Thanksgiving Part 2

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.     

Red Wine and Cousin Time

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! 

Thanksgiving Part 1

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!  

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.