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Ingredients (serves maybe 4-6 people)
1 lb. pork bones (neck, ribs, doesn’t really matter)
2 lb. winter melon
6-10 thin slices of ginger
1/2 cube beef/chicken stock (or hon dashi might be interesting)
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Blanch the pork bones for 2 minutes.
2. Add pork bones and ginger to 14 cups of water and bring to boil, then simmer for 60 mins (or longer for more taste)
3. While it’s simmer, remove skin, seeds etc. from winter melon, cut into cubes
4. After 60 minutes, add stock and salt to taste.
5. Add winter melon, cook for additional 20 minutes.
6. Done!

I used to drink this soup almost everyday in Hong Kong.. and miss drinking chinese soup in general, so I’ve been looking for some simple recipes.

This was the first time I’ve tried making it.. and it came out decent. I made it with the quantity of ingredients shown above, but next time I will probably try reducing the amount of stock and increasing the pork bone boil time (or quantity of pork bone). Does anyone know if using maybe fattier parts would be tastier? or does it not matter and only make it oilier?

Went to watch Legally Blonde in the last week of its 3 week run in Seattle. A number of people have seen it by now already and all the feedback I’ve heard is positive, so I went to see it with some expectations. I switched my season ticket and got a better seat – Seat F5 Left! 6th row from the stage, a little off center but that’s OK – only until the show started did I realize I’m right in front of the left rack of speakers and subs so the music was super loud for me :|.

Anyhow, when the musical opened I was a little worried, cuz the singing was rather weak for the opening number – but to my relief that was just the ensemble and none of the girls in the opening song was the lead (Elle Woods). The singing was generally well done, though none of the songs seem particularly challenging (nothing like Defying Gravity). The acting/staging and choreography was the more impressive part – there were quite a number of group dances, some of them looking quite difficult (like doing a workout routine with jumping ropes while singing).

The show was very well written – in terms of witty lyrics and throwing in additional humour (more than the movie), but at the same time cramming a lot of complex plot into musical numbers. It follows the movie’s plot line quite closely (which I find surprising, I was expecting a lot of watering down since I couldn’t imagine how you’d pack the movie into the musical), but the musical did run quite long (I think 2h 45 min with intermission). Also, the composer/librettist/book writer does a good job in moving the plot in song. A gripe I have with many modern musicals (e.g. Catch Me If You Can) is all too often the actors talk to advance the plot, and then break into song just to convey emotion – which to me misses the mark of a good musical. But Legally Blonde doesn’t fall into this “cop out” and includes a fair bit of action in its songs, making the musical more fun.

The excitement does taper off towards the end of Act 1, but picks up strongly throughout Act 2. Overall its a fun and festive musical that reminds me a bit of Hairspray in terms of style. Unfortunately no super memorable song from the musical that I can hum the morning after, so I’ll give it 3.5 stars… or adopting sadd3j’s new rating system, 3.5 rolls:

I’ve been holding off on posting this since Burton was at the top and he was too cute to bump down :P, but its OK now!
This week’s recommendation is Starfield’s new album, “The Saving One”. Starfield has went more mainstream alternative (compared to their more acoustic/indie sounding debut album) over the years, but IMO this has been their best album since Tumbling After.

My favourite track from the album is “Something to Say” – one of their softer acoustic songs, and simply arranged and carried vocally. Love the simplicity and the rawness – link below.

I’ve got something to say
It’s been one of those days
When I’m finding it hard to believe in You

I’ve got something to say
Right now it feels like You are slipping away
Like I am drowning in a crisis of faith
Like I was found, but now I’m lost in the fray

Other noteworthy tracks on the CD include: The Saving One, Rediscover You, No Other Saviour… actually the other tracks aren’t bad either :P.

On recommendation from YFA, Sam and I rented this through iTunes. After the Olympics and learning that the MacBook could output properly to the TV, I felt like it was finally worth it to rent since there was a way to watch it on the big screen. We only got the SD version, but it was more than good enough. Anyway, onto the movie.

A super short review, since I’m not sure what to really say about it. Technically speaking, it probably would have been more aurally and visually impressive if we watched the BD or something, instead of an SD version with only stereo sound.

After watching Up in the Air, I found it to give off a similar feeling of satisfaction. I guess I don’t want to say why, to not ruin Up in the Air for YFA, but despite the very different subjects, they were kind of the similar. The first few bomb scenes of the movie made it very continuously intense.. and in the end, it really made me want to play Battlefield Bad Company 2 :p

I give it a 4 out of 5 TPRolls

At the tender age of 6 weeks and 2 days