Pinjing

It’s Wednesday, time for a break from Greece-related posts and time for some random mid-week thoughts:

I can’t decide whether these limited-edition Hello Kitty Doc Martens are awesome or atrocious. (via official Dr. Martens Sanrio Collection Link)

Blitzed through two books this week: Little Bee by Chris Cleave and The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. Despite all the hype about Bridges, I thought it was good, but not amazing. Maybe this is a case where the film adaptation is better than the book? Next up on the list: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

Been listening to The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monae. Especially love this track:

What have you all been listening to lately? I’m always up for some new music recs.

Despite being extremely jet-lagged, we hit the road running for our first day in Athens:

I am always too ambitious at hotel buffet breakfasts. But this morning I had my first taste of Greek tomatoes with olive oil and Greek oregano and I FELL IN LOVE. I proceeded to eat tomatoes with breakfast everyday after this. Also fell in love with Greek yogurt with honey again.

Lots of sightseeing: Temple of The Olympian Zeus, En Route to the Acropolis, the Ancient Agora.

Lots of stray cats in Athens.

Ended up eating dinner at a taverna near the Ancient Agora, a pretty little place called Dia Tauta with tons of outdoor seating. Had a leisurely dinner (we were still used to Chinese style dinner dining, where the restaurant tries to maximize customer throughput by pushing out dishes as quickly as possible and shooing you away when you’re done) and people watched as we ate, like the locals.

Dia Tauta dinner menu, taramosalata (fish roe dip that I ordered), sister’s chicken souvlaki, mom’s pork gyros, and my black eyed peas and greens.

It’s been a while folks . . . our family decided on a last-minute trip to Greece for two week to celebrate my sister’s graduation from university. I took loads of pictures using my new compact point-and-shoot as well as a ton of film shots using my Nikon FM. I’m still not sure which is the best way to share them, so I’ve opted to share my journey chronologically (my film shots will come later) . . .

Day 1: Traveling, LAX to SFO to Frankfurt to Athens . . .

1) Waiting to depart, 2) Frankfurt terminal, 3) My meal on Aegean Airlines en route to Athens. This was pretty good!

Check out my food blog for more!

I picked flowers from our garden for my mom.

My sister’s birthday was yesterday and last weekend she came home from college to jointly celebrate her birthday and Mother’s Day with us. Since my mom flew off to Taiwan for a month on Saturday, we celebrated early on Friday night.

Started off  by trying out a new sushi place by our house:

My uni order.

Sashimi for 4.

Kakuni (braised pork belly. So good! I love the fatty bits the best)

Sauteed shishito peppers and shitake mushrooms. Delicious; I could taste that they sauteed the mushrooms in butter. Luscious.

I made my mom a card and spent a good portion of the week baking this:

Taro Ice Cream Cake! Let me say, I worked my ass off baking this cake since each portion was homemade. It was my first time baking a layer cake and you’d think that I’d want to start off easy but no, I’m a masochist and I wanted to make this as hard on myself as possible @_@

Bottom layer: taro ice cream from scratch (I actually bought fresh taro, steamed it, made a sweetened paste with it then churned ice cream with it), then a layer of homemade chiffon cake, then a layer of homemade sweet taro paste, then another layer of homemade chiffon cake for the top. I also went through the trouble of making buttercream for the crumb coat and to sandwich the layers together, then I made a stabilized whipped cream to frost the top. Oh. And the amateur-ish purple decorations I made from piped royal icing that I did a few days before and let air dry. It looks a little “rustic”, but I’m thinking if I didn’t have to worry about ice cream melting, I’d have spent more time smoothing out the whipped cream.

I think by the end I almost hated the cake since I spent so much time on it. It nearly consumed my mind, just planning out the logistics (how to mold the ice cream and taro layers, how to frost and assemble without the ice cream melting, choosing what kind of cake to make as the type will affect its softness upon freezing, and the type of frosting to use on top). In the end though, it was all worth it as my family LOVED it (even my dad and he’s not even a taro cake fan) so that made me extremely happy and my efforts were worth it.

That being said, I want to try baking more layer cakes . . . just maybe not ice cream ones. Next time I’ll just serve ice cream on the side, a la mode.

It was kind of strange not spending the actual Mother’s Day without my mom around, but she landed safely in Taiwan and that’s all I could ask for. Hope everyone’s mother’s day was wonderful!

I hope you all had a beautiful, green day. I made a bouquet out of cilantro flowers from my grandparents’ garden.

Thanks to all for your well wishes; my tonsillitis is getting better (albeit slower than I’d like), but I’m definitely on the mend!

Sorry I haven’t been around lately; life has a been a bit crazy and been nursing my sickness (managed to get tonsillitis, proceeded to be grossed out for days with the cottage-cheese-like growth in the back of my mouth, prescribed penicillin and have been dealing with resultant GI tract irritation).

Did manage to bake some cookies:

No recipe, just threw a random amount of random flours together and baked it.

And my breakfast as of late: homemade tofu “yogurt” (blended silken tofu, lemon juice, pinch salt, stevia and almond butter) topped with berries and kinako powder (Japanese roasted soybean powder).

What I’ve been up to lately:

Eating (clockwise from upper left): Roasted acorn squash (homemade), Taiwanese cold sesame noodles (homemade), kuri manju (a sweetened bean paste and chestnut filled Japanese bun), and skanky takeout from Panda Express (Yes, I do eat Panda Express sometimes. I admit it!), lemongrass tofu (homemade).

I have a silly goal of trying every single chocolate that See’s Candy has to offer. I decided to start with the one that seemed the least appealing, the Rum Nougat.

After the first bite, I couldn’t finish it; my taste buds were overwhelmed with rum flavor. I’ve realized that I don’t really like the taste of rum, I guess. Oh well.

Finished this book and started this one.

Been listening to the Bird and the Bee’s new album comprised completely of Hall and Oates covers. I’m really enjoying it, which is funny because I didn’t grow up listening to Hall and Oates as a kid. As I was listening, the entire time I was thinking, “Hey! I didn’t know this was by Hall and Oates!” My knowledge of late 70′s/80′s music is pretty much close to nil.

Anyway, here’s a song from the album if you’d like to check it out:

Scoring could use some work, but I’m happy with my first attempt at baguettes.

Did you participate? We turned out the lights and lit up some LED-powered candles.