French Friday: My brain is fried

I promise I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth.

For the past few days and over the course of the next week, I'm knee-deep into grad school and TA orientation. During the academic year, I'll be teaching introductory French courses and pursuing a master's in French Comparative Literature (maybe modern/contemporary literature through the Italian and English departments as well).

Orientation is going very smoothly. I'm FINALLY meeting people. Foreign people. International students. Multi-lingual people. And it's making me so, ridiculously giddy. I've been speaking a strange mix of franglais (English-French hybrid). My brain doesn't even know what language to speak. I'm accidentally speaking French to the German and Spanish TAs and vise-versa.

IT.IS.AWESOME.

So, I leave you with some scenes from mon film favori: Amélie (Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain)

Enjoy!

@+ (à plus...or see you later),

Quick trips to Brazil & Sweden

Let’s talk international travel for a minute. I’ve done a bit of it myself and am highly addicted. However, I haven’t had the chance to travel nearly as much as I’d like, but it’s a start. While I am fortunate to speak French and visit family living in France, I’ve only ever been to Europe – France, Germany, Italy, Monaco, Spain and Switzerland to be exact.

 

I’d LOVE to see other continents or continue exploring new European countries one day. Anyone wealthy want to fund my journeys? I’ll let you join me! :)

While I’m out of frequent flier miles and underemployment is keeping my finances stretched thing, my travel these days is limited to culinary journeys and armchair travel. Travel Channel, you are my best friend and also my biggest enemy! At least my mental “to see” list is growing.

This summer, for example, I have been to Sweden, Brazil and the African Sahara.

For J.D.’s birthday, he REALLY wanted to go to Fogo de Chão, a Brazilian steakhouse. So we went and it was wild. Literally, I’ve never stuffed myself with so much meat in my life (that’s what she said).

 

The “salad bar” to start the meal with was exquisite. There were ridiculous aged cheeses, realllly old balsamic vinegars and the first cuts of meat we’d see all day. The veggies were crisp and fresh and I wanted to go back for seconds, but at $45 a person I was saving my appetite for the meat course(s).

Then when you’re ready, you take that little red disc and flip it over to the green side. Then you’re fair game for all the meat servers. They had about 16 different cuts and types of meats, and I felt awkwardly like I was in the middle of some foreign market. People with accents were shouting at us, trying to get us to taste their goods. At times, I felt bad turning one down in anticipation of what was coming right behind him.

But there were steaks, sausages, duck, lamb, chicken, you name it. It was all there. And on our plates. I couldn’t tell you how many times we had them come refill our plates!

And then before we knew it, we were full. I didn’t want to eat meat ever again. I wanted to become a vegetarian.

…But we all remember how I baked bacon cupcakes for his birthday. However, we couldn’t leave before the complimentary birthday dessert. Yeah, it’s not Brazilian, it’s French. But it never fails to please.

It was excessive, and delicious and wonderful. Just how a birthday smörgåsbord should be! Saved for special occasions, no doubt.

And speaking of smörgåsbords, you realize that is a Swedish word, right?! And speaking of Sweden, let’s talk IKEA. Do I really have to be so stereotypical?

Yes, yes I do. Two reasons: we made Swedish cuisine from a cookbook free from IKEA and I recently read and enjoyed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a book written by a Swede. One of my friends and I joked we’d make a drinking game for every mention of IKEA in the damn book. Clearly, he refers to it often.

On to the food. It didn’t look pretty, but it was delicious! I’ve also decided – and I can say this because J.D.’s family is Swedish – that most Swedish food doesn’t sound or look super appealing, but it’s tasty.

From the top, clockwise: coleslaw with carrots and cucumbers (vitkålssallad med gurka), baked cod (ugnsbakad gädda) and egg and cucumber baked rice. The fish is actually supposed to be stuffed with the rice, but we only had small pieces of cod and not large fillets of pike the recipe called for.

And now about the book. As I’ve already mentioned, I LOVED reading Dragon Tattoo. I’d recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat, with the caveat that it does get graphic. And bear in mind the original Swedish title is “Men Who Hate Women”, so that probably sets the tone for what you should expect when reading. I plowed through it in two days. Seriously.

And then I watched the Swedish movie version. It was horrible. It loosely followed the book and they skipped out on a lot of incredibly important details. But it was fun to watch a Swedish movie with subtitles. I still would like to see the English version which comes to theaters during Christmas. I really hope it follows the book more closely than the original Swedish version did.

While we’re on the subject of literature, I have one final recommendation for you. Read The Alchemist. It’s another book I devoured in two days that is less than 200 pages.

It mostly takes place in southern Spain and northern Africa. I think the reason I was so wrapped up in this story was due to the ongoing travel. Something my heart longs for as well. And it’s full of super cute one-liners and quotes.

The tale was so enchanting and well-written, that I was instantly transported to far away places and felt as if I were seeing many of the same scenes with my own eyes. As a lover of travel, that to me is an amazing book! The story is all about following your heart and dreams, no matter where they take you. I think that is a message anyone can support. And we shall finish full circle since the author, Paulo Coelho, hails from Brazil.

Now you understand how I’m getting my sense of travel and culture these days. Anyone care to join me?

Next time I’ll see you in Cuba, amigos!

…You know I don’t speak Spanish.

Shark Week is HERE!

Ladies and Gentlemen, in honor of SHARK WEEK, I bring you memories from college:

 

For the record: I didn’t just drink in college. I did make Dean’s List all but two quarters ;)

I also regret my hair/fashion choices circa 2006. The puka shells were a nice touch. I remember wearing red for the occasion though…

Woodstock’s Pizza (no, my dog is NOT named after the restaurant) in Isla Vista and off the campus of UC Santa Barbara used to do a special tribute for Shark Week. At the beginning of August, the place would be adorned with large inflatable hanging sharks, red streamers, big screen TVs playing Discovery Channel 24/7, and of course, $2 “Blood Buds”. Amazing.

I think the campus of UCSB had some weird infatuation with shark. Must be due to the overarching surfer culture prevalent on our little beach college. During welcome week, the first meal they served us in the dorms was shark. I opted for the pasta and salad bar instead. Looking back, I think that was a smart choice.

Seeing as how I haven’t been to the IV Woodstock’s since 2007, does anyone happen to know if Shark Week happy hour is still going on?! :)

Happy watching!

Week 30: Infused alcohol

Prior to this week, I’d never cut a pineapple. Others have done it for me and I’ve eaten pre-cut pineapple, but I never got my hands dirty while doing so. It scared me.

This week, I rolled up my sleeves and got down to business. Silly me, I didn’t even realized pineapples had seeds under their spiny skin! Fun fact for the day.

Once I had several pineapple spears, I cut them down farther and set out to infuse my own tequila. Yes, I started making pineapple tequila!

Infusing alcohol is pretty easy. Especially since luck would have me randomly purchasing small mason jars just the day before. In my quest to come up with something new, I browsed many crafty blogs and found a recipe for grapefruit vodka from Not Martha. Won over by this simple idea, I knew I could kill two birds with one stone and a.) cut my very first pineapple and b.) infuse my very first jar of alcohol!

All I did was fill the jar with pineapple spears and then topped off with lots of tequila (tequila and I aren’t really friends anyways, so why not make it taste better?). Note: When infusing alcohol, make sure to use the best quality you’ve got on hand. The fruit is only going to give it a hint of flavor, it’s not overpowering. In my case, the bf would have FLIPPED if I used all of our Patrón, so instead I went with a mélange of our remaining José Cuervo and then topped it off with Patrón ;)

As a tip for mild-flavored fruits (such as pineapple), most recipes I browsed said to leave the pineapple in the alcohol for up to two weeks. Then when ready, strain the liquid and use to your tastes.

After two days, I couldn’t wait to try it. I was so excited. So as soon as I woke up the second day, I took a spoon to my jar and tasted. What a horrendous idea that was. Even though it smelled like pineapple, it straight up tasted like tequila. I almost spat it out. Clearly it needed more time!

So four days later, I wanted to test it out in a beverage. My remaining pineapple was close to the end of its life and I honestly couldn’t wait any longer. So that pineapple tequila turned into this:

Yes, that’s a piña colada margarita! No I didn't have any mini drink umbrellas. Leave me alone for a few seconds while I pout.

Although it ended up being a lot more watery than I would have liked, the margarita tasted pretty darn delicious. And now that my curiosities have been satisfied, I still have 4/5 of the jar left to soak up more pineapple flavor. Then I can really enjoy it next week (though, who really enjoys tequila anyways?!).

Piña Colada Margarita

• 2 shots (4 oz) pineapple infused tequila
• 1/2 c fresh pineapple
• 1/2 c coconut milk
• ice to thicken up
• salt to rim the glass

Enjoy the warm weather this weekend!

Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Yes, you read that right.

No, it wasn’t my birthday… but it should have been.

I freakin’ LOVE mint chocolate chip ice cream. And it’s got to be the green kind, not the cop out white minty variety (you can tell I’ve had a lot of experience eating mint chip ice cream before). In fact, if it weren’t for the holiday peppermint candy cane ice cream, mint chip would be the very top of my list. Thank God that stuff can only be found two-to-three months out of the year.

But I digress… let’s get back to my obsession with mint chocolate chip!

For the past week or so, I searched and searched for a decent cupcake recipe. After the success I had tweaking base recipes with peanut butter and lemon cakes, the mint thing couldn’t be that hard, could it?

Yes it could. The major problem I encountered with every recipe was that they were all chocolate-based cakes with mint flavoring and green mint frosting.

What I really wanted was green cupcakes that looked exactly like little scoops of ice cream. So I took matters into my own hands:

You’re lying to yourself if you don’t think those look like ice cream cups :)

Eventually I found a base for mint cupcakes (from the Sprinkles cupcake bakery!) and added my own touch.

I present to you:

Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Fudgy Chocolate Frosting

(yields 14 cupcakes)

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour, sifted

1 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1/2 c skim milk

1 1/2 t peppermint extract

1/2 t vanilla extract

1/2 c (1 stick) butter

1 c sugar

1 large egg

2 large egg whites

1 1/2 mini chocolate chips

green food coloring

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. In a small bowl, mix together milk and extracts; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and continue to beat until well combined and fluffy. Reduce the mixer speed to medium and slowly add egg and egg whites until just blended.
With the mixer on low, slowly add half the flour mixture; mix until just blended. Add the milk mixture and food coloring; mix until just blended. Slowly add remaining flour mixture, scraping down sides of the bowl with a spatula, as necessary, until just blended. Finally, by hand, fold in chocolate chips.

Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Transfer muffin tin to oven and bake until tops are just dry to the touch, 22 to 25 minutes. Transfer muffin tin to a wire rack and let cupcakes cool completely in tin before icing.

For the frosting:

• 3 c powdered sugar
• 2/3 c cocoa
• 1/2 c butter
• 1 t vanilla
• 1/3 c milk

Sift together powdered sugar and cocoa. Melt butter. Add butter and vanilla to sifted mixture. Stir. Add milk to get desired spreading consistency. If more milk is required, add by tablespoon at a time. Can store up to 3 months in the freezer.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There you have it! Mint chocolate chip cupcakes that taste EXACTLY like the ice cream – only better because they didn’t melt. Not like I’d let them sit around long enough to melt, please!

Other than that, I really can’t tell you how freakin’ good these were. You’re just going to have to make them yourselves :)

Just send me some in the mail… I “gave some of mine to friends and coworkers” and ate the other half of the batch myself in less than a week.

(P.S., I didn’t realize at the time, but I accidentally bought gluten free graham flour instead of whole wheat flour. So, there, these just so happen to be gluten free cupcakes too. And they still came out exactly like I’d hoped!)

30 Books You Should Read Before 30

Before I get into it, I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

I'm in a slump. My "new things" are coming to a slow crawl. I feel like most of the things I've got left involve cooking or baking. While I knew my financial resources would be limited this year, this certainly wasn't what I had in mind!

Now that's out there, does anyone have any suggestions of things I could do that sound fun and interesting for the remaining five months this year? The cheaper, the better!

What I've got on my list:

• go to a shooting range
• donate blood (so scared, I always pass out even when I get my cholesterol tested)
• buy something from a vintage shop
• read Anne Frank's diary
• make something crafty?
• vlog (I don't actually have a camera... so that may be difficult ha)
• try a hookah lounge

Like I said, it's my mid-year slump! Any non-cooking ideas would be much, much appreciated :)

Now on to the 30 before 30 list! (Maybe making some headway on this could be one of my goals?) I've got 4 years to go... think I can tackle it?

1. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
2. 1984 by George Orwell
3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
4. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
5. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
6. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
7. The Rights of Man by Tom Paine
8. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
10. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
11. The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton
12. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
13. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
14. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
15. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
16. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
17. Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
18. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
19. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
20. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
21. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
22. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
23. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
24. The Republic by Plato
25. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
26. Getting Things Done by David Allen
27. How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
28. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
29. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
30. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Bolded are the books which I have read in my 26 years of life... what a short list! If you want the full, gory details about the books I've read, check out my Goodreads profile!

(Need more? How about 100 books you should have read by college: I've made a major dent in this list! Thank my English and French literature degrees for that one.)

Week 29: Home made chocolate cranberry & toasted coconut granola

Every week in 2011, for 52-straight weeks, I hope to try something new and blog about it here. This is the 29th post in the series, when I finally made my own granola at home. Here you can find a list of all my weekly adventures thus far.

I’ve always loved granola. Especially when it’s incorporated into trail mixes with nuts, fruit and chocolate. But mostly chocolate.

One of my best friends from home always makes granola, and she makes it look so easy! When I visited her at UCLA one summer I was still at UC Santa Barbara, she made honey nut granola and we ate it like there was no tomorrow.

Since then, I’ve been telling myself I’ve always wanted to make granola. But, something about it scared me. And I have no idea why, because it’s one of the easier things a person could possibly make.

Chocolate, Cranberry & Toasted Coconut Granola

Adapted from Blog Critics

• 4 c rolled oats
• 3 T cocoa powder
• 1/2 c dried cranberries
• 1/4 c coconut flakes
• 1/4 c white chocolate chips
• 1/2 c chopped nuts
• 1/3 c honey
• 3 T maple syrup
• 1/2 c almond oil
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t ginger
• 1/4 t salt

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Stir all ingredients together in a bowl. Combine until oats are totally coated. Spread in a thin layer on a parchment covered cookie sheet. Bake for 45 minutes or until a spoonful left to cool to room temperature is crunchy. Stir every 15 minutes for evenly cooked granola or leave unstirred for chunkier granola.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Although I’ve been semi bed-ridden today, all I could think about was a bowl of this granola. For breakfast I dished out a bowl of plain Greek yogurt, sliced up strawberries and included a generous heaping of granola. I may have also grabbed a few handfuls to snack on.

So there you have it! Beautiful, chocolatey granola with a healthy serving of fruits and nuts. The cocoa powder is sort of subtle, it’s not overly chocolatey, but every now and then you get a bite of a white chocolate chip and it adds another layer of chocolate! If you’re crazy like I am, you could also throw in mini chocolate morsels prior to baking. Let’s be gourmet and call it triple chocolate granola then, instead of exposing it for the sugar overload it really is…

But come on, do you blame me?! I mean, I have been bed-ridden after all :)

Besides, I have grand ideas for this granola!

Garlic Fries, a little taste of SF

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ve been to the City many, many times in my life. Even last year when I lived a several hours east of SF at my old job, J.D. and I still made a few trips out to San Francisco.

We played tourists for the Valentine’s Day weekend, doing all the things I’d never done before because I felt too “local” for them. You know, like going to Alcatraz.

 

 

We went to a wine and chocolate tasting boutique, on another occasion paired wine and cupcakes at American Cupcake (!!!) and ate seafood until we turned into seals or something.

But I’m pretty sure all of that pales in comparison to the Gordon Biersch garlic fries we always get on the pier and at Giants or A’s games! (Did I really just say that?!)

If you’ve never had garlic fries… you’re missing out! They are so wonderfully crispy and garlicy and amazing. Even if it comes at the expense of fresh breath. Learn how they came to the United States and started at Gordon Biersch, here.

Well if you haven’t yet tried them, you now have zero excuses, because I finally made them at home myself! And we didn’t even get all intense with cutting our own potatoes, we used freezer fries and baked them, then made garlic magic.

San Franciscan Garlic Fries

• 1/2 package frozen French fries
• 5 t minced garlic
• 2 t chopped parsley
• 2 T olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Bake the French fries (I’m sure this could be amazing with sweet potato fries too), according to package directions and while they are still warm, toss in a bowl with all remaining ingredients. Do not let the fries cool after cooking, otherwise the ingredients won’t stick. We decided to kick it up a notch and add in 1 T garlic salt and pepper for taste.

While these weren’t as breath-killingly garlic as the fries I’m used to, the taste still brought me back to snacking on the piers or hanging out in the bleachers at Bay Area baseball games! It’s a little bite of home, from deep in the desert where temperatures are currently 109 degrees and rising.

So what did we pair those glories fries with?! Home made Italian meatball subs… but that’s a story for another time.

Week 28: Attend a professional All-Star Game

Every week in 2011, for 52-straight weeks, I hope to try something new and blog about it here. This is the 28th post in the series, when I attended my first All-Star Game. Here you can find a list of all my weekly adventures thus far.

As an avid sports fan – baseball especially – two of my nerdiest dreams are to visit every ballpark and attend an All-Star Game.

Thus far I’ve been to the Oakland A’s, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels… of Anaheim, Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers, Kansas City Royals, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox and New York Mets stadiums. Ten is a far cry from all 30 ;)

But last week I was finally able to catch the MLB All-Star FanFest, Futures Game, Celebrity Softball Game, Home Run Derby and of course the actual All-Star Game here in Phoenix. I put in close to a 60-hour week when all was said and done! But it was soooooo awesome. I’m so glad I was able to enjoy it while working, but I’m also glad it’s behind us. I’ve been desperately trying to catch up on sleep and decent eating habits since then, but somehow failing significantly.

Once the team hits the road next week, I’m guessing things will get back to normal for me… two weeks before grad school starts.

Since I am exhausted and starving, I’ll leave you with pictures from last week!

FanFest

Futures/Celebrity Softball Games

Home Run Derby

All-Star Game

Oh yeah… and the Cee-lo Green concert they threw :) He was awesome. So much so, I purchased his album.

(The quality wasn’t all that great, but I was close!)

Did you watch the game?! :)