Mission: Shortbread

Lurpak butter, check.

Nielsen-Massey vanilla bean paste, check.



Flour, check.

Confectioner's sugar, check.

Granulated sugar, check.

Preparations for Thomas Keller's shortbread are almost complete.

Most excellent.

Problematic Parsley

I'm finally going to grow my own herbs. I'm tired of paying a lot of money for them at the market, not know what sorts of pesticides have landed on them if I don't seek out organic herbs, and then not being able to finish the overpriced bundles I buy before they dry out.



As you can see, I'm really good at taking care of my Italian flat leaf parsley plant.

I'm also really good at taking pictures of my herbs at night with a steady hand.

PS: The last two statements were sarcastic.

Bakery Fail

The concept seems sound. But, the execution was shoddy.



How disappointing. More than half of it went in the trash can. ): It looks so damn tasty, too.

Sweet Release Titles

Just kidding.



The 3DS finally came out in America. I semi-reluctantly picked up super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition just so I would have a game to play. If you know me, you know I'm not a fighting game person. This should be an indication of how bad the game selection is for the 3DS right now. I suppose this would stop normal people from purchasing the system but I have a thing about Nintendo handhelds. I have almost every single one.

Original
Pocket
Color
(no SP)
Advanced
(no original DS)
DS Lite
DSi
3DS

I guess I don't have the micro either. I still have all of my Gameboys, though. They all still work, too. No you can't have them. I'm mesmerized with how pretty my 3DS is, though. I've already spent more time using it (about 15 minutes) than I have with my Wii in this year thus far. I love blue. ^_^

Another 85 Degree Plug

Say hello to the tiramisu and the coffee creme brulee cake from 85 Degree Bakery in Irvine. I've said it in the past but I'll say it again. I don't know how they manage to make these cakes so light but still so full of flavor. If I eat a westernized cake, my stomach is always painfully bogged down afterwards. I could probably still go skydiving and feel okay after eating one of these bad boys. Maybe.

This Is Not a Taco

But this is what you'll get when you order the fish taco at Mick's Karma Cafe in Irvine. I suppose you'll get it with pico de gallo. But I detest pico de gallo, so mine didn't come with any much to the consternation of the owner ("WHY YOU NO LIKE PICO DE GALLO? SPICY?") He is from Europe. So he said. I didn't even know how to begin eating it, so I just flipped the tortilla open and fork and knifed the mahi mahi with bits of sauce soaked cabbage. I ended up eating about a third of the tortilla and still felt overloaded with carbs. I barely ate the fries, they were not good /:

If that's their taco, I'd hate to see what their burritos would look like.. o__O

My Big To Do List

I love books.
I love food.
I love photography.
I love design.
I love typography.

As such, I own a lot of cookbooks.



In the past two weeks, I've acquired all of these. If you've been paying attention, you'd know my bookshelf is already full. I now have lots of books stacked on my dresser. My room is starting to remind me of a library from a wizard's tower in a fantasy movie. Stacks of books teetering on all available surfaces. Made a nerd reference, oops.

I've been kicking the idea of a food blog around for years now. I was always intrigued by the idea of cooking through books (a la Julie & Julia) but feel I'd be doing myself a disservice by sticking to only one title. Since I'm not trained enough in cooking myself to come out with good recipes of my own yet, my blog would likely feature recipes adapted from the books that I own. I've been stumped on a good food blog title for a long time now. Nothing seems fetching enough. And I don't want to have a poopy generic design either. Thinking about it all makes me frown. ]:

Guatemalan Soup

In the back of my Costco there is a giant refrigerated room. It's really cold in there. I found a 2.5 pound bag of shucked English peas there the other day. They were from Guatemala. I made soup out of it. I cobbled together my own recipe with pointers from Michael Chiarello, Ina Garten and Alice Waters.



This is a steaming bowl of chicken stock, English peas, mint, heavy cream, salt, pepper, onions and Yukon potatoes. It was delicious and I felt pretty healthy eating it. There was only a touch of heavy cream! The soup also gave me an opportunity to use my immersion blender which has been sitting in storage since I moved. It also came together in under 20 minutes. I'm starting to love soups because you can throw so much into it and it'll come out tasty (as long as you know SOMETHING about cooking). White people like salads and casseroles to clean out the fridge. I like soup.

My Chicken Soup

Remember those Chicken Soup for the Soul books? I remember when I was a Conflict Manager in 8th grade and we taught 15 minutes empowerment-ish lessons during third period for all the classes in the school (I very much remember teaching Mr. Ferguson's 3rd period science class). I digress, per usual. The "textbook" we used for a majority of our lessons was Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. Even then, I thought our lessons were pretty garbage. It was good times though. Managing conflicts was hilarious. We did it in this tiny little storage closet in the 200 building, or wherever the Language Arts classes were at Bernardo-Yorba Middle School. When you're 13, you don't have very serious conflicts. But there were lots of tears in those management sessions anyway. Looking back on it, how the hell was I trained enough to manage people's conflicts? They must have known it was all malarky.

For me, personally, reaching for a cup of tea is more soothing for my soul than anything. Particularly if it's of jasmine green tea origin. And loose leaf. And brewed in something beautiful, like this French press. Even thinking about it is making me relax. And I've been pretty worked up all evening.

If I wasn't so lazy and it wasn't so cold, I'd go make myself some tea right now. But I'm lazy and it's cold.

I think a Japanese cherry green tea pot de creme would be delightful. I'll have to make a note to make it.

Snacky

O how this will grace popcorn I make soon.

Organic popcorn kernels + organic extra virgin coconut oil + black truffle salt = O_O

Popcorn is healthy. I Googled it. But I'm too lazy to really post any information about it today.

Truffle salt will also grace mashed potatoes. It graced my spring pea soup. I'm going to keep it in my purse and tote it around with me so I can put it on boring fries to make awesome fries.

I learned that black truffles are French and white truffles are Italian. I read that somewhere. I forgot where.

I'm So Green

Check out these Water Bobbles. They rock. It's like a Brita filter in a water bottle. How handy is that? I'm sure you've all heard the stats. Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour. Awesome. NOT.

My house has never really had water bottles anyway. They cost too much money. But, I've still probably drank a couple hundred in my life time. How many of those actually got recycled? I don't even know.

Using these water bobbles I feel like I'm doing my part to try and green up the Earth, save the polar bears and make Al Gore smile. I'll also always have clean water with me so I don't have to spend an arm and a leg on Fiji or SmartWater. O, how I love them though..

I Eat Fruit

It's well documented (by me) that I don't eat fruit. Except, I do. Sometimes.

Here are examples of fruit I eat:
-Verona strawberry cookies by Pepperidge Farms
-Strawberry Nutrigrain bars
-Strawberry PopTarts
-Raisins
-Linzer cookies (raspberry, cherry, strawberry)

Wait a minute. I just realized that most of the "fruit" I eat is strawberry flavored. Hmmm...



Ever since I started baking, I've been on a quest to re-create popular processed snack foods. So far, I've made amazing rip offs of Cheez-Its, Oreos and Cracker Jack. I've been jonesing to add PopTarts to that list since I'm a fan of the strawberry ones but in truth, they taste pretty awful cuz of the chemicals. I first heard of homemade PopTarts from Flour Bakery in Boston (yay Joanne Chang). They were also made by Deb of SmittenKitchen (blog!). I also saw them on Diners, Drive Ins & Dives at Nickel Diner in DTLA.

Well. I finally made it over there and got me a homemade PopTart. And it was awesome. I got Joanne Chang's new book for my birthday so I'll soon be rolling out my own homemade PopTarts which I hope will blow Nickel Diners' out of the water, cuz that thing wasn't cheap and DTLA is a bitch to get to.

I'm going to make my own sprinkles to top it, too.

Ya. I'm crazy. Crazy Go Nuts. Like Strong Bad. CGNUniversity.

Wot

I watch a lot of food TV. A LOT of food TV.

Last year, I was watching Top Chef Season ? and the contestants had to cook Ethiopian food. They were judged by Marcus Samuelsson. I know now that he specializes in Scandinavian food (I have his book Aquavit and plus Ted Allen told me on Chopped). He was born in Ethiopia, so naturally, he knows a thing or two or a thousand about Ethiopian cuisine as well. I learned that Ethiopian food largely consists of spicy vegetable and meat "stews" called wats (or wots). I don't know how I feel about this. Tiffany Ethiopianstew. /:

ANYWAY.

I finally got around to trying Ethiopian food. I followed trusty Yelp reviews and went to Meals by Genet in Little Ethiopia.



I've found that I am not a big fan of Ethiopian food. It was tasty, but, I'm not quite sure I'll be jumping to eat it again. That may be because some of the vegetable wots/wats were weird (to me). I can see why people like it a lot, though. I'm just picky.

There must be a reason Marcus Samuelsson specializes in Scandinavian food... JUST KIDDING. Again. The food was tasty, but, it just didn't match my tired ol' American palate.

If I go again, I think I'll try the tofu/beef/chicken tibs. Actually, that sounds amazing. I just started drooling.

Now I want hummus and garlic sauce.

I've come full circle with the garlic sauce. Must... eat... garlic sauce... this week.......

Waste

What the hell is this? I don't even know. I'll chalk it up to the Wonder Bread Massacre of 2011. What would come over a person to make them do this? THIS IS SUCH A WASTE. I can't handle food waste. It irritates me. American's throw away like 30% of the food we buy/grow/make/etc. What the hell is wrong with us?

Growing up, I was not allowed to get up from the table/leave the restaurant/whatever until I finished everything on/in my plate/bowl/cup. As a Chinese person, we ate all our meals family style (unless we were at a Western restaurant -- this was rare, my mom is awesome and cooked for us almost 365 days a year). If I served myself food, I better freaking finish it. My mom didn't care how full I was or how much I didn't like what I put in my bowl. I had to finish it. No wasting of food. No putting it in the trash can, no dumping it down the garbage disposal, no feeding it to the pets (it would have been obvious if I put gailan in the fish tank) and no shoving it onto my parents' plates.

When I got to college, the food at my food court (cleverly titled Pippin, after the hobbit who loves to eat) was buffet style. It was all Western food. Every day there was the grill (burgers, fries, etc), the poop and scoop section (daily special like chicken fried steak, stroganoff, spaghetti and meatballs, vegetables), the cereal bar, the dessert bar, the rotating bar (pho bar, baked potato bar, mashed potato bar, falafel bar), the freshly cooked section (pastas made to order, omelettes made to order, etc). All in all, there was a lot of not so palatable food (cough chicken fried steak cough). (More parentheticals. I might add that this was when I discovered that chicken fried steak in fact contains NO CHICKEN. WTF white people???)

Nonetheless (I feel like starting a new paragraph for no reason), even if I didn't like the food that was served to me, I finished it all before bussing my table and completing my meal. The only other person that did this was my hallmate, also Chinese. After 2-3 months at college, our friends finally asked us. "Why do you guys finish all your food even if it's not good." Our minds were blown. We had never realized we did this. We both were raised to finish EVERYTHING on our plates, no matter what. Chinese people don't waste. A revelation was made.

From that day on, yucky chicken fried steak was uneaten by this Chinese chick.

I'm still pretty good about finishing everything on my plate. But I'm trying to mentally break myself of this habit to avoid overeating moreso than about not wasting food. I'm still not comfortable wasting food. I throw enough away as it is, so if it's palatable and still edible, I'll eat it.

Writing this made me want chicken fried steak. WTF? I guess I'll try Pioneer Woman's recipe some time. Take that Pippin food!

Don't Pinch Me

I've never been big on St. Patrick's Day. Here are a few of the memories I have of it:

-Building a "leprechaun trap" in third grade. My parents never helped me with my projects so I just had a shoebox that I covered in green construction paper and put a pencil with a string attached to it. It was really stupid and lame. We were supposed to try and catch leprechauns while we were at recess. Since my trap needed someone to be there and pull it, I felt like an idiot. I'm pretty sure I still got a full score on the project anyway. And there was candy (gelt?) in my "trap" when I came back from recess. Damn leprechaun got away though.

-Setting out my Epcot center t-shirt to wear with green shorts I got at KMart or something. The Epcot center shirt had green on it. Who the f likes to be pinched? I still wear green every year so weirdos don't have an excuse to touch me. DON'T TOUCH ME. I used to lay out my clothes every night before I went to sleep for the morning. I did this from when I was 5 until I was like 18. Then in college, when it probably would have mattered more (running to class, running to work), I stopped doing it.

Okay. I lied. I only have a couple memories of it. St. Patty's is very not memorable for me. Two of my friends have birthdays on St. Patty's. That's more interesting to me than what everyone else does on St. Patty's (Guiness, Jameson, Bailey's). For the past few years, I have made corned beef and cabbage. I guess that's the one thing I do. Seeing that I don't drink practically, I never went to St. Patty's Day parties in college (bio majors don't party, let's be serious). This day is lost on me.

But I'll still wear green.

That freakin' Kellogg's rooster has got it made today.

I almost forgot to post a picture. HA!



I bought an entire liter of Bailey's at Costco to use 2 tablespoons for my frosting. It seemed like a better deal than buying a mini at BevMo. The mind of a Chinese person. It doesn't always make sense. My mind, however, makes good cupcakes. These were tasty. But not as tasty as they usually are because I didn't want to buy sour cream and subbed in Greek yogurt instead, so they weren't quite as fluffy as I would have liked. See. I told you Chinese brains don't make sense.

Healthy Biscuits

Maple + Bacon + Biscuit = Healthy.



This is what I tell myself.

I am a bit delusional.

Green Rooster?

Why is the mascot for Kellogg's Corn Flakes a green rooster? Are there green roosters? I never considered this as a child but just accepted it as fact. Now I'm wondering why he's green.

I didn't eat too many corn flakes growing up, at least not plain ones. Tony the Tiger always came and sprinkled them with frosting before they arrived at my table for breakfast. Then I usually choked on them. I try and stay away from corn flakes because I seem to have trouble eating them without them getting lodged in my throat. I attempted them recently and was able to swallow a spoonful without harming myself. Maybe I can slowly ease myself back into flake eating. Maybe.

Exceptions

I'm a freak about the food I eat. Organic this, no preservatives that, you know, one of those freaks. I do make exceptions, though.



I don't see how you can not like Spam. If you like bacon, you like Spam. Unless you're one of those food texture freaks (I am partially, so, I guess I can understand it). It's fatty, it's salty, it's satisfying. I don't eat a lot of meat, but I'd push children over for some Spam. One of the comfort foods my mom would make when I was growing up was sort of like the Hong Kong version of chicken noodle soup. My mom would take chicken broth, add in enriched macaroni product (haha), celery and Spam. We'd have this on lazy afternoons for lunch. I often see it on menus of Hong Kong style cafes listed simply as macaroni with Spam. It may be weird, but it's delicious. As usual, I suggest you give it a shot.

Spam musubi's also rock. But not as hard as macaroni with Spam. Spam fried rice also rocks. Spam is great. Turkey Spam is also great.

A Pause From the Food

I post a lot about food. I know this. So here's a break from that.



This is a piece of art at LACMA. I didn't get the name, so maybe someone can figure it out for me. This caught my eye because of how bright and beautiful it was. When I read the plaque, I was surprised to find that the picture is in fact not an oil painting but thousands of pieces of glass carefully pieced together. I was in awe of this. If you enlarge the picture and look at the sky, you can make out what I mean by tiny pieces of glass. It's a wonder what humans are capable of when they put their minds to things. Not that I'm not amazed by other things. Like skyscraper architecture, IPL surgery and ballet dancers. Just to name a few things.

I'm humbled. And now I feel rather small and useless. Time to change that!

Chinese "Quesadilla"

Upon first glance, this looks like a weird healthy wrap or burrito. Upon closer inspection, you'd probably realize that it's not. This is the leek leaf cake from Dean Sin World in Monterey Park. It's filled with clear vermicelli noodles, tofu and Chinese leeks (gow choi). The outside "tortilla" thing is actually the same dough as the wontons are made out of. Am I blowing your mind? This thing is delicious. I suppose some people would balk that it has no meat, but, I'm Chinese, so I'm used to things not having meat. It's fried (usually not my thing, but I make exceptions) and there's a great balance between the crispy oily skin and the inside. If I haven't made a strong enough case for you to visit Dean Sin World before, I think I have now. So, please go and support the old ladies that work there. Thanks (:

Noodle Love

I love pasta. Italian pasta, Japanese ramen, Vietnamese pho, Chinese egg noodle, etc etc. Interestingly enough, Chinese noodles happen to be my least favorite, though they are still very beloved in my tummy. I think this might be because there are so many variations of Chinese noodles that I can't really pinpoint one specific type to hone in on and love. There's Cantonese/Hong Kong style fried egg noodles (that Americans go gaga for), wonton egg noodle soup, wok'd vermicelli, fat rice noodle in soup, wok'd wheat noodles (Shanghai style) in delicious brown sauce... the list goes on. And none of these noodles really have specific English names, so maybe that's why they're not very popular to Americans. I guess the ubiquitous "CHOW MEIN" found in American fast food joints. That stuff is disgusting though.

PAGING ALL YOU PEOPLE THAT LIKE THAT CRAP...

IT'S DISGUSTING.

Anyway. Here is a bowl of noodle soup I had at Twin Dragon in Placentia. I don't know if a non-Chinese person has ever eaten this before (sarcasm, but not far from the truth!). The noodles were made of wheat (looked soba-ish, but not soba) and were white. The topping was pork with salt pickled daikon and suey choy (a type of Chinese cabbage that looks sort of like bok choy). This dish is a Shanghainese dish but the southern Chinese in me loves it muchly. I don't know what this dish is called in English, but in Cantonese it's roughly suey choy yook see mein. I suppose you could try ordering it like that at Twin Dragon (:

Chinese Fast Food CAN Be Good

Time for another plug of a mom and pop Chinese restaurant! This is a picture of wontons in soup from Twin Dragon in Placentia. I was very, very skeptical when I walked in here today despite my mom's rave reviews. This place is opened by a couple who worked at 369 in Anaheim (on Euclid by Anaheim Festival) for years and years. I ate there for a good 15ish years until it recently became terrible when the original people left. But.. now they're at Twin Dragon! So, when first walking in it looks like a crappy Chinese fast food place. There's the typical hot lamp trays of crappy Chinese food (I thought it was crappy, it almost always is), you know, Broccoli & Beef, Firecracker Shrimp, "Chow Mein" (this crap is so nasty, why the hell do people think it's good?). The entire menu is in English.

I became much less skeptical when I saw my favorite waitress from 369 serving customers and chatting with my mom. Her and her husband own and run the place. As always, she was super sweet and my mom started ordering food from her straight from the back kitchen. That's where this delicious bowl of wontons in broth came from and along with it, a Shanghai noodle dish with preserved veggies and pork in more broth. We did order some broccoli and beef (I'm a broccoli fiend, I left ALL the beef, much to my mother's consternation) and some tofu from the shovel trays -- it was actually delicious!

I was amused at the clientele that came in while we ate there. The typical Chinese fast food orders were purchased. Tons of chow mein was eaten. Ew ): my stomach just turned thinking about it. I'm sure their chow mein is.. decent... but I'll stick to continuing to order off the secret menu (: The service was great and the place is super clean. Now I'm hungry again (thoughts of chow mein abolished). I want food ):

I normally hate wontons. Well, hate is a strong word. I normally dislike wontons. But I became a wonton fiend today. /: I also ate the hot and sour soup (another thing I despise) and I ate the weird Asian salad she gave us. Me.. eating Asian salad provided at an Asian food place aimed towards white people.. WTF? I don't ever do this. o_O EVER. Today is a weird day!

My mom asked the owners why they didn't open a restaurant aimed for Chinese clientele since their food is so amazing. They said that it's a hassle to hire so many people and operate a front of house. Additionally, it's not as lucrative since white people are willing to pay for cheapy fake Chinese food and Chinese people are less willing to pay for anything at all, even if it's good. Man, Chinese people are cheap. Nevertheless, I'm glad this place is open and nearby! I was devastated 369 turned to crap and am happy to hear I can eat this couple's nomlicious northern Chinese food again. Yippee :D

PS: I want potato salad.

One XLB to Rule Them All

Looking at this picture as I was about to post it made my tummy grumble. These xiao long bao are amazing. They're from Dean Sin World in Monterey Park. This is a tiny place that is labeled bakery that no one really knows about on the corner of Garfield and Garvey (well, one plaza up on Garfield). There is a craptastic XLB place that has 5x the Yelp reviews and the same rating of four stars down on Garvey that is DISGUSTING in comparison. More people should eat at Dean Sin World and realize that Mama Lu's Dumpling House is garbage. Garbage that will make you puke your insides out at that and emit weird gasses. Mama Lu's also costs more and has a longer wait. Logic clearly points to Dean Sin World.



The woh teep (fried dumplings) here are also out of this world. Oh man, this is seriously causing immense tummy grumbling and I'm pretty sure I'm still digesting dinner. I've also heard that Din Tai Fung is the shit, but, it also costs more and I'm sure it's not as tasty as Dean Sin World (I read many Yelp reviews!). I hear the original DSW in Taiwan is amazing but it doesn't translate as well over here. This is a ridiculous plug for Dean Sin World but that's how strongly I feel about this place. I even dragged my grandpa out of Chinatown and over to Monterey Park to eat here. He's 94 and the most bad ass Chinese man ever. He had to experience this food. And he did. Now, you need to too. (HAHA, tutu. Once I wore a tutu to a stupid roller rink Halloween thing my mom made me go to where I knew no one and I awkwardly and clumsily was forced to skate as weird music played and my tutu got caught in my skate and ripped. Sigh.)

Pop!

I wonder what sound it would make if that thing was pop-able? I wonder what that thing is made out of. The color entrances me. I really like blue. And I really like that color of blue. I also like puppies. And balloons. I've never had a balloon animal before. I always sort of wanted one but my parents wouldn't have ever said yes so I didn't bother asking. Also... clowns tend to make them. I'm not scared of clowns, they're just weird and annoying and I'd prefer to not talk to one. That's probably why I've never had a balloon animal.

I would take this balloon animal though. Although, it wouldn't fit in my car.

Fungi Phobia

I'm terrified of a few things:

-Fish
-Aliens
-Butterflies
-Space
-Protists
-Fungi

The last two things on that list are entire kingdoms. KINGDOMS, I say! Mayhaps I will expand on this in the future, but let's just focus on fungus for now. Fungus is disgusting.

HOWEVER.

Mushrooms are ridiculously tasty.



Look how tasty they are (and terrifying). These suckers were sauteed down and shoved into a tortilla with sauteed spinach and Muenster cheese. Quesadillas don't get more authentically Mexican than this.

Just kidding.

It was delicious, though. The stomach pain I am suffering through right now doesn't deter me from wanting more quesadilla in the future.

PS: Just in case you didn't believe me about space being scary...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/HEheh1BH34Q

The music in that video was really scary. It made me think of aliens. I'm scared of aliens. Unless they're aliens from Animorphs. Those aliens rocked.

Okay, more about space being terrifying...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/b0lxbzgwW7I

REALLY, REALLY BIG.

PPS: I would have made them embedded videos, but they didn't fit in the confines of my blog's design. So, I took them out.

B&W

I bake cookies a lot. As if this was news to you. I've been to lots of "famous" bakeries in Southern California. If there's a pastry I particularly like, I tend to figure out how to make it at home so I can tweak it to my liking and save monies. I have yet to make this cookie, however, because there are so many conflicting opinions on recipes out there. I suppose that makes sense, it IS a New York cookie. New Yorkers like to argue. Rabblerabblerabblecookierabble.



This is from Beverlywood Bakery. This place is pretty dang legit. The only other black and white cookie I've ever had was at Canter's on Fairfax (I think that's where it is). These are both Jewishy establishments. Black and white cookies aren't easy to find, especially ones that are Jew/New Yorker approved. I know the one at Beverlywood is approved. My stomach also approves. I ate two of these this weekend.

I think I'm going to try and make these soon. Stay tuned!

My Favorite Herb

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I love thyme. I'm planning on growing my own soon so I can have ridiculous amount of fresh, lemony herb at all times. I actually don't find thyme to be lemony but Giada tells me every episode that it is, so, lemony it is. I just know that it adds a wonderful aroma and flavor to everything I make from chicken stock to au gratin potatoes to parmesan biscuits. I dunno where I'd be without thyme. I guess on an island of blandness.

Do yourself a favor. Get some thyme. It owns parsley in the face. If herbs had faces.

Garbage Soup

Also known as chicken stock.



I needed a way to get rid of my old celery, an old carrot, some parsley, a chicken carcass and some other herbs (rosemary, thyme). I threw in an onion for good measure and the chicken breasts I needed to poach and made some delicious chicken stock. There's something ridiculously satisfying about making chicken stock. The smell that fills the kitchen is homey and comforting and it takes little to no effort at all. Now I need a use for this chicken stock. Maybe I'll just drink it straight. Like a weird Chinese person

Me Want

So that honey boba I never shut up about in the big tubs?



Yea.. bet you want some. I do. It took them 20 minutes to make this, so it was pretty annoying. But... it was worth it. I want more, NOW ):

Tripe?

I grew up eating lots of weird things without ever questioning what they were. Stomach, intestine, ears, God knows what else.



I had dim sum with my mother today and I still couldn't tell you what the dish in the foreground is. But I ordered it and ate it all because I love it. The dish in the background is my absolute favorite, though. It's sticky rice with meat, some veggies, a little bit of egg yolk with a touch of meat sauce all wrapped in a lotus leaf. A Chinese tamale, sort of. Whatever. It's amazing.

I've been keeping a log of all the food I eat because I very much fell off the eating healthy wagon awhile ago. I use livestrong.com/myplate. Unfortunately, Chinese dim sum doesn't fit well with that site. So.. I left today blank. >__>

What Frigid Weather?

The fact that it's still winter didn't deter me from jumping on the spring wagon and whipping up a delicious risotto. I didn't have any white wine in my house and I had some pre-shredded parmesan to use up instead of opening my new parmiggiano reggiano, but, it was still ridiculously tasty. The risotto featured spring's first English peas, asparagus and leeks offset with good ol' salty pancetta. I felt very Anne Burrell-ish as I stirred the crap out of the dish, but it paid off. It's definitely the best risotto I've ever made and one of the best I've had period. Yay me.