bias

This sort of counts as a salad...but overall I'm not doing very well on that goal. It's a double whammy of me not liking most vegetables raw, and that a lot of salad ingredients (ahem, herbs!) are quite perishable. So I eat a lot of pseudo-salads 😂

warm, spanish style bean salad via Serious Eats

Fun fact, this recipe has languished in my bookmarks for at least...3 years? Let me pay myself on the back for finally making it. Now to stare at the countless other bookmarked recipes that's yet to share the same fate...

P.S. Serious Eat's podcast recently featured Jason Wang of Xi'An Famous Food!! I enjoyed the episode a lot as it focused on the Chinese-immigrant experience. Part 1 & Part 2

19.04 Monthly Review

Let's talk about budgeting :D

I've never imposed a formal budget on myself. Primarily because I never had steady income while studying. During PEY, I had a savings goal which is to pay all of my forth year expenses, but no structural beyond that. Overall it's worked well so far.

I do want to create a more formal, as in more structured, budget now that I'm working full time and have a variety of end-uses for the money that I earn. Currently I'm tracking most of my expenses (minus travel and work) and have come up with a framework based on 3 months of data.

End uses:

• Retirement savings
• Mortgage downpayment savings
• Rent
• Food
• Socializing
• Clothing
• Other appearance related things (skincare, makeup, hair)
• Household consumables
• Household non-consumables (eg. furniture, kitchen gear)
• Travel / hobby purchases savings
• ???

One thing that doesn't work for me is having everything in monthly increments. I get that this is common advice since most expenses get paid monthly, but other spending categories are more volatile and it seems too contrived to fit them into monthly increments. Prime example of this is clothing spending for me. During the months that I buy clothing items, it very much throws off my budget: currently I have a rough $500 monthly spending limit, and in February I got my Jensens for $280, which are up 56%. Example #2 is travel, which isn't even part of that $500. Although I plan my travels down to minute details (to the point of looking up the menu of restaurants that I'm interested in and estimating my meal costs), I don't set a limit for how much the trip will cost. I don't advocate for this approach in general, but it works well for me. All this rambling is to say that I categorize my expenses into different timescales. I also set fixed amounts for things and percentage amounts for other things. All in all, a messy way to do things, but I'll take that over contrived.

Monthly expenses:

• Rent (fixed - max 1.5k, or I go live at home...)
• Groceries & eating out (fixed, right now it's $200, but I suspect it'll be higher back in Toronto)
• Socializing expenses (fixed)
• Savings for mortgage downpayment (% - 30 to 45)
• Savings for retirement (% - goal is 6% RRSP and 10% TSFA)

Annual expenses:

• Clothing (fixed)
• Skincare / makeup / hair (fixed - $800? based on some itemized guesses)

All the remaining non-accounted for end uses...I won't set a limit for. Whatever money I have leftover will be used for those. I've found out that I don't actually have the enthusiasm to fully optimize my finances, so this is my 20% effort for 80% results. 

...

In other resolutions news:

• I was about to fit all of my April non-organic trash (and recyclables sadly) into the bin! The biggest offenders (by volume) is food containers, especially take-out containers. I don't exactly want to bring my own tupperware to restaurants, so here's hoping some legislation will require all take-out containers to be compostable...or reusable like my beloved deli tubs.
• Still on track for my clothing goals: 5/10 new purchases, none fast fashion (well the scarf, fine), and recording wear counts
• My hair is much improved, I now know to focus on hydration since my hair is coarse and thick. Jeff said that the difference is quite drastic.
• Did actually catch up with a bunch of friends in April, although have not been following my guidelines.
• Revising my professional credibility goal to just studying for my law & ethics exam in the latter half of the year
• Been to a couple of networking events, feels awkward af but was enjoyable as well. 

cojita

I made quesadillas for the first time!
Very convenient as a weeknight dinner. The fillings can be made ahead, the tortilla can be stashed in the freezer, and it takes at most 10mins (or 15 if you fry an egg as well) to have food in your mouth.

zucchini & corn / spinach & black bean both via Serious Eats

egg

I've not posted about tea for a while. It's simply because I have no kettle in Houston and Atlanta tap water tastes very bad (and the brewed tea tastes even worse). At least my Houston office has a dedicated tap (off the coffee brewer) for boiling water so that my office tea isn't ruined by leftover coffee either. Been going through the yiwu cake I brought back from Chengdu at a good rate. It's a shame that I still haven't tried Floating Leaves triple roasted dongding with relatively amazing Toronto tap water.

I interrupt the lack of tea programming with this tea wheel by Kyarazen (please click through, I feel bad if I upload it here instead).

It stands out for two reasons:

1. Terminology is like a cross between tea and fragrance...because he dabbles in both.
2. Functions as a chinese-english dictionary for tea and fragrance. My mind was literally blown by 鲜 = umami. Who the fuck translated umami as savoury in English is waaaaaay off (I did double check the definition of savoury, which google roughly puts as not sweet). 

This is all for now. 

I miss my teapots :( 

harvest

NYT also did a special feature on food & sustainability ^^

Main article
Five cuisines that are more sustainable
Seaweed!

My take-away is to learn to cook mollusks. I wasn't really into them aside from scallops, and still can't say with enthusiasm that I like them, but they do grow on me each time I eat them (like at Exmouth).

yeux

Today's post is a continuation of what I've learned about my perfume preferences. Now I get to conceptualize and develop a framework (are those two actions redundant?) my "fragrance wardrobe" (don't really like the term, but it's accurate).

Some guiding principles (or questions, rather)

• Arbitrary categorization: by season? by outdoor temperature? by occasion / activity?
• Is sampling a never ending process? Maybe the end is when I lose interest in this hobby. Maybe I'll know with good enough certainty that I've found the ultimate X scent with more experience
• How many full bottles is too many? What's the limit for analysis paralysis? Do I set a hard number for my entire collection or per category?
• Acquisition method: do I buy from in-store where I can befriend the SA? do I try to find the best deal online?
• Display: how to show off the pretty bottles (which is the only reason why I'm going to pay the price for full bottles that I'll likely never finish instead of being rational and buying decants) while minimizing the amount of time I spent wiping off dust?

So far the wardrobe consists / will consists of:

• Penhaligon lord george (cooler weather / work)
• Arquiste fleur de louis (warm weather / work)
• Parterre a tribute to edith (jammy rose)
• Clinique aromatics elixir (warm weather / work)
• Grossmith hasu no hana (warm weather)

"soon" to be in my hands

Current answers to aforementioned questions:

Creating seasonal wardrobes make sense, since the weather does influence the performance of a perfume and more importantly my preference. Will try a S/S and F/W categorization for now, with a cap of 9 bottles in each. The waterfall of purchasing options is guided by availability, and go from discount sites > in-store > online > travelling to other countries (oh I will do this, in fact I'm definitely waiting on visiting London to get Parterre and Grossmith, getting that VAT deduction will be very helpful). I do want a mirrored tray to display my bottles in, not completely set on it tho, maybe just a clear acrylic tray for now. 

nez

1.5 month and 5 sets of various samples later, I've learned some things about my fragrance preferences.

Vetiver
I don't think vetiver centric fragrances are something I would want to wear. I do still very much like this note in a composition, but was not immediately smitten with either Tom Ford's Grey Vetiver or Guerlain's Vetiver (or Commodity's Vetiver) when I tried them. Will give Guerlain's another go on the skin, and will get a sample of Able's White Vetiver, but moving forward will not go out of my way to try vetiver focused scents.

Citrus
I almost always get a cleaning product association with scents that have citrus lasting past the very opening. The only fragrance that this did not happen with is Le Labo's Bergamote 22, and I don't love it enough to consider it full bottle worthy (though Rui does love it).

Aromatic / Herbal
This is my preferred dominate note for hot weather scents. Feels super refreshing while having more complexity than a citrus focused scent, and also tend to last longer.

Rose
My bae, one of two soliflore that I actively seek out. I like fresh roses, jammy roses, spicy roses and possibly oud-y roses (only data point is Penhaligon's Sohan so far). So far I've found full bottle worthy of both a fresh (Penhaligon's Savoy Steam) and a jammy rose (Parterre A Tribute to Edith) already. Excited to try Amouage's roses for the spice and oud variants.

Iris
The powdery-ness of Iris is very comforting to me. So far I haven't found an iris centric or soliflore that I love, and surprisingly have not come across l'infusion d'iris at any duty free shops. My high hopes for Serge Luten Iris Silver Mist and Van Cleef Bois d'Iris were both ruined by their amber notes. The search continues.

Floral Mix
I initially dismissed florals, due to a mix of thinking it was headache inducing and also faint memories of overpowering jasmine scents (from what I have no clue, I've retried my Guerlain jasmine Aqua Allegoria and it was fine). It took Arquiste Fleur de Louis to completely change my mind. This is my preferred S/S work scent (with Penhaligon's Lord George for F/W). I do want to try more floral mixes, but the desire is somewhat subdued by how much I like Fleur de Louis.

Wood
I do like wood, but less than I thought I would. I thought a good summer fragrance would be a cold, forest-y fragrances (eg. Aesop Hwyl), but just don't feel as much affinity for it. Possibly because they would promise a moss scent, which I'm drawn to from the exquisite temples in Kyoto, but I never smell the moss (do I even know how moss smells like? Do they actually have a smell or is this another one of those conceptual notes?) Out of the individual woods, I can only reliably identify sandalwood, and have a vague impression of what agarwood and gaiac wood is like.

Tea
This is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for me haha. Well sort of. I'm always tempted to try tea scents, and I typically like them, but they never measure up to the aroma of my actual teas, especially the deliciously floral or fruity oolongs.

Leather
I like soft leather / suede as a supporting note in some compositions, but am not a fan of harder or prominent leather scents.

Amber / Resin
This is a definite hate for me. I will actively avoid any fragrance that has a prominent amber note, unless it's super expertly blended into a base that features other heavy scents. As they say in detailing for seismic, it's all about proportioning to achieve the desired performance. Myrrh is about the only resin that I feel positively about, while frankincense I think I'm neutral on (too few data points, will know after Amouage samples).

Smoke / Incense
I don't really like smoke but I'm slightly positive on incense. It's tricky because the smell of incense to me is how Chinese / Buddhist incense smells like (not sure which notes they are, likely wood-y ones), but most perfumes described as incense references the Christian incense smell (resin-y), which I'm ambivalent to dislike on.

Sweet
Stay away, stay far away. Did not like and still do not like, but at least it's not nauseating like amber.

Musk
Having gone through the musk collection from Sylvaine Delacourte, I'd say I'm ambivalent to the clean, white musks. Haven't smelled any dark, animalistic musks, but I doubt it'll be something I like.

Vanilla 
Similarly, having gone though the vanilla collection from Sylvaine Delacourte, I realized that I'm okay with real vanilla. Also I had the chance to smell a real vanilla bean, and the scent is very different than a conceptual vanilla note. The real bean smells very much like rum to me, very spicy and pungent, not cloy or sweet at all. Vanilla is still not a note that I'll look for, but will not turn away from fragrances that use it in a supporting role.

Tonka
This is my preferred alternative to vanilla