Spring Break-- Part 3 London AND Oxie!

Yaaay, so I just realized, I can't update pictures from Indonesia until the end of the month, BUT I still have loads of pics from my week with Joanna in London and Oxford! Wheee!

After my near-religious experience at York and Albany, I begged Joanna to have our last meal in London at yet another Gordon Ramsay restaurant. This time, we chose a place that's relatively close to our hotel: Boxwood Cafe.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, tasting that beautiful, creamy kidney had awakened a feral sort of hunger within me for red meat and innards, but I couldn't find anything that piqued my fancy at Boxwood! Oh, I suppose I could've gone with the politically incorrect burger (veal and foie)... but I have this thing against hoity-toity burgers. When I eat a burger, I just want a good ole' honkin ground beef patty slapped between two slices of toasted bun. Nothing fancy about it. I'm sure Gordie's managed to scream his burgers into a whole new level of tastiness, but ahhhh well. SO ANYWAYS. The point is, I settled for the Steamed sea bass with langoustine, baby artichokes, and coco bean puree.

My granduncle used to own a Chinese restaurant years ago. He absolutely loves sharing his recipes with other people, and one time, as I watched him flip a wokful of bubbling hot chicken as easily as I pick my nose, I asked him, "Suk Gong (that's granduncle in Mandarin. No, wait. Cantonese. I think. Whatever, it directly translates to Fourth Grandpa.), what's the most difficult dish you've had to make?" I was sure the answer would be something like roast suckling pig (because the pig has to be roasted whole) or Buddha jumps over the wall (a dish involving more than a dozen ingredients that requires about 20 hours of cooking time. The name is some sort of a joke... they say that when Buddha was walking one day, he smelled such a delicious scent coming out of a house that he jumped over the wall to get to the food. Hmmh, sneaky...)

Granduncle thought for a bit, then said, "Steamed fish."

"Steamed fish??? But... every Chinese restaurant does that! It only requires like... what, five ingredients??"

He rolled his eyes at my obvious ignorance and said, "Just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy to perfect. If you take the fish out of the steamer just half a minute too early, then the flesh is still raw and you can't put it back in. It's ruined. If you take it out half a minute too late, the flesh is already overcooked and will be dry."

"So how would you know when the fish is done? You can't open the steamer right? Cause the heat will escape."

"Aiya, you have to learn yourself! I can't tell you that! Obviously it depends on the fish, the steamer, the kitchen etc."

I have yet to try steaming my own fish (the fish has to be live, otherwise steaming it would only bring out the fishy flavour... and to be honest I just can't be bothered to deal with a flopping, angry, murderous fish in my tiny kitchen), but ever since that day, I've gained a whole new level of respect for steamed fish dishes.

Thus getting back to the point of this digression, which is: I can say with 100% confidence that Gordon Ramsay steams his fish perfectly. YUM! The flesh was creamy and soft, and there was no trace of fishiness whatsoever. The coco bean puree paired wonderfully with the lightness of the sea bass and turned the relatively healthy-looking dish into a plate of comfort. It was buttery and rich and sooooo silky! Mmm!

Unfortunately, no fish, no matter how amazingly cooked, can hold a candle to those kidneys and lamb neck. Le sigh!


Joanna had the Tomato, mushroom, and basil tagliolini with aged parmesan. The pasta was cooked to al dente perfection and I couldn't help but sneak a few forkfuls of it throughout the meal. What a great, simple, rustic dish! All of the individual flavours shone through... I could taste the shrooms and the basil, and it all came beautifully together with the aged parmesan.

Although once again, does not hold a candle etc etc.


In order to satisfy my hunger for innards (which was prooooobably creeping Joanna out by this point), we made a visit to Harrods' food department, whereupon I purchased two slices of terrines: chicken liver pate and wild mushroom. (More pics of the pates to come later)


We also came across the infamously decadent patisserie Laduree, whereupon we both went a bit batshit insane (Joanna started frothing a little at the mouth) and blew both our budgets on the daintiest, prettiest pastries I've ever seen.


Firstly, a box of macaroons... From left to right, I had: 1 vanilla, 1 rose, 2 pistachio, and 2 sea salt caramel.


Sea salt caramel innards! I was very disappointed with the pistachio maccies... it was sweet to the point of cloying, and the pistachio flavour tasted artificial. Sea salt caramel was a lot better, but still veered towards the too-sweet side of the spectrum. Rose was alright, but then Joanna absolutely LOVED her rose maccies and proclaimed me to be mentally unstable because I didn't fall in luuuurve with it. Oh, whatevs. I'm the one with the food blog, so obviously I'M right.

Anyways. Okay, so I didn't want to get the vanilla mac at first. I mean, how effin' boring is that?? But the snooty sales lady behind the counter recommended it, and I was too scared to defy her, so I just shrugged and said, "Sure." (I know, sometimes I can be such a spineless dumbass.)

Oh. My. God. You HAVE to try the vanilla macaroon. It was like vanilla multiplied by ten. It was vanilla on steroids. And I'm talking real, honest-to-god vanilla BEANS, not that artificial stuff you find in bottles that leaves a faint trace of bitterness in your mouth. This macaroon was just... amazing. I was torn between scarfing it down and savouring it and wanting Joanna to taste some of it because it is SO GOOD and SO MUCH BETTER than the dinky rose one. In the end, I cut off a teeeeeeeny, weeeeeeny piece that you might be able to see with a magnifying glass and handed it to her. She popped it in her mouth. She looked at me. And shrugged.

"I still prefer the rose."

GODDAMMIT! asjfjhasgfjasgfjhasfs!!


Aaaaanywho. The other thing I bought at Laduree was the L'Ispahan. I mainly chose it because I'd heard so much of the rose-raspberry-lychee combo that Pierre Herme had come up with, and all of what I'd heard were rave reviews.


L'Ispahan innards! It tasted... pretty. Like, if you think of what the word "Pretty" tastes like, this is it. It's basically a grown-up macaroon. It's light and sweet and very... flowery. I don't know how to describe it. It made me want to wear a flowy spring dress and a soft hat and white gloves and not say things like "F*ck!" and "Doooood!" It made me want to giggle and say, "Oh dah-ling! How utterly delightful!" It just has this effect on you. I mean, I've had plenty of better-tasting desserts fer sure, but the L'Ispahan is like... The epitome of decadent femininity on a plate.


Picture courtesy of Laduree's own site.

Joanna got the Le Saint Honore Rose-Framboise... which is basically a pumped-up Beard Papa. It didn't survive the bus trip back to Oxford, which I think somewhat spoiled the decadent femininity on a plate effect for me. Which would explain why, when asked how I liked it, I said, "I think I actually prefer Beard Papa."

At which point Joanna ignored me and enjoyed the rest of her pastry in silence.

Oops.

Later that night, we decided to stay in for dinner because we were under the illusion that home-cooked food is healthier than restaurant food. Hmmm. I wonder when we realized how wrong we were?


Maybe when we bought a bottle of wine to share? Maybe when I brought out the pates we'd bought earlier in the day? (Speaking of which, they were SO disappointing. The chicken liver had a bitter aftertaste, and the mushroom pate was too gelatinous and not at all creamy. Blergh.)


Or maybe with the first taste of our four cheese spinach and mushroom linguine? Ah, I have to say, I have rarely cooked so well with another person before. Usually, when I cook with somebody else, each of us would make a different dish. But with this dish, Joanna and I worked in perfect harmony... I chopped everything up and sauteed the shrooms and spinach while she grated the cheeses and made the cream sauce. Then we combined everything together and dinner was served! You know how they say that if you wanna test your relationship with someone, you should take a trip with them? I think cooking together with them is yet another great way to test the strength of your relationship. It's also cheaper and takes less time than traveling together. Although now that I think about it... I guess Joanna and I kinda did both... There were moments where our hands itched to lunge at each other's throats fer sure (hmm, like when I got to the airport 30 min late and she had to wait by herself with all her luggage... on the other hand, she DID point and laugh when I had that unfortunate chili incident...) but IN THE END, just like our four cheese pasta, we make the perfect combo of CREAMY, SUPER-FATTENING GOODNESS. No, wait. That kinda didn't make sense. I forgot what my point was. Did I even have one? Why are you still reading this??

Dang, I just realized how much foodz there is in this one post! I hope you're ready for tons of touristy scenery shots in the next post... I couldn't help going slightly crazy with my camera as we went around Oxford. =D

A Small Pause.

I'm back in Indonesia for a month... and although I'm now blessed with speedy internet connection in my house... errm... being the genius that I am... I... forgot to bring that thingy that connects my camera to the computer. D=

So... tons of pictures... but for now they're trapped in my camera!

=(((((((

London Spring Break-- Part 2

Whew, my residency is ooooovah. Wheee!!! Time to par-taaaay!!!

...Okay, seriously, no. It's time to climb into my fuzzy socks and sleep for two consecutive days. Actually, since I still have a meeting with supervisor tomorrow, it's time to kick my ass into gear and go the last mile... ugh, but it's so... hard... I just want to slip into a coma... *headdesk*

o0o can I just gloat for a second here? Can I? Oh pleaaaase!? Okay whatever, it's my blog, so I'll gloat if I want to. So for this residency, we all had to submit a section (about 5000 words) of what we've been working on and have the class workshop it. I submitted three chapters of my novel in progress, and we had a good, constructive discussion on how I can improve it. So that's good. BUUUUT that's not all!!!! The next day, during breakfast, the professor who is in charge of our fiction workshops exclaimed, "I'm SO excited about your novel!! It's so innovative and creative! It's going to be a huge success, I know it!"

ahjfjhasgjkgsfkjasgkjgfaks To say that her comment made me happy would be like saying the universe is somewhat large. I started trembling so hard that my plate of scrambled eggs jiggled like a pile of jello. Then I quietly excused myself to go to the bathroom, whereupon I muffled my delighted squeals in a mound of toilet paper. =DDDDDDDDD

Needless to say, her kind words are now written down in my journal in big, bold letters, where I can flip to whenever I'm feeling discouraged and certain that I'll never make it as a writer.

*happy sigh*

Aaaanyways, back to spring break in London...

Here's a picture of the first dinner I had in London:

I can't remember much about it, except that it was good but not fantastic. I ate one of the fillets and the manager goaded me into eating a couple more bites of the second one, by which time my stomach was groaning in a decidedly unhappy way. The bottle of wine that Joanna and I shared during dinner probably had something to do with that...

Of course, after a few minutes of roaming about...


We were ready for a couple more drinks!

After which we wisely turned in early so that we'd have enough energy for the following days' activities...

Which included... GORDON RAMSAY! Okay, I don't mean the man himself (when was the last time you saw Emeril at Emeril's or Flay at Bolo?), but we did end up going to two of his restaurants, the first of which was York and Albany. York and Albany is located at Camden Town, which is the shadier part of London. Don't ask me why Ramsay chose to establish a restaurant there, but I suppose Ramsay can do whatever the hell he wants. To be honest, I wasn't a huge Ramsay fan before this... I'd simply dismissed the man as a hyped-up celeb chef whose claim to fame is a penchant for screaming at everyone within a 5-mile radius of his kitchen. But York and Albany proved me wrong. Oh, how it proved me wrong.

Joanna and I ordered the 3-course set menu for 18 GBP, which I thought was a steaaaaal!!! Especially considering the quantity and more importantly the QUALITY of our food... oh, you'll see.


To start with, I got the Salad of baby gem, marinated mozzarella, salted almonds, and fennel puree. While the salad was good, it wasn't the absolute best salad I'd ever had. It was certainly pleasant enough, especially if you load your fork with a bit of everything... crunchy leaves, soft, creamy mozzie, and that crispy thing they topped the salad with... what is it? Oh whatever. Doesn't matter. It's good. I'd recommend it.

But not as much as I'd recommend...


The entree, aka ORGASM ON A PLATE. Do you still need details? Just take my word for it. No? Okay, fiiiiine. Here we have... Braised neck of lamb, pan-fried kidney, and spiced carrot puree.

There were two choices of entrees that day... the lamb and Steamed fillets of lemon sole with Romesco crust and red pepper vinaigrette. Joanna went down the boring route and chose the sole, which was aaaaalright, but nowhere near as stellar as my dish. (She'd probably disagree, but you know she's wrong.)


Joanna digs into her ho-hum fish dish. Ho hum.

Anyways, back to the lamb.

What the menu didn't say was how amazingly decadent the neck of lamb was, and how the whole dish smelled so rich that I was swallowing gulps of drool as Joanna took this picture... I swear I could taste the lamb as I lifted the plate and took a deep inhale of the steaming meats.



I don't think I've ever had neck of lamb before. But I doubt other places would prepare it as well as Ramsay's restaurant did. It was so tender that I didn't need to use my knife. At the gentlest poke of my fork, the meat disintegrated into juicy floff that was at once sweet, savoury, and all-round UMAMIIIII. When I gushed about the deliciousness of my food to Joanna, she said, "Dang, I guess that's what you get when you scream at your employees. You get quality." Is it the screaming or does Ramsay's greatness simply rub off onto others? Who knows? If it is indeed the former, then all I can say is, scream away Ramsay, scream away.


I was torn between the pan-fried kidney and the lamb. Look how perfectly cooked the kidney was! Whenever I've had kidney, it's always been overcooked and as such had the charming texture and taste of burnt rubber. But not RAMSAY's kidney. I mean, not HIS kidney, but the kidney that carries his name... oh, you know what I mean. This particular kidney was sooooo creamy. So juicy. So tasty. I took teeny, teeeeeeeny bites, dreading the last bite of this beautiful creation. I would compare the texture of Ramsay's kidney to that a super chubby cherub's buttcheek. Not the athletic cherub who's always flitting about with arrows and flowers, but the one who's too lazy to do anything other than sit on his ass all day long looking pretty. Yeah, you know the one I'm talking about.


Dessert: Lemon posset with blood orange jelly and sorbet. I almost didn't want to eat any of my dessert because I wanted to savour the flavours of my entree for as long as I could... well, ALMOST anyway. What the hell's a posset? Who knows? It was... creamy. It was soft. It was almost like a custard, except lemony. Dessert was good, but with each bite I mourned the passing of what was possibly the best lamb entree I have ever had in all my life. Actually, I've just did a quick search in my memory folder (the one in my head, not the one in the computer), and YES. I have come to a conclusion. It WAS the best lamb dish I have ever had. How tragic that I would be exposed to something so mind-blowing at such a tender age! Henceforth, every other lamb dish I come across will be compared to Ramsay's lamb... and they are all doomed to fail in the aftermath of such perfection. FAAAAAAAAAAAILLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!

*cries*

Oh well. This just means I can never enjoy lamb again. What's the big deal? I only have lamb like twice a year anyway. Or I just have to pay Y&A another visit. Another dozen visits. This probably means I need to make more friends. Friends who won't mind making the 2-hr journey from Oxford to London, and then another 30 min from Victoria train station to Camden, AND THEN a 15-20 min trek from the station itself to the restaurant. Anyone?

Anyways, back to the awesomesauce-filled day in London... after our late lunch at Y&A, we headed to Covent Garden for...

An Avenue Q show!!!

For those of you who have yet heard of this brilliant, gut-bustingly funny musical, here's their official site. Avenue Q is the show that came up with hilarious songs like What Do You Do With a B.A. in English (a song that I and about 90% of you can relate to, sadly) and The Internet is For Porn (something that the majority of us can proooobably attest to... albeit in private. I mean, the majority of YOU. Not us. No.)

After 90 minutes of almost non-stop laughing, we stopped by at a nearby restaurant just in time to catch their post-theatre dinner special. Unfortunately I can't remember what the name of the restaurant is and how much the meal cost... =X But umm, it's right next to the Noel Coward theatre, where Avenue Q is playing... if that helps.


The kidney that I had earlier in the day had rekindled a craving for innards that I never knew I had, so I chose liver pate as my appetizer. It came with a side of caramelized onions, toasted crunchy baguette, and salad... all of which were scrumptious. Mmm! Creamy liver paste studded with pistachios...


My main dish was equally decadent. Fried cod cakes with hollandaise sauce and a side salad. I didn't use any of the hollandaise because it was disapointingly bland, but my cod cakes were so crispy, hearty, and flavourful that they didn't really need anything else to accompany them. They were thick and comforting... just what I needed for the cold journey back to the hotel.

Damn, I thought I would be able to fit the rest of our London trip into this post, but I still have a pile of pictures left to share!! I guess this means our Oxford post would have to wait until after London Part Tres (ooo trust me, you might think that Oxford can't possibly compare to London, but nope. Oxford was a treat with Joanna around. A TREAT!).

Alright... time to work and obsess over my upcoming meeting...

London Spring Break-- Part 1

Oh man, yet AGAIN I'm behind. Those of you who know me in real life are more than familiar with the way I do things: i.e. perpetually 10-min late, perpetually racing against the last frikkin' second before the deadline is up. Speaking of deadlines, my residency starts tomorrow!! Agghh!! For my Masters course, we have short, intensive bursts of coursework, aka residencies, where we say bye to our personal lives and have lessons from 9.30 in the morning till about 10 at night. They're always very inspiring and I always, always leave with my mind on fire, raring to get back to my keyboard and tap away furiously. But they're also f*cking exhausting. The last time we had a residency, I was so zinged up by the amount of brilliance (I'm not kidding here, my classmates are crazy geniuses) I was absorbing that I couldn't sleep the whole time and spent my nights writing and reading and writing some more. I wasn't even drinking any caffeine! So I'm quite worried about the residency coming up tomorrow... fingers crossed that this time I'd be as inspired but perhaps a liiiiittle less fired up. Ugh, but before that, I have a couple of assignments to finish up... (of course)

ANYWHOOOO. Last week was largely made up of a string of hedonistic activities... Mostly because Joanna, aka Weemiji (I don't know why I bother uploading her link. She never updates her damn blog anyway. *ahem ahem update it beeyotch! ahem*), came for a visit all the way from San Fran, CA for her spring break. Yaaay! I've known Joanna for about four years now, and in that time we've come to learn that 1. We can dish it out, and 2. We can take it (well, up to a certain extent anyway. And if we can't take it, we just call each other assholes and leave it at that.) So I knew I was in for a treat, and boooy was I right.

The first half of the week was spent in London, where we had high tea at Fortnum and Mason...


One happy Joanna and a three-tiered tray of goodies.
To be honest, I thought the amount of food we got wasn't really worth the steep price of 38 GBP (PER PERSON.) For 38 GBP, we each got a mini cheese and potato tartlet, a Terrine of London smoked salmon with dill butter, four pieces of afternoon sandwiches, two scones, two mini pastries, and a selection of tea.

Our dainty afternoon sammiches. Each one was delicious... I think my favourite might have been the salmon, but I couldn't help thinking wistfully of the fatter, bigger sammiches that one would get at the Grand Cafe in Oxford (17 GBP for TWO people to share).


The highlight of the meal was definitely the terrine of smoked salmon with dill butter. This sucker was just beautiful. It was perfect. It was exquisite. It was... gone in one bite. >=(
Maybe I just need to learn to take smaller bites.

I was quite disappointed by FnM's scones. They were a bit too crumbly and... I don't know... not doughy enough. Ah well, my search for THE perfect scone continues...


A demure Jesse pouring tea! My mom would be proud at how proper I look. Aren't you proud mom? I look like a lady! Or something close to one! Umm, back to the tea... I ordered the Royal blend... and it was f*cking AMAZING. I'm a huge fan of tea, and even though I've deadened my tastebuds over the years by eating more than a healthy share of Splenda, MSG, and loads of other impurities, I still KNOW my teas. I swear! Two years ago we went to a tea farm in Guangzhou, China, and we had a blind tasting of five different kinds of tea leaves. They asked us to rank each type of tea from the best to the ...not so best, and yours truly ranked them all correctly. Nobody else could tell the difference. Not even my mom, who's an avid tea fan herself. HAH! Hmm, wait, I forgot the point of this story. Oh right.
1. I know how to serve tea. No, wait. That's not it. I know how to DRINK tea. Ah, yes, that's it.
and
2. I beat my mom at something. Woo!
There was no need to add sugar or milk to FnM's Royal blend (in fact, I added a cube of sugar to my second cup and it positively ruined the flavour)... by itself it was rich and heavy with complex flavours. I was in love with that tea. It was gorgeous.

I can't believe I just spent a whole paragraph talking about tea. Moving on...

We also did a few touristy things. British museum...


Beautiful architecture! Oh, something I just have to share... so when we walked past the museum, there were loads of primary school kids out on a school trip. We didn't really take any notice of them... until I spotted a kid with a frikkin' DSLR. A DSLR!! Just dangling there from the chubby neck of a... what, a 7-yr old? 8? He was 8 at the most. And I saw that his classmate had an iPhone and was busily playing a game on it while the poor teacher was trying to assemble them into a raggedy line. Why would an 8-yr old need a DSLR?? Would he even know how to use one?? I got my first SLR when I was 22 and a year later I'm STILL learning how to use it properly. asfhgsjasjhfdjhafsd grggmpphhh *cackly old woman voice* kids nowadays...


*Sigh* Oh well... more touristy shots! Yes, I'm a total Asian tourist.


But the sights were soooo pretty! How can anyone resist taking tons of pictures??


Daffodils in the middle of the city. So as I hunkered down with my face in the dirt to take this shot, my tube card slipped out of my impossibly tight jeans (I LIKE tight jeans, okay?) and got lost forEVER. And that was how 5.60 GBP went down the drain. This picture cost me 5.60. *cries*


Later that night, we went to a nearby Italian restaurant for dinner. I'd been craving pizza for days, and once I opened the menu, I knew immediately what I wanted. A pizza topped with an egg? Mmmm!!
Unfortunately, instead of a soft, runny yolk as I'd envisioned, the egg was overcooked and the yolk was a tough, mealy affair. Aw man! When I complained about this, Joanna said, "No shit, of course the egg would be fully cooked. They have to bake the whole thing at the same time!" Oh. I guess that makes sense. The rest of the pizza was still good though. The dough was thin and had that delightful smoky flavour, the pancetta was salty and plentiful, and the cheese was pungent and rich.

After dinner, we went to the Mango lounge, whereupon a Thai chili-infused drink seriously kicked my sorry ass and wiped the floor with my face. Here's the Before shot: Notice how happy, how relaxed I was? Mostly because I didn't know I was holding a glass of DEATH in my hands.


Oh, the drink itself was fine. It was cool, it was sweet, it was... garnished with two teeny-weeny Thai chilies. After drinking about half of it, for no good reason I thought it would be a good idea to chomp on one of those babies.


And here's the AFTER shot.
This face lasted for about 15 minutes...

While Joanna patiently shook her head and repeatedly said something along the lines of, "Reaaaaaal smart, Jess. Reaaal smart."


But HEY, it's not all bad! After watching me get OMGWTFPWNED by his concoction, the bartender kindly came over and gave each of us a complimentary raspberry-flavoured shot.
*whew* Nothing can douse the flames of pain quite like a drink on the house...

More to come after the residency. Hope everyone is doing well!

Magic Bullet Lovin'! (Short, up-to-date, for once not late post! YAY!)

NO, you perv, the Magic Bullet isn't a "bedroom apparatus". It is the "Personal Versatile Countertop Magician!! Yeaaaa! Okay, so basically it's a blender. But like, a super awesome one meant for everyday use. Because it's so kewt and teeny, I've taken to making not only single servings, but even 1/2 servings. Umm, does that make any sense at all? Oh nevermind. Let me illustrate!

So today, for my snack time, I knew I wanted a smoothie, but I didn't just want any smoothie. I wanted a variety of smoothies. Enter the Magic Bullet!

A shot of blueberry to go please...


No, wait, STRAWBERRY! Yeah, make that a strawberry.


o0o, and a mango one too! YEAH!!


Oh heck, I'll have all three kthanks.


Believe it or not, I only used up ONE single serving pot of yogurt for all three smoothies. I didn't add in any ice because my freezer doesn't get cold enough to serve its purpose and actually freeze stuff (it generally just turns things to slush), so we never have ice around the house. Anyways, all you need is just a Tbsp of yogurt plus however much fruit you want, and you can add a splash of milk or water depending on how thick/smooth you want your smoothie... and ta-da! Your own mini tasting tray! I rinsed out the magic bullet in between every smoothie so that I wouldn't taint any of the flavours, and all in all this took me about 10 minutes to complete. I think I might be in love with the Bullet... le sigh!


Dinner from two nights ago: Twirly spinach pasta with puree of roasted asparagus. I roasted the asparagus with plenty of onions and garlic, added an egg for my protein (still so mindful of my meal plan!) and two tbsp of greek yogurt for extra creaminess, and blended for about 20 seconds in the bullet. And mmm! The result was somewhere between a stew and pasta sauce. F*CKING DELICIOUS!


Last night's dinner: Twirly spinach pasta with puree of sauteed mushrooms. Same deal with the asparagus, added an egg at the end and 2 Tbsp of greek yogurt once more, and then blendblendblend to my lil heart's content!


As a bonus, there was some soup leftover from the sauteed mushrooms that I didn't add to the sauce for fear of making it too thin, so I decided to drizzle that all over my salad instead. Here we have: spinach, artichoke hearts, green beans, asparagus, and shrooms.

So that's it for da foodzzzz! Have I managed to persuade you to get the Bullet as well? ;D Btw, I got mine off eBay for 20GBP, which I thought was a steal!! It's working beautifully so far too... *fingers crossed* Hmm, what else should I make with my new toy? Any suggestions?

Anyways, time for a lil flashback... I have a couple more pictures from two weeks ago, when we went around New College...

Dainty, pretty yellows... what're these called? Are they periwinkles?


And what the heck are THESE? They're like nature's own pompoms!


And just so you know how far I'm willing to go to get my shots...
Yep, that's me. As a dark blue lump crouched on the ground... trying to catch the light... JUST SO. And that's English Mike, pretending not to know me. Also, now that I think about it, I think right next to me is a small sign saying "DO NOT STEP ON THE GRASS." 0=)

On a completely different note, several people have asked me what's that black smudge on my hand in this picture:
No, it's not a birthmark... my mom got it most right when she said, "You're probably just being disgusting as usual." It's not dirt though!! It's eyeliner. I use my fingers to smudge my eyeliner when applying makeup, and then I... wipe my fingers on my... hands. I started wearing eyeliner when I was 17 I think, and at the time I thought, "When I grow up, I'll be a total lady and won't smear eyeliner all over my hands. But I'll leave that for when I GROW UP." Six years later, here I am at 23... still with mysterious black smears all over my hands at formal hall (and sometimes my knees. Just don't ask. I think the knees might have mascara. And I know my jeans have lipstick all over them. You just can't see it. Whew.) OH, don't look at me like that! I'm sure you all have your own bad habits!! Do share!

One last note... I feel kinda bad for bashing my college all the damn time. Oh I know, it's tiny and nobody knows about it and it doesn't have a proper building like all the cool colleges do and it doesn't even have a proper courtyard with all those "DO NOT STEP ON THE GRASS" signs... in other words, it's a wee, stumpy college. But the administration thus far has been more than helpful, and my professors are whizz-crackin' brilliant. My classmates are a lovely, intelligent bunch, and my college mates, as you can probably tell by now, are just plain crazy. So in a funny, sentimental way, I do love Kellogg. Our mascot is of course Tony the Tiger, and our motto is "Breakfast of Champions". (Nah, we probably have a real motto... something like Study Hard and Don't Talk in the Library Dammit.) And as a bonus, we even have our very own still/sparkling water bottles!

Whee! Beautiful Weather (for a day or two anyway), Two Men Cooking, and CC Formal.

Alright, lots of things to cover in this post... why am I always behind?!! So this past week we had a couple of really stunning days and I spent a whole morning taking pictures of the river on my daily walk (I've been forbidden to run... ahh!!), but before that, check out my beautiful salad!
Bed of spinach and rocket leaves, topped by chunks of artichoke hearts, sliced mushrooms, spinach pasta, and a veggie soy patty.
My current go-to dressing: 2 tbsp fat-free Caesar, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp rice vinegar. Top with generous drizzle of freshly-ground red pepper flakes and cram into face!
Close-up of the awesomeness...

So as I've said before... no more running for me for a long while. =( Partly because my knees are shot (the left one more so than the right, but both are crap now), but mostly because it's become somewhat of an unhealthy obsession... so for now I'm just doing 1-hr walks... although I haven't gone on my daily walk since Thursday because I've had a cough/cold that's been getting worse and worse despite the mugfuls of Lemsips I've been downing! Anywhooo, one good thing about walking is that it forces me to be more mindful of my surroundings, and I've taken to lugging my camera around with me wherever I go because you never can tell when the sun's gonna decide to show up...
Bastard showed up last Wednesday, and this time, I was prepared!

House on the prairie... err, river bend!


Geese!


Geese butts!


Shyly-blooming pussy willow!


I love pussy willows... mainly because they remind me of Chinese New Year spent in Singapore and Indonesia... traditionally every household would get a few branches of pussy willows and plonk them in those huge Chinese vases, then hang various decorations on each branch. I suppose they're like the Chinese version of a Christmas tree, although admittedly not as central to the holiday than the pine tree is to Xmas. Whatever, I still love them anyway. And they're everywhere in Oxford, for some reason!


Alright, quickly moving on to the Two Men Cooking (I still have 14K words to write before Joanna arrives next Sunday, oh dear Lord, and yet I have to blog because I have so many awesome pictures to share with yawls! Oh yes, life is difficult indeed, woe is me!)... So yes, somehow I managed to get Ryan and English-Mike (as opposed to LA-Mike, who is still in LA) to agree to making a meal... it went something like this:
Me: "Omgggggg, I need to write 20K words in two weeks, o noes..."
*pause* *pathetic noises from yours truly*
Ryan: "I guess I can cook you a meal... if that helps..."
Me: "YES IT WOULD."

First up is Ryan, who chose to make pasta with tomato pesto sauce (from a jar... haha) and chicken breast. Speaking of which, both dudes chose to make a pasta dish because "it's the easiest thing to make!!!" =_= Whatever, I can't really complain cause it's a free meal...
Ryan in action.

The chicken pieces are flung in, along with the jar of pesto sauce! Such skill!


Unfortunately, due to my cold, I couldn't really taste much... although Ryan did complain that there was too much pasta, so the pesto flavour kinda got buried in the background. But am I complaining? Nope, no complaints to be found here. I nommed to my heart's content.


So next up is English-Mike. Here is the conversation leading up to last night's dinner:
Me: "Hey, wanna come over for dinner and Scrabble with me and Alice on Saturday?"
English-Mike: "Sure!"
Me: "Wanna cook?"
English-Mike: "...Uhh, sure...?"
I know. Epitome of smoothness, that's me. I should probably stop shamelessly taking advantage of my dear friends, but 20,000 words!!! In TWO WEEKS!!! Anyways...

English-Mike in action!


His proposed dish was spaghetti carbonara, to which Alice and I immediately yipped, "YAY!!" with boundless joy.
Parmesan and eggs... ready to be tossed into a delicious boiling death with the pasta...

Mmm, bacon and onions. Can't find anything wrong with this combo... other than the fact that the salty smell kept making my mouth water in the most unladylike fashion...

Draining of the pasta. Check out the cute oven mitts, courtesy of Alice! I have to hand it to Mike... I absolutely suck at draining pasta straight from the pot, but he handled it like a pro (after scalding himself twice, but still very pro-ish...).

TA-DA~!
The finished product! It smelled beautiful. Like a creamy hug from a fat angel... mmm.

I'd also made some salad just so we'd get our daily serving of vegs...
The dressing is the same one I used in the previous salad, only instead of the soy patty, I added sauteed asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and a sprinkling of Parmesan.

A plateful of awesome. Although once again, thanks to my cold/flu-deadened taste buds, I couldn't really enjoy the noods to their full capacity. ='( Mike complained that it was under salted, but from what I could taste of it, it was perfectly delicious, so once again, no complaints to be found here!

O crap, it's already 11.30pm here! WHERE DID THE TIME GO?!! We chug along to the next part of the post... the Corpus Christi formal! Fiona was kind enough to invite me to her college's weekly formal last Friday, and once again, I was struck by how beautiful her college is when compared to mine. Also, a seat at her formal only costs 7GBP, while a seat at Kellogg's formal costs 30GBP. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?? Granted, 7GBP only includes the meal and no alcohol (we had to bring our own bottles of wine), but even with the added costs of the wine, it's still waaaay cheaper than Kellogg's tickets. Damnation. I feel so jipped! Fiona said it's probably because they serve better food at Kellogg. Do they? You be the judge...

For starters, we had a seafood platter consisting of a mussel, an octopus chunk (hidden behind my slice of lemon), pickled halibut (I think... we weren't given any menus, so I may very well be talking out of my ass here), some sort of cooked white fish, clams, and a salad. Nobody liked this dish very much, but I have to admit that I quite enjoyed it. After weeks of eating mammals (err, I'm sure there's a correct term, but my brain is refusing to cooperate with me at the moment) and/or soy patties, I was craving a bit of seafood. And I could barely detect any trace of fishiness, although ONCE AGAIN, that could be attributed to my lack of taste thanks to my ongoing cold. Hmm, come to think of it, maybe this is why nobody else liked the dish. Maybe it was actually really stale and fishy, but I couldn't taste it!!!

Err, moving on...

While waiting for the main course to arrive, we took the liberty of taking self portraits. When I showed this pic to Ryan, he commented, "You're kinda... yellow."

Oh, thanks dude. That's what comes from being Asian PLUS being fed an ungodly amount of carrots when I was a kid. Funny story, that. My mom has really bad eyesight, and so when we were little, she'd juice loads of carrots for both my brother and I to drink everyday. Obviously when you juice something, it decreases in volume significantly, so I think we ended up drinking four to six carrots a day. Before long, she noticed that I was turning a rather alarming shade of neon orange and so a visit to the doctor was arranged, whereupon the long-suffering doctor raised his eyebrows and exclaimed, "SIX CARROTS?? WOMAN, that is waaaaay too many carrots!!" And thus ended the carrot-juice chapter of my life.

I've lost most of that fetching orange shade now... but part of me suspects that there might still be a smidgen of additional yellowness left on my skin... OH WELL.

Ahh yes, back to dinner... the main course was A WHOLE LAMB SHANK atop a bed of garlic mashed potatoes and roasted root veggies on the side. The shank was soooooo tender. All I had to do was poke at it gently with my fork, and the meat would just sliiiiiide off the bone.

Can you tell from this picture just how juicy and tender the shank was? Unfortunately, two things prevented me from finishing my succulent piece of lamb.

1. I'd mindlessly snacked right before coming to the formal... I don't know why, even after I've had a filling lunch, at around 4pm I'd be craving something... in this case cereal. So I had like two bowls of it and by the time I finished my seafood appetizer I felt slightly sickish and my stomach was beginning to whimper.

2. Corpus kids have a lovely tradition where if someone drops a penny into your wine glass, you have to down it. Of course, this leads to everyone cunningly dropping pennies into everyone's wine glass, and then having it refilled, and then being pennied yet again... suffice to say, we had six people sharing six bottles of wine at our table, and by the time the main course was over, we had half a bottle left.

Still, I did my best and ate as much as I could of my main course, which turned out to be quite a mistake because dessert was...

BANOFFEE PIE.
Banoffee pie is my favourite pie in the world. Apple pie, coconut custard pie, Oreo chocolate silk pie... none of them even comes close. Banoffee has owned my pie-loving soul ever since my first bite in Edinburgh four years ago.

What is banoffee pie? Essentially, a layer of graham cracker crust (so perfect, because I hate traditional flaky pie crusts), thick filling of TOFFEE (aka god's own tears), a layer of bananas, and a layer of whipped cream. As you all know, normally I hate whipped cream, but in the case of banoffee pie, it only serves to lighten what might otherwise dangerously veer towards the cloyingly sweet side of things. So I approve of the use of whipped cream here. Anyways, unfortunately I couldn't finish my slice of pie. God knows I tried. Oh, how I tried. I ate about 2/3 of it before giving up and surrendering my plate over to Fiona, who proceeded to take a bite out of four people's slices. Yes, everyone who couldn't finish their pie donated it to Fiona, who did her best to demolish them all... but after a while the thick toffee became too much, and she had to crawl outside to have a breather and languish gently upon the benches.

The lovely girls of Corpus (plus a Kellogian... le sigh).

Quincy is from Ssssss-tanford, but we love him anyway. As long as we're not back in Berkeley in the middle of football season.

Whew, the end! Well actually, there's still a bunch of pictures that I took from when Tom and Ryan invited me to tag along to serve as their photographer on a day trip to Stratford, but agghhhh, it's midnight! So Stratford will have to wait for another day. I've been waking up at 8 in the morning nowadays to write for a bit... err, before falling back asleep at noon... I should probably just wake up later and not take a nap. Or hmm, I dunno, which one works better? Nap or no nap? What works for you?

Dumples, More Flowers, Another Formal, and Smoke Salmon.

Once again, I am SO behind. Gawddammit! Oh, on a lighter note, the reason why I'm so behind is because I had a meeting with my supervisor last Thursday and as such was hurrying to do some last-minute catch-up work (everything I do seems to be last-minute catch-up work...). And guess what?? SHE LOVED MY CREATIVE PORTFOLIO SO FAR!!! She was extremely happy and excited with the chapters I've sent her and the hour whizzed as she threw around new ideas for me to try and I jotted down notes furiously. And then she said, "Let's talk about your research paper." After listening to me stutter for about 15 minutes, she said, "Those are really good notes." *pause* "But I'm going to need an actual draft." She stared at me for two seconds, then nodded and said, "I'm going to give you a deadline. How's 15,000 words for the creative and 5000 words for the critical... say in, oh, three weeks?"

I nodded mutely and dabbed at my forehead.

"Alright, 23rd of March it is then." I was ushered out of her office and walked the hour-long trek back home in a daze. Before long, I realized that OH DAMN, Joanna's coming for a visit on the 15th for her spring break!! So really I only have 2 weeks to bang out 20K words. YIKES!

Alright, now that I'm done complaining, to be honest I'm quite relieved to have an actual deadline and word count to work with. It acts as an anchor and keeps me from too much digressions... errm, speaking of digressions, oh yes, I realize this is a food blog, so ON TO DA FOODZ!

So a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine and I were talking about making dumplings, but because I'm a total flake, we didn't actually get around to doing it until last Friday. And hoo boy, I've totally forgotten how fun dumples are to make! Expect to see more and MORE dumps on LGP!

First, begin with a mixture of minced pork and shrimp. Season liberally with chives, soy sauce, sesame oil, and s n p.


Next comes the fun part. This is where you get to show off your dumpling-folding technique and make fun of your friends for their lack of skillz. This is also where you get to go crazy and come up with as many unfortunate-looking dumps as you can... after all, they're going to taste the same anyway, so might as well have fun with them when you can, right?


The finished product! Aren't they just beautiful??


Innards shot! Mmm, I think we didn't do too good a job of mixing the pork up with the shrimp, but nobody's complaining! We doused these babies in soy sauce and rice wine vinegar and pretty much fought over the last dumple.


Saturday turned out to be quite a beauty, so we roamed about the city for a bit...
St. Mary's church.

I'd forgotten that there's an organic cafe inside the vaults of St. Mary's... not to worry though, a visit is only around the corner, I promise!


Saturday's lunch: Mixed veggie soup with a wheat bread roll at The Rose. The soup had chunks of fried croutons in it that made it taste like ...Indonesian soto ambengan. Seriously! ...Or maybe I'm just homesick?? Hrmm...


Mike was kind enough to show us around New College, aka one of the richest and oldest colleges in Oxford. I was SO effin' jealous of his college!! It puts Kellogg to shame!! New College is so old that it has actual BATTLEMENTS to protect its scholars... and just check out this gold-flecked gate!


Although I have to say, I wasn't really impressed by their motto... hahaha! That has got to be the lamest school motto I've ever come across.


Aside from that, New College also has some of the most beautiful flowers I've come across in Oxford.




The best shot of the day... nay, the week! Actually, this is probably the best shot I've ever taken, period.


That same evening, we had the most important formal of the term... it was Kellogg's foundation night, whatever that meant. Any guesses? Also, this is probably the last formal I'll attend this term, because I've used up my dinner allotments and each subsequent meal would cost me 30 GBP. F*cking expensive yo! Not to worry though, there are only three more weeks left of the Hilary term (I think), so you won't be missing out on tooooooo much.


I'll really miss seeing my name on the place cards though... aren't they cool? It makes me feel so... official! So validated!


For starters, we had a pumpkin and sweet potato soup with Parma ham and parmesan straws.


The straws were aaaaalright... they had so much potential. I mean, parma ham! Parmesan cheese! They should've been out of this world!! And yet... they weren't. They were strictly of this world.
Although I looked happy enough here, so maybe I shouldn't be complaining. The soup was delectable as usual. Sweet, creamy, rich... mmm. On a totally different note, why do I look so perverted here?? Is it my smile? Is it the fact that I have a slightly phallic-looking object in my hand? Is it just ME??

I mean, I look completely normal here! Speaking of which, so my dinner companions for the night included Ariel and Stephanie, both of whom made the meal about 15,000 times more fun than usual. Score!


The main course was Medallions of Lamb served on Spring Greens with a Port and Red Wine Sauce. On the side were New Potatoes with Freshly Chopped Herbs Vegetable Medley. The lamb was deeeeeeeelicious! I love, love, love the gamey, intense meaty taste of lamb. The side dish though... fancy name that can also be translated to: Veggies that have been boiled to death with no seasonings, resulting in a tasteless mush that probably retains no nutritional value whatsoever.


Close-up of a beautiful piece of meat... yum yum yum!


I have to say though, Kellogg really outdid themselves with the dessert. It was Forced Rhubarb, Pecan and Oat Crumble Tart with Maple and Honey Cream. Now, I don't know what the f*ck the rhubarb had been forced to do, but whatever it was, it had worked. Oh man. This crumbled was just BEAUTIFUL.


It was delightfully warm. It was rich and sweet without becoming cloying. It was decadent and yet at the same time refreshing and tart. It was simply PERFECT.


Alright, almost to the end of the post here... OH! I almost forgot to post these pictures that I've been dying to share with you. These were taken weeks ago, but I'd forgotten to post them last week...

Taken during the snow dump last month.


Another emofication of a scenery shot. Stop rolling your eyes Joanna! I get emo on Photoshop, okay?? F*ck off! =P


And for all you duck lovers out there...
I had a really hard time trying to outline the duck, as you can see. It kills me whenever I look at this damn picture how fuzzy the outline around the duck's head is. AGH! This is why I need to take photography and Photoshopping lessons!!

Anyways, back to chronological order... are you still with me?? Good. So on Sunday we went to Patisserie Vanille for lunch, and what a lunch it was! I ordered the smoked salmon salad and was simply blown over by how delicious such a simple dish was. So of course after that lunch I immediately traipsed over to Sainsbury's and bought all the ingredients to make my own version of a smoked salmon salad, and that comprised of my lunch today!


Ta-da! My version took all of 15 minutes to bang out and was even more delicious than the original because I could be as generous as I wanted to with the ingredients. Here we have: mixed Italian greens, baby spinach, loads of capers, three artichoke hearts, smoked salmon, and a handful of whole wheat penne. Load up on freshly ground mixed peppers and coarsely crushed sea salt, and I was in heaven.
I've been craving fresh salads nowadays, especially since the weather has been warming up so nicely... what kinds of proteins and carbs do you usually put inside your salads?