Thanksgiving 2006 at Chez Chang

This year I served with success the following menu for my three sisters, one brother-in-law and myself.

16lb Roasted Organic Turkey
Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Pan Drip Gravy
Chestnut Stuffing
Green Beans with Toasted Almonds
Old Fashion Mac & Cheese
Cranberry Chutney

My sister bought two pies: apple and pumpkin.

Great success!
It seemed like a lot of food for one person to make but it's actually less then previous years. Limiting to a few basic dishes made it good this year. It's a good amount of food but it's because I cooked with not only the evening's dinner in mind but also the requested left-overs.

Hope everyone had a good turkey day/weekend.
Gobble, gobble.

Happy Thanksgiving

Will the mystery person show him/herself?

Yesterday afternoon my colleague brought be a huge bouqet of roses, a birthday balloon and a cute white teddy bear. The note read "Dear Cindy, Happy Belated Birthday! I hop you had a day as beautiful as you. Sincerely, Your Friend."

"Your Friend"?!?!
Who could it be? The wording made me think of someone who left me a voicemail the night before, wishing me a belated. It wasn't this friend.

Who? Who knew it was my birthday but after the fact.

Ok. Whoever sent me I have this to say...
1. Thank you. They were lovely and so unexpected.
2. Please, please tell me who you are so I can thank you.

It's so annoying not knowing.
It's like when someone tells you that some boy likes you but the actual boy won't ever make it know. Hate that.

Turning 35 slowly. =)

Last year I had a big party for my birthday. This year as I am turning 35 I decided to have a more intimate gathering among close friends. I now lived in a larger apartment that has a dining and living room. I was celebrating with that in mind. Unfortunately I couldn't accommodate everyone at once. Although the apartment is bigger, the dining table could only sit up to 8 persons. Also I didn't have enough dishes and flatware and I wasn't about to ask people to bring their own (at least not anymore). I split it into two smaller parties. Brilliant. Two dinner parties. Two nights of fun.

First was on November 4th. This group are friends I've know before moving to NYC or soon after: Hyun (and Eugene), Lena, Eumi, Ben and Heidi. Min also came but she was from the second group. Min wasn't able to come the following weekend so I asked her to join this group. It was great fun. I served home-made lasagna with a side of salad.

Eugene baked and brought flourless chocolate cake with two kinds of chocolate syrup. Delicious!

The highlight was playing 80's Trivia. It just came out and I was excited to play. As expected I got my butt kicked by Eumi and Min. They played as a team only because I had no idea how much trivia Min knew. Curses! Heidi came in second. The rest of us...well, we need to know more stuff.

I got great gifts: Sophora/Bliss/B&H gift certificates and a special custom made "Paint the white out of the wood in your new apartment" kit from Ben. It even came with a lesson.



Lovely.
On to the next party...

November 11th I had my "Community Center" friends. They had me over to their places so many time I was finally happy to host them for a change. Nam, Linda, Winnie, Donna and Tomoko. Wynn didn't make it.

Since they have amazing Italian food when they visit friends in Staten Island, I wasn't going to attempt the lasagna with this bunch. So I went with "Shrimp and Sausage Gumbo." Delicious. It was good for a cold evening and as Nam put it, it had a kick.

We didn't get to the 80's Trivia but Nam pulled out my Taboo. It was so much fun. We were a little slow to start but towards the end we got the game down. Winnie who watched for most of the game decided to try it with everyone guessing. Damn that woman is good. I call her as my teammate for the next game.

Apparently my blog entry about Bliss made an impact cause this group got me a gift certificate to Bliss too. Cool. Don't worry I will spread it out so I can enjoy it throughly. Thanks!

Unforunately I forgot to take pictures. I guess we'll have to repeat the evening and document it. Hey any excuse to do that again.

Lena's visit Brooklyn!

Lena was here. Yeah~~~~
She came to turn her apartment over to Dennis since she won't be coming back to NYC until 2008/09. It was a wise decision and as a bonus I got to see her again. Actually this year I got to hang out with her more than usual since she stayed with me for two nights in Brooklyn. Before I couldn't have any guests except family cause our apartment was so tiny. Like poor people we shared three to a bed sometimes or have them sleep on the floor. Now we're the two bedroom apartment with large living and dining space can accommodate non-family guests. Yeah!

Lena stayed with me November 2-4.
I took Friday off from work so I could spend the day with her and help her move her stuff from her old place to my apartment cause it's closer to JFK. I only took one picture of our day. Unfortunately it's not the best (sorry Lena). The flash was too strong and makes her look like the scary Asian ghost. In real life she looked fabulous as usual. =) The diner is in my neighborhood near the Brooklyn Museum of Arts. Tom's. It's been there forever and have really yummy food for at good prices. It's like a real diner with home, comfort food. Did I mention they serve breakfast all day! Yeah it's good stuff. If you come to Brooklyn I'll take you there.

Annual Ritual

Well it's almost November.
I use my birthday month to mark what I need to do:
1. see my doctor for my annual checkup
2. see my optometrist for checkup and annual supply of contacts
3. see Lam about a new look

I've made appointments for the first two but Lam was able to see right away.
Yes, my hair was quite long, longest I've ever had. I kept it long primarily for Hyun and her wedding. I knew she wanted it up so I'd figure long hair would help. It did. My hair at the wedding was exactly as we wanted it. But now that's done, I was once again free to do whatever. I wanted a change. I wanted something new and different.

So on Saturday afternoon I sat down in Lam's chair at Serenity and asked just that - short and dramatic. I didn't give him any other directions. I wanted to see what he came up with. And here it is...



I've gotten a range of feedback especially at work. Most people like it. Think it's funky and cool. One female colleague said it was cute but she preferred me in the long hair. Couple of guys noticed but didn't give comments (which I took as that they also preferred the long hair). A few guys didn't or pretended not to notice. No comment. They definitely preferred the long hair. Typical.