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.