While I was home this past weekend, Leslie and I did another decorative pizza. At Wheaton North High School where Leslie and her sister Lizzy attend, there is a program where French foreign exchange students come and spend two weeks at the homes of students at the school. This year, Leslie’s family volunteered to have someone join them. On Saturday, the day we made the pizza, Agathe arrived. So in honor of her arrival to the states and her Frenchness, we decided to make the pizza French themed.
Can you guess what we did?
This evening I went to Mandarin Wok for some chow with my good friend Joey. You know, for being in the middle of a cornfield, the food was actually quite tasty. We ordered off of the Chinese menu, which partially meant that I had no idea what I would be receiving. We pointed to stuff, and in broken English, were told was it was… “Chick-in”, “Veggie-tables”. But whatever it was, it was good.
After the meal, I scurried off to a Computational Theory exam before having to walk the 25 minutes back in the freezing, torrential rains amidst a thunderstorm. A nice warm shower and clean clothes awaited me back at the dorm.
Today I had the distinct privilege of dining with the parents of one of my good friends down here at college. I must say, there is not much better than a good meal with good people. Christian and his family (dad, mom, sister), Brett, Leman, and I arrived to eat at Olive Garden around 12:30. After much conversation, bread-sticks, salad, chicken parmesan, and Mousse cake, we departed at 3:30. Wow, time really flies when you’re having fun!
The gang (left to right): Christian, Christian’s mom, Christian’s sister, Brett, Leman, and Christian’s dad.
Christian’s dad showing off the bill he’s about to pay. Thanks for the meal!
That’s right, this morning, I actually ate breakfast. For those of you who know me, you will realize the extreme rarity of the situation. Usually I don’t like breakfast, partly a combination of time, the menu, and getting sick afterwards. However, this morning, I ate breakfast later in the morning, and so my stomach took it quite well. The menu consisted of:
- French toast with powdered sugar and syrup (do you say ’sear-up’ or ’sir-up’?).
- Hash browns.
- Chocolate milk.
- Chocolate muffin.
Believe, I know it’s the worst meal in the world, but hey, it’s Bromley, and it’s the best I can do. At least I ate breakfast.
This past weekend, I got to go home and see Leslie! And as we normally do on weekends, we made pizza. However, when a holiday rolls around, how we decorate the pizzas becomes extremely important. For a given holiday, we decorate the pizza around that holiday. We’ve done one for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day. Leslie usually lays it out, and I usually cut the unusual shapes out of pepperoni. It’s good team-work, and they typically turn out wonderfully. Here are some pictures of the holiday pizzas we’ve done so far:
Thanksgiving
Christmas
Valentine’s Day
I love rice.
But not just any rice, Japanese rice. For some reason, I just love it. I think it has something to do with the fact that I just love Japanese food: sushi, sashimi, miso, soba, rice, etc. The thing that makes Japanese rice Japanese rice is that it is a short grain rice, versus our usual long grain. This gives it its unique sticky behavior.
Over break, I got a rice cooker from my grandparents, and now every night, I make rice. I prefer the Nishiki brand rice, which is imported from Japan. Rice is a great alternative to Ramen noodles, and provides high protein returns for the amount of rice consumed.
After cooking it nearly a hundred times, here is the recipe for Japanese rice that I find to work quite well.
- Rinse the rice in your rice cooker bowl or some other bowl by swirling water around, draining, refilling, swirling, draining, repeating that process until the water you are pouring out is clear.
- Measure 1 cup and a hair more than a teaspoon water to every 3/4 cups rice.
- Let the rice soak for at least 40 minutes, longer is better.
- After soaking, cook the rice in your rice cooker.
- When the cooking is complete, then let the rice steam for at least 10 minutes. The longer you steam it, the drier it will be.
- Take the rice out of the cooker and shape/serve however you please.
I know you think I am weird, but before you think such thoughts, maybe you should try it.
A fresh batch of my Nishiki rice with some black sesame seeds on top.
