Random Thoughts

So, not that I am a chef or anything, but I think I did better than I have done in a very long time. I made an awesome dinner tonight. A nicely brined pork chop, a blueberry gastrique to go with that, steamed asparagus, crunchy sourdough and a glass of orange juice. I finished that off with some lovely caramelized pears from last night. No whipped cream though. Not that I ever hope to be bored out of my mind... but now I can at least entertain myself with decent food. Next on my list, duck!

Sigh. I am back in DC with my vacation at an end. I can't believe that it is over already. Every day that I was in Vancouver, I had more fun than every month that I have been in DC. I know I was on vacation and so Vancouver has that tinge and all that, but really, I think there is more to it. No, I know there is more to it than just the fact that I am on vacation. Every time I return from Vancouver to DC, I have this sinking feeling. I hate this place. Not because it is particularly bad; no, it is more because I am away from Vancouver. I need to be home. Not sitting in DC thinking of home, looking over pictures, entertaining myself with the Firefox plugin PicLens, looking for pictures of Vancouver on flickr and google. Or maybe it is the music, that reminds me of Scotland... mind you the music was written by a Serbo-Croatian composer and sung by folks like The Chieftans. So why do I miss Vancouver so much? Most things that matter to me are in Vancouver. My friends are. I ran into ...

I've been thinking of all the fruits I was used to as a kid in India. I have not seen most of them for a long while now. I was talking about a pomegranate I ate recently to someone and I thought I'd go about listing the fruits. So then, lets start with the pomegranate. Its a strange one alright. Did you know that the Afghans are now shipping crates of these to Vancouver and other areas? It is a bright red fruit that tastes somewhat sour but is awesome to eat. And its good for you. Then there is the creamy Sapodilla. I have never seen it in North America. Apparently the plant itself is a native of Mexico. Either those facts are incorrect or people don't eat it for whatever reason. This thing grows like wild back home and I remember having tonnes of them on dining table fruit baskets... sometimes going rotten, or over-ripe. There is the guava with its coarse flesh inside. With little seeds on the inside. Again, endemic to Mexico and yet, I have not encountered any in the Unit...

I arrived on Friday night and I had dimsum reservations with my current and former co-workers at Sun Sui Wah for Saturday. We sat around for probably a few hours and ate and talked for such a long time. I found out about a funeral, a divorce, an engagement, a baby on the way, new jobs and that I love Vancouver. This seems to be the perfect way to sit down and catch up with the people that matter. We probably ate a tonne of food (some of us shouldn't be allowed to order :) ) and with breaks, chicken feet and tripe, we finished up our lavish lunch with ease. By the end of it, we were all caught up and realised how precious life was; or at least I felt that way. I moved to DC for a work, but I must say that a good chunk of me wants to come back to Vancouver. You don't realise how important the place you live is until you leave it. There are lots of places on earth to make a home and if you're lucky enough to call this rain-forest of a place home, for god sakes, tell yourself ...