My Blog In Print

Newsletter Spread Fornat

Please note that pages 2&3 are set as a spread and that Scribd adjusted its size to fit the width. See below for readability. Note that the "Papri Chaat Assembly" will lose its continuity. Ethnic Eats is not a real publication - all photos are taken by me and all articles are taken from this blog with revisions.

Newsletter Layout

Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Fate and Faith

Faith, as in "I have faith that God will provide" is something that is definitely ingrained in my Roman Catholic upbringing - but this does not come into play into my beliefs until fate, as in destiny has taken its initial course.

See the photo above? That's fate. I met my husband in that same park bench before we got married. Scratch that, it's not even in a park. It's on a cobblestoned street in Tribeca in New York City. Click this and scroll to the bottom. That's my "Only in NYC" story. Truth is, if we didn't have faith in each other, this love story wouldn't have a happy ending.

In the course of my crazy life, I have come to the conclusion that fate is the gateway to opportunity - only if you see it as one and grab it once it is there. I even think that the bad things that come to me are fateful until the better stuff comes along - its like job application rejections. You get rejected for the "best jobs ever" until you get a gig that is actually SO MUCH better than the one you initially thought was "the one".

Fate and Faith, in my head is an intertwined complex. I can't believe in one without the other. I take the fate and have the faith to believe that everything will work out fine.

Steve Jobs said it best at his commencement address at Stanford University:
"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

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This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only. 
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Chicken and Rice Porridge: How to Make Arroz Caldo in Pictures

Arroz caldo is actually a Chinese congee that was adapted to the tastes of the Spanish colonial settlers who patronised Chinese restaurants in the Philippines.

-Wikipedia

Funny enough, I had to check out Wikipedia how this dish comes about. In its plain basic form, Lugaw - it is just a rice porridge with no meat. There are other versions: tripe topping (Goto), Tofu and Pork Ears on the side (Tokwa't Baboy) topping or with a Hard Boiled Egg. This is all about the version with chicken in it - Arroz Caldo.

Ingredients:

2 pieces of shallots, Ginger (about 2 segments) and One Whole Garlic

5-6 pieces of Chicken Thighs

2 cups of Uncooked Long Grain White Rice
Salt and pepper to taste (not in photo.)

Procedure:

Chop ginger into strips - so you can easily take it out while eating.
Mince Garlic and Shallots

In a pan on medium high heat,
fry all your minced garlic until it is golden brown.

Drain and Set Aside

In the same pan,  render out the chicken fat.
When you get a good amount of rendered fat and the chicken starts bleeding,
turn off stove and take chicken out of the pan.

Drain out all the chicken fat and throw it away. Trust me, there will be more.

Peel off the chicken skin with tongs.

Put the skinless thighs back in the pan to render out more fat.

As the thighs cook, lay out the skins on a tray with a pan at the bottom.

Toast the chicken skin to a crisp!

You know it's done when it turns into this lovely golden brown color.

Take your chicken out again,  check how much rendered fat
is at the bottom of the pan. If there is too much, take some out.
There should be enough because you already took out a lot of it earlier.

Add shallots and ginger at the same time.

Keep Stirring until the shallots turn transparent.

Add your chicken and rice. Don't worry if it still a little bloody and raw. It will all cook off.

Add water and a bit of salt. Keep Stirring. Dont Let it Dry up.

Add Water, LOTS OF WATER. Rice absorbs water as it cooks.
Your goal is to make it absorb more water than it can take so it splits up.

This is what you are aiming for.

After the rice splits up, add all the fried garlic in the pot.
Season with a bit of Salt and Pepper to taste. 

Put in a bowl and serve with the chicken skin, some soy sauce and lemon.

This is one of my favorite winter blues cures. The dish is relatively simple and familiar. Ingredients are relatively available in American supermarkets. 

If you made this dish, send me a photo!

SOCSunday: My Funny Valentine

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I was running errands at Target and I ran into the seasonal section - VALENTINES! All pink, red and a lot of heart shaped things, I couldn't resist. $5 for 5 heart shaped boxes of chocolates with messages? Why not? Maybe I could get away with a box of chocolate hearts for my Bunny Valentine (husband.)

Here are my finds - and possibly some suggestions for that special someone in your life!

I think this is a "nice way" of saying "im breaking up with you"
on valentine's day...

High Maintenance Valentine.

Affirmation or Denial? You pick.

For the "HIGH PERFORMANCE" Cassanova -
This reminds me of cheaters!!!

This one's for my hubby - because this looks like the spastic body
movements that i pass off as dancing to annoy him while he watches TV.

Is the world really this jaded? HAH! I salute the creative director who gave a go signal on this dramatic line of products. Clearly I was alternating between laughter and shaking my head in disbelief, and back to laughing again at Target.

Happy Valentine's Day! (in advance)
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This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only. 
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

SOC Sunday: Kids at the FIRST Lego League Brooklyn Qualifying Tournament

I had the pleasure of taking event photos for the FIRST Lego League Tournament Brooklyn Qualifier 2012 last Saturday. This is an inter-school competition for the schools in the Borough of Brooklyn. The top 20 teams in this competition move on to the bigger competition where they compete with the top schools from the other boroughs of New York City.

The competition even baffles me because I cannot program a Lego Mindstorm NXT but these 4th graders can! To be surrounded by bright young minds is a humbling experience indeed.

Here are some of the photos from the event:

They program the robots to go though missions on this mat.
See this girl use two laptops to fine tune her robot.

Teamwork
They were asked to line up in alphabetical order of first names, blindfolded.
Observation judges watch each team in action and also interview them
to discuss how they functioned as a team. They identify teams that best
demonstrate enthusiasm, spirit, partnership, respect to their teammates
and others, and gracious professionalism.

Project Presentation
The teams complete a research project related to the topic of the year.
This is followed up by a presentation, and a timed question and answer
period. Teams can use props in their presentation like this muscle suit.

One team even made a website!

Technical Interview
Each team has a timed interview with a team of judges to discuss the
design and operation of their robot. Judges look for teams whose
work stands oud because of innovation and navigational consistency.

This is what they build and program. Lego Mindstorm NXT.

Robotics? Not just for boys. 

Their banners say it all. 

Pep talk to soothe frustrations. Kid in the middle was awesome.

Too short to reach over the table? Resourcefulness at its best.

It's not child's play. Really.

Stress levels run high for these kids.

YAY!

Woohoo!

YEAAAH!

I know it is disheartening to know that some of the teams did not make it to the citywide competition, however all of them walk out of the competition as winners. 

Thumb's up!

More competition photos here:
FIRST Lego League Brooklyn Qualifier 2012
FIRST Lego League Brooklyn Qualifier 2012 - Participant Portraits
FIRST Lego League Brooklyn Qualifier 2012 - Volunteer Portraits


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This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only. 
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Cheap Makeup Organizers

After moving to this present apartment, I was happy to have three huge medicine cabinets with "moviestar"  lighting. I know it is a dream come true to most women but the storage is less than 4" deep. I scoured through stores and I couldnt find anything that would fit, or was cheap. So for a while, I my stuff was always in danger of falling into the toilet bowl by sheer force of gravity.

Using my bathroom mirrors make me feel like a moviestar!

This is what some of my makeup looks like inside the medicine cabinets:

The solution came to me when I was cleaning up. My husband loves Crystal Light, and as I was arranging the recyclables, the thought hit me!

So here are the steps:

Buy Crystal Light.

Peel off the entire label

Tada! You have  your translucent container!

Here it is back in my medicine cabinet.

The reason why I have two different heights of containers still baffle me, because the three other containers on the left are also from Crystal Light. I guess they changed their packaging to a taller one. I love the fact that my organizers come "free with purchase" and that even if i put something short in it, like a lipstick, I find it right away.

These containers are practically weightless and they are very thin - they dont take much space and they go straight up and no wasted space at the bottom.