Making a Giraffe Halloween Costume from Thrift Store Shirt

I was never really into Halloween until I started working for "The Company". Now, Halloween at work is a smashing good time every year. It's also a time for me to exercise my creative prowess. It's wasteful to spend so much on a costume which is cheaply made and mass produced and you can only wear once. So for the past 3 years, I've made my own versions and tried to stay below a $10 budget.

2008: I was a bunch of grapes. I don't think much work was done this day considering I couldn't sit or type with cumbersome grape balloons around me. I bought a bag of purple balloons and used black electrical tape to tape them to my outfit of black leggings and a black sweater. yes, that is a real leaf attached to the headband.

2009: Snow White and the pirates. I bought this child's size Snow White costume from the Goodwill store for $6. The sleeves were too tight so I cut a few slits and expanded it with red fabric to look like the real Snow White sleeves. Using the same black headband from the grapes outfit, I sewed a red ribbon and attached it to the headband. Finished with red nails, red lipstick, already pale skin, and an apple. (pictured above: DN the pirate, JB the pirate, Snow White, RET the golfer, AM the go-go girl.

This year...

Cherimoya - Burlingame

 We noticed the Quickly's in downtown Burlingame had closed and was replaced by a Vietnamese cafe. Always on the lookout to support my people and satisfy my milk tea cravings, I had to give Cherimoya a chance.

Cherimoya is the name of this fruit. It looks and tastes similar to a soursop but to some of you, that was the same as defining poop with poo.

The cafe was mainly a to-go establishment with only one table indoors and 2 outside. 

 (Left) $3.75 Mango smoothie, (right) $2.29 milk black tea. Mango smoothie: probably made of a powder or frozen form of mango and not bad but not flavorful and must have contained a larger portion of ingredients other than mango. Milk black tea: tastes mostly like tea which is a bit too dark for me. It was definitely not sweet enough. We were only in the mood for drinks so this review of Cherimoya is only based on these two drinks.

The only good thing that came out of this was that for once, my item cost less than Phil's. WIN FOR ME!

Cherimoya on Yelp - wow this place got 4 stars? Maybe I should reconsider, but nah, I like to go against the grain. I stick to my assessment.

Ooey Gooey - My first time trying Geoduck

 Thanks to my brother and his girlfriend, the other night our family got to taste geoduck for the first time. Pronounced "gooey duck" according to wikipedia. They are a large type of clam found buried in the sand and look a little something like this:

 Allow me to spell it out for the less imaginative folk:

Tee hee!

Because it takes a "little" digging to get these clams, they can be pricey but we treated ourselves to a few for the first time. I only know that it's not cheap but I don't know the exact cost.

This is a plate of about 5 geoducks. Only the top part was used. See 2 pictures above, it's the flacid part. Tee hee! They are sliced into thin cross sections and garnished with slices of green onion. To eat it, you put some geoduck slices and green onion into a thin slice of nori, roll it up and dip in soy sauce with wasabi. Yums! It tastes fresh and sweet. Actually it tastes exactly like a clam and I was able to make this comparison because of my cherrystone clam experience at Neptune's in Boston.

The other part of our meal included a seafood boil with crab and shrimp. I think it's New Orlean's style but I'm not sure. Also super yummy.

Later in the night I had a slice of ripe dragon fruit to end the meal. Ah, I wish every dinner was this good! 

Have you ever had geoduck? How was it prepared and did you like it?

Thanks to BN and KN for an interesting dinner.

Most of the information I found on geoduck was on this website. The first two pictures were found via google image search.

Yakisoba and Poke Salad Kit from Suruki Supermarket - San Mateo

My posting schedule used to be two entries a week but lately due to time and budget constraints, it's been a struggle to do just one entry a week. But have no fear, the blog is not ending. I'm working on it.

This weekend's adventures in cooking included a trip (not literally) to Japan with some yakisoba and poki salad. I am intrigued by this cooking channel on youtube, Cooking With Dog, and have been meaning to try out the recipes but having no experience in cooking Japanese food, I waited for the simplest and tastiest recipe. Yakisoba was my answer.

We went to the Japanese market to pick up the ingredients.

Working from memory, I tried to list out the ingredients and their prices. We didn't really have time to comparison shop and Japanese specialty markets can be pricy so keep in mind, if you try this dish, you can get chicken/beef/pork for much cheaper and in larger quantity than pictured above. Also, after tasting the Tokyo negi, I learned that it tastes just like regular green onion, slightly less potent, so next time I can use regular green onions for a cheaper price. The sesame oil and carrots are leftover from our Korean night. I followed the directions per the video above except replacing pork with chicken and here is the end result:

Ta-da! It doesn't look too bad if I do say so myself. It tasted delicious also and was simple to make.

I'm not sure why Picasa wouldn't let me rotate this picture. Our side dish to the noodles was poki salad. The Japanese market we frequent has a 50% deal after 6:10PM everyday. Everyone lines up before 6:10PM and right when they open the sushi section, it's a crazy mad dash through lines of feisty Asian moms and families to pick what's left of the sushi. We managed to get our hands on two of these poki salad dishes. ($2.48 after discount)

($2) Tobiko - salted salmon roe. I like to combine salmon roe into my poki salad and sadly, this was not half off so we paid the full $2 for a mere 0.10 lbs.

The poki salad dish comes with tuna, onions, a little lettuce, some seaweed salad, and a container of sauce. I like to try and stretch the dish to be more filling by tearing some iceberg lettuce and mixing it in with the poki for a more filling salad. Poki can also be too much tuna at one time if I don't balance it out with the lettuce this way.

Rounding out the meal is another half off dish, California rolls. Original price $5.95, we paid $2.98.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
We spent a total of $25 at the market. This equated to dinner for 2, lunch for 2, and another meal for 1, so a total of 5 meals. Each meal included California roll, poki salad, and yakisoba although after the first dinner, we ran out of chicken. I am definitely going to make Japanese food again. I will definitely use recipes from cookingwithdog again. And of course, I will continue to go to Suruki's Supermarket for the half off sushi as I have been. My only advice is to not buy chicken from the Japanese market for that monstrous price. But it's ok, we were on a time crunch.

Items purchased at Suruki's Supermarket.

Korean Seafood Pancake

 ...and Phil gave a ring to his woman and he said unto her, "domesticate cho-self!"

I kidd I kidd. This year, for various and obvious reasons, we will need to scrimp and save and be more financially fit than ever. It's a good time to finally learn to cook some of the things we've always planned to cook. Starting with a Korean themed dinner with friends. I'm still new to the whole photographing while I cook so some steps and ingredients are not pictured but I'll get it right one day.

 The first thing on the menu was Japchae, silver noodles stir fried with vegetables and beef.

(~$2) dangmyun - Korean starch noodles. This bag makes alot. It can feed 8-12 people.

 ($4.29) Shitake mushrooms. You don't need the whole bag. I made way too much obviously. You need to presoak the shitake mushrooms a few hours before you plan to cook. I bought pre-sliced to make things easier on myself and the price was the same as the whole mushrooms.

 Ta-da! wow that was fast. See, I told you I forgot to take pictures of ingredients and steps in between. This is not my exact dish but mine looked like that. Here's the recipe.

 Japchae recipe

This girl is very good with a knife. Had I bothered to watch her instructional video before cooking, I would have saved myself alot of trouble. For the beef, we bought pre-marinated beef at the Korean market at about $5-6 per pound. This makes things alot easier. In the hustle of it all, I forgot to add the beef to the noodles but it still turned out well and the beef was used later for something else. At the time I complained the japchae is too much hassle to make but after watching maangchi's video above, she makes it alot easier and now I know how to do it more efficiently.

Item #2 is Pajeon - Korean pancake with shrimps

 ($2.49) Pancake mix that feeds probably 12 people even though we didn't use it all.

You mix the above flour with water, add chopped shrimps and scallions and pan fry. Phil has become an expert at frying and flipping by now. 

His masterpiece. So the key to the Korean pancake is in the dipping sauce (recipe listed below). Very easy to make but its extremely important in the success of your dish.

Korean pancake dipping sauce
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 teaspoons red pepper powder
1 tablespoon of finely chopped green onion
1/2 tablespoon of minced garlic
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon sugar

Our version of Namu's Korean Tacos

No, these aren't the ones we made. We loved the Korean tacos from the SF Food Festival and thought they were so easy to make that we gave it a try at home. The orange sauce is a mystery so I skipped that. Basically we cooked Japanese rice and mixed it with the rice vinegar just like you would in sushi or spam musubi. On a piece of nori seaweed, we put some rice, pre-marinated beef from what was intended for the japchae, and diced tomatoes. Even without the orange sauce, it makes for a tasty treat.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS/DISCLAIMER

I thought this meal was pretty simple and successful. The total cost of everything for about 8 people was $70 with enough leftover food for 2-3 more people for another meal. There were also extra sauces we could use for a long while. Sure, not everything tasted authentic and exactly how it should have. Of course I can't open a restaurant with these skills, but my motto with cooking is simple and delicious and low maintenance.

Please give me feedback on these home cooking entries. Do you like them? Are they useful? How can I improve upon them? Or should I just never show the world my cooking again?

Ingredients purchased at Kukje Korean Super Market in Daly City

My Fitness Journey - Losing 7lbs and Getting Lean

Earlier this year, I conducted a poll asking readers what kind of entries they would like to see in the future. A whopping 10 voters said they would like to see more food and drink reviews. I've been giving the readers what they want when I discovered the "stats" tab of my blogger account where blogger tracks which entries received the most views. Not surprisingly enough, some of the entries with the most views are ones of me in a swimsuit, there have only been 2 so far.

1. Sun Diego
2. Random Summer Happenings

This makes 3.

THE FIT FOODIE:

I've discussed how I keep my wallet fat with all this eating, and now I will discuss how I try and keep my body not-fat with all this eating. Be prepared to see some unflattering pictures.

Florida, 2008. Have you heard of the term "high school skinny"? Well, I was actually high school chubby and college skinny. But after graduating college, my lifestyle was just work and drinking, resulting in the picture above. I didn't realize how "round" I had become until these pictures from our 2008 vacation came out.

Palm Springs, May 2010. Since 2008, I had tried but only half heartedly to change my lifestyle and lose some weight. I improved but just slightly. These photos don't show the whole picture because I got a little bigger after the Florida vacation and then started getting a little smaller before this picture. This was right after our New York trip where I ate my body weight in food and before I had begun my summer workout regimen. At this point, I was doing a little bit of Insanity, Taebo, power walking videos, and some crunches and squats daily.

Palm Springs, May 2010. This was taken the day after the previous picture. What a difference having an empty stomach makes. I'm also learning that these are not the most flattering swimsuit styles for me as it makes my top look even smaller and my entire body more pear shaped. I only bought so many because the pattern doesn't show tan lines.

 Wilder Ranch State Beach, June 2010. This was about 1 month into my Insanity routine. I would do Insanity workouts about 5 days a week. On the other days, I would try swimming or playing tennis with friends.

Huntington Beach, late July 2010. I was in full Insanity mode the the whole month of July and was just starting to get bored of it, substituting some days with swimming, tennis, or jogging. This different swimsuit pattern helps alot. Take note ladies, triangular tops. The tan and the pose helps too. Arm out, chest out, stomach in, bend one leg.

Since this photo, I've been swimming everyday and haven't touched Insanity at all. Insanity can be high impact on people with bad knees such as myself. It can also get boring once you've gone through the entire video series twice. I wanted to do P90X but the thought of staying indoors another month doing video workouts was a bit depressing.

Overall, in the past 3 months, I've lost about 7 lbs. I post this now because fall/winter is coming and I'll resume eating and getting "round". Thanks to Jimbo for getting me the Insanity videos.

TIPS:

• Cut out or moderate alcohol intake. It really is just empty calories.
• Eat smaller portions but more frequently. I try to eat about 4 small meals a day.
• Eat dinner at least 3 hours before you sleep.
• Get workout buddies.
• Stick to a workout schedule so you won't be tempted to skip.
• Exercise. In any way, shape, or form, just exercise. You can't healthily lose weight by cheating this step. I don't believe in diet pills or fad diets. You really just have to put in the work. I made it a goal to do at least 1 hour a day of something active (tennis, jogging, swimming, Insanity or other workout videos, hiking, tubing).
• And of course, suck in and smile!

Tubing and Camping - Rumsey, CA

After I hiked Half Dome, we were itching for another fun outdoor trip. We went to Rumsey, CA over the Labor Day Weekend for some tubing and camping.

The pictures are a little blurry because they were taken using an iPhone, and not even an iPhone 4, just the 3.

Walking down to the start like little duckies.

Waiting to get in.

Group pic!

Did alot of this for about 2 hours while drinking beer and champagne. Some time during the 2 hours, I fell off my tube and hit my head on a rock under water. It hurt, yes it did. But it was still alot of fun.

This is actually from the end of the day but I thought it made a more exciting picture. 

We reached the half way point and ate some cheezits, drank some water, and etc.

Then we had to jump back into the water and onto our tubes. Hilarious pictures ensued.

Such as this one where Bear smacked her face into her tube and KT is hesitantly watching her tube slip away and OS is just gone.

2 more hours of this but with way more rapids than the first half of the trip. This is going down "Mother" the crazier set of rapids in this river.

Wooh! He's thinking, "Look at me, I'm hella cool!" and then he flips over and can't get back up until the end of the rapids.

We're done and we had fun!

We did a cliff dive into the river and somehow, I came home with this bruise. I didn't get to take pictures of it until 2-3 days after so this is the bruise as it started to heal.

Nothing beats the bruise I got when I went airsofting years ago and was shot at close range in the calf. That's against the rules by the way, that guy should have been forced to leave the game! Anyways, here you see a flower blossoming around a delicate white center where the airsoft bb hit me.

Sorry there was no food in this entry but I hope I made up for it in AWESOMENESS!

If you would like to plan your own trip, visit Tubenation. They are a fun and relaxed group of peole who will take care of your tubing needs and make sure you have a blast. It's only $35 a person for the entire ride.