Appetizers

Salad & Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Tour de Crepes (Tower of Crepes)

After a crepe breakfast, we were left with a mound of crepes. And when you have a mound, why not turn it into a tower?

How to assemble? A "Tour de Crepes" consists of multiple crepe layers separated with alternating fillings and assembled with a light and flavorful cheese flour sauce.

The tower is then topped with a sauce that bakes into a crispy crust, and is then served in slices like that of a cake with a garlic and pepper tomato sauce.

The tower came out quite beautiful. Each slice had alternating colors which popped out against the red sauce, an effect that I unfortunately couldn't quite capture with my camera.

Amazingly, it topped its own beauty with an even better taste. The tower tasted like a flavorful quiche, one that melted in your mouth while all the flavors blended together beautifully, only without being overwhelmed or overshadowed by a buttery crust. David, after one bite, said it was probably the best dish I've made to date. Now, THAT's something.

Crepes

What to do when you're out of bread and the new loaf is still in it's 3rd rising?

We made crepes. (Even without our good friend and crepe expert, Steffie.)

According to Crepe experts and Julia Child,

There's a light brown "pretty side"

and a spotted "ugly side"

The ugly side is never to be shown to guests and must be hidden with food!

YES, Ma'm!

Things started getting exciting in the kitchen

but we did lose a few along the way. Oops!

R.I.P. Crepe #13

I'm sorry we got a little over-zealous with our crepe toss height, and I'm sorry you never went on to fulfill your destiny of being packed with nutella, fruit, and jams only to be stuffed into our mouths on a blissful crepe-filled Saturday.

We ate a lot and still had a LOT left over.

Do you want poached eggs?

French: Tu veux des oeufs pochés?

German: Möchtest du pochierte eier?

~~~
and this concludes our language lesson of the day.

Triple Chocolate Goodness

David is out of town, so I thought I'd post some pictures of my latest baking endeavors to lure him and his stomach back. I mean don't these just make you want to jump on an earlier flight?

I baked these for a friend's birthday, and left some as cookies while turned others into whoopie pies. These cookies tested the limits of how much chocolate can actually be physically put into a cookie, but I knew they were delicious when an acquaintance licked the cookie dough bowl so clean I thought it had actually been washed (not so). I offered them a cookie and then I really knew it was good when they came back and sheepishly asked for another one. Request granted.

Strawberry Cream

Happy Earth Day

Last year for Earth Day, we each got a tiny pine tree seedling in a plastic tube. Ironically, I think we got more plastic than tree, but that's beside the point.

Two of my coworkers and I each planted our tree in a giant pot, and we decided to grow them in an artificial temperature controlled environment (lab) because we figured the seedlings would never make it out in the wild (Boston). In fact, sometimes I worry that my lab training makes me incapable of making it out in the wild as well. What? Rain? What? It's a temperature different than 68? GASP! Thus they grew on our windowsill with a front row seat to the ever-changing Boston weather, and today they turned 1. Sniff.

Over this past year, we've had some satisfaction in watching the trees grow, but we have also become a little worried...only about my tree, though. Unlike normal pine trees, it decided to curve instead of grow upwards. However, just like any other unconditional-love-giving mother, I still think my tree is just "special" and "unique" and "perfect." I figure instead of a future as a Christmas tree, it's more fit for a Channukah bush, right?

I also think it's sweet because it seems to be "reaching out and hugging others."

But you can obviously see my tree is not like the others (especially the tall "show off" who I think is going to self-destruct and topple over one day).

Working in a developmental (neuro) lab with a specialty in genetics, we decided my tree must have a pretty cool mutation. On the days when my project isn't working, I figure I could always map the mutations for curvy pine trees as a side thesis. Problem is, apparently the pine tree has roughly 30 times the genetic material compared to that of the human genome, not to mention that this is just comparing the haploid, in which case pine trees are usually multiploidy. Yeah, we really did check it up, and no, this is not one of the causes of my delayed data. Okay, maybe. I guess it's a bit too expensive to map the whole thing, so the discovery of the Jenny gene will just have to wait. And that my friends, will be the nerdiest thing I will ever post on this blog (well, okay, no promises).

My bit of the west coast

Jenny's motto:
"Try getting plants for lab. When they grow, they make you feel like less of a failure at life than research does. Just be careful not to let it die. If it dies, then it's all over."

Mini palm trees

Successes at life:2 plants; Failures in lab: too many to count

Let me introduce you to cocotte, she's French

When I dream about my future kitchen, it includes, but is not limited to, a red Kitchenaid Mixer and a Red Le Creuset pot. Red apparently stimulates the appetite (scientific fact!), but the color is also so "saucy" that I love it.

Here comes the bubble burst: both these red beauties cost upwards of $250. Woah! I usually associate the two with gifts that you get only off of a wedding registry, thus because I am not making lots of money and because I am not getting married anytime soon, I figured I could kiss the two beauties goodbye and leave them in dreamland. Sometimes I also think I'm just not "mature" enough to own them yet, since I associate maturity with owning my own kitchen.

That sensibility still doesn't mean that I don't try. I visit them in the stores, I go to outlets, I check online for deals, and even after receiving some money from my brother for my birthday to "use as my heart desired", I just couldn't do it. $258 ($239 on sale!) was just too much for me even if there were hundreds of recipes in which I "needed" a cast iron pot.

As I convince myself of how useful the gadgets can be, the frugal part of me always kicks in before the purchase. I think I inherit that from my father. I thank him for that.

Back to the discount store I go, and that evening, I made a new kind of dinner.

I have a special someone to thank for that beef roast dinner.

Here's my new baby: she's not red and she's a little scratched up, but she is French, and she only set me back $9.99. At just 4% of the initial price (mathematical fact!), how could I not try her out? I love her just the same.

So this along with the kitchenaid replacement (read: handheld mixer) that I got from target at $5.99, officially puts my version of the dream kitchen at a total of $16 (tax excluded).

Thanks dad for helping me to save money.

LOVE

"Egg in a hole" (Over easy eggs in the middle of bread)
& breakfast potatoes with caramelized onions and pancetta

Briollah

This bread was a mixture (oops) of a brioche recipe and a challah recipe. Brioche + Challah = Briollah. It turned out pretty sweet and pretty delicious regardless from the eggs and the butter! If making bread is an art form or a science, then aren't you supposed to tweek with the recipes anyway? I did, and I loved the result. Now if only my experiments worked out like that as well.

Oh, Ribs

Our 9-to-5 usually translates to a more literal 9:30am to 8:30pm lab life. By the time we get back for dinner, there's usually not enough time OR energy left for something fancy. Work, dinner, dessert, sleep. Is that really all there is to life? At least there's dessert! (like I how I fit that in there regardless?) Kidding, but in all seriousness dessert usually DOES make everything better--from bad data to stomachaches.

Thus, I usually get excited when I get to head home by 7:30pm. Wohooo, freedom! What to do with such time?

Let's see, since someone else was working hard at practicing the violin for a future recital, I went to the store, found ribs on sale, and then decided to cook them...for the next 1h 15min. Who knew it would be such a long term commitment that I was about to start.

Oh, and here's a picture of a salad so you don't think we're horrible carnivorous creatures that sustain only off of unbalanced diets.

Faces

Faces

Haircut

I photograph headshots and I cut hair...What?

The first one probably comes from when I used to work in a photography studio. I don't own fancy equipment and I would never advertise it, but I do know how to use natural lighting, and how to pose you so you look smart, serious, skinny, muscular, all with high cheekbones, a smaller nose, less wrinkles, and whatever else your idea of the "best" is. We just keep going until we get it. I never charged anything and you don't need a fancy appointment at a far-away studio, but with some back and forth, and some cropping, I have provided many friends with their headshots for various applications, work related needs, and passports/visas. Oh, and I also do multiple outfits. I even took my own once (two outfits if you must know), and I still have it today. It's funny when you think about it. How random, you must say. I'd post a few examples, but I don't know if my friends would appreciate it.

The second one came from...I don't know where. Maybe it's because my dad cut my brother's and mother's hair, and my mother and I cut my dad's hair, and both my parents used to cut my hair. To be honest, my parents are quite good, and I'd much rather schedule a time with them in the garage than with a professional.

My credentials with hair?, you ask.

-Childhood memories: I remember loving it when my mom would braid my hair, and I vividly remember when I first learned how to put my own hair into a ponytail. It was a big deal (one of the earlier childhood memories).

-A little more grown up: Holidays with kids meant each girl ended up with a braid. In high school, I used to take appointments from my friends to style their hair before dances. After all of the girls, I then did my own right before we headed out for the big night. I even made hair accessories if I remembered correctly--they always matched the dress, of course. I cut many friends' hairs over the college years and did a few stylings as well. They became regulars. In fact, my first and ONLY barbie was a hairstyle barbie (shameful I know, but I figured it was important for setting the backdrop to this story, so there you have it blog world!). I still have the barbie today. Should I be blessed with the flexibility, I'd cut my own hair if I could. Saves on ca$h and hassle! All this barely stands a chance against training at the fancy studios and hours of hair play that your own hairdresser probably has, but I'm not trying to beat them.

Anyway, recently my friend said she needed a haircut, I joked I could do it, a few minutes of back and forth questioning and confirmation later, it was a done deal. I told her I'd have to blog about it as a joke, but here we are...good thing she didn't need headshots of her as well.

P.S. I even provide thearpy hairdresser banter should you need it, but she didn't. :-)

Summer

Pain français

For the french bread, it's all in the hearty crust and the soft center. My parents used to joke that french bread provided a good jaw workout, but no one can deny how good the bread was with soup, for breakfast, or as I recently learned topped with salted rather than normal butter. Tres French...

With a steaming technique in which you add water to the preheated oven plate, I was able to finally master the French crust. I think I reached a personal best when I got the "tastes authentic" stamp of approval. Those words from an European must melt every aspiring bread-maker's heart as it did mine.

Bread #2

Spring

My brother's and sister-in-law's backyard!

Thanks to Audrey for sharing the beauty with me.