Marc has salad for lunch while I have it for dinner. I know most of you guys out there do not think much of it, but making salad actually requires skills and creativity. I buy organic salad mix, carrot and grape tomato. Sometimes I grill shrimp or chicken to go with it.

 

Recently, I have discovered chopped almond, thanks to Marc.  It definitely adds flavor to the salad. Another option is to add orange in the salad. Yummy!

Being a stay-home mom, among many other things,  means that I cook way more often than I could have ever imagined. I can make omelette/cereal/French toast (with milk or orange jiuce) for breakfast . For lunch or dinner, shrimp/chichen salad (we have dozens of dressings, my favorite is Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette by Ken's Steak House), mixed vegetables, pasta. And I can sever very delicious cakes that I bake and ice cream I buy for dessert.

 

At the point that I am about to brag about my improved cooking skills, something goes awry. Somehow my fridge was empty yesterday (actually it has a solid reason), so I collected some dried stuff we had to make a stew. And boiled Macaroni  & (canceled) WITHOUT Cheese. The dinner came out like this.

 

It is ugly (I did not say disgusting). It looks like dog food. Maybe above all, I am not a good cook. I writing down this entry just to remind myself of that.

Soyoung came to visit us for the Inependence Day. We did some tourist thing: walking over the Brooklyn Bridge. Afterwards, we went to a "Japanese" restaurant for late lunch around Southstreet Seaport. Soon I found out almost all the waiters and chefs spoke Chinese. I did not feel cheated because the food was quite good. I do not care whether they were prepared by Chinese or Japanese. I have heard that out of New York, 90% of Japanese restaurants are owned or operated by Chinese.  But it did remind me of some interesting debates about Chinese, Korean and Japanese food and culture. Dyske Suematsu (a Japanese designer who lives in New York, he is really funny, I like reading his stuff) wrote an article on "how to tell a real Japanese restaurant" (here is the link: http://www.dyske.com/index.php?view_id=786). He went too far to say that Chinese and Koreans are "Exploiting" Japanese culture, Mark Dong, a Vietnamese wrote an article to counter his points. Here is the discussion board http://www.dyske.com/discuss.php?id=786

 

OK, for those who are interested, here is the link to Dyske Suematsu's  speech  about his website www.alllooksame.com  and Asian Americans at Harvard. http://www.dyske.com/index.php?view_id=765