Hong Kong

Veggies are beautiful. They are delicious. They mingle or go along with most anything or anyone. Best of all, they don’t accuse you of being a slacker. They don’t care if you give them the cold treatment. In fact they thrive on being shoved into a refrigerator.

Don’t veggies just make ideal candidates as girlfriends?

Hahahahahahaha.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Don’t worry. I’m not yet losing it. (Actually, the best judge of that would be Mr. Peterson, my boss… but that’s another story. Hehehe)

Anyway, sometime back, I promised a good vegetable recipe to anyone who reads this blog. Actually, I meant it for my son, Ira. But since his being able to read, to surf the net, or even learn about me is probably several existentialist lightyears away, it might as well be for you… or anyone who is reading this right now.

It’s an easy recipe. My friends and my boss like it very much. So do I.

Here’s Vegetables With Rice, Hong Kong Style.

Vegetables With Rice, Hong Kong Style

Ingredients:

Assorted vegetables (cauliflower, Baguio beans, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, baby corn, cabbage, sayote, Baguio pechay)

Steamed rice

Soup stock, 2 cups

Medium-size shrimps, shelled and deveined 1 cup

Soy sauce 3 tbsps.

Chili sauce 2 tsps.

Sesame Oil 1 tbps.

Red Bell Pepper/Capsicum 1 pc.

Cornflour 2 tbsps.

Rice Wine Vinegar 4 tsps.

Ginger, grated 2 tsps.

Garlic, sliced thinly 1 tsp.

Bacon, 3 strips, fried to a crisp (render the oil from the fat and reserve)

Sugar, a pinch

Salt and pepper to taste

Small bunch of Spring Onions/Scallions, around 6 stems

Instructions:

1.Dice all the vegetables. Wash under running water.

2.Heat the wok to high. While wok is heating up, chop the spring onions into little pieces. Discard the tip and roots.

3.Stir-fry the shrimp in the rendered bacon fat, until the shrimps turn pinkish.

4.Add the ginger, garlic and red chilies. Stir fry for 2 minutes.

5.Add the vegetables and red bell pepper, making sure to cook the harder vegetables first. Stir fry over high heat for another 2 minutes.

6.Add the soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil chili sauce, salt and pepper. Mix the stock and cornflour, add to the mixture and cook for one minute. Add the sugar and stir well.

7.Crumble the crispy bacon strips and sprinkle liberally over the dish, together with the chopped-up spring onions.

8.Serve hot over steamed rice.

This goes well with a cup of green tea, before and after the meal. The shrimp, ginger, chillies, spring onion and shiitake’s contrasting flavors, when lightly coated with the rendered bacon fat add a special zing to the dish. The green tea settles the stomach for this delightful vegetable recipe.

Bon Apetit!

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I am David Garcia and right now I am: very hungry.

I just realized something today. I can write about anything I damn well please here, because this is my blog.

And when I say anything, I mean anything, because as far as I know, there isn’t supposed to be any kind of censorship over the internet.

Hah! So am I going to rant and rave like I’ve seen other bloggers do? Or maybe I am going to write in a more adult way, like maybe talk about the latest porn I’ve seen (hey… I get lonely).

Nah.

I admit I’ve been tempted to do both, but was kept in check by the fact that in case the web doesn’t collapse in on itself in a couple of decades or so, my son Ira could come across this blog.

I have no idea if he’s ever going to find out that I am his dad and that I do exist and have been thinking of him since day one (the day his mom told me her test at the doctor’s had come out positive), but just in case he does, I don’t want him to know me as a perv who writes about porn movies. Nor do I want him to visualize me as coming across like Bruno Ganz playing the male lead role in Der Untergang.

Let me see… how do I want Ira to know me, what kind of person do I want him to see me as? Definitely not as an asshole (forgive the lousy punning, I’m feeling out of sorts right now).

Ira, my son, I think I want you to know me as a man who enjoys eating vegetables, has been to both Hong Kong and Bangkok many times and loves it, can write reasonably coherent prose and poetry with depth without being ashamed of it, and can whip up a deliciously nutritious meal in less than thirty minutes.

Of course, I follow recipes attentively to achieve the last claim I made. But it’s true, Ira. If ever you meet my boss, Mr. Peterson, someday, ask him about my Vegetables With Rice, Hong Kong style. He’s eaten it over and over again, but still tells me he’ll never get tired of it.

I’m tired now, but tomorrow, I’m going to put the recipe up here.

Sounds good?

I’m sure this sounds better — someday, Ira, I am going to cook that for you also, and we are going to eat it together… and maybe, even get drunk together too.

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I am David Garcia and I wish that: I had agreed with my mom when she suggested long ago, that I convince Melinda to make our son-to-be a “Junior”.

Whenever I surf the Net, I always make it a point to include visiting some sites that I’ve bookmarked, naturally with the hope of going through them again, either to review the things that attracted me in the first place, or to see if any updates have been made.

It’s really a big letdown when I encounter error codes that tell me the page I bookmarked is not there for me (insert gnashing of teeth here), specially when it’s something about my hard interests such as beaches, cooking or Hong Kong, for example.

The dreaded “404 Not Found” used to drive me into paroxsyms of hilarity or rage, depending on which site I was trying to access. In most instances, 404 Not Found would dumbfound me and make me want to bang my head on the monitor.

Why couldn’t it be found when I just viewed it a few days ago? Why is it suddenly gone? Why???

I found out soon enough that 404 had evil relatives. As if it were not enough to not find a page I liked anymore, it was also possible to go 500 (“Page Not Available”) and 403 (“Forbidden/Access Denied”).

As far as I am concerned, those error codes tell me one thing only: that the world wide web is manic-depressive. It can choose to make you happy by showing to you pages you like when you come repeat-visiting, or it can totally and callously ignore your existence.

Hmm… reminds me of Ira’s mother.

Duh.

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I am David Garcia and I am feeling: blech