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. :}

10.07 - Cookie Radar!

It's so bad, but we have this really good bakery/cafe just around the corner from work . . . and I just found out they actually have a cookie radar on their website.  Oh my, what a magnificent idea! You can either check the site or sign up for alerts to find out when your favorite variety (or all of them really) have just come out of the oven.

So, at this moment, I'm waiting for the semi-sweet chocolate chip cookie alert. Their last batch came out a little less than an hour ago-- but I'm sorry, I would like mine fresh out of the oven, please. Haha. Mmm . . . coooookies.

Eatery Info: Specialty's Cafe & Bakery, 191 N Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606

10.05 - For (Excessive) Love of BBQ

I attended a work conference last week in Kansas City, and the first thing I did upon my arrival was get burnt ends and ribs at my favorite KC barbecue place. I guess I could've attended some of the conference sessions to feed my brain . . . but, honestly, I really just wanted to feed my belly. I mean, the last time I had been in KCity was nearly four years ago, and that magnificent barbecue had been on my mind since then. Needless to say, it was a wonderful meal. And I went back to the hotel a very happy woman.

. . . until I ran into my boss and he asked me if I had attended any sessions. *sigh*

I sheepishly told him that I had not . . . and that I had been busy doing something else, desperately hoping he wouldn't smell the strong scent of hickory wood all over me. He didn't seem at all happy, but oh well. If that wasn't bad enough, the boss ended up wanting me to have dinner with him and some other colleagues at the same exact place. :\ While I do love my Jack Stack, I just couldn't do two rounds of it within four hours. But I couldn't very well reject my boss's invitation after being such a slacker employee, so I sucked it up and agreed to go along.

As the four of us sat down at a table, Brian (oh, Brian . . . my dear waiter from earlier that day who must have some crazy visual memorization skills because I looked completely different the second time around) took a double take as he passed me, smiled, and said, "Welcome back!" Within seconds, all (wide) eyes were on me, and I very quickly raised the menu to cover my face.

Epic fail. :\