Christmas 2009

Before Christmas Day, I hosted a small dinner party for 3 friends. This was our second cook-out involving the same group of friends at Chef Allegro's kitchen (the first one being my birthday a couple of years back and I was really grateful for their showing up!). This was not an easy job -- one guest is a vegetarian, a second only eats meat, luckily the third one is like me, who loves everything. I was extremely unorganized that evening, almost burned down my kitchen by neglecting oil in a wok on high heat while attending to other chores. Mind you, this happened not just once, but a couple of times, so I started to worry that I might have becoming senile.

My guests brought coke, spanakopitas (OK, V does eat some vegetables), and a creamy custard dessert (H&M are really good dessert chefs!) which I didn't get the name. What I prepared were the following: zucchini pancakes, tomato egg drop soup with fish balls, bok choy with mushrooms, steamed shrimp with mung bean noodles, stir-fried squid and celery, and sweet and sour pork ribs. Last but not least, my home-made spicy sausages. Yum yum, everything was so good that we agreed to have cook-out dinners together more often.

Then came Christmas Eve. We went to an Italian restaurant on Park Plaza and had a family style three-course lunch. Again everything was so good that I ate too much. I then invited myself to Y's because she has a sewing machine. I had dinner with her family (she is a good chef!) but I was so full from the Italian lunch that I could only have a small bowl of her delicious spare rib soup. I started sewing after dinner, and oh my, didn't I realize that I was not meant to be a tailor! In any case, I eventually finished sewing a full apron. That was my first sewing project, and might as well be my one and only!

On Christmas Day I went with W and T to a Jewish Christmas party hosted by an Indian guy S who is also a good chef. Attending the party were some Jewish people, and many more non-Jewish people, including Indian, Thai, Chinese, Chinese American, Japanese American, American, and maybe others. We had to sing Happy Birthday to You, Jesus per order of the host, before we could eat dinner comprising roasted lamb (very moist), roasted vegetables (in the lamb fat), Focaccia bread (love it), brussels sprouts, mashed yams (sweet), spaghetti, and countless varieties of desserts (did I mention the super strong rum chocolate balls?). I also had my first mulled wine, very strong, too. I asked the question, "so why is this a Jewish Christmas party?" One guy, who might as well be a Jew, said, "did you have to pay to come to the party?" I said, no. He said, "that's why it's Jewish, because it is free!"

Then I noticed people were watching Yule logs burning on a really old TV placed on the floor right in front of the fire place! We actually finished watching the 48-minute free on-demand Comcast video, and then switched to a very boring snowman on-demand, which didn't move at all. Out of the boredom caused by the snowman, I asked my second question (see how slow I think -- I blame it on the food trauma), "so exactly how old is Jesus today?" "2009", someone said. Someone else disagreed. Then we had a good discussion on what AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ) mean and how come there is no Year Zero, and if that is the case, which year was Jesus born in, and then one guy commented, oh, let's hope his birth didn't take a whole year to happen! We were informed at the party that scholars believe that Jesus was born a few years BC (then again, what exactly does Before Christ mean if you can't even figure out when he was born!), which I did hear before that based on the appearance of the exceptionally bright star (must be a nova) in the sky, he was almost certainly born a few years BC. Just like this, my profound question bewildered all the PhDs and PhDs-to-be at the Jewish Christmas party.

The next day I got an email from YL who was visiting from Silicon Valley. I meant to meet her this past summer in SF but she didn't have my phone number in her new iPhone thus not knowing who the missed call was from (?!). 有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？It was really nice seeing her and other old friends and new friends at a Sichuan restaurant. Again, the food was really good and I ate too much. Now I know what my new year's resolution should be.

Well, I didn't just eat all the time during the holidays. I was busy trouble-shooting, too. Finally I solved the mystery that's been bothering me for almost 3 weeks: the sudden demise of my kinase assay. Lesson learned: I have to be suspicious about everything, and I can't trust anybody (of course including myself, to be fair). Guess what caused the problem? The stock buffer I used apparently lacks Mg2+ (not supposed to be)! And without Mg2+ kinases can't phosphorylate their substrates. It's that simple!

Wish everyone a happy and prosperous Year 2010!