California Cuisine: Some Dining Out

It's been a bit of a hard week in the staying positive and being self-confident area of things. I know its a bit toxic and not particularly healthy, but I also know that in the end it won't matter and where ever I end up in life, I'll be content with it. Which brings the question of why I should subjugate myself to so much self deprecation when the end is definitely not guaranteed and likely the same as if I just saved myself and everyone some disappointment. I guess the main difference, and the one I so bitterly (stubbornly?) believe in is the fact that at least one way I know I tried. Even if I'm often not exactly sure if I'm trying hard enough since a lot of my trying hard involves wasting time on the internet. 

Anyways, not much to talk about on the food end of things, even though this is supposed to be a food blog.  My parents have become quite enthusiastic fans of dining out as they pass through their mid-life. With most of the kids out of the house, and just one with three more years to go, I think that ~retirement~ horizon has got them in the fine dining mood. Lucky for us kids, our parents are really far too generous and take us along with them.
In this case, we went to Downey's, a classic California/American restaurant for a birthday this week. By "California," I mean the typical organic, locally sourced meat/poultry/fish cooked over beds of also organic, locally sourced vegetables and the likes all impeccably plattered. While everything tasted great, I'm not sure it was worth the price. We've definitely eaten at other places with slightly lower prices that were both better and not as formal. Formality, like, the whole three-five course French tradition fixed meal sort of thing is not something I'm particularly into. But hey, if you like that kind of dining mixed with some great fine dining California cuisine, try it out.

For my entree I had the duck, which was quite good, but again similar to what I've had at other restaurants while dining on the parent's money. I did find it charming that they gave out truffles rather than mints with the check. In this case, they added a candle and some birthday writing to make up for the fact that no one in our family had space in our stomaches for actual dessert.

My insistence to post once a week is eating away at the quality of posts, so if you didn't make it this far, don't worry, there wasn't much you missed.

CA Food: The Hits

By hits, I mean basically the most rapid-fire, condensed version possible of foods that embody California to me. There are some gross omissions, but thats due in part to my locking-myself-in-the-house-and-studying mode that I seem to always be in during spring break these days. I suppose this could be my suggested dining plan for someone who had only 1 day in CA and insisted on only eating 3 meals. Which is ridiculous when we all know there is second breakfast (fun fact, this is a real thing in Bavaria and Poland), mid-morning snack, mid-afternoon snack, lunner, linner, dessert, night cheese, midnight snack, late-night greasy food ect ect ect. But that more detailed dining list will have to come at a later date.

 Above are probably the two things that embody CA food the best. On the left, a berry-topped acai bowl from Backyard Bowls consumed by your stereotyped granola crunchy, goin' with the flow, health conscious (though hopefully scientific about it!), yogi/surfer/climber/runner-type. But, as I am only 30% that type of person, clearly the popularity of these types of fruit/smoothie bowls derives mainly from the fact that they're just flipping delicious. Plus, who wouldn't want to eat acai bowls every week if the weather was always sunshines and fresh fruit? Granted, your wallet might not like you a lot, but definitely worth at least a weekly visit!

On the right is the classic, the historic, the #vintage In-N-Out burger with a touch of intense LA #sunshine. Just look at that slightly charred, buttery bun, the gooey melted cheese, the slathering of "special sauce" at the bottom. Can you really say Shake Shack or Five Guys can beat this for only three dollars? No, I didn't think so. I mean, Shake Shack and Five Guys are great, but no one can beat In-N-Out for cost:quality ratio. Especially with that not so secret menu you guys all know about anyways thanks to buzzfeed.

Obviously no blitz summary of CA food is really complete unless something Mexican is included. In this case, a garlic-mushroom, avocado, cheddar quesadilla. Not really the classic queso-oozing to the brink of coronary bypass status of a quesadilla you'd probably find at a restaurant, but hey, part of the charm of a quesadilla is its flexibility. Breakfast quesadillas, dessert quesadillas, so many options! But obviously, any quesadilla (except for dessert I guess) is always infinitely better with a slathering of avocado and salsa when possible.

I should mention, Happy Pi Day! Gotta love 3.14. Sad fact about myself, I really only have pi memorized up to 3.14. I think there's a quiz game you can play to improve your memorization. Though honestly, memorizing pi was one of those nerd skills that only gave you cool points back in high school. Except, if you do know pi out to a large number of digits, you get gold stars from me if not cool points. And specifically on this year's pi day, 3.14.14, the Veronica Mars movie comes out! The one that made history in online crowd funding and broke Kickstarter's record for most money raised for a project! I mention all of this to you because if I had the time to bake, there probably would have been a marshmallow pie post instead for Pi day and Veronica Mars day. You know, since Veronica is really just an adorable marshmallow under all that tough crime-busting stuff she normally does. But seriously, for anyone who is just chilling during their spring break or wants a break from work/studying, check out Veronica Mars! Here are some links to the trailer and the opening scene  of the movie which gives a pretty quick and fast overview of the tv seasons. Not convinced? Kristen Bell (most recently, Anna in Frozen) is just straight up adorable.

Throwback: I'm on a boat

A pita chip boat that is.

Things that this post could have been about:

• look, something that isn't cake!
• the overwhelming relief of spring break.
• the fond memories I have associated with this pita boat about asteroid summer camp. Seriously, some of the friends I made in those stupid(ly great) 6 weeks are among people I talk to the most in a given week. And I'm definitely not the stereotype bff 4lifes camp chippewa type.
• a brief investigative report on the identity of the elbow in the picture.

Things that this post will be about:

• All of the above and including this mildly meta line.

Throw Back: More Quacky Historical Cakes

Even I'm starting to get a little bored of cake, heaven forbid....

As suggested by the last few blog posts, my ~leap~ into baking was really a small, tepid, toe-poke into baking, masked gratuitously by colors and extravagant decorations. This is no different. Albeit slightly more organized. Hence, we have here a funfetti birthday cake with rice krispy ducks, probably cream cheese frosting water, chocolate cake dirt, peanut mms eggs, and a starburst pink blanket (which I think is adorable, but others seemed to find it gross as I recall). A team of three, one high school graduate and two upper classmen, was required for the attention to detail required for those ducks and that perfectly sprinkled layer of dirt to the right.

There was a lot of free time in the summer after high school before college where I tried to squeeze in some last memories that embodied the ~peace, luv, happyness~ glow of teenage-hood. In more modern terms, I'm referring to things like justgirlythings and other mildly pathetic life aspirations written in curly script over a sunset silhouette of your standard photostock white, young couple wearing hipster clothes. Seriously. I went biking on a cruiser in the middle of the night with a camera. If that doesn't scream stereotypes, I don't know what does. 

Perfectly sliced watermelon lit up by the afternoon sun filtering through the kitchen window perhaps? It's funny that I haven't made a colorful cake in eons. At some point I started rejecting the notion of heavily decorated desserts because often they're a lie hiding the subpar taste underneath. Like, what is the point of a perfectly-piped rose if it tastes like the most subpar Costco buttercream? But, I don't know, looking at this cake, I'm interested in reviving the-decorating-for-5-year-old trend in my early cakes. But no seriously, this cake was inspired by a picture book about a baby duck and its cozy blanket. Oh look, that was basically the title.

This cake has a surprising number of cute details, especially given the fact that I found multiple pictures of my dog and faux-artsy shots of a lamp in the same album that I assume were taken while waiting for cake to cool amongst other tasks. Well, maybe all the distractions and breaks only helped to further enrich our creativity.

Then again, clearly some of these decorations were not well thought out. Like, the concept of gravity and density seems to have been forgotten in this instance. Unless that egg is magically empty (which would be legit traumatic for the duck), that green shelled-egg should be at the bottom of the pond of a cake. And if anyone is thinking "whatever! its cake! it's not supposed to be scientifically accurate! I mean look at your ducks and multi colored egg shells!" I raise you these cakes.

Throw Back: Teacher Appreciation via Cupcake Appreciation

This edition of old food photos brought to you by June 2010 and high school graduation. 

You know how people talk about how hindsight is always 20/20? Or how things always look better through rose tinted glasses (pretty sure I've used that cliche before on this blog)? Well, I have a serious case of that. Anyways, there's been a lot of reflecting and skepticism going on in my life right now, made more complicated by the fact that I know that my opinions will probably 100% change in the next 5 years. 

I mean just look at high school. I was by no means a cheerleader or a cool kid in high school (#stereotypes), but if you asked me today about high school, I would probably say that high school was a pretty good time for me. God forbid that I am part of the cliche though and I've already hit my peak (but seriously, it's a worrying thought when you're currently near your low). Yet, if you went back 4 years ago and asked me about high school, I would have probably cited the aimless wandering at lunchtime to find a place or friends to eat with and the already growing distance between my two closest friends who started having relationships with boys as reasons I couldn't wait to get out of high school. This sentiment hit quite a peak around prom/graduation where dateless me had to leave prom crying after 5 minutes of just standing there feeling ridiculous even if though I brought along my close junior friend as my "date." Then I had to spend "grad nite" at Disneyland hardcore 3rd wheeling the entire night, essentially being babysat by one of my friends + her respective boyfriend. So yea, I would have easily said high school was terrible back then. But today? I would have easily cited the high quality public school education I received and the many formative social and leadership skills I learned while running cross country as reasons why high school was great.

Likewise, I'm at that point in my college education where reflecting back also brings up many of the unpleasant memories in addition to the formative ones. The thoughts of having to go through commencement being told over and over again that these were the best times of your life, how this college, this class is unique and how the everlasting ties of college friendship will stand the test of time makes me want to puke. This probably is highly disconcerting, depressing, even insulting to many of you, and I apologize if it is because I by no means want everyone to think college was a terrible time. But if high school was any indication, I am positive that in a few years I will fondly look back over these experiences. That's the wonderful thing about the faultiness that is human memory. Overtime I'll eventually filter out the small things that annoy me now and end up with a coherent memory of college that doesn't cause the conflicting, dissonant thoughts currently making this post nonsense. Or, you know, tuition will continue skyrocketing to a healthy 100k a year as classes continue to increase with fewer faculty hirings so that geez, 50k was a real bargain and maybe I should be grateful that my hardworking, generous parents only had to spend a small house to educate me.

I suppose the overall point I am trying to boil down is that being forced to be grateful (and forced to be grateful in a highly specific, mass-mongering way) only leads to more bitter resentment, even if it's resentment that may be unfair in the long run. Given time, the gratitude that I'm sure all fine institutions of learning probably deserve in helping people understand things like, creationism is a hoax or that the earth revolves around the sun, will be given. Though, evidently, they did not teach me how to control my run on sentences. And as another general note, I'm just tired of the cult-atmosphere that seems to engender any positive experience made at college.

Plus, when gratitude means something, it's certainly worth much more. Such as these fancy little cupcakes that I stayed up till 2 AM on the last day of classes to finish for my 12th grade era teachers. Sure, cupcakes can't fund a pizza study break, or some highly contrived, unnecessarily expensive key system (dude, getting rid of your mouse problem >>>>> important than helping students who forget their keys. one is a health hazard and the other is not), but I like to think that when it comes to showing gratitude, it's the sentiment behind the donor's action that matters, not the participation percentage or monetary sum.

Throw Back: The First Cake Bake

I've hit the inevitable point in the semester where I no longer have any baking projects from winter break or enough of a social life to have done any blog worthy fine dining. Well, I had some beer themed cupcakes, but maybe I'll talk about that later. But, brace yourselves for some faux throw back friday (?) posts and if you're extra lucky, guest posts from friends (friends who may/may not actually read this, wink wink nudge nudge). 

The fact that I spend a lot of my time thinking about food and looking at food, and now documenting food would suggest that I might actually have some sort of talent or taste for fine dessert and dining. But thats a big 'ol lie. Just like those food photos I discussed last week. A lot of other "foodies" (ugh that word) have sepia-toned memories of cooking in the kitchen with their moms or dads. There were those classic family recipes passed from generations downward, or maybe a favorite pie a certain uncle always brought to holiday dinners. As they got older, their parents started letting them help out in the kitchen, teaching them the little tricks and hints not written on the recipe cards. Before long, whelp, there's a highly accomplished 18 year old baker who can make some serious macarons while I scratch my head about why the hell its so important to have 35 folds versus 36 (true story).

The point is, I did not grow up in a household where food or baking or whatever was an essential part of the family culture. Sure, my mom did do some fancy baking here and there as she rotated through experimenting with each classic housewife hobby. The only family tradition we may have had food-wise was probably dumplings, which as a highly Americanized kid, I did not particularly start enjoying until college. Seriously, I hated the slimy texture of dumplings. 

So it came as a mild surprise when I was in high school when it was thing for people to bake treats to give to their friends at school for their birthdays. It was equally a symbol of popularity for the recipient and the gift giver. For the recipient, you truly had the best of friends if not only your treats were homemade, but were in such an abundant quantity that you needed your friends to trail you all day to help carry all your treats from class to class. For the gift giver, you were truly the kindest, most talented of friends if you made a beautiful cake with meticulously placed toothpicks on top to hold up that perfectly folded saran wrap and keep it from touching the frosting.

To my friends in high school, it was a surprise that I had never baked a cake. Surely a sophomore, about to get her permit, would have turned on the family oven at some point? So in a secret ploy to force people on my cross country team to be my friends, I told them that they had to show me how to make a cake. And thus, some high school friendships and my obsession with cake was born. Not from a fine, time honored tradition of making ~memories~ in the kitchen, but rather from a teenage plan to become cool.

As you can tell, we started out with the basics. A yellow box cake mix (not even funfetti!), and what looks like the distinctive goopiness that is the oh-so-delicious cream creese frosting amplified with lots of food dye. Now this cake + those cupcakes were baked oh, like 5 years ago? Back when I was getting ready to hit the peak and prime of my glorified high school running career. So the fact that there's a stick figure running on a cake is moderately less insane given those circumstances. Not sure if my decorating skillz have really improved since then. They've certainly gotten much more boring though.

Green Tea Cupcakes: A Reminder For Scales

Photography is a pretty duplicitous medium. Or rather, all images are duplications of an already existing reality or a fragment of the imagination brought to reality by a new medium.

Most notably, we discuss the distorted reality images present in the context of body photoshopping in celebrity magazine covers and spreads. You know, the extra brushing Scarlett Johansson for being The Black Widow even if she's already hotter than 99% of the general population and badass to boot (well, as the black widow). And J Law with all her photo brushing because she's apparently "fat by hollywood standards (her quote)." But anyways, I think food photography is another nice reminder (HA that transition was terrible) that the physical appearance of something or someone does not reflect on other sensory details that define a person/something. You just have to think back to your 3rd grade cliches like "Looks can be deceiving" or "Never judge a book by its cover." 

 Likewise, food isn't just the color, the shape or apparent texture of a picture. Food is more importantly defined by its actual tastes and textures and how certain combinations excite different sensory paths. I mean, photoshopping people is one thing, but the lengths food photography goes to in order to create the image of ~fresh~ or ~steaming~ or ~crispy~ or ~fluffy~ ect is mind boggling. There are stabilizers injected into meat to keep it from limping, blow torches to achieve maximal burnt colors, meticulously placed sesame seeds for the most visually appeal spread of seeds:bun ratio. All before you even make it to the freaking computer and boot up photoshop CS10000.
While for advertising, food presentation is obviously paramount, I do think food blogging can chill a little with the picture perfect food. Visual presentation is certainly important for food (hence plating!), but I think its silly when it comes at the cost of producing something that actually tastes good. I speak from semi-personal experience that 1) pretty pictures do not mean that X blogger's recipe was actually that good, and 2) these pictures that I post are a lie that involve an embarrassing number of awkward repositioning for "optimal natural light" and "clean backgrounds" ect.

 I mean, these pictures actually aren't that good, but sometimes you'll catch a behind the scene post from a food-blogger and there is literally a mini-photo studio by some random window, or on some random rustic looking box that ISN'T EVEN IN THE KITCHEN. I guess I'm more of a fan of the in-the-moment pictures, the ones you take at the scene of the crime with sticky wisps of powdered sugar lingering on the counter, bowls with scraped out batter lingering on the sides. I don't know, I try to be as sterile as possible when I bake, but sometimes things just get complicated and you end up with some batter on the counter. Pristine pictures give the false impression that I am a far better baker than I actually am, which gives unrealistic expectations when I attempt random-ass baking projects. Like these green tea cupcakes for example. I mean you can already semi-tell that these cupcakes were a bit overcooked by the dark-brown green tint. And to top it all off, you can kinda see that these cupcakes were on the dense side, mostly likely due to a combination of overbaking, using too much flour, and/or mixing too much. Common issues I need to resolve in my cupcake baking game still.

The basic TL;DR is: food pictures can be pretty, but looks are deceiving. These cupcakes were too dense so use yo scale and don't overmix.
Cupcake recipe from Cupcake Project (she also has a red bean frosting I want to try one day!) and cream cheese frosting from Oishii Treats.

And in other news, I have a tumblr (awkwardplatters.tumblr.com) dedicated to food pictures ya'll can follow if you want to look at actually nice pictures of food.