Songs without Words

Yesterday was pi day (and also White Day, if you guys actually know what that is .. the two always coincide, incidentally). Anyway, so one cool thing was that Simmons Hall, on their beautiful super-sized blue LED ticker (like the ones in airports that scroll text), showed the glorious number sliding across the windows.

I pointed this out to Kathy, who I happened to bump into, and she told me, “Yeah, so I went to Google today, and they didn’t have anything for pi day. I was so disappointed!”

I replied to the effect of, “I’m not really sure pi day is a holiday outside of MIT … .”

=P

* * * * *

After subsisting on a delicious little broccoli floret and leftover cookies from a Medtronic event (I didn’t go to that Medtronic event, but I met the speaker in a small, cozy meeting of BE-BMES exec .. I didn’t realize that she was a high-up Medtronic exec (read: VP of Science) until she handed out her business card so I totally spoke to her in a positive but casual way o_O. She was really friendly ^_^) for a few hours, I decided to eat dinner while some frozen horse serum thawed in the warm water bath. I went to Kendall again, and I decided to try out the Teriyaki Cafe’s new “pork cutlet sandwich.” I was hoping all the way, “Please, let it be ton katsu in a sandwich, please please.” And it was!!!

Ton katsu is the bestest unhealthy food ever (well, fried dumplings and chicken quesadillas are up there, too, haha) – it’s just this slice of pork chop, pulverized with one of those spiky metal meat tenderizers and coated in batter and panko bread crumbs … then fried to your heart’s content (or malaise, as it may be =P). My mom makes the best fried pork – nice and thin, with the bone still on (the meat next to the bone is always the tastiest).

Yum yum yum~~~~

I think overall the banquet was rather successful. Zach and co. did a spectacular (and dangerous) job in decorations (the lantern’s didn’t fall on people, yay!), and I’m going to treasure this set of puzzles forever – I really love the wordsearch one that is full of multi-layered goodness (you have to find the cities in the listed countries, then read the remaining letters, then construct the graphical shape it instructs in order to figure out where and how the answer is hidden~~).

I’m sure the food was pretty good, but only in freshman year did I really eat my fill. Banquet as an exec member is really about living vicariously through the happiness of others; I found this out last year when I was ostensibly still quite hungry afterwards. Serving ~150 people is a stressful task when you have to make sure the sternos don’t overcook/burn the food, and you have to deal with unexpected things happening to the food. While we technically got to eat food first, it wasn’t a feast, and people like Steven took it upon themselves to not eat for the sake of the guests, which is really admirable. I think I did roughly the same last year, but I was really hungry this year (from not eating lunch .. I think a lot of us cooking volunteers simply forsake eating in favor of cooking …).

Cleaning up is always a riot, with people pushing chairs at light-speed, sometimes with other people unexpectedly sitting down onto the chairs for a free ride. There was this competition last year to see how many dining chairs one person could balance at once (6 was the grand winner). This year, there were just two-person races for table transportation~. But I can’t forget the people standing on a chair on a table on a table (yes, three layers) to reach the ceiling, using chopsticks to get off tape with two spotters holding the chair. And there’s always the endless trash to deal with (I think we brought out our black bags at a good time this year; last year we let the trash cans pile up like crazy, and that was the terriblest thing to clean up after) – actually, this year, people for the most part just didn’t throw away their own trash -_-;;.

As always, the performances were splendid. I think for next year, we definitely should try to get someone new, though. Not that we need to replace anyone necessarily, but we at least need some new gigs even if the people are the same.

I got to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen for quite some time.  It was fun but I mostly only got to see them for the five seconds they passed by my food.  Given that we had 140 people last year, and more like 180 this year, we may have to start seriously considering our arrangements; this year, volunteers and exec basically were told, “Sorry, we don’t have any seats for you – please move your stuff into Dining.”  I personally don’t care, but I know that some people would probably have been happier being able to participate more in the banquet atmosphere itself.  I tried to make sure my girlfriend, who had cooked with me, could still enjoy some of it (in a seat), although it would’ve been nice to have someone to switch off with in serving the food.  Well, at least I was able to join her (on the floor) before the performances started.  She finally gave in and let Christine (not one of the two exec Christines ^^;;) take a picture of us, but I have yet to see it in its full glory … I’m really not photogenic at all, and I think the best pose for me is facing away from the camera and doing something else =P.  Or hugging or something, ahaha.  Still, I’m grateful that I can have a photo as a memory of the times.
Someone said something to me during the banquet that was really an unexpected response to what I had said as really an offhand, largely innocuous statement.  And it’s really been pestering me ever since because it touched on something that seems to be deep in me.  If I’m in a less-than-splendid mood, it’s because I can’t stop pondering what this person said.  I might have to follow up on this to settle my worries.

* * *

Cooking was a lot of fun, and it took a lot less time than I had originally projected. It was fun working in the kitchen with my girlfriend – that’s probably what saved so much time – and I think the result was pretty good. Still, I need to practice cooking a lot more to cut down on variability … . I really should cook more often, but that would require me to push dinner to a much later hour. Perhaps that’s okay, though – it’s a thought, in any case.

* * *

I told my mom I don’t really need hong bao’s anymore .. I’m not really a kid who needs to be spoiled like that anymore =P. My mom said she liked doing it, though, so I suppose it wouldn’t her to let her give them. I still sleep with the envelopes under the pillow, only looking at the contents the next day. I think that little gesture, when taught to children (and enforced), is really a good lesson.

At one or two dollars a pound, these cans are really about the cheapest meals that you could eat straight out of the package.  Having tasted many different varieties of Chef Boyardee, I have come to the conclusion that they have approximately 1 (+/- 0.2) different types of sauce (full listing of sauces: very salty orangish tomato sauce).  And yet when it comes down to it, having grown up eating the dinosaur- or ABC- or X-men-shaped pastas, I can still happily down a can for a meal – of course, my tastes have matured (marginally) – I know prefer the more sophisticated “Overstuffed Italian Sausage Ravioli.”

How does such a redundant brand manage to stay fresh in taste and mind?  I think that it’s the same staying power that grounds good old mac and cheese, Cheerios cereal, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  They’re desired precisely because you know exactly how they’ll turn out.  I’ve had many a bad experience with (very dry) grilled chicken; hamburgers aren’t always consistent in juiciness or flavor, and salads can be old and brown.  But I’ve never had a bad can of Chef Boyardee.  Not that I’ve ever had an especially luxurious one, but the absence of any taints on their record is really astounding.  Consider that in the past ten years, McDonald’s has continually downsized their burgers and variously switched in and out McChicken vs. Crispy chicken; Yona’s subs and pizza at the food trucks is now Yona’s subs (only); Hardee’s turned from fried chicken to humongous burgers; Mr. Wok, the local Chinese buffet, has since converted half of its stuff to Mexican food to adapt to its clientele base.

And yet through it all, I cannot detect a difference in the taste of Chef Boyardee.  For as long as I can remember, it’s been the gold standard of the “tried-and-true” recipe.  And in a world where the variation in experimental outcomes can throw off the most flexible of researchers, it’s nice to have something predictable for a change.

While eating Dim Sum, I accidentally splashed a bit of the sauce/juice onto my shorts.  I thought it was just water and a bit of oil, so I just dabbed it lightly with my napkin and let things be.

But now, two hours later, I examine my shorts only to see large, bizarre splotches of some whitish substance surrounded by a corona of permanently darkened fabric.  For food, this is a rather unnatural signature, and the only guess I can come up with is that it’s lard surrounded by some oil leaking about.

Well, we all know in the back of our minds that Dim Sum isn’t exactly diet-worthy cuisine.  Having to meet head-on the evidence of its artery-clogging abilities is another story entirely.

I fondly remember last year, when I would be working in the student center or the library or lab at 2 or 3 in the morning.  At some point, my stomach would start growling, and I would head over to the student center to find La Verde’s open, the surprisingly alert man behind the deli counter chatting to the cashier, the neon lights outside glowing brightly with pride.  The hot sub or chili would hit the spot just right, just that way, and I’d bounce back to my dorm in the freezing cold, my body warm with the lingering energy of the post-midnight meal.

It’s really too bad that such an episode will never happen again, with the deli closing at 12 every night.  Granted, the cold foods are still there, but it’s just not the same without the freshly toasted sub roll or the oven-heated chili or the smiling man behind the counter.

Of course, it probably never made economic sense to keep it all open 24/7, given the low volume of people coming in.  If you pay the worker $10/hr and people only come in to buy a $5 (profit margin of about half of that) sub every fifteen minutes, you’re not making any money at all.  And plus, the bizarre hours probably have some detrimental effect on family or personal schedules in some way or other (I know this from going out on call at 4 or 5 AM).  So I can’t say that La Verde’s has made some great misstep here.  But I genuinely miss my 3 AM chili.

In the demo of the game “Hani Hani: Operation Sanctuary,” a dating simulation of sorts, the main character asks his friend (~girlfriend~ if you direct the game that way) to teach him how to make apricot tofu, sort of as a joke. I did some research and discovered that in fact, people do make apricot tofu.

Here’s my version of it:

And without almonds:
I have no idea how it tastes, because I have yet to get a chance to eat it. I guess I could go try it now, but I might as well wait til tomorrow.I was sort of disappointed in the fact that this supposedly “silky” tofu turned out to be rather firm. I was hoping for the really really smooth, almost pudding-like type. It’s much better suited for dessert.

Here is the “recipe” I used ..
Apricot syrup: Finely cut and smashed canned apricots, apricot jam (Smuckers), orange blossom Grade A honey, vanilla extract, lemon juice, unsalted butter, and tons of sugar.

Then, just assemble … heehee! I just wish I had one of those cool rectangular ceramic dessert dishes. That would be uber-awesome.