The Girl Who Ate Everything

I don't have any cool photos for you, so check out the above commercial for Mister Donut. Although Mister Donut started as an American company, its strongest presence today is in Asia, centered around Japan. The bubbly pastel cuteness of the commercial that almost looks like a program for toddlers (a program that teaches them what scientists have been pushing all along: animals made of donuts like to eat each other) makes me want to raid a Mister Donut shop and ingest all its donut-y critter friends right now.

...Um, that's not just me, I hope.

Remember that essay about cute Japanese snacks that I wrote a long time ago? As in last year? A bunch of people responded to my survey and I never gave you the end result. So...here it is:

Not Just Tasty: Cute Japanese Snacks as a Reflection of Japan's Rebellion Against Adulthood, Westernization, and Consumerism [evil PDF format, yup]

Yeah, long title. I wouldn't be surprised if many of my assumptions are faulty, as I didn't grow up in Japan, but my professor felt that I backed up my information well enough to deserve a good grade. [wipes sweat off forehead] (I didn't correct the errors after my teacher graded it, so...those are probably strewn throughout the paper.) I was really surprised, but glad to see that writing about a topic I was actually interested in paid off.

So about the heart-meltingly cute Mister Donut commercial, I'm going to lamely quote from my own essay (because I wouldn't suddenly pull this half-a-year-old stuff out of my brain):

Even though cuteness didn't originate from commercial endeavors, it became highly commercial through the plethora of cuteness-incorporated goods Japanese companies churned out. Kinsella believes that the idea of cute is mainly accessible through the continual "consumption" of cute goods because "Cute culture had to be entered and left in a matter of minutes or moments, which lent it to construction by ephemeral products and places of consumption of goods and leisure services" (245). Eating cute snacks is a perfect way to introduce cuteness (perhaps in a bite-sized piece) into one's life for a short period of time without making cuteness one's entire lifestyle. People know that they can't be cute all the time, so eating snacks is an acceptable way for people to retain cuteness, or something that is oppositional to adulthood, whether the eater is actually an adult or is a young person faced with the prospects of adulthood.

If you're Japanese/well versed in Japanese-ness and find that I'm way, waaay off (or a little off), please accept my apologies.

Although this came out weeks ago, I just read Bill Buford's New Yorker essay about working with Will Goldfarb. Even though snack says it took the article down, as of right now you can still download it from the link on Eater's site. Oops. It's a good read, so...um, read it.

Surprisingly, I've never been to Room 4 Dessert, Goldfarb's dessert bar. I've gotten as far as looking through the glass doors and then passing it due to not feeling desserty enough to try it. After reading Buford's article, a part of me really wants to go try a bouncy puree of coconut cream and dried coconut milk, while the other part kinda wants a towering, plebeian hot fudge sundae smothered in whipped cream. Hohum. I guess eating the latter would make me feel guiltier about myself and the horrors I forced into my blood stream. Room 4 Dessert would satisfy my curiosity, not gluttony or search for comfort. Hmm. Mmm. Mmmh. I'll try it at some point.

On a totally different, but still food-related matter, read "Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal" (pdf) by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms. Ooh, someone didn't cliiiick. Don't be that person. :]

...Well, if you're not interested in farming or how the American food supply is processed and regulated, I guess you can skip it. I heard of Polyface from The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. If you're an American and care about where your food comes from and what it's made of, the book is full of important stuff you should know about (or if you're not American, you can learn about our messed up food system, weee!!!).

On that note, I finished my recommendations page where I've listened most of the food-related books I've read. If you buy anything, I made a smidgen of moolah! BUY SOMETHING! :]

I haven't updated in a while due to the lack of anything interesting to report about what I've been ingesting lately. "The Girl Who Ate Everything" is now "The Girl Who Drank A Lot Of Juice and Ate A Lot of Fruit and Subsequently Had To Pee A Lot". That title is way too long.

things to be juiced

I was planning to eat lunch with Deb last Friday, but by Wednesday night my asthma had gotten so bad that I cancelled the lunch (sniffle!) and started a juice fast. From Thursday to Sunday I drank three glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice a day (diluted with water because even I find that stuff really sweet otherwise) until going insane on Sunday night and eating an unsmashed orange. Yesterday I drank two juice concoctions from Life Thyme's juice bar (I don't know what the guy at the counter must've thought upon seeing the same person within a 5 hour period) and ate some fruit for dinner. Today on day six, I'm still just eating fruit. I gave up the liquid fruit part of the diet because it was making me sad.

Why am I still just eating fruit? Because. I'm still wheezing. Although it's not as bad as before, I shouldn't be wheezing at all. I'm sure many people would like to chime in at this point about other things I could do to get better, or give me reasons as to why I'm all asthmatic, but you don't have to. Frankly, I'm just going to keep up with this diet until I get better or hate it. I'm figuring I'll get better before I hate it, not that it didn't give me some major grumpy periods over the weekend (grumpiness factors included more than food).

Obviously, I won't be eating out for a while, at least nothing interesting, so don't look forward to that. It's July 4th, which means I'm staying home and not doing anything celebratory. Hahaha, indeeeeed, I know how to have maximum fun. I was just outside helping my dad chop down a skinny tree that cracked halfway down. That was the maximum fun for the day. And of course, it made me wheeze. I hope most of you are having a more enjoyable holiday. A friend invited me to go to the hot dog eating contest at Coney Island, but I didn't feel up to traveling for a few hours on an empty stomach to see Kobayashi eat 53.75 hot dogs. Maybe next year. [sigh]

Thanks for all the comments on my previous (painfully long) entry! Unfortunately, I pooted out a while ago in attempt to reply to all the comments, but I read them all. It's funny to be missed by people who haven't met me. :) I'm touched that my readers care enough to give me health advice (the friendship advice was also helpful), but for the time being I'm only going to follow what my mum and I want to do. My sanity should stay intact as long as I focus on what I'm doing (you wouldn't go on an all-fruit diet unless you were determined to do it) and don't get distracted by other things. This update is just to tell you that...yeah, I'm alive with fairly normal brain functions.

Update (later in the day): Ah...I felt bad about not having anything interesting to say about NYC food, so I'll talk about a place I neglected to mention before.

on Sunday, the buffet disappears

Last Wednesday (before I realized that my death will probably be asthma-related) I went to Temple in the Village with Tony and Jan. They offer Asian (felt like a mix of Korean/Japanese/Chinese) vegetarian food in a narrow, no-frills environment that wouldn't be out of place in Chinatown. But it's not like you're gonna sit there for a long time anyway. Many people opt to take their food out.

no oil, wow!

All the selections in their buffet table are labeled according to dietary recommendations and what objectionable ingredients they may contain. In case you don't want something oil and soy sauce free...

foodstuffs

...this represents about 1/4th of their offerings. Or 1/5th. Ish. And that doesn't include their rice selection between white, brown, and sticky purple. They have lots of veggies, tofu-esque things, noodly things, and some fried stuff at the end in case you don't want to feel overly healthy.

condiments

Across from the fried stuff section, they have loads of condiments for you to dress up your food with in case you do want oil and soy sauce, among other things.

no, only one plate was mine

My plate at the top cost between $4-$5 for a sampling of boy choy, glass noodles (made of potato or bean starch, I'm not sure), sweet potato, cabbage, sticky purple rice, something that might be kale, and something else that might be...um...green and leafy. I like it when I can choose just how much I want to eat (not in the all-you-can-eat sense; that's when things get baaaaad) since it allows me to eat sensibly and not stuff myself with more than I should eat just because the restaurant decides to present me with a mountain of food. I think Jan and Tony also finished off their plates. I'd definitely go back to Temple in the Village due to the proximity to my workplace and numerous choices for someone avoiding wheat and dairy products.

Of course, right now I'm avoiding more than that and am already running into the problem I had as a raw foodist: I'm eating much more than I need to in order to compensate for the unsatiated feeling that comes with only eating food that's 80%+ water. (Or the unsatiated feeling that comes with being accustomed to a diet with heavier foods.) A bag of organic cherries (many of which were going bad, blech!) from Whole Foods lasted less than a day, and two oranges, a plum, and an apple met their deaths in my digestive fluids. Well, at least I'm getting a gazillion servings of fruit.

veggies and more veggies!

I'm not necessarily back on the "eat everything" trail, but a plate of various cooked vegan-friendly foodstuffs for the grand sum of $4.29 from my second visit to Temple in the Village served my appetite well. My digestion feels fine after having to deal with the most cooked food I've eaten in a week. (Lunch consisted of an orange, a banana, and a smidgen of my mum's Larabar. I found that I don't have a problem eating a fruit meal as long as I get some kind of nut/dried fruit snack at the end.)

What's on my plate? [squints] Broccoli, miso-flavored kale-esque stuff (not bad, but made me realize that I'm not a big fan of miso), sesame-flecked baked potato chunk, kabocha slice, mung bean noodles, seaweed salad, kimchi, marinated cucumber slices (marinated in...something tasty), and chopped cabbage salad. Such a meal would probably make my meat-centric brother cry.

Stephanie's plate

Stephanie and I cleared out plates of all the healthy deliciousness before moving on to less nutritional possibilities.

ice cream ice cream!!!

Jacques Torres, what...what are you doing?! You didn't have these last summer!

that's a lotta sammiches

NO STOPPIT MY EYES AHH WHAT AHHH COOKIES AND ICE CREAM! [wimper]

Of course, I didn't try any of these monsterous ice cream sandwiches, but I've made it my goal to get a taste of the roasted banana before the summer ends. If you ask me, $5 is extremely reasonable for what I'm sure is one of the tastiest ice cream sandwiches you'll ever find. The cookies alone cost $2.50 each, if I remember correctly. Wouldn't it be great if you got a cup of thick hot chocolate to go with it? Dip in that sucker! Oh god.

...Man, how is it that I come up with some of the most unhealthy things while trying to eat more healthily? Or did I just answer my own question?

I gave into the chocolate scent that fills every cubic foot of the store/your brain and bought a bar of Pistachio Pleasures. While the website describes the bar as having "tiny crunches", the actual label says caramelized pistachios. Indeed, the bar only contains tiny, nearly microscopic crunches, which is fine if that's what you're expecting, not so fine if you're looking forward to pistachio chunks. My first bite was disappointing when it returned so little pistachio-ness that I didn't see the point of including it at all, but the experience became better after deciding that I really liked the plain chocolate. Not too dark, not too sweet, and surprisingly smooth. If you really like really dark chocolate, this bar would be too mild for you. However, I don't. (If prefering milk chocolate over dark shows that I have an unsophisticated palate, then...yeah, that's true. I also like that sometimes detested white chocolate stuff. Of course, I'll eat any chocolate as long as it doesn't suck.)

After gazing at mountains of chocolatey things, we went to the nearby Film Forum to see The Motel. Stephanie commented that most of the employees at Film Forum were tall guys with an inability to express emotions beyond the one of "staring into space". It made me miss the friendliness of Norway. [sigh] At least the guy who ripped my ticket gave a smile, unless that was a mistake...

The movie was surprisingly short and akin to many indie movies lacked a satisfying conclusion (it kinda just...ends, and then the credits roll), but I enjoyed it enough. The range of sad, troubled characters should make you feel better about your life. Unless your life is really horrible, in which case...maybe not.

Off the Broiler is giving me the biggest craving for Chinese-American food I've had in years. Is shimp with lobster sauce on anyone else's "Favorite Food" list? Ye know, the somewhat gelatinous, cloudy sauce laced with silky egg goo, chopped scallions, clumpy pork bits and plump, tightly wound shrimps? I'm not a big fan of shrimp; for me, it's all about the sauce, turning every grain of rice it coats into an object of crack-like addiction. The shrimp does give color though, resulting in an somewhat eye-pleasing array of yellows, pinks, and greens, all swimming in a substance that becomes gloppily mucilaginous after cooling in the fridge (a phenomenom I've had much experience with after reheating plenty of leftover lobster sauce since I was little).

So. Is it just me?

My family's favorite Chinese take-out in Hawthorne was run by a very petit, slim Chinese woman who spoke a smidge faster than a Chipmunk. Her tone wasn't Chipmunk-esque, just...the speed. There were usually three male chefs who would heed her barked orders and quickly stir fry the demanded foodstuffs in big, flaming woks. Sometimes I'd watch them comically pack the contents of the wok in a container that looked too small, but after some not so careful smushing and jabbing with a large utensil (hey, this ain't brain surgery), managed to fit the previously overflowing mountain of food snugly undernearth the plastic lid. Thank god nothing ever exploded.

My Chinese-American staples were a rotation of shrimp with lobster sauce, beef and broccoli, and chicken curry. I could count on my brother to get General Tsao's Chicken and my mum usually sprung for chow fun (flat, wide noodles?) or mei fun (thin rice noodles). Despite that the standard Chinese take-out meny is freakin' huge, I had no desire to explore the other options when I had a handful of safe options. (A few summers ago at a Chinese take-out near Vassar, I decided to try the dumplings. I like all dumplings! ALL. DUMPLINGS. But no, not these dumplings, which consisted of at least 50% evil. Thick skins wrapped insufficiently meaty morsels of...some kind of meat. Pork, I think. It was odd and failed to contain any dumpling soul. That I still remember the experience—my huge Chinese take-out splurge after kicking the raw food diet—is a testament to how bad it was.)

Ah. AHH. AHHHHH OH JESUS, I'm not pregnant; I shouldn't be craving these random things. (Not that being pregnant would be the only reason; but ye know...preggers have that reputation and I aim to exploit it.) I haven't eaten Chinese-American food since going to school in NYC after I realized that there wasn't much need to get standard Chinese take-out when I lived so close to Chinatown. Admittedly, most of the food I ate in Chinatown was from bakeries, tasty wheaty things that are difficult to get in locations that lack large populations of Chinese people. (Sarah told me that she planned to hoard a crapload of "China buns" to bring back home to Kansas. It's not hard for me to imagine her toting a suitcase stuffed with buns back to the midwest.)

Last weekend I sat at the dinner table with my mum as she engulfed chopstick-fulls of mei fun and my brother as he ate crispy golden pieces of General Tsao's Chicken. I ate an orange. Boy, that was fun. Let's do it again.

I'm still on my diet, so no greasy, MSG-ed Chinese-American food for a while.

Famous Fat Dave has an awesome new theme song (at the bottom of the page)! Cool beans. Now I want to make my own theme song, except I don't have close relations with first-rate musicians. Doh! If I make a theme song, it'll have to be by myself. If anyone bangs out decent lyrics, I'll turn it into a song. Seriously! It can be a fun summer project. And...um, I might let you listen to it.

After looking at one of Dave's food tours, I realized that eating with him would probably kill me by sucking out all of my digestive energy. But would that really be an objectionable way to die? Maybe not.

Although I've been reading David Lebovitz's blog for at least a year, I've been paying closer attention lately to prepare for my next semester in Paris. (If you don't read it, ye should! Besides that he's hilarious, he talks about the best foods in the world: baked things and chocolated things.)

Not that I feel prepared at all. The problem that I've encountered is that the more I try to learn about Paris, the more woefully unprepared I feel and frightened that I'll die of confusion. ...Or at the hands of angry Parisians I'll unintentionally piss off for being a stupid American who forgets to address everyone as monsieur/madame (will people really hate me for that?). Luckily, I don't have the habit of eating/drinking while I walk (I've seen people in NYC chomping on a slice of pizza in one hand and holding a plate in the other while walking down a busy street), but I do have an abnormally loud speaking voice and I'm very shy and lacking in communication skills, so speaking to every shopkeeper is going to be difficult. It seems like there are a gazillion cultural differences I need to pick up to semi-fit in. I've never felt like I even fit in in my own hometown; what's gonna happen in Paris?

D-O-O-M

Of course, I'm still looking forwad to it. The moutains of bread. Not the doom.

Ah, I love Overheard in New York:

Cold Fish Is the New Warm Vegetable

Girl #1: Want to get take-out?
Girl #2: Sure. I feel like something warm and vegetarian.
Girl #1: Like what?
Girl #2: Hmm. Oh! Like a tuna sandwich.

--Upper West Side

To prevent myself from eating more or later than I ought to, I brush my teeth after feeling sufficiently fed. The idea is that if I do feel like eating anything despite not actually needing anything (not that we eat certain foods necessarily because we need to, more because we want to), I'll be too lazy to go through the arduous task of repeatedly dragging a tiny plastic bristled brush with a dab of cherry flavored goo across my enamel to render my mouth too hygienic to be allowed to come in contact with any more foodstuffs. Of course, the mouth cleaning ritual doesn't end with foamy spittage; I mustn't forget to floss in between every set of neighboring teeth to dislodge stubborn confetti-like bits of stuff I had eaten hours ago.

Anyhoo, if you don't know where this is going, I did end up eating more. Damn.

My dinner consisted of a banana, plum, orange, nectarine, half an avocado, a handful of raw pine nutes and a chunk of raw blueberry "cheesecake" stuff. It's definitely enough food to end my day with. Yet the after-meal added another banana, plum, and orange. That's like...[counts on fingers]...a gazillion servings of fruit. And I still feel like eating something.

Hohum. I've been through this before.

My asthma is better than it was a week ago, but it's not completely gone. Still need to stick to a cleaner diet. Fruits. Nuts. Repeat as necessary. I know you want to eat out (or want me to eat out for you), but any eating excursions that involve some type of grain (if anyone's wondering how I chose what to eat or not eat on my diet, my simple explanation is that I made it up and no one besides my mum can sway my decisions) will have to wait until the ol' lungs deem me worthy of their oxygen transporting qualities. I don't feel like things will clear up by the end of the month. And that's an optimistic prediction.

Lastly, here's some more fun food commercial magic from Japan courtesy of Pizza-La (via TV in Japan):

Don't look at me that way. I don't know why two young women would be entranced by a ginormous vibrating egg that seemed to materialize out of a ginormous cartoon chick. That's the kinda thing that would make me run far, faaar away, in case the short skirted woman in the billboard coming to life didn't freak me out enough.

I think American pizza menus are ridiculously tame in comparison to Pizza-La's offerings. While I don't see the Funky Egg on the website, they proudly describe the "New Funky" as "Very popular pizza among the child!! Because softly egg and Mayonnaise souce." Yeah man, kids are pre-wired with a taste for soft eggs and mayo. I'm also intrigued by the Get's™, described as "Best pizza for garlic lovers!!" Is this the favorite pizza of someone named "Get"? Or is it a command reinforced with an apostrophe "s"? And this name is trademarked?

I love the overusage of exclaimation marks throughout the menu. It makes me want "Shrimp fritter of rich taste, and delicacy full of special-make aurora sauce!!" so badly.

There's also microwavable cupcakes for your dog:

I think that they don't even get a real dog to eat the stuff is telling of how appealing it is to the average canine. Unless I'm reading incorrectly, the possible flavors appear to be cheese, pumpkin, and apple. Mm....hm. Hm. Mm.

Um.

I better go brush my teeth now. For the second time.

Update (7/12): Just a preface to anyone who hasn't read this yet; I'm not dying! I was just pissed when I wrote the entry, so perhaps I sound like I'm dying even though I'm not. My asthma isn't any worse than it was two weeks ago. If I'm near death, it's because I got run over by a car or attacked by a psycho in the subway. You can think about that instead! :D Thanks for expressing your concern.

asthma: a chronic lung disorder that is marked by recurring episodes of airway obstruction (as from bronchospasm) manifested by labored breathing accompanied especially by wheezing and coughing and by a sense of constriction in the chest, and that is triggered by hyperreactivity to various stimuli (as allergens or rapid change in air temperature)

I guess it's Webster's job to be wordy, considering that it's a...dictionary. However, I'm not a dictionary, last time I checked. Simple carbon-based life forms such as myself don't have to come up with lengthy descriptions with complicated words like "bronchospasm" (although admittedly, I kinda like that word) and "lung". Here's my definition:

asthma: a disorder where the lungs, losing all will to live, constantly try to kill their host through mild boughts of oxygen deprivation (or suffocation). The host tries to combat the lungs' wishes by using medication that relaxes the brochial tubes, but the lungs fight back in their suicidal streak. At some point the host will hopefully realize what the lungs have been trying to say (as straightforward as it could without the use of vocal chords) all along—that the host doesn't deserve to live.

And then they lived happily every after!

Actually, that was kind of wordy. Please accept my apologies.

I'm glad I'm not religious or else I'd be pretty mad at whoever "created" me right now. No one created me; I'm just a mix of defective genes! Sure, it could be worse—all my apprendages are in the right place and of the correct quantity (is it funny to think that if you have two arms then you have an above average numbe rof arms?)—but...my lungs! They're constantly trying to unintentionally drive me closer to suicide. One day, it won't be so unintentional. Hahaha!

...Okay, I don't mean to offend, as suicide isn't funny. I suppose life is just prolonged decay; everyone's body is killing itself. Slowly. It just feels much more rapid with asthma. Like..."Heeey, what's going on in there? Stop constricting. Dumbass." And then sometimes the initial reaction is to hyperventilate, which only makes it worse. The body is such a complex marriage of a bagillion organs, nerves, bones, veins, and...ye know, other gooey, mushy things (thankfully the medical field is not in my future), but then it goes into stupid wheezy mode, which makes absolutely no sense to me. I suppose if I had a worse affliction, attention would be diverted away from my lungs to something else. "Ahh, leave the lungs alone. Let's fuck up the kidneys!"

So! My weekend was peachy. No, not that kind of peachy. My definition of peachy in this context is "food-mitigated misery." I'm not Webster; I can say whateverrrr I want. Just don't quote me in a paper.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. It's all in my head. Of course. What's all in my head? All food. Bad. Off limits. Can't eat. Can't go out. That? [points to theoretical potato] Tuber of death. And that? [points to theoretical bowl of rice] Grains of death. And that? [points to theoretical house cat] Cat.

I love my mum, but I have a tendency to blow up around her when food stress reaches its boiling point in my brain. She doesn't understand my problem and I don't understand hers. Actually, that's not true; my problem is that she seems to think that my 20 year old self can handle the same insanity inducing diets as her 52 year old self. Whenever I complain about fasting, she'll remind me that she did a one-week juice fast while working full time and taking care of my brother and me when we were little. OKAY, I AM NOT SUPERMOM. We did both do the raw food diet at around the same time (I was really into it; can you imagine me doing that now?!), but I don't think she understands how important food has become to me as a social aspect. (She'd probably feel more at ease if I ditched this blog.) I don't even socialize that much! When the opportunity arises, I kind of need to take it.

While it's not necessary to combined food and meeting people, that's usually what I do. I guess it was easy for me to just eat raw food senior year of high school and freshman year of college because it was unlikely I'd participate in much socialization even if I did eat cooked food (high school was craptastic), but...who knows. Maybe I would've made more than five friends at Vassar if I had joined them in the dining hall and indulged in the Aramark-owned food instead of scarfing down bananas and oranges by myself in my dorm room.

Anyhoo. Since I didn't have fooding to take up my time over the weekend, I naturally tortured myself by reading detailed descriptions of food.

Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

After at least five people told me to read this over the past year, I finally hobbled over to amazon.com (because ye know, it takes a lot of effort to buy things on the Internet these days—it's a good thing I did all those finger exercises) and secured myself a copy of Ruth Reichl's memoir outlining the ridiculous disguises and personas she took on in order to get the most genuine experience from a restaurant. Or at least not the one given to a New York Times restaurant critic. As much fun as it sounds to eat out nearly all the freakin' time, I can't say I'd want to be a restaurant critic after reading this book. I do want to eat at some of the places she's mentioned though. When I finished the book, I felt sad that there wasn't any more. That's when you know it's good. If you're anything like me, you should enjoy her book.

Heat by Bill Buford

After finishing G&S, I went right into Heat, Bill Buford's recollection of working in Babbo and learning how to prepare Italian food (butchering, making pasta, polenta, other stuff) by ...going to Italy. A lot. It's crazy. All the while he outlines Mario Batali's rise to fame and describes Marco Pierre White in such a way that makes me deathly afraid of him. Buford describes the wide range of food minded people he works with and learns from, the common thread being (to me) that they all sound kind of insane. But due to that burning foodie passion they manage to keep it together and make awesome food. Damn.

So you should read it. No, scratch that; you will read it, especially if you're Morten. It's interesting to read after G&S since the end of Heat refers to Reichl's review of Babbo, which she dedicates a chapter to in G&S. IT ALL COMES TOGEEEETHER.

It almost feels incestuous.

I've never eaten at Babbo and I'm not sure the book has increased my interest. At some points it heightened it (such as...that the food is really tasty), while other points it lowered it (the kitchen sounds like an alternate dimension of hell). The outcome of the positive and negative is...back to neutral (Babbo is of course on my "eat there someday" list). Hm. Well. If anyone make sa reservation and needs an extra person to fill a seat, just let me know and I'll hop right in.

I ate too much fruit today. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to talk about later this week.

rice bomb

Omurice is a beautiful thing. Like a sleeping puppy. A tiny puppy consisting only of an adomen. With delicate skin made of scrambled egg. And organs made of ketchup-coated rice.

...So actually, it's nothing like a puppy. For whatever reason I find the rice-filled omelette bomb especially cute. Maybe it's the happy yellow color? The bulbous shape? The abbreviated nature of its name? Puppiiiiesss?

Hiroko's Place

Yesterday I went to Hiroko's Place with Stephanie, thus ending that not-so-fun "no tasty grains of rice shall be a part of my diet" thing. I'm still asthmatic, but I figured I could take the risk. This is living on the edge, Robyn-style. I am so very pathetic.

Japanese reading material, lonely corner

A bookshelf of Japanese magazines and manga adds to the homey feel of the surprisingly spacious cafe. That is, if your home is full of Japanese magazines and manga.

the magazine is staring at me

Stephanie and I pretended we could read them (eh, we do have some elementary Japanese knowledge!) while waiting for the foods to appear. Magically. ...I mean, by way of a waitress. Japanese stuff is advanced, but not to the point of mastering teleportation. When they figure that out, they can take over the world.

salad

Entrees come with a complimentary salad. It's a standard iceberg lettuce-tomato-cucumber combination topped with that Japanese dressing. Ye know. It's...um...brownish. Ginger-carrot? SHOULDN'T I KNOW THIS BY NOW? Yes.

Well. I ate it all, except for the tomato. In case you don't know, raw tomatoes are the only common food I can think of that I really don't like. It's a combination of the taste and the texture, which basically means the whole thing is flawed to me. My distate for raw, fairly unadorned tomatoes (cooked is fine and raw with enough other flavorings is also tolerable) goes back to childhood. Or birth. Or possible the womb. While a normal person might be drawn to the scent of an uber-ripe tomato, such a smell would probably make me gag.

Maybe I have a defective tomato-loving gene, if there is such a thing.

the hot dogs are fondling the spaghetti!

Stephanie bravely went for the Napolitan Spaghetti, "Japanese Wieners w/ Tomato Sauce" (with a scoop of potato salad on the side). Man, how could you not want it with description like that? My mouth, oh, how it waters. I think Stephanie was a little disappointed by the hot dog bits, but judging from the spotlessness of her plate when she decided to stop eating (because there wasn't anything else to eat), she must've enjoyed it.

You already know what I ate, but surely you want another photo. A closer photo. Stick you right in the belly of the omurice (before I stuck it in mine):

tasty, tasty innards

Each plump little grain of rice was coated in ketchup. I've never had rice and ketchup before, but it works (if you like ketchup). While I wouldn't want it slathered on in a goopy fashion, the coating was just a tint of flavor. Ketchup-y flavor. And all this yummy ketchup-y flavor was encapsulated in a thin, delicate omelette...which was topped with more ketchup. Still, even that topping is restrained in the form of thin zig-zaggy lines, not plopped on like one might put on a burger from a stubborn bottle of Heinz bound by nature's rules for air pressure.

Service is nice and very relaxed. And by "relaxed" I mean..."slow". It wasn't such a bad thing as that gave me plenty of time to talk with Stephanie, but we were kind of confused as to what we were supposed to do in order to pay for our meal (which in preparation time wasn't slow). Stephanie, who was facing the counter, said that whenever she tried to get the waitress's attention, her action were timed just so that at the same moment the waitress would be looking away. Oops. My assumption is that you go up to the counter to pay...since that's what we did. It's a nice place to relax, so get cozy at one of their tables and prepared to be given plenty of time to digest. I wouldn't mind going back to try some dessert, which Stephanie and I skipped out on due to being carb-stuffed.

random photos

You like photos? Good. Here's some random photo-based commentary.

this special mode intrigues me

I spotted this bread machine while eating lunch at Life Thyme. "Special Sandwich Mode"? This baby was made just for me. Too bad it doesn't actually make sandwiches.

colorful

Life Thyme has some pretty salads, eh? Eat colorful food; you'll get different nutrients! (Figuring you're not eating Jell-O in five different colors. That might leave you overly chemical-ed.)

less healthy than salad

While walking around Park Slope on Thursday afternoon with John, we happened to pass by cocoa bar (which I had surprisingly never heard of!) and Chip Shop (which I have heard of and wanted to try since last year). Unfortunately, I didn't try either the chocolate or deep fried morsels of tasty death. Methinks a Park Slope fooding excursion of chocolate cake and fried fish is in my future.

chomp

There's proof that I'm eating! See! Chompy. While sitting in the Prospect Park Bandshell waiting for Yo La Tengo to music-ify some awesome undersea documentaries, I ate some leftover spirulina earth pie. This was one of my favorite desserts as a raw foodist, yet for whatever reason when I revisited it, it just didn't feel...right. If you can imagine a mixture of pulverized spirulina, almonds, dates, raisins, bee pollen, cinnamon, dried figs, brazil nuts, cashews, carob powder, and vanilla bean with a consistency nearly as dense as red bean paste then that's what it is. And if you can't (which is most likely), it's worth trying...er, or sharing with a few people. Obviously all that nut and dried fruit action results in something dense, sweet, and fatty. Is that a good combination? Hells yeah! But I ended up throwing out the last huge chunk that I couldn't fork my way through.

food trade, oh no

Eunice from Germany gave me this overloaded package of food in exchange for a Poofy pancake t-shirt! I felt like the luckiest girl in the world while unearthing all the snugly packed foreign foodstuffs from the recycled amazon.de box. (It doesn't take much to make me happy.) The ingredients are in German, thus I can't read them, thus I can't feel bad about potentially eating ingredients that I normally wouldn't want to eat, thus I can eat somewhat guilt-free! Mmm, ignorance is tasty.

Many thanks to Eunice! And Germany!

it googles itself

Hiroko's Place
75 Thompson St

cocoa bar
228 7th Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Chip Shop
383 5th Ave, Brooklyn, NY

random stuff

Wulfmorgenthaler is awesome. SEE:

Breadophile?
Pigs are talented
I don't use knives; I just rip em with my bare hands
They're best when they're unborn!
If you're lucky, you'll get one that says, "One day I want to be digested by a human stomach."
I don't drink wine
Do they like acorns?
I do think that is a good reason
Think of the spoons; please chill your soup

Do you doggie-bag it? BRUNI INVESTIGATES!!! I don't recall every taking extra food home from sit-down restaurants while eating in NYC...really! One main reason is because I tend to eat everything (dammit) or eat so much that whatever's left over isn't worth packing up in a container that's probably 50 times larger than whatever morsel I decided to leave on my plate. Another reason is because even if there is something worth taking out, I probably won't want to shlep it around so that the next day I can feast on the same food I had the night before in a reheated, more oxidated "I sat in the fridge for many hours" form. Tasty, that is not.

However, in reference to Bruni's post, I've never eaten at a restaurant that served excessive petit fours. But even if I did, I bet I'd inhale em all right at the table. Isn't that the best part of the meal? Yeah, I thought so. Seriously, if I just ate the bread and desserts I would be a very happy customer. And very hated by the restaurant.

While growing up in NJ, my family almost always had to take something out. I could rarely finish portions served to me at our local Italian restaurants or places like The Outback. Japanese food was one exception, although we got Japanese take-out (run by a family friend) more than actually eating in Japanese sit-down restaurants (same with Chinese food, which we almost never ate in restaurants). I'm sure a large part of my childhood was sustained by the microwaved leftovers of Chinese and Japanese take-out food.

...I want a bag of petit fours. [writes that down on my birthday wishlist]

One of many favorite moments from The Simpsons (en espanol):

When I was little my brother and I, like many other impressionable youth, watched The Simpsons religiously. My dad disapproved highly of our retinas being glued to FOX on Sunday nights, thinking that the show would somehow rot our brains. Hey, we're doing alright!

Somewhat.

Maki is making me hungry for hot dogs, which never happens.

Ending thought: this entry was kinda weird and lengthy.

...I was in Norway?

mountains everywhere

I left Norway a month ago. A month! IT'S ALREADY BEEN A MONTH! And what have I accomplished in the past month? Oxygen restriction! Seriously, what have I done? [shakes head]

Let's remember one of the most beautiful places in the world, shall we?

Long way down

I still have an extra tube...what the hell do I do with it?!

Helloooo my smoked fish pretties

Helloooo cake of Bergen!

I have absolutely no clue where this is

They're serious about their butter

DON'T EAT THIS!

But do eat this

Or this

And this

I love these cute little cobble-y streets

It's more crowded at night

In case you've only started reading my blog in the past month, here are the entries I wrote about Norway:

June 9, 2006: this is norway
June 10, 2006: this is norway: day two
June 12, 2006: still in norway: day...three and four?
June 14, 2006: still in norway: day five...six...huh?
June 15, 2006: goodbye norway
June 17, 2006: norway reviews and roundup

Best vacation. Ever. I sure miss those weegies. [sniffle]

The dark side has free wifi.

Early Monday afternoon my house was met with a most unfortunate technological malfunction: DEAD INTERNET. Nothin'. No connection. To the Internet, to the rest of the world, to the mass of ones and zeroes that gives my life meaning; surely you have a similar attachment to this world wide web...thingy. Or not. Probably best if you don't.

Panera Bread, destination of deliciousness

While I wasn't planning to eat out for dinner, certainly not a place based about heavenly wheat-based goods (as I was—at the time—still planning to stay away from heavenly bread), my brother informed my mum and me that they had free wi-fi. Well...screw my diet. As we couldn't think of a more convenient location that would allow us to go on the Internet for nothing, we piled into my brother's car and whizzed to Paramus Park, one of the most oft-visited malls of my youth that at some point over the past few years underwent a major renovation that thankfully included Panera Bread, a reliable sandwich chain birthed from the formerly named St. Louis Bread Co based in...well, I think you can figure that out.

happy sunshine yellow

Panera Bread is one of those "fast casual" type places where you can get an inexpensive, fresh, good quality meal in a pleasing environment of warm colors like happy sunshine yellow, happy sunshine red, and happy sunshine orange. To me, it's like the Starbucks equivalent for sandwiches, except less of a rip off and...with better food. Actually, it's not like Starbucks, but maybe you know what I'm getting at. A closer comparison would be to Cosi, a major sandwich chain found in NYC (but nowhere near as pervasive as Subway, which will sneak up on you even in the most unlikely places. Once I was walking somewhere around my dorm late at night on a street I can't even name, and there was a Subway...just a few blocks away from another Subway, which in turn was probably a few blocks from another Subway. Admittedly, I've only eaten at Subway once many years ago, so maybe I'm missing out on something highly delicious, or maybe my senses don't respond to whatever "come hither" signal Subway uses to lure customers into the belly of one of its bagillion-person sandwich-making army). While I am a fan of Cosi's chewy flatbread, I prefer Panera Bread, which unfortunately has no locations in NYC. (The closest one is in Hoboken.) What is the meaning of this monstrosity? [shrugs] (I haven't felt compelled to eat at Cosi in years. The last time I went there was a few years ago and it wasn't my decision. It was an odd experience where I ended up eating with Even, David, and a few Filter representatives, and by "eating" I mean quietly sipping on sub-par hot chocolate and chomping on some free, fresh out of the oven flatbread while trying not to look too stupid. Which probably didn't work considering I was eating bread and hot chocolate for lunch.)

carbing time

For whatever reason, I didn't expect the $7 combo of a half salad and half sandwich to be such a large portion. I ordered the portobello & mozzarella panini ("Garlic roasted portobello mushrooms, caramelized onions, fresh mozzarella and chopped basil, grilled hot on our Rosemary & Onion focaccia") not realizing until I got it that I ordered the same thing about a year ago. The sandwich is better than average, but not something I would've thought about getting twice...if I had remembered that I ordered it once before. For one thing, I couldn't find any of this so called "chopped basil" as listed in the description. Maybe it's in there in microscopically chopped form. But if you can't taste it, what's the point of putting it in? [shrugs] I felt like the sandwich could've used more...taste. Overall, the soft melted mozzerella smooshed with mushrooms and onions on warm, crispified focaccia was stomach pleasing.

For my salad, I ordered the California Mission Chicken Salad ("All-natural citrus-herb chicken, field greens, romaine, roasted tomatoes, roasted red peppers, sunflower seeds & our Mission fig balsamic vinaigrette"). I actually didn't want any chicken, but the rest of the ingredients sounded pleasing. In the future, I would personally ask for a chicken-less chicken salad; the meat is juicy, but it just doesn't do anything for me. And despite that preference, in my true gluttonous form, I ate most of it. I found the balsamic vinaigrette a smidge too mouth-burny (could've used less dressing overall), but liked the sweet fig flavor. The toasted sunflower seeds were a big plus by giving the greens some crunch. Some pep. Some excitement for the otherwise unexciting existence of field greens and romaine, no matter how pretty and healthy they may be.

On top of all this food, which was making me feel quite full after only getting through half of it, the order included a chunk of fresh-out-of-the-oven baguette about the size of my forearm if it were chopped in half and didn't have a hand attached to it. (So I guess the size of the baguette chunk resembles the remains of a neat dismembering by a homocidal maniac.) After a few weeks of bread celibacy my first bite into unadorned bread was met with a strong crunch through a thin, golden crust smooshing into a soft, off-white belly of chewy wheat-mass touched by the delicate hands of the Gluten God (inside joke for those in the know: SOLAR HANDS!!!). It's not the best baguette I've ever had, but it's ranks waaay up there and overtakes any cake or confection on the scale of "desirability to Robyn's belly".

(Update (7/19): I thought I should clarify that this baguette isn't like one you'd find in France. I'm calling it a baguette because...well, I guess I could just call it "French bread" like Panera, but it's kind of baguette-ish. Here's a cross-section photo I took last year:

mm...dough

It's not uber-light and airy with ginormous holes. It's not stomach-killing heavy or jaw achingly chewy. It's just...it's what it is. Tasty.)

I ate the whole damn thing. [hangs head in shame]

Some kind of organ in my digestive system felt ready to burst after forcing every morsel of chewy bread down my gullet. Eating out these past few days have made me dislike the event of eating out more so than I recall before that whole "dieting" thing. My brain is perfectly aware of the fact that one doesn't have to eat everything, but my stomach didn't get the memo. In my opinion, my sandwich/salad platter could've been shared between two people, perhaps leaving a little room for an enticing "after" of a brownie, cake, muffin, scone, etc. Despite that Panera makes so many of these sweet Robyn-approved foodstuffs, I've rarely tried any since by the end of the meal I'm too stuffed from the sandwich. Sure, I could get something to go, but...neh, I'm not usually in the mood.

So! I have no idea how good Panera's pastries are, but I'll try to find out sometime this summer. IT'S A PROMISE.

other things I didn't eat

Because I know you like photos, you may oogle at my brother's and mum's orders. Yum yum.

When I got home, I ended up eating some of my brother's chocolate ice cream. God damn him; I NEVER buy cartons of ice cream! Instances of ice cream ingestion are relegated to restaurants and the rare visit to an ice cream shop. When the melted creamy spoonful of H�agen-Dazs' sinfully delicious spawn hit my mouth, I was back on the dairy track. Not that I eat much dairy anyway...but yup. Dairy and wheat are back in my system.

For those who are wondering, I'm still asthmatic. I cut down my Albuterol dosage from two puffs a day to one (50% reduction, har har!) before going to sleep so my mind can drift off into sleepy land without the incessant squeeky heeeeezzzffshheee noise reverberating in my skull. It's progress, but it still hasn't reached the peak of awsomeness. I shouldn't be off my diet, yet...I am. Oops.

I lost 8 pounds since June 5th, which I suppose that's a good thing (and miraculously puts me at about the same weight as I was a year ago before I decided to eat everything in sight for the good of this blog). However, I can't maintain the weight loss unless I stick to the healthy fruit-veg-nut based diet or sweat a few buckets. Luckily perhaps, the "sweat a few buckets" method is unintentionally underway after yesterday's sweltering hot...swelter...ness. While taking the train back home from work, I happened to choose the car that, if it had a name, would've been "One Of The Neglected Levels of Hell". I say "neglected" because I'm not sure why Satan would choose to stick this level in a lowly NJ Transit train unless he just forgot about it. (Then again, it is NJ; that's all it takes to anger evil demons.) My lack of comprehension made me unaware of my oven-like surroundings, which only became clear to me when I saw unhappy, nearly-melting commuters passing through my car and coming back with defeated looks after finding that the environmental conditions of other car was also on par with that of a trailer on the surface of the sun. The apex of uncomfortable-ness became apparent to me when a bead of sweat rolled down my leg. Need. Towel.

So...yeah, what am I talking about?

things I didn't order

On Saturday I went to Taste of Thai in Ridgewood with my mum and brother for my first "real" meal out in...a while. I wasn't planning to get an appetizer, but my mum and brother (aka, the slim ones in my family) had a different idea. Bert ordered ka-nom-jeeb (dumplings with ground pork, shrimp, and mixed vegetables) and my mum went for spring rolls (mixed green, glass noodles and mushrooms). I opted out of the dumplings and tried one of the small, crispy, deep-fried spring rolls. Pretty standard, but above average and not bad. Since I'm not a huge fan of duck, I don't have much to say about my mum's pineapple duck platter (she enjoyed it). Bert's masaman curry (masaman curry paste with sweet coconut milk sauce, tamarind, with bell peppers, onions, peanuts, potatoes, avocado, and beef) was my favorite out of all the dishes. It tasted like...sweety curry. [blink] If you don't know what curry tastes like, I can't help you.

pad thai

Although I usually go for curry, I went for pad thai (sauteed Thai rice noodles with shrimp, bean curd, bean sprouts, scallion, dried shrimp, ground peanut and eggs) in this case (last time I had it must've been over a year ago) since I didn't want to get something similar to my brother. Out of the whole noodle family, rice noodles are one of my favorites. And everything else that goes in pad thai...is awesome. But overall, I can't say I ever crave pad thai (hence why I don't usually order it; no duh). Don't get me wrong; it's damn tasty, just not as appealing to me as spicy curry sauce-laden something-or-other with rice. The initially reasonable looking sized dome-shaped pile of pad thai on my plate was deceiving, as the amount of noodles was actually somewhat gargantuan and mixed with adequate amounts of non-noodly material. As you've already guessed, I ate most of it. But I shouldn't have! Argh! It's a very satisfying amount of food.

And then my mum wanted dessert. WHAT IS THIS? So I ended up getting dessert too. [shakes head] I know she didn't put me at gunpoint, but...but...dessert! Best part of the meal?

fried naners

I think hot, freshly fried bananas are one of those things that doesn't reach its true potential unless paired with a scoop or two of uber creamy vanilla ice cream. ICE CREAM! NEEDED! STAT! These fried bananas wrapped in a thin crispy shell of some sort were okay except for the awkward excess shell at the tip of the banana package. It's covered in raspberry goo (which in my opinion didn't really go with the banana; perhaps caramel would be better?), not something you want to pick up with your fingers, but you can't help but do since your dessert spoon wasn't engineered to pick up awkward excess fried shell bits. It was alright until the doomful excess fried shell bit.

coconut pumpkin custard

My mum only ate 1/4th of her coconut pumpkin custard due to its failure to meet her expectations. She thought she would be digging into a light, cool custard, when instead she received a somewhat hearty, steamed dessert. Shredded pumpkin (possibly kabocha?) is mixed with coconut custard for a very filling (and very hot), just-sweet-enough, homemade dessert. While I liked it, I found it a bit too heavy, causing the sensors in my stomach to give me all kinds of signals to STOP STUFFING MYSELF (actually, those sensors went into alert mode while I was still eating the pad thai). I wouldn't crave the custard, but it was worth trying and unlike any other custard I've ever had. Two people could easily share the small cup.

Overall, Taste of Thai isn't mindblowing, but it's pretty good. Service is attentive and friendly and the restaurant had a good amount of customers while we were there. I'm not sure if I'd go back anytime soon, but ye know...there are so many other places I have to try first. What a dilemma.

addresses, oh my

Taste of Thai
37 S Broad St
Ridgewood, NJ 07450

Panera Bread
700 Paramus Park # 1220
Paramus, NJ 07652

random stuff>

If anyone is wonder what I ate on the raw food diet, in one entry from January 28, 2004 I listed my daily consumption as "5 oranges, 5 apples, 2 pears". There was probably more than that....hell, how did I eat 5 oranges and 5 apples? I found another entry from February 28, 2004 where I wrote a more detailed account of my diet for the day:

2 oz almonds, 2 oranges, 1 grapefruit, 3 sheets of nori and 2 oz of baby greens (the bag had 4 oz, so I think i ate half) and some olive oil, 3 oz of cashews (which I know aren't really raw...but damn, those are good! I shouldn't buy them), 6 dates, too many figs, unfortunately. A few oz? I'm addicted to those as well.

Hm...okay. I'm surprised I didn't eat more fresh fruit. Maybe I ran out.

Alex Kapranos

ALEX KAPRANOS WRITES A FOOD COLUMN? How did I not know this? (And if you don't know who Alex Kapranos is, pretend you do now. ...Holy shizz, he has asthma! That sucks. For him.) I already thought he was pretty cool (because Franz Ferdinand is one of the funnest bands I've ever seen live), but this food column bestows him with more cool points. His food writing endeavour isn't that random though; he used to be a sous-chef. If you don't want to wade through all the columns he's written, here are some that I found more interesting:

Heavenly hamburgers (gives props to In N Out)
Eating habits (describes his bandmates' eating habits)
Donut delights (recommends the Peter Pan Donut and Pastry Shop in Brooklyn)
Sweet goodbyes (food in Japan)
Oyster blues (drummer Paul has a disappointing oyster eating experience)

Actually, all the columns are interesting. Yes'm.

Anyone wonder what happened in the aftermath of Jamie's School Dinners? "The truth about school dinners: what happened when Jamie went home" details the effects Jamie's program has had on public schools and what reforms are being made. It's worth reading if you watched the documentary. (Thanks bowb!)

This Saturday, July 22nd, a fundarising event called Bread and Butter is being held "to help send the Evans family to Terra Madre 2006, a Slow Food International event." It's taking place at M'Finda Kalunga Garden (Rivington St. between Chrystie and Forsyth Streets) from 2PM-6PM:

Dave and Sue Evans are third generation dairy farmers from upstate New York whose certified organic farm has become the gold standard for regional dairy, and an inspiration to their community.

We are partnering with local restaurants The Tasting Room, Brown Cafe, Il Laboratorio del Gelato, and Little Giant to transform the Evans creamline milk, yogurt, organic cheese, creme fraiche, and sweet cream butter into a delicious tasting menu. Come taste an array of amazing treats crafted from Evans Farmhouse Creamery products at one of the Lower East Side's most beautiful community gardens!

Saxelby Cheesemongers nominated the Evans family as New York delegates to Terra Madre; and our Bread and Butter garden party will raise funds to cover their travel costs to Italy.

Advance tickets will be sold for $20, with additional tickets available for purchase on the day of the event. In addition to raising funds for the Evans family, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the M'Finda Kalunga garden as a gesture of thanks for their generous donation of the space.

I'm probably not going to go (other plans!...involving food!), but it sounds nice.

No one will care about this besides me, but Applegate Farm Ice Cream has opened a new location in Franklin Lakes that's about 5 minutes away from my house. Freakin' sweet! Obviously, I must check this place out, even though you will never go there (because you have no reason to be in Franklin Lakes unless you live here). I first heard about Applegate Farm from the excellent Off the Broiler and for whatever reason I just remembered, "Hey, wasn't there an ice cream place opening near me?" (Okay, the reason is probably because it is hot to the point that inanimante objects without sweat glands are sweating.) The prospect of locally made ice cream defies my normally horrible memory. Hopefully I'll check it out soon.

I need to come up with better titles.

mm, the sweet smell of official documentation

Yester I left NJ for NYC at around 10:30 AM and got back home at nearly 6:00 PM. At some point in between, I obtained my Long Stay Student Visa so I could legally partake in France-based frolicking at The American University in Paris from September to December.

While I suppose the visa-obtaining process was less painful than going to the DMV (boy, that's not saying much), I didn't think that a 12:15 appointment meant that I'd wait in line for an hour. Everyone was made to wait outside the consulate until their appointment time came up. After a guard checked your name off the list, you'd wait in what looked like a very short line for about an hour as there was only one window where a woman would take your visa form, charge you (supposedly, they'll only take exact change if you're using cash), and possibly tell you to come back the next working day with a different ID photo, a problem that happened to two people in front of me. That definitely made me paranoid.

Thankfully, my face wasn't too fat. (The photo problem for the two people was that their heads were too large and wouldn't fit in the visa template majiggy despite that the actual picture was the right dimensions. Apparently their computers can't scale down photos. Someone needs to upgrade these programs!) When at 1:15 I was finally deemed okay to enter France, I was told to come back between 3 PM and 4 PM to pick up my passport. Ahh...now, to figure out how to kill some time in one of the world's greatest cities.

macarons!

While roaming up Madison Avenue, I passed by La Maison du Chocolat between 78th and 79th. La Maison is one of my favorite places (also my mum's fave), although I've sometimes felt uncomfortable at the Rockefeller Center location. (Not that the employees were rude, just that...well, you get vibes. Some people who worked there seemed really nice, while some others gave me the feel that they wanted me out of there ASAP. On a random note, I've never gotten weird vibes from Richart.) While their stuff is definitely on the expensive side, there's no reason that you can't afford at least one treat. A large macaron (not in the photo) is $5 (small ones are $2). It may be a lot for a cookie (actually, more like two cookies!), but it's tasty stuff and not the easiest thing in the world to make. It's worth trying if you haven't had one before. (If you live in NJ, I'd recommend Wegmans for great macarons that also happen to be inexpensive.) I didn't buy any macarons cos, ye know...I'll just wait until I get to France.

Whitney

Walking up and down the avenue killed about...oh, 5 seconds of my life. Dammit. It was a combination of walking too quickly and for too short of a distance. Not knowing there else to go (hey, my knowledge of Upper Manhattan is very slim), I wandered into the Whitney Museum. As someone who rarely goes to museums (although that was my third visit to the Whitney), my conclusion about the current exhibition is: it's okay. Haha. I mean, it's probably awesome and I don't appreciate art enough, such as four fluorescent lighting tubes placed next to each other on a wall, or a brownish hued transluscent cube sculpture. Or something.

lunch time

For a late lunch I went to Sarabeth's Cafe in the museum basement. (Sarabeth's sit-down restaurant takes up most of the space, but...um, I'm cheap and didn't want to kill too much time eating). The egg salad sandwich had the surprising kick of lemon zest, making it notably delicious. The pumpkin muffin tasted good, although not special. It also left an aftertaste in my mouth whose cause I couldn't figure out. (It happens sometimes when I eat baked goods.)

...If I sound lethargic, it's because I'm tired. Sadly, I can't endure going to and from NYC for five days in a row. My desire to go to tomorrow's Pool Party has been outweighed by the desire to sleep and just do nothing, except laundry.

Moving on. I went back to the consulate shortly before 3, waited in line again, and then waited some more inside next to the same people I had waited with in line earlier that afternoon. While peering at the two men behind the windows quietly tinkering around with our passports, I felt like I'd never get mine back. Until...

"Miss Lee?"

WOOHOO, IT'S MIIIINE! POUR MOIIIIIIII.

When I got home, I feasted on my brother's leftover chow mei fun and a bunch of fruit. Yummers.

pizza time

Mangia Trattoria

On Wednesday night I had the urge to go...somewhere. Out. My mum and brother had no plans so I was left with the task of finding a place close by where everyone would want to eat. Some googling led me to Mangia Trattoria (warning: the flash-based website automatically plays annoying music) in nearby Glen Rock. Despite having lived in the area for about 15 years, we've rarely been to Glen Rock and have never driven by the strip mall where the restaurant is situated. Oops. Oh well, not like it doesn't resemble the rest of NJ.

I hadn't been to a noisy family-style Italian restaurant like MT in at least 4 years. There's no particular reason besides that I'd usually rather eat something else. (You probably don't want to know how many plates of veal parmigiana I ate as a kid. Even I don't want to know.) MT caught my interest because of their large pizza menu.

fried stuff is tasty

But first, we need fried calamari. While growing up it was almost an unspoken rule to get fried calamari as an appetizer. My mum—the health conscious anti-fried-food member of the family—inexplicably loves fried calamari (I say "inexplicably" because she sometimes acts like a health nazi; obviously fried stuff is the yums) and at her insistence was why she, my brother and I shared this huge dish for $8 that could easily feed four or more people. The fried calamari was one of the better versions I've had; not too chewy and just enough crispy crust. I liked the tentacled pieces in particular. Mmm, tentacles.

pizza

My brother ordered a mini sized "pepperoni, sausage, meatballs, ham, salami" pizza. We were very curious to see what a "mini" $10 pizza entailed after the gargantuan portion of fried calamari (the other sizes are "regular" and "large". If you ask me, small, medium and large, or measurements in inches, would make more sense). To me, this mini is rather un-mini, perhaps resemble a medium-sized pizza in Asia. However, the crust is surprisingly thin, so it doesn't take up a crapload of stomach space. Without the appetizer and free bread, my brother probably could've eaten more than half of this.

bread chunk

While I mulled over the regular pizza menu for most of the time, at the last minute I went for half a sicilian pie ($8) to change my vague notion of what a sicilian pie was. It's the closest thing I've had to deep-dish pizza (my favorite as a kid) in years. I managed to eat two of the six slices of thick, soft, tomato sauce, gooey mozzerella and basil-topped bread before reaching the stomach explosion point. It was good (not overly cheesy in case it looks like that from the photo), but I guess my tastes have changed to a thin-crust preference. There's no denying that I love bread to death, yet if given the choice of chowing down on a huge chunk of bread, I'd rather it come in plain or sandwich form than in pizza form.

mum's food

My mum ordered the seafood and homemade parpadelle special. I had a taste and...well, if I could describe the taste to you I would. Instead, I will fail by saying that it was the opposite of mushy. [buries head in hands] I mean, it had a good bite to it. Not necessarily chewy, just...ye know. Um. No you don't. NEVERMIND!

Mm, pasta.

...

So overall, I'd recommend Mangia Trattoria if you live in the area. Which you probably don't. I'd like to go back sometime to try another pizza. For more info about how they make their pizza (or I can sum it up right here: a combination of gas oven and wood-burning oven), check out Tommy's review.

miscellany

cake close-up

My most oft-visited lunch destination during work is Life Thyme. I need to give it more props, but I don't have much to say about it. I like it because it's very convenient for me (besides being close to my office, they have a seating area on the second floor), has a salad bar that I actually like, and offer some of my favorite baked goods. A problem with the baked goods is that, unless you're feeling particularly gluttonous, they're too damn big for one person to eat in one sitting. Luckily, Tony shared a slice of organic vegan banana chocolate chip cake with me. I don't know why more places can't turn the ingredients (wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, rofu, soymilk, safflower oil, sea salt, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract, banana extract, chocolate chips, cashew butter) into a flavorful, moist, dense slice of "not overly guilt-inducing" cake like Life Thyme.

chocolate chocolate chip cookie of chocolateness

I also shared this ginormous chocolate chocolate chip cookie with John the day before. We were totally stuffed after eagerly chowing down the dense chocolate chunks and subjecting the cookie to a grisly stomach-acid induced death. Life Thyme's cookies are more like raw cookie dough than something that would lose moisture though the baking process. They don't have the sinfully good taste of Levain Bakery's similarly dough-like cookies (I wouldn't go out of my way for Life Thyme unless I had a dietary restriction; Levain is worth a visit no matter where you are) but definitely count as some of my favorite cookies in Manhattan.

I'm too lazy to write a proper review about Tuesday's lunch at Harbour Lights and even if I wanted to, it wouldn't be accurate of the regular restaurant since I ate from a menu planned for an office lunch. If you want to read more about the dishes, click on the photos to read the description on flickr.

I didn't order all of these dishes!

I did some fooding with Tristan today, but that commentary will have to wait until later. (KATHY, I must know about your lunch with him! Aheeem!)

Glorious sleep, where the hell are you?

googlin' time

La Maison du Chocolat
1018 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Sarabeth's at the Whitney
945 Madison Ave
New York, NY 10021

Life Thyme
410 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10011

Mangia Trattoria
918 Prospect St
Glen Rock, NJ 07452

Harbour Lights
89 South St # 17
New York, NY 10038

During Saturday's mission to roam around aimlessly with Tristan during his short stay in NYC (after taking a vacation in HAWAII...that bastard!), we took the 6 train up to the northern tip of Central Park just for the hell of it.

"Have you been to that part of Central Park?"

"Nope." [Keep in mind I've seen maybe 1% of the monsterous park.]

"Wanna go?"

"...OKAY."

I was expecting to go to the park and move my usually sedentary limbs while inhaling slightly cleaner air than what's found in the rest of Manhattan when we came across a most welcoming awning.

hello, bakery!

"TRISTAN! BAKERY! GO! MUST! ...LET'SGO!"

Indeed, I do sound that crazy.

The first sight after you enter the sliding door doesn't tell you much in the ways of baked goods since the shop sells an array of Mexican products, but unless your sinuses are full of mucus there's no way you can miss the sweet sweet smell of bakery. It's heaven, basically. (Which makes me wonder what heaven's bakery smells like. It would probably be sensory overload.)

I see trays of stufffff!!!

Besides the smell, the open doorway to the back of the shop reveals mobile racks containing trays upon trays upon trays upon trays (annnnd so on) of freshly baked goods. And then you turn to your left.

great googly moogly

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHAT IS THIS. (When one of the shopkeepers saw me taking photos through the glass door, she opened them for me. I thought that was sweet.)

Obviously, I don't get out enough, nor do I have enough experience with Mexican bakeries. The only one I've been to is the shop on 9th Avenue near the Port Authority (I'm sure there's only one) where I left empty handed after staring at the golden dough chunks long enough to burn the images into my mind. Tristan had once stayed in Mexico with a host family for a few weeks and thus already had a memory bank labeled "Mexican baked goods" that would help him choose what to buy. I, on the other hand, just stared at all the goodies going "WHAT'S THAT" and "OH THAT LOOKS GOOD" and "UHHH...THEY ALL LOOK GOOD, THIS IS NOT FAIR." Tristan ended up getting some kind of light, pillowy soft bun while I went with a dense, coconut-flavored scone-like bread chunk (top shelf in the third photo) and a tender, crackled, pale yellow cookie (second shelf in the third photo).

"I noticed that you did a happy bakery dance."

I did a...what? I have a bakery dance? Well. Sure, why not. :) I felt even happier upon paying only $0.60 per baked good. $0.60! Now everything else feels like a rip-off.

innards

We sat on a spot of grass by a lake with a tiny beach and dug into the goods. The lightly coconut flavored (with dried coconut shavings thrown in) sconey thing was much more filling than it looked. I happily stuffed chunks into my mouth and force-fed Tristan, who doesn't eat a whole lot more than I do despite towering over me by a foot...or two. I liked the cookie even more. Its deliciousness was apparent in the grease stain it left behind on the bottom of the paper bag. Mmm...window of faaaat. The cookie had the tenderness of shortbread, but with a grittier and somewhat crunchy texture. I loved whatever the unidentifiable nutty flavor was. TELL ME YOUR SECRETS, OH FATTY COOKIE OF YUMMINESS! (If anyone can give me more info about what I ate, please tell me!)

wow, trees!

We passed some funky gnarled trees. Not tasty. But kind of pretty!

Although we felt like we had walked around for a long time, north-south wise we found out—as we lazily (or in my case, wheezily) consulted a map stuck to one of the field's fences—that we had traversed a grand total of 10 blocks at various elevations (not that Central Park is exactly mountainous; a little hilly?). However, we also walked from the east side to the west side, adding about another 10 blocks to the length of our walk. ...Which is still pretty damn short. Of course, it was better than sitting around and doing nothing, for how else would I have found that bakery?

Before heading to Central Park, we shared some Chinese food in Washington Square Park. However, this Chinese food was tainted with the spirit of an evil panda-demon.

creeeepy

That's a panda-demon, right? Don't even think of stealing the panda-demon: that shizz is trademarked. Its eyes are excessively shiny and its nostrils are eerily pronounced. DEMON MARKINGS, I SAY.

Tisserie

After our encounter with the demon-panda, we walked up to the Union Square farmer's market. Of course, my real destination was the new-ish bakery, Tisserie. I didn't try anything (which is probably a good thing, as I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as what I got from the Mexican bakery), so I'll just do this retinal-pleasing thing:

wheaty things

Thai and Indian food under one roof; it's just what I wanted!

Kailash

Kailash is a restaurant in Ridgewood that specializes in Thai and Indian food. Separately. When I told my brother what they served, he imagined fusion, not two different menus splodged together. Since I don't know much about Thai or Indian food, I can't accurately assess how "authentic" their food is, but it tasted good to me. The restaurant has been around for a while, so I imagine that other people think the same thing. The first time I went there was probably four years ago.

grilled calamari salad

My mum, brother and I shared the spicy grilled calamari salad (methinks that falls under the Thai category) as an appetizer. Since we love fried calamari so much, we figured that grilled must be pretty good too. And...it's fine, but nowhere near the tastiness of fried. Not even in the same galaxy. Just distant siblings who want nothing to do with each other. Chewy, unfried squid rings just doesn't do it for me. Thankfully, no more squid made its way into our meal and we polished off just about everything else we ordered.

chunks-o-lamb

I think this is lamb madras, but if not then at least I can say with 100% confidence that it's something with tender chunks of lamb cooked in a savory curry sauce. Yes, this is as descriptive as I get. I'd have to be smarter to be able to identify what spices were actually in it (or take notes off the menu).

chunks-o-chicken

Even better than my lamb was my brother's chennai chicken (which came with a side of dosa). It's spiciness was more subdued than in my lamb dish and it had a sweeter, creamier taste. I'd want to eat this again.

crispy duck

My mum's crispy duck (Thai, in case it's not apparent) arrived at the table in a violent state of sizzling and smoking. I'm not a big fan of duck, partially because of the fatty skin of which there was much in this dish. My mum managed to eat most of it while my brother picked at whatever meat was left.

Aside from all the meatstuffs, we were also give two plates of rice (white and yellow). By the end of the meal after blindly eating everything on the table, I felt like I was going to explode. Really. In the car ride home I think I sat at an odd angle and hugged my belly as though that would somehow affect the digestive processes going on beneath the skin. Did I really eat that much? I think something's wrong with my digestion, as I've had a similar feeling after every eating excursion I've gone on with my mum and brother (they, of course, emerge unscathed). I guess overeating is a bit of a problem when you're constantly presented with copious amounts of stuff that tastes good.

The next day while driving to the train station my mum said that she liked Kailash more than Mela (another Indian restaurant in Ridgewood) partially because Kailash served larger portions. I don't know if I really want more food. Many times I wish restaurants would serve less so that I'm not as compelled to eat it all. (Yeah, I know no one is forcing the food down your throat, and there is such a practice of taking home leftovers, but...um. I have a tendency to ignore the sensation of being full. Yes, I should do something about that.)

...Unless it's dessert. That should come in larger portions.

googlin' time

Mexican Bakery
129 E 110th Street
New York, NY 10029

Tisserie
857 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

Kailash
22 Oak St
Ridgewood, NJ 07450

and for something random

browne cheese, please

Mm, weegie food. I sure like me some geitost. The brown color comes from the caramelization of the milk sugar, which results in a sweet taste in comparison to other cheese. I'm not sure what other popular uses for the cheese exist besides eating on bread, but I ate a few slices by themselves out of pseudo-hunger and I found the flavor too strong. The only places where I've found brown cheese around where I live are at my local Whole Foods in the "fancy butter/cheese" section (as opposed to the regular cheese counter or the dairy aisle) and Nordic Delicacies in Brooklyn.

In reference to my title: yup, I'm still wheezy. But it's not very surprising considering what I'm eating, so...I guess I'm just screwed for now.

Sorry for not updating in a while. Yes, I am THINKING OF YOU. No, not you...[points in the other direction]...you! Yes, you in the funny hat.

What have I been up to lately? Not a whole lot in the world of eating, hence the lack of updates. I spent the past two days going to concerts and I just bought a ticket (seriously, a minute ago) to another one tonight. Buying a ticket to go to a show by myself for an artist whose albums I don't even own to a venue I've never been to is highly abnormal for me, a lazy girl who needs a lot of convincing to even change out of her pajamas. If the show sucks, I'll turn into "Mega Grumpy Robyn." Pray for my well being.

At least the concert will be inside. Yesterday my body responded to being sun-raped at Pool Parties by constantly bathing itself in sweat. Layer after layer would soak into my clothes, evaporate into the Brooklyn air, lather, rinse, and repeat a few gazillion more times until I had successfully discharged more than a liter of water through my pores. My gawd, it's like magic! Who needs a urinary tract when you can just sweat all day? The only good thing about it was that I didn't have to pee and the extended exposure to the sun gave me a slight tan. (Luckily, I don't burn easily. Unless you throw fire on me. Please don't.)

When it gets to the point where I feel like my eyes are sweating, I can't say I have much desire to eat anything. However, before the show I thought I would get hungry, so I grabbed a quick snack.

New York Muffins

It should be no surprise that a place called New York Muffins would entice me. MUFFINS. HELLO. ONE OF THE BEST INVENTIONS EVER. Alright then.

muffin piles

I felt a little weird taking photos because the place was crowded and small, but they have more than muffins: other baked goods, sandwiches, juices, other liquids, etc. Of course, all I wanted was a muffin.

hello my pretty

Instead of trying something new, I went with my favorite flavor: banana nut. The texture threw me off a bit; it was a bit denser than I expected and one shoved in your mouth had the property of sticking to every tooth it came in contact with so that the only way you could get it down your throat was to wiggle your finger around and dislodged the muffin bits. You know what I mean, right? It had a high level of...toothpack. The good thing about this kind of texture is that the muffin doesn't messily crumble when you rip off chunks. Overall it wasn't bad, just not my favorite kind. I would've liked it better if it had more nuts in the batter and not just on top. After the 6-hour period that I was in possession of the muffin, I only managed to eat about half of it and gave the other half to John. I wouldn't have wanted to eat any baked good at that point, since I already felt...baked.

come to mama!

The only food being sold onsite that I desperately wanted to eat was ice cream. (There were also hot dogs and beer. These are not "Robyn"-foods.) While there were ice cream trucks outside the venue, a special Ben & Jerry's truck was on-hand for the concert. $3 for a small cup of sweet cream and cookie ice cream seemed like a lot to me (a few weeks earlier, Ice Cream Man had been giving out free ice cream, dammit), but I happily ate the melting creamy oreo cookie-laced scoop for a few minutes of relief from the heat.

And then I went back to feeling like I wanted to go home and sleep...I mean, after hosing myself down and scrubbing the crap out of my pores.

But I didn't. Because I had to stay until the final act.

Of Montreal!

If you don't like Of Montreal, then that sucks. Because you should! Because! I said so! Right! They wrote a song about pancakes, you know. That should be enough to win anyone over. Especially if you like pancakes. I know you do.

stylin'

And their lead singer is so stylin'.

more people

I could've taken more photos, but I didn't want to crouch on the ledge in front of the stage for too long. It's kind of tiring after a while...if you're as out of shape as I am. And uncomfortably wearing a skirt. I wish I had the drive to do concert photography, but methinks food is more of my thing. Unless it were my job, I'd feel like I were bothering people if I took excessive photos at concerts. I seem to have lost that feeling while taking photos at restaurants and other food related places. "No one breathe, I NEED THE PERFECT SHOT OF THIS SANDWICH."

While waiting in the PATH station to get to Hoboken, I attempted to wipe off excess sweat with some extra Ben & Jerry's napkins. The result was me holding a sweat-laden napkin and the formation of friction-induced dirt bits on my skin. Oh. Lordy. When I got home all I could think of was, "I'm the human form of stench covered in a layer of sweat and grime." [shudders]

ice creaaaam

After Saturday's Mew concert (they opened for Bloc Party, but I didn't stay for the whole thing), I wandered around Hoboken while waiting for the train back home. Although the sun wasn't out, the air was still filled with stagnant humidity. You know, the best kind of humidity. For making people suicidal. I only had a vague idea of what was in the area, but no map to guide me. Thankfully my food senses (or dumb luck, more like) led me to The Ice Hut, a fat-free Italian ice and ice cream vendor.

gimme!

I couldn't have asked for a better dinner. A combination of mango Italian ice and vanilla ice cream in a medium size cup only ran $2.75. While it was refreshing in such weather, you can already see from the photo the effects of the heat waves invading every bit of airspace. The poor ice cream was already starting to break down just seconds after it had been squodged out of the ice cream machine. Since the ice cream melted more quickly than the Italian ice, I hurriedly tried to shovel the "mango ice floating in ice cream soup" before getting sticky soup all over my hands. I think the mango ice on its own would taste too "sharp" (in coldness and flavor), but is much better when mixed with the creamy and less strongly flavored ice cream. I just wish it hadn't melted so quickly.

a pretty wall

On Friday I went to Italian sandwich shop Alidoro with John for lunch. Although I went there once before and enjoyed it, my impetus for going last week was because of Mike's recommendation (and it was his rec that got me there the first time).

meal spillage

I ordered the special "Materazzi" sandwich (all sandwiches are given names) filled with uber-thin silky soft slices of Gran Biscotto, arugula, and some hot chili stuff smooshed between chewy sfilatino bread for about $11. If the price surprised you, the sandwich lasted me two meals, so it's definitely worth it. Hell, it's worth it even if it only lasts one meal. Mike describes the sandwich better than I could. All I can say is that I don't generally like ham, but this was damn tasty. My horribly description is that it doesn't taste like regular ham at all, or as Mike said, very little of the saltiness and grease I would object to.

John's sandwich

John ordered the "Victoria", consisting of smoked mozzerella, artichokes, sweet peppers and arugula between soft tramezzino bread. Although it would've been better if I had eaten it right away, the sandwich was still great after I finally got to eat it when I arrived at home 5 hours after the sandwich was made. More places should make sandwiches with smoked mozzerella. It's like regular mozzerella, but...ye know, smoked. I'd rather not explain what smokey flavor tastes like.

waffle robots!

Yes, we are finally reaching the end of this entry. Waffle style. I went to the small waffle and crepe shop Mon Repas with CJ, JD, and Diana before they tootled off to a Mew concert (I couldn't go because of the age restriction, god dammit). They make Belgian/Brussels waffles (rectangular) and Liege waffles (not rectangular, kinda oval or free-form).

waffle with nutella, bananas, and coconut

I couldn't decide so I somehow settled on a Brussels waffle with nutella, banana slices and and coconut shavings. Pretty good. I mean, how could that not be good? Nutella is usually a mark of tastiness. Maybe I would've liked it more if I had been hungrier.

waffle with ice cream

Diana's waffle was a bit overdone, meaning it was uber-crispy. She didn't finish it since she likes soft waffles more (as do I), but you may like your waffles "well done". :)

liege waffle

CJ ordered a simple liege waffle with syrup and was most vocal about the waffles tastiness in our whole group. He said somethign like, "Robyn, this is the best waffle I've ever had. ARE THEY ALL LIKE THIS? ANSWER MEEE!!!" Judging from this description of waffles, it probably was the best thing:

The Liege waffle is golden-yellow, more dense in texture and has a burned sugar coating on the outside giving it a lightly sweet flavor.

Stupidly I didn't force ask CJ if I could try any of his waffle. Ye know what that means; I'll have to go back and try it.

location, location, location

New York Muffins
198 Bedford Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211

The Ice Hut
201 Washington St
Hoboken, NJ 07030

Alidoro
105 Sullivan St
New York, NY 10012

Mon Repas
50 W 8th St
New York, NY 10011