the gift giving secret

there's a technique to giving gifts, and i'm not talking about those 'just because' gifts. you have been there, it's so-and-so's birthday, christmas, anniversary, etc. and your window of time is now or never to get a gift. the only problem is that you have no idea what to give this person.

instinctually, the first thing you think to yourself is "what do they like" which is a great start. step one is to make a list of all things that the gift recipient is interested in. now here's the twist, this list you've created is the list of things not to give your gift recipient.

that's right. don't get them what they are interested in.  do not buy audio equipment for the audio lover, clothes for the shopper, computer stuff for the geek, music for the musician. you won't win.

let's pretend that your task is to buy a present for a guy who's a huge sneaker collector.  knowing what's hot, what's about to come out, even the companies that are currently 'in' is quite the task for you to find out. then, you have to find out what are your gift receiving sneaker collectors opinion on these companies, styles, and other sneaker industry things. he's surfing sneaker blogs, posting on sneaker forums, and talking about sneakers to his sneaker friends every day. even buying accessories for his sneaker interest land you with a higher percentage of giving a dud gift because you just don't know. if you were to buy him something sneakers, he'll open them and give you that "thanks grandma, i love this sweater" smile.

(granted, if you can somehow find out exactly what this person is planning to buy without them knowing, you have struck gold. this is not something that happens the majority of the time so i'm discounting that option.)

step two is to think of things that you are an expert at.  if there is something that is on your list that isn't on their list, then that's where you start to brainstorm ideas. i've got some real life examples here.  my brother loves clothes and shopping for clothes. he'll go to the store and just browse when he has time to do so. given some free time this is the last thing i would ever do, the idea of just hitting up the mall is never anywhere close to an idea when my calendar has an open afternoon. he's the pro, i'm the oblivious one, and when he buys me a jacket, i don't even have to ask if it's what's hip now because i know that he's always in touch with what's hip.

when he opened the apple tv that me and my sister got him for christmas, he had no idea what it did. of course now he uses his apple tv a few times a week. he's not into technology stuff, but i sure am. it was a perfect present.

so let's recap here.
1.) list what the gift recipient is into.
2.) list out things you are interested in, that is not on list one.
3.) start from there brainstorming what to get them.

now there will be a time when this technique doesn't produce anything. and that's when i pull out my emergency step four.

4.) list out things i either always forget to buy, or hate buying.

some examples are towels, bottles of alcohol, and sweets. of course if all else fails go ahead and give the biggest gift cop out, a giftcard.

Deep Fried Pork Belly

I've been trying to perfect a recipe for pork belly for a few months, ever since I went to Taiwan. So last night I picked up some at the whopping price of $2.39/lb

Chopped up half of the pork belly into strips, these 5 strips is about 1/2 a pound worth.

Here I'm using Google docs on my iPad which is sitting on a business card holder as a makeshift iPad stand. The recipe is at the bottom of this post.

Boil the pork belly strips for 10mins.

while that's boiling, time to make the flavoring stuff:
Soy Sauce, 1/4 cup.

Vinegar, 1/4 cup (I didn't have the right kind exactly, but it's asian-y rice vinegar, so that should work)

Ideally rock sugar is used, but I had organic Trader Joe's sugar, so that did the job. 1/4 cup.

I didn't have ginger, so I turned to the western cure for lack of ginger, garlic!

lastly, green onions.

Put everything in a pot, turn on the heat, dissolve the sugar, so it's read when the pork has done 10 mins in the boiling water.

The pork belly has boiled for 10 minutes

Plop the pork belly in the mix, and add water so that the meat is just about covered.

I like to throw in a few eggs to this mix, they suck up the flavor of the mix and the pork.

This simmers for about 2hrs.

A shot of the pork belly after 2 hours in the bath.

Next up, the deep fry. I cut up a small red potato to fry after the pork belly because I'm a sucker for french fries.

Deep frying lasted for about 1 minute. This provided a slight crisp to the exterior of the pork belly. Next time I will try to deep fry for 2-3 minutes and see if I can achieve a more crunchy crisp.

A few shots of the fried pork belly.

I made some rice and veggies to go with my deep fried goodness. The egg didn't hit the frier either, I cooled it in water then peeled it after the 2hr simmer

The first recipe is what I started off with. It's a recipe that I've used to make pork belly previously, which turned out well. The second recipe is what I did here. Instead of browning the pork belly in a fry pan, I wanted to use my new Presto Fry Daddy deep fry bucket.


The pork belly was fantastic. I feared that the amount of sugar used was too much, but the flavor and texture was fantastic. The egg was delicious too!

Chinese Pork Belly

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound raw pork belly
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/8 cup light soy sauce
• 1/8 cup dark soy sauce
• 1/4 cup Chinese rice cooking wine
• 2 ounces Chinese rock sugar
• 1 (1/2 inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
• 4 spring onions, sliced
• 3 eggs

Directions

1. Slice the pork belly into 2-inch wide strips. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and stir in the pork slices; reduce heat to a simmer, and cook the meat for 10 minutes. Remove from the water, and blot dry with paper towels.
2. Heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat in a large wok, and brown the pork strips well on all sides. Pork will splatter - use a splatter shield for this step.
3. While pork is browning, mix together the light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice wine, rock sugar, ginger, and spring onions in a large soup pot or stockpot. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer, and lay the pork strips into the liquid. Cover, and simmer until the meat is very tender, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Add water as needed to keep the liquid from going completely dry.

Deep Fried Chinese Pork Belly

Ingredients

1/2 pound raw pork belly

1/4 cup soy sauce (low sodium)

1/4 cup Chinese rice cooking wine

1/2 cup organic sugar

4-5 cloves of garlic minced

4 spring onions, sliced

3 eggs

Directions

1. Slice the pork belly into 2-inch wide strips. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and stir in the pork slices; reduce heat to a simmer, and cook the meat for 10 minutes. Remove from the water, and blot dry with paper towels.
2. While pork is browning, mix together the soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, garlic, and spring onions in a large soup pot or stockpot.
3. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer, and lay the pork strips into the liquid. Add eggs to the mixture.
4. Cover, and simmer until the meat is very tender, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Add water as needed to keep the liquid from going completely dry.
5. After 1 1/2 to 2 hours, take pork pieces out of simmer and pat dry. deep fry for 1 min.

rockets and such

my friend wanted to see what kind of rockets i could muster up for a potential tattoo. after a few attempts at drawing them, he realized that permanently having a penis on his arm was not a good idea. i drew these over a year ago, which is wild to me, but the dates don't lie.

weekend update

this weekend we spent some time visiting the chens, hung out with their kids evie and arron. desmond tutu corgi also made an appearance. he was continually attacking the small strawberry patch. he's the only dog that i am friends with on facebook, he is a retired champion showdog.

my latest coffee paraphernalia showed up thanks to amazon.com, and i was able to geek out in the mornings with precise weights, temperatures, grinds, and pours. the scale, thermometer, and hario v60 02 dripper with collector are the new items. i've had the kettle for a while, and love it. that grinder was purchased from a garage sale for $5, it's on the short list to be replaced.

sunday was the big one. dann and i rode from the mission to fort funston. i used my nike running tracking program to document the ride.  unfortunately, my phone ran out of juice just before returning home, but managed to track the majority of our 7 hour excursion.  the app thinks that i ran these distances, so that 3481 calories is incorrect, as half of the time i was sitting on my bike coasting downhill.

Riding my bike for an entire day made me appreciate my $35.00 bike. It has been needing a few upgrades, which i neglected to buy, since it feels like a waste to put $80 worth of brakes into a bike that cost me $35. however, i've decided that the value of the bike is more than what i've paid to acquire it.