through the looking glass

ok, I understand that this building is so terribly important it must be worked on around the clock, but seeing as it’s summer and all and we’ve all got to have our windows open, do you think you could possible save the industrial strength power tools for daytime use? even evening would suffice. but I really fail to see how it’s a good idea for anyone involved to operate power tools, expecially the ones that sound like they have rather large blades, at 1am.

I enjoy my city, I do. it’s not too big, not too small; the people not quite as fast (or seemingly quite as mean to each other) nor as loud as in the big ten cities. stores have enough foreign luxuries to get me through those food-homesick moments but not so much that I forget what country I’m actually in. I get to see first hand progress rolling slowly (and sometimes bulldozing quickly) in. but reading this I have to admit I’m drooling, not to mention going over and over in my head the above mentioned reasons as well as a plethora more. oh for smoked salmon on a sesame seed bagel…delivered, sunday morning.

watched the matrix last night. for a while I listened in chinese. missed a lot, I’m sure, but this…this is brilliant

zion is translated as xi’an : )

between that and the subsequent nervous breakdown of my dvd player (it started plastering the brand name splash screen in ever changing multi-colored quadrants all over the place, I cannot begin to describe it, really) I am now convinced that if I travel three hours east I will in fact find the only true survivors of the human race, though they may or may not be being used as batteries.

also, the following is my current favorite lunchtime home cooked mien. (yo po mien remains my dining out lunch favorite.) there are as many ways I’ve found to prepare this simple recipe as there are people in china. the following is the recipe I’m currently favoring.

egg and tomato mien :

(to serve one. double for two, etc etc.)
~2 bricks mien (the small kind. or 1 roll if you buy roll packaged.)
1 egg
1 small tomato (or 1/2 large one)
green onions, chopped, to taste

bring water to a boil. cook desired amount of mien. switch mien to other burner, placing wok on the heat. as wok warms up, drain mien.

add oil. once smoking, add egg (this ensures it puffs up nicely, giving you an awful lot more egg for your egg. if you do not have a hot enough wok it will seem like you have an awful lot less egg going on.)
after ~6 seconds break up egg and add green onion.
almost immediately add mien. do not stir yet
add salt. I like adding a little black pepper but chinese people think I’m crazy.
stir
crush tomato into wok. by this I mean hold tomato over wok and squeeze. this a) breaks up tomato into pleasant bite size chunks and b) gives you a little juice for flavor
stir and cook for another ~15-30 seconds. the smell fo the tomato will change. the moment it does, take the wok off the heat and turn off the stove.
put into bowl, eat.

the real trick is the oil. too much and it’s, well, oily. too little and you’re burning noodles. experiment. I count one missippi, stop. but ymmv.