I have a lot going on in my mind. Is that why I have been waking up at 3:30 am for the past two days? It's not pleasant, this insomnia thing. I can see how people can go crazy.

Slumdog Millionaire goes on my list of favorite movies. It also goes on my list of movies I would never watch again. It is heart wrenching, spares no graphic detail. I had to look down (or up, or not at all) a couple of times. The plot? Not the point at all. It's the backdrop of this film that I walk away thinking about, and probably will always think about when I encounter anything Indian for the next couple of months.

All mornings do not start off equally. Some leads to the corner I've been waiting to turn. There is no guarantee what lies ahead, of course... but there it is, something new!

Sometimes I refuse to feel better. If I didn't, I would sleep with this book. I would keep a copy in every room of my apartment. I would read it instead of watching TV. I would read it instead of blogging.

I'm going to mail a copy to my "little swallow" (literal translation of her Chinese name). She is in DC! From China!! For three years!!! Here is when no amount of exclamation marks or adverbs layered on adjectives layered on grandiose vocabulary could express how utterly shocked and happy I am. Sure, she is still rather far, I still can't see her right away, but we are in the same country!!! I haven't spend quality time with her since I was seventeen! Our last reunion in 2005 was only 48 hrs and so very rushed.

I'm also going to mail her a package of gumbo mix! I think cooking has never been her forte and I still remember my first bite into a hamburger when I first came to the US... the taste of pickles was so disgusting it would take months before I give hamburgers another try (must have been a whopper). There is something about the spices in gumbo that agrees rather well with even the most unaccustomed/picky of Chinese taste buds. Plus it's easy to make. Plus I just want to send her stuff.

http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/eatpraylove.htm

Today is a historic day in my country, and this entry is just my way of saying -- I'm here. This happened in my time.

The day Barack Obama was elected, about twenty TV stations televised the last twenty minutes of the election. I flipped the channels without pausing, a blur of balloons and confetti. I did stop for one full minute on one particular image, long enough to formulate what this election meant to me.

The image was a little girl sitting high on her dad's shoulders, waving the American flag with such excitement that her blond curls went wild. She couldn't be more than five, and the big smile on her face convinced me that she grasped fully the significance of this election, had toiled for the president's win, and was so proud of the victory. I thought: how special, for this one moment in time, there isn't an ounce of racial prejudice in her heart. She truly loves her President, as only a child can. Then I thought how amazing it would be for a whole new generation to grow up with an African American man as their President, if only for the personification of racial equality, an extra weapon to fend off bigotry. I hope all the narrow-minded conservatives slept a little uneasily that night, and their festering beliefs shaken just enough to let some new air in.

I also hope once the Inauguration is over, my new President won't continue to be a celebrity, at least not in this blindly-worship-and-douse-with-impossible-expectations sort of way. I hope he does wonderful things for the country. As of right now, he is what we need... and I'm thankful for what he has already done.

A little trepidation on rejoining the home crowd. I've been away for so long. Three more months of rotations, then it's almost graduation time. Sounds fast, but can feel like an eternity when the immediate future is so uncertain. I don't even know where to report to for clinic next week. How I would like to climb back into Linda N's sofa bed, curl up with The Traveler's Wife, and catch the late shuttle.

Beautiful hazelnuts. They are my favorite. Special little dome tops with pointed nose. I was careful not to burn them in the oven. That would be so sad.

Just because I like a city, doesn't mean I have to live there for three years... Yet how hard it is to commit three years of my life to a city that I do not enjoy.

The city of Charleston had me at the first sniff of these road-side, home-made praline candy stores. I thought they were a New Orleans specialty and would never be found beyond the rain gutters of French Quarter, yet there they are on streets with such promising names (Market, King, East Bay).

I'm not pointing to anything in particular. The greedy smile says "I want it all". In the end, I settled on pumpkin fudge and warm praline. They made my tour through downtown Charleston, in the drizzing RAIN, quite enjoyable.

There were chocolate barks of every kind. This one in particular caught my eye because it seems easily duplicable... by TnL. I seem to remember some M&M cookies that were well received. This may be worth a try, don't you think?

A pot of gold! Actually, it was a barrel.

Look how clean the streets are, a striking contrast to my beloved French Quarter. I can make these critical comparisons without feeling guilty because I LOVE New Orleans, and we all know it's quite acceptable to criticize what we truly love.

Where to go for lunch? Not an easy question to answer when Charleston is a city known for its lowcountry cooking and entire magazines are devoted to answering this very question. So...

Bull Street Gourmet. It does not disappoint. Fresh sandwiches made from scratch by smiling cashier/chef/owner behind wooden counters. It's a local kitchen/restaurant with a steady streaming of customers lined up for their take outs. The famous chicken salad sandwich is dotted with cranberries and hazelnuts, creamy and crunchy...

Interesting how well walnut goes with banana, like tapioca with milk tea. Pecans? Almonds? Not the same. I have tried half a dozen bread pudding recipes, but the simplicity and variations on this rustic dessert always makes it hard for me to turn down a new one. In fact, I have never repeated myself. The truth is good bread soaked in creamy sweet custard is good no matter what you do. Burn the topping? Scrap it off! Still good. Forgot the raisins? Sprinkle it on! Still good. My mom wanted me to make bread pudding for her, so I tried a new banana walnut version with raisins soaked in brandy. Oh so goo!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/banana-walnut-bread-pudding-with-buttery-rum-sauce-recipe/index.html

Interesting that even though I insisted no celebration, I cannot forgo the need to feel especially special today… When I was ten I demanded ten presents (the tenth one, I remember, was a white fluffy stuffed animal hidden in my bed). I now prefer to spread out my material needs evenly throughout the year. I do, however, appreciate the cookbooks my mom bought without second guessing me with "are you sure you need these"? It was my birthday, and she bought me what I wanted with an obliging consent that I will miss... tomorrow. The pretty ribboned zucchini salad below is from Giada (her book I actually didn't buy). I didn't have asparagus so I sprinkled on some sweet corn for color.

Interesting how I don't feel a day over twenty… five?

I had the same old discussion with my parents today, which almost dangerously ended with me not in tears. No such luck. My mom opened her mouth for two seconds and down pour the tears. They just don't get it. I don't get it. Is this going to be a sour topic for the next few months or the next few years?! Will this never be resolved?! Dear God, is there anything I can do? A class, a book, divine intervention?! I'm so frustrated I cry when driving long distances... I so wish to give up, but that involves stop living... There is no changing their minds, there is no changing my mind, there is no changing status quo... so... for now, some tears seem to be all I can do.

My mom is on the computer with her best friend in China, via video phone. They're both eating sun-flower seeds and talking about getting older, laughing at themselves between sounds of spitting out shells and talking over each other.

I'm reading Under the Tuscan Sun, a book that writes so elaborately about nothing at all (at least so far). Beautiful adjectives and modifiers lavished on mattress springs and broken table legs. It's not at all like the movie, which I rather liked because it's so people-centric. I read it for the parts that she talks about food, the pointed differentiations between buffalo milk mozzarella and regular cow's. Also because when I was little my mom told me no matter how labor-some certain books may be to read, the author put in so much work writing them that the least I could do is finish. I wholeheartedly disagree. There are far too many amazing works out there to spend time on the not so amazing ones... but her logic made so much sense when I was eight that I still can't shake it... Sometimes I rebel, putting down unfinished books for months at a time, but always retrieving it from the bookshelf when I can't bare its neglected binding sitting so sadly on my bookshelf, accusing me of mistreatment.

So I'm half way through my latest book, so I'm inspired to write about nothing at all, so continues my search for the next amazing one...

Okay, so... ratatouille... I made it but I don't really get it... Don't be mad, all the ratatouille lovers out there, but it's just stewed veggies with some herbs... right? I keep thinking maybe when I layer it all together, the whole thing would take on this new flavor, but my zucchini still tasted like zucchini. The problem is I make too many things without having tasted them first (done the correct way), so I never know whether what I made is close to the way the kitchen gods intended. I want to taste Linda's before passing judgement on the dish... after all, there was a whole movie named after it.



What I loved from dinner are the thyme popovers I made! I've never had popovers before so I have no idea whether mine rose to the target height. But below this crusty top is a texture so light it's almost hollow, a fluffiness I like to pull apart with both hands between my fingers before putting it in my mouth. To think, I didn't even have the whole milk specified in the recipe... how good they would have been otherwise.

Happy New Year!!!

Something delicious came out of my oven today -- a hazelnut cake with 2 heaping cups of hazelnuts, pulsed with sugar and a tiny bit of flour. The most amazing part is this cake calls for no butter! The nutty flavor really shines through. I baked this healthful dessert at the very first day of 2009, hoping to start a trend for this coming year!