4 posts tagged “me”

Nava Thai Hot Pot

My friend Derk is an amazing photographer, and whenever I go out with him, I am almost ashamed to take pictures of the food we eat. I mean, I still do, but I usually pounce on him soon after and steal those pictures for my own benefit. For instance, the above photo of Derk’s beautiful hot pot tofu dish. Yummy! :D

Somehow, beautiful pictures make food seem to taste even better...

Please support Derk and visit his site at http://derkgs.com. (Just a little plug: If you have a need for an excellent photographer who is truly dedicated to his work, he is definitely your man! He does weddings, portraits, etc.)

My Nava Thai Food

You can’t really tell from this picture but my noodle dish is supposed to have broth. Supposed to.

Angela Nava Thai Food

Angela and I got the same dish, but I guess you can’t tell that hers had broth and mine did not. Hm. That is why, dear reader, I have the following picture!

Nava Thai Hot Noodle Soup

What my dish was supposed to look like.

Actually, I’m thankful for the broth-less version. I don’t think I could have handled the spiciness otherwise. As it was, the lack of broth meant that the spices were able to be pushed to a side of the dish and ignored during the demolition of my meal.

Jiefei Nava Thai

Hooray for eating out with friends!

People in Newfoundland are so friendly and sweet, it made me reluctant to return to the United States. Somehow in spite of the constant overcast in their weather (or perhaps because of the weather), they’re more than willing to flash a smile and help out, chattering to me in their unintelligible Newfie accent, which I totally want to figure out and learn. Q: How’s she cuttin’? A:Best kind!

When Erin and I went exploring St. John’s, we also looked for the hostel she would be staying at during her last night backpacking in the area. When we finally found the hostel, we also discovered Bill, a Newfie who fulfilled every expectation we had of a Newfoundlander. He was friendly, spoke fast (although he told us he slowed down so we could understand him), and had a wicked sense of humour.

While recommending to us various sights and scenes, Bill also mentioned a favorite food of his: caplin. Smoked caplin. In his enthusiasm, he went over to the refridgerator, opened it, and took out a large jar with a small, darkly-colored fish resting inside. He offered it in my direction. Go ahead! Take it! Try it! It’s good!

I will say that as a child, I often ate small, dried fish whole as a snack. It’s an Asian snack, and many Asian children have stuffed the salty, crunchy buggers into their mouths without a second thought. But to be faced with such a large specimen, I was admittedly nervous. Yet I had already reached into the jar and grabbed a hold of the fish.

Well, here goes!

Eating a smoked caplin

… Salty. Very very salty.

Bill watched my expression carefully. Never get dried caplin, he warned, they’re way too salty. And what about smoked caplin, I thought!

I think, next time, I’ll have to do as the Newfies do, and wash the caplin down with a nice cold beer…

In light of the fact that my last blueberry pie was so enthusiastically devoured by my coworkers, I decided to bake a new pie. This time, the crust took only about half an hour to make, which was nice. The dough came together pretty well, and I had less trouble rolling it out. However, I had a lot of dough leftover, so next time I plan to make a thicker dough for both the base and for the top crust. Perhaps I'll try baking it slightly beforehand as well.

Blueberry Pie Blueberry

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The time I made my first blueberry pie, I bought the blueberries from Trader Joe's. They were wild and organic. This time, I found bags of blueberries on sale at my local supermarket. This time, they were non-wild and non-organic (I do like to stick with organic foods, but unfortunately with my current salary, it is probably most wise for me to be frugal where possible). The surprising thing to me was the size of the berries. Call me ignorant, perhaps, but I was a bit startled at the difference between organic and conventional berry size.

Starry Starry Pie

Nevertheless, I continued making my pie. And this pie is dedicated to my cousin, Ruby, because today is her birthday! To my oldest friend (she is one of the few people of whom I can truly say I have known my entire life) Happy birthday dear girl, and I hope all your wishes come true. Haha, is that too sappy?

Slice a la Pie

Blueberry Muffins

I also made blueberry muffins for my friends Caroline and Anna when I went to visit them at their work at Georgetown University. It was the week of spring break at the school where my lab is, and I took three extra days off from the two allotted to staff members so that I could have the full week off.

The muffins were made from a mix I had picked up on sale from the supermarket a long time ago, and while there was nothing wrong with the muffins, I did realize while making them the difference between making desserts from scratch and from a box mix; there is a distinct aroma from the muffin mix that was so surprisingly ...commercial. I could not pinpoint it directly, but I have decided that all of my future endeavors in the baking realm shall be from scratch. At least, all the ones that I can help, anyway.

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In other news, I recently cut my hair.

Short and sweet

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My hair hasn't been this short since I was five, and it's a welcome change. Now the only problem is to figure out how I'm going to tie it up for when I need it out of my face...