Say hi to New York

Doing stupid things

♥

Spicy Italian sauce with sausages

"Show me please, please, please!" I try to convince Jonathan to teach me how to make that spicy Italian sauce. "So that when we break up, I'll still be able to eat this."

"No, that's why I'm not showing you."

"By the way, you didn't give me anything for my birthday," I remind him. "Do you want me to remember for the rest of my life that you didn't celebrate my birthday with me?!"

...and he finally decided to show me how it's done!

Ingredients
2 X 796 ml cans of diced tomatoes, no salt
1 pack of 5 Olymel Italian spicy sausage
Extra virgin olive oil
1 pack of Basil leaves
Crushed red chili
Garlic

Directions
1. In a pot, heat the chili and oil in medium low heat. (I used the 7 o'clock position on the burner's dial). How much oil and chili? Refer to the picture below.

2. Add sausages. Turn them occasionally and cook until evenly browned.

3. While you're waiting for your sausages to turn brown. Peel the garlic. You should do this step before you crush the tomatoes, because tomatoes can eliminate the smell of garlic from your fingers apparently.

4.Gently crush the tomatoes into smaller pieces with your hands, as if you're giving a massage.

5. Add the peeled garlic and a thin layer of salt in the crushed tomatoes pot.

6. When sausages turn evenly brown, pour the mix of tomatoes, garlic and salt in the pot.

7. When it starts to boil, lower the heat to the 9 o'clock position. From now on, it's important to stir every 5 minutes until you remove the sausages from the pot. The main reason this sauce tastes so good is because it takes a lot of patience.

8. After 65 minutes, add the basil. Don't forget to remove the stems.

9. Wait another 25 minutes, cut a sausage open to see if it's done cooking. If it's not done cooking, wait until it is. If it is, take them out and you can stop stirring every 5 minutes from now on.

10. Let the sauce simmer for another 50 minutes and start crushing the garlic one by one.

11. Wait until the sauce becomes consistent and thick. You know it is when it moves like a firm pair of boobs in Jonathan's words.

12. Finally, serve over favorite pasta. This should be enough for 5 people, or it can be stored in the refrigerator.

I swear it's the best sauce I've ever had.
I could eat this everyday for the rest of my life ♥

My favorite cousins

Marco and Mandy are finally gone back to Michigan.

I miss them already.

But I miss studying in peace more, haha :)

Be like water

"Be like water making its way through the cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around it or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward thinking will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

-Bruce Lee

An end and a beginning

It's 5PM and I officially quit my job today. For those who didn't know, I worked in one of the leading Canadian privately-held business in the worldwide export of vehicles. The company provided me with a good start in my career. I'm infinitely thankful for the opportunity that I've been given and for all the things I've learned.

Resilience is a different kind of perseverance that I learned this year. It is not the kind of perseverance that involves resolute drive, energy and persistence. Resilience is characterized by flexibility. It’s about altering your thoughts without being a synonym of abandonment.

There was an extended period of time when I made myself very unhappy for a decision that was traditionally the best and an option that was considered most desirable by peers. However, that option didn't mold into the right environment, the right timing, and most importantly, my uniqueness. I thought I had the strength to bulldoze my way through everything, but the pressure of bearing such aspirations was painfully heavy.

Goals are like stars; you may never reach them but they will guide you in your quests. I've been thinking about a lot of things lately; our globalized world, economic trends, industry demands and I asked myself what all that means to me. I always wanted to follow my instincts, explore more, learn more and discover home. Home is not a place but a time. Timing is everything. There's that Chinese saying that goes "Take a step back, you'll see a wide open sea and the vastness of the sky." That’s exactly what I did and now, I’m finally hired by one of the top Canadian accounting firms.

I still remember how desperate I once was to find a job.

Rain

There was heavy rain in Montreal in the past week. I got caught under an awning on Jean-Talon. I impatiently waited for the rain to stop. I waited with a growing feeling of misguided direction. I longed for something.

Why is it that a tiny grain of sand can bring tears to our eyes? Is it safer in the cage where we lock all our emotions? If so then why must they be heavy to bear? Are there still places in the world for their expressions? Am I expected to look pretty? When you’re repeatedly told that you’re pretty, you eventually feel restricted to the definition of that word. Can I scream and cry? Am I free? Why love? Why sadness? Why tears? Why anger? Why laughter? Why life? Why such mess?

…and why not?
Don’t you remember?
I longed for freedom, yet I had the choice and I chose obligation, my comfort zone and security.

Why are emotions difficult to handle? Why do we gloss over sadness, frustrations, disappointments and pretend they don’t exist? Why are we scared of merging and identifying with others? Why don’t we care as much as we do? Why don’t we cry as much as we want? Why are we whispering when we have something to say? Why are we starving ourselves when we love food? Why are we scared of unpredictability, volatility and the undefined?

Why? Why do we stay away from the rain?

Why am I waiting?

I want to swim into an ocean, to swim far, to feel the cold, to taste the salt, to swim back before my last breath and dry newly again. I want to let the child locked inside me come out freely and play again. I wanted to feel the ferocity of the rain on my soft face, soaking through my clothes, pounding on my skin…and so did I.

The rain...
Isn’t its wildness and irrefutability so beautiful? Just like the untamable storm deep inside our hearts.