12.28 - Chinese Food Christmas

I've heard of many people who go out for Chinese food on Christmas day, especially if they don't celebrate Christmas or if they just don't feel like eating at home that day. Never have I actually partaken in this kind of tradition. Until this year.

For Christmas Day, "I," his family, and I randomly found ourselves at a new Chinese restaurant that was promoting a buy one-get one lobster special. With the purchase of three entrees, we could get one lobster for the price of $5.99 and get an additional one for free. Pretty awesome, right? So we ended up ordering six entrees and getting four lobsters (sauteed in a nice ginger sauce) that evening.

Extremely satisfying and unique Christmas dinner, I would have to say. :)

12.06 - Distant Memory

I haven't thought about this in years (and I probably repressed the memory because it was too difficult to go without), but I used to work for a company that treated all its employees to lunch every day of the week. Granted we only had 10 employees and it was a sly tactic to keep everyone in the building at all times, but it was still a pretty awesome perk.

One person was in charge of ordering-- and every morning, she'd pass around the chosen menu for the day and each person would write down what they wanted on the accompanying sheet of paper. The order was usually placed at 11 a.m., and we'd all be eating and sitting pretty around noon. We could eat from any restaurant we wanted as long as we had the menu for it, they could deliver to us, and we didn't go too crazy.

I got over 300 free lunches from that job. Oh man, I'm feeling envious of my former self. Ha. No wonder I gained so much weight back then.

11.19 - Killer Sandwich

If someone wanted to kill me, all they'd have to do is put poison-laced food on my desk while I was away and then wait for me to come back and consume it. It's a sure-fire way to get rid of me. Sad, but true.

The reason I say this is because I came back to my desk right now to find half of a suspicious-looking sandwich sitting inside a baggie with a descriptive label included. Never seen anything like it before. The label tells me everything I need to know: what kind of sandwich it is, what's in the sandwich, and where the sandwich was made. But one thing it does not tell me is who the sandwich is from. Critical information . . . yet irrelevant because I ate it anyway.

*shrug*

11.08 - Cooking Catastrophes

When I cook, it's usually because I've gotten excited about something. And when I'm excited about something, I usually go overboard. And when I go overboard, I never give myself the amount of time that's required. And when I don't have enough time, I'm frantically trying to get to the finish line. And when I'm frantic, I'm clumsy. And when I'm clumsy, nothing ever comes out quite right.

Best examples of above:

- The time I decided an hour or two before my family Christmas party that I wanted to bake sugar cookies for my cousins' children (about ten of them). I busted out a cookie cookbook I had gotten as a gift, and I dove right in. I finished with 20 minutes to spare . . . only to taste one and realize that the cookies were rock hard and sweeter than any normal cookie should be. What went wrong, you ask? I was too in a rush to realize that the cookbook was written in the metric system (or to listen to the voice in the back of my head telling me that the measurements were so obviously off). *sigh* I still bagged those cookies up and gave them out as gifts. Is that wrong?

- The time my cousin was coming to visit for the holidays and had mentioned this cut of beef that was popular in the West coast. I wanted to surprise him with it, so I took a special trip to the butcher shop and bought a few pounds of said cut of beef. I started cooking about two hours prior to leaving for the family party at another relative's house. By the end of the second hour (as my parents were yelling for me to hurry up and get in the car), I realized that the meat was absolutely not tender enough and still needed at least an hour more of cooking (despite what the recipe had told me). I had no choice but to pack up the beef and bring it anyway. Ha. As appetizing as it looked, no one could even chew it. *sigh* My dad brought it all back home and did his best to salvage it for the next day's dinner.

- The time I decided to make a Korean dish for I's birthday last year. Of course I started too late, and of course I was struggling to finish it up till the moment he came over. In my hecticness, I zealously poured in too much gochujang (hot pepper paste). When I realized what I had done, it was too late to start over and I had to make do with what I already had. By the time I was done, it looked great and I personally think it tasted great, but normal taste buds seemed to stop working after the first three seconds because there was so much heat. "I" very graciously ate as much as he could, but even this dish exceeded his spiciness limit. *sigh*

Note to self: Give yourself time, woman. You struggle. Really.

11.03 - Leftover Halloween Candy . . .

is so bad for you. A few people have brought their leftover candy to work this week, and I have successfully devoured a significant portion of it. Six mini Snickers bar, two fun-size Snickers bar, one pack of M&Ms, three Hershey's peppermint kisses, eight Hershey's almond kisses, two mini Hershey's dark chocolate bars, and three mini Twix bars.

Coworkers, please, hide your candy bowls!

In other news, how cute is my blurry pumpkin goddaughter?

11.01 - My Caramel Apple

I had the perfect dessert for lunch today: a caramel apple.

I got it at our work Halloween gathering on Friday and was so excited to have it today. I went to our breakroom/kitchen just now to cut it up into bite-size pieces-- and as I took it out of the plastic container, the apple slid off the stick . . . and rolled out onto the floor . . . in view of two of my coworkers. My back was to my coworkers, so I immediately picked it up and wondered if they had seen what happened. Suddenly one of them said, "Ji, you have the best thing I've seen in this kitchen so far. So healthy for you and so bad for you all at the same time." I slowly turned around and smiled in agreement, trying to read their faces. Had they seen?? Did it really matter??

I turned back around, holding the apple in my hands and pretending to examine it, and waited until they finally left. Then I quickly cut it up, brought the gooey pieces back to my desk, and ate every bite. A little office kitchen floor never hurt anyone . . .

10.12 - The Trucks are Rolling In

I love New York for its food-- especially for its mobile food. I mean, some of the tastiest (and cheapest) food I've ever had there have come from a truck. But I always thought the truck thing was a NY thing . . . until trucks started popping up in LA and Atlanta. And, honestly, I've become really envious of LA because some of their trucks sound amazing.

This is just a sampling:
- Korean/Mexican fusion taco truck
- shaved ice truck
- grilled cheese truck
- Indian food truck
- sushi truck
- Philly food truck
- Filipino food truck
- crepe truck
- chicken and waffles truck
- dumpling truck
- Greek food truck
- smoked bbq truck
- and the list goes on and on . . .

Sadly, Chicago has been very slow at getting into the truck scene because our laws aren't as easy to work around as other cities' laws. As of right now, if you want to serve food from a truck, it has to be pre-made and pre-packaged (such as the Flirty Cupcake truck). But, honestly, cupcakes are just not going to cut it.

Fortunately, there are a whole bunch of Chicago restauranteurs and foodies alike who are demanding a change. Several restaurants already have food truck plans in the works and are just anxiously awaiting the city ordinance that permits trucks with onboard cooking equipment.

My belly, too, is anxiously awaiting. :}