It was a chilly Friday in January…
I was home early from work after being in the field…a quick conversation with Pear resulted in me packing up my work laptop, bolting over to the Chinese supermarket, and telling M to meet at Pear’s for dinner.
In between finishing up my work for the day, I began cleaning, prepping and chopping the ingredients for the soup base.
The first time I made this was back in November – because this cut of beef (shank) is so tough, I thought I had to cook it for HOURS….5 hours!  I couldn’t have been more wrong!  I wound up with a gross pot of mushy meat shreds.  I’ve made this dish a few more times since then and learned that about 2 hours is more than enough time to let the meat cook through.

The spread:

Note: I don’t bake.  Why don’t I bake?  Because everything is a precise measurement and from what I am about to say next will give you some more insight….
If you’re looking for a recipe here, I really can’t give you one.  I ended up using recipes from the below two links and tweaking them to my own tastes.

http://www.sugarlens.com/2009/02/beef-noodle-soup.html

http://tastymealsathome.com/category/east/niu-rou-mien-east/

I know its an awful habit…and I don’t make this nearly enough to know “my” recipe by heart, so essentially its a crap shoot every time I make it.  I don’t even keep a printout of the recipes and my adjustment to it…although that might be a good idea for next time.  All I can do is cross my fingers and hope it turns out as good as the last time.  And if it doesn’t, then the pot of broth will be subject to some tweaking until it tastes right!

This is where Pear spent most of his night…

Trying to get the fire started and more importantly, keeping it alive! Not sure what the problem was – too much moisture in the wood?  Not enough oxygen going to the fire?  Not enough starter??  The fire would get going for about 5 minutes and then it would die down and eventually put itself out.  By the end of the night we did have a good fire going for about 30 minutes! (even though the logs say that they should burn for much longer)

While the soup was cooking, I also fried up some gyoza (frozen from a package) and made some string beans to add some more veggies into the mix.

The string bean dish is one of my super easy staples that I like to keep handy.  Again, no real recipe…I really need to start measuring one of these days!
It is rather simple though…here are my best approximations on what I used:

• 1 lb string beans cleaned and washed
• 1/2-3/4 lb ground pork
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 2-3 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1-2 tbsp dark soy
• 1/2 tbsp hot sauce (This stuff is hotter than I had anticipated the first time I used it  )

Blanch the string beans, drain and set aside.
Add some oil to the pan and fry the garlic until fragrant.
Add in pork, be sure to break it up in the pan so you don’t wind up with a patty or large chunks
When the pork is about half way cooked, add in all of the seasonings and add string beans back, stir fry a little longer to combine and heat the string beans back through
**If you want more of a gravy, you can also add a cornstarch slurry to tighten it up.
M and I love eating this with white rice!

The final spread:

And dessert!  Nothing warms up my insides like an icy glass of vodka!

Testing twitterfeed/rss linking…and wordpress for bb…

A few months ago while cruising through my google reader I came across this (check out her other Calgel nails – they’re all awesome!) and this…
I was intrigued.  Immediately, I knew that I needed to find out more about this Calgel thing.  I’m a sucker for nail stuff.   Weekly mani/pedis, acrylic, silk, extensions, UV gel…been there done that!
After some google searches, I quickly found a few more blogs and pictures and called up Sakura Nail Spa (UES) for an appointment.  Sakura is one of only a handful of salons that offer Calgel in the city.

From Sakura’s website:
“Calgel is one of Japan’s most popular UV Gel Systems used to strengthen soft of weak nails.  Choose from a wide range of colored gels that won’t peel or chip like regular polish.  There is no offensive odor, and it’s easy to remove without damaging your nails.  For long-term wear, we recommend fill-ins every 2 to 3 with your choice of the same color or a new one.”

Coincidentally, the spa at my gym also offers Calgel and they advertise it as a ‘manicure that will last for 3 weeks’.

Your base color starts at $40 (+$5 if you want them to mix a custom color for you).  French or gradiation at the tips of the nails add an extra $20, marbling adds $30 to the set and flat designs come in at about $3 each and 3D designs (made with acrylic) are around $4…depending on the complexity.
They also have a number of different glitters, stones (charged per piece) and stickers that you can jazz up your nails with.
I knew i was in trouble.  It wasn’t going to be cheap!
When you arrive at Sakura if you’re early, they’ll plop you down in the front waiting area and point you to some magazines to browse through.  Not sure what design you want?  Don’t fret – there is no shortage of inspiration from the Japanese nail magazines they have!

Two hours later I walked out with this:

Expensive? Yes.  Happy? YES!

In recent years I have switched over to UV gel as an overlay over french tips for two reasons.  1. I don’t have to wait for polish to dry 2. The gel feels much softer than having acrylic over the tips.
Calgel is even softer than the UV gel that I had switched to last year!
I kept the set on for about 2.5 weeks…and on a self declared mental health day off from work, I decided to remove it myself at home. (Beats paying them $25 at the salon to do it!)

This is what my nails looked like after 2.5 weeks…at about the midway point I got a little bored of the look and decided to glue on my own little stone to the nail that had the 3d design.

Fast forward several months…last week I made another visit to Sakura. When booking your appointment, they ask what services you want – gradiation, designs (flat or 3d), marbling, etc – so they can allocate the appropriate amount of time for you.  Unlike most nail salons where they just rush you in and out in a 40 minute slot so they can get to the next customer.  When I called in for my appointment I told them that I wanted gradiation with flat designs.   I was over 30 minutes late for my appointment (damn traffic!) so I didn’t have time for any designs.

When I have short nails, one of my favorite color to wear is Essie’s Berry Hard.  After browsing through their color trays and finding nothing that looked similar to it, I asked if they could mix #18 with some black to darken it up a bit…and then add a black gradiation to the tip.  (Yes I am well aware that we are in Spring now…but i love berry hard!  I even wear it in the summer!)  And this is what I walked out with:

Two coats of clear, two coats of red, three layers of black on the tip and then another coat of clear on top.  I was amazed at how she applied the gradiation – *tap*tap*tap* with the black Calgel over and over again until the perfect gradiation was achieved!

Up until two days before my appointment, I still had on my UV gel french tip overlay…getting those off was quite the mission!  That’s why my nails appear so bumpy and icky.  I didn’t have time to  file and buff them down all the way to make them smooth and due to my tardiness to my appointment, they did all they could to make them presentable.  I’m really happy with the color and the gradiation…its really my own fault that they’re not super smooth looking.

Cut to the chase: Calgel is thicker and stronger than a nail polish, thinner and more flexible than acrylic and other nail coverings.  I’ve had acrylic applied thinly so it is ‘flexible’ only to have it crack on me.  In the end, sure its a ‘manicure’ that will last three weeks – it will stay on as long as you allow it.  I didn’t have any peeling or lifting of the gel from my nails the whole time I had it on.  I am just not sure if I’d leave them on for as long as I did though…the line that shows the growth started to really bug me towards the end!  I will probably stick to lighter colors or a clear base with a colored/french gradiation from now on.  All I really know is…I’M ADDICTED and it most definitely won’t be 10 months again until my next appointment!  I booked another appointment for 4/10 before I left!

…

Hello world! Testing testing?

-a manicure for three weeks?
-dad’s 60th
-ivy and will’s wedding…and a place i never wish to visit again
-summer update
-how he did it

i’ll be back soon…i promise!

this blog is going no where fast!

Better late than never, right?

I seem to be making a habit of taking multi-month hiatuses from posting here…but I suppose today is better time than ever to post.  The nyc area got about 10 inches of snow today – our biggest snow storm of the season!  Usually on days like this I’ll be all set up with my laptop happily working from home…however on Friday I had to leave my laptop at work because they needed to run some updates on it for me…as a result I only have access to my webmail and can’t do much without server and database access.

I made some chocolates to bring into work for Valentine’s day, and by “some” i mean about 500 pieces to be split between my office, M’s office and mom’s office! The coworkers get treated to these chocolates 4x a year – Halloween, Christmas, Vday and Easter…the summer months is a long stretch without them! I found the recipe on bakerella’s site – she’s got some great ideas on there!

I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking:

The lil soldiers all lined up waiting for their tops:

Over the years I’ve managed to amass quite a collection of sprinkles. My vday ones are among my favorites!

Dressed and ready to parrrrrrrty!

Monday morning went something like this…

me: morning daddy…you’re not going to work today?
dad: nope, i have extra vacation days to use so i’m going to albert’s house later
me: oOoOooh!

Fast forward 6 hours and this is what our sink looked like:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Yup, they went crabbing!

I went to Baltimore twice this summer…and though these may not be as large as the “jumbo’s” they have down there…the freshness and sweetness can’t be beat!

Place the crabs in a large stock pot with a steamer on the bottom to elevate the crabs (you don’t want to boil them – you want them to sit above the liquid and steam).  Pour 3 bottles of beer (we only had but lying around the house so that’s what we used)  along with 3-4 cups of water in the bottom of the pot and bring to a boil. Carefully layer the crabs in – but here’s the key – GENEROUSLY sprinkle Old Bay (or whatever crab seasoning you’re using – I wish I had purchased some from Baltimore this summer!) over the top of each crab before adding on the next layer!  Cover and steam for 20 minutes or until crabs are bright red.

Dinner is served!