Some readers will be aware that every now and again my friends are lovely to me and they take me out for dinner at places like the China Tang restaurant in the Dorchester, where they make a great salt+pepper squid and steamed sea bass:

Most of the time, I  cook at home and experiment with flavors, textures and different ingredients I’ve sourced from the markets. Nevertheless since some of my friends don’t cook (too busy to) they dine out and they occasionally invite me along, particularly if it’s a special occasion. Now, the whole of October is full of potential special occasions because it’s the month of my birthday; yes, I am…………….a Libran (a Libra-Scorpio cusp to be more exact).

Libra is the same sign as Mahatma Gandhi, Baroness Thatcher, Groucho Marx, John Lennon, William Faulkner, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Oscar Wilde, T.S. Eliot, Rupert Brooke, Arthur Miller, George Gershwin, Guiseppe Verdi, Sting, Luciano Pavarotti, Franz Liszt, Julie Andrews, Le Courbusier, Eleanor Roosevelt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Evil Knieval, Niels Bohr, Alfred Nobel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bob Geldof and two of France’s greatest cinema beauties (Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve) as well as Wales’s most notable recent export, Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Librans are said to be bright, bold, dynamic, charming, conversational, fairly nuanced with relationships and occasionally beautiful with a predisposition to improving the lot of Mankind and/or making wondrous art, music and literature as well as being capable of penetrating scientific discovery and philosophical reasoning. That or we’re just off-the-wall and razor-sharp wits like Marx and Wilde. Our negative traits are said to be vacillating indecision, trying to please others at the expense of self neglect, being critical (nothing we do is ever good enough) and also viewing life through rose-tinted spectacles, i.e. idealistic.

Hmmn, we’re certainly a complex sign!

That’s all before I factor in the Scorpio cusp aspects which are said to be a cool logic and precise reductivism, passion for causes and topics of substance and formidable drive. Plus the negatives which are cutting realism, compulsion towards perfectionism (which compounds the Libran tendency to self criticize) and overbearing presence.

Anyway, ordinarily, I would have either been in China Tang last night or tonight for an early birthday dinner with one of my best friends, GC. This year, though, I’m spending birthday time in Paris and Italy where I’ll be wandering markets and hanging out in my casuals and sneakers.

It’s just as well there’s no dinner at China Tang in the Dorchester this year because apparently……….that’s where George Clooney is staying whilst he’s in London to attend the 2009 London Film Festival:

I was once accidentally out in Chinatown, picking up weekly groceries, during a Clooney red carpet premiere. I had no idea that the block around Leicester Square would be sectioned off at a certain time because I entered Chinatown from a different direction, where there were no warning signs. I went into the store to pick up my usual noodles, seasonings, Oriental soft drinks, seaweed wrappers to make sushi and fried bean curd. Half an hour later and I found out that I couldn’t take my usual shortcut through Leicester Square because hundreds (thousands?) of screaming female fans were camped out in wait for Clooney.

That’s something which completely bypassed me, even as a teenager: no irrational fan adulation for any movie or pop star, no camping out, no hysterical screaming at concerts, no posters of them on my walls either. I had the Periodic Table pinned up, foreign languages grammar, poems, artworks, computer schematics and Star Wars stuff.

I also don’t think I’ve ever paid a full-price movie ticket to watch any film of Clooney, btw. Usually I wait until the film shows at a theater where tickets are at up to 75% discount. I will happily pay full-price to watch Robert Redford in ‘Barefoot in the Park’, Javier Bardem in ‘El Mar Adentro’ and Tony Leung Chiu Wai in ‘Infernal Affairs’, though!

Besides, when you’ve met the Princess Royal when you’re 5, worked directly with Masters of the Universe who control US$ billion portfolios (affecting US$ trillions more) and your genealogy stretches back to the founding members of the Han dynasty — renowned as a great Age of Enlightenment for the Chinese — you’re not likely to be irrationally impressed or phased by anything, are you?

You’re also not going to stand for hours (squashed by others who are twice your height and size, in the freezing cold and schizophrenic London rain for a glimpse of George Clooney’s back) when you already have a friend with those initials who’s a lot more interesting and intelligent, and who bestows on you the generosity of good conversations, hmmn?

Right, no Libra-Scorpio would: it’s illogical.

:*).

A dozen days into my month-long experiment to see how I cope with vegetarianism, I’ve had my first cravings for seafood — particularly fried pomfret. This is all because a Caribbean woman walked past me and she was carrying a package of what smelt like the best fried fish ever and, yes, my nose is sensitive enough to distinguish between pomfret, salmon, snapper and eel, etc. It was definitely pomfret and it had Caribbean jerk seasoning wafting along with it.

*Sigh*, wistfully.

To momentarily quell my suffering, I’m going to make plans here for all the seafood I’m going to enjoy as soon as this self-imposed vegetarian trial is over:

(1.) NOBU — black cod in miso

(2.) CHINA TANG — salt+pepper squid, steamed sea bass

(3.) HAKKASAN — seafood dim sum

(4.) SCOTTS — grilled seafood platter

(5.) J SHEEKEY — steamed crab

Not forgetting going to Billingsgate fish market to buy some giant crabs to make my own specialty: Golden Aroma Chili Crab.

Here’s something interesting I discovered about vegetarianism: there are meat-type substitutes which proxy the taste, smell and texture of beef and pork, but there seems to be no equivalent for seafood or fish! Imagine if there was; there’d be a LOT more Chinese vegetarians. Chinese people can’t bear the thought of vegetarianism mostly for seafood rather than red meat reasons, btw.

Actually, apart from this brief craving, I’ve fared reasonably well. I’ve had no hunger pangs for poultry or red meat. In restaurants I home in on their tofu or eggplant dishes, which tend to be quite bulky and fill me up well.

I’ve also discovered some of the joys of Linda McCartney’s vegetarian range as well as Quorn, including the sausages and lasagne bake. The sausages are essentially made from a mixture of tofu and maize with meat-like flavoring whilst the lasagne is bulked out with aubergines and courgettes in a tomato sauce with béchamel on top. Linda McCartney’s taste much better in both cases.

Last weekend, I bought a proper Thai granite mortar and pestle to do INDUSTRIAL level spice blending and make my vegetarian meals more edible. There’s now an entire range of crushings in my cupboard: Lebanese, Indian, Chinese, Thai and even Syrian Zahter (thyme, sesame seeds, sumaq, cumin, coriander seeds and fennel).

Earlier in the week, I successfully made my first-ever curried bean burgers with a combination of the following beans: flageolet, split green peas, split yellow peas, black turtle beans, haricot beans, brown beans and pinto beans. This was bound together with free-range eggs and some batter mixture I made from plain flour and soya milk. The curry flavoring was that of a Biryani (cumin, cloves, coriander seeds, tumeric, cardamom, bay leaves, ginger, garlic, shallots and cinnamon). I left out the cinnamon because I’m not that keen on it.

Then yesterday I cooked buckwheat and quinoa (pronounced “keen-wah”) for the first time too. Apparently, quinoa’s cultivated in Peru and Bolivia and contains all 8 amino acids, dietary fibre, phosphorus, magnesium and iron. The UN has even designated it a “super crop” and it’s considered to be a healthier and more complete protein than wheat or rice.

Here are some instructions on how to prepare it, including with chicken:

Today I did a spicy tomato tofu stir-fry with bamboo and garlic:

At some point this week I’ll make my own vegetarian Lumpia which is the Malaysian version of the Chinese spring roll. They put different crunchy vegetables inside and serve it with a sweet chili sauce and sometimes some sprinklings of sesame seeds or crushed peanuts.

I also need to see what I can conjure up with these vegetarian staple ingredients

· polenta

· Korean kimchi (salty-sweet preserved cabbage and other vegetables)

· nut roast

It’s interesting to take myself out of my culinary comfort zones. Flavors I’m using have become bigger and fuller. Cooking time has more than halved and the food does feel lighter inside me. Also, a lot less oil is being used and visible in the frying pan. This is because when we cook meats their natural fats and oils are released.

This Christmas I still plan to cook my meat extravaganza:

· spicy braised lamb shank with Italian herbs

· grilled cranberry venison, roasted parsnips and rosemary

· oven-roasted poussin with chili honey glaze and cashew nuts

· Golden Aroma chili crab

However, if I manage to invent an outstanding veggie dish this month I may add it to the repertoire.

I do so LOVE food. It’s a wonder I have a body mass index of about 21 instead of being clinically obese! 18.5 to 25 is considered to be a healthy range, btw. 25-30 is overweight and 30-40 is obese. At my slimmest I’ve had a BMI of 19.2.

Losing weight is not the reason or objective I’m undertaking my trial. It’s actually a test of self-discipline and endurance. It came about because a friend of mine — let’s call him Ed — has been telling us (when we all go out for a meal) that he’s on a vegetarian diet for six weeks under doctor’s instructions. He’s been doing this for about 7 months. The thing is this: I always manage to persuade him, “Oh, go on, it’s only a tiny scallop / prawn / morsel of fish,” and he just cannot resist the temptation so he eats it! He’s yet to complete 6 weeks non-stop of total vegetarianism, LOL.

Meanwhile, I passed my first big test during the week. Someone — let’s call her Sophia — decided to make her version of a vegetable broth. Hmmmn, lovely except when I lifted my spoon I saw peeled prawns so I excused myself from eating any of the soup. She kindly made me a salad instead.

I’m determined to be my disciplined self and resist actual temptations. Cravings are cool and normal. This is all a bit reminiscent of Lent and giving up chocolates for 40 days as a kid!

Last night we had dinner at China Tang in the Dorchester. This time we opted for some classic Cantonese dishes we hadn’t tried before, including:

* stir-fried scallops with vegetables (notably asparagus)

* braised beancurd with vegetables

* beansprout noodles

Plus one of my favorite starters which is salt+pepper squid:

Usually we go straight for their infamous duck and roast pig or steamed fish options and eat these with rice, but we thought we should explore the menu more yesterday.

China Tang is the only Chinese restaurant I’ve been to more than three times which says something about the quality of the food. The flavors tend to be fresh, authentic and more-ish. I’d mark it 8.5 out of 10 so far.

Obviously, few Chinese restaurants will ever be as good as my mother’s homecooking — no one makes spring rolls or fluffy dai bao or steamed sea bass or a whole constellation of culinary delights quite like her — but China Tang is a good place to visit if you do want to have a quality Cantonese meal out with friends and/or it’s a special occasion.

Now, since my father passed away two years’ ago, I’ve tried to be a bit more health-conscious so I asked them to cook everything with a lot less salt. It’s part of my new “LESS SALT, MORE LIFE” philosophy.

Most diners are often self-conscious about asking the kitchen to tweak dishes to suit their taste buds and whilst it would be a complete challenge for any restaurant to please particular customers (like the character Meg Ryan played in ‘When Harry Met Sally’ or people who request gluten-peanut-yeast-dairy-salt-MSG-meat-onion free halal dishes when the restaurant is famous for its gluten-peanut-yeast-dairy-salt-MSG-meat-onion rich dishes…..LOL), asking for less salt is perfectly reasonable because with Chinese dishes the salt balance can really affect how the natural sweetness and tastiness of a dish is brought out. Too much salt and the dish becomes dull with a bitter aftertaste. Too little and it’s bland.

In any case, China Tang was great and cooked everything with virtually no salt and provided us with small dishes of fine sea salt, a Worcester/soy sauce mix, hoisin sauce and two different chili sauces to add as we liked.

I’m being more careful with salt, especially the version hidden in processed foods, because it’s notorious for making our bodies retain water which results in us looking bloated and feeling heavier on our feet which then makes us less physically active. It’s a negative cycle: we feel bloated so we just don’t want to see ourselves in gym gear which means we don’t drag ourselves out to exercise.

Most importantly, salt’s not great for blood pressure or the heart when it’s consumed in excessive quantities. My father had heart disease and high blood pressure compounded with diabetes, so I’m simply being sensible by trying to reduce my salt intake now whilst I’m still young and the reduction can make a genuine positive difference.

Generally speaking, I’m in reasonable shape. Here are a few photos to show that I still look broadly the same as I did when I was younger. The first photo shows me in Rome circa 2000 whilst the second shows me in London now:

Yes that pink cardigan has been with me for over nine years and I still fit into it. This summer I’ll be wearing that hot pink top with flowers and that white skirt too. Only the pointy red shoes have been consigned to the dumpster because one of the heels got caught in a cobblestone and it snapped off. I’m not the type of woman who buys fashion magazines and/or obsesses about copying Celebrity X’s style. I wear what I feel comfortable and feminine in and I don’t have a stylist.

No, if you saw me out and about as per the photos you’d never guess I’ve worked in Strategic Investments for a big bank and know something about technology. Know it to code it and apply it. This gap between how I look and what I can do may explain why people usually (wrongly) assume I’m either an artist or a “lady who lunches and lives off her husband’s earnings”.

The reality is I’ve worked since I was 15 and all the roles I’ve had have been about the application of my smarts, i.e. intellectually complex and challenging ones.

Obviously, in a professional environment I wear either my Bella Freud suit or my pinstripe Enzo Fusco or Burberrys ones. Bella Freud is the great grand-daughter of Sigmund Freud, btw — yes, THAT Sigmund Freud of the Oedipus complex — and her website has a design by Lucian Freud on it:

Apart from the cropping, the photos of me haven’t been airbrushed / stretched / altered in any way to enhance me. I cut out the facial features because over the years I’ve found people focussing on my looks instead of my intelligence to be unproductive since the latter matters more to me.

In addition to my brain, I like my hands which are apparently the classic shape of creatives and pianists (and which do do the dishes, scrub the pans, take the rubbish out and cook the meals) and my ears because they have Buddha lobes which are considered lucky in Chinese culture.

My mother insists I have nice lips since they’re naturally full, plump and a good color which means I don’t need any plastic surgery, collagen injections or to spend money on lipsticks — only some Vaseline for protection against the elements — but actually I care less about my lips than my grasp of languages (Chinese, English, French, Italian and some Spanish and German).

Yes, and probably people do make assumptions about me based on how I look and carry myself.

I simply LOL about it all because my parents never brought me up to believe my looks matter more than my brains, my sense of identity or how I can collaborate with others to make projects/Life better. The way the media and our society focusses on women’s looks instead of our intellectual talents and creative skills does us all a great disservice, imo. How I look and what I wear doesn’t determine whether I can produce the materials I can (strategy presentations, balance sheets, complex newsletters, philosophical constructs, translations into several languages, etc.) and have provided tasters of here on this blog.

On rare occasions, people (particularly men) who want to be spiteful because they feel some sense of insecurity or inadequacy have tried to portray me as being physically ugly — despite having never seen a photo of me in their lives or meeting me. Quite apart from being defamatory and downright untruthful, it is just ungentlemanly. Typically, they’ve done this in response to me showing their arguments up online to be intellectually unsound or them spouting unsubstantiated nonsense. Their way of dealing with this has been to resort to personal attacks instead of objective proofs of the issue. They then try to push and peddle an old untruth: a woman cleverer than them must be ugly or somehow deformed.

Their egos cannot accept that a woman who is reasonably okay looks-wise can reject their view(s) of the world and, by extension, their appeal and masculinity.

I LOL when people like that try to twist realities and objective sense to make it into a “You must be physically ugly if you disagree with me” argument. I don’t have any looks or intelligence insecurities for a good reason. It’s not the way my parents, our family friends or my schooling brought me up.

Those values and sense of confident purpose count a lot more than ignorant spite or trivial spin about someone else’s looks.