meme + my favorite thing [food] = YUM

the fabulous i.j tagged me for this food meme, so here goes!

what were you cooking/baking ten years ago?
cooking - nothing. i was still in high school and living at home. i guess i'm still a baby after all.

baking - i got a recipe for julia child's buche de noel from my french class. we ate and studied the cuisine more than we learned the language in that class - totally my kind of class. anyway, i attempted the whole thing from scratch including frosting, decorations, and all. i did not do the spun sugar, though. watching julia child make a mess of it is comedy, though. i highly recommend you watch this classic. the results looked half decent and were way too sweet. oh! and i also got extra credit in my french class for making it. i was also making classic choux pastry filled with yummy custard (cream puffs). those looked pretty bad but were tasty! koreans like shoe kheu-reem (choux creme), so my mom + friends ate all of those up. i wish i still had time to tackle projects like this. too bad i never feel like eating my creations once done. better for the potato jelly belly, i guess.

what were you cooking/baking one year ago?
cooking - nothing. my roommates made dinner and sometimes lunch for me every weeknight.

baking - pumpkin pies using my secret twist on the libby's recipe in frozen pie crusts. yes, i've regressed since 10 years ago. i was also living very close to pinkberry, beard papa's, and quite a few yummy desserteries, so i figured my time was more valuable than the few bucks here and there i spent on sweet indulgences.

the snack you enjoy the most:
fresh tortilla chips and salsa from our super secret carniceria in orange county.

a culinary luxury you would indulge in if you were a millionaire:
you know those culinary vacations where you spend like a month in tuscany learning the cuisine and using the freshest ingredients from the source? i'd do those once or twice a year and go all over the globe. i might need to be a multi multi millionaire or billionaire to have enough peace of mind to spend like that and take that much time off, though.

what do you bake the most?
cookies. the already scored ones from nestle in the refrigerated section. in my toaster oven.

one thing you cannot/will not eat:
i can't drink too much milk.
there is very little i will not eat. the fish intestine egg custard thing i had in hong kong wasn't so great, and i probably would not eat it again.

favorite culinary toy:
i love our new wustof knives and cuisinart griddler.

a must on your “last meal” menu:
this is the hardest question ever. potatoes done every which way - fries, mashed, sweet potato fries, new potatoes roasted with rosemary, baked, twice baked, scalloped, au gratin, latkes. a cheese plate. really good, fresh bread. something involving dark chocolate. a fresh fruit tart.

five recipes you know by heart:

1. my mom's kalbi marinade (korean short rib bbq)
2. my mom's japchae (vermicelli glass noodles with meat, veggies, and yummy seasoning)
3. how long to keep trader joe's orange chicken in the oven and its sauce in the microwave.
4. how long to cook most korean ramens and sapporo ichiban.
5. white rice both a rice cooker and the stovetop method.
   

happy food memories:

1. late night d.p. dough deliveries. the best calzones with an amazing array of fresh fillings for upstate new york. there are so many fun, bonding memories over these calzones with lots of awesome people.
   
2. eating (and eating and eating and eating some more) at dining halls in college whose menus included recipes originally made on-campus and written by world-renowned chefs like emeril. seriously, our dining halls' food was so, so yummy.
   
3. having access to an amazing wegman's for late night studio food runs. it was like whole foods, before they cropped up everywhere. there was a see's candy cart, amazing bulk candy aisle, fresh pasta station (pick your toppings, seasonings, sauce, noodle, and they cook it up for your right there), amazing cheese bar (where i sample cheese with truffles, humboldt fog, manchego, and many others for the first time), really good sandwich bar (16-incher, anyone?), tasty olive + fresh hummus bar, the butcher would season and cook any cut of meat you bought for no more than the cost of the meat itself, etc., etc.
4. once in awhile, on rainy days, my mom would pick us up from school (a very rare occurrence) and treat us to in-n-out on the way home.
5. my mom's miyuk gook (seaweed soup) on our birthdays. she uses a seafood broth that she makes from scratch so that it's less fatty and much cleaner tasting than the beef-broth based ones. it's a tradition to eat this on your birthday.
6. helping my grandmas hand make mandoo (dumplings/gyoza/potstickers) on those rare winters they would be visiting us in the states, in the few days before the new year. they would dispense life advice, relating it to the food advice also being dispensed. i learned a lot from watching their hands and listening to them.
   
7. celebrating our engagement over amazing steaks.

i tag winnie, cee, obsessedwithpink, weatherjen, and candy&sushi. happy eating!