My City and Milk Toast

One memory from my childhood that sticks out is driving home from my grandparent's house. Since my parents both worked full time, my mother's parents took care of my brother and I during the day. We had to be around six or seven. On this particular drive, I don't remember what possessed us to do this, but we said,

"Look Dad! We're Asian!"

And we put our palms to our temples and pushed back to make our eyes extra squinty.

I don't know who was more shocked, my dad, whose children were doing rather inappropriate racially insensitive things; or us, when he told us that we actually were Asian, in part.

"Look at your grandma, she's 100% Asian American and her eyes don't look like that! Besides guys: your eyes are already almond-shaped, you inherited that from her. You eat mochi, dried squid and nori for after-school snacks, you're both Japanese American."

Talk about floored.

Biscuits and Bacon Gravy

I've made tons of sausage gravy (and eaten even more) but when Mr. Mochi came home with a steal: beautiful thick-cut bacon for 40 cents a pound, I knew I wanted to try bacon gravy. Bacon gravy is made the same way as sausage gravy, with a few quirks.

Now, this recipe is just made for serving over piping hot biscuits! Unfortunately, my oven decided to die on me, so I was not able to make any fresh biscuits. I don't know whats wrong, but the oven just won't heat up, and my biscuits just sat there as I fiddled for over an hour with the dial, turning it on and off and waiting 10, then 20 minutes to see if the oven would ever heat up. Hurray for cheap apartment living?

Putting aside my oven's betrayal, let's focus on those quirks. The bacon will take longer to cook than the sausage, because you want it nice and crisp to stand up to the gravy. It will also release quite a bit more fat, so you either have to use less bacon, or drain away some of the fat.  It is also less seasoned than sausage, so you will add more pepper, but less salt since the bacon is cured.

L.A. Street Dog

Downtown Los Angeles. A sprawling concrete and steel behemoth of a city that replaced the chaparral to become one of the biggest cities in the world.

Smog, sweat, hopes and dreams seem to settle in Los Angeles. Hope for a better life, dreams of making it big on the silver screen. While L.A. shines as a beacon of light for others with its glittery image, most locals know it as the place they toil and trudge day in and day out with the skyscrapers watching overhead.

I know Los Angeles as the place I went to college. Unlike USC, UCLA is in with the glitter. Bordered by Beverly Hills and Bel Air, UCLA resides in the hoity-toity Westwood area. Think Pinkberry and vegan cafes, posh shops and brand name shoes; a cab ride away from Rodeo Drive and Sunset Strip.

I always contrast that with going to my mother to the downtown districts. It is loud, dirty, and wonderful. The flower, fashion, fabric and jewelry districts are filled with people of all walks of life doing business, striking deals, and making friends. My mother would always bring presents for her favorite shopkeepers, who would always be glad to see her and haggle prices. She spent the most time in the fabric district and I loved running my hands along the rows of fabric bolts: silky satin, rough corduroy, and gauzy silk.

Walking down the gritty cracked pavement that still reflected the sun too bright despite the June gloom, I would always steal a peek at the street food. Catering to mostly Latinos, the fruit the carts peddled is always what tempted me the most as a child. The jewel colored spears of fruit seemed to sparkle; watermelon, papaya, and mango sang out to me. I wanted whatever they were sprinkling on the the fruit along with lime and eating with their fingers, the juices running down their fingers and faces. Little did I know it had cayenne pepper, and I probably wouldn't have cared for it too much as a child.

I like my Ghetto Dog without ketchup

Now that I go there as an adult, the fruits aren't as captivating to me as the most infamous L.A. street food, the Street Dog. Also known as Danger Dogs, L.A. Ghetto Dogs, or Dirty Dogs, you can smell them before you spy the cart. A heady mixture of fajitas and bacon wafts over the crowd of shoppers, leading you to a vendor's grill. Thick hot dogs are spirally wrapped in bacon, grilled to crispy juicy perfection, then topped with grilled onions and peppers and your choice of condiments that range from the typical ketchup/mustard to mayo and pico topped with a roasted jalapeno.

X Rated Mimosa Popsicles

Mr. Mochi tells me I have become popsicle obsessed. Well if you were in this apartment in Southern California, you would be too. Right now, deep into August, we've been having quite the heat wave. After the kero kero pops, I decided I wanted to make another set of boozy pops.

My grandmother always used to mix soda and orange juice into a fizzy drink for us as kids. Almost like a virgin mimosa, it is still one of my favorite drink combos. I decided to make a popsicle mimosa after looking in the fridge and wondering what I was going to do with an almost full bottle of sparkling wine. Mr. Mochi is a beer fan, and I can't drink the bottle fast enough before it goes flat.

And because I am a big fan of the "oh why the hell not," I threw in a couple layers of X Rated liqueur, which one of Mr. Mochi's friends left in our fridge. X Rated is blood orange juice with mango, and passion fruit mixed with vodka. It's quite girly looking with it's bright pink color, but apparently the men are very secure in their manhood, and its pretty damn tasty.

I didn't realize it was a hip or new liqueur until I googled it for this blog post. I am so clueless when it comes to the drinking scene.

Lazy Spam Donburi

Today is one of those lazy days when even making some spam musubi is out of the cards. I want to do nothing but lay around on my precious day off and take a nap with Tiara. Even Tiara wants to do nothing but doze off in the air conditioning, and she's a hyper Australian Shepherd! I blame the heat, personally.

So this donburi is kind of a deconstructed spam musubi in a bowl. I have shared my unending donburi love in previous posts, but really, there is nothing easier than a one skillet meal on top of fresh rice.

Lazy Pooch!

The same flavor elements of a spam musubi are present, without having to bother with molding the rice and wrapping it in nori (yes I know it's not a lot of work, but haters please refer to the first word in the name of this post).  You can either use just equal parts sugar and shoyu, but I like the glossiness that mirin lends to the sauce, as well as keeping this whole dish from being too salty.

Like with my spam musubi post, I encourage you to play around with the toppings. Green onions, avocado, okonomiyaki sauce and mayo, shichimi togarashi, sriracha mayo, wasabi mayo, it's all game.

Tom Kha Goong Ramen

I have a confession: I love instant ramen. I know it's chock full of sodium and lacks protein, but it's also cheap and easy, not to mention totally crave-able. My grandma used to serve it for a quick lunch, with some veggies and saltines for dipping in the broth.

One thing I love more than instant ramen is ramen hacks. Simple as adding in some scallions to making a totally different style of dish, ramen hacks are fun and ingenious. My favorite quick hack is adding some fried onions and a shoyu tamago, for added protein and some crunch. Search for ramen hacks on the internet and you find that people have taken the humble noodle to great heights by adding ingredients and modifying the way it is prepared. From ramen carbonera to ramen pizza, it takes the dorm room staple to the dinner table.

If you are looking for a comprehensive guide to ramen hacking, I strongly suggest visiting Serious Eats' ode to the instant noodle written by fellow hapa Kenji. He goes through the simple additions, like adding fish cakes (kamaboko) or sriracha, all the way to ramen poutine!

One idea he put in my head was taking the classic Thai coconut shrimp soup, tom kha goong, and making it into a ramen hack. Below is my version of the theme.

Kero Kero Pop! Midori Sour Popsicle

One of my favorite alcohols is Midori. Midori is a vibrant green melon flavored liqueur first made in Japan in the 1970's. Midori (緑) means emerald green in Japanese, and this liqueur is a super sweet and heady concoction of melon and alcohol. Really, leave it to me to love the one alcohol most similar in taste and smell to the melon chewing gum from Sanrio. *Their Keroppi melon erasers really don't taste as good as they smell, stick to the candy and gum.

Besides drinking it in Japanese slippers, Tokyo teas, and Midori sours, I love to make popsicles with it! Especially now, since it has been so hot lately, pops have been on my brain. This blog post is my popsicle version of the Midori sour, affectionately named "Kero Kero Pops" in honor of my favorite Sanrio character, Kero Kero Keroppi.

I am really the last person who should be talking about alcohol. I can't really drink. I am, however, somewhat of an expert on Keroppi, as my family can attest.