Taking Pictures of Strangers

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

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

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?

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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!

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.