|
Kelly's Blog
-
 Kooking in the Kitchen (with Kelly)
Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009 1:22 PM
Having the luxury of our own personal kitchen this year is exciting. To me it means no more cleaning up after other people. No more lugging everything but the kitchen sink to the lobby. No more holding my breath when opening the fridge. No more cooking stew, mac and cheese, and curry in a rice cooker. And no more praying that the kitchen isn’t ocupado. It’s wonderful. We have a dishwasher. I don’t even have to take the elevator to get to the stove. Therefore, I try to cook and bake whenever I get the chance and my only complaint is that our oven’s temperature is always too high.
For some of my friends, the newness of having our own kitchens is starting to wear off. It seemed like ages ago that the boy’s suite made shoyu chicken. And all Geoff and Ian ever make for dinner now is steak or fried rice. In fact, they have been making fried rice so much that Ian had an egg revelation. “You know, if you don’t move it around so much it becomes fluffy!” But for others, like Shawn, having a kitchen means an infinite amount of oven-friendly foods such as rocky road brownies, pigs in a blanket, and endless dessert experiments. (Did someone say desserts? I’m not complaining.)
For me, the kitchen is still exciting. I see it as an opportunity to experiment and make things like fortune cookies, red velvet cake, shrimp scampi, or clams, in a hassle-free environment. I absolutely love making things from scratch and seeing how they come out. I love the smell of garlic that fills the air when it’s cooking. And I love eating everything because it really does taste better when you make it yourself. I hope you can see the pictures of some of my cooking ventures accompanying this post! My next endeavor? French macaroons :) I’ll let you know how they turn out.
P.S. – Happy Birthday Mom!
Clams
red velvet cheesecake frosting
salmon dill fettuccine
shrimp wonton
-
A Cloud of Smoke
Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009 12:08 AM
Last night I was sitting in my room catching up on last week’s Grey’s Anatomy when I heard a beeping noise. At first I thought it was coming from the video, but the beeping was much too loud. So I opened my door and found my answer. BEEP BEEP BEEP. Krysti was making steaks for dinner. She had intended to just sear the steak. You could see the smoke swirling around in the apartment. It kind of looked like a light cloud of fog. We both sprang into action. I opened the windows in the living room while Krysti opened our apartment door. Daniel, the head desk receptionist for Sobrato, was standing in the hallway probably curious what had happened. I figure he was the reason that other people knew about the incident. He gave us a tip to keep our door closed as it might set off the whole building. We knew that the reputation of setting the building alarm off would forever stick with us so shut the door right away.
It was still smoky inside so I ran to my room to find something to fan the air with. I found a broken down cardboard box one of my books had come in and began fanning the living room. Krysti grabbed two paper take-out bags from Maggiano’s and in a panicky fashion, we began the ridiculous process of fanning the air. Krysti had both her arms going at different speeds and I was running from the kitchen to the living room waving the cardboard box around. Eventually, we realized our tools were ineffective and looked around for something better. So we used the posters in our living room that had a cardboard backing to push the air out. Krysti stood in the kitchen and I stood in the living room. “I’ll pass the air to you and you fan it out the window!” Krysti yelled. We were on a mission, not really knowing if our synchronized fanning was doing anything. Our clothes smelled like smoke. Our rooms smelled like smoke. Krysti and I were laughing and fanning at the same time, probably looking bizarre to anyone walking back from Safeway. “What are they doing up there?” “Oh you know that apartment, that’s just a typical Sunday night.”
In the end, we got the smoke out and Krysti’s steaks turned out pretty good. Usually our apartment is known for the creepy life-size figures of Obama and Edward Cullen staring at people below. If we had been seen last night, our apartment probably would have been remembered for something different.
-
Halloween Shenanigans
Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009 12:06 AM
Truthfully this Halloween wasn’t as epic as the past Halloweens at Santa Clara. I think for some, the hype dies down as you get older. A lot of my friends couldn’t find the effort in them to dress up or even go out. Most of them were boys. (Go figure.) On Friday, Geoff, Ian, Jake (our friend from Arizona who came to visit Hawaii in the summer), and Justin (who is a CF in Sobrato), did some last minute costume shopping.
I already had my costume but I was looking for shoes and makeup to go with it. We went to Spirits first, which is a seasonal Halloween store located on El Camino. Justin managed to find make up for his zombie costume. Geoff found a pink felt Disney princess bag. Wait, Geoff was a Princess for Halloween? No. As great of a costume that would be, he intended to turn the bag inside out to be the eraser hat to his pencil costume. The next store we hit up was Salvation Army. Ian’s original plan was to be Yogi bear but that was abandoned when he found a baseball helmet which looked a little small for him. Although he claimed his head would fit if he took out the padding, we all knew better. Geoff found some yellow shirts and I found shoes to go with my costume. The best part about that store was finding out that my shoes were only half the price. (I love when that happens.) The Friday at the end of every month is apparently “Half Off Fridays”
On Halloween night, my suite enjoyed a $1 Boston Market dinner while watching Edward Scissorhands, which was a very appropriate movie for that day. Since Halloween fell on a Saturday I didn’t feel any panic or time constraint on getting ready. It was nice. Unfortunately, Meli had to work the desk that night so just Krysti and I dressed up. After we got ourselves did, we went down to the boy’s suite where everyone was meeting. Mandy was Cleopatra, Krysti was a “guitar hero rocker chick,” Geoff was a pencil, Lawson was Manny Lawson, David was the Mad Hatter, and I was Alice. (In the end, Ian decided not to go out and Jake was a lumberjack.) Unlike a lot of girls that use Halloween as an excuse to wear nothing, I’d have to say us girls are pretty modest. The most creative costume I saw all night goes to our friend Matt Wong who was a Youtube video. And the rest of the usual suspects decided to just stay in and be themselves.
Well we went out and ended coming back to Sobrato fairly early and hung out with our friends that didn’t go out. It was a pretty fun night and I think everyone had a good time all around considering it wasn’t our most eventful Halloweens. I loved my costume and I wish I could wear it more often. I personally enjoy Halloween because for one night, you get to dress up as someone else without looking stupid because everyone else is doing the same thing. And an opportunity like that only comes around once a year.
5 stars
Geoff the pencil
Getting into character
Girls night out!
Our Pumpkins
Alice and the Mad Hatter
|
