Okay, fine, muffin top noted, you ass.  I DO love to eat and the easiest way to fulfill my love of gorging is to, well, COOK!

Before I even finished paying the security deposit for my first solo apartment, I went out and bought two Le Creuset pieces, excited by the prospect of having MY OWN KITCHEN. Over the years, my kitchen gadgets have gotten increasingly more abundant: graters, peelers, blenders, processors, baking sheets, baking pans and a whole army of stuff that would make the William Sonoma’s stock rise very very high.  And if I do say so myself, my abilities have gently improved too! Which is a pretty darn good accomplishment considering……well (mom, please stop reading)…considering, my mom’s not a very good cook (I’m SORRY mom!) Growing up, my mom’s cooking repertoire was very minimal. Don’t get me wrong, she had some occasional gems, which we will totally cover in this section, but she had a very sensitive palette which caused her to season food, um, blandly (SORRY MOM!!!!) Truth of the matter was, I’m pretty sure she didn’t much like cooking anyhow, because once I left for college, she pretty much stop cooking altogether. I think it was just one of those obligatory I-gave-birth-to-her-I-have-feed-her sort of thing.

So unlike most home cooks who have some sort of female relative who gave them awesome family recipes, I had the food network and Martha Stewart (who, I will totally obsess over in another crazy blog…but only once you’ve known me a little, so I don’t scare you….that much.) Ina Garten, Martha Stewart, Giada DeLaurentis even Rachel Ray are all right in my comfort zone of cooking. Ina & Martha are my preferred choices because they both subscribe to a “simple but GOOD things” concept. Most of their foods have very simply ingredients, but they are ingredients that are true to their source and FRESH. I’m happy to make homemade strawberry jam for a shortbread recipe if I think it’s going to yield a greater result. Same goes for chocolate buttercream because store-bought frosting is never going to rival the taste that melted Valrhona can add to a frosting.

There are also cooks, ahem, CHEFS, in the world I greatly admire, like Thomas Keller and David Chang. Chefs whose cookbooks I’ve purchased but started hyperventilating halfway through reading the recipe for just the STOCK.  Those guys are chefs, and I’m simply a cook. So I glare at their cookbooks and drool like an idiot, than I take out my hard-earned cash and hit Marche Moderne for a little fix of the phenomenal that I just can’t reproduce in my kitchen.

Crap, I’m off topic. This is about cooking right? Okay, well, how about some pictures to get your interest back?

I love baking because well, I love the outcome of baking. But there’s never a recipe for like ONE person, so I end up feeding my neighbors. Thankfully, they’re awesome, so I’m happy to fatten them up.  Surely, you don’t think this lard ship is going down alone? (ps. these were Ina Garten’s Beatty’s chocolate cake recipe, use Valrhona for the chocolate in the frosting & don’t fear the butter- you’ll thank me.)

These were carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting from The Pioneer Woman’s Sigrid’s Carrot Cake recipe. I gave 12 to the neighbors and than ate the rest myself…for breakfast, lunch & dinner.

(please stop judging my poor photoshopping skills…I swore the color was right when I adjusted it….)

Please do not, under any allergic circumstances, skip the walnuts. They bring the whole cupcake together and make your palette SING.

What’s that, you ask? That’s my inner Asian in a bowl. It’s oxtail daikon noodle soup. And it’s easy as heck to make. I’m going to share the recipe even though I’m pretty sure the only person who reads my blog is Michelle and um, she doesn’t cook.

4 pieces of oxtail (find it at your local asian supermarket)

1 medium daikon root, peel & sliced about 1/4″- 1/2″ thick

2 carrots, peeled & sliced about 1/4″- 1/2″ thick

Salt & Pepper

quarter size grab of ramen noodles (I use a wheat noodle because I like the texture, but you can essentially use any sort of ramen or even linguine here.)

Here’s how you make it:

Season your oxtail generously with salt & pepper.

In a large pot (I prefer my le creuset sear the oxtail on medium high heat. Turn the pieces on all sides so it browns all the way around.

Once all the pieces are browned, add your chunks of carrots & daikon into the pot.

Add water to cover all the ingrediants, scaping the bottom of the pot to loosen any of the fat that’s stuck down there.

Bring the water up to a gentle simmer & pop the lid on.

Watch an episode of CSI (or anything tv show that’s about an hour long.) If your pot decides to simmer over within that hour, turn the heat down a bit.

When you return after an hour, you will find some gross looking brown foam-like pieces floating in your soup. Don’t fear it, just skim it out- it’s just fatty goodness that exerted from the marrow of the oxtail.

Season with salt & pepper to taste.

Add the dry noodles to your soup. Following the instuctions on the package, let it cook till tender.

Scoop to bowl, serve & SLURP!

Oh yes ladies & gents. Je n’aime pas l’amour. It’s true i’m a romantic at heart about a lot of things: life, food, art. And yes, I love the look of whispering sunlight streaming through unmanicured foliage onto a whispy brunette evoking romanticism, BUT the actually ACT of falling love? not so much.

Make way, cynical woman coming through.

Love makes feelings SO exaggerated. Pain feels 10x more painful, joy feels like confined sunshine. My girlfriends will tell you that that’s what makes LOVE so WONDERFUL, but than again, they were always fairly sensible in their selection of men. I, on the other hand, am a seasoned asshole magnet. Ladies, if my mom weren’t reading this, I’d give you stories that would make Carrie Bradshaw’s man troubles look like 4th grade recess.

It’s actually progressed to the point where I literally judge my own attraction when I find a person that peaks my interest. it goes something like this in my head: Wow, he’s cute and really nice. Gosh, he’s super personable too. Dude, I think he likes me *giggle-giggle*. OK, but seriously jenny, if YOU’RE attracted to him, he’s probably an asshole. Really? but he seems so nice! You’re drunk on Sprite, let’s go home. ABORT MISSION.

Oh yeah, I pull the rip-cord before I even jump OUT of the plane.

We can make all sorts of judgements at this point about my troubled attitude on love. my love-drunk girlfriends will say “you’re so hardened by your previous experiences that you don’t give people a chance.” Okay, that might be true, but it’s honesty hard for me to swallow that psycho-analysis because we each have different experiences in love and it would be a one-upping contest on who dated the bigger asshole.

Here, a anecdote: My girlfriend Desiree is the most determined person i know in every aspect of life. In school, she got awesome grades. Out of school, she committed to a graduate degree, a great job, her faith and her family. OH, and LOVE. Desiree loves love. She dated, and dated, and dated, and dated, and dated. I would see her once a month for a birthday or dinner or get together, and I would be meeting her new “i think this is the one.” At one particular dinner, I think I forgot her “this is the one”s name and almost called him by last months “the is the one”s name. I finally (jokingly) told her, not to tell me her date’s name until she was walking down the aisle. Well, she ended up finding a great one. She loves him, we love him and he doesn’t mind when she eats half the entree off his plate (he actually looks her quite lovingly, which is disgustingly adorable.)

The moral of that story was that she committed herself to FINDING love and finding a mate. I can’t even commit myself to stop eating fruit roll-ups. Plus, I got tired just telling her story, much less live it. I told a friend in recent conversation that I never saw myself married, even though I can see myself maybe being a mother. i’m not sure what kind of fucked up psyche that is except to say i really enjoy my bachelorettehood (why doesn’t that sound as cool as “bachelorhood” ?)

From the outside, y’all can judge and say it’s sad I spend saturday nights on the couch with the dogs. On the inside though? It’s FUN. I have really cute dogs, watch a lot of amazing indie films and have learned to bake every sugary confection known to mankind. AND I only dress to impress other women (okay, and gays because i really want a gay boyfriend, but that’s another post.) which means I actually get to wear CLOTHES. (100% spandex tub tops are not Clothes, neither are booty-shorts.)

So yes, you heard it hear first, I don’t like falling in love. On the bright side, stick with this blog a couple more years and it’ll probably about my experiences as a cougar. Things could get really interesting then.

Let’s address a bit though, some reasons for my blogging failure.

1. Condescending bitches at work who judge and cause me to be insecure about what I write. Then I realize, I am who I am, I’ve never backed down from an opinion and I, pretty much, never will.  The people who really know me, I believe, wouldn’t take offense to my ridiculous sense of humor and crass language, so c’est la vie. Nothing has ever been accomplished without risk, and this wouldn’t be the first time I offend someone, so I’m just gonna write it as I see it.

2. I never really wanted to reveal who I was because I work in a public place and fearful of stalkers. I’m a bartender. I see some customers like EVERY WEEKEND, and they think they know me. Explain to me how this conversation is revealing:

“hi! how are you!”

“you know man, just chilling.”

“so, what can i get you to drink?”

“two jack and cokes”

“ok, $14. thanks!”

Yeah man, we’re like totally friends and that Ed Hardy shirt looks awesome on you. Let’s be real about something, I have very few true friends in this world and I’m damn proud of it. I don’t need like 800 friends of facebook to feel secure and/or attractive. So if you are my customer, it’s cool. I have nothing against you, I’ll shoot the shit and be polite and make a stiff drink so you can lose yourself on a weekend night. Heck, I’ll even help you get laid! But we’re not really friends. I’m sorry, please don’t stop tipping.

3. I’m whiny. I’m trying not to be, but I am. And like every other post is some ransom depressing self discovery instead of something cool I’m doing that someone wants to read about. So here’s to an attempt to tone down the whininess and talk more about pictures I’m taking, crafts I’m making, places I’m going or things I’m cooking.

4. When I first got my apartment, I bought this dining table :

Super cute right? I thought so too, and I was like ‘when I’m not eating on it, I can totally use it as a workspace.’ YEAH, round tables aren’t optimal desks. Lesson learned the hard way. So I was pretty much without a proper desk or designated workspace and hence, no proper environment for inspiration…oh yeah, and since I eat EVERY meal on the couch ANYway, this cute, round, mid-century inspired, Danish knock-off was completely obsolete. So once I get rid of this round space-suck, I’m getting a proper rectangular desk/table and hopefully be able to sit down at this every morning with a cup of tea, like a normal, productive human. (At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. My name is Jenny Wang and I have stupid ambitions.) P.S. Anyone who wants this desk is welcome to come and get it. FREE. Thanks.

5. I write in really embedded run-on sentences that people probably get dizzy reading. I’m sorry, I have word vomit and I feel the need to express all of it.

6. I had no structure. In the upcoming weeks, I’m going to blogs a little more about categories I love and aspire to cover: my dogs (sorry, I’m a proud crazy dog lady,) baseball (and hot men who play them,) FOOD, crafts, more work related stuff, fashion (cause I love me some expensive ass shoes,) photography, and well…MORE.

I’m going to end this post with 2 images I created for a class I recently took at UCI. The images are about who I want to come off as versus who I am behind closed doors….and that’s all I’ll say for now…SO here’s to a hopeful new start on the blog.

(P.S. Can anyone teach me widget so I can edit this damn webpage?)

if you are someone that listens, just so you can get information to judge other people, if you are someone that cannot deal with their insecurities and must manifest it in passive-aggressive behavior, if you are someone that does not have the guts to put your own thoughts out there and live with the consequences AND if you are someone that SEEKS out things to hate: LEAVE. go to some other blog, find some other sucker. this is a public domain, but you are not welcomed here. this is a place for friends who i don’t get to see everyday to keep in touch with me. it’s not for my vanity. and it’s not for your negativity.

go spend your time doing something worthwhile. accomplish something for yourself and care less about what i have to say. believe me, my opinion only matters to the people i love anyhow and if you’re someone i mentioned above, you are not one of them.

the couple did an amazing job merging Vietnamese & western traditions in their ceremony.

 the ladies watching Giang get into her second dress for the receptions…that and enjoying the free booze.

gorgeous bride..but still with a lot of sass

proving that we’ll always be dorks..

enjoying each other’s company…

….escaping from their adorable kids

requirements of being a good +1? being the plate holder while your date eats.

swooning at the first dance. (…just like high school, except we were watching rom-coms and had less attractive clothes/hair..)

everyone get down.

no really…you have to outlast the DJ…it’s like a gameshow with no prize.

it’s been 15 (+?) years, but 1. there’s still a latta love between all of us and 2. we still look damn good

last wednesday, i took photographs of my co-worker sara at the previously mentioned location in Back Bay in Newport Beach. (i’d like to think i’m a good photographer, but the reality is she’s just really pretty…)

Sara found a gigantic spider while we were shooting by the bank of the water…we named it charlotte because it was suspended in this crazy web i assume it made itself…either way, charlotte was a BIG spidy….

The fuzzy green grass evokes a “where the wild things are” feeling for me…

Than came halloween…which i spent working-working-and-working. i dresses as my true self, a ninja…and my dogs barked at me. the guy behind me on the left? he’s dressed as me for halloween…yes, very funny, yuk it up!

I did more photo stuff on Sunday, but nothing really turned out the way i wanted…so we’ll just keep those unposted.

Than today, Monday, as i came home i got inspired by the way everything looked in the fog…so i picked up the camera once more…

the colors are a bit odd on ALL the pics cause i’m having some issue with in-depth photoshop functions. i’m probably going to need to take a class…so just don’t judge.

it’s one of my new favorite blogs in terms of finding inspiration from other’s people work.

my mantra? “today is a battle i will win”

I worked for four hours this morning counting every single bottle in the bar, and than I had nothing to do. Nothing. No laundry, no dishes, no cleaning, no errands, absolutely nothing. So I did what I did best: over-think, freak out and have a mid-life crisis all in my own head.

I started to feel pity about how hard I thought life was; how I’m growing apart from my friends, how I’m misunderstood, how my career is going nowhere, how my romantic life sucks ass, how nobody REALLY knows the hardships I’ve been through. I thought myself into a depression, and instead of taking hold of the beautiful sunny day and going out to enjoy life, I thought myself into an afternoon of self-diagnosed depression bed rest.

Thing is, through michelle, twitter and mooshinindy (one of my favorite blogs, and one that inspires me to pick up the camera once more,) I found websites that reminded me that human life is greater than the small hurdles I’m fumbling over. (especially since my hurdles are emotional and not a result of actual incidents.)

Reading these websites served as a reminder that the variation of grief and sadness in life can encompass the everyday, but sadness brings beauty in the things it contrasts. More importantly, to look around at what good fortunes already exists in life that I am overlooking. I am not a mother or a wife or a sister, but I am a friend and a daughter and I observe and learn from their grief in the way I can relate. Phillip Toledan reminded me that we can embrace the sadness, but I must remember to celebrate the infuriating but silly things that make me laugh; to cherish my parents, because they are the only real family I have. MooshinIndy reminded me that life is precious; that friendships run thick, and if my world should crumble, I must have faith that my friends will be there with bricks to help me rebuild. David Foster Wallace reminded me that, well, I have to quote him because his words are as important as the message: “learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”

All three of those reminders dealt with death in one way or another: Toledan’s parents passed, MooshinIndy’s BFF lost her toddler daughter and David Foster Wallace took his own life last fall. My father used to always say, “the minute you are born, you start dying.” I’m sure it wasn’t his quote, but he’s just always the one I attribute it to. I am who I am: stubborn, tough-loving and an over-thinker, but I’m reminded today that wallowing in the things that I cannot change does not give my life more meaning, but on the contrary, wastes precious time. It doesn’t mean I’ll stop having self-induced crisis’ but it does mean today, I remembered not to let it consume me.   

Life is a marathon that I sometimes wonder why I’m running, until I realize I’m lucky enough to have a chance to get to the finish line.

first there was Ava, a chihuahua, dachsaund mix

don’t let her doe-eyes fool you, she was an alpha, keep Kiraa hiding under the couch for a week. But she was very sweet and was adopted at her first adoption event but a very peppy blonde girl.

then came Gypsy:

she was abandoned at the shelter pregnant with kennel cough, ended up with pneumonia and labeled “aggressive.” the lady from the group rescued her and helped her recover from her pneumonia. she ended up giving birth to three teeny, tiny adorable chihuahua puppies. she loves to snuggle and sometimes sleeps with her ears up. quirky? yes. aggressive? nope.

next comes Chloe, aka Squeaks

Chloe got the nickname Squeaks because every time she made a sound, it just sounded like squeaking. she was TINY. (the second picture has my thumb in it for scale…) and she was rambuncsious. Kiraa was probably once that small, but i really forgot how much work it too. she couldn’t be left alone because she got into EVERYTHING; she snuck behind my entertainment center and tried to chew up my tv cables, she pooped on my nightstand because she couldn’t get down from the bed. she was so so so cute and tiny and sweet, but man, was she work. Squeaks eventually got adopted by a friend of the rescue group’s organizer, a dog-trainer! so as much as i was really in love with the pup, i’m happy she found an awesome home.

the current resident in the “halfway house for dogs” is Tinker, aka Yoda:

Tinker is pretty much what Yoda would look like if Yoda was a dog. she’s a pug, chihuahua mix and she’s got the dome head with the protruding eyeballs but a tiny, wrinkled snout. (…yoda.) she’s a couple months old, and it’s her first week without her brother Stinker. (he got adopted!) she’s adjusting to life without him by constantly trying to snuggle up against Kiraa. she’s is probably the most bizarre looking dog i’ve ever seen, but in a cute and charming way. she also likes to hoard things in her bed….dog toys, charger, potpourri satchel, everything a dog could ever want or need. she’s looking for a forever home, so if anyone’s looking for Yoda incarnate, drop me a comment!

in conclusion, i love dogs. i love their quirkiness, their story and their companionship! they’re each unique, like people, with distinct personalities that people sometimes fail to explore. and if you don’t already have one, you should really consider making the commitment because they will change your life!

the true romantics loves snow white for its pure dame-in-distress-saved-by-a-kiss heroism.

the down on their luck dream of cinderella for the way a man can change their life and lifestyle.

the drama queens enjoy the little mermaid for its ability for two people to overcome differences and end up together (very romeo and juliet with scales.)

my favorite was and always will be Lady and the Tramp (yes, Michelle: crazy dog lady.) the tramp was the baaaaad boy, the rebel, if you will. he lured lady away from her cushy middle-upper class properly groomed lifestyle and took her through the slums. she got dirty, ate spaghetti, kissed inappropriately and even landed in doggy jail. i mean seriously, imagine snow white doing all that! but tramp introduced lady to a way of life she was never aware existed, kind of like a cultural education. lady, meanwhile, took it all in stride and eventually put away her manicured puppy-tail and learned to enjoy the experience.

i think that’s what a better half is suppose to do for you. help you experience something new so that you can strengthen yourself.

this is not my valentines day single gal rant (since technically it’s the 15th), but rather the fruit of being inspired by a string of random events all shining their spotlight on my singleness: two, count them, TWO engagement parties this weekend, being forced to watch ‘he’s just not that into you’, and being asked at the trader joe’s what i was cooking for valentines day dinner. (what the fuck do you think the can of organic spaghetti-o’s are for idiot!?)

when natasha was in town this weekend, we had several discussions regarding relationships in our stage of life. (all over really ridiculously good meals, btw.) i’m an alpha personality, and i will always be attracted to alpha personalities. sparks usually fly fast and furious but it usually overheats into a giant molten mess. i have fought my whole relationship life to allow anyone to “take care of me,” and yet now it seems all of my friends who are settling down (or marrying) are doing it with the men who are the “taker-carers.” they use to date the life of the parties, the funny guys, guys with personalities and edge; now the boyfriends seem….vanilla (don’t get me wrong, they’re all likable people.) and now i’ve been plunged into one of those confused contemplative states regarding my ever-single self.

i HATE men who try to take care of me. for fuck’s sake, i can buy my own damn groceries! i like to bicker and jab a little- okay, a LOT (maybe i might have spent too much time in the men’s locker room.) i want someone who’s gonna push me to experience something i never thought to try. (and not in the my boyfriend loves the bears, so i totally love the bears kind of way.) but obviously my current path has lead me to flick off gennifer goodwin in the middle of ‘he’s not that into you.’ so what’s the alternative? find someone who wants to “take care of me” and then be all excited and gitty mistaking serenity for boredom? (sorry, was that cynical?)

SO, is ANY companionship better than none? should i lay off the spark-flying flaming hot cheetos and try a nilla wafer? ultimately, is it price charming or the tramp?