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. 

ROC - Real Eggs Benedict

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!

Scalloped Onions and Apples Casserole

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.