New Year's Role Call

This is what Nicole and I were up to on New Year's Eve. 

Devin visits for graduation

It's been awhile. Some things have changed; others have not. Terren, Nicole, Livy, and I moved into our new apartment, and Yooni is subletting Livy's room for the summer. Devin came to visit for graduation. I had missed all of us being together. I wish she could've stayed longer amidst the chaos of moving out, moving in, family visits, etc. I love all of you very much. Sappiness aside, here are some pictures from that time:

mo' momo

This is extremely belated but check out my winter bbq party spread --- and yes, we did that Momofuku bo ssam. I'm so excited to be coming back home for the summer and you know I'm going to get my grill on. All you babes in Caleee-four-knee-ya, be prepared for a deliciously meat-y summer because MOMMA'S COMING HOME!

Highlights of the winter BBQ: my mother did a soju love-shot with my old friend from highschool. 

Famiree Portrait

This semester has been somewhat hard for me because it's strange adjusting to not being with the famiree all the time. As I mentioned, I'm in London; Nicole is in Paris; Vanessa is in Istanbul; Terren is in Rio de Janeiro; Devin is back in Arizona; and Yooni, Steph, and Livy are in New York.

To put it succinctly, I miss all of you.

-CPK

Dim sum and shaved ice! Our flushing adventure.

Guess what time it is? It's I-have-a-paper-due-tomorrow-so-of-course-I'm-going-to-blog-tonight time! You gotta take some time away from your serious stuff so you can come back to it with fresh eyes - hence, the sudden increase of blog posts around midterms and finals.

This past saturday, our lovely lady Steph invited us to her stomping grounds: FLUSHING.



We took a brief tour around the Flushing mall before getting dim sum.

es en double o pee dee o double jee

On April 30th, 2011, Snoop Dogg graced Columbia University's campus and the Famiree got crunk.
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spontaneous saturday brunch!

At around midnight last friday/saturday, we decided it would be fun to have brunch in the morning. Here's what we ended up with:

• cucumber coolers
• cranberry-orange scones
• leek, white asparagus and squash frittata
• crêpes with brie, jam and fruit
• cheddar and dill scones
• strawberry and mango fruit salad
• plus toast and orange juice! (not pictured)

Deathly Hallows Pt. I

Some of the Famiree went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Thursday. Nicole drew the dark mark on me, Terren and Devin. As you can see, Terren and I were the most badass witches at the premiere. Order of the Phoenix got nothing on us.

We were quite pleased with the film. I was afraid that the beginning would be too boring since they spend so much time wandering around in the woods - but the advantage of watching it over reading it is the beautiful European landscape. Hoooooly turd. It was so pretty. ANYWAYS NOT TO GIVE ANYTHING AWAY - although I can't imagine anyone who hasn't read the last book or seen the movie yet, I'll just say that the audience was emotionally spent when the film ended. AND THEN we went to Big Nick's to fill that emotional void with fried things.

AHHHCAN'TWAITTILLTHENEXTONE

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, NICOLE

LOOK CAROLINE CAN PLAY THE ACCORDION! also note the little flags that we made for her while she was sleeping.

Happy happy birthday, from all of us to you. We wish it was our birthday, so we could party too! HEY!!! yay you finally turned the big 1-9, oh wait, you're still baby.

look i can clap happy birthday! better in person.

coney island

we have a list of things to do before we enter the months-long period of time that dominates most of the year and makes us forget what the sun looks like (not like we ever look at the sun.. but anyway, you get the point).

on that list was "go to coney island"--as of the weekend before last, check! the weather gods were in our favor as it was in the high 70's and sunny. the public transportation gods were not, on the other hand, as the last leg of the Q was out of service and we had to take a shuttle bus. it was nice to see that area of brooklyn (looks like a lot of fun! must go back.) but also it took foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

the coney island part of coney island was a little sad. the cyclone was $8. no thanks. the rest of the rides were really baby and basically county fair-esque. not to say they wouldn't be fun; we would've gone on them if we had more time. but we didn't.

first got some food on the boardwalk (nathan's hot dogs for yooni + terren, peruvian chicken for the rest of us that was DELICIOUS, btw) and then beached. probably due to the fact that it wasn't absurdly hot (in new yorkers' minds, though perfectly warm for us californians) and the subway was a fail, it wasn't crowded at all.

seeing the ocean was lovely. the water was about as cold as stinson beach which is fine when there are waves to mangle in, but kind of boring when there's not. oh well, still refreshing. we mostly just laid out in the sun, read, and people watched (primarily cute babies & vendors selling "coronas coronas," "mangoes mangoes," and "empanadas empanadas").

day = success.

lots of leafy greens

Today was a very exciting day for us - our first CSA (community sustained agriculture) pick up! We weren't quite sure what to expect, so Caroline and I brought several bags to carry things back in. It's around $160 per share/semester, and I'd say that they were very generous with their produce. We're splitting 2 shares for the 8 of us. This week we received red lettuce, mizuna (?!?!), cilantro, radishes, tomatoes, corn, potatoes and bok choy.

We're supposed to pick them up every thursday, which is also the same time the farmers market parks right outside on Broadway. I am so enamored with the different types of eggplants that are available. Egglpants are so beautiful! Summer fruit is so pretty! Strawberries are so delicious! Locally grown strawberries the absolute best. Seriously. Get thee to a pint of strawberries. None of that mutant, unripe "strawberry" business here.

For dinner, we ended up eating salad and pasta with homemade pesto. We used the lettuce, mizuna and radishes from the share, and threw in some avocado we had from before. At first we had no idea what to do with the mizuna, since most of us had never even seen or heard of it before. Apparently, it is known as a Japanese mustard and is used mostly in salads and soups. yum yum yum.

We are starting to get worried that we're annoying our neighbors since we're constantly occupying the kitchen and study lounge. I'm not quite sure what the solution is, because it's not like we're going to stop cooking or hanging out.

the pieces are coming together

photos by yooni. text by nicole.

as of right now, 6 famiree members can be found in the general new york vicinity. as of 5pm today, 3 famiree members could be found at 207 2nd avenue, aka MOMOFUKU SSÄM BAR.

the bo ssäm is a special menu item, and you can only sign up for it one week in advance. it's a big pork shoulder served family style to 5-10 people. read more about it here!

before the bo ssäm we started with a few appetizers, namely:

-steamed pork buns – pork belly, hoisin, cucumber, scallion

-another steamed bun that was not on the menu that had crispy pork, mayo, tomato, radishes.

-warm silken tofu – heirloom tomatoes, myoga, watermelon

then the bo ssäm came out. a whole pork shoulder, slow roasted for many hours, served with a dozen oysters, steamed rice, bibb lettuce, and four sauces: kimchi, kimchi purée, ginger scallion sauce, and "korean bbq sauce"

from top to bottom; left to right: famiree's famiree, warm silken tofu, famiree, oysters, pork buns, famiree's famiree.

at the end there were only a few bits of fat-soaked pork left. i couldn't let them go to waste (oh god i really am my father's daughter, aren't i), so i took them home to eat later. even though we were sufficiently stuffed, we tried a couple cookies at neighboring momofuku milk bar to finish off the meal.

as if your mouth isn't watering enough, here's one last picture of the pork shoulder, right as it came out.

this is making me hungry. i'm glad i took those leftovers.

Summer in New York

Yesterday, Cpk and I went to Bryant Park to watch Goldfinger. I love the James Bond series. I own all the movies at home. I knew Cpk would hate the movie (the Bond Girl's name is Pussy Galore), but I think she liked being outside. The weather at night has been really nice, so the HBO film festival in Bryant Park is going to be quite a treat. Cpk guessed that there were several thousands of people on the lawn. Considering that's where they used to pitch the tents for fashion week, I'd say it's possible.


There are other movies playing at the Brooklyn Bridge Park and Central Park - actually all around. I can't find the page on gonyc, but it's there.

gastronomic endeavors, 6/21/10

today was quite the food-filled day. i woke up and my friend made some chocolate chip pancakes (i had twice the amount of chocolate chips as everyone else) and some fresh squeezed oj. my friend who made them's secret was to put half a mashed up banana in the batter. it was yummy because you could taste just a hint of banana flavor, which went well with the chocolate. no pictures.

for lunch i was supposed to go eat with the same friends, but around 2 i give him a call and as he picks up, i hear "oh shit i forgot we were supposed to call nicole.. hey what's up?" nice. so instead, i went to the city with another friend with the mission of grabbing some lunch, then making our way to an ice cream place called humphry slocombe. little did i know, this would be the start of an epic food adventure, perhaps the most epic food adventure of my entire life.

i suggested ike's place, which is a sandwich place i've heard a lot about. but then i realized i also wanted to go to pizzeria delfina, another place i've been meaning to go to. DILEMMA! the mission has an overwhelming amount of fantastic sources of food—so what were two hungry youths like us to do? compromise: split one sandwich at ike's, and split one pizza at delfina. problem solved.

the line was 4-5 times longer than this.

i only had my phone today, so sorry for the crappy quality of pictures.

as we pulled up to ike's place (primo parking spot snagged right across the street, btw) there was a huge line out the door. this place is effin' popular. and for good reason; i recently saw two of their sandwiches featured on grub street's the san francisco sandwich register (a follow-up to their previous review of the 101 best sandwiches in new york), among many other accolades. after deciding on a sandwich and waiting about 15 minutes to order, then maybe another 15 minutes to get our sandwich, we made our way to dolores park to devour said creation.

the peg bundy before: breaded eggplant, french dressing, avocado, smoked gouda, + all the basics every sando comes with ("dirty sauce," lettuce, tomato, red onions, pickles, banana peppers)

the peg bundy after (they even give you a lollipop!)

we digested for a bit in the park, then went to delfina. on the way we passed bi-rite creamery, and it felt wrong to be so close and not get any ice cream there, though i knew we were going to ice cream after delfina. but a roadblock in our plans came when we found out that delfina wasn't open yet for dinner, as it was that awkward limbo time between lunch and dinner. so, we stopped in at bi-rite market, where i picked up some ginger beer that i had been craving and two types of cheeses: one from pt. reyes, and one handmade by nuns in france, called secret du convent ("which means 'secret of the convent' in french," it read. no shit!).

since we had some time to kill.. i thought, why not get a bit of post-lunch, pre-linner ice cream (before our planned post-linner ice cream)? this certainly wouldn't be the first time i've had ice cream more than once in a day. bi-rite creamery's ricanelas (cinnamon ice cream with snickerdoodles) and brown butter pecan are my favorites.

counter-clockwise, from top left: ricanelas, brown butter pecan, and balsamic strawberry

finally, to pizzeria delfina. we got the last outside table, perfect for people-/hipster- watching. i was craving artichoke hearts, and luckily one of the special pizzas of the day had sauteéd artichokes on it.

capricciosa pizza: proscuitto cotto, artichokes, nepitella, panna, & mozzarella

humphry slocombe is in the southeastern part of the mission, so we had a bit of a walk to get there. perfect for walking off a bit of my growing food baby. when we got there, i was greeted with such ice cream flavors such as balsamic caramel and secret breakfast, and sorbets like cucumber ice milk, hibiscus beet, or thai chili lime. what? wait, what?! check out their full list of the flavors here. we sampled literally every one, except for maybe vanilla and chocolate.

between the two of us, we ended up getting balsamic caramel, mcevoy olive oil, peanut butter curry, and cucumber ice milk.

the balsamic caramel was really intense. they definitely captured the strong balsamic flavor (unlike bi-rite's balsamic strawberry, where you can't really taste the balsamic) but by the end it was a bit overwhelming. the olive oil was flavored with a bit of citrus, which you could taste at the beginning and then shifted to an olive oil aftertaste. it was nice until i realized that between the citrus flavor and the olive oil flavor, it tasted kinda soapy. hmm. and together the two were interesting (à la olive oil & balsamic vinegar).

the peanut butter curry was my favorite; it tasted just like peanut butter at first, but you were left with a delicious curry aftertaste. together with the cucumber ice milk, the combo reminded me of eating the cucumbers that come as a garnish for chicken satay, dipped in peanut sauce.

lastly, as we walked back to the car, we stopped at ritual roasters, a mission staple. yes the number of pretentious hipsters that inhabit the trendy café is unmatched, but the coffee is also pretty tasty. also, my friend is obsessed and demanded we stop in.

we got lattes.

LASTLY, seeing some saffron threads at bi-rite market gave me the idea to make paella for dinner. so when i got home i started cooking some paella, switching recipes three times before settling upon a recipe for express paella using a pressure cooker (best invention ever), mostly because my family was hungry and it was already 9:30. i added all the spices that were listed in all the other recipes though, which i think made it a lot better. it came out a bit liquidy, but tasted yummy.

phew.