything except steak

Consommé 中的盼望

今天學煮清湯。

對中國人來說，沒有什麼特別。反正廣東人的老火湯一向也清，也好喝。

雖然說 Consommé 是「清」，但材料多，花的時間也長。

要湯清，全靠雞蛋白。

原理是，蛋白受熱凝固上升，連帶其他的東西也帶走。

最後成為一層厚厚的東西，像木筏一樣，浮在表面上。

最近被一些事煩著，如果有層蛋白給我就好了．．．讓煩惱凝結，心靈如清湯。

不過，煩惱是我自找的。

舊老闆說得對．．． 我是一個喜歡鑽牛角尖的人（他是個會批命的人）。

難怪他三番四次著我改名 （可是我謝絕了）。

信基督的人，「命運」在信的那一刻就改了（我姊夫說的）。

「命運」改了，可是性格還須磨一下．．．

哎，還是給我蛋白就好了。

你的叮囑

謝謝你！

認識你，是我的幸福。

Sleepless in Toronto

Here's how the streets around my place are like at 12:30AM on a Saturday night... pretty impressive isn't it? As far as I remember the streets in HK started to die down already at mid-night. Well, at least it was 14 years ago before I immigrated to Canada.

Lee's hell kitchen

I know that working in a kitchen has a lot of yelling and all that, but couldn't have imagined that the kitchen of Susur Lee, a celebrity chef in Toronto, can be this bad...




I was planning to try my luck there getting a job as a line cook... but looks like I won't be able to survive for over a year--especially now that I bad mouth his restraunt I probably wont' even get a job. HAHA!

Interestingly enough, the Facebook group "I Worked @ Susur Lee's and Survived!", as mentioned in the news article, is gone now...

Making soup

The first dish taht I made in the Culinary Skills class: Clear vegetable soupm, which uses a chicken stock base I made. The taste? I think it's OK, although it's a bit less salt than it should be. But other than that the chef was pleased with it.



To make the soup, we first need to make the chicken stock with the following ingredients:

2kg Chicken Bones
125g Chopped Onion
60g Chopped Carrot
60g Chopped Celery
60g Chopped Leek (white part only)
4L Cold water
Spice bag with thyme, bay leaves, parsley stalks, crushed black pepercorns

The ingredients were boiled and then simmered for 1 hour and a half. Skim as necessary. After it's done, strain through conical strainer lined with cheesecloth.

To avoid cloudying the soup, avoid stiring the ingredients. In case we need something light in color, we probably need to skip the carrots.

The vegetable soup is more or less the same thing, except that this time we'll save the vegetables. Also we added turnip, green beans, and parsley. We'll need to sweat the vegetables first before adding the chicken stock. Make sure the veggies are not browned during the sweating process... or else the soup will turn out dark. Oh, of course, spice bag is needed too.

Pouvoir c'est vouloir

"When there is a way, there is a way."

As the French teacher quoted.

French is hard, but thank you for your encouragement along the way! I won't let you down :)

Went to the Italian class tonight. I really enjoyed it. To be honest, it's much better than the French class. I like the style of the teacher, it's so easy to follow and systematic--at least I understand how to pronounce all the alphabets, and hence the words, even though I don't know the meanings. Also we learned how to greet someone formally and informally.

It was a fun class!

Learning a new language is excited and stimulating, since I am not only learning the language itself, I am also learning ways of communicating with each other. It's funny that even though 70% of the class is conducted in Italian, we somehow got what the teacher said (well, actually, except me :)

I guess language just isn't the biggest barrier of communication... isn't it?

***

On my way back home, I found the streets were still packed with people. I think I started to like the city live. It makes me feel that I'm not alone :-)

***

It's been almost two weeks for school. Almost every day when I walk back home I asked myself the same questions,

"What am I doing here? Is it worth the time cutting potatoes and making plain chicken stocks?"

"I mean, I could have spent 8 hours in the office and for the rest of the time I can do whatever I want to do?!"

"Most of my friends set up a family already, well, not just that, they already have kids! Several kids!"

Yeah, I know, I know what I am doing, where I am heading to... but the unknown future soemtimes becomes a haunting scene...

But after reading a blog of my ex-colleague, quoted:

Now with my 30th birthday coming up, I find myself without goals and even odder, without a desire to have anything more.

I suddenly remembered I had once felt exactly the same way. And then I know, I am doing the right thing for myself--however small the step it is now.

I went on to the Crazy Sexy Cancer website, really like what it says,

"Why, when we are challenged to survive, do we give ourselves permission to turely live?"

I guess it's better to let myself truely live now, then when I could have no choice. Comparing to a lot of others, I'm truley blessed already.

Can we have Virgin Canada?

I've been whining about the hopelessly non-competitive airline business in Canada--we only have two shining companies here: Air Canada and WestJet... and we don't have any website selling discounted tickets like what they have down south. We have been paying high prices flying across the contient: the last time I checked a direct flight from Toronto to Seattle in November costs CAD$800 on aircanada.ca! This is just ridiculous--for that fare I can probably go back to HK from the west coast during low season, let alone there is Oasis now... And the plane we have is not a Boeing nor Air Bus... it's a small European company that makes planes with only ONE bathroom for the entire 120+ seat economic cabin. So as soon as the safty belt signal is off, there will be a VERY LONG line at the back of the plane....

Sigh, when will we have something like Virgin America playing in the market that offers pleasing surprises like providing on-flight Wi-fi and Ethernet internet access?

大鑊飯

第一次入廚房煮大鑊飯！我負責煮馬鈴薯泥．．． 沒有太大的挑戰，卻很好玩 ：）當中的隊工、大家的投入、是最吸引人的地方。

And I really like how the chef yelled at people. There was a chef from another class who is sharing the same ktichen, who just happened to be tasting our food, and then he said he needed salt and pepper... The gorup who was responsible for the station just passed the salt to the chef (and it took them a while to do that).

The chef yelled at them, "I said salt AND pepper. Where is the pepper? Who is getting it??"

And they replied,

"Black pepper?"

浪漫是啥？

有人說：「浪漫是, 和你同一個時間, 不同的空間, 看著同一樣的東西.」

朋友說：「浪漫是, 把自己的心意傳達出去, 而且看到對方快樂的接受, 不管用什麼方法.」

我想：「浪漫是, 一種聆聽。」

戒色

剛剛看完《色·戒》，明白到為何要給電影這個名字。差不多三個小時，卻很緊湊。故事週旋於情、慾、理想、責任的拉扯矛盾中。

非常好的一部影片！

＊＊＊

謝謝你的翻譯！！

＊＊＊

剛收到從英國寄來的兩本權威飲食雜誌 《Restaurant》，看見這樣的菜色，可以不拍案叫絕嗎？

ＴＩＦＦ

今年中因出走歐洲而錯過了ＳＩＦＦ，幸好來到多倫多有ＴＩＦＦ，而且比ＳＩＦＦ更大規模 （來自５５個國家３４９套電影）。

想看的（比較大路的）有：
Lust, Caution
Blood Brothers
Love Comes Lately
Chaotic Ana
Chacun son cinéma

因為錯過了買學生套票，所以不能多看。況且沒太多時間．．．

開學一個星期，漸漸習慣了。每天不到６ＡＭ便起床，陪伴我的是比我更早的娘，還有早晨日出：



＊＊＊

OK, that's all for practicing Chinese typing for now :-)

So the Culinary Skills lesson on Friday is pretty fun, as the chef told us that we don't use any measuring cups--we use large eggs to "measure" our stuffs. Each large egg has about 2 oz, so:

3 eggs = 1/2 cups
1 egg = 3 table spoons
1/2 egg = 4 tea spoons

Oh, and the chef said that he doesn't use white pepper, as it destroys any flavor. I was a bit skeptical on this, until my mom cooked fish in tomato that same night--the white pepper she added was way too strong and stimulated my throat. After doing some research on the web though, the white pepper is supposed to be less pungent than black pepper.... hum... that doesn't make sense to me now.

I am planning to try replacing black pepper with white pepper and see what the difference would be. And I'm going to try it out on a 羅宋湯 ：）

距離

Just read this touching love story, in which the couple had seven years of long distance relationship but they finally happily married!

My friend said... "心的距離不遠就好"

Totally agreed :-)

***

Finally my stuffs are delivered and they are with me now!! I can't be happier than finally get the stuffs back, although I still need to follow up when I will be able to get back the "overcharged" fee of the storage. Now I have to pay $600+ and if lucky, I can get back the money from the shipping company. It's a horrible experience from start to end (I didn't mention that they threw me some broken boxes and ask me to pack the 37" LCD TV--without any padding and/or bubbles!)

Next time when I move, I probably wont' trust the big name companies that much...

怎麼辦

I just don't understand, that "Beginner" French class is so difficult! 80% of what the teacher said was in French, and 80% of my classmates konw French in certain degree. I guess that's because of the mandatory French lessons kids need to take till Grade 9. There are a few students who can introduce themselves in fluent French--it's not just ordinary introduciton, but the teacher gave 15 questions where they need to answer and include in their "speech"!

I was totally a foreigner in the class. I really want to quit.

But thinking about it more... you won't get to learn a language unless you really have to use it--I guess (or hope) the teacher is forcing us to come over this anxiety and step out and make mistakes. Then learn from them.

But honestly, I don't really like this method. Anyways, I'll do my best to get over this hurdle.

The teacher gave us a lot of good resources where we can learn French on our own. Probably starting next term I'll start learning on my own.

開學日：shit!

第一天上學，聽得最多的，就是 Shit！ Butchery 的老師說，Shit 是 culinary term: "Get a shit of beef loin", "cooking shit", "the kitchen is in deep shit"．．． 哈哈！很快，我應該變成另外一個人了．．．

Butchery 很好玩！會切割雞、羊、豬、牛、charcuterie、小牛肉，然後學如何大量烹調這些材料。唯一的是，我們需要在４４度華氏（攝氏６度）的環境下工作。加上昨天晚上睡得不好，現在有點頭痛．．．

＊＊＊

謝謝你，Eric, Tim, and all! Love the T-shirt :-)

食得鹹魚抵得渴

剛剛又剃了鬚，因為學校不准。沒法唷，要不就要 wear a beard net!!

＊＊＊

朋友說，台語的「老婆」稱為「牽手」．．．我想：「牽手到白頭，是一種幸福。」

朋友回應：「三十歲就可以白了。」

哈哈！ 真炫！

開學了！！

終於開學了！ 充滿了興奮!

以下是我的時間表：



四十小時的 classes，密密麻麻的填滿了整個星期。

Stay connected :-)

Sassy and her new friend

Sassy and her new friend
Originally uploaded by euqus

Just received this picture from my friend who's renting the house... I guess there is still some time before Sassy can get along with her new friend!

Good though my friends like Sassy so much that they're taking good care of her. She's a very demanding cat and is very doggy--she'll wait for you at the doorway when she hears you opening the door, and she'll stand on her foot and use her front legs scratching on you to get your attention! And every morning when I was having breakfast she'll jump on to the table and circling around asking me to pet her...