Flashback: Jho at Age 3

One of my aunts has recently started culling her impressive photo collection and gave my siblings and I each a packet of family photos for Christmas. They range from true oldies, like the one you’ll see below, to almost recent ones to flashbacks from the glorious 1980s and 1990s, when bold prints, big hair, and truly ginormous glasses reigned supreme.

As the last of our extended family to leave the Philippines, my aunt has a treasure trove of old photos that most of us have never even seen. Even my mom was stumped by this photo, taken on the occasion of my third birthday.

I’m the one standing. My littler sister is in the straw hammock that served as our crib. I’m guessing that my father took this photo. He owned a photo shop in the Philippines and I can always detect a certain craftsmanship in his early photos, a delicate framing of the subject and background, that gives the photo a little more drama and tension than all the bad, too far away, or too blurry, or just blah photographs we’ve taken at family gatherings.

Enter the Dragon, or Here Comes 2012

Happy New Year, my peeps. 2012 is officially here (though I’m still sometimes writing ‘ll or, god forbid, ’09) and it is with quivering hearts that we look to another year, another page turned in the (hopefully) long (and not too boring) novel of our lives.

A new year always makes me a little anxious and angry. Inevitably, I haven’t accomplished as much as I’d hoped in the last 12 months, and the thought of resolutions and diets and spring cleaning makes me want to punch the next New-Year-New-You devotee. 

The Logic of Two Ovens…or a Thanksgiving Cooking Manifesto

It’s 8:00am and I’m awake in bed, trying to plot out in my coffee-deprived brain how to most efficiently stage my Thanksgiving cooking. I do this every year (at least the years when I’m responsible for more than one dish) and it strikes me that today, of all days, two ovens is a must-have.

I’m as disturbed (and secretly exhilarated) by American excess, our multi-colored and advertising-drenched aisles of toothpastes and dental floss (whitening, tartar control, pro-enamel, sensitive gums, etc.), the unending shelves of cereal for the sugar junkies and health nuts alike, the thrumming rows of frozen vegetables, microwave meals and bagel pizzas.

But two ovens? Man, you won’t know how much you covet them until a day like today. And I’m not even cooking a turkey this year. Reheating a cooked one for several hours – yes. But starting from scratch – no. Nonetheless, Turkey Day requires copious preparation, the will of a field army general, and the absolute confidence to kick people the hell out of your kitchen (this means you, CityBoy, get your own damn kitchen).

Our motley assortment of serving dishes prepped and ready to go

So far, my Thanksgiving day cooking consist of:

Eggplant caponata (done and chilling in the fridge)

Sweet potato casserole (prepped and ready to go into the oven for 30 minutes)

Mashed potatoes

Roasted Brussel sprouts

Green beans pancetta

…And Some Wedding Thoughts…

Very early on, maybe a week or two into our engagement, CityBoy and I decided that we didn’t want a long engagement. We were approaching four years together, and it was time for this show to hit the road. (I’m not really sure what this means, but you know what I’m saying, right?) I couldn’t imagine spending a whole year (or more) trying to plan the “perfect wedding.”

As most of my friends know, I’m pretty relaxed about most things. I didn’t have a wedding hope chest, or any real notion of what kind of flowers/dress/cake/etc. I wanted. I’ve watched Say Yes to the Dress, but more as an exercise in schadenfreude (a la “Good lord, why would you spend $20,000 that you don’t have on some hoochie dress that shows your bare midriff on your wedding day? You are an idiot and I’m glad to not be your husband.”).

But I did know what I didn’t want.

Moving Thoughts

my little sister made these sweet cupcakes

The other day, a coworker, knowing that I moved from California to New York, asked me about my experience. He and his girlfriend are considering moving from New York to Florida, and he wanted some firsthand knowledge. This got me thinking. It’s been almost two years since my move (!!), but I haven’t really reflected too much, at least here, about how the move has gone, how it’s affected me and my relationships with others, and whether I’d do it again.

Since we’re all still thinking about the new year and what it holds for each of us (beyond the feverish, resolution-fueled exercising I see at the gym and yoga studio), I figure this deserves some attention. Here’s what I’ve learned in the past year and a half (not in any particular order):

Save up.

If you’re considering moving to a new city and you don’t already have a job lined up, wait. Stop. Save. As much as you can, but I’m recommending at least enough to cover your expenses for six to nine months. I’d never been unemployed for an extended period of time before I moved to New York, and I’d never really struggled to find work, so I naively thought that it would take me three to six months TOPS to find a new job.

Boy was I mistaken. It took me a full year, about a thousand job applications, and interviews with three companies (the only ones who responded), to find a part-time entry-level customer service job. Whose salary is not even close to what I was making at my previous job.

Of course my search was hindered by the worst national job market in decades, a failing economy, and an extremely competitive under-employed labor pool in New York City, but I wish I’d really heeded all those friends and family members who expressed serious reservations about my plans to leave a good job without having a new one in place. Especially since NYC is probably the most expensive city in the US.

Work in Progress: Before And After

* poof *

Friday’s Poem 3/13/2010: Wreck

* poof *

Jho Can Cook (and CityBoy too)!

The Internet is a powerful thing.  I know you know this too, but for some reason, this fact broadsides me now and again.  A few weeks ago, I made Asian Chicken Salad for dinner (something CityBoy loves because, since it’s salad, he assumes it’s super healthy and thus eats several heaping bowlfuls, which I applaud because there’s nothing worse than soggy leftover salad).

The salad base is a mix of romaine lettuce and Napa cabbage, which in New York seems to only be available in a ginormous head, roughly the size of a basketball.  Not having cooked much Napa cabbage in California, I can’t definitely say that this girth is weirdly unusual, but it’s pretty amazing.  I wish I’d had the presence of mind to photograph it for you.

As you can imagine, we had leftovers.  Lots of leftover cabbage.  Which is where the Internet comes in.  I don’t know what home cooks did before.  Did they just subject their loved ones to days and days of raw cabbage salad?  Or sauteed cabbage?  Or cabbage juice?  Not so in our household.  Scouring the trusty Food Network site, I was able to find two intriguing recipes Ants in a Tree and Shrimp and Egg Fried Rice with Napa Cabbage.

I’m still not sure where Sara Moulton got the “Ants in a Tree” name from.  I’m assuming that it’s some literal translation of the quirky Chinese original.  As you can see above, it’s noodles and shredded cabbage with ground meat, in this case turkey.  It’s actually pretty tasty, though the recipe called for slightly more oil than I used and it still was a little too oily for my taste.  Since a major component of the dish is the cabbage, which becomes soggy quickly once cooked, I don’t recommend it if you’re planning on having leftovers.  You need to eat all of this immediately.  There’s lots of ginger in the dish, which I hadn’t used much before and it adds a lovely zing to the dish.

Hello, Thirty-Six.

Today is my birthday. Yes, I’m an Aquarius – friendly and independent, honest and loyal, but also perverse and unpredictable, contrary, detached.

This week has been a swirl of emotions and disappointments, great joy and the wonderful experience of being cared-for. I doubt it gets any easier growing older, as we struggle to say good-bye to old aspirations and dreams, and prepare for new adventures.

I don’t know her, but I feel like Cecilia Woloch is one person who has mastered this. She’s a poet of incredible talent and passion, and I’d be lucky, damned lucky, to enjoy a career as fulfilling as hers.

Here’s her poem “The Passionate Suitcase.”

Rock on, people!

Jho

The Jon and Kate Plus 8 Haircut

Yesterday I got a haircut.  I was really looking forward to it, since my hair had grown out quite a bit since the last one and because I’d really loved my last cut.  Short and sassy and eye-catching.  Worth every penny of the $80 I spent on it.  And I have a big event today, my going-away party.  A gathering of all my dearest friends in the LA area, some of whom I haven’t seen in ages.

So I was excited.  Thrilled really, to be getting spruced up for my big party and thinking about introducing my friends to CityBoy, who was flying in expressly for the festivities.  I exchanged the usual pleasantries with my gal, told her how much I loved my last ‘do, and settled in for a good time.

Half-way through I should have realized I was in trouble.  She couldn’t quite remember how she’d done my hair the last time (which was somewhat understandable since she cuts hair very much “on the fly” and I hadn’t seen her in almost 2 months).  She said she’d figure it out.  Clue #1.  Then she mentioned a couple of ways she was going to change the cut from last time.  They didn’t seem major, so I shrugged and said okay.  I even told her, I trust you, it always comes out cute.  Clue #2.  But when she started showing me how to puff up the crown of my head, I knew it.  We had wildly divergent ideas of what my head should look like.

And yet, rather than say anything, I felt immobilized by my bad ‘do.  I kept thinking, this can’t be how she wants this to look, I’m sure she’s going to cut some more and make it magically like the last haircut.  But she didn’t.

And now I look like Kate, from Jon and Kate Plus 8.

WTF??  I mean, is there anything about me that says “suburban mom desperately trying to look cool and sexy”?  I hope not.

And then, to make matters worse, I got stuck in traffic on the way home.  Which gave me plenty of time to stew.  And nothing looks good in the tiny 3 inch frame of your rear view mirror.  So, angry and frustrated and annoyed by the tickle of hundreds of invisible post-haircut hairs, I broke out the scissors.  I know.  You’re saying to yourself, stop.  Stop.  STOP.  But I was pissed and sulking and convinced I could fix it with a few quick snips.

So I learned some very valuable lessons yesterday.  One:  do not get a haircut the day before a big event.  Two:  say something when your stylist is  f**king up your hair.  Three:  for the love of god, do not attempt to fix it yourself.  There’s a reason our mothers always took the scissors out of our hands when we were kids.