Chop Chop and Cupcakes

This is where this blog pay homage to the many fantastic cooking blogs that are out there.

On Sunday I decided to celebrate Eric's half-birthday. Not for any particular reason per se, just as something to do. So I had a recipe for double chocolate cupcakes with banana filling that I wanted to make and Eric wanted some Chop-Chop, so, it being his celebration, I obliged.

Chop Chop is a food I discovered while at the University of Miami. It is fantastic stuff that is served at a medium speed food place called Chicken Kitchen. In it's most basic form it is just chicken and rice. I make a version of the Cuban Chop-chop with yellow rice (at CK it comes with white rice) which involves black beans, lettuce, tomato, and mustard-curry sauce.

The chicken- figure about one breast for each person, the following is for two breasts
Combine in a gallon ziploc bag:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
juice of 1/2 lime

1/4 cup orange juice

1 teaspoon curry

Marinate in refrigerator for about two hours. Pour contents of bag into a baking dish that is just larger than the chicken breasts so that they are in one layer on the bottom of the dish. Bake at 375 for 31 minutes or until lightly browned. Chop chicken into smaller than bite size pieces.

The sauce

1 cup mayonaise

1 tablespoons yellow mustard

1 tablespoon curry powder
adjust to taste

We used an 8 oz package of Vigo Yellow Rice and a can of black beans.

Toppings:

Shredded lettuce

Diced tomatoes
Grated Cheddar Cheese

You can put it together however you want. I tend to put mine in a large bowl or on a plate in the following order: yellow rice, black beans, chicken, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and sauce. Be liberal with the sauce, it is the best and key part!

The final product. Yum!!

Before this we made the cupcakes which was a bit of a process. Eric served as my assistant as I was cooking at his place so I could say, "Okay, I need four, sugar, baking powder..." and he brought them. What more could a cook ask for? And he showed me how to correctly use the KitchenAid, which I LOVED!!! Makes stuff so much easier. If Aunt Sharon had one of these we would not have burned up the motor of her hand mixer making cinnamon rolls for Christmas.

I made cupcakes from http://the-cupcakery-blog.blogspot.com/ week 2. To be honest they didn't go so great but I think that is because it is so sticking dry here that as they cooled they lost a lot of moisture too. Also this was my first time filling cupcakes and I didn't really have good technique (and I was trying to do it while talking on the phone, don't tell my dad). There weren't directions explaining how to fill the cupcakes so I got a frosting bag, tips, and a coupler and filled the bag with the banana pudding. Eric thought the hole in my tip was too big, I believe it was a #21, but I think it worked okay. What I needed to do was be less gentle. The picture I had in my head was that I would break through the top of the cupcake and then the pudding would push into the cupcake. That didn't really happen and by the end I figured that what I needed to do was push all the way down to the bottom and then squeeze as I pulled the tube out. Oh well. Live and learn. Then, since I don't like frosting I topped the cupcakes with ganache. The recipe I used wasn't quite sweet enough for me. I will try again sometime. We took pictures so I will share them.

Eric licking the beater, a bad habit he didn't exhibit a few weeks ago, I blame myself. He is just getting started on the day in which he may have consumed more chocolate than any other day in memory. Also you can see the work area as we are getting ready to pour the cupcakes.

Cupcakes in the oven.

Cooling on wax paper.

Done! -->

Make Up Blog

Today I went to the gym and had a great workout. I kicked butt and got my butt kicked in equal measure, it was wonderful! I warmed up on the actual track that goes around the second floor of the gym, and then I went on the elliptical for 20 minutes on one of the interval programs. Fantastic. I thought my legs were going to fall off, and I do not like to go backwards, but it was good. Then I did my stretching and on to the weight machines. It really is a meat market in there and not too much fun. I am thinking about joining a gym with Eric out in Pewaukee. It seems foolish considering I can go to the UWM gym for free but I though it would be cool for us to do it together and might get both of us to go. Tomorrow is yoga at UWM at noon, but it is supposed to be super cold and I don’t really want to go out in all that craziness, we will see, maybe I will drive to save myself a few blocks of walking – hey, they say ten minutes out there can get you frostbite, who wants that?

Okay, so Tri-coastalism. The title is pretty simple, as it turns out. So I am from the Los Angeles area and I went to college in Miami—two coasts. There are apparently many people who commute from the West Coast to the East Coast and they call that bi-coastalism. Now I live near the coast of Lake Michigan -- third coast, hence Tri-coastalism.

Now for Eric: When I first mentioned doing a blog he was not so happy about the idea. He said lots of people simply use blogs to complain about petty stuff or talk about specific issues of some sort. I don’t know what the problem with the later is; I could easily turn this into a cooking blog, though I think there are many of those out there. But after reading what I have written he seems to be okay with it. He says I write about a lot of different interesting stuff. I hope that is the reality of the situation. I just want to write about stuff I am thinking about or stuff that happens to me. Learn to use the word stuff less. I don’t really have all that much to complain about per se. My life is pretty good. I think Eric was concerned that I was going to create drama with my blog or something, write about his deep, dark secrets. Ha! I don’t know all his deep, dark secrets yet. In that area there are other people who should be more worried. I just want to think more, be more thoughtful, and writing might help me achieve that goal.

CES and Job Search

Stuff from the Consumer Electronics Show:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28547936/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/7/
I am not sure if there are one or two monitors attached to this thing, but in either case, isn’t he REALLY close to the screen? My mommy always told me to sit further away from the screen so you don’t have to move your head to see the corners of the screen.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28547936/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/10/
Since Brad’s digital watch broke, maybe this would be a good replacement!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28547936/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/12/
This doesn’t seem like a big deal at first. Big whoop: we can connect a bunch of monitors to the same USB port, what’s so special about that? It doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult but for some reason it is. When I taught high school, I did a ton of PowerPoint presentations to present notes to my students, this required a projector, and when I showed the presentations I had to unplug the output from the monitor and plug in the projector. I had one of those y cord attachments that was supposed to make this work, actually I got a few of them, but they never worked – I could not have the monitor and the projector showing the image at the same time. I think strength of signal is a problem, so just as when you plug in a bunch of headphones to the same CD/tape/MP3 player you need an amplifier, so maybe an amplifier is needed in this case. I think this a good innovation that I hope goes mainstream so others don’t have to crawl on the floor multiple times per day like I did.

Job Search

On Friday I decided to freak out about my financial situation and get going on trying to find a job. This brings to mind the paper one of my students wrote about informal and formal methods of finding jobs. Informal is getting a job through people you know; formal is using job placement services or responding to job ads. I had filled out an application for a job that one of my professors had suggested, but didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket so I headed to milwaukeejobs.com. I have never had any luck with these general job search sites. I have applied to many jobs but received little to no response. But, hey, these people are looking for people to work for them, right? I am not so sure sometimes. One should get a response if they are qualified for the job, right? Maybe, as it turns out. Think of the number of responses people might get for an ad in economic times like now when there are many people in need of jobs. The number is pretty big. And the range of people is probably large also. From totally under qualified to way overqualified. If you have one job and you get even 150 responses you are giving a quick glance and move on to these applications. Well at least for the relatively low skill, part-time jobs I am looking for. I guess this scenario highlights the importance of a good resume. I used to work for an employment agency and fix other people’s resumes so, at least at some point, I had a killer resume. I have not, as I have mentioned, had any luck with online job sites. I don’t know what it is. But my lack of success has conditioned me to not put much effort into my application procedure. I use to fill out the cover letter sections for each job highlighting my specific related experience, but no more. “Why do it if I am not going to get any response anyway?” was my thinking. Experts would probably disagree with meJ. Anyway, typically I get jobs the informal way. Let’s catalog my jobs, don’t you think that will be fun? My first job was at Conroy’s Flowers and I got it through my Dad. Then I got a babysitting job through my neighbor who was also my Mom’s hairdresser. Then I went to college and I got a job at a children’s dental office which I found on the campus jobs list. I got another babysitting job the same way there. Then I got a job assisting a professor at CSULB who was a family friend. A Day Camp job at my church with my friend. A bunch of jobs through a temp agency. A job at a mental health provider’s group that was in the CSULB campus newspaper. My first teaching job I got because of Brad. My second teaching job was from an Internet site in CA for teaching jobs, so I guess I haven’t totally failed with the Internet. Here in Milwaukee I got a job through one of the regulars at Ryan’s coffee shop. Last summer’s job was through one of the students ahead of me in the Soc program. And then I got a job today on a project of the professor I TA’d for last year and was recommended for it by one of my other professors. By my count that is 8 jobs informally and 5 jobs formally. Not so bad, I guess. But none received from Monster or any of those other big sites. So I don’t know about those, I don’t know of anyone who has gotten a job that way. Have you?

This job search thing is becoming more acute of an issue as many people, as mentioned, are in need of jobs. A relatively close acquaintance lost his job in the last week and it freaked me out. I immediately sent Eric a frantic email looking for assurance that he is not going lose his job. It is scary! Not many of the people around my age are secure enough to be able to manage losing a job. As one of the teachers at Lancaster High School said to me, we are in the acquisition phase of our lives. Thus we also tend to be in a lot of debt- student loan, credit card, car payment, and some people have a mortgage. I could go on about consumerism and overextending ourselves but I will save that topic for another time. In any case losing income makes it almost impossible to make all those payments. For myself, I have always had a cushion of mutual funds, but those babies have sunk like a rock in fresh water over the past year. These economic times are not comfortable for anyone, I don’t think. I read in Newsweek about the super rich cutting back on their conspicuous consumption because it is not cool to have a super expensive something-or-other when other super rich people have lost half of their wealth. Anyway, I will again be in search of a job in May, or maybe August as I will probably be in Milwaukee another year. If I can find a job in May that will last a year, that would be great.

So I didn’t follow up on the teasers from last time, maybe next time!! And I should probably write a little about my cooking too, that could be fun!

Rant on Technology

We are all well aware that technology is expanding and in some ways taking over our lives in unpleasant ways, if we let it. Of course advances in technology can be good. GPS helps us get where we want to go and find lost hikers. Computers make finding and transferring information easier, faster, and more efficient. I am certainly happy that I do not have to calculate all the statistics that will appear in my thesis by hand, I think all statisticians are happy to have computers. This morning I was watching the Today Show and they have a correspondent at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. Last year I followed the CES pretty obsessively because I was temping for a company in Cerritos, CA that makes entertainment chairs and all of their sales people were in Las Vegas. Anyway, the segment on the Today Show featured a new innovation- wireless electricity. There are panels that send out radio waves that are then translated back into electricity in electrical devices. This made me concerned about proper cell replication, seems ripe to be a new cancer causer…. I say with my laptop perched, yep, directly on my lap. But the correspondent pointed out that it is the same as listening to the radio…. Or the fact that you can listen to the radio because there are radio waves flying around. Okay, I guess. Also I am wondering if you have to get all new electric devices or if there will be adapters. Probably both. The examples they showed didn’t work very far away from the panel that was sending out the waves and it was mentioned that maybe you would get these panels installed under your floor or in your walls. Yikes, a lot of renovation! But it could lead to the resurrection of the floor lamp which I feel is being neglected in favor of sconces and other lighting. The more practical thing they showed was charging stations that are being used or will soon be used in vehicles like police cars and fire trucks that charge cell phones, radios, and other devices without cords.

That really wasn’t where I was going with this! What I am annoyed with is the proliferation of communication avenues, our reliance on them, and their varied effectiveness and reliability. So I have a few examples. When I was in CA for my ten day tour (1400+ miles in a car after an 1800+/17 flying adventure) I knew I was going to be in Fresno to see my grandmother for a period of time. My friend Darryl, who I met at the Long Beach Press-Telegram when I was a freshman in high school and he was a junior or senior at Los Alamitos/Orange County High School of the Arts, lives in Clovis these days and I have not seen him in a looooong time. He is my friend on Facebook so I asked him if he wanted to get together, he did, great. Except that my grandma doesn’t have Internet access nor does anyone near her have wireless and I didn’t have Darryl’s phone number. My mistake, of course, and the amount of time I was there was not such that I could meet up with him. But how easily I forgot about such a ubiquitous luxury as the Internet. Second example, Monday afternoon I was at school and knew that my friend Ryan was working at his coffee shop, The Last Drop. If you live around Milwaukee and you haven’t been there you should stop by try some of his delicious sandwiches, and wonderful beverages. You might even drop in when my baked goods are on sale. He recently introduced breakfast sandwiches and one is named after me- it’s the most boring one ;). Okay, okay enough of that – it is my blog and I can plug who I want to. So Ryan was at work, and I text messaged him to find out if he wanted to do something after he was done with work. I sent the message at 4:57, at 6:15 he messaged me back to say that he would have if he had gotten my message before he left. Hrm. What’s with that? Why did it take more than an hour for the message to get to him? Stupid cell phone companies ruined the potential for some great conversation. Oh wait; I had an interesting, though not great, conversation that evening anyway (see previous post). Okay, I have a third example. It is kind of a meta-example as I have several friends who this example could depict. I have a friend; the evidence would support claims that she is a good friend. But she is hard to get a hold of. I know her email, her cell phone number, her address, heck I could drive myself to her home, I have done it before. I know where she works, where her significant other works. She is my friend on Facebook, and maybe elsewhere via the Internet. We have mutual friends, more than a handful of them. I have, at times, used multiple avenues to contact her with no response. Like a communication blitz. And I wonder, do I have the right email address, street address? Has she changed her cell phone number but left the message there? (Brad did that when I convinced him to switch to Verizon so we could talk to each other for free- he had two phones for a while, but used only one.) Was she getting my messages or not? Was she busy? What was going on with her? My point here is that we have grown reliant on technology: we expect it to be easy, fast, and efficient, but sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes the message gets lost, it goes to the wrong place, or we can’t get to it even if it is there. In these times I get frustrated, how about you? Because sometimes you don’t know what’s going on. Did it get from point A to point B? Did I get ignored? I don’t know what it is that we can do about these communication issues. Be patient and persistent is all I can conclude.

In the future: why this blog is called Tri-coastalism and my conversations with Eric about my blog.

What a Monday!

I really wanted tacos for dinner, I don't know why, but by the time I got home there was no way I was going to get any. Two things delayed me. First, it was dark and cold outside, I had my laptop in my backpack and my gym bag so it seemed logical to take the bus. So I looked at the clock and found that the bus was supposed to come at 5:50 pm. So I was waiting in the union and saw that there was a guy waiting outside at the bus stop. The expected time came and went and there was no bus, not surprising. So when I finally saw a Route 62 bus coming I headed outside. The guy at the bus stop moved closer to the stop. The bus slowed, but didn't stop! This is particularly odd because that stop is the end of the line and often the bus drivers take a break there so it is extremely rare for the bus not to stop at all. The conspiracy theorist in me is beginning to think that there is a notice out to bus drivers not to pick me up as this is the third time in the last five days something similar has happened.

As I was missing the bus, I was on the phone with my dad who I was asking how quickly my heart rate should drop when I run. He said his doctors have told him 20 in a minute is good, in case you are wondering. He told me I shouldn't call him to ask such questions, I should use the Internet like he does. Nice. Anyway, my dad advised me to walk home, so I headed back into the Union and through Bolton. In the hallway I encountered a guy. He wanted to borrow a writing implement so he could write down a phone number from a flyer, so I loaned him a pen and gave him paper. "I applied for a job today," he said.
"Really?" I said, "why is that ironic?"
"Well, work might be hard," he replied.
I think I guffawed. I think what he was getting at was that it is hard to work and go to school at the same time. I learned a lot about this guy. His name is Nick, he went to Lakeland College in Sheboygan, he wants to be an astronaut- live in space and work there. He is kinda in trouble because we have neither aeronautical engineering nor astronautical engineering at UWM. He was wandering the halls in search of Red Mountain Dew which is sold in only one machine in the Bolton/Union/Lubar complex. Oh yeah, he hasn't had a girlfriend in 2 years and doesn't feel like he is in a good spot to get into a relationship considering the time and effort required. Also he apparently doesn't get out much because he feels he must limit his social life in order to do well in school. At first I was waiting to get debriefed- like he was doing some kind of social experiment to see how long I would talk to him. Then as he asked, "Are you walking this way?" I thought, "Oh my God he is going to rape and kill me!" But, of course, I left him standing in the building with his red Mountain Dew. I called Brad he said he was hitting on me, but then he always thinks people are hitting on me. On the other hand Ryan says I never pick up on people trying to hit on me. I don't know the whole thing was kinda weird, but humorous. And it put me back at least ten minutes... and however long it has taken me to type about it.

While I was running on the treadmill this morning at the gym I watched most of the Roland Burris press conference. Why was a press conference held in an airport? Aren't they crowded enough and have to address enough security concerns without a bunch of reporters with cameras hanging around? It was a pretty repetitive press conference... "What will you do when you are turned away from the Senate?" "I feel I am the answer to the problems of the people of Illinois."

Okay enough for today... next time maybe a little about technology dependence.

Getting Dressed

One of the hardest things about living in "cold country," as my dad calls it, is getting properly dressed. It is literally freezing outside so you have to dress for it. For me this means multiple layers of stuff that will keep me warm. But then if you go inside you are burning up. This problem is ubiquitous, I realize. In Florida the problem was that it was a sauna outside and a refrigerator inside so I always had to have a sweater. Anyway, when I first moved here I put on my thermals one day and walked to school. Once I got into my office I thought I was going to go up in flames as it was warm in there and I had on two layers of pants and probably three layer on top. I learned quickly to adjust my layers differently- wear two jackets and then take them off and the like. However I am still struggling with what to wear when I go outside to exercise during the winter. The challenge is that I have to be warm enough at the beginning of the workout to warm up but not too hot at the end when I have worked up a sweat. Not that working up a sweat was a big problem when I set out this morning as I was not about to run with all the ice that is all over the place. Which is the other challenge. I don't want to end up splat on the ground! And that ice is sneaky! This morning I passed a girl who was running along, I wasn't sure how she was dodging the ice and staying on her feet as I encountered many places with ice that was hard to identify until you were on top of it. Then there were the places where the ice was at least and inch thick- seriously, people, get rid of that stuff! The solution may be to just go to the gym!! Which I plan to do tomorrow.

So I have been thinking more about this blogging thing and I don't know how this is going to go. Am I going to be able to write about anything interesting? In my thinking I have come to the conclusion that I have a lot of secrets and I am opinionated, but I don't want to cause too many problems for myself or say, Eric.

I decided to RSVP for the Ski Trip, finally. =). Amber asked me about it multiple times and my response, was always "We'll see how things go." Well, I put in on the calendar so it is set in stone!

So my oldest friend, Kimberli McGorman, is getting married! Yay! I am super happy for her. We met in pre-school. Her mom was one of my pre-school teachers. Then we continued to do Pioneer Girls and go to church together. She was one of the influences resulting in me deciding to go to Tetzlaff instead of Whitney for Junior High. Kim was always a social butterfly. She brought Molly and I together, and I remember in eighth grade when she told me I *would* be friends with the Amandas. That turned out fine, I guess, but that is a totally other story. Kim moved up to Oregon when we graduated from high school and has been there since. Well I guess she actually lives in Washington now so she can be closer to Jeremy and commutes to her job at Whole Foods in Portland. Anyway, congratulations to Kimberli and Jeremy who are getting married in April!!

2009 is Here

The new year has arrived and it promises to hold some big things. Some people are not so keen on the New Year's Resolutions, and I can understand that. But I think that the occurance of the new year gives us the kick in the butt that we need to make some changes. It is a time to look back at the year that has been, to assess, and to consider how we want to live the next year. It is an opportunity to change and to a certain extent get a do over- you know: wear sunscreen in the summer, have better snow boots that actually keep your feet warm in the winter. So I do have some new years resolutions... though I think of them more as goals.
1) Exercise more (3 times a week or more) and lose about 20 pounds so that I comply with the darn BMI for being normal.
2) Be more diligent with my work.
3) Finish my thesis and graduate with my Masters in May.
4) Last year I had a "hospitality" resolution that went okay, but I want to continue with that pursuit.
5) Buy "The Joy of Cooking" and do something with it.
6) For some reason I wanted to start blogging. I do not know why but was able to come up with some reasons for not:
a) I will probably get myself in trouble
b) I will probably offend people
c) I should be working on my thesis instead
d) will I really be able to come up with anything to write about?
but, I guess I will give it a shot and aim to post at least once a week.

Hope someone, at some point, enjoys reading what I write.