1. Sperry Top-Sider Portside Mary Jane

Got a pair in white for $38.70. These usually retail at just under $70.

I also bought her a pair of crocs (they don’t capitalize the ‘c’). Now, before you start to grimace, crocs have gotten rather stylish lately.

2. crocs Lady Slingback Flat in bubblegum

Aren’t these cute? I was tempted to buy myself a pair as well but I have enough shoes for the summer. They were only $19.99! I think they usually retail at around $30. I thought it would be a great shoe for the rest of the summer and into the fall.

With my mom, comfort is the top priority. Her job as a teacher requires her to be constantly on her feet and old injuries remind her everyday that she used to be a professional dancer. I might buy her some Dr. Scholl’s insoles in the future if these shoes don’t do the trick; I recently bought a pair myself for bartending and they have been great.

Endless.com + Amazon Prime for students (in other words, free Prime account!) = free two day shipping!

I am really excited for my mom to get these! I bought her a pair of Aerosoles (slip-on flats)from Macys in May but looking back, I don’t really like them anymore. Trends are changing!

I hope these fit.

INGREDIENTS

-3-4 cups fresh green beans (washed and cut into 2-inch pieces)
-1 clove of garlic
-two tablespoons of oyster sauce
-1/3 cup water
-olive oil/vegetable oil/Pam
-salt
-fry pan or wok

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Over medium high heat, coat bottom of pan with a very thin layer of oil–one tablespoon usually does the trick.
2. Add garlic and cook for a minute or two.
3. Add the green beans and stir-fry for one to two minutes.
4. Add water, coat the green beans and cover for two minutes.
5. Remove lid and add oyster sauce. Coat green beans evenly and replace lid.
6. Cover for five minutes. The rest is really up to personal taste of how well-done you want the green beans. I like mine to still have a satisfying crunch so I usually turn off the heat around five minutes and just let the green beans sit and steam.
7. Salt to taste.

No picture of the finished product I’m afraid. I seem to always forget that.

Instead of my usual Triple Door, I triple-booked myself.

Than Brothers with a friend I haven’t seen in two years. I go here at least once a week, if not more. I believe this was the first time I ordered a small; I usually opt for a large or extra-large. First time for everything. I swear they put something in their soup that makes you crave it even more; I’m never full for long when I go here.

Taste of India on Roosevelt with the Ramadan sisters after. Super Americanized and super addictive. This place is one of the more well-known Indian establishments in Seattle. You know you’re good when you have to hire non-Indian servers.

As expected, service here is unbelievably good (they refilled our water every five minutes) and the food was superb. They even gave us a bit of kulfi on the house!

Was mildly amused by their inclusion of New York cheesecake on their dessert menu. Nice.

They’ll hate me for putting up this picture.

First time to Über Tavern on Aurora with afred and a friend of his I will refer to as Vanilla Thunder. Über is a great little beer joint across from the Aurora PCC a few blocks north of Green Lake. Beer is not my choice libation but I was impressed by the long list of lagers, mead, and ales from around the world. I loved the atmosphere—very laid back and inviting, full but not packed. I was reading Yelp reviews about them and one person summed it all up in a sentence, “Uber is a bar with a coffee shop feel.”

We drank beer out of a glass boot.

For the sake of Google and its omnipotent powers, I’m not going to post pictures of me drinking from the boot.

This picture was taken by afred, who is, I want to point out, a professional photographer. Nice.

I’m not against posting pictures of afred and Vanilla Thunder though.

Pretty simple. I only have one picture of the sauce and it’s kind of pointless. I just started eating and it slipped my mind to take a few snaps. Apologies.

INGREDIENTS

-25 chicken wings (about 3.5 pounds)
-4 tablespoons hoisin sauce
-8 tablespoons soy sauce
-3 tablespoons rice cooking wine (Mom says, “Add a fourth and it will be even more fragrant.”)
-1 tablespoon 5 spice powder
-1 tablespoon sugar
-1 tablespoon garlic powder (or two garlic cloves, mushed)
-1 tablespoon ginger powder

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a large bowl, mix all non-chicken ingredients together first. After sauce is a more consistent texture, add chicken and mix again.

I realize this looks like the cap to your night at an Indian restaurant but I assure you that when marinated with chicken this is anything but.

2. Cover with plastic wrap and let marinate in the refrigerator. By the time we had the party, these wings had been marinating for three days. You don’t have to marinate them that long, obviously. They’ll taste just fine after a few hours.

3. Bake at 375-400 degrees until cooked. I honestly don’t know how long; I didn’t keep track of the time I baked them for. I think it was around 15 to 20 minutes.

4. We garnished/sprinkled on top rosemary and basil. Mint works too.

There was a wall of lottery/pull tabs behind the bar and in my slight inebriation I decided to play. $3 and 8 pull tabs later, I won $1.

The novelty of having won money from this lasted about ten seconds; I have learned my lesson.

Shari’s is pretty good at 3am.

It always funny to see the confused faces of parents when they ask her for recipes; my mom really just gives you a list of ingredients and a few stirring or frying motions. I suppose it’s understandable—she tailors a lot of her recipes to the specific tastes of friends or students. If it’s for her Chinese friends, flavors are more subtle—less sugar in cakes, less soy sauce in stir-fries. When it’s for her American students, she typically adds a tad bit more sugar.

I’ve taken it upon myself to make some of her meals and record the specifics that mom doesn’t care for. A lot of our parents have been asking for these recipes—they’re healthy, very kid-friendly, and relatively easy to make.

First up: home-made kale noodles with home-made noodle sauce.

If you’ve been to our house, you know that my mom’s a big gardener. One of the most abundant greens we have in our yard is kale—grows like a weed, tastes like dark green, bitter construction paper, and is undeniably full of essential vitamins and nutrients.

I typically don’t like kale, but it’s what we have in excess (my mom loves it) and I’m too lazy/poor to do my own grocery shopping. I begrudgingly eat it. I really only tolerate it in three recipes (which I will post in time). The first of which is kale noodles.

There’s really only two components to this dish: kale dough and the noodle sauce.

Makes 3-5 servings.

INGREDIENTS

Dough for Noodles

4 cups ripped kale leaves
1/2 cup water
4 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3 cups all-purpose flour

Noodle Sauce

1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark (Chinese) vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon granulated chicken-flavored bouillon (optional)
garlic powder to taste (optional)
ginger powder to taste (optional)

Supplies

blender or food processor (optional, though highly recommended)
pot
large mixing bowl
cutting board
rolling pin (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. We took several leaves of kale and ripped them into small pieces—about 4 cups, moderately packed.

2. We take the first two cups and put them in a blender with the 1/2 cup of water. Blend well—it shouldn’t be super chunky and it shouldn’t be just juice. It should look like a watery pesto without the cheese. Make sure chunks aren’t too large.

3. Add the remaining two cups of ripped kale, four teaspoons of sugar, and two teaspoons of salt. We separate the cups because adding all four cups makes blending a little more difficult.

4. Pour your kale soup out in a large bowl—it’s time for the dough!

5. Slowly stir in the three cups of all-purpose flour. Mix well and knead the dough. It should not be too moist. If it’s really sticky and you’re having trouble kneading it, that means it’s too moist. Add some flour if this is so.

A good tip is to first pour in two cups of flour, then add the third cup little by little—just in case it’s too dry. It’s better to have dough that’s too moist than too dry.

6. Set aside, it’s time for the sauce!

7. In a small bowl, stir all the sauce ingredients together.

8. On a cutting board, roll out some dough and make noodles. This part is really up to you. I’m pretty lazy when it comes to cooking so I roll noodles with my fingers. Another way is to roll out some dough with a rolling pin–about 1/4 inch thick–and slicing it into 1/4 to 1/2 wide strips.

Advice: Try to make your noodles the same thickness. Don’t make your noodles more than 1/3 inch thick—it won’t cook as well.

9. In a pot, boil water and add a pinch of salt.

10. Add noodles and cook. The amount of time really depends on how you like your noodles and how thick they are. I made about a cup of noodles for just myself and cooked it for only about three to four minutes—I like my noodles chewy and not too soggy.

11. Drain water and add noodle sauce to taste.

Photos are also on my Flickr.

MORE IDEAS

-Instead of garlic and ginger powder, substitute with minced garlic and ginger.

-Substitute sugar with honey.

-For a lower calorie meal, use light soy sauce and less sugar, salt, and sesame oil.

-Go organic!

To my delight, the kid pulled out the Princess board game today. It took several moments for me to realize that this had been one of my favorite games in kindergarten through second grade. I hadn’t seen this in more than 13 or so years. It took me another couple of minutes to remember how to play.

In my opinion, Princess is possibly one of the best children’s board games around. It’s a cooperative game so it requires all the players collaborate with one another for success. The goal is to get past six obstacles and save the princess before her castle is engulfed by the night. It also allows for some great story telling.

We played Candy Land after. Can’t beat the classic.

She also showed me a game I had never seen before called Mikado Horizontal. I tried looking it up on the internet but wasn’t able to find it. It is a physics and strategy game—a spring pushes pegs of different sizes and shapes to the side of the board. You must remove as many pegs as possible without moving any of the others. It was somewhat challenging.

These girls were book lovers! And I love reading picture books aloud—trying out my different accents and voices on them. There were a few books that stood out…

A Girl Named Dan. Poignant, inspiring piece set in the 1960s about a girl who loves baseball but faces discrimination due to her gender.

Anything by Mini Grey. We read Traction Man Meets Turbo Dog, The Very Smart Pea and the Princess To-Be, and Ginger Bear. Really cute stories, fantastic illustrations, and very imaginative.

They had me read each of these books more than twice each.

Bruschetta Roma (left).

“Chopped fresh and roasted tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, basil, Parmigiano Reggiano on crusty bread.”

Decent but I wish they’d used actual cheese rather than powder.

I also got red wine (Vino Pallino Rosso, not pictured) and a raspberry-vanilla cream soda (right). The cream soda had far too much whippd cream but was surprisingly good—not too sweet. The red wine was extremely average. It deserves no picture.

Passed by Trophy Cupcakes. They had sushi cupcakes !

This sauce is really great on dumplings and potstickers. The flavor is just light enough that it doesn’t take over, and strong enough that it really adds a great dimension to the food. I prefer the hot version.

You can definitely find these in the 99 Ranch Markets and probably Chinatown.

Without thinking for a second, she turned to me and said, “I don’t like being associated with losers.”

Jesus.  And I thought I was competitive as a child.

It did bring to surface a memory I have from third grade.  I was a terrible student kindergarten through second grade, but the summer before third grade my mom tutored me and I suddenly shot to the top of my class. And I loved the view.

I remember one day my classmates and I were supposed to group up and finish filling in a map of Africa (names of countries and capitols). Stubbornly, I sat by myself and proceeded to do the work alone. When my teacher asked me why I was not working in a group, I said, “I’m faster. They aren’t on my level.”

Bonafide diva.