June 2011
2 posts
May 2011
1 post
on not living out of a suitcase
The funny thing about having a blog called “Out of a Suitcase” is when you no longer live out of a suitcase, but rather in a very fixed and stationary life where packing a suitcase is not really an option. Graduation, a job, and the adoption of my Russian family cat has completely rooted me and uprooted 22-ish years punctuated by very, very, fabulous vacations and global adventures,...
April 2011
1 post
August 2010
2 posts
ramen in the summertime
I had my first bowl of ramen in months last Sunday. I’m pretty sure that ramen is one of my favorite foods ever which must mean something. (Maybe ramen and french fries tie for the top spot. As I was saying to self-confessed chocolate addict, “Maybe the way you feel about chocolate is like how I feel about french fries: everytime I pass by a McDonalds I literally fight an urge to just...
On something, perhaps food souvenirs.
There was an article in the Times about food souvenirs. I know all about food souvenirs because ever since I can remember my family has always underpacked for vacations in lieu of either the ambiguous ‘spices’ and ‘ingredients’ my mother would pick up on vacation OR the boxes of Lucky Charms, double stuffed oreos, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Pop Tarts, brownie mix, CostCo size bags of chocolate...
May 2010
3 posts
Amazing egg sandwich
The light comes in my room really early in the morning, tricking me at 8am that it’s 10am, setting off all my internal body clocks. I am a morning person. It is something I recognized only semi-recently and have totally embraced. Once you recognize your morning-person ness, you truly become a productive person. I shower, make coffee, dress myself, eat breakfast and often assemble a lunch to...
Today
was
Oatmeal + blackberry preserves and a piece of toast and lots of Humble Pie cheese. A cup of coffee.
Shake Shack cheeseburger, french fries and some of the Cinco De Mayo themed concrete special.
Pho ga from a Vietnamese place in Chinatown.
A green tea egg custard tart from a Chinatown bakery. I think the women were snarling at me.
Excessively indulgent. Little things get me through the...
tonight
Sometimes freezing things works really well, sometimes not. I made a batch of Marcella Hazan’s meat ragu sauce back in January before I started working, putting half of it in an Ikea blue “food saver” and stuck it in the freezer, promising myself: One day that box will dethaw and it will be amazing. I promise. I promptly ate the half I didn’t freeze rather quickly.
...
April 2010
1 post
callie: RIP your blog?
me: nah, it'll become alive once again
March 2010
1 post
hello, again, to all my friends
It is funny living in even more of “the real world” where I do not have things like “The Retreat” and my boyfriend’s cafeteria points to quell me when I am hungry and do not want to spend $$. In the “real world” there is nothing to do but cook and eat your own food to be cost-effective. Is it weird that I like it - a lot? Like all of my love for badly,...
December 2009
4 posts
sweet potato kimchi pancakes
A belated post, but the truth is: I have been cooking, a lot. It’s fun to go to the grocery store with preplanned meals, and especially more fun when you have a cooking partner, because I’m terrible at chopping and cutting. I guess my portion of the ordeal is stirring or picking recipes.
So a few weeks ago, Dan and I made sweet potato kimchi pancakes after hitting up an Asian grocery...
Turkeytime.
The obligatory food blog Thanksgiving entry. I’ve been terrible keeping this blog up, but I’m going to pass it off and blame my work, my last semester, attempts to apply for a job, etc etc. It’s no excuse really, as people can successfully manage all three, and cook and blog at the same time. I’ve been cooking a lot, actually, coming around to working with meat. I’ve...
November 2009
1 post
“What is the world,” she lamented on a consumer Web site, “without...”
October 2009
1 post
September 2009
4 posts
Why is toast the perfect snack?
Really, why? Especially with four dollar Vermont cultured lightly salted butter.
mad food
I had this discussion with someone last night at some woozy Vassar party, and we were exchanging cooking tales from the last few weeks. We were both sort of in awe on how so many college students actually eat ramen and shitty food; while us on the other hand, are cooking pretty delicious/soaked in olive oil vegetable meals. My house is splitting a farmshare and every week we get tons of delicious...
August 2009
20 posts
I'm really bad for you.
You know those times when your body totally hates your guts after you eat total trash and you have to do like 150 crunches to go to sleep without shame? Oh? That’s just me today. In Buffalo I ate a lot of burgers and buffalo wings. At this spectacular dive.
Duff’s!
“This place better be a dive.” - my dad.
It was a dive. The floors were sticky and everyone was sort of...
Veerasway and why I love Indian food.
To be completely honest, I don’t think I really liked food until I liked Indian food. Or really liked liked food. My first Indian meal truly was my culinary awakening, which is why I have such a soft spot for the cuisine. By ‘soft spot’ I mean I could eat it all the time, to my parents’ disdain. My mother pretty much loathes Indian food after we went to India for ten days...
SO MUCH TO WRITE
Leaving Chicago today for Buffalo, NY: which only means… buffalo wings, of course. The best in the lands, actually. Then yesterday my father and I went to Veerasway, this super hip/incredible Indian-American fusion restaurant in Chicago, which is located on this really post-industrial restaurant chic row (very near to the Hologram Museum, mind you). We took photos on my father’s new...
What's for breakfast?
Leftover red velvet cake - the one from boutique grocery store Fox and Obel’s is magnificently AMAZING.
MEAT WEEK: CHICAGO
I didn’t come up with Meat Week - Laura did. Chicago is pretty famous for certain meat dishes (Chicago hotdogs, italian beef, sausages, and this place which serves duck fat fries). We started meat week with something we’d been talking about for ages - Johnnie’s italian beef sandwiches. I’d never had one before, how awful, right? And I consider Chicago my adopted home!
You...
last days in portland
I am in Chicago now! Glorious times to be with the family. Seeing my family is always fun, especially with a fourteen year old sister. Gabbi seems to be more and more different but still the same everytime I see her, so it’s like a fun little game. Summer 2009 Gabbi is much more studious than me and has a lot better clothes than I did when I was her age. The first thing we did together was...
adventures to hotcake houseland
Sam and I celebrated the season finale of the abominably wonderful NYC Prep with a trip to the infamous Hotcake House, open 24/7. I was sort of dizzy with hotcakeness and we split a pancake and biscuits and gravy. Hotcake House is by no means a trendy place at all, it is slimy and dirty and sketchy and the floors are really slippery with the grease which infests itself in the pancakes. Too bad...
July 2009
16 posts
david chang dorking out over cookbooks →
I really like this video, mostly because it’s adorable seeing David Chang dork out over cookbooks - I sorta do the same, perusing the cookbook aisles, and I used to go through the cookbooks of the families I used to babysit for. Momofuku is really great; my father thought Ssam Bar was too loud and ultra-hip, and was wary of the veal-head terrine I craved for. Jacob and I loved Milk Bar, and...
wednesday
My shoes disintegrated so had to take two buses back home. Luckily my Google Maps public transit-o-meter gave me this excellent route utilizing the bus line, 18, that stops in front of my house in PDX. This bus is not “frequent service” and only runs in the morning and afternoon rush hours, but avoids the horrid drag-the-bike-up-the-hill. I managed to get my bikes onto the...
“I try to do nothing. I don’t know — I’m not trying to reach nirvana or anything,...”
– David Chang
“If it’s the most beautiful day in the world outside, I’d still stay inside until...”
– David Chang
David Chang of NYC's Momofuku restaurant empire... →
roasted brussels sprouts recipe
I took this from Logan. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
A bunch of brussels sprouts, halved. Make a mix of a few dashes of olive oil, lemon juice, dijon mustard. Toss sprouts. Cook on 350F for 10 minutes. perfection.