+Disaster Cow+

Oh How Long

2011-10-24T22:16:00.004-04:00

It's been forever since I posted. Like, literally, forever...

Cause if you didn't already know, one forever is exactly fifty four days...or at least I say it is.

I had a whole text only post planned, but I've completely lost my train of thought.

The only thoughts in my mind now are poptarts, the word "germs", and how lost I feel in several situations in my life. Perhaps I'll expand on those another time, in particular the first one (cause I can't even begin to tell you how much I want some strawberry poptarts).

I have almost too many photos to upload and share, but I've just been all over the place lately. I don't remember ever being so busy! But a new post is coming soon; I just have to find a day at random to resize about 60 pictures from my phone haha.

Also: Then we slap you for wasting our time.

The end.

AHHH!!

2011-09-01T12:52:00.003-04:00

I AM RETURNING SOON!

Okay..... so I haven't posted in quite a while.....

There is another super-post coming soon.

I promise.

It includes:

Daily Eating

California

Birthday(s)

Dinners

Lunches

Brunches

Munches.....

Okay. I'm playing around now.

I must leave for work now but I've given myself until sunday afternoon to have to post up.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Errrrrrm...

2011-06-28T12:41:00.004-04:00

I guess I should post something.

That sentence alone seems like I have something depressing to say but honestly I don't. I want to start doing a couple things differently here, like using tags to help sort types of posts and doing some photo only and text only posts. I can still do the big "together" ones, but the larger ones (Like the one from last week) are seriously an all day process so doing some of the posts as photo or text only will allow me to post more frequently.

Also, I don't understand Tumblr. I guess it's like blogging for people who don't like to type. Half the stuff-no wait, more like ALL of the stuff- I see on there these people didn't even make themselves. Not to put anyone down but if you're going to have your own "blog" at least post your own stuff. And all that "follow me I follow back" nonsense...

It's like the new Facebook.

Anyway, I really really wish I could complain about my work problems here but I guess that's how people get fired so I won't.

... sort of.

I will say this; I don't say much while I'm at work. I'm usually just quietly observing, listening, learning. Cause isn't that the point? I feel like some of the people I work with don't understand that I'm not incompetent. I know what I'm doing (most of the time), and yet I still ask how things are done because I'm there to learn. You know? I'm not there to show them that I know how to do something; I ask even if I do because maybe there's an even better way to do it that I don't know yet.

But I feel like it just comes off as "Dominic has no idea what he's doing, he's a moron."

I'm often misunderstood.

I should have some more to talk about soon though; today is my first day back on the line. We'll see how this goes...

Ding Ding. My Punching Ring.

2011-06-14T11:36:00.008-04:00

(Okay, so I'm a week late. Sorry. The story below is from last Tuesday or Wednesday)

Allow me.

Before I begin, I would like to share with all of you the horror I experienced this morning while driving home from the gym.

So I have this protien powder stuff at home (because I don't eat as much meat as I should) so I can actually benefit from all the weight lifting I've been doing recently. I hate drinking it. I've tried mixing it with milk, water, everything. I even bought a cheapy-$30 blender to mix other things in with it to taste better. Nope. So recently I've been eating something right after I drink it to get the taste out of my mouth. Today it was supposed to be an apple.

I left the apple on the seat by mistake so I guess it got hot in the sun for an hour. So I'm driving back home and I start eating it, and I'm like "Eww, hot apples taste like cabbage. I should make a joke about this on Facebook or something". I wasn't just going to waste food because it was hot, so I continued eating... until I held it in a weird position and my finger sank into the top of the apple into the core.

I hadn't once looked at it because I was driving, but at a stop light I saw that it was rotten from the inside out.

That surprise mixed with the awful taste of cabbage and protien shake in my mouth almost had me projectile vomiting all over the dashboard.

I pulled the car over at Wendy's.

***

Now that I've gotten that out of the way...

FROZEN YOGURT HEAVEN!

I actually am going to get to this later, but I didn't want the next picture to be the first one that people see. (OHY, 20+ oz. of frozen yogurt and I ate ALL of it)

Okay... I guess not. This picture isn't that awful, I think it's two or three down.

By the way, most of these won't have too much explaination as they were taking over the past two and a half months.

But, I think this is from when I ate like a million things in one day (pretty much all my days off), and I remember all the people at panera were staring at me because I had weird hair. I heard one of the staff behind the counter saying something as a joke, and it just made me think: As often as I wish I had a normal highschool experience, at that moment I was really glad because if I was still in school (or just graduating I guess), I couldn't put up with these people.

They would taste my punching ring and hear the DING of the metal pushing their teeth out of place.

I think it was broccoli cheddar soup which, looking back, was an odd choice for breakfast. But it seems really good now. Maybe I'll have soup for breakfast more often.

This.

This was the one I didn't want up at the top. This picture grosses me out still thinking about this food. Usually I follow my instincts, stay away from things that I know are going to be nasty; not that I'm not adventurous, I'll try anything once, but when I know something will be gross, I'm usually right.

This was no exception. I had never in my life had a cheesesteak and after eating this, I doubt I ever will again. This was just absolutley awful. Greasy, burned, unseasoned. Those damn fries weren't very good either.

This just reminded me of a stretched out hamburger, which I also refuse to eat.

Taro bubble tea.

Large is fn $5.00?!? I know that I still buy them though ._.

This crap is from Olive Garden.

But the only kind of person I can understand complaining about food like this could be someone who works in restaurants. Maybe it would have to be someone who dines out a lot at very nice restaurants; because I don't understand any other way. Not to say that other people who eat out at places aren't entitled to their own opinion, but I believe that I'm excluded from being called picky/ ungrateful because of how much I care about food.

The picture above was supposed to be ravoli, stuffed with gorgonzola and pears, tossed in some kind of myser white sauce, and drizzled with balsalmic. Hit and damn miss. WHO WANTS TO EAT HOT PEARS IN ALFREDO SAUCE?!

IN PASTA!

To give you an idea of how much food I was eating that day, directly after dinner, I went out to eat at another (terrible) restaurant in Towson.

I should just guess from now on that in an area that caters mostly to college students, the food is going to suck.

Anyway so it was only open so late because it was friday, which also happens to be a day that I hate having off on.

The pressure to go out. The feeling of having wasted my day if I don't go out. Getting home at 3 which means I'll be asleep until noon the next day. The fact that wherever I go it's gonna be crammed with people, no peace and quiet. End up eating at some crappy restaurant like Fridays.

PLUS I'm missing an hour of overtime at work ._.

FANTASTIC SEGWAY DOMINIC!

I ate at Cinghiale. So I can actually post pictures (not the best lighting but I refused to use flash) because I was there as a guest!

That beef carpaccio was SO AMAZING! The toasted hazelnuts made it. I liked the robiola fresco cheese, but it didn't taste all that similar to Robiola Bosina to me. It was still great.

Cuttlefish pasta! The actual pasta was colored with ink, and there were tiny tentacles inside.

Gnudi!

They were actually a gift for Ashley and I, but I ate all of them.

Like everything else that night. Ashley isn't really into good food lol. It's alright though, I got to eat 8 different plates!

Lola Duck Ragu Tajarin! This was my favorite because the pasta was made with chocolate, so when it arived at the table...the smell was just so wonderful.

It got increasingly difficult to take pictures of the food it got darker out, and I really didn't want to use flash.

Damn good food.

I love Attwater! So much stuff.

I actually bought all of this stuff separately, spread it all out over the counter, took a picture of it, wrapped it all up, and left! The people were staring at me like I was crazy, but they had to assume I was doing it for something documented.

Salted caramel tart & "Midnight Moon" cheese.

Pear Marmalade. (Gotta say, I really love firmer cheeses with something fruit-related)

Awesome cheese display at my cousins baby shower. Couldn't eat it though because I was only able to make an appearance before the actual event started; work T.T

BLUE MOON!

I'm getting seriously hungry looking at all this again. Captain Crunch french toast and eggs with tomatoes, onions, hash browns, crab, cheddar, AND hollandaise...all stacked on top of each other.

I died.

I got really bored re-sizing pics in Photoshop so I did this, "thing" we'll call it, of me eating a chocolate and pistachio mousse (pastry?). Is there a general word for dessert items that are like this? I should know it.

From Bonaparte Breads.

Dammmmnnnnnn I put these in the wrong order. Whatever. I'm not messing with edited today -.-

I don't think I need to talk about my love of Pitango. It's been three years since I found this place, but I still get straciatella almost every time.

It was such a neat place inside! I felt like I was somewhere not in Baltimore, which I'm sure is what most people who live here want to feel all the time.

It was train station(y?) with paintings all over the wall, quaint little carved floral decorations.

Okay not so much like an actual train station but what I would imagine a picturesque steam-train station would be like in some English countryside. Someplace Martha Stewart would approve of.

Ashley's fruit tart. I took her out to nice places on that rainy day.

Prosciutto sandwich from Trinacria. If I could only eat one sandwich forever, this would be it. You just feel so stuffed after eating one, but its that satisfying stuffed.

When you finish one of these sandwiches you feel like you've accomplished something for the day.

Below the sandwich is cheese and salted caramel I got from Milk & Honey later in the day.

Purple Haze (lol) and Ricotta Salata. The latter is one of my favorite cheeses, and no one believes me but I think it tastes like pineapples.

This dummy.

Pear. Manchego. Panini.

Possibly the greatest sandwich ever in existence. It's like a damn grilled cheese and toast with butter and jelly combined! With fig jam!

Also bought Monacy Ash cheese with cherry preserves.

I really enjoy eating something quite sugary before tasting cheese as the sweetness of the cheese is more noticeable and yet far less overpowering.

Reminded me of Chevre on the first bite, like a lot of goats cheeses do, but after the second taste I noticed a barn (hay, etc.) flavor. I really enjoy soft cheeses that seem to become more intense as you eat them (when in actuality you are just moving closer to the rind). It makes sense I guess; If you wash a cheese rind you would imagine that the most intense flavor would be closer to where the flavoring is being applied.

I kid you not, I had to edit that paragraph so much so I didn't sound like an ass.

Breakfast at IKEA that they lied about being 99 cents. "Only on certain days".

It actually costed around $2.50, so rest assured something of $1.50 will be destroyed in the near future....

Okay, not really (can't say things like that on the internet -.-) but I didn't clean off my tray like I was supposed to. So there.

More stuff from Belvedere Square.

Prosciutto sandwich obsession.

I don't think I ever eat prosciutto any other way. Besides at work of course, but that's different.

The salumeria has taught me so many things but it's also made me spoiled!

Three kinds of cured salmon! (Two smoked and one piece of Gravlax) See, I took my pictures outside so no one would stare. This guy was smoking near me but I gave him dirty looks until he stopped and left.

Smoked Salmon with pumpernickel bread is damn good. I need to start eating more cured meats with things.

This was for two people.

Ashley and I ate SO much sushi at Minato a couple weeks ago.

They hid so much wasabi under that octopus though. Felt like a bomb went off in my sinuses.

I'll remember to eat this the next time I have a snuffy nose! I ate the second piece with more caution, it was so good! I was actually about to say something about how sushi is probably a really good choice for people with high blood pressure because it doesn't really have salt on it, but then I remembered that "Philly roll". Ashley thought they were gross but I ate all six (and probably simultaneously developed a heart condition) of them. Smoked salmon and cream cheese wrapped in seaweed and rice?!

hell yes.

Surprisingly passable photos even with the weird lighting in there.

They had green tea mochi ice cream (is that redundant to say? I don't think so because I don't think all mochi has ice cream but I'm not sure) which came with little skewers to pick them up with! The outside reminded me of the inside of those cow tail candies.

I think one day last month I went downtown by myself just to get a fruit tart. That's all I did the whole day and it was great.

Tutti Frutti! It's like an frozen yogurt buffet, they change the flavors everyday and they literally have any topping you can think of. I got a freaking lychee on mine...among other things.

It is such a relief to see pictures of food that I've eaten recently. I feel like I've gone through time and I've finally made it back to the present.

So....... apparently there's a Nordstrom's cafe. I promise, this will be the only place I eat in Towson mall from now on. I thought they were going to have a bagels and coffee menu like Panera, but they had Chicken and Hen of the woods mushroom gnoochi.

Where tf have I been?

Blackened salmon salad

Carrot cake that April and I shared. Aww, look at the adorable two forks.

We even took stick your tongue out and show your chewed up food pictures but I'm not going to put those up here. I like pictures of half eaten food, but only while it's still on the plate.

I ate at B bistro! It was quite nice. I like when I can find little places like this to eat well thought out food (best way I could describe it) in Baltimore that's not incredibly expensive.

Beef Tartar

Crispy Lamb Belly Confit

No photo :(

Cheeses

Salmon with Squid ink and Couscous

Crispy Duck leg Confit

(Those beanssssss! Ahh! They should make that a dish by itself or something. I love duck confit but those beans had me!)

Strawberry Shortcake which on the menu said it had some balsamic component but I saw nothing. Still good though.

The food was wonderful but I have to say, the look the host gave me when I said I didn't have a reservation and the attitude of the server made me really upset. I guess it's just something that happens when I go to places like this because people see me and think "Oh, this kid's not gonna understand this food, and he's not gonna tip good". It's just something I've gotten used to.

Also, the lighting in there was difficult for me to take pictures -.-

Only once have I gone into Milk & Honey and they had a truffle and chicken liver pate.

Only once have I ever ate a giant slice of the stuff by myself in one sitting.

I think I almost cried when it was gone and it was so expensive I couldn't buy any more.

Whoa. I made it to the end. For those of you with exceptional attention spans, a picture of pizza from the mall. Of course I had to be difficult and get the vegetable white pizza.

Normal posting may now resume ;)

MONTHS!

2011-06-13T22:04:00.004-04:00

It is June. I am sorry.

I have this big post planned but the photo reszing is taking a lot longer than I expected, what with 50+ pictures. So I'm going to move that post until tomorrow so it's not just thrown together while I'm dozing off at the computer (like many school assignments in the past).

I'll be working on it tonight and tomorrow morning so I can post it before I go to work.

This is a challenge. We will see that if for the first time in this blogs existance (almost three years!) I can meet a deadline I set for myself.

I'm getting better at this!

2011-02-17T12:28:00.004-05:00

Does anyone else find it pathetic that now, after having this blog since 2008, I am just figuring out how to make the photo uploading process simpler?

I had always just used the HTML code that photobucket gave me, but now that I've changed that these photos are no longer clickable! (Like I've been wanting since what....early 09??)

Also, is it bad that I share these kinds of things? Like shouldn't this all be in my head instead of the stuff I actually publish? (As in, instead of having a problem while talking about food, and then fixing it and continuing about food, I stop and talk about the actual problem... This says to me that I let you all in on too much. Next I'll be telling you about how I can never find any of my socks....where do they go??)

***

Yeah. Luxirare posts about Fauchon, but I post about noodles and company.

It was my day off, and I was practically out of money because I don't get my next check until next week, so I decided to get some moderately priced, surprisingly delicious food. I actually went to Trinacria earlier that day and got a sandwich, but I ate it so fast I didn't even have time to take a picture of it :P

Shot of the table while I waited for my food. I specifically sat in the sun so I could take nice photos :)

So this is probably my favorite picture I've taken since I've been back on the blogging-wagon. (If that's even a thing)

I actually didn't realize it until after the food had arrived at the table, but I was supposed to get chicken on this. I was just about to call the woman back over because I could've sworn I ordered it, but then I remembered I didn't have enough money when I got up to the register for chicken...

It was satisfying anyway.

I'm gonna make the "taking pictures of half eaten food" thing something regular here. Sorry if it disgusts you. It shouldn't though; I'm just trying to prove a point.

I'll get back to you when I figure out just what that point is.

***

Candy Photography '11

I think it's an improvement on the incredibly tacky photos of Pocky I took a year ago. There's still some melted Hershey's kiss on my windowsill.

***

RANT

The other day during service I was doing some mundane task, nothing that required much attention, so I started to do what I usually do in that type of situation: Think.

Dominic thinking alone is a dangerous thing. I just become so involved in my thoughts that I begin to have conversations with people that are standing around me, in my head. Like someone will be standing right next to me, silent, and I'll plan out how an entire conversation will go with them without ever saying a word. I just get way too involved in my mind.

Anyway, I was thinking (and I hate to even say this because I really don't like for people to know that I doubt myself) that for some reason I felt as though I couldn't do "this" (service) every day of my life.

Sometimes I think about the possibility that I've chosen the wrong job, but usually those doubts fade away by the next morning and everything is normal again. I'm sure I'm not the only person who does this, especially within this industry (I can only imagine how the people who do that that are in their 30's and 40's feel [trapped?]). I'm still young though; I could enroll in pre-med and start college again in the fall and still be a doctor at the same age that everyone else does.

I'm obviously not going to do this because I believe I've invested way too much in this to just let it go. I suppose this is the fight. I always wondered when I would get to the point where I would second guess myself, and about two weeks ago it was getting serious. I was doing very poorly at work; it just felt like Vino Rosina all over again. I don't think that semi colon was used properly in that sentence.... whatever. Anyway, I've been doing much better (I actually didn't even want to talk about that week because honestly by the time I was ready to talk about it, it was already over with).

Whoa. I think this is the farthest off topic I've ever gotten.

Getting back to what I was saying before, when I get lost in my head, nothing good comes from it. I start questioning things that don't need to be questioned, I start making up things in my head, wondering if people are talking about me, laughing at me for some reason. I guess those are just my insecurities, and it's really killing me to publish all that because I don't even like to recognize that I have insecurities, let alone telling other people about them.

I have a lot more to say on this topic but I'll save it for another time. We need some comic relief here; getting too serious. Sometime in the future we'll discuss "Dominic" and "Alexander". (Oh you must think I'm craaaaazy -.-)

***

I went to IKEA later that night; just though I'd share my dinner with all of you. I actually think that when my dinner isn't staff meal at work, I'll take a picture of it and post it, no matter what it is. (Clearly it's usually nothing special; chicken fingers from the IKEA cafeteria)

One last thing! I saw this couch there, and I swear if I had $200 I would have bought it. It was final sale, I'm guessing because it was so ugly, but I thought it was amazing. This couch would be in my house... if I had a house... and $200...

Anybody who knows me knows I spend way too much time in IKEA.

I

2011-02-12T01:16:00.007-05:00

am so sleepy. I had a whole post planned, oodles of pictures, etc.

but I am so damn tired right now... and it's not even that late. I promise a proper post will be up tomorrow morning, but for now let me say a few things before I pass out.

I am deleting my facebook sometime within the next two weeks, in which time I will be collecting phone numbers. I am done with social networking. If you want to talk to me, call me or text me.

It's not that I don't want to try Twitter, it's that I was over it before anyone knew what Twitter even was. Two years ago I made one, got bored and annoyed with it, and never used it again. But this is how everything happens with me, right? Years ago I used to listen to dance/house music, and everyone made fun of me because I didn't like 50 cent like they did. Now you turn on the radio, and every song is a dance song (or at least has a dance beat).

Maybe one day people will be smart enough to post complete thoughts to the Internet to actually contribute to something/ serve some purpose (making people laugh, letting you in on my "online journal", being informative, etc.) instead of just polluting the world with poorly spelled 140 character messages of "gng ovr my bbs house 2day!!". The entire idea of micro-blogging ("social networking") is ridiculous; if you want to know what someone is doing right at this moment, ask them! Not only will it help you become better friends, but I'm sure they would be flattered to hear your genuine interest in the car wash they got today, followed by the pack of M&M's they ate "in like three seconds!!". Yeah.

Not only have I gotten completely off topic, I've gotten mean.

It's late. I'm tired. I have work tomorrow. I get a pass ;D

***

As a reward for those of you with exceptional attention spans, you get to see what I do when I have off on a Friday night.

Usually when people say that you'll never meet someone like them again, they're lying.

It's so strange to the point where people no longer think of you as a person. Take that as you want.

Gypsies

2011-02-06T15:58:00.004-05:00

Daaaaammmmnnnnnnnnnnnn.

Photobucket uploading is such a tiresome process.

It's bad enough I have to resize every single photo in photoshop in the first place, but now I have to wait 10 years for them to appear on the computer.

Oh yeah, so I bought this car.

It's great! Yes I blocked out the tag, and the funny this is that it's not because I didn't want you guys to get my information; it's that I really hate the giant yellow dealership plate.

Ugh....I had a funny joke there but I've seemed to have forgotten because of this MASSIVE HEADACHE! I have no idea why I decided to do this post right now while I have an awful headache; I should actually be resting my eyes because I have to leave at 5:30 for something anyway.

I know it's not a migrane (I've only ever had one of those and I was crawling on the floor and throwing up) but I'm convinced I have some kind of recurring sinus infection. Because whenever I get headaches one side of my nose clogs up and one of my eyes pulsates with pain. I would go to a doctor, but I never really have time to go spend an entire day at the clinic just for them to tell me what I already know.

No more WebMD for me.

***

PICTURES OF FOOD ON A FOOD BLOG??

Yes I know, it sounds nearly impossible, but for the first time since last May, I have taken some photos of food.

I had this burrata caprese salad in December. I don't quite understand why a restaurant would offer a salad where the main component is tomatoes, but this is coming from the person who didn't know you weren't supposed to put tomatoes in the refrigerator. I did eat this at a hotel in Miami, so perhaps they grew the tomatoes in the sunny weather....

Do they even grow tomatoes in florida? In America? Where do tomatoes come from?? What does a tomato farm look like? I have gone of on a tangent but I am intrigued by the mystery of the tomato manufacturing process. I'll definitely get back to you guys on that.

(Speaking of tangents, whenever I type one of these blog posts, I never really have a outline or some sort of plan of what to write. All of this stuff just comes off of the top of my head. Halfway through typing a post, I always wonder if it's too incoherent, but after I read the entire thing, it turns out okay. Like I always feel that this should be more structured like all the other food blogs, but then again I only spend about one or two paragraphs talking about food anyway).

The bottom photo only feeds into my obessession with taking pictures of half eaten food. Again, why do we only appreciate things before we eat them? Probably because the intention of the chef is to make things look appealing to draw the guest in, then once they've messed up the plating, they get to enjoy the food.

Maybe I'll be the first to create something that looks beautiful until the moment the plate is empty.

These are the things I think of.

(Oh those ray-ban glasses in the first pic. I miss them so much (T.T))

This ones not as "artsy" as the other ones, but thats what happens when you take pictures of food in the dark, which I hate. I used to constantly complain about how I needed a flash on my phone camera because a lot of restaurants have dim lighting. But now that I have flash, I just realized that it's much better just to take pictures in proper lighting.

Starbucks chicken salad sandwich is amazing.

***

Somebody went to H-Mart. ;)

The smart photography days.

2011-02-01T12:51:00.005-05:00

I wish I had a DSLR camera... I actually wish I had a lot of things.

I'll try and make this brief because I have to leave for work in an hour, and as you all can imagine that means no photos. I was going to do a big photo only post but as I was going through all of the pictures I took over the last year and only two words came to mind: sub par.

And it's not really that I don't have a good camera, I guess I just got lazy with my pictures because I no longer had a reason to take them. In 2009 I took pictures of practically everything I ate, and now....nothing. But now that I've brought this place back from the dead (for like the 4th time right?) I will definitely get back on that wagon!

Example.

And that was with the 3 mega pixel camera on my iPhone!! I'm going doing stuff like that again.

I'm also going to look into a new uploading site; actually the main reason this post doesn't have pictures is because how long the photobucket uploading process is. I feel like eventually they'll shut my account down and all my previous posts will have giant white boxes with red "X"'s. that makes me angry.

***

Grrr....

2011-01-31T12:39:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I loaf on posting to this blog. But at least I still recognize it's existence. I'm just usually at work most of the time, and during the mornings it never occurs to me to type here. I need to get myself more involved in other things besides work...

I guess it's because "food" is pretty much all I do, I have a tough time being bothered with it during my time off (during the day before work, or on my days off). I never really go out to eat, mostly because I'm dissatisfied with something at practically every restaurant in the city. "Oh Dominic, you're too young to be so snobby" but I'm not really. I will tear a burger king chicken sandwich to pieces, but at most sit--down restaurants, something always goes wrong. When the food is brought to me I can't help but think "Oh, they could've plated this this way", or "They could've done this differently".

Random Judge-y person: "That's being a snob"

It's not actually. How could someone who spends so much time in what they do not be critical about certain things? If it were any other field, there would be no complaints about peoples opinions.

Lets take fashion, for example. Do you think someone from Louis Vuitton buys their clothes from Target? No. In fact, they probably make most of their own clothes (like me, not eating out much). So why is it such a big deal that I can't go to Denny's and be happy?

(I'm really liking this text only idea. I actually have been wanting to do this for sometime, but I haven't been posting, being lazy, blah blah blah. I think from now on I'm going to separate the posts like this: I'll do a few photo & text like I used to do, but from now on the majority of the posts will be text only and photo only. That makes it a lot easier for me because I can type from my phone. And that way I have more posts more often!)

That last post took an unfortunate turn towards the end...got a liiiiittle depressey. Is that a word?

I also lied, of course I waited until the end of the month to post something new (the last day of the month at that). It's okay though, 2011 is going to be a great year. It got off to a rocky start but I have a lot of plans.

ALSO! I don't think I'll be posting much about work. Like I can explain little things, but I don't think I'm supposed to talk about my actual work day while I'm still there. I've heard a lot of stories about people getting fired because they post stuff about their jobs, or people they dislike at work, etc. I really don't want to lose this job.

I'm actually thinking about getting a second job because I have so much free time now that I've gotten a car, but I have no idea where. Not like a career related job, just something for a little extra money (like a grocery store or something). I feel like ever since I've gotten a car I just have a ridiculous amount of free time; most of which is spent laying around the house like a cat, waiting for 2 o'clock to leave for work. I'm also thinking of joining a gym since I won't be doing all that walking everyday because I don't have to get the bus....

Many thoughts but I have yet to take any of these actions....

I might post again tomorrow. Don't count on it though ;D

!/!/@)!! !!:%$PM

2011-01-02T23:31:00.004-05:00

I'm just gonna go ahead and say that this will be text only.

Fair warning to people who just stare at pictures like toddlers.

It's almost been a year since I last posted-err well the last time was in May. And I honestly cannot tell you the amount of times I had planned to bring with blog back to life. Instead of just going along as if I didn't take a 7 month hiatus, allow me to explain.

Got a job interview. Got another job. Got to see first hand how to open a restaurant...or maybe how not to. I lost my job. I found a new job at an awesome restaurant. I've learned a lot. I bleached my hair. I shaved most of my hair. I realized I'm crazy, and that it's awesome that I'm crazy. I went to Miami. I've felt more alone than I ever have. I hated my life. Then I learned to love it.

There are many more small details but I've realized that they don't matter. The further I continue down this path the more things just seem like one big blur. But I remember I decided a long time ago that I'd trade in having a "normal" life now, to have an amazing future. I'm sure I'll know when I've arrived, but I have no idea what I'll do when I get there.

More Tomorrow.

And this time not 7 months tomorrow, tomorrow.

Things We Ate in April

2010-05-02T12:06:00.003-04:00

Special Photo Post

(Since all my readers seem to be so interested in the pictures rather than the actual content)

Why do we only take pictures of food before it is served?

This sounds like a disgusting question, but honestly, why don't we? I personally appreciate the look of corroded, destroyed, messy things just as much as well put together and fancy. that was a bad contrast of the way things look, but I recently took some pictures of cake, and I really enjoy them. Forget what it actually is and try to appreciate the look of things.

Splendor and Disgust.

Until Then.

It's nice to dream

2010-04-26T18:26:00.006-04:00

I've had an eventful past couple days, although I still haven't found any work. I hope that changes soon though. Anyway, I've just spent the last few hours resizing pictures on Photoshop because photobucket makes them too small -.- I really need to find a better way to do this. But back to the jobless thing, I've pretty much decided that blogging would be my job until I have one. Maybe I'll go back to working at the office...maybe...

I know sometimes I don't post for a while, and I know about 3/4ths of you only come here to look at pictures like a childrens book, but I honestly enjoy doing this, and while I don't make any money because of it, who knows; maybe this might take me down the path of actual food critic. Probably not, but it's nice to dream sometimes /:

***

So on yesterday I went to IKEA, intending to buy myself a new lamp, then I thought about getting a new dresser, and THEN I though about how the hell would I get them home...so I just bought three pillows and some pillowcases instead. Completely not what I went in there for, but it was surprisingly fun (mostly because I was laughing about Ashley almost passing out from the heat in there). I ended up eating at the little restuarant/cafeteria type thing there, and the food was actually pretty good.

Just whatever you do, never order the princess cake.

EVER.

Let me just start off by saying that this picture doesn't do the salmon justice at all. Here, it looks like something inside of a wet catfood can, but in real life it looked okay. While I still do have an iPhone to take pictures with, I seriously need a real camera. There is no flash on the iPhone, so dark pictures come out looking grainy like this, and atleast a point and shoot camera would really help.

I'm guessing the salmon was poached before it was plated with the dill sauce; the menu didn't really say how the fish was cooked. I was a little put off when I saw that it was (assumingly) poached, because I usually dislike poached fish (or even chicken), but this was actually okay. I have absolutely no idea what the filling was (the visibly green portion of the filet), but it tasted the same as the rest of the fish, so they really didn't have to put that inside anyway.

What I thought were crab cakes turned out to be potato cakes, but I wasn't upset about this at all, I just figured it would've went with the seafood theme. (I honeslty have no idea what was going through my mind. I should know better; IKEA does not sell crab -.- I'm an embarrasment). The also poached vegetables were nice too. I enjoyed the yellow carrots.

This might look like dessert, but it wasn't. It was Ashley's "Dollar Meatballs" that she hated so much, she spit one out on the table. Her excuse was "I thought they would be great, because they were only a dollar. How could I resist?", to which I replied "Seriously? Since when, dealing with food, is something that is advertised as 'ONLY ONE DOLLAR!!' going to be delicious?"

To my surprise, I thought they were great. They tasted sort of sweet, but not disgustingly so, almost like the sweetness of foods caramelized on a grill (if that's possible). They were served with a cream sauce, and lingonberries which I dragged them through before eating.

After such a filling meal, what better way to end it all then with an even more filling dessert. If only I hadn't gone down the terrible route of the princess cake...

This attrocity was described to me as looking like a dirty tennis ball, and I should've listened, but curiousity got the best of me and I just had to try it. First of all, the outside is the most tasteless marzipan ever. That "chocolate drizzle" on top wasn't chocolate at all; it was just more marzipan! The filling was whipped cream, which I hate on cake which, by the way, was the dryest white cake ever. In the middle they managed to smear a little bit of raspberry jam, but it was like giving a dehydrated person in the desert your last drop of water: Too little, too late.

To spite them, I refused to clear my own tray like the sign says to do.

For all the Swedish prinesses out there who are forced to enjoy this, I shed a single tear.

***

Today I made Cream Puffs!

(I had a whole photo montage thing of how I made them, but the resizing didn't work properly, and it's late and I don't feel like doing it again. So there.)

I didn't get the fondant right until the fourth time I tried to make it. I searched everywhere on the internet on a video showing me how to make fondant icing, not rolling fondant that you put on cakes, but I had absolutely no luck at all. I just needed to see a video to see what I was doing wrong. So I decided to blow the dust off of my BP232 book and read the fondant section; mind you this was all before I tried to make it the last three times.

So apparantly I was supposed to heat the mixture to 225F, then add the cream of tartar, then continue heating until 240F, then take it off and pour it onto the slab, then work with it until it turned white. There were two problems with this; I don't have a scale, and EVERYTHING in that book is by weight, and I also couldn't find the conversion amount for cream of tartar.

I was just a real badass today because I was flying blind with the temperatures too; all my thermometers stop at 220F. I was relieved that it only took me three tries to get it right.

Yes they're lumpy, and yes they look messy, but I like them. The top is apricot marmalade and coffee fondant (something else I stumbled upon in my 232 notebook), and inside is pastry cream. I would love to sit here for another 30 minutes and talk about them, but honestly it's late, and they're just cream puffs.

:) Until then... which should probably be soon because I just got like 4lbs of butter from the store. (Maybe danishes!)

Brambleberries

2010-04-22T19:49:00.010-04:00

I just thought I'd say it.

I actually did have a brambleberry juice Tazo thingy today for lunch, but that's beside the point; it's a silly and ridiculous word, and I really like saying it. Even more than "spinoccoli", which was my favorite word for a while.

Anyway, today I carried a little pad around with me in my pocket, and whenever I had a (remotely) interesting thought, I wrote it down. You guys might enjoy a few:

1. Someone should make a dishwasher with a garbage disposal attached.

2. I really, really hate it when people pull, or press on, or lean on my chair while I'm sitting in it. If you would like to roll all around to floor with it, wait until I'm not using it to do so.

3. STOP leaving crap in my bed! First it was a shoe horn, now it's ramen noodle crumbs. This is becoming a problem.

4. My dog is really dirty, but she writhes about like a seizure victim when I try to bathe her, so I've stopped caring. She lives outside anyway /:

5. Actually, scratch that first thought. People would be going overboard with it; trying to throw whole slices of pizza in there and what not.

Now that that's out of the way, I have great news!

I got my new iPhone!

I'm so happy! It's not because I'm stuck up or spoiled or something that the only phone I can have is an iPhone (for those of you who missed that rant), it's just that the camera on it is really nice, plus it had a macro function that works with touch, so I can touch where I want to focus to be. A real professional camera and macro lens would cost me $1000+ so it's really great that I have this. It makes my pictures so much better.

***

Today for lunch I ate at Starbucks... so it wasn't really lunch, sorta just a snack :P

The only actual piece of food food I had for lunch was a stuffed Feta and Spinach pretzel. A few days ago, I was having a conversation with someone about eating spinach, and how it gets stuck in your teeth. My side of the argument was that I didn't think it was a big deal, and that some people are too worried for no reason.

However today, after I had already eaten the pretzel, I went back up to the register to buy something for dessert, and I suddenly became so worried. It's funny now that I think about it, but I was so paranoid for the whole three minutes I was in line; as if everyone would suddenly look at my mouth for no reason at all.

Anyway, the pretzel was okay, but I didn't really see too much Feta inside, but perhaps that's cost control measures or something. I usually get the pizza pretzel, but this was a nice change. Maybe in another five months I'll try the egg salad.

Nope. I hate egg salad.

Isn't this just the greatest picture ever?

-.- it's so plain. But I had to do the cheesecake somehow, so I figured this would be the best angle to shoot it. Honestly, it was; this is as pretty as this cheesecake is getting. And you would think for $5.50 a slice AND the little "Cheesecake Factory Brand" logo, they'd be a bit more decorative, but no.

This isn't the worst cheesecake I've ever had, but I was kinda disappointed that I paid so much for what I got. The top had a thick skin on it, so I know it had been in the display for a while. The first couple bites were good, but a little later it started to remind me of what I do with Cinnabon's. First it's great, I'm enjoying myself so much, then I eat too much and make myself sick. I almost vomited when I took just a giant gulp of the center, after I had already eaten all of the graham cracker off of the bottom.

No I did not eat these with the lunch, but I did buy them right after.

A while ago I did a "recipetorial" (what was I thinking with that name? Ahhh novice food blogger ;D) on lemon poppy seed cookies, and to my surprise, they actually sell this kind of cookie! I was surprised to find that it's supposedly vegan (and anyone who knows me knows how I feel about vegans), mostly because it was actually really good. It tasted nothing like Martha Stewart's recipe, but maybe that's a good thing. Perhaps the Paula Deen's of the world really are trying to kill us with all their dairy, meat, and cheese...

OHN.

Paula Deen will save your life with her cooking! If you get shot, she will pack your wound with butter.

Dry your eyes and testify. Oh Hell Yes #1: Butter saves lives!

(Ignore the pumpkin spice cookie on the left; it was nasty. It tasted like Bath & Body Works vomited up a cookie. I would know, you can see I ate half it before I decided it was nasty.)

So I'm coming out of the bathroom, and what does the sign say? "Leave all unpaid merchandise outside" I guess people took it too seriously because literally right outside the bathroom door was a big stand of drinks just sitting there. Not only was this gross because it was so close to "le potte" (that's not real or anything), but it was odd because it was around the corner where no one (staff) could see.

Maybe they had cameras, but I certainly didn't see any. But I just thought, if I was homeless this would've been the jackpot. Last year I had a really great idea about writing this book for homeless people and the places they could go to get free samples or take sink bathes etc, but then someone told me that a majority of homeless people can't read.

Oh yeah. Most homeless people are homeless for a reason.

***

Until then. Which honestly shouldn't be too long because...

MY COLLEGE GRADUATION CEREMONY IS SATURDAY!

I will officially be the youngest person to graduate from culinary school!

Excited :)

Dominoodle

2010-04-17T14:57:00.003-04:00

"I'll be back on Thursday"

Today is Saturday. No, even better:

Caturday.

Lack of ability to tell what day it is aside, I've been doing a whole lot of nothing today. Yesterday I went to DC, and there were plenty of "that tastes good" and "that's disgusting" moments that would have fit perfectly into a "day trip" post. But it wouldn't have gone well anyway...

BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A DAMN CAMERA!

This is how I see it; text is very important when blogging. It is blogging. A blog without text is one without content. But in my opinion, one without pictures is the same thing. With no pictures, it's just story telling.

I could sit here and describe to all of you the most amazing meal you could possibly imagine, but without any pictures to back it up, for all you know, I could've eaten dirty raisins off the floor for dinner. This is specifically why I decided not to do a post for yesterday, there were no photos.

Yeah right Dominic. Like you take trips. Next you'll be telling us you've got a girlfriend.

And then he wept.

***

These three pictures have absolutley nothing to do with food. Unless you're a rabbit or some other animal who just eats plants like that.

Anyway, I was seriously about to prove a point with these pictures, but I seriously forgot what I was supposed to be doing with them. I think it's about me needing a camera. Oh! I remember now! (Why I chose to just keep typing instead of back spacing when I remembered is beyond me)

I've been looking at a lot of other food blogs recently, not for ideas, just for comparison, and I noticed something; they all only post about recipes. There is no story, no hilarious anecdotes about losing jobs, no stories about dropping my only camera in the toilet. But that's why you guys read me, right?

...right?

But seriously, they title the post after the recipe, just the ingredients, and then just take pictures of the steps. That's why I think this isn't just a food blog. My mind knows no black and white, so I blur all the lines all the time, and I think thats a great thing. Maybe the next post will actually have something to do with food. And maybe it will have more than 400 words.

Until then.

(Whenever that is lol)

Above This; I'm Spelling "DIS" With My Cow Limbs.

2010-04-13T18:58:00.004-04:00

*Exhales* I'm never satisfied...

So I've been experimenting with some new photo uploading methods. EVEN BIGGER PHOTOS! And not half cut off photos like this one, but actual, large, professional looking photos. The problem now is that I don't actual have a camera anymore. I really want a new camera but when I buy my new iPhone, it will have to suffice until I find a new job. I'm starting to feel lifeless again...

Anyway, I'm going somewhere this weekend, and a big dilemma is me not having a camera. I plan to have a wonderful trip with oodles of pictures, but that can't happen until I get a camera. The crappy camera on this Razr phone I'm using now won't cut it, and I don't get my check from my old job until Tuesday of next week... Perhaps Franny has an extra camera somewhere or something...

So today, since I cannot find where on my computer the iPhone backup pictures are, I'm going to show you guys the pictures from my quaint little birthday trip to New York last year. Yeah, they're a bit dated, and I was just getting the hang of macro pictures, but it's nice. It's something.

I have to say, I'm really enjoying the new photo size. You can see everything clearly; nothing feels like it's missing; it's just great. (Also, yesterday I had so much to say, I feel like I should give my self a bit on the back for my choice of words. Nothing spectacular, just saying. Today however, not so much. I feel kinda at a loss for words, even though earlier I had all these thoughts about what today's post was going to be about. Ehh. Never mind.)

So this was the Stracciatella gelato that I got from GROM. I think I mentioned it before. I don't know. Just in case I didn't, it was basically milk flavored with pieces of dark chocolate. I have a lot of preferences when it comes to ice cream, but this might be my favorite. Maybe.

Ignore him. Yeah. Him.

Ashley got the strawberry gelato. I can't speak for her about how it tasted, but to her recollection, it was good. She says mine was gross though. She enjoys simple things. Speaking of Ashley, I am upset. I made her a blog and everything and when was the last time she posted? January. This face a thousand times:

-.-

This picture is shaky and I don't like it, but it's the only one of the pizza that I had while I was there. I can't even remember what kind of pizza it was, but that day I didn't care. I was having a lot of problems and arguments at home and at BIC, but that day I just completely forgot about all of it and enjoyed my day. Parts of which I forgot to photograph, but I think that sometimes it's good not to take pictures. One day I see myself being in a moment so great, maybe on a mountain somewhere, that I wont want to take a picture only because the presence of a camera would ruin the moment. If anyone gets where I'm coming from with that one.

Okay, so let me explain this one. All day I was looking for a Pinkberry because I heard how good it was supposed to be. I looked everywhere but couldn't find one. So I went to a place that at least seemed enough like Pinkberry. It was good; they had various frozen yogurt flavor machines, and then they had a really big, interesting topping station.

That day I really just walked and got cabs all around new york and stuffed myself with various little treats (I really hate that word but there's really no other one that fits there). I never actually had a sit down meal like I planned to, but I had a lot more fun this way.

Speaking of trips (besides this weekend) I was planning to be taking more later this year. (When I was working) I planned to save money, and on the off chance I'd have two consecutive days off, I could go somewhere fun. Since I don't have any kids to feed or bills to pay, I figured I could really have a lot of fun, but now that I don't have a job, half my check next week goes to a new phone, and the other half to contacts. Damn. I'm broke again.

I'll be back on Thursday. Until then.

We did it. Until we didn't.

2010-04-12T23:05:00.003-04:00

To all you people who only read my blog for the pictures, you can leave now.

This post is not for you.

So I've returned. Finally. I was on hiatus for a little over a month, but I'm back now, with a few interesting stories to tell.

First, let me explain why I was on hiatus in the first place. My last post was the beginning of March, and I was still searching for a job since January. I mentioned that I managed to get myself a job interview at a place downtown, but that didn't work out. A regular interview turned into a job interview, and then that turned into a estage (working interview), which I thought I did great on. Even the staff thought that I was very nice, and did a great job for my first day. Of course, this being my life and all (and unfortunately not some fairy tale), they never called me back. Not even to tell me I didn't get the job, even after the sous chef said he'd call me that Tuesday. I was told not to put all my eggs in one basket, but I really thought I had a shot at that one.

So I ended up trying and actually getting a job at a bar, which was actually quite nice. I had the entire kitchen to myself, it wasn't too busy, and it wasn't too far out of my comfort zone. But that's just the thing; I don't like being comfortable. When I'm comfortable I'm not growing, I'm not learning, and I'm being taken off my track. So I went out to search for more work, even though I already had a good job with nice pay.

So I stumble upon this other restaurant, the name of which I won't say, but to those of whom I've talked to know what it is, and I send them a completely honest cover letter. They call me back immediately, and ask me to come in for an interview. So I come in, and as it turns out, they meant working interview. So I ended up cooking for two hours in a dress shirt and new shoes, by which the end of I was told I had gotten the job. So I called my current job at the time, and informed them that, unfortunately, I would not be returning to work. So I start working at "Restaurant B"

So on my first day at Restaurant B, I was introduced to the staff, and I was given a copy of the menu to learn. (This is probably a problem that will never get solved, because I'm sure everyone does this, but it is one of my biggest irritations that someone expects me to learn how to make everything they serve in the kitchen in two days with a customer menu. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT THE MUSSELS DISH IS ONLY MADE WITH SPECIFICALLY ROASTED GARLIC IF IT DOESN'T SAY SO ON THE MENU?!?) Anyway, the first couple days were fine. Tiring, but fine. But you know, that's kinda what I was looking for; a challenge. Something to make me actually appreciate my day off. I thought this was what I had found. The end of the application road; at least for a little while. This was not the case.

Earlier today, my day off, I received a phone call from the chef telling me that someone had come in this morning, thinking that the position was still available. Before they could turn him away, they saw that he had a ton more experience, and did not need to be trained in anyway, and was willing to accept the same pay that I was getting, "starting wage". Long story short, whoever he is, he works there now, I am back on my job search once again. I think I might have gotten a bit off topic just now, "First, let me explain why I was on hiatus in the first place." ha ha, but I needed to explain all that.

The reason was: nothing was happening. My life was at an absolute stand still.

A lot has happened since the last time I posted, and I have pictures of everything, but there's kind of a situation with that too. The other day, I dropped my phone in the toilet at work, so all my pictures went with it. I plan to buy a new one with my (only) check, but I don't get that until next tuesday, so it'll be a little while. But, the good news is that when I get it, I can restore it with iTunes and all the pictures will all be back on it.

(Short Post) Until then readers.

More Tomorrow.

Sugar. Sushi. Soup.

2010-03-02T22:28:00.007-05:00

Night Post

Ahh. There's nothing like blogging at night to make you...realize you have no life. Especially when you're doing it split screen with a re-run of Castle playing on Hulu. Anyway, I must say, this week has been pretty uneventful, but that's my life now right? I did actually manage to get a job interview at a place downtown; I'm just waiting on the chef to call me back to schedule it.

I've also noticed that I've been really "photo dependant" recently. Or at least it seems like it to me. Maybe this is just my crazy brain imagining what someone on the outside looking in would say.

Either way, I have an explanation. I don't really intend for these "photo only" posts to be all fluff, where I'm too lazy to actually type a blog post. I just figured it'd be best if the photos spoke for themselves. That's sort of how I feel sometimes, like I don't know whether or not to type a lot or a little for each post. I've had people tell me blunt that they only go here for the pictures (I have no idea why someone would come here for pathetic food photography, but ehh), and I've had people say they actually read the text. So, I guess I'm trying to please everyone by doing some photo only posts, and some posts with a strong, text basis like this one.

Sugar.

If you all could see the face I'm making right now for one reason... well I guess two. The first is because nothing in this post is in chronological order, but the second reason is because I want to eat this cinnabon again. And again. And again.

I don't know what it is, but when I walk past a Cinnabon, a 600lb person comes out from within me and takes over my body. Midway through eating it, I'm feeling great, but when I'm done I feel kinda bad, almost ill. Then of course, a few days later, I want to eat it again.

I'm being constantly distracted by this Castle episode. Anyway, I baked a pie two days ago, but I wanted to wait until I had some other stuff to go along with it. I'd like to think that the decorative dough flowers distract from the fact that the lines on the lattice top are incredibly uneven, but I know that was this first thing you saw when you looked at it.

It's the same recipe as before, but when I was talking to Lauren about the last pie, she said she didn't like streusel topping, so I figured I'd try to bake it with just a regular top, just to see how it turned out, because I always always always put streusel on apple pie.

It came out okay, but I think I could've added a bit more cornstarch to the cooked filling because when I cut the first slice, the juice from the filling just went everywhere. I also don't think it's a good idea to leave pie dough in the refrigerator for two days after it was made.

Sushi.

A few nights ago, I went out for sushi at this place downtown called Minato. The inside was really interestingly decorated with this giant flowy lamp thing on the ceiling, and a huge tv behind the sushi bar to distract me from the 45 minute wait for the food. I have to say, this place and Ra have to be my two favorite sushi places in Baltimore.

Some of the rolls I ordered were covered in mango, which was a really nice contrast to the saltiness of all of it. The philly roll had smoked salmon instead of just raw, so I thought that was a neat little twist on a common thing. The roll in the middle was avocado and eel, but when I bit into the first piece, I felt a bone. None of the other ones had any in them, so it was okay. The roll at the end, which you can't see in the picture, was a crispy crab roll.

Soup.

Last picture; today for lunch I had, you guessed it, ABP! I can't believe they still have those Christmas cups there. That was like what? 3 months ago now?

I got the green chili soup, which wasn't actually green, but I went to culinary school and I should know that. (I don't know why, but before I opened the lid to the soup heater thing to pour it into the cup, I was seriously hoping it was going to be green. There wouldn't have been any explanation for it, and once I saw it I probably wouldn't have bought it, but sometimes it's nice to dream.) I also got two bread sticks, peach tea, and a chocolate chip cookie. Maybe it's their oven, or maybe it's a careless person, but either way, I give up on pastries from this place.

This is about the fourth or fifth time I've picked up something only to realize it was charred when I go to eat it. No I didn't smash it up and leave the crumbs all over the table like last time, but I did fill the soup up WAY past the fill line. That was a bad quip.

You know there really won't be, but I'm gonna say it anyway; More Tomorrow!

35 GIANT SQUARES OF FOOD!

2010-02-28T15:16:00.003-05:00

Blahhhh. Look how big these pictures are. Constantly trying new things here on +DisCow+, I thought I'd make my utter lack of posting up to you guys by doing a post entirely of huge photography. Especially since the last "Photo Only" post was sub-par. Anyway, enough chatter, let the giant squares of this weekend take over your computer (:

I want to live in a moment of ceaseless decadence, experiencing just for once the drowsy magnificence of infinite splendor

More Tomorrow :)

"People" is a hilarious word when you stop to think about it

2010-02-23T14:04:00.004-05:00

Ehh, I haven't posted anything in more than a week. February has been a generally slow month for me. I would love to explain every mundane detail of my week to all of you, but instead I've chosen not to, mostly(partly[dramatic]) because photobucket takes forever to upload pictures, but partly(mostly) because I just don't feel like it some days. It's not like I'm busy, or like I'm out with friends or something, (I sit at my desk and watch hulu on the weekends), it's just that some days I just don't want to.

Yeah, this is kinda a boring and pointless post, but I promise I will have the new one up tonight about my weekend :D. Photobucket is just really making me angry because I have 57 photos to upload and it keeps taking forever so I just close the window out of frustration.

However I will rise above today, and deliver a great post tonight :)

Side note: Another thing that I do all the time, that makes absolutely no sense at all, is I usually end each post with "More Tomorrow" however I rarely actually post the very next day. I've been meaning to talk about this for a while, but I like it, so I'll continue to do it :)

More Later Tonight (Hopefully)

Frosting ^.^

2010-02-14T18:34:00.006-05:00

Just so you all can know, I'm sitting in a smashed up plastic laundry basket as I type this. I got a snack from downstairs, and on the way back up I saw it sitting in the hallway to my room. Besides that......

I've actually been doing some stuff lately, even though the snow has once again impared me from having a life. OH! Plus I've been sick for the past three days but I'm feeling much better now.

So the other day Franiel and I purchased little "instant flan" packets from the grocery store. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I can't stand flan. I don't dislike it as much as I dislike creme brulee, but it's up there.

Right before we were about to make the instant flan, I guess something snapped in Franiel, because seconds later, he was on the phone with his aunt, asking for her flan recipe. We ended up making it from scratch, so that was nice.

I ate some of it, and it wasn't bad. I know I sound like a stubborn infant, but this flan was more tolerable, although I still don't want to eat it.

I guess this is "Caprese Part I" because I have another tomato and mozzerella item featured later. Before I made the flan, I went to Serpico's for lunch. This was when I started to feel sick, so instead of ordering soup, I got caprese sticks? I don't make much sense sometimes.

...or maybe that's all the time. I guess I started not feeling well on Thursday morning, after it snowed the second time. I went out playing in the snow the night before, so maybe that's it. I also guess it didn't help that the morning after I went out to shovel the driveway. /:

*CANDY PHOTOG*

Pt. 2

Somebodies been candy shopping at H-Mart haha.

I don't know what it is, but recently I've found that I really enjoy taking pictures. No this isn't one of those shocking career change moments, I just like it as a hobby.

A while back I was thinking to myself that I really need a creative outlet. Yeah, I draw, but that's not really an outlet as it's more a talent. I've also mentioned multiple times how much I want a real camera, not just an iPhone or a point and shoot. One of the first things I want to buy when I get a job is an SLR camera :D

Red Hearts Day

(Ignoring the obvious) Since today was Valentine's Day, I thought it would be fun for the children to bake red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. As usual, I ran into a few obstables, but in the end everything was okay.

Do not let these pictures decieve you, they appear bright, vibrant red and the frosting lush and shiny. Okay, the frosting actually looks that good, but the cupcakes are nowhere near as red in real life.

See the thing is, I planned to go to the grocery store yesterday, but I was sick so my mom went instead. I gave her the list of things for the cupcakes over the phone, and then I asked about the food coloring. I remembered that I still had some left over from my sister's cake. I thought it would be enough, but apparantly not. They turned like an "elmo red", almost orangish-pink.

I love the way the frosting looks in this one

So after I finished these, I went to lunch at Bertucci's, after trying to get a table for seven at Olive Garden only to have the man tell me theres a 2 hour wait. That's today's OHN moment.

"No. 82: OHN, I will not wait 2 HOURS to eat at Olive Garden"

Anyway, I called Bertucci's from the parking lot, and the man told me that there was no wait there. Then the traffic happened, as it seemed that ALL of the rejected OG customers rushed over the next italian sit-down restaurant. We did end up getting a table very quickly though.

Uh-oh. Here we go.

"No. 83: OHN, why is this giant chunk of onion just sitting in this salad"

Seriously though, I like onions in my salad, but come on. Who did this? Who put this giant peel of onion right in the middle of the bowl. The edges don't even look like it was cut, just torn off the onion and thrown in.

And no, those arent forks, they are giant serving tongs in size comparison to the onion. If you still don't believe me, just look how small the cherry tomato looks next to it. It's rediculous. No, wait, it's redonkulous.

I actually had a pretty nice thing to say about this picture, and how the oil on the bread catches the light, but now that I'm seeing it on the blog, I realize:

It looks like snot /:

I have forever ruined oil for all of you! Ahahaha!!

I must say, this plate confused me so much. The menu said "crunchy focaccia with cheese and a roasted tomato sauce and crumbled feta". I was confused because the "focaccia" they gave me resembled tortilla visually and texturally, and with the cheese it just seemed like a quesadilla. So let me revise that menu item.

"Quesadillas with Roasted Tomato Salsa"

And of course, I had caprese salad. Light lunch (:

Not too much text this post. More tomorrow sillies :D

Rosie Posie

2010-02-07T17:27:00.004-05:00

So I have a cut on my smallest finger (I hate the word "pinky" in reference to the last finger. I find it repulsive and refuse to use it), and I don't know how it got there. Mystery cuts seem to be occurring often with me as of late, with this new one bringing the total up to three. I think it's been about a week since I posted the Smarties pictures up, and I figured I'd do something new.

I know I said I would stop apologizing for not posting for a short period of time, I just feel like I'm neglecting an infant in a dirty apartment while I go galivanting around the city.

Yeah, everywhere we go everyone knows us, even though I just started speaking to these people. As I go to Pitango and enjoy my mango and rhubarb gelato, my young child enjoys the scent of food down the hall, hoping he'll see a stray raisin on the floor tonight for dinner.

Ugh..... its too late; I've already lost my mind.

kj
I honestly can't use the "job hunt" excuse this time, so I'm gonna go with it snowed friday night until saturday evening. 3 ft of snow! I could barely lift the shovel with all of it on top. Ashley and I went out to shovel this morning, but it was futile. Eventually we flagged down someone driving down the street with a snow plow and he helped us out.

I've been eating a lot of junk food recently. Like an unusual amount of crap. Like this "Dublin Mudslide" Ben & Jerry's Pint I finished in about 10 minutes along with an entire bag of "Goldfish" pretzels, a pineapple fruit cup, and a blackberry Izze drink. Now I'm known around the house for...well....ending up in situations like this:

Person A: "Hey, I just bought that box of fruity pebbles yesterday. I even wrote my name on it. Where did it go?!" "Dominic!"

Person B: "He can't hear you, he's busy eating"

But I don't ever remember eating this much. People seem to think it's just "growing hunger", which brings me to another point. Sometimes I still forget that I'm a sixteen year old. A hah! You thought I was going to go off on another rant! Well I'm not! ANYWAY...

This week I didn't do too many interesting things. I baked a cake, with a frosting idea that I figured that I just had to try, being caused by my family being picky. Okay, so I love the lemon poppy seed combination (in muffins, cookies, etc.) so I figured, why not bake a lemon poppy seed cake. I know it's been done plenty of times in the past, but usually in a bundt pan and with flat icing, which I never understood. "Why can't I bake a cake and assemble it with a normal frosting using these flavors/ingredients?" Just as I was getting excited, my mother reminded me that probably no one in the house would eat a cake with poppy seeds in it. This is the problem I encounter nearly every time I make something: My Picky Family.

So what I decided to do was to put the poppy seeds in the frosting. But then I got another wonderful little message from my mother again. "Dominic, I thought you werent putting those in the cake." "Oh I wasn't, I'm putting them in the frosting *big smile*." "*-.- face*, Please don't put those in there." "Fine."

But I really wanted them incorporated some way into the cake, so I let them soak in the vanilla that I was going to use for the frosting to impart some kind of flavor.

Well, they didn't. Not noticably anyway. I guess the only way to impart poppy seed flavor into a cake (or anything for that matter) is to actually put them in. Someday I'll make lemon poppy seed cupcakes and my family can just avoid them if they don't want to eat them.

This would've made a really nice lemon cake if the frosting was lemon flavored...and a bit thicker. French buttercream was a bad choice for this one; heavy cake smashing down on already fragile icing. I think it was usually thin that day because of my absent minded-ness. The recipe called for 3 oz egg yolks, and instead of measuring egg yolks in a pyrex cup like I should have, I divided 3 oz by .67 oz, which is the weight of one egg yolk. It came out to about 4.4, so I just put 5 egg yolks in figuring I'd just add more butter. But I forgot the extra butter, and now that I think about it, I should've added more sugar syrup too.

So, to finish off the post, today I ventured out into the tundra and went to the grocery store. While I was there, I managed to get this great asiago bread. I haven't had it yet, but tomorrow morning I am so looking forward to the best egg and cheese sandwich ever. Lol more tomorrow (:

Smart Photography

2010-01-31T20:50:00.002-05:00

Not a normal post today, since the (complicated) job hunt continues I haven't had much else to do. So simply enjoy an iPhone camera, a desk lamp, and a packet of Smarties :)

(This post was to emphasize the new focus on the photography of the blog, having already re-done the content [text] and the appearance [banner] for this year)

Cakel and Ligel

2010-01-28T13:59:00.003-05:00

Dye all over my hands. Splatters on my glasses. A paper cut on the top of my thumb. Two cracked ribs and a broken foot. This is the result of yesterday's cake extravaganza (okay except the last two, I just thought the first three weren't quite dramatic enough).

So I actually did something with my day yesterday, as it was my little sisters birthday! So I figured I had to bake her a cake, but what do I make for a picky seven year old? At first I thought a really pretty "princess cake" done with fondant and really nicely decorated. Then I remember the time I ate a piece of fondant in one of my baking classes. Sorry to all the bakeries (and fondant lovers) but excessive fondant tastes like poop. Yeah, I just said the word poop in a food blog.

So instead I decided to do two cakes, the first one a plain vanilla cake with dark chocolate frosting. The second cake I chose to use the princess idea, but instead I used marzipan, because I actually like the taste of it. However, I had no idea whether or not she would like it, so that's why I decided to make two. More on that later.

I really don't know what's wrong with the picture on the left. Not that anything is wrong with it, it's just in real life the frosting looked a lot darker. Besides that, I think it looks great. I was talking to my mother about what kind of cake Madina would like, and she told me that she really enjoyed to lemon cake I earlier this month (never posted). So I basically just took the lemon zest and extract out of the recipe and added two teaspoons more vanilla.

I think it turned out well. I like practically anything made with buttermilk, but cake especially. I also really liked the color contrast between the light cake and the almost black frosting. (Do you like the new photo window thingy? I just thought I'd keep going with what I mentioned last post about keeping things interesting with the pictures.)

So here is the "princess cake" that I made, and let me say it took about 4 hours from start to finish. Why Dominic? Are you seriously that slow?? No people, I had to make the marzipan from scratch. And while that might not take that long to make marzipan, it did that me that long to make almond paste from whole almonds. First I had to blanch them and then make a sugar syrup with water, sugar, karo. I had to peel 11 oz. of whole almonds, rough cut them, then put them in a non-exsistent food processor.

So let me tell all of you what I did next. Last year, my mother broke my first blender, so I got a second one. Yesterday as I go to use it in place of a food processor, I find that the top no longer fits onto the bottom. So what I had to do was hold the top down with one hand, and press the pulse button with another. After I mixed the ground almonds with powdered sugar, I waited until the sugar syrup reached soft ball and then it hit me: I don't have three hands. So I had to go upstairs and ask my grandmother to come help me. She slowly poured in the syrup while I held and turned on the blender. Eventually, this made almond paste and that helped me make marzipan. Anyway, four hours later it was dyed, molded, rolled out, and put onto the cake. (It was the same recipe as the vanilla cake.)

Side note: So before the cake, singing, and presents, we ordered Pizza from Papa John's. While I was eating my favorite pizza (onion and green pepper on flatbread), I noticed there was a strange seasoning packet in the box instead of garlic sauce. I was kinda disappointed that the best part was missing out of the box, but I was curious to see what this "mystery packet" was. 5 minutes later, I discovered it was gross. It tasted like crunchy, peppery old bay, and it reminded me of when I was 11 and I poured tons of "Mrs. Dash" on my noodles.

Blahhhh, I just had to post something because I've been a little non-posty recently. I should have something else up tomorrow, so until then, enjoy the picture of pizza. More tomorrow ._.

Mrs. Bouffant and I Make Fresh Pasta

2010-01-22T17:19:00.005-05:00

Starting with a photo?? And one that's out of chronological order with the rest of them?! *wags hand* Dominic you just keep getting more outrageous as the days go by! Ahhh....I'm losing my mind here. Without school, or any kind of work to keep me occupied, my brain has begun to atrophy. It's been over a month of leasure and I need to do something. I can't let the best part of my day be when someone brings home a different vegetable from the grocery store.

Besides realizing that I am slowly losing my mind, today Alex and I made pasta. This morning he said he wanted to do something with me, and so I asked him to look through a magazine and see what he wanted to make. He brought me a picture of pasta, so I ended up making papardelle with a red sauce. It sounds plain, but usually in this house the only sauce anyone eats is out of a jar, so it was nice to actually make a sauce from start to finish instead of heating or a bottle of prego.

I was going to do a white sauce, but then I remembered that yesterday, we bought some heirloom tomatoes from the store. My grandmother's friend mentioned to me a few months ago that at the farmers market downtown apparently they have some really nice green and red, and even purple and red tomatoes, so that's definitely something I'd like to go do as soon as it stops being ice cold outside. Anyway, above right is the beginning of the sauce which, I know, I should have used concasse(d?) tomatoes for, but it honestly slipped my mind.

So after I cooked the pasta, I added red wine to the sauce, let it reduce, and (the other reason why I made red sauce) I added the remaining stock leftover from the other day. I don't believe I posted it on here, but I made everyone risotto for dinner two days after I baked the apple pie. I didn't have any stock in the house, and Franiel was sick so he couldn't take me to the store, so I had to make it myself. I must say it turned out probably better than if I would've gotten it at Giant. Tangent Over: After it started to boil, I reduced it to a simmer then added the pasta. Everyone (that ate it) really seemed to enjoy it, probably because prego is just ground up tomatoes and onions and doesnt have stock or wine in it.

Someone should really give me a pat on the back or something for how consistent I've been with my posting recently. During the three week break I took from doing +discow+ I was actually thinking of announcing a hiatus while I explored the job market. Obviously that didn't quite work out, and as it seems this blog is the only thing revolving around food I have right now. So I'm sorry if I've been giving four crappy posts a week instead of one great one every few, but I need this so that I don't lose the desire to cook.

This was a very short post, but it's only because I'm leaving to go somewhere in a few minutes so I didn't have very long to type. I've also been working on new picture ideas (like the one above) to keep things interesting so it's not just square after square of mediocre food photography. So..... more tomorrow :)

GOLDEN RASPEBERRIES

2010-01-21T19:26:00.007-05:00

Todayyy, I went to Au Bon Pain for lunch where I haven't been for a while, so I was kinda excited to go. (Sidenote- What is wrong with me?! Is my life so dry and unamusing that the most exciting part of my day is going somewhere to eat? I really need a life....) Anyway, I did enjoy the lunch for the most part, and I have a little bit of good news. As it turns out, it's perfectly legal for me to work in a bakery or pastry shop, and even though it wouldn'tve been my first choice, it's a step forward in me being able to get into a kitchen. I'm working at it, but I really think that I could work at this one kitchen if I really try. On to the food.

So this was my lunch today. A green chile soup, two bread sticks, a milk, and a chocolate muffin. Sounds plain, but it was actually even more plain than it sounds. I have individual (gripes?) with each item here, so I will further explain with each picture. But first, allow me to say the helpless elderly persons prayer to hope for flavorful food.

Dear lord, I thank you for this bland, indifferently prepared meal and beseech
you to ignite some spark of compassion in my cold hearted (insert current
caretaker/relative here), that (he/she) might show some shred of mercy to me,
(his/her) wretched captive, Amen.

Me, being the "overly cautious for stupid things and not cautious enough for important things" person I am, got milk to drink because I thought that the soup was going to be super spicy. Unfortunately, it barely left in tingle in my mouth, although that's not to say it wasn't still good. It's just the quaint little description they gave led me to believe it was going to be hot; it was just a bit of a let down.

This is the chocolate chip muffin I picked off the pastry shelf for lunch. This is a very sad picture of said muffin. And do we know why? Because said muffin was a very sad muffin. It was burned people. I want to say I knew this when I bought it, but I didn't know that it was completley burned. So the woman at the register was staring at me as I reached into the little box to pick one of the muffins up, so when I felt that it was harder than a rock, I couldn't put it back without the whole "you touched it you bought it" argument. So I knowingly bought a burned muffin, and sat down and pretended to be surprised when I bit into it. You aren't fooling anyone Dominic...not even yourself /: So in the end I decided to smash it up like a 4 year old and leave crumbs all over the seat.

The bread sticks were perfectly fine. Absolutely nothing wrong with the bread sticks. They tasted even better when I dipped them into the soup. (WOW! No complaints?!)

Aaaaand this brings us to our final (crappy) picture, a magical fruit that I didn't know existed until today. At the grocery store I found some golden raspberries. The first box I picked up had mold all over them, so I took these home. Sorry about the smooshed one in the corner, I was going for something that obviously didn't quite work out. I just wanted to make a small little note about all the pictures in this post actually; I was surprised that I took such bad pictures in Au Bon Pain today because usually the sun shines right through the window and makes for a great food picture, but I guess today because it was sorta cloudy. Getting a new camera is on my long long list of things to do right now besides getting some new eyeballs. Blurrggghhhh.....More tomorrow!

In the past I've said that obstacles only make things more interesting...

2010-01-20T20:53:00.004-05:00

So today, I came across perhaps the biggest obstacle in my career I've had to deal with yet. I am certain there will be more, bigger ones, much more difficult, but I can't get to any of those until I find a way to fix this. More on that later. Recently, I've been doing a lot of job hunting (related) and I haven't really had a lot of time to just sit back and make food in my house. So when I had the opportunity to make popovers, lasagna, and blueberry muffins these past two days I had to post about it; after all, what's a twist without a main story to alter?

The popovers where a lot simpler than I recall to make; just mix milk, eggs, melted butter, and flour, add some salt, and pour into a greased muffin tin. Ashley and I were going through some of my old pictures from last year, and apparently exactly one year ago yesterday, I baked popovers in my bp150 class (according to the pictures date). Then I remembered that we didn't have anymore flour, and that no one ever wants to take me to the grocery store for anything. So I began to entice the hungry Ashley with stories of how they are almost like a muffin and and omelet combined, mostly to get her to walk with me up the street so I wouldn't be bored, but also so that she could try them. Long story short, we walked to the store and bought flour, milk, and blueberries (more on that later). Fast forward two hours and we have popovers!

*Said with excitement continued from last paragraph* These are not the popovers! These are lasagna noodles, which I needed to start on while they were in the oven because the recipes are at two different temperatures. I decided against putting anything else other than cheese in it for fear that no one in the house would eat it if I added spinach like I wanted to. I also didn't have any herbs to add to the ricotta mixture, so it was just plain. I actually did not take pictures of the lasagna after it had just come out of the oven, but I did take one while it was on the plate....the thing is....I had already taken a large chunk out of it. At +discow+ I have posted enough mildly disgusting photos, so we don't need one more :P

These are the popovers!!...they look wet /: Anyway, we added cheese to half of them (not these), all of which got eaten. They went quickly....like 5 minutes quickly lol. The good news is that they don't take long to make so maybe I'll do it again tomorrow.

This was my lunch today. After my job interview I went to the Starbucks at the bookstore on the Avenue, and I originally intended to only get a drink, but I found three extra dollars in my pocket (pathetic) so I bought a pretzel too! Instead of the feta/spinach pretzel, which seemed dry, I got the pizza stuffed pretzel because I figured the marinara sauce would keep it moist, which it did. That's when I got the phone call about my "problem".

So later on today Ashley and I started another baking session in which we made blueberry muffins for dessert. I reheated the lasagna I made yesterday (which was intended to be eaten today, just incase anyone was wondering) while we measured and mixed for the muffins. Let me say that muffin mix has to be my favorite kind of raw egg using, unbaked, batter between cakes, cookies, and brownies. Especially muffins made with buttermilk (not these lol), because they have that tart with the sweetness thing. Anyway, here they are.

Okay, so onto the part that I'm sure everyone has skipped down to see how dramatic Dominic is being today. My job interview that was supposed to happen tuesday ended up being re scheduled for today. After I sat down and showed him my portfolio, he asked me if I really wanted this job.

I was shocked when he said that I was over qualified for the job (especially since I had never worked in a restaurant before except Ireland). I told him that I still wanted to work there, just to get my foot in the door. During the job interview, my age came up (like I was sure it would), and the man said it absolutely did not make a difference to him or the restaurant. So we did the whole "oh wow, how did you do that" thing that usually happens when people find out my age, and then he said he'd be in contact and I left.

However, while I was eating my pretzel (I had to spit out a piece to answer the phone), he said that he had some unfortunate news. He said that he spoke to someone in the department of labor to make sure I could work there, and they basically told him that I can't. Not just at that place, but pretty much in every kitchen. They said that the slicer and the food processor and things like that were all considered machines, and that they were "too dangerous" for me to handle.

W...T....F...??!?!? I'm not a toddler, I'm not going to put my hand in a robot coupe and turn it on! I'm sure now everyone has their "I told you so Dominic" faces on, but don't write me off that quickly. I will find a way. I will get a job. I have gotten over things in the past and I can do it now. They told me I was too young to take the ACT, but I did. They told me I was too young to graduate high school when I did, but I did. They told me I couldn't afford to go to culinary school but. I. did. Things just wouldn't be interesting if I didn't have something else to deal with. So I will handle this, I don't know how, or what to do, but I will. Dominic will get a job in a kitchen.

Recycle Pie...?

2010-01-15T17:50:00.004-05:00

I'm just going to say that the pie that I baked today wasn't exactly recycled (that'd be disgusting). I'm not quite sure what the word is for it, but there was a 3lb bag of apples in the second refrigerator in the rec room, and I knew no one would ever eat them. So I decided that since I'm not doing anything today, why not bake an apple pie?! I ran into a few problems along the way, but I like to think that obstacles only make things better. GET TO IT!

(Also, really sorry about the picture quality again. I'm trying to get this job, and if everything goes well, I'll have a lot more money. One of the first thing I plan to do is get a real camera so I don't have to take crazy pictures with my iPhone and put them up here :P)

So, these are the apples (why I feel the need to introduce them, I'll never know) and I must say, this picture makes them look very large. However, I will have you know that they were not. These had to be the smallest variety next to crab apples, probably not the best kind for baking a pie out of. The recipe didn't specify what kind of apple, and I had a few large granny smith apples in the fridge, but I didn't think sour apples would be so great in a pie. So I decided just to go ahead and peel, core, and slice 50 (<-dramatic) baby apples for this pie. Frankly, it was a hassle.

Let me tell you all how I had to fight the damn squirrels for my pie pan. I was looking for one of them, under the island in the cabinet where the rest of my bake ware is, and I couldn't find them. So I looked all over, only to be told that someone moved most of my things into a plastic bin in the shed. I hate going in the shed period, but more so in the winter because that's when the squirrels move in. I made sure to bang on the door to let them know I was there, but they still decided to continue their party on the roof. So, I walked over as they scurried away to the bin to get my pie pan, when one jumps inside. So I quickly got the pan, slammed the container shut, and walked out...and now in a week I get the pleasure of fishing a dead rodent out of the bin.

Skipping right through the crust, filling, and topping making, I bring you to a disgusting picture of an unbaked pie. The filling was a cooked one (do they have a recipe for non cooked apple filling?), so I spent a little time on that. Before I made the crust early this morning because I knew it had to retard for at least four hours.425°F and 35 minutes later...

THIS came out of the oven! I was very pleased with they way it came out, mostly because sometimes my oven in crazy and it burns things for no reason. This time I was prepared and reduced the temperature by about 15°F. That way, my pie wouldn't come out looking like a volcano. I would like to try the same recipe again, with a few changes that I've noted, one being less butter in the crumb topping. That with the caramelized sugar reminded me of palmier cookies, my nemesis.

Yeah, this has been a pretty lame post, but I honestly didn't do much else today, and I wanted to put something up because I'm not going to be posting tomorrow. I'm going to be away from my desktop and the little laptop frustrates me to use sometimes, especially typing large paragraphs. Anyway, I better get going, I have a bag to pack.

O.o Wednesday Brunch?

2010-01-13T19:07:00.003-05:00

No. The answer to the question is no, I did not a fancy brunch this morning. I had half of a day old donut, some milk, and the last cashew out of the trail mix bag in the pantry. I had brunch at Roberto's on Sunday morning, and I (for some reason?) waited until now to post about it. Anyway, lets not dally and go straight into it.

When I first sat down with my first plate at the brunch buffet, I wondered to myself, "Why did I get cheese? This is going to be disgusting, just a wedge of cheese like this...". Strangely, it wasn't just a dull cheese like cheddar (not that there is anything wrong with cheddar, I just don't usually like eating large pieces of hard cheeses alone), but it was a very spicy and flavorful Pepper Jack. I tried it alone at first, and then with a piece of strawberry that I put on the plate, not thinking to eat it with the cheese. Well, it was just good. Also notice the slice of onion bread and pineapples slices.

This is a picture of juice. No, I will not be talking about the juice lol, but I would like to use this opportunity to talk about the service at Roberto's. I have to say that they have a really attentive staff here. The moment I got up to get another plate, someone was refolding my napkin, pushing in my chair, taking the old plate away, dusting the table for crumbs, and re-filling the juice and water glasses. Most places don't really have service, and I think that's a shame because these waiters probably get huge tips, and other restaurants could get the same amount of gratuity. Just thought I'd say that.

I really dislike pictures of eggs. Especially omelettes. Especially omelettes with cheese and tomatoes in them. I do, however, like the taste of them, very much. I know that its terrible manners to say mildly disgusting things while we're eating (or looking at pictures of) food, but I have been known to say worse at the table. This omelet looks like a giant sneeze. Yes that is foul, and yes the next time you eat an omelette, you will think about sneezes, but it will pass... or not....

I also noticed that the woman who usually carves the roast beef and makes the waffles hasn't been there the past two times I've gone....perhaps she got fired /: (speaking of which, I didn't get a waffle while I was there...now I want a waffle...)

*said in sarcastic tone* It just wouldn't be a review of Dominic's brunch if dessert wasn't half the meal. Anyway, this time they surprised me at the usually repeated dessert table by replacing all the old items with new ones. They had mini creme brulees (which I hate), mini flans (which I also hate), and they had mini key lime pies (which I like). You can also see here that I got some assorted candies and small cookies. I also got another one of the mystery "sacher cookies" which I have yet to find out why they share the same name as the cake (they taste absolutely nothing alike).

This was probably my favorite part of the meal; warm blueberry compote with crumb topping. It wasn't hot like fresh baked pie filling, but just right like the porridge in that story. (I think she should've gotten eaten. That's what she gets for breaking into a bears house... mhhmmmm... why am I even going off on this tangent?) There isn't really too much else to say here, other than I found more crumb topping in the bottom... so does that make it crust?

And for the final part of the meal, some chocolate covered strawberries. Again, not too much else to say here besides they were pretty good. I actually took a few more off the table on the way out, which Ashley glared at me for... speaking of which I re-did her blog. Now I only have one more banner/title card to do for someone, then I'm donneeee. She also changed the title of her blog, now its (clickable) The Look of Things. But that's about all for this post, btw I never explained why I didn't finish the Miami arc. The reason is that I got some sort of stomach sickness, and as soon as I was over it I got my tattoo on my wrist, which made me no longer able to type because it was right on top of my tendons. More tomorrow ;D

FOOD and FONT

2010-01-12T15:12:00.008-05:00

So yes, it's been exactly three weeks today since I last posted, and certainly a lot has happened. I got a tattoo, I got back from Miami (more on why I stopped posting from there in a bit), and I am now looking for a job! You all might have also noticed that the blog looks a bit different, which is probably surprising as the post directly before this was about how I re-did the blog. Anyway, this change should be a bit more permanent, I just though the other one was a bit too harsh; to explain, I've put together a pictorial I think everyone will find interesting. (Because Photobucket is acting crazy today, and the fact that I'm posting from the slow BIC computer, the pictures a hilariously smaller than usual)
ggg

Who remembers these lol?! This just goes to show how far I've come since first starting this blog a little over a year ago. The one on the left is the second title card that I had for +discow+, this was when it wasn't even a food blog... just sort of a let's document my life for fun kinda thing. The one on the right is the third title card I had, and it was the first card for the "Food Blog". Notice how in both of these pictures I had oodles of hair -.- The one on the right was also the first in color.

The picture on top was the fourth re-do of the title card for the blog; and it was the fist to feature actual food. It has the picture of a salad that I reviewed a little while ago, and another that hasn't been in the blog at all. That's because its my stracciatella gelato that I had on my birthday at GROM. I really want to go back there soon, but something tells me work will prevent me from doing so in the future. Anyway, the one on the bottom is my very first title, again back when this wasn't a food blog. Notice the very crappy and poorly done image. (Ignore the background, its just lorem ipsum)

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So the other day, I was thinking to myself, this blog layout is too harsh (with the giant red sign, and huge pictures) so I thought to myself, "Let's re-do it over again, but this time with something that won't get stale in two months". So I decided to make three different, new titles using modern fonts and color schemes, and decide which one worked best. The two above are the two that didn't quite make it to being in the blog. I really liked the one on the right, but the cut off look and the fact that it only has three words in it don't say much. Plus, I wanted to stray away from my usual colors (black, white, red) so that it wouldn't look like a giant target ad. The one on the left was based around using a dark purple color that a lot of websites are changing too. I ultimately decided against it because it looked too much like a home & garden magazine cover.

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These two are the final cards, the one on the left being the one used now. I also changed the color scheme to match the black and yellow "theme". I also like how the discow, my often used nickname for the site, is yellow; I've also replaced the + signs with lightning bolts. The one on the right was the one used right before the current card, and it's mainly not up anymore because of how generic it looks. It certainly was modern, but perhaps a bit too modern. More tomorrow :D

Taking Pictures of Strangers

2009-12-22T12:38:00.002-05:00

It's what I've been doing recently; its great fun. I have a stranger as the background for my phone. :D Also have you noticed something else? I re-did the blog! This is the third change this year, but I honestly think it was time to change it a bit; as in turning this from a joke to a serious blog.... not one with a picture of the pig tails afghan lol. Okay, so I should warn you now that since this is now a serious blog, all entries before June should be ignored.

That being said, you all should know when I promise a double post for one day, that's probably not going to happen. So I am going to wait until later and do the review for both yesterday and today's food. It will give me something to do later tonight after I get back from Lincoln. But for the most part I'm enjoying Miami and I will be back home Saturday night. I am really glad I brought this computer with me so I don't have to procrastinate doing a vacation post. Anyway; let me save some text for later. More in a few hours :P

(Insert Clever Title Here): Day 2 in Miami

2009-12-21T14:45:00.007-05:00

So, readers, you're probably wondering how I'm posting from Miami. Well, in the basement, I seemed to have forgotten that there was a brand new Acer netbook, full of memory and ram! It goes just as fast as my desktop, so its nice to use. It's also even more convenient because it has the 3g card built in; I am typing and posting this (with pictures ;D) from the truck. Anyway; into the post:

So, it snowed in Maryland a few days ago. ALOT. So I, naturally, was concerned about the status of my flight yesterday afternoon. I was honestly expecting the plane to be delayed until today, but it was only by 45 minutes. Then the plane took forever to take off, but oter than that it was fine. Usually I have the opportunity to take a picture of the food on the plane, but since it was only a two hour ride, I didntthink any of you wanted to see a picture of ginger ale and an oatmeal raisin cookie. However before I got on the plane I did have lunch.

First for lunch was Cheddar and Broccoli soup; something that I thought I was going to regret ordering (once I found out that chili was available), but surprisingly didnt. The initial smell was off putting, as it reminded me of the samekind of soup from the Safeway salad bar, but I got over it and I really enjoyed it. I guess theres just sometingabout not eatingall day that makes everything taste so much better.

To finish the small lunch, I got a sugar cookie and cream soda. What I didnt quite understand was, why do they check me for sharp objects on the way in, but then sell me a soda in a glass bottle. Not saying that I would do anything with it (I threw it in the Wendy's trash can), but someone could. Anyway, the cookie I didnt actually eat until I was actually on the plane. I was really hard and crunchy around the rim, and almost under baked in the middle. STOP COMPLAINING DOMINIC! IT'S A COOKIE!

That night, after we had arrived, I went to La Carreta for food (dinner?). I ordered fried yuca, which tastes almost identical to french fries, but didnt have that disgusting, greasy after taste. They were served with some kind of spicy pesto mayonaise, which only made it better :D Anyway, Monday isnt over yet, so I'll be on later to do my post for todays food.

HD cameras ruin everything

2009-12-18T22:43:00.005-05:00

I'm incredibly bored today. Plus it's Friday night and what am I doing? Blogging. I actually have a decent excuse for being a shut in tonight; I'm broke! And since I dont have a car or a license, I can go nowhere without money. So now, I'm going to make all of you sit in my puddle of boredom with me. I'm going to explain to you my incredibly mundane Friday.

So I woke up this morning around 7:10 or so, even though I didn't have any kind of class or school to go to. (I dont think I mentioned this before but IM FINISHED CULINARY SCHOOL! More on that tomrrow though, I dont feel like typing all that right now) I wasnt really tired, so I went downstairs and ate some honeycombs cereal plain, because we only have chocolate milk and that'd be gross. After I ate, Madina came downstairs and I went to drop her off this morning. Upon returning home, I listened to music and played farmville for half an hour. Then I watched various ABC re-runs on iTunes. A few hours later I went ahead and emptied the dishwasher, then I cleaned my bathroom up a bit. Then I got dressed for the day etc. I continued watching shows until around 4:30, when I took Ava to the dog hotel to stay for the week while we're gone. Then I came back home and had random small talk with cat ball for about an hour. Then I read my "Fat Duck" book for a while, then I made dinner (farfali and white sauce). And now I'm here, eating a brownie, trying not to get crumbs on my keyboard. Lets hope tomorrow is a more eventful day.

This unexpected picture is of a pumpkin I carved two months ago in Garde Manger class. Just thought I'd finally post it because I mentioned it here. More tomorrow.

(Let me explain the title; Today, while watching one of my shows, I saw chipped paint on a house that I used to think was perfect. Random, I know, but I just cant help but think now that thier entire house is covered with chipped paint /: )

"And would you like that toasted?" ...seriously?

2009-12-16T14:52:00.005-05:00

WRITTEN YESTERDAY

(Lazy blogger is very sorry)

Yes readers, my lunch today was from Subway. Usually I leave feeling this odd feeling that something isn't right, as though something has gone unsaid by my big mouth. However when I ordered my sub today, it finally hit me like a man on Muary when he finds out that he, is not the daddy (or the wife when the lie detector test determines that was a lie); they always ask me if I would like my sub toasted. Every other time I usually just let it go, but not this time... why would I possibly want something with copious amounts of lettuce on it, toasted? This is what I do not understand. If subway just wants to serve people big logs of sogginess (probably not a word), then why don't they just combine the sub, drink, and cookies into one "meal brick" for $7.99. Especially if the sub has other things on it, then the bread gets all soggy from the hot tomatoes evaporating, the aforementioned lettuce is wilted, and if there is mayonnaise, its probably broken. I actually heard that mayonnaise in the oven or microwave is toxic, but apparently not /:

Anyway now that that's over, as few things. As you may have noticed last blog (which you probably didn't), the size of the pictures are changing. I'm trying to find a permanent file uploading site besides blogger -because it makes the pictures too small- as well as fix up the blog for the new year. (<-- Today will be posted with Blogger+Photobucket) Perhaps the title card will be a bit more sophisticated than me holding up the pig tails scarf. I do know what my new years resolution is going to be: post more.... or at least once or twice a week. Next year some pretty big things are happening and I just want to get all of them down. Speaking of big things, I'm going to Miami in what... four days? Yeah, so I'll be sure to eat oodles of very interesting things and come home and post. So that means no postings from 20-26.

***GORE....Y MARZIPAN FIGURE AHEAD***

This travesty is my master piece, I've named it "the exorcism". Recently there was a gingerbread competition at the CAC, and a couple days I ended up staying late to help with the decorations. On the last day, I got very, very bored and took one of the figures in progress and turned him into what he is today. Dry your eyes and testify. OH! Sidebar: after the competition was over, someone informed me that someone made a comment about my edible figures; they said they looked like sex offenders!!!!!!!! Apparantly because of the way they were placed, it appeared as though two of the men where standing by the tree under a tree house trying to kidnap the child!!!

So last wednesday I ate dinner at Ra, a sushi place in Harbor East. (Speaking of which, that whole area over there by Fells Point is quickly becoming my favorite part of Baltimore) Please Excuse My Dear Iphone Camera... its the new pemdas which explains incredibly crappy photos. (actually, when said out loud, its kinda quite lude, but honeslty how many times am I vulgar? I get a pass on this one)

Atleast in Miami it's sunny, so I should be able to take decent pictures there. Anyway, while I was there I ordered the spicy tuna (right) and the tootsy maki roll (left) which was my favorite. Consisting of crab, shrimp, and cucumber and rolled in not just seasme seeds, but there was some crunchy green stuff on the outside of the roll which was really good, because with all the mushy textures it was nice to have that. I also had the vegas roll, but honestly it was too dark and I was very hungry so I did not take a picture of that /:

Incredibly random paragraph: I really, really like the color of fresh chopped rosemary. Recently everytime I get out fresh rosemary to use in something, halfway through chopping I take a moment and say, "Wow, thats an amazing group of colors". Rosemary does not play around through the brown shade like other plants do, it goes from a vibrant, strong green to pale white to surprising black. No in between. So I decided the other day to take a picture, just because. Sorry for the poor quality. Pemdic?.....yeah thats not such a good idea to make that a regular thing lol. More tomorrow.

+.+ there are too many popsicle sticks in my desk drawer

2009-12-05T08:36:00.009-05:00

Well hello everyone. It's been about a week since I've posted I think, and honestly I'm okay with that. Sometimes I'll post three, four times a week and sometimes I'll post every couple weeks. I think I make too big a deal about "getting back on track" and whatnot, so now I've decided to take a more relaxed attitude about it. So now I'm posting for the first time in December, which is good I guess /: ?? Either way, lets get right into it! (Btw, all of you would probably think I'd have some big thanksgiving post, but no. I'm not going to get into that right now [80/20], just know that I only have one topic for the holiday).

So, before I actually ate "Thanksgiving Dinner", there were a few things put out as snacks until the main meal was finished cooking. All of the food, fruit platter, fruit and cheese platter, Chex mix, etc., was all very nice, except for one thing: the whole nuts bowl. I wanted to DIE! I have never been able to use a nutcracker, and now I still cant. That's just grand, because I really wanted some almonds but those were the only ones! So I tried, and tried; I must have gone through 10-12 nuts until I just gave up. Above is the remains of all my failed attempts -.-

Anyway, the next morning, I went "Black Friday" shopping....and not for Christmas gift either. I wanted stuff for myself, so I bought a new comforter and sheets for my bed, and I also got some new stuff from express. On my way back home, I stopped at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. I normally dislike fast food breakfast (McDonald's, Burger King, etc.) but I really like DD breakfasts. While I did not get any actual doughnuts, I did get an egg and cheese on a croissant, a strawberry cream cheese egg bagel, a hot chocolate, and hash browns. I always over eat at breakfast time, examples: here, here :P

On Sunday, I ended up going to Delaware, again, but this time was a bit more interesting, with all the Christmas decorations, me not getting put out of the casino like usual, and the fact that I actually ate real food while I was there besides stale pretzels!

I have this problem, and I think the cause of it is that I see something I really want to eat, and I just go ahead an buy a regular sized portion. But then I think "What if I want more?! What if one just isn't enough!??", so I buy the largest size they have, and then I only take three bites before I realize "I don't want this anymore". That's kinda what happened here. The caramel apple crumble gelato at the casino cafe was really good at first, but after about five minutes, not so much. The caramel started to taste like butter to me, and I kept thinking that the apple chunks had fallen on the floor; all things that led up to me throwing it in the garbage mere seconds later.

There was also a Godiva there, so I went ahead and bought some chocolate. I wish I had waited before I ate four pieces to take the picture, but you get a pretty good idea of what I was eating here.

Okay, so let me tell you all about the foulness that is the holiday brick thingy. I couldn't remember the actual name, but I wanted to vomit after I had eaten it. It tastes like a reindeer ate potpourri egg nog, and Christmas lights, and spit out this. It was just so nasty, please don't buy it.

Ashley got a paper funnel filled with chocolate strawberries, but I couldn't eat any because they were milk chocolate, and I despise milk chocolate. Plus, she found one with a strawberry that looked like boobs o.O

And this takes us to our final picture, "The Boss" pizza at a restaurant of which I was too careless to remember the name. I would have loved to tell you that it was a delicious white pizza topped with roasted tomatoes, olives, feta cheese, and basil, with a great picture to accompany it. Unfortunately, I cant because I don't have a real camera. I am tired of the iPhone camera, only because there is no flash, and a lot of restaurants have dim lighting; which means I either have to take the food outside to take a decent picture of it, or I have to take on like this. DIM. I need a real camera, particularly one with macro settings. That is why I'm getting a job next month once I'm done with this school. -.-
More tomorrow :D

Green Eggs and....Lamb?

2009-11-25T20:52:00.005-05:00

Written Two Days Ago

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I'm laughing right now ^.^ I amuse myself everyday! This is why I need a real camera; something I've been saying since I started this blog nearly a year ago. Yes, I'm supposed to get Franiel's Nikon, EVENTUALLY, but I kinda don't want it anymore. It's kind of a big hassle because I'm going to have to find all the necessary parts for it, and I'd honestly much rather buy myself a new camera in a month when I have my job and everything. Anyway, I'm sure your all tired of hearing me rant endlessly, so let's get into what I've accomplished today :P

The picture above is of the pieces of meat derived from a leg of lamb that I cut apart today. I had never actually fabricated meat before, well not this large a piece, so it was interesting to learn about where the joint can be cut, and the pieces of meat that come from a leg. The green comes from the pesto rub I made for them: basil, Parmesan cheese, garlic, a little olive oil, and some salt. After the picture was taken, I tied them up with butchers twine and left them in a hotel pan in the fridge for tomorrow. I wonder what method I'll use to cook them; probably braising because the lamb shank is in there with the other pieces.

Another thing I'd like to talk about is whether or not I'm a competent TA. (The second day I didn't know how to use the can opener, but that's not what I'm talking about :P) I'm talking about today when after lab chef pulled me aside before I left and basically told me I'm not aggressive enough in the kitchen. I agree....sort of. While I may be a little soft spoken, and I don't yell across the kitchen everyday, I don't think I'm so quiet that it's become something I need to work on. The part that I do understand is what he said about confidence in the kitchen; he told me that it seems as though I'm not confident enough in the kitchen, and apparently that's something that is obvious. I even see it, but it's not lack of confidence, it's two things in particular.

Number one, I don't want to be one of those people who acts like their food is so amazing, and then people see and eat it, and it's crap. Number two, sometimes I have absolutely no clue what I'm supposed to be doing. Like today for example; all I was told when I got the lamb was remove the fat, remove the shank, and then follow the lines of fat through the meat with my knife until only the bone was left. On several occasions I had no idea what to do next, so I just cut where I thought the fat continued. Oh well, maybe I'll have a better day tomorrow. Speaking of which, I'm so looking forward to thanksgiving break, not just because of the holiday and all the food and what not, but because I don't have to get up before dawn to go to school.

END

Two days ago, I was a much happier person. Two days ago, I wasn't ready to bash someones head in. Two days ago I wasn't looking forward to going back to school so I could be distracted from all this. But I have risen above. I refuse to talk about my personal problems over the Internet. This is a food blog, and I think sometimes I blur that line a bit too often. Anyway, on to better things :)

This is the only noteworthy thing I've done (eaten) today besides cleaning my room. It is a banana chocolate chip loaf from Starbucks. I think I've eaten this about four or five other times, and planned to blog about it on each occasion, but never got around to it. Actually, if you all could see the pictures folder on my computer, everyone would realize that on the days I don't post, I fully intend to. I take pictures of literally everything I eat, but sometimes I just don't have the time (or energy) to post them. Anyway, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and while I personally don't have anything special planned, I'm sure there will be plenty of food to talk about. That is if there is a Thanksgiving at my house (80/20 rule people). More tomorrow; this could get interesting... ALSO! I've started a new blog just for my surveys, sooo..here it is!

I Really Don't Like Sunsets

2009-11-22T20:25:00.007-05:00

I can imagine how those text only articles were starting to piss people off, so that's over with. These past couple days I've been building up on photos so I actually have something to blog about. Everyone has bothered me in some way or another, Alex won't leave me alone long enough to think, the woman behind the pizza counter looks like a skinnier "Ugly Betty" apparently, my legs are made of plastic, and I've only been home for a week. A few things have happened this week and after this entry, everyone will know all about my new amazing chicken skill :D (Side note: I honestly don't like sunsets. I find them beautiful, but only slightly, and not the kind of beautiful that you'd want to look at. I suppose I like the idea of a sunset much more than the sunset itself, mostly because they orange lighting is really irritating. I wish the sky could just jump from light to dark. Surprisingly, I enjoy watching sunrises; that is if I'm up.) Anyway; It's time for pictures.

Just a random photo. I always walk past this place and I really want to go in to see what's inside, but the only reason I'm ever near it is because I'm going to some other place I need to be. Eventually Miss Shirley's Place, eventually.

Anyway, after walking past the other place, I went to Panera for breakfast on Monday. Speaking of that day, it was also my first day of being a TA, and I did absolutely nothing for the 2 hours I was there. But that was expected; the first day of lab is just hand out the syllabus and go.

My breakfast: A chocolate chip bagel with raspberry cream cheese. I did like this, but I didn't ask the man to toast it first off, and then he burned it on the bottom a little, and then he didn't bother to make a new one, and just stuck it in the bag. Also, the raspberry cream cheese has seeds in it, so be careful not to choke O.o

Later that day I was in a convenience store and I saw that Orbit had a new flavor, Pina Colada. While I am very aware that gum is not food-even though I swallow it- I felt as though I had to talk about this for two reasons. Number one, I love gum. I want gum like people in the desert want water. Number two is the scent and taste. If anyone knows what bed head hair products are, then they probably know about "Dumb Blonde" reconstructor. This gum smells just like it! And to be honest, the whole time I was using it (pre-hair melt) I really wanted to see what it tastes like. And now I know!

Speaking of which, I am significantly less bald (yay!)

So, yes this picture looks disgusting, as I mentioned earlier, I'm a TA. So Friday I was allowed to practice different things around the kitchen, the main one that day being chickens. Instead of just breaking down the chickens the normal 8-way method, I was taught how to debone a chicken completely without cutting all the way through; thus creating a chicken that, when cooked, could be sliced anywhere and eaten without worrying about those pesky bones. (<-- I sound like an infomerical.)

This picture looks even worse. Let me explain before all of you vomit; these are the three chickens that I deboned earlier, rubbed with a spice rub, and stuffed with a force meat mousse of chicken breast (eggs, chicken, basil, panko, s&p). Then, I wrapped them in caul fat to help the bird hold its shape in the oven, instead of butchers twine, so that they don't look like the saggy mess seen above.

Here are the chickens after about 60-70 minutes in the oven. I kept checking the internal temperature with my thermometer, and it kept coming out 120F. Chicken is supposed to be 165F, but since there was a mousse inside I thought I'd let it go to about 170F. Apparently my thermometer is broken, because I used a different one and it was at 168F.

You all might think the fact that I used caul fat is disgusting, but it actually worked a lot better than twine would have because it formed sort of a skin, soft enough to glide a fork through, but strong enough to retain so much of the chickens juices. I sliced one open after they had cooled down a bit, and the juice came flowing out. This was a good thing though, as the bird was incredibly moist.

Random odd little side note: I was eating a lunchables pizza the other day (yes I eat those and they are delicious), and I noticed that there were four little pizza discs instead of three. I didn't know whether to be excited or upset; I got an extra pizza, but now I had to put less sauce and cheese on each, thus causing more of a problem than good.

So anyway, to tie off this post, I just wanted to end by saying that I am starting a second blog, just for my surveys, just to have a separate place to put them besides a crumbling website. But really besides that, that's about it. Tomorrow I'm going to do another "RecipeTorial" for the Raspberry Cream Cheese Brownies I made a few days ago. Until then, MORE TOMORROW.

IRELAND : DONE

2009-11-14T16:57:00.001-05:00

So I'm typing this from the plane, which lands in New York in about 45 minutes. This isn't the longest flight I've ever been on, as the nine hour flight from California to Baltimore nearly 8 years ago was much longer. However it feels like I've been on this plane forever. Me, being absent minded, completley forgot to take a picture of the meal we were served, of which I only ate potatoes, spinach, red sauce, cookies, and a roll. All of that aside, the reality has finally set in; I just spent the 5 weeks on the other side of the planet. It was the longest amount of time I had been away from home, and I honestly thought it was going to be difficult not being with my family. As cold as this sounds, for the most part it wasn't. Yes, I did shed a tear or two sometime in the third week when I watched a video of Madlex being caned by Franiel on a merry-go-round, but until last night I want really all that pressed to return home. It wasn't the place I missed, it
was the people. And the food! How I miss pizza with actual tomato sauce on it, rather than cheesy bread with taco sauce inside. Im excited to return to my life. I like my life, and while I rarely went out at night, I think I've lived enough for the next couple years.

Side note: I've gotten off track but THIS situation is understandable. I'll be back to regular blogging tomorrow. :)

Strictly Text.

2009-10-30T15:19:00.003-04:00

Okay. So there will be no pictures this blog. Who's fault is that? No particular person to blame, but there hasn't been any Internet here at the hotel in Ireland for a week now. Today is the first day that it has come back on. Can you imagine my excitement? But then can you imagine my dismay when I realized that I hadn't updated in over a week, and the blog was supposed to suffice as my journal I'm supposed to be keeping while I'm here. So now, I'm thrown off two weeks of my journal, and it needed to be 10 pages long. Upsetttinnngggggg.........

But anyway, because of this no Internet debacle, I am not posting any pictures in this blog entry. And I always have pictures. But really, with this slow, broken computer, slow Internet connection, and the fact that the letter "l" doesn't work and the fact that I have to copy and paste it into the text entry box all would make for an incredibly upsetting blogger experience. So this is what I am going to do; I've decided to wait until I got home to do a "Everything You Missed in Ireland Post Spectacular". I will continue to post each day while I'm here (two more weeks), and all the mundane details of my day will appear here. The things that I didn't post from this past week and a half will go up after I'm home, when my computer doesn't shut down for uploading more than four pictures. I'll start with today:

This morning I accidentally woke up late and had no time to shower as I rushed out of the cottage door. I surprisingly wasn't late for work, and we picked up more leaves from around the flower bed. Then we went with Nolene, the head of gardening at the hotel, to Pergola Nurseries to buy more tulip bulbs. While I was there, I took so many amazing pictures of flowers I didn't even know existed. They were quite nice; they will appear in the EYMIPS. Then we returned to the gardening shed at the hotel only to find that it was raining, and we could not plant the bulbs. Me, and unnamed student who also had gardening thus were allowed to return home from work as gardeners get off when it rains. Then I went back to my cottage where I used the Internet for a few hours, and later on I went into town and got chocolate muffins from Super Valu Mart; my new favorite place in the world! Then I used the Internet a bit more, and now I'm typing this; more tomorrow, with pictures ;D

Typing without the damn letter l

2009-10-19T11:42:00.006-04:00

So yesterday was my last day of working in the hot foods kitchen. I guess I waited a bit too long to discuss this, but I'm going to do it now before I put it off any more days. I guess it was a good expirience overall; seeing as how i had never worked in an actual kitchen before, this was a step up from labs. In labs, it's okay to take your time and mosey around the kitchen a bit while working on something. In the kitchen here, it's either really busy or really slow. There didn't seem to be any in between. These past couple days I was either being shouted at for making club sandwhiches wrong or standing around waiting for a dirty dish to come in so I could clean it. It was also different from the 5 hour lab, usually only 3 1/2 hours of which are actually used for cooking; the 8 hour shift was diffiicult at first, but by the second day I was used to it. If there is anything I got out of all this, it's that I can now make amazing chicken picatta. It seemed to be the only thing I made besides fried Brie, and the first time I did it I made a sauce out of white wine vinegar instead of the actual wine. I got yelled at for that.

The making of Chicken Picatta, a recipe burned into my skull by the chefs at the Virginia Park Hotel. I will share it with all of you eventually, just give me a minute to have it stop coming out of my ears.

I might talk more about the cooking job later on in my trip, but as of right now I really don't feel like it because it was just yesterday that I stopped. Next week I work as a server in the mornings, so that should be fun.

Okay, this sounds super pathetic and petty, but it's so something I'd do (and I did): when I first recieved my schedule, I saw that I didn't have anything but cooking and labor. So I complained about it to the staff here only because I brought an all black outfit and I wanted to wear it. I know, completley unesscary but I did it anyway; besides, I was told that everyone had to have a shift in each division of the hotel while here. Mehh. I'll upload more tonight after I eat something.

My new favorite activity, dishwashing lehh.

They have blue sprite here lol.

More later guyss :DD ( Read Sam's Ireland Blog Here)

Welcome to Dublin

2009-10-17T08:56:00.003-04:00

No, I haven't posted in a while. Yes I've fallen off the wagon, again, for the thousandth time. But it doesn't matter because I made it to Ireland! I got here Sunday and I decided that I should wait until I've had a few days of actual kitchen work complete because for the first three days of being here, it was nothing but orientation and meetings. After working in an actual kitchen for two days I can now say that this is the field I want to be in.

Last night I was tired and cold, I missed my family, and I had remnants of the five chicken piccattas i made splattered on my shoe, and I'm amazed that I don't care but it only makes sense not to. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, and instead of moping around and being upset that I'm away for so long, I'm going to enjoy myself (sure dominic, you say that now; wait until week 4 -.-). So as you all can see, i'm going to continue blogging while I'm here, but it might take a while longer that usual as on the laptop I've brought with me the letter "L" doesn't work. So all my blog entries will be typed from my iPhone and photos will be added from the computer. I don't usually have this much text in a typical entry, but I think it's good; BRANCH OUT!

So I've also noticed a few (petty) interesting differences between here and America. I'm going to list them:

1. The butter is SUPER yellow. Like rediculously vibrant in color.

2. They don't sell 20oz sodas regularly. I only see giant bottles in the grocery store.

3. The grocery carts in all the stores are all free wheeled, so they spin in every direction! You all have no idea how excited i was in the grocery store today when I found out you could spin the cart!!!

4. It is very difficult to find salt. When I went to the store this morning with Sam, I only saw two bottles of salt in the entire building.

5. I completly forgot the people drive on the wrong side of the road. Actually it's the "right" side (get it?!), but it makes crossing the street quite bothersome.

6. The people here are either super super polite or they're really rude. As far as I can tell there is no gray area. I'd say 85% - 90% of all the people here fall into the polite category, but it seems as though no matter where you go you'll always encounter that one person who slams into and keeps walking.

If I notice any other differences I will be sure to post them in tomorrows entry for sure. That entry will have pictures and will go over exactly where I'm staying, what my room looks like, and most importantly food. Unfortunatley we ran out of cereal so i had to go to the store today, and then I cleaned my cabin and my bedroom and stuff, so I didn't really have time to upload photos today. I can't really do it now because I have to be at work in an hour, and I'm amazed that I even had time to type this. More tomorrow, because it's 2 o'clock Ireland time right now :)

Goodbye

2009-10-11T10:58:00.001-04:00

I have too many things to blog about. I could go on about my new found affinity for fruit carving, I could talk about how well the grand buffet project went. I could even talk about the amazing dinner I had at Bertucci's last night. But I'm not going to. I'm on my way to the airport right now; I'm leaving to stay in Ireland for five weeks. I will continue to blog; my posts will probably be 50 times more amazing because I'll be doing exciting things there. My next post will be up Monday night Ireland time...so that's like afternoon here. Goodbye :)

Sloppy Babies

2009-10-03T13:48:00.005-04:00

I never plan these. I swear I always think I'm going to get up the next morning and blog all about the amazing food I ate yesterday. Then it occurs to me; I had Domino's pizza last night....and the night before last....the day before that I had ramen noodles...and before you know it, it's the weekend again and I've blogged about nothing. So today, I've decided to do something that I've never done, but probably already should have. Side note- remember how about a month ago I thought it would be a great idea to bleach my hair? Well the day before I did all that, I baked Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies. Yes, yes they got a small mention here, but I say those cookies deserve more recognition. So today, I'm doing my first ever "RecipeTorial"! Here we go!

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RecipeTorial - Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies

Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookies
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup butter, unsalted
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
4 tsp lemon zest + 1/2 tsp extra for topping
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1 Tbsp poppy seeds + extra for topping

Step #1: Gather your ingredients! Yes, yes, dull lighting I know; pay attention to the cookies, I'm trying to get a real camera soon. Anyway, preheat your oven to 350F. Get your ingredients ready, along with a saucepan and two mixing bowls.

Egg. Focus on the egg lol.

Step #2: Pour the lemon juice into the saucepan. Turn it on. There really isn't much else to this step; since I forgot to take a picture of the dough; the next picture will have the description of that. So below, I've added half of the butter to the simmering lemon juice.

Step #3: Add the rest of the butter and the sugar together; mix until pale an creamy. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. We'll use this later.

Step #4: Once the butter melts in the simmering lemon juice, add it to the remaining butter and sugar. Stir with a rubber spatula as you pour it in, making sure to get everything off the sides of the bowl. *Tip- Try not to take pictures with your phone during this process; you could burn yourself like I did ;D

Step #5: Once butter/lemon mixture had been added to the butter/sugar mixture, whisk until a pale, off white color is achieved. Mix in one egg (seen above lol), stir, and add in the lemon zest, poppy seeds, and vanilla. *Tip- Instead of leaving the poppy seeds and vanilla separate, I decided to let the seeds soak in the amount of vanilla to let them impart their flavor into the cookies as opposed to just being a decoration.

Step #6: After step five is complete, gradually stir in flour, baking powder, and salt mixture with rubber spatula until the dough forms into a ball. I decided not to use my kitchen aid for this one (no idea why though), so a bit of elbow grease is needed here.

Step #7: Once the dough is mixed, make cookies out of one tablespoon measurements, topping them with sugar, zest, and more poppy seeds. Flatten the cookies with the bottom of a glass, not your hand, so that the toppings don't come off.

Step #8: Bake for 10-12 minutes, until a light, golden color shows on the cookie. As it seems, these cookies don't really grow much in size while in the oven; I'm guessing it's because they are more on the dry side when the dough is fully mixed; maybe next time I'll add a bit more lemon juice and perhaps 1-2oz more of butter to make them more malleable. Still, delicious.

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Longest. Post. Ever!

2009-09-27T16:59:00.010-04:00

I'm starting to feel like this is a real blog, mostly because I've been doing rather large posts recently (well for me anyway). Besides that, I kinda just realized today that I leave for Ireland in 13 days.....nervous..... Anyway, let me catch you all up on my last week or so. It seems as though whenever I'm upset for some reason (my hair falling out, my schedule getting messed up, etc.) I don't post. And then the pictures build up and then I have 5 folders of photos accumulated throughout the week, and then they just become clutter on my desktop and I never used them; not this time. I am doing this post TODAY even though 30% of the stuff in it happened over a week ago. Okay, here we go!

Friday 9/18

Last Friday, I went to a casino in Dover. Instead of just walking around the floor, I managed to find a little food place (not the most comfortable seating but ehh). Now it may look like there are plenty of wonderful things to eat, but that's not necessarily true. Besides the gelato and pretzels, there wasn't much to eat up at the register; none of the breads in the picture were for sale. Speaking of which, why is there a bakery in the middle of a casino? Since when do people say "Yeah, after all this gambling I'd sure like a muffin and fresh baked baguette"?

After a bit of scampering around the hotel part of the building, I managed to find a decent seating area, accompanied by the world most comfortable couch. Nothing food related here; at all.

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Friday 9/25

When I first showed this picture to Ashley, she had a confused look on her face. I told her I made pancakes, and she asked what that nasty cakey, chocolate looking stuff was on top. Then I told her it was made of salt dough! That stuff was alot of fun to work with, and time just flew because by the time I was done it was 11:00. So now I know if I ever need to kill time, make salt dough :D

Later on that day, Franiel thought it would be important for me to learn how to cook "cuban beans". I personally think its because he wants me to cook for him more often -.- either way, the recipe was shockingly simple: half an onion, quartered, the actual beans, olive oil, cilantro paste (which, I checked the label, didn't actually have any cilantro in it), half a green pepper, half a red pepper, and a packet of Goya seasoning.

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Same Night

When I got to Trump Plaza, it was around 12:30, and I was kinda hungry. So I did what any food blogger in this situation would do; order room service! Okay, so I'm going to say this before I begin, this omelet wasn't nearly as gross as it looks. I was kinda shocked too when I saw the mound of cheese on top, but once I took it off it actually tasted good. It was accompanied by hash browns and three pieces of fruit.

As of now, I am officially blaming the crappy lighting for how this food looks. Maybe it's a problem with my camera, but the Apple Pie I ordered did not look anywhere near this gross. Once the woman brought it up, she mentioned that I should've gotten ice cream with it too. And that's how my nice before bed snack turned into constantly thinking about ice cream.

The next morning, yes those are frosted flakes, I ordered breakfast. I really like Frosted Flakes, so I kinda had to order them. I was a little surprised that only one box comes in a order costing $3, but they were still good.

Along with the cereal I got a bowl of mixed fruit, which I thought was going to be berries but ended up being melons. Because the bowl was melon, I encountered a common problem of mine; eating honeydew. I rarely like to eat it, and not because its bad, but because whenever I eat it, I am always served the hard, unripened portion of the fruit. That's the gross part, and that's what happened here.

To complete the meal (Yes, "Fatty's Breakfast" continues), I ordered French Toast. I only managed to finish half because of the other food I had eaten plus two glasses of Orange Juice. They were pretty good, just they never seem to bring enough syrup for me /:

Later on in the day, I went over to the mall. Among lots of stores I went in, I only managed to take a picture in "It's Sugar". Of course, me being me, I never took pictures of the candy I bought; it was all gone by the time I got back to my room O.O

(This is my favorite photo of all of the ones in this post) After all the buying and walking, I ended up going out the this little outdoor area where you could stare out into the ocean. I brought a soft pretzel with me, and the damn birds wouldn't leave me alone long enough to enjoy it! So I think to myself, maybe if I throw them a small piece in the other direction, they'll leave. Nope. Even more birds swooped down and crowded by me. This made me think of Bridgid because she would have been terrified if this was her lol!

Later that night, we all went to dinner at Cuba Libre. Here is my problem with this restaurant; dim lighting. Its bright enough so you can see your food clearly, and the people themselves, but you cannot take pictures with an iPhone camera (with no flash!!) This is why I need a real camera.

*sigh* the things I do for this blog. When I first learned that my phone couldn't take pictures in here, I needed to find a way to show something. So I scooted a portion of the salad near the candle and managed to take an awful photo.

Mango Ice cream. ALSO! I noticed something about the bread (which they served with mango butter). It wasn't quite recognizable at first, but after about three pieces of bread, I felt somewhat sickened. I wondered what they did to the bread to make it taste like this, and then I remembered that Palmier cookies taste like this. The slightly sickening taste of cooked butter; puff pastry.

Fast forward through me getting put out of the casino, again, to the next morning when I had brunch at Roberto's. I thought they had such a nice table setting, so I decided to take a picture :D

First Plate: Two croissants, mozzarella and tomatoes, and pineapple and cantaloupe slices. All cold food, all very good. No complaints here (I hear people cheering lol).

Second Plate: Waffles with mixed berries. They even had a neat little waffle iron plate that made diamond, club, heart, and spade shapes! On top I places a few strawberries, raspberries, and hilariously small blackberries. The syrup was very light.

Third Plate: Tomato and Onion omelet. Because this was a real restaurant and not Denny's, the tomatoes were sauteed before they were added to the eggs so they didn't make a big watery mess like last time. Accompanied by more pineapple slices!

Fourth, Final Plate: Three chocolate strawberries, some gross peanut butter square thing, and a "sacher cookie" which I didn't know existed. I do not like sacher torte. At all. I think its gross and I don't know why someone would combine chocolate, apricot, and almonds and put them into a cake. I don't know why anyone would put them into a cookie either, because it was nasty.

So as you can see, this is pretty much the longest post I've ever done, but I was good, right? It took me an hour to type, it had better be good lol. So you all might also notice that I changed the layout a bit, removing the "blocky" paragraph at the end and replacing it with a centered one. I like it better. More tomorrow.

Early Mall-ing

2009-09-18T20:45:00.007-04:00

So today, I went to the mall for a bit with Ashley. I was just waking up around 9:30 this morning (okay I don't usually take this long to get up, but I was really tired after the night before, plus I had the day off anyway so why not), and I got a knock on the door asking if I wanted to go to the mall. So, you know, why decline?? So i hurried up and got dressed, and we got a cab to white marsh mall. While there, we walked around a for a while, and I got the super expensive new Dairy Queen drink, "raspberry white tea smoothie", at $4 (no picture). The lady was like "$4.19" and I just stopped for a second. She said it again, and I came back to myself, surprised at the cost of this drink. I knew if I said I didn't want it anymore, it would turn into this big thing about "I already rung it up" and shi-stuff so I just bought the damn drink. Picture tiiiime!!!!!

Ashley, angry looking for some reason in Forever 21. We went in there the first time and it was blazing hot, but after going in again we realized it was just the cheap store saving money by now turning on the A C until 11.

So after out little mall escapade, we walked over to the avenue and got lunch (after walking around the farmers market for a while and buying devils food cupcakes), I ordered the "Apple Berry Salad". As you can see, it has Gorgonzola, frisee, candied walnuts, shredded apple, strawberries, and cranberry citrus dressing. HOMG delicious.

So then I got a burger and sweet potato fries.... let me tell you all how the waitress tried to get over on me (and I'm pissed I forgot to call her on it!!). Okay, so the burger was supposed to come with regular fries, collectively under the same price listed for the burger, but because I ordered the sweet potato fries, she put those on the plate instead. I looked on the bill and she charged both the sweet potato fries and the burger separately. Wtf? Where are my regular fries?

Ashley decided to let me photograph her little (I called it goat food) wrap. I was like, post this on your blog, and she told me to put it on mine because she doesn't run a food blog. I keep telling her she needs to get a specialty for her blog to become popular; mine is food. Hers could be like accessories or clothes or something. Ehh. I guess that's up to her.

I am sorry to say that I will not be blogging tomorrow, as I am going camping!!! I'm going to try to enjoy the outdoors and not use my cellphone at all, which means I wont even be taking pictures of my food -.- (I feel like a camera addict). Meh, I guess its not that big a deal. Oh! And I should also mention that I going to Delaware for a bit tonight, then I'm coming home tomorrow morning for the camping. More...(well I can't say tomorrow) uh....I guess Sunday or Monday.

-.- I wish these crackers had chives / crappy bagels

2009-09-17T19:23:00.003-04:00

If only you could imagine my excitement when I discovered that I don't have class tomorrow! It's such a relief when you know you don't have to get so early it feels like night time, and then you don't have o try to stay awake during lecture because its so early, then cook for a few hours before walking a mile and a half to the bus stop, only to get home an hour and a half later. BLAH! I'm glad i got it all out lol. Okay, picture time!

So yesterday, I really felt like drinking Italian soda, and I swear I don't know any place that sells them besides restaurants, and I am not going to pay for an entire meal just for the drink. So I looked up exactly what Italian soda is; apparently its just sparkling water and vanilla syrup, both two things i have in my house. The picture above is me cooking my vanilla syrup, just thought you all should know ;D

Okay, I didn't need to be this artsy with my vanilla soda, but i liked it so much I thought I'd at least make a nice picture..

Later on in the day, I noticed that we were all out of bagels. I also remembered that I had made bagels before, and it was pretty straight forward; mix the dough, shape, proof, boil, bake. I went to get my BP232 book, but then I couldn't seem to find a recipe for any other type of bagel but plain. So I looked up an egg bagel recipe, did a bit of math, and came up with reducing the amount of water and adding 4 eggs.

They look like crap in this picture. That being said, it was only in this picture. In real life, the bagels were great, I even added a bit of corn meal to the baking sheet for added texture like the bagels at the grocery store. I cut one, and spread strawberry cream cheese on it; it was amazing. really. REALLY.

Anyway, besides that, I'm not typing much today. I made sushi in class today, went out on the boat for a bit, then I went out and got Panera Bread and Ben and Jerry's Ice cream. Both very good. However, I'm not going to share my ice cream pictures with the world; they're all mine! Also, tonight I was supposed to be watching the Grey's Anatomy premiere, but I went out for food instead. All is not lost though, as I bought an iTunes card tonight and fully intend on downloading it first thing tomorrow morning! More tomorrow ;D

Sick Bloggers Get to Eat Crackers and Vitamin Water

2009-09-16T11:22:00.003-04:00

So a lot of things have gone awry in the past week. I haven't been posting, I'm sick, I lost all my hair, and today because I didn't go to class, I might have accidentally ruined my group's "Grand Buffet" project because I wasn't able to print off another copy with the correct measurements. I mostly feel bad about that. If I had a car, I honestly would drive down there now and give them the papers, but I don't, and no one here will take me now. Anyway, I'm trapped in my room today because I'm sick; no I don't have "swine flu", I have a sore throat. I thought I knew where I got it from, but practically everyone was sneezing yesterday in class. Either way, I'm getting back on track; its picture time.

Sometime last week, I stumbled upon a recipe for lemon poppy seed cookies, so I decided to bake some. I harassed Franiel and Ms.LPTM to no end to buy me some poppy seeds; I am so broke I cant even buy poppy seeds for myself. I need some monehh!

Just thought I'd include this because it's one of the few pictures I actually have from Garde Manger class so far; its just a Caesar salad, but I thought it was really good so I threw this one in here.

So the pictures a bit dark, but you can see what they are; on Saturday I managed to finally buy a muffin tin, so I baked some cupcakes that night. The icing looks super crappy, but that's because I couldn't find my pastry bag, and I had to use a zip lock bag with a hole cut in the bottom -.-
(notice the little chocolate chip eyes ^.^)

Okay, so this is pretty much the highlight of my week; my Disco Peacock! Okay so it wasn't actually mine, but I assembled all the melon balls. It was really fun to work on.

Last picture today, I also cut a honeydew! This one I did alone; I kept thinking the leaves looked like lays ruffle chips... the "guest chef instructor", who instructed us on how to do them, kept saying I was doing a nice job, but I couldn't help but think she was saying in her head "this looks like crap". Oh well, I like my melon!

Well, I'm gonna get off now, short post. I'm not well, and I need my rest; I just hope tomorrow everyones not too upset that I didn't bring the re-printed out papers. I guess thinking about it doesn't make a difference now. More tomorrow.

Hurray!

2009-09-02T17:28:00.003-04:00

I've completley changed the layout of my blog, and I think for the better. This isn't an actual blog post, just a quick little paragraph to note the change. I have had the same blog layout since Dec. 08; I figured it was time for an update. I will have an actual blog post (like I usually do) up by tonight, I just really wanted to do this real quick. Well, that's all, as I 'm working like a slave in my basement today, for no apparant reason what so ever beside my mother telling me that she doesnt care that I'm on break. Byee :) Oh and btw, I'm going to allow comments starting tomorrow.

Blogger Picture Uploading

2009-08-31T18:13:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I'm going to start today's post with a bit of a rant. It is most certainly a petty rant, but a rant nonetheless. Whenever I upload photos to blogger (very nice and well thought out ones at that), there is always the one that comes out messed up (like the one below). The "regular sized pictures" are taken when I hold my phone horizontally, so it gives more like a wide screen picture; which I think appears better on the blog as opposed to vertically, which I think doesn't fit. So anyway, just thought I'd get that out there and also say that the photo below isn't supposed to look half as crappy as it does. Super short picture time today, seeing as how I didn't do much.

The only real food I've eaten today was a BK Veggie from Burger King. I asked the woman for everything on it except mayonnaise, and she gave me bun, Pattie, ketchup, lettuce and tomato. I thought everything meant everything. Where's the cheese? The Onions? The Pickles? Ehh. It's Burger King; I should stop complaining and eat my fast food, realizing that it's fast food.

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Today I accompanied Franiel to the bank in Glen Burnie. I didn't quite understand why we went to that specific bank, 25 minutes away, instead of the one up the street. No complaints from me though, as while Franny was in the bank, I walked over to one of my favorite stores; H-Mart!!

I didn't have too much time, so I couldn't buy real food food, but I did manage to pick up a bunch of snacks and what not. If you can't see from this properly angled picture, there are three boxes of Pocky, a box of Pepero, and a box of Pretz. The three Pocky's were strawberry, chocolate, and banana chocolate. The Pepero was almond chocolate, and the Pretz was salad flavor. All very good.

In a pulled back shot, you can also see that I purchased several types of gum, sesame candies (black and white), and a container shaped like a McFlurry cup filled with little biscuits with chocolate inside. I remember two semesters ago in Purchasing we took a trip to H-Mart, and I remember someone bought these before. I remember tasting one, but I didn't remember that each biscuit was stamped with a shape; cute I guess.

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But yup, besides all of that, today has been rather bland. I am thinking about lifting the block on commenting on the blog, only done originally because of a nasty comment someone left. Maybe I will; I don't know. What I also don't know is whether or not I'm ever going to get the poppy seeds to make the Lemon Poppy Seed cookies I've been wanting to do for the longest. More tomorrow.

SUPER LATE!

2009-08-30T13:02:00.012-04:00

Why do I always always ALWAYS put off ding a vacation blog post. Its like some weird thing, like I wait until the third day after I get back, and then I don't even feel like doing it anymore. But not this time! Not this blogger!! Anyway, yes, I am back! It took me long enough, but I am here. Now I could go on and on about how nice the hotel was, and how they only sold snickers and Gatorade in the gift shop, but I'm not going to. This is a food blog, and I have a tendency to put my life happenings in here.... Okay well I'll make it like 20/ 80 food. I have to tell someone about my day lol. Super long picture time so bare with me here.

Before we got to the hotel, we got hungry. Very hungry. So we stopped at a Denny's on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere Virginia, and ordered some food. I got a tomato and onion omelet with a side of hash browns. I ended up forking all the tomatoes out of the omelet because
I didn't like the way they tasted; they were too wet.

You can somewhat see the hash browns in this one, next to the burger I ordered. It was sorta dry, so I had to put ketchup and mustard on it. Plus, I really don't like a burger (or sub for that matter) with any other lettuce besides ice burg. I feel like i ran the burger in a field before I picked it back up to eat it. But still it was good.

After making our way to the hotel, I decided to take pictures of the bathroom! Exciting!!

The bedroom, the one on the right is where I slept!

So around 12 the first night, everybody was still hungry, but no restaurants were open at the time, so we went to a BP gas station and bought all this crap. I bought the nerds, Oreo cookies, vanilla wafers, strawberry milk, water, fruit roll, and hot fries!

The next evening we ate at Il Giardino in VA beach. The people were very friendly, but it seemed over staffed for some reason...and not necessarily in a good way. Like for every person in the restaurant there was a waiter. Awkward....

I ordered the foccacia with olive and red pepper oils. I don't understand why every restaurant doesn't do this! It's so much better than the regular oil alone. And with grated Parmesan cheese inside, are you kidding me?!

Of course every where I go that offers Caprese salad I have to order it (just to see how it holds up against other restaurants). This one was good, but instead of a balsamic reduction they just did the vinegar plain. I'm not complaining though, the heirloom tomatoes were very firm and good.

My last dish at Il Giardino was stuffed Manicotti, covered in Parmesan cheese in red sauce. It was a bit too thick for me, as I could barley taste anything but ricotta cheese. A little less cheese and a thinner noodle would have been perfect.

A few days later, I had breakfast at the Pocahontas breakfast restaurant down the street from the hotel. The dining room was packed with people, and I see why. I ordered the chocolate pancakes; buttermilk pancakes filled with chocolate chips, with chocolate chips on top drizzled in chocolate sauce. So much chocolate I didn't want to eat anymore for a week.

A closeup of the pancake.

As if three monster pancakes weren't enough (obviously they weren't) I also ordered an onion and cheese omelet. I decided against tomatoes this time as I didn't want a repeat of Denny's. It seemed like they cooked the egg, then stuffed it with melted cheese and sauteed onions. Then covered in a sharper cheddar cheese.

For my last breakfast at the beach, I went to the Maple Tree, a Swedish breakfast restaurant. The Swedish pancakes I ordered were very thin, almost like a crepe, and covered in raspberry butter, which I absolutely need to learn how to make; it was delicious.

Okay, so I didn't actually eat the above salad while I was on the trip, but I did however eat this last night. I thought to myself; I HAVE to blog about this. The salad was mixed micro greens, dried cranberries, dried cherries, strawberries, blueberries, blue cheese, green apple slices, and candied walnuts lightly covered in a sherry vinaigrette dressing.

What to put here now hmm? I feel accomplished that I covered my vacation, plus last night so I feel all caught up. Today I was really feeling like baking some lemon poppy seed cookies, but we have no poppy seeds so I need to go to the store. No one wants to drive me, so that seems impossible then. I guess the store is right up the street, but I hate the sun; if it was winter I would gladly go up there. But its 90 degrees outside, so no. I would also bake apple pie, but we only have one apple. And no, there is no chocolate in the house either. I'm stumped. More tomorrow.

First Day

2009-08-24T11:12:00.005-04:00

It is rare that I have a moment where I find nothing to be critical about, but feeling the contrast of the warm beach air and the air conditioned hotel room through the balcony, all while hearing the ocean in the background; this is one of those moments. DisasterCow is going on break until Friday, August 28th. I need to enjoy my vacation;this is probably the first time this year where I could go away and not be concerned with escalating family problems, or some paper to do, or some other silly life problem.

On a less serene note, I am going to post a giant blog entry with lots of pictures and stuff on Thursday. But how am I posting this you ask? Franiel brought his laptop lol. Either way, I'll be back on Thursday! Ending with something funny, I just remembered that yesterday, before I left to come here,I accidentally left a bowl of milk in my bedroom from the honeycombs I had the night before. Oh Shi-Stuff.

"Stuff White People Like"

2009-08-22T13:19:00.008-04:00

So yesterday, I went to Malachi's graduation. It was really nice, had a lot of clapping, and I even got a little "Dominic, stand up in the audience". It was nice. What wasn't nice was (I know you're probably wondering why I chose that title for the post; I'll explain in a bit) Franiel rushing everyone out of the building immediately after it was over. There were people there that I hadn't seen in over a year, and I was only able to give a passing nod as I was dragged into the elevator. We ended up eating at Olive Garden for lunch, which would have been really nice if Alex and Madina weren't playing under the table like we were at McDonald's. It's picture time now, so be very excited.

The one picture I managed to take at the graduation; all the other ones are movies, and then when I was done with the videos, I wanted to take some more pictures....but my phone was acting stupid as usual, so this is the only one I managed to take.

When we got to Olive Garden, I ordered the Lasagna Fritta as an appetizer. From what I could taste and see, they deep fried soft lasagna noodles filled with ricotta cheese and some kind of herb blend. Then they placed them in Alfredo sauce (I could taste the nutmeg), and made a line of red sauce across the top of them. Very good.

Olive Garden looses brownie points for bringing out the salad late though. The waitress brought it as well as the bread sticks after I had already finished my appetizer. I'm not complaining, just saying it was kinda weird.

Then there was the fettuccine Alfredo. It tasted okay, but the sauce didn't have any salt in it, and they don't put salt on the table there....Oh well!

After I got home after lunch, I changed my clothes and Ashley and I went to the mall (stopping at the bank first where the woman caught a severe attitude for no reason. hmmm.....). After buying a few things, she wanted to try this thing where this lady "threads" your eyebrows. I stood off to the side and watched.

From the mall, I bought the worlds largest magazine, a shirt, a new scarf, a thin hoodie that I thought had short sleeves but got home to be sadly mistaken, a $25 itunes card, razzles, and a hilarious book. If you can't see, the book is called "Stuff White People Like" and the whole thing is about funny things that white people would enjoy. Stuff like "Religions their parents don't belong to", "Yoga", and "Gifted Children". It was only $14, you should buy it.

This picture just about sums up my whole day lol.

Today I'm just really packing stuff, doing laundry, and I'll probably be baking some cookies sometime today. I'm not going to the mall today with Kiarra and April anymore because of a change of plans, plus even if I did go, I only have like $7 left lol. But it's fine, because I'M LEAVING TOMORROW! I'm so excited! 5 days at Virginia Beach! That's kinda what I bought the iTunes card for, I'm not sitting in a car for four hours listening to "Go! Deigo! Go!" or whatever other annoying movies Madlex bring along.

Also, because I left the garbage bag on the back porch last night, one because it was raining and two because it was 11pm, I now have to clean up the mess the damn squirrels and raccoons made. I get a knock on my door at 8:30 this morning followed by a lecture, while Ashley left TWO bags out back and they say nothing. Besides cleaning all that up, I'm watching Madlex again today; to keep them preoccupied I'll probably have them help me with the cookies or something....

shine shine now!

2009-08-20T16:37:00.011-04:00

So, yesterday I didn't do much. I had a really good bagel in the morning, but other than that I just sat around the house. I did bake some challah bread and I watched Ashley make her egg drop soup. I had some; it was good. Super short post....because I haven't done anything today ha ha. Pitcha Tiiiiiime :D (I think I'll make this a regular thing).

The water boiling for Ashley's Egg Drop Soup (her own recipe too). I have got to stop taking these "artsy" photos lol. There was no reason for me to photograph water...

The soup, being cooked. It was so good. It was really simple to make too. Very, very good. I wont blurt out her secret recipe, not only because she wouldn't want me to, but because she knows how I make my "French Devils Torte"

My dinner! We ordered Chinese food, so I just thought I'd plate it so it would look nice enough to put on here. Six pieces of Maki Sushi, some Lo-Mien noodles, soy sauce and the lamest fortune I ever got in a fortune cookie....

Someone should keep a tab of the amount of times I do this camera angle with my food xD. The fortune cookie said something about how it's okay to fail even if you really wanted to succeed. Wtffers?

My Challah bread proofing. I was really bored that morning, and after fixing Ashley's computer I just felt like throwing something together to feel accomplished. (How bad is that? I need to bake things to feel needed around the house now that my semester is over and I'm on break...)

The finished bread! I really like the way turned out, Ashley and I did the 6 braids instead of 2 or 3, which was a bit more time consuming, but obviously worth it. Also, I did an egg wash before I baked it, and I'm very curious as to what would have happened if I did pure egg yolks instead of the whites too....o.O (next time lol)

Blahhh. Today I'm watching two sick little gremlins lol. Okay, it's just Madlex but I'm REALLY not trying to get sick; I'm leaving Sunday and before that, Malachi's graduation is tomorrow so I'm going to that. OH! Have you seen my new banner?? I really like it.

Saturday i think i might go to the mall or something; i need to see who can go.....But as for now, I'm here eating ramen noodles as I already made them lunch and don't feel like cooking anymore. I'm also going to bake some cookies tonight, maybe I'll gift them to someone tomorrow at the graduation. I guess I'll post more tomorrow, about the graduation, and if I go out to eat or something after. Goodbye, or as Kai Lan would say "Zai Jian!!" (I'm sick of this showwww).

More tomorrow ;D

SOPHMORE YEAR AT BIC; HALF WAY OVER!!!!!!!

2009-08-18T20:51:00.008-04:00

So yes, today was my last day of my third semmester at BIC. You couldnt possibly imagine my excitment. But, enough about that, and on to the more important information. I wil be blogging more often over the break, as I wont be so preoccupied by school and what not. So I go back September 8th, which is one day short of three weeks from today (20 days lol). I should really do more stuff about food....this kinda is a food blog......uhh anyway! Picture time :D !!

(Below is a frying pan)

This morning, Alex told me he wasn't feeling so well, and my mother told me that he had a bit of a cough last night. So I asked him if there was anything I could do. He said no, but I offered to make breakfast instead.

I thought it would be fun to make shapes out of the pancakes, so I did a circle, then a mickey mouse one. (On top)

So today I also had my last lunch at Au Bon Pain for a while. Since I don't have any more academic classes until November, I won't be at the Commerce building for a while. Au Bon Pain is across the street, so its the fastest place to get to to get lunch. Great food....sometimes..... Anyway, today I had a peach tea, Asiago bread sticks, a delicious salad, and a "tulip" for dessert.

I was actually surprised to come in today and find a new salad, one that was similar to Cesar salad but with better croutons, Gorgonzola cheese, sherry vinaigrette dressing, almonds and apple...... okay maybe it wasn't so much like a Cesar salad ha ha.

My meal concluded with a new item at Au Bon Pain called a "tulip". What looked like a souffle at first (but much firmer of course), turned out to be something that tasted like a brownie. When opened, it also had a red cherry filling that was a bit sour but worked well with the brownie. I'm assuming they just baked these in a muffin tin with the papers on, as they were firm enough to keep shape.

Any way, my day is sort of coming to a close, I plan to clean up tomorrow (shocking image below). Okay, maybe "shocking" was too dramatic a word, but its still gross, and the mess has been accumulating since I had all these finals to take and final papers to type and hand in and stuff. So yeah, that's my day tomorrow, but I will definitely try to eat or bake something remotely interesting so I can write about that tomorrow.

OHH!! One last thing, I'm going to the beach on Sunday for five days, so I'll be sure to order plenty of amazing room service, and document all of the food I eat while I'm there. More tomorrow, FOR REALLSS this time lol.

NO MORE HIATUSES!!!!

2009-08-10T18:36:00.001-04:00

I've been über busy with school, and papers and finishing up the semmester that recently I have had no chance to blog!! (along with escalating family issue that have been resolved) So I'm going to start again, now that all the papers are turned in for the semmester. Blurrggg. More tomorrow, with loads of pictures.

Damn my subway addiction

2009-07-30T19:04:00.004-04:00

Unfortunately, you all have to hear about my subway lunch, again. I know, I know, "Dominic you can't have a food blog and every day talk about how great subway is". But I'm actually doing stuff over the weekend and there will be plenty of interesting food. I'm also changing the banner, as it no longer applies as it has absolutely nothing to do with food.

The "heavenly" subway cookies. They think they've got me fooled. I know what they do; they just microwave cookie dough cookies. There is no secret recipe people! They have us all brainwashed!!!!I tried to be all "artsy" with my sub.

The whole meal; btw the drink doesnt have a neat peel off thing like at Burger King. That kinda depresses me :(

Well anyway, its Alex's birthday this weekend, and its my birthday monday. Speaking of which, I'm going to New York for a day trip on my birthday! I'm taking off school and leaving in the morning, and coming back home around 2 the next night :D (I'm turning 16)

So I've had these two magazines, Cooking Light and Bon Appetit, and I got them both Monday. I have yet to find an opportuinty this week to read them, but Ashley skimmed through them and she said they have some pretty good recipes; and she's very picky, so if she says they have a few good ones then you know they're good. I've decided not to do anything else but read those tonight, so I actually have the time :)

Oh and tomorrow I'm baking the pie instead of today, reason being Franiel left and went to the grocery store without me, so I was not able to get the Peaches. Damn. But the good news is that Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap said that I have all day tomorrow to have the kitchen to myself, so I think I might bake a loaf of Rosemary bread too. Excited :) But more importantly, Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap wants me to make my devils food cake for Alex's birthday, because he's having a party on Saturday and then we're going to Sesame Place on Sunday. So I need to get more chocolate, heavy cream, and crisco for that. Looks like I'll be baking quite a bit this Friday. More tomorrow, and with LOTS of pictures :)

Amazing Food? I think not.

2009-07-28T15:51:00.001-04:00

Today I had a tasty cake "Koffee Kake" and Razzles for lunch. Oh! And with a side of $0.65 hot fries from the student lounge vending machine. I'm so hungry, but I barely brought any money with me today.
It sucks, and now I wish I hadn't eaten the hot fries because my mouth is on fire. Today Lisa also told me about how this guy was spitting on the trays at the CAC this morning, so I guess I'll be eating my lunch, when I go over there next semmester, off of styrafoam plates. Great.
But yes, another mundane day has passed me by, and all I have to say for what I've done is turning in late nutrition homework. Well, maybe I'll make or bake something extravagant at home later (I doubt it), but as for right now, I think I'm going to try to eat the smashed, half eaten milkyway bar in the side pocket of my bookbag. Wish my happy hunting :D more later....or tomorrow; depends on if I feel like making something today...

Shrimp

2009-07-27T11:12:00.002-04:00

The dampness outside is somewhat comforting. I must have washed them
several times by now, but my hands still smell of Old Bay. The
seasoning that once graced shrimp atop a pasta salad I made only hours
ago, now lingers on my fingertips as a constant reminder of my days
activities. I plan to make Rosemary bread in a bit, but as for Now, I
shall relax. I haven't decided whether or not to do an eggwash and
make the crust hard like italian bread, or if I should brush olive oil
on top and have a soft crust similar to that of dinner rolls. If it
comes down to it, I may be forced to do the olive oil because we don't
have anymore eggs in the house, which yesterday resulted in overly
tender brownies.
I actually had the option of making caprese salad instead of Rosemary
bread tonight, however that opportunity has passed me by as I have
already left and came home from the grocery store. More later :)

Ive been a bad blogger

2009-07-26T13:28:00.002-04:00

i was going to fill this blog up with posts about how i went out last weekend on vacation, and about what i did all this week, and friday night, and then i thought long and hard to myself, "I need to change this blog because im bored of just having it be about what i do. So ive made the EXECUTIVE DECISION to make this a FOOD BLOG seeing as how I am in culinary school and on the culinary career path. It would only make sense for me to blog about what ive eaten, what restaurant I went to,and how it was. Of course im going to post little tid bits of my day, but mostly I want this to be about food. So; I post my first entry as a food blog tonight! Excited :D

I get upset sometimes....

2009-07-02T10:29:00.001-04:00

Ok, so sometimes certain things around me don't go right; meaning something always breaks when I'm around it. Very rarely do I actually do it (like the shelf in Tyler's room in her closet), but I always always ALWAYS get blamed for EVERYTHING. Maybe I'm an easy target, but I try SO HARD to make people see that I am a good person. I clean around the house, I play with Madlex, and I bake delicious cookies and cakes and brownies. And what do people do? They blame everything on me.

Like last night; I was cleaning the bathtub in my restroom and my mother came in. She tried to move trip lever (the thing that turns the water on) and nothing happened. Guess who got blamed for that?!

Another situation happened a few weeks ago: my Grandmother broke the cabinet door by the sink. She even told them that she did it, and I STILL got blamed for it!!

Ugh!! More later on my daily meal review and the other crazy things that happen to me on a daily basis. (Did I mention that I had to leave the house at 9:00 today?? My class starts at 12:30 pm.....-_- )

I went a day without an iPhone, and it was HORRIBLE!!

2009-07-01T18:02:00.002-04:00

Okay, so let me backtrack to about two weeks ago. I went with Sailor to the At&t store to buy his new iPhone. While I was there, he made the generous offer to buy me a new iPhone3GS too; I accepted like any rational person would. He said that he was going to sell my current phone to his employee, Wesley, and that he would take the money to compensate for him buying my new one.

Fastforward two and a half weeks later, and this morning he tells me that my pre-ordered phone has come in. So he tells me to take all of my personal things from the phone and put them on my computer (such a pictures, phone numbers, etc). Then while, we're driving me to school on the highway, he tells me to wipe the phone memory. I knew that after doing so the service would shut off; Crap.

He told me to get out when I got to school, and before I could ask him how i was supposed to contact him later, he drove off. Here I am, 75 minutes early mind you, downtown, without an iPhone. I have no idea what time it is, and I cant call anyone. To make a long story short, I used the pay phone at the gallery, but my point is this: Apple now rules my life becase I simply cannot function properly without thios device. It almost acts as my brain when I dont want to use my brain. I have admitted it; I am an Apple slave (just like ashley is a McSlave for McDonalds nasty breakfast food).

Oh, and plus the brownies turned out great yesterday, and now that i have my new phone, I can shoot and post videos here too, like really good quality. More tomorrow. bye :D

Just to do it

2009-06-30T23:05:00.001-04:00

I feel as though I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn't say what I did today....ok it's not that serious lol. I'll sum it all up in a quick paragraph to get it over with because I'll think about it all night if I don't.
Woke up too early.
Got dragged out of the house an hour and a half before I was supposed to.
Went to the dry cleaners to complain about some lost pants.
Went to the office and shredded some files.
Got dropped off at school too early and went to two different stores looking for toner for my increasingly discoloring hair.
Couldn't find it.
Took a nutrition exam.
Had the worst lunch at ABP (Never get the tomato basil bisque...ughh).
Read a mildly humerous play in English102.
Got a call that Franny was outside and I had to leave class 5 minutes early.
Picked up the chiirrins.
Went to Giant and bought stuff for making risotto tomorrow.
Went to the mall and bought two new shirts and a pair of shoes.
Came home an didn't eat dinner because there was none.
Swept my floor.
Did a load of laundry.
Baked brownies.
Annnnd I'm about to go to sleep; goodnight :)

I hate when this happens

2009-06-30T19:07:00.001-04:00

I just spent the last hour typing an editing my blog post for the day from my phone. And then my mail application crashed as I was sending the post to blogspot. I HATE WHEN THIS HAPPENS! It makes me nit want to blog, EVER. This seriously pisses me off. I'll be back to normal posting tomorrow because from now on I'm going to post from my computer.
Bye.

Au Bon Pain

2009-06-29T16:22:00.001-04:00

Oh goodness. So today, I've decided to double post because I have so much to share! Well, I actually don't have THAT much stuff to say, but it's pretty amusing. (Plus I'm killing time on the drive home by Blogging on the gogo :D)

So after supervision class, after I discovered that I have only turned in 2 out of the 14 assignments that the class was given over the past 7 weeks. So I asked I there was any extra credit I could do, and he said he has given me ample opportunities so no. So NOW I have to go home and print out 12 assignments from black board and have them all finished by Wednesday at 12:30. Damn.

So after class, this girl Nicole walks up to me and asks me to walk with her. So I'm like, ok fine. We get up to an ATM and she hands me $40 and says that this was for me. Wtffers? Free money right? No, but I thought that too. She wanted me to get her a discount bus pass because students who haven't gotten one before get them for $20 cheaper. And she said that the woman in the office was a b......eautiful person. See that, I don't have a foul mouth.

Then later, after the worlds dullest psychology class, I managed to eat lunch at Au Bon Pain across the street from my school. I got the most AMAZING soup. It was Thai Coconut soup, and I also got Asiago and Everything breadsticks. So good.

But the soup was a bit too spicy, so I got dessert too :D

Mint Chocolate Chip pound cake and some milk because lactose stops things from being too spicy in your mouth.

The lovely tables and umbrellas outside that I did NOT sit under because it was incredibly sunny and heat and Dominic do not get along well....at all.

Yeah, so now I'm going home because I have a thousand thing to do at home, like: doing the rest of my laundry; organizing the shelves in my closet; finding a battery for the camera; cleaning out my dresser drawers; look up a new sheet set for my bed; buy wood stain to do my bed and desk; and sweep and swifer my floor; etc etc etc....

SO APPARANTLY

2009-06-29T12:47:00.001-04:00

So apparantly I haven't blogged in pretty much two months.....I really need to stop with these hiatuses.... They are getting quite rediculous.

But anyway, I'm back so that's great. I wish I had 50 exciting, thrilling things to share with all of you, but unfortunatley I don't.. I did however have a fun weekend with Tyler and Bridgid. I saw Transformahsss over the weekend, which I enjoyed, but it went on for EVER. (Nachos ;D)

Instead of doing something entertaining or even noteworthy today, I am trapped in Supervision class, bored out of my mind. Today's topic is "Training and Development"....doesn't that sound fun?! My hair is a mess too, I need to do something with it tonight. I really need to get my grade up in this class, because I didn't do any of the homework for the first five weeks so......ugh....yeah. Plus I'm about to get my grade back for my midterm that I took last week; I don't want to see it!!

Either way, I'm going to go now (SHORT POST), because apparantly Proffesor Collison thinks I'm texting someone. This week shouldn't be too bad because I don't have class on Friday, plus I'm supposed to be going to see fireworks this weekend! Thrilled. Oh and I have to ask him for extra credit because he just announced to the class that "Dominic Roach has missed half of the classes assignment."

Its Alive!

2009-05-04T19:25:00.004-04:00

Yes. Im alive.
.
.
.
.
Its been FOREVER since I posted on here.. Like I think the last time was like in February and now its MAY!! I also mentioned when I left something about twitter. Do not follow me on Twitter. Like I thought it would be fun for the first couple days, but after a while it became quite annoying to have to type every 5 minutes what im doing (Like the police are monitoring my bad behavior or something). SOO.....I stopped.

Besides wanting to kill twitter, I went to Virginia today. Nothing special. I just sat in the car, pretended to be asleep, and listened to Catalina's telephone conversation (Im horrible I know).. It took FOREVER to get there, and I had to sit next to this smelly man and he kept pressing up against me...so I couldn't enjoy my snacks I got from the gas station :(

But then we went to this travesty. Now it may look like your average Virginia Tex-Mex restaurant, but it WAS NOT. And as you can imagine, the people inside just HAD to stare. Why is it that they feel the need to stare directly in my face. I believe it had something to do with the enourmous bubbles I was blowing, but mostly it was their inability to function as normal humans.
But the food. Uggghh.. The chips are paper thin and not seasoned. The salsa looked watery-- chips often broke off into the salsa. We ordered a Guacamole chip platter, and the moment Franny double dipped, I was no longer enjoying the only good food "El Tio" had to offer.
If only someone could have captured the sheer look of my dissapointment as I walked back to the car.

But besides that nothing interesting really happened today. My mom lost her keys and no one could leave the house because the keys were in the truck with Franny and I a whole state away. Plus Alexander got his hand caught in one of those $.25 vending machines at Giant, because he figured if he reached up further he could pull all the toys out. He's fine though. Im really bored.....

oh well. maybe ill have something more interesting to talk about tomorrow....

I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS AND SOME BAD NEWS

2009-02-22T16:33:00.003-05:00

The bad news is that i am only going to be updating this blog about once or twice a month. How ever the good news is that I am going to be posting every mundane detail of my life on my new website http://www.Twitter.com/DominoFillet. Look at it people. And PLEASEEEEE PLEAASSSEE to anyone who read this, go make a twitter!!!! Just look at the website, its an interesting concept, and I think anyone who makes one would enjoy it. Ciao! Im off to Twitterrrrrrrr.

Today Sucked

2009-01-02T19:18:00.004-05:00

*Rolls Eyes* I cannot believe my day. It feels like a cat peed on my shoes. This morning i woke up....

You know what. I feel bad. I don't even feel like blogging today. I hated today and i wish it never happened. I hope you had a better day.

Tomorrow will be better though. Really looking forward to it.

Water....

2009-01-01T22:16:00.006-05:00

Recently (I start most of my posts like that...), i have noticed that the sink water in my house has been unusually hot. Not just like a bit warmer, but every time i turn the sink to the middle (Between Hot and Cold) the water comes out scalding...WE NEED A PLUMBER! Most people would be happy to have too much hot water, but NO! THEY ARE WRONG IF THEY THINK THEY WANT THIS CURSE!!!! I really hope this problem goes away soon, it is rather tiring to have to adjust the water in the shower every five seconds.

So, I am currently waiting for my dad to come pick me up...but hes kind of taking forever. He told me yesterday he would be here by 10:30 (AM!!!!) and it is now 10:21 PM!!!! He certainly is taking a long time. Then he calls me and says like "Im coming now"...I got THAT message THREE HOURS AGO...But its ok because i have found an anger release: Blogging soothes me. It lets me get s**t out that normally i would just keep bottled inside....ODD EGGS AND BACON! (Things like thattttt)

But yeah, no pictures this blog. I ALWAYS have pictures but not today. OHH! Another thing. If your going to have a party, and you invite someone with a sibling, isnt it kind of common f****ing curtesy to invite them too? Especially if you know the person! Don't just assume they'll come, invite them. I swear that must be like the number one way to make enemies or something. Its a girl with a shape up....

Fed up / Happy New Years!

2008-12-31T18:22:00.002-05:00

I am slowly losing my patience for non-seedless fruit. I am fed up with tangerines and clementines where the box CLEARLY SAYS SEEDLESS and i still find seed in every single fruit i eat. That was the most bothersome thing of the week for me besides hearing my name being called 50 times in one day.

So it is New Years Eve, and tomorrow will be the first day of 2009. Now many people come up with meaningless resolutions that they cant stick to, and im not going to lie i do the same thing. But this year i am going to make a resolution that i can actually try to follow: TO STOP SAYING "CAT". This is very devestating to some people, as they know that cat has become MY WORD! But yeah, thats what im going to do.

So today i went to the mall to get all the good sales on everything, plus to buy new clothes because im going over my dads, then to bridgids house, and overall that 5 days away that i need to pack for. So i bought a shirt (Bored yet? Yeah me too...) and it has a picture of a dog eating poop that says "recycle". It is now probably the most disgusting article of clothing that i own, but it makes the 5 year old in me smile. Its like my cure for saying cat, like how smokers chew gum often so they can quit.

But on to the more interesting part of my day. So i was at the grocery about 10-20 minutes ago. At the end of the register, there was a stand.

It may look correct, but it has the MLB logo above it. Plus, WTF Giant Supermarket...Christmas was 6 days ago, take down those stockings.

Yes that was the most interesting part of my day! Well that and my Dairy Queen Frozen Yogurt. Are you salivating yet?

Do You like the black border for the pictures? I do.

I Cant Believe It!

2008-12-29T18:28:00.002-05:00

It is already 6:17, and the day has gone by so fast! The only thing I actually managed to do today was some laundry. (Which i had to do today because the contractor is coming tomorrow to finish the basement). I havent really done anything else besides think and draw, but then again what else can i expect to do on winter break?

On another note, manually having to hold shift while i type the "I" key is quite tiresome. It ight sound rather lazy, but i have decided that i would no longer capitalize my "i's" in this blog. If blogspot is too lazy to have an auto correct function, then i am too lazy to hold shift while i press a key.

Another thing that has been bothering me is the fact that i can't get the HTML code to work on here...I try to do things like make the letters bigger and stuff, but it never shows up when i publish it... i wonder if its just my computer or if its the website in general?

Yet another thing to discuss is my need for a new camera. I currently and forced to use the 2 megapixel camera on my iphone.

See how small it is? Franny and i were supposed to go get the 8 megapixel camera fixed so i could use it but he....uh.....kinda forgot about it. And you REALLY don't want to hassle Franny for things.....You all know exactly what i am talking about.

I guess im supposed to go on and on about more bad stuff, and i know i can pretty much go on forever about things i dont like but i'd also like to take some time and focus on the positive aspects of my day...............................................................................................................

...........................

.......thinking.....................

.........................

uh...........

OH! I finally got around to starting to clean my closet. But then i got bored and thought "i have two more weeks to be cleaning...why do it now while im supposed to be enjoying my vacation."
That was probably a bad idea.

Must I?

2008-12-28T23:03:00.006-05:00

Must I fill you in ony every mundane feature of my life? Yes. Why? Because it calms my insane mind.

So I cleaned my room...Sort of

It looks clean, but I kind of just stuffed it all in my closet.......(O.o)

See?

\ / (BTW do you like my makeshift text arrow?)

Meh. I'll do it tomorrow; I'm going to bed. I just watched the House Bunny with Ashley, it was really funny ...But now Im tired even though its only 11:19.

Plus i noticed Lisa called me, and i will try my best to call her back tomorrow afternoon. Goodnight.

Looks A Bit Boring...

2008-12-28T16:15:00.004-05:00

My blog page looks rather boring... It makes me upset because I dont know how to use blogspot, and I can't change the stupid blue "Blogspot" bar above the page to a different color...
Either way it is fun having a blog, and i really hope to be updating this thing alot... (I think i use "..." too often, even when im texting...)When i do that people are supposed to interperet it as the face that i make when something bothers me...You all know that face...

ANYWAY Im planning to clean my room soon...It's quite messy:

Btw thats not my box of bandanas... And don't judge me because my room is messy. I just got home from Florida.

Update (Like 2 minutes later): I found the settings, now the bar is black!!!1