Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts

23 June 2011

Conversion of the Blog

I hereby declare that I'm not going to be tied down worrying about the lack of viewership at my blog, www.PIE-314.blogspot.com
Instead, this blog is now officially a journal for me to document my food life/recipe box/rants/pictures, and I do not care if no one visits here.

I've decided this because:

1. I don't get many views anyway.

2. People who have month-old food blogs somehow have more views and comments that I've had in the past year and 2/3, even though I have better pictures and make stuff from scratch whereas others may use cake mixes or Crisco or whatever.

3. I don't have internet friends who will comment and view my blog, and this may be because I'm not social enough. Don't say I didn't try; I subscribed to a LOT of blogs, and no one subscribed back. I view their blog updates, I comment on their blog posts, but they do not comment back or view my blog (in looking at my Stats page).

4. Heck, I don't even have many real-life friends who look at this blog!

5. I (hypocritically) don't enjoy reading a lot of people's food blogs. I know, how can I diss other people's food blogs if I want others to like mine, right? I guess it's just our personalities don't match; I'm not happy with a vegan blog, or a vegetarian blog, or a junk food blog, or a baking blog, yet I myself make vegetarian food, eat junk food, and bake. I have a convoluted explanation for all this but I don't feel like divulging. In short, I'm a hypocrite.

Therefore, perhaps I can be more honest about food on this blog from now on (in the sense that I won't bother considering being nice on the blog, anymore).

Also, here is a picture of a disfigured cornflake. I treasure it:

05 January 2011

172 Posts!

They said I couldn't do it... they said I'd get bored... they said I'd forget my password or my account would get hacked... but they were wrong! PIE-314 lives and reeks of nearly-year-old food! [The blog is only a year old on the 24th, because that's when I was done with midterm exams]

Unfortunately, there was no "they". My parents are unaware my this blog, my siblings are indifferent, and I have perhaps gained 2 frequent readers to this blog. To them: Thank you!

In 2010, I created 172 posts, and if you count the one on 1.1.11 [which is about the food in 2010, and included food I made in 2010], I had 173 posts. This means that I posted on about 47.4% [or 47.1%] of the year, with August having a post on every single day.

This year I suppose I should blog more, since I've realised that I never actually write about the economic/social/scientific aspects of food that much... Most of the time it's me making really stinky jokes and using dramatic imagery to make your salivary glands release an excess of amylase. I also ought to take better pictures and I really want to figure out how to make these uploaded pictures larger! 400x300 pixels is much too small nowadays, although you can click to get a 10.2mpx or 5.0mpx version.

Anyway, I haven't been blogging recently because I've been hanging out with BV and today I did the unforgivable act of prolonging the shelf-life of stereotypes.

I made a sandwich. For a male person.

Actually, it was a half-baked attempt, because it was only one slice of bread spread with peanut butter. Controversial or not... I'd gladly make him more sandwiches. He said he'd cook for me too, so that's cool :D.

So, here are some pictures of Chowder from Chowder. I love to watch Chowder!

15 October 2010

WATER BLOG DAY!



If everyone remains faithful to one website, my blog will be among [at least] 5148 blogs in the world that blog about water. After all, this is supposedly the "year of water" [and I thought it was just a Penn phenomenon...]. Today is Blog Action Day 2010, and the topic is water... and I'm supposed to come up with a witty blog post about two hydrogens covalently bonded to an oxygen molecule.
By the way, here is the link to my blog on the Blog Action Day page! It happens to be called Food Tech :D. The Penn group "Free Stuff at Penn" also blogged about water, which makes me very happy since they even mentioned how water in Philly is hard water and is that the Penn campus has filters in places... [I can't attest to that since I haven't seen any of those].

Anyway, I suppose now is the time to talk the hard facts of hard water [ha.ha.ha.] and give an actual meaningful post, sans waffle. Again, everything on this blog is my opinion, so please don't feel offended if you like to buy 250mL bottles of water from Costco [my parents do that].

One thing that I detest about the U.S. is the fact that prebottled water seems to be a necessity. WATER IS A NECESSITY. Prebottled water is a marketing gimmick used to screw up the environment. I really don't know why else we humans in the U.S. require prebottled water. In countries where water carries bacteria, insects, disease, mercury, poop, etc., bottled water is necessary. For most of the U.S., however, bottled water [okay, I got sick of typing "pre"] just pisses me off. I don't care if you're only capable of putting "pure spring water" to your lips. It's freakin' H2O with a bunch of minerals and trace elements. What do you use to brush your teeth? What do you drench yourself in, when you're showering? Where in the world do you SWIM, if you dislike normal tap water? You've been ingesting tonnes of tap water in your life, and you even rinse your fruit and vegetables with it. You wash your dishes and your clothes in it.

Why, then, are you afraid of sipping it? Why do you fear calcium? Is it because it leaves a white residue on your coffee-maker? Do you censure the fluoride in water because it's ostensibly harmful?

Why is it okay - oh, I mean, imperative - that you, a privileged, literate, richer-than-80%-of-the-world person, drink water from a bottle, whereas other people have to live on malaria-saturated swamps?

Tap water makes so much more sense.
It's pretty much the same thing as bottled water.
I have to admit that NJ tap water tastes very different from HK tap water, and Philadelphia tap water. Actually, the best tap water I've had comes from the airport at South Carolina...or maybe I was just really thirsty after the plane ride]. I have to admit that NJ water didn't taste that great initially, but after a few days, it started tasting clear. In other words, it started tasting like water, and spring water started tasting chemically bizarre.
One thing to get clear [hahaha, "clear"] is the fact that if you get used to NJ tap water, you can get used to any tap water, because NJ has all the pharmaceutical monopolies. Another cool thing is that they give out water quality reports every year in late August to each resident, so we all get to know what's in the water we're drinking.

I have one bottle for my water. It is bright green, stainless steel, and doesn't smell at all [the ones from Marshalls absolutely reek when I checked their insides out]. It cost around $10 from Borders when the one in my town was closing down. I believe it was from Gaiam, and you can find this company's bottle on Google Shopping. It used to have some design on it but it washed off, although I prefer it plain green.

Is my argument solid like ice? Will you melt it with your anger? It's okay if you disagree; I'm not partaking in consumption. I'm not wasting the energy associated with
1. Obtaining and refining oil.
2. Making oil into plastic bottles.
3. Filling bottles with water at some factory.
4. Finding "spring" water [or tap water] and drilling holes in the ground.
5. Shipping water to warehouse.
6. Shipping water from warehouse to store.
7. Shipping water from store to home.

Instead I'm just getting water pumped from some local recycled/water-that-used-to-be-sewage-perhaps plant and putting it in a stainless steel container.

24 September 2010

This Is Unfair.

College life is taking over so I don't actually have time to blog or enjoy food anymore. I don't actually spend more than half an hour eating food. In other words, I don't actually eat slow anymore. Now... it's just PRESSED FOR TIME. I don't even think I finished blogging about NSO. I guess I'll do that now...

So, there was a toga party at the History Museum on the 6th. I didn't like it. The food was nice though, especially the crispbread thingy with bean dip. After the toga party, at which I walked around gloomily, I met some people from my dorm house and we went to two frat houses... it was such a experience. I'm not sure whether I like it, so the only way I'd describe it is as an "experience". This blog post is so dry. Like the cookie I ate today. I idiotically fell for the cookie trap [again! 4th time, I think!!] and tried the chocolate fudge cookie, that I have posted about, many times before, as being too dry and hard.

Mind lapse, I guess.

Plating. I see through plating. Those are just grapes. I don't actually think that I like plating.
A mound of whipped cream and a few strawberry slices with cakey crumbs.
Really oily vegetables. Eh.

I actually have a dilemma. Do I want to write for PennAppetit? Is that overkill, since I already have a blog? Maybe they should include my blog on their website. However, joining them means I get told what to do. Which isn't that cool since puns are probably not going to be accepted. I'm also in other clubs too...
It's on the table, like the orange and pear and apple in my room. :)
Maybe I'll take photos for them.

21 August 2010

A Mangoes Into A Bar...

As I was chauffeuring the food from the car into the kitchen, I realised that "mangoes" is actually "man goes".
Even though I've never found the "a *insert something* goes into the bar and..." jokes hilarious [or even remotely amusing], I figured "A mangoes into a bar..." to be pretty chill since a "bar" can mean a granola bar. Or an ice cream bar.
This actually reminds me of this granola bar wrapper that KT had one day during Study. It was an apple cereal bar and it said "An apple walks into a bar..." in the literal sense.
However, my version is cooler since "mangoes" has a double meaning :D
And my blog welcomes puns. :) I'm actually submitting this to www.somuchpun.com and hopefully it gets displayed.

I made those mango granola bars in May 2009, before I had this blog. They were the first and only time I had made granola bars, and they actually turned out better than the Nature Valley trail mix bars. Just saying :P

24 January 2010

First Post!

Hey everyone!
I've always been fascinated with other food blogs - cupcake blogs, candy blogs... cheeseburger blogs (yeah - they're nice to look at... even though I'm a vegetarian) - and I realised that I ought to make my own blog, especially since I'm multicultural, and LOVE FOOD!

I'm also interested in the ingredient/scientific/agricultural/cultural aspects of "food" (note the ""!! I don't consider propylene glycol "food" but it's in some cakes...)

I should've made this blog wayyyyy back in 06, or even earlier (but my grammar would've been pathetic). I'm starting today, because I'm a second semester senior in HS, which means that I'm chillin' :)

As of this moment, my profile is extremely vague. I am not sure whether I ought to reveal too much of myself online (spam = facepalm).