food & other stories

where i keep recipes and other things

[foodandotherthings]

cornflakes soaked in coffee

lately i have been thinking about what makes me happy, as a person.

there are the obvious things, such as good food, good sleep, good health in general, music, rhythm, gardens, animals, fresh air, writing, and beautiful things.

what is also very important are friends, new people to meet, and discovering new things.

but i wonder what kind of work makes me happy.

i didn’t know that it was an option to find fulfilment and happiness in work. i thought that it is impossible to do. 

“to work is to suffer,” my father used to say.

“if you don’t study hard and suffer right now, you will regret it and suffer later,” my mom used to say.

these are perhaps typical east-asian-parents statements, but to me, those were very disillusioning perspectives of the future ahead.

half-way through university, i came to the realization that this was not necessarily true. 

there are people who like their work.

and perhaps the right work could be compared to a right partner: it isn’t always exhilarating, it isn’t always fun, but deep inside you know that you’re in love. and once you do the work or are with the partner, things can feel easy at least 50-60% of the time, you don’t have to struggle or suffer most of the time. and the best thing is, as i had witnessed in others, is that it can feel like magic, and it can give you a glow.

by the time i had become an adult, i had become numb to that inner voice that told me what i liked and didn’t. “you’re shitty at what you do” and “you must suffer”  had become the overarching theme of my working life post university graduation. and that’s probably also why i never stayed at the same workplace for longer than a year. the suffering had become too heavy to bear. 

sidenote: it is amazing and unbelievable how susceptible and easily influenced the human mind is. this is a topic that has fascinated me for the past decade.

that started my search. i was not sure what i was looking for, but i was sure what i did not want. my search took me across many countries. my search also enabled me to meet many people. and what i had found was that some people, in their 40s or even 60s still did not know what they were looking for, while some people seem to have been destined to pursue a certain path the day they were born (into a specific family, for example.) and perhaps for most people, quite like a little creek, or a growing vine, one does not know where one is headed but forward, and one’s path will be determined by circumstances and its environment. and it is the journey that is the destination at the same time.

///

what is love?

and do you love what you do?

i once met two girls from cornell during my travels here in europe. one of them was having cornflakes in coffee. 

“i really like the taste of both together,” she said as she poured the cornflakes into her coffee cup. she pushed the cornflakes more down into the cup, soaking them in the coffee.

they were undergrads in environmental engineering. they made me realize i really missed the warmth, friendliness, and openess of the people in the us. or china. or anywhere else. (being in vienna and having to interact with humans here for longer than a month wears down my heart.) 

but perhaps all places have their pros and cons. they told me how stressful it can be to work in the us, and how everyone at cornell feels like they’re on a of a brink of a meltdown because of the heavy workload there. 

but they lit up talking about what they could be doing in the future with that degree and the knowledge and skills aquired, which projects they could work on, and what that could mean to the world.

it felt so refreshing, the fresh, young energy of college students, the ambitious and passionate drive, bright-eyed and spirited.

and as we spoke they pulled out their calculators and homework folders. 

these two girls were on a weekend city trip in europe, in a city close to the one they were staying for their study abroad semester. yet they had brought their homework, ipads, and calculators to do their homework. in the morning.

as i watched them work on their problem sets, i felt inspired.

yes, they loved what they did.

yes, love is not only a feeling, but a decision.

yes, to love something or someone, one will prioritize that which one loves.

yes, love is having the structure to prioritize that which you love.

yes, it is possible to love your work.

[foodandotherthings]

ramen love

la mian, ramen, and ramyung all pretty much pulled noodles.

the chinese la mian 拉面 is a type of noodle that’s been made by pulling and twisting the dough in a special way. here is a picture of lanzhou la mian, noodles prepared in lanzhou (a place in china) style:

(source: weekinchina.com)

when i think of the japanese ramen, i think of medium sized, slightly salted noodles, soaked in a slightly thick, salty, and extremely savoury soup broth, topped with seaweed, one of those special ramen eggs, corn, pork, or other toppings.

(source: migrationology.com)

lastly, when i think of the korean ramyun, i think of shin ramyun, a particular brand of instant noodles that have been very popular both in and outside of korea.

(source: raspberykiss.co.uk)

my high school friends who are living in vienna, queeny and christel, and i are all huge ramen fans, in love with those satisfying slurps of savoury noodles. our dream is to hunt down the best ramen place in vienna one day. because of the pandemic situation, we are now left to our own devices to recreate our own, individual ramen, and here is what i came up with ---- 

---> super quick balanced instant ramen (the idea is that the veggies balance out the unhealthy part in the instant ramen):

 ingredients:

2-3 leaves of chinese cabbage

2 champignon mushrooms

1 carrot

1 sausage

1 egg

1 instant ramen

1-2 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon of spicy chilli flakes

1 tablespoon spicy chilli powder

salt

in a pot, i heated up sunflower oil, and added garlic and spicy chilli flakes. after there is a fragrance, i poured in 1.5 cup/bowl of cold water. once the water is is boiling, i added the chinese cabbage, champignon mushrooms, and carrot. then i added the chilli powder and salt. once everything was half-cooked, i added the instant ramen. towards the end, when everything was almost done, i put in slices of sausage and and egg. on low heat/or residual heat if you cook on an electric stove like i do, cover the simmering pot. after a few minutes the egg should have reached the desired solidity.

if the instant ramen is not as substantial as you’d like, you can eat everything with rice. my korean friend kyu showed me a trick that made rice more delicious: to make your rice very yummy, you can mix in roasted/toasted white sesame seeds, salt, and toasted sesame oil.

cheers and guten appetit :)

[foodandotherthings]

reflections on a balcony garden

what is it like to eat a cucumber fresh from the vines? what is it like to eat an apple fresh from an apple tree that grew from a non-genetically modified seed? a freshness-explosion, overwhelming to the senses, in a good way. you can taste the rain on the leaves of the vine from a previous day, the fragrance of the apple blossom lingering in the fruit, the gentleness and beauty of the sustenance that nature gave us. these are experiences that i, a perpetual city-dweller, was lucky enough to have in my grandparent’s garden, or on the food market of a small slavic city.

fruor, the latin verb from which the English word “fruit” is derived, means “to enjoy.” i never really understood why something tasteless and chewy is enjoyable, until i realized that what i ate may have been a zombie version of the real deal. 

i have missed this incredible taste of freshness. so this year, i hope to be able to grow something myself, on a small balcony. thanks to my uncle and aunt who gave me some of the tomato plants from their terrace garden, and brought over some soil and containers, i was able to grow some cherry tomatoes last year, which was extremely fun to do. there is something amazing in watching the tomato plants grow more leaves, and grow taller each day, and to watch them flower, and eventually bear red shiny fruits. 

(baby tomato plants that have sprouted from a few slices of tomato)

witnessing and participating in this process also made me extremely grateful to the food that i eat. it takes a lifetime of a plant, countless of hours of growing, under the right circumstances of sun, water, and soil quality, and care. 

because i have lived in the city my entire life, i really didn’t quite understand where food came from. conceptually, i knew that plants produced our food, or plants were fed to animals that became our food. but practically, i didn’t quite understand. for me, food came from the supermarket. whenever i needed food, i just popped into the supermarket, and voila, there was food. the process of getting food therefore was a mechanical process, money plus supermarket equaled food. 

convenient? of course. but it wasn’t until i had my own first experience of growing tomatoes that i understood that getting food, originally, is not a mechanical process at all. 

growing food means witnessing and participating in the growth of a whole other being, and also caring for it. from it’s baby stage to its adolescent stage to its adulthood stage. until it’s ready to make, or to become our food. 

growing food also takes a lot of patience. a lot. months and months of patience. but eventually, patience and care will be rewarded by amazing fruits that i could not believe that was produced from that tiny plant months ago.

it’s a great feeling to eat something that you grew, or to pick wild fruits. there is also something extremely reassuring in these acts. it’s as if the reconnection to the soil, to the earth enables us to reconnect with a deeper part within ourselves. in the realization that we are a part of a bigger whole, here connected together with all living things, we recognize how precious our food is, and how connected we are to it.

that in a way, to honor our food is to honor ourselves.

fruor, let us strive enjoy the real deal.

[foodandotherthings]

italian food

i’ve always thought italian food was overrated. but that was before i tried real, authentic italian food.

my first encounter with authentic italian food was in boston’s little italy. guoying 果颖, my college friend and devoted italian food enthusiast, convinced me to go onto a trip with her an italian bar ( bar is what they call cafes in italy) in boston’s north end/little italy with her. now, that chinese girl was an connoisseur plus walking encyclopedia when it comes to italian food. i was very puzzled at her vast knowledge of the italian names of the italian dishes, while my own range of italian food vocabulary only included “spaghetti” “tiramisu” “lasagne” and “caffellate.” i mean, wasn’t even sure what “gelato” meant. she knew way too many names of dishes for the fact that she didn’t even speak italian. and whenever she came across a new name on a menu, she would immediately look it up on her phone and also remember it. that seemed quite amazing to me because whenever i try to remember a dish’s name, i usually forget it within the next 5 minutes.

guoying had already done all the research on yelp and picked out a place to try out. it was a cozy italian bar on hanover street, the main street in little italy. it had a lot of italian-american flair, and gave off a 60s vibe which we both really liked. i don’t quite remember the details of the place since it was so many years ago (perhaps 7? it was around 2013), but if i had to describe the ambience, i would say: tobacco, small marble embellishments, white cotton laced aprons, dark polished wood, and black and white photographs. 

i ordered the only things i could recognize on the menu: tiramisu and caffellate, while guoying ordered something complicated i don’t quite remember. i did not expect it to taste very differently from all the tiramisu and caffellate’s i had had until then. in fact, it was only after i had finished everything that i realized it was pretty good.

“it’s strange,” i said. “i somehow feel happy now.”

“i always feel happy whenever i eat good food,” guoying replied.

“so...do you think it’s because of the food?” i asked.

“yeah, of course!”

“oh, that makes sense!”

then we both agreed that it was northeastern university’s dining hall’s food’s blandness that may had messed up our tastebuds (sorry northeastern) and to not purchase its ridiculous meal-plan in the coming semesters (sorry not sorry) and to try out more italian food together in the future. 

that was my first encounter with food that made me feel light and happy inside. it was so surprising to me that food could make you feel that way, but guoying seemed to be quite familiar with that feeling. i suppose that is what had made her into the connoisseur that she had become. and who would have known that in the coming years, almost every job she got would be related to food, and that she would be married to the stranger she corrects of how to hold the tea cup while drinking tea in nyc’s chinatown.

the world works in miraculous ways, from the happiness and feeling of aliveness that can be found in a beautiful tiramisu, to where our hearts can lead us when we follow its lead.

[foodandotherthings]

noodle express

my mom always gets very excited whenever she can make noodle express: when the whole family is late from a trip and everyone is tired but not hungry; when we ate out the previous meal and it was too heavy; when she really can’t think of what to cook and dad and i don’t really care about what to eat.

noodle express “下个面吧” is her version of a fast and easy meal. and pretty good.

the noodle express she makes usually just contains noodle, and egg, and the sauce, and sometimes some lettuce. i guess what i made here is “noodle express deluxe.”

here is what i used:

noodles

a small carrot

some lettuce

some champignon mushrooms

an egg from happy chicken

sauce:

soy sauce

chinese light rice vinegar

chinese roasted sesame oil

seasoning:

roasted sesame seeds

spring onion (grown on balcony :))

here is how i made it:

cook the noodles, drain them. boil the egg and veggies, put on top of noodles. add soy sauce, light rice vinegar, sesame oil in approximately equal proportions, adjust depending on your taste. sprinkle on chopped spring onion and roasted sesame seeds, mix the whole thing, and enjoy :)

///

though i don’t get as excited as my mom whenever cooking noodle express, i get very excited about using edible plants that i grow in my home.

the advent of spring means that i can finally grow things on the balcony and windowsills again. my spring onions on the balcony are still from last year. to my amazement, they have survived the winter, and are still going strong. whenever i need some, i go get some fresh from my balcony, and there is something so uplifting in this act. the spring onion from my balcony is always very fresh with “life energy.” good, fresh ingredients can really “elevate” the “spirit” of a dish, even if it’s just a handful of it.

you can just get some spring onions with roots, put the roots into water for a few days, and then transfer the plant to soil. voila, a new (edible) houseplant.

happy gardening :)

[foodandotherthings]

mozarella tomato basil

mozarella, tomato, basil, also known as caprese salad, is an absolute delight in the summer and on hotter days. it’s refreshing, and incredibly easy to make. it basically consists of sliced tomato, mozarella, and a few basil leaves fresh from your basil plant. i added salt and pepper, and you can add olive oil too, i just didn’t have any at home. this combination is supremely amazing.

synergy is defined as: the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

sometimes we are lucky enough to witness how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, when two plus two doesn’t equal four but maybe eight or sixteen.

i see this in cooking and painting: how a combination of colors can be much stunning than just the colors seen individually, how each color brings out the best in the adjacent color; how a combination of foods can taste so much better than the individual foods eaten alone. this is especially the case with mozarella, tomato, and basil, i think. and of course this also applies to people, groups, teams, etc.

i wish there to be lots of beautiful food, and an abundance of beautiful synergy in everyone’s lives.

so be it :)

[foodandotherthings]

stir-fried fish and vegetables

when i lived in china a few years back, i had 4 flatmates. one of them was menglin. menglin loved to cook. she would frequently be in the kitchen cooking some complicated dish. “it’s not difficult to cook a good dish,” she said. “you just gotta have a lot of patience. only with patience, a dish can be delicious.” and she really did cook with a lot of patience. a lot. whether it was cooking millet porridge on the stove for several hours for it to reach a consistency that she liked, or flipping every single fried shrimp in a large pan individually. “anyone can cook well with patience. and you can taste the patience in the food. it will taste more refined.”

i hardly ever cooked when i lived in shanghai. because it was so much simpler to pop into a restaurant, or grab something on the way. also, sometimes my commute would last between 1 to 2 hours that i really had no energy to cook, even if i wanted to. and from what i knew, non of my coworkers cooked either. it seemed that none of the young people cooked anymore, and everyone just went to restaurants to eat together, or ordered 外卖 waimai (online food delivery.) one of the rare times i was in the kitchen preparing some dinner, mengmeng also came in to cook.

“what are you making?” she asked.

“oh, just noodles with stir-fried green bell peppers and 豆腐干 dried tofu (it’s normal tofu, in a more condensed and lightly smoked state.)”

“oh! let me tell you how you can make it really tasty!”

so she showed me how to make the dish really tasty, and i remembered this way of cooking. the good thing about cooking is that you can only learn a few cooking principles, and apply it to many different dishes: finely chop equal proportions of spring onion or leek, garlic, and ginger, add to heated oil in a pan, wait until there is a strong fragrance, put into the pan the dried tofu cut into flat rectangular shapes, and then the green bell peppers, cut into long stripes. stif-fry until everything is almost cooked, then add some salt and a dash of soy sauce. then, stir-fry until cooked and serve with rice or noodles.

///

because of the nearest asian food store is still kinda far away and i don’t have any dried tofu cut into a form of your preference, so i am doing the same with white fish. it tasted really good, and here is how i made it:

ingredients:

fish (white, deboned)

a piece of zucchini

half of a large or a small red bell pepper

a handful of neutral tasting leafy greens (baby spinach for example)

sunflower oil

1 clove of garlic

a small piece of ginger

one spring onion

some chili flakes

a dash of soy sauce

cilantro

in a pan, i heated the sunflower oil, and added equally proportionate finely chopped garlic, ginger, spring onion, and stir-fried until fragrance emerged. then, i added the other ingredients in order of time to cook: fish, zucchini, chili flakes bell pepper, soy sauce. when done, i turned off the heat and added the leafy greens. once in the dish, i sprinkled cilantro on top.

i still remember menglin’s dreamy disposition to how chinese people’s relationship with food was in the previous dynasties, in which they really took time and effort to create imaginative and complex dishes and desserts.

how would it look like, i wonder, to have more patience and quality in our lives, in both food, the growing of food, our connection with mother earth, and our connection with each other?

[foodandotherthings]

green tea and orange

as many of you know, green tea is an ancient chinese herbal drink with many health benefits. modern twists of this very refreshing and rejuvenating drink have been introduced to the chinese beverage market, along with the popular and ubiquitous bubble tea, and one of them is the combination of green tea brewed from leaves and different types of fruits (served cold of course.)

during my stay in china 2017-2018, i was a huge fan of the tea shops with their yummy and innovative tea menus. i especially appreciated a good green tea with fruits after having a heavy meal (which frequently happened when you eat out, which most young people frequently do), or when the aqi (air quality index) level was high (sign of strong air pollution.) green tea with fruits does a good job in calming down inflammation and irritation, and also has detoxing effects. i’ve also noticed a cooling effect, a bit like mint, but not as strong, so maybe avoid when you don’t feel as “balanced” in your stomach, and also avoid drinking on an empty stomach early in the morning. 

there are too many memories associated with tea i don’t know which one to write about. be it my grandparents’ tea rituals (not actual rituals but just making and drinking tea at the same time, every single day); my uncle’s plastic cup which he carries everywhere, with a string on the lid filled with tea and the tea leaves on its bottom had already turned brown because they’d been steeped in water for so long; the one and only time a date (any date) came to pick me up in shanghai, sincerely holding freshly bought 一点点 matcha bubble tea in a small bag in one hand; getting boston’s chinatown’s bubble tea with yan who has almost always lived in that city and knows the city like the back of her hand, getting kung fu bubble tea near bu and later neu with lulu or boya as comfort during tough school days, smriti always bringing one teabag to drink after lunch at work and going to a tea party for the first time at her place, sitting in a traditional austrian coffee house listening to sara telling me about how she freezes green tea into ice cubes and uses it for her face; my colleague in china buying everyone on the team oolong bubble teas with herbal jelly; going collectively to tea places with friends or colleagues after meals in shanghai, the ritual of my kindergarten friend always picking me up in her car and us driving to the bubble tea shop close by, us chatting about everything possible every time i visit my chinese hometown; rituals, memories, lives, and tea, interwoven into the tapestry of time and our existence, adorning the cozy spaces in our hearts.

there are 2 ways i make it:

1) make green tea as you would normally do (boil water, steep tea), and wait until the tea has cooled down to your desired temperature. then add sliced oranges. wait for a few minutes for the flavors of the orange to unfold in the water. 

OR

2) in a glass, just put tea leaves and sliced oranges into cold water, and wait for sometime for the flavors to unfold in the water.

it’s super-amazing, refreshing and replenishing, especially on the hot summer days. 

(instead of oranges, you can also put in lemon or grapefruit or any other fruit you want to try!)

[foodandotherthings]

sesame salmon with ramen

what is my relationship with time these days?

or what does the ideal relationship with time look like?

i have always felt inspired by the german author michael ende’s novel ‘momo,’ in which he describes the introduction of modern-day consumerism as something sneakily enforced and imposed to a beautiful small town in southern italy by the ‘men in grey’ who are the ‘thieves of time.’ in the beginning of the novel, the author describes the town as saturated with color and warmth. with the progression of the infiltration of the ‘time thieves’ scheme, the town slowly fades in color until at the end it becomes grey.

momo, the book’s hero, rescues the town with the help of cassiopeia, a magic turtle. at the climax of the story, cassiopeia gives momo the message that in order to move forward, one should turn around, and move forward by walking backwards. it always seemed to me that there is a deeper meaning behind this, that this is a metaphor. perhaps sometimes, in order to move forwards well, we need to keep an eye on what has happened before, on history, in order to learn from our past. and perhaps sometimes, to not always feel rushed or that we don’t have enough time, we need to really slow down, and eliminate things/actions that are not necessary.

///

it’s interesting to see how both leisure and time pressure can be so conducive to creativity, but not really that which is in between. when everything is planned and measured in advance, it is hard to welcome the unexpected. creativity is the connection of things that weren’t perceived as connected before, resulting in the formation of something new.

not only leisure, time pressure, but also limited/lack of resources can spark creativity. when resources are limited, we are invited to think of novel ways to do things. it is always comforting to know that there can always be solutions using creativity. to find new creative solutions feels both challenging and rewarding.

i have cooked more than ever now in the past few weeks, and i am thankful to have the leisure time to make and try out new ideas, inside of the kitchen and beyond, such as this sesame salmon ramen :)

ingredients:

salmon

curly noodles (ramen, but go for the healthy kind, folks)

spring onion

chili flakes

crushed roasted sesame

roasted sesame seeds

salt

pepper

some soy sauce

some oyster sauce

some sesame oil

a dash of chinese light rice vinegar

optional:

1 carrot

a piece of zucchini

i stir fried the salmon in a pan with sunflower oil, breaking it into small pieces and adding some salt at the end, while in another pot i cooked the noodles. once done, put the noodles in a plate, then the salmon on top of it. then i added all sauces and seasoning, and mixed everything well. here, i cooked the carrot and zucchini with the noodles, but you can leave it out, or try different veggies.

bon appetit :)

[foodandotherthings]

spring morning thoughts

spring is so beautiful. it’s been a really long time since i’ve been able to truly appreciate spring because of pollen allergy. however, this year my allergy isn’t that bad because i’m mostly staying indoors. ha, the positive side of a the pandemic. also, i’ve never really liked having to go outside of the home before 8:30 am or so (except when it is for a special occasion such as sport training, a performance or so.) not in the spring/summer, and even less so during the colder months. and to have to go into traffic (to take the subway) at this hour really is the worst. grumpy people, extremely loud noises, sudden strange smell attacks...no, just no. so these days, every day i wake up feeling extremely fortunate and grateful that i can stay at home. it is so beautiful to stay at home, especially in the spring ;)

another reason why i like spring is that the days get longer. it is already bright when you wake up, and you don’t have to fight yourself through the darkness and fogginess and sometimes rainy wetness of the late fall/winter season. gentle is the day in spring, in the mornings, at noon, and in the evenings. these days i’ve been waking up at around 8am. i love to wake up and be immediately bathed in sunlight. it is such a beautiful feeling. i also enjoy the luxury of watching the sky slowly change colors as the sun sets. how luxurious it is in modern times to watch the sun set, and the sky’s color change, slowly, from bright blue to pink and purple and orange, to a deep dark blue. 

i have not seen a sunrise before. now, towards the end of april, the sunrise happens at 6 am. it’s been such a long time since i’ve woken up at 6 am. however, i do not dislike waking up early. i feel that there is a special intimacy i have with mornings, or rather, with the world in the morning. when the deep dark blue starts to lighten up, and the first birds start to chirp, but you know that most people are still asleep. there is a special type of intimacy with any living creature to witness its first moments of waking up.

i wonder what it is like to witness the sunrise. spring and summer mornings sure are beautiful. you get to see the whole world around you slowly wake up. you hear how your neighbors wake up by hearing the windows being opened, and the clinking of the breakfast utensils. you feel how the nightly slumber slowly lifts up, revealing a bright, new shiny day, a new day filled with infinite potentials. i wonder what it is like to wake up early in the morning, and to just sit there, witnessing all of this. 

breakfast has always been my favorite meal of the day. i always get very excited about breakfast for some reason. it’s the first meal of the day. it nourishes your body after so many hours of sleep. it can be social, fun, fresh, and innovative. and most of all, a good breakfast is like a warm, refreshing welcome to the day.

(this is a western twist on the famous northern chinese dish “tomato scrambled eggs”)

ingredients:

one small/medium tomato

one egg

one small/medium potato

sunflower oil

salt

pepper

After putting some oil into the pan, i added the potatoes that where chopped into small pieces. then i added the tomatoes chopped into slightly larger pieces. when both were thoroughly cooked, i turned off the heat of the electric stove, and mixed the beaten egg into the pan, and started scrambling everything as soon as parts of the egg solidified. add salt, scramble until egg is done, and lastly, add pepper. for an extra warm taste, you can also add some sesame oil.

this breakfast guarantees for a great, essential start into to the day :)

[foodandotherthings]

vegan chocolate cake

i honestly don’t remember when it was the last time i made a cake, of any sort. i remember that i baked a strawberry cheesecake with a friend before, during high school. and towards the end of my high school years, i made a very easy strawberry cake for my mom’s birthday.

and at one point, for christmas, i made some brownies that went awry (it turned out to be extremely hard to chew) and i had not made anything since.

to me, it seemed that making cakes is a very wasteful thing: the amount of sugar, butter, and eggs can definitely suffice for several meals for a single person, whereas a cake can at most only be a snack or a desert that is consumed very quickly. plus when i eat cake, i really like to eat a lot of it at once...yeah. 

during this global pandemic 2020, it really is best to limit the times you go to the supermarket. i try to go only once every week or every 10 days, whereas before the pandemic i went two to three times per week. so one day, i find myself really craving something chocolate-y. all i had at home was cocoa powder, and i needed my eggs to be part of my main meals (poached, scrambled, sunny-side-upped.) because i am slightly intolerant to dairy and i have the impression that consuming dairy may cause me to have allergic reactions to pollen, dust, etc, i also hardly ever buy any milk products.

and because only certain supermarkets that are further away from my home carry non-GMO soy-milk, i also had no soymilk at home.

what could you do with just cocoa powder?, i thought. chocolate cake...maybe.

so i googled “chocolate cake no milk no eggs” and came across recipes of vegan chocolate cakes, what a blessing!

 the vegan chocolate cake was not hard to make at all. on the contrary, it was extremely easy.

in one bowl, i mixed the dry ingredients:

- 1 & 1/4 cup flour

- 1/2  cup sugar

- 1/2 cup cocoa powder

- 1 teaspoon baking powder 

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

in another bowl, i mixed the liquid ingredients:

- 1 cup water

- 1 teaspoon white vinegar

- 1/3 cup vegetable oil (use one with a rather neutral taste. for example, i used sunflower oil)

(- 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar (dry) or vanilla extract (liquid), neither of which i had, so i left this out)

i mixed the ingredients until there were no more clumps and the batter was smooth. i was supposed to use a 8 x 8 inches pan but i had neither cake form nor any pan that was fit for the oven, so i used aluminum foil to form a cake form, which totally worked.

i preheated the oven at 350 degrees Fh ( 175 degrees Celcius), and baked for 30 minutes, and i was super surprised that after around 20 minutes, i could smell the heavenly delicious chocolate smell, and that at the end, the cake came out so well!

to be honest, i did not have any high expectations, i just wanted it to be edible, but this cake completely beat all my expectations by far. it was such a surprise.

i ate the cake while it was still warm, and the warmth, fragrance and richness of this cake enveloped me like a big loving hug.  To some degree, it felt like love. 

i am hesitant when it comes to doing something that i perceive is “risky.” i usually am indecisive, and have to think a long time before doing something that may not turn out that well. baking a cake for the first time in such a long time means investing the time, the resources, and accepting the risk of all of it going to waste. but i really, truly wanted to eat cake, and i truly wanted to try and see what would happen if i tried to make one. and i am so grateful for the websites that have posted this recipe online! and i am truly grateful to myself for deciding to make this cake and taking actions and a leap of faith.

i used to see making food as a very mechanical process: this much this and this much that, complete this action and then do that. 

however, it is actually not mechanical at all. it is actually extremely creative, and like all creative activities, it invites a lot of play, and play by definition means trying to do something untried for fun and delight. 

the cake was very rich, so, for the first time, i tried to pair chocolate cake with a more refreshing green tea ( i have had chocolate with matcha tea before, but not with regular green tea.) and it tasted really amazing.

i believe that limitations are conducive to creativity, and this experience is just an example of that.

i believe that often, too much availability and choice of resources will inhibit our creativity as it will delay our decision making, and that a smaller, confined number of choices will propel the decision making process and taking actions towards a creation.

even though a lot of what would be our “normal life” is limited now to staying at home as much as possible, this time can be a very creative one full of love and play, of appreciation for what we have, of confronting the self and our old ways, of reflection, and of coziness.

original recipe is from here.