Gross: This One's About Feet and Blood

I feel like a voodoo doll! 

Today I got three of my moles removed/biopsied for skin cancer. 

I'm in such uncomfortable pain. 

Right after I left the doctor to get to work, 

my band aid fell off and there was blood everywhere. 

It was so gross. 

SO, SO GROSS! 

Because it was on the underside of my Dom toe.

(What is a Dom toe?

As you might be able to tell,

my middle toe and ring toe are about the same height.

My siblings, Wee and Dom, are twins.

My toes basically predicted I'd have twin siblings, of course.

I call the ring one Dom because he's the later chunky baby twin,

and the middle one Wee because she was the scrawny little baby twin.

I wrote this fact on a getting-to-know-you card in a college English course.)

Anyhoo. Yuck. 

I got to work and I found the band aide floating over by my big toe

and threw that out.

I sopped up as much blood in my shoe as I could.

I wrapped Dom toe in a paper towel.

I washed my hands, and I got to work.

(There are sales materials to be done, people!

And actual books due in stores in May.

What's a little blood?)

Luckily the anesthesia worked for a short while.

I took some Advil too.

It looks like what you imagine it would, but worse.

And this is the bleeding toe from Istanbul.

Anyway, back to the moles story.

These lacerations are going to be ugly scars too. I just know it. 

The doctor was really nice, but she didn't know how to make nice circles. 

AND I have my period--one of the heavy days. 

I feel like I am being drained of blood. 

It was the worst decision ever. 

Though I'm betting skin cancer is probably more uncomfortable. 

The other one is on my back and the last is on my belly. 

It is hard eating (because my belly expands when I eat)

and laughing (again the belly). 

Grr.

The one on my back just sometimes feels sore/itchy. 

So I put some more Vaseline on it to shut it up.

What a bitch.

David Chang's Noodletown Obsession with Ginger Scallion Noodles

If you read any interview with David Chang,

the chef/owner of Momofuku and that whole empire,

you'll know that he adores the ginger scallion noodle dish

from Noodletown.

Jon's por por lives across the street from Noodletown,

and it's basically the only place we get our cha siu (amazing pork) in Chinatown.

But we've never gotten the ginger scallion noodle dish

until now.

It's pretty hom (that is salty).

I've made David Chang's ginger scallion sauce many times,

and it's never been as salty.

I don't know if I'd get it again.

I'm a chow fun kinda lady myself.

(Oh baby, you wide floppy rice noodle. Mmm!)

But I guess that's the advantage to making a dish yourself

is that you can regulate the salt

and cut the scallions to more easily digestible pieces.

I was so hungry when I ate this that I was choking on the scallions.

Try the noodle at least once if you like,

but always get the cha siu.

The Exciting World of Metrics Lunch Box

The lighting in this exhibit was pretty low.

Anyway, I thought this lunch box was brilliant:

The Exciting World of Metrics.

I've never had a tin lunch box. 

I remember the few times I brought a plastic lunch box to school

the other kids would destroy it.

I remember I had a cool pink plastic elephant one,

and that barely lasted the day.

It never made sense to eat at school anyway,

since I lived so close, and I loved going home

to hang out with my mom, Wee, and Dom.

It was always good times with hot dogs 

(ketchup, spicy brown mustard, AND relish, thanks)

and PoPo noodles 

(aka chicken-flavored ramen noodles), 

forever!

Turkish Delight on a Moonlit Night

At a shop at the Spice Market,

we bought at least a hundred dollars worth of Turkish delight.

Insane, right?

I'm not even a big fan of the stuff.

It's nutty and chewy and kinda has a slightly sweet flavor,

but give me chocolate any day and I'm a much happier girl.

They come either as cubes or logs

and they're mostly covered to prevent sticking.

We like to pretend to be grossed out by the long poop ones.

The green ones are covered in pistachios.

The nuts are either pistachios or hazelnuts mostly.

The box was nice.

They vacuum sealed it for the transportation of it too.

My dad claims that this is how one smuggles hashish in/out of the country.

At least if you're stuck staying at the Midnight Express movie's prison,

it's now an exclusive Four Seasons.

I cut up a bunch of Turkish delight for my coworkers to try on Monday.

It didn't go over as well with them as it did with my brother's coworkers,

who already seemed to have eaten at least two pounds of the stuff.

I brought a sandwich bag of the stuff home.

It's not for everyone.

Anyway, loyal blog readers, I hope we can meet up soon,

so I can share some with you!

(Can I mail it to Hawaii, fuzzy?

I'll leave out the hashish.)

60th Birthday, 30th Anniversary, Oh My!

My parents' 30th anniversary was the day we got back from Istanbul.

My aunt's 60th birthday was the day before today.

We went out to celebrate at a restaurant in Montclair.

This was delicious pineapple upside-down cake and salted caramel ice cream.

This was apple tart a la mode. Also delicious.

Here are Wee and Chris.

They were sitting across from us, so it was really easy to take a photo of them.

I wish I got a photo of my parents,

but it's cool.

Just imagine really happily married people.

Surf and Turf

For our big Valentine's Day/anniversaries dinner extravaganza

Jon aged a piece of meat and cooked it along with some lobster tails.

It was all delicious and very special.

 

This is the fatty tuna from the huge tuna

they carved up freshly at Mitsuwa the weekend we got back.

Mmm . . . fisheh!

So Sleepy

I came across this guy on my way home,

and I empathized.

We are just too sleepy.

Jet lag is killer.

Last Dinner at Kajitsu in the East Village

I was dying from exhaustion due to jet lag,

but it was the last dinner ever at Kajitsu in its regular location.

They were moving to Murray Hill in March.

I really just wanted to sleep,

but we drove down to the East Village for dinner at 9 p.m.

and we ate a most satisfying meal.

Jon got the Hana menu.

I got the Kaze.

It was just like the good old days when we went there monthly.

Hopefully when they reopen in Murray Hill

it will be just as delicious.

I'm glad I suffered through my exhaustion

and ate something delicious

in a wonderful little basement restaurant

that felt like home and like being on vacation in Japan.

Coming Home from Istanbul

Wednesday, 2/20: We departed after breakfast. Landed in Munich and were personally escorted by a Lufthansa employee to our next flight to Newark. It was a great trip. Wee was the only one who didn't have to go to work the next day. Freakin' Wee.

The short of it was that it was a wonderful trip! It seems like there's a huge chance of culture shock, but it seems a lot like NYC and SF had a baby in the middle of Europe and Asia. If Rockefeller didn't buy up the land on each side of the Hudson's palisades, NYC/NJ would totally look like Istanbul minus the mosques and palaces in the skyline. Mostly everyone understood English. The food was awesome and familiar and not too salty or spicy or anything. Everything tasted really fresh. And the vegetables, olives, fish and chicken and lamb, and bread were delicious. Except for some motion sickness on my end from riding backward in a car and waiting on the smaller ferry tour (to fill up like a Bergenline jitney bus outside of Port Authority before it departed), no one got sick. But even if one of us did, the hotel was amazing because of the bathrooms: SOAKING TUB. HEATED TILES. For real. The only weird thing was that everyone differed to Dom. "What would you like, sir?" (For the entire table.) But whatever, it's not the US.

Istanbul: Day 4

Tuesday, 2/19: It was beautiful and sunny, so we did a boat tour (Tyrol has tours that aren't as long as the official full-day Bosphorus tour--though note that the only toilet on the ship is a squat one that is basically a hole in the bottom of the boat), then walked to the Galata Tower, and up to Taksim Square along THE pedestrian street to walk up on. When we got to Taksim Square, we ate a sweaty burger and doner. Then we took a cab back. We wrote some postcards, had hotel snacks, then went to dinner at Turga at a palace. The traffic getting there was terrible. The place was beautiful, and we ate traditional Ottoman food including blue fish, which the restaurant had a special menu for because it was seasonal. It was great stuff. There was a Blackberry conference happening at the palace/nearby hotel, but there were a ton of dudes lounging about with little earpieces. Like they were all secret service types. When we left, it was raining--the first time we saw it rain since we landed, so that was really lucky.

Istanbul: Day 3

Monday, 2/18: 3 hour private walking tour and tasting lunch at Ciya (on the Asian side) with a really nice lady guide whose name we don't recall. We met her at the Spice Market. At the Spice Market, we ate cheese/a spicy cold cut; learned about spices from a very intelligent lady who let us sample a bunch of them. The spice lady had inherited the business from her family; went to college in upstate NY; is on Twitter and all. I'd def. go back there for spices. At a cafe nearby, we tried Turkish coffee and a sweet pastry that tasted like tiramisu mochi with pieces of chicken breast in it. I liked it. Then we took a ferry to the Asian side of Istanbul where we walked through the market and saw a sweets shop (beautiful marzipan), sampled pickles and pickle juice, and then to lunch. We ate a ton and took home leftovers. Then she showed us the outpost of the originator of the Turkish delight and escorted us to the ferry. The Asian side is the 'burbs (think NJ or the boroughs) to the European city's side (Manhattan) is what I gathered from her. We scaled the hill from the ferry to find the Cistern, but walked maybe 4 km in the wrong direction (uphill) before finding the place. And the Cistern was really cool! Then we got into a cab that basically tried to kill us. The cabbie tried avoiding 5:30 p.m. rush hour traffic by going up ridiculous hills (think of the steepest hills of North Bergen or SF or Oahu) in the WRONG direction. It was a little uncomfortable when we were pinned between a parked car and a gang of youths and had to back out; when we got close enough to our hotel, we walked the rest of the way. We ate snacks and room service.