Gone Awry

For a moment, I considered grad school. I thought, Sure! Why not? Then I actually looked at some requirements and now I'm running for the hills. Terribly intimidating. Then again, I was looking at Yale's Doctorate program in Neuropsychology.

So I think grad school is off the table for now. I'll still aim for that MBA and M.Ed. But boy do I want to learn more about neuroscience. Is that weird? I am addicted to reading non-fiction. My favorite genre? Medical discoveries and abnormalities. This is such a stretch from food, right? However, I want to understand why people choose the food that they do. Why they tick and why decisions can be made in split seconds. But I don't want to hear the verbal garbage that spews out of sociologists. Nor do I want to pursue the analytical side of market research. I like biology and chemistry. I want to see the evidence and hold a brain in my hand. That would be AWESOME! This is what happens when I spend too much time at the library. I learn new things. :)

Check this out:
1. The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge
2. Compass of Pleasure by David J. Linden

Cinnamon Apple Brandy Bread Pudding

Finally the recipe!  I made it, I tried it, I'm adjusting it for you. I like my food sweet. Like cavity inducing sweet. This certainly wasn't sweet enough. But if you don't want cavities, just cut down on the sugar. Enjoy! Also! From other tasters, this is a "drier/breadier" bread pudding by the way.

Cinnamon Crumble Apple Brandy Bread Pudding
Used: 11x7 glass baking dish
Servings: 6
Serving size: 3x3in piece
Total time: 1hr+

Ingredients:
1 very stale sweet baguette
5 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 cups low fat milk
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
Splash of Calvados apple brandy (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Butter dish on all sides. Lightly!! (I made it look like frosting and that was not a good idea)
3. Cut the bread into 1 inch cubes. There was no need to toast the bread because it was so dry I got cut! But if your bread is not rock hard stale, do toast it as a dry bread will soak in more of the milk mixture
4. Beat the eggs then add all the rest of the ingredients. Whisk thoroughly.
5. Taste as you go is key! Don't drink it as raw eggs are risky to eat.
6. Put the bread into the milk mixture. Allow it to soak for 10minutes

Crumble
2 tbsp melted butter
1/2 cup flour
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp brown sugar

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together first
2. Slowly add the melted butter while stirring the dry ingredients
3. Stop when crumbles are formed

Place the bread into the buttered dish and put the crumbles on top.
Cover the dish with foil and cook for 30minutes. Uncover and cook for another 30-40minutes.
It's done when you poke it with a fork and there is only a little bit of moisture on the end.
Keep the dish uncovered so the top doesn't get soggy. Eat!

Science of this recipe tomorrow! Carbs!

Which will you choose?

I have few requirements for my life:
1. Find a career that pays more than the career path I strayed from (Food Scientist)
2. Love what I do
3. Dress pretty for work
4. Travel

So where does that leave me? I had a minor pre-quarter life crisis with it being my birthday month and all. I love my current job! I truly do. I don't like the pay but the customers and my bosses make up for that. I've done the research and found a couple of options.
1. Catering
2. Food writing/editing (I always did want to write that book on...I can't tell you! You'll take my ideas! lol)
3. Food styling (Mentioned this in a previous post)
4. Travel agent
5. (advertising) Account Executive but I lack the degree in business

Too many choices. Too many unknowns. So my solution to all this? Run. Run to another country and maybe I can figure it out over there during my adventures. I need a global map and darts. Next stop.....*throws dart*

Happy Independence Day America!

This was the only thing on my agenda today:
(Recipe coming soon!)
And then I ate it. By myself. NOM NOM NOM!

Eyes, not nose

It's a day where I have it off. It's the middle of the week! Whereas I would love to hang out with friends on my days off, I cannot as they have "grown-up" jobs with proper weekends off. But I can't complain about the flexibility. So with ugly weather outside, I'm on Tastespotting rather than out spending $$ at restaurants. I came across this recipe:  Cinnamon POPS

So I would like to thank Tastespotting. Thank you for giving me eye candy. My stomach and I thoroughly appreciate it. :)

Eau de Baked Goods

So my job ends the day at the cleaning yard which is located right next to La Boulange's baking headquarters.  As we're cleaning the contents of the day's work, we can all smell the fresh baked bread coming from the other side of the fence.  None of us has ever been inside the factory. Until me.

It was an emergency! I needed a restroom! Per usual, all the workers are Latino so I can only ramble in my broken Spanish to get in the door at 10pm. The guy was very amused and basically snuck me in.  When you walk into the building, on the left are the offices, to the right is the locked door into the bakery. He enters the code and waits for me to enter. By the door is a box of hairnets and shoe booties. OMGOSH! It feels like college when I had to enter the food laboratory. I hesitated since I can see in very large font: ALL WORKERS MUST WEAR HAIRNETS AND BOOTIES. I understand the importance of food safety as all the information was drilled into me over 4years of college. I grabbed both and threw them on immediately. The second I walked into the main floor, it was pure magic. There is flour EVERYWHERE. On the floors, on the walls, in the air. It smelled amazing. I wanted to stay there forever. Alas, I did my business and got out of there before anyone would question why I was there. But I do want to return. As a quality control inspector possibly? :D Yes, I'll need to eat everything.

As you probably heard from the news, Starbucks acquired La Boulange hoping to incorporate the baked goods into all their stores. Yay?

I'd like to contribute to this section: "With the acquisition, the Seattle-based coffeehouse chain plans to beef up its food offerings in Starbucks stores with La Boulange-branded French pastries, croissants, breads and muffins, which company officials hope will drive traffic and build the chain’s food attachment rate."

Read more: http://nrn.com/article/starbucks-buy-la-boulange-bakery-100m#ixzz1zVrFTQ00

Starbucks has been working on this for a long time.  In fact, I met the Starbucks marketing manager and she liked my shoes. But anyways, they were hoping to work on their food offerings. The company I was at did an analysis of their current offerings and bleck. Low quality and non-substantial amounts of food. Plus, boring and completely unappealing. So we were told to do more research into lunch "boxes" from major retailers. I guess they didn't want to go through more R&D as they clearly just bought La Boulange to give them that option now. Business is a fickle thing. Starbucks, to customers right now, is purely a coffee house. Well now Starbucks hopes to take more of your money by offering lunch options. I'm sure they are working with Pascal Rigo on that right now. A new panini or something? So get ready to see some test runs in certain Starbucks retailers. Only time will tell if consumers will associate lunch with Starbucks. 

That is all.

Dear Recruiter,

Food corporations have an entirely different method of sorting out applicants. It's the history book style of resume. I can hear the teacher from Peanuts cartoons when I think of corporate recruiters. Where's the fun? Where's the creativity? Where's the personality? People are NOT just words and experiences listed on paper. We're human. We like to interact. Try being friendly.

So I'm tired of stuffy corporations with their rules and rigidity. I have this to add to my cover letter for you:

ENJOY THE CREATIVITY! Embrace the change! Hire the future!

I need a drink

TOPIC: Beer

I feel like work has been non-stop and with the undercurrent of drama I haven't had a restful night in the past week.  What is there possibly to stress about?? I just want a dreamless night, please. So all I could think about after work is getting a beer.  Not just that but grabbing beer, heading to a rooftop and hanging out with friends while we talk about life. There is something about beer that makes me feel like I am allowed to be lazy.  Thank you Homer Simpson.

Credit: comicvine.com

That aside, here's the breakdown of beer:

WHAT'S INSIDE?

1. Where as wine comes from grapes, beer comes from grains.  Usually it's barley but others grain like oats, wheat, corn, and millet have been used.  Barley is best though and has become the grain of choice.  First, the grain has to be converted to "malt."  This is done by soaking the grains in water and allowing it to breakdown from the inside out.  Enzymes from the embryo (innermost center of the grain) work outwards by breaking down cell walls and starch + proteins that reside in the endosperm. It will sprout and signal starch digestion has occured. Yay! Longer soak in water means darker the malt. (sugars turn brown, just like when you make caramel). The kiln process is next where the grains are dried and heated to kill the embryo and retain the balance of enzymes and sugars. That dry grain can be stored and used whenever it is needed. TA DA! You have malt. 
2. Hops. It's the female flower portion of vine plant. Not saying the name because it's in Latin and we all know that's a dead language. Moving on, they are crucial to the flavoring of the beer. The more dried hops are added, the more flavorful the beer will be. Think dark, earthy microbrews. This is also where the bitterness comes from. Erm..not a fan of that but to each their own!

PROCESS

1. Mashing: malt is reconstituted with water and both starches and protein is broken down into it's most basic form of sugars and amino acids, respectively. Then you call that brown liquid wort. What a weird word.
2. Boil, boil, toil and trouble: add the desired amount of hops. During this process, flavors are extracted from the hops, bacteria is killed, and enzymes inactivated. The result is a darker, more concentrated wort.
3. Fermentation: yeast is added. Most common is Saccharomyces cerevisiae (for fast fermentation). The process takes about a week at a pretty warm temperature of 71F/21C.
4. Conditioning: Where the beer is clarified and bubbles are produced from carbon dioxide. Ideally it would happen naturally but who can wait for beer? So nowadays, carbon dioxide is pumped straight into the mixture. The beer is then filtered to clear it of all the yucky things floating inside, packaged and pasteurized. 

SERVE

Keep it away from light because the beer will develop a strong sulfur odor. Skunky is the term. The light reacts with the hop's acid creating an unstable free radical that in turn will react with sulfur compounds thus resulting in the skunk smell. Not so tasty. 

Cold for lighter beers. Room temperature for lagers/darker beers to get the full body flavors.

Yeah. I can't believe I typed all that. Here's a video of all those crazy beer myths you heard. Can't believe beer before liquor, never sicker has been debunked. Sadness. I need a beer. 

chocoLATE

A belated Valentine's Day to all the lovers. An amazing Single's Awareness Day for the better lovers!

I had a customer approach me with a bouquet of roses. They were absolutely gorgeous, until they weren't for me. pashaw. Get out of here, Romeo.

I would have to side with those cynics calling Valentine's Day a marketing scheme by corporations to make people spend lots of money on a single day's importance. That's ridiculous. To wait for one day to show you love your love? You're better than that.

So what's the deal with chocolate? Roasted cocoa beans smashed into a liquor to drink and savor. Or as they do now: blended with stabilizers & enzymes, pumped into molds, and cooled through long tunnels to be wrapped in colorful paper and purchased by you. Yum yum yum?

And old chocolate? I recently found a stack of chocolate bars hiding in an old lunch box from 3 years ago. Yum, Salmonella. Anyways, I opened one of the bars to see how it looked after being suffocated in a plastic lunchbox in a cool basement. It was the usual white-ish film I see on old chocolate. What is that weird white stuff? (that's what she said?) It's FAT BLOOM. Super sexy! The fat a.k.a. the cocoa butter separates from the chocolate and raises to the top or surface of the chocolate. Still ok to eat but texture is off making the chocolate a bit grainy. What happened?? Basement was a pretty moist environment and the chocolate was clearly not stored well. Exposed to these elements, the chocolate had little chance of surviving the three years.

No. I didn't eat that.

Have a great week! Eat more eggs!

I LOVE MY CITY.

Sadly, I've only been to Molinari's from Anthony Bourdain's drunken layover in San Francisco. But it was delicious!! I highly recommend it. Sorrento's in the outer mission is just as good. And probably cheaper. Yum! Have a look at where else he went to get plastered:

The kitchen is a laboratory.

Introducing Moto from Chicago! Where the chefs Homaro Cantu and Ben Roche are pushing the limits on what your tastebuds can experience. A serious mindf**k when you realize you're tasting tuna but eating watermelon. But their argument is that with this new technology, it will soon eliminate several environmental issues caused by the food industry such as over-fishing and shipping ingredients long distances. The device they used reminds me of something I learned in food engineering. I never thought you would want to do this at the restaurant level. Food manufacturers do this all the time with flavors. I recall walking into a whole pantry full of plastic jars of "natural" flavorings for the rice I was working on. But I digress.

So would you eat nacho-look-a-like that tastes sweet or tuna that is actually watermelon? These chefs have too much fun with liquid nitrogen. And I don't blame them. That stuff is AWESOME.

It's been a good year 2011. Let's review

Happy New Year everyone! Happy 2012! I hope you all had a very safe and wonderful day!

2011 was a year full of adventures for me.  I was pushed to do things I wouldn't normally do. I learned more about myself as I traveled on my own for 6 weeks. I learned to be brave with each challenge I faced. I met incredible people. I was given many opportunities and I fully appreciate the experience of each.  What a splendid end to a fantastically adventurous year! As for a new year's resolution? I hope I will be able to blog at least once a week about what I am truly passionate about and share it with you. Cheers!

Now for the review! (I'm broadening my horizons on blog topics. Enjoy!)  I'm pretty obsessed with television. Ever since I was little, I was the sack of potatoes on the couch. My mom tells me that's why my eyes are so big. Because of watching so much television. lol. Oh Asian mothers.

Early on, I lost interest in the Food Network Channel due to the redundancy of its hosts and food topics. Yawn. Thus I was excited when the Cooking Channel debuted.  And this year there's a new show that premiered today called: Cheap Bites.  Within a few minutes I was hooked. I just met my cheap food soulmate.  I laughed so hard I cried. And I feel like a lot of people can relate to the topic of staying within a budget and/or being an Asian. The host, Eddie Huang (Check out his blog: http://thepopchef.blogspot.com/) was a very honest host and just very frank which is refreshing! His restaurant, Baohaus in NYC, serves Taiwanese-style street food items called baos.  These fluffy buns are filled with different ingredients with an American spin.  He mentioned that it's $3 per bun. My goodness. Clearly he doesn't know how cheap I am. $3?! per bun?! You cray cray Eddie. My absolute favorite part in the show was when he had his mom come on his fishing trip with him. I made my tiger mother sit down and watch this part because I could not stop finding similarities between them. It was hilarious especially the scene where she tells him, "I should have brought food. Next time we need to bring crackers. Saltines." LOL. Died. I don't know why but my mom always has to have food with her also. And at the end when he is on his date. Ahahaha. That's actually how I order food. Based on the price because not everyone can afford everything. "Oh NO! That looks DISGUSTING. Especially that number at the end." lol. It was $16. I was at an Italian restaurant yesterday in Berkeley where I had to justify paying $31 for sub-par food and minimal portions.  I know I may be a small Asian girl and you adjust the portion size because of that but I can eat. Never underestimate, my friends. :)

I cannot wait for the next episode. There is going to be another episode, right? I sure hope so. Because he's a keeper folks. I couldn't find a copy of the episode online and Cooking Channel hasn't acknowledged it on their website either. Shameful. But to get a sense of his humor, have a read of his Iron Chef recap: Eddie's Recap

If you're not in NYC to go check out his buns, come to San Francisco to try The Chairman's buns.  Eddie Huang may have slung dirty fighting words at us but we rise above such pettiness.  Besides, not everyone can afford a plane ticket across the country. Sorry buddy!

As always: stay curious, my friends!