The kind of satisfied tired that you get from laughing a lot and putting some heart into a project that turned out better than you thought it would.

I’m talking about today’s adventure which was the successful launch of the First Annual Dumpling Making Party!

So as a child, my mom used to gather up her friends and family around new years and we’d make dozens upon dozens of mandoo.   We’d make them, cook them, bag them, and pack them up to give to friends and other loved ones. It was tradition we did nearly every year and it was always one where I felt very close to my mother by listening to her chat with her friends as I helped out in whatever way I could.

I was not talented at folding the dumplings so I was usually put to the task of chopping vegetables or cleaning up, preparing and serving fruit, or fetching drinks.

It’s been nearly two decades since I made dumplings with my mom, nearly 19 years since she passed away. But now that I’m a mom, I’m eager to start traditions that Amelia will hopefully recall fondly when she’s older and I’m eager to have her make a mess with me in the kitchen when she’s able.

She’s still not quite 2 yet so more trouble underfoot than helpful but I figure I have about 3 years as a window to perfect my dumpling making skills before she will have any solid memories of their fail-ness or awesomeness.

Last week I ordered a pasta machine.  While wholly unnecessary in the bay area where there are dozens and dozens of Asian markets where you can buy dumpling wrappers, I still felt the urge to try out rolling some of my own.

Imperia 150

It wasn’t until the machine arrived that I recognized the box and was overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia.

This was the same machine that my mother used to roll out her mandoo skins when we were younger!  She would let me use the round top of her metal tea kettle to cut beautiful and perfectly round circles to make the mandoo skins.

Earlier in the week I did a trial run of making some mandoo skins and today’s attempt at making them turned out lovely.  While labour intensive and time inefficient it was still fun to roll the crank out, and handle the dough.

Mandoo Skins Recipe

* 1 egg
* 1/3 cup water (Hot)
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix together, let rest for 25 minutes in plastic wrap and then portion out with extra flour and roll out. Depending on wrapper thickness, milage will vary on how many you get out from this recipe.

I wound up also buying 4 packages of pre-made skins because, well, frankly, to do them all by hand would have been a little dumb.

I also made up two sets of mandoo guts.

Recipe for Vegetarian Mandoo

1 1/2 Package of Firm Tofu
1 Cup fine chopped shiitake mushrooms finely chopped
1 1/2 Cup sauteed onions
3 teaspoons chopped garlic
1/2 cup chopped, sauteed and squeezed out moisture cabbage
1/2 cup chopped, sauteed and squeezed out moisture carrots
1/2 cup hopped green onions
Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil
2 Teaspoons Ginger powder

2 Teaspoons Garlic Powder
Salt
Pepper

Recipe for Meaty Mandoo

Package of Silken Tofu
1/2 Cup fine chopped shiitake mushrooms finely chopped
1 1/2 Cup sauteed onions
3 teaspoons chopped garlic
1/2 cup chopped, sauteed and squeezed out moisture cabbage
1/2 cup chopped, sauteed and squeezed out moisture carrots
1/2 cup hopped green onions
2 Cups Ground Beef
2 Cups Ground Pork
1/2 Cup cellophane noodles cooked, drained, and chopped
Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil
2 Teaspoons Ginger Powder
2 Teaspoons Garlic Powder
Salt
Pepper

A dozen or so friends stopped by to make and eat the dumplings.

Dumpling making sweatshop.

Meaty Dumpling Assembled.

Veggie Dumplings assembled.

Jonathon’s very pretty Fish dumplings that were the prettiest dumplings to eat.

Ernie proving he’s not a bad Chinese person because hey, he can cook dumplings!

Some final product before they were devoured.

Frankly most of them were ugly but they were all delicious! The meaty mandoo came out tasting a lot like how I remembered my Mom’s tasted. And most importantly it was fun and combined three of my new years resolutions into one project.  To be social more with my friends, to cook more, and to be a good mom. Oh! And I’m blogging this.  I guess that makes four then.

I am so full now. But full of more than dumplings. I’m full of happy.

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LapPOP! A blog showcase as part of APATURE!

Sunday September 21, 2008 from 12:30pm – 3:00pm

Theater Rhinoceros

2926 16th St
San Francisco, California 94103

Website: http://www.locusarts.org

Price: $8

LapPOP! – a night of performance, readings, film and whatnot from notable APA bloggers and artists.
An intersection between geekery, personal expression, and pop culture.

Guest MC & Curator of Lap-POP! is Min Jung Kim of www.minjungkim.com

Featured Performers
Eric Nakagawa Co-Founder http://www.icanhascheezburger.com
Kari Unebasami Co-Founder http://www.icanhascheezburger.com
Ernie Hsiung, Writer http://www.littleyellowdifferent.com
Dino Ignacio, Artist http://www.dinoignacio.com
Annie Koh Writer http://www.undisclosedassociation.org
Hasan Minhaj, Comedian http://www.hasanminhaj.com

Bios:
Ernie Hsiung – http://www.8asians.com http://www.littleyellowdifferent.com
Ernie Hsiung started out as a humor columnist for Asian-American Internet Webzine IIStix.com while a Computer Science and Engineering major at UC Davis. Since then, he blogs at his personal website, littleyellowdifferent.com, where he was nominated for a SXSW Web Award in 2001 and has won seven Weblog Awards (Bloggies) including Weblog of the Year, most humorous weblog and best GLBT weblog, been in a bunch of magazines, and hot-linked by Margaret Cho.  (But that was ages ago.)  He is also the editor of 8Asians.com, a multi-user blog catered to the Asian-American community.

Dino Ignacio – http://www.dinoignacio.com
Dino Ignacio is a multi-media artist specializing in insurgent propaganda. He is responsible for many unAmerican acts. Most notably for the creation of Bert Is Evil. He has worked in print, web, video and broadcast. He is currently working in the gaming industry.

Min Jung Kim – http://www.minjungkim.com
Min Jung Kim is a bay area writer, long time blogger, and humor columnist for anyone else foolish enough to pay her for her rants and musings. She has been a participant in the multiple award winning experiment Survivorblog and started her original effluvia of online writing at II Stix as a featured columnist and then her own column for KoreAm Journal. She has never won a bloggie award but she’s won two anti-bloggies for being “Most Stalkable” and “Most Frequently Late To Work”.

Annie Koh – http://undisclosedassociation.org
Grew up in the tough streets of the Chicago suburbs, hustling library books and Girl Scout cookies for a living, before falling in with a bad crowd at Kearny Street Workshop and Locus Arts and becoming an arts/nonprofit junkie. Annie now lives in Seoul, translating, editing, organizing Party Benefit & Jam, and pondering her masters thesis on
modern Korean history. Top secret project blog at
undisclosedassociation.org

Hasan Minhaj – http://www.hasanminhaj.com/
Hasan Minhaj is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actor based in San Francisco, CA. He has performed at the Laugh Factory, Cobbs, Punchline, Improv, UCB Theater, and countless other venues. In 2004 he won Mr. India California, and went on to Mr. India America 2005 winning Mr. India West Coast. In the fall of 2006 he was a founding member of Gridiron Gang, UC Davis’ first standup comedy/sketch trio. He has recently been featured as an effinfunny.com ‘Comic to Watch’. He was a featured finalist in NBC’s Standup for Diversity, the nationwide search for the funniest comics of diverse backgrounds.

Eric Nakagawa – http://www.ericnakagawa.com/ http://www.ftwrnd.com
Eric Nakagawa is the co-founder of I Can Has Cheezburger? He is part of FTW R&D, an experimental internet company focused on building fun, collaborative websites and social communities that help participants have fun, feel good, and accomplish dreams.

Kari Unebasami – http://www.lulzftw.com http://www.ftwrnd.com
Kari Unebasami is an internet enthusiast and entrepreneur living and working in Honolulu. She is the co-founder of the lolcat megasite I Can Has Cheezburger? and is currently part of FTW R&D, a company trying to make The Internets a better place. She does not own a cat.

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every second I become more warm and receptive to

the simple joys

that come from being completely loved

and loving completely.

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It was fun; looking forwards to checking out more films at the festival…

The online listing of the entire program are available before you figure out which theatre to park your ass at all day.

The Kabuki Theatre is totally my choice.
How excited am I to spend about 30 hours sitting on my ass.

I mean, seriously!

There are a number of films that I’m going to be doing my best to cover during the film festival. They are listed below and if you’re interested in syncing it up to your ical, google calendar, or whatnot, I’ve listed my movie choices from the Kabuki theater up and subscribable on Upcoming.org and you can go ahead and sync it up or add your own film selections/options yon there.

All About Love
A dreamy doctor falls for the transplant recipient of his dead wife’s heart. Happens all the time, of course, but rarely with such stylistic panache or lovelorn romanticism as in this delirious Hong Kong hit that doubles the trouble and drowns in tears.

Al Franken: God Spoke
Documentary veterans Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob catch liberal political satirist Al Franken in frenzied action as he races around the country on his 2004 book tour for the bestselling Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.

Adam’s Apples
A pitch-black comedy/religious parable in which a truculent neo-Nazi ex-convict and a dementedly upbeat country priest square off amid Old Testament plagues centered on a parish apple tree.

Bashing
A controversial, fictionalized account of a young woman whose kidnapping and release in the Middle East has made her a town pariah back at home. Inspired by the experiences of several Japanese aid workers held hostage in Iraq in 2004.

Belle De Jour
In this subversive erotic fantasy cowritten by Jean-Claude Carrière and Buñuel, Catherine Deneuve plays a frigid housewife who indulges her masochistic desires by working in a Paris brothel. However, nothing is quite as it seems…

The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros
A gay pre-teen in a Manila slum causes his family of petty criminals grief when he falls in love with the handsome cop next door. This first feature transcends its indie low budget with its humor, gritty drama and charm.

The Bridge
The Bridge is a moving and unsettling exploration of the mythic beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge, the most popular suicide destination in the world, and the unfortunate souls drawn by its siren call.

Cock Byte: Masters of Machinima
Machine animation geniuses Rooster Teeth Productions, creators of the wildly popular online episodic parodies Red vs Blue and The Strangerhood, appear in person to present their greatest hits and new work, all made using the 3D graphics engines from videogames.

Domestic Dramas
This program of narrative shorts conveys the humor and tragedy that make up the most common spheres of our existence and the upheaval that results when the things we most desire refuse to come to fruition or are achieved in unexpected ways. Titles include The Light, Remain Upright!!, The Pretty Boy Project, Kitchen, Five Minutes, Mr. Welles, Love at 4 pm, and Dazed.

Drawing Lines
A dazzling collection of animated shorts guaranteed to stimulate the senses, fire up the imagination and push the boundaries of the genre. Home Delivery, The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, 2/14, Never Live Above a Psychic, Luukkaankangas: Updated, Revisited, A Room Nearby, At the Quinte Hotel, Cosmetic Emergency, and Tales of Mere Existence.

Executive Koala
A dutiful employee with a giant koala head must contend with complex office politics while worrying that he may be responsible for his girlfriend’s death in this unforgettable genre hybrid from Japan’s leading director of meatball, off-the-wall comedies.

Friends—Lost And Found
Friends come in all shapes and sizes: orphans, Goth girls, even insects—but everyone has them and will do almost anything for them. Join us for this array of shorts selected to appeal to both young and old—and bring a friend. Recommended for ages seven and up. Titles include A Bag of Sweets, Rubber Soles, Roberto the Insect Architect, Cake, Sirah, Kylie Goldstein, All American, Emelia—The Five Year Old Goth Girl and Hide & Seek.

The Glamorous Life Of Sachiko Hanai
In this riotous amalgam of political satire, apocalyptic comedy and steamy erotica, an escort specializing in teacher-student scenarios acquires a mysterious cylinder that could cause nuclear havoc. A fervid example of the Japanese pinku eiga genre, for mature audiences only.

Gubra
This alternately comic and sad meditation on forgiveness follows the fortunes of several families, including Orked and her affluent Malay parents and the working-class Chinese family of Orked’s lost love, Jason, featured in director Ahmad’s previous film Sepet (SFIFF 2005).

The House Of Himiko
At a seaside rest home for gay men, a young woman confronts the father who once abandoned her to become proprietor of a transvestite bar. An offbeat comedy that offers a rare look at Japan’s older gay community.

Iraq in Fragments
Three tales from the new Iraq, from Sunni to Shiite to Kurd. Paying as much attention to color, light and landscape as to politics, this Sundance award-winner is like nothing we have ever seen or heard about Iraq before.

Jonestown: The Life And Death Of Peoples Temple
This chilling documentary explores the stunning rise and fall of Peoples Temple and its charismatic leader Jim Jones, who founded Jonestown in Guyana, South America, where more than 900 of his followers died in a mass “suicide” in 1978.

Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey
An intelligent, humorous and affectionate documentary about heavy metal music, its myriad forms and rabid fans. Featuring some of the genres most noted heroes, Metal attempts to dispel its stigma as the bastard stepchild of the airwaves.

Perpetual Motion
In this wry examination of adultery and history, four women meet on the eve of Chinese New Year for some mah-jongg and reminiscence, while the hostess hopes to determine which of her guests is having an affair with her husband.

Play
Heartbroken Tristán and isolated Cristina, two strangers, wander the streets of Santiago looking for love. This urban fairy tale is a lively, witty, atmospheric film about the human need to connect in the postmodern world.

A Prairie Home Companion
Garrison Keillor’s beloved radio show A Prairie Home Companion becomes a musical-comedy ensemble piece starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Lily Tomlin, Virginia Madsen, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly and Lindsay Lohan.

Princess Raccoon
“We are all raccoons!” Glory in the spectacular design and exuberant wackiness (plus the stunning Ziyi Zhang as the Princess) of this madcap anything-goes pop opera by Japan’s premiere film trickster.

Sa-Kwa
A deeply rewarding, delicately observant portrait of a modern young woman’s search for happiness and love, featuring an intensely physical performance by South Korea’s finest actress, Moon So-Ri.

Viva Cuba
Eleven-year-old Malú runs away from home with her best friend Jorgito on a quest to find her father in this charming, fairytale-like story that was Cuba’s candidate for the Oscars.

You Are My Sunshine
A farm worker’s ardor for a prostitute pays off when she falls in love with him, but their bliss may be short-lived when she is diagnosed with HIV in this touching, mildly erotic blend of melodrama and romantic comedy.

RSVP here

http://upcoming.org/event/65353/

And details to promote the event if you like are here.
http://locusarts.org/calendar.html?date=15+3+2006

Thanks!

Min Jung

******
Lap-POP! 2.0 – OMFG IRL STFU LOL
Presenting a night of performance & readings & photography & crafts from notable APA bloggers and artists. Lap-POP! is an intersection between geekery, personal expression, and pop culture. Wifi a plenty. BYOG = Bring Your Own Geekery. (laptop,digital camera, camphones,etc etc)

Guest MC & Curator of Lap-POP! is Min Jung Kim

Visual/Showcase Artists Curated by Courtney Patubo

Apr 15, 2006 8:00pm
SPACE180 – 180 Capp Street, 3rd Floor (@17th Street), San Francisco
Admission: $7-10 sliding scale
* Doors Open at 7:30pm. Show at 8!

Performing Artists
Kevin Cheng http://www.kevnull.com
Michael Hurt http://metropolitician.blogs.com/
Nicole Lee, http://www.neekole.com
Gerard Reyes, http://www.Gerard-Reyes.com
Paolo Sambrano, http://www.subversiveirony.com

Visual/Showcase Artists
Claudine Co, http://www.winterjade.com
Robert Kranzke, http://www.cecilseaside.livejournal.com?
Winona Tong, http://www.winonatong.com

* Note * Flying Spaghetti Monster items available for sale to support Locus Arts!

Musical Performance
Locus Regular and Blogger, Goh Nakamura, www.gohnakamura.com

LOCUS – Space 180, 180 Capp Street, San Francisco, CA 94110

http://www.locusarts.org

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