Dining in Kauai: Family Vacation

I think I told myself too many times that I need to indulge in food while on vacation this year. Sorry, did I say too many? I meant just enough times for the perfect vacation balance of just a hint too much ice cream everyday and glorious seafood (or should I say presidential?).

First up, some amazing pit...baked?...roasted?...cooked? yes, cooked, pig from a luau we went to. For half a second I considered, hm, maybe I shouldn't put this picture up first, or put a warning on it. But then I remembered my philosophy on food. If you can't handle knowing where it came from, then you shouldn't eat it. Things have to die and they sometimes die in unhappy ways to feed you. That aside, its a local pig (d'awww), so you can feel good about that wrt to your carbon footprint.

check out that pig. and those banana leaves soaking in pig juices. yum.

 For Christmas dinner, we went to Hukikau Lanai, restaurant on the eastern side of the island, literally less than 0.5 miles from one of the hotels we stayed at. It was definitely the best restaurant we ate at while in Kauai, for a very reasonable price given that everything is more expensive in Hawaii. They had a special Christmas menu going on, but I think most of the stuff we ordered probably shows up on their normal menu as well, like the nachos and delicious free bread!

Ahi Poke Nachos with fried wonton "chips"

Look at that bread. Just spend a good minute staring at it.

Mixed Grill Entree. Just a lot of delicious local seafood in a thai chili coconut sauce.

Macademia Nut Tart with Cinnamon Ice Cream for dessert!

Obviously, I did not just eat ice cream on Christmas. One of our favorite ice cream destinations on the island was a place called Lappert's, a Hawaiian ice cream chain. They had a huge variety of different "Hawaiian flavors" like Mauna Kea's Secret, Kauai Pie, Kona Coffee, Big Island Inspiration, Heavenly Hana ect ect. My favorite was Tutu's Anniversary, which was coconut ice cream mixed with raspberry and passion fruit sorbet. It was so delicious that on our last (5th!) trip to the place on our way to the airport, my siblings and I ALL got it (see image on the left below). Of course, the other classic tropical vacationing cold treat is shaved ice, seen in the image on the right below. It's surprising how delicious plain old ice and sugar syrups can be.

   

Maybe I'll look into a slideshow format for long picture posts like this in the future. But if you made it this far, here's some pictures of Kauai itself, not just its food. Bwahaha.

Apple Pie Ice Cream: Random Kitchen Appliance Adventures

A new 2 year tradition: buying a random kitchen appliance from Macy's during the Thanksgiving holiday sales. Last year, it was a waffle iron. We had just finished brunch on black Friday. I wanted a waffle, but my mom insisted I get something more, um, grown up? So I got Eggs Benedict's. They tasted awful. So we bought a waffle iron at a sale to make up for that. And I made delicious pumpkin waffles for dinner and all was good.
This year, it was an ice cream maker. Except instead of post-Thanksgiving sales, it was pre-Thanksgiving sales, on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. My musings on the timing of American consumerism aside, this thing is a monstrous beautiful thing.

Technical ramblings: The ice cream machine surprisingly quite large, with the majority of its bulk occupied by a coolant-filled lining thats frozen to keep everything maximally chilled and freezing during an otherwise pretty simple and boring period of turning. Its basically just a really really really cold bucket and constant churning that makes for ice cream.

I've been pining for an ice cream machine for ages. The number of times I've stared on amazon at ice cream makers and the number of times I've gazed forlornly at an ice cream recipe is a little upsetting. For my first batch of what I'm sure will be many, I made apple pie ice cream. I had leftover apple filling from the apple pie cupcakes I made previously that sounded like would go great mixed in with a vanilla bean custard ice cream. The overall recipe with links to each part is below:

-----------------------------

Apple Pie Ice Cream

servings: ideally 1, but if you have to share, maybe 10?

time: wibbly wobbly timey wimey (prep 1 day in advance)

Things you need:

• for Vanilla Bean Ice Cream-- recipe from Cuisinart Recipe.
• for Apple Pie Filling--recipe from food fanatic. (literally the Apple Pie Filling Section)
• Optional: Walnuts
• Necessary: Bowl or another dessert as a vehicle for ice cream

Instructions:

1. Make vanilla bean ice cream base and chill in fridge according to recipe.
• generally between 6-24 hours depending on a) how well you plan ahead and b) patience
• make sure your ice cream machine bowl is chilled 24 hours or you'll be sad. :(
2. Make apple pie filling and allow to cool according to recipe before storing in fridge.
• generally--you want anything in your ice cream as cold as possible.
3. Before putting ice cream base into your machine bowl, mix apple pie filling into ice cream base.
4. Make according to your ice cream machine's manufacture instructions.
• In the last 5 minutes of churning, toss in walnuts.
• per instructions, you'll probably also have to store ice cream in the freezer for an addition 2 hours to allow it to further firm up.
5. Consume. On everything.

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Step 5 is particularly difficult, so I've added some photos below of some different ways to successfully approach it.

A la mode style on top of an apple pie cupcake.

Smashed and melting between 2 snickerdoodles

With yo favorite seasonal pie

Apple Pie Cupcakes: A Tribute

Some of you might recall an earlier post where I essential wrote my "how did you meet" story for my future wedding between myself and....a cupcake truck. One of those cupcakes that I particularly love from that cupcake truck happens to an apple pie cupcake.

Incase you forgot

While I can't make ~signature swirls~ nearly as adorable as Sugar Bakery, I do have an oven and an unhealthy twitch to bake over school breaks that are in theory more like take this time to catchup so you're not screwed for finals breaks. Wait, what? Finals? Sorry, the cupcakes are a little distracting. Yes, finals. No, I don't want to take about them. And you don't want to hear about them. Especially if you're me rereading this in a few months when finals are over (Hi future self!). So, instead, lets collectively stare at these cupcakes instead.

These apple pie cupcakes were super fun to make! (I'm being serious, no sarcasm at all!) I don't make pie fillings or fillings very often, so getting to use cornstarch and watch it thicken was oddly satisfying. The cupcake itself was a pretty simple recipe. While I wanted something maybe more spiced and flavorful, I decided that if I was going to endeavor on a filled cupcake for Thanksgiving dinner, I should keep it basic (pH< 7 anyone???)

Also, its a shame whipped cream melts, because its literally the easiest way to make a fancy swirly-do topping to your cupcake. Anyways, I'll stop acting like a 10 year old and go back to my final, which I failed, right future Helen?
Apple Pie Cupcake recipe from food fanatic. Only changes were assembling style which are as pictured.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts: Oh look something green

that isn't food coloring on this blog.

To kick-off the slowly drawing out everything I made over thanksgiving posts, we'll do it the way my mother taught me--green things first. This method of eating is somewhat of a problem in the dining hall because by the time I finish the gosh darn salad, the rest of my food is cold. And let's face it, dining hall food wasn't that amazing warm to begin with.
Funnily enough though, it was in the dining hall sophomore year when I first dared to try brussels sprouts. AND I LIKED THEM.
Except then the next 10 times they made them, they tasted terrible. So I started not liking them again.

And then it was Thanksgiving 2013. And my sister said she liked the dining hall brussels sprouts. So literally the thought process was like: "fine, I'll make brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving since I need to learn how to cook real food anyways and maybe I'll actually like them."

And guess what? I LIKED THEM! They were charmingly easy to make. Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Shallots with Balsamic Vinegar recipe from my number favorite Serious Eats. A few modifications:

• no shallots, so just diced up some onions.
• I didn't quite scale the balsamic vinegar correctly, so they ended up being a little on the sour side, which was a loss for my mother. But I like the taste of balsamic vinegar anyways, so I was ok with it. 

And my cousin who was also visiting? HE LIKED THEM TOO.

(sorry, this was a weird post filled with lots of caps. its finals)

Thanksgivukaah 2013: The random pictures

Well, its been less than an hour since I finished eating Thanksgivukaah dinner (though it was more just straight up Thanksgiving for my family since we're not Jewish). Of course, the necessary thing is to now relive the entire cooking, baking, and eating experience through pictures. I've cooked and baked enough to have several blog posts to tide this poor blog over till my next baking (and maybe cooking) opportunity, so ya'll will get to relive each bit and piece of Thanksgiving throughout the merriest time of year--finals bwahahaha.
But first, since words are lame, here are some general Thanksgiving pictures. Aka the random ones that don't fit nicely in a future post.

 One of the few "in action" cooking shots since, lets face it, messing with your phone while your hands are wet, sticky, floury, ect is hard. Some roasted garlic for what would become mashed potatoes. 1PM. Back when I thought it was tots feasible to get everything done by 5PM.

 Like seriously, our house has TWO ovens so we were able to cook the turkey while baking all the other necessary yams, crescents, cookies, sprouts ect. Even then, we didn't finish till like 5:45PM, almost an hour after our ETA (estimated time of arrival) to the dining table. How do you single oven households do it?

 Of course, if you leave me in charge of dessert, you'll basically get a second dinner spread of just desserts. Individual posts and recipes to come!

To finish, here's a messy picture of pumpkin pie and some very very special ice cream. My cousin accidentally crushed the pie a little while serving, but pumpkin pie is picture perfect no matter what in my opinion.

Vanilla and Vanilla: Cupcakes for a Belated Birthday

It's finally Thanksgiving break. It's finally home after 8 months. It's finally baking in a clean kitchen. It's finally time for belated birthday cakes.
While I'm personally not a fan of celebrating my own birthday (something off-putting about celebrating just turning an age older), I'm a fan of the excuse it brings to make cake. Thanksgiving break has over the past 3 years become my birthday-cake-baking-season to make up for all the birthdays I miss while away at school where kitchens don't lend themselves well to baking.

First off, vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream for a suddenly teenager little brother. Seriously, his voice was like an octave lower since the last time I saw him. He's always been a vanilla person. Like, to the point where he will eat an ice cream sandwich by eating the middle and throwing out the chocolate wafers (true story verified by the mother).



Vanilla beans are one of my favorite food obsessions. They just make everything vanilla or cake related 1000x times better. Plus, they're surprisingly satisfying to slice and scoop out. The empty pods can then be recycled and left to sit in sugar to make freaking amazing vanilla sugar. xx.

This past weekend was also the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary. While I found the episode to be quite disappointing (but not unexpectedly so), I kinda love the fact that Doctor Who has such long, deeply intertwined history across multiple generations. Since I couldn't make anything during the actual weekend, I wanted to add a little Doctor Who nod to the desserts I made this week. No one else in my family is a Doctor Who fan, but I'm willing to hijack their desserts to demonstrate my love. I originally wanted to do make mini-TARDIS to decorate the cupcakes, but that went a bit awry (think candy melts seizing thanks to the slightest amount of water getting mixed in). As an alternative, I tried decorating with white and blue swirls to represent time-vortex timey wimey things with some gold dust mixed in a well. It's a bit of a stretch, but A for effort? (lolz, jk, not in elementary school yo).



Vanilla cupcakes and buttercream recipes are from Cupcake Project, hands down my favorite food blog ever. I aspire to be as creative as she is in my life.

Dark and Stormy Cupcakes: 21st Birthdays

Ah 21. Its strange, but not unexpected, how many milestone birthdays you hit in your youth. 1st for obvious reasons. 5th because its probably around the age you start making big kid school friends. 10th because you get to says you're a decade old. 11th because its symmetric. 15th because heyyy permit time. 16th because heyyyyyyy drivers license. 18th because woot voting and democracy. 20th because congrats, you've survived teen pregnancy. And of course 21st, because heyyyy drinking.

The amusing thing is that all these age restrictions we have, 16 for driving, 18 for voting, 21 for drinking, don't really mean anything. Sure, the government says you can do something, but you as an individual are most likely somewhat different from the averaged out young adult that was used to set these age restrictions. Heck, there are probably 10 year olds who are more responsible voters than 35 year olds. Some 16 year olds may NEVER be responsible enough to drive a vehicle that kills around 30,000 people per year. Health and development wise, maybe at 21 you are still undergoing some of the important developmental changes that the averaged young adult may have gone through already. Plus, France and the UK seems to think you're done growing enough to have alcohol at 18 or 16 or whatever. So its not exactly like at the glorious age of 21 some switch flips in your body or some maturation cycle has ended that makes you bright and ready for alcohol. But we kinda celebrate it like it is. Not that most people actually abide by this rule either.

But regardless of whether its a milestone 21st, 30th, or 50th, or 75th or even 100th birthday, birthdays at any age equally deserve the same amount of cake, or in this case cupcakes. And in particular, boozy birthday cupcakes for the college-age student. I have a small obsession with making desserts with alcohol, though I'm not sure where it stems from. It's not like cakes baked with alcohol are actually alcoholic since it all burns off so no, I'm not trying to find more ways to incorporate alcohol into my 20s lifestyle. Since the birthday girl's favorite drink was a Dark and Stormy, my lovely suitemate and I baked these for her birthday party. Since she is also Canadian, and it was the night before Halloween, we attempted decorating skillz that ended up creating a spectrum of results from things that could pass off as a red and white canadian roses to things that probably resembled squished brains (mine were the squished brains obviously).

Overall I think they were fairly successful. I refrained from eating one myself to save more for the guests, but the bite I tried definitely had a rum-like bite to it thanks to the overnight rum soak I gave them cupcakes (which incidentally also made them moist). I had a small headache a little afterwards which I'm going to pretend was due to the cupcake so I can say that I had a cupcake hangover.

Recipe was from CAKE (RE)MIX with some adaptations inspired by Beantown Baker.

• Recipe based off of a box mix= necessary for short college hours.
• No one has time for fancy pineapple salsa fillings in college age kitchens.
• Buttercream was a surprising success. I'm thinking that maybe I've been making buttercream wrong all these years and need to start loving it.

Next time, I'd love to try to bake the cake from scratch using the recipe on Beantown Baker. I saw it on several other websites and it looks great!

Pumpkin Pasties: Anything from the Trolley Dear?

This semester, I'm taking a class called Christian Theology and Harry Potter. I know, it sounds like the epitome of "liberal arts education." And to be quite honest, it probably is. But, hey, I'm a senior, and 3.5 years ago, I made the gut feeling choice to go to Yale because I could have that option to take random non-STEM classes. In retrospect, I should have realized that STEM encompasses boundless fields of amazingness that I could probably never get bored even if I did go to a certain institute. But hey, on the other hand, I wouldn't get to tell people I took a class on Christian theology and Harry Potter. If you want a review of the class, you'll have to talk to me in person since this isn't a hey, lets talk about classes blog.

gotta love the pro iphone photo skillz

But, in terms of food, as part of the course, some students wanted to have a Harry Potter movie marathon one weekend. How anyone in college has the time to watch 16 straight hours of Harry Potter seems pretty impossible and was definitely impossible for our class. I believe in total, the most dedicated students got through movie 4. While I only stayed for the last half of Chamber of Secrets, I thought that this would be the perfect excuse to make Pumpkin Pasties--something that has been on my to-bake list for eons. Pumpkin pasties just sound so flipping delicious. I mean, it was the first thing Harry ate off of the trolley (which is apparently called a cart in the US edition). As I quote:

"Starving." said Harry, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty. (Sorcerer's Stone)

Ok. so maybe this is my general pumpkin obsession getting away. After all, Harry's actual favorite treat is treacle tart.

woohoo face shot

Unfortunately, no one in my class (except for me) actually tried them because they forgot to get them from the kitchen where I told the viewing party to get them from. However, my suitemates and friends who got to eat them after I realized no one from my class actually ate them enjoyed them quite a bit. They were the perfect handsized, portable version of a pumpkin pie. It's like the pumpkin pie version of a hot pocket--to get all American here. And yet, 10000x better than a hot pocket could ever be.

check out those delicious innards

Recipe from Braised Anatomy with small modifications.

• 4 inch circles seemed a bit large for finger food purposes, so I used around 3 inch circles with the top of a mug. Actually, I might just be terrible at gauging inches.
• I seemed to need more than 12-15 minutes for my pie dough to fully bake, but I was working with a questionable oven and cheap pie dough, so many many many sources of error.
• I forgot salt. Which was actually perfectly fine, but I read somewhere that every dessert recipe asks for salt because it acts as a flavor enhancer by activating different taste receptors on your tongue. So maybe there is a dimensionality to these pasties I'm missing out on.

Midterm Mojitos

Note: Actually having a mojito with your midterm would be quite possibly one of the worst ideas ever. Do not do this just to make my cheese alliteration true.

The middle of October is officially midterm season. Actually, officially, the midterm is marked by October break I believe, but thats just boring administrative stuff. Regardless, midterms always seem to cluster together--2 in one week, 2 papers and 1 midterm, 2 midterms in one day (that would be my poor sister). On one hand, yes, its nice to just get it all over with. On the other hand, it results in locking-myself-in-a-room-never-seeing-daylight behavior where all I want to do is wear yoga pants 24/7. A friend and I were having a particularly struggle-bus week, mainly because of a class called biochem. It's like if bio-chem was a baseball game, and student was a baseball player on steroids, if pre-meds were not concerned about the health and ethical consequences of doing such things. Anyways, I digress. That was really a terrible joke analogy full of horrible stereotypes.

To celebrate the finish of this midterm (amongst others), she made mojitos! She's a super legit bartender, so she's been practicing her skillz on us so that when she's famous for fantastic mixed drinks and fighting health inequality, we can be like "hey, I once got a drink made just for me by her."

I mean look, she even muddled the ingredients and everything. I didn't even know that muddling was a thing you did for drinks, though that makes a lot of sense in retrospect.

What the Elle: An excuse for swanky bars

This year, a few friends and I decided to start a Young Adult book club, aptly named What the Elle because we live in entryway L this year, so Elle = L get it? Plus, we're all girls, so Elle is the appropriate pronoun. Last year, we spent a dinner time reminiscing about all the great young adult books we read and decided to start a club to read them together as a way to re-live our childhood and to relax. As John Green aptly said on tumblr, adults are just so...boring.
Although we were supposed to read Young Adult books, we ended up starting with The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith aka J.K. Rowling. While going out to a nice bar like Ordinary was not part of the original plan, we also at some point decided we wanted to become regulars, so we moved meetings to Ordinary which was one of the best ideas we've had thus far (and its only been like, a month!).
We planned to meet each time we finished a "part" of the book, which had 4 total. The first time, we ordered this fantastic cheesy bread sticks platter with marinara sauce. Of course, it came with the classic pickles all Caseus grilled cheese come with. Caseus being a cheese shop/restaurant knows have to make some pretty quality cheese bread. If this isn't incentive to make Ordinary your favorite bar, wait till you see the interior (I swear I don't get paid to swoon about them).

Sorry for a- instagram filter and b- bad lighting

 After this first time, we ended up not meeting till we all finished the book thanks to some speed demon reading skillz one of us had who finished the book about 3 days after our first meeting. We made a promise to return to Ordinary after we finished the book to order yards (beer in those tall glasses if you're clueless about drinks like I am). We all must have been really motivated by those yards because we actually all finished in about 3-4 weeks, which is pretty impressive for a "fun read" given the fact that I stopped fun reading when I got into college for a combination of sad reasons. For my celebratory yard, I ordered a pumpkin beer named a pretty cliched name like "pumpkin bumpkin" or "pumpin bumpin" or something to that effect.

I would first like to just note that yards aren't actually a yard long. Unless yards are much shorter than meters, these glasses were really not a yard long. Although to be quite honest, I don't think I could have finished one that was actually a yard-long. The one "faux-yard" took some quality time and discussion about Rowling's new crime novel and some reflection on if Robin from The Cuckoo's Calling was more like Hermoine or Ginny (I still stand by my assertion that she's more like Ginny). The beer itself was pretty good, though not in that omg, pumpkin makes it 20x better than all other beers. I'm not really sure what aspect of pumpkin I was supposed to taste--the squash part? Then again, I'm not really a beer connoisseur either, though I feel like the Belgian might hardcore judge a pumpkin beer.

Bacon Chai Pancakes: A Victory Brunch

A retrospective story on long lost foods (like literally lost). During the commencement period last May, me and 2 of my close friends were staying on campus, post-term. In this period, we get housing in a random dorm, but no food since school is technically out. As college students, eating out is expensive, so cooking is preferred (and way more fun!). One of the things we planned to make were pancakes. Unfortunately, when we tried to make some for dinner one night in the student kitchen, we were chastised and yelled at by one of the student aids who told us all food in the kitchen had been thrown out, including our pancake mix. So regrettably, we ate something else. 

Fast forward 3 months later with the mourning period well done with (it was too hot for black anyways). During the kitchen orientation for the school year, guess what we found on the shelf in the kitchen. THE PANCAKE MIX. After being bitterly denied our pancakes 3 months ago, our first priority was honoring those pancakes and consuming them. It was a lovely ceremony, with the most fantastic of Saturday brunches one can attempt while in college. (Ok thats a lie, we could have tried harder, but you know, we go to school for books, not cooks).

Because it was fall, it was necessary to make a spiced variant of the typical pancakes. Last time I made something chai-flavored was in May when I made chai frosting. In that case, I used a highly concentrated form of flavor made from teabags in tiny amounts of water. This worked shockingly well so I figured I could use that again to see what would happen.

Oh, also, bacon pancakes. Because, hey, whats brunch without some sort of pork-related meat? The bacon pancakes were very much a la Pinterest. Thankfully, not a pinterest fail though. Next time, I might try to get more creative with the bacon and either crush it up to evenly distribute in a batter, or shape the bacon so they spell something within the pancake batter. Yea, I'm kinda a sucker for shaped pancakes, be it letters, micky mouse, or dinosaurs.

While the chai spices didn't shine out as distinctly as in the previous occasions, I could definitely note the taste of tea-like spices in the batter. Perhaps it was due to the lack of sugar and actual spices in the batter itself that made its taste less noticeable? Or maybe the bacon just overpowered everything in its pig-like manner.
I'm honestly not the world's biggest pancake fan (I think I like waffles better), but they are definitely great fun to make, especially the shaped varieties. Plus, things always taste better with revenge and justice.

New York Musical Trip: Surprise Street Fair

Over the third weekend in September, a friend and I went on a day trip to New York to see the musical Once, which was currently starring one of our favorite Doctor Who stars Arthur Darvill. On Doctor Who, he plays a pretty adorable character named Rory whose undying devotion and dry, self-deprecating humor gives me unrealistic expectation about the real world. You know, because the whole space and time traveling thing doesn't already. He essentially played the exact same character in the musical--minus the space, time traveling, plus some singing.

I know this is a food blog, but the musical was really really quite beautiful. It's based off of the movie, which I have never seen but if its anything like the musical it'll be great. One of my favorite things about the musical was that they used a fixed set which was this gorgeous old fashioned looking bar (they actually sold drinks from it!). For each setting/scene they would move around chairs and change the lighting to make a bedroom, a recording studio, ect ect. It was a story about love and how love pushes our lives forward (and a little backwards), so the use of a static set as a sort of reference and grounding point really resonated (I think). We all want that great adventure, that great love in our lives, and yet there is always something static we can return to. Seriously, go see it if you have a chance.

Musical aside, we had some time to kill before the musical started so given my obsession with food, I was given the job of finding us a restaurant near Times Square to get lunch. I almost resorted to Yelp before I remembered that Serious Eats is located in NY and surely they must have a best-of NY guide, which, yup, they did. After picking out Piccolo Cafe, we--this being New York--ran into a street fair along I think 8th Avenue and decided to stop and browse for a while. Along with the repeating pattern of stalls that were selling 5 for $20 scarves, pocket watches, ect ect, there was a number of repeating stalls selling some really tantalizing street food such as corn, arepas, smoothies, even fried oreos. We stopped for some corn which was so delicious I failed to stop to snap a picture.

When we finally arrived to Piccolo Cafe, we ordered and sat in the cafe to eat. It was pretty small, but we found some seats by the window and chilled for a while. I got the turkey signature sandwich, which I didn't think would be particularly special, but it was really quite delicious, filling and for a very reasonable price considering it was New York. Something about the slices of real turkey breast, the slightly toasted yet pillow-soft bread smeared with aioli gave it the perfect combination of flavors. The cafe is apparently known for its egg sandwiches (according to Serious Eats), so I'll have to come back again for those! (yea, for being a food blog, I'm pretty terrible about writing about actual food)

The plain plate made it even more rustic and charming.

We ended up chilling in the cafe for a while people watching. It was super hipster-style decorated with really worn down wood (in that cute way) and faux-newspaper tiled walls. Their music playlist was also pretty great as well, though clearly not hipster enough since Adele was on it.

Also! For those interested in music, here's a video of Arthur Darvill singing Falling Slowly. He's not the best singer in the world, but given that he essentially played Rory in the musical and and sang, I'd have to say, I'd wait a 1000 years for a guy like that.

A Story of Cupcakes: The Genesis of My Devotion

New Haven is apparently pretty well known for its food culture. As someone who follows not one, not two, but THREE food trucks on twitter and frequently checks such social media sites for their locations, I think I would have to agree. Oh, plus, we have 5 frozen yogurt stores within a 2 mile radius of one another. The fact that all of them are still currently open and operating probably says something about New Haven.

One of the best trucks, and the one I probably stalk the most is the Sugar Bakery cupcake truck. Heck, I don't even have to stalk them because I have their schedule memorized by heart. I've even gone above and beyond cupcakes and have had ordered cakes via phone from their bakery to pickup on the truck when its in town. While I know a lot of people are obsessed with cupcakes for the simple fact they're mini-cakes and so hip, these are legit some of the best cupcakes I've ever had. I've gone to a variety of other cupcake shops and trucks whose cupcakes while good, weren't mindblowing. They honestly weren't that much better from like, a Betty Crocker mix or something I could make (as in, my cupcakes are on par with Betty Crocker or worse). Sugar Bakery is the sole exception.

Clockwise from top left: Pumpkin Cheesecake, Tiramisu, Apple Pie, Carrot Cake

I can vividly remember the first time I realized Sugar Bakery cupcakes were special. It was summer 2012. The truck was brand new and I had just ordered a sherbet cupcake because it was late in the day and not many other flavors were remaining. This was the second cupcake I was trying after having tried some other one (probably cheesecake) that was pretty damn good. Now, when you think of sherbet, you think of that distinctive cool, sweet fruitiness that's light and not too dense. How could a cupcake possibly encapsulate that? Taking the cupcake out of its box, I fully expected to be disappointed with excessively sweet sugar and no sherbet. Instead, a whole new world of glorious tastes and cupcakes entered. IT ACTUALLY TASTED LIKE A GODDAMN SHERBET ICE CREAM. It obviously wasn't cold, but it was SO much like sherbet that if ice cream was room-temperature and cake-like, this would have been it. This was an entire new revelation. An entire new standard upon which all cupcakes would be compared to. If a sherbet cupcake was possible, a sherbet cupcake that truly captured all the essence of that sweet ice cream and its picture-esque summer time beaches, swim suits, flip flops and sun-kissed hair, there were no limits in what we as a human race could achieve.

White Chocolate Raspberry

It is because of that sherbet cupcake, I have no qualms about buying more than one cupcake when I see that truck. While it is no longer summer and sherbet has retired till the next summer, Sugar Bakery's fall cupcakes are better than any pumpkin beer or pumpkin latte you could get anywhere.

Apple Pie

West Coast Best Coast: Guac and Margaritas

I think as a half-CA raised child who has now spent enough time on the east coast to have adopted their dialect (trust me, I took a quiz), I have the necessary experience from both coasts to pretty confidentially claim that truly, the west coast is the best coast. Not even just California. People sometimes forget that Oregon and Washington can be as glorious as California. Granted, its a bit more wet, but it has that greenery that some east coast folks find lacking in California.
Thus, I feel pretty ok with posting this picture in an obnoxiously large size.

With that being said, one of the best things about the west coast is that the fantastic sunshine weather makes it perfect for growing, producing, and making, amazing food. I forget the exact percentage but something around 60% of all US fruits and veggies come from the CA. And of course, the one fruit that shines the best amongst those is the glorious avocado. Yes, it is a fruit--quick science fact--fruits are plants that produce seeds surrounded a juicy delicious flesh that we like to eat. For them, its their ovaries essentially. Vegetables don't have this.
Sadly, the east coast, and Yale especially severely lacks in the avocado department. Don't even get me started on my Yale-Dining-what-is-this-crap-you-call-guacamole rant. Since I first realized Yale Dining doesn't know the first thing about guacamole, its been my mission to share authentic, or close to authentic as reasonably possible guacamole to my poor non-west coast friends. When the convenience store on campus had avocados in stock (why, I have NO idea), I of course had to spend all my lunch money (literally) on as many as I could buy (4) for a little guac night with suitemates and friends.

Unfortunately, our store doesn't also sell onions, tomatoes, cilantro ect ect, so I took the easy route and mixed avocado with salsa. Still 10000x better than dining hall guacamole though. To finish it off my budding-bartender friend made us margaritas (frozen margaritas) to enjoy with the guacamole. If only all Friday nights could be like this...sigh.

side note for those concerned about the timing and logistics of this blog: this was all done in early September. I didn't think I had any interesting food related stories until now, so I'm playing a little bit of catchup. Expect lots of retrospective posts.

September College Drank

Special emphasis to Drank, since zomg ~college~ (but not really).

There was a "Labor Day Weekend" post saved as a draft here, but:

1. It is clearly no longer labor day
2. The only thing in the draft was a picture of an Old Fashioned from Ordinary.

I'm struggling to decide what I want this blog to be when I'm not baking. Perhaps I lack the genuine passion for an authentic food blog since I allow the patriarchy that is college dorms hinder my creative baking. Perhaps I could simply review cool foods and drinks I've eaten while out and about? But then I turn into an instagram foodie, which, god forbid, I actually have become. (let me know if you want to follow my instagram!) Feel free to judge me, because I am mad judging myself.

I've never been very good at making decisions--I spent an entire week driving everyone insane over class decisions this year. As a result, I have scattered pictures of food taken quasi-half-heartedly just as incase I ever wanted to post them on a blog. Which I've now decided, heck, why not? I'm not writing deep, emotional posts about my food. I'm not writing for an acclaimed audience. Heck, I'm not even writing. I'm just spewing stream of consciousness onto the internet, and as we all know, the internet REALLY needs less of that.

So to reference number 2 of my short list from above, Labor Day Weekend was the first, and currently most recent going-out-to-bars-with-friends outing I've had. Yea I know, I'm super cool. We went to both Briq and Ordinary that evening. Briq was rather disappointing for several combined reasons of poor drinks, poor service, and strange liability forms attesting that should us, 21+ students get excessively drunk, we won't blame Briq...

Ordinary was great though! I had an Old Fashioned pictured below in grainy, instagram glory. 

look! #nofilter. Its that good.

To be quite honest, I've always enjoyed just the simple act of drinking and having light and reasonably intelligent conversations with friends over the going out aspect of college. There's only so much juice that can mask ethanol-like Kirkland signature vodka (actually, no amount of juice can mask that horrid smell and taste). I'm not much of a dancer either. Say what you will about what that means about my ability to let loose and be confident in myself. (But seriously, my attempts to dance usually involve me trying to be funny and looking like a frightening jellyfish). 

But I'm liking the trajectory my last year of college is heading towards--less dark dance floors, more dim-lit conversations.

Simplicity: Plain Old Biscuits

Simplicity is a word deeply twisted in the notion of nostalgia. We all feel that looking back, things were easier, less complicated. But it's only because we're looking at them through rosy hued glasses, to use a cliche. But at the end of the day, things were hard and not simple then, and nor are they now.

 I mean, when I see biscuits I think, oh, Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder, well mainly when she was still just Laura Ingalls. And man, those were not simple times. Come on. But even Laura wished for easier days. One story line that sticks out to me from the series was in the books after she married Almanzo, they move in and start a life together that is essentially a struggle bus. I think this was in the book The First Four Years, but basically their farm is a total fail, Almanzo gets sick, one of their babies dies, and there's a huge ass fire that burns everything, and the most important thing that Laura saves is this huge shiny plate they got as a wedding present. I really don't know why I remember that plate. But yea, those were hard years. And I'm pretty sure I thought they would have gotten a divorce at some point, but I guess divorce wasn't really a thing back then.

Lucky for me and my random impulses to bake biscuits, biscuits are 20000 times easier to make than farming or running a little house on the prairie. Probably because they needed all that time to well,  actually farm instead of whip up intricate macarons or something.

Recipe from Joy of Baking. As one would expect, best served hot. Also #nofilter #toolazytoiphotoediteven #suchapro.