Death by/of sausage bun

Everyday on my way to work I pass by a bakery down the street from my flat to buy myself a sausage bun. Everyday until two days ago, that is. I've come to accept that my daily sausage intake was not the most healthy of dietary choices so I decided to cease all further intake of sausage buns. Sigh.

But before I say goodbye to my favorite breakfast treat, let me give it a proper eulogy:

The Chinese sausage bun is a delightful pleasure. The bread enveloping the sausage is sweet enough to be pastry in itself (like a dinner roll) but not too sweet that it seems like a dessert. The sausage is not too big, the size of those pauper "generic" hot dogs you can buy in wet markets in the Philippines -- about 60% the size of a Tender Juicy. It is sufficiently salty such that when one bites into the sweetish bread, the sausage is a welcome change of taste and texture.

I will miss you, my daily sausage bun. Somehow the sesame buns I have now just don't cut it.

Enough already

I just finished reading Augsten Burroughs’ latest memoir Wolf at the Table. It is a memoir of Augusten’s father. Briefly (in 10 words), this book is about how much Burroughs hates his father. How his father was the most evil man on the planet and how his father was cruel and distant and cold and deserved all the bad things that ever happened to him. Yawn. It is quite obviously made up, but that’s ok. I think I’ve mentioned that made-up memoirs don’t bother me.

What bothered me immensely though was the self-indulgent writing. In dozens of vignette’s that span the 200 page book, Burrough’s would paint the exact same picture – a distant, unloving and cruel father. A child whose only wish was to be loved by his dad, instead was rebuked every single time (there is actually a story about how the young Augusten counted the number of times his father refused to hug him – that one was a real page-turner).

Now, I realize that growing up in such an environment is traumatic and would make you think that you should write a book about it. But here’s the deal -- it’s not interesting for everyone else. And to make matters worse, Burroughs’ didn’t even bother to make things less boring. It was just page after page of “I am so sad. My Daddy doesn’t love me.” After page 4 it gets old.

If you had any plans of reading this book, let me save you the trouble. Wolf is so bad, it is almost unreadable. Maybe Burroughs should go back to writing fiction (but then again, one can argue he never stopped).

Colbie Caillat

In the almost two years that I’ve kept this blog I’ve written exactly one music review. Well, here’s a second one.

If you haven’t heard of Colbie Caillat (I have no idea how her name is pronounced), don’t worry about it. She’s 23 and gained fame from MySpace. I don’t have a MySpace account (or if I did, it is long abandoned, not unlike my Friendster account), I got this information from Wikipedia.

She sounds a bit like Vanessa Carlton, a bit like Alana Davis, a bit like Michelle Branch. Very young, very pop-eee (I just made this word up). Her lyrics are downright dumb. “O baby, if I were your lady, I would make you happy.” But her songs are catchy and remind me of the time I was very young, very pop-eee and very happy.

AFI's Top Ten Movies of 2007 (aka movies I didn't see)

The movies listed below are the American Film Institute's picks for the ten best movies of 2007. Of these 10 movies I watched only one when it came out in the cinema (yes, the French one). It was only a couple of weeks ago when we watched Ratatouille (and only because we had nothing better to watch and I hadn't seen it yet).

Which leaves 8 of the 10 best movies of the year unwatched. And I have no intention of seeing any of them. I have other more important pursuits (like napping).

• Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Into the Wild
• Juno
• Knocked Up
• Michael Clayton
• No Country for Old Men
• Ratatouille
• The Savages
• There Will Be Blood

Don't judge a book by its truthfulness

While I was waiting for a document last night, I stumbled on this:

Augusten Burroughs' new book. I ordered it from Amazon in about 4.2 seconds. To those poor ignorant souls who don't know who Burroughs is. He's the guy who wrote "Running With Scissors", this amazingly written (and also a commercial mega hit) memoir. Sadly, they made that brilliant book into a really bad movie. What a tragedy.

Burroughs, like other recent memoir writers (notably James Frey), has had to face challenges on the truthfulness and accuracy of his memoirs. People have gone to great lengths to prove that Burroughs and Frey made up parts of their bestselling memoirs. Now here's my take on all that:

I don't care.

I don't care if he made the whole damn thing up. So Barnes and Noble should put the book on the "Fiction" shelf instead of the "Non-fiction" one. Whopee-f*ing-dooo. A book (unlike witnesses in court) should not be judged on truthfulness. To be honest, I don't see what the big deal is about fake memoirs. As far as I'm concerned, truth has nothing to do with a well written story.

You try writing a real one.

Pambahay*

I am a believer in pambahay. That second set of clothes you own that you wear only at home. I'm referring to those ratty shorts (with the stitching coming apart), college t-shirts that look they've been attacked by cloth eating moths. Bras with no elasticity. Slippers whose soles trace the outline of your feet.

When I get home every night, I'm out of the monkey suit and into pambahay in about 7 seconds. I'm not sure it is the comfort of ratty clothing or the discomfort of work clothes that gets me changed so fast.

And don't you love how regular clothes grow into house clothes? How once brand new clothing gets used and re-used so many times the colors fade and stitching comes apart and then they are no longer fit for public use. But you can't throw them away since they fit so wonderfully.

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*House clothes

Happiness 2000

I finally finished my super sad book, You Remind Me of Me.

When I get to the last stretch of a book, those last few dozen pages, I start to get this odd sense of excitement, but also this feeling of dread. (Aside: this assumes that the book you are reading is well written and you don't want it to end and/or you can't wait to know the ending. This is the emotion I'm referring to. If the book is a sleeper, well, too bad.)

This morning I got up at half six and with a full hour before the day started, I finished my book. The ending was brilliant (no, I won't give it away). Chaon had a way of introducing his characters slowly, bit by bit, till they were completely "exposed" at the end. Everything came together -- plot, characters, narrative. When I read books this good, I get a little mad, a little jealous. Why don't I have the gift?




Next in line is much happier "Love Walked In" by Marisa de los Santos. This book has "sappy" written all over it. How sappy, you may ask... Well, literally critic Sarah Jessica Parker wrote the blurb at the back. That sappy.

I like how I'm reading these books back to back. They're so different -- one is all about desperation, loneliness and failure, and the other is about new beginnings, falling in love and looking to the future. And I guess that's how life is, there are gloomy chapters and there are happy chapters.

And now, I'm in a happy chapter.

On my parents' 41st wedding anniversary

When you are in love with one of its inhabitants, Lawrence Durrell wrote in The Alexandria Quartet, a city can become a world.

In Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Lindsey Lohan declared, "When you are in love, everywhere can be New York."

The universal vegetable, or maybe not

So last night C and I were having dinner at this yakitori place at Noho (which is technically west of Soho, not north of Soho, but Woho is not as catchy, but I digress). And while we were enjoying some grilled eggplant (aubergine, talong... call it what you wish), I shared with C my "universal vegetable" theory.

Essentially I think (or more precisely until last night, thought) that eggplant was *the* universal vegetable. Everyone eats eggplant. Europeans, Asians, Africans, North and South Americans, South Asians. Everyone. It is unique in that it is consumed in great quantities in all parts of the world.

In the middle of chewing a piece of eggplant, C says, "Yes, like potatoes."

And so goes my universal vegetable theory.

To haute cuisine or not?

That's another question.

I've had my fair share of fancy dinners. Nobu, Allain Ducasse, Joel Robuchon, Mario Batali. Been there, had that, have the book of matches.

But even if I've had the finest meals at some of the most famous restaurants in HK and NY, I've never woken up in the middle of the night and said, "Wow, am I in the mood for some stuffed quail with apricot sauce." I wake up and think, "Now is a good time for tapsilog. With sinamak on the side."

So here's my theory for the day (I gotta tell you about my "universal vegetable" theory that C shot down in mid-chew at dinner last night, but that's another story) -- haute cuisine has very little to do with eating. At least for those certain people (and barn animals) who like me like to get "down and dirty" when eating. I eat to enjoy the food, and know that there is a lot of it, that it costs almost nothing, and that I can eat until I feel ill (I know, this is gluttony, but you can't just have one sausage... and you *need* to go for some "extra rice"). To eat for the sheer pleasure of it, without regard to price, place or setting (pun very much intended).

To move or not to move

That is the question.

My lease is up and my landlord is raising my rent. Not by much percentage wise, but by fair amount HK$-wise.

I've found a sexy studio with a deck two blocks away, but it's not cheap either, and while I will be saving some money if I move, I will also be giving up my Grade A building, closet space, free coffee and croissants, and English speaking doorman who I can bully to open my front door when I lock myself out of my flat (this happens more often than you think).

In short, I'll be giving up some things in exchange for the savings. The question is then, am I willing to give up these little caprichos.