Sugardy Candy

As others have pointed out, this is extremely USian and in quite a few cases, I only know what the foods refer to because American culture. Attempting from my Southeast Asian POV, with some venting:

1. Made biscuits from scratch? ...yes? Biscuits being cookies, though no one ever called them cookies when I was growing up.
2. Fried fresh okra? Never, but my mum loves them fried with sambal. (Anything is better with sambal.)
3. Made sourdough bread? No. Sourdough bread tastes weird.
4. Fried chicken? Yes.
5. Made spaghetti sauce from scratch? Have made, then realised I don't even like spaghetti sauce in restaurants, so why would I even make it?
6. Made any kind of yeast bread? Yeast-derived cakes count?
7. Baked a cake from scratch? Yes.
8. Made icing from scratch? Boring! You make icing only when your cake is too boring. Would you put icing on kueh lapis, for example? No, because it's already yummy as it is.
9. Cooked a pot roast with all the veg? Stews count?
10. Made chili from scratch? Yes. But only if you mean the sambal chili made of actual chili (peppers), garlic, ginger, and of course balacan. And then you can stir-fry any veg with that.
11. Made a meatloaf? No.
12. Made scalloped potatoes? Nope.
13. Made mac/cheese from scratch? Nope.
14. Made a jello salad? What is that?
15. Made peanut brittle? No. There's usually peanut candy during CNY and festivities anyway.
16. Made fudge? No.
17. Made cookies from scratch? See (1).
18. Cooked a pot of beans from dried beans? Yes... but cooking red bean and green bean soup is like the simplest kind of dessert. Tip: put some dried orange peel in your red bean (adzuki) soup, and some pearl barley in your green bean (mung bean) soup.
19. Cooked a pot of greens? Luo han zhai? this? No.
20. Made cornbread from scratch? No.
21. Made a pie dough from scratch? Once, in school.
22. Cooked a whole turkey? Why would anyone do that?
23. Snapped green beans and cooked them? Sure, why not? See (2).
24. Made mashed potatoes from scratch? No.
25. What’s the most people you have (alone) prepared a whole meal for? 2-3.
26. Poached an egg? No.
27. Made pancakes from scratch? A few times.
28. Roasted vegetables in the oven instead of boiling them? From time to time. When I'm too lazy even for stir-fying.
29. Made fresh pasta? No.
30. Made croissants from scratch? Nope.
31. Made tuna salad? What.
32. Fried fish? Yup.
33. Made baked beans? Don't they come in cans?
34. Made ice cream from scratch? No.
35. Made jam or jelly? Nope. Wait, does jelly refer to agar-agar?
36. Zested an orange or lemon? Yup.
37. Made grits from scratch? What is that?
38. Made an omelette? Yes.
39. Lived in a house without a dishwasher? Yes.
40. Eaten a bowl of cereal for supper? A few times as a student. No good. You get get hungry again in an hour. Waste of money and energy. Just cook some rice or at least make a sandwich (or eta: instant ramen). Supper referring to the main evening meal, I assume? If it's the late night one, just go to bed and make some rice porridge in the morning.

Challenge #2

In your own space, talk about your fannish history.

( Oh where to start. )


Challenge #4

In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

Fannish: Finish my WIPs...

Non-fannish: (1) Make the Filmy Fern Shawl except with a different edging; I hate short-rows so much.

(2) Write original fic. This is hard because original fic is so different from fanfic, and what's more, I usually write m/m pairings (if it is romantic) and I still feel like I need to lead in with preamble about a person's character and sexuality before I can even describe a pairing, and that's exactly the kind of justification I hate in fanfics. ETA: The great thing about fanfics is that we all know that however strongly RL-tinged, it is still set in the canon-verse and is one (more) step removed from RL. Whereas original fic don't have that... cushioning.

(A) Missed Hikago Day. Missed a large part of May, really due to work and apathy. Though I still wondered how Hikaru and Akira (Shindou and Touya) would be like in 2018.

(B) Trying to hop back into fandom, or at least LJ/DW posting. Have a rec:

Inference, Lin Chen POV, Mei Changsu aka Su Zhe, retrospective, Nirvana in Fire, by aboxthecolouroftheheartache, and the sequel Accession.


(C) I visited Vietnam! Hanoi for only 1.5 days, 1 day at Halong Bay and 3 glorious days in Sapa (or Sa Pa). I do love mountains. Wasn't in the best of shape to actually go trekking/hiking (took the cable car to Fansipan), but took many walks and climbed loads of steps. Saw the rice terraces up close. Regret not buying more local Hmong handicrafts because they were really, really pretty and the design aesthetic suits my taste.

(D) There's this book meme. I might have done something similar before, so this time I'll do the entry that corresponds with the date of posting. So for today:

( 23. Made to read at school. )


( The others. )

Grab the nearest book, flip to page 117, the second sentence is your life in 2017.

"They had carefully decorated the inside with holograms of grasslands, forests, and oceans; cultivated real gardens; and built fishing ponds and water fountains, turning the ship into a real home."

Death's End, by Liu Cixin, trans. Ken Liu, last installment of the Three-Body epic.

...okay? I'll be living in a make-believe place, it seems.

***

Job hunting continues. Today I did some teaching at a tutoring centre... tutoring a bunch of seven- and eight-year-olds, which is kind of amusing. Poor kids. Who actually wants to spend Saturday at a tutoring session?

***

k-drama

Goblin, aka Guardian: The Lonely and Great God: I don't know why the network renamed the series (or gave it two names), maybe the awesomeness of Gong Yoo just could not be limited to one title, or something. Haha.

One thing that drew my attention before it aired was that the inspiration came from Korean folktales (with plenty of adaptation, of course) rather than western-derived tales. Then it aired, and I loved the myth-making that went into the plot, even if it combined that with the theme of reincarnation -- which I'm usually wary about. There are quite a few long, drawn-out scenes of characters brooding, which can feel overlong unless you're simply enjoying the eyecandy (the cute thing about k-dramas is that there is a lot of pretty). The cinematography is gorgeous.

Other than that, I'm enjoying it so much that for the first time in my life of watching k-dramas I wished I understood Korean so that I could get the nuance of what the characters are saying. Last night there was major character death so I'm a bit bummed by that, but the scene before that happened (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1hty9DtJSU) defines "whoa". Also, I think that sword is almost too big.

Meme, stolen from f-list:

Rules: go to page 7* of your WIP, skip to the 7th line, share 7 sentences, and tag 7 more writers to continue the challenge.

Most of the businesses were held by a number of proxies, but eventually Takaba noticed that a name cropped up with regularity.

Sandaime.

Strictly speaking, it was not a name at all. It was just a title that meant "Third generation head". Head of the organisation, Takaba speculated. But what organisation?

Takaba was about to give up when he found an old news archive of a now-defunct newsmagazine (it had been bought out by a bigger, more monied media company and then put to sleep, metaphorically speaking).

Actually page 7 of my working draft. Not going to tag, feel free to steal meme too!

***

Recs:

All the Important Words Unspoken, AU, Harry/Draco, Harry Potter, by blamebrampton

Audio Commentary Track With Steve Rogers, Steve, Sam, Captain America, by copperbadge

I can't remember if I did something like this last year, but well, a lot has happened this year. I got older, slightly more bitter but also calmer about stuff. So- ( Read more... )

I come late to this particular blogging meme, but would my f-list like to give suggestions for posts starting this Solstice? I reserve the right to make up topics for empty slots.

Rules of the meme:

Pick a date below and give me a topic. It can be anything, from fandom to offline life to whatever you want.

Topics: you can get an idea from my tags/from the stuff I usually ramble about/from things you maybe wish I talked about more but don’t.

You can request multiple topics (as long as they’re on different days — one topic per day!).

( starting from 22 Dec to 22 Jan )

ETA: Oh, right. The hazards of crossposting on LJ and DW. Um, comment wherever you wish and if there's a conflict, I'll fill the next available slot instead.

Didn't crosspost last couple of entries, because weirdly Dreamwidth turns into a page of red and the box disappears when I log into it at work.

99 Bowls of Plomeek Soup on the Wall, Sarek, Amanda, Spock, general, humour, Star Trek (The Original Series), by jamjar and petra

***

Stole a meme:

Name your 10-15 absolutely favorite couples (het/slash/canon/fanon) and ask people to see what trends they notice about your couples. Try to pick different fandoms:

1) Heero/Duo (Gundam Wing)
2) Hikaru/Akira (Hikaru no Go)
3) Mulder/Scully (X-files)
4) Kaoru/Kenshin (Rurouni Kenshin)
5) Echizen/Momoshiro (Prince of Tennis)
6) Tsukasa/Ryuji (Tokyo Crazy Paradise)
7) Fujiwara/86 (Initial D)
8) Clark/Lex (Smallville)
9) Peabody/Emerson (Amelia Peabody books)
10) Haku/Chihiro (Spirited Away)
11) Ashitaka/San (Princess Mononoke)
12) Sanzo/Goku (Saiyuki)
13) Lee/Gaara (Naruto)
14) Tsuzuki/Touda (Yami no Matsuei)
15) Methos/McLeod (Highlander)

Other couples that I like: Hikaru/Akari, Isumi/Le Ping, Atobe/Jirou, Fujiwara/Ryousuke... I like Harry/Draco and Harry/Snape equally, tho' if someone can find me Harry/Draco/Ron that would be Just Fine.

***

Came across this Malaysian retailer/trading co? that sells the Hanlin ebook. Read a review that says it uses a Nokia battery. I'm weirdly charmed by this. Maybe because I own a Nokia battery (well, two) and it's like I already own part of an ebook! (It made sense in my head...)