Chobani store, Soho

Ever since the Chobani store opened in Soho, I've been wanting to go check it out. My favorite plain Greek yogurt is the 2% Fage plain, but Chobani has some really fun flavors like apple cinnamon. I didn't know what to expect from the store, but it was cool!

Raymond, in nothin' but Uniqlo (and shoes by Calvin Klein)

The inside of the store is really fancy. They sell plain yogurt with different topping choices, and you can watch them make it behind the windows.

I chose fig and walnut, and Raymond had chocolate/pistachio/orange/mint. The sales girl said his flavor is the favorite sweet one, but I liked mine better for sure. 

And the best part? You get to keep those little glass bowls!

I love my freebies, and my Uniqlo linen shirt.

Superbowl Sundae

I'm not really into football, but I am into wings and beer. City Bakery's Superbowl flavored hot chocolate was inspired by one of those things, and unfortunately it wasn't buffalo sauce. The only characteristic of beer that the Superbowl flavor had was its bitterness. The bitter aftertaste was distinct, but there was no other taste connection to me.

I feel like if they made a bitter melon hot chocolate, it would taste the same as the Superbowl.

Monday: Lemon hot chocolate. I will be skipping this one. Please refer to my previous review for more information. The short version: lemon Pledge. The long version: damn, I was a better writer two years ago.

Don't slip!

They say that approximately 75% of what we taste is actually based on smell. City Bakery's Banana Peel hot chocolate (Saturday's flavor) had a distinct banana peel smell. It's interesting because I couldn't previously have told you what the difference between the smell of the actual fruit and its peel would be, but when I smelled the chocolate, it was definitely banana peel and not banana. The flavor went well with the chocolate and I really enjoyed it because it didn't disappear after the second sip, which is a common problem with the festival's flavors. It's mainly due to the smell though; Raymond and I joked that they probably used regular chocolate and sprayed it with banana smell, or that they should just serve the regular chocolate and hand out banana peels to smell as you drink it. Or they could serve regular chocolate in a hollowed out banana peel!

Final verdict: great flavor, but espresso is still my favorite.

Today is Superbowl Chocolate!

Thank God I'm not a ginger.

I love ginger. I like it as a hot drink with honey; I like it with flat Coke; and I like it in my raw apple crisp. My first sip of the ginger hot chocolate on Friday was distinctly gingery; I could even feel a bit of a tingle in my throat after I swallowed (that's what she said). But after the first sip, I couldn't really distinguish any ginger flavor from the stronger chocolate flavors. All in all, not bad, but nothing to write home about. Part of me wishes the ginger flavor was stronger, because I love it, but a larger part of me just doesn't care because ginger doesn't really go with chocolate.

Saturday: Banana peel!

Espresso or EX-presso?

Thursday night's hot chocolate flavor at City Bakery was..... espresso!



Not really sure why they write it in Japanese too.

To me, this flavor was the best that I've had from City Bakery, rivaling the satisfying burnt-marshmallow flavor of the Caramel. There was the perfect amount of rich, almost nutty espresso flavor, and the chocolate actually arrived hot and at the perfect consistency - thick enough to be substantial, but not so thick it sticks in your throat. I don't even like coffee and I sucked it down like I was in the middle of an intense bout with that 2:30 feeling.

Friday: Ginger!

One man's treasure is another man's...

Is that how it goes?

City Bakery's annual Hot Chocolate Festival kicked off last night with Sunken Treasures, a flavor I hadn't seen in previous years. For those new to the event, City Bakery is famous for their thick hot chocolate, and every year in February they host a festival where they feature a different flavor each day. Raymond and I went Wednesday night to sample the Sunken Treasures, and my final verdict: TOTAL RIPOFF.

Not to be harsh, but Sunken Treasures wasn't even worth the trip. It was basically the regular hot chocolate poured over a couple of Werther's Originals and a piece of dark chocolate, or as they put it, "On the bottom of the Hot Chocolate Ocean, there's a chocolate pearl, toffee gold bars and caramel coral." The first problem was that they didn't offer the special flavor in the small tasting size, so you're forced to buy the full-sized bowl. The regular hot chocolate is so thick it's like drinking warm chocolate pudding with a buttery aftertaste, so it's almost impossible (except for true fans) to drink the whole bowl.

But the main problem with the flavor is that the hard candies and chocolate take so long to melt that if you were to wait for them, your chocolate would be ice cold. If you drink without them, it's the same as having the regular hot chocolate and then candy for dessert. There was no chance for the flavors to meld and mingle, which is what I imagine the best part of the Sunken Treasures flavor was supposed to be.

A blurry phone pic of a half-eaten Pretzel Croissant (AMAZING) and a "treasure":



Not sure how well you can see it, but here's a shot of the little bits of the candies melting and threads of them being stirred to the top:



Thursday: Espresso!

So sweet and so juicy

I just recently discovered the most awesome juice brand, Ralph and Charlie's!



They have so many tasty and interesting fruit combinations, like green apple, pineapple and kiwi; guava, orange and banana; carrot, orange and banana, etc. The packaging is so cute, and they're made in Brooklyn! If only juice wasn't an endless source of sugar and carbs.....

The grand tour

Another highlight of my trip: eating dim sum with my Aunt Rebecca. We ate shark's fin soup while she laughed hysterically remembering the time that my mom and dad came to visit and drank milk with lunch, "just like baby!!!!!"



After lunch, we went on a tour of empty restaurants and bars in high places, looking to see which one had the best view. This picture was taken in the hallway in a rooftop bar in Tsim Sha Tsui. Aunt Rebecca always gives the best small gifts, which is how I ended up going home with "Glaring Bright" pink lipgloss and a big box of dried noodle packets in my suitcase. They remind me of the time I was living in a village/tiny city in northern China and my white grandma sent me a care package full of ramen noodle packages.

Sigh of relief!

Cafe Zaiya is back! Maybe I'll celebrate by eating carbs, i.e. leaf pies.

Cafe Zaiya, wtf!!!

via Midtown Lunch

Cafe Zaiya, how could you do this to me? Where am I going to get my leaf pies now? Apparently they were closed today because of nonpayment of taxes. Midtown Lunch called for more info and they were told that the store could be back in business pretty soon, but IDK, that SEIZED sign looks pretty scary to me!


thanks, Baker Bibi!

Cafe Zaiya calls these "leaf pies," and I always knew them as butterfly or snail cookies, but apparently they're palmiers. And wow, they're so easy to make. Maybe I don't need you after all, Cafe Zaiya!

Damn you, Google

What will it be? Will it be fun?

This Google Offers video is so sweet and catchy, and (might I add) totally false.



I just got my first Google Offer in the email and it's 50% off at Pommes Frites. That's great, I can't wait to go to the trouble of buying online, printing my coupon at work after everyone's gone home, then somehow remembering to bring it with me AND redeem it on a late-night drunken visit to Pommes Frites while I stage-whisper in front of the staff that I know truffles are really expensive but I actually HATE them and it's so gross they've put them into a sauce, it might as well be CILANTRO which makes me PUKE. It'll be worth it to save $2.

The song made me wonder, "will [these offers] transport me to space?" They're not even motivating me to transport myself via subway to the East Village. This offer has been done by Groupon, Scoutmob, BuyWithMe and Yippit, and half the time you can get them for free at Burp Castle anyway!

I'm so disappointed.

Peep this peep show

It's a testament to my mom's perseverance in enforcing the no-sugar rule when I was a kid that I have never to this day eaten a Peep. They freak me out. Except when they're sacrificing each other. That, I love!







These three pics are from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, but they took the slideshow down before I could link to it! There are Peep diorama contests each year in a few cities, and some of the entries are amazingly detailed.



This one's from the Washington Post peep show! I think I like the concept of the synchronized swimming the best, but I love the saturated colors of the photo for the sacrificial one.

Happy Easter! This post is probably the extent of my celebration.

A bucket of chicken.

I don't know why I even bother trying to write fiction. Real life is so much more interesting.

nicole:  hahahaha

lol

nothing surprises me anymore

we had a patient

i didn't take care of her

but she was SOOO big

that she had to pay her neighbor

with a bucket of chicken

to hold her legs

so she and her husband could have sex

that is how she got pregnant

i can't even make that up

a bucket of chicken

 Sent at 11:59 AM on Monday

This is how New Yorkers live.

We make space for our Shrinky-dink art. We store laundry in our stoves (or fridges, in my cousin's case). We store bananas in the toaster ovens.

I actually once went to see and almost rented a place even smaller, if you can imagine it. It was very similar in layout but with a much smaller closet and the ladder to the bed stuck out too much, so you couldn't use that space for anything really. There wasn't even enough room for a desk and a chair. Her space is downright luxurious for her $700 rent, honestly. I mean this is New York! The space I looked at had a little tiny stove (quite the fire hazard in a space that small) and didn't have a bathroom; it was down the hall and you share with the three others on the hall. It was also right near Lincoln Center and that side of Central Park.

Hi-Chew

Soda- and Cola-flavored Hi-Chew, brought back by Rosa from Taiwan! I wish they'd sell these in the US, the flavor was SPOT ON.

The Validity of Chinese Traditions

China's a big country, so it makes sense that there would be variations in holiday traditions, but every New Year I feel like each of my friends has a different idea of how to celebrate the holiday. I just told Rosa that I've cursed myself by washing my hair this morning and she had no idea what I was talking about. (BTW I find that link so funny because really, the answer to any question about the reason behind any Chinese tradition is that it's lucky or unlucky.)

So I want to start a conversation, and please leave me a comment about this. I'm going to write down some of the traditions I know and have been observing (or forced to observe) since birth. Tell me yours, and let me know if you've never heard of mine!

1. Hongbao



A friend was just telling me about how one of his friends always got her hongbao put under her pillow after she slept on New Year's night, like a Hongbao Fairy. He said he made fun of her till she cried (so cruel) because obvs no one ever sleeps on the hongbao. But in my family, we get the hongbao (red pocket) full of massive wads of ca$h (ok, 20 bucks) the night before and put it under our pillows to sleep. My mom is from Hong Kong and none of my mainland friends had ever done that before. You?

2. Lion dances



I love being in Hong Kong for New Year because you can go to the big fancy malls and see lions dancing and spitting lettuce all over the floor! I forgot why that happens but obviously (see above) it has to do with luck, and probably a pun on the word vegetable (cai). I rarely saw that happen in mainland China, but I did see it once or twice in the south, right next to Hong Kong. Is it a Cantonese thing?

3. Hair washing and showering



I can't seem to find the pics I took of the larger part of the hairdresser's in China, but this is a (rather old) pic of me on the bed where you get your hair washed/scalp massaged/body massaged all at once. It's awesome!

Back to the larger point: you're not supposed to wash your hair or even shower on New Year Day because you'll be washing away the luck bestowed upon you. This isn't one I observed as a kid; I learned it while living in the mainland. My Taiwanese friends seem not to do it either. Is this something people give up when they get to the US, because Americans are crazy about showering? Seriously, Americans love to clean themselves. I'm going to go out on a limb here and admit something personal: in the winter, I often shower every other day.

4. New Year foods



Here's my old students, Viv and Helen, chopping celery to make dumplings!

In my family, we just ate something sort of Chinese for New Year because we were in a tiny town in TN and didn't really have access to Chinese foods or ingredients (or the will to use American ingredients and go through the time and effort of creating Chinese delicacies from them). When I went to the village in the mainland to teach, my students told me that it's tradition to eat dumplings, and it's also tradition to hide a coin in one of them and whoever finds it has extra luck. That seems especially unlucky to me though, biting into a dumpling and finding a coin (and breaking a tooth, and losing a filling, etc).

5. Teacher's Day

I can't find anything on this, but when I was studying in Hong Kong, our Chinese teacher invited us to her house on a specific day of New Year because that was the teacher's day. I've not heard about that since! But I know that each day following New Year has some significance, like one day you go see your teacher, one day you go see your friends, etc. Anyone else know about that? What's the schedule?

6. Get a new outfit!



My favorite tradition! There are MAJOR sales on clothes before the New Year because you're supposed to get a whole new outfit to start the year off fresh! I couldn't find a pic of a sale so I will treat you to this picture of Calvin Klein's window display in Hong Kong for the year of the chicken. I think it gets the point across. But again, not everyone has heard of this tradition, and I didn't know about it until I went to HK. Maybe parents want to hide it from their American-born kids so they don't have to pony up for new clothes?

There might be more, but lunch break is over. Things I miss most: the HK light show, fireworks going off at all hours every day for two weeks, the general good mood, the flower market. Leave me a comment about your traditions, or argue with mine! I'll fight you!

It's Pancake Month!!!

I was talking to Sophie about dieting, about how to burn fat you have to cut down on carbs. But then I heard about the Clinton Street Baking Company's Pancake Month!



Sometimes I'd rather be happy than skinny. I for sure want Crunchy Bananas and maybe Blackberry, and I'm intrigued by the Japanese Pumpkin. Let's go!

I love you, Mark Bittman

I'm going to make a movie about how we met in prison and fell in love, and it's going to be a big hit despite our horrendous Southern accents that make (one of) us sound like William Faulkner. Ahem Ewan McGregor.

Anyway. Mark Bittman, you make me love life. I read your articles and I feel so happy to be alive so that I too can cook and eat things like bulgur-ricotta pancakes! I dream of the day when I'll be one of those people that has the time and energy on weekend mornings to get up and make whole-grain breakfast breads.


by Sabra Krock, featured in the NYT

Candy Cane Marshmallows!

In the beginning, there was fluff. It was so hard to handle that I didn't take pictures.

But after the fluff was mixed with the red food color, there was this:



Put in the 8 x 8 pan, like so:



After waiting a night, I had this!



and then they were all cut up:



They were pretty tasty! I added just a bit more peppermint extract than Martha Stewart's recipe said to.

Making marshmallows is crazy! There are three mixtures that you put together: gelatin and water and peppermint extract, sugar and water and Karo syrup, and egg whites whisked till they're forming peaks. You make all those at the same time, and when the sugar mixture has heated till about the hard ball stage, you mix them all together in the stand mixer and leave it going on high for 10-12 minutes. At first it just looks watery and weird and you think there's no way you did it right because if you did, it wouldn't look like this. But after a minute or two it turns white, and after a few more minutes it gets thicker, and after more minutes it's super fluffy and opaque white and looks exactly like the Marshmallow Fluff that comes in that jar! Cooking science is so cool!

Happy weekend!

Seen before brunch at Rosewater Restaurant, which was a thoroughly disappointing experience. There was a string in the pork sandwich Rosa got, and the manager's response was, "Oh, we use that to cook the pork. We're usually good at making sure that doesn't go in the sandwich."