staycation report #1 The third day of my staycation was the first day that I didn't have to set my alarm, although the kitty alarm by Coco has been quite ruthless. First two days I kept busy being a foodie at Fancy Food Show at Javits Center. Yesterday I tasted all kinds of food products across this enormous convention. There's so much products out there, some are puzzling like, why would I ever buy this? Like a brownie on a stick appropriately called 'Brownie Pops.' At the end of the day I really couldn't tell the difference between this cheese and that cheese or this pasta and that pasta. There seemed to be too much chocolate and cookies and chips in this world while they talk about food shortage. And I must say most of the fake soy meat were so horrible I don't understand that people expect me to serve it in my restaurant because it's named SOY. Anyway, I am truly enjoying not 'working' at least in my restaurant, although I know some people are freaked out not being able to get their fix of spicy tuna bowl, ginger lemonade, curry and croquette or niku jaga. I got my manicure and pedicure done at a salon first time ever in my life and I must say that it's hard to understand some people do this every week. But I looked so dolled up this evening with my summer dress I provided some entertainment to Kathy and Linda. Fireflies are out. I'm enjoying the prime view of waterfalls on East River on my run every morning. Not working is like everyday is Sunday. Not bad. Not bad at all.
on july 1, 2008 @ 12:30 am [link]

Third day of summer I woke up to a burning smell this morning. I walked around the apartment sniffing around. Little bit in the kitchen, but more in the bathroom. Better not be our boiler they just had a repair- a couple of days earlier, there was a burning smell in the boiler room. I went downstairs and saw firemen walking down the street. "Where is this coming from?" "A car fire." They walked on toward Delancey Street. I headed right out on my run, and sure enough there was a car burnt down to just the outside shell on Delancey Street. In the afternoon I went to check out David Byrne's art project "Playing the Building" at the Battery Maritime Building. In a big room there sat a little old organ anyone is allowed to play, which blew air into pipes, banged radiatorsnd pillars via thin air hoses around the room creating a unique symphony of musical and industrial noises. Sun was gently shining through the skylight, and it was just so gently amazing beautiful emmersed in the very unique time and sound and space. It's hard to explain. You have to check it out. It's one of these incredible beauty you find in NYC. My "staycation" two weeks summer vacation here in the city starts next Saturday. I'll be re-discovering the best this city offers. Long list of things to do is growing longer each day. I'm so looking forward to it.
on june 22, 2008 @ 10:41 pm [link]

harmless Last week Vision Jazz Festival across the street kept us busy every night. It was nice to see so many musicians back at SOY. We used to feed them regularly when Tonic was around. Many of them still return time to time. I love it when they ask me what music I'm playing. Music and food. They go very well together. A friend of mine once said, "History of any country, any culture, any civilization can be written in music and food." I totally agree. Food and music. I love them both.

I woke up at 5 am to beat my kitty's wake up meow. Birds were chirping noisily outside. It's interesting that right before dawn it sounds like countryside out there. I dosed off a little more before my semi-weekly trip to Restaurant Depot in Queens. Manhattan skyline was in gray haze this morningo from BQE- it's one of the best Manhattan view. Regardless of weather, or time of the day, it's always dramatic and postcard-ready. At Restaurant Depot, there's this little guy working there, about 5'2", 50-something, who loves me. I swear he can sense me or smell me from aisles away. Last time I was picking up things and suddenly felt my cart go lighter. I turned around and there he was pushing it from behind, "Hi! How are you? Good to see you!" Well, just a minute or two of conversation will suffice to end this harmless encounter, but the way he looks up at me, like a puppy, and I am so sure he would be wagging his tail so hard if he had one, makes me feel a little sorry because I don't have a treat to give him. And of course he found me again this morning in this big warehouse. "Always running around, huh?" "Yes, yes." And I waved and hurried across the floor.
on june 17, 2008 @ 01:02 am [link]

Heat arrives When I close up the restaurant at night, I take home the laptop, thinking that I am going to make an entry in the blog. But when I come home and actually sit down with a bottle of beer, I just feel like relaxing and I say to myself, I'm going to write tomorrow afternoon. Which does not always happen. It usually does not happen. So in the evening I promise myself that I am going to write that entry, that funny story, about that morning, about that crazy guy, but I may have really, really busy night and I don't feel like writing when I finally come home after 12 hours of work and sit down with freshly cut mangoes. But one night I have to face my demons and write something.

I plunged into the heatwave Saturday morning running Mini 20k in the park. This is one of the races I don't like to miss every year, regardless of my condition. It's the original women's road race, and this was 37th year! The start line is amazingly noisy, with four thousand plus women ready to celebrate our strength. 70 degrees, but it felt like over 80 degrees in sweltering 80 % humidity. At the finish line we were each given a medal and a beautiful pink carnation.

Sunday afternoon Kathy and I visited Ernie in Queens. We sat by his newly planted garden and savored barbecued ribs. We watched two squirrels chasing each other before brief shower came down to cool the air. It was like a country just 10 minutes from our door. I was able to sleep with air conditioner off through the night. When I went out this morning for a quick run at 9 am, it was already 80 degrees out. I thought about last summer in Havana. It was still hotter than this. Some guy on the street shouted, "You have to go out earlier!"
on june 10, 2008 @ 01:07 am [link]

back on the road I already recovered from post-marathon soreness, and went back on the road. When I went out at noon rain was just coming down and I got a nice shower down on my run. At mid-race last sunday, I swore that I was going to retire from marathons. This will be my second to last. I'll do this year's New York, then I'm going to retire. But I already forgot all about it, and looking up a marathon calender to pick my next big race. Yesterday morning, they were shooting a movie at Schiller's. I was on my shopping rounds, on the way to Essex Street Market. I passed by Mr. Big from Sex and the City running towards the set with a cup of coffee in his hand. "Oh, Mr. Big is shooting a movie," I thought. I didn't know his name. I went home and found out he is Chris North, but no, I really didn't know his name. I felt kind of bad that he is always going to be Mr. Big. Probably a bunch of other people were telling their friends, like I did, "I saw Mr. Big on Rivington Street!" I survived another hectic week, training all the newbees, and doing everything else as always. I found a piece of ginger in my apron pocket at the end of the night. I remembered wrapping it in plastic to put away in fridge, but it ended up in my pocket instead. That's how busy I was.
on june 1, 2008 @ 12:41 am [link]

wasn't quite what I hoped for I was so looking forward to this weekend, after four months of hard training, finally the end was near. The finish line will be there. It will be just beautiful. That's what I thought Saturday morning during a short two-mile job along the East River. I was feeling good, body and mind perfectly conditioned. I headed out to the airport early afternoon. On the news traffic report was not favorable, with back up on Van Wyck, but the train situation seemed pretty bad anyway, so I called for a car service for my deserved ride. After a long crawl on Van Wyck, I finally arrived at JFK, still more than hour to spare. Although I had now 'prohibited' liquid items in my bag, I somehow cleared the security. The woman checked my boarding pass I printed out the previous night and my driver's license, and she circled gate number 11. So I headed to gate 11. There were some people waiting at gate 11, but there was no flight info or airline personnel at the gate. I looked around to see if there were other marathoners. Not really. There was a couple who could be a marathoner. I sat down in front of a TV screen and took out my book. I sat there patiently, thinking it was like waiting for a flight to Cuba, because there was no action at the gate, no information, no announcement, and I don't know if the flight was delayed or what. The scheduled departure time approached but there was no action at the gate. I thought there should be an announcement of some sorts, but it was pretty quiet around there. I just returned to my book. It was past the departure time when I finally realized that there was a monitor of departure flights information behind me. There was no 'Burlington' on the monitor. I located a airline counter not far away, and asked the woman, 'Where is the flight to Burlington?' She punched something into the computer and said, 'It was gate 23. Where were you?' 'I had gate 11. I was right here.' She said I missed the flight. I had to walk all the way to the other side of terminal, where my flight was, and they re-booked me on the later flight. 8:35 pm. At least I won't miss the race. I didn't want to spend 5 and a half hours at the airport, so I went home. Hour and a half trip on dreadfully slow subway- for weekend service change A train ran local all the way to Manhattan. I was going to miss the pasta dinner and all the activity at the hotel. I had a quick dinner at home and soon it was time to return to the airport. Second deserved cab ride was at least quicker without much traffic. This time though, there was no passenger going through the security checkpoint, and the bored security personnels, all six of them, hovered around my bag. They said I couldn't take the sunblock lotion. 'But I am running a marathon in the morning! I'm going to need that!' They said I had to check my bag. 'Why didn't I have a problem going through here earlier today?' I was furious. But I had plenty of time. I go to the airline counter and checked my bag. I went through the security, and of course the first thing I did was to check the departure gate on the monitor. I had been changed again. They didn't start boarding us until 10 minutes to departure time. I sat next to a friendly teenager who was coming home from a school trip down in Mississippi. She told me that black widow was everywhere down there. 'It's so different there. I'm glad to be home.' She and her friends right behind me were all so impressed that I was running the marathon next morning. The flight kept moving around slowly, and we didn't take off another 40 minutes. I finally arrived at the quiet hotel and settle into my room at 10:30. If I go to bed by midnight, I should be able to get almost 6 hours of sleep. That'll be ok. But I was so flustered after whole day of travelling ordeal, I kept tossing and turning. I kept getting up to go to bathroom. Overall, I didn't seem to get much sleep at all. I was very tired when alarm went off. It will be all right. I got on the first shuttle bus to the start at 6:30am, because I still had to pick up the race number. I was feeling pretty good, right at the front of the start. All the training should pay off now. The sky was clear. The gun went off. The crowd cheered. I was already feeling the rush. So the race was on. In the first mile the first laugh was the sight of an elderly man in nothing but a speedo and a construction helmet singing and playing the accordion for us. It's going to be a great race. Warm temprature is dangerous since you tend to go faster than you should. And I did. With all my knowledge and experience. Steep down hill in mile 2 also didn't help. I went faster. Then after we left the city center there was quiet stretch on highway, kind of boring and long, with a help of Brazilian band. Heading back to the city I passed a guy wearing yellow suit- I couldn't really tell if it was banana or Pikachu. Then someone called 'hey Chiquita!' so I figured it was a banana. At mile 8 I was already slowing down. Slower than my goall pace. It's not even mile 10 and that was not a good news. But I was still feeling good. A lady pointed at me in sideline, 'hey, you're smiling!' That made me smile even more and made a few more spectators laugh. But I felt my legs are getting heavier already. It's not even half way! I blamed on all mix-up at the airport. I blamed the lack of sleep. There was nothing to be done. It didn't get any easier. I was expecting flat course, but compared to the streets of Manhattan, it was hilly enough. It was gently up or down. Second time around the city center I high-fived Darth Vader in front of a comic store. Down to South Burlington, a guy was blasting Rocky's theme song from a boom box in front of his house for the runners. A guy in front of me put his arms up to do a 'Rocky's run.' So it had great energy, lots of kids to high five, plenty of water stations and sprinklers going on yards for us, but my race was tough. By mile 10 I knew I wasn't going to run my best, and I gave up mentally. At mid-point, I didn't know why I was doing it. But I kept going. I walked about a hundred times. I thought about quitting. I thought it was anther 'worst race ever.' What's the point of finishing if I was going to finish in 4 hours? I stopped looking at my splits. But I travelled all the way up here for the race, why not at least finish my 10th marathon? And the kids cheered me on, adults cheered me on. Then somehow I was already there in the last four miles on bike path, supposedly scenic, and I was hoping for the lake view, but it was mostly through the woods. Nice shade, but I could've use views too. For all the agony and walking, I still finished in 3 hours and 29 minutes. Of course they had Ben & Jerry's for us at the finish line, and I thought it was a very nice little race after all. Back in the hotel I enjoyed dipping in swimming pool and jaccuzzi with other runners. I'm a little sore today and glad to be home. I'm already exploring for the next big race. I might have fallen from the horse but I'm getting right back up.
on may 26, 2008 @ 09:38 pm [link]

Show time at SOY Another day of little sunshine in the morning then rain on and off. It feels unseasonally cool for Mid-May. I already changed the content of my drawers to summer clothes, but tanks and shorts days seem like still two months away. But time goes fast. So fast these days. Only 4 days to my 10th marathon. Jenny came to endulge on spicy tuna bowl, and we were so in sync with this subject of time going so fast. I told her my crazy idea; when I have my cooking show, I want to invite her to hula-hoop in the background. She is a professional hula artist. She loved the idea. And since she happened to have her hoops with her, she gave me and a bunch of customers a quick hula show right on the sidewalk in front of store as she left. It totally made my day.
on may 21, 2008 @ 11:58 pm [link]