vickypham.com

I see the light at the end of the tunnel! I’m 33 weeks pregnant today! Rest assured that this be the last time I’m going through this tunnel. Unlike my first pregnancy, this pregnancy has many complications.

On Friday morning I came into the hospital for a routine checkup on my gestational diabetes. Turned out that my fluid levels were low. On top of that, they found out that my baby has restricted growth. Of course, they did factor in my petite size and still came to the conclusion that "Baby Al" is smaller than she should be. I got the hint earlier on when I just wasn’t packing on any more weight.

I was planning on just going in for a quick checkup and then heading out to my company retreat that I have been waiting all year for. I realized that wasn’t possible after the hospital staff started tagging me and showing me to my overnight room.

I’ve been on IV for three days now and boy are my hands and feet swollen! I’m literally turning into the Pillsbury Doughboy. Good news is my baby and I are showing signs of stabilizing so they might release me sometime today if my last test remains positive. If not, I’ll probably be stuck here for a few more days or if baby shows signs of distress, I might have to deliver early. That thought is terrifying since she will be at most 4 lbs if she was to be born now. That means she will remain in Neonatal Intensive Care for some time. Poor baby =(.

The staff is ready for a premature delivery if she happens to come early. They injected me with steroids to quickly mature her lungs so she will come out with a fighting chance to breath on her own. But those darn steroid shots hurt like a mother! They also come with its own complications by worsening my diabetes. Now I also have to take insulin shots so I’m getting pricked constantly. Hopefully everything is all worth it and I can be released very soon.

The staff here at Alta Bates for the most part are great. Some of the nurses and techs are just so caring and loving, and I can certainly tell they really enjoy what they do and really care for their patients. Then there are some people who are obviously here to get a job done. I’ve been wheeled around in a gurney all around the hospital. Some of the techs are so kind to push me down the aisle slowly and graciously go over speed bumps with utmost care to minimize any disturbances on my end. Then there are techs who push me down the aisle as if they are racing, flying over speed bumps as if I am merely a sack of potatoes. There are ultrasound nurses who are so gentle on my belly that it’s enjoyable and therapeutic. Then there are other ultrasound nurses who pushes so hard on my belly that I swear they are trying to kill me and baby.

Sitting around in a hospital for a little bit of time is very boring, let alone three days! Good thing they have good TV channels. I’ve been watching non-stop Food Network shows…and I made my own video of my gurney ride through the hospital:

One of my fondest memories of childhood is running around in our backyard garden. My mom used to grow what we call in Vietnamese Bac Ha, a taro steam leafy vegetable that grew as tall as me. It was incredibly fun walking through a patch of Bach Ha and pretending it was a forest…and undoubtedly, ruining some of the plants in the process. Our family didn’t go to the grocery stores often. Our vegetable-rich diet was nicely supplied by our simple backyard garden. And it was a lot of fun harvesting our bountiful yield.

Needless to say that fondness for a garden continues with me to this day. It is unfortunate that I don’t have much of a green thumb to complement my love for gardening, but with practice and help from an expert, I was surprised to see some good results this year, which I am extremely proud to share.

We have tomatoes, zucchinis and a variety of Vietnamese leafy vegetables growing very strong this year:

Lots of tomatoes! I had to give some away.

Zucchinis

Perilla

Not sure of the name for this plant

Vietnamese coriander

There are also some newly planted items that are beginning to sprout and I am watching them intensely:

These are hopefully chives, and not blade of grass.

Baby spinach perhaps?,

Definitely cilantro

And then there are the sad-looking plants that have become stagnant or have wilted way: eggplants, yellow squash, and my pathetic batches of sorrel or rau chau as known in Vietnamese.

Sorrel

My lemon tree is small and pitiful. I have planted it in the ground for a year and honestly, it hasn’t grown an inch. There are bulbs of lemon on the stems which offers a gleam of hope, but with my luck, it will most likely shrivel up and die.

Pitiful lemon

I bought a jar of capers from Costco. I will be eating capers for the next 10 years. So here’s a simple dish that involves capers that my sister and I made the other night: Chicken Piccata.

What You Will Need:

• 2 large lemons
• 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts; pounded thin
• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 large minced garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 4 tablespoons of capers
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 2 tablespoons minced parsley or cilantro
• Salt, pepper and vegetable oil for frying

What You Will Do:

1. Juice one and a half lemons. Thinly slice up the remaining half.

2. Season the chicken breasts generously with salt and pepper.

3. Place the flour in a shallow dish and lightly flour all of the chicken breasts. Dust off the excess.

4. Heat up a skillet and add in enough vegetable oil to lightly coat the bottom of the skillet.

5. Brown the chicken breasts, about 2 minutes each side (you may have to do this in batches). Chicken may not be cooked thoroughly at this point but don’t worry.

6. Transfer the browned chicken breasts on a plate lined with paper towels.

7. In the same skillet, add the garlic. Saute until fragrant (30 seconds).

8. Add the white wine.

9. Scrap the brown bits from the bottom of the pan.

10. Add the chicken broth and lemon slices, and simmer until the sauce reduces slightly (~1 minute).

11. Add the lemon juice and capers and simmer until the sauce reduces slightly again (~1 minute).

12. Reduce the heat. Swirl in the butter to thicken the sauce.

13. Season with salt and pepper.

14. Stir in the parsley or cilantro.

15. Add chicken breasts to sauce to finish cooking. Let the sauce penetrate through the chicken breasts (~1 minute for each side).

When serving, remember to spoon some of the sauce over the chicken breasts.

I served the chicken piccata with a side of mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach with garlic and olive oil, two other very simple side dishes. And the result? Quick and delish! Enjoy!

My son, husband and I decided to make Eggs Benedict after drooling over it on an episode of MasterChef. I knew it was a simple dish, but thought the hollandaise sauce might be bit tricky, but surprisingly, everything came together quite easily.

Eggs benedict consists of half of a English muffin topped with bacon or ham, a perfectly pouched egg and hollandaise sauce.

They are great when you are looking to impress someone. Throw some flour all over yourself and claim that you spend hours in the kitchen. I’m sure no one will question you when you present a gorgeous platter of eggs benedict. Serve it with a side of fresh-cut colorful fruits and viola! You got yourself a beautiful meal for breakfast or brunch.

Chef Edison in the kitchen

Poached Eggs

• 4 large eggs, each cracked into a small bowl
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 2 tablespoons of distilled white vinegar
• Ground black pepper and salt to taste

1. Fill a skillet nearly to the rim with water
2. Add the salt and vinegar
3. Bring the skillet to a boil
4. Very slowly place the eggs into skillet
5. Cover and remove from heat for about 3 minutes
6. Remove the poached eggs with slotted spoon
7. Season with salt and pepper

Hollandaise Sauce

• 4 eggs yolks
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed juice
• 1/2 cup unsalted melted butter (1 stick)
• Pinch cayenne and salt

1. Vigorously whisk the egg yolks and lemon juice in a stainless steel bowl until the mixture is thickened.

2. Place bowl over a pot containing simmering water but do not let the bowl touch the water.

3. Whisk rapidly and try not to get the eggs too hot. otherwise, you will have scrambled eggs.

4. Slowly drizzle in the melted butter and continue to whisk until sauce is thickened.

5. Remove from heat and whisk in cayenne and salt.

6. If the sauce gets too thick when ready to serve, whisk in a few drops of warm water before serving.

Putting It All Together

1.Toast up your English muffin and pan-fry up your bacon or ham
2. Place a poached egg on top
3. Drizzle hollandaise sauce on top
4. Sprinkle with freshly minced parsley or cilantro (optional)

I have wrote about making your own frappuccino at home to save money without totally sacrificing the same great taste of barista-made coffee. Check out Starbuck Drinks for Half the Price. This post uses the Caffe  D’Vita Mocha Cappuccino instant mix. Recently, I came up with another awesome version for a mocha frap using Vietnamese ice coffee. You get the taste of freshly brewed quality coffee in a refreshing frap (no instant mix here). But most importantly, it’s still a fraction of the cost than the fraps you get at your coffee house.

What You Will Need

• Vietnamese coffee filter. It comes in three parts. The main metallic cylinder, the inside strainer and lid. These coffee filters go on top of an individual glass. We have a couple of these lying around so we can make many servings simultaneously. These are cheap! You can find some online under $5 bucks and high quality ones under $10. 
• Good quality Vietnamese coffee. If you are a picky die-hard coffee drinker, then you might want to consider trying Vietnamese coffee. Vietnamese coffee is stronger and, in my opinion, better tasting than your American versions. We especially like the Trung Nguyen brand.
• Two and a half tablespoons of condensed milk.
• Two heaping scoops of your favorite vanilla ice cream
• One cup of milk
• 10 ice cubes
• Whip cream (optional)

What to Do (Makes Two Servings)

1. Pour the condensed milk into a glass.
2. Make sure the strainer is inside the coffee filter first and then scoop the ground coffee into the filter.
3. Top off the filter with boiling water. Set lid on top.
4. Let sit until the boiling water runs completely.

5. Take the lid off and place it upside down. Remove the filter and place it on top of the lip to collect any residual coffee. Mix together the condensed milk and coffee.
6. Put the condensed milk and coffee mixture into a blender along with the vanilla ice cream, milk and ice cubes. Blend until smooth.
7. Top off with whip cream and enjoy.

Throwing away food is completely wasteful and expensive. I work in Oakland so I see a good amount of homeless people who would appreciate something to eat (…and something to smoke but that’s a different story). I spend a great deal of money on the ingredients that go into my meals, thanks to inflation, and a great deal of time preparing the meals. So when leftovers just go straight into the trash, time and money go along with it. In my household, we always have leftovers in our fridge. Very rarely do we end up throwing them away. Thanks to a few strategies that I employ, most leftovers are no longer left over.

Pack leftovers for a work lunch

Unless you work at an awesome company like Google that feeds you gourmet food everyday, packing leftovers for lunch is the quickest way to get rid of them. You may be completely sick of your leftovers and can’t imagine having it again for tomorrow’s lunch. However, you may not think the same way when you are work and you are starving when lunch time comes around. Also, if you have to get in your car or walk a distance to get lunch at work, it’s a great time saver to have your lunch already packed.

Convert leftovers to a new meal

I’m Asian so white rice is a big part of my diet. We eat rice with some kind of meat and some kind of vegetable. Sometimes there’s not enough meat and vegetable to accompany the rice so I end up having rice left over. Leftover white rice dries out. What do I do with dried out rice? I convert it to fried rice! Surprisingly, dried rice makes the perfect fried rice. Leftover meat? I throw them into my ramen to make a hearty meal. With some creativity, you can trick yourselves and others (those who are too good for leftovers) that you are having a completely different meal while finishing up leftovers.

Make leftovers easily accessible and visibly seen

On a few occasions, I stumbled across leftovers that have been sitting at the back of my fridge for who knows how long. At that point, the only thing to do is to toss the disgusting thing away. From these experiences, I have learned to put the leftovers at the front of the fridge. Whenever hungry people rummage through the fridge, leftovers are the first thing they’ll see. And when people are hungry (hungry kids coming home from school or hungry and tired 9-to-5-ers), they will devour whatever’s in sight and what doesn’t require much work. Leftovers are perfect in these times of weaknesses.

After my son was born, I told myself I will never, ever, ever get pregnant again. I was absolutely miserable. I didn’t even have the morning sickness. However, I was miserable just being so big. I am a very tiny and thin person, so gaining 30+ lbs was a great deal of stress on me. I hated the swollen feet, the waddling and the shortage of energy. My labor was difficult and long, which was all in vain as I ended up needing emergency cesarean. The recovery from the cesarean was long and painful. And when I thought it couldn’t get any worst, my milk came in and that was excruciatingly painful. I wasn’t prepared for it because no one, I mean no one, told me about it! The pain of engorged breasts is nothing I ever experienced. For me, it was much worst than the labor pains. Much, much worst, and I resented ever being a woman.

And here I am…pregnant with my second. Why? Certainly not for selfish reasons because I would prefer not to go through this whole process all over again. It’s mostly for my son. After catching him saying hi to his shadow and probably talking to his shadow that I have yet to witness, I know he desperately needs a sibling. And when he’s an adult, I know he will appreciate having a sibling with whom he can go through life and lean on for comfort.

Already things are a bit different with this pregnancy. One, I am showing much faster which I hear is normal with the second child. This creates a problem when it comes to clothes. All my regular clothes are a bit too tight and my maternity clothes are too big to wear just yet. Two and the most awful, the morning sickness! Correction, the all-day-all-week sickness. I have been feeling like pure crap the past three weeks. I keep eating various foods, popping this and that into my mouth in hopes that it would provide me with some relief, but nothing. No amount of ginger and no amount of crackers I eat have helped me in any way. I also can’t stand the smell of food. I can eat OK, but the smell of food, particularly roasted poultry, is enough to have me gagging.

Things are different with this pregnancy that I hope my labor would be different as well, different for the better. Seven more months to go so pray for me.

I think it’s extremely important to teach kids about financial responsibility at a young age. You wouldn’t think they retain or care for the financial lessons, but surprisingly, they do and hopefully they continue the pattern into adulthood.

One of the financial lessons I like to teach my young nephew is frugality and being a smart shopper. Lecturing never works. Real life examples always prevail over talking and random numbers. And real life examples of what they want always drive the point home more effectively.

So I take him to the supermarket where he helps me identify what is a bargain and what is not. One of the things that we always identify as a bargain is the ice cream. Not that it’s always cheap, but compared to the ice cream truck, it is. For the same price of one ice cream cone from the ice cream man, he can get much more if buying it at the store. He gets to see first hand how much more ice cream he can get if he is smart with his money.

Nowadays, when the ice cream truck comes down the street, does my little nephew come asking for ice cream? Absolutely, but he asks that we go get it from the store instead.

Of course, my frugality lesson is offset by my sister taking the little guy to Starbucks to get a chocolate milk frappuccino with whip cream.

I am a big fan of throwing things away or donating them. I receive cards and little fun gadgets, but after the excitement wears off, which typically is a millisecond, I just toss them away. I appreciate the thought of the gift, but I don’t appreciate the clutter that comes with it. In my house, whatever’s not needed or broken are quickly disposed of. Not only does a clutter-free home save space, but it also saves time. I don’t have the patience and time to look for things.  Whatever’s not easily found within a few minutes, consider the item non-existent. I’ve come up with three categories that distinguish a cluttered item:

1. Single-Purpose Cookingware

Have you ever purchased an apple corer, egg slicer, mini chopper that only fit only small size vegetables? I’m sure we all do. What happens to them after the initial excitement wears off? It sits at the very top of the cupboard where no one can reach, collecting dust. I have gotten smart, and learned to avoid these products while shopping altogether. Anything that sits in the back of my cupboard that hasn’t been used in years, and most of the time, it’s mostly those single-purpose products that I have bought years ago thinking it was the coolest thing ever, are simply tossed.

2. Unworn Clothes

Have you ever complained over and over again that you don’t have any clothes to wear, yet your closet is overflowing with clothes? Well, that’s a sign that you have too many unworn clothes.  Get rid of them by donating them to our local second hand store or charitable organization. Sell them on Ebay or Craigslist for some extra cash. There are many people who would appreciate having clothes to wear versus having them sit in the back of your closet and taking up precise space. By eliminating unwanted clothes, you can really gauge if new clothes are needed or not.

3. Broken-but-I-will-fix-it-later Items

We all have those items that we put aside because it’s broken with the promise of fixing it in the future. However, the future never comes. The same broken item is still sitting somewhere in your house, taking up space. You may have even forgotten all about it. You may have attempted to fix it but found that the replacement cost was almost the cost of a new one, but hoped that you can find another fix for a more reasonable price. Face it. If you haven’t gotten around to fixing it in the last year, then trust me, you won’t miss or need it. Just toss the darn thing away.

I hate crowds; can’t stand them. I want to go in a store, get my errands done quickly and leave without any interruptions. Anything that deters me from that puts me in a really bad mood. Case in point when I was very close to slashing someone tires for trying to steal my parking space. The time that I have is very precious. Yes, my time is very precious. Not yours. And I hate to spend the little time that I have waiting in ridiculously long lines, looking for parking in a ridiculously crowded lot, and navigating my cart around ridiculously large people who block shopping aisles.

So I’ve been making mental notes each and everything I go out to do my errands. After careful mental note-takings, I’ve come to a remarkable conclusion. Sundays are the absolute WORST day to go out to get your errands done. Then, I kicked myself for not coming up with this conclusion earlier. Of course, Vicky. Everyone and their mothers are home on Sundays so people go out and take care of their business.

So when is the best day to do errands? Fridays. Yes, Fridays, at least for me. When I go to the grocery store on Fridays, it’s like a ghost town. I can reeve up my shopping cart and zoom it down the aisle without hitting a soul. I can let me son wander off without fear of losing sight of him. I don’t need to calculate the time it takes to get to the head of the cashier line since they are all short enough or completely empty. I don’t need to throw piercing stares at people who are eyeing the one and only parking spot. And most importantly, I don’t need to wish for a AK47 to take out people who get in my way.

So why Fridays are so barren? My guess is people are exhausted from a full work week so they are treating themselves out to dinners, movies, and other fun venues. The last thing people want to do on Fridays is errands. Post offices, grocery stores, dry cleaners, etc are very empty, while restaurants, retail stores, and clubs are crowded.

This predictable pattern of human behavior makes life so much easier for me. Go on and continue to forlic on Fridays, my little minions. Go ahead and  frolic.