This semester has passed by at an enormous rate. Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was running around the beaches of Southern California like a carefree bird? All of a sudden I found myself back in the brisk and breezy air of San Francisco, rushing from day to day to keep up with law school. It’s been a busy semester (the second year is always worst), made especially bad because of a multitude of activities I’ve seemed to overload myself with. Between performing all the duties that come with being the President of our school’s APALSA, futilely trying to study for the Patent Bar, looking for a job (seriously, it’s like a part-time job), and studying and reading for class, I’ve effectively become a hermit.
But you knew that already.
So what am I really talking about? The fact that I am almost half-way done with law school. The last day of the semester is this coming Tuesday, and finals start right after Thanksgiving. Once I survive this round of finals, I’m halfway there! Or so I tell myself. I’d still have to pass the bar, but that is one hurdle I’m not going to contemplate until I reach it.
[[Speaking of which-- Congratulations to all the recent takers of the California Bar Exam who passed! Congratulations-- it's quite an achievement. This entry is (in part) dedicated to you! ]]
But the rest of the entry I must dedicate to those of you who, like me, are suffering through finals. You can do it! Fight through! 1Ls– study hard! 2Ls– study harder! 3Ls — stop studying (so I can have an easier curve)! Just kidding about that last one. Sort of.
Anyway, I’m posting a recipe that I had been wanting to try for the past two years but never had a chance to because I was afraid. In retrospect, I’m not sure why I was afraid because this has got to be one of the easiest bread recipes I’ve ever tried to date. Probably the easiest in the world. It certainly doesn’t require much effort or physical prowess, that’s for sure. Just time. And the reason why I’m posting this now is because, even though it takes time to make this bread, it also takes so little effort that it actually saves time. You just start it one day and by the next you have a fresh, hot loaf of crusty, delicious bread!
The only caveat is that you need a dutch oven. I got one as a birthday gift from my parents. The one I use can hold up to 2 3/4 quarts.
And it’s really not that messy at all. Here’s the recipe (as appropriated from the New York Times; the original can be found here):
No-Knead Bread
Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.
Ingredients:
- 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
- ¼ teaspoon instant yeast **I used Active-Dry, which is all I have in my apartment– I just let it sit longer than instant yeast.
- 1¼ teaspoons salt
- Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed. **I didn’t have either– I just used regular flour.
Directions:
1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. **I usually try to go for a longer rather than shorter time to allow the gluten to fully develop.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.
*Note: Don’t try to eat the bread right away. It will be extremely hot.
Now you know this, you can make it every day (it’s that simple), or you can make it for an easy bread for Thanksgiving or Christmas, etc.
And to all my fellow student sufferers who are studying and cramming at this very momeny — good luck on finals!
Filed under: Homemade, Recipes, bread, law school, photography, vegetarian | Leave a Comment
Tags: baked, bread, Christmas, Food, Homemade, law school, new york times, no-knead bread, photography, Thanksgiving
Banananananana! Na! Na!
You know how sometimes there are just those mornings when all you want is a pancake?
I had one of those mornings last week. So I made pancakes.
I just happened to have flour (ok, so that’s not surprising– I always have flour), eggs, sugar, etc. Actually what I did have that I don’t always have was milk.
Milk. This is important, people. My lecture of the day.
DRINK MILK.
My doctor told me that women are much more susceptible to osteoporosis (the loss of calcium from the bones) than men because of our monthly gift from nature (oh joy). And then he went on to tell me that Asian women– especially ones of the smaller, more petite variety– are even more susceptible than usual. So on my very first appointment with him, he recommended that if I wasn’t drinking milk regularly to go out and buy calcium tablets and eat them twice a day.
Yessir, I see your call and raise!
I one-upped him.
How? I started drinking milk again. I hated drinking milk as a kid, and the only reason I drank it every day for breakfast was because my mother forced me. I developed a technique of chugging the entire glass within ten seconds while holding my breath so I wouldn’t have to taste it. Childish, I know.
Then, when I ran off to college, I stopped drinking milk altogether. I disliked American soy milk, and regular milk was just too gross by my standards. So for half a decade I avoided drinking milk like the plague.
But when the doctor orders more calcium in my diet, I heed his call. And so now I drink milk again.
And my doctor was quite proud of me. The next time I saw him, it was really great to see him break out in such a huge smile and say, “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard anyone say!”
I feel proud.
SO DRINK YOUR MILK, PEOPLE!
–
That being said, if you’re interested in making these pancakes, I’ve made them before, and the recipe is here: Banana Pancaker. I made this batch with a little bit of rice flour added in, but I don’t think there was enough to make a difference.
Enjoy!
Filed under: Homemade, Recipes, photography, vegetarian | 5 Comments
Tags: banana, breakfast, Food, Homemade, milk, pancake, photography, recipe, vegetarian
A request from the babybro
My brother was reading my food blog yesterday, and apparently he complained to my mother: “為什麼都是姊姊的照片? 為什麼都沒有我的呢?”
Translation: Why are all the pictures of my sister? Where are my pictures?
Oh le sigh.
Funny kid.
Anyway, here is a picture of him enjoying a fry when we went to Five Guys last month when I went home for a weekend.
Filed under: Eating Out, friends, restaurant | 2 Comments
Tags: burgers, family, Five Guys, french fries
Ok, so you know it had to come down to this at some point, right? I am originally from the East Coast, but now I’m living on the West Coast. When I first moved out here and people found out how much I love to eat, the first thing I people asked was “Oh, have you tried In-N-Out yet?“
Answer: Yes.
And then, when I meet people who have been to the East Coast for a somewhat prolonged period of time, I get asked, “Which do you like better, In-N-Out or Five Guys?“ Then I am faced with a pair (or several pairs) of wide-eyed spectators, waiting eagerly for my answer. The person asking is almost invariably a Californian, and they usually try to answer their own question with a quick “In-N-Out, right? Of course, In-N-Out!” (By the way, why do people like to ask these questions and then answer for me as if they already know my answer? Oh, but that’s a rant for another day.)
Whoops. This may be blasphemous (and detrimental to my online career), but sorry to disappoint In-N-Out fans, but . . .
I love Five Guys.
This means a lot, coming from me. I’m not a huge steak person, and I am definitely not a huge burgers fan. At barbecues, I skip the burgers and go straight for the hotdogs. Now, this is not to say I don’t like In-N-Out. I do! I can see the appeal of both, but when it comes to preferences, Five Guys wins me over every time. The ability to choose from a ton of great toppings (onions, mushrooms, various sauces, pickles, peppers, etc.) without having to think about some “secret menu” for a juicy, savory burger topped with a slice of melted cheese . . .
‘Scuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard.
So when I flew home for a self-declared holiday in mid-October, the one thing I wanted to eat was, of course, Five Guys! I got home late Wednesday night (or in the wee hours of Thursday morning, whichever you prefer) on October 14, and when I went to pick up my brother on Friday from College Park, we headed right over to the College Park Five Guys across the street from the school to satisfy my craving.
Not only that, but the fries. I am a SUCKER for carbs. Especially french fries. Especially steak fries. I think that’s the main beef I have with In-N-Out (pun intended, of course): their fries suck. I discovered “well-done” In-N-Out fries this past summer while working in Irvine, and their crispiness helped their case somewhat, but what really makes me happy are thick, salty fries (see picture to the left).
What you see is a “small” order. They take a 16 oz. styrofoam cup, fill it to the brim with fries, then add another scoop of fries just as they put the whole cup into a large, brown paper bag, filling half the bag in one go. It really isn’t so much a “small” as it is a helping for a “small” giant. Or for three people: my brothers and me. I can’t even imagine how many fries a large would bring.
By the way! How is it that people on the West Coast have never heard of Old Bay seasoning? Or Boardwalk Fries? How do they live? How?
Ah well.
One last thing about Five Guys before I go and cry because there isn’t one in San Francisco: they give away peanuts. Salted, unshelled, free peanuts. Before I went to pick up my brother, my parents asked me to bring back some peanuts for them. So I did. An entire bagful.
Delicious.
YUM. CHOWTIME FOR ME WITH MY FIVE GUYS!
(Disclaimer: I am in no way saying that In-N-Out is not good. It is. If you have not been to In-N-Out, please take the opportunity to go and try it and decide for yourself. Five Guys is just better, is all I’m saying.)
Filed under: Eating Out, Travel, photography, restaurant | 2 Comments
Tags: burgers, College Park, fast food, Five Guys, Food, french fries, In-n-Out, restaurant, san francisco, washington dc
Yay birthdays. I’m still young enough to not be scared of them but old enough to know that I better enjoy that feeling while it lasts, because it isn’t going to last much longer.
Actually, my philosophy about birthdays is that it isn’t so much about me as it is about my friends. I see any opportunity to hang out with friends in a fun setting as an excellent thing. After all, it happens far to rarely during law school. Especially second year. With my Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, scrambling for a job amid the debris of an extremely unfortunate job market (which, by the way, I still have not found– if anyone out there is reading this and would like to offer this poor-but-awesomely-talented second year law student a summer position at their law firm, I welcome you!), and hundreds of pages of reading every week, I have been neglecting this blog. Apologies all around.
Case in point? This post. My birthday was a day over a month ago (Read: October 6), and yet here I am, blogging about it only now (today: November 7). I procrastinate, I know, but a ton of things came up, and here are my excuses: I went home (yes, East Coast home home), I got sick (I don’t think it was the pig flu, err, to be politically correct I think it’s now just H1N1, but regardless, I still maintain that it was food poisoning, despite the fact that everyone ate the same things I did the day before I was upchucking my internal organs into a nice, porcelain bowl– apologies again, this is not the stuff you want to read in a food blog), and then I just turned in a 20+ page paper today (21 pages and 97 citations! And counting!). Perhaps not the best excuses, but . . . I am back! I am alive (sort of), and I am ready to eat/cook/blog!
Anyway, back to “my birthday.” Last year my birthday celebrations consisted of a week-long off-and-on party, beginning with a potluck with friends and culminating in a final clubbing event at Roe (651 Howard St). This year I switched it around, starting with a clubbing event at Bubble Lounge (a champagne bar in North Beach, on 714 Montgomery St) and ending in a potluck the following Saturday. Curious. How will I mix it up next year?
This year, I received mostly food as my birthday gifts – actually, mostly dessert items (who knew that my friends knew me so well?). My friend and next door neighbor, Peter, brought me Japanese wagashi (desserts) from Minamoto Kitchoan on Market St (see above pictures). Delicious! Thank you!
Here I am, devouring one of the delicious pastries he brought back for me. Haha. I was a little excited about it, maybe. Just a little bit. Nothing too dramatic, of course. I’m not a dramatic person.
Ever.
It’s amazing how much good food will make you happy though. I held off on eating this right away, waiting for a moment when I could just sit and enjoy this snack in the comfort of my room . . . Just knowing this was waiting for me when I returned to my room made me happy.
What can I say? I’m a simple woman with simple tastes.
Or maybe not so simple.
My friend, Priscilla, bought me a box of French macarons from the famous Paulette. I didn’t even know what this cute little box held within its pink grasp was a row of scrumptious macarons when she placed the box in front of me before our Wills and Trusts class started. (As a side note to any Hastings students reading this: take Wills and Trusts with Professor Beth Hillman if you can because she is an awesome professor and all that jazz. She’s engaging and interesting, and if that doesn’t encourage you, then perhaps the idea of prying into the sordid lives of rich people like Anna Nicole Smith and examining why her will sucked will. I am enjoying the class, anyway. Hopefully you will, too.) When I got back to my room and opened the box, I couldn’t resist. I had to take pictures of it.
So there you are.
YUM…
It was so good that when I flew home the following week, I ran over to Paulette (in Hayes Valley) and bought more – one box for my family, another box for my friend, Yaeri, whose birthday was that day, and another couple of individual ones for myself and my friend, Sara, each.
Speaking of which, Sara, one of my best friends in law school, is an extraordinary baker and cook, and she has agreed to guest blog! She will be blogging about the two cakes she made for my birthday (Goodness, what did I do to deserve such an awesome friend who bakes cakes for my birthday? Not just one, but TWO!). Please look forward to that entry coming soon!
Filed under: desserts, friends, law school, photography | 3 Comments
Tags: birthday, french macarons, japanese, Minamoto Kitchoan, Paulette, wagashi
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