The Trials and Tribulations of Turnip Cake

Turnip cake, also known as Law Bak Go in Chinese, is one of many favorite dim sum dishes. I've never had a desire to learn how to make it until my sister-in-law's mother served it almost daily for breakfast over the Xmas holidays in 2011.

How is that even possible? Isn't the novelty of going to dim sum is because you can't whip up those dishes yourself in a timely manner? Turns out Mrs. Chen actually makes the turnip cakes herself and claimed it was very easy. At some point my mom got into the mix and there was a bit of a turnip cake throwdown. Mind you, my mom does not really cook.

My mom steams hers, Mrs. Chen bakes hers, my mom adds ingredients that Mrs. Chen doesn't, my mom reuses the mushroom water for flavor, Mrs. Chen doesn't. To be honest, both are good. So I took what I learned from both of their recipes to come up with mine, which I sucessfully created on January 23, Chinese New Year's Day 2012. I opted to bake mine because I just don't have a steamer of that size. The hardest part of this whole recipe was waiting for the mixture to turn to paste! I was convinced I was doing something wrong, but, here it is. I bring you the Young/Chen Lao Bak Go recipe:

-- One average size daikon (12 inches in length), peeled and shredded
*use a Cuisnart! Saves time and energy
-- One cup dried Shitake mushrooms rehydrated and diced
*save the mushroom water
-- 6 cups of water in total (with mushroom water)
-- 4-5 chinese sausage sliced
-- 1/4 dried shrimp, diced
-- 1 bag of rice flour (1 lb.)

In a large skillet stir fry mushrooms, sausage and dried shrimp until sausage is slightly brown. Then add shredded daikon. Season to taste. Stir until diakon softens.

Using the leftover mushroom water, measure out three cups of mushroom water and regular water and add to skillet.

In separate bowl, add 3 cups of cold water to rice flour and stir until smooth.

Add rice flour mixture to skillet. Keep stirring on low to medium low heat to prevent bottom from burning. Mix until pastelike (approx 20 mins.). Spread mixture into 13 x 9 casserole dish.

Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes. Making sure the top is not browned. Let rest. When ready to serve, Cut out slices to brown sides in a pan.

Enjoy!

My Last Week at ICA

During my last week at ICA (January 9-13) I was fortunate to have someone take me out to lunch every day, which was really nice.

On Wednesday, instead of our regular managers meeting, the managers surprised me with flowers and cake. There was no agenda for that meeting other than to share stories about me and my 8.5 years of work at ICA. Needless to say, there was a lot of crying going on from everyone, but it was really nice and touching.

The rest of the week flew by quickly.

On Friday, my last day, my office door had been decorated and at the end of the day, my co-workers threw me a small get-together at the restaurant bar down the street. They reserved a long table and decorated it with balloons and streamers.

Shortly upon arriving, a party horn was blown and there was a presentation I was not anticipating. The ceramic instructors made these beautiful plates with a map of ICA's campus on it. Each staff member signed their name where their office or studio was. Words cannot describe how completely touched I was. I immediately started to cry and couldn't stop crying pretty much for the rest of the night.

Susie gifted me with a framed 3 Musketeers candy wrapper. We, my two closest friends and former work colleagues Susie and Karin, used to call ourselves the 3 Musketeers - One for all, and all for one. I believe we were the core of the development department and we worked well as a team.

Karin also presented me with a pin of pilot wings. She actually spent her birthday day (that Friday) driving all over L.A. looking for this gift. When we used to have to sit back-to-back in our first "office" space, our big leather office chairs made us look like two pilots in the cockpit of an airplane when we were both facing the same direction. So we dubbed each other co-pilots and that's also how we often worked. It took the both of us to fly some big events and land that thing perfectly.

I also received my very own clipboard that everyone signed. At events, you rarely saw me without one. Now I have my very own. My favorite saying was written by Jennifer Carroll. It says, "No one f@#ks with a woman with a clipboard!" Especially this one! ;)

I cried a lot that night and initially people thought it was because I was sad, but that was not the case. I was crying because I felt so loved. I didn't know what to expect, and I was more than taken aback by everyone's effort and generousity. I will miss them greatly, but I'm also excited for my new journey in life.