as the month of march lies behind us and we step towards april, originally the second month in the roman calendar, i read through the email of a friend who is in her last travelling legs of south asia, and hear about her adventures...her thoughts of asia, especially india, where the beauty of the ruins (both physical and human) took a while to get used to. i can imagine the culture shock she went through...and at the same time, ican't...me! having lived in asia for eighteen years! but unexpectedly, my childhood memories come flooding back...

trodding through the "fresh" market with my mother and grandmother, sometimes aunts in tow...learning to step gingerly between the puddles of water mixed with blood, sometimes from a cow or a pig but most likely from a chicken with its head recently sliced...looking into the eyes of the fish with their mouth gaping wide as if in a final plea to free them from their icy confinements...aaah the memories of food before they were food. how many of us have had the privilege of being so closely connected to what we eat? how many of us choose to?

as the month of march (and food) bids us adieu, i can't help but think...if we cannot look at food straight in its face before it becomes food...does that mean we are in denial about our own existance?

like everybody else, i asked myself if vancouver would only live up to its apathetic reputation. but at the same time i thought, "hell! if at least 20 people showed up, that would be fun enough." well, vancouverites, you sure outdid yourselves! you came out in droves, and not just that! you brought your downfilled pillows, and you smacked the heck out of frenzied strangers, stopping traffic on robson in the midst, and you MOST definitely put the F.U.N. back into our no-fun city.
i'm not much of a counter, but i'd say a good couple hundred people came looking for a fight, and check it out! boy! did they EVER find one! i don't think i have ever seen so many laughing, shrieking, hooting and hollering kids in one place before. and yes, i meant it when i use the term 'kids'. anyone from five to seventy were caught in the midst of flying feathers and down. as for myself, i armed myself not with a pillow but a camera, and busied myself squeezing through the chaos, trying to attack the scene with my scene-catcher. i took my share of bumps (everybody was very respectful of the rules of the club); an unexpected crash from the front propelled me backwards, but all in good measure and i got back on my feet and went on shooting. the fight lasted 15 minutes longer than expected, and at the end of the wrestle, robson street, between hornby and howe, looked as if ten million chery blossoms did their molting a few weeks early. well done, vancouverites! well done!

enroute to the top of the mountain, it was my first time back on snowboards after a three year hiatus. it was a self-imposed ban on the snowboard, because of financial reasons, but as soon as i started downhill, i realised that i should have done a food ban, not a snowboard ban. who needs to eat when one can snowboard? granted, the day wasn't without its downs, when coming down a slope, ironically enough, i bit it and flew about a foot off the slope before landing, back of my head first, on the tightly packed snowslopes. yes the brain got its workout for the day as well. thank goodness for the self-containing facility of the skull. as well as those pins that hold your noggun to your neck. i laid there for a few minutes, catching my breath, before i shook off that ass-biting headache and carried on for the rest of the day. highlights were trying to placate a small girl determined to wallow in self-pity. 'they've gone and left me alone!' she sobbed. not two minutes after, the 'guilty' parents returned, shaking their heads and laughing with us. aaaaah the melodramatics of the young at heart. what's a day at the mountain without them?

it's hard to run away from food, no matter what the occasion or venue. i guess that's inherent, since .a. people have to eat and .b. people have to meet. hence the {insert adjective} memories of christmas and thanksgiving and birthday dinners. but if meeting is a must, then let there be food, and what better way to say "hello" to a new face on this earth than with mini butter croissants, bacon-wrapped almonds in dates, and oh! OH! chocolate-dipped strawberries on a silver platter? the theme for the day's baby shower was, of course, (grant) spencer fowles, the newest addition to sherri and ryan's growing family of love and happiness. first came max, then came spencer, then a baby shower that was NOT a yawner! thanks to barbara-jean, the lovely hostess with the mostest, we chatted and mingled and carried little spencer to the tunes of norah jones and alanis morrisette. ladies to draw inspiration from! and as with all good times, they must come to an end, but not without promises to meet up in kitsilano in the next month (the city folk will take a break from being lost in the country, for once! - and that's another story and shall be told another time).

take 3 eggs, a dash of dashi, pinch of salt, sprinkle of usukuchi soy sauce, some sasami chicken meat, throw in some shrimps and mushrooms, a few slices of kamaboko, mitsuba, and yuzu peel and voila! with a little bit of japanese patience and tender loving care, you have what is known as chawanmushi. not to everybody's taste, japanese egg custard is about taking the art of custard making and infusing the magic of savoury delights to the palette of the tongue. if you like egg and custard, this may or may not be the dish for you. but hey! how can you pass judgement on something if you haven't tried it? (HINT HINT: SEE RECEIPE BELOW)

Making egg mixture

• Break eggs in a large ball. Draw the letter Z on the bottom with the tip of the chopsticks, do not foam.
  
• Little by little, add cooled dashi and then salt, soy sauce.
  
• To improve texture, strain egg through a net.
  

Filling

• Remove white sinewy tissue from sasami chicken meat. Cut into bite size pieces. Sprinkle with soy sauce.
  
• Remove black vein from shrimps. Devine except for tail. (see "seafood preparation")
  
• Remove roots of shimeji mushrooms, tear into easy to eat pieces.
  
• Cut mitsuba (trefoil) into 3cm pieces.
  
• Thinly slice peel of yuzu.
  

To make
1. Prepare 4 Chawan mushi serving cups. If serving cups with lids are not available, use tea cup covered with aluminum foil.
2. Divide fillings into 4 except for mitsuba and yuzu strips, neatly place filling and kamaboko slices in individual cups.
3. Pour in egg mixture.
4. Fill a double-boiler pan (mushiki) half full with water.
5. When water comes to a boil, place cups in to steam.
6. Cover with cheesecloth, place lid slightly off so that steam can escape.
7. Heat 1-2 minutes on a strong fire, reduce heat and cook for an additional 12-15 minutes. If the fire is too strong or if steamed too long, Chawan mushi becomes spongy, loses flavor and attractiveness.
8. Insert bamboo stick to check readiness. If clear liquid rises Chawan mushi is ready.
9. Take cups out of steamer. Top with mitsuba and yuzu, re-cover.
10. Chawan mushi is served chilled in summer, hot in winter.

mmm yum! and that includes the breakfast that came in classic white plates. the atmosphere was delicious, even for a blustery and rainy sunday morning, so you can image what this lounge would be like during a spicy night soiree. we were gathered for anita's birthday (a lady never divulges her age!) and party it up we did! including exotic bennys on english muffins soft enough to sink into but crispy enough to feel the crunch. a definite must for a party or two, lk lounge only lacks sophistication in its namesake (why change the name to mere initials?) in any case, we moved the party on to another site where customized jewelery and an eccentric lady whose name partially accounts for her store's christening. josephine makes beautiful jewelery but you can't be lazy! to see her individual pieces of art framed tastefully by her oil-painting husband, you have to trek down to hamilton street. trust me...the venture is worth every penny in your bank account!

march is all about food, i can just feel it in the linings of my stomach and the growlings of my appetite. we started the day off with a walk and ended up in chinatown, meeting up with friends to traverse to a recommended chinatown restaurant specialising in tasty dimsum. in case you're wondering, 'dim' translates to 'order' and 'sum' to heart...so we ordered to our hearts' desires! when the dishes started rolling in, we rolled up our sleeves and let the good timess...well, roll! and rolled we did, all the way to the exit out of the restaurant. we barely fitted through the doorway, throughwhich our entry seemed so seamless. that must be the reason why the restaurant came equipped with french doors. one door in, two doors out!