Category: food

Italy

uwucutiepatootieLeave a comment

 My favorite part about this summer is going to Italy. Whenever I go there, I feel a sense of peace that I don’t feel anywhere else. I stay at my Italian stepmom’s family house in Puglia and her family is so nice to be around and always makes my trip so enjoyable. One of my favorite things about going there is that I can eat an insane amount of food, and gain no weight. The food there is processed and filled with chemicals like most food in America and whenever I overeat in Italy, I never feel sick. Whenever I come back home, food makes me feel sick for a week because I become used to the food in Italy. I start my mornings in Italy by eating lots of fruit, cake, and cookies for breakfast. I eat an insane amount when I’m there. I probably eat ten meals a day. Typically during the day, we will either go to the beach, swim in the pool or go out to town. The only issue is that it gets so hot over the summer so if I’m not at the beach or pool, I need to stay inside. At night, we occasionally go out to town or go to my stepmoms friends hotel for dinner. I have been to Rome, Puglia, and Bari but this summer will be the first time I’m going to Venice and the Dolomites. My stepmom doesn’t like Venice because it’s just filled with water and there really isn’t much to do, but we are only going there for one night and I’m just happy to see it. The Dolomites will be fun but I know that my dad will make me hike all day in the heat which will be intense.

“Positano coast Italy“/ CC0 1.0

I love my advisory

leapingwaterLeave a comment

This week I went to dinner with my advisory, which has been long anticipated. We have been trying to have an advisory dinner since the beginning of the school year, but someone is always somewhere so it doesn’t work out. We went out to eat and had boba, then to the supermarket. There, my teacher told me that he wanted help cutting up his flowers he bought for his daughter, so we were finally able to visit his house. He has two cats which are so cute and I am so jealous of where he lives. There is so much land and the sun was almost going down so it was such beautiful lighting. I really had a great time and hopefully we will get to do some more dinners soon. We are lying to ourselves, though, that we can squeeze in three more in one month but who knows!

pc:me

A year left for my high school life…..

graypenguinLeave a comment

Every Friday I spend all day thinking about what to write on my blog, but I don’t really know what to write about. I don’t know what else to write about once I have written about what I like to do. Recently I have been talking with my roommate about what I want to do before I graduate from high school, and one of the things I want to do in the next year is to go on a trip to Thailand. She and I went on a trip to Japan together last year, and it made me realize that it’s not about where you go, but who you go with. What I especially want to do in Thailand is to eat delicious food. We have been really into Thai food for a while and would like to try some of the local flavors. We also want to go see animals and take a vacation. Besides going to Thailand, there are many other things I want to do before I graduate, such as going to sports games, going to concerts, and playing top golf. I have about one year left in my high school career. I want to enjoy to the fullest the things I can only do while I am still in high school.

pc;https://www.knt.co.jp/travelguide/kaigai/015/

3 Things I am Grateful for #3

poofypuffyLeave a comment

I was told that I can indeed write all my blogs now and not write anymore, so that is the plan. Also, I am enjoying these.

  1. Yogurt. I love yogurt. My mom always buys the really sweet kind, which is fine but I think I prefer Greek yogurt. My dad and I went to Vons after school yesterday and got some Greek yogurt. I couldn’t wait to eat it so I had some for dinner, and I put frozen goji berries in it because we didn’t have any fresh blueberries or strawberries or anything. It was so good and I can’t wait to eat it for breakfast this morning.
  2. Good food. I am grateful that my mom keeps a lot of good food in the house. I read (or heard?) one time about someone who received some amount of money after not having very much for a long time. They said the best part of being rich was that they could eat fruits that didn’t have mold on them. I am very grateful to have access to lots of tasty, un-moldy, and nutritious food. 
  3. Ceramics class. Having a class where you can make bowls and mugs and take them home is so cool. Not only are you taking home knowledge/a new skill, but you also get to take home custom-made bowls, mugs, or whatever you want to make. I want to try and get into the ceramics room more often so I can take advantage of this while I still can.

Picture Credit: Azure Magazine

Three things I am grateful for #2

poofypuffyLeave a comment

If I write way too many blogs now, maybe I can get to the point where I just don’t have to write any more blogs for the rest of the year. 

Three things I am grateful for today

  1. Feeling awake. I went to bed too late yesterday, because I needed to wake up early this morning. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it but I did. I thought I would be tired and miserable today, and I am not. I actually feel very happy and awake, and I am grateful for that.
  2. Pocky. I ate some chocolate-coconut pocky today and it was very good. I like sweet things. I don’t mean to eat a lot of sweets so often but they make me happy.
  3. Lists. I used to not use lists, or I would try to write some down and then I wouldn’t use them. I got some to-do list sticky notes during secret snowflake and they are so helpful. I write a to-do list during school every day and consult it when I work on my homework at night. It’s gotten to the point where I feel lost when I’m trying to study without my sticky notes. 

Picture Credit: tekforstaa.dk

Three things I am grateful for

poofypuffyLeave a comment

I just wrote a blog talking about how I’m going to be in significant debt after college, so I feel like writing about things that I am grateful for.

  1. The cake I just ate. It was not very sweet, but it had a little bit of cream on it which was yummy.
  2. Tea. I am drinking a tea that I don’t really know the name of, but my mom told me it is called mei cha. It is very bitter, but once you drink the tea, you taste sweetness in your mouth. It is very interesting and I love it. My mom and I are drinking tea while she reads Dune and I type blogs for journalism. 
  3. My mom. She was very excited when she got her Dune books in the mail today. She has been reading the first book on her phone as a pdf, so she was excited to get the physical copy finally. After we watched the Dune 2 movie in theatres, she came home and bought the entirety of the Dune series, which is like at least 8 books. She likes to read the ending of a book before reading it, and she probably read the entire plot of the books on wikipedia before she even bought them.

Picture credit: amazon.com

Vlog

graypenguinLeave a comment

This week was a very slow week. One thing I had been looking forward to recently was going to eat acai bowl on the golf course. I have to say that the acai bowl there are the best I have ever had in my life. I also had my second driving school this week. This time we went out of the Town of ojai and up to the DMV in ventura. The last time we practiced was just going around the same roads so it was a lot of fun this time. I especially enjoyed driving on the highway for the first time. Driving at 100 km/h was fun, but changing lanes at that speed was very scary. I was especially scared of getting in between cars when the distance between them was very close. I am very nervous because I am going to take the test after the next practice session.

pc;https://m.facebook.com/topgolfnaperville/photos/all-things-acaid-this-bowl-is-a-great-way-to-start-the-day/1393840497420873/

Another break

leapingwaterLeave a comment

I just arrived back at school from break, but this time it feels a little bit harder to be back and away from my home and parents. My best friend came home with me this break, and we ate a lot of good food, once again! We had all sorts of things from pastries to ganjang gejang to shabu shabu, which my friend made for my family. It was also my dads fifty sixth birthday which we celebrated by baking him a cake, which was a strawberry cheesecake with a clear gelatin topping which was delicious and cute. I wasn’t actually able to be with my dad on the day of his birthday as he was out of town, but I’m happy we got to celebrate before that. Overall this break was very relaxing, and it’s time for me to look forward to the next one!

pc: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Korean_seafood-Ganjang_gejang-01.jpg

Baozi Recipe (Steamed pork buns)

poofypuffyLeave a comment

Makes 20 buns

Ingredients:

For the dough: 6 cups All-purpose flour, 1 tbsp Sugar, 2 cups Water, lukewarm, 2 tsp Yeast, ½ tsp oil

For stuffing: 2 lbs Ground pork- (1.5lbs lean), 1 clove garlic, finely chopped, 1 tsp fresh grated ginger, 2 small spring onions (whites), finely chopped, Water, Soy sauce, Sichuan pepper powder, White pepper powder, Salt

Making the dough

  1. Measure out flour into a large bowl.
  2. Mix 2 tsp yeast, 1 tbsp sugar, and 1 cup of lukewarm water into a measuring cup. 
  3. Pour the water into the flour and mix.
  4. Add more lukewarm water gradually if necessary. Generally, the ratio of flour to water is 2:1, but it can vary.
  5. Begin to knead the dough, incorporating the dry flour. If more water is needed to incorporate all the dry flour, add more, but do so sparingly because the dough should not be sticky. The sign of a good dough is a clean bowl and clean hands.
  6. Coat the inside of the big bowl with a small amount of oil, to prevent sticking. Place the dough back in the bowl, cover with a wet towel to preserve moisture, and put the bowl on top of a bowl or pot of hot water. Allow the dough to rise. This may take a few hours, depending on the room’s temperature. (To check if the dough is ready, poke a hole in it with your finger. If the dough bounces back to fill in the hole, it needs to rise more. If the dough deflates, it has risen for too long. If the dough does not move, it is ready.)

Making the stuffing (While waiting for the dough to rise, begin making your stuffing)

  1. Put the ground pork into a bowl.
  2. Put the chopped garlic into 1 cup of warm water to make garlic water. This will distribute the garlic flavor better. Set aside so that the garlic can release more flavor. 
  3. Add the ginger, garlic water (with the garlic), the two pepper powders, salt, soy sauce, and green onion to the pork and stir in one direction.
  4. Add water to the pork and stir.

Wrapping/steaming the baozi

  1. Take the risen dough and knead the air out.
  2. Separate the dough into 20 balls and flatten them slightly by rolling them out with a rolling pin.
  3. Roll the edges thinner. 
  4. Wrap the meat into each one.
  5. Let the baozi rest for around 1 hour, or your baozi will deflate.
  6. Steam the baozi for 15 minutes after steam starts coming out of the steamer. Remove steamer from heat and leave baozi inside the steamer until the initial hot steam is gone. Otherwise, your baozi will also deflate. 
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Photo credit: My mom

Working at Bliss

progstenLeave a comment

Working at the best ice cream shop in town is a pretty good thing most of the time. It’s all pretty easy work but there are also some stressful times while working there. but I think the pros outweigh the cons by quite a lot.

Pros: 1) Free ice cream once a day and while I’m working there I can kinda just eat as much as I want since we have tasters that are free for other people to have so it’s also free for me since I work there. 2) I’m getting probably (on a bad day) an OVS teacher’s salary in tips alone since they aren’t taxed and it’s in Ojai so people can afford to tip most of the time. Also, the normal wage that I get but the tips are more fun. 3) is that I get to meet more people and have a lot of interactions with people whom I have never met which has helped me with talking and meeting new people and I have learned to have better social interactions because of it. 4) it’s a pretty chill job I don’t have to work that hard (well some moments are rough) 5) I get to listen to music while working

Cons: 1) as I said some moments can be stressful like when a bunch of people comes in at once and something in the back breaks or a topping runs out or an old man/child drops his ice cream and stuff like that. 2) the freaking machines are the most annoying part of the job like in some ways it is easier but if it breaks then everything goes sooo wrong and it’s just very stressful. 3) when someone asks for an ice cream cone instead of just being able to scoop it like a normal place I have to make a tower that if I do it wrong it falls over and 90% of it’s at an angle that is on the verge of falling over 4) closing is pretty rough as well it takes a while to do and is hard on my back.

It’s a fun job though and I need money