First up was a fresh mint and roasted pork salad dressed with fresh squeezed lime juice mixed with a touch of sugar and fish sauce, thin sliced shallots and garlic. The key to this salad is the toasted rice, ground up and tossed in there right at the end to add texture and a fantastic roasted flavor. Of course, the huge amounts of fresh mint leaves made it a cool and happy salad.

The salad is called “nam tok” or water fall salad. It can be made with pork or chicken, but I personally like it with pork. Besides, I’d roasted chicken to go along side as well as had chicken as the base of the next dish.

I also made red curry chicken, my way. It’s Thai style, with coconut milk and bamboo shoots, but you’ll find every Thai cook does things in her own way and the curry comes out different for every cook. I use fresh holy basil from my garden in my curry, and probably more coconut milk than most. Plus I add a kaffir lime leaf or two in there and a touch of sugar to balance out flavors. Instead of serving the curry with rice, the way I normally do, I made nom gene or Asian white rice noodles instead. They’re lighter and nicer with the curry for summer time.

I also made “sticky rice” or sweet rice to go on the side with some roasted chicken. That’s a summer favorite as well. You gotta be careful with sticky rice though, stuff continues to expand in your stomach.

See? It’s so much more fun to cook for friends than it is to cook for just one. I get a lot of joy out of feeding my friends and putting my heart into my cooking for them.

I’ve been holding pretty steady at my current weight for a few weeks but I hope to break the plateau again and start losing some more.

With the end of summer coming into sight I’ve had to admit some of my clothes just don’t fit anymore. (This is kind of cool. LOL) So I’ve been going through my drawers one at a time and ditching anything that hangs all loose and baggy with no hope for a decent fit with my new body shape. I’m realizing that most of these garments are several years old anyway and the only stuff that fits at all is even older.  I didn’t do much in the way of clothes shopping in the last couple of years and what I did buy was only for work!

Yesterday, Hel met up with me for lunch and a walk through the mall. With her coaxing and a pack of helpful store clerks, I ended up getting quite a few fashionable upgrades to my wardrobe. Not something I plan to do often, mind you, because that could be seriously dangerous to my budget. But this one time, it was worth it.

There’s something therapeutic about ditching the old, baggy clothes. It’s more than cleaning out your clothes drawers. A few lingering emotional cobwebs go with them.

Sometimes it isn’t. Actually, for me, it’s never been enough for happily ever after.

You can fall in love with more than one person in your life. If life gets really interesting, you might fall in love with more than one person at the same time and then you have to make choices.

Me? Once I love, I never stop. It doesn’t just fade away or burn out. Every love is different, with a different taste and texture and feel to it. But what remains the same is that I will feel it always. I’ll hold love in my heart forever. And I’ve made choices.

When a lost love touches my life again, I remember. I love. Have no doubt of that. And right now, I’m free to pursue love if I choose. I haven’t chosen yet.

But there is always the truth remaining that sometimes love isn’t enough for a happily ever after. Just my love hasn’t ever been enough.

And I deserve a happily ever after.

See? Schedule

Anime viewing is a little sparse for me this year, not much catching my attention.  I might pop in to watch Ponyo and Helen does love the horribly, truly bad live action such as Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstien Girl. In fact, I think the lil sis and I saw a couple of clips of that at AnimeBoston and thought it was hilariously bad, in an epic kind of way.

I’m mildly interested in the concerts and will go if my buddies attend. There’s also some potentially funny panels such as Voice Actors after Dark.  Additionally, WAH and Great SG have their panels and I might attend to give them support.

It’s a fairly light Otakon schedule for me this year, honestly. There will likely be more socializing and possibly photography of cosplay, if the cosplay is good this year. So maybe I will be getting some decent sleep…

Back to dance

Originally, I’d quit both because my ex had felt the money and time would be better spent on doing things together. Not a bad thought, but unfortunately, he didn’t really have a suggestion for what we were supposed to do together. So, I lost those two outlets and the benefits of the exercise without a real replacement for it and the original reasoning was also render non-applicable.

For dance, I decided to try out the Koresh School of Dance in Philly. It didn’t feel right to return to my old dance school, because their curriculum is continuous through a school year. You show up weekly and learn a full dance that’s presented in recitals at the end of the year. With my work and business travel schedule, it really wouldn’t have worked out. Koresh runs stand alone classes – you don’t have to show up every week. The open classes are walk in and learn a combination for the day. Instead of paying for a whole school year, I just pay per class or buy a batch of 10 classes at a time – applicable to any of the open classes available (Hip Hop, Ballet, Jazz, Modern…) Overall, it’s much more affordable for me and the classes are more advanced. The only killer is the cost of parking in the city. >_<

Tony Jaa - Muay Thai

For MMA, I decided to return to the Tri-State Martial Arts Academy.  It’s a good quality school teaching the disciplines I want to learn in MMA: Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Jun Fan/Jeet Kun Do, Kali/Silat and various conditioning classes. Again, due to my work and biz travel schedule – I needed a flexibility available in their schedule. Honestly, I needed to get back to this to work off stress, tension and whatnot. I haz rage.

Okay, okay, I admit it was a little insane to jump into both. It might have been wiser to start one, then add the other. That’s the beauty of it though – if I want, I can just go to Koresh once every other week. There’s no set schedule that I need to attend.

And honestly, I needed to get out and take action. I was driven. It was getting too comfortable hiding inside of the house.

There’s a fine line between being driven to work through the challenges life slams down on you and being driven to run away from them. We know I have drive, but have I stepped up to the line?

In any case, I need more cardio in my life and I can only take the P90X workouts to a certain degree and then I get very annoyed at the instructor’s voice. So it’s time to change it up just a tiny bit to kill the plateau and to save me from getting too annoyed.

Alexd00 uses DDR for exercise. My game consoles are gathering dust and it’s been so long since I’ve played any game that I’m in danger of losing my geek status. That being the case, I’m going to start trying to play once a week as a weird cardio routine. And of course, have a little fun.

Chicken Pot Pie

This a post late in coming, but the results were uber tasty. My good friend, Mandy, celebrated her birthday a few weeks ago. In honor of her special day, we had a gathering of friends at my house and a bit of a pot luck. The theme was “Mandy’s Favorite Dishes”.

To contribute, I made my chicken pot pie for her…and cupcakes…and some other stuff, because I’m a little crazy.

There’s no real recipe, I’m afraid. I sort of made it up a long time ago and it comes out a little different every time.

The key to my chicken pot pie is that I either fry or roast the chicken thighs and legs first. Then I debone and cut up the tasty, flavorful meat for filling.

For veggies, I tend to throw in whatever sounds good – but the usual suspects are carrots, celery, yellow onions and potatoes (sometimes corn or peas end up in there too, maybe even mushrooms).  I wash and dice them into bite sized pieces.  The potatoes, once diced, I rinse and boil in salted water until just cooked but still firm.  I sautee the rest in a really big pan with extra virgin olive oil, seasoning with salt and pepper as I go. A dash of cinnamon goes in there too, usually. Don’t ask why – it’s not a strong taste but it adds a nice little something.

To the cooked veggies, I add the prepped chicken meat and potatoes and give it all a stir.  The gravy base for my chicken pot pie can be made from scratch (browning a rue of flour and butter and then adding chicken stock and finishing with cream) or if I’m in a hurry, I’ll use cream of chicken soup.  There’s usually a splash of milk that goes in there and a spoonful of sour cream. More salt and pepper are added to taste at this stage as well as any fresh herbs I have on hand that I think will add a nice flavor.

A scoop on a party plate

The whole mixture goes into my deep dish stoneware pan and is covered by two layers of puff pastry. It goes into the oven at about 425F or so until the puff pastry is puffed and golden brown and gravy is bubbling out at the edges.

This is a hearty dish, my friends, and probably not a good choice for the dieters

I’m not as original with the cupcakes, I’m afraid. I was a little crunched for time and baked them from boxed cake mix instead of mixing them from scratch the way I normally.  Still, I baked two kinds: devil’s food cake frosted with creamy chocolate and vanilla cake with little fun chips baked into the batter iced with creamy white frosting.

Omm nom nom nom. The cupcakes turned out moist and light, so I guess the box mix wasn’t bad.

Cupcakes!

]]> http://nighttrekkersguild.org/prajantr/?feed=rss2&p=1524 0 http://nighttrekkersguild.org/prajantr/?p=1521 http://nighttrekkersguild.org/prajantr/?p=1521#comments Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:36:23 +0000 prajantr http://nighttrekkersguild.org/prajantr/?p=1521

"What anime kiss are you?" You have an intense kiss! You and your partner connect when you kiss and you forget about the rest of the world.

This was an old little quiz. Know what I love about anime and manga? A kiss is an intense moment, something incredibly special. It means everything.

Sigh….

*melts*

Ahem. Sorry about that.

Yeah, I’m not so ready to worry about real life stuff right now. I’m okay with the being alone bit. Actually, I might be just a little more comfortable with the being alone aspect.

But I get my romantic fix from watching anime and manga, especially the sweet moments that make you hold your breath and maybe even squee.

Dance was an almost daily part of my life for 25 years. I had good feet, perfect arches. I needed a better turn out and it became clear as soon as I hit puberty that I had the wrong body type to pursue dance in a serious way. That didn’t matter. I loved it. I still took classes and participated in productions.

Six years ago I had surgery. I quit dance classes. I got fat, fatter than I’d ever been.

Since January, I’ve established a better exercise routine. I’ve cut back my eating portions. I’ve lost 5% body fat and over 15 lbs gross body weight. I’m still not satisfied with the way I look in the mirror, but I’m a work in progress and I’m getting there.

There’s a quote from Center Stage:

The unwise dancers blame them. He didn’t like me… she was unfair… I should have had that part. The smart ones know where to look when things get rough. It isn’t there. (Walks to the barre) It’s HERE. No matter what happened in class, performance, last week, 5 minutes ago… if you come back here… you’ll be home.

I’m not going to blame my ex for the way I let myself get fat. I’m not going to blame him for the decision to stop going to classes. (Okay, I want to, but I shouldn’t. Thus the quote.) I’m not going to blame anyone for how much I miss dance.

I have a sturdy ballet barre and music. That’s all I need. In addition to my exercise routine, I’ve added some time at the barre every morning and night. Not long, just 5 to 15 min.

Barre exercises are excellent for stretching and toning muscle. A lithe dancer’s body is very much due to the barre exercises that are part of routine practice. The added little sessions will help keep the muscle I’m building long and lean. I’ll keep my range of motion at the fullest and maintain maximum flexibility. (I’m told guys like that )

I will never be lithe, I’m just not built that way – but I get more out of the barre than just the stretching and the toning.

I get a little peace, a little happiness.  With every stretch, I relax. I find my balance and my center.

I’m not big on meditation. But this, this brings me back to where I need to be.

Alexd00, Omoikane and Animemiz (going?) will have to have fun without me. Heck, last I heard, 1Moy was sort of thinking about squeezing the con in too. Bring me back fun AKB48 loot!

Otakon: Convention of the Otaku Generation

So what’s the next con for me? I’ll be making the annual pilgrimage to Baltimore for Otakon, of course. That’s a tradition for me and Helen. Alexd00 is always there, since he lives so close.  Omoikane is going, I believe.  On the other hand, Alexd00 and I were noticing that it might be a light year for MT folk. Sadness.

Mandy and the lil sis have both bowed out for the year, so Helen and I will have the room all to ourselves. We generally don’t practice the “fill room, reduce cost” philosophy and only open our room to certain people. This is as much a service to others as it is an act of personal interest on our part.

I’m guessing the usual large sized cooler filled with adult beverages of choice will still be a feature in our room, as well as food fixings.

I haven’t decided if I’ll be cosplaying yet – no matter to the internetz because there will be NO pictures. O.O

Moving on. That’s quite a ways in the future, but Helen’s been counting down since …October, last year? So I guess the countdown is getting rather close.