I decided to transfer my posts to http://fivefootgal.wordpress.com/
foodie sounds too pretentious 
On turning 3 decades old
I saw this and it seemed fitting for me to do mine, with my 30th bday just around the corner:
10 years ago today I would have
:: declared a major, Economics
:: my parents still living in CA
:: NEVER set foot on a plane
5 years ago today I would have been
:: learning to manage the first year of a long distance relationship and my parents moving to another state
:: lived with a roommate that had two cats
:: working at a bank
1 year ago today I would have been
:: in Napa for my bday
:: went to Mexico City for the first time
:: ran two 5k races and psyching myself for a 10k race
This year I
:: went to Brazil twice, Sao Paulo and Rio
:: will run my first half marathon with my good friends on 10/24
:: missed my goal of visiting 20 different countries by the age of 30. Since August 2002, I’ve been to 18 unique countries (where I stayed at least one night in); besides Mexico and Canada, I’ve visited 21 countries and 17 states in the United States.
Today I
:: attended my girlfriend’s engagement party
:: started enhancing our living arrangement (prettier dinner parties, yay!)
Next year I hope to
:: travel to other parts of Latin America, like Chile or Venezuela!
:: have planned the majority of our wedding
:: travel to Europe with Chris
In five years I hope to
:: travel to more countries
:: be happily married to Chris, no matter where we live
:: live in another country, but that’s wishful thinking <3
When people turn 30, I always ask them, “is there anything you wish you had done before turning 30?”
Well now I’m going to answer my own question. I don’t have any regrets. I’m sooo fortunate that I got to travel so much for work and leisure. I think things happened the way it did for a reason. Cheers to turning 30! I’m ready to take you on.
Tacos al pastor en La Condesa
We decided to do a tacos al pastor run. Too bad it was raining, we ended up going to only two. El Farolita and El Califa. Both are located in La Condesa area of the DF. La Condesa is one of the trendier areas of Mexico City. The first two taco places are located across the street from one another. Our third spot would have been El Tizoncito but it was raining too hard. We tried El Tizoncito in Monterrey, but it would’ve been nice to try three spots for one meal. I definitely think all three are worth trying, especially if you are timid about trying taco stands.
El Farolita’s meat tasted very similar to Chinese BBQ pork! I truly believe good tacos al pastor should come with PINEAPPLE!
Our favorite was El Califa
I haven’t found any tacos de Costilla at home, so I knew I wanted to get this while visiting Mexico. It must be something unique to Mexico City? Anyway, it’s rib meat. I’ve seen it prepared two ways. One where it’s all chopped up and here at El Califa, they cook a thin slice of rib meat. It’s sooo juicy! The taco de costilla is pictured on the plate on the right. There are two other dishes that I found I found unique to Mexico, chicharron de queso and cactus. Basically a thin layer of shredded cheese is melted on a griddle or pan until it turns golden. Then as you take the melted cheese off, you fold it like a crepe, except sometimes they fold it to form a dome. It’s basically a nacho made of CHEESE. You can see that pictured in the middle. We ordered the “nopales con queso,” cheese melted with slices of cactus. I’m not a fan of cactus because it doesn’t really have much taste to it (pictured in the plate on the left). I ordered the tacos al pastor and the tacos al pastor pollo. The pollo was too dry. The tradicional al pastor was spot on GOOD.
El Farolita
Altata 19, Condesa
El Califa
Altata 22, Condesa
Homemade macarons
Gal pals and I got together Sunday afternoon to make macarons based off of Martha Stewart’s recipe.
Using the Kitchenaid stand mixer was unbelievably helpful! Making these with a hand mixer or by hand would’ve taken twice as long! We weren’t paying attention and accidentally used wax paper. Some of the cookies stuck and broke. We salvaged most of them. They were still oh so tasty! Whole foods doesn’t carry whole vanilla bean, it would’ve taken these macarons to the next level!
The recipe says to make the macarons 3/4″ inch in diameter. We made ours 1.5-2″ in diameter, which means we had to add more baking time.
It was also our first time piping. Steady hands people!
Below you can see that some of them cracked while transferring the macarons from oven to cooling 
You can also see that you don’t have to make them perfectly smooth and they will still bake nicely!
We managed to save enough macarons that were similarly shaped to pair them up!
Three hours later. Firm outside, chewy inside with a cool vanilla buttercream inside. Don’t they look like they’re smiling?
THEY WERE SO WORTH IT. I have a newfound respect for these delicate cookies and the bakeries that make the tasty ones. It takes a lot more time and patience than making chocolate chip cookies. My favorite macaron by far are still the Bouchon ones (I really think there’s some kind of rose infused taste in them!).
Next time we’re going to try to make seasonal ones, raspberry and pistachio! I also want to try to make the buttercream frosting with whole vanilla beans.
Dragon Fruit
My parents live where the weather is tropical fruit growing friendly. They love growing stuff, if you give them seeds, they will grow it! One thing that they always grow are dragon fruit. I rarely see them in southern California but lo and behold, I saw them at the farmer’s market this weekend!
$4.00 for one dragonfruit! My parents would be so happy <3
Airports
I truly believe LAX has the WORST customer service of any airports I’ve ever flown in. The worst part is that this is the airport that I have to fly out of!
I’m finally back from Mexico. After 13 nights in Mexico, my final taco count was 34 tacos. I’m taking a break from eating anything Mexican since I’ll be heading back to Mexico in a month. The idea of eating fresh vegetables sounds so appealing right now!
Last night we tried our luck at getting an earlier flight from DFW to LAX. We were # 4 and #5 on the list. Out of some sheer luck, my traveling partner got on the plane and my name gets called next! As the lady prints out my boarding pass, four flight attendants rush to the ticket counter. Turns out that they were ahead of us and finally made it to the boarding area. My traveling partner was asked to exit the plane and my boarding pass was torn in half. How sad! Even with Platinum/Gold status, you can still get bumped by someone with Executive Platinum or a flight attendant. *sigh* At least the service at DFW was unbelievably hospitable:
-Clearing Immigration, I asked the officer to stamp my passport and he did! He even asked me which page I’d like my stamp on (why do some officers stamp on the pages that shouldn’t be stamped?! or worse, they stamp OVER other stamps!) Now I have four stamps from different airports in the US: LAX, MIA, JFK and DFW! BTW, I didn’t ask for the stamps in MIA or JFK because they sometimes do stamp!
-Going through customs (security knew I was Vietnamese by my name. He noticed that I checked off that I had food on my form and asked me “so what do you have in there, nuoc mam?” it was actually vanilla, but that was cute)
-Asking to have a standby flight
-Rechecking our baggage claim and the guy was nice enough to tell us which way to go
-Asking what’s the quickest way to get from one terminal to the next (bc you have to use SkyLink, DFW is unbelievably huge)
-Even the time we got our tickets town because the flight attendants bumped us out of our standby seats.
-The guy driving a cart even took us to our next gate!
Compared to LAX=
-Our bags arrived before us since the bags made it on the standby flight. We have PriorityAccess cards on our baggage and there’s a specific area for First Class/Business/Platinum members. So we went to that area and asked them where our luggage was. The lady just pointed to the general baggage claim area. The next lady breathed a loud, sarcastic sigh because we actually wanted her to do some work. She finally told us where our luggage was sitting. Sorry, these ladies ARE working, right? UGH.
Folks, welcome to LAX.
Mexican Vanilla
The folks in the office here told me other colleagues from the states buy bottles of vanilla extract here. I learned that there are three areas that make the best vanilla, which includes Mexico! Even in the states, you have to pay attention when you buy vanilla extract because you want to make sure you pick PURE not artificial/imitation vanilla extract. In Mexico, some companies put courmarin in place of real vanilla extract. Coumarin is from the tonka bean, so it gives off the same aroma and taste as a vanilla bean except it’s dangerous! Coumarin is a blood thinner! Anyway, I did some research before buying some vanilla extract here. Here are my tips:
-Buy from a legitimate Mexican supermarket. The three largest supermarket chains in Mexico are Soriana Walmart, and HEB (HEB is a Texas based supermarket btw!).
-Make sure the vanilla extract says “extracto de vainilla” and doesn’t say imitation or artificial on it.
-Check the ingredients! real vanilla extract has 35% alcohol in it. the imitation stuff has 2%. Pure vanilla extract should have the following ingredients: corn syrup “jarabe de maiz”; caramel “caramelo”; color “color”; sugar “azúcar”; and most importantly vanilla bean extract “vaina de vainilla de frijol de extracto.”
-The price will correspond to the quality. For instance, imitation extract will cost you about 8.50 pesos whereas pure vanilla extract will cost you about 85 pesos! That’s a large discrepancy!
-The color of the extract should be amber
-The extract should look clear, not murky
-If you’re able to, then confirm with a local colleague!
Now that I have some real Mexican vanilla extract, it’s time for me to find some recipes that involve vanilla! I can’t wait to compare this vanilla extract to the brand I usually buy, McCormicks!
Taco count as of Day 10 – 29
Monday dinner – 2 tacos from Ricon Sonorense, a wealthy area of Monterrey. Their specialty is the Hass tacos. Basically a corn tortilla is cooked on its own on the griddle until it’s nice and hard. They put refried beans, cheese, and carne on the taco. Then you can add your own salsa to it. I decided to add some chopped onions, cilantro, salsa (chopped tomatoes) and spicy salsa. You eat it like a pizza. I liked how the taco was nice and crunchy, not like the hard taco shells you get in the states!
Tuesday lunch – 2 tacos from a popular chain called “El Papalote.” I got the shrimp tacos prepared “Santa Fe” style. This was a nice change of pace from the 20+ meat tacos I’ve had!
Mexico Day 6
When you are in Mexico, everyone seems to say “everything can be eaten as a taco.” One person basically mimics folding a tortilla in half, pinkie out (ok I kid, I just stick my pinkie out), and chow down. That is a taco.
So after a few days I decided to change my taco count to tortilla count. As of Friday night I have eaten a total of 25 tacos since I arrived.
To refresh:
Sunday dinner – Fajitas with 1.5 flour tortillas
Monday lunch – 3 really thin corn tortillas filled with bits of chicken (the office’s cafeteria food isn’t that great and there aren’t many food options out here!)
Monday dinner – 3 corn tortillas with slices of al pastor. These tacos were OK, the tacos al pastor in Mexico City are the BEST.
Tuesday lunch – 2.5 Corn tortillas that had some kind of shredded beef in them. Man, cafeteria food sucks here!
Wednesday lunch – 1.5 tortillas. I had a tostada from a local hole in the wall. two corn tortillas that were fried to a crisp. In between the two fried tortillas was boiled shredded chicken breast, one side had sour cream and the other side had guacamole. This is the traditional way of eating tostado in this region (Monterrey). Instead of chicken breast, you can use other parts of the chicken or ground beef. You can also add lettuce and tomatoes. The traditional American tostada is a deep fried tortilla shaped into a bowl.
Wednesday dinner – La Nacional, I had the barbacoa. 2 tortillas
Thursday lunch – 1.5 cafeteria tostada, prepared the same way as the restaurant. except they used mixed chicken meat rather than chicken breast only.
Thursday dinner – 4 tortillas. some of the guys took us out to a local bar where we had some cerveza, including a michelada. Then we had some REAL tacos where the locals eat! we had tacos de trompo (aka tacos al pastor, except the pork was seasoned closer to Chinese char siu/Vietnamese xa xiu), tacos with neck meat, tacos with carne asada, and another taco with beef. Oh man, so tasty! I wish I had photos to show you but I’ll have to update my blog later. I also had a bite of a gringa, it’s trompo meat with cheese in a flour tortilla. One of the guys told us, “make sure to put some salsa in it because it isn’t a taco without some salsa.” It sure isn’t!
Friday breakfast – 5 tortillas. Tacos sudados which means sweaty tacos. One guy tells us these are “fat-free” tacos. Tacos sudados are prepared by heating lard in a pan. Once the lard is hot, you put the corn tortillas in the pan, heat and then add the meat filling. Then you steam the tacos, this is why they are called “sudados.” The meat filling we had today was shredded beef with potatoes, chicharones, and beans. Each taco probably had a tablespoon’s worth of filling in it. When you eat them, you put shredded cabbage, limon, and salsa in it. They are fat free because when you cook them, it has tons of fat!
Friday lunch – 1 leftover taco sudado. I left my taco in two paper towel sheets. Four hours later, both paper towels were soaked all the way through with lard!!!
Oh my, this weekend I need to run. I still have 19 more days left in Mexico!
Mexico Day 3
Today we met a colleague from another department that is visiting for the day from HQ. He told us that someone from his team visited this location awhile back. When that guy was here, he was in the hotel lobby as a gunman entered and robbed the reception desk. He was sandwiched between the gunman and the desk. Um scary!! This is supposed to be one of the safest cities in Mexico!
Today I had 2.5 “tacos.” Corn tortillas that had some kind of shredded beef in them. Man, cafeteria food sucks here!
Taco Count at the end of Day 3: 9
What is the purpose of this count? I want to see how many tortilla type entrees are available in Mexico!!
