fruit, dessert, and chai

last weekend, we went to H Mart with G's parents. it's pretty far away, but it's fun. even though it's a korean market, it feels like there might be more chinese people than koreans there! also a lot of cambodians too.

now that i'm getting to the end of my pregnancy, i have been craving sushi! i am sooo ready to binge at Minados once they're born! but i've been craving other things too like durian. they had some at H Mart so we bought it. it was so yummy, i was really in the mood for it. some annoying guy was laughing about how bad durian smells to his girlfriend when they were walking by, but i think if you think it smell bad, you probably got bad taste!

G was too lazy to eat it because he doesn't like the way the stickiness feels on his fingers so i got to eat almost the whole thing, thanks honey!

then the next day, we went to Russo's and bought this napoleon tart. So yummy! of course G didn't have a problem eating this one.

To go along with the dessert, we made some chai based on Sham's secret recipe. she sent this whole package for my birthday, but being the kind of person i am, i couldn't wait for my birthday! here are some chai making supplies: tea, cinnamon, cardamom, and lots of love.

It was a very yummy weekend for us! 

Snow Day = Day to make braised pork belly

When I was younger, I didn't really like pork all that much. Or at least I thought so. The reason is because American pork is all over-salted or tasteless - bacon, ham, chops. Even SPAM - probably the best American pork is almost like not really pork. And I never made the connection between the Chinese pig meat I loved - char siu, feet, shoulder, and especially double-layered fat belly - and "pork." As I got older, I made the connection that these were in fact all different parts of the same animal. I mean...I knew that, but I didn't KNOW it. (Until this day I have a similar confusion over the difference between sheep, goat, and ram because they all have the same word in Chinese. It's not even like I'm fluent in Chinese, I'm just very easily confused.)

But it gets me upset when I think about the way we in America disrespect the meat we eat. People don't want to eat pig feet or ears or chitterlings or anything that is easily identifiable as part of an animal. We don't even call it pig, but pork. We don't want to eat cow, but want to eat beef and steak and burgers and Rocky Mountain oysters. And of course it's veal instead of calf, or more accurately - infant cow.

In my mind, when it comes to eating meat: stakes is high.

I can stand eating vegetables that aren't cooked that great because they are vegetables. But human beings do not need to eat meat in order to survive or even to thrive - so there is no reason we should ever eat meat that is not cooked to perfection. When we eat meat, we should make it worth it. You know what I'm saying?

Pork is - to me - the perfect meat. I could live without beef or chicken or even fish - but I don't think I'd ever stop eating expertly-prepared pork. So that having been said I used the snow day from work as an excuse to make some braised pork belly with ALL the fat still attached. Mmm. (Read this Slate.com article about why eating lard is not as bad as you thought it was.)

Step by step. (Oooh baby.)

This is some pork belly cut up into pieces maybe an inch (?) thick. Marinate it in dark soy sauce, light soy sauce and a little sugar plus a minced bulb of garlic. The dark soy is the key. We also ended up throwing some pig ears in there too.

 

S has this really clever technique when braising meats - that's to put sugar on the bottom of the pot and burn it until it's a deep brown color - that gives the deep rich color to the final product and probably lends a little bit of smoke to the taste. Unfortunately, i did it wrong and the sugar liquefied instead of burned - I guess I should have used a different pot - regardless, after it became syrup, it browned a little so I just kept going.

After that, you throw your pork and marinade into the pot and saute a little. No need for oil because of the thick layers of lard. Mmmm. After it's cooked a short while, dump in some water. S's style would be to fill it halfway and continue to refill as necessary. I am lazy so I just basically filled the pot. But my mom always braised stuff starting with a full pot so I wasn't concerned; although she would do it starting in the morning - not in an hour.

After the water has basically boiled down all the way, it will look like this. Notice we threw some hard boiled eggs (shells removed) in earlier, and see the whole pig ears on the bottom of the photo. At this point, you might as well taste the liquid in the pot and see if the flavor feels right or not. If it's too strong, then add some more water and cook it down a little more; if it's too weak, you'll need to add flavoring.

As I sliced up the ear, I listened to "Stuck in the Middle with You" by Steeler's Wheel.

 

This is screaming to be eaten with white rice. But given that it's basically eating straight lard, I opted for the slightly healthier brown rice.

you're just being shelfish

Shelf-ish. Get it?

We forgot to take a "before" picture of our empty babies closet. But all these shelves (except the top white one) are brand new. Originally, I was just gonna put 3 shelves up and call it a day, but S nixed that.

She said she wanted the shelving to be dynamic, and came up with this layout plan: four foot-high shelves on the right, two extra large shelves in the middle, and a ladder leading down to the floor on the far left with shelves of varying sizes.


As usual, S was the lead designer and I was the lead engineer. She had a great vision to make it as functional as possible. I was a little concerned about there being too many shelves, which would make it too crowded in there. Turns out it's perfect as usual.

reupholstering fever!

This is a chair from G's childhood. When we first moved in, G was thinking about throwing it away because it was so tore up, but I thought is has a beautiful shape and wanted to hold on to it. I saw potential in the chair and also I don't like to throw things out from his childhood. I knew that someday I want to do something with it and since we're working on the nursery, it was a great opportunity for another challenge.

we spent an afternoon at jo-ann's and picked out this fabric to reupholster it. but we needed 6 yards, and they only had 4! we were already thinking about going to the joanns in natick until my husband came up with the idea of using white fabric in areas that are hidden from view. so instead of driving all the way to natick, we just bought a little more plain white upholstery fabric.

So we started to take the whole thing apart! Here's G trying to figure out what pieces can be cut out of what part of our two different fabrics. he's good at geometry.

This is a lot of the materials laid out on the floor. it was a mess all week!

After the pieces were cut, I sewed them together.

Our new best friend: a staple gun

I didn't know he was taking pictures or else i would have wore something instead of a bathrobe! i'm using his patriots hammer to put the arm together.

It's starting to look like a chair again...

G says he never thought about how furniture was put together before this.

Revealing some of the white fabric we're keeping hidden.

close-up view

Now I just want to reupholster everything in the house! next project will probably be our media room sofa...another piece from G's childhood. probably even before he was born...even before people started to talk about "clean lines"!

Taste Test: Domino's New Pizza

I know you don't care about this and really want to read about the baby shower...but we don't have pics of it yet. So keep checking back...

You may have seen the new Domino's Pizza ad campaign about how their pizza sucks, and that motivated them to redo their pizza and make it better. If you haven't heard about this campaign, check out the "documentary" here...






Now that we're all caught up, S and I decided to order the new pizza and test out their new claims of betterness.

They're offering two (or more) medium two-topping pizzas for $5.99 each, so we got one with pineapple and ham and the other with roasted red peppers and mushrooms. (Yo, Domino's has roasted red peppers?)

According to S
First of all, I always liked Domino's Pizza, so I don't even know why they need to change they ingredient. That was what i was eating in college, though I must say, I might not have good taste then, and my taste might have become a little more sophisticated as I got older.

This pizza, I think the cheese was really good. The sauce was good - a little on the sweet side.

What I didn't like was the crust. I don't like crust that is too thick and bready. It is also a little too buttery for me. I think I like the old crust better, but I definitely like the cheese and the sauce more on this one.

I'll give it 3 1/2 stars for taste, but because of the price, I'll give it 4!

According to G

I never liked Domino's Pizza. I thought it tasted a lot better the next morning when it was cold, so the taste wasn't as strong. But I'm also a sucker for advertising, so I was pretty excited to try the new recipe.

Dude...NOT disappointed! The sauce actually tasted like tomatoes - canned, but that's the standard for pizza around here. The cheese was mostly mozzerella, which is also standard, but slightly sharper because of I guess the provolone. The crust was definitely better tasting than the old crust, but s is right that it's too chewy. Also too much garlic salt and butter.

Toppings were surprisingly fresh! I would actually eat this again tomorrow...which I probably will for breakfast.

Painting Family

It's G here. We did some painting over the past few. Many of you who have been over the crib know we had two little birdies painted in the living room representing wifey and me. Now that we're about to welcome two kids into the world, we decided it made sense to add a couple more to the tree.

Here I go working the paintbrush like a Wii remote.

 

The family should look something like this in a few weeks.

 

Before they moved, Theresa & Sophea (two real artists) gave us this joint to paint on. It took a while to figure out what to do with it, but...

 

Junior (a stuffed animal), an alien, a sheep, baby girl and baby boy, and a robot. Full update on the babies room soon...

diy updates: baby accessories

G has been busy getting the house ready for the babies arrival. You saw the cornices already...and we'll update other things when they're finished. But i wanted to take a second to update you on some baby accessories i've made over the past month.

since there are no newborns nearby, everything is being modeled by other friends! thanks to snuggles, whisker, and david the bear.

baby tutu

 

baby bear hat

 

baby tutu and baby bear hat (and another gumdrop pillow I just made)

 

baby winter hats

baby mary janes with real pearls!

curvaceous pelmet boxes

Of all the projects we've done, this is one of the ones we're most proud of. When all is said and done, I think the babies room is going to be the dopest room in the house.

For a long time, I wanted to put up a cornice box - also called a pelmet box - above some of the windows in our condo. G and I had done some planning, and we mostly knew how to do it. The problem was that G said we don't have a jigsaw so we couldn't build a cornice with a shape that I like, it would have to just be a rectangle. It wasn't exactly what I hoped for, but G said it was the only way.

But because this was going to be the first cornice in our home, and it was going to be in the babies room, I never gave up hope we could find a way to have a shape. If it was for our bedroom instead, maybe I would have accepted the plain front, but for this room, I was motivated to figure it out.

Just a couple days before we were planning to start on building them, I found a tutorial online that said you could make a beautiful pelmet out of just foamcore! That makes it easy to carve any shape you want! Isn't that a great idea? It's inexpensive and you can choose any shape you want, which allowed us to splurge on the fabric.

When I told G this idea, he was a little hesitant. He didn't think it would be strong - and he also prefers using wood because he thinks it's more tough and manly. But he changed his mind when he realized how much I really wanted some kind of style other than a rectangle on it. Thats something great about me & G together: I tell him what I want, and he helps me make it happen. Without him, I don't feel I can finish any projects. Without me, he doesn't ever want to start any projects!

Here is a step by step tutorial. We didn't do it exactly the same way the Little Green Notebook did, but hers was a good place to start.

First, we designed the front of the box. I was looking for a style that wasn't too ornate, but was still pretty. I definitely wanted a little bit of curve, not just right angles. Here's G drawing the design on foamcore. He's wearing a Randy Moss jersey in support of him since everyone else is blaming him now!

 

Then we used a boxcutter to cut out the right shapes, and used duct tape to connect them pieces together. This is G looking proud of the job he did!

Instead of using all foamcore like the other site, we compromised and used wood on the back so it's sturdier. The wood keeps the front from bending and also is the piece that attached to the wall.

We then covered the front of each box with batting to make it puffy. After that, we wrapped it with this fabric. Initially, we were going to use an amy butler fabric for this project, but based on the design of the fabric and the style of the cornice, they weren't a good match, so we changed our mind last minute. We looked all over the place for the right fabric, and when we finally found this one, we were excited!

Here is G using a staple gun to upholster the cornice. Can you believe it's just made of foamcore?

This is what it looks like on the window. Isn't it pretty?

So what do you think?

tutorial: bootleg gumdrop pillow

i've been sweating this pillow for a long time, but i could never figure out how to make it. i surfed all over the internet for the bootleg version. i even borrowed amy butler's books from the library, but i couldn't find the right pattern for this pillow. just when i was about to give in and buy the pattern for the pillow...which only cost $11.99 anyway, i found a DIY tutorial for a "Moroccan pouf" online. i think it's kinda funny that it doesn't mention Amy Butler at all, when it's almost exactly her pattern, just a couple inches different in size.

When i saw it, it looked so similar to Amy Butler's pouf, that I asked G to reverse engineer and figure out how to change the free bootleg pattern to be more the right size of the amy butler version. that way it looks even more like the original one that i liked in the first place.

BTW, i did support amy butler herself by buying her fabric. a lot of the babys room is going to be done using her fabrics. but the reason i didn't want to buy the pattern is both me & G don't like paying money for ideas. Ideas should be free and we should share them freely!

Here is our process step by step.

First, cut out 8 pieces of fabric in this shape. The design we chose had some regular features, so we tried to make each piece identical. we could have been a little more random, but I wanted the uniform look.

Sew them together like this in pairs, also sew the diagonal edges together but not all the way to leave space to stuff it later. Then sew the pairs together until you have the outer casing of the pillow.

See?

Then start stuffing with whatever kind of stuffing you got. I used polyester fiberfil, although amy butler suggests using some natural stuffing that would cost $100 just for the filling!

It's a convenient time capsule too. We're going to let our kids open it when they turn 21. So we also put in a bottle of gin...

...a Bruce Lee DVD in honor of their dad's favorite guy...

...and a Justin Timberlake bobblehead given to me by Auntie kay.

Next, make a cover for that hole. It could be any shape, we chose something like an octagon.

We're going to make another one for the nursery.