The slow cooker can work miracles !

I promise a better soup recipe and here it is. Equipment needed...the slow cooker, again.

Mogua pork rib soup
Ingredients:
-mogua*, a.k.a hairy gourd, fuzzy gourd, hairy cucumber (Peel off skin, and wash, seeded if you prefer), cut into chunky pieces
- ~1lb pork ribs
-warm water

Method:
-blanch the pork rib
-add blanched pork rib and mogua pieces in slow cooker
-add warm water to partially "submerge" the ribs and mogua
-put slow cooker to HIGH (~45mins), then turned to LOW (1-2hr)
-pinch or pinches of salt, to taste

Ready to serve:

Naturally sweet and tasty. Much much much better soup than the watercress soup. The natural juices of the mogua and pork ribs just work themselves out simmering in the slow cooker. I still can't believe I cooked this. Will definitely have this again if I see mogua in the local supermarket and feel like having soup again.

*Mogua, in its raw form

Tag: mogua, hairy cucumber, pork rib, soup

Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not

Just the other day, I listened to a Stanford podcast in which the Executive Director of Stanford Technology Ventures Program spoke, on how she shared with her son( just about to graduate) on "What I wish I knew when I was 20". No details into the podcast. Just that one of her top 10 points sets me thinking-"Find an intersection on your interests, skills and market". Well, well, well, easier said than done, right ? It might be easier if we have known that before we turned 20 but becomes more challenging once past 30s.

My interest is FOOD (eating being the main...). I've picked up cooking after moving into the Bay Area and cooking is all on-the-job experimenting. I've never followed strictly to any recipes I've seen in books, magazines or the internet. I just look out for base and secret ingredients and the rest, they're mostly self-creations.

My skills do not limit to engineering, analytical, research, tech./project management...but whatever I could jot down, it still has nothing to do with food ? So help me out now, what is my intersection point ? If I were to find it with the associated market, then I would not be updating my blog right now (would be too busy on my career, and if lucky my own business). Oh yes, the speaker did mention that the intersection point would be your career. Or else working purely on interest would be just a hobby, and wholly on skills is just a job. Agree ? Anyway, it is just a personal opnion thingey, so don't ponder too hard about it. I did not. I just wanted to use this as a preamble to my upcoming postings on some home-cooked food recipes.

I have already missed out taking pictures on my own version of spaghetti aglio olio, spicy baked penne, beef stew, chicken stew,"braised" chicken rice (because I thought I would never need the pix anyway). But I could still share the recipes as far as I could remember the ingredients. Of course, there are those that I have taken pix of and will share the recipes as well.

I REALLY do not have many experiments and recipes. I don't cook as often nowadays because my theory of "efficiency in cooking" does not work for one-person. So, when my hubby is not in town (almost every alternate week), I don't cook.

If you will note in my future postings on my recipes, I actually don't measure the quatities of the ingredients used, thus you will not find cups, tbsp, tsb etc. being used in my recipes. Oh, I'm going to make a disclaimer about taste though ...hahahaha... since I believe taste is really up to the individual. Some like it hot, less sweet and some may like it more salty etc. Plus, I am an amateur. So, my efforts to make my food "tasty" to our liking is based on my own gut feel and judgement.

To start off, these are my soup recipes. Please get your "equipment" ready...the slow cooker, that is. Mine is a 3-litre cooker pot.

Watercress pork rib soup
Ingredients:
-2 bunches watercress (Need to wash thoroughly to get rids of the soil and bugs. Yes, unexpectedly I found many bugs "hiding" in the watercress and decided this is the first and last time I am doing this soup)
- ~1lb pork ribs (Mistakenly used baby pork ribs because it was on-sale in the supermarket. Do stick with the "normal" pork ribs)
-warm water

Method:
-blanch the pork rib (put in boiling water for 5-10 mins)
-add blanched pork rib and washed watercress in slow cooker
-add warm water to partially "submerge" the ribs and watercress (warm so that it takes lesser time for the soup to boil)
-put slow cooker to HIGH (~45mins), then turned to LOW (1-2hr)

Ready to serve:

Outcome: Bitter, rather than sweet. Not the usual watercress soup we have tasted.

"Post mortem", what possibly went wrong:
Probably due to the stems of the watercress that were not removed. Also, did not use red dates that are normally be seen in "commercial" watercress soup.
Check out my mogua pork rib soup in the other postings. A better bet ! That worked but this did not.

Tag: watercress, pork rib, soup

Rule #1

This is not the rule that I live by. For those into regular reading, you would know that this is the title of a book "Rule #1" by Phil Town.

This is a book about simple strategy to investing. Frankly, I'm not someone into financial planning and investing. But this book is really quite reader-friendly, easy to read (font size relatively big) and rather simple to understand. Oops, I cheated because I did not complete the entire book! I just completed 75% of the book within 2 hours, and I thought that was enough for me since I would not be doing any investment in the near future anyway, plus some concepts would already be forgotten by today if I were to read the entire book.

Tag: book

Amusement park by the beach

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Tag: santa cruz, travel

Scars are tattoos with better stories

I have been in several organizations in my working career. Functionally, I've spent some early years in R&D, then later in manufacturing. Though I did not stay long as a technical editor(for an electronics publication) after I left manufacturing, I begin to think sometimes that the editing stint was what brought me to the "matrix" organization. I started to be exposed directly to the many industries and the relevant networks, and this somewhat triggered my interest in the world wide web of information gathering and analysis. Sometime later, when I joined a company whose main thrust is commercialization of technologies, I understood deeper into the world of project management. You may not know it, but project management is actually what organizations are all about. Do not undermine the job of a secretary. A secretary is also a project manager with a different set of resource, goal, metric and execution.

Holistically, the organization is one whole big portfolio, consisting of programs and which in turns splits into many projects. Almost all organizations start with an ideation (vision, mission) that links to culture/structure; goals/metrics; and strategies. Strategies, utlimately, have to be executed (no use talking about strategies, you have to act on it!) and implemented at portfolio-, program- and project- level. Is this not what organizations are about ? Perhaps, one of the main reasons why the organization (I last worked for) failed to retain its staff is due to poor organization, I deduced. We were doing projects constantly, but project management was never well-defined in our working context, and everyone seems to be still in their basic functional division, doing what each of us is best at. I seriously believe that the culture and structure factors have been underestimated. It IS critical. It relates to ideation, goals/metrics and strategy. Take it out.. everything simply collaspe.

I am quite certain big and successful organizations/corporations, have anthropologists or ethnographers planted somewhere...either in human resources, or project teams. Because the world is flat, and it's all about people, people and people. Can anyone tell me if any big organization/ corporation in Singapore has employed an anthropologist or ethnographer ? I think major corporations in the US do. esp. if it intends to go global.

My moving across different industries and organizations sure helps me relate better stories.

Tag: organizations, portfolio, strategy

When potential kicks in, rather than $$$

Everyone (at least in the semiconductor field) knows this is already a done deal. Still, the In-Stat piece on "The High-Tech Deal of the Year: AMD Acquires ATI" sets me thinking deep. This is a case that might not make immediate sense in the financial books of the "buyer" (AMD, this case) since it carries a huge financial risk with the use of US$1.7b in cash and US$2.5b in debt. AMD has justified this cost by indicating that ATI will continue to improve AMD's competitiveness that every 1% of market share will result in US$300m in additional revenue. But this is no where near-term. AMD sure haaaaaates Intel more than Intel haaaaaates AMD. AMD is betting on ATI product portfolios and market presence, esp. in mobile PCs, core-logic chipsets, cellular, (Nintendo and Microsoft) game consoles and digital TVs, to fight its rival, Intel.

Sure, the supply chain that used to revolve around Intel and ATI is now broken. Wonder if Nvidia is really celebrating for the anticipated support by Intel in the market place? How is Intel going to fight back with its platform strategy ? A "disrupted" supply-chain as such, might also cause a backlash to foundries concerned. Before the acquisition, TSMC is the chipset foundry for ATI (ATI is one of TSMC's largest customers). Now, there might be a possibility that ATI chipsets be manufactured in an older AMD fab lines or through AMD's partnership with Chartered Semiconductor. So, this acquisition might even put a big smile on Chartered Semiconductor.

This is exciting. Let's wait and keep this in mind when we see the financials of affected companies/foundries in a few years time (I would say 2 years to evaluate the complete picture again).

Tag: acquisition

3 down, and 3 more to go

It was another full week of classes last week. My favorite sessions were related to culture, power and politics, and financial mastery of projects. The latter was great insight because it was something that I had always wanted to learn more about.
The ones on cultures, power and politics were fun to listen to and understand about because these are hardly heard about in organizations, perhaps due to the sensitivity it brings about. Now, I know why most leaders (except Bill Gates) tend to be attractive and tall. I also know why Southwest Airlines is the only airline that remains profitable for such a long time.

Overall, I found most of the classes very interactive, and enjoyed it, unlike those I attended back in Singapore. Maybe it's topic-related or instructor-related, I do not know exactly.

Tag: stanford, project managment

1st week in Stanford Campus

I've been quiet for a week or so since I do not get internet access in Stanford campus. Oh yes, I've been in classes 8am-5pm Mondays to Fridays since 6 Sept 2006. Even before the classes started, we have received reading materials/case studies as "homework". I could not focus any serious reading at home, though. Perhaps age is really catching up on me or maybe there are just too many distractions at home, such as the TV, refrigerator etc etc.

By the way, the on-campus classes were not as boring as I would have thought. For a moment while I was still at home packing my "school bag" for the next day, I laughed at myself for being too "diligent" in pursuing this. I was just about to get use to enjoying so much free time and now...back to discipline. However, it has not been a bad experience afterall. The class was lively and interactive. Although I did not have a chance to get to know everyone in the class personally, I do get to see faces from many big corporations such as Cisco, Adobe Systems, Oracle, HP...etc.
Though the discussions revolved around things that I have seen before and often in my previous organizations, the messages were definitely delivered across in an insightful way that made easier my own articulation.

Well, I will leave more to be said and summarized when I complete the entire program (who knows when...)

Tag: stanford