Off to New York!

PHOTOS ADDED
Just thought I'd blog last night and this morning before heading off! I'll be gone till the 2nd, and hopefully eat some awesome food, see Equus (!!!!), hang out with relatives, see museums, and shop, of course.
My cousins came for lunch and we took them for dim sum at Ed's Potstickers, which has a different name now, but I don't remember what it is. Either way, it's probably the only Northern Chinese restaurant in Chicago, and is pretty authentic. We're regulars here, which is a nice feeling.
WE ORDERED SO MUCH FOOD! Most of it was meat, so fortunately, I didn't end up eating TOO much.
For the meat eaters we ordered:
Ed's famous potstickers, which are rolled up in a cigar shape
Shrimp dumplings-- I originally ordered these for myself, took a bite of one and realized that it was mainly pork. Didn't swallow it or anything, but a year or two ago I would have been really upset. Luckily, I'm not as fragile about that right now.

Wonton soup

Stir-fried lamb from Xinjiang province (Muslim region that uses cumin and eats flatbread)
Some kind of pork dish that turned out to be at room temperature
Scallion pancakes with sliced pork in the center
Shao bing, sesame bread, with more meat in the center

What I ate:
(or drank)-- fresh soymilk, which only my dad and I appreciate. It's so light and refreshing!
My favorite dish was a classic peasant dish of cornbread and fried fish. The fish weren't fried as in breaded-- they were just crispy, savory and delicious-- also probably the cheapest kind of fish you can get. I love the cornbread because the only ingredient is corn-- this is very, very authentic.

The weirdest tofu soup ever, but I loved it. The broth was cloudy and tasted a bit like soy milk, but also had undertones of sesame. It had little strips of fried tofu that soaked up the soup. Of course, it also had cilantro.
Vegetarian potstickers-- I'm not really a big fan of potstickers, esp. not vegetarian ones. I tried part of one, and it just had cabbage, carrots, and I don't know what else. I'd rather have the real thing.
Stir-fried sweet and sour cabbage with peppers-- this isn't really sweet and sour like Panda Express makes it. It's just full of vinegar and not too much cornstarch. The vegetables are crunchy and tangy, and I couldn't rave about this dish enough. I order it all the time in Beijing.

Last but not least, vegetarian shaobing (the sesame bread, remember?). Not bad considering you can't really get them in the U.S., but they were a little on the bland side, and not hot enough. Of course, I doubt they were made fresh, so I shouldn't complain.

All in all, I definitely recommend this restaurant, ESPECIALLY if you're a pork fanatic.

Last night I didn't end up going to that birthday party. Instead I went to a family gathering of my friend's-- the same one I hung out with on Wednesday. They're relatively religious (Jewish), so it was kind of like a big Shabbat dinner! They eat vegetarian (plus fish) like me, so the food spread was absolutely ideal. I was in heaven!!!!





There was challah (not homemade, but apparently it usually is!), and then the food appeared. Seriously, this spread had ALL of my favorite foods. Here's what there was:
Baked salmon wrapped in tinfoil
Brussel sprouts
A kind of not-quite kugel-- it was called a baked latke
Homemade apple sauce and sour cream
2 salads: one with chickpeas (dried and soaked, not canned) and those other big white beans, mushrooms, greens, sweet peas, and cherry tomatoes, the other with pears, avocado, and pecans.
I only had half a piece of salmon... I would have gone back for seconds, but nobody else did, so I just hung out. However, when I got home I was pretty hungry and had yogurt, grapenuts, and berries.
I definitely ate more than what was pictured.

Last night I was woken up at 4 by the LOUDEST thunder and BRIGHTEST lightning ever. I love thunderstorms, and just lay there listening to the sounds, but it did make me kind of tired. I was thinking of working out before we left for the airport, but decided against it-- I was really sleepy and there wasn't that much time, since our flight leaves at 11.
For breakfast, I had a really filling bowl of oatmeal... I accidentally dumped in half the bottle of vanilla and had to pour it off, but let's not talk about that.
1/3 cup oats, a little more than 1/2 a banana, 1/3 cup vanilla hemp milk, 1/3 cup water, applesauce, part of a crumbled oatmeal raisin cookie, a spoon of Greek yogurt, and peanut butter (plus spices and wheat germ).
Man, was this filling. Maybe it was that little bit of protein from the yogurt that did it?

Anyways, we have to leave soon and I have to finish packing my carry on. Hopefully I'll keep blogging in NY, but if not, I'll do one of those summary posts where I list the highlights.
Bye!

Classic comfort staples

This will be short because there are only a few more weeks before winter break and that means TONS of tests, papers, and projects!
Last night I made a yummy sundae with vanilla frozen yogurt, mango, half a banana, cinnamon, and a sprinkle of coconut. YUM.

Breakfast: went for 1/2 cup of oats because during the week, I need a more substantial breakfast: 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup of that weird maple flavored oat milk (i might have to throw this out...), 1/2 cup water, 1/2 banana, some blueberries, flax, and Greek yogurt.
Snack: I nibbled on carrots! It was nice to have this instead of a bar because my mid-morning hunger isn't so severe that I need something THAT calorie dense.

Lunch: I made a delicious wrap, although it got so flattened that it looked more like a sandwich. It had baby spinach, rapini, avocado, a Laughing Cow, and hummus. SO GOOD! Plus leftover broccoli and an apple.

It was practically a blizzard all day! I love snow, but that cancels out all possibilities of running outside. I decided to come home after school and try a different approach- save the homework for LAST, because then you really can't procrastinate. Right when I got home, I changed and went down to the workout room for some elliptical stuff. I did intervals today... 5 minutes warm up, 1 minute hard, 2 minutes easy for 25 minutes, then another 10 minutes of moderately paced training. Intervals definitely make things more interesting! I don't usually trust the calorie burn, but it was about 390 calories.
I went upstairs and had a snack of 1/2 cup cottage cheese, the other half of my banana, and 1/8 cup of grapenuts with cinnamon.

This definitely tided me over till dinner! I practiced an hour of piano and did some homework while my dad made the fastest dinner in the world.
THIS IS COMFORT FOOD TO ME. Pure Chinese homestyle cooking: scrambled eggs and tomatoes and stir-fried string beans.

The eggs, which I need to make sometime, are really simple: you scramble eggs in vegetable oil, then add garlic, ginger, salt, soy sauce, and tomatoes, and stir-fry it and then reduce the heat. The tomatoes burst and the whole thing becomes sweet and soupy-- in fact, many restaurants serve this as a sauce for noodles!
Seconds on eggs:

OH YUM YUM...
and I feel a dessert/fruit craving coming on.
Had hot chocolate, a pear, some grapes, and a small whole grain graham cracker square that tasted like cardboard.

NOTE THE AWESOME ROBOT MUG.

Good night!

Lights out

I want to be in bed EARLY today... say, 9:15 or so? This was the most relaxing Thanksgiving break ever. Normally I would have found it pretty boring, since I mainly just lounged around the house, leaving it only to do exercise and homework, but with the world's worst weather outside, I really enjoyed it.
Today I woke up too hungry to do exercise right away. I actually woke up at 7 and FINISHED MOBY-DICK! That is an accomplishment... only I don't know what I think of the ending. In fact, I'm annoyed at Melville. He made us read all 450 pages of that tiny print of a plot where no progress is made and everything ends in disaster? Now, I know the whale represents nature and you can't conquer nature, blahblahblah, and I am totally anti-whaling, but for once, could they have killed him just to make the ending feel definite?
Enough ranting-- I hadn't had oats in a long time, and made them this morning. I had a third cup portion, and it seemed TINY! Of course, it ended up filling me up, but I just wasn't used to there not being so much volume.
I had: 1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup this WEIRD oat milk stuff that is brown sugar maple flavored... I tried it plain and nearly threw up, but it seems okay cooked in oats, 1/3 cup water, 1/2 banana, cinnamon, 1/8 cup cottage cheese, cranberry sauce, a drizzle of peanut butter, some walnuts, and a little Greek yogurt.
I did stuff in the morning and around 9:30 or something I went down to the workout room. I was afraid somebody would be in there but nobody was! I did 40 minutes on the elliptical reading Interview with the Vampire. It was my first time reading and working out at the same time, and I managed to get a good workout in without feeling bored, which is my big problem with machines. Basically, as I read, I kept increasing the level until I was at level 23 or something! I do want to try interval training, but I think I need to be in the right mood.
Afterwards I used the limited number of strength machines to do 3 sets each of the one that works your pecs and triceps and the one that works your quads and calves (sorry, don't know the names).
I also did 3 sets of bicycles, which were killing me at the end. I think it's because I did a lot... at least for me-- my friend Aoife does 60 on each side! and that's ONE SET! I did 40 and that was plenty for me.
It felt nice to sweat, actually! With swimming and running in the freezing cold, you don't sweat. Actually, I take that back. I was sweating in that damn 85 degree pool the other day!
I didn't eat anything after my workout because it was pretty close to lunch. For lunch my dad had leftover pizza and I made a leftovers plate too with zucchini, the last cauliflower ball, and the rapini, which I added some feta and lemon too. I also had a piece of pumpernickel with avocado, smoked salmon, and lemon. This was very filling and delicious.

Check out that perfect avocado!

Later I was starving and had an apple.

Afterwards I braved the weather to go back to Istria (I wonder if they'll start to recognize me...) and write my second art history paper. This was SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE! Basically, you go to a museum (the Art Institute) and pick a piece that predates 100 CE, then do a fake analysis of it where you make up its symbolism, where it was from, etc. I chose this Chinese pig pen model, but my paper became almost like a mystery story where it turns out that the society worshipped pigs (Piganism, like Paganism, get it?), but also had this weird idea that life couldn't exist without death, so they would kill the pigs and eventually they all died out.
While I was there, I had a decaf mocha with skim, which I had been looking forward to all morning. I was hungry, and all that delicious milk and chocolate filled me up!

By the way, this listening to my body thing is definitely working. It might just be psychological, but I already feel thinner and that my jeans are looser, as well as just feeling BETTER and less bloated all the time. Win-win situation.
My dad and I went to Whole Foods afterwards and bought a bunch of stuff-- we spent less money than last time, thank god.

I bought stevia, finally! So excited to try it!
For dinner I made another dish from the Flexitarian Table, which is slowly becoming my kitchen Bible. This dish is probably a hate it or love it kind of thing, because its flavors are STRONG. It's German or Eastern-European influenced... I made the "non-vegetarian" option (I could have made it with tempeh): smoked white fish over saurkraut with apples and onions.
It was so easy! All I had to do was saute the onions with apple, carrot, celery and caraway seeds, simmer it down with white wine, add the saurkraut, simmer, then add the fish and simmer. It was really fast because really, everything was cooked. this would be great to make if you had nothing fresh and needed to resort to what was in your pantry.
On the side we had boiled potatoes, which were perfect because they were so bland.
My dad also stir-fried some broccoli, which I had seconds of.
And now I feel the urge for something sweet, so that will probably happen soon. I'm going to get everything together for school and get in bed with Interview with the Vampire! Life is sweet!
Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving weekend!

Thanksgiving countdown!

This is hilarious... Page put up flyers all over school with MY FACE ON THEM, advertising for Renaissance, our lit magazine. I'm not even on the board... although I did submit some food things from this blog, edited to seem slightly literary. This flyer was on the door of my first period class... she wanted to make sure I saw it.

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday... it's secular and there's a lot of food, and it happens to be during the fall, which is the time for the foods of paradise: pumpkins, apples, carrots, and the like.
I FOUND MY CAMERA, and all I can say is that I'm lucky nobody took it. It was in my French room (no breakfast or lunch pictures because I didn't have my camera then).
For breakfast, I had exactly the same thing as yesterday (my sweet tooth has been running wild!). Maybe it's not the healthiest thing ever... God knows how much sugar is in it, but it holds me over better than oatmeal, if that's even possible: 2 pieces of banana bread with peanut butter, berries, and hot chocolate.
Today the hot chocolate was true Parisian style: I used my special occasion Vosges hot chocolate, which has chiles and cornmeal. I also used 2%, because I feel that this is an instance where it really counts, and boy, could I tell! It was so chocolaty and intense that I couldn't believe this was hot chocolate from home.
Lunch: Leftover vegetables and tofu with brown rice, Kashi crackers, an apple, and a Clif Nectar bar (I ate the Kashis in French).
I so felt like going for a run after school, and we took a nice, long run to the 43rd street playground. Once again, I'd say 5-6 miles, which is long for me, definitely. I'm actually pretty proud of myself that I'm able to run with the cross country people... I'm not the same pace as the fastest, but these workouts don't actually tire me. Compared to swimming, pas de probleme. Speaking of which, guys swimming has started! There are some pretty hot guys on the team... you can better believe that I'll be helping them time at some of their meets.
When I got home from my run I realized I was pretty hungry, and I had almost the same snack as yesterday (all about repeats today...), cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, grapenuts, and a chopped up pear.
My dad and I have been cooking a lot this week, as you can see, so we went our own directions for dinner. After he got back from swimming in the pool downstairs, which I would use more often if it weren't only 15 or so yards long, we made dinner: he just had a Trader Joe's frozen pizza, I made a salad for him, and the best burrito ever for myself! This was my first experience actually folding the burrito so that it didn't fall apart! Whoohoo!
We're trying to get rid of this massive bag of mushrooms, so I grilled up some of the smaller portobellos and actually made portobello burritos.
Inside the whole wheat tortilla, which I toasted: a sliced, grilled portobello that I brushed with sherry vinegar and olive oil (we're out of balsamic!!), homemade guacamole, brown rice, black beans, and a dollop of Greek yogurt. This was so much fun to eat... messy in a good way!
On the side I had my salad and some mango, which went perfectly with the whole Tex-Mex thing.
However, later on I was really in the mood for some dessert (I usually am on exercise days) and had my usual combination of vanilla frozen yogurt and the Purely Decadent Snickerdoodle. I have got to stop going back for seconds! It's almost Thanksgiving and I'm going to stuff my face anyway! Bad idea!
Speaking of Thanksgiving, I spent tonight fabricating my menu.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, grad students are having a potluck, and we're bringing cranberry sauce (my dad just made it-- it smells great, with lots of orange zest and even some blueberries in it!) and I'm making Mark Bittman's Autumn Millet bake.
Thursday, we're inviting back some more grad students and this is what I have in mind:
Salad-- greens with pear, feta, candied pecans, pomegranate seeds, and pomegranate molasses dressing (my creation... the dressing just has lemon, pomegranate molasses, salt, pepper, and olive oil)
Main course from the Flexitarian Kitchen-- Cornish game hens/ pumpkins with a quinoa and dried fruit stuffing
My dad's stir-fried string beans
Cranberry sauce
Cornbread

Dessert: I really wanted to try Gourmet's pumpkin souffles with bourbon molasses sauce, but 1) it only serves 8 and we have 9 people in total and 2) I don't want to screw up a souffle on the first try. My mom is known for making the best apple pie ever, but I guess that's not happening this year :(
I think we'll settle for apple and quince crisp with rum raisins (this was from Epicurious)

How does it sound? Good? I actually have a lot to do over this break-- in addition to finishing Moby-Dick, math, and a French reading, I have 2 ART HISTORY PAPERS to write, although I suppose it's my own fault for procrastinating...

AAA, camera is MIA

I'm telling myself that I'll find my camera, which was in my pencil case. Of course, the one day I can't find my camera case and decide to put my camera in my pencil case, I leave my pencil case at at school. It had better be in my locker... that's all I can say. so alas, today's post is picture-less for now.
Breakfast: VERY SWEET. In theory, dessert for breakfast. It fixed my sweet tooth, though!
2 pieces of banana bread with peanut butter, some berries, and a mug of hot chocolate (must get rid of all this milk!) with 2 tiny kosher marshmallows that just melted in.
I didn't have a snack between breakfast and lunch, but I ended up eating my snack (a Clif nectar bar) at lunch anyways, so I think I should probably still have a snack to keep my blood sugar up. the bar was good... like a Larabar, but less dense.
For lunch I had a great sandwich, although not very filling: pumpernickel-rye bread with avocado, a Laughing Cow, spinach, and sliced green apple.
on the side: a carrot and some grapes.
After school (it feels so nice not to have swim practice!) I took a long walk with my friend Becca, who goes to boarding school. When I got home I was pretty hungry, so I had cottage cheese with a chopped up pear, cinnamon, and a handful of Grapenuts.
My dad cooked a fast, satisfying dinner today... I definitely ate too much, but a lot of that was soup and fiber: he made soup noodles with tons of Chinese flat noodles, fresh mushrooms, pickled cabbage, Chinese greens, carrots, ginger, sesame oil, vinegar, soy sauce, and silken tofu. He also opened up a can of this Buddhist dish (Chinese canned food is surprisingly good!) that has seitan, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and quail eggs (I didn't eat the quail eggs).
And now I am so full...
Thanksgiving is so soon! It'll be weird with my mom gone, but my dad and I are planning something fun with his grad students.

T.G.I.Thursday

Thursday is my favorite day of the week, and here's why:
2nd period free and TRIPLE LUNCH, not to mention the fact that it's almost Friday! At our school everybody has the period after lunch free (7th) on Thursdays, but I have 8th period free on a regular basis, and last period is art, which is the ONLY AFTERNOON CLASS I HAVE! Can't wait till I'm a senior and have even more frees.
Anyways, a lot of people go out to lunch on Thursdays, but in the past I've found that what I can pack is much cheaper and often better than the options around our school. Here are some possibilities, and literally, these are ALL OF THEM. Remember that this is Hyde Park, and I suppose now that Obama's president, more people know about it (There's actually a hilarious video my dad sent me where two Republicans are discussing Hyde Park. One of them lives there, and the other one is asking him questions, like if it's true that they have communes and Maoist flags everywhere. This is not a joke! Click here to see it.):
Noodles Etc.-- your typical pan-Asian joint, which makes me almost embarrassed to be Asian. I try to pronounce dishes in a normal way, but they stress everything to sound even more American, despite the fact that they are Asian : "YOU WANT THE PAD WOON SEN? (PAAAAAHD WOOOHN SIIN)
Medici and Medici bakery-- these are much more signature Hyde Park, and have great shakes, burgers, pizzas, and all that sinful stuff. The bakery has great pastries and coffee, and they now have shirts that say "Obama eats here" on the back.
Edwardo's-- really gross deep-dish pizza
Subway-- need I say more?
University Market (the UM)-- is basically a convenience store (they have gum, cigarettes, etc, as well as a cold prepared foods section that I've always been kind of afraid to touch), but it happens to have a Boar's Head Deli in the very back of the store. If I were to buy lunch, I would probably come here, since everyone swears by their fresh tomato-mozzarella sandwiches.
The Graduate School of Business (GSB)-- basically, a really good food court. My friend Page eats breakfast and/or lunch there on a daily basis: in the morning they have made-to-order omelets, oatmeal, etc, and at lunch it varies-- sometimes a stirfry bar, panini press, salad bar, burritos, etc. The problem is that it is REALLY expensive, although tasty.
Anyways, you see my point: these are all the restaurants nearby, unless you want to walk far or drive somewhere else.
On to the day:
Breakfast-- I decided to try adding more protein to keep me full (it worked for a while, but I still ended up needing a snack) by using all soy milk instead of half water in my oats. The soy milk was getting old, so it was also economical.
Sorry guys! My breakfast was just not all that attractive today!
By the way, that bowl you see was painted by me in lower school. It has a haiku on it-- an ode to my old favorite food:
Golden shapes on a plate
Flecked with gold and crimson
French fries and ketchup.

Oats: 1/2 cup oats, 1 cup soy milk, 1/2 banana, a bunch of cut up strawberries (also using those up), a drizzle of honey, pecans and walnuts, and finally, a sprinkle of Grapenuts.
On the side: I was inspired by last night's quince and cottage cheese combo, so I had warm cinnamon pears with cottage cheese, which was pretty delicious.
During Art History I had one of the Chewy bars I took from Panera when I got to meet Kath and Jenna! However, I realize that Chewy bars aren't actually "healthy"-- they have refined sugar, HFCS, and even some hydrogenated oils! Of course, they have that stupid little "Smart choices made healthy" check on them. The thing is, for some reason I really wanted to try one, and I realized that one little chewy bar wouldn't kill me. I had the peanut butter flavor and it was good, but obviously extremely sweet.
Lunch: I really liked the sandwich I made earlier in the week, so i duplicated it-- avocado, hummus, laughing cow, and lettuce.
On the side: more of those damn root vegetables and brussel sprouts. My mom made a bucket of these last weekend and we're STILL not through with them!
An apple (my bio teacher told us today that all Red Delicious apples actually came from the same tree, since the branches were grafted on to other trees! Isn't that crazy? I don't even know if I believe it... but I hate Red Delicious anyway).
Some honey graham sticks and dried apricots.
Check out my friend Yoko's ravioli-- they're HUMUNGOUS!
Luckily, this lunch kept me full enough that I didn't need a pre-practice snack! This was also good because practice was EXTREMELY low-key. We did sprint sets, but that was pretty much it. We were definitely out of the water a good 40% of the time, which is such a huge contrast to the days where we're swimming for 2 hours straight with only water breaks.
It's also great because I'm not about to die of exhaustion! Yay!
And for dinner we're having something I've been really looking forward to, from the Flexitarian Table: Pumpkin and lentils over couscous.