The world is not hopeless ;-)

New work ;-)



As you know, I have been complaining about how the world turns out to be an ugly place where the human race has fallen to the bottom of darkness ;-).

But recently, I met many good people that I start feeling happier with this world. Of course, the things that those people do and their actions are meaningless for them, they do them because it's in their nature to do so. They did even know that they have done a good things, they think it is the right things to do. Yeah, you might have been surprised but living in this world has made me become skeptical, doubtful, that is why I appreciated so much when someone does something good, they remind myself to do the right things.

Hopefully, I can experience them more...

Mapo Tofu

Vieja Ropa with tostones and chilian salad

A Cuban friend has introduced this speciality of Cuba, apparently, it used to be a farmer's meal in the past, and the name means "old clothes". Basically, it is a stew, very similar to Vnese "bo kho" but we can use cumin, capers as spices. The tip is also to boil the meat with onion, garlic and a bit of salt, and then throw away that water, clean the meat, and start stewing.

This should be accompanied with fried plantain banana (tostones), or canssava roots (yucca in Cuban, manioc in French, khoai mi or san in Vnese) or bread. I chose fried plantain, and a simple onion, tomatoes with red wine vinaigrette and cilantro salad. A super winter meal.

Seasonal soup- Curried Pumpkin soup

Autumn is the hunting season, there is a vast offer of game, wild mushrooms...A typical meal in traditional restaurant is really about game dish accompanied with smashed chestnut and raspberry sauce or oven baked apples and croquettes. But for me, I love this season (apart from the beautiful and romantic scene of the leaves falling from their trees at the beginning) for pumpkin ;-). In the past, my grandmon used to boil pumpkin (not until it is too soft ofc),we ate it like that, and drink the boiled pumpkin stock. Or my mom used to make a kind of dessert with coconut mild and sticky rice, this is a much better way of cooking this fruit. I was not a fan of pumpkin dishes ;-). However, like making soups very much, so here comes the curried pumpkin soup. Normally, it goes very well with a bit of sour cream and a bit of parsley on the top, but I can't eat parsley (it is one of the only herb that I can't stand the smell or the taste of it), so green onion or chives does the job. It tastes fantastic, perfect for a cold evening ;-).

New artwork

I have always been fascinated in painting nude bodies ;-)

, when a man or a woman poses nude, it is much more interesting because of the natural beauty and that in a comfortable manners, we are not afraid of having small breasts or plenty of wrinkles or big butt ;-). Maybe the definition of beauty or art is large, and that each of us holds our own opinions, that's why some people do not find nude paintings beautiful while others do.

I currently finish reading a couple of interesting books such as the Joyluck club of Amy Tan, The Long Tail..etc. Of course, the content of these books are very much different from each other, one is about the several generations of Chinese women, the other is about the new theory of the economy where scarity of goods belongs to the past, and we are talking about the economy of abundance.

Anyway, movies have also been on my calendar with several good films-good in the sense that they made me think about the current world, about life.. like Micheal Clayton, the American Gangters (related to the VN war, typical movie of the 70s), Lions for Lambs...etc.

Talking about movies, recently there is a scandal in VN where a young girl who had a sex video where she slept with her boyfriend (remind us why we should NEVER do that) distributed online. Of course, in the West, this makes her the "Vnese Paris", would eventually bring her fame and loads of money but in VN, the nineteen years old (she was an idol of a famous student reality show in VN)lost her job and destroyed her future career while nothing has been said on her boyfriend who is currently studying in US, son of the Chief Police (imagin how a chief's salary allows his son studies in US). Whilst IMHO, I think it is their business, and what happened should not be the reason to fire her, I do think that it is not fair that all the attention and criticism has been focused on this poor girl. I hope she is being strong, and maybe she should find her ways out of VN.

Well, next post hopefully will be on foods ;-)

Recent arcrylic paintings...

This time I applied colours ;-))

Cold soba noodle salad and vegetarian curry

I remember when I was younger I used to help my grandma making two meals (lunch and dinner) a day for the family. We live very near to a small open market but big enough to provide all the fresh ingredients such as live stocks, vegetables grown by the people who lived a little bit outside the city. Every morning, my grandma took her basket that made with straw, her conical hat (if you have been to VN, you would have known which hat I am taking about), and asked if me or my sister want to come with her to the market. I always love going to the market because my grandma used to take us to have breakfast at one of the food stands there (pho, hu tieu...), and then of course, we were allowed to have dessert (yes, dessert after breakfast! ;-). We had been lucky because even when my grandfather was put to prison for trying to escape VN when the South VN lost the war, our family did not have enough foods, but we were often given the best stuffs to eat. After breakfast, we went from down to up market, my grandma would stop by to look at the merchandise ;-), bargaining...The whole experience took more than 3h from leaving house to going back home (I guess that explains why I love spending time in the supermarket nowadays-even though the experience is nothing to compare with but still just looking at the different wine labels, or different sort of potatoes or fishes..often relaxes me ;-)).

Once home, my grandma started the prepare everything, then she would cook first the dishes for my grandfather, and there was always something to accompany his wine (snake wine or herbal wine ;-) before he started the real meal with everyone. After meal, my grandma would take the fruits that were offered to Buddha and then she would give everybody an equal part ;-) (often me or my sister would get my grandfather's part because he gave them to us after he receiving his ;-)).

Yes, the love for cooking has come to me because I see it as a way to keep everybody together, I loved it when I tried to make something and my grandfather would say that it tasted good ;-). Even now, I like to cook a lot (and usually for a great number of people), and many different dishes for friends and family, so my guess my dishes are often not well-presented because I learnt that foods had to taste good, and not look good. But of course, a couple of months spent next to the chefs and my favourite TV time (BBC's Sunday Kitchen), I know that good foods should not only taste good but also look good (okey, nothing new here ;-)) but that is to say the main idea is about to make dishes become exquisite when they should be.

I guess I will try to limit the number of guests from now on and try to experience the other side of foods, that means the look of my foods ;-). That would be difficult because I have the tendency to want to have all my friends at once.

African concert