ROC - 'Homework'

I'm going to use homework lightly in this case. Of course this was for the foods of the world class. One week, instead of going to class we had to go to a restaurant in town with authentic food from another country. We had to photograph ourselves in this restaurant and then write a short paper on our experience and what not. Me and a few of my friends also in another section of this class chose a little place in Greece, Rochester. It was adorable. 

The four of us decided to go family style on our trip and ordered 3 dishes that we all shared, that way we could get a taste for a few things.

We ended up choosing a chicken bruschetta panini, homemade gnocchi, and a spinach risotto. The bruschetta was fresh and light with the hints of tomato and mozzarella dripping with a light olive oil. The homemade gnocchi was  made into small spheres with a marinara like sauce that had a slightly sweet hint to it; a slight unexpected touch. The risotto was covered with a layer of melted cheese and spinach and while it was still good, it was slightly dry and not made with a nice creamy sauce as I was hoping and expecting. In the end was the disappointing dish of the day. Thankfully the plethora of gelato flavors made up for it as did the mini cannolis with chocolate chips.

Overall, while it is no Italy, Oriens was still great experience. From all the recommendations I’ve gotten from others who are regulars there it’s a must to go back to.

Best Job Ever

I love my job. I work at a great art gallery shop right on campus (ShopOne2 check us out!) with some of the best bosses possible. I spent about two years working in retail at a clothing store and it couldn't be compared to this. ShopOne is so great and I'm sad I didn't start sooner.

But when my birthday came around at the end of September, I wasn't expecting this. This year I turned 21 on a Sunday and last semester I worked Friday mornings. 11am I walked through the door (pretty excited because I'd just gotten my first birthday present in the mail and still hadn't opened it) and the assistant manager just had these on the counter. It was a great start to my birthday weekend. 

I don't have a huge sweet tooth but when someone takes time out of their schedule to make me vanilla cupcakes with frosting and sprinkles, how can I not be excited. Like I said, it's the little things. These are the 'I love yous' and the 'I care about yous' that are important. This is how you know what's important and who is important in life. 

Little Things

I'm not a huge breakfast eater. Food too early or too soon after I've woken up makes a little sick so typically I don't eat in the morning and instead will drink water or tea until lunch time. In elementary school my dad would give me soup or chinese dim sum before school. It kind of makes sense that I don't have a huge sweet tooth now. In high school I would get up, get dressed for school, and throw some cheerios in a zip lock back that I could munch on an hour later right before classes (or sometimes during.. shhhhhhhhh). By the time I hit college I was skipping breakfast all together. I know, I know.. the most important meal of the day.. blah blah... I understand that. And honestly I try sometimes! I'll go through phases where I'll wake up and have bananas or yogurt or biscuits with jam. I even went through a bagel phase! But eventually sleep wins out and I decide 10 extra minutes in bed trumps toasting a bagel with cream cheese before  I sprint to the bus. 

However, one nice saturday morning in September before work I have a nice little gift. Now, let me start off my saying that I'm a very lame person. I don't really party or drink much if at all and laying in bed watching movies is often more fun for me than going out to see people I don't really like in the first place. So flashback to six months ago when I was seeing this guy. He used to make fun of me because I would often fall asleep early or vice versa and we would miss each other those late Friday or Saturday nights. As an alternative, instead of him getting the cliche typical 2am drunk texts to come over I could send him those wonderful 9am sleepy texts. So romantic, but not actually. 

So this one Saturday morning, I woke up a little later and apologized/laughed at the fact that we are both too lame to make a 2am connection and instead asked him to come over at 10am. And of course he did. What was the little surprise was that he brought breakfast. Now this is a long winded story, all for me to say that a boy brought me a plain blueberry bagel, but that's honestly what the goal of this post was. 

I'm all about the little things. My family is a typical Asian family where hugs are given out like they're worth $1,000,000 and we don't say "I love you" at the end of every phone call. But that's what my friends are for. 

This just means that I pick up on the little things. 'I love yous" are handed out in the "be safe" and the "call me if you need anythings".       

I know my dad loves me when he gives me food to bring back to my apartment and my mom hands me the only $6 that she has in her purse. So I'm the gushy girl that would love to have a boy pay $2 for my movie ticket because I know we're all broke college kids.

So this is the first time a boy has brought me breakfast so I wouldn't starve at work. And honestly, this stupid, cold, plain blueberry bagel meant a lot to me, even if he didn't mean for it to. I guess I'm just too sentimental. What a sap! 

Foods Of the World

That's right, Foods of the World. It's a real class. And we eat. A lot. 

This is one of the most fun classes I've taken in my four years at RIT. Class met once a week for two hours. The first hour was lecture about the country we were focused on, and the second hour was us eating food our professor worked on. Believe me, it was amazing. Of course I made this the first class of my day right around lunch time. We had food from Italy, Africa, Japan, and so many other places. This class just solidified my love of food. I learned a bit about some countries I wasn't familiar with, but I can honestly say I'd already known about maybe 75% of what we ate. It was such a fun class. Something to look forward to every week for sure. 

The 'Typical' Meal

I've touched upon this before, but my dad has always been a chef at this same chinese restaurant since before I was born. For my family, this means he's working six days a week for 11 or 12 hours a day. American holidays aren't always a given day off and big parties often mean he's working late. So, for the one day a week that he's off of work we sit down as a family and eat together. For the most part dad sticks it out and cooks for us but every once in a while we'll go out (chefs get tired of cooking too!). Notice that I don't mention my mom making dinner for us. She 's the person that burns the pot while she's boiling water. Let's just say I learned how to fan smoke off the smoke alarm before I learned how to hold a knife. Love you mom. 

So this is a typical dinner for us. It honestly took me a long time before I realized that other families didn't have 5 course meals for dinner. Whoops? Setting the table at my house means putting down newspaper on the dining room table and running plates to my dad. Of course we eat this family style, so each of us scoop out bowls of rice, everyone grabs a pair of chopsticks, and we eat. Dishes always include one plate of fish for me and my dad (usually fried flounder which is my favorite fish), steak (the only thing my brother eats), a vegetable plate of some sort, and soup that mom and dad have been stewing away in the ancient slow cooker/crockpot all day. Often we'll have more plates with roasted duck and/or pork from the market, seafood like scallops or shrimp, a plate of noodles, or more veggies. Then when everyone is finished eating, my parents tag team the cleaning and dishes, leftovers go in the fridge for the rest of the week when dad is working, and we all hit food coma stage. Then the fruit comes out. My family isn't big on dessert so what ends up happening is we break out the apples, oranges, melon, pomegranate, pineapple, whatever is in season and that's what we munch on for the rest of the night as dessert. This is the way that family dinner has always been in my house, and I love it. Big family dinners with aunts and uncles and cousins at grandmas house are almost exactly the same. We all scrunch around the table and arms are tangled as we all reach for food. We have a layer of seats and then a second of family that stands while plates fill every surface of the table and people run from kitchen to dining room to bring drinks, spoons, sauces, and more dishes that haven't quite left the stove. This dinners are what made me fall in love with food. Nothing is better than a chaotic meal to bring people together.