our anarchical day

Rachael and I went to the anarchist bookfair yesterday morning, and had a very nice time. Rachael (pictured above in the anarchist bathroom) got a bunch of Mumia fashion accessories, and anti-nonviolence and anti-hipster literature (and an anarchist planner, which is cuter than her UW one), and I got this Wobblie yo-yo:



I though I would have plenty of time after the bookfair to fix hom baos and tripe, but my lack of organization got the better of me. I went home to gather my equipment so that Annie could take me and all my things to her house to cook. I had cleverly made a list of everything I needed, so I could get it all bagged up in a hurry.



I'd done a big shopping the day before, but hadn't bought tree ears* or chile-garlic paste as I thought I already had them (I didn't). They were too expensive at the Asian store in the Market, so I decided to have Annie take me by the Viet Wah on the way back to her house. We had to stop to visit Dakki at the hospital and get her keys so we could move her car.



Once we got to Annie's I realised that I'd forgotten to bring dried black mushrooms (actually, I thought she'd have some but she didn't). We went back to my house for those. Then Annie remembered that there were some movies in for her at the library that she had to pick up before they went away. I was frantically cooking, so didn't go with her. While she was gone I discovered that she didn't have any dried chiles de arbol, a crucial ingredient in my bok choy recipe, so I called her up to tell her to get some at the Red Apple on her way home. Her phone never rang, so we had to go back out to get some from my house. I finally had all my ingredients and could cook in earnest.



The dinner was a success. Julie hurt her mouth eating a chile de arbol on my behalf after Rachael dared me to, and the hot and sour soup was too salt and not very sour, but the hom baos were my best ever! The new dough recipe was a real improvement. It was easy to roll out really thin so as to make nice pleats, none of them came unstuck as they steamed, and they were really light and fluffy.



I remembered my camera but left it in my knitting bag, so all these pictures were taken with my phone: that's my excuse for their poor quality....

*Tree ears are called 'cat ears' in Vietnamese, and 'tree jellyfish' in Japanese.