I'VE MOVED

Hey Y'all!

So I've moved everything over to Wordpress. You can now find things over here.
Mostly the same address, just interchange wordpress for blogspot and you're there.
See you after the jump.

Pad See Eiw on a Sick Day

The cold I mentioned earlier finally took me down by the time I woke up today. Felt so tired and generally icky I called in to work that I wasn't coming in. I went back to sleep and didn't wake up until NOON.

Later I got hungry and ever the food nerd, I still felt the urge to make something even though I didn't go to work (for any lurkers out there I work as a food scientist). So, inspired by J.R., Michelle's cuz, I decided to make pad see eiw from scratch. Made my way over to Argyle and picked up flat pan noodles and other essentials at Tai Nam and then walked over to Ban Le for a banh mi sandwich. So good and so cheap! All the sandwiches are less than $3! At the last minute I also got a Thai iced tea and I swear it's the best I've ever had - it had the perfect balance of sweetness, milkiness and tea flavor. Yum!

Now if you want to make pad see eiw, this is the recipe (found here) that I used as a loose guideline. I say loose b/c I tend to go with my tastes rather than a by-the-book recipe.

1 Cup Rice Noodles (soaked in water)
½ Pound Boneless chicken breast
1 Cup Sliced broccoli or Chinese broccoli
1 Teaspoons Oyster sauce
1 Teaspoons Black Soy sauce
1 Teaspoon Light Soy sauce
1 Teaspoons Fish sauce
1½Teaspoon Sugar
1 Teaspoons Minced garlic
4 Tablespoon Vegetable oil

It's sooo easy and it's a cheap meal! I made about three times the recipe and did the sauce ahead of time, adding all the liquids and sugar together except the oil. Start with lightly browning the garlic with the oil and then add your meat. Let it cook about half-way through (if you let it cook too long the meat will get hard before the whole dish is put together) and then add the broccoli. Let the veggies cook down a little bit and then add your noodles and sauce. Toss thoroughly and when the noodles look light brown you are good to go.
Give it a try! It's just as good as any restuarant will give you and for less money :)

It's only 8:30 and I'm ready to call it a night. I'm soooo very very tired. I have a bad cold again. Who gets colds in the middle of summer? And I've managed to do it twice in the past couple months. The nose is running and I have an old smoker cough. Yuck.
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I realized today that I have gotten way too used to working in the 'burbs. Downers Grove is full of perfectly manicured lawns and soccer moms with squeaky clean kids. Everything is so...homogenous. But today I had to go downtown for work and for the first time in a long time I took the train into the city. It sounds so cheesy to say, but I really missed the whole El/city experience.

I was soaking up the scenery today like I was a tourist. The grit of old dilapidated buildings, the hipsters mixed in with blue collared peeps, all standing in silence with iPods plugged in and newspapers in hand as the train wound its way through the neighborhoods. No straight leg, pleated khakis in sight. I was definitely not in DG anymore!

I do love living in the city. Last time I felt the way I did today I was in Lincoln Square meeting up with a friend at Cafe Selmarie. It was a spring night and there was a soft but steady rain falling. All the restaurants were cozily full of people. The trains were roaring in the background and there was a hint of music coming from the Old Town School up the street. I pullled my trench coat closer to me and slowly walked to my car taking it all in...

I'm hoping to have more of these moments sorta soon...the search for The Perfect Place has started in earnest. I'm focusing on Edgewater, Lincoln Square, Roscoe Village and Lakeview so if you run across anything nice let me know!
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P.S. All the pics from two Saturdays ago at Samantha's house are finally posted at the ole flickr page. :)

Oops!

Whoa looks like I neglected this bloggie for a very.long.time.

How to catch up? You know how when you run into an old acquaintance, you don't know quite what to say b/c it's not like you can summarize months, years, whatever, into one neat sentence? Well I haven't exactly gone years w/o posting but yeah, that sentiment pretty much sums it up for me. So I'll say now what I usually say when someone asks me "Hey how you been?"

I am good.

And we'll leave it at that :)

(Yes that was lame. But stay tuned kiddies.)

Homework

So I decided to take a short photo class. I figured why not? Salsa class proved to be super fun (so much fun we're thinking of taking level 2 salsa!) so why shouldn't I dive into something else I like? Results of the first class are below. Topic: night/low light photos. Weather: mother friggin cold. As a result I wasn't too picky with comp. I just wanted to take the shot and get the heck out of there!

On another note, in THREE short months, we are on our way to GREECE!!!!
Yay vacation!!!!

Sunday Night Insomnia

For some ungodly reason, I can never manage to get any sleep on Sunday nights. Even if I am extremely tired, without fail I toss and turn in bed and watch in defeat as the clock changes from 12am, to 1, then to 2. This inevitably screws me over Monday and so for the rest of the week I go sleep deprived. Ugh, I hate that!

So with my trusty new laptop in tow, I surfed the hell out of the internet. Here's some sites where I wasted my life tonite. I'm sure y'all will find good use for them when you're having a bored moment as well.

1. www.myspace.com/lanetech97
Egads! 10 year high school reunion! Where has the time flown? After Court mentioned the site when we were at Hooters on Friday, I had to take a peek. Duuuude, I haven't seen most of those faces since we graduated. A good portion of them don't look even remotely familiar. And a lot of peeps have like, 3 kids already. Crazy! Most interesting find: apparently Trey the Chocolate Jock from Power 92.3 graduated with us!

2. Buzzfeed's compilation of Gates vs. Jobs articles. With the purchase of my MacBook Pro last month, in my opinion Jobs wins HANDS DOWN, but it's nice to see all the reasons why he's so great in print. If tech news isn't for you, then you can peruse Buzzfeed's articles on Britney's Lumpy Ass.

3. In another Jobs/Mac related item, if you google "i don't know what to do with my life" (and yes I really did that), Jobs' commencement address to Stanford in 2005 is the first hit. Definitely worth reading.

4. Free Banksy art! Grab some cool wallpapers or print them out.

5. Misc. Chicago food discussion threads. Favorite Tea Cafes, LTHForum's Great Neighborhood Restaurant Awards, and NewCity Chicago's listing of top taco joints. Or check out the 12 restaurants with the most health code violations. Two of them are close to my house!

6. Last but not least, Girlshop is having a huge sale. Girls, have fun going through all the online boutiques.

And even after doing all this I am still not one bit sleepy. It's 3am. Mother f.