Rant 445 / To Be Ahead, You Have To Look Ahead

The Phantom of the Opera finally has a sequel, but judging by the current trend of quality of sequels these days, I'm not exactly bursting with excitement over this news.











So it's confirmed that they are going to sell the famous Hummer brand to an obscure Chinese company. I think this illustrates the situation of the world economy at present - that the US isn't doing well but the Chinese are.

I just wonder how Tengzhong can maintain and make use of this brand, which is known for its off-road terrain vehicles like the Hum-Vee aka Hummer, especially in the Chinese market where this US-military-related name is probably unheard of.

This is made even harder by the fact that Hummers aren't green at all, and now with this solar power fad going on, well, it's weird that they would want it.












This year's PSLE Maths paper is so hard!

"Jim bought some chocolates and gave half of it to Ken. Ken bought some sweets and gave half of it to Jim. Jim ate 12 sweets and Ken ate 18 chocolates. The ratio of Jim’s sweets to chocolates became 1:7 and the ratio of Ken’s sweets to chocolates became 1:4. How many sweets did Ken buy?"

I think you need partial differential equations and complex numbers to solve this. =P

Reading the news and their complaints made me realise I've lost touch with what used to be considered difficult before. I cannot see what is hard about it. Confusing, perhaps, but nothing difficult. Unless confusing is difficult.












Bought a little beef to make jerky. Looks easy enough, just marinate it in Worcestershire sauce for 24 hours, then bake it in an oven at the lowest setting for another half a day with the oven door slightly ajar and I get jerky.

But it was only after I bought about 300g of beef and returned home that I realized it takes 3 pounds (about 1.5kg) of beef to make 16-18 ounces (less than 500g) of jerky.

Oh well, I'm only trying it for the first time.

Also, going to try to bake bread soon. Eating that white crap they call bread kind of ruins the experience. Don't get me wrong, I like bread. It's just that the economy isn't doing well so my family now buys the First Choice brand. To put it simply, it's as tasteless as it is cheap. So bad, it must not be eaten by itself unless you're starving and lost your sense of taste. Hell, even plain flour has a stronger flavour. I'm sure I can make plain bread that taste better than their bread-like product.

That is, as long as my oven doesn't stop working like it did yesterday.

The oven stops heating when it reaches the pre-set temperature, but my oven didn't heat up again after it cooled down. I was trying to bake fish fillets, but it merely browned a few crumbs on the edges after 20 minutes. In the end I had to fry it. =(

I was reluctant to fry it not because it made my food oily, but because I hate washing stuff. With the oven, all I needed to do after baking was to remove the aluminium foil, but after frying I had to wash the pan, the chopsticks and the plate.

And the microwave oven (another option among the instructions on the back of the box) sucks balls when it comes to cooking this sort of food.

Also, before I forget, HEINZ TARTAR SAUCE IS FREAKIN BLAND!












The difference between the successful and not so successful is usually left unsaid. Here, I'm going to describe it. Let me illustrate it with a real example.

I was planning to make beef jerky, so I bought some sliced beef. It came in a small plastic container covered with foil wrap, place neatly in a horizontal manner like they do at steamboats. You know, the usual. I was going to remove the fats, and all recipes advice that I freeze it to make that process easier, so I placed it in the freezer when I got home.

There, I've described the problem. Like some of you I couldn't see it, at least not until I took it out to cut out the fats.

The slices were stuck together because they were frozen, hence I could not cut the fats from the beef. As a result I had to thaw the chunk of meaty ice before processing the meat.

This is the sort of problem that differentiates between the smart and the rest. If I were smart I would have seen it when I bought the beef. Same goes for successful people - they can see the problems before they get to the point where they would encounter them. They don't wait for trouble to come to them, making them appear to have an easier time.

Moral of the story - to be ahead, you have to look ahead.

I bet someone famous has already said this some time in the past.

Anyway I didn't follow any recipe exactly. I just poured quite a bit of Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce into the zip-lock bag, followed by a generous dose of Tabasco sauce and then the beef, about 10 slices of them at the usual size suitable for stir-fry. I expect the jerky to be very salty, a little sour and a little spicy.

Just hope my oven doesn't give up on me now, not when the economy is as bad as it is.












My jerky-to-be reminded my mum of a very different beef jerky made by an old friend. Apparently she cooked the beef in 卤汁 (lu3 zhi1), a type of Chinese gravy. I still don't know what it's called in English, though one dictionary translated 卤 as brine, which isn't anywhere close to what 卤汁 is.

Anyway, she cooked the beef in it before cutting it into slices about a centimetre thick. She then stirred the beef in a hot work to dry it. I can tell that's a very tough job since it must stick to the wok very quickly. After that the beef didn't require much baking since it was mostly dry by then. But before baking, she added Five-Spice powder to the beef, probably to make it less sticky. That must have added more flavour to the jerky too.

I guess that's another type of Chinese beef jerky.














This guy taught the world to make bombs from fertilizer. He's a f*cking terrorist. Also, he's my latest mealtime entertainment.