A Farmer's promise of Spring

I was sleeping but woke up because something didn't feel right. My lungs felt heavy, everything seemed so much darker and colder... "why can't I breathe?" I laid there half asleep for a couple difficult breathes doing nothing about it...with the same lack of energy and spirit of these days. "Is this a dream? It must be a dream..like everything else, like the past 3 weeks, it is ALL just a bad dream." I had lost so many things and abilities these days...I felt myself giving up. "May I give up? I'd like to close my eyes and give up. I will just sleep it away" I closed my eyes and heard the wheezing labor of every breathe evaporate in the silence and darkness of this long night. No idea if an hour passed or a just a minute passed like this...I suddenly felt a very heavy pressure on my lunhs and found myself fighting for air. This time, it was not a dream....I really am losing my ability to breathe!

Major asthma attack. Jade, get your ass up or else soon enough you won't fucking have one. I struggled out of bed. I wanted to call out for help, but I didn't have enough air to speak. I silently searched the house for an inhaler with a clock ticking the passing seconds in my head. None. No Inhaler, no meds... Omg help, getting dizzy...Panic...but all this doesn't do shit for me does it? I had to do SOMETHING! I stopped rummaging through useless cabinets and sat down with a cup of hot water and collected myself. "Can I do this? Can I beat this?...Yes. I can do this. I HAVE to beat this." I found my center, and inhaled slowly from point zero. I didn't get very far but it was ok...anything was something. I exhaled slowly back to Zero...then inhaled again even more slowly. Need to take Time to allow Time to buy more Time. I calmly fought for every millimeter of room of oxygen I could find for my lungs. "I WILL. I CAN do this!" as I fought inch by inch. Never has an extra millisecond of air gained been so precious. Never has every second of Time been so treasured.

The worst was over, and I now lay here slowly recovering, staring into this night with a tear here and there as I think of the things and person I have lost these few days.When things look dark and everything goes wrong, those you reach for have their back turned or are asleep...and you feel like giving up, YOU CAN'T! Sure, you can cry, panick, whatever you need to do...but then Breathe! Get up! Fight! As long as your heart still pumps, you must get up and fight for every bit of air in your lungs because if you don't...who the hell will?!! ...and you know what, you CAN and you WILL!!!

God consantly throws us curve balls and banana peels on our paths. some banana peels we can escape...but some...just make us fall left right then back to the hard ground. Sometimes, the fall is so painful for our rear, we don't want to get up. Sometimes...its just too painful to get up. But I must. You must. We must. Why? Because the view of these banana peels when we stand up on our feet is just so much better than when we lie down defeated. No seriously... because if we don't, our dreams and hopes, all good things and all blessing will pass us by. And if you lay here for a day, for a month and do nothing different, you will be laying there tomorrow, next month, next year, a lifetime.

A quote came to mind. Call it God, or Heaven, Fate...whatever it is, it is bigger than us: "When God solves your problems, you have faith in His abilities; when God doesn't solve your problems He has faith in your abilities." The sun will rise at the end of the night. So step it up, get up, breathe and push forward. Because if this doesn't happen, there is no end to any famine, no Spring after Winter... and Spring WILL come, bearing its fruits...if we farmers prepare, plant, water, and harvest from the seeds in our hands. If we farmer let the seeds sit on a table, or let them rot in soil with no water or sunlight...what will there be left for us? Even when Spring is set to come, the winter in ourselves will prevent Heaven's Spring from coming! So believe in youself. Get up, stand up, cherish, and fight for every seed, every drop of water, every ray of sunlight, and every ounce of air in you.

I know there are those struggling and having a difficult time. We are all and always fighting our own battles all at the same time.  So to those struggling, to you, to myself... let's put up the fight of the century...for everything that matters and is important.

In the dark of tonight, I smile behind my silent tears. Life may be difficult, and difficult for many out there...but the sun will rise in 2 hours here...and along with it...will be me. I cannot promise when Spring will come for you or for myself... but I can promise that if we plant the seeds at the time they must be planted... Spring will come, sooner or later...bigger and better.

Jia yo!

Love in the Kitchen

In the summer of 2011, we gathered on a lovely afternoon for a farewell brunch for my bestfriend who was leaving for Hong Kong. Little did I know that I would be reflecting on this afternoon constantly in the months to come.

As we prepared to make the switch from reisling to champagne, my bestfriend raised her glass and said to us all "This year will be life changing for us all! I can feel it!" At that moment as I glanced at her eyes shining through my wine glass, I could feel it too...down to my inner bones. With that, I popped open my bottle of limited edition Armand de Brignac champagne among the girls squeeling & V covering her ears because I always purposely open bottles right beside her... POP!

Indeed, starting summer of 2011... things will change for us all.

It's been a year since I last wrote here... V's words still ring like a bell, clearer than the ring of our glasses as we made that toast. Everything has changed in this half year. V is in Taiwan now with a sweet new bf & a chocolate mini toy poodle named Chloe. T is now engaged, A has totally turned her relationship around, 2 girls have survived breakups, 1 divorced, 2 gfs gave birth to little baby angels, and 1 has baby #2 on the way ( and I'm planning her baby shower which is this coming weekend!). Me? I graduated from nursing school and starting a new life.

These couple months, I focused on the word Friendship. What it is, what it means ( what I wanted it to mean), what it can be on the good and bad end the spectrum. I will save that for another day...because today something lovely happened. Love, and its meaning as it is transformed with Time presented itself to me in the most unexpected place of all places: in my kitchen...and from the most unexpected of people: Dad.

All my life, Dad was the ultimate 大男人-family man: He does not clean, does not cook, does not deal with children's tantrums or illnesses ( no. it's all for Mom). He works & brings home the bread & butter, so when we hear his car roll into the garage, we scramble. We fetch his house slippers, the cartoon are switched to the Taiwan news, Mom has a piping hot Chinese dinner ( 3-4 dishes & a hot soup from scratch) ready to leave the stove hot. Dad's resting chair's cushion is plumped, we scramble to make his tea and place his newspaper & the tv remote on the table next to his chair. The door opens & we straighten our clothes and all chime in unison "爸爸回來!"

35 years roll by marked in tally with increasing gray hairs... Mom spends her day surrounded with 50+ kids in the chinese daycare center she started 10 yrs ago as a hobby, and Dad relaxes and just collects rent from different properties here & there, occupies himself with ipods and iphones and goes ballroom dancing ( which he was known for during his university days).

One afternoon, I hear this clanging and banging of pots in the kitchen from my room. Didn't think much of it until I smelled this fantastic smell creeping into my room. I smelled clam pasta...and that's when I looked up from my fb. Something was wrong...terribly wrong. Why is there action in the kitchen when Mom is @ her daycare center til 6pm...and we all eat out now? I crept to the kitchen and suddenly, the world was round and the red sea had parted: Dad. was. cooking.... .... ?

He never even knew the difference between american and swiss cheese & use to get it all wrong so we never have him buy the groceries. Now, he is making white pasta sauce from scrap?! I swear, I did not see a single jar of pre-made, or a single can of preserved anything on the kitchen counter!!! My brain froze, jaw dropped and my feet forgot themselves...I just stood there stunned. He turned & saw me with my jaw hanging on the floor and said " Come here and do my dishes"

I found my jaw and my feet and walked over to the kitchen sink, looking around to see where he hid that premade pasta sauce jar (....must be hidden here somewhere). He said " Wash these dishes while I open these clams"...there they were....fresh clams bathing in a bowl of water. " Mom never eats till the kitchen counter is cleaned so if you wash them now, she will eat as soon as she comes home"

I washed the dishes in silent obedience as I watched Dad add some salt into his pasta sauce and peel his clams one by one with his own hands. He was struggling a bit, but he had this determined expression on his face...that same determination that drove him for 35 yrs to house & roof us and to allow us to live so comfortably and learn anything we wanted growing up. I had so many questions in my head... but out of my fear of destroying his concentration and having him throw a clam at me, I said nothing.

He suddenly stopped and said under his breathe "cilantro." With that, he dropped everything, grabbed the keys and left the house with me still staring from the sink to clams on the table awaiting their fate. 15 minutes later, he came back with a bag cilantro. The man who I knew never wanted to bother with small details like this and just made due with whatever was available....had dropped everything to drive out and buy cilantro to bring some little extra flavor to a dish?! He washed the cilantro and said " add a little of this in the soup and it will open up the flavor of the mushrooms"...and there it was, a huge pot of mushroom cream soup...and an amazing meat roll of pork brisket glazed in a sweet garlic-ginger glaze ( It's a Japanese dish, he explained)

When Mom came home, he had finished preparing his clam pasta, caramelized bell pepper salad, cream of mushroom soup and a japanese pork brisket roll. Set 2 wine glasses and a bottle of wine on the table. From the corner where I stood in the hall observing Dad, I saw him whip out a camera, take a photo of the food, then continue with opening the wine. "My dad takes photos of food he's cooked...just like me....he is human afterall~" I thought.

As we all sat down to eat...it struck me that this could be a total disaster. Dad has his pride, and even if he is wrong, we have never dared to correct him in anything. If it tastes bad, do we grunt in savory like it was Wolfgang Puck's and shower him with compliments?...what if these compliments encourage him to cook every night?! as I pondered up all these scenarios, Mom had picked up her fork, stuck it into the bell pepper salad & put one in her mouth.

After a couple chews: The Test of Love~

The gentle nature of Love is often thrown off by the over-powering nature of Pride. So it is only natural that Love will test Pride & the person who bears it before Love reveals itself in its most unconditional form~

Mom:"What did you add in here? it's too sour." At hearing this criticism, I forgot to swallow my food before inhaling and almost choked as I turned to look at Dad

Dad: he tastes his own salad "Hm. You're right. I must have left it in the vinegar too long"

Mom continues: "And now that it's cooled the butter is all caked up on it." Mommy, I love you but where is this new found boldness coming from? are you trying to kill off all your offspring?!

Dad: he looks at it and says " You're right. I should make it a bit later so it's served hot".
..I swallowed a bite of my sour, butter-caked bell pepper salad out of love for Dad. Afterall....he's never been in the kitchen...and he made this for us...

But then I realized...there is a bigger love at this table than my own sacrifice:
Joyce asks, "Dad, where d'you learn to cook this stuff?"

Dad:" Well, I'm watching that Korean drama with Mom everynight now (yes, my mom forces him to watch it with her~) and the main character is a pasta chef so I thought I'd try."

Joyce: So you're saying you learned this from Korean dramas?"

Dad smiles proudly: "No, I watch on Youtube" Youtube? There was once a man who was internet illiterate in my memory...

This Big Thing Called Love~

I had observed the ups & downs of my parents marraige and because of it, I had even challenged the very existance of Love, re-defined what Love was, and saw Love and Time like Earth & Water. Over time, the water which is silent yet ever present and moving (like Time) along Earth (like Love)...changes the Earth. Through Spring and Winter, from rain & floods, rivers are reduced to streams that can dry up and cease to exist, as new streams are created and find its way to the ocean. Ponds can dry up and all the Life in that ecosystem can be wiped barren, yet new ponds can be discovered with tadpoles swimming about and plants surrounding them....

Here is the ultimate man who never cooked or cleaned for all 35 years of his marraige... watching korean drama's with his wife though he likes to watch nothing except the news, then staying up late to look up youtube videos on how to cook, take down notes & list the ingredients....then go buy those ingredients fresh from the market to cook. He will even drop everything in the middle to go out to buy a small ingredient just to get that dish right for the woman who has cooked everyday for 35 yrs for him. And for a man who has pride & face, to put his beginning creations at the mercy and criticism of a woman who even I aspire to cook like...because he wants to get better.... For that man to remind his daughter to wash those dishes before dinner is served bec ause he remembered his wife never sat down at the dinner table until she had cleaned the counter during the days he had come home from work... is this not Love that has been weathered by Time? I had noticed Mommy never seats herself at the dinner table until the kitchen was clean, but I could never tell Daddy noticed at all. He never pointed it out and I don't recall him saying thank you for it either... but he had noticed after all! I was never happier to do someone else's dishes than I was today, doing Dad's ... His consideration & leaps of courage in his battle with pots, pans and clams was truly more a show of appreciation and love than those 2 short syllables of gratitude, or that 3-word phrase of love can ever measure up to.

I realized that my view of Love's travel & weathering through and by Time was jaded. I had thought that Love can only inevitably fade into a comfortable companionship. I had thought that Love cools like Passion, and fades like our Youth. But instead, I have come to learn that Love doesn't weaken with age as our bodies do: it may weaken or break without a foundation to stand on ( just like any other type of relationship with any other person, right?) But if it has a strong foundation to stand on, it may not be as bright & bold as it once was...but it can strengthen into a long steady flame that can withstand winters no matter how difficult or harsh. And unlike so many things in this world, Love can surpass and outlive Time. Love can withstand Time. We just don't realize it because we must first be able to see that Love changes as all things should change...Time changes everything: seasons change, we change, love changes...because Time changes. Love must change in order to survive the weathering of Time. But just because Love's form changes, it doesnt mean it is any weaker or it doesn't exist.


Thank you, Dad. Thank you, clams. Thank you, cilantro...and Thank you, God for showing me the answer to this riddle of an affair Love has had with Time and revealing Dad happens to be an amazing chef. He thinks he's Iron Chef and watches youtube videos when no one's home & cooks dinner almost everynight now. The only downside is that I have to do dishes everyday, and I'm not losing any weight because all his food must be eaten & finished. I owe Heaven for bestowing him a talent for the culinary arts and his cooking tastes so good. But above everything else, I thank Love and Time, with a huge smile for making this food feels so good to and in me.

For those who wonder if Love can attest to Time , here are 2 people that have shown me...that it can =)

Perhaps....I should start a fb album of all his cooking adventures....

Love in a bento box

First day of clinicals tomorrow: I've been assigned to a hospital around Whittier. Super excited!

We aren't allowed to leave the premises to get lunch, nor are we allowed to use their microwaves, ect. So that means....either eat cold food (*shiver*) or bring a sandwich (*eh*) But I'm so excited about clinicals that i told my mom over our dinner I'm even excited at the thought of a balogne sandwich! (no sarcasm. Im serious)

I know how to make all sorts of japanese dishes, even a mean fresh lobster dynamite roll, katsudon, and udon noodles...but I've never mastered making california rolls and such. Something about the rolling thing-a-ma-jigger...I still find it a bit intimidating. So mommy supervised while i gave it another go:


We prepared the rice, cut the veggies, got everything else together, and I watched her assemble the first roll. Watching her, my first big challenge was where to place everything to make it as pretty as she makes it... and how much ( so that it doesnt bulge, get loose & lose shape, ect).


Seems like PRESSURE is the key: the rice has to be a certain density so that it can hold things in place, but still be "roll"-able. and rolling with the thingy, a lot of attention is also places on amount of pressure and placement of pressure. Naturally, being a piano teacher who's made a living on emphasis of the finger tips, I started out pressing with my fingers tips; I thought I'd have more control over it all because my mom pointed out you can never re-roll re-do it once its been rolled. yikes!)...but my mom corrected me: it's about pressure with the fingers (not the tips themselves) and the palm.


Mines turned out a little smaller, but nothing was falling out, and one end was slighter larger in diameter than the other (I'm thinking it's due to uneven placement of filling and uneven pressure from when i began with my finger tips)


I kept eating the leftover cucumbers and tamago (sweet egg),,,each bite just made me grin. so yum! at first, Ma just gave me glares for munching...but finally...I guess I was eating too much of it, she slapped my hand gently before I got my hands on another strip of tamago. OK~ I'll stop (and stuffed one last strip into my mouth. She glared at me again, but I could see she was trying not to smile)





then I packaged the ones I made in my bento box, and made a baby rose out of some ginger. cute huh!? now I am REALLY excited about tomorrow!

Goodnight all!

-N

Inedible Sweet Indulgances

I'm a big girl now, but i love that mommy still indulges the little girl inside me

She camped herself out at the guest dining room & kneaded flour, water and oils. I was curious to see what dessert she was making....cake? cupcakes?! her famous cheesecake??!?....

...but when she started to pour paint into the many rolls of dough, the word "edible" became a concern for me...



deciding it was inedible, i lost interest and went upstairs to practice piano. I didnt come back down until it was late into the night and everyone was fast asleep.



and there, on the table was my mom's creations:

She was preparing for her arts & craft class at her

children daycare center the next day. And for her

over-sized baby girl, she made this:

Im so blessed to have such a fantastic loving woman be my mom. God, pretty please let me be at least HALF of the woman she is. please? half at least? sigh~ got a long way to go...my big feet will need lots of time before they can fit her tiny shoes.

Hello Kitty seems to be smiling at me, she is so adorable, and she knows it

Mission de Chef Natalie: LA Rooftop Sunday Brunch

Now playing "feather"
Up super early... but it's gorgeous morning! There's a slight morning chill, birds are chirping.

Making Sunday Brunch @ a gf's pad in LA. Its a beautiful morning! it will be perfect to enjoy a sunday brunch, mimosa's and alcoholic desserts on the rooftop overlooking LA.

Can't wait, but Im up against my will because my constant itch of having to always be prepared prepared prepared has got to be scratched well well well! Dont want to forget a single ingredient (dunno where the closest store it at). Don't want to forget a single tool or garnish...or dish or matching glass for that matter either! I'm not OCD...but I am definitely anal about detail cuz it's ALL about taste & it's ALL about presentation.

OH MAN! EYEBAGS GALORE I'M SURE OF IT!

Menu this morning:

笑了

今早發現媽媽不在房間裡...我走進後院的花圃看到媽媽的背影.我們看著對方, 兩人都穿白色衣服, 戴帽子. 我們看著對方...沒說話...媽媽笑了。我看著她，也笑了。

Lookin back, me and mommy were born with such opposite character and personality: I was so tough, strong, selfish and stubborn. Mommy grew up soft, weak, gentle and giving. Time has passed. Mommy aged. I've grown up. As I looked at her in our garden...both wearing white and sunhats....her with short hair & cute wrinkles...me with my long hair & flip flops, I realized something. I am a mirror of her when she was young. And some how, with God's blessing and her love....Time & their love has washed away my toughness, selfishness & stubborness. I've grown up to be soft, gentle and giving....but remain strong in my spirit.

...謝謝.

春天的雨

currently playing: "你是爱我的" from film "如果·愛"

我還沒有放棄... 你打算放棄了嗎？就這樣放棄了嗎？

只是回憶的音樂盒還旋轉著　要怎麼停呢? 説好的幸福呢?

爸，請你告訴我...回憶的音樂要怎麼停呢?
爸，請你告訴我...你後悔了嗎？

i guess we are powerless to help determine the happiness of others...but we can determine our own, and aim to provide an environment for our future other & children to find their longlasting happiness....

i guess....我們只能找到自己未來的幸福.