Today is “zakka” day! Zakka (雑貨) basically means “many different things”, though it most commonly refers to little kitsch items that decorate the home. It’s also been described as “the art of seeing the savvy in the ordinary and mundane”, which this bento definitely is! I think I’ve put more things in this bento than I ever have before!

A simple square box filled with: usui tamagoyaki (thin egg), daikon, rice, temari sushi, grapes, edamame hummus, and a jabanero tortilla.

This was my first sucessful tamagoyaki! I used Lunch-in-a-Box’s tutorial to find the major flaws that my process had been getting caught up previously. I cooked it in a tamagoyaki pan I got in Japan for 100 yen (~$1) and wrapped it in a bamboo mat to hold the shape while it cooled. I didn’t really add any flavor like I should have, but I separated the pieces with nori and added rooster sauce to one of them.

The sushi temari (手鞠) was a slight disaster. The sushi was fine until I needed to cut it. Since I put the rice on the outside, I squished the sushi when cutting it and then formed the sushi into little balls. I topped them with roe (tobiko) and crushed Trader Joe’s Cheese Nacho Chips. The inside are grilled tomatillos, tamagoyaki, nori, and some rooster sauce. This sushi was originally planned for Dan and his brother to eat on their day off (Fleet Foxes concert), but went uneaten because it didn’t turn out.

Daikon didn’t taste good because it’s expired, but I made ochazuke (お茶漬け)! I brought some rice into work and put it into my coffee cup, sprinkled the seasoning, and poured hot water over it. Such comfort food~

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Whenever I make dishes using konnyaku, I end up making too large of a portion. I think this is because all dishes call for something to “balance out” the konnyaku since it has no flavor of its own and an un-appetizing texture to most. So, even if I use the littlest amount of konnyaku, I have to add at least equal parts of other ingredients, which adds up quickly.

This dish is quite interesting and goes well with pickled daikon and rice (in my opinion). The original idea I had in mind for this was with bean sprouts and chives, but I ran out of both of those things, so I used scallions, green pepper, garlic, jicama, and carrot. It was nice, but I didn’t love it. I wouldn’t make this recipe again, but I look forward to experimenting with konnyaku!

Speaking of experimenting, I’ve been trying a bunch of teas lately. I tried “Paradise” today and I wasn’t a fan. I need strong, non-floral flavors in my tea. I’m a fan of oolongs and chais mostly, though I have found some green teas that I enjoy. I recently tried “Cookie” and hated it. The acidity got to me–not something to drink on an empty stomach. The package did say that it’s “great for milk tea”, so I guess that’s what it was meant for. So far I’m in love with my grandmother’s genmaicha (玄米茶) and chanakara melon oolong tea (even though it was the tea that spilled all over my purse and killed my phone, causing me to get an iPhone six months too early).

I still haven’t tried my coconut oolong, stash wedding tea (green tea with honeydew melon and some yerba mate), and all the other chanakara varities that I have. Every morning I try to drink something, whether it be my samurai/white chai blend from Teavana or my “The Original” chai latte mix from Trader Joe’s. It’s great to have something to keep me awake and hydrated on my sometimes two hour commute (each way!). I’m trying to get away from coffee, but sometimes there are emergencies and I need an IV drip of that sweet beany goodness. I even learned how to make coffee in my office’s coffee machine (is this good or bad?).

What are your favourite teas?

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This is the last of the pizza bread, and I swear this half was totally different than the other. This one had potato, peas, ham, onion, green pepper, crab, mushrooms, cheese, and who knows what else. Some yummy grapes and a tapioca pudding that didn’t make the shot here.

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I originally wrote this as a comment to Diana’s post about this topic, related to interracial couples.

I think there are fetishes and then there is cultural compatibility.

I found myself dating Asian people because they understood my life better–the way my family worked, the food I ate, the littlest lifestyle things–not to mention that my family accepted only Asian people (all others were seen as “phases”, even to this day). I never was attracted exclusively to Asian people, but I found my ration of Asian crushes to non-Asian crushes skewed considerably.

Somehow I became friends with Dan (my current boyfriend of almost five years). Somehow my family doesn’t accept him because he’s not Asian. And somehow I dont care because he sees me for me, the full 100% me, not the Asian culture or the American culture. He understands the mixture of cultures and embraces it, often accompanying me to functions where he/we are the only “white people”, but he does it for me, and it doesn’t care because he’s with me. And that’s the reason he’s going–to make me happy and to be with me, making a new memory with me.

I don’t think Dan wanted to go to the Hawai’ian Cultural Festival’s advanced lei making workshop, but he helped me make my lei and helped me document the outcome. I’m sure he doesn’t want to go with me to the Asian supermarkets to find the specific ethnic ingredients I need, or visit dive restaurants because ‘I heard it was good’. He specifically recommends authentic Japanese restaurants or shops and suggests sitting at ‘the bar’ to encourage me to speak Japanese, just because he knows once I get over my shyness, I’ll be beaming at the night’s end.

Unabashed selfless-ness. what more is there?

It’s quite unfair if you look at it this way. I never underwent any cultural hazing on his side of the family. They readily accepted me as myself, not Asian/American/whatever. They’re genuinely warm and welcoming to me, more so than my own family at times. Wheras my family doesn’t even acknowledge Dan and have never even invited him over to dinner in the past years of our relationship.

In fact, I think that dating Dan has taught me more about myself and helped me develop more as an individual. I’m not only defined by my culture, I have a more complex and developed identity now, one that is more stable. Culture can be a dealbreaker in some cases, but in others it can be an opportunity to share and learn from each other. If both sides are understanding and have open minds, I think it only helps foster the relationship and make it richer.

I guess in the end, this is quite the opposite of yellow fever. Yellow fever is being obsessed with the culture for no reason other than the fact that you “like it” and exclusively dating someone because they’re Asian–as in, the first selective factor is whether or not they’re asian. Not necessarily the ethnicity that you’re enamored with or studying per se, but just ‘Asian’ in general.

Finding only one race as attractive. What a broad generalization. There’s actually more DNA variance within races than across. I understand finding one race over another as attractive, but exclusively? They’re only doing themselves a disservice.

What are everyone elses thoughts on race or ethnicity and its role in relationships?

love him

Wow, I just realized this is my four-hundredth post! Sorry there’s nothing more exciting for this, but it’s my bento for today! I think I did a good job of filling in all the extra spaces and having a good balance of fruit, vegetable, and carb.

This is a new bento that I purchased from Rakuten (via Crescent Trading). It’s hard to find sandwich case bento when you’re on a mission! There are only like two readily available designs and I didn’t like them.

The top is lined with wax paper (I took some small sheets from my local store’s bakery section) and contains Pizza Bread from my local Korean Bakery. Pizza bread is actually quite common in Japan and I ate it many times when I was there. This one seems more like a “leftover” pizza, and it has a weird layout of plain bread + ham + toppings. The toppings are also weird, and seem to have no rhyme or reason. I saw onions, mushrooms, cheese, crab, and sauce. It tasted pretty good and was quite filling.

The bottom holds dragonfruit stars, a chinese leek & scallion bao (xie ke huang 蟹殼黃), pretzels, raisins, and apple cinnamon “cheerios”. I’m struggling to find out how much food I actually eat because even though I only had half of the pizza bread today for lunch (the other half is already cut and will be used for later this week), I am incredibly full right now. Sometimes I pack more than this and I’m hungry throughout the day!

P.S. the furoshiki is from Japan and has Chu-Totoro and Chibi-Totoro on it with flower blossoms. I really must get/find more furoshiki~. I’m sure I bought more than two in Japan! I guess I can make some out of the fabric I bought in Japan as well.

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May 30th, 2009
Chateau Gateau only sells their cupcakes at the Old Town Farmer’s Market or via catering. Because they are just a simple table admist many other tables, the decor score here is N/A. I say “they”, but CG is just one person: Serina Luangkhot. She’s very nice and quite personable. She says right up, apologetically, what they’re out of (I arrived at the market relatively late. I say “relatively” because the market opens at some ungodly hour like 5 or 6) and also mentioned that she gives tupperware containers with cupcakes to regulars, but she was also out of those.

I had the 3rd Date Magic and Pucker Up. The 3rd Date Magic was a nice change from a traditional cupcake. Unfortunately, the chocolate melted all over me and the cake was a bit dry. The Pucker Up was decent. The lemon curd with lemon zest was better than the rich chocolate/chocolate drizzle combo in the 3rd Date Magic. It might be because the actual chocolate in 3rd Date was too sweet for me (I’m a dark/extra-dark chocolate kinda gal). Overall, the lemon cupcake was sticky-ly sweet, too sweet. I inhaled it in 2 bites or so and was glad I tried it, but didn’t want another.

These cupcakes are a great treat if you’re already at the farmer’s market, and they’re only $2 each. I’d buy another just because Serina is so sweet, but I’d be buying them for the wrong reason. I recommend Buzz Bakery or Lavender Moon if you’re in the area.

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May 30th, 2009
I had actually heard some bad things about Lavender Moon, and thought it wasn’t worth going out to Old Town Alexandria to try some. Boy was I wrong. Right across the street from the Farmer’s Market, you know they have to have the freshest ingredients possible. In fact, they only make cupcakes that day and close when they sell out of cupcakes.

Though there were many delicious flavors to choose from the printed menu of the day, we went with S’Mores and Blood Orange Dreamsicle. The S’Mores cupcake was absolute heaven-in-the-mouth. I thought it would be too sweet and too heavy, but it was perfect. The icing on top is actually marshmallow, so it condensed perfectly with the chocolate cake and graham cracker crust.

For the Blood Orange Dreamsicle, I was a little scared at first. I had never had blood orange before, but thought that the medium of cupcake would lend itself well to trying flavorsr. The icing was a bit too sweet, but it went well with the cake. I liked that there wasn’t too much icing like with many other cupcakes I’ve tried.  The cake itself had a nice pronounced orange flavor that wasn’t too subtle yet not too strong. I couldn’t really discern orange from blood orange, and I was expecting much bolder flavors or maybe a filling since it was supposed to be similar to the ice cream bar of the same name.

The decor here is slightly barren but well meaning. The service follows in the same thread. The display case doesn’t have labels as to what each cupcake is and the cupcake flavors don’t have an explaination of ingredients, so I had to ask for clarification for every single cupcake. Instead of going through the display and answering all my questions in one fell swoop, I had to ask the same question over and over again for each cupcake: “What’s this one?”. The cashier answered me monotonously and curtly, as if she was tired of working at a cupcakery. I then repeated the question over and over, receiving the same flat response. I didn’t care since I loved the cupcakes!

Lavender Moon only takes cash and checks, and changes their menu daily to have in-season flavors. Cupcakes are $3, including tax (which is 9%!). The day I went the menu was as follows:

• Flourless Dark Chocolate, Almonds & Sea Salt
• Vanilla Bean Lemon Curd
• Buttermilk Cupcake with Mexican Chocolate Pudding
• Devils Food Vanilla
• Cherry White Chocolate
• Triple Belgian Chocolate
• Blood Orange Dreamsicle
• Boston Cream
• Devils Food Peanut Butter
• Coconut
• Coconut Macaroon
• Smores

I almost got the Mexican Chocolate Pudding and the Boston Cream, but refrained. Though, I did relive my childhood by grabbing a Yoohoo from the refrigerated drinks case for $2. Much sweeter and more concentrated than I remember.

June 22nd, 2009
I heard from my little sister that there was a new cupcake place where my parent’s live (yes, I have been infecting my family with my cupcake war). The employees here are super helpful with directions and flavor suggestions–maybe because the place is empty. It’s located in Historic Haymarket, whatever that is.

To speak honestly, I think this place has a bit of an identity crisis. It sells cupcakes, but you wouldn’t know that right off the bat from walking in. They cater cakes, teach etiquitte classes, and also sell items you’d find at a local Hallmark.

The items on their “Daily Menu” aren’t accurate, so don’t use that to order, lest you be required to re-arrange your order all over! Since I was wearing a DVAM shirt, the cashier suggested the Breast Cancer Awareness Pink Champagne cupcake (because all ribbons are the same I guess). The cake was similar to angel food cake and actually tasted like it came from a box mix. There was too much icing–in fact, my sister had a dollop of it on her nose! I scraped the icing off, and it worked well to balance the dryness of the cake, but it was too sweet. I couldn’t taste any champagne.

The other flavors I got were Red Velvet, Snickerdoodle, and Strawberry Shortcake. The Strawberry Shortcake completely slips my memory other than the fact that it was interesting and nice–I liked that there wasn’t too much frosting. My mom also had the Strawberry Shortcake and she said it was excellent. It’s a slightly dense vanilla cake with a later of strawberry preserves on top and a ring of icing around it. The Snickerdoodle was a cinnamon cake that resembled a muffin or bread more than anything. Again, the icing was too sweet and I scraped it off. Red Velvet also tasted like it came from a box and shockingly, did not have a cream cheese frosting!

It’s a nice place for stay-at-home moms to visit, but it would work much better in one of the up and coming shopping centers in Gainesville, rather than off the beaten path. I’m glad there is a place like this in the area, but I like the Washington, D.C. establishments much much better.

I wanted this to be good. What else could you ask for? A Penn Quarter cupcakery that stays open to 11? I already kind of had a bad feeling about this place once I heard that the images they use on their site were actually stolen from someone’s blog that I follow. Inside, the decor looks modern and simplistic from afar, but up-close and in person, it just looks cheap. Especially the shared wall with Tangysweet — the wall doesn’t even go all the way up to the ceiling, though you have to exit Red Velvet and go next door to Tangysweet for seating.

I had the Big Kahuna cupcake. Smallest and most expensive cupcake I’ve ever had, and the worst! Well, I could finish the cupcake (unlike Couture), but it wasn’t good — I can make better and it wouldn’t be $3.25! The cashier said “they were trying to cash in on Obama” so they made it Hawaii – themed. Pineapple cupcake with no pineapples in it, or pineapple flavoring? Coconut frosting that just tasted like salt? I wiped off most of the frosting and as I ate the cupcake I would get one regular bite and then a salty pocket. Overcooked, dry, and yucky!

I wish this place would go out of business and get replaced by something else.
And I was so excited too… A cupcake place that wouldn’t require a metro transfer or long trek….

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March 30th, 2009
I went to the newly opened cupcakery in Fairfax Corner before they eve had their official opening. I was hoping that this cupcakery would be good because it’s in a location that I regularly visit. Unfortunately, the quality is less than that of other cupcakeries and they’re actually more expensive! Even though they are open relatively late for a bakery, by the time I get there, they’re always cleaned out and they have only a few cupcakes left.

The red velvet cupcake was fine. The frosting had specks of vanilla in it, but had a slight sour taste to the cream cheese. I did not care for the candy on top at all, it tasted exactly like chocolate melts that come out of bags at the grocery store. Also, I felt that they were copying Georgetown Cupcake’s red velvet, which has the same design, but smaller, fondant heart. I was surprised at how red the cake was.

The strawberry cupcake (Strawberry Fields–vanilla cake with strawberry  purée) was way too hard and dense–it had the taste of a stale muffin. Unlike normal cake, I had to exert some effort into getting the fork to go into it! That was a bad sign.  The icing was strawberry buttercream, which had a slightly grey-ish, off-putting color to it. It could have benefited from a few drops of coloring to make it more appetizing. It had a nice flavor though, and not too sweet.

The method for transporting individual cupcakes is flawed. I tried to bring home a mocha one and it was smeared all over the inside of the box.

The store only has one lone table, and it’s high and slightly awkward to sit at. The decor other  than that rings slightly of CakeLove with the mosaic-bottomed display case, though I did like the back-lit flourescent menu.

I’m not sure if I would ever go back here ever again, especially since some cupcakes are almost $4 each! I always want to pop my head in and look, but I’d much rather get a cookie or shake at Potbelly, Starbucks, or some other tried-and-true local stop.