Tangzhong Milk Bread

Ahoy, bread-making time! This month I've been making a lot of bread. I attempted to make the Asian milk bread with tangzhong, and it turned out super duper fluffy! This will probably be the go-to recipe for future potlucks and parties. It can be found here. I am now embarrassed with about 90% of the bread I've made in the past that I've shared with people.

In other news, I've become irritated with recipe posts in which there are a ton of pictures of the food and not the process. Pictures of the dough, consistency of dough, size of pan, etc. are fine and dandy, but numerous glossy pictures of the finished product, from various angles, have become irksome. There's something annoying about having to scroll an entire page through pretty but useless photos before discovering a recipe, and then scrolling another page to find the oven temperature and baking time. Alas, what to do about all my previous blog posts in which I posted such images?! Rest assured future images will be more wisely chosen.

My Notes

• I've made this recipe three times so far, each time with alterations because ... well, that's what I do, with limited ingredients.
• Tangzhong - milk and flour as specified! I added some cinnamon as the mixture was cooking. You want to get a gruel-type consistency. While it cools, a skin starts to form and the gruel starts drying up. So, it is wise to scoop everything into a blob that takes up minimum pot surface area, so later you don't have half your tangzhong dried onto the edges of the pan.
• Ingredient substitutions, to use up stuff in the house:
• About 5 cups of flour - Not really sure how much. It just has to feel like a dense marshmallow, and squishy
• Soy powder instead of milk powder
• 1/2 cup milk instead of half and half
• 4 tbsp oil instead of butter
• Yeast! 12 g active dry yeast, mixed with about 30 ml of above-body-temperature water (microwaved)
• Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla, chopped dried apricot!
• Method changes:
• Mix all the liquid with two cups of flour prior to adding the yeast mixture
• Continue adding 2 cups of flour and mix
• Add the tangzhong and another cup of flour, mixing here and there
• At this point, the dough should be kneaded by hand. Keep adding handfuls of flour and kneading until you get a pliable, almost-wet, squishy dough that feels like thick marshmallow or play-doh or what I imagine hot taffy to feel like. When you poke it gently, the dough should spring back
• Let sit in hot sweltering summer heat until doubled in size. Dough should be pliable, dry enough to not stick to the bowl, but wet enough to stick slightly to your hands. It is nice and squishy
• Make into rolls or logs or braids and let re-rise for 30 mins
• Egg wash! I have this nifty egg crystal package that I got from the IFT Expo last summer. I never need more than half an egg for egg wash, and now, I can reconstitute exactly half an egg! Just add water! What a wonderful world. Outside of using the crystals for egg washes though, I don't think it is cost-effective for me, as I do have access to fresh eggs during most of my waking hours. However, these crystals non-perishable, non-crushable, and therefore super for camping, the military, etc. So, huzzah!
• Pans. I like using smaller pans because it makes my buns look big. Hehe. Well, tall. I fit all of the dough into what looks like an 8x8 glass pan. Glass is a nice material for bread, as are leftover Chipotle burrito bowl lids (but I don't have anymore of those! No more free Chipotle!)
• Rolls (say, 8 rolls) are better in a square pan like this because the middle doesn't end up slightly raw. In a loaf pan (which I will acquire someday!), a loaf would be pretty nice

After doubling in size

After second rise (30 minutes)

Bread with almost-the-same recipe but no tangzhong, egg crystals instead of eggs, and powdered milk and water instead of milk. Oh, and no sugar because I forgot. Note how flat it is :( There is sesame on it, though. It tasted much denser and dry and ... sort of like bland pizza dough. The dough while kneading was also way denser and felt more like a cookie dough than a bread dough (no spring! no squish!).

And finally, a note about the direction of this blog. In the past year, I've had so many food experiences, but I haven't had time to update! I've also started to become somewhat embarrassed at taking pictures at public gatherings/meals, given my point-and-shoot camera (while everyone else is using their smartphones-with-flash or their fancy DSLR camera with varying lenses). Finally, food blogging, or at least, posting pictures of food with captions and descriptions, has become so pedestrian. Everyone does it now. Instagram, hashtags, Facebook brunches with hundreds of Likes...

What differentiates my food life from everyone else's? Why read a 1000-word essay and cooking process when you can scroll through a delicious avocado burger? "I did it before it was cool" is neither a decent response nor constructive. I get a much larger readership if I post one HoverZoom-able picture on Facebook or Imgur, and much more instant gratification.

Yet at the same time, how many people can say that they maintain an entire food website!

Well, now that I've graduated, a few things I'd like to do include:

1. Actually making my own website for general real-life use
2. Somehow incorporating the blog into my website, or at least, re-designing the entire layout of the blog. An issue is that many previous posts have been terribly formatted, with Images and Words (hehe, Dream Theater) running amok. Oh, and numerous tags. Augh!
3. Deciding whether the blog is word-focused or picture-focused. I'd like to think that I contribute more to the world via stories about cooking and culture, rather than pictures of food, but pictures are quite attention-grabbing. The site layout will therefore probably reflect this.
4. Determining whether this blog will be a blog for all my thoughts, or merely food-centric. This also depends on the creation of my actual website.

Fancy Dinner & Notable People

In one night, I met a person from Consumer Reports (regarding food), a sustainable dairy farmer (Ronnybrook Farm), a chef (who incidentally has been on the Food Network), and a bunch of other really successful people in the food industry. By "successful", I mean that they've accomplished things. They've changed the world. Not through pipetting in a lab or trading shares, but through following a vision and a passion. It makes me wonder whether I'm as passionate about anything.

Super appetizers with carbonated punch. Again, everything was really classy and I was the awkward rock that prevents the wagon from smoothly sailing (heh, worst metaphor within a 1 mile radius). First, I had issues figuring out what to wear. As I wanted to travel minimalistically, I brought 3 fancy outfits, 1 T-shirt, and shorts, for 3 days. It turns out that for fancy events, people change into eveningwear, especially after walking around in business casual on a farm earlier in the day. Oops?

And then I had issues getting out of my chair without triggering everyone's Awkward-Alert!-radar.

Ensuite, I took pictures of my food, which might be socially frowned-upon.

然后，I asked for an autograph.

Dinner was self-service with steak on bread, salmon, bread, quinoa, and beets.

Dessert was a cake from the Culinary Institute of America. Apparently, the red stuff is actually ribbon, even though the tour guide told us that for the cake decorating class, everything had to be edible. One of the layers was chocolate, while the other was plain cake with dulce de leche tiramisu(?) filling. I somehow ended up with 1.5 slices of cake, which was a bit too much but I ended up eating it all anyway, since it was really tasty.

There was also some apple tart which was good, and brownies.
Ronnybrook Farm supplied 10 pints of ice cream, which was delicious.

A lot of socializing went on, and I learned a lot about milk (but no sources). Ronnybrook Farm cows are not considered "organic" because they are fed antibiotics only when they're sick. Apparently, Horizon and other organic farms have to kill any sick cows because they aren't allowed to give cows antibiotics, lest they lose the "Organic" label from the USDA. I already read previously that the label itself is difficult and expensive to purchase, meaning that organic farmers don't bother with the label. Also, apparently Ronnybrook Farm cows live to about 15 years, and after they're done with milk production, they're allowed to retire and graze the grass until they die. Horizon cows ostensibly only live 3.5 years. Ronnybrook Farm prides itself in owning about 200 cows who they all know by name. They also haven't bought a cow in 40 years.

I'm taking all this with a chunk of salt though, because it's honestly difficult to buy good milk in so many circumstances (income, convenience, posession of car or bus pass, large scale/schools), and it's also difficult to know for sure what companies are doing.

We also had a presentation about restaurant ownership. The thesis was that the goal is to exceed customer's expectations, and to definitively change how the customer feels about the establishment when he/she walks out. I definitely don't think I've managed that consistently with the cafe I work at. It's actually also applicable to social interactions. If you haven't made a significant positive impression on someone, whether it be in an interview, a date, or performance...well, how much did you care about the relationship with the other party?

It's something to mull over.

Hot Chocolate

Being increasingly upset with the concept of "instant hot chocolate", I showed my brother and sister that it is perfectly simple to make hot chocolate from unsweetened cocoa powder and sugar (and vanilla, cinnamon sugar, nutmeg, and whatever else). We rarely buy single-serving packaged hot chocolate, but I feel unhappy knowing that THAT STUFF GETS SOLD, and people LOVE IT! It's not my business to poke my spoon into other people's mugs, but I don't understand why one'd shell out more money than necessary for mugs of mediocre -- six packets (packaged in a neat box, which may or may not be wrapped in plastic) of mostly sugar, a tiny scoop of cocoa powder, some sort of creamer, partially hydrogenated oil, flavouring, FD&C Yellow #5, and caramel flavouring. 

Convenience? 

"But, but, but, my method is convenient too!", I whine, with pearly tears gushing down my face. "And my hot chocolate's packaging is recyclable, unlike the foil-and-paper-blend wrapper that most companies use!"

So, here's something that's intensely bitter-chocolatey (whoo!) or super sweet (if you're my sister), depending on your preferences, gives you 8 g of protein, and doesn't take much time at all! No stoves! If an 8 year-old enfant gâté [read: spoiled brat] can do it, so can you (yes, even the time-deprived and sleep-deprived college students)!

Ingredients -- for a mugful

1. UNSWEETENED cocoa powder

2. Sugar (or honey/molasses/aspartame/candy)

3. Water (preferably at room temperature)
4. Fat-free milk! (preferably at room temperature)
5. Flavourings/garnishes -- vanilla, cinnamon sugar, coffee powder, nutmeg, chilies, marshmallows, pudding...

Method
1. Add 1-3 tsp cocoa powder and 1-3 tsp sugar. Add flavourings. I would prefer 2-3 tsp cocoa powder and 1 tsp sugar... but my sister would honestly just want a pinch of cocoa powder and some 50 g of sugar.
2. Add enough room temperature water to submerge the solids, microwave for 30 s, and stir.
3. Add room temperature milk until your mug is 6/7 full. I don't want to add more because I'm scared that things will explode in my microwave.
4. Microwave for 50 s. Stir. Repeat until your hot chocolate is hot!
5. Add garnishes. We added ice cream and coloured marshmallows.

Actually, if you really wanted to, you could eat half a canister of unsweetened cocoa powder (bake with it, make pancakes with it, mix it with peanut butter etc.) and then pour sugar into the canister's remaining space. Now, you have enough hot chocolate mix to last a winter. Or just the finals season.

While my brother and I were enjoying our cocoa-studded hot chocolates, my sister was complaining that we don't have whipped cream in the house, and that the hot chocolate at the Diner is so much better. She was on the verge of shooting out those irksome tears. I sometimes wish that she understood that when my brother and I were her age, we didn't have hot chocolate in the house. We didn't have an oven or a microwave! I didn't even know what cinnamon was!

Crêpes

Today I found out that I am bad at flipping crêpes. Here is a picture of a crêpe with a rip in it, beneath the fold.
I got a French crêpe recipe from here (it's in French--my French is useful! Okay, I could've used Google Translate, but it has glitches-- it translated "1 tbsp butter" to "1 cup butter")! I made about 6 pan-sized crêpes from the recipe. Crêpes are really thin.


I used whole wheat flour, which I guess isn't traditional... but oh well.

My first problem was that the butter wouldn't melt when I was mixing the batter. Well, duh, it's something like 15 degrees C in the house! So, I ended up having really gloopy batter, but the crêpes turned out intact.

 Another problem was that I would flip the crêpes over before the bottom side had been thoroughly cooked, and I couldn't flip the crêpes correctly with my spatula. I'm sure there is a more efficient way of making crêpes...but no one has ever taught me. I ended up picking up opposite edges of the crêpe with my fingers (hot? No...compared to fresh coffee, not really) and the spatula, and somehow maneuvering it some 180 degrees.

Taste? Well, nothing burned, the crêpes were moist, milky, soft, and gooey and... crêpe-like (yes, they tasted like crêpes! Except, chewier due to the whole-wheat flour). They were more oily than I would've liked... I guess I should use melted butter next time (but I hate the smell of microwaved butter)? They were a tiny bit sweet, which I have a problem with; I guess I would just prefer to have really sweet crêpes, or non-sweet crêpes. Eating tiny-bit-sweet-crêpes is like drinking water with a tiny bit of sugar - not plain ol' thirst-quenching, and not delicious-sugary-drink either.


Maybe I just prefer the pancakes that I used to eat in Australia? I don't even know how those were made, but they were poofy (not American pancake poofy, though), dark brown, the size of a coaster, and full of holes on one side.

SUCCESS! Lemon Curd!

I made lemon curd and it didn't fail like last time (A sour experience that I would like to pretend did not exist)!! I followed the recipe from The Really Good Life, a blog I found today when I was searching for "savoury food". I might have mentioned this before, but I've been preferring savoury food over sweet food for the past semester. Though, I suppose I'm (almost) always in the mood for lemon curd!! :D

Her site is pretty neat, by the way.

Since I had 75 g of butter, I made less lemon curd, which is alright because I don't want to have leftover lemon curd when I leave for Penn again (because if/when I come back during Spring break, it will still be in the fridge). So, nearly direct from The Really Good Life, scaled down, with my own verbose comments (for my own future reference, so I won't worry about the ratios being incorrect/stuff not thickening):

Makes about...800 g

2 lemons
2 eggs
75 g butter cut into smallish chunks
120 g sugar
2-3 tsp cornflour aka cornstarch
vanilla

1. Grate off lemon peel. Highly difficult for me because my grater is quite blunt.
2. Squeeze juice!! Mix sugar and vanilla with the juice! It's fine if the sugar doesn't dissolve.
3. Stick eggs in a saucepan and mix eggs with a spoon (I lack a whisk...) or fork, and add in butter.

4. I was really cautious and had everything on low heat. I vigorously mixed the egg/butter mixture on low heat for about a minute, and saw that the butter had started to melt slightly, so I took the pan off the heat, and poured in the lemon/sugar/vanilla mixture. I kept stirring vigorously, and added 1 tsp of cornflour. Then I put the pan back on the stove on LOW heat and kept stirring.
5. Two minutes later (still vigorously stirring because I was so scared that the eggs were going to become scrambled), the mixture was still thin, like the consistency of milk. So I threw in another tsp of cornflour, cranked up the heat to MEDIUM and kept stirring.
6. Two minutes later, the mixture was still the consistency of milk! I threw in another tsp of cornflour, and wondered whether this would be a good rice topping as opposed to actual lemon curd.
7. By then, I was stirring once every 5 seconds (as opposed to 5 stirs/second).
8. SUDDENLY, THE MILK-THIN LIQUID STARTED TO THICKEN! I increased my stirring speed to 2 stirs/second, and the liquid became the consistency of ketchup, and then applesauce, and then light pancake batter. I turned off the heat and stirred for another 5 minutes or so (when I took these pictures).

9. Pour into jars. Cool. Refrigerate. Consume within 2 days (not necessarily, but that's what happens because I love food...)

IT THICKENED! IT'S SWEET! IT'S SOUR! IT'S CURD!! IT CURDLED! IT'S SPREADABLE! I CAN HOLD A JAR OF IT UPSIDE DOWN AND IT WON'T PLOP DOWN! YAY!!

Not on my non-existent list of New Year Resolutions, but lemon curd is a pretty sweet ending to 2011. Have a meaningful 2012, dear readers (the 0 to 2 of you).

Soybean Curry!

Ingredients
Some oil or butter
Soybeans! --SOAKED OVERNIGHT!
LOTS OF minced GARLIC!
1 small diced red onion
1 cut tomato
1 tbsp curry powder
Dried coriander
50 ml milk
Chili flakes/powder (or real chilies, which I don't have)

Method
1. Stick everything in a pot and let simmer for some 20 minutes, until the soybeans are cooked.

Risotto (from Year 10)

So I decided to fashion my plate of risotto into something like this. Obviously the kitchen needs better lighting...

In year 10, I made risotto in Food Tech. It's pretty ironic that I now want a career in something food-related; Food Tech was an elective that I chose slightly grudgingly; at that time, I honestly would've preferred Textiles Tech/fashion design stuff. Alas! 2 months into Food Tech and we moved from HK to the US... but within those   2 months, I did make risotto and since then, I haven't had plenty of delicious risotto, only because I don't understand how restaurants can make a fresh batch of risotto in 20 minutes. Risotto takes a full hour to make, and more if you're more patient and want softer rice. The one made by me, my GA and my dorm friends was really gooey and delicious, though but that was just mushroom. The one I made today had milk, celery, peppers, cauliflower, and firm tofu. A delicious meal...

The recipe came from some cookbook, but I used the modified version that I created in year 10 for my class. Actually, I adapted that too because we didn't have vegetable stock cubes or tomatoes. Although this recipe apparently serves 4-6, it really serves 6 in my family.

Ingredients for risotto for ~6 people
50 g butter
1 red onion
2 garlic bulbs (less if you don't like garlic)
1 tsp dried basil (or a lot of fresh basil, but it's winter now :( )

A bunch of vegetables and/or animal pieces. I used: 
1 green pepper
1/3 of a giant head of cauliflower
4 stalks of celery
150 g firm tofu

400 g Arborio rice
1 L water
1 packet vegetable soup mix or vegetable stock cube or just plain ol' vegetable stock
700 ml milk

50-150 g of Cheddar and/or Parmesan cheese (however much you like)

METHOD --takes about an hour
1. Chop up everything. I don't like grating cheese so I cubed the cheese.
2. Throw butter, onion, garlic, and basil in a huge pan and let it sizzle for a bit. SMELLS SO GOOD!!
3. Throw in vegetables and rice but not tofu yet. Unless you really want to. Note the small grains of rice.

 4. Mix water, stock cube/vegetable soup mix with milk and pour in ~250 ml. Stir occasionally. Bring to a boil and keep it on medium-medium-low heat.

 5. After a while, that liquid will b absorbed by the rice! The rice will get poofier! Add in another ~250 ml of liquid. The mixture should remain bubbly.

 6. Let rice soak up liquid. Stir occasionally. Add ~250 ml of liquid. Keep going!!

(I have flash on all my pictures because my kitchen has bad lighting. The image below is the pot without flash). You can see the texture better, but everything is all grainy looking. Haha, of course, due to the rice (a grain...get it? ha...)

 7. Last ~250 ml of liquid! I love how the rice just...soaks it all up! After adding the last bit of liquid, add in the tofu and cheese.

8. When your last liquid is nearly all absorbed and looks something like the image below, you're done! This was about an hour after I had started with the onions. The rice should be soft, there should be really gooey thick sauce, and the kitchen and upstairs should smell savoury.

In addition I got my sister to eat green peppers (which she dislikes for some reason) by telling her that it was celery.

Grilled Pear And Cream

I'm never buying pears in a package again because I eat them at a rate of 0.25/day, and the rate decreases when the pears start to soften. I like Bartlett/Williams (both names work), but only if they're light green and hard. Once they start to get watery and mushy (a.k.a more and more like a Chinese pear), I lose interest.

What to do with softened pears?! Again, my pancake maker delicious-fies food. It's like a function. Stick in input. Pancake maker evaluates it. Delicious output.

let pancake_maker (food: 'a) : betterfood =
 Somemagic.heat food

(for Ocaml).

Anyway, I grilled a pear, sloshed some Half & Half on it, and poured in a lot of cereal. Yay! Creamy dessert!

Study Break!

In my dorm house, every Wednesday from 10:30pm to whenever is study break. Every week, a dorm room gets $40 to spend on sundry food for 25, 50, or 107 people. Yesterday was my roommate TJ and my turn, and we wanted to do something spectacular! The make-your-own sundae thing has been done too many times,  chips were too trite (but we bought 2 packs anyway)...so what could we do!?

TJ came up with the idea. Bubble tea.

So, despite the fact that I had a proof to do for maths, I ran to Chinatown, met TJ there (she took SEPTA), bought 6 packs (so, 1.5 kilos) of tapioca pearls, 1 tin of green tea and 1 tin of black tea. I didn't want to use tea bags due to environmental reasons, and I think that the loose tea leaves added a more "authentic" effect to the tea while people were scooping it up, which is always nice even though I'm sure that authentic tea doesn't mean ladling tea out of a giant saucepan.

We then bought 4 lbs of sugar (even though sugar generally comes in 5-lb packages) and 2 gallons of whole-fat milk. I know that sweetened condensed milk might've been better, but that would've meant that we'd have to add the milk into the tea, which would have been really confusing since:

1. How much tea did we need?

2. What if people are lactose intolerant?

I used this recipe as a guideline although I don't really think that I should even cite it because I didn't follow it since it is really difficult mixing ratios of tea leaves:sugar:water:milk when people are crowding around you.

Note that I used my own bag. NO PLASTIC BAGS!!

Miraculously, the tapioca pearls were quick-cooking, which is SURPRISING because last time, for the same price ($1.68) at Kamman, I bought tapioca pearls that took hours to cook. This time, the bubbles floated up to the top in 5 minutes. Less than 5 minutes.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? I'M NEVER BUYING $3 BUBBLE TEA AGAIN! (Well, perhaps in the company of friends) $1.68 can yield me so much more bubble tea in 5 minutes (whereas walking to a bubble tea store, ordering, paying etc. takes more time than that, and it also wastes plastic).

We bought two types of tapioca pearls: coloured ones and the typical black ones. They don't taste different, and I find it bizarre that most stores sell the black ones since the rainbow ones are quite pretty; I guess it's just tradition. Unfortunately, 1.5 kilos of bubbles (purported to serve around 40 people?) was not enough to serve my dorm house (and a few people from other college houses who came because I made study break the subject of a Facebook status and I'm currently kicking myself for doing that *insert selfish angry rant*). TJ also bought bubble tea straws from a bubble tea store nearby, although I was against it (plastic waste) but I agree that it made it more "authentic".

We had a huge problem because we had three spoons, an electric kettle, one saucepan, and one giant saucepan (I borrowed the saucepans). I also had a pie pan and a glass bowl (in which we put the tapioca). We also obtained a ladle, a colander and a vegetable-washing bowl. The main issue was making enough tea to please everyone. We made enough tea to fill the two pots, brought those downstairs, and decided to wait until study break to make refills.

People ladle tea at the speed of sound. Really. Luckily, two friends lent me their kettles (and we promptly ran out of electrical outlets), and we started doing this boil-water-pour-water-refill-throw-in-sugar-throw-in-tea-stir-serve!-serve!-serve!  while attempting to communicate and transport kettles and saucepans back and forth. Meanwhile, a mob (a.k.a people in my dorm house + intruders) was scooping up tapioca pearls, sloshing out milk, chattering happily, and complimenting us. Yay!

The House Dean said that this certainly hadn't been done before. :) I must say it was a chaotic success.

An hour later, the crowd has dispersed, the bystanders were trampling stray bubbles on the carpet or sitting on the sticky-tapioca-studded tables, and TJ and I were packing up. We went to the kitchen and had a nice laugh and evaluation of the event while we picked out tapioca from the leftover 2 L of sweet Chinese tea and  tea leaves (There were a LOT of tea leaves) and drank tea. I note that this is something I won't forget, and I can't wait to make 5-minute bubble tea again!

I will definitely take better photos in the future. I really wish that I had the time while shuttling hot water around to shoot the crowd - I mean, shoot pictures of the crowd.

The Darkroom Cafe

Guys...I have a job that involves kitchens!! Somehow, this semester, I'm going to take 6 credits and ALSO make delicious drinks/food at the Darkroom Cafe, located in the basement of the Class of 1925, a residential building that is part of Gregory College House. I am proud to say that I was the first customer last year, when the cafe opened, and I bought a muffin with carrot and other plants in it. However, after that one muffin, I never went back because I had a meal plan. This year, since I don't have a meal plan, I get to finally sample food trucks, restaurants, bread (LOTS OF BREAD), and leftover coffee from here! Whoo! So... if anyone wants free coffee :P

 I have introduced recycling to the Darkroom Cafe, and I'm going to do something about the coffee grounds if the Penn Garden replies.

 The pastries are from Le Bus Bakery, somewhere in Center City. It's a shame that we can't actually bake the pastries, but I guess that would require a lot more planning, effort, and an actual oven. However, we do serve grilled cheese sandwiches!

 Here is BUNN, our energy-hoarding-coffee maker.

This is my first receipt. An RA bought a cup of coffee from me!


So, WHY would you want to come here instead of any other coffee place?
1. Our hours are:

SUNDAY closed mornings; 10:00pm-1:00am

MONDAY 8:00am-10:15am; 10:00pm-1:00am

TUESDAY 8:00am-10:15am; 11:00pm-1:00am

WEDNESDAY 8:00am-10:15am; 11:00pm-1:00am

THURSDAY 8:00am-10:15am; 10:00pm-1:00am

FRIDAY 8:00am-10:15am; 10:00pm-11:00pm

SATURDAY closed

In other words, we stay up late for you guys! We get up early for you guys! We care!

2. We're nice people, who can give you advice on anything! There are four cafe managers, and we will try to remember your name.

3. We make fresh coffee. We grind our espresso beans. WATCH US grind the espresso beans! Applaud when we use actual shot glasses for the espresso! Gasp as we poof up the milk for your latte (and promptly overpoof it and spill it everywhere...)!

4. $1 for a cup of delicious coffee at the Darkroom Cafe is cheaper than whatever Starbucks sells it for ($1.69 last time I checked, during my college interviews hahaha)

5. The profits maybe (possibly very indirectly or directly... I have no idea) go to Gregory College House, which then use it to buy DVDs and games, fund house events, and purchase food for the house. Therefore, you're reaping the benefits of it somehow. Actually, this last statement may be completely false, so please don't quote me.

6. Bring your own mug... and you can get coffee for $0.75 instead of $1.00.

Stuff the Darkroom Cafe sells:
Chocolate croissants
Plain croissants
Bagels
Coffee
Tea
Cappuccinos
Lattes
Muffins
Danishes
Grilled cheese paninis
Hot chocolate
Milk (whole, skim, soy)
Gregory College House mugs!!


So, I'm blatantly advertising because I work here on Wednesday and Friday mornings and Sunday and Monday nights. :) Come visit me!

Slow Rise Bakery

I have decided that bread is my favourite food. Although I adore chocolate, soft chocolate chip cookies, and avocado sushi, if I had to pick one food to live on for the rest of my life, it would be bread.

Crusty whole wheat sliced bread.

French bread.

Ciabatta.

Grain bread.

Walnut bread.

In short, I love bread.

At Clark Park's Farmer's Market, I found a loaf of bread sitting in a box.

It was $1 because it had been in the freezer.

I toasted it. Mixed it with milk and coconut and dried roses. It turned out really textured...and bland.

Lesson learned: ADD SUGAR!!

To the layperson, it probably looks like oatmeal or oat bran. This is amazingly versatile! Bread that can double as oatmeal, granola, oat bran, toast, pudding, cookie batter, and dessert, all at the same time!

Later I finished the loaf of bread through toasting it. This bread, unlike the other breads I've tried, is extremely gluteny and...chewy, it's almost like there's rice flour in it.

Slow Rise Bakery, 43rd and Baltimore Ave.

Beijing Restaurant (大学城)

When my dad was driving me here to my internship, we passed by Beijing At Penn, an American-Chinese restaurant. My dad said, "这里有个大学城！" which translates into "There's a University City here!"

So, for the first time, I shifted my gaze away from the neon "Beijing" at the window, and read the Chinese characters beside it. "大学城". "University City".

Apart from the fact that the name in English and Chinese are inconsistent, the cuisine is also American-Chinese-Taiwan. First, of course it's mixed to tingle "American" taste buds. It's situated at Penn! In America! People don't want authentic Chinese restaurants here! (Authentic = Chinatown, for sure). However, the hint of Taiwan is the bubble tea.

When TBowl opened next door and started selling bubble tea for some $3+, Beijing suddenly decided that they also sold bubble tea, for $2.15 (tax is 15c). This is pretty shocking to me, because in NY, bubble tea is at least $2.50, and if you want a cool flavour, you'd better have at least $3.50 with you! The fact that Beijing sells bubble tea cheaper than Chinatown in NY definitely means that something is up.

Today, I asked the friendly waitstaff for a mango bubble tea.

The best part was that the bubbles were perfectly cooked; they were soft and slimy on the outside (pardon the negative connotation of "slimy", but that's how I would compliment them. Yes, I mean this positively), and chewy and gelatinous in the center. I also liked that there wasn't too much ice.

I suppose the problem with this flavour is that it's not real mango, and there is no real tea. It's mango flavouring, and it tastes a bit like mango, but there is no mango pulp and no tea-like bitterness. The flavour is shallow and extremely sweet. In other words, the bubble tea is just a bubble drink, akin to drinking soda or MinuteMaid pink lemonade with tapioca (hmmm I wonder if anyone's tried sparkling water + real milk tea + tapioca?!!??!?! Sounds amazing!!). As S said (who I met today at the PennMoves sale), there's no real tea taste in Beijing's bubble "tea".

I think that I like this cheaper version of bubble tea though, and as I've yet to try the milk tea and thai tea flavoured ones (along with the other flavours) I can't really judge Beijing. I'm still pretty happy that it was only $2.15!!

Beijing Restaurant (大学城), 37th & Spruce St. Philadelphia

Coconut milk?

This kind of irks me.

Sure, the company cuts out all the legality/truth issues by saying "It is theorized that...", but the mere fact that the statement "coconut provides all of the required natural properties for survival" is blatantly printed on there makes me wonder whether companies sell food for our health or for our money.

Actually, scratch that; every single company probably sells stuff to get our money. Even those ones that boast organic-ness, and wholesome-ness, and we're-gonna-make-you-live-longer (so we can sell more of our stuff to you!)-ness. I realised this a few days ago when I was looking at various food companies' websites (Campbell, Pepsico, Aramack, some local candy company...etc) for internships over the summer. They want managers and marketers. They want people who are going to get degree in management or marketing. MANAGEMENT. Not biology, not chemistry, not food science, or culinary arts. No. They want Whartonites.

Now I'm wondering if I should transfer to Wharton.

They want teams of people who can market their product. Who can persuade the public. Who probably don't know what's in the food and how those ingredients/chemicals affect the body, but it's alright; as long as they market that food out and prevent the company from bankrupting, everyone wins!

So this brings me to the marketing style of this coconut milk yoghurt.

First, with regards to macronutrients, coconuts are a poor source of protein, and contains a lot of fat. This makes sense, since they're seeds, and seeds need a ton of endosperm for energy to grow after germinating. Coconuts also do not have chlorophyll (they are seeds. Seeds don't have chloryphyll. They don't need chlorophyll, since all their energy is derived from the endosperm, which came from the mother plant, the palm...). This means that various antioxidants, vitamins, and micronutrients are missing too. There definitely is not any beta carotene, which is a source of vitamin A. (Does coconut flesh look yellowy/orange to you?) Without vitamin A, humans have issues with eyesight (specifically, hardening of the retinas, and poor night vision).

Also, I don't think that there is enough zinc, molybdenum, selenium, and other trace metals because...of the environment and the growing soil... Also, where is the calcium!?

Without doing more research and citing my sources (so, just knowledge from nutrition class that I actually remember right now...), the advertisement claim is debunked. Okay, my weakness here is that I didn't cite any sources.

No one can sue them, though, because of the first three words. However, this is something I will think of every time I look at this company. This, and the ads they put on Pandora.com. These two things irk me, and although I LOVE the soy ice cream they make (The mint chocolate one. Is. Simply. The. Best. Ice. Cream. Ever.), I don't feel much loyalty to them anymore.

Brownies!

I was going to make my sister a Victoria sandwich cake today. However, she wanted brownies, so I literally just finished making brownies with her from scratch. I'm not super happy with store-bought brownie mixes because of the PHO, so I altered this brownie recipe.

Unfortunately, the liquid in the brownie refused to disappear so I ended up cooking the brownie for 10 minutes longer than it should've been cooked [hoping that the liquid would evaporate] and I ended up pouring the liquid down the drain [it somehow leaked out of all of the brownie... it was like pouring water out of a can of fish or something]. I'm not sure whether the liquid was oil or water, but I'm guessing it's the water from the milk.

This is my recipe, and I believe that there should be NO MILK in it [I'll try it again another time and see what happens without milk].

1. 1 cup sugar

2. 2 cups whole wheat flour

3. 3/4 cup cocoa powder

4. 1/2 cup honey

5. 1 cup oil

6. 3/4 cup fat-free milk [which I believe caused all the liquid problems...]

7. vanilla

8. 1 tsp leftover salt

9. 1 tsp baking soda

Method:

1. Mix all non-liquid ingredients. Add in all liquid ingredients.

2. Bake at 350 F, bottom rack, for 20 minutes. This fit well in a 9.5 inch diameter circular pan.

3. A lot of bubbling and liquid is seen.

4. Bake for another 10 minutes and realise that none of the liquid has evaporated.

5. Take out pan and pour out liquid.

6. Let it chill....

I believe that steps 3-5 should be omitted if I don't use milk. I'll have to try that soon.

The brownies didn't turn out super sweet, which I really like but my sister kind of dislikes [she likes everything saturated with sugar or salt]. The inside is extremely moist and gooey, although the outside is kind of hard [sorta gluteny too, actually]. It is a beautiful colour and texture. I'm very happy with it, except for the weird part during the baking. My dad thought there was some coffee in it, which I suppose means that the cocoa flavour is quite pronounced.

My sister added a glaze of powdered sugar, vanilla and milk.