The Wandering Eater

First of all to everyone:

May your new year be filled with good food, good memories, and lots of happiness. Just don’t drink too much folks or you’re greeted with one ugly hangover…

Ok, the party. The title’s really based on that idea of a fusion of all those holidays, since (as you read on) Kim’s celebrating a belated Christmas and all the holidays that has or will be taking place within a day or less (depending upon when you’re reading this).

This party took place in Kim’s home in Long Beach. The problem is that I’m a city girl and I never took the LIRR train my entire life! I took the subway and bus countless times but the train? I’m totally lost. Some issues getting there: the bus from my house to the Jamaica station took 20 minutes to arrive and I was actually getting paranoid being late! Just because the train arrives only once every hour. I constantly kept looking at my watch whenever the driver makes a stop and I kept thinking “Keep driving! Keep driving, dammit!” So yeah, my nerves were really getting fried.

When I finally arrived to the station and actually took a deep breath and mentally prepared myself that everything’s going to be fine. I bought a roundtrip off-peak ticket to Long Beach and waited for the next train to arrive…and that was 50 minutes. Oy. So I went to the track where my train’s supposed to be located at and looked around if anyone I knew is there. I didn’t see anyone, and out of bordem/panic, I called the hostess, Kim. She told me on the phone that I’m supposed to see 2 people. However, I’m lingering around like a fool wondering where the hell are they? What I did to kill some time, I just took photos of the station. Somehow the steel beams and arches appeal to me, I don’t know why…
Finally, within 5 minutes before the train arrived, I saw Dave on the platform. I just remembered his face and just said, “Hi” but I forgot his name. (I’m not really good with names with people who I don’t see so often; sorry). Anyways, we rode the train that take us to Long Beach and it wasn’t so bad. It’s so much cleaner than the subways, it’s above the ground, and the ride wasn’t so painfully long as I thought it would be.

Once we arrived to Long Beach, we got picked up by Kim and her significant other, Matt, and they drove us to their lovely home. We found out on the car ride that we’re the only ones who were on time. *sighs* In ways, this wasn’t surprising yet I felt a bit peeved but I got over it once I saw the food! Yes; I was hungry and it was about 1:30 P.M. and I ate breakfast at 6 AM.

Kim granted us permission to nosh on her hors d’oeuvers (appetizers). Take a look below:

These shrimp disappeared fairly quickly…most of the latecomers missed out on this

The “salami”…Kim wanted salami but she ended up using sliced pepperoni.
It’s all good since it’s pork.

Also, another friend of her’s that we knew mutually was Eno.

She greeted me with her camera…

I found out that she stayed overnight to give a helping hand to Kim. I’m so proud of Kim and Eno because Kim taught Eno how to cook! Hopefully, Eno remembered a few things and actually cook for herself. I also found out that Eno, Kim and Matt stayed up to 4 AM to finish off the cooking. I just felt terrible for them. So, the problems of late guests kept rolling in…one group was about an hour to 1 1/2 hours late and another was two hours late . But we still kept noshing on the appetizers that she set out and laughing at every phone call, especially the extremely late group’s calls, since Kim put it on speaker phone. I haven’t laughed that hard for a long time.

The latecomers eventually came in about 2 hours… I’m hesitant about putting the latecomers faces on this post just because I don’t want to but this section as a “late comers section of shame.” So, let’s go to the funnier stuff and yes, the food will come in a bit later. Ok?

As all the guests finally arrived and got settled in, Kim started to take photos and film us on her video camera. She wanted everyone to stand up and sing “Kumbaya.” She mentioned that she wanted everyone to sing that song earlier before most of the guests arrived, and all of us thought she was joking. The one who really repulsed by this was her boyfriend, Matt. As you can see in his expression:

Eventually he caved in, since he was pressured by Kim and the video camera she’s holding. He just sang the chorus line of “Kumbaya” in a different note. But hey, bravo for doing it since everyone else didn’t have the guts to sing it. After that crazy phase, Kim made everyone to do some kind of dance in order to get our food. Since no one wanted to dance, only a few people started to do their own “dance” moves by doing some kind of arm movement that was very odd and hilarious. Just look below.

Dave’s doing his thing…

while Gippy’s doing her’s

Man. I wanted to drop on the floor and die of laughter! But I forgotten all about that once Kim just gave up on us and let us have food! So we’ve been served with…

Kim’s Stewed Chicken

Matt’s Stir-fried Beef and Vegetables - I liked that one the most (sorry, Kim!)

Kim’s Marcaroni Pie

Kim’s Couscous

My plate of food :)

Once I sat down with my food; I just took random photos of people eating. I just like seeing people’s faces when their starved and forced to ‘dance’ for their food. That sounds evil, doesn’t it?

Gippy’s posing with her food

Shirley’s eating up and talking…

On the photo above, I just found out that she’s a vegetarian, when Kim told Shirley along the lines of “it’s a good time to eat meat” or something related to that. So, the thought just came flooding my mind was Amateur Gourmet’s video about converting his vegetarian friend to a meat eater; seen here.

Moving on… after we ate, Kim gave out presents to everyone. All’s happy and giddy with them. I would post more photos, but this is a food blog; just go toward the end and you’ll see a link for more photos. After that, we all got our coats on and have a walk to the beach! Yay! We’re walking out in 30-something degrees weather and it’s breezy too! Woo hoo…! Well, the chilly part isn’t so bad. I just started to tear up a bit (because it’s cold and breezy) after standing out for 5 minutes. I tried to take photos in the near dark setting; it didn’t come out too well. But it looks interesting and something similar to De Chirico’s paintings: the use of shadows and the playing of light…if you studied Art History, you know what I mean.

Example #1
Not exactly a De Chirico’s…but it’s odd and cryptic looking

The only decent photo that came out from the beach

As we walked back to Kim’s place, we had dessert! Those of you who know me, I never miss out on dessert. So we had:

Cookies!

Various sweets (that our dentists would love us to eat)

A close up bitten Croatian chocolate from the above platter. It’s different than other European chocolates I’ve ever had. It’s more milk chocolatey and a hint of hazelnut flavor. A Plate of Brownies…It’s in between cakey and fudgey in texture; to me it’s more like a very moist chocolate cake

Texture shot of the brownie

And last but not least…

Black Cake!

Lots of questions have been raised on this particular dessert. First of all, black cake is a cake made during Christmas as a Trinidad tradition. It’s a fruitcake meets English but tastes soo much better than the American fruitcake…there’s no rainbow of neon colors in this cake (Thankfully!) and it smells like raisins (and I happen to love raisins). From what the Boston Globe says, “Its apt name comes from chopped fruits — prunes, raisins, currants, cherries, and candied peel — soaked in dark rum and a sweet wine, along with a burnt sugar essence…”

A slice of Black Cake

Also from that same article it stated that, “In the last essay of “Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen,” Colwin wrote, “Black Cake, like truffles and vintage Burgundy, is deep, complicated and intense. It has taste and aftertaste. It demands to be eaten in a slow, meditative way.” I have to concur with that last statement because after I bit that cake, I actually tasted the caramel flavors with the sweetness of the dried fruits in the cake. The booze factor wasn’t really there. I can tell because I really have low tolerance for alcohol. I mean, after a glass of wine I’m a bit buzzed there.

The bitten Black Cake: texture shot

Well, it’s been one heck of a party. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time. Kim, if you’re reading this post: Throw another one in the summer! It would be even better with the beach open.

If you want to see more photos about this party, click here.

Notes: I know this is a post that I’ve spoken about ages ago that I should’ve written but I was lazy. Sorry. It’s better late than never. This may be a good way to start the new year by knowing where to get your morning muffin. (End note)

Hmm…you have to read it out to know the answer. Yes… you have to read out my rants and raves of who’s the best, superb muffin to who just got the most awful thing I put in my mouth that doesn’t deserve to have the name, muffin. I would call it garbage, slop,…you get the point.

It’s very sad and disturbing that in New York City, the muffin is ubiquitous as the bagel or croissant; has a very wide range of palatability from the offensively bad to the fabulously good. It partly explains why it took me a while to come up with this list and I have to tell you, it’s been a hard and long journey for my stomach and my taste buds.

To start off, my ideal muffin has to have a slightly crisp, crunchy exterior with a moist, soft crumb (interior). Flavors do not particularly matter, as long as it’s a sweet-type not savory (even though I don’t have any problem eating a bacon, cheddar and chive muffin but I like sweet muffins more) and the flavor of the fruit (if any) shines through with a good balance of spices (once again, if any). An example of my ideal muffin, is the one I baked two weeks ago, an adaptation of Martha Stewart’s blueberry muffin but made with orange zest and cranberries. Seen below…
The rating system is the same as all of my “best of…” posts; 1 being the worst to 4 the best.
I’ll do this in chronologically eaten order…

Bouchon Bakery’s Banana Nut Muffin $2.75 w/tax = $2.99; other flavors that we’re available that day were carrot (cake?) muffin, and a savory-type muffin (can’t recall the name), neither of which appealed to me so banana nut it is. The muffin looks good: a dry, crumbly, streusel-like topping, peaking out is a nice shade of golden brown, and bits of nuts popping out. The interior is soft, moist with a good amount of chopped nuts, probably walnuts? I can’t distinguish it too well since it’s chopped. It smells wonderful; bananas with delicate scents of banana, cinnamon and cloves. When I took a bite, the crunch of the streusel and nuts is a great contrast to the soft, delicate, and moist interior - almost cake-like in texture. The nuts impart a slightly bitter, earthy flavor goes well with the banana’s dense fruity flavor and the streusel also helps in the flavor department by also flavored with banana and noticeably, butter. It’s a very good muffin. Rating: 3.5 out of 4.
Whole Foods‘ Banana Nut muffin (I ate the same flavor the same day; from the 3rd floor where Bouchon’s located to the basement: Whole Foods ($1.89)). It looks a lot more prominently mushroom-shaped than Bouchon’s; there’s a lot more chopped walnuts sprinkled on top, the muffin’s top is moist, and it’s greasy on the bottom. After cutting it in half, it’s moist throughout and there a good bit of black walnuts distributed throughout the muffin. When it comes to taste and texture, the banana flavor is really lacking - practically bland; there was the slight bitterness from the walnuts, but it is moist. Rating: 2 out of 4.

Petrossian Café was something out of expectation that they would have some great muffins since they do have a reputation for being a purveyor of expensive, fabulous foods (i.e. caviar). So, in hopes of finding a great muffin, I purchased their apple muffin ($2).

It looks decent from the dry exterior that I wanted and it had the streusel-like topping. It smelled faintly of cinnamon. So I took a deep breath and bit it. Well, it was just borderline moist that it wasn’t dry, not much apple flavor but I can taste the cinnamon, and there were some apple chunks. It was not a great muffin. I probably had too much high expectations for this establishment, that made me have biases on this muffin. But still, it’s not the best muffin. Rating: 2.5 out of 4.

Now, this is a mini-tour around the Grand Central Station area, since this is where many commuters come and go to the city. I began my search in the Dining Concourse area at Dishes. Why I chose this particular place? It’s because they were the only food establishment besides Junior’s that was selling any breakfast food at 6:50 AM. Anyways, I perused their pastry case and I spotted Yura & Co.’s muffins, so I bought Yura’s Apple Walnut Muffin ($2.75).
It’s quite a large muffin with the “mushroom” top. It’s a moist muffin, densely packed with walnuts, chunks of apples, raisins and walnuts. The muffin tasted good: sweet (from the raisins and apples), moist, good apple-cinnamon flavor.
The drawback was that it’s soft throughout the muffin; lacked that thin crust exterior. Rating: 3 out of 4. Probably it would be better if I went straight to the source, at Yura & Co. in the Upper East Side? I’ll give it a whirl in the future.

Next up, Cipriani Le Specialita. Once again, a well known name and I had high expectations for this establishment. I entered this small but swanky establishment with high hopes for a really good muffin. I ordered a blueberry muffin for $1.

My first problem is, where’s the rest of it? It’s just a dainty, little muffin about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Other issues: it’s barely moist, the blueberries in that muffin are insipid, not sweet and it lacked that crunchy exterior.

This little muffin needs a lot of help. Rating: 1.5 out of 4.

Zaro’s Bakery located in Grand Central Market was bustling with the morning commute activity, many where there for their muffins. Taking that implication, I joined the crowd and gotten myself an orange cranberry muffin for $1.85. This muffin is not at all dainty like Cipriani’s; it’s really huge. Take a look:
I guess their size took over the whole concept of taste. The muffin was moist with a decent crusty exterior from the sugar, but there wasn’t much cranberries, the orange flavor tasted really *gasp* artificial - almost taste like something out of a cake/muffin mix. I know! It’s hard to believe but it really does. After that initial bite, I lost my appetite and threw it in the garbage. It was an insult to my stomach that I almost felt like vomiting. Rating: 1 out of 4.

Getting out of that area (thankfully), I went to the west side to Le Pain Quotidien and ordered their organic blueberry muffin ($2.25). It looks a lot more like a real muffin with it’s natural unevenness.


The muffin looks like there’s tons of blueberries but once I split that muffin, there’s barely any. I really liked the crunchy exterior and the moist interior crumb, it’s not very sweet and it’s a very wholesome muffin from the whole grains I tasted from the bite. It tastes good. Rating: 3 out of 4.

I trekked to the Upper West Side to Silver Moon Bakery. Those of you who’ve read the post about this place, I’m completely enamored with this bakery. I have tried their pumpkin chocolate chip (more like chunk) muffin for $2.40.

It just came out of the oven minutes ago, since I went at the time they opened the doors to the bakery. The chocolate was still hot and gooey from the remaining heat from the muffin and it had a nicely browned exterior. I’m anticipating greatness from this muffin. When I bit it, the crust was very crisp, contrasting the soft, moist interior; it had a good pumpkin flavor with a hints of clove, allspice, and cinnamon. From looking at the photo with the halved muffin, it had an even distribution of chocolate throughout the muffin. I LOVE this muffin. I was actually giddy when I ate this muffin, that I almost giggled with happiness that some of the bakery’s patrons were looking at me like I’m weird or crazy. Rating: 3.75 out of 4.

Out in Dumbo, Brooklyn, I went to Almondine. I went for their bran muffin ($1.95) that morning, for some reason I opted out their raspberry muffin. I still don’t know why I did.

Anyways, it wasn’t a bad choice. It’s a fresh, wholesome muffin; not greasy. It had a slight crusty exterior with a moist crumb; filled with lots of raisins and an unexpected dried apricot. It also had a toothsome texture from the bran with a hint sweetness from the dried fruits and nuttiness from the bran. The crust wasn’t as crisp as Silver Moon’s, probably because it was raining that day. Rating: 3.3 out of 4.

Back to the city; I went to City Bakery for their blueberry corn muffin ($2.50). I’ve read from various Chowhound posts that this particular muffin is good.

First off, it’s not the typical “mushroom” shaped muffin, it’s more disk-like. It had a thin, crusty exterior but the main problem is that this muffin is terribly greasy. The muffin does have even distribution of blueberries and one can see the cornmeal specks throughout the muffin. It has the contrast of crisp crust with the soft, moist interior with a fresh burst of blueberry flavor. The cornmeal gives the it an extra toothsome texture and the crumb is really soft and buttery. This muffin is a bit too decadent for me as a breakfast item but it’s decent. Rating: 3 out of 4.

I went over to Zabar’s Café in the Upper West Side and tried their babka muffin. To tell you honestly, I don’t know what to expect from the muffin: would it be more of a babka shaped like a muffin or is a muffin that tastes like a babka?


Well, it’s certainly a dry muffin or babka, if anything. It’s packed with lots of dried fruits but it’s not what I desire from a muffin and as a babka perspective, it’s not floating my boat, either. If I’m rating this as a muffin, it’s too dry, the texture is too dense but the sweetness factor is fine. I have other personal faves for babka but that’s a totally different post. This muffin is having an identity crisis that I can’t really rate it.

Next up, I went to Amy’s Bread in Chelsea Market during the afternoon for a snack. During that day, I had my lunch earlier. I ordered their apricot date muffin for $2.25.

It doesn’t look too tempting, honestly. It doesn’t have the crisp crust that I wanted (partly because it was the afternoon), the interior crumb was a bit dry and a tiny bit dense/tough; but at least it had a good bit of chopped dates and it has good flavor of apricots and dates. Rating: 2.5 out of 4.

And finally, from Two Little Red Hens in the Upper East Side. I had their pumpkin muffin for $2; yes, it’s the one I’ve spoken a tiny bit about it a few weeks ago. It came out hot out of the oven that morning. It was wonderfully light, crisp, and slightly sweet and savory (from the pumpkin and spices), all in one bite. It was a brief moment of bliss. This is one fine muffin. Rating: 3.75 out of 4.

To sum it all up in a list:

1. It’s really tough, it’s a toss up between:
Two Little Red Hens
1652 2nd Ave
New York, NY
(it also has a Brooklyn location that is just as fine, located at 1112 8th Ave. Brooklyn, NY)

Silver Moon Bakery
2740 Broadway
New York, NY

Bouchon Bakery
10 Columbus Circle (on the 3rd Floor)
New York, NY

2. Almondine
85 Water St
Brooklyn, NY

3. tied between:
Bought in Dishes in Grand Central Dining Concourse but the source is Yura & Co.
1645 3rd Ave.
New York, NY

Le Pain Quotidien
visited 922 7th Ave
New York, NY (but there’s multiple locations throughout the city)

City Bakery
3 W 18th St
New York, NY

4. Amy’s Bread
3 locations in Manhattan
visited the one in Chelsea’s Market:
672 9th Ave.
New York, NY

5. Whole Foods
various locations throughout the city but I visited the one in Columbus Circle.

Don’t bother with:
Zaro’s
visited: 89 E 42nd St
New York, NY

Cipriani Le Specialita
110 E 42nd St
New York, NY

Honorable mention: Blue Sky Bakery in 53 5th Ave in Brooklyn. I had their blueberry muffin about a year ago and I remembered it was quite good and also it had praises over at Chowhound as well.

It seems to me there seems to be better muffins toward the Upper East and Upper West Side. Too bad I don’t live on either spots, I just commute to the Upper West Side for school. Bummer.

Hopefully, most of you may find this list resourceful. I know some of you might have some qualms with this list but this is just my opinion. If you do like some places that I’m dismissing, you may just ignore me.

I also know a lot more places out in Brooklyn that has some great muffins as well, but I just don’t have the time or stomach capacity.

To see the whole photoset of this list, click here.

‘Til then, I hope you may have better muffins starting the new year (since it’s Thursday anyway and probably you’re reading this while you’re at work). But of course, the best muffins are homemade; unless you don’t know how to bake.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your Christmas is going well so far, especially the food. Well, today’s Christmas dinner menu is basically a variation of the surf-n-turf: seared steak (done the most austere way: just salt and pepper; done by my father), steamed asparagus, sauteed mushrooms (vegetables done by my mom), and my homemade raisin coconut walnut bread and coconut shrimp.

If you’re wondering about my younger brother; he’s just here for the food. In ways it’s a good thing because my house doesn’t have a huge kitchen and it’s already bad enough that there’s three people making their own things and we just have one stove. So yeah, it’s good that he doesn’t cook.

I don’t have pictures of the main courses, just the stuff I made since: 1) the photos of the entrées and the side dishes didn’t come out too well and 2) once the food came out that my parents made, were consumed almost immediately. Sorry.

Coconut shrimp before baking

Baked Coconut Shrimp

Homemade Raisin Coconut Walnut Bread - Loaf shape

Homemade Raisin Coconut Walnut Bread - Shaped in a bun-like form

Yes, my family and I stuffed our faces with lots of food. Not to mention, we still have the cheesecake I made yesterday.

So, my question to you readers, what did you eat for Christmas? Did you make anything special or partake in the process of creating the meal?

‘Til then, Merry Christmas! As for tomorrow, may you have many happy returns for any gifts that you don’t like and/or happy shopping!

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year! Joyeux Noël et bonne année! ¡Feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo! Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo! Fröhliches Weihnachten! Vrolijk Kerstmis! 聖誕節同新年快樂 ! Hyvää joulua ja onnellista uutta vuotta! クリスマスと新年おめでとうございます! Wesołych Świąt! 메리 크리스마스! 새해 복 많이 받으세요! God jul och gott nytt år! Feliz Natal! Happy Hanukkah! (the last day, I believe?) and שנה טובה! And last but not least, Happy Kwanzaa! (starting on Dec. 26th)

Hopefully, I’ve written those “Merry Christmas!” sayings correctly, if I didn’t I apologize. For the curious, it started (obviously) from English then, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Finnish, Japanese, Polish, Korean (also said “happy new year”), Swedish, and Portuguese. I would write more but it’s getting redundant. Don’t you agree?

My family is not the traditional set who would have Christmas morning bread (that was last year); so my mother proposed that I will have to bake a cheesecake ready to be consumed by Christmas eve morning. I know. I live in a strange family who would have a deliriously rich dessert for breakfast. A few years ago my family trekked down to Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn for the famous Junior’s Cheesecake. We find that it even though it was delicious, the long wait and a albeit, a bit pricey to get a cheesecake the size that I’m baking was not worth the trip again.

Obliging to my mom’s orders, I started it yesterday since the cheesecake needs to be chilled a good few hours after the 1 1/2 hours of baking and two to three hours to cool off.
The mixer…I have to thank Kim (again) for this lovely mixer! It was totally unexpected of her to give me as a Christmas present. The funny thing is that she read my post (months earlier) about my whole campaign for my mom to buy me a stand mixer for years; now Kim’s giving this for me instead. I was touched that she and her significant other schlepped the huge box from Long Beach to my house in Queens. I’m getting spoiled…(and she saved my arm from a major fatigue creaming the cream cheese.)

Anyways, I’m just giving you the highlights of baking this cheesecake. My favorite part was the crust making. Do you want to know why? It’s because it great stress relief; take a look:

The poor crackers…

They’re taking abuse from me…

Sorry…I’m just frustrated (I have issues, ok?)

See what I mean? If you have anger issues that you don’t want to physically take on a person, just take it out on the graham crackers. It’s not in pain; it won’t press charges on you for assault, beating the living daylights out of them, because it’s not a person. So yeah, go ahead and whack some crackers into crumbs. You’ll feel a lot better and it’s free therapy.

Moving on…mixing the cheesecake filling.

Pouring mixed filling & the crust:

Look how thick and silky smooth that batter is…

Smooth the top with a spatula and place in the preheated oven

Baked cheesecake:

It’s taken inside the oven, hence the bad lighting

Cooled cheesecake on a cake plate:

Hungry yet?

Cheesecake with the raspberries.

Voilà! Ce n’est pas beau? (French: Isn’t it beautiful?)

It’s decadent, delicious, and luxuriously rich. Probably there should be a surgeon general’s warning that this cheesecake is ridiculously high in saturated fats, cholesterol (the bad ones, LDL), and high in calories but who cares? It’s the holidays, live a little. Bake a cheesecake and just have a tiny piece and slowly peck your way through the week or throw a cheesecake party and invite a few people over to enjoy this wonderful cheesecake.

Here’s the recipe…
Raspberry Cheesecake
Barefoot Contessa Family Style by Ina Garten

For the crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (10 crackers)
1 tablespoon sugar
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
2 1/2 pounds cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
5 whole extra-large eggs, at room temperature
2 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For the topping:
1 cup red jelly (not jam), such as currant, raspberry, or strawberry
3 half-pints fresh raspberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

To make the crust, combine the graham crackers, sugar, and melted butter until moistened. Pour into a 9-inch springform pan. With your hands, press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan and about 1-inch up the sides. Bake for 8 minutes. Cool to room temperature.

Raise the oven temperature to 450 degrees F.

To make the filling, cream the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce the speed of the mixer to medium and add the eggs and egg yolks, 2 at a time, mixing well. Scrape down the bowl and beater, as necessary. With the mixer on low, add the sour cream, lemon zest, and vanilla. Mix thoroughly and pour into the cooled crust.

Bake for 15 minutes. Turn the oven temperature down to 225 degrees F and bake for another 1 hour and 15 minutes. Turn the oven off and open the door wide. The cake will not be completely set in the center. Allow the cake to sit in the oven with the door open for 30 minutes. Take the cake out of the oven and allow it to sit at room temperature for another 2 to 3 hours, until completely cooled. Wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Remove the cake from the springform pan by carefully running a hot knife around the outside of the cake. Leave the cake on the bottom of the springform pan for serving.

To make the topping, melt the jelly in a small pan over low heat. In a bowl, toss the raspberries and the warm jelly gently until well mixed. Arrange the berries on top of the cake. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Note: Measure your springform pan. The bottom of mine measures 9 inches, but it says 9 1/2. I put the springform pan on a sheet pan before putting it in the oven to catch any leaks.

Once again, Happy Holidays! Have fun: eat, drink and be merry! Just do it in moderation.

It’s not really a food posting of sorts. It’s more like food photos of the confections that I’ve purchased ever since Tuesday, 12/19 from Takashimaya, Minimoto Kitchoan, and Chocolat Michel Cluizel.
Somehow I’ve managed to have time in between finals to do a little food shopping. Then later on the week I played, plated and eaten most of these sweets. Boy, my dentist is going to love me now… Well, enjoy the show. Hopefully it looks good. Any critiques on these photos are welcome.

Please note that you may click on the photo if you want to get more info. If you want to go directly to the photoset, click here.

Well, it’s official. I’m out of school for a month. I don’t know if that’s good thing for me but heck, I don’t want to deal (or have to) with papers and exams until after New Year’s. After that I need to bury myself in study books for the LSATs.

I planned to hang out with my two friends who attends from my former school, St. John’s University about a few days ago. They agreed and luckily for them, finals were over for almost a week. Anyways, we met at one of my friends’ house, Helen. She’s not usually a morning person and somehow she managed to surprise me (or should I say, myself and my best friend since high school, Seungmi?) that she’s up at 8:30 AM. Trust me, this is a record for her since she told me that she tends to wake up in the afternoon.

Anyways, we took the subway to Bryant Park for some ice skating. This is the second time in my entire life that I’ve ever skated. (The first was a Christmas present of sorts from Helen last year at Rockefeller Center.) I still have the painful memories of actually wiping out pretty bad on the ice last year. Not once. Twice, and then a few little slips. Thankfully this year, I managed not to fall but I have a few trips but I’ve managed to save myself from falling; or my friends held on to my hand guiding me the way. The funniest quote that’s written on the boards of the rink was from Citibank that says, “People are like snowflakes. No two are alike but they are always fun to watch.” The skaters on the rink might be fun to watch because they can actually fall pretty darn hard. The people watching just outside the rink are having a kick out of the poor souls falling unlike graceful snowflakes, even taking videos of us…eek!

My rants about this rink is that they don’t let you take pictures. They also, charge you almost $10 for renting some really ugly and uncomfortable skates that really strangle your feet after wearing it for 40 minutes to have pain kicking in. But I guess they have to make some money somehow by having free admission to the rink. That’s how grotesque and crappy these skates were:
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To reiterate what I said, it’s finals week for me and it was a killer for me. My brain feels a bit fried from all the stress for packing in 6 finals within 3 days. It’s ridiculous what colleges do to students. I’m assuming law school would be 5 - 10 times more intense than what I’d faced. Oh well…

Sorry about that sidetrack; going on with food now…
On Tuesday, my literature final was during the late afternoon. So, I took advantage of the ample time of sorts to go to Payard Patissere & Bistro in the Upper East Side at 12 PM for desesrt. If you’re wondering if I eaten anything savory, yes I have but it’s not worth talking/writing about. It’s just a salad. Ok?


When I entered this restaurant/patisserie, it was bustling with lots of activity. I even saw the pastry chef himself, Mr. Francois Payard, helping out the staff in the front placing orders in boxes. Most of the patrons are basically local women who lunch, tourists, and people who want to take a break from power shopping around the area.
So, after browsing through the gorgeous cakes, tarts and pastries. I was faced with the problem of what the heck do I want to eat? I mean, look at them!
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Yesterday I had the intention of going to eat lunch at Cafe Sabarsky. However, the wait was killing me - almost 40 minutes and I was starving! So, I just gave up my spot on line and just took a bus down 5th Avenue. I ended up going to Takashimaya’s Tea Box Cafe. I wanted to eat here for a while and since I this is my chance now, I went in.
Those of you who have never went in here before, it’s basically an upscale Japanese department store that tastefully blend Japanese and French style. (I must say that their first floor floral boutique arrangements are gorgeous.) Anyways, the Tea Box Cafe is in the basement of the store. Once you get there, you’re greeted with all things tea; may it be teapots, tea leaves, as well as some Japanese confections and cookies.

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