Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
HK's Signature Drink
SECTIONCODE: 38-food-UTT
SECTION: Food
SUBSECTION: Under the table
HED:
SUBHED:
STARS:
P/Q: The Wan Chai Wash— a combination of beer, vodka, whiskey, gin, tequila, and kamikaze shots with a measure of spit and of vomit, then poured over a 5am kabob.
W/C:
TEXT:
I write this to you from an uncomfortable stool at the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. I came here to discover why the Singapore Sling, invented at this bar in 1936, is so famous. I see it at every shitty airport bar, in every cocktail book, in our collective memories. Though I do not know of anyone who would comfortably order this vile mixture of thickened cough syrup and food colouring poured over a mug of sugar (for this pleasure, it cost me S$23). But to condemn this drink is to condemn the nation whose name is behind it. So I better tread carefully.
I’ve been thinking for some time about why Hong Kong doesn’t have a signature drink. Singapore’s got the Sling; Russia’s got the white Russian, and black Russian for that matter; Ireland’s got Guinness; Mexico has the margarita’s (though Texans will dispute this to their death-beds). And no introduction needed: The Cosmopolitan. So how come Hong Kong missed the international boat on this one?
If Hong Kong is a first tiered, world-class city, we should have a drink that symbolises us, much like its famous bridge, tower, statue or national dish. We should have our flag in every shitty airport bar. So I went searching, for a drink that represents Hong Kong. Came up with nothing.
Then I remembered something Karen Mok told me, “Hong Kong people think imported is better than homegrown.” Is pride the reason we lack a national drink?
After a self-education on cities’ signature cocktails, I found that the commonality running between most national drinks is this: sweetness. You see it in the sticky-sweet fruit punch of Singapore Slings, the rim’s of margarita glasses, the sweetened whipped cream of a Blow Job (tossed back, no hands). Sugar, it seems, aids sales. Second, the most famous cocktails were created in hotel bars. Much of this has to do with the hotel’s famous, vocal, clienteles such as F. Scott Fitzgerald who used to eat the orchid garnish off a lovely young woman’s drink in order to gain her favour at the Petit Bar at the Ritz Paris.
Third trait: the origins of the main liquor component are home-grown. Rice wine, maybe our only alcoholic spawn, does not agree with me, but maybe as a wash it could give the drink a secret burn.
With friends, I tossed around this question of the city’s signature drink. We created a laboratory of sorts and played around with plum sauces, ginger liquor and got down-right drunk in the process. Through our drunken stupor, we did invented one delight: The Wan Chai Wash— a combination of beer, vodka, whiskey, gin, tequila, and kamikaze shots with a measure of spit and of vomit, then it is poured over a 5am kabob.
Since we still don’t have a drink that represents us, I, in a hurried afternoon, thought up of what could represent Hong Kong in a glass. In a combined effort between myself and Gani, the bartender at Union J, a recipe was revised to one and a half part gin, one part crème de ginger, one part orange liquor, freshly crushed ginger and a topping of boxed lemon iced tea found at any local Circle K. It was as refreshing as an icy pimm’s lemonade on the hottest of Hong Kong days.
I don’t know who said it first, we were evenly drunk by this time, but someone slurred out “Wong Island Iced Tea”. And that stuck as the name of this drink.
I’m not going to be pompous and say that the Wong Island Iced Tea will become Hong Kong’s national drink. I just want there to be a national drink for no other reason than to see it on a menu in a shitty hotel bar by the airport.
So if not this one, then maybe another, created by someone who knows what they are talking about, who is actually a person of mixing authority. So I’ve asked several bartenders from hotel bar in Hong Kong to create what they think would be a candidate for a drink that would best represent our city.
There will be no contest or casting of votes for this drink. People will vote with their wallets and their tastebuds and maybe the public relation world will do its thing spread the word. Then hopefully one day, I’ll be sitting at a shitty bar in an airport sipping Hong Kong’s signature cocktail.
SECTION: Food
SUBSECTION: Under the table
HED:
SUBHED:
STARS:
P/Q: The Wan Chai Wash— a combination of beer, vodka, whiskey, gin, tequila, and kamikaze shots with a measure of spit and of vomit, then poured over a 5am kabob.
W/C:
TEXT:
I write this to you from an uncomfortable stool at the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. I came here to discover why the Singapore Sling, invented at this bar in 1936, is so famous. I see it at every shitty airport bar, in every cocktail book, in our collective memories. Though I do not know of anyone who would comfortably order this vile mixture of thickened cough syrup and food colouring poured over a mug of sugar (for this pleasure, it cost me S$23). But to condemn this drink is to condemn the nation whose name is behind it. So I better tread carefully.
I’ve been thinking for some time about why Hong Kong doesn’t have a signature drink. Singapore’s got the Sling; Russia’s got the white Russian, and black Russian for that matter; Ireland’s got Guinness; Mexico has the margarita’s (though Texans will dispute this to their death-beds). And no introduction needed: The Cosmopolitan. So how come Hong Kong missed the international boat on this one?
If Hong Kong is a first tiered, world-class city, we should have a drink that symbolises us, much like its famous bridge, tower, statue or national dish. We should have our flag in every shitty airport bar. So I went searching, for a drink that represents Hong Kong. Came up with nothing.
Then I remembered something Karen Mok told me, “Hong Kong people think imported is better than homegrown.” Is pride the reason we lack a national drink?
After a self-education on cities’ signature cocktails, I found that the commonality running between most national drinks is this: sweetness. You see it in the sticky-sweet fruit punch of Singapore Slings, the rim’s of margarita glasses, the sweetened whipped cream of a Blow Job (tossed back, no hands). Sugar, it seems, aids sales. Second, the most famous cocktails were created in hotel bars. Much of this has to do with the hotel’s famous, vocal, clienteles such as F. Scott Fitzgerald who used to eat the orchid garnish off a lovely young woman’s drink in order to gain her favour at the Petit Bar at the Ritz Paris.
Third trait: the origins of the main liquor component are home-grown. Rice wine, maybe our only alcoholic spawn, does not agree with me, but maybe as a wash it could give the drink a secret burn.
With friends, I tossed around this question of the city’s signature drink. We created a laboratory of sorts and played around with plum sauces, ginger liquor and got down-right drunk in the process. Through our drunken stupor, we did invented one delight: The Wan Chai Wash— a combination of beer, vodka, whiskey, gin, tequila, and kamikaze shots with a measure of spit and of vomit, then it is poured over a 5am kabob.
Since we still don’t have a drink that represents us, I, in a hurried afternoon, thought up of what could represent Hong Kong in a glass. In a combined effort between myself and Gani, the bartender at Union J, a recipe was revised to one and a half part gin, one part crème de ginger, one part orange liquor, freshly crushed ginger and a topping of boxed lemon iced tea found at any local Circle K. It was as refreshing as an icy pimm’s lemonade on the hottest of Hong Kong days.
I don’t know who said it first, we were evenly drunk by this time, but someone slurred out “Wong Island Iced Tea”. And that stuck as the name of this drink.
I’m not going to be pompous and say that the Wong Island Iced Tea will become Hong Kong’s national drink. I just want there to be a national drink for no other reason than to see it on a menu in a shitty hotel bar by the airport.
So if not this one, then maybe another, created by someone who knows what they are talking about, who is actually a person of mixing authority. So I’ve asked several bartenders from hotel bar in Hong Kong to create what they think would be a candidate for a drink that would best represent our city.
There will be no contest or casting of votes for this drink. People will vote with their wallets and their tastebuds and maybe the public relation world will do its thing spread the word. Then hopefully one day, I’ll be sitting at a shitty bar in an airport sipping Hong Kong’s signature cocktail.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
The Future 50 years
This would be interesting to see if this even reaches me. It might amuse you to know that I'm listening to Britney Spear's Piece of Me, a song that is already over a year old, and a song I'm about ten years too old to be enjoying.
On this day, I'm on two ends of an extreme. I've come off a breakup with a man who says he loves me, but I couldn't get myself to say those word back. And when you you don't love someone, on no occasion should you compromise and lie with those words.
On the other end of the extreme, I'm smitten by a man, a gentleman, who calls me up on a telephone on a Tuesday to ask me out on a date on Friday. Not an SMS (short message service), not a Facebook message, not an email. He call me on a phone, one that's is attached to the wall no less. This is old-school, even for this day. And I find him to be the last of gentlemens.
I am now listening to Philippe Glass, The Poet Acts. It's a soothing afternoon tune that I've enjoyed for sometime now.
I'm assuming I will be a different person 50 years from now. By the way, I haven't changed much over the years. I'm assuming I will still have sight and other sensories to enjoy this letter. But I have to tell you, that I recently went from 20/15 vision, to something much less. This has me worry that I send too much time in front of a screen. And I receive far too much information from a screen rather than books, travel or real life experience. Which of course scares me because I am being shaped by screens with too much chatter, like everyone's got a platform for speaking, no not enough people are saying a thing. I'm not creating my own thoughts. And reading, traveling and experiencing might be the only chance we get to, in this age, perhaps, becoming our own person. A real person with pure thoughts and the ability to make decisions based on first hand experiences and untainted intuition. That is my wish for myself.
I wonder if I will be able to fulfill my potential when I come to read this 50 years from entering these words on my keyboard.
We are so caught up with our immediate self, a guarded self, that we rarely share. This really is an exercise of talking to yourself. A conversation we have less and less of eachday.
On this day, I'm on two ends of an extreme. I've come off a breakup with a man who says he loves me, but I couldn't get myself to say those word back. And when you you don't love someone, on no occasion should you compromise and lie with those words.
On the other end of the extreme, I'm smitten by a man, a gentleman, who calls me up on a telephone on a Tuesday to ask me out on a date on Friday. Not an SMS (short message service), not a Facebook message, not an email. He call me on a phone, one that's is attached to the wall no less. This is old-school, even for this day. And I find him to be the last of gentlemens.
I am now listening to Philippe Glass, The Poet Acts. It's a soothing afternoon tune that I've enjoyed for sometime now.
I'm assuming I will be a different person 50 years from now. By the way, I haven't changed much over the years. I'm assuming I will still have sight and other sensories to enjoy this letter. But I have to tell you, that I recently went from 20/15 vision, to something much less. This has me worry that I send too much time in front of a screen. And I receive far too much information from a screen rather than books, travel or real life experience. Which of course scares me because I am being shaped by screens with too much chatter, like everyone's got a platform for speaking, no not enough people are saying a thing. I'm not creating my own thoughts. And reading, traveling and experiencing might be the only chance we get to, in this age, perhaps, becoming our own person. A real person with pure thoughts and the ability to make decisions based on first hand experiences and untainted intuition. That is my wish for myself.
I wonder if I will be able to fulfill my potential when I come to read this 50 years from entering these words on my keyboard.
We are so caught up with our immediate self, a guarded self, that we rarely share. This really is an exercise of talking to yourself. A conversation we have less and less of eachday.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
31 year old Egyptian woman
My host XXX in Cairo gave me pause when her phone rang a baby's cry. I asked, "Is that yours?" No, she shook her head, half smiling, half crying. We were having lunch at a highly touristy- highly priced restaurant in the middle of XXXX market. It was a pleasure to dine in such a themed park diner meant to evoke the romance of Egypt, but you get the sense no one who lives here actually lives like this.
"I want to have babies," she told me without prompting. She says that's all she wanted now. With part regret she recalled being excited by going to school, and studying tourism and languages She makes more than her male family members giving tours of her city and its famous pymides. But she says, she is 31 years old, the same age as me. And in this society she is too old for marriage. Men will not ask for dates, they want younger she says. She says if you are not picked for marriage before 16-18 years, then chances are not likely she will get married. She started to tell me about a Turkish non-Muslim boy who had asked her for coffee years ago, but she could not be seen out with him in a cafe as it was against her religion to be seen with a man in public that is not her husband. She couldn't be seen with him, but thought about him for her husband. She said she wanted children with him or some one else.
I could read she was hopeful, but the hope started fading away long ago, and this was only a fraction of her. Her future dimmed every year a man would not take her. I was feeling the same pressure as I was months from turning 32. I had been dumped just months ago from a man who didn't see me in his future. Who after one and a half years of dating couldn't call me his girlfriend. Who just didn't love me and never said those words just so he could not be blamed later on, the looming break up he was always certain of and I feared since the beginning of our relationship.
I felt time, as she had. I felt time slipping. And I wanted everything now. As she had. The man, the baby, a future. The sound of babies crying, her own, my own baby crying.
But I felt young. Younger than she. I felt I have a few more years of hopefulness. She was dim and on the verge of cracking. I could wear shirts to show my shoulders, even that became an advantage I had and she didn't. Age, for the most part, was of the mind, her's a reality.
Money, the evidence of food, highly-priced food, laid on our table that we shared, was an issue that divide me and her. Our education, similar. But hers meant she could not meet suitors, mine meant I could.
How much longer does she have to be hopeful?
I paid for the meal and her as well. She gave me more than I thought I would see on a visit to Egypt.
"I want to have babies," she told me without prompting. She says that's all she wanted now. With part regret she recalled being excited by going to school, and studying tourism and languages She makes more than her male family members giving tours of her city and its famous pymides. But she says, she is 31 years old, the same age as me. And in this society she is too old for marriage. Men will not ask for dates, they want younger she says. She says if you are not picked for marriage before 16-18 years, then chances are not likely she will get married. She started to tell me about a Turkish non-Muslim boy who had asked her for coffee years ago, but she could not be seen out with him in a cafe as it was against her religion to be seen with a man in public that is not her husband. She couldn't be seen with him, but thought about him for her husband. She said she wanted children with him or some one else.
I could read she was hopeful, but the hope started fading away long ago, and this was only a fraction of her. Her future dimmed every year a man would not take her. I was feeling the same pressure as I was months from turning 32. I had been dumped just months ago from a man who didn't see me in his future. Who after one and a half years of dating couldn't call me his girlfriend. Who just didn't love me and never said those words just so he could not be blamed later on, the looming break up he was always certain of and I feared since the beginning of our relationship.
I felt time, as she had. I felt time slipping. And I wanted everything now. As she had. The man, the baby, a future. The sound of babies crying, her own, my own baby crying.
But I felt young. Younger than she. I felt I have a few more years of hopefulness. She was dim and on the verge of cracking. I could wear shirts to show my shoulders, even that became an advantage I had and she didn't. Age, for the most part, was of the mind, her's a reality.
Money, the evidence of food, highly-priced food, laid on our table that we shared, was an issue that divide me and her. Our education, similar. But hers meant she could not meet suitors, mine meant I could.
How much longer does she have to be hopeful?
I paid for the meal and her as well. She gave me more than I thought I would see on a visit to Egypt.
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Break Up
He knocked three times. I thought it was noise from upstairs. Then he knocked a few more. I sat in bed listening, silently. He finally rang the door bell. All the while I waited in bed afraid to move. The phone rings. I ignore it. Surely he must know I'm ignoring him.
I feel sick about this. I feel sick I needed to ignore him. Finally I hear a slam at the door and I think he's gone.
I slip into the shower and just let it rain down on me. I hate that I am acting so viscerally towards him. But it's over. He had come by the night before on my invitation. We had drunk wine and ate salad. He had talked about the future, and I had talked about seeing other people. We left on a hug, mine was goodbye, his was, well, I'm not sure.
How would I explain this to him if he came by again? That I was kept up all night from the bottle of red we drank and was fast asleep when he rang my bell? This was half truth. I can hear him moving outside. He is reading a magazine.
The shower felt good. It was like drinking a glass of water.
When a person says I love you and you don't feel the same way, the only thing to say is I don't love you. Never is there an option to say anything but.
I'm kind of scared to step outside.
This is not an act of romance. It's a little bit creepy.
Break ups are hard man. I don't want him touching me, I don't want him hugging me. i don't want to give him and indication that I might be interested in his love for me. It is not recipricated.
I feel sick about this. I feel sick I needed to ignore him. Finally I hear a slam at the door and I think he's gone.
I slip into the shower and just let it rain down on me. I hate that I am acting so viscerally towards him. But it's over. He had come by the night before on my invitation. We had drunk wine and ate salad. He had talked about the future, and I had talked about seeing other people. We left on a hug, mine was goodbye, his was, well, I'm not sure.
How would I explain this to him if he came by again? That I was kept up all night from the bottle of red we drank and was fast asleep when he rang my bell? This was half truth. I can hear him moving outside. He is reading a magazine.
The shower felt good. It was like drinking a glass of water.
When a person says I love you and you don't feel the same way, the only thing to say is I don't love you. Never is there an option to say anything but.
I'm kind of scared to step outside.
This is not an act of romance. It's a little bit creepy.
Break ups are hard man. I don't want him touching me, I don't want him hugging me. i don't want to give him and indication that I might be interested in his love for me. It is not recipricated.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Family meals
SECTIONCODE: 37-food-utt
SECTION: food
SUBSECTION: Under the table
HED:
SUBHED:
STARS:
P/Q: She had just graduated with a degree in psychology or sociology or mind-fucking or something, with a minor in theatre.
W/C:
TEXT:
Every year my late grandfather would host an end of the summer family gathering and the extended family would come together for a spectacular dinner he made from scratch. He grew his own vegetables and picked them before the season was over; he killed chickens, frogs, pigs, and made plum wine. It was the one time of year the entire family travelled from all over the world to eat, not because we want to but because we had to.
Since his passing, no one had bothered to organise all the uncles and aunties together. The cousins didn’t get to see eachother grow up. And the family members became strangers again, happily.
My dad, feeling his legacy, decided to call together the family again this summer. I couldn’t make up my usual excuse of living overseas, or being overworked. They were all coming to Hong Kong.
They say you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. And as I sat down for our first meal together, this was never more evident.
In the five years since our grandfather died we hadn’t been together in the same room. I had a good look around the table. Who were all these strangers? How did my cousin Janice with an eating disorder grow to be over six feet tall? Who was uncle Paul’s new wife, or was it the same wife with some work done? Why did step-cousin Jenifer go blonde? “No, that’s Jimmy’s girlfriend –no one knows her name,” my sister whispered.
There were kids as well, but I had no idea who they belonged to. Three of them sat head down with their PS3, no one bothered to feed them, no one bothered to even introduce them. The aunties and uncles made dumb flatteries such as how everyone lost weight (lies) or how no one’s aged (more lies). No one mentioned to auntie Jane that she gave her new daughter a porn star name, or how uncle Paul has a new girlfriend but was still wearing his wedding ring, or the fact that no one bothered invited uncle George. “Uncle George is still contesting [grandfather’s] will,” my rumour-mill sister said. We were a sorry bunch.
On many occasions I enjoy a proper Chinese banquet, but this might be the longest 11-courses I’ve ever eaten. I turn to Jimmy’s no-name girlfriend to make contact, and was sorry I did. She had studied journalism as I had and was looking for a job as a broadcast news anchor. She had dyed her hair from black to blonde and gotten a ridiculous Thai boob job. The entire first three-courses she spent bitching that news producers wouldn’t take her seriously.
Now cousin Jon and I always got along. While the women had done a good job of raising their daughters to be future golddiggers and housewives, Jonny and I were reformed hippies. I want to give him credit for teaching me how to make bugs explode in the microwave, but it might have taught him that. I was looking forward to spending time with him, as he was the only non-crazy of the bunch. Unfortunately he came as the handbag of his 22 year old girlfriend who wouldn’t let him speak a word. She had just graduated with a degree in psychology or sociology or mind-fucking or something, with a minor in theatre. She wanted to take this trip to explore career options in Asia.“This is where it is all happening right now,” she was telling me this. Over conpoy and egg white scramble, she went on and on about her expertise in what… I’m still trying to understand. An expertise she gained from studying in a classroom for the last 15 months and now has some degree in. She spoke with so much naiveté and punk attitude of absoluteness, that I actually felt old for judging her. “What is your intention with Jon?” I wanted to make this weird. Well, that ended her air of certainty.
My aunt Nancy said someone really wanted to meet me. I didn’t even know I had a cousin named Alexis. And within nine seconds of sitting with her I could tell she didn’t want to meet me either, but was nudged by aunt Nancy to butter me up to write her college applications for her. “We’re family, we’re supposed to help eachother,” my aunt turned 90 degrees in her chair to inject. “I’m happy to edit what she writes, but I can’t recount her life’s experiences for her,” I said not-so-politely, plus I didn’t even know she existed until tonight.
“So how much does your employers pay you,” asked my great-uncle Tow. I wanted to tell him my eyes were up here. “The important thing is you’re happy! Hahaha!” he creeps me out till this day. I wondered if my parents ever left me alone with him.
I wish my grandfather was here. He would be sitting next to me right now, and I know what he would’ve said when the soy chicken came out, “I make this better!” and he could make it so much better. He was a chef, and he set out to train his grand kids into gourmands. He fed me lobster as my first solid food. What kind of twisted person feeds babies bottom-feeder crustacean as their first meal? He found it to be the ultimate expression of love and giving his little ones the best foot forward in life. He was also the one who taught me how to smoke. And when he hit the 90 marker, his doctors told him not to quit as it would kill him if he stopped his two packs a day habit. He was so old he would tell his self-editor to shut up aloud and said it as they were. We got along the best. And now that all of my grandparents have passed, and I know I’m not supposed to do this, I can say he was my favourite.
SECTION: food
SUBSECTION: Under the table
HED:
SUBHED:
STARS:
P/Q: She had just graduated with a degree in psychology or sociology or mind-fucking or something, with a minor in theatre.
W/C:
TEXT:
Every year my late grandfather would host an end of the summer family gathering and the extended family would come together for a spectacular dinner he made from scratch. He grew his own vegetables and picked them before the season was over; he killed chickens, frogs, pigs, and made plum wine. It was the one time of year the entire family travelled from all over the world to eat, not because we want to but because we had to.
Since his passing, no one had bothered to organise all the uncles and aunties together. The cousins didn’t get to see eachother grow up. And the family members became strangers again, happily.
My dad, feeling his legacy, decided to call together the family again this summer. I couldn’t make up my usual excuse of living overseas, or being overworked. They were all coming to Hong Kong.
They say you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. And as I sat down for our first meal together, this was never more evident.
In the five years since our grandfather died we hadn’t been together in the same room. I had a good look around the table. Who were all these strangers? How did my cousin Janice with an eating disorder grow to be over six feet tall? Who was uncle Paul’s new wife, or was it the same wife with some work done? Why did step-cousin Jenifer go blonde? “No, that’s Jimmy’s girlfriend –no one knows her name,” my sister whispered.
There were kids as well, but I had no idea who they belonged to. Three of them sat head down with their PS3, no one bothered to feed them, no one bothered to even introduce them. The aunties and uncles made dumb flatteries such as how everyone lost weight (lies) or how no one’s aged (more lies). No one mentioned to auntie Jane that she gave her new daughter a porn star name, or how uncle Paul has a new girlfriend but was still wearing his wedding ring, or the fact that no one bothered invited uncle George. “Uncle George is still contesting [grandfather’s] will,” my rumour-mill sister said. We were a sorry bunch.
On many occasions I enjoy a proper Chinese banquet, but this might be the longest 11-courses I’ve ever eaten. I turn to Jimmy’s no-name girlfriend to make contact, and was sorry I did. She had studied journalism as I had and was looking for a job as a broadcast news anchor. She had dyed her hair from black to blonde and gotten a ridiculous Thai boob job. The entire first three-courses she spent bitching that news producers wouldn’t take her seriously.
Now cousin Jon and I always got along. While the women had done a good job of raising their daughters to be future golddiggers and housewives, Jonny and I were reformed hippies. I want to give him credit for teaching me how to make bugs explode in the microwave, but it might have taught him that. I was looking forward to spending time with him, as he was the only non-crazy of the bunch. Unfortunately he came as the handbag of his 22 year old girlfriend who wouldn’t let him speak a word. She had just graduated with a degree in psychology or sociology or mind-fucking or something, with a minor in theatre. She wanted to take this trip to explore career options in Asia.“This is where it is all happening right now,” she was telling me this. Over conpoy and egg white scramble, she went on and on about her expertise in what… I’m still trying to understand. An expertise she gained from studying in a classroom for the last 15 months and now has some degree in. She spoke with so much naiveté and punk attitude of absoluteness, that I actually felt old for judging her. “What is your intention with Jon?” I wanted to make this weird. Well, that ended her air of certainty.
My aunt Nancy said someone really wanted to meet me. I didn’t even know I had a cousin named Alexis. And within nine seconds of sitting with her I could tell she didn’t want to meet me either, but was nudged by aunt Nancy to butter me up to write her college applications for her. “We’re family, we’re supposed to help eachother,” my aunt turned 90 degrees in her chair to inject. “I’m happy to edit what she writes, but I can’t recount her life’s experiences for her,” I said not-so-politely, plus I didn’t even know she existed until tonight.
“So how much does your employers pay you,” asked my great-uncle Tow. I wanted to tell him my eyes were up here. “The important thing is you’re happy! Hahaha!” he creeps me out till this day. I wondered if my parents ever left me alone with him.
I wish my grandfather was here. He would be sitting next to me right now, and I know what he would’ve said when the soy chicken came out, “I make this better!” and he could make it so much better. He was a chef, and he set out to train his grand kids into gourmands. He fed me lobster as my first solid food. What kind of twisted person feeds babies bottom-feeder crustacean as their first meal? He found it to be the ultimate expression of love and giving his little ones the best foot forward in life. He was also the one who taught me how to smoke. And when he hit the 90 marker, his doctors told him not to quit as it would kill him if he stopped his two packs a day habit. He was so old he would tell his self-editor to shut up aloud and said it as they were. We got along the best. And now that all of my grandparents have passed, and I know I’m not supposed to do this, I can say he was my favourite.
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