It’s a light gray outside. The sky a little darken from the hanging clouds.

There is no sun today. No bright light. There’s just the hazy gray of natural shade. Clouds.

It fits the tired mood that I am in. It fits the listlessness that I am feeling.

It fits me.

It is around that time of the year where I’m thinking of home. Home home. I’ll be flying up in about a week and a half for my usual winter break.

It’ll be spending cold days in the house with mom and watching movies and shows upstairs while mom chills downstairs.

It’ll be seeing some family and relaxing for the most part.

It’ll be no different than all of the other winter breaks.

* * *

Sleeping.

I haven’t been sleeping well since the time change. I’m not sure why, but my body isn’t adjust too well.

I seem to be getting up earlier and earlier. 4AM. Fuck. Just kill me.

I need a nap.

* * *

Now here comes the big question when I go home over the break, how am I going to get away and write?

They sold the truck. I don’t have a ride and I don’t want to take mom’s car because she might need to go somewhere.

Since I wake up so early anyway, maybe I’ll just get up early and go and come back before she wakes up. I’ll ask the night before to see what her schedule is. That’ll be the only way. We’ll make it work.

I’ll make it work.

* * *

Enjoy the Silence

I love the silence. Solitude, but I’m not alone.

There’s always a furkid at home to keep me company.

It’s quiet today at Volcano. Besides the three girls behind the counter, I’m the only one here.

The world outside seems quiet. Maybe everyone feels like staying in, being cozy in their bed with a book or with a loved one. Who knows?

It is quiet.

Is this the calm before the storm?

It sure feels that way. The end of the year. New politics. The world heads toward a new unknown.

* * *

My mind wanders as I search for movies and things to pass the time today; something to pass my life away.

Maybe I’m just getting into a moody funk after what happened on Friday, but I don’t know.

I actually had a good time at the going away happy hour. I didn’t think about anything but spending time there and having whatever conversations that I had.

Whether it was about the hipsters and the stupid Anti-Social Social Club or even talking about cooking with Jessica. It had a good time.

* * *

The company holiday party approaches. It’s this Thursday night.

These parties have been a mixed bag. Some would be a good fun filled night of enjoying the moment and others would be a drunken dilemma of social anxiety.

What would this year’s party be?

Will I be able to control my libations to just have enough to let loose and not be so fucking anxious and just have a fucking great time, or would it be one of those sloppy drunken nights where I’ll need to be baby sat?

I don’t know, but I’m going to make a conscious effort to make it the former. I’ll make an effort to just not get drunk or maybe I just won’t drink. Stay away from shots and just slowly sip.

No gulping.

Socializing? That’s a whole different thing.

I usually don’t at these things. I find my little corner away from people and just people watch, as I sip my juice.

Some years would be good as I would bounce around different groups, but with all the new faces in the agency, that haven’t been the reaction for the past few years.

Social anxiety.

That’s always been me.

Let’s just hope things don’t spiral down this year.

Let’s just hope.

Maybe it’ll be fun. Maybe it won’t.

I’m not expecting anything.

I’ll just show up and see what happens.

We’ll see.

Man, it’s been a shitty week at work.

It wasn’t that work was bad or that I was overwhelmed with things to do. No. It was actually slow and that was what was killing it.

Maybe it had to do with me recovering from a cold earlier in the week, me taking Monday off, then heading back to work on Tuesday, but the rest of the week was slow.

I thought it was Thursday or even Friday when it was only Tuesday.

It was a slow malaise torture. Horrible.

Then Friday came.

Things started out great. It was all nice and jokey and great. Had a discussion with my boss about some issues that we are experiencing and some other news and discussions.

I then went on my usual walk around the office and was stopped by Stone, who wanted to speak to me about one of the issues that were discussed with my boss in the morning. I directed him towards my work partner, since he’s the one that handles the situation and I’m not very helpful on what he needs to do because I don’t know much about it.

Simple. Clean. It was the plan of action that was discussed in the morning, that my work partner would reach out or discuss the situation with them anyway. I did that. I pointed them that way.

When I got back from my little walk, I got an angry IM from him saying what I did, speaking to Stone and telling him to talk to him, was not cool.

It was not cool. It was “us talking”.

I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t understand what I did wrong and why he’s reacting this way. He was on the phone working on another situation, so I couldn’t talk with him. He wasn’t answering his IMs either.

My boss came to me to check to see if a SD card was corrupted when I pointed out the conversation that we had. My boss didn’t understand it either.

So, as time gone by a little, I was just waiting for a response and none came. I explained to my boss exactly what happened, since he was part of the discussion that I had in the morning to see if I did something wrong or if I wasn’t supposed to talk with Stoner about it. Again, I didn’t seek him out. He saw me walking the halls and asked if I could speak to him. That was it.

My boss couldn’t see anything. I waited, then had to answer a tech call and left the floor or maybe I went on another walk. But when I got back, my partner exploded at me. We had a short verbal spat and that was that.

Fuck.

I just hate being around sensitive people. I still don’t understand why that set him off. I don’t understand what I did wrong. I kept going back to that morning discussion and then the talk I had with Stoner to see if I broke any social/professional decorum and I don’t think I did.

I’m not the type that follows many of these said etiquettes or decorum, but I don’t think I did anything wrong.

Later there was a closed-door meeting between my work partner, my boss, and a third-party mediator that was there to calm the situation down. Then I had my own closed door meeting.

Even my boss said that he has no idea what happened. Even when pressing my partner, he couldn’t come up with a reason.

No fucking clue what the fuck happened. No fucking clue about anything.

Fucking sensitive people.

Those who know me know that I’m not afraid to admit when I did wrong. I’m self-aware enough to know when I did something wrong or when I do something that many other people might construe as being fucked up because my lack of tack or my whateverness of decorum.

Fuck it.

Fuck it all.

* * *

It’s getting down to that time of the year.

Time is winding down so it can start a new again.

What will the new year bring? Who knows, but it’s anyone’s guess.

With the new presidency looming and fiasco joke that is our political system, it’s a tossup. I just want to see the show and hope that there is very little collateral damage, but we shall see.

On a smaller scale, it is winding time for me to look back over the year and prepare for my little yearly diatribe, my little a bah humbug to all.

Looking back, on a small micro scope, it had been a great year for me for which I’ll go into more detail in my yearly writeup, but yeah, it was a great year.

2016.

It wasn’t a great year on a global front. There were many losses and our political climate is a fucking nightmare that could only be describe as a joke. The world is on a trajectory of ending and it seems like most everyone is participating in it.

Can 2017 save it? Who the fuck knows.

Who knows.

I think that’s in a way a new thing for me, I just don’t want to think about it. The politics and the new presidency…don’t want to think about it.

The whole situation and newly strained relationship at work…don’t want to fucking think about it.

A possible new relationship…as much as I do and honestly, I really can’t get it out of my head…don’t want to think about it. I just don’t want to jinx it.

I horrible when it comes to relationships and girls and I am horrible at reading and picking up signs. I’m just going to fucking not stress it and just go about my business and see where things go. That’s all I can really do. That’s all I need to do.

* * *

Shit list.

I have a shit list at work.

I can’t tell you who’s on it, but there are a few people on it. They are either difficult or had me do something that sucked, therefore ended up on there.

Sometimes, they just didn’t do what I need them to do and therefore, shit listed.

A particular shit-listee said that there wasn’t much of a consequence of being on my shit list, that it doesn’t mean anything, so I’m kind of making her pay for it.

She doesn’t seem to happy about it, questioning people in my department as to why I’m mad at her and trying to get me to stop being mad at her.

I would say now, at this point of the situation, about 90% of the time, I’m just fucking with her and 10% of it is because she’s on my shit list, plus an extra 100% of the time is because I’m a dick and making it worse for her because she said that there was no consequence of being on my shit list.

She’s none too happy.

I’m sure my cohorts have told her or gave her some inkling as to why she’ son my shit list, maybe. I hope not.

I don’t know how long I’ll keep her in the dog house, but I’m sure eventually I’ll be whatever about it and it’ll just run its course.

Who knows?

So far, I’m having fun.

* * *

Relaxing.

That’s the plan for today.

Cooking.

Old fashioned braised short ribs instead of the sous vide.

Holy fuck shit, let’s talk a minute about the fucking sous vide short ribs I did.

Looking on the interwebs for the best way to sous vide short rib, I concluded it would be cooking it at 140 degrees for about 50 hours and that was my plan.

Instead of doing a simple salt and pepper seasoning while it cooks, I decided to do a Korean bbq flavored. I whipped up a gojujang sauce marinade, put it in a bag with the short ribs and let that bitch cook.

50 hours later, I seared them for a big on each side, pour over some of the reduced extra marinade I had left and it was done.

I served the rib over a bed of cauliflower mash and some sautéed broccolini.

I didn’t know what to expect with the short rib. I cut into it. Tender as fuck, but still held together like a steak. It wasn’t flaky as one would find in a typical braised short rib.

I took a bite and it almost melted in my mouth. The fat rendered completely. It was so tender and the kbbq flavor was there. I almost fucking cried. It was so fucking good. So fucking good.

I’ll have to do it again, most definitely, but not at the moment.

I know that there will be a lot of experimenting and new recipes now that I got the Anova sous vide stick. I can’t imagine the possibilities of what to do, but I’m excited as hell.

Cooking.

Relaxing.

That’s what I need to do to just forget about everything that I don’t want to think about, which is quite a lot at the moment.

Quite a lot.

Turkey day just passed.

I didn’t plan on cooking this year or I never thought about it before Sister from Fresno called me up and invited me to spend Thanksgiving with her family. I agreed, even though I tried to make it less about family this year, but I guess the Year of Yes got to me.

The three days that I spent there wasn’t bad, but it was just long as fuck. It’s been a while since I’ve gone to Fresno for Thanksgiving and just a couple of years since I’ve not spent Thanksgiving alone. The last time was a few years ago at Big Auntie’s.

Again, overall, the weekend wasn’t bad. I got back to LA at a reasonable time for me to pick up Pickles from the vet and I didn’t do much since getting back. Just made some congee with the pickled mustard greens that Sister made for me and then just binged a few episodes of the new Gilmore Girls.

But I know that I just need to unwind and destress from the long weekend. I need to get some cooking done and try out my new cooking toy, the Anova Sous Vide stick. There was a sale on Amazon for Black Friday and I jumped right on it.

On the menu, ribeye steak and some fixings to go with it. I also have a crab cake wonton cup appetizer planned to finished off my 2016 cooking project. I so desperately need to do some cooking and relax.

It was just a long weekend around people that I didn’t anticipate being around. Again, family wasn’t bad, but I do like my alone time.

* * *

The fear of ending up alone.

I think many people have that fear and I’m sure I had that fear when I was younger. Now, not so much.

I think or would like to think that I know that I’ll be genuinely okay if I end up living the rest of my life alone. In a way, I’m kind of rooting for it or self-sabotaging my life to make it end up that way.

There’s a part of me that wants to be in a relationship and then again, there’s a huge part of me that doesn’t. I’ve spent many posts on that subject.

But even if I do have that fear, I don’t think that I’ll have it dictate my life and make me rush to get into a relationship whether I’m ready for it or not. I don’t want to settle nor should I settle for someone just because she’s there. That’s one of the worse reasons to get into a relationship.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, someone I know is going through this and all I can do is just shake my head.

Sure, I shouldn’t talk since it isn’t my life and again, he and I are very different people, but come the fuck on man.

He’s afraid that he’ll end up alone. He thinks he’s old (just six months older than I am) and that his marketability is low. Confidence man

I don’t know. I just look at the situation and I’m just so confused by it.

Your marriage just dissolved two months ago, you move back home, and now you are in a relationship where it seems like she has moved in? Seriously, what the fuck?

She seems like a nice girl. A sweet girl from what I can see, one of those fobby good girls that all Chinese mother’s want in a daughter-in-law – aka A girl that I have no fucking interest in.

The whole weekend I’m just like, why? How much of what is happening is of pressure and how much of it is fear? It’s just way to fucking fast to get into anything so serious so quick.

Take a step back. Work on yourself. Do you and then think about getting back on dating again.

I just don’t understand it. I can’t comprehend it.

But again, my psyche is so ingrained with needing my independence and being on my own that I can’t understand why anyone would want to rush into being in a relationship so badly.

Maybe again, I’m just not a people person. I’m not a relationship person.

Like I told Phuc, I don’t get along with people. Family is different and I only see you all once or twice a year for a short period. Being around someone everyday constantly? Fucking kill me now.

I’m different, very different from most of my family. I’m the odd ball out.

When you drunkenly were talking about that he’s available to hang out any time since he’s back in Fresno and his girl is with him too, I’m like what?

She moved in now? You guys are cohabitating? You guys are married?

What the fuck is going on?

I do have to admit to see her when I arrived. She opened the door for me and I’m like, wow, you are here and I should have expected it, but you are here.

She was doing a lot of cooking when I got there, to help with the Thanksgiving dinner. I offered to help, but she, of course, declined my invitation.

So definitely not into a girl like that.

But that’s my own prejudice and my preference and that might not align with his. I honestly was surprised to see that he’s interested in such fobby girls. I thought he’d be with an Americanized Asian girl or a white girl. I wonder how much of it has to do with pleasing his parents?

But to each his own.

Then I heard that she’s changing you already. She wants you to grow your hair out and you are doing it. She wants you to put on anti-wrinkle cream which is so isn’t you and you did.

Anything for the girl I guess.

What the fuck?

Sigh.
* * *

Why am I so salty?

Why am I so, so frustrated and confused by this?

It shouldn’t affect me so much. It’s his life and I have no say in it. Let it be. Let him be.

It might be good for him. It might be the best thing for him. It’s what he wants.

Maybe it’s just because that’s not the type of person I am and I can’t believe anyone I know would make a decision like that or that I just wouldn’t do something like that.

Again, I’m just like, what the fuck?

Why?

I just don’t understand it and that’s where a lot of this frustration is coming from. I just don’t fucking get it.

I don’t.

Just be yourself and don’t let anyone change you and don’t change just because a girl wants you to change.

That’s just fucking ridiculous.

Sigh.

I took a long weekend this week.

Veterans Day.

I didn’t plan on doing much besides baking. I baked a lot, about 21 loaves over the weekend.

There were some missteps and failures but currently most of them turned out all right.

Besides the typical sourdough hearth style bread, I made a brioche and attempted to try a Hokkaido Milk Bread.

I fucked up on the milk bread and I haven’t even shaped it. I should have left it out on the counter for a couple of hours last night or overnight to proof, but I stuck it right into the refrigerator instead.

I took it out this morning and hope, just fucking hope, that it’ll proof. Or maybe I just killed the yeast with the warm butter and tongzhang.

I don’t know, but I do hope that it works. I don’t care if it turns out tasty, I just want it to just fucking rise so I can fucking do something with it.

I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Bread. That’s my weekend. Carbs. That’s my weekend.

I plan on doing what I did the last few times when I baked to practice, which is to wrap it all up and give them away at work or to whomever wants it. I’ll drop a loaf or two off to the homeless guy, but other hopefully I’ll be able to get rid of all of them.

* * *

Research.

I’ve been looking over Hokkaido Milk Bread recipes, trying to figure out what I did wrong.

What I did wrong was that I didn’t follow directions and plus the blog I was following was just fucking wrong. The blogger wrote that after I mixed the dough, wrap it up and then put it in the fridge overnight, which is what I did.

But, no. Everywhere else that I’ve read, let it proof for about two hours before putting it in the fridge. If I did that, I wouldn’t be where I am now, hoping, praying, that the damn dough will fucking rise.

But there’s always next week to try it out again.

* * *

Thanksgiving will be here in about a week and a half.

Like every year, I was invited to Robert’s party at Great Uncles and like the last few years, I had planned on not going and just doing a feast at home.

The problem was I never thought about what I was going to cook.

But then, Sister called me up and invited me up to her place for Thanksgiving. It’s hard to say no sometimes, so I agreed.

I guess it has been a long whiles since I’ve gone, so might as well.

Might as well indeed.

I guess in a way, I just wanted to fill my November with a small trip, even though it is up to family. It just means that I’ve made a trip every month since April, which isn’t too bad. Actually, I made a lot of small trips this year, starting in March with that wedding in Sacramento.

Not too bad at all.

* * *

Election Tuesday was this week and we now have a new President-Elect and it wasn’t a very popular choice.

Donald Trump.

In many’s eyes, it’s the end of the world. The United States has descended into a chaos and disappointment with riots and protests.

How can a misogynistic racist idiot get elected President?

Hillary wasn’t a strong candidate.

The DNC with their shady ways backed a candidate that, although fit to serve, wasn’t the right person to be the Democratic nominee.

People just don’t trust her. People just don’t like her.

I don’t trust her, and especially with all the WikiLeaks leaked emails from the DNC spelling out how the DNC conspired to get Hillary to be the Democrat Nominee, it made me like her less and ultimately made me not vote for her.

If she won the primaries fair and square without the whole fiasco that transpired, yes, she would have gotten my vote, but she didn’t.

Many voted against her or didn’t even vote because of that.

I didn’t vote for her because of that. I wrote in Bernie, even though I knew that California was going to go to Hillary. I got my protest vote. I got my conscientious vote in.

Many Democrats were shocked to see that happen. I think a majority of the country were shocked to see that Trump won, but was it really a surprise?

I think they just couldn’t fathom the idea that Trump would win, but early polls way back in the year showed that if the election was between Trump and Clinton, it’ll be a tight race with Trump possibly winning. If the race was between Trump and Sanders, Sanders would have won in a landslide.

What was so hard to understand? This poll was well before the primaries, but because of the push of the supposedly non-partisan DNC for Clinton, Clinton because the nominee.

It was a rough election. It was a very contentious election. It was even named to be an election to elect the “Lesser of two Evils”.

‘Murica.

* * *

I think that Trump wouldn’t be as bad as everyone is making it out to be. He was a Democrat and in a way, he was a smart businessman.

He knows how to play people and to play the system to get what he wants. He wouldn’t be up top where he is if he didn’t.

I believe that he’s just shooting the shit out of his mouth just to get the votes that he needs. He played toward the Republicans, spewing the putrid garbage and hate just because that’s what his base wants to hear. That got him the votes that he needed.

Now, hopefully, he’ll take a step back from everything he said and just take the damn job seriously and be the Democratic moderate that he was.

I don’t believe that someone so hateful could rear a daughter, Ivanka, that gave that very progressive and liberal speech at the RNC. There has to be a part of the real Trump in that speech. I hope.

* * *

So, the nation protests, fighting, with their hashtag #notmypresident.

Just fucking get over it. He won fair and square and he’ll be out President come January.

I don’t always agree with the conservatives and Republicans or even want to fucking agree with that pretty blonde with the horrific and loud hate that she spews, but she made a good point. She said exactly what I want to say to my own base.

Basically, he won fair and square. We don’t always win and get what we like, so stop fucking throwing these stupid temper tantrums, suck it up, and deal with it. Be a fucking adult.

Soon, the nation will come down and things will turn back to a semblance of normalcy and life will go on.

* * *

I don’t know what the future will hold. I’m not a prophet or a time traveler or a psychic. Trump could not finish his first term or he’ll do it and everything will be okay.

I’m willing to give him a chance. The country has spoken, well, the electoral college system, and not the popular vote, but Trump will become our President.

I really don’t care what happens. Life will go on.

Sure, there might be trouble, but when haven’t there been trouble when it comes to the world.

Stories of hate have been spiking after the election with middle-school children chanting “Build that Wall” during lunch or somewhat student calling a black student that word and telling him to go back to Georgia and pick cotton.

Hate is everywhere and it had always been here and it’s not going to go anywhere.

I would love to believe that we don’t have this issue anymore, but if the last fucking past few years have shown the world anything, it’s alive and well.

We would all love to think that we are very progressive and have changed, but hate is here.

Many POC are worried about their lives with the blatant racism that is going on.

I believe the racism isn’t directly related to Trump and his words and that these fucking white idiot fucktards are racist to begin with, but as my boss made the point that Trump’s words and actions did make it acceptable.

Racism and hate isn’t acceptable in the world. As much as I hate organized religion, Christianity and its flock in particular with their fucking hypocrisy; always preaching love and acceptance, but it was them that elected Trump.

They help elect this hate monger. This group that preaches and “practices” love and openness and the gospels of Jesus – the symbol of love – are the ones that helped elect hate.

Way to go.

Way. To. Go.

* * *

Let’s just see what happens now.

I had a plan this morning.

It’s the weekend before the election. The time just changed and I woke up at 7. I was going to go and vote early today.

Whelp, it seemed like everyone and their mother had the same fucking idea. Getting into the parking lot took 20 minutes and when I got to the line, it was wrapped around in a loop already. It looked like it was at least four hours before I could vote.

Nope. I’ll do it on Tuesday morning before work. The polls open at seven. I’ll walk to the station and shoot everyone an email letting them know I’m voting and will be in when I get in. Done.

Let’s see how it goes on Tuesday. It should be better. Let’s hope it’ll be better.

* * *

I tried a few new baking recipes yesterday from http://www.breadwerx.com and overall they turned out well. I made the baguette and the open crumb with 65% hydration recipe.

The baguette was probably better than any baguette I made or at least a little bit better, but the bread was just spectacular. The open crumb was amazing and that was the second loaf that I ever got that result.

The first time was a mistake, but this was on purpose.

I’ll have to read up and study his recipes on how to make bread, so I’ll probably be switching up my baking method soon.

I’m curious if I can replicate the recipe, but do a long cold fermentation after shaping instead of the 2-4 hours and see how the results go.

I’m curious as to what I did wrong with Josey Baker’s bread. Maybe the cold proof was way too long.

But, I see quite a bit of bread making experimentation in my future. I want to get a hang of it, making my own bread and getting a better understanding of yeast and bread.

But in the meantime, it’s just practice and enjoying a good loaf of bread.

* * *

I’m three recipes short from completing my cooking project for the year. I am two appetizers and a dessert away.

The dessert shouldn’t be a problem. Desserts are fine. I can come up with something, but it’s the appetizer that is the problem. That’s the rough one for me.

I just don’t know what to make. I’m sure my next big cooking adventure would be on Thanksgiving. What should I do? I need to come up with a menu. Should I do a theme like I did last year, a specific kind of food from a specific culture?

I don’t know, but it’s getting close. Maybe I should go to uncle’s for Thanksgiving? I don’t know what I want to do, but it’ll be something.

Who knows?

Who knows, indeed.

* * *

I had a scare this morning about this blog. I couldn’t navigate to any other page but the home page, but not that is fixed, thankfully.

With it fixed, I’ve been going through some random blogs in the past years to just read and reminisce and pass time, I guess. As I’m reading them, I don’t remember the situations that I wrote about or what was going on in my life. Sure, there were some big things that I wrote about that I remember, but the details and the specifics, no.

Then, it came to little code names that I use in these blogs and I’m trying to figure out who the fuck I was talking about. Who the fuck is Partner Partner? No fucking idea.

I don’t want to put real names on here if I can, but man, these little nicknames don’t fucking help if I don’t remember them. Yes, there are a few that I remember, ’cause they were easy, but the little ones? No fucking clue and I guess I’ll just have to live with it.

* * *

Man, it is fucking cold in here today. I mean, like cold cold shiver me timbers cold. I can barely write because I’m too busy shivering.

But yes, I am here again, trying to do some writing, but the whole navigation thing this morning disrupted the whole thing. I’m pressed for time, so I’m just rambling.

I didn’t have anything specific to write about this morning unlike last week when I wrote about the essays that I wrote for work.

I’m interested to see how what they are going to do with it and if they do decide to publish it on the new website, what the reception would be. Who knows?

* * *

There’s a new girl working the opening shift on Saturday. She’s not new. I’ve seen her around for a while now, but it’s the first time that I’ve dealt with her in the mornings.

Before it was Ashley for a while, but now that she’s moved to Fullerton, I probably won’t see her anymore.

But for the past couple of weeks, she’s been opening and she’s been leaving the door open for me and she remembers my drinks. Besides the familiar pleasantries exchanged between us, we barely talk, until today.

I asked her name and I introduced myself and she asked where I’d come from. That’s usually how the conversation goes as I’m sure they try to figure out what am I.

I told her I’m Chinese but born in Vietnam. She’s very surprised since I am so American and I explained to her that I came over when I was a baby.

She’s from the mainland, going to SMC and studying Economy. She’s hoping to transfer to UCLA next year and that was the extent of our conversation. It’s a start.

I’m not trying or doing anything but just being friendly as she is friendly with me, as I should be since I’m such a regular and they all give me my tea and let me sit in before it opens to get extra writing time. They didn’t have to do that, so why shouldn’t I be nice.

* * *

I don’t have much planned for today.

I just have a lot of cooking and baking to do. I have dough just sitting and fermenting and proofing. I know I already fucked up on the baguettes but I do have some reserved confidence on the country loaf I got going.

I think my problem with the bread that I’ve been making is that it was just too hydrated for my level. I’m not expert and working with high hydration dough is just tough.

Start small, lower hydration, get a better feel for it and that’s what I’m doing today. 65%.

It’s going to be another cycle of learning and new techniques and starting over again. That’s the best way to learn and I plan on learning and baking for a long time. It’s going to be another skill and another way for me to relax.

It’s important.

Very important.

I just posted two essays that I wrote for work.

I’m not a writer at work. The only writing that I must do for my job is writing emails, that’s it. I never wrote anything for work nor shared any of my personal writing to anyone before, besides this little blog of mine.

So, this is a first for me.

How this came about was a few weeks ago, while helping the assistant in the HR department, our HR VP stopped me and told me that she heard that I bake and was wondering if I would mind writing an essay on baking or an essay about why I bake. It doesn’t have to be complicated or simple and I thought, okay, I’ll think about it.

The more I thought about it, I realize that I couldn’t write the baking essay without having to write one about cooking first. I ran into her a few days later and told her my plan to write two essays for her and then I went on thinking and then writing the weekend after.

The cooking essay was easy. It’s been inside me for so long that I was genuinely surprised that I hadn’t written or blogged about it before. I love to cook and it’s such a part of me and my identity and that’s what I wrote about. I wrote a little about my family history, my father being a cook, and how food and cooking is a part of my culture. I wrote about how now cooking helps me relax and Zen out.

Again, it was an easy essay. Took me roughly three to four days to write it and then I shared it with some of my friends at work and they all loved it. One even thought that it would be a great introduction to my future cookbook. She also said that I wrote like how I speak, from my heart and that it was me. They are too kind.

I turned it in and the HR VP praised it also.

These essays will be on my company’s newly revamped website. People First. I still don’t know when it’ll launch.

With this essay done, it was now time to write about baking.

I had the most trouble with this one. Maybe it was my hubris again and the expectations of my audience and their love for the first essay. I also wanted to make it personal like my first one and a little more fun.

I would start and scrap it over and over again. I think I had about four or five different starts on it before settling for what it is now, a treatise on baking and learning patience.

Originally I wanted to tie in patience in a different way, about how I know that it is my fatal flaw and that I have a scroll hanging up in my apartment to remind me that I need to be patience in all things in my life and how that ties into baking and where I am now in my life.

It would have been great, but as I wrote it, it didn’t feel right. It felt very self-indulgent and I was smashing together the two thoughts when they didn’t want to fit in.

So, I scraped that idea and started again. Scraped that other idea and just made it simpler, made it about the process of learning and failing and learning and failing and learning and failing and the patience that I had to have for learning something new and different.

It worked, but not the way that I wanted it to work. I was happy enough and just so done with the essay that I gave it to the same friends to read and they thought it was good and different from my other one.

So, I turned it in and the HR VP enjoyed that one also.

Now, I am finished and these essays are just an afterthought and it is now back to my normal routine.

The HR VP thinks I should write more.

Maybe I should. I think I write enough, which I told her, but I never formally wrote essays before like these. Maybe it’ll be something I’ll do, or starting a cooking blog. Who knows.

We shall see.

I’m not a patient person. A lot of frustration comes from my impatience. To many, that may be a bad thing, but for me, the best primer for learning is frustration. There’s nothing that gets my brain going than being frustrated because I don’t understand something. I love figuring out why something is the way it is, learning about it. This applies to all aspects of my life, from my dog and cat, Pickles and Relish, to my interactions with people, my day to day in the office, and to new experiences and things that I come across. What makes it tick? Why does it behave like that? Why must Relish attack my hand when I’m pointing at her? Why does Pickles insist on sniffing everything on our walks when he knows I’m late? That frustration doesn’t go away until I get answers to the problem. Then I’d get a sense of peace. My recent obsession of baking sourdough bread stems from frustration.

Throughout my years of cooking, I’ve only baked a few number of times and they were mostly cakes. It wasn’t until earlier this year that I made my first attempt at baking bread, French baguettes. I was craving bánh mì, the humble Vietnamese sandwich, and decided to make my own from scratch. To say my baguettes turned out to be less than stellar was an understatement. The crust wasn’t crispy and thin, but hard and thick. The crumb was dense and dry. It was a failure.

I made it again and again. I failed again and again. My ego was deflated like the damn loaves that kept coming out of the oven. My hubris as a cook made me frustrated with the results. I went on a learning binge, devouring everything I could about bread making. I read blogs and articles, books, and searched YouTube for videos. I’d watch videos on how to knead the dough, on the stretch and fold method, and then I’d watch videos on how to shape the dough into a loaf, and finally on how to bake it. I watched these little tutorials until I had a better grasp of the whole process and feeling a little more confident I thought to myself, this looks easy enough. I tried again. Failed again. I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong. I screamed a long and exasperated “Why?” to the kitchen gods as I dropped to my knees in frustration. Not really. I am being overly dramatic, but there was a lot cursing.

I’m a good cook, but why can’t I bake a good loaf of bread? One of the first lessons on this little sourdough bread baking adventure was to stop thinking like a cook and start thinking like a baker. One may think that they go hand in hand and are the same thing. No. Cooking is like art. It’s jazz with variations and flourishes of improvisation. You can follow a recipe or you can play it loose, adding different spices and ingredients and flavors to suit your personal style and taste. You have total control. All you need is to understand the foundation of a recipe and then you can improvise your way to the end. You can’t mess it up too much.

Baking on the other hand is an alchemy of science-y voodoo magic. Mix together flour, salt, yeast, and water in a bowl and a chemical reaction happens. With time, manipulation, heat, more chemical reactions, an unbelievable amount of more time, and a lot of “Abracadabra!” while you wave a chicken foot around like a wand, you have a loaf of bread. You have no control in baking. The heat, yeast, and time have all the control. There is no improvisation. Baking is about precision. It’s a hard science. If any of the measurements are off, your bread is off and you’ll be cursing the bread gods again. Plus, it requires a large amount of patience, which I don’t have.

As a new student, I had to learn from doing. I set off practicing everything I learned from the videos and articles that I read. They can show and tell you everything there is to know about baking bread, but it can’t show you how the dough should feel after kneading or getting your dough shaped properly. That’s something you need to learn through practice and patience and more practice. It’s a tactile learning experience.

I’d start on a Friday night, filling five mixing bowls with some measured flour, water, and my sourdough starter, and then I let it sit overnight. In the morning, the mixture would turn into a bubbly and foamy goop. I’d then add more flour, water, and salt and I’d had to wait more. After an hour, it’d be time for the first series of stretch and folds. Then wait. More stretching and folding. Wait. Stretch. Fold. Wait. Repeat. Then after the fourth or fifth series of stretching and folding, the dough is ready for the bulk proofing – more waiting.

For a person who doesn’t have much patience, baking bread beats that into you. The waiting and letting the dough sit is as important as the ingredients that you are using. It’s an important part of the process. I’d learned to be very patient. I had to just let the dough sit and trust that the chemical reactions and the yeast are doing its necessary job in fermenting the dough and getting it ready for baking. If I’d rush it, then I’d get another bad loaf and more frustration. I learned to be patient real fast.

After forgetting about the dough for a few hours, it would be time to start shaping. I would do loaf after loaf, getting a feel of the dough in my hands as I wrestled it into a boule. When I’d get it into shape, I’d then doubt myself, and I’d start again. I’d flatten out the dough and then wrestle it into a round ball again. Over and over, with each loaf, I’d do the same thing. Once shaped, I’d placed them in a proofing basket where it’d sit for a few more hours until they were ready to bake. Then I’d clean out the mixing bowls and start a new batch of dough and start the whole process over again.

I’d bake loaf after loaf after loaf. As one would come out of the oven, I’d put another loaf into the Dutch oven and back into the oven that would go. They’d come out with varying degrees of success. Some would be flat; others would be burnt. Then the later loaves would come out more successful until the last few loaves looked all the same. Consistency is a good sign of getting something right. Even after they come out of the oven, the loaves are still not ready. You wait, let it cool down for at least an hour or two before you can finally slice into it to see how’d it turned out.

At the peak of my baking obsession, I made 15 loaves over a weekend. There were many failures, but there were also many successes. Many of the loaves were given away to my neighbors, some to the man living under The 10 underpass on my walk to the Expo Line, and many showed up in the kitchens at RPA.

I don’t bake as much anymore. I bake a loaf or two a month. Baking doesn’t give me as much frustration as it did before. I understand it a little bit better now. I know how the dough should feel. I know that if it is particularly humid, I’ll have to add a little more flour to the dough. I have a better idea of how long to let the dough rise based on the temperature of the room. I’ve learned all of it through a lot of practice, patience, and failing. My loaves don’t all come out good or great every time. There are still a few flat loaves, but at least now I understand why. Besides, I’ve been cooking for almost 20 years and I’ve only been baking bread for the past few months. I’ve learned to be patient and give myself a break and not expect greatness every time. With more practice and more time, maybe I’ll get there.

Many people go to a yoga studio when they want to relax. Some lounge out by the pool, while others just find a quiet room. I go to my kitchen. The sound of click-click-click-whoosh puts my mind at ease. The burst of warmth from the dancing blue crown burns away my stress. The up-and-down rocking of a sharp knife slicing through vegetables is my warrior pose. The sweet fragrant smell of cooking garlic and ginger is my aromatherapy. Cooking. It’s my therapy and my meditation. Cooking is Zen.

Food and cooking have been ingrained in me since I was born. It’s a part of my cultural identity. The Chinese have an informal way of greeting family and friends. It isn’t “How are you?” but “Have you eaten yet?”. It’s our way of showing love. My father was a cook and so were many of my uncles. Having given up everything in Vietnam, we made it to the States as refugees a few years after the fall of Saigon. Poor with limited skills and almost no understanding of English, being a cook at a Chinese restaurant was the only job available to my father and uncles. Day in and day out for what seemed like 12 plus hours, my father went to work and I hardly saw him except for a couple of hours a week. That was life for most of my childhood.

So as a young impressionable child who idolized a father who was always at work, I found a way to get a better understanding of him. I hovered around my mother or grandmother in the kitchen while they cooked dinner. When we would host large family get-togethers, my father cooked for them. I stood by his side, watched everything that he did, studied him. It was like ballet. He flowed with such confidence and grace. I spent weekend afternoons in front of the television watching cooking shows on PBS. Along with my father, mother, and grandmother, my cooking teachers were Julia Child, The Frugal Gourmet, Jacques Pepin, and Martin Yan.

My relationship with cooking changed from being a passive observer to being an active participant when I was in college and more so when I moved to Los Angeles. It was no surprise that cooking came naturally to me. It was easy but that didn’t mean that everything I made was great and delicious. I liken my first couple of years on my own to a cooking boot camp. I put what I learned to practice and made many mistakes and failed along the way but I always learned from them. These real life cooking lessons literally kept me alive because eating out every night wasn’t cheap nor healthy.

Then cooking wasn’t about surviving anymore. It was personal. It was about reconnecting with my father. I was an independent adult, truly on my own. The biggest life lesson that my father, my parents, instilled in my brother and me while growing up was to be independent and to never rely on anyone. I never got to thank him for all that he did. He passed away a few years after I moved away from home. I never got the chance to show him how much I loved him. I never got the chance to cook for him. So I cooked to be closer to my father because I wanted to be like him, a cook. Each dish I cooked was a dish for him and I hoped that it made him proud.

Cooking brought me back to my roots. I thought about the days of my youth and the many dishes that my mother and grandmother cooked for dinner and these conflicting warm feelings of joy and longing for simpler times came rushing through me. Nostalgia was a bitch like that. I cooked these humble Chinese and Vietnamese dishes from my childhood. I struggled to get the perfect crispness on my bánh xèo or the right curry flavor in cà ri gà. Every dish, from simple Chinese peasant food like stir-fried cabbage with eggs and pork belly, congee, eggs with tofu, or a whole steamed braised stuffed duck, to phó, bò kho, and bún riêu, were all done over and over again until I could no longer perfect it. But no matter how much I perfected each dish, it never tasted as good as my mom’s.

After many years of cooking and perfecting my craft, I came full circle with my cooking. It was now my turn to show my love to my family. I was the one that cooked for them when I went home for the holidays. Whether it was Thanksgiving or Christmas, I would wake up early and cook a smorgasbord of dishes for our early afternoon dinner. I’d never been a stickler for tradition and so many of my dishes weren’t either. I cooked dishes that my mom, aunts, and uncles don’t know how to cook or never had. Dishes like Shrimp Monica, lasagna, braised short ribs or lamb shanks, spaghetti aglio e olio, Korean fried chicken wings, creamy jalapeno polenta, creamed spinach, standing rib roasts, or racks of lamb. It was a lot of work each time, but I enjoyed every single minute of it. It was worth it. I was showing my love.

Now, cooking is about control, being healthy, relaxing, and just trying to be a better person by learning and growing. On average, I cook five or six nights out of the week. With each meal, everything would be cooked from scratch using whole ingredients if possible. I’m not a health nut, but I do like to know what goes into my body. Cooking from scratch allows me to do that. It gives me a peace-of-mind to know that the egg noodles that I used in my dan dan noodles were made 30 minutes ago using just flour and eggs.

Cooking from scratch is a lot of work, but I don’t mind. It’s how I relax. There were weekends where I would do nothing but cook, especially after a long and trying week. Depending on what I planned on making I would start bright and early Saturday or early afternoon. I’d pour myself a glass or two or have a bottle of wine and start my cooking adventure. My focus would be on nothing but the task before me. I’d chop vegetables, sear meat, gather spices and other ingredients, prepping the mise en place. Nothing else would be in my mind but this meal; not what happened at work that past week or what I have to do next week. It would just be mincing garlic, dicing the onions, understanding the recipes so I know when and how I can change it to match my tastes and creativity, and figuring out the timing so all of the dishes would be ready around the same time. This is how I practice mindfulness. I meditate through cooking.

Even though I’d been cooking for so long, there’s still so much to learn. Like with most things, the more I do and practice, the better I get and the more I learn. Doing things that are outside of my comfort zone or new are great ways to really learn about myself. The past two years I started a cooking project where I had to cook at least 30 dishes that I never cooked before. They can’t be some variation of something I had already done. It had to be completely new. The project challenges me to cook different cuisines, use unfamiliar ingredients, learn new cooking techniques, and most important, it forces me to fail so I could learn from it. If you’re not learning, you’re not growing.

I love cooking. It is such a personal thing to me. Cooking is such a large part of my identity and shaped me into who I am that I can’t imagine never cooking again. It keeps me centered and helps me relax, along with connecting me to family and where I came from. I’m never more Zen then when I’m cooking, plus I get to enjoy a delicious meal afterwards. Even before I get to work, I will be thinking about dinner. If you see me roaming the halls of the office humming some unfamiliar melody with my perpetual RAF scowl, don’t worry about me or be intimidated. I’m not in a bad mood or mad at someone or stressed. It is just my “What am I having for dinner?” face.