*winter wonderland*

For the past couple weeks, I have been pondering what to do next year during break (because I plan my trips ahead... that's what I do)... and I think I'm going to go to Japan. Except for I won't be accepting credit for it, like my trip to India will give me... I'll be going there on my own free will. Surprisingly, when I brought it up to my parents, my dad also suggested China and Taiwan to explore for the duration of my free 6 weeks of break... usually, when it comes to squandering money, they squash the idea. However, the remainder of my financial aid for this term was saved up and went straight to tuition for the India trip... I have a feeling it'll go a LONG way for Japan, etc ;)

The trip became confirmed in my head while I was facebook stalking and thinking about a girl I know who I could totally potentially setup with Jason... she's Japanese and PERFECT! I came across this picture of this couple who I guess went to University of Arizona and graduated my same year? But I don't know who they are. Nonetheless, I sent him a picture explaining how if I wrote a blog about love, this would be a picture on that blog..

From .food filosofy.

And what do I think about when I think about love?

RED VELVET CUPCAKES!
I really do hope that one day, maybe my *future love* will propose to me with a million and a half red velvet cupcakes. Especially because they're my favorite.

Anyway, here's a recipe I found from a fellow blogger...
http://bestcupcakerecipes.blogspot.com/2009/02/red-velvet-cupcake-recipe.html

From .food filosofy.

And with this picture, I must leave you because it is 230am and I need to start dreaming...

Love, Lust, Lemons,
LesDeux.

Confession: i puffed a cigarette today..

And it was absolutely disgusting.. partly b/c my friend made it and rolled it himself. So it was 100% au natural and didn't have any of the processing chemicals that most cigs have. Anyway, moving on.

I baked my cookies today! They turned out terrible though and so not worth the show...I received this jar filled with the right amount of ingredient for chocolate oatmeal cookies from someone who could be my "future" mother in law. I say this because I actually *love* her to death, and so do my parents. In fact, my parents get along SO well with this lady and her husband that my life would be perfect if I married their son. Big if though. My parents DON'T know (actually, I'm not sure anyone knows... so this will be confession number 2) that I did make out with their son. Once. it was a moment. He and I have had random issues and even stopped talking... and soon after we started talking again, he was visiting town and had a good evening and yes. One beer left us making out.
Getting back to the cookies I baked, unfortunately, my ability to cook is about as bad as my relationship is with their son... For the life of me, I've never been able to bake such a good batch of cookies. I can't understand why. Everything else relating to cooking, I can manage.. the Betty Crocker stuff, on the other hand... no can do.

Today in general = awesome!

My friends and I had a HOT POT shindig!
I can't explain to you exactly what this is, except for it's kinda sorta like the Chinese version of FONDUE. Basically, you line up all your raw meats and vegetables up... and dip them in soup for them to cook. Atleast that's how my friend explained it to me.. and pretty much that's how it went.
Here's a recipe I found which will explain a little more into detail of how tonight went...

http://www.worldfoodieguide.com/index.php/how-to-make-chinese-hot-pot/


And here are some pictures from our actual night..

From hot pot!

From hot pot!

From hot pot!

(this is me, holding chopsticks!)

And of course, every THAI meal has to be topped off with my favorite.. thai iced tea!! Which we did...
As seen by me, here:

From hot pot!

Here's the recipe.. because again, I didn't catch it during dinner..

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cda/recipe_print/0,1946,FOOD_9936_22609_PRINT-RECIPE-3X5-CARD,00.html

Confession number 3:
I basically professed my love to my friend, Jason. Not really... we're such great awesome friends, and he was sad today so I did the unthinkable for me... While at a bar karaoking with friends, I decided to choose OUR song, which is "Hey There Delilah" and got him on the phone so that he could hear me sing it to him... Hopefully it made his night... because I have never karaoked by myself ever before! I usually sing with someone else or in a group...

Anyway, to my group who shaped tonight.. You guys rock!

From hot pot!

Love, Lust, Lemons,
LesDeux.

sophie makes me want to bake cookies!

But I have too many OTHER things to do!!!
Including getting a much needed workout in... I think I've actually managed to start to lose inches. Yay!

I leave you with this...

missedconnectionsny.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-09-10T11:30:00-07:00&max-results=10

Leftover condiments...

What do do with leftover shredded cheese, ground meat, salsa, and almost over cream cheese? Do what I did -- add pizza crust, salsa and taco bell taco sauce packets to make the perfect brunch!

From Blogger Pictures

My friends are slowly leaving for their respected regions for winter break/ traveling. It's amazing how many regions are represented from school! But it's sad.. some of these people I won't get to see until next fall because the program involves a ton of traveling and studying abroad.. which is why I chose it :)

My friend Carlos asked me to hang out last night and because I decided to do girl's night with Anisha and Vi, I promised him breakfast/ brunch today... Being a student means going back to a budget, so I looked in my fridge and found eggs, salsa, taco sauce, salmon cream cheese and red onions... in my head, the concoction sounded *amazing*.

Needless to say, it was... I bought pizza crust from the local grocery store.. spread the salmon cream cheese onto it. Added 1/2 lb ground turkey (cooked in a skillet), about 2 eggs (scrambled), 1/2 a chopped red onion -- poured on salsa, added shredded cheese, taco sauce. Baked in the oven for 7 minutes, and voila.. the breakfast pizza was done.

Incredibly, it turned out so good that I had cravings for it later on in the day...

From Blogger Pictures

(here's Carlos, taking his first bite!)

Not much has been going on. I think I'm going to link up a travel blog to this one... or create one where my friends can add to it. We'll see. On another note, the sister comes home in about a week and Jason visits in about two. I can't wait.

I think I'm going to bake cookies tomorrow... or cook something Asian -- oh yeah. Asian party tomorrow at Vi's!

Love, Lust, Lemons,
LesDeux.

Depressing date-nights..

Hello all!
The dating scene is definitely a tough one... especially when you're in your mid-twenties and keep trying to take the risks hoping to fall into something *amazing* and not a pothole... My date last night proved to be a pot-hole. Luckily, I thought for the worst, because after many failed attempts, that's what I do.. I take the chances but think for the worst to minimize the effects of being hurt later on. Right, or wrong, it doesn't depress me as much as it used to when I was in college or immediately after.

And the good thing about it is that I'm now able to hide my sadness through finding new recipes and actually cooking... which leads me to tonight. I'm not sure what I'm going to do... one of my friends invited me out to hang with him in Tempe... and my "date" from last night kind of asked me out for tonight..but I don't think it'll happen.

In any case, here's what I'm thinking...
The last two weeks have been overall stressful and tiring, so I've been super craving ice cream a LOT more... and here's some information I stumbled on:

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/shopping-storing/food/fun-ice-cream-facts-10000001078156/index.html


I also found this blog on fresh food markets and absolutely *fell in love*... I wish I had taken the plunge to go to school in Chicago now... but the place where I'm at is number 1 for int'l business and I keep telling myself that in 1.5 more years, I'll be out of this state!

Anyway, here's a FRENCH food market article..

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/practically-green/2009/12/foodie-heaven-oui-oui.html

And more about travel.. thanks to the program, I'll be leaving for India in t-2 weeks :)

That's it for now...
Love, Lust, Lemons,
LesDeux.

12.9.09. starting over.

If you're returning to this blog for the millionth time wondering why I haven't updated and then wondering where everything went, it's because I've decided to revamp, recreate and repost.

And, right now, I am studying for a global political economy final, trying to sponge in every last bit of knowledge about transnational corporations, the European Union and all 8 goals for the Millennium Development Goals by 2015... amongst other topics.

And all I can think about is food. Yummy delicious food. I haven't had the chance to venture to any new restaurants as of late and can't wait until my last final finishes today.. and last project tomorrow.

It's weird.. between the rain fall and studying, I've gotten really close to the comfort of Thai food.. Amazingly, there are a TON of really delicious Thai restaurants in the Glendale/ Peoria area (Arizona). Because I cannot blog about any of them now, I leave you with some Anthony Bourdain.. as he relinquishes Thailand...

http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Anthony_Bourdain/Thailand_Photo_Journal_1

Until I get time to type some more...
Love, Lust, Lemons,
Les Deux.