May 5, 2009 · 7:44 pm

Where else would I be on my birthday?

 

Technically, I already posted on Shorty’s .32, but damnit, it deserves more attention! My husband, Chris, was working late and so my friend (and awesome cook), Nick, took me out for my birthday on short notice. I had the choice to go anywhere at all… So where did I pick? Shorty’s .32. With my history of bad luck, I needed to do everything possible to guarantee a great meal on my birthday – I was in no mood to be anything less than thrilled. Remember what I said about my family being cheap (even though it did pay for college)? Well there’s nothing more offensive than paying for a meal that’s mediocre! Shorty’s is like a sure-thing (not in the Kentucky Derby way – it’s actually a safe bet). They should have a sign that says, “Send us your tired and hungry and we will return them fat and happy.” This is one of the few restaurants in the city that make me long for my old, six-figure life. If I were still pulling in the Benjamins, I would probably eat at Shorty’s every damn night. Actually, with prices so damn reasonable, I could even eat there for half of that. Unfortunately, I’m making a fraction of half of that: a lot more Lincolns than Bens, and I’m talking about the copper kind.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Eating my feelings and paying for it

May 5, 2009 · 11:31 am

Quit picking on Swine Flu…

I think people are tired of me joking about Swine Flu.  Apparently it’s not one of those things I should be joking about.  But before I quit cold turkey…

Someone countered my claim that Swine Flu wasn’t a big deal with, “If it’s not such a big deal, then why did I see like 5 people wearing face masks in Chinatown???”  Great question!  Well, here’s the thing – Asian people love to wear face masks.  We find all sorts of reasons why we have to wear them: you’re riding your moped around and don’t want to breathe in dirt and fumes from other mopeds that you’re tailgating; it’s really sunny out and you don’t want that area of your face to get tan, which basically means you’re a peasant (and nobody really wants to look like a peasant even if you are one); or the latest round of some extremely rare and potentially deadly flu (as all flu’s are) is spreading around and you don’t want to catch it because like every other Asian, you’re a germaphobe and paranoid.

Of course, I have another theory as to why Asians take any opportunity possible to don the little blue, paper face mask – it makes us feel like doctors.  That’s right, if you’re not a doctor, this is your one opportunity to feel like the doctor that your strict Asian parents always wanted you to be, and have never stopped being (vocally) disappointed that you never became.  Live long and eat pig, people.

3 Comments

Filed under Sometimes I just post what's falling out of my head

May 4, 2009 · 1:28 pm

Swine Flu is my fault…

I lied – this isn’t my first blog.  But it wasn’t an intentional lie!  I completely forgot that I kept a blog a few summers ago while I was working in Vietnam.  Trust me, it was short-lived and not remarkable – so much so that I didn’t even remember it!  A friend actually just reminded me of it and as I was looking through it, I started to laugh at one post.  No, not because it was funny, but because while I was there, Vietnam suffered a pig-related epidemic!  That’s right, Swine Flu is basically all my fault.  My bad luck and love of pork has combined like the perfect storm and unleashed itself upon the world.

For your amusement: check out this post related to Vietnam’s “Blue Eared Pig Disease” from 2007.

Leave a comment

Filed under Randomness, Sometimes I just post what's falling out of my head

May 4, 2009 · 11:39 am

Mini-Miracle Mondays

You know what? 29 feels a lot like 28 did, except that I am spending the morning of my 29th birthday with my leg elevated and an ice pack on my right knee. That damn library injury is still plaguing me! Maybe it’s age playing yet another trick on me, its best trick was sinking my metabolism.

Regardless, there are still wonderful moments in this past week that count as mini-miracles:

Miracle #1: Biscuits.  I. Love. Biscuits. Growing up in New Jersey as a first-generation Vietnamese girl, biscuits weren’t common. All of you “born in the south and raised on biscuits” readers are probably reading this, shaking your heads, and thinking, “that poor, deprived girl.” Yeah, that’s how I feel, too! Now, I make it a point to eat biscuits whenever possible Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Mini-Miracle Mondays

May 3, 2009 · 7:07 pm

Sunday is apparently pick out a shiny new Asian day…

Well, I guess I should be flattered, but I’m just kind of dumbstruck.  Yes yes, go ahead and make jokes about me just being dumb – I’ll wait…  Done?  Good, moving on.  Something very odd happened in the kitchen today…

I got an early birthday gift.  Instead of sweating it out over the omelette station, I was hard at work destroying appetizers for patrons of L’École today.  Whatever makes the mean, mean omelettes go away makes me thrilled.  Added bonus: Teach stopped by with his family and hopefully had a good meal.  Actually, as long as he steered clear of anything with the word “tartare” in it – which I was mangling – I’m sure he did.  It was nice to see happy faces come through the kitchen, even if I could only barely enjoy it because I was too busy thinking of how to ruin something else just by touching it.

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under This never would have happened in Finance

May 2, 2009 · 10:00 am

Correction to my birthday bliss… (read the sarcasm)

I’m literally sitting at my parents’ kitchen table and they’re critiquing my blog.  My mom overly loves it and my dad doesn’t seem to know what it is, but has suggestions on how to improve.  Yeah, good to be home.  As if I needed any more inspiration, here are two great little gems from the trip.

First, I need to post a correction to my last entry about my 5th birthday.   Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under How'd I get this way? Blame my parents.

May 1, 2009 · 1:49 pm

Happy Friday! How are you spending your weekend?

Well, I’m spending mine mourning my youth.  On Monday, I turn 29, which means a year from Monday, I’ll be 30.  See how that works?  So this weekend, I’m going to escape the city and go home to New Jersey to see my family.  I hate my birthday, but my mother (who is hilarious) has a way of pulling me from my crankiness with stories of what a brat I was at my 5th birthday.  Apparently (I don’t remember past last year, let alone back to when I was 5), I thought I pinned the tail on the donkey, but my mother was being a gracious host and gave the prize to my “boyfriend” at the time, Cory instead.  Well, no one had explained what being “gracious” meant, so instead I threw a temper tantrum yelling, “That’s not fair!” and stormed away from my party.  Yeah…  I was just a treasure of a kid.  Hearing about how terrible you were before, though, somehow makes you feel better about who you turned out to be.  Not that the standards of comparison are high, but who cares!

Actually, there’s one little glimmer of sunshine to start off this weekend (holy cheez its, I’m basically asking for a personal rain cloud to follow me around), the Culinary Technology blog that I was hired to write for will actually be up and running by the end Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Randomness

May 1, 2009 · 2:38 am

Disaster = eating opportunity = weight disaster = depression = eating opportunity = wordier posts = vicious cycle

I wish I could make this stuff up.  I’m sure you’ve already clued into the fact that I have perpetually bad luck, but just to give you an idea…  When my boss, Dave, and Teach met for the first time, Teach told Dave a little about the premise of my blog.  Dave laughed and began to ask whether I’d written posts about some of his favorite disasters: “Your gastroenteritis?” Um, no, thanks for sharing that with Teach, though.  “Oh, how about your husband buying a boat?”  Yeah, no, not that one either.  Still too painful to be funny.   Basically, I have so much “material” that I could blog for days and weeks in advance and take a little vacation from carpal tunneling… except for the fact that each day that goes by fosters even more disaster kindling.

For instance, yesterday night, I was riding the 6 home and decided to take Teach’s advice and start my post on my blackberry.  There I sat, typing away, thumbs flying over keys… wow, I’m so productive, I thought!  Yeah, that’s until I finally looked up and realized I was 2 stops past where I wanted to get off.  Good thing it was only 10:00 PM at night and I wasn’t exhausted.  Oh, wait…  I contemplated taking a cab, but decided that I was going to look at this seemingly unlucky turn of events as an opportunity to do even more blogging!  (FYI – this is where I should have known I was doomed.  The Pollyanna-esque optimism was a clear sign that bad things were about to happen.) Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Eating my feelings and paying for it, This never would have happened in Finance

April 29, 2009 · 11:59 pm

KISS & cavaTELLi

img_3464

The most interesting part of my day was an afterthought to how this post was supposed to go. To spare those of you that are humoring me by reading this, I’ll cut to the chase. My boss, Dave Arnold, and I were speaking with my blogging professor, Steven Shaw about our upcoming blog on Dave’s food technology adventures at FCI’s restaurant, L’Ecole. (FYI, I like and will refer to Steven as Teach’ from now on. It’s familiar-feeling, like calling him Chef). Well, while we were speaking with Teach and his friend, Mike, FCI Dean and world famous chocolatier Jacques Torres walked in with basically his own paparazzi crew. He was media-blitzing the place, handing out his Champagne Kiss chocolates and asking everyone to “save his kiss.”  In case you haven’t heard, Hershey’s is claiming that a chocolate with the word “kiss” in its name is too close to “kisses,” which Hershey’s has trademarked.  At one point, Dean Torres looped back towards us and offered me another chocolate, which of course I couldn’t turn down because 1) it’s Jacques Torres and 2) it’s Jacques Torres chocolate.  What I didn’t realize is that Dean Torres had a plan to photo-op the moment: “You feed me the chocolate and I will feed you a piece for the camera.”  So we linked arms and fed away.  I am both superbly embarrassed by the whole situation and at the same time, sublimely happy that I got 2 pieces of free chocolate!  Oh, and for the record, I think Hershey’s is being ridiculous and support JT 100% — and not just because he fed me chocolate.

So rewind to this morning, well before I had any intention of going to L’École today.  I woke up this morning STARVING – even more than usual. Today’s smoothie-out-of-a-quart-container was peaches and pineapple (and of course my constants, banana and ginger), but after I gulped it down, I craved salt. I usually crave the savory, but today was specific: I wanted the Mushroom Cavatelli from Shorty’s .32… and I wanted it bad.Here’s the problem with being addicted to food and then becoming a cook – it just adds fuel to the fire. It’s like helping a meth addict start their own lab. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under Fool proof recipes... fool-tested... fool-approved

April 29, 2009 · 12:55 am

Throw me the mango, I’ll throw you the whip!

I’m 100% Vietnamese.  Ok, I’m actually 75% Vietnamese and 25% Chinese, but for all intents and purposes, consider me 100% Vietnamese.  This means that I love myself a mango.  For as long as I can remember, my mother would buy a flat of mangoes from Chinatown every weekend while they were in season.  Unripe, green mangoes were marinated in fish sauce for a savory dish, or pickled in rice wine vinegar with a little Thai chili and eaten as a snack or an accompaniment for sweet and savory beef.  Ripe mangoes were diced for dessert and you grabbed the 2nd best utensil in the world after chopsticks from the little plastic toothpick (What? Everyone didn’t have one of those?).  In the morning, mangoes went into the blender for smoothies (maybe that’s where I get it from) and my brother and I rejoiced at not being forced to down another soft-boiled egg.  Sure, soft-boiled eggs sound great now, but when every other 7 year-old gets Cap’n Crunch and you’re sucking down runny eggs, it gets a little annoying.

You get the point, then – my childhood ran on a mango-powered engine.   Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under This never would have happened in Finance