I'm not really a drinker but around December I kept getting invited to go to the bar, sort of as a fun meeting place to say goodbye to my friends that were graduating. Thus the world of bar foods opened up to me (because I'm that girl that goes to bars to eat apparently... )
I'm not going to lie, MacGregor's treats us well. The food is actually pretty good. Loaded waffle fries, salted soft pretzels, deep fried pickles, and buffalo perogies have been on my list so far. Delicious!
I was a super picky kid when I was younger. I guess I still kind of am in a way but I've definitely become more adventurous as I've grown up. Now, I'm game to try almost anything. Food has grown on me and I've given a lot of things a shot.
Korean Food is one of them. I'm not a fan of Korean food really. My cousins are in love with it so whenever we all get together in Long Island I always find myself in a Korean Restaurant wishing for anything else. A piece of bread could make me happy. Still, cousin bonding time leaves Emily as the odd man out so Korean food it is.
What was funny was that this time around, I went with one of my best friends. She has a habit of paying for food whenever we go anywhere and won't let me pull out my wallet so I told her we could go wherever she wanted to. She chose Korean. Believe me, I tried to talk her out of it.
Not being a fan of Korean food, I had no idea what to order and let her take the reigns. She went crazy with a few appetizers and we both ordered Bi Bim Bop as our main meal and it was actually incredible. This was such a great dish that I wasn't expecting. It was cooked well, so flavorful, and had so many great ingredients. I would actually go back in a heartbeat for this dish. I guess after this trip, she made me realize Korean food can be really really great.
I've talked about Dark Chocolate Red Wine Cupcakes and marathon Thanksgiving eating followed by shopping then more eating. Surprisingly, (not really too surprising actually.. ) the food did not end there! After our late shopping adventure and second dinner at 2am my cousin and I marathoned a TV show and did our nails (how girly). Of course when we finally woke up the next day and finally got ready, it was about lunch time. Now my cousin had to drive about and hour or so to get back to school because she had work that Friday night but we were set on having lunch before she left. We don't really have much time to see each other so when we do, we go hard.
What I didn't mention was that when she came over Wednesday night, we also went out to dinner and had American bar food (aka burgers and fries) at a place near my apartment (Lovin' Cup for those of you who are interested). So when we decided we wanted to go get lunch nearby so my cousin could bolt in time for work we figured we'd walk to the Mediterranean place also near me (Aladdin's). These two places are awesome and super convenient so I always end up at one or the other when family or friends from other schools come to visit me.
We ended up getting some hummus to share as an appetizer and then we each ordered our respective salads. We were stuffed! I always love Aladdin's food because it's light and fresh and feels so healthy when we're eating it. The portions are so filling too and we even had left over hummus (which my cousin kindly let me take). Thus, our cousin bonding/eating weekend was over and normal life picks back up. It's always so great to see how we always go back to our lives but pick things back up when we're together. The perks of being friends with family.
I know that here in America Thanksgiving is a huge holiday and whatnot.. but honestly I'm pretty sure I didn't have my first whole turkey until I was in high school..or maybe college.... Thanksgiving for my family was quite literally just us praying and giving thanks. Done and done. Then one year one of my aunts and uncles decided they wanted to see what the big deal was. Luckily my dad's side of the family is full of chefs so a turkey wasn't a big deal and thanksgiving was pretty cool. The weird thing with my family is that Thanksgiving is just another American holiday that we attempt to do while still holding on to chinese food. This means along with the Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and corn we also have calamari, steak, spring rolls, fish and soup. East meets west - welcome to the Au household.
So this year was no different. We ate all the American food (including the edition of pigs in a blanket this year - whatever you want mom) while spring rolls were passed around and steak kabobs were cooking on the portable grill. How crazy does my thanksgiving sound now?
Of course my cousin an I are marathon eaters because that's just the talent that works on both sides of the family. So we both ate way too much food because - thanksgiving, went out shopping because - black friday, and then ate again. Yep that's right. Promptly at 2am when we got back from shopping, we ate leftovers. They didn't last long but they were still good at 2am. Marathon eating is our game... and we're winning.
I have a very love/hate back and forth relationship with my family. They are all wonderful and perfect and crazy and dramatic and never call me then call me way too much, but when we get together, it's an adventure.
So right before Thanksgiving one of my cousins called me up and said she would be back home from school and asked me to stay at her house because the rest of the family was gone. I told her to come over to my place instead because my roommates were out on break. She agreed.
This is my cousin who is 5 months younger than me, grew up two doors down, and is probably my polar opposite. With the addition of her brother (who is 9 months older than me) we made a crazy rambunctious trio. So when she said she'd stay with me for a few days I figured the best way to start off family Thanksgiving weekend was with Dark Chocolate Red Wine Cupcakes (because we're classy).
One of my friends gave me a list of websites that had cupcakes made with alcohol and I've been slowly finding special reasons to make them (not that they really require a special reason). For my cousin I wanted to try to make these cupcakes! (http://honeycombfood.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/dark-chocolate-red-wine-cupcakes.html)
They turned out pretty awesome and my cousins really enjoyed them. I still haven't gotten the hang of frosting but flavor wise it worked so thats alright! I ended up making making way too many from the recipe and made my cousin bring a bunch back to school with her for her sorority sisters and dumped the rest on my other cousin here in Rochester. I'm starting to get a reputation with my cousins for baking - but that's completely fine with me!
We all know that Thanksgiving is just a mishmosh of way too much food with amazing people. So the weekend before Thanksgiving break one of my best friends decided we should have Thanksgiving at her apartment. We would all bring food to share and dress up and it would be a fun way for us to spend time together and be thankful for each other before we all went home.
In true college style, all the odd shaped tables in the apartment were lined up together and every chair in the apartment (and some from another apartment) were combined for all of us to sit together and eat. I got there a little early with an apple pie that I made, and helped finish setting up. We were all too cute and lit candles and finished cooking food. (No turkey but one of the guys bought a cute rotisserie chicken).
Little did we know the guys from downstairs bought a huge party order of chicken wings and ribs and fries from 'Wings over Rochester' which alone could have fed all of us.
Cue the marathon eating - feels like family already. We all had such a great time eating way too much together and trying to explain thanksgiving (badly).
And of course in true Thanksgiving style, as soon as we finished dinner we watched Elf (my favorite modern Christmas movie). It felt just like thanksgiving!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Aside from the "eggs benedict" that I made for myself I've never had this dish before. The sound of a mysterious hollandaise sauce kinda freaked me out seeing as i'm not a huge fan of condiments and unknown sauces.
After attempting to make my own and knowing what actually went into the sauce I wasn't so worried about it anymore.
So right before classes actually started, a couple of my best friends from high school and I decided to go to brunch before everyone split again for the school year.
We finally made it to this local diner that I've been meaning to go to for years, Highland Park Diner. This little diner is on the corner of this crazy intersection and is basically a gutted subway car looking place. It's always packed. Always. We went at brunch so it wasn't a normal meal time and while it was still busy, it wasn't crazy.
This brunch was amazing. Normal prices for a fun creative meal in this cute little diner at a good pace. It didn't take too long to get our food and it was really really great. I ordered a crab cake eggs benedict and I'm so glad I did. The crab cake was sandwiched between the english muffin and the poached egg. All of the parts were perfect. Such a great texture and flavor. I want to go back right now! There were so many different kinds of eggs benedict that I just want to go and try them all!
This is the return of cooking from my Hunger Games inspired cookbook! Take my word for it... it looks prettier than it tasted. Not that it tasted bad. It just wasn't fantastic. It was really great and crispy and flavorful on top. The crust was a mix of bread crumbs and bacon so how could you go wrong! The inside, however, was a mix of apples and onions which actually tasted good.. it was just a little watery.
This was one of those times where baking was what I needed. It was a therapeutic thing. Cooking and baking are good things for me. Eating is not. I could bake for days, but when I stop I start getting stressed out about having to eat everything I've just made. That's the downside. Eating is a back and forth love hate kind of thing for me. Sometimes eating is easy and I am a bottomless pit. Other days I have to convince myself that I should finish my plate. Everything is just easier when I have people around to eat my food that I've made for me. It's a plus though. People like when you give them free food. Especially when it tastes good! Tips.
This was my second attempt at raspberry scones. Sadly.. they didn't turn out too much better... They look pretty at least! Silver linings..
They still came out a little doughy and dense.. I even kept in mind that I was possibly over mixing the dough and should try not to do that... it didn't really help too much.. I need someone who's good at baking various kinda of bread successfully to teach me how it's done... just a little hopeless right now.
When I got back to school in August I went through another one of my many food phases and was hooked on avocados! Another food I never ate when I was younger, I finally happened across avocados and fell in love. They're so healthy for you and fresh and they taste so good. I went through a phase where I was actually working out and going to the gym to run every day so avocados and poached eggs (they have returned!) were a really quick meal that were full of protein and good energy. I ate avocados with so many things; eggs, salads, wraps, everything! Now it's February, and the weather is freezing here and good avocados are hard to come by. I can't wait till it's warm and avocados come back because I really miss them... soon my avocado friend.. soon...
When I was in Italy one of the girls in my beginning Italian class was from America and mentioned she used to work at Five Guys. Of course that means she knows about the best combinations and secret items to order that are off menu.
So this was her advice! She told me as soon as I got back home I should go to five guys and order a Veggie Sandwich with bacon (which defeats the purpose of a vegetarian item..I'm in!), mayo, hot sauce, BBQ sauce, and extra cheese with the cajun fries.
This sounded a little skeptical to me but it ended up being so delicious. I'm not a huge lover of condiments but these all together were fantastic and nothing I would've thought up on my own. Such great advice from unexpected places!
That's a mouthful! Kind of what these ended up being though!
My oldest cousin in Florida is super hands on and I swear, every year that I see her she has a new hands on kinda craft that she's playing around with. I've picked up on a few of these but I'm not always quite there.
As complicated as these names are, they're pretty easy to make! Originally my cousin pitched the idea as no bake cake pop kinda things. Awesome! I'm always up for cooking and baking and whatnot so it's really not hard to convince me to help out with one of these kinda things. Eventually they kinda turned into Cookie truffles. SO what you do is break up oreos and cookies and stuff like that. You mix them up with cream cheese (so healthy....) and roll them around with those colorful flavored baking candy chocolate chipp-y discs. I'm so eloquent. So you melt that candy/chocolate down and coat the cookie balls in them then add sprinkles before the candy coating hardens. You stick them in the fridge and bam! Ready to eat! And they're soooo good. We ended up making key lime cookie truffles and the traditional cookies and cream cookie truffles too.
Vacation boot camp gets hands on during those rainy days and nights. It's pretty great.
So last summer was the summer Emily travels. A lot. Kind of. I quickly went from school to Genova to Florida, before finally landing off at home before heading back to school again.
I have family in Florida so ever since I was 6 or 7 we would spend a week or two in Florida. My mom hates traveling so we would take a family vacation there every other year just to visit my aunt and uncle and two cousins. Eventually, when I was in middle school and high school, my parents would just send my older brother and me to go without them. Soon, that turned into me taking solo trips to Florida and trips became more frequent. My oldest cousin moved to Arizona and would obviously take trips every summer to visit her parents, and I got to the point where I would show up every year when she would. "Vacation Boot Camp" became the normal thing each year and this included copious amounts of food. Marathon eating is a past time in our family. We find new places to eat and froyo was almost a daily thing. I moved from Gelato Month to Froyo week. Keep up metabolism, this is a test.
One of the new finds from my cousin this year was this amazing grilled cheese place. (As you can see it's called New York Grilled Cheese. Nice try Florida). They have this special grilled cheese that they make with bread thats like a waffle! Or they use a waffle press to make their grilled cheese? Whatever the case, this was pretty awesome grilled cheese!
Of course I went through a phase when I inhaled grilled cheese sandwiches like crazy. (Me and my food phases). I was never a fan of them when I was little but one time in high school something hit me and I realized, when it's made right, geesh grilled cheese is amazing! It's so easy too!
But the summer of 2013 I went to Lake George and had the most amazing grilled cheese I've ever had. It must've been that it was my first time on this little boat eating this perfect grilled cheese sandwich with the most incredible weather ever, during my first trip to this place that was beyond beautiful that I couldn't stop saying, "It's so beautiful here" that made that grilled cheese sandwich even more perfect. Those 5 days there were the worst and best five days of my life and I was just so in love with everything that everything after was a little less exciting. So for about a year I didn't have another grilled cheese sandwich because I knew it wouldn't be as amazing.
But this place in Florida, brought me back to grilled cheese. This place had really great flavors and the waffle bread just added to. Such a great find!
So I quickly deemed my month in Genova, Gelato Month. Might as well take advantage of it! I made it my mission to get gelato every day, for that month. And not just the same flavor, I tried just about all the new flavors I could find. Rose flavored gelato from the place next to work. Lemon cream gelato from my boss's favorite Gelateria. And of course bubblegum and puffo from the first restaurant we went to in Italy. Let me explain that last one. I was eyeing this mysterious 'puffo' flavored gelato almost from the beginning. Of course there's no logical translation and by each flavor if gelato the Gelateria's usually have pictures of the fruit and flavors in the case. This flavor had a smurf. It was also bright blue. I had no idea what it was. And when I went to the counter and ordered this puffo flavor and the bright pink bubblegum flavor the waiter laughed. Hard. I'm pretty sure my excitement and the fact that I'm a small girl that could pass for a pre-teen american didn't help that fact that I'm ordering brightly colored gelato. YOGO! You only Genova once. It was a great day. (Turns out the puffo was like a cotton candy/birthday cake kinda deal).
So I made sure I got gelato every day. It was pretty much a success. I might have missed a day or two but I always made up for it the next day getting gelato twice. Believe me, I was dedicated. It was fantastic. I even have a list of one or two more Gelateria's that I need to go back. Darn. Sounds like another trip to Genova!
One of the dishes that I had to get when I was in Genova, was the pesto trofie pasta. For that region, this dish is key. I honestly went most of the trip without trying it, then one day for lunch my boss decided we should sit down with another photographer and my friend who was working for her. Turns out both of our bosses were friends, because Genova is a little town and everyone knows everyone else apparently. So, the four of us went on a little adventure through Genova to this tiny restaurant on the middle of the sketchiest ally lined with the nicest transvestite prostitutes we've ever met (not that I've actually met any before this but that's besides the point). This place had the best food I've had in Genova and this lunch was so fun. It was interesting to try to follow a conversation with two tiny twenty year old american girls and two grown up Italian wedding photographers, especially since I barely spoke any Italian, and both of our bosses spoke little, to no english. It was the best meal I had in Italy and was by far one of the best experiences ever. Our bosses covered the lunch (two courses and coffee... they insisted). And I got to try trofie for the first time. It's hard to wrap your head around the texture but, once you do, its pretty awesome pasta. Lesson of the day? My boss is perfect. I totally lucked out. (Grazie Sandro!)
I also bought some dried trofie and made it once I got back to America. I tried my own homemade pesto for the first time too and it brought me back to Genova. Not as good, but close enough for the memories!