tom yum soup

I eat out way too often. So far this year, I might cook once a week, if I’m lucky. So I’m trying out recipes that are healthier, easy to cook, and that of course, taste good hopefully. Tom yum soup fits the bill.

Here’s the recipe:

4 14oz cans of chicken broth
2 stalks fresh lemongrass (cut in 2 inch pieces)
5 kaffir lime leaves
1-inch piece of ginger, sliced
2 red chiles, sliced or 1-2 tsp crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 can straw mushrooms, rinsed and halved
1/2 pound large shrimp, peeled with tails on
2 limes, juiced
2 green onions, sliced
1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

This makes four servings. First, you heat the chicken broth (medium heat) and add the lemongrass and ginger and lime leaves. Cover and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Then add the straw mushrooms, sugar, and chiles or crushed red pepper, and fish sauce. After a few more minutes, add the shrimp and cook for another 10 minutes. Then add the lime juice, cilantro, and green peppers. There should be a good balance of saltiness, spiciness, and sourness. If it doesn’t taste sour enough, then add some rice vinegar. Total time for preparation and cooking: 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Martha Argerich concert

Last Friday, I got to see one of my favorite pianists, Martha Argerich, perform Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major with the L.A. Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. It’s a concert that I’ve been anticipating for some time now considering that Martha Argerich rarely gives public performances and is sixty-seven years old and has been known to cancel concerts.

Ms. Argerich’s interpretation of the Ravel Piano Concerto was spot-on. Her playing was very crisp as she didn’t overindulge in pedaling. The piano was a newer Steinway and sounded bright, which I thought was perfect for an Impressionist piece such as this one. The second movement (Adagio assai) was particularly satisfying. At some point during the concert, I came to realize that Ravel really suits Ms. Argerich as she is widely known for her agility (see octave passsage in Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto-third movement, or listen to her Liszt Sonata in B minor from her debut recital CD) without sounding the least bit tense. She made playing the fast and difficult third movement seem so effortless. The audience gave her a standing ovation and she performed two encores (one’s a four-hand arrangement of Ravel’s “Mother Goose” and another one’s a solo piece that I believe is a Schumann piece?). All in all, it was an awesome concert.

One thing I can take away from this: Really work on finger legato instead of relying heavily on the pedal. The way to do that is to relax, pay attention to breathing (lack of oxygen causes fingers to be tense) and just play loose.

i hope I get the chance to hear Ms. Argerich perform again.

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Just watched (listened) to Mar…

Just watched (listened) to Martha Argerich perform Ravel Piano Concerto and two encore pieces. I’m speechless.

the forbidden fruit

Historians believe that the “apple” that Adam ate from the book of Genesis of the Bible or Torah was actually a pomegranate. I could believe it since apples taste ok, but pomegranates are delicious. If you can look past what a pain it is to get the seeds (arils) out, it is a wonderful fruit. So wonderful that in fact, last November I saw an advertisement at a Von’s supermarket selling pomegranates for a buck each (it must be cheaper to ship here since I think many farmers grow pomegranates here). Back in Florida, I might see a deal that’s 2 for $4. So I literally bought 50 pomegranates during that span. I had read that pomegranates can be kept in the refrigerator for a month (some claimed 3 months) so I decided to stock up on. I’d knock out the seeds to 3 pomegranates and store them in tupperware. I’d eat the pomegranate seeds out of a cup, add it to ice cream, throw some on some greens, you name it. A few years ago, I made a Persian dish, pomegranate chicken stew that had pomegranate juice as one of its main ingredients. The pomegranates gave the dish a nice tartness. It’s pretty healthy too, since pomegranates have loads of antioxidants and vitamins.

As much as I liked eating the pomegranates, I couldn’t finish all 50 of them. So I put maybe 15 in the fridge. I forgot about the pomegranates for awhile and last week, decided to see if they’re still good. The outside of the pomegranates turned a bit brown but when I cut it open, I couldn’t tell from the insides that it’s been nearly 4 months! It tasted really sweet. Taste-wise, pomegranates rank up there on my short list of favorite fruits. But the fact that pomegranates don’t go bad even after nearly 4 months in the fridge, might just bump it to top of my list.

how to bail out our public schools

Our public school system is a complete disaster. Compared to other industrialized nations, our students’ math and reading skills are appallingly poor and people like to scapegoat things such as music programs, physical education, and sex ed, of all things! And the lack of money to fund our schools.

Is it really about not having enough money? While money is needed to fund curriculum changes, but that’s the end all, be all to solving this problem. I agree with this commentary and its stance on what it takes to fix our education system. First and foremost, we need to recruit and hire better teachers. I know this because I’ve had some really shitty teachers growing up (K-12). Some teachers believed that effective teaching meant popping a VHS title such as “Sword in the Stone”, “Mary Poppins”, or “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” on Friday afternoons, instead of teaching us something useful.

We also need to make sure that our schools have well-rounded curriculums by including sports, music, art, etc. Without a well-rounded education, students have no chance at developing their creativity. They could only think on two planes and not understand the multiplex nature of tough problems today.

A few weeks ago, a founder of charter schools in the L.A. area came to give a talk about the charter schools that he’s been involved with. What I got out of it is that the charter school model should be more widely adopted as it makes schools more accountable, can be autonomous in their decision making so that the most qualified teachers are hired and retained, and students feel like they have a purpose by attending school. He threw out some staggering figures, such as the percentage of high school students in Los Angeles who actually graduate high school. I forgot what that figure what, but it was shockingly low.

If I ever have kids some day, I don’t think I would send them to a public school the way it is right now. Parents should always want their kids to have something better, so that their kids can live a better life than they did, are smarter than them, etc. I don’t want my kids to be dumber than me I.