Okay, so for some crazy reason the Gravlax salmon is being sold at Ikea again..! It was totally surprising to see loads of them being sold at Ikea, cause I went there just to get some light bulbs and didn’t expect to see the fish at all. This is after like a year of waiting for the fish to come in stock again… I instantly bought 5 packs of them and finished a whole pack the first day (as seen in the pic). So tasty…~~~

Another big happy is that the Kalimba that I bought from Amazon.com arrived. I had to go to Point Roberts to pick it up, but it was well worth the effort (even though I later realized that they sent me the Huge Tracey Treble Kalimba instead of the Alto Kalimba that I ordered) I played with it for a couple hours after getting home, and a bit more the same evening - it really hurted my thumbs…lol However the sound was really nice and almost haunting. It’s hard to tell how nice or not nice a sound is but all I know is that it’s the kind of sound that I really like. Tried to play some simple song, while trying to remember which tine correspond to which musical note - it wasn’t easy at all. I have to wait for my nails to grow back in order to play it properly - you’re supposed to play it with a bit of the thumb flesh and mostly the nails. Holding the instrument on hand gives me a very magical feeling, knowing that it was made in Africa and that the African actually plays on it during rituals and stuff like that. I know I will be playing on it a lot the next couple weeks.

Benny and Janet came over to my place for some snacks and wine last night. I was trying to get the Jackson-Triggs White Merlot (rose) that I really enjoyed at Alice’s place last month, but then liquor store didn’t carry the regular sized bottle. There was this 1.5L version of the same wine, I pondered a little about getting it or not, while this salesperson was like “You’ll drink it up eventually”…lol. So I got this one, and another one that he recommended “Woodbridge / White Zinfandel” from California. We had fresh oyster, gravlax salmon, dessert cakes, and wine of course. The oysters was average, not too bad but wasn’t too impressive, had to eat them with tabasco where usually you can eat them without so that you could get a genuine taste of them. The gravlax was super tasty though. Benny added sesame oil to it which I thought was a great match with the gravlax itself. I’ve home-made gravlax last year too but then it wasn’t tasty at all for some reason (Here’s my post about it) Well maybe I’ll try making it again but I have a feeling that it’ll end up being the same…maybe I’ll just get them off Ikea (these guys) After the gravlax we had dessert cakes (3 different kinds I think) that Janet bought from the Capers market (that I really have to check out later since apparently they sell a lot of high-end food products and I love high-end stuff). They were pretty tasty, like I didn’t know it was a carrot cake until she told me after I finished it (I usually hate carrot cakes 99% of the time).

We played some Wii Fit after the food, and also played Left 4 Dead on Benny’s Alienware laptop (fastest laptop on earth? huge and heavy though). More photos can be found here.

While everyone else was having fun out with their fireworks, we chose to celebrate this special day at the comfort of my house. Benny and Janet came over around 10pm for some late night fun. Janet prepared some really surprisingly tasty ahi tuna salad. If I heard it right it’s got raw ahi tuna, avocado, chopped jalapeno / pepper / green onion, some unknown really spicy sauce (?!?!), and vinegar. She said the tuna is supposed to be “cooked” in the sauce mixture and it was overcooked when she got here, but in fact Benny and I thought it was really delicious. It was too tasty I was busy eating didn’t have a chance to take a picture of it

We played some Wii after, played this “Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz” game which was really fun. I think I played the game once or twice but apparently Janet had played it many times from seeing how pro she was in the game. Benny and I were okay, myself being the weakest of all I guess..

After some appies (gravlax salmon, naan bread with red curry sauce) and some drinks (Cranberry Martini, China White, Pinot Gris wine), we watched Silent Hill (2006) with lights switched off…8-O pretty darn scary IMO with these gross zombies wobbling around… haha… too bad my laptop froze up around 2/3 of the movie

Just had half a bag of this ultra tasty Scandinavian potato chips (sour cream flavor) that I got off Ikea. Named “Original LantChips“, without doubt these are some of the best potato chips I’ve ever had - thick but not too thick, crisp, with a lovely potato taste that isn’t masked by the cooking oil. I think they were made in Sweden as seen from the packaging. Being a huge potato chips fan I couldn’t stop eating until I realized I’ve emptied half of a bag thinking that I should leave some for tomorrow’s enjoyement.

Also got from Ikea were some smoked and gravlax salmon. I got like three packs, just in case I can’t hold my craving for them when they run out! Okay time to enjoy some nice salmon while watching this cool Korean drama “Gung” (or ? in Chinese). I shall do an in-depth review next.

After trying the delicious Swedish gravlax salmon from Ikea, I decided to make my own. Got a piece of salmon fillet from Benny, tried to follow the online receipe, and pray for the success. Here is the receipe:

• 3 pounds salmon fillets
• 1 bunch dill weed
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons white peppercorns

Apparently I don’t have 3 pounds of salmon so I just reduced the amount of each ingredient accordingly. Here is an article with full cooking instruction (well it’s not cooked, it’s “cured”).

It’ll be ready in 3 days, can’t wait!