walk around the clock

A friend of mine has been donating blood (platelets) a lot recently for a friend of his who is in the hospital and it has inspired me to start giving whole blood again. I can’t even remember the last time I did… high school maybe? I did try once since then but they wouldn’t let me because I had recently gotten a tattoo. But that was my last tat and it was years ago so there is no reason I couldn’t have gone back, I just haven’t. It seems like such a waste because, not only do I have no problem with needles or the sight of blood, I am also type O. So I made an appointment for yesterday and was really excited, the night before I mapped out how I was going to get there, a combination of walking and taking the bus. I’ll spare you the details and just tell you I walked around for over an hour before calling my boyfriend at work so he could look it up on the computer and tell me I was really close and how to get there from where I was since it had proven not so easy to find. Well, that isn’t quite how it happened and instead when he looked it up he told me I was in the completely wrong part of town. Google Maps had failed me (though I admit it was most likely user error). Knowing there was no way I was going to make my appointment now, I walked back to the bus stop and waited thirty minutes before it arrived and took me home. I immediately jumped on the computer to see if I could make a later appointment, but there was nothing. I emailed the contact and she wrote back three hours later saying that there had been a glitch on the website and the drive I had been trying to get to all day was actually for employees only. Quite a glitch considering I received both a confirmation email and a reminder email. I wonder if they would have let me do it anyway had I gotten myself to the right place. I’ll never know.

Now that I have calmed down from my frustration of a completely wasted day, I have made a new appointment (at a different location) for this Saturday. I felt it was important to tell you all this back story now since Saturday happens to be Valentine’s Day. No, I am not that uber cheesey and didn’t go “Oh it is Valentine’s Day which is heart day let’s go do something special and give blood.” It is a coincidence and I plan to give as often as I am allowed from now on, which I think is about every two months.

And the above story isn’t the only time I have taken on my city by foot this week. On Sunday I was on a mission to find intstant white chocolate pudding mix. My mother warned me it could be hard to find, so I was prepared to make a few stops. I wasn’t, however, prepared to make nine and still come up empty handed. Here is how it went down:

First stop was Pavillions, where I did my weekly grocery shopping. No luck there so I dropped off the other groceries at home and headed right back out to go to Whole Foods. No luck there so I continued on down the street to Trader Joe’s but there was nothing so I crossed the street and went to CVS. Still nothing, but CVS is right next to a metro rail stop so I hopped on the train and back tracked, got off a few stops later and went to Gelsons. No luck. So I kept walking and went to Target. Nope. So I kept walking and went to Ralph’s. Nada. I had mentally given up but in order to get home from where I was I had to pass Walgreens so I checked there but found nothing, as well as a second Trader Joes which of course didn’t have it. Where are you instant white chocolate pudding mix!?

You would think after both these ordeals I’d be thinking, “Hey, maybe I should get a car,” but I’m not. I still plan to hold out as long as I can because I would much rather waste a few half-days walking around Pasadena then deal with traffic and parking on a daily basis.

big soft ginger cookies

I know baking cookies doesn’t exactly count as cooking, and I have been doing the latter too, but this is the first thing I made that I actually bothered to take a picture of so that is why it gets to be the first post.  All the other stuff (some of the yummiest being lamb chops, pork tenderloin, homemade hummus and homemade pesto) you will just have to wait until I make them again.

Allrecipes.com is now officially my favorite website and everything I’ve made so far has come from there.  So even though I’ve never really liked gingerbread or anything similar, I decided I had to make these BIG SOFT GINGER COOKIES anyway since they are the highest rated cookie on the entire site.  They sure didn’t disappoint!  I’m not going to say it was the best cookie I’ve ever had in my life, but considering I normally don’t like this kind at all and I devoured quite a few of these, I would be interested in what a ginger cookie connoisseur has to say.  My boyfriend really liked them and my co-workers gobbled up the rest.

Apparently they make really good ice cream sandwhiches, but I am still abstaining from ice cream after eating it almost every day in China.  Oh how I miss you Dairy Queen Green Tea Blizzard!

INGREDIENTS (makes approximately 24 cookies)

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water  (others suggested using orange juice instead)
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 tablespoons white sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

new beginning

As you can tell, it has taken me awhile to decide whether or not I should keep blogging after returning home from China.  I created it as a way to stay in touch with people while I was away as well keeping a journal of events for myself.  But now I am back and that adventure is over.  However, I realized that a lot of the people I was keeping in touch with through this blog while I was in China don’t exactly live very close to me now that I am back in the US either.  I have family across this country as well as in another country and high school friends are mostly still in Washington State but some have scattered, so whether on the other side of the globe or just down the coast I usually don’t get to see them more than once a year, if even that.

And as far as the adventure part goes… well, there are plenty more of those to come.  I plan to get out of the country at least once a year, and in between trips I am going to write about other things I have always wanted to do or learn.  If you were reading this blog while I was in China, you probably realized that food has become a big part of my life, yet before this year I’ve never tried to cook so I decided it was about time I start.  Of course, with an interest in food I also have to take an interest in health and another big goal this year is to knock down my body fat percentage, so there will probably be updates along those lines too.

Here is an example of something I’ve always wanted to do that I can now check off the list:

I went to the Rose Bowl this year!  And despite the fact that my least favorite team ever won, it was still awesome.  I mean, we walked there from our apartment AND look how beautiful the weather was on New Year’s Day!  Saw a random guy wearing a baseball cap that said “Issaquah” on it so I went up and talked to him.  He said he had never been there, that a friend of his gave it to him, but that I was the second person that day who told him they had grown up there.  I like being an adult and being able to talk to strangers.

So in conclusion, Catch A Cub In Its Den is going to keep on keepin’ on.