Cel-Ray?

I was in the mood for soda today and on a whim decided to have the cel-ray flavored Dr. Brown's at Zaftig's (a jewish deli where we went for brunch). What I did not know was that cel-ray's short for celery and the soda had a weird celery after taste. Strangely enough, I actually enjoyed it! The flavor was refreshing and wasn't too sweet ... even though a can still has 36g of sugar (I checked).

Oh yes, and zaftig's serves really good brunch ... I had really yummy pancakes with strawberry butter and fruit. The also have challah french toast. I think the ones they serve here look like cakes! Gotta have it next time. But sorry no photos folks, I left the camera in the car.



See zaftig's on chompster

OMG!

I'm going to Hollywood, I mean Cambridge eeeha!!!! I have to share the news because I'm so super dooper excited! Drum roll ... I have been invited for an m b a interview at the one school I applied to. OK I just got notification today and the interview is in a week's time. I'm a nervous wreck now, I need to start preparing pronto!! HELP!! *GASPS for AIR*

I was quite pleased with my essays (shameless) but the next round will be even tougher. Approximately 40% of the applicants are interviewed and of that another 30% will be selected .... I feel like I'm on American Idol. The odds are against me and I don't think I interview well???? :( ... but even if I do get in, will that 90 grand be well spent (that is 90 LV bags thank you)? <- reason to be happy about rejection

OK...a quick poll ... should I wear a skirt suit (more proper?) or a pant suit? I could knock em dead with my killer (*ahem* dry scaly) legs ... or be all preppy in jcrew haha. Gosh of all the things to be worrying about! :p

ClustrMaps

How cool is this? ClustrMaps is a free service that lets you see where visitors to your site are located on a map! I know I know, my blog is obviously on the lower rungs of web stickiness. In fact I'll be wearing its unpopularity like a badge! But still it'll be cool to see. haha

Hrmm looks like this image won't update tomorrow. I'll keep my fingers crossed that I'm not the only visitor ...

A Valentine's Tradition

... no more! We usually celebrate valentine's day by preparing lobster at home (we've done this 2 or 3 years in a row already). This makes celebrating so much easier since you don't have to battle the crowds or worry about where to go :)

Chez MintPatch Dinner Menu
* Oyster Stew
* Pepper Crusted Steak with Red Wine Sauce
* Balsamic Tomatoes and Crinkle Cut Fries
* 1998 Monticello Rioja
* Strawberry Mousse in a Chocolate Shell

This year, we strayed a little from the winning formula. We had steak instead since we weren't particularly in the mood for lobster. I tried to stay true to the seafood tradition though by making a pot of oyster stew. It was also yesterday that I discovered how disgustingly packed with fat cream based soup dishes are. I used a whole quart of half and half and a stick of butter. That's like over a 100g of fat!!! Yes you heard right. See thats why I don't like cooking, for me ignorance is bliss. I can never look at a bowl of chowder the same way anymore.

Look at the candles ... so romantic right? Too bad hubs made me blow them out after 2 minutes :p


Hubs is especially proud of the fact that the steak is carmelized on the outside yet juicy on the inside:


I'd like to say I made this ... but I bought it from Whole Foods:

Awww

I want to be MADE

Wow yesterday brought the first nor'easter of the season. Weird, this has been an unnervingly mild winter so far. 50 degrees F in February? I should be rejoicing but I know we'll eventually pay for it with some freak snow storm in May when I'm out parading in my new sandals.

Anyway, we were stuck at home all Sunday and ended up watching two movies 3-Iron and The Aviator. An arty one and a hollywood-esque one. Hubs refuses to watch chick flicks, I'm still working on converting him. We also watched like a billion episodes of MTV MADE that I tivo-ed. See MTV makes me feel young and cool again. Woohoo!

If you haven't watched it before, Made is this show where teenagers get transformed into anything they want. Of course the twist is that these kids are the total opposite of what they want to be made into. Think along the lines of loser nerd wants to be a rapper or prissy princess wants to be skater chick.

Hah so I was just thinking, how cool would it be if I could be made into an aerobics/spinning instructor! How totally opposite of couch potato me haha.

Now what would you want to be made into? :)

Depressing

Smashed Poop

It all started on Thursday when Miss Moxie picked up and ate this awful stinky piece of thing when we were out on our evening walk. It was dark, I couldn't see, so I yelled like a mad woman but nothing would make her spit it out. !*@*!@

Fast forward to Friday she has the runs in the morning. In the evening hubs comes home to a poop fest in the kitchen (good thing I got home late muahah). Then early saturday morning, I wake up to this awful stench smell in the bedroom. Turns out she couldn't hold it in ... and the scariest part was she wasn't able to walk. Her hind legs just refused to hold up :*(

Turns out I don't do very well in stressful situations. I got all freaked out and we rushed her to the emergency vet ... at 5am. The nice vet managed to coax her to walk after a bit and gave her a fluid injection beneath her skin so she won't dehydrate. You can see her little hump in the photo hehe.

She's doing better now, after a long afternoon of looking rather pitiful, crying, and not being able to walk. She can finally stand up with some effort. I'm so relieved I can finally take it out on her for all the worrying. No more sympathy for Mox. She wins an oscar for best corgi actress.

Meet the Family

Uh oh it's retail therapy part II. As you can see, now that the wedding is long over, and I'm done with my applications, I am in desperate need of a new obsession. Funusual was having a 30% off everything sale and we managed to pick up a few Alessi kitchen accessories. They are usually ridiculously expensive, but so irresistably cute. Looks like we're officially alessi whores.

From left to right. Ms Priss, the pepper grinder, Mr White Pants, the cork screw, and funky Koziol, the sugar dispenser, masquerading as an Alessi.


I also got a cute apron! Me posing as myself ...


I need to resist the urge to go back and get the can opener! OK I need to go hibernate now, we're out of heating oil so our apartment has no heat or hot water bleh. Time to wrap myself in blankets.

Retail Therapy

Headed down to bloomies last week to indulge in some retail therapy and managed to score some bargains. I got a cute juicy velour hoody (I love juicy), a BCBG sparkly top for $30 (I wore this for CNY) and a pair of theory velvet pants at more than 50% off (don't they make my behind look so nicey nice). Juicy, Theory and BCBG are some of my favorites because they fit me so well! Shopping in the US is a huge pain since I'm, to put it bluntly, short. And every friggin store is guilty of of vanity sizing. I swear a size 0 here is really a size M in asia. HOW UNFAIR. Ok rant over. I guess this stops me from buying everything in sight.

The hoodie. Well not technically a hoodie since it has no hood. Confession: I've worn this 3 times already haha

新年快乐

Happy chinese new year! The year of the dog, moxie's favorite :)



For our 'tuan yuan fan' we met up with two couples at Chau Chow City in Chinatown. You see 6 is a lucky number ;) As we ate, we lamented about the cny foods we missed most. Kueh bankit, pineapple tarts, bak kua, fried prawn rolls ..argk! Yeah we're deprived, gone 10 years without partaking in the festivities. Also talked to my family, they seem to be having much fun (without me). Hubs and I resolve to celebrate CNY in singapore next year.

Weird, I never really missed the whole lunar new year thing till this year. I don't know why, maybe as you get older you get more nostalgic ... it's nice to celebrate in a big way like the americans do thanksgiving. Even though both festivals really stand for the same things, spending time with family, thanksgiving just doesn't have the same feel since it's not something I've grown up with.

Fish Maw soup. I don't remember why but eating fish maw is supposedly auspicious?


Yummy duck


Pigs trotters with fatt choy. We clogged our arteries but we'll be rich!


Sea cucumber ...


The obvious ... 年年有鱼. This was actually really tasty!

In the Kitchen

We cleaned out our pantry the other day. It was filled with food that hub's parents had brought us during their trip almost a year and a half ago. We probably have enough to survive a nuclear explosion. Fortunately, or unfortunately, most of the stuff was expired so the decision to toss them out was easy. The rest of the items, I wasn't sure what to do with. There were all kinds of chinese herbs, apparently for making soup? But I don't make soup???? Though I found in the mess, 3 boxes of prima chilli crab premix! So yay! We'll be having a feast sometime soon :)

We have like a billion packets of bak kut teh so if anyone is craving some ... let me know :D



My next task was to make pineapple tarts. Being a tad over zealous, I bought a fresh pineapple not the canned ones. Canned pineapples are for sissys. Real cooks use fresh ingredeints. Of course I can barely cook or bake or cut for that matter. After watching me battle the pineapple for a while, hubs graciously offered to cut it for me :)

The pineapple:


My nemesis:


They look better than they taste. :( The pastry was too salty and the pineapple filling wasn't sweet enough. I also ran out of filling after 12 tarts. Hence the empty middle row. I was hoping to be a domestic goddess and send these to family and friends for Chinese New Year. *Sigh* will have to experiment again!

I also played dress up with Moxie. She's outgrown most of her clothes already. That cow :p

Weekend List

I'm resolving to be less of a procrastinator, so this weekend I am going to accomplish all these things that have been sitting on my list for a while. Oh and of course fun stuff too, things I've always wanted to do but never got down to doing

Print out wedding photos (my mom's been bugging me forever)

Finish writing out our wedding thank you cards *blush* mom is so gonna kill me but I think she hasn't read my blog in a while so she doesn't know ;)

Get stamped envelope to mail to embassy so I can get my new passport and travel

Clean the apartment so we can invite people over (haha). Reward: Go to ikea to get home organizers

Do laundry. I have a huge pile of clothes to be washed (hubs wants to stop me from buying new clothes (yeah right) till I do laundry :p)

Go to newton open house on Sunday. There is this condo we should take a look at. It's right down the street from where we live. 3 bdrms and includes garage and patio! Only problem is the outside looks kinda crap. It's in our price range so we should take look anyway. Yeah there's usually some major flaw with anything in our price range :p

Bake pineapple tarts! CNY is coming up and I've always wanted to do this. Anyone have a good recipe?

Take moxie for interview with doggy daycare. Then we can take off on short trips and not have to worry :)

Work on resume

Return jacket at BR and exchange sweater at bloomies

Wow long list ... wish me luck!

Tea for two ...

and two for tea. I've only heard about the brand Bodum recently from matreshka. She bought a coffee press set as a wedding gift and showed me the website. I really liked their design! Modern chic.

Anyhoo, I ended up at Starbucks one morning trying to find a gift for the yankee swap we had at work. And guess what! I noticed a bodum assam teapot for $20! I liked it so much that I even got K one for x'mas. And finally last weekend, we caved and got a set for ourselves! It makes drinking tea so much more fun :D ... oh and the really cool part is you can microwave the whole pot! How's that for convenience ...

Our afternoon tea :)

Japanese Perfectionists!!

Hubs found this on youtube.com and actually tried it. It's amazing! Expect no less ...

Happy New Year All

twas a quiet new year's. We were somewhat relieved.

We've spent the last few new years with A and gang. Each time there's been major drama. Last year, one of the A's went home sick, another broke up with her bf, and someone else got into a fight. The year before, the boys had a flat tire and never made it to the club before midnight hehe. We're beginning to believe it was that combination of people that triggered the bad luck of which hubs and I were a part! haha

This year we've almost broken the curse. We went for dinner at Sibling Rivalry in the South End with different friends since the A gang is broken up :( What was memorable about the food, besides being tasty, was the generous portions and the pomergranate champagne cocktail (I forget the exact name). I love POM! Everything went smoothly ...

It was really dark in the restaurant so the photos didn't turn out. Here's my duck! It's huge ...


Though I have to mention that SZ forgot their keys and were locked out of their apt when we were with them. It's never happened before. Our fault? Hrmmm ....

Christmas in NY

I like Christmas time. I get to have caramel apple cider from Starbucks, nice pressies, and indulge in consumerism (both pre and post x'mas). This year, despite our grand plans to spend Christmas at some exotic locale, we ended up going down to NY yet again. Not that it wasn't as much fun! We got to see my cousin and A and N.

As usual Moxie sticks her nose in the wrapping paper. She has to inspect everything:


We had dinner at Sushi of Gari on Friday night. N thinks this is one of the best sushi places in NYC (less pretentious and greater focus on the food). She must have spent a fortune in her quest for perfect sushi. haha


I know, I know, we always seem to be eating sushi! A and N were shocked that we weren't floored by Chutoro. Scacrilege but I'll say it ... Chutoro just doesn't do it for me. I get a bigger kick from eating uni :D Anyway the sushi was good, though not a wow. Maybe I'm just not a big fan of fusion style sushi ... or maybe we should have gotten the omekase.



We also had a soba lunch on Saturday at Sobaya. I got the cold soba (their specialty) and Tororo set. I loved it! Tororo is japanese yam served over rice. The tororo is white and gooey with the texture of mooshed up cereal. Weird but I like gooey stuff. Why don't they have a place like this in Boston? :( Oh and they make their own soba with ingredients flown from Japan. Though the Japanese purist might be horrified to find that the soba is actually handmade by a little hispanic guy heehee.



Ok ok lest you think that we eat only Japanese food, we did grudgingly go for Italian on Saturday at Assenzio in East Village. The buffalo mozerella with prosciutto was good. I also learned that buffalo mozerella is made from buffalo milk. Hrmmm....

My Jumbo Shrimp with Black Pasta dish:


On Christmas day we watched Memoirs of a Geisha. I had to watch it since I read the book, even though I knew it'd suck. The movie was slow zzz and it was awful watching supposedly Japanese people speak with a Chinese accent. I can tell myself that they're speaking Japanese, but it gets tricky when the americans come. They still speak English, though the chubby geisha pumpkin adopts an american accent. HRMMM. I'll give it a 5/10, at least I enjoyed looking at the pretty kimonos haha.

Of course the gifts! The best one ... for me from me. Yay a mulberry bag! Saks where is my order???? We also got a mini convection oven from my generous cousin L and a cool free people scarf, also a $25 starbucks gift card that I promptly spent. Very cool!

A My Humps Christmas

This has to be the strangest christmas card ever!! So tacky but so funny. Picture the 3 wise men scene done to Black Eyed Pea's My Humps. Yikes!!! You have to see this for yourself!

I gotta admit watching it is addictive. Here are the actual lyrics for My Humps ...

A sneak preview:

OK OK Pocky!

OMG my pocky obsession is out of control. I picked up 4 boxes of Pocky from Kotobukiya the other day. Almond Crush Pocky, Kurame (Sesame) Pocky, Reverse Pocky (I thought this was so clever - it's inside out geddit? haha), and Marron Toppo which isn't technically pocky. I have no idea what Marron is but I suspect it's some kind of Japanese chestnut that you can only find in a the fall? Someone please enlighten me!

My Pocky stash:


And check out these Pocky commercials. They're hilarious!

Little Monk Pocky

Crazy Pocky - They still eat pocky the same way they did 15 years ago .... left to right ...snap!

Medival Pocky - They sword play with pocky in this one *gasp* kill me now

No blog entry is complete without the quiz:

You Are Reverse Pocky

Your attitude: rebellious and clever Non-conformist, but curiously a trendsetter With you, up is down... and it's a wild ride!

What Flavor Pocky Are You?


In any case I've found new direction in life. I want to try all the pocky flavors!!! Eeeha! I have chocolate, strawbelli, green tea mousse, creme brulee, pumpkin, milk, sesame, reverse, almond crush, men's pocky, honey mustard pretz, salad pretz, under my belt.

A Wedding Gift

M and G gave us tickets to see the Ansel Adams exhibit at the MFA in Boston as a wedding gift earlier this year. They know that hubs is into photography so this was really thoughtful and sweet of them. Though being the ungrateful people that we are, we procrastinated till today when we finally decided it was time to go before the exhibit closed at the end of the year.

When we got to the musuem, it was packed and the tickets were sold out??? Erhhh I didn't know that tickets ever sold out at a museum :p. Thankfully as we were about to turn around and head back, one of the very nice ushers gave us two tickets for FREE! Apparently 2 people had cancelled. Yipee! Good wedding mojo?

Hubs and I both preferred his portrait shots though he's really known for his work with landscape and scenery. BLASHPEMY eh. Not as blasphemous as a comment we saw in the guestbook "good photos but would be better if colorized" ... I hope the person was kidding haha.

There are these random men around the musuem:

Which celebrity do you look like?

Read about MyHeritage.com today on digg. It's supposedly able to do face recognition on a photo you submit and tell you what celebrity you look like. Oooh what fun right? Of course it has more meaningful purposes too :) for example you can use it to find long lost relatives or trace family lines.

Perfect timing. We have a release going out at work tonight so what better time to try this new toy while waiting haha. Apparently I look like Hilary Duff in one and Renee Zwelleger in another. Hrmpf. Guess they haven't uploaded any photos of asian celebrities :p

Alrighty people make sure to try it out and let me know who you look like!

Is my face that chubby???


Oooh I likey she's like 20 and I'm not ...

Oooh I likey she's like 20 and I'm not :)