foodish miscellany

lilcee bestowed upon me some lovely gifts from paulette. beautiful. and delicious. these macarons are not delicate in terms of flavor (or color saturation...LOVE the bold colors). i had fun trying to guess the flavors while eating and before looking them up on the website.

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beige on beige on beige

i baked some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies [via tastespotting]. they were delicious but rather crumbly and crumb-y. lucky for me and my food baby that needs to disappear, the bear's friend ate about half of the batch while over one night.


the fork imprints + added chocolate = yum, visually and taste-wise

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bah. point and shoot.

brunched here for lilcee's birthday. pricey, but very delicious brunch buffet with sushi, amazing dessert bar, lamb, prime rib, chawan mushi, deviled eggs, cheese, potatoes, sausage, soba...and the list goes on. all served in a rather genteel, quiet, yet unpretentious atmosphere.

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lunched at julienne's for vasey's birthday.



there was a wait, but it was definitely worth it. nicely sized portions (not too big, not too small). food that we didn't expect much from due to its looks (a pale green broccoli mustard soup, the below lemon meringue tart) surprised by being extra delicious.


deceptively blah.
very good lemon meringue.
not too tart, not too sweet.
cool, fluffy.
especially perfect pastry.

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the most expensive homemade meal


inspired by wan
lobster rolls on light brioche buns [both via smitten kitchen]

the bear wanted to buy the jetblue all-you-can-jet pass. maine was on his list of destinations as he's got a cousin there. i've also got a good college friend, gel, there, who i'd love to visit. alas, we decided to be responsible employees/students and not jet-set around the country. so instead, i settled for the much cheaper option (but expensive for dinner at home) of making lobster rolls at home. i've never had one in maine. the bear has. these were pretty dang delicious.

first, the brioche. yeast and i are not friends. let's just say i took a cooking class in college in the nutritional sciences department (the fancy schmancy hotel school one that taught knife skills, how to cut up a whole chicken, etc. never fit in my schedule). one day, we worked with yeast. class time was limited. i killed the yeast the first time with water that was too hot. then i ruined another batch by using water that was too cold. and then class was over. and i had no bread. anyway, i decided to get a proper candy/deep frying thermometer to exact the science and face my nemesis head-on and well-armed. enough jibba jabba (the bear's tom tom gives him directions in mr. T's voice. mmm yeaaaah.)


mise en place
pretty simple, non?
hee hee hee honh honh honh!
[baking bread brings out the little mermaid french chef in me, i guess.]


the yeast starting to work.
beaten egg.
flours and salt.
eventually all stirred together.


dough that probably could have been kneaded longer.
kneading is fun, yo. and a good workout.
you can also see my "dough cutter" to the right.


mini dough.
should have been smoother and elastic-ier. ah well


to show how much of the bowl it took up to begin with.

meanwhile, back at the lobster ranch...

steamed!
mmm yeah. fancy, expensive cameras can't help user error blur.
anyway, the lobster and its drippings in the steam water smelled so salty, briny, ocean-y, meaty.


chop, chop, chop over $20 worth of lobster meat.
a measly pound.
(yeah, i halved the lobster roll filling recipe. :(. major sadness.)
no more lobster at home until i find it on sale somewhere.


mix, mix, mix.
i added more celery and lemon than the recipe called for.
we like crunchy and tangy.

an hour and a half or so later, the dough monster grew. a lot.

the dough has gas. see the bubble holes? tee hee.
oh, and it stuck to my non-greased saran wrap. oops.


and...from it's no-longer-as-svelte side.


after de-gassing [sniggle] and dividing up the dough.
my "dough cutter" (rubber spatula) didn't work as well as my hands.


oops. too close together.
butt buddies.
yeah yeah, they're not perfectly round, either.
save the critcism for my craft for when i go back to school.
i'll get plenty of it then anyway.


golden!
don't mind the blob of four buns to the right.
nothing a little siamese quadruplet surgery couldn't fix.


someone got a bit anxious.
you would have, too, if you smelled our house.


the [delicious] end.

giving in to fusion

when it comes to asian food, i'm usually anti-fusion. lucky me grew up eating all kinds of authentic asian food. i love LA.

my mom is pretty good at cooking korean food. so yes, i'm a total korean snob. kogi truck? bleh. you won't catch me there until there's a 5 minute or less line. momofuku ssam? i'm skeptical.

i'm also now a thai snob thanks to the bear and bear-ents. i did, however, live on the westside for more than a few years and ate my faux thai in secret when i had cravings for semi-decent asian food for lunch. shh. don't tell the bear. well, he already knows. there isn't much he doesn't know about me.

chinese? i went to high school in the san gabriel valley. most of my friends were chinese-american. they took me to the best dimsum, cantonese seafood palaces, shanghainese places to eat those flat, pan-fried rice cakes, hong kong-style cafes, and taiwanese cafes.

japanese? my grandparents were young'uns during the japanese occupation of korea. they had to adopt new names and forget their old (but luckily got them back soon enough). they still count in japanese when counting out loud. they also had to eat the food and learned how to make it pretty well. maternal grandma makes THE best cold soba noodle dipping base from scratch and hand cuts all the veggies etc. that you throw in the broth into perfectly uniform matchsticks. paternal grandma makes THE best red bean mochi, which she used to freeze as soon as she made them and then hide in her suitcase. 12 hours later, after she landed in LA, they'd be perfectly thawed. plus this is LA, land of sushi and inventor of rolls (albeit those aren't really authentic). i also ate dinner quite often at an old friend's place. her first generation mom would make us all kinds of yummy, authentic j-food, too. and i lived on sawtelle for a few years with e11even, who pretty much qualifies as a fob. she'd even pack me cutesy bento or homemade onigiri to take to work once in awhile.

vietnamese? DT, a high school friend, would regularly bring banh mi from her mom's super secret favorite shop for lunch and share with us. yep, we'd devour the pate, cured pork, and whatever else was in those super secret sandwiches. she also took us to her super secret favorite pho place where they'd put the rare meat on the side, give us an extra bowl of broth just for cooking the meat to our liking and then put it in the unadulterated bowl of noodles and broth. it was like $3 a bowl back in high school. so cheap. so satisfying.

hawaiian fusion? alright, they get a pass since those asians have been there for generations and because they love and use spam. they mostly get a pass because of the spam.

i hate paying high-ish prices for asian cooking when i could find a yummy, down home, hole-in-the-wall that does it better for less.

i'm a purist. what can i say?

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it's been hot.
yay. we're finally all settled into our homey 1920s bungalow. not really my style, but very cozy and cute.
boo. but it was built in the 1920s--which means no A/C. no A/C units in any of the rooms, either.
yay. luckily, we have super old trees that shade the back half of the house. and ceiling fans in the bedrooms. and many fans left over from our last oven place.

so.
i wanted to eat something cool.
now that i'm actually slaving over the stove again almost every weekday,
it's no fun heating the oven
(and making the whole kitchen an oven in the process)
or having more than one burner on on the stove.
yay. we have a brand new gas range with kickass burners in three different sizes/strengths.
yay. we have this kickass new, stainless steel, commercial work table since there is almost no counter space in the old (but spacious) kitchen. it's the star of the photos below. well, supporting actor, after the food.

plus.
my maternal grandma told me to eat spicy things when it's hot to cool off. yeah, i don't get it, either. my mom hypothesized that when you eat spicy, you sweat a lot and the boogers flow, carrying hot fluids away from your body and evaporating on your skin, thus cooling you. yeah, i can't believe she used to be a chemist, either.

finally, the recipe.

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mango jalapeño cold soba noodles
4 servings
loosely adapted from these two recipes:
nigella's cold soba noodles [via wan]
cooking light's soba noodle salad with citrus vinaigrette



in the pot:
8.8 ounces soba noodles (about three bundles)

in [medium] bowl #1:
5 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 lime's juice

in [large] bowl #2:
3 green onions
2 teaspoons finely chopped cilantro
(i used the frozen, dorot brand from trader joe's, which
flecked the noodles evenly and beautifully...kind of like those seaweed-flecked japanese rice crackers)
1 carrot, matchstick-cut
1 large, ripe mango, cubed
1 large jalapeño, finely chopped (i left the seeds and membranes in. remove that hot stuff or use less of the jalapeno if you're sensitive to heat...from either end ;) )

oh, and 1 tablespoon of freshly grated ginger might have been nice. but as typical of me, i forgot to buy ginger. even with my carefully written out grocery list in hand.

do the pot:
boil some water. throw some salt in if you want, but i find soba noodles don't really need it. throw the noodles in. don't spill half a bundle on the counter like i did.

rinse the noodles under cold water, lifting up chunks o' noodles as you go so all the noodles cool down.

do [medium] bowl #1:
throw it all in. whisk it together.

throw the boiled, cooled noodles in. toss to coat evenly.

do [large] bowl #2:
throw it all in. toss it together.

throw the boiled, cooled, saucy noodles in. toss to distribute chunkies evenly.

cover and throw the bowl in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. i had to serve almost immediately, and it was still good. however, it was better the next day.

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accompaniments:
i served this alongside pioneer woman's firecracker shrimp with the following adjustments.
- increased the sriracha to 3 tablespoons. we love spicy.
- pan-fried the shrimp (no additional oil, a couple minutes on each side) rather than grilling them. my indoor grill/panini press also heats up the kitchen too much, which results in sweaty potato dripping into the food she's cooking. gross.

a side of big bang theory. HI-larious. i usually hate science-y dorks because i am a dork but not of that kind, but i LOVE these geeks. a lot.

avo-L-M-N-O-P

so my google reader told me to go check out this blog. so i did. because i always do what my computer tells me to. or something like that. anyway, i was looking for something that used a lot of chicken stock and lemons. i have an open carton of stock full of microbes working away to make it go bad (boo microbes!), egg whites left over from the chocolate croissant bread pudding, and too many lemons in my fridge right now. and look! this recipe uses both! and i had exactly 3 cups of chicken stock left. whee! i know it's avoglemono, but my brain keeps reading it as "avo-L-M-N-O-P." eggy, lemony, yum. it's like egg drop soup. well, it is an egg drop soup. i love doing this to my ramen, too. mmMMM.



lots of weekend updates to come including unique LA shopping, musha eating, and mochi + gelato adventures. but for now, nyam nyam nyam (korean for "nom nom nom").

we be jellin'

to officially welcome our summer vacation, j+j and the developer hosted a chill bbq in their silverlake yard. seriously, cutest little house ever.

see?

oh, and if you're looking for a place on the eastside, the front house is for rent. really nice, big yard with roses and old trees, laid back neighbors (j+j, the developer) who will rarely be home during the school year (well except one j, he works from home, the lucky bastard), and just off sunset. /plug

alright, onto business. the grub. 'twas potluck-ish, but the lovely hosts provided most of it. (excuse all the saran wrap. we were outside, and i was just too relaxed/lazy to move it aside for the photos).

summery fruit, chips + corn and regular salsa

mmm...cheese.
steve buscemi (not really) and his fiancee brought
some brie, port salut, and dill (i think) havarti.

one of the canadians brought kalbi.
(on sale at galleria little tokyo market for $2/pound right now!)

gramps brought some pinot grigio,
which he watered down with san pellegrino.
told you he was old.
oh, and gramps's son (roommate), socal hippy boy, brought delicious tamales
from somewhere in highland park.

gramps + his wife also brought a steak in case.

delish.
midwestern hoosier boy manned the grill well.
j+j are from brooklyn and have never had a grill before.

laid-back berkeley girl (LBBG) made a refreshing cabbage + almond salad.

LBBG also mixed up some similarly refreshing
spiked cucumber mint lemonade in this cute retro jar.


the lemonade-cucumber-mint combo was so, so
summery.

mexican wedding cookies from whole foods.
they were eh.

told you architecture students like smoking.
instead of candy or nuts, there were these.

it turns out my favorite ginger beer
is very delicious with dark rum.

oh, and i brought j-e-l-l-O! two kinds, no less.

spiked! broken glass jello
(klassier, pretty jello shots)
broken up and crazy!
just like booze can do.

virgin rainbow jello
you can see which set was broken into first.
layered, pretty, calm, square.
booze-less.

some process photos, so you can see what's under the foil.

blurry, of course.
macro fail.

too many bubbles,
but i was not about to try and pop all those.

chopped up.
in pretty green cupcake liners.

pretty red + white cupcake liners for the rainbow slices.


taste the rainbow.
oh wait, that's skittles.


macro decides to start working again.
pretty colors.


jiggle jiggle.
(ignore my grossly funkily wrinkled hand).

to spike the broken glass jello, i used 3 oz. of jello packet, 1 cup of hot water, 1 cup of vodka per color. i forgot to spike the white, condensed milk gelatin, so there wasn't quite enough of it volume-wise compared to all the color. next time, i'd add a cup or so of vodka to that, too.

you can totally taste the deeelicious condensed milk even when gelled. oh yum. i could drink/eat that stuff straight outta the can.

oh, and i used justJENN's suggested jello flavors/combos. i was in the jello aisle, starting to contemplate all the flavor/color combos. i would have deliberated (much) further had i not had to pee so badly. dang ralphs with no bathroom. anyway, i digress.

everyone was so relaxed. finally. beautiful socal summer-y day (stay way may gray and june gloom!). lots of food + drink. fun company. what more do you need to kick off summer vacation?

ziggy says, "oh, hullo."
best. labradoodle. ever.


then runs off to cuddle with his mama.
his dad is steve buscemi (not really).

socal hippy boy took a two hour nap in the sun.
this is all we could see of him from our picnic table.

the end. of the beginning of summer! booya!