The last something months

The BEST chocolate cupcake recipe I have come across yet, thanks to Ina Garten via The Boy Who Bakes. Moist, swt, absolutely indulgent :) Perhaps the secret ingredient to make this cake darker in flavor is the freshly brewed coffee. I don't care, it beats the mayonnaise cupcakes I attempted 2 years ago by a million miles. Don't trust every highly rated and reviewed item you see online :T














Also I'm slowly learning to frost cupcakes...













Flowers in February















And ice cookies. Secrets from other baking blogs to pretty icing that sets well and doesn't leak: Don't add too much milk/liquid and dried egg (meringue) powder adds the shiny look and hardening factor.







The Metropolis on exhibit at LACMA. Yay for student membership and members appreciation month!




Attempting to appreciate celery is hard work ;)

Love for carrot will never die. Carrot juice and ice cream is apparently a Persian dessert. Genius?? The carrot cupcake comes from Smitten Kitchen, it is indeed a soft and fluffy cupcake but I was looking for moist and dense. Will have to remember to use organic carrots next time and maybe something more like this from BraveTart. Also, Smitten Kitchen's latest post was carrot cake pancakes!!! That sounds amazing... If only I had all the time in the world to grate bags of carrots.




Riding down the coast on the Pacific Surfliner.














The only kind of 3 hour commute I do not mind undertaking.










This year, Santa lost his reindeer.

Whirlwind July

Began with a trip to New Orleans. Hot, humid, haunted! I believe we set out eating first: trekking under the hot sun to Hansen's Sno-Bliz and then to the Palace Cafe, which I'm convinced must be the inspiration for Disney Princess Tiana's dream restaurant. A guided walking tour the next day helped me understand the city and its haunted reputation. Took pictures with the Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau's tomb, peeked at Bourbon St but the scene was not for us, rode down the Mississippi to the Chalmette Battlefields--the last battle against the British, sat out a rolling Southern thunderstorm at the Creole Creamery




And what else? Independence Day fireworks, mango daiquiries, bread pudding, bananas foster, melt-in-your-mouth-pralines, Nicholas Cage's tomb (??), baked oysters, raw oysters, fried oysters, double-balconied mansions, olive-stuffed muffeletta, live jazz, mint juleps, catfish, alligator sausage po-boy, Crepe Myrtles covered in Mardi Gras beads,






banana foster bread pudding (best dessert ever at Irene's)...and BEIGNETS w/ cafe au lait every morning at Cafe du Monde.
Then we were on the road, with HP7 for casual listening, to Knoxville, TN in order to pay homage to women's bball legends--or at least, that is what I understood. The drive was so green, verdant, though the Kudzu was quite impressive, too. After that, we were stopped by Asheville and Brevard in NC







where these remarkable white squirrels run around, completely oblivious to their poor summer camoflauge. Extremely cute. We also went down a natural sliding rock at Pisgah Falls which I was nervous about because it felt freezing cold and I felt old and stiff, but when you see little kids having a blast, you know it will be good.

We were in Davidson for a couple of days and what happened there? Picking real fruit and veg from gardens, my second trip to Lazy Ranch 5 (I was much braver!), legit bbq (North Carolina's is better) pulled pork sandwiches (Please, Cook-Out, come to the West Coast!! You too, Cheer Wine), my first time on a sailboat (kind of random but I would definitely like to try that again someday), kudzu-conquering goats, and more Harry Potter 7... you know, gotta catch up for the final movie.



!Poof! And then I was in Boston, in lobster territory. Seriously, my family loves seafood and we used to go to Boston and Maine for lobster at least once a year in addition to trips to Cape May, NJ which was a little bit closer to home..





And while I'd love to type out all the things I did there, right now I'm getting sleepy. But I think you know exactly what I did...




and then some more... Okay fine, in addition to having copious amts of good food and being spoiled by friends, I watched the final HP7 part ii movie in IMAX 3D which was worth it because I got 2 tix for $3 on oo.com
, went on a duck tour (instead of on one of those cute sailboats on the Charles River) for kicks even though we'd already walked the Freedom Trail, and just hopped around the neighborhoods frequented by Jae over the last 5 years.

At the end of the week, I continued on to NY, NY, a little nervous to see how much things had changed and if I had missed it? But surprisingly little! The only improvement on the subway I could catch was the new digital changing display on some of the cars. As much as I don't miss the rude people (oh the horror stories I have), the humid human mess in the subways (oh the horror stories I have!), the impossible-to-find-public-bathrooms (oh the horror...), the living in the awkwardly large income disparity...there was much shopping to be done. I went wild in Uniqlo's sales and hunted down Inglot at Times Sq. For all their huge Broadway style signs... I still circled the block 2-3 times to find this place. In addition, I finally tried some touristy things I'd put off like frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity's, a walk through FAO Schwartz, and a visit to MoMA. In all, I was not impressed. Real chocolate is better, Times Square's Toys R Us is bigger, and I don't feel like I missed out before. However, Strand Bookstore? How did I never round the corner into your doors before? I used to pour through cookbooks and people watch at B&N overlooking the square. Oh well, at least now I know. My last evening in NY was very romantical! Picnic and the Met Opera in the park. It was only missing one thing--champagne!



Lastly, I was in NorCal. Berkeley, SF, Oakland. More art, more friends, more food. And then seriously, to NorCal: Humboldt County, a 6-7 h drive up. It was indeed beautiful California landscape, blue skies and windy roads. In Arcata, it was so charming. Happy flowers everywhere. We helped see our good friends Tom & Shilo married and everyone was lovely. And so was the wildlife--harbor seals, elk, the trapped whale at Klamath Bridge, the banana slugs...




We marveled at the Redwoods while driving down the Ave of Giants on the way down. Incredibly old, very humbling.

I flew back to SD and have been relaxing since. But already it'll be time to move in at UCLA in a few weeks.

I've got many pictures on FB and missed getting ones with other people too. But quality time was had and cherished with many special persons. Thank you all for being in my life.

Offering more visuals

Pardoning my long absence, how about a few pieces of my art from this year? :) It hasn't even debuted on my public Artworks picasa album.



Obsessing over heels, weren't we? Christian Louboutins (not what I drew). Speaking of which, Joyce and I made it to the LA boutique one day, dragging Rand and Regina, and drooled for a while.



Reminiscing about the Europe adventure I planned out with my friends DK and Kim in Fall 2009. 5 cities in 8 days. There's still so much to see. I'll be back someday!

As always, be kind!

One year gone by, already?

Well, hello there.

It has been one year since I last posted on this blog. That is no small feat. How embarrassing.

If it helps, I forgot the pw for a while! Honest!

And in the meantime, I purchased a smartphone with internet services so my life in pictures was monopolized on by Facebook.

What has happened since then? Many many cooking and baking projects, culinary discoveries, a few trips--in fact, two to Chicago, alone--and one life-altering decision! ;) But I do apologize, I should have been documenting highlights of the year in blog-form.

I've never had so much free time as I did this year. School was out, work was in. Some of my cooking obsessions this year included: Korean Samgyetang (chicken soup with sweet rice), pajun (savory pancakes), hodduck (sweet pancakes from yeast-based dough), Southern-style fried chicken, the best 7 cheese (actually 8) mac n' cheese you've ever eaten, chocolate cupcakes, honey cornbread, mint tea, apricot danish pastry, Nelly's guacamole, "healthy" blueberry muffins, katsu of all types of meat, real steak. And all of it was fun, even if sometimes I was so disheartened by the failed end-product that I never wanted to enter a kitchen for the rest of my life.

Living in Baldwin Park, which has a huge Latino community, introduced me to a lot of cuisines I'd never tried before like Salvadoran, Peruvian and Nicaraguan. Discoveries that were a big hit with me: Mulitas, pupusas (Los Molcajetes, Baldwin Park), gallo pinto, platanos frijoles, Salvadoran horchata, fried shrimp tacos (Tacos Enscenadas, Duarte), and--I should mention it again because I never liked the stuff before until my roommate made her granny's recipe--Nelly's guacamole :) But I'm still not a fan of mole or menudo.

I was fed even more food on my grad school visits. Being wined and dined after interviews is awesome! Which brings me to.....

Guess what!? I'll be in LA for at least 6 more years! Hoping to obtain a PhD in the Biological Sciences at UCLA. So please stick around for hopefully many more entries on this blog ;D

Good news: I'll be living on a street where there is a weekly visit from local California farmers! Here's to fresh and unbelievably good produce! Cheers~

LA Street Food Festival

My rationale for paying $45 to sample 50 food trucks is that it takes a lot of freaking money and time to chase one down on a given night. So might as well know what I like before I go hunting for LA's many foodie trucks. So here I was at the Rose Bowl waiting in line an hour early with my labmates. because the line went on like this.. through the parking lot and winding around the stadium. So we were among the first people in after the VIP crowd. There was beer and tons of food. Mexican, American, Asian fusion, Brazilian, French, Malaysian, Thai, you name it. I could hardly take pictures of everything we ate because we were working the system, from back to front :) Here's a hot dog with tater tots. Not too much going on until I bite into it and see a bed of mustard seeds under the dog. Haha, what a pungent surprise. Pretty things are allowed as chefs try to bring gourmet to the streets. Just look at it! So cool. I warn against this one, Thai Explosion: peanut sauce, citrus, sour... what was the point? The stadium definitely filled up with people, all oggling each other's food "Where'd you get that? What is that?" Tequila companies galore. This guy deserved to be in my pictures because ..

The Grilled Cheese Truck was serving up cheddar sandwiches and mac n' cheese sandwiches with gaspacho (cold tomato soup). Absolut yum but they are more famous for their special sandwiches--like brie on walnut crandberry bread, or grilled bananas with chocolate--which were not showcased today. Will have to track them down someday ;) Some places let you take lots of samples hehehe, ~what gooooood ribs you have! Here is some Brazilian empanadas (like fried dumplings) with salsa and a teardrop-shaped gooey dumpling filled with chicken and cream cheese. Interesting but not my fav

The Fry Girl was there too! They came to Caltech campus for Midnight Madness once a term with mini donuts, fried to crispy perfection with powdered sugar (colored for any occasion). I didn't know they did non-donut items--they make fried candy bars. They were as good as ever and definitely did my recommendation good. Further along in the dessert section, there was lots of ice cream to be had. But I was interested in the shaved ice because there wasn't any water to be had...anywhere There was rainbow, fresh strawberrries w/ condensed milk, but I chose to have coconut/guava/passion fruit ;) good choice But there was more to this food festival than just the eats. They also brought in organic and/or independent lines of fashion, body care, tea. A creepily owl-like purse I had too much fun and tried everything on my hit list:
The Grilled Cheese Truck
Cool Haus (ice cream sandwiches!!)
Frysmith (rajas fries rule)
The Fry Girl (for nostalgia and because they are scrumptious)
Cupcakes Agogo (picture perfectly cute and moist?? Nice job)
If I didn't take enough pictures it's because I scarfed down the things I thought were tastiest before I got to take a picture, but they look pretty much the same as on their websites really. The Frysmith won my taste buds over tonight with their rajas fries. At The Breek Truck here was a Tunisian fried ravioli with quail egg (raw) inside, and it was definitely amazing.

I definitely collected cards, hehe

Oh LA trucks. Too funny. I will stalk you soon.


*I also discovered that Canter's Delicatessen took to the streets in their own yellow/orange truck selling basically pastrami sandwiches (but that is fine with me ;)

Sometimes I bake

Today I felt like using my leftover eggwhites. Decided to rely on allrecipes for a moist chocolate cupcake recipe with a vanilla frosting.

It sounded like such a good idea.

Look how much frosting was made!
And they turned out very cute.

But tasted horrible to me. I don't like cake that is dense like hostess and tastes like unsweetened cocoa. It made it no better that I thought I could still taste the mayo (yup, it was one of those recipes...). Plus, I don't like remembering that the egg whites have not been cooked.

So this was not a good recipe for me. I hope someone eats them.

Downtown LA Artwalk

Downtown LA Artwalk gives everyone a chance to appreciate the art made in LA. Galleries are open all over downtown along with bars and live music gigs on each block. I'm so happy I finally got to go (it happens once a month...). A crowded night. I've never seen the streets so full of LA pedestrians before.

"Fashion is art" gallery gave out free tank tops, lip gloss and blush.
The trucks were about too! At the dimsum truck, I had the Peking Duck taco--a heavy sauce on juicy duck with cucumbers. yum but not my fav :)
Also tried beef fried rice cake. They took the dduk from ddukbokki and fried it, putting a heavy soy based sauce on jangjorim style beef. Surprisingly good fried but so soy!

Lastly, the best dish of the night came from the India Jones truck. The paneer Frankie: a roti (like a tortilla/naan bread) wrap with tamarind cilantro chutney, onion, one fried egg, and whatever filling. Not to sweet, not too salty, just right! And the cheese was so good. A pleasant surprise, this combo.

More galleries with color
Hmm I don't get this one..

Tuesday was Frida Kahlo's birthday!

I like this artist's take on her portrait.

More colorful galleries.

Oh LA.




More pictures below. Enjoy :)