Pictures of MOST of My Apartment

So I think I've been promising everyone forever pictures of our apartment. Today, for the most part, I've decided I would take a picture of our apartment, messy or not. And since my roomie is not here this summer, you know all the mess is me.

So this is pretty much the view you get walking through the front door. The door on the right is my room door, the room in the top left corner is my roommate's room, and in the center is the living room. We are in a dual master room apartment.

I was trying to get a wider shot so you can see the layout. Kitchen next to bedroom #1, then living room, bedroom #2, bathroom #2, and laundry room.



Kitchen. Lots going on there.


Living room. We're not trying to be contemporary, minimal, we're just too lazy to buy furniture. Also, if we're going to move out in a year, it's pretty pointless to get lots of furniture. (Note the bookshelf is not ours, it's just crashing at our apartment. That's why there is nothing on it.)


The door to my room. We'll continue the tour of my room, bathroom, and the laundry room another time...

Anyway, that concludes the tour for now. You are welcome to come over and see how wonderful it is in person, if you'd like.

So sometimes I don't plan ahead very well...

Obviously, I suck at planning ahead, because if I could plan ahead, then every week I'd have at least one blog post. And that one blog post a week would not be screwed up like the last post. Trust me, it didn't go unnoticed by me how screwed up the formatting was... but anyway...

But what I'm really referring to is the whole buying a weeks worth of food in San Diego, and then two days later driving to OC and spending a weekend there. When I come back, food doesn't always look so friendly.

One example of this is my floppy, soggy celery:

You can't tell from the pictures maybe, but that celery is totally limp. It sat for an extended weekend in my fridge ignored. Luckily, celery is easily fixable!









To fix celery, all you need is a container with a lid, and some water:




I already kind of gave it away, but I'm going to continue anyway...








All you have to do is chop the celery, stuff it in the container:
















Pour in the water:




Screw the lid ond stick it in the fridge for an hour.





After one hour, you can take it out, and it will be back to its crispy self! Towel it off and enjoy!


(Yes, you just read an entire post on celery. I hope you enjoyed it.)

What do you do when you don't want to read for class?

So it's Wednesday. I have class Tuesday-Thursday. I usually at this point have given up on reading for classes. Class assignments are far too long and far too boring. Plus, I know I can get by without reading. And by get by, I mean pass. But I'm reading for this summer school class. Why you ask? 1) Cold calling - this is when a professor uses his/her handy dandy seating chart with our pictures on it to call on people. Most professors don't do this. Some do. This one does. 2) This class is taught socratic method - so imagine being surprised called on and then continuously being asked why and led in circles. (You can tell how much I like the socratic method.)

So I was supposed to be doing this (sideways, but I'm too lazy to flip the picture):




Instead, I decided that it was high time I would poach an egg since I've never done it before, but honestly, it's easy, I knew I could do it... sort of.

All you need is an egg, a bowl, a pot of boiling water with a few tablespoons of vinegar, and something to stir the pot with.








Why do you need a bowl? Well, you could crack the egg straight into the water, but you need to insure that you don't break the yolk and that you don't get any shell in it. So you could omit the bowl if you want, but I decided to just use it.




Anyway, once the water boils, take a spoon or something to stir the water, drop the egg in, stop stirring, and leave it for 2-3 minutes.















Here is the finished product. I did two, but only ate one because one turned out to be not fully cooked on one side, and cooked on the other side. Yes, it was a weird egg...











So you can eat that with just a piece of toast or something, but I decided to make a mock eggs benedict. I toasted a piece of wheat bread, put some turkey slices (I don't like ham or Canadian Bacon), and then put the egg on top.





















Because I was lazy and don't have a proper blender to make a hollandaise sauce (plus I didn't have any butter on hand, I decided to forego that step and just went for simple salt and pepper:














In case you were wondering, I buy this turkey when I go to the regular grocery stores. I like it because it's perfectly portion controlled and only 90 cals, it says so on the pack!:

This concludes my post on how I wasted an hour today that I could have spent studying.

The End.

I Love X-Mas Deals / I don't have time to post everyday.

Let me just start off by saying, I've decided that I'm only going to update this blog once a week. I really don't have time for more than that. At some point I'll post my schedule and then you can see. Or you can just befriend me on gmail and I'll add you to my gchat calendar. Anyhow, onto regular posting schedule.

Anyway, I love buying christmas stuff after christmas. I'm talking about the decorations and stuff. The day after Christmas, most stores will put the unsold Christmas decorations on sale for 50%. While this is significantly cheaper, I like to wait for the 75% off. But once it gets marked down to 75%, everything flies like hotcakes. And then the end of the stuff is on sale for 90%, but by that time, there is nothing left, it's like picking through crap.

Imagine my excitement when I went to Sav-On and they had stuff for 90% off! Because the economy is bad though, I refrained myself from buying much.

I only bought:

Bows and Ornaments.

I love bows and they are always so expensive but bright and cheery. Here, these bags of bows only cost $.49:


These bows are smaller and only cost $.29. $.29! Dude, you could pick up that many pennies from the ground in a week.

Now, I don't love glass ornaments and these aren't that prety, but they only cost $.39:


These ornaments cost $.59.:


And these ornaments cost $.59:


By now you might be wondering what I am going to do with all these ornaments. I was planning to make a wreath as seen on this website (and alternatively, you could make it like this):

Pretty, isn't it? I don't have enough ornaments though, i'm going to have to wait until next year and buy some more expensive, fancy ornaments to mix in with it.

Anyway, see you the end of next week unless I find or think of something else to post about!

SD Restaurant Week Review

So twice a year, San Diego has restaurant week. It varies when these weeks are. Like I think I went to one in December and one in July before but this year it was January. Anyway, restaurants decide to participate and make a tasting menu consisting of an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert, usually for $40 but this year, they also had tasting menus at certain restaurants for $20 and $30. My friends P and S joined me and we headed to Jake's Del Mar, a fine dining restaurant on the sandy coast of the city of Del Mar. (Jake's Del Mar's tasting menu was $30 dollars.)

Since it was Sunday night, we had very little trouble finding parking. Don't get me wrong, the restaurant was pretty packed. But last night, a lot of people choose to valet their cars. Anyway, we made it promptly for our 6:45pm reservation and were seated within minutes.

Tonight was a particularly good night because the three of us all decided to get something different for each part of the meal and then share with each other.

Appetizers

S went with Mushroom Soup, described as truffle oil, chanterelle & hon shimeji. (Pictured above).

I didn't get to try any of this for obvious reasons. (Soup is hard to split.) But S said it was good.


P went with the Dungeness & King Crabcake with meyer lemon remoulade. P thought it was pretty good. I felt like it was a pretty standard crab cake. While not the best I had, I felt that it was littered with crab, and that's always a good thing went it comes to a crab cake. Would I order it if I ever came back? Maybe, but I'd like to try other things on the menu first.


I went with dry rubbed bbq ribs with a honey sambol bbq sauce. These were ridiculously good. The meat fell of the bone and it had an interesting spice blend that left a slight tinge of heat that left you wanting more. And it wasn't like eat a thai red chili heat - it was a more mild, addictive heat. Even now I wish I had a plate of them... mmmm.....

Entrees

For her entree, S went with the Wok Seared Ahi with a nectarine basil relish, lime butter and rice. She found the dish to be wonderful. While I don't like rare tuna because of the texture and temperature, I found it to be pleasant and buttery smooth if that makes any sense.


P went with the Pistachio Peppercorn Crusted Salmon served with roasted tomatoes, braised leeks, pomegranate balsamic reduction, and what looked like risotto. The salmon was pretty typical for salmon at an americana type restaurant. The one thing that confused me was that I didn't find it to be that pistachio crusted. It just tasted like a pan seared salmon filet piece. Nonetheless, P ate it all up.

I, of course, being the crazy meat eater, went with the New York Strip Steak served with herb butter, roasted green beans, and mashed potatoes. While the steak wasn't Ruth Chris good, it was a good, solid steak. I kept looking for the herb butter but never found any. And the flavor of the steak didn't taste of herb butter either. The mashed potatoes were average. But seriously, my favorite part of the dish was that the vegetables were not over cooked. The green beans were still crisp. So many restaurants get that wrong. Anyway, if I ever go to Jake's again, I'd probably get another steak. While I think beach restaurants are known for their seafood, I think you can get a good, decent steak here.

Desserts

S went with a slice of the Hula Pie consisting of macadamia nut ice cream, oreo cookie crust, hot fudge. This is their signature dessert. And when they bring it out, there is definitely that shock and awe factor because it's so huge. I found this dessert to be good and you do get a lot of macadamia nuts with each bite.

P ordered the chocolate banana bread pudding with vanilla bean ice cream. I think P loved the ice cream but just felt like the bread pudding tasted like chocolate. I had a taste and felt like it just tasted of chocolate and cinnamon.

I ordered the lime cheesecake with raspberry couli. There were two things I found odd about my dessert. 1) It was served a few degrees cooler than room temperature, and 2) It had a oreo crust. I like my cheesecake fridgerator cold, and I do not think chocolate goes with citrus. (I am not a fan of orange chocolate.) I ordered the lime cheesecake because I DIDN'T want chocolate. Anyway, it was just ok.

In the end we all left with stuffed bellies and food coma. And I left with a craving for those ribs... a great $30 well spent. I think Jake's could have easily charged $40 for their tasting menu.

I'll be going to another restaurant night tonight, so stay tuned for another entry.

Day 1 - Let's see how long it will take me before I get bored of posting and don't post for a while.

Today I would like to introduce to you our apartment dog, Tag. Yes, his name is Tag. He is sitting on a pillow on the couch in our living room. We are not allowed to have real pets in our apartment building, so he will have to do. We actually got him because my roommate bought 3 Hallmark Cards and he was free as a result. She didn't want him, but I insisted we get him. He has been a pleasure ever since. Speaking of apartments, there will be more pictures to come once I clean our apartment a little more. Especially my room, since it's really the most messy room in our apartment.

Next we have what I ate for breakfast. This morning, in an attempt to lead a healthier life style, I went with Special K, the cereal of champions. I did a mix of Original Special K and Vanilla Almond Special K, topped with about 1/2 cup of soymilk. I also had an orange because my parents like to give me 50 oranges to take back to SD every time I return. No, I'm not ungrateful for the oranges, but jeez... I am but one person. Anyway, parental issues aside I have to get back to studying because SD Restaurant Week begins TODAY and I'm going with some of my favorite people to dine with.... well, actually I'm just going with really great friends. I'll be sure to post more pictures of the apartment and pictures of the food from restaurant week tonight. As some looney toon character would say, "That's all folks."

A picture of one of my many law books. This one is sitting on my bed.


PS Sorry Janet, I forgot to take pictures of lunch, but it was canned soup (not good) and bread (yum.)

Hello.

Hi Janet. After my camera battery charges, I will begin adding pictures.