Painting

If you have been to my place, you most likely have seen this paiting hanging on the wall in my bedroom. If you are a religious person, you probably know who this person is with just a very quick look at this painting.

But I am not.

I traveled out of Taiwan for the very first time in October 1997. The destination was El Paso, TX. Strange location, eh? Well, it was a business trip. The products that the company sent out to US markets had a serious flaw. We, a group of 4, had to fly to El Paso, where distribution center was located, to facilitate rework process.

For a first timer, 2 months was a long trip being trapped in the middle of the desert without sufficient supply of anything I was familiar with, but the experience was also totally exhilarating. The sky was always blue and beautiful. El Paso was very spread out, so sky was so wide. I was able to see sky totally dark on one side of the horizon and bright on the other, a very refreshing experience for a city boy like myself. Air was warm and dry, so sitting in the sun for lunch was comfortable after a few hours’ hard work. We even went out of town for short trips on weekends. It turned out to be the longest business trip I have ever done as of now, and the chance to be out for the weekend is still unforgettable.

I found this portrait on the way to Carlsbad Cavern National Park. We had a long drive (ok, in our definition, 4 hours’ drive was long), and had to stop for a rest. We looked around the gifts store, and this painting caught my attention.

There were two of them sitting on the floor with dusts all over them. It looked like something that the owner was about to trash or return to vendor. I liked the wood frame, the black cloth, the contrast between the cloth and the paint, and that a few simple strokes were enough to show this person is in great pain. I asked a worker to have a look, and he likes it too, but let me pick my favorite, as these two do not look identical, so I guessed they were both hand painted.

It has been with me ever since, except the 4 years when I lived in California, and I have always placed it in my bedroom, right about the head board.

2 months ago, a friend came to visit. I dutily showed him around the apartment and mentioned how much I liked this painting. He responded courteously with his arts background in the school and said, he had been to Europe and been exposed to lots of arts, art history, and had a good collection of paintings himself. His best guess was that it was a painting of Jesus on the cross. The wide bands on the upper right depicted the cross, and the few strokes on the lower right showed the arm. The technique to paint on cloth is quite hard, and the artist seemed quite competent and confident when he made it. It could be a good collection and it could be worth something.

Something? I think the tag price was about 15 or 16 USD, and because it was so covered with dust, the owner (an older lady) gave me a discount, so I paid around 11 or 12 USD. I love it, so it is not going away, and I want to see it on a daily basis, and it will be on the wall. The question is, this is a painting of Jesus, so I guess it should probably stay somewhere else other than the bedroom, but until I find a better location for it, it stays where it is, for now.

I am so glad that the friend had a chance to come over, and I finally realize what this painting is all about, after so many years.

Corn Chowder

Chowder is not available in regular restaurants here. We get corn soup in steak house. Corn soup is normally creamy corn cooked in broth, starched, placed in the all-you-can-eat section of the steak house. We may always go for pricey restaurants and get a set of meal with a choice of either salad or soup. That would be a nice choice, but definitely not something I’d like to do on a regular basis.

 

I searched on youtube, and found a recipe that I really like. And according to the video, corn chowder is surprisingly easy to make. All ingredients are readily available in grocery store here. I always feel that the starch used in the corn soup here is like a thick makeup on a woman’s face. It tastes good, but the starch makes it harder to actually enjoy the flavor of the corn, and am really happy with this startch-free chowder.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of chopped onion
• 1 cup of diced potato
• 1 tsp of olive oil
• 1 cup of milk
• 0.5 can of creamy corn
• salt and pepper

Heat the pan and saute onion with olive oil until it is golden brown. Put onion and potato in a sauce pan, add half a cup of water, and simmer all the ingredients for 15 minutes until potato is cooked and tender.

Then add creamy corn and milk to the sauce pan. Heat the whole thing until milk is warm enough to taste. Add salt and pepper. Serve with cracker and ice tea.

I used low fat milk, so the chowder is a bit watery. Not bad. The video said half-and-half could be used if creamier soup is desired. Cream is expensive here, as we do not have big dairy industry in Taiwan; however, I’ll get a litre of cream sometime and probably use half a cup of milk and half a cup of cream instead, and see how it turns out. I have to, of course, come up with something else to finish up the cream before it goes bad.

The original recipe also calls for bacon grease to saute the onion and chopped bacons placed on top of the soup. I did without the bacon part, and it turns out just as nice. I love this recipe, and am sure that I’ll use this recipe a lot this winter.