explain them tags

It occurred to me the other today that some of the tags in my posts don’t make too much sense if you’re not me or the people encompassed within that particular group, and while it may not matter to most, I feel like explaining em’ today because I miss the contents of said tags. I think the whole concept of having a name for a group of people came out of sheer laziness/convenience (because who wants to have to name every single person in the group every time they mention it?). In any case, they are invariably tagged in many of my recipe posts because we wholeheartedly believe that food is an event. I swear we do other things than eat, but generally speaking, the only pictoral evidence I ever have of our gatherings is for the food, because hell knows I never seem to take pictures of anything else.

If there’s one thing I have good taste in (I say this only because my first couple picks in dudes were pretty effing questionable), it’s in my friends. <3 You’ll probably notice there are several people who overlap consistently in these groups because we’ve basically been friends for what seems like forever and logic concludes that if you find a good one, you hold onto them. I’m gonna attempt to go somewhat chronologically. This is, in short, the main cast of characters in my life. <3

.CCL4.

Everyone except me, because I’m taking the picture. :P

This consists of my closest elementary school friends (me, Joanne, Jun, Amy). I’ve known Amy and Joanne since fourth grade–Joanne is the first friend I made when I moved to the other side of my hometown. We have been through a shit ton together, and I’m super glad that we’re still awesome friends. :] Her mom has at one point mistaken me for her girlfriend (nope nope). I like to refer to Amy as my “favorite neighbor.” She lives across the street (times two) from me and for the majority of elementary school throughout high school, we’d walk to school together. We don’t really talk all that much anymore, but back in the day, we’d have annual sleepovers with the four of us and where we’d watch stupid movies, play games and be awesome. Amy coined the term for our group name, which is short for “ChenChanLiFongtastic Four,” a conglomeration of our last names. I shortened it to CCL4 because that’s carbon tetrachloride, although technically, it should be CCLF4. CCl4 had a better ring to it though. :O

.whibefariends.

Evidence of our hang-out-itude in high school. This was us at Keat’s house before senior ball. :O

The only two high school friends I consistently hung out with throughout high school (e.g. during lunch, etc.) that I remained in contact with. (I’ve known most of my closest friends since elementary school, but we didn’t necessarily hang out in the same groups in high school. We used to write in notebooks and pass em’ back and forth throughout the week to keep each other updated on our lives and such. Then we split to 3 different UC’s and then to different parts of the state (country, in my case) for a while, so now we keep in touch through facebook and try to make it a pact to hang out at least 1-2 times per year through gathering together to garner new hobbies and make stuff (e.g. last year, I learned to knit and we started making all kinds of stuff). whibefariends is a combination of the first couple letters of each of our first names. Yes, we were trying to be ghetto.

Here’s us with our creations (scarves). :O

.9F.

This is the kind of stupid shit we do together. Yep. The idea arose because we owned matching underwear. We’re awesome, I swear.

Our lonely (hah, “lonely” group of two, so named 9F because that was the apartment we lived in together for two years. This consists of none other than Jun, my college roommate/facebook husband. We lived together for all four years of college and have been married on facebook since July 8th of 2006 (which I believe trumps many actual relationships in length and quality), coupled with a 2-year long engagement. We go out every year for steak or whatever we’re craving for our anniversary lunch or dinner and usually drag along friends to celebrate the joyous occasion. We’ve been friends since we were 11-12. <3

.6F.

At my junior recital! <3

This consisted of the merging of 9F with Nadia and Rey, who lived in 6F. To this day, we still blame Kayleen for wanting to sit with the sushi boats on her birthday back in freshmen year of undergrad because if not for that, it is highly likely that we would have met each other sooner and started living together/making even more awesome memories sooner. But better late than never! We had about a year’s worth of awesome times together and they are the reason why I am hesitant to ever live with anyone else again because the only way to go from there is down. I’ve technically known Nadia since freshmen year of Davis, but didn’t get to know her until around junior year. I officially met Rey in my junior year as well (she is my “dirty mistress” and collectively, we’re known as “Reyrah,” and the four of us hit it off immediately, so we replaced their former roommates the following year. <3 I miss them lots, and basically became Nadia’s weekend roommate from 2010-2011.

.supah speshal awsum.

Us as the Alice in Wonderland cast!

This the blanket term for everyone in Fremont/Davis that we hang out with, and it’s the name we used for mogwee (a group chat application that we all downloaded one day because Florence was working for the company that made it and we were being their free beta testers). It’s butchered English for “super special awesome” [just in case you can’t tell] because we tend to regress (that’s not even the correct term because only one of us is actually a fob) into fob speech when we’re around each other. Right now, it mostly consists of Diana, me, Florence, Joanne, Jun, Kayleen, Steph and Nadia, but can stretch to encompass others (anyone we hang out with back home, basically). The pictures I have don’t have Florence or Steph because I apparently stopped taking pictures of anything other than food/pole dancing after I moved back to Fremont.

I think this picture most aptly describes our friendship.

.coterie.

We’re missing Sylvia because she’s taking the picture! :[ This was on our SF trip.

Although I’ve known Mekala since the 4th grade, we actually didn’t become friends until around freshmen/sophomore year of college (weird how that works, huh? it only took 9 years, haha). I had treble ensemble with Sylvia, but again, we didn’t become friends until sophomore year, and I met Kaitlin at Davis too. We had physiology and/or our creation of Dames & Fellas A Capella together and bonded over that, and after we all graduated and moved back to Fremont (other than Kaitlin :[ ), Mekala and Sylvia became my running/recipe experimentation buddies. We try to all meet up somewhere in the middle of where we all live once a year because we miss each other, and are all freakishly busy/not in the same time zone otherwise, since I’m generally in the eastern time zone, Mekala’s in the middle, and Sylvia/Kaitlin are in CA. This group name is taken from the name of our group texting app (yep, that’s how we keep in touch. that and the ecards Sylvia sends us). :O

Yay! Here we are. :O They came to see my senior recital! <3

.MH gang.

Here’s us with our landlord at our white coat ceremony! :] It’s blurry because this is a picture taken of the picture my landlord gave me (it’s the only one that has all of us!).

MH is short for the road/hill we live on, but this is basically me and my neighbors in WV. Both of them are full of all sorts of awesome and I am beyond lucky to have them as my neighbors, although I’ll have to admit that I’m pretty biased towards Adam in terms of bonus points of awesome because we never see Dustin anymore and because Adam cooks me meals (my parents are likely hanging their heads in shame over this because I seem like a total eternal freeloader, but I swear I try to reciprocate ;_; ), picks up random stuff at the store that he knows I’ll like, functions as my alarm clock/cold-weather-living advisor, as well as my study buddy. We spend inordinate amounts of time together studying, so it’s a really good thing that we get along so well, or shit would go down. All in all, I couldn’t ask for better neighbors. :O I’ve become severely spoiled and am not really sure what I’m gonna do without them after these two years pass by. :[ :[

We have yet to figure out a name for the group I hang out with at med school other than my neighbor (this doesn’t happen so often anymore because I started studying at home/med school happened, but we do still see each other! :O). We keep each other sane and often make food to share with each other. For the ones who can’t cook (e.g. Kosina, despite the fact that her name means “kitchen”), they buy stuff and bring it in so we’re usually all in good moods. I’ll retag when we get hit by a couple bouts of inspiration and figure out something to collectively call ourselves. :O

Advertisement

mystified

If we’re friends on facebook and you happened to really look at my profile, you would notice that I’ve been married to the same person since July 8th of 2006. It all started in sophomore year of high school, when my friend “proposed” to me with one of the rings that cracked off of his assignment planner. I accepted and since he’s ordained as a priest, we pretended to marry each other for fun (due in part to the fact that facebook is full of creepers and being married sometimes deters them, and also to make fun of facebook relationships). We’ve been married for over 6 years now, which I venture to guess is longer than many actual relationships. (In other words, we’re doin’ well, even though we’ve been “cheating” on each other left and right!). Every July, if we happen to be in the same time zone, we go out for an anniversary lunch or dinner together and sometimes we drag along friends and third wheel them by referring to each other as “babycakes” and making stupid faces at each other.

This is probably why we confuse people.

Only recently did anyone start taking that marriage seriously, and I guess if anyone here at school didn’t know me too well, they could easily believe that this were true, since half my class seems to be married and/or with children. (Not presently with child, but just…they have kids. They are troopers. I’m pretty sure I could never handle that.)

What really amuses me is the fact that apparently, my closest friends’ parents often think there is something going on between us. (I found this out yesterday, har har. They don’t even know that we used to shower together.) With one of my other closest friends, her mom suspected that I was the girlfriend and apparently, her thought process went something like, “Well, at least it’s Farrah and she’s cool.”

I’m flattered, guys, but nope. We love each other as friends. <3

Bruschetta

Another one of them talking-in-the-past entries! This was from last year (November?).

I had a bunch of mozzarella and some fresh basil left, so Joanne and I decided to make pasta and bruschetta for dinner on Friday. The last time I saw her was probably somewhere last year, when Jun and I decided to make ginger milk custard and she inquired on the whereabouts of our pants. :[ We grossly overestimated how much we could eat though (never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry–I know this, but somehow did not listen to my mind blaring at me), so we ended up with enough to feed us til the following night.

Bruschetta

Ingredients:
-fresh tomatoes, chopped
-fresh basil, chopped
-mozzarella, sliced or chopped
-red onions, chopped (optional)
-garlic, minced (optional)
-extra virgin olive oil
-balsamic vinegar
-loaf of french bread
-salt & pepper, to taste

Instructions:
1) Chop tomatoes, red onions, and basil. Mince the garlic. Slice the bread. Drizzle olive oil on sliced bread and add mozzarella.
2) Toast for 5-6 minutes, then spoon chopped tomatoes, red onions, and garlic onto bread slices. Add basil, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

We didn’t use red onions or garlic because we were lazy, and also because the pasta was already loaded with so much stuff (mushrooms, onions, garlic, basil, ground beef, tomatoes, sauce…). That coupled with the fact that there was also ice cream and/or frozen fruit bars (<3) to be had, as well as iced tea and cookies…well, yeah. :O All our stomachs were pretty happy. :D

薑汁撞奶 (Ginger Milk Custard)

This was made with two of my favorite people/childhood friends back in…2010. It’s backlogged, so if I sound like I’m talking in the present, I’m not really. As with 6F, I’d be super-happy if the three of us were to always stay friends too, because they’re awesome, and have been there for me for the past 11-13 years. <3

I inherited my packrat tendencies from my parents. My mom likes to buy a ton of food and keep it all, whereas my dad likes to reuse every container under the sun. We rewash takeout boxes (sometimes even the styrofoam ones). Sadly, I’m not kidding. :/

Our spice cabinet (and pantry, for that matter) doesn’t make any sense. (The honey jar actually contains soy sauce, the oregano container definitely does not contain oregano, the parsley isn’t parsley, etc.) I was pretty confused when I first moved back home, but I’ve somewhat grown used to it.

Anyway, our pantry is basically stocked for the apocalypse/zombie invasions, and aside from the food, there are empty containers placed randomly on the shelves, so we did an epic cleanse of the pantry while my parents were out.

J: Hey, guys? I’m only asking you guys this because we’ve known each other for so long…but uh, why aren’t you guys wearing pants?

I love the way she asked that. :O

Anyway, she brought over milk for us to make this ginger milk dessert that we’d been craving. Joanne turned lactose-intolerant in college (she’s always been my fellow cheese-hating buddy though), and I suppose I’m slightly intolerant as well, but I can take it. Depending on what it is. (I still stay far away from cheese though, if I can help it. Unless it’s mozzarella/Swiss/parmesan/Romano.) Soy milk will not work for this!

薑汁撞奶 (Ginger Milk Custard)

Ingredients:
-1 cup whole milk
-1 tbsp sugar
-1-2 tbsp ginger juice (grated from a fresh piece of ginger)

Instructions:
1) Peel and grate ginger. Press ginger over strainer into a bowl.*
2) Heat milk to ~80-90 degrees C. Add sugar to heated milk (to taste). Let cool to ~70-80 degrees C and pour into bowl containing ginger juice.
3) Let stand for 5-10 minutes. The ginger will coagulate milk to form a soft pudding. Serve warm or cold.
*Add more ginger juice for a firmer pudding.