It's all about apples...

On October of 2007, ATANY had an apple picking event, which about 50 people attended. We had a lot of female friends join us for the apple picking event, but the afternoon activity should be the reason that they came - Woodbury Common Premium Outlets. Oh, don't think the whole bag of apples is mine. They are for 5 members of my group. I was on my duty for the event initially. By the time I joined them, the bag was almost full. They must love apples, I would say. It was my first time to apple picking, and it was fun. However, I prefer cherry picking, which I did in Idaho three years ago because I love eating cherries.

By the way, I bought two cufflink shirts at CK and Geoffrey Beene, one polo shirt and one T-shirt at Ralph Lauren. It's just too hard to come back with empty hands.

What can I do with the apples? I would get sick if I ate apples day after day. "An apple a day keeps a doctor away" doesn't apply on my case. Therefore, I decided to try something fun, adventure, and truly new to myself - cook the apples. It is hard to make fruits for dinner meal. When I went over the recipes online to find out what I can cook with the apples, I found there are people like me who also went to apple picking and also tried to cook the apples. I am not alone. :D

When I was cooking "Sweet and Sour Chicken with Apple," I was worried about the taste. This is a brave try because the idea was based on my cooking experience without recipe. The result came out to be good. It was delicious! The sliced apple one was also good, and it's easy to make. While I was trying to think what else I could cook, an excellent one came to my mind - Curry Rice. Because of the curry, I had to buy a bag of potatoes. By the way, as you can see in the photos, the curry dishes were good. I mean really good. Then what should I do with the rest of potatoes? I made two more dishes to finish them. Fortunately, I didn't need to buy more stuff just to finish the potatoes. Otherwise, you will see endless dish chain. The following is the flow chart of my cooking. No more apples......

Sweet and Sour Chicken with Apple (糖醋蘋果雞)

Sliced Apple with Green and Red Peppers in Light Sauce (涼拌蘋果絲)

Curry Beef Rice with Apple (牛肉蘋果咖哩飯)

Curry Beef Noodles with Apple (牛肉蘋果咖哩麵)

Beef Stew with Potato (馬鈴薯燉肉)

Minced Potato Shortcake (可樂餅定食)

Mets Game

I am a Yankees fan because of Chien-Ming Wang, of course. Therefore, I had never been to any Mets game before that night. The reason that I went to the Mets game was because I got free tickets, and I invited Michael, who is a Mets fan, and his girlfriend to join me.

In terms of style, Mets stadium is quite different from Yankees. While watching Yankees game is all about those stars, Mets game is more fun to watch. They gave out T-shirt, which made people all crazy about. It's not because the T-shirts are expensive, but fun, you know. Also they sang a song that every Mets fan could sing during the short break at 7th inning. It was so fun. I couldn't join though. Maybe next time I will be able to sing the song when I go to Mets game.

It's all about cooking...

If I were in Taiwan, I wouldn't make the following dishes at home, most likely. A lot of them were my first try. If you would ask me why I could cook, it's all about sense, I would say. And of course, the experience does help. The more you cook, the easier you can get it through.

Living in New York City, besides the incredible taxes, the rent and the food take a huge part of my income. One way to spend as less money as possible is to cook for yourself. Ideally, if you can get company on board to share the cost, that will be the best way. As my host mother said, cooking for one more person doesn't make a big difference.

Sometimes cooking can make you very tired; especially after working a whole day, even just think about it. I always count myself to finish cooking within an hour, hopefully. The thing that is frustrated is that I spend an hour cooking and I will finish my dinner in 15 minutes. Afterwards, I need another 5 minutes for cleaning up. I wish I could eat slowly, so that I won't feel "that's it? that's my exhausted one hour?"

Cooking is not all about the down side. When I successfully made new dishes, I feel good about myself because they are like my accomplishments one after one. Thanks for those of you who give positive feedback.

Steamed Spareribs with Rice Flower (粉蒸排骨)

Baked Salmon with Lime (香檸烤鮭魚)

Shrimp ball with pineapple (鳳梨蝦球)

Cold Noodles with shredded Chicken on Sesame Sauce (雞絲涼麵)

Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐)

Assorted Braise Meal (什錦燴飯)

Braised Tofu (紅燒豆腐)

Oden (關東煮)