In Retrospect: 2009

2009 ends today, in 9 hours. Whoa.

This year, I gained 10 pounds. 10 POUNDS! That’s a lot, given that I’m only 5’3. The econ­omy was shitty, work was shitty, every­one was feel­ing shitty — and gorg­ing and booz­ing seemed like the answer. If I die today, I will prob­a­bly go to hell for glut­tony, but that’s some­thing I can say for most of the LA blo­gos­phere. So my new year’s res­o­lu­tion is to lose these 10 pounds. And then when I lose those, I’ll work on the oth­ers!
But enough with the neg­a­tiv­ity for chris­sakes! Here’s some high­lights from my nom­ming year.

Click to read more about 2009 discoveries…

This year, for the first time EVAR, I had din­ner at a Miche­lin Star restau­rant. L’Atelier de Joel Robu­chon is eas­ily one of the best(est) din­ners I’ve ever had, but the din­ner also taught me that haute cui­sine should only be left in the hands of those who have rig­or­ously trained for it.

This year, I ate a lot of salad. I blame it on Judy Rodgers.
I learned to appre­ci­ate leafy greens again, and that you can work on your nutri­tion pyra­mid effi­ciently by hav­ing your veg­eta­bles and fruit together (gasp!).

This year, I’ve had ridicu­lous amounts of san­gria. Actu­ally, now that I think about, I’ve had a lot of cock­tails this year. Mixol­ogy was the it trend  this year, and nearly all restau­rants had some sort of an alco­holic mumbo-jumbo tacked on behind their wine list. Home mix­ing quickly became the answer when wal­lets got thin­ner and cock­tail blog­gers started to come out of wood works.

Speak­ing of cock­tail blog­gers, I attended a tast­ing sem­i­nar on rums from dif­fer­ent regions by *the* Rum­Dood him­self, com­plete with work­sheets, aged rum, and a real mai tai. It is always inspir­ing to see some­one who is SO pas­sion­ate about some­thing that is usu­ally guz­zled down (then barfed out) waste­fully by col­lege kids. By the way, I still use that work­sheet to iden­tify fla­vors in teas for work. Super useful!

This year, I became a groupie for the first time in years (not since Finch broke up the first time, at least!). Chef Ludo is very a hand­some man, and makes awe­some food, but what charmed me the most was that him and his wife Krissy worked as a very close team, kinda like Bat­man and Robin, or Holmes and Wat­son. It is really cute, espe­cially because they’ve been mar­ried for more than 10 years — they have a strong bond and you can see it. Jeal­ous!
I’ve always dreamed of own­ing a bistro-cafe, but now I secretly wish that Don will hang around the place too, so that we can be two peas in a pod like the Lefevbres. So next year, to actu­ally mate­ri­al­ize my dream, I’ve decided that I WILL start cook­ing school next year, in the fall. I’ve pushed it back for two years now, but now that Don’s grad­u­ated and has a job, I can go back to school.

This year, when Don was look­ing for a new job, and he joked that we might end up in Texas or Ice­land. Because nobody in Cal­i­for­nia cares to fund research about brain scan­ning, or some­thing like that. And I believed him. So I made every effort to hang out with my fam­ily before the sup­posed  move, and went to Nor­Cal as much as pos­si­ble.
Dur­ing the vis­its, my Dad and I talked a lot about food and cook­ing — because food and my last name are really my only links to my Viet­namese her­itage. And he likes the fact that I’m try­ing to learn it, albeit a lit­tle late. So he took me out to a lot of Viet­namese places, to try dif­fer­ent dishes from dif­fer­ent regions of his moth­er­land. I learned a lot of words that I can’t pro­nounce. Then I took my friends to these restau­rants and taught them the names of the dishes in mis­pro­nounced Viet­namese. Some­times me and my friends pro­nounce goi bo wrong, and instead of beef salad it sounds like dad salad. Good times!

In the end, Don took a posi­tion in Irvine. So much for all that fret­ting! But I learned that my bond with my fam­ily ain’t going nowhere, and I feel a lot less lonely in this big wide world.

In clos­ing, I leave you with some­thing Dad said the other day that made me feel a lit­tle bet­ter about, well, every­thing: even when it’s cloudy and gloomy, there’s always a blue sky wait­ing to open up above all that poof. So keep look­ing up, everybody!

Happy new year.

In Ret­ro­spect: 2008

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