maangchi

In my cooking adventures, I've been really dependent on my Food & Wine 2009 Annual Cookbook, Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics, and the indispensable How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. I also get some recipes from online food blogs like Serious Eats or Smitten Kitchen. Overall, I've been the most adventurous with my western-style cooking because I've had these great resources with really dependable recipes. In the past year, we almost always had to get rid of our leftover kimchi that would go bad if we didn't make kimchi jiggae out of it. We didn't eat much Korean food.

But I came across this one food blog through her YouTube channel: Cooking Korean Food with Maangchi. She doesn't make the most professional cooking videos (she never ever mentions how many servings her dish makes), but her recipes are solid! It's hard to find reliable Korean cooking recipes. Even the go-to Korean cookbook, Vignette of Korean Cooking, seems a little suspect (She never uses real garlic! What's with this garlic powder stuff?).

But Maangchi's stuff is awesome! I'm planning on making some galbi jjim for Cyrus's lunch next week. Here's the recipe I'm gonna follow:



Are there any other great Korean or Asian recipe resources that you live by?

music monday: "love sex and magic" cover by jane lui

I hate this song, but it's awesome seeing a nerdy Asian girl singing it with a really cool arrangement (Whoa, wine glasses!).



It's kind of embarrassing to admit, but I heard about Jane Lui through someone I strictly know through Yelp. He's helping promote her album release party here in New York at the Rockwell Music Hall next month, and I'm thinking of going!

How can I resist a female, Asian, singer-songwriter? That's the trifecta right there. The triple threat. I was doomed to love her.

I like what I've heard of her original music so far. Definitely check out some samples on her website!

stupidphone

My desire for a smartphone is growing and growing and growing. I thought I was cool with my phone that opens both ways so I can text on a QWERTY keyboard, but now I think I need to have apps and email on my phone to be actually cool.

I got an email from a friend after I got home from meeting her. "We're here at the restaurant. Are you guys close?" What happened here? Instead of texting me, she sent me an email. I think because she probably thinks I'm reasonably cool, she assumed I had a smartphone.

Having a smartphone would also make my need for little slips of paper scrawled with maps and directions obselete. I used to have to purge my purses of useless crap every couple weeks. But now I have to do it every few days because of all these scraps of paper! This is what makes me think that smartphones are also good for the environment.

Hm.

Oh! It's Music Monday. Let's see.... I'm currently listening to the theme song of the best game in the world: Plants Vs. Zombies (full version!).

"with room"

I'm now in my third week working at Starbucks, and I already have a list of things that annoy me!

The biggest thing is that people pour coffee into the trash can to make room for their milk, and about half of them miss. First of all, how do you miss? These are motor skills that we learned in elementary school! Second, when I take out that trash, it is HOT. And it's HEAVY. All that poured out, wasted coffee! If they would only ask for their coffee "with room," we could all save the hassle of throwing out that coffee.

One time I was taking the trash out, and this guy poured his coffee into the hole and - because the trash can wasn't in place - it splashed ALL over me. I screamed out and told him that I'm taking out the trash now, but the guy didn't notice. He then put napkins and his stirring stick in the hole, too. Some people!!

The second thing is when people are on their cell phones while placing their order. There was one guy who didn't want the person he was talking to to know that he was at Starbucks, and so he literally mouthed his very specific order to me. And I am terrible at reading lips. Seriously - hang up the phone or say "hold on" and give me your attention for 5 seconds!

One non-customer-related pet-peeve is that because I'm new, there are like five people telling me what to do, and sometimes these things conflict. "Go on your 10-minute break" says one person." "Finish your date dots," says another. And still a third person says, "Stay at the register! Don't move!"

And lastly, it is cold in our store. Even on a day like this where it's barely over 60 degrees - I'm shivering, even with two layers on. This annoys me about most places - restaurants, movie theaters, uhh nature -- I hate the cold!

Okay rant over! Time for my first halal cart! Chicken & rice, here I come!

"slacker!"

You know how everyone's done and said stupid things in the past? I've been plenty stupid, and I think I have a normal amount of regret about them. But I have this one memory that pops into my head every couple weeks or so, and it pains me like a knife twisting in my chest. The worst part is that I can't do anything to undo it, or apologize for it or explain it.

For some reason I've been thinking about it more these days, so maybe if I can't apologize directly, ...this will help? I don't know. Let's try and see.

This was maybe a year or two after graduating from college and I was at home in Maryland. I went with some not-so-close friends to Silver Diner to eat. One of the servers came up to me and asked if I played the flute.

"Uhhh...yeah," I said. That's a weird thing for some stranger to know about me.

But the server reminded me that he was my classmate in middle school, and we had a bunch of classes together, including band where he played the trumpet and I played the flute.

"Of course!" I said. "Jason! I remember you!"

We were all smiles and knee-slapping, until...I said it:

"You were such a slacker!"

The smile on his face turned into a grimace and he said, "Aaaalright. It was good to see you." And he walked away.

Shudder shudder shudder shudder. Am I really posting about this?? :(

If I could go back and tell him what I actually meant to say, I would've said something like, "Ohh, you gave our teachers such a hard time! Howcome we didn't see you at Springbrook?" ...or anything not cruel!!!

Yeah, he got in trouble a lot, but he was being so nice! We almost never spoke in middle school, but he remembered my face ten years later and remembered the instrument I played! And how did I repay his kindness? GAH, I don't need to say it again, do I?

I hope it's not as bad as it seems to me. But I think it really is that bad. So Jason Moore, if you're out there somewhere, please forgive me! I really didn't mean what I said, and I'm so sorry I said it!

got yelled at

I'm terrible at dealing with confrontation. Whenever I feel a strong emotion - any strong emotion - I have one reaction, every time: I cry. It makes me feel like I'm five, and sometimes I just can't hold it back.

It's the most embarrassing when it happens at work. And it has happened. When I was working at the child care center of a women's gym, I got screamed at by one of the mothers and told that I should be fired. I had to step in the bathroom. I second-grader I tutored for the first time wailed at me and told me that I'll never be a good teacher and that I was a failure at life (seriously). Those were in high school. But I knew that it wasn't beyond me to break down in tears in the workplace, now, late in my twenties.

So when a customer at Starbucks totally lost it and screamed at me today, I am proud to say that, although my voice quivered a little when I took the next customer's order, I held back the tears. Thank goodness for those hats, too - it makes it a little worse when people can see and react to my face when I get upset. It's kinda like that kid who falls down and would otherwise be fine, except he starts crying only when people around him get all "Aww are you okay??" I think it's like that.

Anyway, my coworkers supported me ("She's new," the girl at the next register said as she put her hands on both my shoulders.) and I got past it.

a million kajillion things at once

After paying hundreds of dollars to get certified to teach in New York Public Schools, I'm working at Starbucks. Sometimes, I admit that I'm a little embarrassed to tell people, and when new people I meet ask what I do, I tell them about my other job (sometimes).

Going into it, I thought that it would be easy. But waking up at 4:30am every weekday morning, seeing Cyrus for only an hour at night before we have to go to bed, and doing a million kajillion things at once for 6-8 hours straight is pretty stressful! But that's real life, right?

I'm pretty lucky to have what I had this past year: working part-time and spending a whole lot of time each day with Cyrus, even if I was sitting five feet away from him on my computer while he studied. And I'm so thankful that that's how we were able to start our marriage.

And no matter how hard it is not seeing him more than an hour each weeknight, I always remind myself - at least we're not dating long-distance anymore! Seriously, because anything is better than that!

So I work at Starbucks! And it's going okay.