A Year's Accountability

1. Learn United States customary units.
2. Learn about the technicalities behind my camera functions.
3. Make a perfectly fluffy sponge cake.
4. Apply to medical school.
5. Learn NYC geography.
   
6. Have one of my recipes achieve 話題入り status.
7. Read 50 books, of which three must be The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
8. Learn Japanese geography.
9. Fall in love with someone who doesn't make me hate myself.
10. Watch 12 movies.
11. Travel to 5 completely new places.
12. Get drunk, if only just once.
    

My Virtual Kitchen Is Real!

I have written my first recipe! It's not quite *real* cooking, but Cookpad is rarely about being a show-off gourmet.

http://cookpad.com/recipe/1262772

It's a great addition to any Japanese lunch. :)

The Aspic Police

I've been in a bit of a cooking obsession lately, mostly fueled by Cookpad and facilitated by the free time that a full-time job offers (ironic, isn't it?). Even though I started out my 一人暮らし with the intention of eating my way through steamed vegetables and pasta (seriously, I ate pasta 90% of the time two summers ago and actually didn't mind it all that much), the luxury of having a small kitchen all to myself, a refrigerator too full of groceries that my mother left me, and a sense of needing to accomplish something led me to start investigating actual cooking more thoroughly. Anyway, the point here isn't to talk about the thought process behind my cooking, but rather about Julie & Julia.

I had, of course, known about this film when it was first released, but for whatever reason I was never all that interested in watching it. However, ever since I started following New Dress a Day, which was inspired by the film, seeing it has sort of persistently been at the back of my mind. And then, about a week ago, I read that Olga had recently just watched it and felt inspired to learn how to cook. And so I decided that it was my new must-see.

I don't really follow movies all that much. I usually know what's out there and what's a hit and what's a waste of time, but it tends to take a lot to actually make me sit down and watch something. So when I do watch something, it sort of really needs to be worth it. And this movie was, if only for the colors and most amazing sets. Obviously almost everyone knows the premise of Julie & Julia and it was never my intention to recap an entire film, so instead I'm just going to post some of the best moments, visually.

This is just so... Paris. I spent most of the two hours wishing I were in France or even Europe again, and being jealous of the people who "studied" abroad but really just country-hopped very inexpensively. I know that this is supposed to be post-WWII Paris, but really, these scenes (minus the vested boy on a bicycle and that car) could be from today.

Yellow and red is possibly one of the worst color combinations ever, but here? Using subtle shades of the two colors make it beautiful.

Okay, so this is not beautiful or artistic, but I have the same (stupid) kitchen timer at home and sort of got excited. It is stupid because there is no way to go up or down, so if you wanted 0:45 but accidentally held the button down too long and released at 0:46, well, you have to press Start, then Stop, then Clear, and then get to 0:45 all over again. Stupid.

Turquoise walls, creamy yellow and light brown furniture, pots and pans that aren't colorful on their own but together make for a great collage...

And of course, Paul loves Julia and Eric loves Julie, more than anything, and I really want to know what that is like. I won't think too much about this part, because then I'll start having dreams of you in a black jacket again.

Feeding the Self

Having my own apartment is lots of fun.  The rent and utilities and all that are a little less fun, but I'm pretty sure they're outweighed by the freedom and intriguing responsibility and yeah... freedom. In an effort to keep myself alive and healthy I've been trying to cook meals that incorporate as many vegetables as possible so that I can consume them before they spoil. Yes, the better idea would be to not buy as many groceries at once, but my parents left me with enough food to feed my entire lab for a week, so here we are.

This one was (too) easy--365 Classic Tomato Sauce with chopped ham, green peppers, and onions to give it some extra flavor. My sister doesn't like multigrain pasta, but personally I am a fan.

Needing to get rid of some 青梗菜 (baby bok choy?), I started hunting around Cookpad. Japanese housewives never fail me! I sort of messed up the order of the steps in the recipe, but in the end everything turned out all right. The spaghetti got a little soft because of the excess water from the baby bok choy, which would have been avoided if I'd boiled the vegetable at the right time, but whatever. I couldn't really taste the ginger that several of the reviewers were raving about, though.

http://cookpad.com/recipe/1070970

This was an even more desperate move to try to beat the bacteria and molds to my vegetables. A while back I remembered seeing a 白菜 (bok choy?) and pork hot pot dish on one of 嵐's shows, and it looked super easy (after all, it was a bunch of guys cooking) so I decided to give it a try. The original recipe called for a 土鍋 (clay pot?) and alternating layers of pork and bok choy carefully arranged to look like flower petals, so obviously I used a stainless steel pot with vertically stacked layers of pork, bok choy, もやし (bean sprouts?), and えのき (umm... small white mushrooms?). In the end I came to the realization that this was basically a hot pot glorified by five idols, and entirely inappropriate for 70-80F weather. Oh well.

My biggest problem, obviously, is that I do not know how to cook in English, as was discovered on a day I would now very much like to forget.

About to Senior Spring

I'm assuming that starting school before Labor Day and finishing finals before Winter Break was supposed to make Winter Break, well, longer. I'm sure it did, but it doesn't feel that way at all--I still remember my Chemistry 160 final quite vividly, as well as much of break itself. Such is life, I suppose.

Choosing my last set of classes (!) means that I will no longer be able to continue with my newfound and currently short-lived fascination with Cookpad, at least until Spring Break, during which I might be too busy anyway. Since my Bûche de Noël and 海老餃子 attempts:

Apple-Yogurt Cake, which tastes like cheesecake if you do it right, minus the fat. I'm not sure if the flash makes it look better or worse.
http://cookpad.com/recipe/695989

Avocado Dip. Almost like guacamole, but not quite (although just as good, if not better). Ridiculously easy to make.
http://cookpad.com/recipe/428520

オレンジゼリー, made with Cara Cara oranges from Costco (some of the best oranges I've ever had). Proof that price doesn't always = quality.
http://cookpad.com/recipe/771287

生春巻き using regular spring roll skins! Brilliant.
http://cookpad.com/recipe/974624

I wish my classes could be written up as neatly as this. But alas, I have no idea what I want or need to take. I thought I did, a few days ago, but now all I have are vague categories: physical chemistry, sociology (pending petition), elective. Thankfully I know that I am definitely (95%) taking Evolutionary Biology and the lab-research class, but the rest is completely up in the air. Ugh... Happy Shopping!

My New Life Goal

A few days ago I came upon a new life goal: キャラ弁! Yes, indeed, my future kiddies will have the most ornate of lunches:

http://cookpad.com/recipe/1000014

http://cookpad.com/recipe/709133

http://cookpad.com/recipe/968855

http://cookpad.com/recipe/798597

http://cookpad.com/recipe/854217

Forget med school, I just need some kiddies to actually make these for. In all seriousness, though, aren't these the cutest things ever? Imagine opening up your lunch box to get one of these every single day. School would take on a whole different meaning...

Cookpad

I've recently been on a Cookpad/cooking binge, with varying degrees of success. Mostly I've stuck to desserts (which started when I began making birthday cakes for Midori a few years ago), although today I tried steamed shrimp dumplings:

The skin came out a little thicker and tougher than it should have, but in general they turned out okay. I guess I need to リヴェンジ this one. Or go back to making sweets. I understand the need to keep practicing, but trying new things seems more fun ☆

http://cookpad.com/recipe/620567

Like this Bûche de Noël (Yule Log?), which was a lot of fun, complete with Kosher marshmallows (?) and キノコの山:

A close-up of one end. Isn't it kind of cute? Now imagine the mushrooms doing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUT4Y6qLU4U
Yeah, only in Japan.
http://cookpad.com/recipe/700105




The leftover chocolate cream from this went into making truffles:

http://cookpad.com/recipe/326853

The banana cake I then made deserves only this mention... what a Teflon failure.

But being cheesedog is fun. 次の挑戦は、、、