Yay!

Christmas in My Imagination

Dear Santa,

For Christmas, I am going to require one or more of the following:

* A never-ending wheel of cheese
* A car that runs on hugs and rainbows
* A hippo
* Toes that are never cold
* The power to move things with my mind
* A button that will make kittens appear

Because It's Been a While

You know what I just realized about stuffing? Before it's stuffing, it's toast in a bag. And to you, judgy-face, I say: it's not laziness if your apartment doesn't have a toaster. And anyway, it's bite-sized and seasoned, therefore extra special.

In other news, I turned in my last MFA application yesterday! Maybe that's why I feel so loopy. That's also why I haven't posted in a while.

....Ok, that's not why. I'm just a lazy bum. But now that the holidays are here, I'll have some actual stuff to talk about that is nowhere along the lines of "today I studied for the GRE....then I cried."

ALSO, did you know that when you take the GRE, if you are wearing a sweater, you aren't allowed to take it off? You can unbutton it, but if you take it off, you are in big-time, score-canceling trouble. What's with that? Do they think I hid answers on the inside of my cardigan? Also, they made me put my scarf in a locker. You KNOW I don't feel comfortable without a scarf. It's like taking a kitten's tail away. It's just all sad and pathetic. Though it's probably because they don't want anyone to hang themselves mid-test. Things get pretty intense in there.

Small Victories

So after my many postings of rage and crazies, it seems like the world is finding small ways of making me smile. Friday saw the end of my 10-day decaffeination project, and when I went to buy my victory coffee the Starbucks lady gave me too much change, so my coffee was only 81 cents. And on the Metro North today, the conductor punched the wrong place on my ticket and I got a free. Then I got a business card! I felt so official!

Last but not least, on Monday evening, I conquered my fear of sweetbreads. I've never found the idea of eating pancreas/thymus particularly appealing, but I was practically dared to try them at this Greek restaurant. You know what? They were pretty good. For some reason I'm always afraid that organs are either going to taste like liver or have the consistency of grits, but these were sort of tender and veal-y. I don't think I'd eat a whole plateful, but as an appetizer they were pretty pleasant. I'm sure it didn't hurt that they were in a garlic-lemon butter sauce......Still, now I get to cross it off my List of Things I'm Scared of.

Know what makes everything awesome?

The Ghostbusters theme song. S'right.

Cat's Crazies #2

It's been a while since I've had some good old fashioned crazy. Sure, I saw a man walking down the street with a cat sitting on top of his head. I also saw a woman in the subway, who was totally normal-looking, except that she was barefoot. BAREFOOT! How badly did she want a staph infection? The answer is: pretty badly. But none of that happened to me, it was all just general New York mad-hattery. Today, though, my boss forwarded me a message and asked me to respond, and oh, what a delightful phone call it was.

Basically, the call was from this woman who wanted to publish her poems. Our conversation went a little something like this:

"Hi, my name is XXXX*, and I need you to give me some information about poetry publishers"
"Um, well, you're aware that we don't publish anything right?"
"Yeah, yeah, but, you know, you guys have all that information, and I need to get in contact with these people."
"May I ask why?"
"Well, you see, let me explain. It's like, I wrote a poem, ok? For a funeral, you know? It's called 'Why I Say Mother'. But then I was looking at it, and I changed it to 'Why I Say Grandmother', then 'Why I Say Father', and then, before you know it, I had 30 poems, all with different family members. So what I was thinking is, I would publish a book of my poems, but it would also be a how-to book."
"Ok"
"Yeah, it would be like my own poems and then the rest would explain how I wrote them. Because these poems are good for anyone. I mean, you always need poems for a funeral, and this way people could read mine, and then I'd tell them how to write their own so they'd have them for a funeral."
"I see."
"So basically, I need to get these published and then I can sell directly to funeral directors."
"Oh. Well. Uhhhhhh, you know, the best way to find and contact publishers is online. Have you checked out the Poetry Society of America's list of small presses?"
"You see, now that's a problem, because I live in a very rural area, so I don't have access to a computer out here."
"I understand, but, you see, the best way really would be to go online. Is there a library somewhere you could use to get on the internet?"
"But I live in a rural area."
(Because they don't have libraries in any rural area? Whatever lady. How'd you find this number then?)
"I see. Well that's a very difficult situation, but unfortunately, I really can't help you. I'll give you the website in case you're ever near a computer and able to do some research."
"Oh, ok, well, do you know anything about children's publishers? Because I have an idea for a children's book. But I'd really need a co-author first, but then I could write one."

......and on and on and on for 20 minutes. I pity the funeral director who decides to buy her book.



*name omitted to protect the Crazy.

Things On My Shit List

Friends, please don't think that I'm a rage-filled person. I'm really not. But every once in a while, I have a series of days that can only be dealt with by unleashing vast quantities of snark upon the world, or upon my blog and the 5 people who read it. Here are the things that have been making me a bitch(face?) lately:

1) Taxis
Sure, it was raining. That would certainly explain why the first 300 drove right by me with warm, snuggly New Yorkers already swaddled in their pleather back seats. But when one finally stopped for me, and I asked "Penn Station?" He just gave me a dismissive hand-flip and drove away, as if to say "Oh, piffle! That's only a 20 minute walk through the freezing wind and rain on this, the first truly wintry day of October, and I have some very important calls to make on my bluetooth. Your $8 of easy cab fare are dead to me, you miserable resident of the Garden State." Really?! You won't take pity on me, with my backpack, oversized purse, and broken umbrella? A pox on your bluetooth!

2) Inappropriate footwear
Well, hello teal silk flats. Aren't you looking lovely today? I think we'll make a delightful outfit, you and I. Let's take a stroll through the city. Oh.....it's raining? Well, I'm already out the door, no time to go back up and change into boots, so we'll just have to manage. What's that? You're not water-proof? Well that's alright. You are, after all, made of silk, so I wasn't expecting a miracle. I'll just stay away from the deeper puddles. Oh, wait, when you said "not waterproof," what you really meant was YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE DOING YOUR JOB, which is to be a FUCKING SHOE and protect my feet from the elements. Seriously. How is there water coming through the soles of my shoes?

3) People who can't walk in a straight line
Pick a side, swervy! I've got places to be. On a side note, I knew I had gotten just a little tooooo feisty when, walking behind an old lady in CVS, I almost choked because of the effort it took not to scream "make a slow lane, grandma!" Old people can't help it, and yelling at them is never cool. If I ever do that, end me.

4) Dunkin' Donuts
Dunkin' Donuts is usually a consolation in times of great need. Their iced coffee is like crackinacup, and there's no denying it. So why are they on my bad side? Folks, pumpkin spice is hands down the most delightful of seasonal flavors, and it's really hard to screw up. I had no coffee in my apartment, and I thought "well, I'll treat myself to a pumpkin latte on the cold, rainy, bad-shoed walk to work. It will be like a little oasis of Autumn under my pathetic, leaky umbrella." But you know what it tasted like? A gingersnap that got lost in the couch. How did they do that? No, really, SOMEBODY TELL ME HOW.

Ok. The End. Coming up next, a list of things I love....full of fluffy kittens and joy. I promise. No more rage.....

Cat the Creampuff

Or, the Epic Battle of My Multiple Personalities.

I was doing so well guys. I had this bitch face going, and I would walk right by those "save the animals" kids with their clipboards and their baby seal t-shirts, and they knew--don't ask Bitchface for money. Bitchface won't give it to you.

But then came the day of the voucher. In my defense, I was really tired, really hungry, and I'd been thinking about getting a haircut for weeks. I wasn't at my best. Here goes:

On my way out of work last Tuesday, a very non-threatening, lanky gay man came up to me and said "hey can I ask you a question?" Now, Bitchface wasn't awake and being all scary, and it's a touristy area, so I honestly thought he wanted directions. But nooooooo. He wanted to offer me a special voucher for a discount package at a new Paul Mitchell salon. The former teenager with a Cosmo subscription deep inside of me went "ooooooooh!" And then he pretty much had me: $70 for a haircut, manicure, mini-facial, eyebrows, shoulder massage, etc. Yes, please, I said. So he said "just put your name and zip code on the voucher," which seemed harmless enough. Then he pulled out his clipboard--why, oh why, is there always a clipboard?--and showed me where to enter my credit card information.

That's when Bitchface woke up and gave me a swift kick in the common sense. I started backtracking. "Oh.......what?......forgot my wallet......no cards......." Then LankyGay was sad. "Can't reuse the voucher because you wrote on it (pout pout). Can you pay with cash?" Says LankyGay. "I only have $20," says CosmoTeen, as she steps hard on Bitchface's foot. Replies LankyGay: "well, don't tell them I did this, look, I promise I'm not cheating you, look, here's my card, see the name? Look at my driver's license, and my credit card. Same name, see? You can call the salon right now and make an appointment, you can have the voucher for $20, just don't tell them that's how much you paid when you get there, ok?"

And, in the epic battle between CosmoTeen and Bitchface, CosmoTeen pulled the unforgivable girl-fight maneuver of yanking Bitchface's hair. Hard. During Bitchface's stunned moment of "oh no she didn't," CosmoTeen handed over the $20.

I called the salon (all three of me, that is), made the appointment, and hated myself. I went home, looked them up online, and you know what? They're legit, as in they exist, but apparently they suck, so rather than get a bad haircut, I decided to just be $20 poorer.

But I learned an important lesson: I am a creampuff. Why did I feel like I owed LankyGay anything? No, Cat, no! LankyGay, vaguely a con man, does not get a $20 consolation prize just because I didn't give him $70. Bitchface is really mad at me right now, but she's practicing her moves, and I have a feeling she's never letting another dollar out of this wallet. CosmoTeen is totally grounded.

Holy Cannoli!

Today, I went to not one, but two Italian festivals. One in Little Italy, the Feast of San Gennaro, and one in Hoboken, the Feast of the Madonna dei Martiri. And feast I did. I can't even begin to list all the delicious things I ate, stared at, sniffed longingly, or bought "for later," but I will tell you that I started out at the amazing Ferrara's, and that a shameful number of pastries were involved. San Gennaro's was definitely more of a typical street fair, complete with rain, mud, and those ring-toss games with prizes that nobody wants, but I'm not complaining, especially since there were rainbow cookies. Later I hit the Hoboken festival, lured by the promise of a cannoli-eating contest, which I thought would be a great spectator sport. It wasn't quite what I expected--the contestants were mostly pre-teen boys, they were only given five cannolis each and a two minute time limit--but the winner ate all five mondo cannolis in 43 seconds! I felt a little sick watching him, but not sick enough to restrain myself from getting a bag of Kettle Korn on the way out. As I left, I felt a sense of lightness of being, and that's because the feast of the Madonna dei Martiri has an extra benefit, which is that anyone who attends receives a plenary indulgence from his holiness the pope-n-ator. Basically, all my sins were absolved because I ate a slice of pizza and listened to a Dean Martin cover band. Hooray! So fresh and so clean! Also, I made a new best friend, so I might need to take up smoking. But seriously, who doesn't want to hang with this guy:

Employment!

Hey guys,
I really wish I hadn't wasted the "victory" title on some silly cappuccinos, because guess who now has two (count 'em, two) jobs? Me! One as a part-time study abroad advisor at a university, and one with the magazine I've been interning at for the last 6 months. So yay! Do they add up to less than 25 hours a week? Yes. Do I have to commute for an hour at least one day a week? Uh huh. Am I still living below the poverty line? Absolutely. But since I'm not really a grown-up, I'll actually be making enough money to live. I'm pretty darn excited, because not only is the seemingly endless and infinitely frustrating job search finally at an end (at least for now.....dun dun dun....) but I get to do two things that I am enthusiastic about. I get to stay with the people I love at the magazine, and then I also get to do something else I love, which is get excited with students about studying abroad. And I get to advise them, mold them, turn them into my minions....muahaha. Anyway, I'll be on both payrolls starting on Monday-ish, and I will buy you all a beer or a cookie with my new piles of money.

Milky, Frothy Victory

So my parents had this little rinky-dink cappuccino maker in their basement, and when I moved out they gave it to me. I was a little nervous about using it, because the first thing I did when unpacking was to drop it on the floor, but today Jackie and I decided to give it a try and ended up with two pretty darn good lattes. A little strong maybe, and we splattered espresso just about everywhere it could get splattered, but I'm confident our method will improve with practice. And in the meantime I might just kill myself from over-caffeination. I think my long-term goal should be to learn how to make pictures in the froth. What should I do first? Hearts are kind of boring, but probably easy. I'm hoping for something like an elephant or kissing fish!

What is going on?

Seriously, New Jersey, what is your problem? The mayor of Hoboken just got arrested for accepting bribes, after only 23 days in office. He was taken down by some real estate dude who defrauded a bank out of $25 million, got caught, and decided to take the entire world down with him. Literally. He bribed/got involved with 3 mayors, 2 assemblymen, 5 money-laundering rabbis, and A GUY WHO SELLS KIDNEYS. Why is NJ so bad at being legit?

Spam (List #3)

And my obsession with list-making continues. Do any of you ever read your spam e-mail? Because I do, and let me tell you, some of it is hilarious. I don't read the actual messages, because inevitably I'd have a case of clumsy sausage fingers and click some link that would melt my hard drive, but just the subject headings make for good reading. Here's a list of the funniest ones (so far. Some of them are pretty lewd, just to warn you):

1. May we build a nest on your lovely hat?
2. Turn your meat battleship on
3. Did the turtle swiftly go?
4. Deeper in her entrails
   
5. Attack her ham pocket (I know...4 & 5....gross)
6. If you will but bring me my ball back again (alas! If only I could)
7. You'll peck her like crazy (psycho bird attack?)
8. Wake up your hot monster
9. The Pobble swam fast and well
10. Barak (sic) Obama is a woman!
11. Is 7pm appropriate? (That depends. Appropriate for what, exactly?)
12. Rode the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo
13. On this coast so wild and shingly
14. We sail away with a pea-green sail (off into the sunset on the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo? With the swift turtle? And the Hot Monster?)
    

The Oasis

At long last, here are some pictures of my quirky little apartment. We call it The Oasis:

Happy yellow kitchen. Ancient gas stove, but lots of sunlight.


My super sweet couch!



The book nook. Can't live without one. Narrowing it down to this many was a struggle.


We call it the time-out corner....it also doubles as a dish rack.



My room.


And again.


The bathroom. Notice the lack of a sink?


Gluteus the hippo mirror.


The skylight in the bathroom. So you can get a tan while you shower.


There's another skylight in the hallway, so I started a little herb garden.

Cat's Crazies: #1

As some of you know, I have an uncanny knack for attracting strange and/or deranged people. Today I had another series of encounters and I thought 'hey, why not chronicle these for the amusement of others?' So here is the first installment of what will inevitably become a long list of Cat's Crazies.

Walking down 5th avenue today, I met a man who claimed he needed some money for a train ticket to Edison. He was wearing a hospital bracelet, and seemed kind of out of it, so I caved and gave him a dollar. For most people, it would end there, but for me it continued thusly:

"Thank you so much. Hey, what's your name?"
"Uhhhh....Catherine"
"Catherine, eh? Well my name's Jeff, aka Mac 'n' Cheese."
"Oh, really, Mac 'n' Cheese?"
"Yeah, Mac 'n' Cheese, with a side of collard greens *wink wink*, y'kna mean?"
(in my head--"no, not at all") "Oh. Haha, ok, well I have to go..."

"Yeah, so I'm tryna move to Albany. People mind their own business up there. [Boring ramblings excluded.] Like I was talking to my friend Chris, white dude, right? And I was all 'yo man I just wanna smoke some ganja for my back, cause my back hurts."

"Oh, ok, I have to go..."

"And I was all like "it makes me feel like Michael Jackson!" Eeeeh heee!" *proceeds to moonwalk*

"Ok, well, good luck to you. I have to go to work now"
"Aight girl." *tries to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek*

Then, I went to vist Ery at the restaurant where she works. As I walked up, right in front, I saw 6 cops rocking 2 cars, a traffic enforcement cart thingy, and a police horse. They were all very not busy patting down and arresting a 6-foot tall weedy man. A recent Columbia grad, he was apparently fresh from a visit with his therapist and had a mental breakdown on the sidewalk about finding true love that somehow involved yelling at passing women and rolling on the ground.

So, cool. As Ery and I were discussing this over a beer we heard shouting from behind us. Two men at the bar (both in their late thirties/early forties) were screaming "Ok, let's do it! $50! Let's do it!" They had decided to make a bet over who had the most body hair, so naturally the next step was that both of them should remove their shirts. At 3pm. To their credit, both were incredibly hairy. One girl screamed "Oh my god! You're like a dog!!!" And then everyone proceeded to pet the hairiest guy for the next 5 minutes.

Uh, what? Happy Thursday!

Catherwine Takyikrom

What's your NPR name? Have you ever wanted your name to be more interesting? Like host Kai Ryssdal's? Well, now somebody has created a way for you to create your own NPR-esque name. You take your first name and insert your middle initial into it somewhere. Your last name should be the name of the smallest town you've visited in a foreign country. Hence "Catherwine Takyikrom"... looks like I've got a bright future in radio. What's yours?

Just because

Last night was one of those elaborate dream-filled nights. When I woke up, I couldn't really remember most of them, but the bit that I could remember was staring at the cover of an old book entitled, and I quote:

Mostly Fancy Nancy Loves the American Boy

Do with that what you will.

Cutest Invasion Ever

So I was watching Doctor Who the other day. Don't judge me. I'll judge you right back. Anyway, this episode was about being overrun by Adipose, the most adorable infestation I've ever seen.

Genius

Sort of....I'm not sure whether this is funny or maddening. Click only if you are an incurable nerd, like me. Courtesy of Amy.

Tattoos I Don't Want

New Hope is a pretty cute place to go if you like hippies, antiques, artists, motorcycles, and head shops. I like some of those. It's also a great place to check out tattoos, and it got me thinking. A list, in no particular order, of tattoos I don't want:

1) The Playboy bunny
2) This
3) Hello Kitty
4) Jesus
5) Hello Jesus
6) Anything where the a navel functions as an anus
7) Barack Obama
8) Why? Tell me why?
9) Stupid statements that are also misspelled
10) Dear god
11) But, if I ever turn into a man and start balding, I'm definitely getting this one

My Least Favorite Reality Check of the Day

As many of you know, in May my friend Jackie and I are moving into a new apartment. Hooray for that! Unfortunately, what comes with moving is packing, which I have nightmares about. Literally. Recurring nightmares about putting things in boxes. Today, I thought I'd get a head start and tackle the book-end (ha) of things. I weeded through all the books I own and decided to take about half of them. Then I realized that I have a problem. More of an addiction really, because this is what half of my books looks like:

Well, crap. So I decided to make some piles: cookbooks, books I want to read, books I've read and have some intellectual stake in, books linked to projects, books I've reviewed, books I need in order to feel at home, and Neil Gaiman, who gets a pile all to himself because I have a big crush on his brain. Unfortunately, this just made me even more frantic, because then it looked like this:

After much inner turmoil I managed to cut this pile in half, but I have to admit it made me feel like a bad mother or something. But at least now my bookshelf won't fall through the floor. Still, in my perfect world, shelf space is infinite and books are weightless. I give you permission to laugh at me if I pull a muscle dragging these up the stairs.

Taking Craftiness to the Next Level

My mom is on the board of the Adult School, which only vaguely sounds like a school for porn, and she saw that they gave a course on glass bead making, which she signed me up for as a present (yay!). I didn't quite know what to expect, besides a room full of middle-aged women (which I got, and they were saucier than I expected, plus there was one bonus dude, and they flirted with him by making him open and lift things), but it turned out to be really fun, and a little bit scary. You start with these thin glass rods in a bunch of colors (see above) and gradually introduce them into hot, hot fire. This torch is a pretty intimidating thing--it burns at about 3500 degrees and makes a loud roaring sound. As the glass becomes molten, the rod starts to droop and before it drips into your torch head, or onto your lap, you have to wrap it around a steel rod, called a mandrel, and shape it into a bead. You'd think the shaping would be the easy part, since you just have to turn the rod and continue wrapping the glass, but after many a lop-sided attempt, I realized that it was an exact science. Lower your elbow, your bead looks like a turnip. Fail to rotate your mandrel at a steady enough speed, you get a teardrop. Let your bead cool too fast (you're supposed to let it come to room temperature in a fiberglass blanket), and it cracks off the rod leaving you with hot, sharp confetti. Speaking of which, let's talk about millefiori. Just as I had gotten comfortable with making the round beads, Leanne, my teacher (whose fingers are seen to the left making a perfect sphere), decided it was time for shapes, patterns, and other fanciness. Millefiori are little slices of glass (pictured right) with patterns in them: a flower, a star, nesting triangles, whatever. The idea is to heat your bead up and then remove it from the flame and tap it on top of a millefiori, letting the molten glass pick it up and absorb it into the bead a little bit. You then have to re-heat the bead so the millefiori melts into the surface. You can usually hear it cracking, and sometimes little chips of it will fly off and try to hurt you. Looking back, it's a miracle I didn't maim myself. Still, as chaotic and dangerous as I'm making this sound, I actually got the hang of it pretty quickly. It's very controlled danger...the flame is pointing away from you, you learn how to ease the cold glass in so it doesn't crack, and the dripping happens pretty slowly, so you usually have time to subvert impending disasters. Then, of course, I walked away with a very satisfying handful of beads and infinite bragging rights:

"Hey Cat, nice earrings!"
"Thanks, I made them myself."
"You mean you put them on a wire and attached the hooks?"
"No, you fool, I planted glass seeds, waited for them to grow into glass stalks, harvested them, then smelted them down into the very beads you see upon my earlobes. Jeez."
....Or something like that.

Amazing

It's....MADE OF CUPCAKES!

Because I Was Playing Balderdash...

...and it came up. A list of the proper names for different groups of animals (e.g. a flock of birds, but cooler), courtesy of wikipedia:

1) A bask of alligators
2) A company of badgers
3) A cauldron of bats
4) A shrewdness of apes
5) A sleuth of bears
6) A rabble of butterflies
7) A glaring of cats
8) A coalition of cheetahs
9) A quiver of cobras
10) An intrusion of cockroaches
11) A murder of crows
12) An alliance of (male) dolphins
13) A party of (female) dolphins
14) A piteousness of doves
15) A convocation of eagles
16) A pipe of eels
17) An overabundance(!) of elephants (my favorite)
18) A business of ferrets
19) A trembling of finches
20) A bundle of frogs
21) A horde of hamsters
22) A kettle of hawks
23) A bloat of hippos (my second favorite)
24) A smack or smuth of jellyfish
25) An exaltation of larks
26) A leap of leopards
27) A risk of lobsters
28) A labor of moles
29) A mischief of mice
30) A parliament of owls
31) An amalgamation of pandas
32) An unkindness of ravens
33) A clutter of spiders
34) A scurry of squirrels
35) A lump of toads
36) A wisdom of wombats
37) A dazzle of zebras

In Other News...

Dollhouse finally got good this week! If any of you are Joss Whedon fans and you haven't been watching this show, you haven't missed out on anything. Until now. Don't even watch the first five episodes. Just start here.

Boston, the Baby City

Not as in "filled with babies", but the city itself is smallish and unintimidating. Easy transportation, cute and walkable neighborhoods, and friendly people. Then again, maybe every city feels more manageable after the gritty, hostile misery of New York. Not that I hate New York, but it does have a very special way of exhausting you. Last time I went, for example, it took me 2.5 hours to get from my house to Brooklyn. On the way back, I was thrilled that I had enough time to get a slice of pizza before my train, only to have a strange man sidle up to me in line and say "it's on me, don't even worry about it." When I kindly refused his offer, he said "but I'm just trying to establish a communication with you, girl....You're getting the supreme, huh? Alright. Alright. You got a boyfriend? That is one lucky ass man. I'm just trying to get to that communication. Mmmmmm mmmmm." Thank you, sir, for the creepy "mmm." Last time I checked, I did not in the least resemble a can of Campbell's. I will now attempt to avoid you by circling around Penn Station until my track is posted. So that's why I like Boston. Or maybe it's because I had a proper tea party! My friend Jess studied in London for a year and came back enamored of high tea, so she decided she should host one, and I have to say it was one of the cutest parties I have ever been to. I mean, check out her apron. She even had a tower of eclairs! And teacups! So many teacups...Maybe someday I will once again host parties, and I can only hope they will be as adorable as hers. Another reason I like Boston so much is Dana. I stayed with her while I was there and was treated like a princess. We made sushi, and cupcakes, and white russians. What's not to love? It's a city of baked goods and my favorite people. Now if only I could find a job there. Until then....eclairs!

Welcome to Narnia....

....Also known as my back yard this week.

The Takeout Conundrum

Every time I get Chinese food, it comes with 4 pounds of rice that I never eat—but I hate throwing it away. So I put it in the fridge and it turns into a crunchy, crystallized, flavorless lump. Blarg! So I’ve been playing around with ways to use it, and I ended up re-inventing the wheel. The Korean wheel. You could call it a kimchi pancake, or it’s sort of like bokumbap, but I’ll call it a kimchi scramble:

(I'm no Heidi Swanson, but I thought I'd give you an idea what it looks like pre-scramble...)

½ cup icky leftover rice
½ cup kimchi, chopped (you can buy it, but you can also use this recipe, which is surprisingly easy. I’ve added comments in the “reviews” section with a few suggestions.)
2-3 eggs
1 onion, sliced
Sliced red or green peppers if you like
Sesame oil
Sesame seeds

Sautee onion and peppers. Add rice. Add eggs. Mix sesame oil and seeds into the kimchi and then throw it into the pan. I like to make it extra crispy, but it really depends on how you like your eggs.

Hi There!

So, first and foremost, welcome! This is my second attempt at a blog. As you can see in my profile, and as you probably know, because you are most likely my friend, I just graduated, went to Ghana for a little while (first attempt at a blog: http://www.catinaccra.blogspot.com/ ), came back, and am now happily unemployed. Basically, I spend a lot of time messing around online and thinking, and I figured since I really enjoy writing I’d share my findings and observations with any of you who might need some distraction. If I had to guess, I’d say this will turn out to be a jumble of text, lists, photos, links, recipes, and hopefully no copyright infringement. More coming soon…