chile verde and jalapeno scallion cornbread

Drew is a peculiar vegetarian: he doesn't consider beans to be a main dish or a "real" source of protein. I've tried, but I cannot convince him otherwise. Though he's a fan of beans (particularly baked beans), he just doesn't think that they're main dish worthy, at least not on their own. For him, a meal has to have a "real" protein source: tofu, tempeh, seitan, or a mock meat (he is aware that this doesn't make sense and that he's being irrational). I, however, am a huge fan of beans and add them to whatever I'm eating whenever I can. I say that Drew's peculiar because shouldn't the vegetarian be trying to convince the meat-eater that beans can be a main dish and not the other way around? 

Since Drew's return from China, we've fallen into a routine where we cook two days a week and eat leftovers on the remaining days (except Saturdays, when we go out to eat). We each choose a meal for the week, and we serve as executive chef when cooking our selected meal while the other serves as sous chef. 

With the weather cooling off and as we transitioned into fall and then into winter, I wanted to make lots of soups and stews. The problem was that beans were the primary protein source in any soups and stews I wanted to make, and I had to figure out a way to get buy-in from Drew (we can always veto one another's meal selection). Somehow, I figured out that if I just agreed to add seitan or tempeh to the stew, Drew was satisfied. I can't remember how I stumbled upon this solution, but I'm happy I did.

We made a chile verde with white beans, seitan, potatoes, and tomatillos. 

 To go with it, I made a jalapeno scallion cornbread.

Both recipes are from Veganomicon, which is pretty much the vegan cooking bible. 

fall food

Fall is my favorite time of year, but I never felt like I had one when I lived in Southern California. The natives will disagree, but there is no such thing as seasons in SoCal. Sure, there are those rare days when the temperature dips below 75 degrees or the sun refuses to shine, but there are no distinct seasons. 

Fall was much too short in Green Bay, but I was grateful for it anyway. One minute I was admiring the fall foliage and then suddenly, the trees were bare. But I made the most of it! Fall is the time for pumpkin, of course. I made these pumpkin pie bars, from Food & Wine. I had intended to make these last year, but then the job market happened, and I just didn't have the time. They don't look like much, but they were phenomenal. 

In my opinion (but not Drew's, who does not share my pumpkin enthusiasm), I took it easy on the pumpkin this fall. In addition to the pumpkin pie bars, I made a pumpkin cake with maple cream cheese frosting, pumpkin pecan scones with a brown butter glaze, pumpkin pancakes, and a pumpkin loaf (but that wasn't very good so I'm not linking to the recipe). 

I also made a cinnamon ice cream, which seems very fall-like, and I'm trying to remember why. 

I believe that this was an effort to replicate Drew's favorite Ben and Jerry's flavors, Oatmeal Cookie Chunk. It was mostly successful; the ice cream was amazing, but the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies weren't. 

chopped salad, parmesan rosemary biscotti, chai-spiced chocolate ice cream

This week, we made a hefty chopped salad for dinner. I know, a salad for a vegetarian and a mostly vegetarian, right? Lame. But this is a really good salad. The recipe is from the Smitten Kitchen, and instead of salami, we used Italian veggie sausage. The only other changed I'd make in the future is to use half the salt called for in the recipe. 

To go with the salad, I made parmesan rosemary biscotti, from My Name is Yeh. I made these when Drew wasn't home and they were so good that I shamelessly ate two right away.

I also made chai-spiced chocolate ice cream, from Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones, whose authors opened up the Bi-Rite Creamery in San Francisco. Drew and I stopped there on our road trip from California to Wisconsin and loved the place. 

paella

Don't laugh, but the first time I had paella was in Shanghai. Drew's friend got a promotion and he wanted to celebrate at this fancy tapas restaurant. So we gorged on paella (well, me and Drew's friend since Drew's a vegetarian) and tapas and it was one of the best meals ever.

The second time I ate paella was at La Tasca in Washington, D.C. a couple months ago. I don't remember how it compared to the paella I ate in Shanghai, but it was really good and I loved the sangria.

Drew had never eaten paella, so we made it the other day. The recipe is from the Candle 79 cookbook, which  is a legendary vegan restaurant in New York City. Drew and I ate there a couple years ago, and while it was very good and we'd eat there again, all I remember is that we ate this amazing smoked paprika hummus. 

I cannot articulate how much we enjoyed this paella. This is a meal that you could make for special occasions or for guests, but it's so easy to make that you could easily make it on a weeknight. 

salted caramel brownies

Caramel is my nemesis, and I get it right only about 50% of the time. Yet, I keep at it, hoping to perfect it and also because sometimes I have a hankering for caramel brownies and just can't bring myself to make them with store bought caramels or caramel sauce (though I will confess that I had a moment of weakness and desperation and almost caved and bought the Ghirardelli caramel turtle brownie mix). 

Anyway, I made salted caramel brownies, from the Smitten Kitchen blog. As expected, I messed up the caramel before getting it right. Turns out that it needs your undivided attention and you can't multitask and make granola at the same time. 

I'm so glad I didn't cave and buy the mix. These brownies are super good, and while I kind of wish I could share them with you, I kind of like having them (almost) all to myself (I do have to share with Drew).

days 5, 6, 7: Portland to Green Bay

After a nice rest in Portland, we hauled ass to the middle of Montana, where we spent the night at my cousin's house. And then we drove through North Dakota and spent the night in Bismarck, which was quite an experience. First off, let me say that driving through North Dakota was not nearly as painful as I'd anticipated. I thought it would be incredibly boring, but it wasn't. From the highway, we saw the world's largest metal sculpture and the world's largest Holstein cow. We also saw signs directing people to the world's largest sand crane and the world's largest...hmmm, I can't remember and neither can Drew. 

Anyway, in Bismarck, we ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Now, having just spent a year in China, Drew got into the habit (and even enjoys it) of eating authentic Chinese food the authentic Chinese way, which involves seasoning your food with vinegar. So, he asks our server for some vinegar, and while she goes to get it, I say "You know she's going to come back with white vinegar, right?" But Drew is optimistic and even though we are at an American Chinese restaurant in the midwest, he maintains hope that she'll come back with table vinegar. She didn't, and I totally called it because she returned with white vinegar.

After our short stay in Bismarck, we continued on to Minnesota and went to my grandparents' house, where we spent the night and saw my parents and aunts and uncles. Finally, we headed to Green Bay, and even thought we were thwarted by a flat tire about 25 miles away, we made it!

days 3 and 4: Portland

From the looks of it, it seems like we got stuck in Portland and never left, but we did, and in fact, we've been Green Bay residents now for a little over a week. It's just that I didn't have internet access for a while, and then we we got it, I didn't have time to update my blog.

We spent a couple days in Portland, hanging out with Drew's friends. We went on a nice hike, ate awesome vegan bbq at the Homegrown Smoker, had a vegan brunch at the Hungry Tiger, drank craft beer, browsed at Powell's Books, and ate donuts at Blue Star Donuts and Voodoo Doughnut (in case you're wondering, Blue Star beats Voodoo). Basically, we fell in love with Portland and weren't sure if we wanted to leave.  

day 3: redding to portland

There's no turning back now. This is really happening. 

It was not until the third day that moving to Green Bay felt real. Up until this point, it felt like we were on vacation and that we would eventually turn around and head back home because it is not unreasonable to drive from Irvine to Redding (I know this because my friend is from Redding and her mom just did it). 

We learned that the last In-N-Out on the 5 is in Redding, so we stopped there before heading out to Portland.  

Having driven almost the entire length of California, I will say that it is a beautiful state. Northern California looked and felt so different from Southern California, or at least Orange County. I didn't realize how diverse California was, both culturally and topographically, until we drove through it.   

We could not believe how rural it was in northern California, and more than once, we commented that with all the farmland, it felt like we were in Virginia or Minnesota (except with hills). 

You can barely see it, but that signs says "Oregon welcomes you." 

Drew has a couple friends in Portland, so we are taking a couple days to eat vegan food and donuts. 

day 2: gilroy and san francisco

We left Monterey for Gilroy, which is famous for its annual garlic festival. We missed the festival by a few days, but we stopped anyway and bought some garlic and smoked garlic olives. 

From there, we headed up to San Francisco, where we took a break and ate some ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery, which I recently saw on this list of 27 ice cream places in the world that you have to visit. It was well worth the stop and it was quite possibly the best ice cream I'd ever eaten in my life, which I guess is why it was on this list anyway.

After our break, we wove our way through the streets of San Francisco to the Golden Gate bridge. 

 

Before driving across it, we stopped at the viewing area to first walk across part of it. 

It was really windy, and I will admit that it was cold and we were underdressed.

  

We saw fewer palm trees in central and northern California, and instead, we saw a lot of these trees:

After San Francisco, we headed north to Redding to stay the night. 

day 1: california to wisconsin

A few months ago, when Drew and I were planning our route from California to Wisconsin, we said to each other "Hey, do you know what would make a 2100 mile cross country road trip even better? Driving up the California coast, some of which will be on a two lane highway that's full of twists and turns so that we'll only be able to drive about 30 mph, and adding about 500 miles to the trip!" I'm kidding. It was more like "Sooooo, I know we already have a long distance to drive, but everyone talks about how driving up the coast is a thing to do and it's really pretty and this is probably our only chance to do it, so what do you say?" 

We said yes.

And I'm glad we did.

We started off on the 405 and took it to LA, where we then got on the 101 and drove through Ventura and Santa Barbara, and then we got on the 1 (also known as the Pacific Coast Highway, or the PCH) in San Luis Obispo (gawd, I sounded sooo Californian right there). Then Drew took the wheel because I hate twists and turns and curves in the road, even more so than bumper to bumper traffic and crazy drivers who almost merge into us twice, and I got to enjoy the view.    

We have to hand it to the state park system and the CA Department of Transportation or whoever because there were several places to stop along the PCH to take pictures and enjoy the view.

Some of the birds had no fear. That's Drew's hand there. Maybe he put it there for scale? 

We also drove through Big Sur, which is well known because it's really beautiful, but I've heard of it because of its grueling marathon that takes place every April. The halfway point is the Bixby Bridge, and there is a pianist who plays Chariots of Fire in the middle of it. 

It is unlikely that I will ever run across the Bixby Bridge, but my friend Sam did a couple years ago. 

We made it up to Monterey at the end of day one.  

goodbye uci

On the day before we left for Wisconsin, Drew and I walked around UCI and snapped some pictures. Our first stop was to the Anthill Pub for one last pint of beer. I must have been looking professorial because I think it was the first time that I didn't get carded. 

We walked through Aldrich Park, which is in the center of campus, on our way home. It is a really nice park, and back in the way when we had more time to linger over lunch, we would have picnics outside. 

Even though time became more scarce, I sometimes headed to the park to read or to have a quick walk.  

UCI's mascot is Peter the anteater, so Drew and I stopped by the bookstore to pick one up.

 We also stopped by Social Science Plaza for a quick picture by the fountain.

One of the first apartments I lived in was in Palo Verde, one of the housing communities for graduate students. Every day for nearly five years, I crossed this bridge to get to campus.  

On a clear day, you can see the mountains off in the distance from the bridge. 

When I first arrived at UCI, I thought the number of years that it would take to get a Ph.D. felt like an eternity. Older graduate students told me that the time would go fast, and at first, I didn't believe them. But, just like many other things, they were right. The time goes by so fast. One minute it feels like graduation is so, so far away and the next minute, you're packing up all your stuff and saying goodbye.  

leaving california

Drew and I are leaving California for Green Bay tomorrow morning. I don't think it's sunk in yet. I've waited so long time for this moment and while I'm happy to leave this place, at the same time, I'm also a little sad. I lived here for nearly eight years, so in some respects, it's hard to say good bye.

  

A dear friend from graduate school recently moved to Minnesota (interestingly, there are a few of us making the move from California to either Minnesota or Wisconsin). In her farewell to California facebook post, she began by saying something about how she came to California as an adult but grew up here. I can relate. I was 26 when I started graduate school, and I grew up a lot here. 

I wonder what I will miss about Southern California. Most of what I think I'll miss revolves around food. Lately, I've been asking myself such questions like: Why didn't I eat more California burritos? Why didn't I eat at In-n-Out more often? Why did I wait until my last year in California to discover banh mi? How come I didn't make it my mission to find the best fish taco? Why didn't I eat more dumplings? And so on. But then I remind myself that I just didn't have the time and that the reason I came out to California was to earn a Ph.D. and not eat my way through Orange County. In my state of food-related panic, I've been eating my weight in avocados, and I made two trips to In-n-Out in the past couple of weeks, which is more times than the past few years.  

 

Sometimes, I wonder if I'll miss the beach. Other times, I'm not so sure. I see the ocean a lot as I'm driving by or when I'm running, but I don't get to the beach too often anymore. Whenever I feel like having a beach day, it's when everyone else feels like going to the beach too, and dealing with the traffic, crowds, and parking is just too much of a hassle for me. 

I know I will miss the palm trees. I never get tired of seeing them. 

I recently showed Drew what I think is the most fantastic palm tree I've ever seen. It's just in this neighborhood in Irvine, and I discovered it on the way to get dumplings. 

On our last night in Irvine, we ate dinner at Royal Thai, got gelato at Gelato Paradiso, and had a nice walk on Laguna Beach, just enjoying the sand between our toes and the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach. I don't know how this tradition started, but anytime one of us (usually Drew) leaves for a significant period of time, this is what we do. So when we contemplated how we'd spend our last night in California, it wasn't at all difficult to decide what to do. After Laguna Beach, we headed home and went to one of our favorite spots near campus, the adirondack chairs at the top of University Hills. From there, we could just barely see the Disneyland fireworks. They go off every night at 9:30, and I can hear them from my apartment. It is odd to think that soon, my evenings will be silent. 

reverse culture shock

For the past few months, I've been thinking about whether I'll experience a reverse culture shock when I return to the Midwest. I wonder which aspects of Southern California were surprising to me at first but then eventually became commonplace and something I don't even think about anymore (like how people bring their dogs everywhere here, even into stores). 

One of the first things that comes to mind is open air shopping malls.   

Open air shopping malls fascinated me when I first came to California. This would never work in Minnesota, I thought. 

Above is the Irvine Spectrum, and below is Fashion Island. That's Drew sitting next to the fountain.

I was also fascinated with restaurants that had only outdoor seating. During the first few years of graduate school, I frequented Taco Mesa for Taco Tuesdays and it took me a while to get used to the fact that my friends and I could eat outside year round. One of my fondest memories is dining at Taco Rosa with a group of about 20 people, during my first year. We couldn't all fit inside, so we sat outside. I think it was the end of October, maybe the beginning of November. We were all transplants, so we thought the weather was beautiful, and in hindsight, we probably looked a little strange (remember that Californians consider temperatures below 60 degrees to be "cold").  

Not all of my observations are weather-related. Last weekend, at Fashion Island, I commented to Drew that we will soon live in a place where Macy's will be the nicest department store in the mall. Here, compared to Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, Macy's is on the "lower" end, at least at the malls closest to where we live. Some of my other observations are also class-related. I drive down the freeway amidst very fancy and expensive cars. I take yoga classes with people who wear nothing but Lululemon. I had a friend who pointed out that there are few places like Orange County, where the contrast between the rich and the poor is so stark, and I'm inclined to agree.  

Another thing I noticed right away when I moved here is that you can buy alcohol in Target. You can also buy alcohol on Sundays (I didn't figure this one out myself; somebody told me). I've never done either one of those things, but I like having the option. That's Drew there in Target, checking out the whiskey.   

    

I've also been thinking about what sorts of adjustments I'll make to fit in again in the Midwest. I'll have to stop saying "the" before the name of a freeway. I will be able to say "pop" again instead of "soda." Some of the less trivial changes I think I'll need to make when I live in Wisconsin are 1) be nice and 2) don't drive like a maniac. Whenever I go home, I always have to remind myself to be nice. I have to remind myself to excuse myself and apologize if I bump into somebody but even if I just almost bump into somebody. I also have to remind myself to drive less aggressively and avoid barreling through four-way stops and cutting people off on the freeway. I have to remind myself to drive Minnesota nice and not California cutthroat.

on traffic

I always knew that my time in California would be temporary. Given the nature of graduate school and academia, I knew better than to get attached to Southern California. And in many respects, this was not difficult. In a previous post, I talked about how much I missed winter and a lack of seasons. By my standards, the past 8 years have been a perpetual summer. 

I won't miss the insanely high cost of living. Last weekend, I met up with a friend, and among other things, told him to guess how much we're going to pay to rent a one bedroom apartment in Green Bay. He guessed $1500. I told him to guess lower. He dropped down to $1200 and just about fell out of his chair when I told him $495. 

Perhaps most of all, I won't miss the traffic. Prior to moving to California, one of my friends (her grandma lived in Gardena so she was familiar with the area), told me that traffic would be one of the most surprising aspects of Southern California. She said that no matter the time of day, I'd be shocked at how many people were out on the road. She was absolutely right.The first time I drove here was when I rented a car for my recruitment visit. I drove from Los Angeles to Irvine at one in the morning and when I wasn't busy being scared to death of getting into a car accident, I thought to myself "Where are all these people going? Why are there all these cars on the road?" I think I saw more traffic at 1 in the morning than I ever had in Minnesota (and did I mention that it was a 12-lane freeway? That's a lot of cars).   

Just as winter is to Minnesotans (and I'm guessing Wisconsinites), traffic is to Californians. It's just a way of life and you have to accept it. There are rush hours of course, but you can also encounter stop-and-go traffic at any hour of any day. Los Angeles is 40 miles from Irvine, but sometimes it is 45 minutes away and sometimes it is 3 hours away.    

A few years ago, my dad complained about traffic in Rochester. I laughed at him and told him to stop complaining. You have no idea, Dad, no idea. Then he and my mom came out to visit, and when coming back from visiting relatives in Oceanside, we got stuck on the 5. Oceanside is about 50 miles away, but I think the trip that night took about 3 hours. Of course, I wasn't at all shocked by this, but my dad turned to me and said "huh, I get what you mean now. The traffic in Rochester is nothing compared to this." I refrained from saying "I told you so, Dad." 

As is our routine, Drew drove us back from Oceanside a couple weekends ago, and I was in the passenger seat (I do most of the driving, but on any trip over 30 miles, I drive there and he drives back). As expected, we hit traffic on the way home and the 5 became a parking lot. I laughed it off and took some pictures, knowing that it wouldn't be long until it would no longer be a way of life.  

pumpkin pie bars

The other day, I made pumpkin pie bars, also known as The Last Thing I Will Ever Bake in California. 

We are slowly cleaning out our cupboards, and I found a can of pumpkin that I intended to use last fall. But then the job market happened, so I put these pumpkin pie bars on hold. But then the dissertation happened. And then packing happened. But in spite of it all, the pumpkin pie bars finally happened. 

The recipe is from Joy the Baker. The crust is excellent and could be eaten on its own (I think that's the only reason Drew tolerated the pumpkin part). Next time, I'm going to use Joy's crust recipe and try out the filling recipe from Food and Wine (which is probably what I had intended to do last fall judging by the can of evaporated milk in the cupboard). And the best thing about the next time is that I will enjoy these bars as pumpkin was intended to be enjoyed: in cool, crisp fall weather.  

chocolate chip cookie dough layer cake

A week and a half ago, after spending nearly an entire year in China, Drew came home. 

To welcome him home, I baked a chocolate chip cookie dough layer cake. The cake layers are a white cake, and the frosting is a vanilla French buttercream. Both recipes are from Baking Illustrated. The filling is a chocolate chip cookie dough, from Bite Me More.

This cake is quite a showstopper. It was very good and quite possibly the best cake I've ever made. It might even be better than the Brown Butter Pumpkin Layer Cake I made a few years ago, which is the cake against which I measure all other cakes, but I can't decide.