#(by pickle i mean the spicy stuff not pickled onions kinda pickle)

[an-asuryampasya]

huh. I always associated chick peas with Mediterranean cooking more than any other cuisine - including my own - but then wiki tells me in 2019, India was responsible for 70% of global chickpea production.

which, huh.

something something numebrs REALLY add up even if it's a small fraction of a big number vs large fraction of a small number. a very basic concept but one I keep relearning somehow.

[missguomeiyun]

Homecookings [August ed.]

Is summer over yet........ ?! Seriously. I really dislike summer. .. I just dislike heat & sun, in general. Not that I overheat easily but it doesn’t feel good, you know what I mean? I am sooooo looking to fall! & then during the winter months, I’ll be looking forward to spring.

As you know from the individual posts, I went to Hmart for the 1st time since this whole thing started & I on like a shopping spree. I went on a wknd to the U of A location of Hmart, & bcos of other errands, I only had ~30mins in there. I did “speed shopping” in there & didn’t revisit any aisles more than once lol it was so much fun! But other than that, I had some night shifts this month, which occurred during the hottest days -.-” so I mean, it was nice bcos the commute to work was rather cool (midnight to 0800h), but trying to sleep mid-day was a struggle, like it always has been for me; however, it was worse bcos it was so hot! So yes, I didn’t sleep for a few days. At all. Like maybe 3 hrs over 3.5 days ish. It’s baaaaaad, I know.

Anyway, let’s move onto the food; you’ll see what kinda of stuff I eat when I’m doing night shifts :P

I started doing this thing where I add kim mari (deep fried seaweed rolls that contain glass noodles inside) to my ddeokbokki’s. I love the extra crunch/texture it brings to the dish!

Due to the heat, salad rolls became my family’s primary choice for “lazy dinners”. We’ve tried diff ingredients, just to switch it up. Like obviously we’ve had the ‘traditional’ kinds that contain Thai basil, shrimp, lettuce, pickled carrots etc.. but we also had chicken & basa fish as ingredients. Oh! & we also stuffed some home-grown basil into the rolls too.

Post-night shift meal that was eaten ~0900h. .. so I guess this was my breakfast. Had leftover salad roll with kimchi, pan-seared tofu with cucumber & soy sauce, & hard boiled egg with this new sauce I discovered in my fridge. It’s a Chinese condiment that has small mushroom pieces marinated in a specialty soy sauce lol can be used for cooking or simply topped on rice. It’s pretty good actually!

Another post-night shift meal. .. kimchi jjigae that has tofu, kimchi, & napa cabbage. I ate it with small ciabatta bun & fried egg bcos I LOVE eggs! I never wanna eat anything too heavy when I’m working night shifts bcos I eat 6 ‘meals’ over the course of 24 hrs... so essentially I’m consistently eating. I still don’t really have a coping mechanism or some sort of system that would allow me to be not hungry & can sleep. Maybe eating so much is why I can’t sleep...? But then I get hungry, which also doesn’t allow me to sleep.. . I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW!

Been into this recently - daily berry blend. I usually prefer my fruits ‘fresh’ but there’s a few bags of frozen fruits in the freezer so I’ve been making this. It contains honey, water, frozen home-grown cherries from summer(s) ago, frozen berry blend (blueberry, blackberry, cherry, & raspberry), & a small handful of frozen avocado cubes. TBH, I don’t like the frozen avocado. It has this lemon-y/lime-y flavour to it; it may have been added to prevent the avocado from blackening *shrugs* I am not even sure if it’s lemon/lime, but it has a sourness to it (& no, it’s not expired). So then I started adding some to this drink (just to get rid of the frozen avocados).

Bought these for my niece but I think I enjoy it the most! It is a large Pepero stick, but the fun part is that the chocolate part contains pop rocks so you get 3 different textures! The biscuit stick, smooth chocolate, & the poppin’ rocks~

Cold noodles with a chicken + mushroom + celery + cabbage stirfry using the package-included bibim sauce. Spicyyyy!!!

Scallion & baby mussel pancake with soy sauce. Such a nice, little appetizer! This was actually my 1st time adding baby mussels to the pancakes. Even though the mussels were small, I still cut them up into smaller pieces. I just find that the distribution is better this way!

...Sad moment in my life: I have finished my last pack of these banana almonds. Where can I get more in Edmonton?!

Beef brisket with fat & flat rice noodles. This was such a hearty meal... I have a thing for noodles soups. The broth was made from beef brisket & bones that’s used for brewing soup. My brother put in daikon radish, some spices, & cane sugar. It was light but amazing!

Bulgogi x ddeokbokki ??? haha there was a lot of beef brisket leftovers.. . so I shredded some & made a simple bulgogi consisting of only beef, cabbage, & carrot (no onion, green onion, garlic etc). I stir-fried it with (frozen) cylindrical rice cakes. Then added some water, bulgogi sauce, a small bit of gochujang, & .. . the rice syrup!

^This is an old photo that I have posted before but posting for you as a reminder :P I used this in traditional spicy ddeokbokki. Yes, it made a sweet & spicy ddeokbokki - I neither liked nor disliked it. It was just a different flavour. Just like how every place has their own recipe for it. But for bulgogi, I can honestly say it made a difference with a small teaspoon amount. Bulgogi sauce is already sweet, but this enhanced it & made it even sweeter. I am probably going to use MOST of this syrup for bulgogi instead of for what I had originally purchased it for (ddeokbokki).

Trying this coffee bean for the 1st time. I got this as a gift last yr.. . slowly working my way thru my beans :D it comes in whole beans in the bag, & then I used my electric coffee grinder to grind a small jar of it. I usually grind a whole bag like this & then just . .. brew it till it is all done. Trying to grind in smaller batches & thus not letting the ground beans sit out for too long this time.

BONUS photo: my backyard.

[thisislizheather]

July Jiffs 2019

So technically the end of August is the appropriate time to start any and all Halloween/autumn talk (I think I made up that rule, but it feels right), so I’ll respect that and wait. Just know that I’m inwardly filling up with joy in anticipation of the best time of the year. Here’s what went down this month!

I made a list of some of my favourite summer vacation-y movies that I like to watch to pass the ungodly slow summer hours.

I read and reviewed the book Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed (the woman who wrote Wild).

We had a small party for July 4th and it was the best. Here’s what I made and loved: Panzanella Salad with Fresh Mozzarella (I used the How Sweet Eats recipe, but added mozzarella and omitted the corn and avocado - I also made the croutons the Ree Drummond way, because that’s the tastiest way), Spinach Bacon & Artichoke Stuffed Mushrooms (because they’re so delicious I want to scream), I used bell peppers as the bowls for holding the ranch for the vegetables, Slow Cooker Ribs, Eggplant Lasagna (I can’t remember the recipe I used, but it was pretty basic), Peanut Butter & Nutella Cheesecake Bars (this was the second time I’ve made these and it’s a perfect dessert to make a night or two before so that it can really set up), Blueberry Lemon Bread, and a charcuterie board (which is like assembling food art & I love it).

My favourite fruit/vegetable season is the end of summer mainly because of the fresh tomatoes and corn, so I can’t wait to try some of these corn dishes available in NYC right now. Although I don’t know how any of them are going to compete with the corn gnocchi at Park Avenue Summer. (I just looked and there’s also a sweet corn agnolotti with black summer truffles on the menu now too, so things just got interesting.)

Jenn sent me a link to this lovely poem Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo that I just love.

I watched the AOC documentary Knock Down The House on Netflix and it’s so, so good. Cried at the ending.

I went on Nathan’s podcast to talk about dogs, cheating and movies.

I went for lunch at the cafe at Lilia in Brooklyn and it was ONLY AVERAGE. So that was disappointing. Maybe I ordered badly? I got the prosciutto, parmigiano butter, balsamic mustard sandwich - and even though it looks great (love whole grain mustard), it was really just too bready and not very flavourful.

Above Photo: Prosciutto, parmigiano butter, balsamic mustard sandwich at Lilia Cafe, Brooklyn

I saw Midsommar (by the same guy who did Hereditary last year) and I really liked it. Some parts are just unnecessarily graphic (and the slow motion shots of this stuff are insane to watch), but the plot was great. Love an original movie.

Watched the entirety of Champions on Netflix and it really bums me out that it got cancelled, it was a really fun show.

Made this chocolate chunk coconut banana bread and it was goooooood.

I visited the new TWA Hotel at JFK and wrote about it over here.

So excited to hear that there will be three more seasons of Big Mouth!

I also rewatched Dante’s Peak (still a great movie) and Twister (again, it holds up). I think I was in a natural disaster kinda mood that week.

Do you remember experiencing or hearing about the ride Kongfrontation at Universal Studios in Florida? I’ve only ever heard of it, but it seems like it was probably the best ride that ever existed at that park. I hate how most ride these days are just 3D screens with no real interaction or animatronics, it’s bullshit.

Fucking obsessed with this strawberry lemonade kombucha that’s apparently only available at Trader Joe’s. I thought their gingerade was the best flavour, but now I have to reassess everything. (Also tried the “watermelon wonder” but it’s pure trash.)

Some songs that I can’t stop listening to: You Need To Calm Down by Taylor Swift, Blow Your Mind by Dua Lipa, Everybody by Elliphant feat. Azealia Banks, Boys by Lizzo, Let Me Go by Hailee Steinfeld & Alesso feat. Florida Georgia Line & watt, Doin’ Time by Lana Del Ray, We Were Young by Petit Biscuit feat. JP Cooper, Calma (Remix) by Pedro Capo & Farruko

Apparently I can’t get enough of Bill Hader.

I refuse to shut up about how great the (square bottle) nail polishes are at Urban Outfitters. They’ve been consistently great for years. I’ve been wearing their neon pink Hot Tub off and on for at least five years, and they keep putting out wicked new colours. There’s almost always a 3 for $10 deal and recently I got Coffee Creamer, Sun Bunny & Optic White and they’re BEAUTIFUL.

It’s currently Restaurant Week again (it’s on until August 16th), so of course I went back to The Dutch for their beautiful wagyu steak tartare. I also had the corn cappelletti with chanterelle mushrooms and marjoram that was heavenly.

Above Photo: Wagyu steak tartare, The Dutch, NYC

Above Photo: Corn cappelletti, The Dutch, NYC

I saw The Farewell and it’s everything I wanted it to be and more! Definitely go see it. It also reminded me of this beautiful song that I had to sing for a competition once years ago, Caro Mio Ben.

There’s a deal with ClassPass where you can use the service for free for two weeks, so I tried it and it’s not that great. It’s just too expensive to justify having it when I already have a monthly gym membership somewhere else. I did try an aqua cycling class through Aqua Studio during the free trial and it was… only okay. I mean, it’s fun and great to be in the salt water, but it wasn’t all that challenging as a workout.

I wasn’t planning on buying it, but I tried it, loved it, so had to buy it: Glossier’s Brow Flick. I’m still learning how to use it properly, but so far I’m really into it. It inspired this eyebrow products video that I posted last week.

I saw Toy Story 4 and I really hope this is the final one they make because the ending was so good. That’s all I’ll say. Quality series of movies, right here.

Some friends of mine recently opened up a small, late night food place called Foodstruck in Astoria and the food is really good. They’ve just opened, so they’re still figuring out their hours but I think they’re catering to the late night crowd, especially servers/bartenders who get off work late. Check out some of the food specials from this past week.

Above Photo: Burger with gruyere, onion marmalade, sun dried tomatoes & a rosemary garlic butter on a potato bun

Above Photo: Fried boneless chicken thighs with a garlic soy tamarind glaze

Above Photo: Fried chicken sandwich with a spicy mayo, cheese sauce & pickles on a potato bun

My too-kind friend Irene got us a housewarming gift of a Diptyque candle (in eucalyptus) and somehow it’s still going after three months of daily use, which is incredible. Do not look up how expensive this candle is.

I watched To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before on Netflix and really liked it! Especially the hot tub scene. But let’s not get into it. I double-checked to make sure they’re both over 21 and they are, so all’s good.

Made this pappardelle pasta with mushroom ragu when Nathan was out of town (I like to get my mushroom recipes in when he’s gone) and it’s definitely going on my favourite-dinner-recipes list.

I ate at Misi in Brooklyn because I’ve wanted to go for ages and the pasta was solid as hell, I’d definitely go back. We had the charred peppers, marjoram, and whipped ricotta crostini, the corzetti with marinated sungold (peeled) tomatoes, garlic, pecorino & summer herbs (have you ever eaten a PEELED tomato? It almost feels wrong. The good kind of wrong), the strangozzi with pork sugo, nutmeg and parmigiana and for dessert we had the strawberries and cream gelato (it was a special that night) and the espresso gelato. Everything was so crazy good. The service was fantastic and the space is huge. Is it better than Lilia or L'Artusi (pasta-wise)? Ugh, that's such a hard question. It's really good. I'll have to revisit to get more intel to make a final decision on that.

I went to Coney Island with Irene and it was great, as it always should be.

I visited the Profundo Day Club (mainly to get my ass in a pool) earlier this month, and I highly doubt that I’ll return. Mostly because even though the pool was nice (small, but nice) and refreshing, the blaring house music in the middle of the day was a little excessive. There’s also a disco ball above the pool itself. And a unicorn floatie that drifts around the water. And waitresses who shoot sparklers off when someone buys a bottle of liquor. It’s… not for me, let’s say. And the cheapest pass was $70 (tax included), which is waaaay too expensive for Queens. Let’s be real.

There’s a new season of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee and the Martin Short episode is just lovely. It almost killed me when he was talking about when he bought his house and said, “We bought it in 1986” even though his wife passed away years ago. Am I being ridiculous in thinking that him using the word “we” is so sad and sweet and nice? Or maybe that’s a normal thing to say and I’d melt at anything to come out of his mouth. And while it was a good episode, I got so fucking sick of all the filler shots of coffee being brewed, coffee being poured into a cup, beans being tossed in a can, flowers sitting in vases - for fuck sake JUST TALK TO MARTIN SHORT AND SHOW ME THAT. Annoying as hell.

Nathan and I started watching season three of Stranger Things and… it’s not good? We saw all of the first season, which was pretty good. Attempted season two and never finished it because it became boring. And last week, we watched the first couple episodes of season three and I think we’ve silently agreed on just stopping it altogether. And look, I’m happy other people like it, but it’s just not for me. Demogorgons are too close to being dragons, maybe that’s why I can’t care about them?

I like to go to at least one baseball game each season, so I went to a Mets game last weekend and got this beauty that was the giveaway (below) since it was the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

Honestly, this bobblehead makes me so happy for some reason. I love going to Citi Field especially ‘cause the food is always so good. We got the filet mignon steak sandwich from the aptly named Pat LaFrieda’s Original Filet Mignon Steak Sandwich, incredible fries from Box Frites, souvenir cups & drinks from Effen Vodka Bar, mozzarella sticks from Big Mozz, and chips & queso with ginger lime margaritas from Cantina.

Above Photo: Pat LaFrieda’s filet mignon steak sandwich, Citi Field

Above Photo: Fries with parmesan ranch and cheese sauce from Box Frites, Citi Field

Two new things that I’m going to start doing:

1. Buying less things off of Amazon. If there’s an alternative, independently run company that I can find the item at (and if the price isn’t wildly more expensive) then I’ll shop there instead. Every new thing I hear about Amazon makes me shudder, and I hate that it’s become my default place for me to buy anything.

2. If a store/restaurant is cashless (ie. credit cards only), then I’ll refuse to shop there. It’s insane that this isn’t illegal everywhere yet. I’m so sick of it and cash should be accepted everywhere, it’s nuts that I even need to say that. (I was excited to have lunch at Ole & Steen in Union Square for lunch the other day, but they’re “cashfree” so fuck them!)

Some things that I’m looking forward to doing this month: I’ve already sent in my email requesting tickets for Saturday Night Live (you can only request tickets during the entire month of August), I can’t wait to see Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark with Layla, there’s a tomato gelato that I want to try that sounds either awful or life-affirming, going on our anniversary trip at the end of the month, excited for a Canyon Creek caesar salad with Harmeet, planning on going to the CNE with my mom (haven’t done this in years), going to two weddings (!!) and I love weddings, being in a pool with Marla and a bunch of our kids, and taking advantage of a few more Restaurant Week specials. Excited for the last month of trash weather!

[thiswillbereportedtomanagement]

No one ever—I checked; it literally has never happened—has gone, “Dang, if only I had not pickled some foodstuffs.” Does this mean pickling some foodstuffs is a good idea for you, right now, wherever you are, even if where you are right now is an important meeting in a grey conference room surrounded by your work superiors? Yes, actually, it does mean that. Pickle some stuff!But pickling, you are qualming, wringing your hands, jerklike—is that not for the bar-foods? I do not want to be a sad barfly eating pickled eggs from a jar. But here all you are doing is mapping your own ignorance! Pickling is not only for the barflies and their sad bar-foods. Pickling is for anybody—scratch that, for everybody—who likes things that are good. Honestly, I don’t even know how you can claim to be a good-things-liker if you are not pickling some vegetal foodstuffs literally right this second. I think ... I think you can’t.Now you are saying Bah, I do not need to pickle vegetal foodstuffs, for I am not a resident of the frosty north who must “put by” some vegetables in jars over the winter or die of malnutrition. Here in civilization I can just go to the supermarket, even in January, and get some fresh fruits and vegetables whenever I damn please. Look, I am not telling you to pickle things for preservation. I am telling you to pickle things for enjoyment. For bright flavors that enliven your palate and turn your otherwise less pleasurable foods into, uh, more pleasurable foods. For zesty delight. If you think you could not use more zesty delight in your life, where you can go is: to hell.Listen. It is Friday and I do not have time for your shit. Let’s just skip past the rest of your feeble resistance, ahead to the part where you, cowed, broken, defeated by the might of truth, yield to the imperative to pickle some foodstuffs. This is my prerogative, as the victor!It’s very simple. You do not need thermometers and sterile jars and all of that stupid crapola. Do you have a gallon freezer bag? Fine. You can use that to pickle some stuff. Or you can wrap it around your damn head if you are still determined not to pickle some stuff!Cucumbers are good for pickling. Maybe you noticed, there’s a whole aisle of them at the supermarket. I like to pickle, quickly, some sliced cucumbers, in an extremely half-assed yet nonetheless good imitation of the cucumber kimchi you get in a little dish when you go out for Korean barbecue. Are my quickly pickled cucumbers as good as the cucumber kimchi? Hell no they are not. But they are good, and I can get them at home, because I make them myself. That’s the friggin’ idea, here.I pickle the cucumbers like so: First I take one of those gigantic seedless cucumbers they sell individually wrapped at the grocery store, and I unwrap it and slice it into thin discs. A mandoline slicer is fine for this, but what else is fine for this is: a knife. Slicing the cucumber is like 75 percent of the work. Then I dump the cucumber slices into a gallon freezer bag and pour in there maybe a quarter-cup worth of an improvised mixture of rice vinegar, salt, fish sauce, sugar or brown sugar or honey, and lots and lots of diced hot chili peppers. Then I seal the bag and kinda toss it around for a few minutes to disperse the liquid and the little chili-pepper bits around in there. Then I sock it in the fridge and forget about it for a while. And then later, at some point within the ensuing fortnight, I eat a lotta frickin’ spicy pickled cucumbers! They’re good!I took this photo. These pickled cucumbers are gonna be good as hell in like an hour.Here is a thought I bet you have had: “I would like some tacos.” You know what is good on tacos? A pickled damn slaw, is what! I make a pickled slaw from very, very thinly shredded red cabbage, julienned jicama, cilantro, and chopped-up jalapeno peppers, tossed in a gallon freezer bag with a very small amount of a mixture of lime juice, whatever non-balsamic vinegar I’ve got handy, salt, maybe a little ground cumin, and a little bit of whatever kind of sugar is in the pantry. You hardly need any of this liquid. Just a couple tablespoons for however much slaw you get out of half a cabbage and a jicama the size of a baseball. I toss all the stuff around in there and then sock the bag in the fridge. Then, the next time I have the thought, “I would like some tacos” (this happens just about every 48 hours), I can have tacos ... with a delicious and delightfully pink-colored slaw on them.You are getting the idea here. A small quantity of some kind of moderately salted, moderately sweetened vinegar mixture, some chopped or sliced or otherwise ensmalled vegetation—including, at my highest recommendation, some peppers to make it hot—and some time in an airtight bag in a cold place. That’s pickling. You can make it more complicated than that, if you want, with anaerobic fermentation and math or science or whatever, but for now, just stick some (figurative) shit in a bag with some vinegary liquid and then eat it a little while later, when it has had some time to become zesty and spicy and tart and good. You can do that. Even you can do that!Pickling things is fun. Once you start pickling things, you will start pickling the hell out of things. If you are making a Vietnamese-themed rice-noodle salad, you will pickle some carrots and cucumber and maybe some bean sprouts. If you are having burgers, you will pickle some red onions to top the burgers. If there are cats wandering your neighborhood, you will eye them curiously, thinking of jar sizes. Eventually your fridge will be filled with bags of pickling things! You will not even remember what all of them are. You will be a pickling maniac. This is meant to be a recommendation.Pickle some stuff. Or don’t! I don’t give a damn.

https://adequateman.deadspin.com/pickle-some-stuff-1819911663