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X’MAS MORNING JERK-SPICED PORCHETTA

I recently took a class from Harvard called Science and Cooking. I did it without ever taking an SAT exam or having an IQ above 140, all while wearing my slouchiest PJ and tucked in the comfort of my bed with a can of soda and a tub of gummy bears on the side, and burnt through 5 lectures straight in 1 week… Oh God bless bootleg DVDS. I was once again basted in the youthful hunger of my tender college years when hope was alive and the world was shiny…, as well as the exact reason why… I slept through half of it. Dude, there’s something about the echo? bouncing off the lecture hall?… that’s 10x more potent than sleeping pills on the deepest cellular level and sends me into a baby-state coma. But relax, I still overheard something in between my wee-wee breaks to share with you all.

09.24.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Dairy, Sweets

FAKE CHOCOLATE CAKE + REAL BANANA BUTTERCREAM

Last few days were a nightmarish montage of my extended kitchen-agony. Three whole days covered in a choking dust of flour with smudgy grease from a beastly amount of butter and sugary stickiness haunting my finger tips. Electrical outlets being pushed to a near brink of melt-down and an unprepared dishwasher running past its adrenaline threshold into a disoriented state of ecstasy. After three nights of stress-induced binge eating, two stone-tough should muscle groups and one extremely cranked neck which all ended in a final coma that took place in a dark and questionable foot-massage parlor, despite nature’s best effort to stop me, I said I’d make a cake.

09.21.2013

In All recipes, Featured Attractions, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Quick Meals, Vegatables

STAINED GLASS NOODLE

Ahum… so. I was totally going to unveil my-first-time-ever… ground-shaking… storm-wielding… SALIVA-BURSTING TWO-TIER CELEBRATION BAKE that’s, gonna, rock, your, world!

But I fucked it up. Yep. Just, you know, the typical shit that happens to all of us, the cake batter crashing… buttercream breaking… bananas being bananas and the entire cake wiggling in a funky move like it was the 80’s and finally steadied itself in a very unattractive slant. I’m not sayin’ this with disrespect cuz I’m angry and all… but seriously, you bakers out there are fucking crazy.

Thus, brings us to this.

09.17.2013

In All recipes, Dairy, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Quick Meals, Vegatables

spicy cheesy. gochujang spaghetti

The wee-light of early morning started seeping in through the curtain, adding to my sense of unease particular to someone who knew she had done wrong and was most certainly about to get caught. Jason’s morning-siren promptly started barking at 6:30 (no, really, the alarm is a dog barking…) and was ignored for 5 minutes as usual until eventually, he turned over and witnessed my crime scene. Like the most gasping moment in a horror movie, an unsightly picture of an irresponsible grown-up, holding her i-pad with an earphone giggling like an idiot, secretly pulling a marathon on… a new-found television series. ALL NIGHT and 18 episodes in, not even of something socially excusable like Game of Thrones, or House of Cards to demonstrate depth, but a retarded high-school version of True Blood with a name too embarrassing to even pronounce… Va…Vampire Diaries! God! Just hang me by the neck!

09.13.2013

In All recipes, Meat, Seafood, Snacks, updated recipe

insights to your shrimp dumplings

There are days, you know, not everyday, but days when I really… hate this. I mean, what is this anyways? A self-published “web-blog” about me making dinner. Talk about being a loving sponge when it comes to self-absorbing not to mention a shameless evasion from unemployment. Oops, did I not mention that? As many more dignified others who might do this as a hobby aside, I on my other sorry hand, just do this. No other self-sustaining professions at day, heck or even a non-profit charity to excuse myself of, it’s a testimony of prolonged immaturity and chronic, explicit laziness, hardly anything to be carved on my tombstone. So yeah, as this self-absorbing continues, sometimes I really hate this.

09.09.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Dairy, Sweets

The nuttiest profiteroles

I of all people, know how intimidating it can be to play with ingredients that are completely outside of the comfort zone. You see, it’s for the exact same reason that I seriously hate poker games with complete strangers, with unpredictable displays that I have absolutely no talent of reading, or in knowing that if I went all-in with my last stick of butter, would I be left with no chips… or anything for that matter on the table. But you know what, sometimes… well, most of the times actually, these ingredients are just little fuckers who lie! And that if you just call their bluff, you’ll find that the pot is totally worth it.

09.05.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Dairy, Meat

pizza alla carbonara

You’d think that for someone who weeped slightly while watching SATC the-Village-wet-dream in her Vancouver apartment 15 years ago, and now replays movies like You’ve Got Mail the-Upper-West-Side-porn to ease her New-York-home-sickness, if now given the chance to move back to the city, would of course choose Manhattan in a heart beat. Well, almost.

09.02.2013

In All recipes, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Vegatables

firey cold sichuan sesame noodle

My blog is currently suffering under the wrath of my chronic ADD, which is begging me for tiny changes that the blog probably doesn’t need. Actually, tiny would be for any able body who knows a thing or two about CSS coding, but for this rusty brain who still panics when her phone talks back, this, is gonna take awhile. So, I’m going to quickly leave you with.. I don’t want to say this but… the best spicy cold sesame noodle recipe out there. Why, because I looked.

08.28.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Dairy, Sweets

rum and raisin baked tapioca pudding

How many times does a recipe have to fail you before you decide that it just isn’t meant to be? I used to simply set my maximum at three, the same philosophy… no, discipline really that I vigorously apply to all pursuits in life, but as it so proved in the course of the past few weeks, the kitchen, is a much more complicated world. Actually, it isn’t that difficult to explain my unwavering faith in this particular case because as we all experience first-handedly, nostalgia is a powerful form of religion. And with this, hoho… we go way back.

08.25.2013

In All recipes, Snacks, Vegatables

corn and seaweed tempura popper

Before talking corny, you know how sometimes when parents, despite their best intentions no doubt, can suffocate us with all their unnecessary concerns followed by… uh… understandably agitating gestures? God don’t you just hate that? So freaking un-cool is what it is! And just to make it perfectly clear before I confess anything, I am still with you. You know, “Team Kids”. But yesterday… I think I may have done exactly that… ok and then some.

08.21.2013

In All recipes, Got Nothing But Time, Meat

sichuan peppercorn red braised oxtail

I was totally honoured… thrilled actually, when one of my favorite food-site Food52 invited me to share an heirloom (family) recipe for their column. Oh why, me?! Get out of here! No doubt a little much-needed mint-drop in between all the craps that are leaving a bad taste in my mouth lately. I mean recognition in any shape or form is super awesome but frankly, I can’t help but feeling a bit… like cheating, like the time when I innocently stole an unaware blanket from Cosco (dude, I swear to God it was an aaaaaccident!). Well just between the two of us, maybe… because I suspect that Food52 probably has no idea… that I actually… Don’t have one. Uhem, I trust that you can keep a secret.

08.16.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets

teardrop, tart-hearted coco donut

I wish I could tell you – after an exhausting trip in the quest for the only MRI machine for animals in China – that the kids are all right. That we are all right.

08.13.2013