Important Message for Baby Boomers, “Don’t Retire Yet … Refocus”

As an early “Baby Boomer” ie, one of those human beings born in the period after World War II and until the early 1960s, I’ve been giving a lot of thought during the last few years about how much longer I will work and what I’ll do after I retire. It could be a dilemma; on the one hand, after 46 years at work, I’ve had enough working for an employer 8am to 5pm every day except Saturday and Sunday. On the other hand, I’m in good health and don’t want to give work away just to spend the remainder of my days pottering about in the garden. So what’s the solution?

First, I’ve changed my mind about the idea of retirement. To me retirement is a dirty word. It means leaving work and hanging around waiting to die. After all, isn’t that what people do? They leave work and after a few years pottering about, die. The certainty of death is very good at creating focus. It’s not that we morbidly focus on it all the time, but that we know it’s getting closer and need to make the most of what time we have left. I’m thinking more and more each day of “refocusing” instead of “retiring”. Continue reading “Important Message for Baby Boomers, “Don’t Retire Yet … Refocus””

A Silk Road Trip, or I Gobbed in the Gobi, China, 1992

In August 1992, myself and my wife, Caroline, arranged a trip to post-Tiananmen China. It was in the days when the London China Travel office was on Cambridge Circus, opposite the Palace Theatre on Charing Cross Road. It took me at least twenty books, a late-night Japanese television series and several months to plan and arrange the trip from what was then our base in Balham, south London. In those days, you could arrange the visit via China Travel and then, as long as the itinerary was lodged in advance, you could travel absolutely independently. Everything was pre-paid, but on setting off, we had no tickets or confirmed reservations apart from our air tickets in and out of Beijing. As ever, I kept a journal of the trip, which ran to more than fifty pages. A few years later, I condensed the experience to two sides of A4, ignoring rules of grammar and syntax, and produced the following ramble, a perhaps poetic impression of nearly a month of travel. Continue reading “A Silk Road Trip, or I Gobbed in the Gobi, China, 1992”

Chinese Vegetarian Recipes: How to Make Gong Li’s Favorite Spinach Tofu in Raise the Red Lantern

There are many Chinese vegetarian recipes. This one became even more popular after Gong Li’s movie Raise the Red Lantern. In the movie, Gong Li plays a 19 years old girl that’s force into marrying a much older wealthy man. The man already has 3 wives, so Gong Li is wife number 4. At the dinner table for the first time, she doesn’t see anything that she can eat because she is a vegetarian. She tells the servant I do not eat meat, can you make me some spinach tofu. Being the newest and most favorite wife, the servant obeys her request and made the dish just for her. Here’s the recipe for spinach tofu Chinese style. It’s takes about 15 minutes from start to finish.

This is a fast recipe, so prepare all ingredients before beginning.

Continue reading “Chinese Vegetarian Recipes: How to Make Gong Li’s Favorite Spinach Tofu in Raise the Red Lantern”

Chinese Sugar Fried Chestnuts

The “Liang Xiang” chestnuts are well known. Here “Liang Xiang” refers to the old “Liang Xiang” county, which is equivalent to part of the mountain area of “Fangshan” district of Beijing, and is not the “Liang Xiang” village county. “Liang Xiang” chestnuts really are “Fangshan Chinese chestnuts”. It is kind of confusing, even to many Chinese.

There are many ways to eat chestnuts, but the most popular one is the sugar roasted chestnuts.

As soon as chestnuts are harvested in autumn, you’ll see cauldrons are set up at every corner of the street. Mix chestnuts with sand, sprinkle plain sugar syrup, fry it till the sand becomes pitch-black. The chestnuts will then look shining and bright as if a layer of oil has been applied to the shells. The burning smell flutters all over. People like me who are craving chestnuts would come to buy without seller’s calling out. People used to use shovel to fry, now the process is electrically operated. Continue reading “Chinese Sugar Fried Chestnuts”

Viva Singapura

Sipping the Singapore Sling (a cocktail of gin, Benedictine, cherry brandy and club soda) aboard the Singapore Airlines flight, I started planning my Singapore trip. Rachit had promised that there was a lot that I had to see and experience. My mind conjured up images of high-rises and Chinese men in business suits. Would Singapore be any different from Mumbai? Perhaps. It would be much cleaner and devoid of slums, for sure. My grand-aunt had told me about the malls and Chinatown where I could buy cheap porcelain goods. I hate shopping. I wondered if there was anything else for me to do. As the plane landed at Changi International Airport (definitely the best I’ve seen thus far), I drew in my breath. This was the longest flight I had undertaken, the farthest I had gone. Continue reading “Viva Singapura”

Condiments and the Candida Diet

Can you imagine eating a hamburger, hot dog or mom’s meatloaf without ketchup? Okay even if ketchup is not your thing most of us enjoy our favorite foods with some sort of condiment. I have seen hot dogs piled high with mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, soy sauce and relish. A little ridiculous to me, but I am sure very tasty to many. It can be extremely hard not to use condiments but many of us who are trying to adhere to the candida diet are tasked with this very challenge.

The Candida diet is a diet used to treat candidiasis, an overgrowth of yeast (Candida) in the intestinal system. The diet suggests eliminating or reducing a variety of foods and ingredients that exacerbate this condition. Condiments are eliminated on this diet because they usually contain a variety of Candida diet prohibited ingredients. The biggest offender is vinegar but corn syrup, sugar, salt, citric acid, monosodium glutamate and artificial flavors are all very common ingredients in condiments. All of these ingredients help exacerbate candidasis by feeding the Candida. Sugar and additives are common food sources for Candida. This is why commercially available condiments are not allowed on the Candida diet. Although we will not be indulging in any hot dogs on the Candida diet because they are also prohibited there are meals that we can create such as yeast free meatloaf in which we may want to utilize a condiment. So are there any commercially available condiments that we can use on the Candida diet? To be honest, I have not found many but I have come up with the following ideas for condiments. Continue reading “Condiments and the Candida Diet”

Some Useful Chinese Proverbs and Expressions

Below are a few Chinese proverbs or expressions that I have found extremely useful. They are all written in pinyin as Chinese characters may not display properly here.

Chinese Pinyin: “mei chi putao shuo putao suan”

Literal translation – haven’t eaten grapes say grapes sour

Believe that grapes are sour even though you have never eaten a grape.

This is a fairly easy proverb to understand and use. It’s means you have an opinion or judgment about something you have never investigated or know very little about i.e. your opinion has no foundation and you have no right to be passing a judgment on a certain topic or thing. Just like someone who says grapes are sour even though they have never eaten one. Continue reading “Some Useful Chinese Proverbs and Expressions”

7 Reasons Why Indie Theatre Rocks

If you’re anything like me, you don’t like spending your hard-earned (or fairly stolen) money on the same old thing you can get everywhere. And I’m not sure about you, but I can’t afford $150 for 2 hours of theatre. Even if I could, I’d likely use that same money for a weekend binge of DVD rentals, takeout Chinese and cheap booze.

But I still need my live theatre fix. So indie theatre is my hustler of choice. Of course, it helps that it’s awesome. If you think about it, there are tons of reasons why indie theatre (also known as off-off Broadway, indie, experimental, Equity showcase, small theatre, black box theatre or whatever term someone can cook up that means “anything but Broadway”) is just about the coolest form of entertainment around. Continue reading “7 Reasons Why Indie Theatre Rocks”

The Breville Gourmet Wok Review

Is the Breville Gourmet Wok something you really need in your kitchen? Or is it just another hyped kitchen appliance you’ll end up storing somewhere in your garage and forget about it? You can read in this article about my experience with this popular electric wok and find out whether it’s worth buying it or not.

I really like cooking Chinese dishes so a year ago I decided to buy an appropriate wok. I owned a wok before but I wasn’t satisfied with the results I was getting. After, looking around I decided to go with the Breville EW30XL Electric Gourmet Wok, my choice being led by the excellent reviews I have read on the net.

When I received the wok I was pleasantly surprised by its sturdy looks (and it weights quite a bit too – 12 pounds) and the simple and clean design. Continue reading “The Breville Gourmet Wok Review”

Indian Food 101

Indian Food and Indian Restaurants are common in many parts of the world , but in my pocket of the world they seem to be few and far between. I realized that many Americans may not be accustomed to Indian Food; what to order at an Indian Restaurant or the proper way to eat Indian Food. Since I grew up eating Indian Food, it is natural for me to tear my naan up and soak up the yummy curry. That is why I wanted to put together a short article outlining some common Indian dishes and what you may want to order at an Indian Restaurant. I hope this will encourage you to give Indian Food a try.

More than likely, you will start out with complimentary poppadoms. These are like very thin crackers, but much larger. There are usually 3 sauces or chutneys that go along with poppadoms, a lime green sauce made with cilantro that is somewhat spicy, a dark brown sauce which is very sweet (save some for later, I will tell you why in a moment), and a mango chutney which is very good but pretty hot.

Appetizers: Continue reading “Indian Food 101”