(147-158/365) Procrastination Station!

Toot toot! You've just happened upon a bit of procrastination that I've chosen to share with you.

(147/365) Blooms!

Blossoms in bloom in spring? Oh, I'm so creative. Tell me about it.


(148/465) Starbucks in Seattle

 
 Of course, I drank Starbucks in Seattle, as well as Tully's and Seattle's Best. Caffeine + me = LOVERS.


(149/365) Piano Player on the corner of Pike and Pine

Yeaaah. I have no idea how this man got this piano down the huge hill without it slamming into the sign. Great corner, btws. Work it, sir, work it.

(150/365) Standard Aircraft Protocol

When I'm on a Chinese plane, these will not look the same.

(151/365) Mape 'n Bake

The guy with the surprisingly girlie handwriting wrote this on my popcorn bag to distinguish its flavor. Maple syrup and bacon. AMAZING meaty bits. Rawr!!!

(152/365) Schrodinger's Cat of Cakes

(153/365) Reality Bites

I know you've seen this before. But this was the day after and it meant something. FAIL!

(154/365) Y2K Photo Obsession

After 8th grade, I became obsessed with capturing memories. These are some of the albums I don't know what to do with.

(155/365) Why Five Forks?

This road has meant a lot to me for a long time. But what a ridiculous name to any outsider.

 

(156/365) Birdie pooped on my arm!

VOM. I can't believe I took a picture of this, but it needed to be documented. I had 50 feet to walk from my car to the shop, and in that span, POOP SPLAT.

(157/365) Whores D'Vores

Those in attendance at my supper club + Christina, the brilliant photo taker.

(158/365) Hello, Panda Yummies

Meet the bootleg Koala Yummy!

So Sporty! Tasty and delicious. One of my coworkers had the audacity to call these cat food. I was incredibly offended and aghast at the lack of sensitivity and the lack of appreciation that he would give me, after I offered him a Panda Yummy.

The Commonalities of Love & Economics

Here are some amazing insights from the NYTimes. Thanks, Katie for finding this!

"Stay with high-quality human beings. And once you find that you are in a junk relationship, sell immediately. Junk situations can look appealing and seductive, but junk is junk. Be wary of it unless you control the market...

...To coin a phrase: Fall in love in haste, repent at leisure.
•

Thanks, Philip Anderson from NYTimes. See link above!

Dailies Update!

I just realized that it's past midnight and including today, I'm 14 days behind. Instead of 14 new posts, I think I may resolve to post 14 pictures in one post at once. Clever right? I can't believe I didn't think of it before!

Must sleep now or I will look like this tomorrow at work.

Terrible Tuesday Thoughts

Here are a few things at work that I find the need to complain about in a public forum.

• WHY would someone need to put 5 sugars in an 8 oz cup of anything? Sickeningly sweet. UGH.

• Even though I have eczema, your constant scalp scratching is horrifying to me. Wash your hair, please. Scratch, scratch. Your neck too? God, stop.

• There's no need to stop all the way over those baby speed bumps in the parking deck, you drive an Altima.

• I'm not a work study student. 

• Subject verb agreement IS important. So is spelling. Grammar in general. MUY Important.

• The amazing ability to eavesdrop is both a gift and a curse. I hear many things that I shouldn't, don't want to. Stop talking about having children, you're 22.

• I don't understand why you're so dressed up. Six inch heels aren't professional at work. This isn't Glamour mag. We work in an office where women wear black sweat pants and jean zip up shirts on casual Fridays. It's casual Fridays, not gardening Fridays. 

•  There is a difference between good coffee and whatever the people at my office drink. BTW, Free Starbucks if you bring your own mug on THIS THURSDAY.

At the end of the day, thank God for "That's what she said," and classic rock word associations. As long as I can sing, I can work.

Only in Taiwan!

A chubster Taiwanese boy with a bowl cut sings Whitney Houston to perfection. Surprised? You shouldn't be.

Castella (ella ella!) Catastrophe

Castella. I've always relished hearing the word emerge from my mother's mouth. One of very few that I can bear, and is always welcome. Eaten at random times and places, I have eaten castella around the world, in Taipei, in Japan, New York and straight from the refrigerator in my house, relishing every bite. Castella is a honey pound cake that originated in Spanish Castile, which was then carried through trade by the Portuguese to Japan and made into a special craft in Nagasaki. It's also known as Kasutera, in other words, mouthwateringly, delicious.

The only problem with the castellas that I've consumed is that they've have been quite small, rather expensive and worth every bite. Since I've been on a baking spree, I thought that I could conquer easily, the castella. It actually all started with Pichet Ong's cookbook.

CASTELLA. Two years of not eating castella, and I see the word again... and it's on. Ca-stel-la. CASTELLA. Castella. ella ella. Really, you have to admit, it rolls right off zee tongue. Obsessed as I was, I researched for hours which recipe I should follow. Recipes, opinions, photos, videos, more links to more recipes before finally settling my heart on one. It warned that this recipe was not for the novice baker. I have experience cake, no worries. I shrugged off the warning.

First, the pan must be covered. I used parchment paper and took my time to cover, snip and fold the paper to fit into my 8" by 8" Wilton pan (new purchase). I totally got this. Next, I sifted the flour. Sift! Sift!

I was still good. Then, I created a honey and milk mix. This is the secret of the flavor! Following the directions to the T, I must have read the recipe 100x just so I knew what was going on.

Eggs. Whisked.

I added sugar.... put it in the pan and let it rise!

At this point, the smell was intoxicating! Maybe I had gotten it right on the first try!

Yummy! I wrapped it in a bag to keep it moist.

This is what I wanted to see (from wiki): delicate, with a velvety texture.....

Are you ready for what I created?

Rap Snacks

If this catches your eye, give www.snacksandshit.com a gander. Fall in love with lyrical rap all over again. Rap rhymes. Rhymes sell. Sex sells. Rap = sex?

Dim Sum so good, it needed its own post

AMAZING.

I STILL CAN'T GET THESE OUT OF MY MIND.

SO JUICY. HOT and STEAMY. JUST HOW I LIKES IT. RAWR.

CONCLUSION: INCREDIBLE. DIM SUM IN SEATTLE > SAN FRAN > NYC > DC > ATL.

Christine goes to Seattle! 2010!

What's a more welcome beginning of a trip than a Flight Delight? The person who created this box obvi knows what I like. Thanks, stranger! You know what isn't a welcome treat? Sitting next to an insane woman on the plane. I'm always lucky enough to get on the flight and lucky enough to have a compelling enough face that people feel like they can tell me their story. The woman next to me was a psycho that spent hours telling me about the conspiracy theories of the North Koreans who were shipping lumber into their country from South Korean, that somehow built some sort of machine that was busy shifting tectonic plates around Earth. Chile, Haiti, Taiwan. Earthquakes and other natural disasters, not so natural after all. At least, according to her and didn't I know it? She was hellbent on telling me about her decision to fly down to South America and charter a flight to Easter Island where she and a friend would be saving the world by preventing the shifting of any more tectonic plates................................. RIGHT.

So.. I decided to embark on a weekend wild adventure cross country to Seattle. The city by the ocean. Home of Starbucks, Microsoft and other big companies that I depend on to live... and home of my friend Tree. What's a happy change from sunny, hot, Atlanta? Why not rainy, cold Seattle? Rainy it was.

welcome.

After a short ride into the city, I met up with Tree  (short for Teresa, it's a long story, and I'd love to explain but it's frankly not any of your business) on the campus of UW at Seattle. We proceeded to begin an Asian Food Odyssey like none other. By myself, I enjoyed some Vietnamese style congee. With her, we had sushi and yam fries, Korean rice cakes, okonomiyaki, Thai food, dimsum, and wine to top it all off. I also met a few of Tree's friends and friends of friends. Booze makes people friendly and when I'm friendly, there are photos taken. Shall we take a peek?

I thought you might be curious! First, a glance at a bar that we went to. It had scotch and whiskeys and scotch whiskys.

scotch scotch scotch.

The inside had two things I enjoyed most, books and booze.

The bartender was a bitch, and yet, I still made her take a photo of Tree and me!

Yes, we were carded.

Soon thereafter, I was treated to meeting Youngjoo and some other friends of Tree. Here are some cute pics
.

Also apparently, in Seattle, there is a store called, Utilikilts, a seller of quality men's kilts and various other masculine skirt accessories...yeaaaaah about that.......

I also visited Pikes Place Market, spied really cute Asian babies peering into a window at Beecher's the cheese-makers, and witnessed a giant fish being thrown. Yes, I admit I am a creeper.

Oh hey, LOOK, pretty flowers. (fresh tulips @ PikesPlaceMarket!)

I'm not sure what else to rave about. You KNOW I will be posting more random food porn later. Right now, I need to sleeeep!

Perfect Easter Cupcakes

The best part of Easter cupcakes is that they're perfect for the occasion. Instead of white cake, I decided to go a little crazy on these cupcakes, which from now on will be known as crack-cakes.

Three types of chocolate plus chocolate chips, some marshmallows and more chocolate sprinkles covered with cream cheese icing. EAT your heart out before passing out.

These are the biggies and babies NAKED, where you can easily see which ones are "normal", jammed with chocolate chips, and have big marshmallows floating within them.

I tried to make many corresponding biggies and babies. These are the blue pair.

I just thought this one was very pretty... and incredibly heavy on the icing.

One of the benefits of having a chocolate base is that you can make your cupcakes into sunflowers!

Hello, small basket next to big basket.

I've hit a mini-wall with how to design cuter cupcakes. The rest of these images are just overviews of the volume of cupcakes that I made and decorated, then brought the following day to my co-workers :)

I think I could have put these on lollipop sticks and made them into a cupcake bouquet... but then I would have had a transport issue taking them to work.

I did pull out the sprinkles on these last ones to provide some delicious chocolate cracked out variety.

Totally yum, totally worth it. If you like what you see, hopefully my Castella cake for my supper club on Sunday will turn out just as well.

The Great Cake Debate

Jezebel magazine is conducting a very important bracket regarding the best of the best of cakes vs pies. THIS is a very important topic guys! Personally I'm surprised that French Silk cake was able to make it as far as it did...I'm sad about the performance of the Funfetti. I am a lover of that Funfetti.

Voting is closed, but you can read more about it here.

Seattle 2010!

I went to Seattle this past weekend to visit my friend Tree. We met while in an intensive Chinese language program, studying abroad in Beijing. She was actually my next door neighbor.

This weekend was a little hectic, a 4 hour plane ride to and back seemed like it would be a stretch for the weekend and surely, it turned out to be one.

Here's a starter image. Everyone can post pictures of the sights, which inevitably look all the same but what about making new friends? :)

I Am Love

This trailer looks brilliant. I should probably see this movie. Tilda Swinton always intrigues me.