hero in my head

Oh boy - do I have a treat for you! I've been meaning to share it ever since Tim and I made it for dinner last weekend (and I enjoyed for leftovers the next day), and it's so fantastically simple, I can't wait to make it again. The name of the recipe says it all - Tuna Marinated in Soy Sauce and Mirin - and all you need is tuna steak, soy sauce, and mirin. Of course it wasn't the most inexpensive homemade meal, with the searing grade ahi tuna coming in at $23/lb, but that's still cheaper than eating out.



Tim and I served it with white rice, homemade ginger-pickled carrots, and a new recipe from my Jamie Oliver cookbook, braised red cabbage with apple, bacon, and balsamic vinaigrette.



The whole meal was absolutely to die for. I think the pictures do it justice - are you hungry yet?

Work has been crazy crazy this week, and even though it was a four-day week, it felt so much longer. The highlight was getting to go out to dinner with Tim (to an adorable tiny spot in the Dogpatch called Piccino's, which makes awesome pizza) and getting to see Cirque du Soleil's OVO. They really put on an amazing show - check out the trailer here.

But even with that ray of sunshine, it's been a stressful week. My final project got rolled out, and instead of doing a mock project, I'm in charge of REAL costing! It's terrifying, and pretty cool considering they're trusting me to negotiate for the best cost possible on about 300,000 units of girls accessories.

Needless to say, I'm so glad it's the weekend! Last night, Tim's band played at the Red Devil Lounge, and a few of my coworkers came out to check them out. I think they were impressed! Ever since they got a new drummer they've been putting on better and better shows. It's great to see that working out well.

Tonight, I'm going to a dinner party followed by a birthday party, and tomorrow morning is the first day of my writing class! I'm super excited, and slightly nervous. It'll be good to get that part of my brain working again.

I'm off for a run - it was sunny just a few minutes ago!! It's been terribly gross and rainy and I haven't wanted to leave the house at all. So I've got to make hay while the sun thinks about shining.

Reading: Let the Great World Spin. It's good, but slow. Feels more like a short story collection.
Listening: Mass Fiction in my head! Listen along with me on their website :)

gold stars

Starbuck's has recently come out with a new customer loyalty program called Stabruck's Rewards, where you register an account in conjunction with a gift card. After buying one coffee, you get credit for a free drink on your birthday and two hours of free wifi per day. After 5 drinks, you get free drink customization (free flavors or soy milk), free brewed coffee refills, free drink with bean purchase, and free trial offers. And finally, once you hit the GOLD STAR level (30 drinks), you get a free drink with every 15 you buy, a personalized gold card, and personalized coupons.



While I know this is totally a ploy to get people to buy more coffee from Starbuck's, I have to say, I find it pretty compelling. I go out for coffee maybe once a month, but geez, it makes me want to load up a card and start swiping to reach that middle level! I know it's bad, but it feels so good...

Let's see, last night was not one of my best nights. Went out to Cha Cha Cha, a tapas bar, to celebrate some of my RMP coworks' birthdays. 25 people showed up (we were split into two tables - I was with about 10 and 2 birthday girls, the other table had 15 and 1 birthday girl), and one of the birthday girls at my table insisted on ordering five - FIVE - pitchers of alcohol (sangria, mojitos, margaritas) and managed to only order 7 tapas. You can see where this is going.

At the end of the "dinner" (read: snack), the bill comes and someone pipes up that the birthday girls shouldn't have to pay. I have very strong feelings about this - if you organize a birthday party for yourself, you shouldn't expect your friends who show up to pay for you. Also, it puts a burden on people who already got gifts for the birthday girls to pitch in extra. And I was at the table with 2 birthday girls and less overall people, resulting in a FORTY DOLLAR per person tab. Considering I was drunk and hungry, I was not happy.

We went out to a few bars, which I found horrendously hot, crowded, and full of creepy guys leering at me. It didn't help that the first person I ran into at the first bar was an 09 Stanford sigma chi who made my ski trip eviction experience extra miserable last year.

Luckily, Tim came home from Fresno last night at midnight and picked me up. We got a slice of pizza from Pizza Orgasmica on the way home (pesto mushroom! yum!) and played Super Mario Brothers on Wii. It was the highlight of the evening.

Went shopping today with Alison and Molly but didn't buy anything. I have, however, been scoping out a new purse from Nordstrom's which may blow a small hole in my bank account... see below:


So cute. So expensive...

Reading: Let The Great World Spin
Listening: Vampire Weekend, Contra. Totally obsessed!! Listen here: http://www.myspace.com/vampireweekend

gott nytt år

Ahh, Friday night and I am doing delightfully nothing. Well, except for finishing my book - The Girl Who Played With Fire - which is almost as glue-you-to-your-seat now as its predecessor. It's honestly a little too heavy-handed with the sexual violence for me to buy into 100% (is every man in Sweden a closet sadomasochist waiting to assault young women??), but I'm still trying to relish these last 50 pages!

Busy week. Long week. The transition back to work was a little rough - it felt like I'd been gone forever, but luckily things at the office wasn't too crazy. I had a rotten cold that I've finally gotten the best of, thanks to Cold-Eeze zinc lozenges, copious quantities of green tea, and a gigantic batch of Mom's best Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup - which might have lasted a lot longer if Tim hadn't eaten 2/3 of it in one sitting. I think he liked it :)

On Wednesday, I headed down to Palo Alto to have dinner with Becca and BRIA, who was in town until this morning. We ate at Cafe Borrone, near Kepler's and conveniently close to the Menlo Park Caltrain station. Our dinner was unfortunately too short, but it was great to see Bria in all her Parisian glory and catch up for a short while. I also bought a new book to start on the Caltrain ride home (I'd forgotten Girl Who Played With Fire at home!) called Let The Great World Spin, and it's extremely good. Something to look forward to next!

Tonight I made one of my favorite new easy recipes, called Japanese Pizza (from 101 Cookbooks). The recipe Heidi gives isn't much of a meal, so Kati and I tweaked it to make it a little tastier, more filling, and less vegetarian. See recipe and photos below:

Japanese Pizza (a la Kati and Kelly)

Combine in a bowl:
2 cups shredded cabbage
1 cup leeks (rinsed well after chopping)
1/2 potato, shredded (I used sweet potato)
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
Salt to taste



Mix in 2-3 eggs until your mixture sticks together.

(I probably didn't chop my cabbage finely enough, but I was impatient)

Divide in half. Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add a generous splash of olive oil. Scoop 1/2 of the the cabbage mixture into the pan, and using a metal spatula press it into a round pancake shape, flat as you can get it. Cook for 4-5 minutes, or until the bottom is golden. To flip the okonomiyaki, slide it out of the skillet onto a plate. Place another plate on top and flip both (together) over. Continue cooking on the other side until golden - about another 3 minutes.



Top with sauteed mushrooms, crispy bacon (yum!), and salt and pepper.

In my opinion, it needs some sort of sauce to make it all come together. Kati and I like it with hoisin sauce well enough, but I think it would be really great with a spicy aioli, or another mayo-based sauce (maybe lemon mayo?). Let me know what you think!!


Finally, as promised, a few New Years lists for you all to disagree with:

Favorite Books of 2009:
1. The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky
2. War and Peace, Tolstoy
3. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

Honorable Mentions:
- How To Breathe Underwater, Julie Orringer
- Twilight, Stephenie Meyer
- The Road, Cormac McCarthy
- Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson

Favorite Movies of 2009:
- Away We Go
- Avatar
- The Hangover
- Up In The Air

Recipes I look forward to tackling in 2010:
- Butternut Squash Ravioli, made from homemade pasta (Becca and I will be taking this on in the next couple weeks... at her house)
- Garlic Soup, from 101 Cookbooks
- A Japanese Hot Pot recipe - not sure which one yet
- Anything from my new cookbooks
- Homemade sushi
- A dessert Tim and I can agree on (wishful thinking...)

Reading: Girl Who Played With Fire, Let The Great World Spin
Listening: Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca