Ate My Fill

Low-res food porn from my birthday dinner at Bushi-Tei? Why yes, I can do that.

Wine-cured mackerel over green zebra tomato gazpacho with purselime and turnip

Ahi tartare with tobiko caviar, wasabi-crème fraiche, coriander seed, and herb oil

Venison prosciutto with galia balls, galia sorbet, baby frisée over montbriac

Foie gras over kabocha pot de crème with pistachios and red onion marmalade

Fukko seabass over rockshrimp polenta and lobster nage

Intermezzo of yuzu sorbet

Grilled day boat sea scallop and saffron dumpling over yukon potato chowder

Antelope loin with chanterelles over potato mousseline with port wine reduction

Lobster and hand-made Italian parsley gnocchi with shaved truffle and tarragon lobster nage
Flourless chocolate souffle with roasted strawberries and organic ice cream

Black sesame blancmange with pineapple-strawberry salsa and coconut milk reduction

Lemon gâteau with yuzu-infused mascarpone mousse

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Precious

(Man in the Moon Spoon, $100 @ Tiffany and Co.)

Perhaps it's a ridiculous idea, but I am utterly in love with silver spoons. Or at least the idea of it. The prestige and sense of worth bestowed upon a life. To treasure a child as though he were the sun and the moon and everything in between.

Complicit in this deep-seated love for Tiffany's fine silversmithery is, naturally, Breakfast at Tiffany's, a movie which has so many meanings and is such a heart-wrenchingly inane look at an inane life that it is absolutely absurd to watch it and not feel as though you have had some strange part of yourself excised and placed upon display. That is to say, it really knows how to tug on a heartstring.

Often times, I kind of think about what I imagine my life will be like and, more often than not, I envision kids in my future. Don't know when or how or with whom (if anyone), but I definitely do see kids in my life. I wouldn't know who to live for otherwise. And these brief imaginings are the collected willings of our subconscious, the life we want but are too psychologically repressed to actually admit any such desire. But in these flashes of somewhen, I always imagine using the silver spoon on Birthdays. For ice cream, maybe?

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How Much I Owe My Mother

Written November 28, 2005:

My mother and I had been making dumplings together for the past hour. She would take the old wooden chopsticks, now smeared with the pork and vegetable mush, and pluck out a dollop of filling onto a dumpling wrapper before handing it to me. I would wet my finger and run it along the edge of the wrapper in a half-circle before pulling the two sides together and pinching the seal into a dainty crimp.

As we continued working, I felt the need to speak.

"Why don't you just stop talking to Yi-ma? You know how stressed she gets you, how bad it is for you heart."

She didn't even stop to look at me.

"Because we're family and you stick by family. That's what you do."

I crimped another dumpling shut.

"Even if they hurt you?"

"Even if they hurt you."

The dumplings tasted better that night.

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