Happy last day of 2009!

Ready to usher in a new decade!

New year to come with so many changes: end of college, beginning of "real life"... who knows what else?

A few last words for 2009

Some I have, which applies to everyone:

I don't want to say goodbye.

I like you and love you and everything in between.

Thank you so much for everything.

2009 has been an interesting year, so much fun at times and pretty tough in other spots. A time for growth and learning and, most importantly, understanding. I hope I continue along this path in 2010, only I hope everything works out for the better next year. I lost a few people along the way but gained more, too. I suppose that's what we can hope for: that balance.

Our household is preparing for the usual new year's eve feast. On tonight's menu: goose, red snapper, pasta, and more... and of course, champagne.

Oh, and a word of advice: don't do household chores tomorrow. Otherwise, you'll be doing it for the rest of the year! I love superstitions like that :)

Sending my love and luck from LA to all for the new year!~

Mimi sends her greetings as well for a warm and prosperous new year!

It's raining!

It's grey/overcast and raining... I thought this day would never come in LA! So beautiful, all the greens coated in silvery drops... Ah. So poetic haha.

I'm eating toasted panettone with Shanghai breakfast tea.

Yesterday, we had our tea party! Yumyumyum. So much fooding. Description for what we ate is in the last post.

I also visited Erica and Ashley, and we had a yummmy slice of cake from Sweet Lady Jane: triple berry cake. There was whipped cream in between white cake layers (yay, instead of frosting), and in the whipped cream there was a layer of strawberries, layer of raspberries, and layer of blackberries. Mmm.

Then, we dommed Beatles Rock Band. We rock the harmonies.

OK, that's about it for now. Heading down to Orange County, possibly to see Sherlock Holmes for a second time... mmm.

Oh, also I forgot to mention..

So, my brother and I fight over our cats. It's really dumb, but we do it at least 5 times a day. I tell Tim to stop harassing the cats, or I want to butt in and play with them too, etc etc. So, last night, we're all ready for bed, the house is quiet, and I want to take Mimi to bed. Tim and I start circling the dark house like mad people, calling Mimi's name, waiting to lure her so the "winner" can steal her away... Tim won. He was the superior May-may hunter. Of course, I started yelling at him, trying to tell him that he was cruel, etc (but of course I would do the same thing), but he locked his door, and I was left alone to go to sleep. I did, but as I was trying to fall asleep, I hear a door open and close. Then, I knew I had won :) About 5 minutes later, I hear the pitter-patter of paws, and a push open of the door, and in comes Mimi-cat. She jumps on my bed, all purrs, and settles in with me. I promptly fall asleep. I'm further reminded of my victory when Mimi returns at 7 in the morning after being fed. Win :)

"Wellington was a poodle."

I'm making roasted Brussels sprouts with sliced almonds and parmesan cheese! My mom is making the best roast chicken (with fresh rosemary) and we had a bag of the B. sprouts in the fridge, so I figured why not? It was a sign, since on KCET this morning was a lady making this recipe. It sounded delish, so it should be a good accompaniment to the main course. The house REEKS of roast chicken, and I adore that smell. It's so welcoming and home-y. We also have turkey soup simmering on the stove... one of my favorites!

Today, the fam ran a bunch of errands together, including PICKING UP MY NEW GLASSES!

Here they are:

Brown plastic frames that are definitely taller than my last pair with a stronger prescription. Yay, eyesight! It's a nice mix between my first pair of glasses and my second. My first were definitely more "naughty librarian" with a tapering at the upper part of the glasses, with a bronze/metallic plastic frame. The second were rectangular, thin bronze metal frames.

We also went to Carney's, one of my favorite hot dog places to go. I really need to go to Pink's to verify that, as I've never been in person, but Carney's is so close and convenient. I always get a Carney's dog, red-eye split grilled (spicy hot dog), with chili on the side, grilled onions, spicy brown mustard and tomatoes. (The Carney's dog comes with chili, onions, mustard and tomatoes, so this is my variation on the dog) It's kind of like me ordering at In-N-Out, pretty complicated, but it's so worth it.

This is kind of a gory picture, but you get the idea. It's so delicious.

We also got some books from Barnes & Noble, and I picked some up myself: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. The former is about an autistic kid that Sapolsky recommended to us. It was on a list of books that he says does a good job of incorporating and interpreting a neurological disorder into the novel without sensationalizing it. The latter is a book that I learned about while reading a Vanity Fair article about the author, who died shortly after he finished this book (some think that his heart attack was suspicious... but the article focused on how true to reality the book is about some pretty bad things in Sweden). I've started the first, and I'm already very entertained. It's a good sign! (I've added a "reading" tag, since I've been blogging a lot about books) AND FINALLY, I FINISHED THE TWILIGHT SERIES!! I never have to touch those books ever again and can actually say that I didn't really care for them even after having read them. I feel much more justified in my opinion in this way.

Tomorrow, my mom is hosting a tea party for a bunch of family friends, which means that from now until then, I'll be baking away (scones, honey vanilla poundcake, blackberry muffins, various cookies) and slaving away over tea sandwiches (salmon/cream cheese/dill, gorgonzola/pear, cucumber/mint, goat cheese/chive, curry chicken, turkey/cranberry sauce). The last time I did something like that, my mom and I made easily over a hundred tea sandwiches for one of my aunts' baby showers. 30 people came. Luckily, we're making them for far fewer people, but I'm still not really looking forward to making more and more and more and more. Bad memories from the last time. Buuuut, these should be yummier (more variety and certainly fewer in quantity). We'll be having different teas: most remarkably Marco Polo (fruity black) and Casablanca (mint/bergamot black) from Mariage Frères.

Alright, the chicken smell is killing me. I'm going to go sit in front of the oven.

Update: Books you can live without, one particularly interesting quote--

A lot of this stuff can go. If I’m being honest, some of it is on my shelf because I like the idea of it being on my shelf. (David Matthews)

MIA. again.

This time, I went to visit the famfam in the Central Valley... and now I'm back, never to leave again (more or less).

I saw Sherlock Holmes, and I really liked it. It was a pretty long movie (2 hour and 14 minutes), but I felt pretty engaged during the whole thing, but maybe that was because (as my brother said) it was a showcase for Robert Downey Jr. And I most definitely was not complaining about that. What a charmer :) But, aside from that, it was still good and entertaining. I'm not biased by having a huuuge attraction to the main feature.

I am a fan of:

Kiehl's Lip Balm in mango

When it soaks in, it feels gooood. Plus, it smells delicious.

Tomorrow, I pick up my new glasses... Soo excited :) Brown plastic frames, rectangular... Cute cute.

OK, off to dinner... hopefully will blog about less mundane things soon.

Oh, time.

Glee is actually funny... parents craaacking up at watching a football team dancing to Single Ladies.

Subject line is referring to the fact that TOMORROW is Christmas Eve... Ahhh :-/ Where has time gone?

I'm going to bake a pumpkin pie tomorrow for Christmas Eve dinner with the relatives, and I also have to make tons of cookies for them. Neverending baking :) Now I wish I had cookie cutters... I'll have to get inventive.

Had my eye doctor appointment today, yay for new prescription and one-day contact lenses! I'm searching for glasses, but I think I found ones that I like: dark tortoise rectangular frames with green insides. Whatever I end up getting, I'll be sure to show them off :)

Now on Eclipse... SO MANY VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES. AHH. So, apparently, people are either Team Jacob or Team Edward... can I be neither? And, apparently, people have chosen to be Team Bella. No thanks. She's whiny, clingy, and moody.

Aside from that, the weather remains really really nice, yet I'm sitting by the fireplace on the computer/reading my books. I love wintertime!

20 ways to merry-make

Cute list from Kate Spade:

20 ways to merry-make

No. 1

have a hot toddy or two

No. 2

tiptoe to the tree

No. 3

deck your heels

No. 4

swing from the chandelier

No. 5

party hop

No. 6

look dashing

No. 7

host a night of reindeer games

No. 8

be merry, be bright

No. 9

ice skate between sky scrapers

No. 10

channel your inner rockette

No. 11

dive into the season

No. 12

sneak a kiss

No. 13

find the hidden meaning

No. 14

twitter your favorite traditions

No. 15

paper-chain with abandon

No. 16

throw a snow ball

No. 17

check it twice

No. 18

unwrap a hug

No. 19

ring in the new year

No. 20

plan a year to remember

Tango Tuesdays

I'm listening to tango music on a windy Tuesday... No car for me today (poor Avi is in the shop getting a new radiator), so it's a lazy day in. Not much is new :)

Alright, here goes a recap of the end of last week... KOREAN FOOD and more.

I ate all of my Korean meals with my cousin Danners, yumyum. Here we go:

This is what the panchan at a REAL Korean restaurant look like... they give you so many side dishes. Appetizers, if you will.

This is my kalbi dolsot bibimbap, which is a hot hot hot stone pot with rice on the bottom, a variety of veggies on top, with slices of kalbi (the typical Korean meat: spare ribs marinated and grilled). The rice was already crispy around the sides of the pot when it came to us... yummmm. I really like daeji bulgogi on top of my bibimbap (which is spicy pork), but when my cousin asked if we could have the meat substituted for that, the waitress just sort of chuckled and was like no, as if who did a thing like that. They have the bulgogi that you can order on the side. and they have the bibimbap. Yes. Anyway, it was good nevertheless.

The next day for lunch, I got my daeji bulgogi. and more. The first picture is of the lunch combo box I got... and the second picture is of the bowl of noodles that came with it. Dongchimi gooksu: cold noodle soup with light citrusy/vinegary clear soup and delicious chewy noodles.

Yesterday, I went to tea with my mom, aunt, and cousin... And it was delish. We had this set before us:

And it was soo good. Tea sandwiches included salmon and cream cheese, gorgonzola and pear with a dainty candied walnut, curried chicken, something with shrimp... there were candied ginger scones and cranberry scones (on the top), and desserts galore on the bottom. By the time we cleared off the top two plates, we were much too full to start with the bottom. I did have a chocolate covered strawberry, though :) Now, the desserts are sitting in a container in my refrigerator....... yum.

We headed over to the Americana for a little holiday browsing, which resulted in me getting some deliciously functional goods. Long sleeve shirt and tank top, both of which are soo soft (hence deliciously functional). Danners got me a lovely Christmas present of mango lip balm which smells good enough to eat (hence also deliciously functional) and grapefruit essence oil/perfume (ALSO deliciously functional).

I finished Twilight and I'm now on New Moon. I'll be finished before long (phew).

I'm ready for bed.

And it's 9:54 pm.

Soo old lady-ish.

I saw dear Jenna (and Britt!) in town for brunch (what else) this afternoon... went down to Urth Caffe where they gave me two lemonades (I ordered one), and that made up for an OK tamale. I like the ones that we have for lunch in La Mais better. (Hah, "in town"-- I sound like such a country bumpkin)

I'm baking more pecan shortbread cookies so that my mom can take it in to her colleagues at work. Yum. NOT IF I EAT THEM FIRST!!! So easy, so good. I have toasted pecan skin dust all over my hands (sorry computer).

I also made miso soup for dinner tonight, from scratch! It was delllllicious, with soft tofu and green onions. So soothing even on a day that was over 70 degrees.

Anyway, tomorrow, I shall dress up and be all lady-like for tea with my mom, aunt, and cousin. How civilized :) It's also supposed to start cooling off tomorrow... yay! THERE MAY EVEN BE RAIN ON TUESDAY!

OK, just a little post!

Back home!

OK, back in LA!

I just saw a picture of snow in Paris, and I so want to be there right now.

There is also snow on the east coast. COME TO CALIFORNIA. IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE 80 DEGREES AT CHRISTMASTIME.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. Just like the ones I've never known.

Today, went to see Up In The Air, and it was about as good as I thought it would be. George Clooney has a very soothing voice and handsome face, so that kept me quite entertained throughout the movie. I grew a little tired of the girl following him around, though. In any case, I realized how much I've wasted my miles by having 0 loyalty whatsoever, so there goes that dream of ever achieving millions of miles.

I just started reading the Twilight series, and it reads like a bad diary. Sigh. As my dad says, my justification for reading it is to be caught up on pop culture. HAHAHAHA

pg 14: I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me.

LOLZ, foreshadowing to the max, what.

I'm in a very bizarre mood, and I'm not quite ready to go to bed.

Oh well, goodnight anyway!

MIA

I'm in Orange County with limited internet access, hence being MIA...

Be prepared for an onslaught of Korean food posts.
Mmmm.

Cookies done!

Pecan shortbread cookies! They are wonderfully dense and crumbly... the recipe suggested that I toast the pecans for a bit before I chopped them and put them into the dough, and that was a really good idea. The pecan flavor really comes out that way, and it tastes nice and toasty. These cookies would be really fantastic with a cup of dark English tea.

Triple chocolate cookies! What makes them triple, you ask? 1) unsweetened chocolate 2) bittersweet chocolate 3) semi-sweet chocolate. Numbers one and two are melted into the dough and the semi-sweet chocolate are in chip form, studding the cookie. I have yet to try one of these (I will once they cool; they just came out of the oven), but I really need to wait until I'm in a chocolate-y mood, since these look really really really hardcore.

Now it's time for me to put my feet up and relax. Movie? Knitting?

I am such an old lady.

I'm heading down to Orange County this evening to spend some time with my aunt and help her out with organizing stuff. You are guaranteed to see posts from me :)

Toodles~

Pre-baking

I love the organized chaos in the kitchen before I start to bake.

All of the ingredients lined up on the counter: flour, sugar (white granulated and/or dark brown), salt, butter, vanilla extract, chocolate bars, chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, walnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts.

Of course this always varies by what I'm making.

All of the tools waiting to be used: measuring cups, measuring spoons sitting at the ready to measure out varying quantities, ramekins prepared to hold just anything (separated egg parts, coffee grounds, egg shells), red Kitchenaid mixer with gleaming stainless steal bowl and white paddle plugged in and ready to whip ingredients into shape, orange electric hand mixer ready to whip other ingredients into shape (it's particularly good at whipping egg whites into "soft peaks"), red stacking bowls of different sizes.

Of course this also varies by what I'm making.

On today's agenda:

Pecan shortbread cookies

Triple chocolate cookies

Both are new recipes that I have never tried before... bonne chance indeed.

But, why stop there?

There's another recipe for Linzer cookies that have raspberry preserves in between two layers of shortbread, dusted with powdered sugar...

And yet another classic recipe for this time of year: gingersnaps!

I'll stop there.

Baking and reading = breaking

For when I'm feeling particularly ambitious:

A Chocolate Little Layer Cake.

It just happens to be 15 layers little.

Whaaatttttt.

I have cookie baking to do tomorrow, but nothing near to doing a 15 layer cake.

In other news, I finished my books and now need to move on. I'll reread Saturday and Atonement at some point this break, I think. Ian McEwan is incredible.

Eyes are getting heavy and yawning is becoming more frequent.

Off I go~

What I do when I'm home...

OK, so I haven't been the best about updating. I have, however, been good about catching up on sleep (bed time at around 12 or 1, and getting out of bed at 11:45ish), and eating. Surprise, surprise.

The ride home gave me lots of rainbows! I risked getting tickets and took pictures with my cell phone:

This one is actually from when it was pretty stormy on campus before finals... it was a bike ride down Mayfield, and I saw a beautiful one!

This one is taken as I'm heading north on the 280 to SF... didn't see a pot of gold as I drove along, though.

This one is in Kettleman City as I stopped for a burger and gas. Kind of hard to see, but it's out there in the distance!

OK, but now that I'm home, of course I've had lots of yummy things to eat, so I'll talk about that a bit. Other than that, home is quiet... I have two kitties to keep me company and a ton of books. I'm reading On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan and The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. I read the first when I'm feeling particularly highbrow, and the second when I want a page turner (albeit a pretty predictable one).

The night I arrived, I went to Yabu with my parents, a Japanese restaurant that we've been going to for quite a while. They have really yummy noodles, and as a call back to my childhood, I almost always get the same thing: hot tempura udon, with the tempura on the side. It's so good; it comes with crispy shrimp and veggie tempura (I don't like when they put it in the soup and it gets soggy) and I put lots of spicies into it. The bathroom had this funny little toilet-contraption, interestingly... it had a warmed seat... haha! Surprise! But there were these other buttons you could push (I didn't try) that included oscillating, pulsating, or wand-cleaning by way of rear cleaning, rear soft cleaning, or front cleaning (for the pink people). There was also a dryer function, which I suppose makes sense after all of that. The temptation to push the buttons was pretty strong, but I didn't want to flood the place and have water shooting out of the toilet.

Yesterday for a snack, I was inspired by Aroma and made myself a brie and honey crisp apple quesadilla. It was tasty! The brie melted quite perfectly, and the tortilla got pretty crunchy on the outside. The apples got kind of baked in the oily brie... yum.

Then last night, to celebrate 3 birthdays coming up, we headed to a yakitori restaurant (so much Japanese! so much yum!) called Nanbankan, where we had...

Handmade tofu! It came with bonito shavings (dried fish), and you put a bit of soy sauce over it (and spicies, if you like), and it's so creamy and delicious.

ASUPARA-MAKI! These are grilled pieces of asparagus (hence the "asupara") that are wrapped in pork. It also came in variations: shiso-maki (pork wrapped in a shiso leaf wrapped in pork) and okura-maki (okra wrapped in pork). We also had chicken wings (tebasaki), sea bass, oyster mushrooms, and so much more. Yummm...

Anyway, you get the idea. I'm going to go read or nap, or something.

I love vacation time.

Hoooome (again)

In bed.

In LA.

All is good and comfy :)

Good night!

Real/substantial posts to come, I PROMISE!

I'm having fun!

Erica: god stop having fun and update your blog

Indeed...

Here we are, done with finals. And we I mean me. And by here, I mean SF!

I'm lounging on my bro's sofa, waiting to have dinner at Oléa, where I think I'm going to have some sort of duck breast. Quack!!

I'm also watching Stevie Wonder perform at a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert... he's awesome. Wow, he's performing The Way You Make Me Feel by Michael Jackson and started crying in the middle of it... OK, now he's performing with Sting. Woo.

End of finals was swift. I finished Wednesday morning and stayed on campus until this morning.

More full update with pictures to come!

Meanwhile, I will enjoy my green tea martini with yuzu :)

BESOS~

Baby, it's cold outside!

Al Hirt and Ann Margaret.

So good.

(Conan gave me the inspiration for the title of this post!)

Wow. Ice on my car. Ridiculous. California, what's up with that?

It's nice bundling up and being warm :)

Two finals down, one more left to go... Wednesday morning, here I come!

As rough as it was having two finals in a row, it's awesome to be done with them. I feel accomplished by trudging through them... exhausted though. My eyes don't want to read much more.

Listening to holiday songs and studying for child health. Early bedtime? Sounds good to me!

In other news, House and Wilson are adorable. I just saw last week's episode... so good.

Also, I love NYTimes slideshows... check this one about hunters in Greenland. And I complain about the cold, HAH!

It's finals time!

Bye fall quarter!

I'm studying for one of my finals on Monday, and nothing is more frustrating than seeing pages of notes where I'm trying to take coherent notes. While asleep.

Here's a page that I took while fully awake:

And here's a page I tried to take while very very sleepy:

Fail fail fail. Funny that we were talking about circadian rhythms and sleep. Major sigh because 1) it's really interesting and I don't have good notes for it 2) the lecture notes online don't supplement my poor note taking very well...

OK, off I go!

Brainsss

I'm studying about HM and watching his brain being sliced at the same time...

Good times.

It's finals season, which means I'll have some pretty erratic posts, but hopefully enough to keep you and me entertained.

Bonne nuit!

Start of the random thought tag.

It is very very cold (43, 44 deg F).

Biking and breathing in the cold night air feels like swallowing an ice cube.

Yuck.

I was tired of hearing about Octomom.

I was also disgusted at having to read about the drama surrounding Jon and Kate. Nevermind their plus eight.

Then comes along the media's obsession with the Washington party crashers.

Sigh.

An interesting article, nevertheless, about the culture of Washington...

In other more important news, check out the LIVE brain slicing!!! It's of H.M.'s brain, the famous amnesic patient who died not too long ago...

The home stretch...

HAPPY DECEMBER!!

Less than two weeks before I'm back in LA!

I'll be done with finals next week Wednesday (YAY!), but that certainly means I need to start studying (ahhh).

I'm doing my laundry, and it's been quite an ordeal. My comforter did not drain properly in the dryer, so it and my fleece blanket came out sopping wet. They've been in the dryer for the past 2 hours, or so, and they are still not dry. Also, my clothing was in the dryer for 45 min, and THAT is still not dry! I added another 30 minutes... sigh.

Anyway, I promised more information about the Thanksgiving feast, and now that I've got a little time, here it is!

Here is the cake I made on Thursday for my grandfather's birthday! It was one of his four birthday cakes. We served two. It's probably not just my family, but it always happens that we ask our family not to bring anything, or if they should bring something, then it should complement whatever we won't be making. Of course, we receive two extra cakes. We promptly sent those ones back home with those who brought them. Anyway, this was an almond birthday cake with a sherry-lemon buttercream frosting. The cake itself was great... although I definitely should have made it the day of, and it probably would have been even better. The pulverized almond gave it a nice texture and that nice nutty flavor. The frosting was suuuper rich. It might have had a little bit too much cinnamon in it for my taste (the amount of cinnamon plus the sweetness equaled something vaguely resembling the flavor of cinnamon gum. I hate that flavor.). Otherwise, it was good enough for my grandmother to have a slice, who apparently never eats cake cause she doesn't like it. She's so cute :)

I know, we were supposed to eat our actual turkey dinner on Friday, but we went back to have sushi on Friday instead. The family went to a dress rehearsal of The Barber of Seville (opera) in the afternoon, and sushi was on our way home... so WHY NOT, INDEED? Anyway, this is a delicious picture of one of my favorites: oyster sushi. Mmmmm, the oyster dipped in ponzu sauce before being placed on perfect sushi rice... So good.

That night, I decided to get a head start on baking the goods that I would be bringing back to school with me... this is a picture of "Outrageous Brownies" before they had been baked. As you can see, the batter fit into two pans, and the recipe required one pound of butter and two pounds of chocolate. My heart sort of hurts while eating the brownies.

So, on Saturday, we had our actual turkey dinner, which was delicious... turkey, cranberry sauce, italian chard stuffing... I also baked this pie! Noah sent me the recipe for a silky pumpkin pie, which was DELICIOUS. I had never really made pie before, so I'd say it was a fantastic success! Poppy Wood wants me to make more as soon as I get back home :) I made everything from scratch, minus pureeing the pumpkin, but eh, who needs that kind of work.

It was nice to get back on campus. Everyone's so cheery upon arrival, so happy to see everyone! That quickly fades, though, given that we have finals the next week.

Alright, that's enough of that!

Some cool links for you to check out before I leave:

An incredible set of photos from Dubai

Anthropologie holiday gift finder!!!!

GO LISTEN TO HOLIDAY MUSIC!