An Evening at the Oscars

This weekend we celebrated this years best films by hosting an Oscar Party. We of course wanted to indulge like the stars so we decided to make some Asian inspired treats for dinner followed by decadent chocolate Oscar Cake with raspberries. Rey, who has recently lived in Japan for nearly 2 years, picked up a few great tempura tips form the masters. Barb offered up the Pilipino inspired Pancit Noodles from an authentic Asian market. I contributed Chinese Fried Rice which I learned how to make ironically, from a Japanese student. The food was amazing, fresh, crisp, and bursting with yummy Asian flavor. Hat's off to all on a job well done!


The show itself and the red carpet outfits were amazing. We enjoyed critiquing this years do's and don’ts in fashion. I for one think that Nicole Kidman could wear street rags and make it look elegant. I actually adored her in the cute little red number she wore this year. I loved Forest Whitakers' wife's dress which was adorned with beautiful flowers on her back. Will Smith and family despite any Oscar's this year truly looked like the all American Oscar family right down to Jada's Oscaeresk gold dress. Other beauties in fabulous dresses include Cameron Diaz, Reese Witherspoon, Penelope Cruise, and Cate Blanchett.

Kudos to the most important winner, in my opinion, Al Gore for his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". Also to Melisa Ethridge for her best original song "I Need To Wake Up", written for Al Gore's documentary. Hooray for Alan Arkin who gave an outstanding performance in "little Miss Sunshine" and won an Oscar for best supporting actor. Also a Big congrats to Martin Scorsese for his brilliant work in the film "The Departed". Scorsese not only won the award for best director but his picture received the highest award by being voted best film of the year.


The only way to end a fantastic night filled with gourmet food, high fashion, and great films is of course, with chocolate! Just like the big wigs in Hollywood celebrate with decadent delectables so did we. We enjoyed our own mini fudge cakes filled with raspberry ice cream drizzled with chocolate ganash and fresh raspberries topped with a light dusting of powdered sugar. The perfect ending to a perfect night.

Palomar Sledding Adventure

It has been raining quite a bit in San Diego lately and when it rains here it means there is a chance for snow in the nearby mountains. We decided to take the chance and go see for ourselves if any snow had in fact accumulated on Palomar Mountain. We were (hence the title of this blog) in luck!


The signs were not looking good at first. When we got to the top of the mountain the only traces of snow we saw were the dirty melting piles on the side of the road left by snowplows the night before. We trudged on to our usual spot just before the park entrance. We arrived to a sad site. The hill in all its glory was striped of its claim to fame. All that was left was a muddy muck and a few slushy patches. We decided to try one last area on the shady side of the mountain by Doane Pond. It was the perfect spot. Shaded, snowy, steep, sand secluded. It was the perfect area for a sledding adventure.


Unfortunately for us when we have exchange students come to stay with us they always return home to their countries. Leaving us hoping and wondering, will we ever get to see them again? Luckily for us we were privileged enough to host a student from Taiwan recently who did not return home. She actually is studying at a university in LA. Yippee for us. Karen, from Taiwan, has been able to not only spend several weeks with us as our exchange student but has also been able to come down from L.A. to share in my 30th birthday and in our latest sledding adventure.

It was so great going with my best friend and partner Pete. Of course it was awesome to show Nadia snow for the first time this year and to let her go down the mountain all by herself. She is such a big girl! This was actually Karen's first time sledding and she is almost as old as I am! She did great and looked like she was having a blast.

After a cold day of sledding in the snow we warmed up at Mother's Kitchen at the top of the summit with a hot bowl of soup and some hot chocolates. Well for us anyway, Karen only drinks tea! All in all it was a great day and great company.

These are a few of our pictures from our adventure. If you want to see them all please click on the following shutterfly link.

Happy New Year!

Fu Dao La (which translates to welcome in happiness)! Welcome the year of the Boar. This weekend we celebrated the Chinese New Year. What better way to celebrate the New Year than with 3 Chinese exchange students. How do the Chinese celebrate the New Year or Spring Festival as they call it? Same as they and the Sung dynasty have for the past 600 years, with homemade dumplings of course!!! The reason for the dumplings is to connote their wishes for good fortune in the New Year. The shape of the Chinese dumplings is similar to ancient Chinese gold or silver ingots, they symbolize wealth.


Our student from Beijing, Javier (the one adorned with the dark blue snoopy sweater), had her two girlfriends Alice and Zinnia come over to help prepare the dumplings. These, of course, are not their traditional Chinese names but rather English (or in some cases Spanish) names that they have chosen for themselves. I personally find their names to be very sweet and flattering to their personalities. Anyway I’m getting a bit off track of the main subject here and that is DUMPLINGS. The main ingredient among our 3 teen students was naturally laughter, dancing, and music by none other then the ever popular Jay Chou. Pete of course wanted to throw a little Italian spin on things by playing the Tarantella on the accordion. Which they graciously applauded and danced to.


The family link is essential to the art of making these scrumptious little nuggets. It is really a team work. Usually family members will join the work as we all did. Even Nadia helped roll out the skins with her mini rolling pin. The Chinese start making dumplings when they are children. Good thing Emily got her lesson while she is still young. She was cranking out perfect dumplings in no time. She now holds the ancient secrets of all others who have come before her. The art itself is in making the skins which is the hardest part of making the dumplings.


How to make Chinese dumplings . . . Although the skins are comprised only of flour and water this is the difficult part. They used no measuring cups or spoons for this so it is hard to gauge how much water and how much flour to use. Hopefully my descriptions will allow you to make these at your own home. They started with a large bowl and added about 2 cups of flour. They made a well in the middle and filled it with approximately 1 cup of cold water. This mixture was then kneaded and formed into dough. Gradually adding more flour and water as needed. The consistency of the dough was not sticky and felt light and fluffy. This was then formed into a ball and set into a small bowl. Cover the bowl with cellophane or a damp towel and set aside for about an hour.


Now start the filling with chopping and mashing whatever ground meat you prefer. We used pork for ours. Then add salt, sesame oil, soy sauce, finely chopped fresh ginger and scallions. Finley chop Chinese cabbage and/or carrots and boil until soft. Mix thoroughly with the meat mixture and add two spoonfuls of water if necessary.


Flour a surface and roll out the dough into about a 1 ½” diameter log. Cut the log into about ¼” medallions. Flatten these out with the palm of your hand into a disk shape and then roll until fairly thin. Spoon a small amount of the meat mixture in the center and begin to pinch closed leaving no air pockets. Dip each dumpling on 1 side in flour so it dose not stick to the plate wile making the rest. Boil these in water until they float to the surface. Once cooked serve hot with dipping sauce. The water used to boil should be used as soup. Salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle the soup with finely chopped scallions.


For the dipping sauce . . . mix 2 parts white vinegar and 1 part soy sauce. Add in a few tsp. of sesame oil and finely chopped garlic. If you prefer a hotter variation add in some pepper oil.


The Chinese are very similar to the Italians with regard to food. They enjoy making large meals together as a family. They also make far more then enough food for all and would certainly be insulted if you didn’t go back for seconds or even thirds or fourths for that matter. This has been a truly enlightening experience for our family. We are very grateful we have such a wonderful opportunity to host such a diverse array of students from so many different countries and cultures. We are extremely blessed!