best of the worst

Summertime in Virginia is NO JOKE. We reach up to the high 90s almost every day with a good chance of 50%+ humidity. I slave away as a city mail carrier every day so I'm exposed to the elements whether I like it or not. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night....you know the saying. The only way to prevent death is to HYDRATE! And near the end of my route when I'm about to keel over from exhaustion, I need a pick me up. Iced coffee has been the drink of choice the past few weeks or so (I drink water during my 10+ mile walking routes, nothing else. Coffee only comes near the end). 

The good thing about this current obsession is that I LOVE SHITTY COFFEE. I mean it. It's cheap, tasty and still loaded with enough caffeine to send me in to cardiac arrest. To cut to the chase, I'm going to compile a list of all the cheap iced coffees out there to determine which are the best and which are the worst. Let's call it a best of the worst list. Bare with me, I'm stocking the arsenal as we speak, so expect a list within the coming week or so. 

food fright?

California is sort of a second home for me. If I had the money, I'd stay here permanently. For the time being, the bi-annual trips here will have to do. Maybe if I spent less of my money on food, I'd be able to save a little more. But what's life without a little indulgence?

Ever since my first trip here, my diet has been unpredictable. In Virginia, I'm used to southern comfort food and chain restaurants. That's really all there is in my area. Not complaining. We all know Cracker Barrel is the bomb dot com. But when I stay in the San Gabriel Valley...well, I might as well be in another country. The area, Monterey Park to be specific, has the highest concentration of Chinese people in the entire U.S. So you better believe the Chinese food here is off the charts. Most of the business owners here are first generation immigrants so the language barrier is painfully difficult and most of the restaurants' menus are only in Chinese. So it's not unfamiliar for me to order something without fully knowing what it is.  Food exploration is the name of the game. 

It's not just the food outside the house that leaves me guessing. 

My visits are spent with my boyfriend's Chinese/Cambodian family that is always kind enough to house me and feed me (which seems to be Mama Lim's favorite part). Food is a huge part of the culture. Not eating what's offered to me is the equivalent of me kicking a puppy or something similarly cruel. "My mother's cooking is the way she shows her love" my boyfriend tells me. So it's settled. I will eat anything that woman puts down on a plate. I don't question it. I just eat it and pray to the food gods that it isn't an eyeball or coagulated blood tofu (....yes, that really happened).

Even though taking a bite is like taking a gamble, she has never fed me anything that tasted gross, made me sick, nothing like that. I've even discovered some new favorites. 

Just yesterday, she left me the most bizarre food I've seen in a while. 

"I'm going out, you fry this up with egg and eat. You try." I nodded my head and stared at the plate of...what was it? Meat? Some root vegetable? Good god. I had no idea. So out she headed to the post office and I, to the kitchen. It was just me and the food blob. I did as I was told and fried it up (sans the egg), grabbed a pair of chopsticks and went for it. I was pleasantly surprised. It was sweet and glutenous, similar to mochi, with a flowery undertone. Hmm..yes yes. I chewed and chewed and fried up some more. New favorite snack? I think yes. If you're curious, it wound up being red bean paste with bits of flower (not sure which kind; Mrs. Lim wasn't sure how to translate the name). 

It can be a little intimidating to explore all these new textures and flavors unfamiliar to Westerners, but I promise, it's always worth it. So take a risk! Try something that looks different, that smells funky, something you're afraid to try. You never know if you may be eating your new favorite meal. 

Mrs. Lim's mystery food

Howdy, world!

I've toyed around with the idea of creating a lifestyle blog for a while now but it hasn't come to fruition up until this point. As a teenager, I used to try to blog but never with a purpose. It always wound up being an angsty journal more than anything else (Xanga, anyone???). However, I keep finding myself filled to the brim with creative ideas that I wish I could share with the world, projects without a home, visions that have never amounted to much other than a passing thought. But I figure, I'm getting to a point in my life where things are changing so frequently and I'm encountering so many new things that it would be fun to publicly document it somehow.
Whether it be travel, fashion, makeup, or food (ESPECIALLY food), it's all going to ~hopefully~ wind up here. 
So here we go...let's see how this turns out.

-Brandi