Claire's housewarming

Lily, Abby and I visited Claire at her new home yesterday. It's a really warm little flat with a loft where she keeps her books. So this is the home of a novelist, we all thought.

Hospitable and warm as she always is, she kept feeding us snacks and food from the 15h30 when we got there, all the way until when we left at 23h00.

I wanted to bring her something nice, and since I didn't have much money or time to find and buy her something, I decided to share with her a part of my lifestyle. Maybe you can call me a cheapo, but I bought from Nonzero some nice olive oil, fig balsamic vinegar, a jar of oven dried cherry tomatoes in olive oil, and from Dean and Deluca some dried prunes and figs and a nice, long baguette. Actually, it wasn't cheap at all, but I thought it would be fun to share an experience that she will remember for a long time, and maybe continue to experience if she likes it. Aside from foodies or people who've been overseas, Taiwanese people don't really eat bread with olive oil and vinegar. I think it's a healthy and fun alternative, especially when the whole stick of baguette sits in the middle of the table and guests reach over and tear off a piece every once in a while in between chit chatting.

We chatted about work, mostly. We talked about insane supervisors, funny coworkers, stories we've done, people we've met, places we've been while on assignment. Claire's a very senior reporter who's seen almost everything. She keeps a blog on her work, and it's quite well-written, so we call her "the novelist." Perhaps one day she will be come a novelist, you never know.




Lily, who started about the same time that I did, is now an expert on Taiwan's agriculture industry. She's been doing embedded advertising for the Council of Agriculture for the past two years and hops all over Taiwan, doing stories on great agricultural products and breakthroughs - anything from gigantic clams the size of one's face to organic farming to orchid production. We call Lily "village chief." We were saying that she should write a book too.

I have no idea what the future holds for me, but we'll see.

Reporting can be really interesting work. Although I hate what I have to do sometimes, but I think I will look back at my reporting days one day and be very glad that it was a part of my life.