And God created my mum and Morton's

I always love Morton's, the mecca of steak-house in Hong Kong. (This is personal opinion only. No tomatoes and eggs please, thank you). But this is only the second time I went there. The first time was quite a while ago. I remember I only ordered the mignon. I wasn't that into food outside before my mum died. I always love my mother's cooking. She is a loving and wonderful cook. She cooks so well that I never found eating out a pleasure.It is more a social occasion for friends to catch up rather than a pure experience. And I hate going to Chinese eateries for dinner because it seems so much a disrespect and betrayal to my mother. In fact, even though I ate out on average three times a week before my mum died, I always went home and had an extra meal of her food. Her food is tasty and with lots of love. Don't want you to get goose bumps and I am not talking about sentimental crap here. I am trying to tell you how much my mum loves us by memorizing our favorites and make sure we can all have healthy and loving food. My sticky-rice dumplings were always tailor-made for me, with lots of fatty pork and dried scallops and dried mushroom. You may bet to differ judging from the ingredients of the dumplings. But this only happens once a year and the dumplings memory so etched in my mind that I couldn't bear the dragon boat festival because it reminds me so much of my mother.

Now, Morton's. What does Morton's share with my mother? My mother cooks domestic food and here at Morton's it does fine-dining cum Chicago grill cum steakhouse. Well, to start with, its food evokes in me a feeling of love. That has never happened to me on any kinds of food, except dim sum (at home, not in the restaurant, please). But its tuna tartare and especially its souffle, sent me right away to heaven, as if I really know what heaven means. It gives the pleasure that for whatever price, it's worth it. The souffle is huge and fluffy. With the cream to go with, you almost ready to die in the syrupy concentric circle and with every bite I took it sent me to vertigo. I shared with my friend and I kept digging and digging and telling him how much I felt I was in love. I never love sweets. But souffle is my soft spot. And souffle at Morton's? You can't beat it.

Food goes beyond mere palate-pleasing affair. It carries an implication of what you go for in a relationship. And how far one can go. Food means a lot to me. Not that I am a food critic. But my love of certain food shows my identity and I relate myself so much to it that I won't be able to spend my entire life with someone who carries the kind of cuisine I could never fall for. I still have that criterion of making sure that the nationality of my boyfriend or my husband should be one of my favourite cuisines. I can never imagine saying something like this to a guy, "I love you. But I don't love your food." It's such an insult to that person, and it's an insult to me. Better be safe than sorry. There is only one kind of cuisine that I can't really bring myself to try again. And only one, so guys, come hither - to the food of love.

typhoon epiphany - A night without electricity and what a job it is to be a fireman!!!

I have never been scared of anything, literally, not that I can think of. Well, maybe a few: Snakes, their sights are abominable. I once saw a small one at the village while I was conducting research and I couldn't help screaming so loud that the poor snake glided away...;Sickness (I was once diagnosed with CIN II and III (Cervical Dysplasia) so I had a small LOOP operation and the worst fear at that point to me was whether I could have babies. Well, that was quite a no-brainer and I learnt from then that I should try to read more on the web to understand my own problems. Anyway, I was scared because of my prospect of pregnancy; I was scared because when I was in the freezing operation room, I was wide awake when my doctor was screaming at the nurses for not getting the equipment quickly. I was so nervous that I could virtually hear my own pounding heartbeat rate without realizing it. It was until I asked the nurse why the beeping sound went so fast that I knew it was because of my heartbeat. Oops.
Now, there was another incident happened two weeks ago that raised my heartbeat and there came to my realization of the wonder of modernization. I was out at a tea buffet when a friend of mine called me. He is a fireman and he asked me to be careful because a strong typhoon signal would be raised on that night. He suggested me not going back to the village. As usual, I paid no heed to any crisis. Well, it has been like this since God knows when. So, I just laughed and dismissed it, again. When I left the hotel, typhoon signal No. 3 had already been hoisted and then news came that a higher signal could possibly be hoisted late at night.
So, I hurried back to my home in the village. Everything was very fine and I just couldn't think of what could happen since I had experienced several typhoons in the village and I was always safe and sound.
But then at around 2am, while I was deep asleep, I heard some wee sound coming from somewhere close to me. I was woken by the flashing of some lights and the wee sound, I searched around and couldn't find anything. Then, suddenly, I spotted my landline phone was flashing and the sound was coming from there. I didn't know what to do. So, I unplugged everything. And then I found that everything came to a halt. No air-conditioner, no fan. I thought there must be something wrong with the main switch. So, I went out to check, nothing. O, no. No electricity. Well, I was back to the stone age. And it's worse than living in a cave because all the windows were shut and it was stuffy and it was hot and I was scared. I kept drinking water and it made the matter worse because I kept going to the toilet. I finally had to admit defeat. So, I texted my friend to tell him that he was right and he immediately called me to check if I was OK while he was in the fire-engine on his way to do his work. I was very touched but also worried for him. I heard banging sound and I asked him what happened. He said, "O, it's just the gargbage bin being blown up and hitting on the car. Nothing serious." NOTHING SERIOUS!! That's not what it is. It's so dangerous out there. And he was still talking to me on the phone and I was so stupid to think that with technology, we could avoid being destroyed by natural disaster. (Well, global warming has already proved me wrong....) And now, my friend would need to brave the storm to save lives while I was panting because of being in a temporary discomfortable situation.
Well, two things: I love modernization and I respect fireman. I salute them for their work. But I know I don't want to marry them because I don't want to have sleepless nights worrying about them without being able to complain because of their admirable jobs. I love my rights to complain. It's a woman's right. But with someone who is doing such a lofty mission, it dwarfs you and makes you feel bad if all you care about is your sleep.