Dragon Fruit

Exotic fruit:
This is a dragon fruit... it grows out of a cactus like plant. My parents planted it a few years back and here is the first and only fruit this year! It looks like nothing I can describe on the outside, and the inside looks like a white Kiwi... tasted juicy with mild sweetness!

Here, have an ancient dragon fruit!

Look at the intricacy of its design!

Baking with mom

So my mom bought me this really sweet machine, Vita-Mix, as my Christmas present this year... yeah, Christmas isn't here yet, but you know, I am gonna be working in the ICU, so she wanted to celebrate it early. Vita-Mix is the coolest machine for the kitchen, it does everything! I've made smoothies, almond butter, soups, and now --> baking!

You can make puree anything; in three to five minutes your soup gets steamy hot right out of the machine; it dices and chops; and it also makes bread dough, cake mixes, cookies... so, tonight we took it to the test!

So, there's our Zucchini Bread with chunky walnuts and pineaple, and Apple Bread with pecans and raisins, and 2 trays of Persimmon Cookies with walnuts and raisins. Seriously, baking has never been so easy.

Voila! I wish I can share them with you! We stand around and sampled them and they were truly delicious! Bon appetite!

Thanksgiving 2009

There are many things to be thankful for this year, even though, it was a year filled with trials. I am glad to say that healing has come for my broken-ness. Perhaps one day I will share with you what I've learned. First, I need to thank God for His provisions. Second, I must thank my family... and the new addition, Geoff and Jessies' new marriage. Third, I am very thankful for the opportunity to be working at Ventura's wonderful residency program.

It is really rare to get a vacation, but I got one for the entire week of Thanksgiving and got to go home and hangout with family. However, a week before I started my vacation, I got the PIG flu! I was coughing like a pig for nearly three weeks... PIGS ARE NASTY! That's all I have to say to that. My friend Ben said he got the Bird flu... but, I don't believe him... he wasn't coughing or flying at all! Spider-Boy got super powers when he was bitten by a spider... I thought pigs are smart... but I didn't get any special powers but coughing my brains out for 2 weeks.

You know, it gave me the appreciation for my patients' sufferings! I always tell them that there aren't anything out there that help with cough very well... well, I drank my own medicine! Now I can tell you that... yeah, I am still right! Stinking Pig!

So, transition from the Pig flu to HAM... yum... I can't wait to show you what my family made up for Thanksgiving dinner this year! I can't even explain... my stomach was in the back of my throat at the end of the night... and let me tell you, we started eating at 2pm! No wonder French people call us Americans fat pigs... well, I say "Ham UP."

What's wrong with me tonight... what's up with me and pig... Nevermind. Here is the spread!



So delicious... do you see how incredibly pretty and presentable of this turkey? Well, it took my uncle Steve less than 5 minutes to carve it and presented all on the platter... Man, you are a true CHEF!

Goble, goble, oink, oink.

Off the hook! Mission Inn, Riverside!

Do you know the Mission Inn Resort in Riverside, CA? It is like a super fancy hotel, 5 stars, where a few of our presidents got married in it, many of them have stayed in it, many foreign leaders have stayed there, and also lots of celebrities also stayed there... It is built with lots of mixtures of different architecture styles with lots of secluded spaces.

So, I've lived in the Riverside/Loma Linda for nearly 10 years and always wanted to stay at this hotel. I used to sneak into the hotel and hangout in one of the beautiful and secluded court yards... But, guess what? No sneaky sneaky anymore! I actually got to stay there like a high-roller this time!

So, I went to the ATLS (Advance Trauma Life Support) certification course, given at Loma Linda University by several trauma surgeons from the American College of Surgeons... I went there with my friends Kevin and Julie, who are also co-residents in the Ventura program. They are from the South... and I thought to treat them to the best of the Inland Empire that I know...
So, here is the where the rampage start:

You see that corner white tripple-arch door at the end of the terrace? Well, that was our room! And as we enter, we were all jaw dropped at how large and how our room was! Yeah, no joke, it was off the hook!

Then, as we walk out of the door, we can look down into the Terrace Cafe, where we ate a very nice 4 course meal on our second night there.

The rotunda!

There's Kevin and Julie looking cute on the stairs; Kevin and I stuck together in a box.

Me, chilling in a secluded court yard; the pool overlook.

Customized chair for the 335 lb president Taft; which both Kevin and Julie fit in easily... Kevin was doing a Taft impression.

A sweet Cadillac.

First course of our four course meal at the Terrace Cafe: Crab cakes.
Second course of my meal was a gourmet halibut.

Third for me was a spiked coffee; and then, of course, chocolate!

And yes, we all passed the ATLS certification. Yay.

Can you believe what I got for lunch?

Just want to post these pictures for you, Alan. I am working at Oxnard at a clinic that is predominantly Spanish speaking. I have been going to this taco stand there that sells very good tacos and frutas frescas... here I got 2 tacos (carnitas y carne asada) and fresh mango with chile y limon! I can't wait to have some more!

Foods from Cambodia... yum!

So, finally, here are some food pictures! It has been about 6weeks since I got back from Cambodia, and I am still drooling dreaming about the food. Even the airplane food from EVA if you can imagine that. These pictures are taken 30,000 ft up in the air, in markets in Phnom Penh and Battambang, and in various restaurants in the cities on the dirty country roads... So, I won't keep the connaisseur waiting...

I love EVA air! They have the best service, the best food, and a wonderful Elite class seats! That was Seafood Noodles for breakfast and the American Continental breakfast.

Khmer breakfast: (Cambodian=Khmer) BBQ chicken with rice and a bowl of Khmer soup base. The next picture is stolen off the internet, it is a traditional Khmer breakfast noodle. This includes rice noodle stretched over lead pipes in the village, and some yummy beef balls or pieces of thin sliced pork. The most unique thing about Khmer cooking is the 'gray fish paste.' It is an essential ingredient in all the foods. It gives the distinct flavor of what's genuinly Khmer. It is what makes this bowl of noodle soup different from the Vietnamese Pho soup. This soup is my favorite in all of the Khmer cooking... Now, I do wake up every morning craving a bowl of soup.

Khmer food has some influence from Thai and Indian traditions... So, you can find some curry. So, here is chicken curry with rice... and some 'very poached' egg with chicken in heavy sauce.

Here is another very much traditional Khmer dish, the 'Fish Amok' which is in the little banana leaf bowl right next to the coconut. The Khmer ice coffee is also very good and very strong, about 20% sweetened condense milk and 80% pure caffein! The coconuts are always freshly opened, about 1 liter of fluid inside. The next dish is 'garlic chicken,' which also is a part of the Khmer tradition, lots of Chinese influence.

Another traditional Khmer dish: the 'Beef Lok Lak' on the left. Basically, some nicely marinated cooked beef in special sauce with an very poached egg over it and rice. It is very tasty! The dish next to it is just a beef noodle soup.

Here are some Thai influence: Seafood noodles with coconut sauce and pinapple fried rice with egg rolls on top.

Ok, the following are some snacks, weird foods, weird fruits, and some desserts!

Little sweet and sour plum balls, very common in Asia. Then, some roasted bugs! It is said that on the road from Battambang to Phnom Penh, one can find roasted Trantulas... yikes! I hate bugs!

Fruits: Rambutans (very good, like Lycee), and some 'rubber nose' fruit... also very good.

A Jackfruit tree... never seen one before... Jackfruit taste almost like sweet potatoe, but without the after-taste. It is not to be confused with the picture on the right! That is a very stincky fruit called Durian... YUCK! I can't even get near the fruit... but, supposedly if you can get pass the stentch, people say that it actually taste really sweet and very good. I don't believe any of it.

So, always have to finish off with the dessert... here are some baked goods, very much with French influence. On the left, ginger banana and some rolled pastry with sweet stuff on the inside. Oh, we also found some good gelato icecream too.... Got to have snack!

There are still so many other dishes I didn't get to take pictures of, I guess you just have to go there to have some with me one day :)