A few days ago, I saw this book in the uni library. Before this I've read Art Spiegelman's Maus comics, about his parents' experience during WW2 (apparently An American Tail had a copyright infringement issue with it)so I'd heard of this book too. And...I think it was really good. The story and the illustrations are simple, but it just makes you smile to flip through the book, trying to convince you that it's really a dog bewitched to become a book. The binding has some interactive elements like a fuzzy cover and a dog leash bookmark, so that's part of it's appeal.So...yes, if you see it in your bookshop, open it.

I had something of a mooncake celebration over here with Mandy and Chad. I don't usually celebrate it even in Malaysia, just buy some mooncakes and eat, but I think it's a good opportunity to have a party anyway. They've started selling mooncakes in Chintown, but still quite expensive although I don't think they are as fancy as the ones in Malaysia. Even saw some durian paste mooncakes being sold. But 1 box of 4 being upwards of $25 (RM75), it's not really a student budget dessert.

So here's an excuse to try handmaking some myself. I prepared 2 fillings; red bean and lotus paste, to go with 3 pastries; snow skin (ping pei)which is a non bake type, the common pastry type, and a flaky pastry type (if I'm not mistaken, it's Teochew). No molds of course, so just use our hands and good luck.

The darker ones are the common skin mooncakes, the lighter ones are flaky pastry, a lot like quick puff pastry (should probably have brushed with egg, but I don't have a pastry brush). The filling and dough were all surprisingly crumbly, so it wasn't easy to form the shapes, but who cares as long as it was fun to make, right? The taste was alright, a lot lighter than those sold commercially, but I think that's because I felt too guilty to use the full portion of oil and sugar stated in the recipe(together those would have been more than 2/3 of the mooncake). It might be an improvement because it was much easier to eat.

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And also, I survived Monday classes! 8:30 am until 6:30pm in uni with a 4 hour lunch break in between. Not so bad since I spent my lunch looking at kids' books illustrations in the library and then going to the park to eat and lie down on the grass. Now is the perfect weather to do that.

Over here in the US, they have an interesting grocery shopping alternative, called CSA (community supported agriculture). How it runs is that you pay the farmers first, and they use the advanced money to run their farm. In return, you get what they can harvest from the field, so it's not the same every week. Sometimes there is less and sometimes there is more. Usually the food is local, organic, only what is available in season, and the farms are small and personal.

It sounds kind of fun, if you're tired of iffy food production and not-exactly-honest production principles, this is the way you can actually see where it comes from, most farms have family days where you can visit the farm too. It's nice to see some families subscribe to CSAs to educate their kids about where their food comes from and help them grow up eating healthy whole foods too.

Some people think CSAs are just a hype that will go away, but I think at least it's a little resistance against the over-industrialisation of food production nowadays, if anything it can help show businesses and policy makers the changing wants of the public and that they are starting to become more educated about food safety, environmental issues, and about how food production subsidies streamed in the wrong direction ends up having you to pay up in other ways (healthcare and such).

Here are the websites of 2 of the more popular CSAs around San Francisco, if you want to have a look at how it's done: Terra Firma , Eatwell

So in the end I got a new camera. After wasting 3 weeks, the camera shop found another broken component in my old camera and decided the spare part is too expensive and I might as well buy a new camera, so this is the one I got - a Panasonic DMC FH20. It got quite good reviews online, and I'm pretty impressed with the 8X zoom (all the better to spy people with :D Just joking. Not really.). It's a little heavier than the last one, but not too bad, I guess. Only too bad it didn't come with a cover. I'm using the old Nikon cover for it, which is a little too small, not sure if I should get a proper cover, or maybe a small bag that can serve the purpose, or if the tight fitting cover will do although it does make the camera look like someone who spent too long at a buffet.

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And then we are back to the customary food pictures. I know you miss them. A lot of fun experiments took place when I had no working camera, but here's what I made today.

Eggs benedict with homemade hollandaise sauce and English muffins. Freshly made bread still hot from the pan or oven is always nicer than store bought however new you are to bread making. The texture is nicer, and your own hard work makes everything taste nicer.

Sourdough bread with red sauce. Ok, fine, it's spaghetti sauce.

And one pic I took from my last camera, spring rolls.

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Uni's been on for 2 weeks now and I've only been to 1 class so far, because of Labour's Day and uni not being open yet the Monday before that, so I still feel like I'm in this isolated Summer holiday balloon. Even that 1 class I had was kind of laid back, it was an evening class, no one seemed to be talking to anyone they didn't already know, and the lecturer managed to sort of drug himself with his throat medicine (it made him sleepy)and there was no homework. So I'm wondering whether suddenly everything will become hectic next week?

I'm currently thinking of ideas for my final project, since I'm taking preproduction for it this term. I think I might have a comparatively unique idea, which is to model things that look more like traditional paintings than video-game-ish look, which I think the lecturers are considering as cliche. Not sure how well this idea will work, but I'm doing some research in advance anyway.