Brussel me up: Sprouts with everthing

A recent trip to the US made me recall my deep love for the brussel sprouts. 

That tasty, mini brassica, which fell prey to badly cooked school dinners in the '80s, wreaking hate across a nation.

Despite the bad rap they have among Brits/ school kids, they are a classic British vegetable (if you're British. If you're American and thinking "hey, that's my brassica!" then fine, I deny you not). They have a somewhat Christmassy connotation in the UK but in Hong Kong, they're popular and you can get them year round.

I love them. I somehow escaped primary school unscathed by bad brussel sprouts and don't recall eating them in secondary school. I am, however, mostly vegetarian, in part, due to the horrors of eating meat at school. 

But in the US, it's like they love sprouts with their cooking, not their mouths. You can find sprouts in all kinds of restaurants, in interesting combinations and typically, damn well made. The trip most definitely ignited in me, a little obsession, trying to recreate the lovingly cooked dishes, so I could love them with my mouth at home.

// Dammit, I don't have any in at the moment, so I can't, now, go and eat some, having ranted on about how great they are. //

The Smith, NYC

In this popular chain of bars, brussel sprouts are carefully loved in a hot pan, with oil and salt. They come out a bright green, so have not been overcooked, despite that the outsides are wonderfully burnt brown and black, creating spots of crispiness and caramel. They are a tad oily, but the salt and sprout flavours just eat you up in a bundle of brassica joy.

Just USD 8

Motorino, NYC

Motorino is known to be (one of) the best pizza place(s) in New York. And with a menu that includes brussel sprouts, who's surprised? (School kids, that's who). This bianco pizza is compiled of the standard Motorino dough – that's thin in the middle and chewy on the crust – topped with Perorino and brussel sprouts. And if you eat meat, smoked pancetta too. I have to admit that I've only eaten it without the meat (but would happily eat one or two small chunks of pancetta but perhaps not much more). One friend told me she was disgusted by this pizza, but I love it. 

Oh yes, NYC. It's just doesn't quite taste the same in Hong Kong.

USD 16

Mercaditos, NYC

There are many cool things about this Mexican eatery, tucked away on Avenue B, not to mention the three guacamoles they have on the menu. Yes. Three. But it's the brussel sprouts that really surprised me. Brussel sprouts? I hear you ask. In a Mexican joint? I hear you ask. Yes my sweets, brussel sprouts in a Mexican joint! These little puppies are served with pork belly in a yummy tomato sauce that is basically a cooked, thickened salsa. Apparently it comes with tortilla, but all I recall is the creamy sprouts.

Just USD 5.50

*Too dark for a decent pic

Nick's Cove, Sonoma

Tucked away in Marshall County, Sonoma, Nick's Cove is a warm and woody affair. It's quaint and homely, with a water's edge deck and view of sunset. 

The menu changes every day but always consists of fantastically fresh food, with a sophisticated-twist-on-an-old-favourite kind of charm. I mean, like the crab mac'n'cheese that I had, the taste of which still lingers on my tongue. The sprouts come with pancetta, of course. And what tasty morsels they were. 

If I haven't yet got you, then go, now my dear, go and eat brussel sprouts. For they are good and green and strong.

Bus musings

07-Mar-2010, #6
I recently read a letter from a reader — probably in HK Mag — in which the reader complained about the general attitude received when trying to access either empty seats or seats occupied by luggage next to the window on public buses. Having taken a group of blind people on an outing, he complained that he had to loudly request that passengers on the bus make room for the blind rather than shift a few degrees to one angle, forcing the seatless passenger to squeeze past to access the window seat (which, being blind, would not be so easy). I immediately sympathised with this issue but also knew that I was sometimes guilty of it myself.

With heightened awareness in the following few days, I boarded a busy #6 one Sunday evening. Finding very few seats free, I headed to one of the '2 facing forward, 2 facing backward' sections on the lower deck because it had two free seats. Of course, both passengers had left placed their bags on the seats next to them and I foolishly presumed that one of them would move their luggage, given how full the bus was, and it would not be considered an outrageous request.

As the bus pulled off I stood and waited as the two aforementioned passengers had a staring competition of "whoever looks away first must move their luggage so this annoying person can sit here". I asked once and again, "please could you move your bags so I can sit down?" Not to mention that I was carrying luggage of my own, this was going on far too long and neither had moved an inch! Finally, feeling fed up and somewhat inspired by the letter in the paper, I reached forward as if to move some of the bags, making it clear I was not interested in this game and had indeed paid as much as they had for my seat on the bus. I was pretty sure that their luggage didn't have it's own Octopus card in order to pay for a seat!

Finally, action! The moment I came close to touching one of the passenger's possessions, she lurched forward to grab it away from me, stood up, tutted loudly while looking wildly around the bus for witnesses to my insane behaviour. I couldn't be bothered to talk Chinese to her, but stated "I paid for my seat too, I doubt that your bags did." And as she grabbed her things so she could move far, far away from me — presumably because I am obviously crazy and/or dangerous — she gave me a firm slap on the head.

For more information on Chinese people who love to fight, visit the entry that tries to capture all that anger on tape.

05-Nov-2008, #973
There's this stench on the bus. I've smelled it before and I know it comes from this really overweight guy, because when he shuffles past to get off the bus it wafts by me and doesn't go, it doesn't go for ages so I have to breath into my cardigan. Women around me root through their bags for Tempo hankies to breath into. It smells like rotting flesh, and I can't get away from it.

Today, when he gets off the bus I am sitting in a seat near the door. I look over and realise... it is rotting flesh. He shuffles because his foot is injured, not because he is so overweight, and there is a hospital bandage around his foot but I can see skin and puss through it.

I feel sick. But what can you do?

21-Oct-2008, #970x
I am on the bus and this Chinese guy just pulled out a bag with like 10 of those yummy siropenwaffle things... from Amsterdam, that me and Liz love to eat, that me and Gair munched on during our last sojourn there. There's caramel syrup oozing out of them. They look so good.

Those things are so hard to find here, and I really want to ask for one but a Chinese person would only find that rude, and more importantly, unhygienic (a westerner would think I was a scabby chav).

It just crossed my mind that I could try to make some, but ironically, I think some things are meant to be mass-produced.

17-Oct-2008, #970
There's a woman sitting opposite me with a bag depicting a family of birds. It says 'Nestle Nutrition' on it. It makes me laugh because... none of the Nestle foods are that nutritious, and they certainly did a bad job at promoting nutrition when they gave all that milk powder to starving mothers to give to their starving babies in Africa.

I took a photo of it with my rubbish camera-phone, while pretending to text.







11-Oct-08, #5B
Man shouting on bus. MAN SHOUTING ON BUS!
This never happens, especially not in HK. I am on the bus and a man gets on, starts shouting, goes upstairs and continues to shout for about ten minutes.

People in HK don't know what to do about things like this. You could take your clothes off on the MTR and no-one would say anything. They would just look past you as if you weren't there.

People from upstairs start piling down, because they don't want to listen to the man shouting anymore. Meanwhile, the driver says and does nothing. In the UK, the bus driver would stop the bus, go upstairs and tell the man to leave. He would threaten to call the police. He would be a grumpy hard-ass.

I'm on the phone to my friend Katie in the US and she can hear the cacophony. She thinks it's hilarious that she can hear this man shouting all the way from Hong Kong.

After the famous Bus Uncle incident, people just don't want to deal with things like this.

Go-Bama in the Year of Election: A New Face for USA?

Thanks America, finally. America has a new president (and so does the world).

This election was certainly more exciting than the one in 2004. Even despite the accusations that Ohio’s voting procedures were tainted, the close results, the millions watching worldwide with bated breath — the 2004 election candidates somehow had less panache than this year’s. In fact, despite the electoral vote results, only three states changes allegiance in 2004, making the country appear to be around 75% Republican, perhaps thanks to the invasion of Afghanistan and the Iraq war.

Nonetheless, Bush and Kerry were harder to differentiate than Obama and McCain. Accusations regarding their respective ‘military’ services, talk of the secret Skull & Bones society that allegedly both Kerry and Bush belong to and their similar family backgrounds made it feel, to some, as though they belonged in the same kettle of fish.

The night of that election I was in San Antonio in a strange local burger bar that had a "middle-of-nowhere" feel, with a mixture of black and white locals, and me, accompanied by a collection of young Europeans traveling the USA. There was a freestyle open-mic event taking place next door, so as we watched the election and talked with the locals we heard prose creeping through the door every time it was opened. At first I thought that it was all anti-Bush — the rapping certainly was — but after a while I realised that the people in that joint had varying views and hopes for the outcome. I even had a very heated debate with a young English guy about why, in my opinion, Bush shouldn't be made president again. What I found with the locals was that I could talk to someone for about five minutes before fully understanding which side of the political fence they resided, because all the talking was wonderfully polite and euphemistic in that true American and ultimately patriotic, polite Texan way. I also found that nearly every American I met on that sojourn was surprised that a non-American would care about their election, because it had nothing to do with me — and when I tried to explain that America effects the whole of the western world, the response was always shock. So that was the bizarre atmosphere I found in a fairly warm burger bar in ol' "San Antone"…

On the plane home I had Americans come up to me and apologise, telling me they were ashamed of their country and how sore they were to admit that they were American, when in the past they could be proud and expect friendliness on their travels. I read an article in a British newspaper in which an author (I wish I could remember who) wrote about how the world (the western one at least) had always had respect and affection for America and its people, but that had changed, and if only the USA could go back to being the USA we all fell in love with… That he had met hundreds of Americans that echoed his sentiment.

On other travels after that I met Americans that had taken to sewing the Canadian flag to their backpacks in order to avoid hassle overseas and Canadians laughing at that, talking of the time when they had raised their hands and said, "no, I'm Canadian, eh."

So this year we enjoyed passionate debates between the two sides — some making more sense than others. We were entertained by Sarah Silverman, SNL and Tina Fey and of course Sarah Palin. And we watched, we watched a black man stand for president in the United States of America and win — by a majority. Even Florida didn't let us down.

I watched the whole thing live via the Internet from my office, a combination of ABC and BBC news — which I felt was a fairly balanced approach to the event. Justin Webb's comments on the BBC web were interesting and diverse; living in Hong Kong — mass producer of junky teeshirts — ensured that this was one of my favourites:



So what will happen in America now? Is it truly ready for a black president (and without meaning to sound cynical — is it because Bush f***ed up so much that Americans chose to elect this black president?)? Before my friend said it to me out loud, I had already thought 'Obama should be careful. As the fist black president, he's so much more likely to be shot' (after all we've all seen 24). I said the same to a friend of mine who's American. Her response was "that's true." And then, "gee thanks!"

On discussing the result with my father, he also said "I hope he's careful" and then said, "well, he's not really black, he's only half black." The race issue. It's so strange. I am half Chinese, I am not English, I am not Chinese, I am what I am — half. But people don't see you that way, and in my experience people in the US and the UK consider you black if you are as much as half. In any case, you certainly aren't white.

So far most non-Americans I have discussed the election with have echoed the same fears of a racial attack on the president-elect.

The road for Obama will not be easy, but let's hope that with his help America can again become the land that we had respect and affection for, and that American's can unpick those Canadian flags from their backpacks and go back to being American when overseas, and Canadians can be Canadian and the rest of the world can rest a little more assured that America will stop its neo-imperialistic bullying.

My sister who lives in San Francisco sent me a photo of my nephew at 8.11pm PST — just after the California result came through. He's fiave years old, yet his look of resolution, determination and 'HOORAY!' was perfect. My sister captioned the photo 'I hope he remembers this historic day'.