Rebecca A. Foster

A friend's birthday party cupcakes this weekend. I ate the studded banana hammock. I like studs!

1. My wireless mouse 2. Paid housecleaning 3. A video iPod for traveling 4. MAC 'Underage' Lipglass 5. Bananas

I loved the little dish of pickled radish we ate with meals in Chongqing, so I made some. I got the recipe from Fuschia Dunlop's Sichuan cook book. (I think these would be more accurately called salted, fermented vegetables, not pickled vegetables, but they translate as pickled.) In China they use large ceramic pickling jars but the ones I could find are super expensive here (over $100 on Amazon) so I went with this clear glass jar I got for $6 at Target and sterilized with boiling water. (It needs to have a tight lid.) The recipe is salted water (I used kosher salt), Sichuan peppercorns, fresh ginger, a small piece of cinnamon stick, rice wine, a little bit of brown sugar (those last two are for fermentation), dried chilis and a little bit of star anise. I couldn't find whole star anise so I use liquid drops, just 2 or 3. I put in western radishes, Chinese radish (daikon), cabbage and lotus. (Lotus root is one of my favorite new veggies I learned about in China. I can...

Before this past weekend I never knew the phrases 'tapas bar' and 'topless bar' sound so alike.* Go ahead and say them to yourself out loud real quick. See? Who knew! Not me, until we had this conversation about where to eat: Him: "How about a tapas bar?" Me: "Topless bar? The food won't be any good and it'll be expensive. Plus I don't want to go to a topless bar. You want topless, I'll take my shirt off while we eat real food." (Note: we were in Vegas, so this conversation is not as far-fetched as it sounds.) Him, laughing: "Tapas, tapas, not 'topless!' T-a-p-a-s.' Me: Laughing so hard I cry a little. Him: "But since you've promised to eat topless,** I don't care where we go!" *Pronouced as 'tahpahs', not 'taypahs.' I think people argue about this. I'm not sure which one  is right.  *I didn't eat topless, even though we went to a restaurant, and I am not making this ...

I was really excited to run across bubble tea in Queens! My friend had never had it and wasn't too sure about it, but decided it was "interesting." (This is mango flavored.) My favorite was the milk coffee bubble tea in China. So fun to find these small pieces of China over here.

You know those dainty little thrower-uppers, who just sort of tilt their head down, put their hand to their mouth and spit up? It's like they had throw-up classes at finishing school, or were the most well-behaved babies ever and never grew out of it. Yeah, that is so not me . I am a throw-up drama queen, all moans and groans and heavy breathing. It's like the end of the world, or my liver, when I puke. I was reminded of that this week when I woke up Thursday morning at 4:30 AM and rushed to the bathroom before emptying my stomach several times over, to be repeated with water, Sprite and dry heaves for the next few days. Stomach flu is the worst! But, as always, it reminded me of something funny. (I consider my ability to find the humor and funny aspects of life to be one of my more humane qualities. You're welcome, humanity.) Picture it: China, spring time, T.'s apartment, 1 AM. I'm slowly turning green and it's apparent I'm going to start tossing my cook...

This weekend I was making pebre  and my serrano peppers were not getting the job done, so I pulled out a couple of habaneros. I asked my mom,"Do you think these will be hot enough in the pebre?" "Well, how hot are they?" Hmmm. I sliced one open and licked the pulp. Just in case you didn't know, licking the inside of a habanero is a really dumb way to determine how hot it is. THE BURNING IT GOES ON AND ON HOLY HELL WHAT WAS I THINKING. I couldn't feel my lips or tongue for the next several hours, but on the bright side, 'licking the habanero' is now my new favorite euphemism for doing something stupid you probably knew better not to do. Example: "Yeah. I went out with that guy even though I knew he was bad news. I totally licked the habanero on that one." Live and learn (the hard way).

The chopsticks I brought home from China are all stainless steel or melamine (melamine: okay for chopsticks! Not okay for milk!), but I have a few sets of wooden ones I brought home from Thailand several years ago. I put all the chopsticks in my dishwasher to sterilize them but most ended up in the bottom near the drain, and one of the wooden ones was snapped in half. Oops. Preface: I have this big, passion-from-across-the-room crush on our apt.'s head maintenance guy, V.  He's Chilean, looks like a Spanish soccer player and has gorgeous hazel/green eyes. I met him the day I moved in and I've only run into him twice since them but both times he remembered me and we chatted and he's charming and did I mention, super hot? This guy + light eyes = V.  Thus far, I have avoided purposefully breaking things in my apartment so he has to come fix them. I know, right? I'm so adult and stuff. But ever since the chopstick incident, my dishwasher doesn't drain properly...

I'd never heard of Magnum bars before I went to China, but they quickly became my favorite treat. One of my favorite ways to spend an weeknight evening was meeting up with R., J. and V. for dinner in R.'s neighborhood, then walking off dinner before crashing at a beer garden for some late night laughs. I spent more than one night searching for Magnums at every little ice cream seller we came across; more often than not, no Magnums, so when we DID find them, that made the evening all the better. I "mmmm"-ed all over the place. So of course when I saw Magnums in my local grocery several weeks ago, I excitedly took a phone pic to send to R: Magnums! In the U.S.! Worlds collide! In my humble ice cream opinion, they are better than Haagen Daz bars. I recommend the coffee ones, if you can find them.

Ma La girls like hot pot. I had a hot pot dinner party at my house this past week, with spices I brought home from Chongqing. (I saved the wrappers and I'll be taking them to the Asian market to see if they can order more for me.) Here is the food table, next to the eating table. In China the plates of food for hot pot come out on a multi-tiered cart, but because I don't have one of those, I used a card table. There are meatballs, little smokies, lotus, rice sticks, quail's eggs, noodles, squids, and two kinds of tofu. (We also had golden mushrooms and chicken pieces but those were already on the table.) Here is a shot of the table set up. I bought an induction cooker to use in my apartment, because that's the kind of cooker I had in China and I found I prefer it to the convection cooking more popular here in America. I used it that night for the hot pot; not only is it portable to the table, but inductions don't get hot like convections so no one was going to ...

Is there any age when the death of a parent doesn't pierce your heart and affect every facet of your life? My dad was in the hospital room when I was born, and I was there when he died. I know many people don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't know if they would have the same feeling I do about helping someone transition out of life into death. But for me, to be there with him was an honor. My heart aches for those who lose their loved ones to accident or trauma, who never experience holding someone's hand as their body breaks down and their heart and lungs labor to beat and breathe and even though it breaks your heart, you're glad they aren't doing this alone, and you believe under that labored breathing and unconsciousness they know you're there with them, supporting them, loving them, telling them it's okay to let go and move on, that you'll be okay. It's taken me these years to see the beauty in living; not just the appreciation, or ...

Today was a hard day. I had to go to a funeral for a relative at the same cemetery where my dad is buried, a place I have steadfastly avoided the last four years. My step-sister said to me, "Is it hard for you to be here too? Or is it just me?" I felt so much better knowing I wasn't alone in feeling bad/anxiety today. We agreed we might be big babies, but at least we weren't alone. So, I need to take my mind off of things. 1. I went to Eddie Bauer later to buy a cream colored soft shirt, because they are the only ones I know who make great cream-colored (not white) layering shirts. While I was there, I saw this Downlight hoodie pullover , in coffee, my size, on sale. I am now the proud owner of a really warm, sporty jacket. I figure if I'm going to live here now, I should build up a winter wardrobe. I love this new jacket. 2. A friend this week said he thought Marion Cotillard is my doppelganger. I would never make that connection, but it's a really n...

My brother got me this mug for Christmas and I think I actually squealed with delight. I've written before about my love for the show Community , my favorite show on tv right now. I'm obliged to sing the "Troy and Abed In The Morning" song whenever I talk about this mug. My favorite thing about it is that the picture is the same on both sides, which means holding it in my left hand I can still see the picture, unlike my panda mug, which makes me stare at panda butt. Yay for double sided mugs! And Troy and Abed! ____ My Chilean mom gave us tea growing up as medicine, so I was quite prepared for this aspect of Chinese culture. I was not prepared for the tea itself, though. When the swine flu was going around, my school boss gave me a bag of bark and twigs and told me to make tea out of it to protect myself. With all due respect, no way was I doing that. I could smell the tea through the sealed bag, not a good sign. G. had a bad cold and tells the story of going to...

This past 4th of July was hot, rainy and humid as Hades in Chongqing. We had our 4th of July American-style barbecue in the 8th floor stairwell because of the rain, which gradually moved into one of our apartments, because of the heat. One of the volunteers was dating a Chinese girl who spoke very fluent English and she came to our party. In the apartment we started talking about sex, as rained-out Americans in mixed company are want to do. I found out later this girl was shocked that we would discuss such things in mixed company in such detail, as this is just not done in Chinese culture. And, she was shocked at how much sex education we all had and felt comfortable discussing, period. Of course, we thought nothing of it. It reminded me that learning the language of another culture does not always equal understanding the culture. (This was also the weekend T. ate food he'd dropped on the stairwell floor and the next day got too sick to leave my apartment to go home and the resulti...

The book Salt is fascinating, if you are into the history of how common items influence history and customs and such. The author traces the impact salt has had on societies since recorded history. He makes the point that how we feel about oil is how previous societies felt about salt; think we'll ever get to a point where oil is a non-issue? (Not because of supplies, but because of reduced necessity?) I also loved the part where he talked about the Sichuan rural peasant making declarations about Chinese inventions apropos of nothing. Totally. The Chinese do love their declarations! Salt, by Mark Kurlansky __________ This sparked a realization: iodine deficiency. Pretty sure I had it in China. In about my fifth month there, my hair started falling out in too-large-for-comfort chunks. I was horrified, as I am pretty vain. I called our doctor about it and she told me I needed to diversify my diet; I was a vegetarian and my normal protein substitutes (mainly dairy and nuts) were...

(If you are related to me, maybe you don't want to read this.) I think some people come from kissy families, some do not. I come from a kissy family; I'm sure this was largely due to my mom's Chilean-ness. (Some of my clearest memories of visiting Chile are of being kissed by every old woman I saw.) I love that in Chilean culture, you kiss strangers upon being introduced. So friendly! (Maybe also other Spanish cultures, not sure.) In San Antonio, it is quite common for friends to greet each other with a kiss. I got used to this. In China, I had kissing friends and non-kissing friends. When the kissing friends met up in public, I wonder if we shocked the Chinese around us, who don't hug or touch upon greeting, let alone kiss. I noticed my kissing friends in China were mostly Italian or of Italian heritage, or from the East Coast. Are you a kisser? My non-kissing friends are REALLY non-kissing. Funny how that happens. When I was younger, I thought kissing was either...

I had to take a picture to really illustrate Bunny. Our group of friends stayed in a condo just off of the main square in Jackson Hole. (For those who don't know, Jackson is a ski resort town in Wyoming, full of quaint little log-cabin style shops selling expensive stuff, most of it incorporating sheepskin and leather and/or moose. It's very cute.) We were there to go to this event ; we donated a quilt for the auction. The day of, I styled my hair in one of my favorite lazy-day hairdos, little buns atop my head: That evening I was trying to decide between keeping the little buns or shaking them out into curls. I kept the little buns, mostly because it turns out they fit nicely under my panda hat and I didn't care what my hair looked like. The event was fun! There was a live band, then a DJ. Around 1:30 a.m. we started dancing with a group of guys who all came to Jackson to work and be ski bums. Super funny, super fun, super good dancers. So I'm normally a kind...

I have a bit of an ear/neck fetish. Ears are very sensitive, no? (That why we poke holes in them, I suppose.) A man who is a good ear kisser is permanently on the "I'll Always Remember You" list. (I love putting people on lists; it makes my life a lot more organized!) That particular list is short, but it's a good one. I prefer sleeping with my ears covered; grandma came to check on me one night and saw me on my side with the blankets covering my ear. She got such a kick out of that because she needs to have her ears covered when she sleeps, too. She bought me a silk pillowcase so I could sleep with silk over my ears, what a grandma! I'll often wake up in the morning with my arms and hands curled up around my head, the backs of my hands covering my ears. I have a hard time sleeping with other people in my bed because I want the blankets over my ears. I don't know why, but it's comforting to have my ears covered. Hey, at least it's not my nose! ____...

I first became interested in Buddhism when I visited Thailand several years ago. Two of my favorite quotations from Buddha: "What we think, we become." "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world." Our minds are powerful; I'm trying to be more conscious of where I direct my thoughts and energy. I have found it is easy with practice to let go of material things, but it is tempting to me to hold on to thoughts of anger and resentment; they satisfy the ego very well. My ego struggles with letting go of these things, but slowly, slowly, I am seeing the wisdom of it. It's not my job to mete out punishment for wrongdoings. When I let go, I can move forward, and as for the other person? What will be, will be. It's actually a relief it has nothing to with me and is not my responsibility. I don't "lose" when I let go. This is what I'm working on making my ego truly believe. I do be...

My three favorite vegetables: artichokes, asparagus, avocados*. I learned to eat veggies from my Chilean mom, so I tend to eat them the Chilean way: steamed, with lemon juice, olive oil and salt. Some fresh garlic for the asparagus, too. Not the avocados! Those I mash up raw with lemon juice, salt, garlic powder and a bit of white cooking wine. Delicious. I've heard of people eating artichokes with mayo or some creamy dressing, but that just sounds awful to me. Do you like it that way? I can't get up the nerve to try it. I made artichokes yesterday for lunch and forgot about them on the stove, so the bottoms caramelized a bit. Oops. I just picked those leaves off, still delicious! I eat the hair and stem, too. The hair is my favorite part, when the artichoke is young and fresh. And swirling the heart and stem around in a little bowl of lemon juice, oil and salt, then biting in? Heaven. I make a meal of just artichokes, and I don't cut them down or make them pretty, ...