Simple things

Nothing drastic around these parts.  Here's look at the simple things keeping me happy right now.

Um, pink salt? Double hockey stick yeah!  And for free? Thanks Safeway.

Isn't this purdy? At Naked Fish, it's called Sun Rise.  That's right, raw fish and raw egg.  While beautiful to look at, I'm not sure it agreed entirely with my sister.  Needless to say, we won't be ordering this bad boy again to fulfill our daily protein quota.

Say Pamplemousse 5 times fast!

With our City pickings slim, my sister and I went a little out our way to pick up these delectable delicacies  from Pamplemousse in Redwood City.  My sister ordered one in every flavor they had available (the website lists 35 flavors, I think we tried 15 or so.  In one day.  Yesh, fatties we are.

  For $1.95 each, they weren't bad for the price.  If you buy 12, you get one free. 

My only gripe was this:

A few of them looked like this after the first bite.  I hate when macarons crack and crumble.

I found these in the Trader Joe's Freezer aisle.  At $4.99, way cheaper than getting them at your local French Bakery.  There's only a dozen (6 each of the vanilla and chocolate). You have to let sit out for half an hour to reach room temperature.

 I am embarrassed delighted to say we finished them all in one sitting.  And I went out to buy more the next day.

Remember these?

New toys from Target.  In my defense, I mentioned the pizza cutter here. It also helps that they were on sale. 

Testing, testing, 1-2-3

I'm testing out the Blogwriter Lite app on my phone. Hopefully my posts don't turn out wonky. I can't seem to add pictures to prettify these rambles.

*edit-I found the blogger app. It's much better than Blogwriter Lite.

Here's my cotton candy and mocha cupcake from American Cupcake!

Macaron-ee!!

The title sounded funnier in my head.

These macarons were from Citizen Cake.  I was very disappointed.  My sister and I went out of our way to try these too!  It's been a while since we were there so I can't remember (or don't want to) the flavors.  According to their online menu, we have in here: violet-cassis, raspberry-rose, pistachio, basil, curry-mango, chocolate, gianduja, salted caramel.  I remember that I loved the taste of the salted caramel, but all of the tastes were just blah.  The textures were awful, they just hard and fell apart when we bit into them. Oh, and they forgot to give us pistachio, which is a big no-no because that's my sister's fave.

These are from Trader Joe's.  They're chocolate with bits of almond.  For 6 macarons at $5, I would definitely pick a box to fulfill those cravings. 

This has nothing to do with macarons, but I thought it was cute.

I'm bumming it.

I'm fully aware that I haven't said much in a few months.  Just trying to figure out what the daily grind is all about.  And the proverbial "what do you want to be when you grow up?" thing.

In the mean, here's some of my favs:

$5 for this pack of macarons from Brioche Bakery.  The standard pistachio, chocolate, hazelnut, and rose.  Nothing to write home about, kids.

Caramel KitKat.  My sister found this one.  Taste just like it sounds.  Yum. 

  

Things I made:

Banana bread.  Look at that gorgeous color.  I thought it was too sweet, but hubs loved it. Meh.

My mom gave me a whole bag of veggies that needed loving.  I just imagined this concoction.  I forgot the mushrooms.  I like the pretty colors.

  

 Made this for my SIL's graduation.  Used leftover crafting stuff to do this while watching Dexter.  I'm all caught up now!

 Things I tried:

I found these taiyaki snacks inside the mall at Japantown.  they're 5-6 times bigger than the taiyaki I tried last time.  Something tastier about having bite-sized ones than these.  We tried the red bean, chocolate, and chocolate & banana ones.

I found Batter Up near my parents' house.  We only came for the desserts.  We tried the deep fried oreos, Reese's cup, and raspberry zinger.  We liked the raspberry zinger the most.  The Reese's was a little weird, I had a hard time enjoying the chewing through the thick batter , chocolate, and salty peanut butter.

I'm coming up for air!

Graduation ceremony is now over with, but I still have to return for comprehensive reviews and the big exam. I have this extensive reflection thing going on in my head, but I'll save that for another day.  I just wanted to upload some food pictures off my phone.

Costco Bulgogi - It was meh.  Too saucy, not much flavor.  My husband decided not to read and cooked the whole package.  A lot of meat for one night.

My sister bought me a giant Nieman Marcus cookie.  I felt like a fattie, but it was good.  And look at the packaging!  I'm a sucker for packaging.

These are from YakiniQ Cafe. I have a sneaking suspision that they're from Patisserie Philippe.  They look and taste the same as the ones I had last time

Here's a green tea cupcake from YakiniQ Cafe also.  I missed out on taking a pic of the salted caramel brownie because my little cousin eats too fast.

My uncle got these for free from some event.  It's a cupcake sampler from Kingdom Cakes.  I've had their cupcakes before and wasn't impressed.  Maybe I was feeling hungry or something, but I ate this whole box. There's basil lemon, cookies and cream, orange nutella, and hummingbird. I think.

Parisian macarons from Miette.  Even with the promise of fresh ingredients and all that blah blah, it was only meh.

I really shouldn't

I'm having a hard time convincing myself NOT  to buy these shoes.  Even though I found them $30 cheaper in store than the website.

-UPDATE: They look better off my feet than on my feet. *sad face*

I'm a connoisseur.

I once learned the word connoisseur in the third grade.  It was on a spelling test that I aced.  If you asked me spell it now, I'd probably hang my head in shame.  Yes America, this is what spell-check has done to your children.

I was off yesterday and instead of working on my thesis, I played hooky and went all the way across town to pick up some of my fav macarons.  We discussed econ vocabulary too, so it wasn't all uneducational food foraging.

(Clockwise from top - Strawberry lavender, salted pistachio, and lychee guava)

Because I'm feeling inspired-ish, here's another little gem.  I had this for lunch today.

source

I didn't like it.  I'm usually a big supporter of TJ's frozen entrees, but this one left me perplexed and hungry because I couldn't finish it. Fail.

Weekday Grub: Bacon Mushroom Omelete...Sorta

Life is too fast and I'm struggling to keep up.  So fast that I can't even be sure when I made this.  I'm pretty sure I made this on a weekday, but I'm doubting my memory as I type this. 

I mindlessly made the egg part and couldn't quite put my finger down on what was wrong until I started to plate it.  So I made the bacon and mushrooms and put them on top of my egg-only omelet.

I realize the picture quality kind of sucks.  I rarely use my camera because my Iphone has become my extra limb.

Pastries and More!

My sister tells me that I'm lazy and not updating this enough.  So here we go.

These are from the Fillmore Bakeshop.  It's been a while, so let me try to name those flavors (clockwise from right - mint, rose, lemon, pistachio, espresso, cassis, and double chocolate).  The price was about the same as the other shops, but the flavors were meh.  At least the box was pretty.

La Boulange is the sole reason I got macaron obsessed in the first place.  At $1.75, still one of the cheapest places to get them.  I used to frequent the one near my work to satiate the cravings, but since I started this job, I haven't been.  There is also a La Boulange about 2 blocks from my apartment, so I went in and ordered two macarons.  Big difference!  I'm not sure what happened, these were not La Boulange macarons.  I've never met a macaron I couldn't eat, but these were bad.  The lemon was tolerable, but the passionfruit one was soggy and fell apart.

My coworker introduced me to Sweet Breams a year ago. It's a cute place to stop by.  Definiately not a cheap snack, but hey, I'm all about cute stuff.  Bite-sized Taiyaki fishies!  I happened to stop by on the red velvet day, so we had to try it.  It's different.  I could do without the filling, warm cream cheese is not enticing.  I still love the nutella and vanilla ones though!

I missed out on my chance to try out Starbucks petit-fours for free so I actually had to pay for these suckers (haha, cake pops, suckers, hahaha).  I didn't expect much, because really? Who raves about Starbucks pastries anyway? Oh, wait, petite vanilla scones, yummy...

The first one is tiramisu and second is rocky road.  Nothing to write home about, very sweet and dense cake on a stick. Again, I think I was more in awe of the packaging than the actual cake ball itself.

And I last, but not least - the motorloaf.  Sounds dirty, but it's tea sandwiches inside the loaf.  I bought a Townhog certificate for high tea for two at Tal-Y-Tara Tea and Polo Shoppe to try this.  My sister and I weren't impressed by the food or tea.  Essentially an equestrian shop and high tea place in one store. And it was not tea for two as the certificate suggested, it was tea for two, but because someone sucks at math, you'll have to pay extra for the scone that was supposed to be included in the package.  But the grandpa-y waiter with British accent was cool.  Lovejoy's is still #1 on my list.

Covet: Sewing Box

This almost makes me want to move to a bigger apartment.  You hear me? Husband?

It's a Sewing Box!

Starts out like this -

then turns into this -

I do realize that other than messing around with my mother's sewing machines, I lack actual sewing machine skills.

Covet: Anthro Milk Bottle Measuring cups

It's not you, it's me.  A combination of life and the lack of exciting thoughts have kept me from updating this little ol' blog.  Shame.

How cute is this? Husband, are you seeing this?

Source

Covet: Etsy Love

 

Honey My Heart

 Librarian chic!

 Double Hearts

I love the simplicity in the design. 

Sparkles Kitchen

Prices are not bad for these macarons, but I still have a few to taste in the City before I resort to mail-order.

 Beast of Eden

These may look familiar because they're made by my friend T, who also made a set for my wedding cake.

Sushi Booties

No babies yet. They make these in adult sizes too, but baby sizes are cuter.

I swear I've been eating vegetables too!

So my sister bought me an Iphone...and I got a little snap-happy.

I'm so glad I bought the Townhog certificate for David Christopher Macarons.  They're high on my list for taste and presentation.  Look at the pretty colors! We got (l-r) salted pistachio, butterscotch, guava lychee, meyer lemon, and chocolate.

Close-up of the glittery goodness.

These are from Patisserie Philippe. The storefront was pretty, not the best customer service around, and they suck at labeling.  I bought all nine flavors available, but only seven flavors were labeled.  And if you can't tell, they're all different sizes.  Not the end of the world, but not pretty.  We got (clockwise from top) earl grey, violet cassis, pistachio, raspberrie (that's how they labeled it), rose, hazelnut, passionfruit, chocolate, and espresso.

Did they run out of signs?

After many false hopes and promises, my dear cousin M finally brought back Sprinkles cupcakes for my sister and me. I'll let you guess which one was red velvet and Irish chocolate.  I'm not sure it lived up to its hype.  I felt like I had better.

I also tried the red velvet cake from Costco.  In my defense, it was on sale. And I gave a quarter of the cake to my sister and another quarter to my uncle.  I wouldn't buy it again for the fun of it, but definitely worth buying for a party or something at less than $10.

I made steamed egg buns too.  My mom used to make steamed egg cakes for us in giant pie pans, but never had a set recipe, so it was usually hit or miss.  I'm often afraid to go at cakes/buns without recipes, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this recipe from La Fuji Mama.  No lie, I had to make this twice to get it light and fluffy.  And grandma (my official cake/bun recipe taster) approved.