the 5 kwai tour

Design by nieces

2011-06-04T00:43:00.000-07:00

My (5) wonderful nieces often ask me to make something for their birthdays/class birthdays/special events, and I am always more than happy to use it as an excuse to better my technique or try something interesting.

Miss M. wanted to have cookies that have a picture of a sun on it with sunglasses on it. Who am I to say to a request like that? As USUAL, I started baking at around 6pm evening before and was up until 5am finishing it up, to be fair my two month old doesn't exactly allow me to put baking ahead of him even if Mr. Handsome Man is entertaining him.

I have to say, I found absolutely the tastiest sugar cookie recipe. It's called "the Perfect Sugar Cookie" and I completely agree with it. Most amazing Sweetapolita even has a tutorial on my favorite Sugar Cookie, ones on a stick :) I'm still playing around with a royal icing recipe that I am perfectly happy with, so I would advice to just make your favorite one, or old school Wilton one.

I used yellow, orange and black food coloring to tint Royal icing. Outlines first with stiff yellow icing, then flooded with thinner yellow icing. Very quickly outlined it with orange (it was 5am at this point, so forgive the squiggly lines). Black icing was used for sunglasses, for a smirk I used a black food marker and orange food marker for corners. When Miss M. distributed the cookies in her classroom, the first thing the kids said "Teacher! There is a sharpie on my cookie!" Haha, I had to assure everyone that I would never give them anything unsafe to eat. Cookies were a hit and Miss M had the biggest grin the whole day and let me tell you I will stay up until 5am anyday for that kind of response :D

bake sale cookies

2011-06-01T03:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some cookies I've made for a bakesale. It's my new hobby: decorating sugar cookies but I have a looong way to learn the techniques. So far I have been devouring blogs such as: Bake at 350 and Sugarbelle , Sweetapolita and I am Baker ... I think I am in love with all four of those ladies, in a non-creepy, non-stalkish (maybe a little bit) sort of way..

These strawberry cookies were inspired by (ahem, ahem copied from) Bake at 350's post on how to make flat dots when decorating. LOVE IT!!!

Mario stars cookies is what happens when I get tired of fancy decorating and just want to finish the dang things while cursing under my breath about my inability to say "no" .. Happens EVERY time I bake haha

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T05:43:00.000-07:00

In addition to cinnamon rolls aroma spreading throughout the house, these Cranberry-Orange scones turned out heavenly. Nothing better than a cup of tea with freshly baked scones.

Happy Easter to all!!

My greatest project!!

2011-04-10T07:13:00.001-07:00

On March 30th, at 10:24AM my dearest Sticky Fingers McGee finally joined our family!! This is by far the best piece of Art I have ever created (ok ok Husband played a wee role in the process). It's quite a trip adjusting to our new life but we are loving every sleepless second of it :D

Cinnamon rolls from the Pioneer Woman

2011-03-19T07:44:00.000-07:00

I am now the official "cinnamon roll baker" for holiday family events. I love the mess, the gooyiness (is that a word?), the smell of baking rolls and the the speed at which they disappear once they hit the table. I have tried a few different recipes (food network, various cooking sites, etc) and have to say that so far my favorite one are rolls by the Pioneer Woman. She truly creates magic with her rolls (although the next time I would probably omit the coffee, because to be honest the taste of it distracted me, and maple extract is absolutely impossible to find in Taiwan).

I made half of the recipe that I linked above and here is what I ended up with:

Rolling up the cinnamon-sugar-buttery goodness

On the way to the oven

Baked, but not glazed yet... I might have put too many of them together...

Final result, perfectly glazed and extremely tasty

Ooooh, Easter is coming up, sounds like a perfect excuse for some more rolls, plus you can freeze the rolls, either unbaked or baked (granted you have the patience and ability to plan ahead, qualities I was sadly born without)..

Happy Baking!

mmm pies

2010-11-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I haven't posted for a few days because we have been traveling and still abroad at my in-law's house! So yesterday was Thanksgiving and my contribution (as usual) were desserts and sinful mashed potatoes. (Ahem, ahem thank you ThePioneerWoman for providing me a recipe that has butter, cream cheese and half and half folded in mashed potatoes, because let me tell you it was a hit!)

This Thanksgiving I made a different recipe version of my usual pecan and apple pies. Here are the results!

Not sure if I will be able to post more projects until the end of AEDM challenge, it's just too hard to do anything while being on vacation and not in my own place with my own supplies. So it has been a great journey and I hope to see more of everyone's projects even after AEDM challenge is over.

a little bit of this, a little bit of that

2010-11-19T09:21:00.000-08:00

AEDM day #20 (I might be on day 17 myself...)

I have been all over the place lately, a lot of work and family stuff. Today all 11 of us went to my brother's hockey game, it was pretty awesome to watch him play, I used to love to go to his games whenever we were in the same place, so living very close now definitely gives us these awesome opportunities!!

As for my creative projects.. I am going to start making Christmas stockings for my 5 nieces to hang in our apartment, so Santa stops by both places. Although it's hard to find Christmas related fabric in Taiwan for some reason, I was able to locate a few fun colors that I think will work. While trying to match up the best combinations of the materials without making them look the same (because that just WONT do, we cannot POSSIBLY have the same thing as someone else in the room), I thought I would just make little versions of the stockings and see first hand how I want to decorate them. Of course then they looked lonely on white background, so I had to draw a fireplace above which they could hang.

Also, I was able to squeeze in baking some yummy triple chunk fudge brownies, because hmmm the bebeh had a craving. Yes! The baby wants it, thus the baby gets it (oh, how I will miss this "baby is craving it" excuse once he is born)! Happy weekend to all!!

Matreshkas

2010-11-17T09:30:00.001-08:00

AEDM Day #17 (I might have skipped couple of days :D)

Today, I just felt like messing around with some watercolors, not really caring about being realistic (i.e. shading and all that jazz), I have a loooong way to go if I am ever to get good at watercolors, but I really enjoy the process. It's just so hard to do precise things like the body design of the nesting dolls (they are called Matreshkas in Russia). Hence, a bit of a choppy brush work when I get fed up trying to do leafy strokes. Again, there are many details I would have liked to add, but somehow it's always around 1am when I am look up at the clock and the call of the bed is stronger than the call of the artist. Alas, maybe one day it will be reversed, although not likely, my bed is awfully comfortable and artist's life is hard!

Anyways, Matreshka was one of my favorite toys when I was growing up, although somehow we always ended up pouring tea into them and having a tea party that tasted slightly of wood.. I guess I was a strange child with limited entertainment!

Hope everyone is getting ready for Thanksgiving!! We are traveling 11 hours on the plane to spend it with family, so should make it a special one.

The tangles 2

2010-11-15T06:36:00.001-08:00

AEDM continues...

I worked on another zentangle (the tangles) today, just to get my head wrapped around different patterns. I really like making these, although I probably should start doing some painting soon. I want to really use AEDM for different projects in different mediums, so I can remind myself what I enjoy doing the most. Idea is that I continue doing what I enjoy most past month of November..

I hope everything is going well for you in your artistic adventures!!! I love looking at other people's projects, it really gives me great ideas for the future!

Zentangle

2010-11-14T09:29:00.000-08:00

AEDM continues..

I was quite inspired by different zentangles I have seen drawn by other AEDM challengers, so I decided to give it a shot as well. I really liked it!! It was definitely relaxing to just let your mind flow and create patterns (even though I looked at a lot of different patterns for inspiration ;) ) In the process, I got a lot of ideas on incorporating zentangle patterns into my paintings and other artwork, so I will be working on that soon.

Yey! It's finished!!

2010-11-13T01:15:00.000-08:00

AEDM day # something or other ;)

I'm finally done with my first steampunk drawing!! I'm fairly happy with it, although so many things are missing. I reached the point where I just had to say "enough!", otherwise I would be forever working on the same drawing adding and removing details and I want to explore other projects! So here it is, completed version!

Here is the first sketch with the final drawing.

Now on to other projects!!

steampunk sketch cont.

2010-11-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

AEDM day #11

Well, I think I might have misunderstood the rules of AEDM and instead of creating a different piece of art every day, I have been working on one project for several days (and still not done, aaah!).

Anyhow, here is what I did on my steampunk sketch today: added some color, because I hate staring at pencil sketches, *sigh, I'm the worst sketcher in the world because I ALWAYS want to add some color*. I changed the guy in the balloon to a girl, but have not worked on her at all today, spent most of the time drawing a totally useless but steampunk-like mechanism that propels the balloon. You don't need to know how it does it, just trust me that it does.

Here is a close-up on the parts I worked on the most. As you can tell I'm still struggling with taking good pictures of my paintings, but I do believe it's because I always take them so late at night!

steampunk sketch cont.

2010-11-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

AEDM #10

I have been feeling under the weather the whole afternoon and evening, so I didn't get to work on this as much as I would have liked to, but at least I did get some creativity in :) I worked on the whicker basket and started to roughly layout steampunk elements, such as clothing, where the mechanisms will go, fans for the airship.

If you are unfamiliar with steampunk as couple of ladies have mentioned in my comments (hi ladies!), here is a general wikipedia description of the genre. I very much enjoy Steampunk, so I am trying my hand at some basic art involving some of the elements often used in depictions of it.

Ps. I also apologize for the terrible quality of my pictures lately, I have been taking them at 12-1am out time and not bothering to turn on more than the immediate light overhead. Note to self: be more diligent about quality of the pictures!!

sketch layout

2010-11-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

AEDM Day #9

I spent most of my allocated "creative time" trying to create a new art area for myself and my supplies. Currently it's being hidden all over the closets, but I would like to have it all easily accessible so whenever inspiration strikes I can go to my art area and get to it. I will post before and after pictures, once there is hmm an "after".

I did, however, manage to make a layout for my newest project in drawing/painting. I will be working on this sketch/project for the next few days, so bare with me. I am venturing into light steampunk territory because I very much enjoy the style and love steampunk art. We will see how it pans out!

Happy Creating to Everyone!

Creative Jar

2010-11-08T18:50:00.000-08:00

Day #8 of AEDM

I'm way behind on posting for Day #8, but with work and life getting in the way, the only creative thing I was able to do is start on my "Creative Jar".

I got this idea from our of the AEDM members Warrior Girl when I was browsing through. This "Creative Jar" contains ideas for different art projects I have been wanting to do but have been putting off for one reason or another. This way the next time I am in an "inspirational funk" I can just reach in for an idea and have a project already outlined for me! I think it's such a wonderful idea and takes the stress from always having to come up with new things every day.

Oh yes, the other creative activity of the day was putting/gluing together a business receipt that our wonderful dog has gotten to the morning earlier. It's just like a jigsaw puzzle but with an irritated accountant breathing down your neck for extra added challenge!

Cookie decorating art

2010-11-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

AEDM Day #7

I have five nieces who all live in the same city as us (it's very rare that we all live in the same place, in fact last time I lived in the same city with both of my siblings was when I was 11 years old. So this year is very special as we are able to be together for work and life alike). Since one of the nieces is unable to yet eat solid foods, she gets overlooked in baking creations such as today's creative project .

I love baking/decorating, so today was really fun trying to come up with designs and make personalized cookie-on-a-stick for each of my nieces. These are some of the designs that came out of the kitchen today.

Dancing, dancing!!

2010-11-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

AEDM adventure continues.. day 6, is it?

Today's creative project was my dance practice :D Did I mention I dance with a Fusion Belly Dance Troupe? Basically it means we combine different types of dances with foundation of belly dancing and generally have a blast practicing, performing and competing.

Here is my one of my troupe teammates and I in some of our costumes after a performance a few months ago.

This evening we had a three hour practice. We have a very important performance on December 23rd for Taiwan International Flora Expo (we are part of the official entertainment for the Expo), which means we are in the midst of preparations. Oh, did I mention I am almost five (5) months pregnant? So, not only am I the only foreigner in the troupe, but I also happen to be a preggo one :D Here is a little piece of the dance we learned at practice, it's actually a 3 and a half minute dance (I'm only posting about 35 seconds of it) which we learned in it's entirety during tonight's practice, so forgive some of our shakiness, we are still not very familiar with it! I'm the one in a blue shirt!

If anybody is interested I can post videos of our actual performance in full costumes later on.

Missing Seattle

2010-11-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

AEDM adventure continues..

Just a quick sketch of Seattle today. I am missing it and excited we will go visit in a few weeks! I always thought it was funny how Space needle being one of the smaller buildings in Seattle is always so prominent in the pictures :)

doodle-doo-doo

2010-11-04T11:27:00.000-07:00

Day #4 AEDM
Today was a very unproductive (art-wise) day, I couldn't really get into anything creative and after some moping around decided to at least get some doodling out of the way, there wasn't really any idea behind it, just a general design. So here is the best I could come up with today :( Hey, at least I am still on board, so that's something, right?

Dragonfly-drawing

2010-11-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

Day #3 of AEDM

Colored pencils with some watercolor on sketch paper

I want to do a series of different drawings with dragonflies, just because I think they are the coolest. This is my first drawing in the proposed series.

Cafe drawing

2010-11-02T09:42:00.000-07:00

Day # 2 of AEDM

Watercolor/pencil/pastel mix on rough pastel paper

I had a print of this picture stashed away in my "art inspiration" folder as I really like the colors and arrangement of coffee shop posters. Unfortunately I don't know who the artist is, so forgive me for not giving proper credit to the inspiration. This is my stab at it with watercolor/pencil/pastel mix on rough paper. Not an original idea by any means (in fact it resembles the original print very closely), but I quite enjoyed drawing it. I would have liked to have finished the background more, but it's (AGAIN) 1am and I need to hit the hay.

A closer look. Anybody has an idea how to properly display and upload pictures of drawings? They obviously don't fit in my scanner and I feel like the way I take pictures of it distorts it.

Teacup cozy

2010-11-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of the challenge and I wanted to finish a project I sort of started on earlier. To start, you might want to know something about me. Hello, my name is Alisa and I love tea. I go through tea like it's nobody's business, so it is no surprise that my first project had to do with a teacup. Holding a hot cup of tea in my hand is a comfort I can't describe. My favorite sound growing up was clinging of tea cups coming from the kitchen because it meant that mom was preparing tea and I was invited!

Anyways, I came across some cute pictures of teacup cozies on the interwebs and decided it would be an easy enough project for me to tackle during my daily challenge. Here is the result:

Please ignore the darkness in the pictures, it's 1am here (as I am world's biggest procrastinator), therefore I couldn't provide very good lighting for my lil' cozy. Can't wait to see what project tomorrow brings!!

Art Every Day Challenge!

2010-11-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

As you can tell by the date of my last post, I have been in a creative funk for a long time (ok, OK! and in a "I just can't be bothered to write a post" funk). I'm going to try to pull myself out of it, so we will see what happens. I joined an "Art Every Day" Challenge which encourages to make something creative every day for the entire month of November. I don't want to limit myself to just one medium so I will try to try different things I like such as knitting, sewing, baking, drawing, painting and dancing. And who knows? Maybe I will discover something new about my abilities, and hopefully I will be able to retap into my creativity..

I might not post everyday, but I will certainly try to do at least a little bit as much as I can. Is being in a second trimester count as doing something creative? :D

iPie!!

2009-12-05T05:22:00.000-08:00

My favorite part of Thanksgiving is making an apple pie! Seriously, I just love baking it for some reason, love sneaking pieces of apples that are being peeled, love the smell of cinnamon and love the way the house smells as the pie being baked in the oven.

One of my favorite things about an apple pie is coming up with different ways to decorate the top crust. I really enjoy making the lattice pie crust and this time experimented with some autumn leaves shapes that I cut out of dough (with the help of my trustee helper Wild Texan).

And of course, no apple pie will be iPie without an Apple symbol. Yes, I love Apple THAT much :D

Here is the recipe I use for the pie:

Basic Pie Dough (with butter):

- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

- Fine sea salt

- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

- 1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus more for greasing

- About 1/3 cup ice-cold water

* I often use half butter and half shortening for a nice crumble and good textured crust. Butter adds flavor, but shortening gives good crumble.

Put the flour and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the cold butter cubes and pulse a few times until the mixture begins to become mealy and the butter forms plainly visible pea-size nuggets (I usually do this with a knife on a cutting board, but it's messy (which is how I like it, because I can get a better feel of the texture)

Dissolve 1/2 teaspoon salt in the water. With the motor running, pour in the water and let mix, just until the dough pulls together. Do not over-mix the dough. If it appears dry and is not holding together, add a few additional tablespoons of water.

Form the dough into a ball, flatten, and wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ready to use.

Lightly butter the dish, lift the dough with the rolling pin by partially rolling the dough up on the pin, center the dough in the dish, and unroll. Pierce the dough in several places with the tines of a fork. With a sharp knife, make several crosshatch slits in the top crust. Brush with the egg wash and bake in a preheated 375 degree Foven for 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 20 minutes.

Apple Filling:

- 6 cups thinly sliced peeled tart apples (Grandma Smith is my favorite)

-1 tablespoon lemon juice

- 1/2 cup granulated sugar

- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

- 1/4 cup packed brown sugar

- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

- Dash ground cloves

- 1 tablespoon butter or margarine

** Mix the feeling ingredients and let it stand for awhile, it will give a lot of juice, don't pour it all into the pie otherwise it will get too soggy. Put it all of the apples and just a bit of the juice, it will give more while it bakes too.

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl toss apples with lemon juice. Combine granulated sugar, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Add to apples and toss until apples are coated. Set apple mixture aside.

2. Prepare Pastry for Double-Crust Pie. Divide dough in half. Form each half into a ball. On a lightly floured surface, roll out 1 ball of dough into a 12-inch circle. Ease pastry into a 9-inch pie plate.

3. Transfer apple mixture to pastry-lined pie plate. Dot with butter or margarine. Trim pastry even with pie plate. For top crust, roll out remaining dough. Cut slits in top crust. Place top crust on the filling or experiment with different top decoration. Seal and flute the edge. Brush with milk or egg white, if desired.

4. To prevent overbrowning, cover the edge of the pie with foil. Bake in a 375 degree F oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil; bake for 20 to 25 minutes more or until the top is golden brown and apples are tender. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Happy Holidays!!!

Hello Kitty Land

2009-09-03T04:05:00.001-07:00

My three nieces (4,7 and 8 year old) go crazy for pink-fluffy-tooth-aching-sweet Hello Kitty things, give them backpacks, clothes, table napkins, anything goes as long as it features their favorite characters.

So, when it was my clone niece Mad's 7th birthday, it was kind of a no brainer in what theme it needed to be. She wanted both chocolate and vanilla flavors in her cake and that's all the direction I got from her. So here is what I came up with:

Mad's favorite character is Chococat, and since there are three girls, I wanted each to have a character of their own, otherwise there would have been blood and tears at the table. Hello Kitty, Chococat and Melody are made out of marshmallow fondant. I used the tutorial from here.

The candle wouldn't stand up straight!

Since I live in Taiwan and it's extremely humid here, the fondant was very difficult to work with and as you see, the figurines kind of oozed after a while, but it's so worth it because let's face it store-bought fondant tastes like... like.... well, like something that should never be put on a cake. I added food coloring and went to town.
My Melody sure is eying that cake..

Presents and cake in the middle are also made out of marshmallow fondant. It was gooey and sticky and tasted like very sweet marshmallow.... or so my nieces tell me anyways (*shifts eyes)

I wanted the cake to have a princess feel, since it is a little girl's birthday and Hello Kitty is pretty freaking girly, so I tinted buttercream frosting pale pink and added swirls that I always drew on princess dresses when I was little :) Yep, as you can see my writing is totally off center... I misjudged the distance :( Don't put me on CakeWrecks!!

Here is another take on it..

I also made a trial Chococat out of store bought fondant. It was easier to work with, but I knew they would want to eat it, so I just left that one for decoration and moved on to more eatable substances. Although to tell you the truth, I put SO much coloring into the black cat to make it black (it kept turning out purple) that I wouldn't let them eat it.

Chocolate layer with two fudge marble layers and buttercream frosting for filling.

Hello Kitty's back is broken :( And Chococat has no neck

But I think this was am overall success ! Half a cake was gone within minutes and everybody enjoyed it. But most importantly the birthday girl liked it!
Isn't she the cutest?

She also got a beanbag chair from Mr Foxy Man and me, and I have a strong suspicion she enjoyed that as well!
What a lazy bum!

Yey for cakes and nieces!

Baker's Challenge gallore!

2009-07-27T06:37:00.000-07:00

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

So, I joined Daring Bakers, which means that every month there is a tasty new making challenge that I get to try out. I had tremendous fun doing this month's challenge. We had a choice between doing both or one or the other, and although I love Milan Cookies, I wanted to try the Marshmallow cookies (Don't look at me this way Milan cookies, I will make you later this week). Here are my experiences!

First came the cookies:
*original recipe
• 3 cups (375grams/13.23oz) all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (112.5grams/3.97oz) white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter
• 3 eggs, whisked together

Now, according to this recipe, it makes about 2 dozen cookies (1.5 inch ones) but don't believe it!! I halved the recipe from the start and ended up with a whole lot of cookies, big and small. So, I would suggest sticking to halving it, unless you want to do something nice and donate them to a soup kitchen (do they take unwrapped things? I dont think so..)

First, blend the dry ingredients.
2. On low speed, add the butter and mix until sandy.
3. Add the eggs and mix until combine.
4. Form the dough into a disk, wrap with clingfilm or parchment and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.
*my note: I ended up using more flour because the dough was way too sticky, and I was a bit impatient with the waiting period.

5. When ready to bake, grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper or a silicon mat.
6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
7. Roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness, on a lightly floured surface. Use a 1 to 1 1/2 inches cookie cutter to cut out small rounds of dough.
*my note: I made first 2 dozen little ones and then realized I was going to be in the kitchen forever if I was to continue this way, so I ended up making bunch of bigger ones, and since I was feeling ambitious a few heart shaped ones, I swear, it makes sense why later.

8. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.
Who's a cute little cookie? Yes, you are! Yes, you ARE!!!

Then followed the fun part, in making the marshmallow center!!
*original recipe
Homemade marshmallows:

• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup (168.76 grams/5.95oz) sugar
• 1 tablespoon powdered gelatin
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 2 egg whites , room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

*my note: I didn't halve this recipe, I stuck to the original one, because there can never EVER been too much marshmallow. And I'm glad I didn't, halving it definitely wouldn't have been enough.

Now, it was allowed to take a big store bought marshmallow, cut it in half, preheat it a bit in the oven and place on the cookie, but what fun is in that?
a). In a saucepan, combine the water, corn syrup, and sugar, bring to a boil until “soft-ball” stage, or 235 degrees on a candy thermometer.
b). Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let dissolve.
c). Remove the syrup from the heat, add the gelatin, and mix.
d). Whip the whites until soft peaks form and pour the syrup into the whites.
e). Add the vanilla and continue whipping until stiff.
*my note: They did NOT want to get stiff (Attn to Biggest Man in Taiwan, this is not a place for one of your "that's what she said" jokes). I put the mixture in the fridge to cool off for about 5 minutes and it seemed to do the trick.

* My interpretation: I divided the final mixture in two, and one kept the same (white vanilla marshmallow) and added strawberry flavoring and coloring to the other half. I wanted to experiment with the flavors and colors.

f). Transfer to a pastry bag.

9. Pipe a “kiss” of marshmallow onto each cookie. Let set at room temperature for 2 hours.
I just love my dragonfly plates from Bali, thanks to my awesome S-i-L Zp :)

So, at these stage they are quite sticky, so be careful when you transfer them to different plates, or when you move them for a photoshoot. I sort of ended up with marshmallows all over and *might* have dropped a couple. I threw those out of course... in my mouth.. Note: a few of these might have gone missing during the process, it was Chai... yes.. that's it.. Chai ate them

10. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or silicon mat.
11. One at a time, gently drop the marshmallow-topped cookies into the hot chocolate glaze.
*original recipe

Chocolate glaze:
• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 2 ounces cocoa butter or vegetable oil

*my note: I did not do that! I don't like vegetable oil taste in my chocolate, so I melted already tempered chocolate chips that I purchase from local bakery by the pound. I believe in America it's called candy melts or something along those lines.

*My interpretation: I melted both milk and white chocolate.
I used pink marshmallow for the hearts, see? Told you there was a reason to my cheesiness. These are for my Foxy man!

12. Lift out with a fork and let excess chocolate drip back into the bowl.
13. Place on the prepared pan and let set at room temperature until the coating is firm, about 1 to 2 hours.

mmmm tasty cookies

So here are a few combinations I ended up with: White chocolate with vanilla marshmallow center, White Marshmallow with strawberry center, Milk chocolate with vanilla center and Milk chocolate with strawberry center. A few also got stripes of the other chocolate on top!

oh my, this one is broken

Well, I must try them before passing them to somebody else, right? I mean, that's just how self-sacrificing I am. Willing to suffer(!) for the well being of others.

maybe I should just try all of them to make sure

Final verdicts:

Great challenge! I was very happy to do it, and honestly it tasted great, I was very pleased with the results. I had to tweak couple of things but all in all result were great. I accidentally put a bit too much flavoring, and before I deluded it a few ended up with a bit of a strong "strawberry artificial" favoring, you couldn't tell with smaller ones, but in couple of big ones it was noticeable. My tester had mentioned that strawberry/white chocolate combination was his favorite, although milk chocolate and vanilla tasted like a moon pie and he didnt know many people who would turn down a moonpie. So I will go ahead and take that as a compliment!

I would definitely make these cookies again, such great taste and I know my nieces will love them.

Chocolate Goodness

2009-06-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

I have worlds’ best neighbors. They are definitely my adopted Taiwanese parents and siblings. They go to all lengths to help me feel comfortable in Taiwan and are the nicest family you’ll ever meet. So for my adopted Taiwanese sister’s 26^th birthday I wanted to do something special.

Like most girls, Ritta has a weakness for chocolate. You never have to pull my arm to make anything with chocolate, although usually I “taste” the individual parts of my baking item in question that by the time it’s complete I can’t stand looking at it. It’s tough, I know, I’m taking some medications for it (crazy pills anyways?)

I didn’t really have a plan or a cool looking drawing of my intended project. Being a procrastinator, I just kind of go with a flow and figure things out mid way. Some call it lazy, I call it art! Foxy Man calls it “Oh God, she’s in the kitchen again, time to evacuate”

I made Devil’s Food Chocolate cake from “Joy of Baking” (by the way, I love that cookbook, most things I try from it turns out excellent. I thank my sister/best friend for introducing me to it).

I can't believe I'm about to give this away

I’m sure you will notice from my baking experiments that I loooove cream cheese frosting. I have never heard of it until I read about it on one of my favorite dessert blogs Bakerella. And now I’m addicted and can’t stop putting it on things, it doesn’t help that Foxy Man keeps asking me for more. If he isn’t careful I will find a way to cream cheese frost a steak, and then we’ll be in real trouble.

I didn’t like the crumbled look I got by putting white frosting on chocolate cake, so to hide it, uhmm I mean, as a part of originally intended plan, I whipped up some semi-sweet chocolate ganache and went to town. To top things off, I made dark and white chocolate covered strawberries.

Mmmmmm

It went something like this, oh this strawberry turned out crooked, I better dispose of it.. in my mouth. I managed to save some of them long enough to actually place on the cake though, which is a testament to my power of will.

The cake turned out quite well, if I may say so myself.

I did manage to score a piece though

Perfect amount of moistness, and plenty of rich chocolaty goodness. But the best part was Ritta (for whom it was a total surprise) who started crying when she saw it. I assume it was because she liked it and not because she is deathly allergic to strawberries; my Chinese got all sketchy at this point.

You say Lemon, I say White Chocolate!

2009-06-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been traveling much lately because our product design company has been getting increasingly more busy and taking a lot of our time and energy. So what do I do when I don’t travel? I bake! In the future posts, I will try to document the whole process a bit better, for now though just sharing some things I have made in the last couple of months.

Lemon Zesty Goodness

Biggest Man in Taiwan has been asking for something lemon-flavored for quite some time. To be honest, I sort of look down on all things non-chocolate but it seemed like an interesting challenge, I have never made anything lemon flavored before.

I found a lemon cake recipe that sounded tasty in my trusty cookbook and for frosting decided to go with… lemon flavored cream cheese frosting!! Are you shocked? Just wait until you read all the other desserts I sneak the frosting in. I think I should get some sort of stock share options in Philadelphia Cream Cheese based on sheer pounds of the stuff I buy on regular basis.

For decorations, I tried my hand in chocolate art. I wanted to do it for awhile, and this sounded like a perfect opportunity. I melted some white chocolate chips, added lemon flavoring and some yellow coloring and piped out white outline which I then filled with yellow colored portion. I hope everything was as easy to work with as melted white chocolate, the final result always makes me happy.

These might look like pills to you, it's actually white chocolate chips. I'd like to fill that prescription though.

Little white chocolate lemon slices

I was not all together pleased with how lemon cake behaved itself in muffin cups. It hardly rose and was drier than I would have preferred, but in combination with the frosting, it actually tasted quite well. Still though, next time I would try another cake recipe.

Biggest Man in Taiwan seemed pleased, but then again he tends to overly compliment my baking. I believe it’s because he is a good friend and not because he hopes to be the receiving of every sweet experiment that I whip up in my kitchen.

10K race in Taipei

2009-03-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

On March 15th, yours truly, my foxy man and two of our friends ran a 10K on an elevated highway in Taipei. The city blocked off a huge portion of a highway, and about 2-3 thousand of people participated in the 10k portion, even more ran half and full marathons.
sooo many people... there were like a total of 10 "waiguoren"

First of all, I want to say that prior to beginning of my training for this 10K, I thoroughly despised running. If given a choice between being mauled by a pack of vicious dogs or run, I would have had a serious debate with myself on which one would be less painful. Then, out of blue, I decided that instead of enviously looking (or yelling obscenities) at passing runners when Im out walking my dog, I would do the unimaginable... I would... become one of them! And that's how it started, I got my husband and two of our friends sign up for a 10K with me, so I would not be the only one going through a miserable experience of training, sweating and not eating sugar (ok, that lasted two days).

Angel is just as excited as I am

Little did I know back then, that everybody requires different amount of physical and mental preparation for this event. Take me and my husband for example. I followed a training program for two months prior to the event, he bought his running shoes two weeks prior to it. I read books and articles on how to become a better runner; he didn't even really remember on what day we were supposed to run. And then for our race, he came in 10 minutes faster than I!! Although he claimed the raced the whole way so that he could take my picture crossing the finish line :D

I'm not fooled by your explanation, foxy man.. nice hair by the way ;)

My only goal in this race was to run the whole way. I didn't care about the time I came in, whether anyone beat me or I beat anyone, just the fact of running the whole way. Guess what? I RAN THE WHOLE WAY!!! This was by far the farther and longest I ever ran: 6.2 miles in 1 hour 8 minutes. The feeling was amazing. Running with 2-3 thousand of other people who were clearly enjoying themselves made me look at running at a completely different way. I realized that not the final destination of crossing the line, but in getting there did I feel the best about myself. I made a goal, I trained for it, I got injured (not due to training) and couldn't train, I was sick for a week straight before the race and couldn't train, but I still made myself get up at 5am on the day of our event and get to the start and it was worth every single effort I made.

See?
I'm running, not posing..

The greatest fear I had that once I was done with the training and with the race, running would no longer seem appealing or necessary to me. Well, 3 miles I ran this morning say otherwise ;) Half-marathon here I come!!

Lantern Festival 2009

2009-02-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

For the 2009 Lantern Festival, we went to Pingxi, about 2 hour train ride away from Taipei. It is a small town that gets absolutely filled with people during the festival.

The whole town was decorated with red paper lanterns, and everybody was setting off their own. You set if off by attaching soaked in paraffin stack of ghost money to the bottom of the lantern and lighting it up. If you do it correctly the lantern rises, gets picked up by the wind and gets carried on to the Gods (or inland, whatever..) If you do it incorrectly, the lantern catches on fire and burns before taking off. You also have to watch out for falling lanterns with fire still burning inside. The whole evening lanterns were getting stuck on the trees, telephone polls, top of firetrucks and police cars. I am still amazed no fires were set.

I didn't expect the lanterns to be so large. I expected them to be roughly a size of a brown lunch bag. Imagine my surprise when I saw these lanterns that have to be held up by two, three people at the time. They are light, made out of crepe paper, but massive objects that came up to my shoulders.
The five of us purchased a green lantern (for everything to be well), and wrote a whole lot of wishes, from a heart transplant for my BFF's dad, to finishing 10K four weeks from now.
Look at this baby go! Our wishes are being sent to the God, hope they speak English!!

On the way to the heart of the celebration, tents are set up selling food, trinkets, lanterns, postcards, and did I mention food?
These little lantern keychains were so cute!
Taiwanese sausages, corn on the cob, grilled seafood, chestnuts, dumplings,
caramel covered strawberries, chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate covered marshmallows, and hmmm chocolate covered cherry tomatoes, because for some reason here in Taiwan they are considered fruit.

Starting from 6:30pm, the official lantern festival began. There were performances, speech from President Ma, and of course lanterns being lit up every 15 minutes.
We got really lucky and were offered two spots in the official square setting off lanterns at one of the intervals.
We were so excited to be part of the action!

And I was so worried our lantern would set on fire!!

Somebody wasnt so lucky :(

Everything went well and more of our wishes went up to the heavens. This festival was truly amazing.

All pictures were taken either by Foxy man or Biggest Man in Taiwan. Thank you boys for documenting this event ;)

Lantern Festival 2009

2009-02-10T19:59:00.000-08:00

15 days after Chinese New year, Taiwan celebrates Lantern Festival. It is an incredible sight! Thousands of paper lanterns get sent up to the Gods, filled with wishes people write on them. Different colors of lanterns are for different wishes, red is for luck, orange is for intelligence, yellow is for wealth, etc.

This particular video is in Pingxi, Taiwan. That is about 2 hour train ride away from Taipei.

Chai the menace

2008-12-12T20:22:00.000-08:00

Here is what our dog Chai thinks about going home from the park. Such attitude, so rude.

Apron maddness

2008-12-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

A friend of my cousin makes the coolest aprons, and she is hosting an awesome give-away this weekend, followed with an opportunity to purchase these unique stylish accessories to your wonderful self in the kitchen.

Here is an example of one of them, called "the bag of Skittles"

Check out Kim's blog for more details and great insights to a busy life of a modern woman, mom and a wife :)

"Whenever I can" photo

2008-12-12T20:08:00.001-08:00

Taipei, Taiwan. The view of Taipei 101 (tallest complete building in the world) from one of my hikes.

"Whenever I can" photo

2008-11-16T09:56:00.001-08:00

Tienmu Hike, Taipei, Taiwan

"Whenever I can" photo

2008-11-09T09:18:00.000-08:00

Bali, Indonesia.
Photo taken by: my niece Maddie (5)

Bi-mothly photo?

2008-11-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok.. so the daily photo isn't working out so well, and that is mainly because all of the sudden I have gotten so busy with everything in my life!! But that is good, it is the way it should be. So, I am changing it to "Whenever I can" photo. I will also keep up with posting whenever I make a trip somewhere (San Francisco and Seattle in two weeks, horay!!). Stick with me people, stick with me :)

Daily photo

2008-10-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

Seattle, Washington, USA (Alki beach)

Daily photo

2008-10-17T08:39:00.001-07:00

Bali, Indonesia ;) Hey! That is a travel photo, so it counts!

Бали, Индонезия! Это считается поскольку это тоже было путешествие!

Daily photo

2008-10-16T01:06:00.001-07:00

Since this blog will be read by my relatives who are struggling with English, I will attempt to translate my posts into Russian. Don't worry, you wont be missing any information, in fact English speakers are getting a better deal ;)

Я начну переводить свои записи для просмотра Русско-язычных друзей и родственников. Я очень давно не писала по русски так что извините за ошибки.

Ren-ai Township, Nantou county, Taiwan.

This is Taiwan's own version of Switzerland, absolutely beautiful place.

Тайванская версия Швейцарии, очень крассивое место.

Daily photo

2008-10-15T03:09:00.000-07:00

I got a great idea from a much better travel blog than mine (http://everything-everywhere.com written by Gary Arndt) to post a daily travel photo. I will try my best to keep up with it daily, although of course I don't have the variety as Gary. So I present a less cool version of daily photo

SunMoon Lake, Taiwan.
(I will write more about our trip there soon)

Weekend in Vietnam, 10/2008 Hanoi #2

2008-10-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

Adam and Sarah left on Sunday and we were left with another day on our own. The theme was "communism" and so we went on the search of cool things like Lenin's statues, Uncle Ho's mausoleum and war memorabilia (complete with a set of propaganda). Since most things were closed on Monday, we didn't get to see any museums, but we walked around and got a better impression of Hanoi than from our first day.

As downtown as Hanoi got
In front of Uncle Ho's resting place. Note the green squares, total 79 for every year that Ho Chi Minh was alive. Zach and I wondered if 80th square is filled with rocks (for balance)
Guards are on round-the-clock duty
Not as cool as the Red Square, but hey they tried

A temple on the west lake Zach has discovered that Lenin's Vietnamese name holds a perfect logo of his favorite band
The flag tower that was built in 1805 and is in surprisingly good shape, considering it went through war and all.

A war weaponry display outside of the Army museum

Weekend in Vietnam, 10/2008 Halong Bay

2008-10-14T03:05:00.000-07:00

Early in the morning, we woke up to join a breakfast buffet. Buffets have been at a center of every meal we have had in Vietnam, I couldn't have lasted for more than 3 days after this much food. After breakfast we head out to Halong Bay. The drive took us about 3 and a half hours but it was well worth it. Halong city isn't really that interesting except for the fact that it is a starting point for all the boat tours that go along the bay. We opted for a private 4 hour tour, complete with cave explorations, short hike and seafood lunch on the boat. Most people take the boat tour overnight, spend the night on the boat and explore Halong Bay for two days. However, luxury of time was something we did not have, so our half-day tour was sufficient enough.

The weather was hazy and foggy, which made the whole scenery seem unreal and dream like. Tall sharp mountains pierced the water at odd angles all around the bay, reminiscent to every picture of China's Three Gorges river. It was beautiful! The boat trip was very relaxing, we were the only 4 people on it besides the staff, for a very reasonable price, I must say. Of course, there are over 400 boats waiting to take tourists on their tours, so they can't exactly jack up their prices too much. We had only made one stop where we could get off the boat and explore the caves. The first cave was a bit overcrowded with all too familiar multi color florescent lights highlighting the stalactite formations and fake "ground water" fountains to provide a more dramatic experience. For somebody who only explored caves at National Yellowstone park prior to this, these were a bit... cheezy and touristy. However, second cave was more interesting. It was enormous, not really like a cave, more like as a grand hall with paths all around. The only thing that damaged the ambiance was a Chinese tourist who was SCREAMING into his phone while walking around the cave. Needless to say it was difficult to have a serene experience with that kind of noise.

4 hours went by and we returned to the hotel, exhausted by the trip. We spent the rest of the time walking along the river that runs through the city, eating at yet another buffet, and getting massages. Here are our favorite pictures from Halong Bay:

Boys chillin on out private boat

A lost-esque trip as Adam's friend has pointed out

Sarah and I are pumped!Light at the end of the tunnel

Sunset over the Junks

Weekend in Vietnam, 10/2008 Hanoi

2008-10-14T01:15:00.001-07:00

Together with Zach and our friends Sarah and Adam, we decided to spend a weekend in Vietnam. A flight from Taiwan only take 2 and a half hours, so this quick trip was a definite possibility. I was in charge of planning and did so through a travel agent, who in turn drove me absolutely crazy. She had to consult me about every single detail, ignored my requests, and had a lot of trouble locating hotels. In the end, we had to pay extra money for the hotel because we were "westerners with more money," which made me really angry since this was such a casual charge nobody was even trying to hide. Regardless, we made it to Vietnam and here is the summary of the trip.

We spent a total of three days in Vietnam (Sarah and Adam could only spend 2 days). We arrived to Hanoi in the morning, and drove to our hotel. I had never really thought about how much Vietnam would look like a small town in Mainland China, but I suppose that all developing countries go through similar stages of growth. Hanoi is a town with supposedly more culture and art than Ho Chi Min city, and also it's proximity to Halong Bay made it a perfect destination for our little trip. We walked around a lot, in the old French quarter and definitely saw the European influence in everything from architecture to the way English was spoken. We just couldn't get used to people calling us "Monsieur and Madam" but it was interesting. There isn't really a downtown to Hanoi, everything is kind of spread out in two stories buildings with an occasional 14 floor giant here and there. Here are some of our favorite shots from the 1st day in Hanoi city.

Opera House
A lot of houses are these amazing vertical buildings, just one or two rooms per floor. It's strange because it's not like there isn't enough room for them to spread out.

It's not leaning, we are just driving by ;) Cathedral
Zach and I on the Hoan Kiem Lake

Crazy scooters in Hanoi

Suzhou, China 2004

2008-10-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

The first time I arrived to China was in August 2004. Destination: Suzhou, China. Located about 1 hour train ride away from Shanghai, China.
Suzhou is known for its extensive canal system. And its alternative name is actually "the Venice of China." I don't know if I would go as far as calling it Venice but to a star-eyed Asian studies major, this was an amazing introduction to China.

Canals are used for transportation, fishing, laundry, bath water, sewer, etc. So think less sweet voiced gondola drivers and more foul mouthed, gnarly fisherman.

The scenery makes for some great photos, but the smell was often overwhelming. However, the small town feel (although it is more populous than a lot of major cities), cobbled stone streets and close proximity to a major metropolis made this a great destination for our Chinese studies.

Suzhou had several main bars and only one club that is worth mentioning. Of course, due to this being 4 years ago, I cannot remember the names of these grand establishments, but I do (vaguely) remember many nights that were spent getting our groove on after rounds of 5 kwai (70c) shots of tequila. At numerous massage parlors, my male friends were constantly offered to add more "substance" to the massages, an offer they consistently turned down, at least in my company :) Suzhou was also my first introduction to now a very familiar sight of old foreign men getting together with young Chinese girls. We used to pass by bars, known for their ahem, less than respectable activities and shout "Don't do it!" I'd like to think it made a difference.