Logic, Winnipeg, and the Electric Boogaloo

I told Little Sister that if she wanted another Ask Awkward Mormon Girl post, now was the time. She said okay, then sent the questions when I was sleeping at one a.m. on a Sunday morning.

• If six people were in a room and there were four flavors of potato chips, which type would the person on your left eat first?

Statistically speaking, apparently America's favorite chip is Cheetos. But I am not having that, so that's not my final answer, Alex.

I'm pretty sure that this puzzle is solved with logic. Like that riddle in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. You know "poison sits on the nettle wine's left side" and all that stuff. I'm going to run that through the logic part of my brain and get back to you.

• If you could pick one country to never take a cruise to, what would it be?

I was going to say Winnipeg as Winnipeg is landlocked. Too bad, because I'll never get to cruise there to enjoy their *Googles frantically* jazz festival and hot-smoked fish. But then I remembered that Winnipeg isn't a country. It's part of the country of Canada, which apparently you can cruise to if you live in New England.

So instead I'm going to say Andorra. To which you might say, "Where's Andorra?" to which I say, "Exactly."

• Should your sequel blog be entirely dedicated to posts about Little Sister?

Meh, I was actually thinking of something more along the lines of Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel. I didn't particularly like that movie, but it did well enough for them to make two more, so.

I am also considering Awkward Mormon Girl 2: Electric Boogaloo.

• Better yet- should Little Sister write your sequel blog?

Sure. It can be ghostwritten. If you can find the time for that. (Spoiler: Little Sister is too busy to find the time for that.)

Love,
Little Sister

I've figured out the answer to the riddle.

The only time I can think of where I'd be in a room with five other people and also four kinds of potato chips is opening presents with my siblings on Christmas Day. Based on where we usually sit to open presents, the person to my left is Little Sister, who should be eating the Pringles that came in her own stocking first. Unless she's a stealer. In which case she might be eating the Pizza Pringles from my stocking.

My First Kiss Didn't Go Like This

I waited a really long time to tell this story.

It's a story of teenage mishap featuring the Chess Master. It involves dating, which I try not to talk about much on this blog. It just doesn't seem very nice to do so. However—this story is now over ten years old, plus the Chess Master is married with a kid, so it no longer seems mean-spirited to share it.

After a lot of fumbling through email, the Chess Master asked me to go with him to prom. It was the first date for both of us, so neither of knew at all what we were doing. Through more email fumbling, plans were made, plans which involved dinner and dance tickets and a fuchsia dress.

Neither of us had a driver's license. No matter. His parents would drive us.

The Chess Master was the son of one of my former teachers. She was a nice lady, but she was intense. The Chess Master was the youngest in the family, so she and her husband especially doted on him. They were very involved parents, in both good ways and bad.

I didn't mind that the Chess Master's parents drove us, but I didn't know what to say around them. Truthfully, I didn't know what to say around the Chess Master, either. We were friends but not really. Any chances we had to truly get to know each other were thwarted by the fact that we'd decided early on we liked each other. At least, I think that's what happened. I never received any true confirmation that he ever had a crush on me. I just know that I had a crush on him.

Anyway. We didn't know each other. I had not yet learned to talk to people I didn't know or any people, really. We spent a lot of time in silence during dinner...on the drive to the dance...during the dance...and on the drive home.

Oh, the drive home. During said drive, the Chess Master's mother started talking about kissing. I couldn't tell you quite how. I was staring out the window, looking at billboards in the dark, while the Chess Master chatted aimlessly with his mom. He must have said something quite correct to her, for she said something like, "Good job, Chess Master. You win a prize, and that prize is a kiss."

I kept my eyes on the billboard. Just that morning, the fact that I didn't know the Chess Master very well had hit home hard, and I was questioning all of my feelings for him. Even if I hadn't been, I was not interested in being kissed on the first date much less my first date ever. I was too young for that!

The Chess Master's mom backtracked. "A kiss from me! And your dad. And your sister. And the dog."

Yeah, whatever, lady. I said nothing. It didn't even occur to me that I should say something. (I have only just recently realized how socially inept I was as a teenager. I'm mostly better now. Though in some ways, I really haven't improved.)

Eventually, the super chatty parents dropped us off and told us they'd circle around the block. Um...okay.

The Chess Master walked me to the door. Except...my memory is a bit hazy here, but I'm pretty sure he didn't even make it up on the porch. I think he stayed on the lawn. Perhaps he'd realized how much I didn't want to be kissed. Which is commendable, but it didn't require him to stay ten feet away from me.

We awkwardly said goodnight, and I went inside and shut the door behind me. My mom inquired after the dance, and I explained that the Chess Master was waiting outside for his parents to pick him up.

"Well, you should ask him to come in!"

I cracked open the door. "Chess Master, did you want to come in while you wait?"

He said no, no, and then his parents showed up, and so the night ended with me dodging my first kiss.

Three Weeks with Blue Apron

After my initial experiment with food subscription boxes, I got a discount on three more weeks of Blue Apron, so I was able to learn some additional new recipes.

Week one, recipe one was Seared Chicken in Coconut-Peach Broth with Bok Choy & Jasmine Rice. It took almost exactly an hour to make and yielded three portions.

I'd never cooked with bok choy or fresh ginger or sambal olek before. The recipe said to add as much sambal olek as you liked depending on how spicy you wanted your dish. I smelled it, and I decided that I could handle it, so I added it all. THIS WAS A BAD DECISION. Overall, the taste of this dish was pretty disappointing. Even without spiciness, the ginger and garlic and coconut milk and peach and vinegar together would have just been too much

Week one, recipe two was Cavatelli & Shrimp with Summer Vegetables. This recipe took 35 minutes to make and gave me not two, not three, but four portions.

I'd only heard of mascarpone in desserts; I was curious about its role in this pasta. I'd also never had cavatelli. It has the thicker consistency of gnocchi, though it's made of wheat, not potato. Mixed with the cavatelli was shrimp, tomatoes, and zucchini. It was all delicious! If there's one thing food subscription boxes have taught me, it's that it doesn't take a ton of dairy and oil to make a delicious pasta sauce; Blue Apron provided only a smidgen of Parmesan cheese that was somehow enough for all four servings.

Week two, recipe one was called Seared Steaks & Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Summer Vegetables. It took about 50 minutes to make and had three modest servings.

When I opened the bag, I discovered that a tiny bottle of sherry vinegar had gotten all over everything! I had enough left over to make the recipe, and nothing was inedible, but it wasn't a nice surprise. These cuts of steak were nowhere near as good as the last Blue Apron steak I had—partly because of paranoia that I would overcook the steak. Which led me to under-cook the steak. Ah well. The garlic mashed potatoes were all right, though not as good as the restaurant-style recipe I usually make. The caper butter didn't taste like much (besides, well, capers in butter). Surprisingly, the real star of this meal was the summer vegetables. ("Summer vegetables" is apparently just code for "zucchini and tomatoes.") I'm planning to someday pair the veggies from this recipe with the steaks from my first Blue Apron steak recipe. They can replace the kale I didn't love.

Speaking of kale, week two, recipe two was Barramundi & Caper-Butter Sauce with Kale & Lentils. It took about 50 minutes to make and lasted for two meals. (I could have stretched it longer if I wanted to, but I didn't this time.)

I'd only had lentils one time before this: in a Moroccan restaurant in Epcot. They weren't black like these lentils, though, but a vague brownish color. I'd never had barramundi before, period. I'd frozen the shrimp from the last box and thawed them successfully, so this time I again ended up freezing the fish and thawing it later in the week. It thawed pretty well, with only a small portion that turned out chewy and tasteless. I had really high hopes for this meal, but they were disappointed. The ras el hanout spice wasn't bad, but overall I found I just didn't like the flavors of the fish, the lime, the butter, the capers, the seasoning, the onions, the lentils, and the kale together. Not my food aesthetic.

Week three, recipe one was a weird one called Cajun Shrimp & Corn Pancakes with Sautéed Summer Vegetables. To the best of my memory, it took about 50 minutes and produced three servings.

In this case, "summer vegetables" actually ended up being corn with a poblano pepper and tomatoes. I'd never prepared ears of corn before except to be boiled at my parents' house, so that was a new experience. The shucked corn went both into the pancakes and on the side. The pancakes were fun, but kind of weird. The best part by far was the shrimp, which was perfectly spiced and perfectly cooked. Good one, Blue Apron. As usual, I was chagrined that they had me put green onions on top for no reason. Nooooo.

Week three, recipe two was also a weird one called Spicy Pork & Rice Cakes with Bok Choy. If I'm recalling correctly (I stopped taking good notes in the second week), this one also took around 50 minutes and provided three meals for me.

This one included lots of ingredients that were new to me: soy glaze, black bean sauce, and gochujang. And the rice cakes, of course. The recipe told me to put in as much gochujang as I wanted for spiciness. I learned my lesson from the sambal olek and only put in half. Another new ingredient was crème fraîche, which Blue Apron said they added to take some of the heat out of the gochujang. Good call. Finally, of course, there were the rice cakes. These were a delight. They had exactly the taste and texture that I was expecting, and they were a delightful alternative to pasta. Overall, it was a very good dish! For some reason, it tasted a bit like a fancy, Asian-inspired version of a Hamburger Helper mix I liked as a teen.

Tiny Toothpaste Reef

Baby Brother wanted me to tell you something.

For his birthday, the little cutie, as expected, asked for a bunch of Marvel stuff (including this sweet Mjolnir nightlight that looks like the hammer is embedded in the wall). But he also asked for something unusual: fish.

We've had pet fish in our family before, just not for a while. Honestly, I thought my parents would deny the request, but on Baby Brother's birthday morn, what did I see but one of those fancy cylindrical fish tanks. My brother was over the moon. Even though we went to the international festival and did all kinds of fun things, mostly he just wanted to talk about the fish he was going to get. Before his birthday was over, the parents had bought him four fish plus a snail. Their names? Debra Deluise the orange guppy, Tiffany DeMarco the yellow guppy, Sue DaNube the turquoise guppy, Jimboline the Queen the zebra danio, and Classy Gladyss. (Classy Gladyss is the snail.)

A bit fancy for fish if you ask me, but Baby Brother didn't. He named his fish, provided for their needs with food and filters and plastic plants, and proudly proclaimed his new tank "Tiny Toothpaste Reef". He's a proud fish father who shows off his "fishies" any chance he gets.

Jimboline the Queen has already died, but the guppies are still kicking. Metaphorically, of course. You need legs to kick.

Saturday Is a Special Day

ME, every Friday night: Finally! Tomorrow is Saturday! A day where I can get things done! I'm going to do everything on this big, long to-do list.

ME, every Saturday afternoon: Nope. Can't do it. Not today. My will to accomplish anything is not-so-slowly evaporating. I'm going to call my brothers and waste 6,000 hours with them.

Hogwarts Mystery

They finally made it!

A game where you feel like you're attending Hogwarts, that is.

Meet Hogwarts Mystery. In this game, you create a cute avatar of yourself that gets to attend Hogwarts. You start seven years before Harry, so the story line is all-new, but you do see some of the same characters from the books.

First I made a friend named Rowan. (Rowan's gender is the same as the player's avatar's gender, and he/she goes automatically to whatever house the player chooses ['cause the Sorting Hat lets you choose]).Then I found out that my brother Jacob was a crazy person who was expelled from Hogwarts/kidnapped/murdered/a Death Eater/something. Then I found out that there was a mystery in Hogwarts (thus the title) involving something called the Cursed Vaults. Then I had to keep poking my nose in said vaults, despite repeated warnings, punishments, and threats of expulsion.

The game is mobile, and the mechanics are simple. You mostly just click on things repeatedly, but it's actually pretty fun. It really feels like I'm attending Hogwarts! My avatar goes to classes, wears Gryffindor robes and other swag, eats in the Great Hall, plays Gobstones, and drinks butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. I can win points for my house by performing well in class and by making decisions that align with the Gryffindor way (which is to be daring to the point of stupidity; I actually got house points for daring to ask Snape for some of his hair).

As much of Harry's experience has been incorporated into the game as possible: Snape hates me. Filch hates me. My own Draco Malfoy-type character (Merula Snyde) hates me, and Dumbledore loves me. I'm a bit famous because of my brother's infamy and my own exploits, and I have loads of friends.

Rowan Khanna: Gryffindor. In my year. The first friend. The Ron, if you will. Except in personality, she's more like Hermione. She's very smart, kind of naive, and adores me to a point that's almost creepy.

Ben Copper: Gryffindor. In my year. Neville Longbottom if Neville never developed a personality. But really. GROW A SPINE, BEN.

The back of my avatar's head, Ben, Penny, and Bill.

Penny Haywood: Hufflepuff. In my year. Pretty, nice, smart, super popular, and super good at potions. One of my favorite characters. You're allowed to invite characters on quests with you, and I invite Penny a lot.

Bill Weasley: Gryffindor. Two years above me. Yes, that Bill Weasley. I never cared much for Bill in the books, because long-haired boys with earrings who marry hot French girls are not my type. But in the game, he's a sweetie. He asked my avatar to be the go-between for him and his crush, but his crush ended up being a jerk, and then my avatar had to console him over butterbeer: "Don't worry, Bill; you're going to marry a hot French girl who won't care about your long hair, earring, or your recently acquired werewolf tendencies."

The back of Bill's head and my avatar.

Nymphadora Tonks: Hufflepuff. In my year. You remember Tonks, right? The cheerful Auror who can change her appearance magically at will and who married Lupin and had a baby and died? She's in this game too! Mostly she just hates on the librarian.

Tulip Karasu: Ravenclaw. In my year. If you're wondering what kind of a last name Karasu is, the Internet says it can be either Japanese or Turkish-Jewish. Tulip has red hair but dark eyes, so I wouldn't put it past her to be part Japanese or Turkish-Jewish! Or both! Sadly, she might be the least favorite of my friends. I think they wanted her to be the Luna of the game, but though she's weird enough, she's not likable enough.

Tulip, my avatar, Barnaby, and Tonks. Tonks is about to play a trick on her nemesis, the librarian. And yes, my avatar is wearing pajamas and slippers. I wear what I want.

Barnaby Lee: Slytherin. In my year. At first, Barnaby acted all tough 'n stuff, but it turns out that he's actually really nice, and he loves animals! He's just...not super bright.

Drinking butterbeer with Tulip, Ben, Rowan, Barnaby, Penny, Bill, and Tonks. And Madam Rosmerta, who for some reason won't leave us alone.

Andre Egwu: Ravenclaw. In my year. If Tulip isn't my least favorite, then Andre is. Don't get me wrong; I like him as a person! He's a smooth individual who loves fashion and Quidditch, but he isn't very helpful. While the rest of my friends (even Tulip) are striving to help me find the Cursed Vaults and locate my brother, Andre just shows up, drops fashion or Quidditch advice, and leaves. Er...thanks?

Charlie Weasley: Gryffindor. In my year. I always did have a soft spot for Charlie, even though he's barely in the books. Like Barnaby, he loves animals, and in the game, he's incredibly kind.

The creators of the game have hinted that eventually, your avatar will be able to date your friends. It wouldn't be Hogwarts without crushes, right?! I'm torn between Bill and Charlie, but since I know Bill ends up marrying somebody else, I've landed on Charlie, the perpetual Weasley bachelor.

"Charlie, why don't you love me?"

But really, wouldn't it be amazing to be Harry Potter's sister-in-law? In-law?

"But—" you say.

Shhhh. I know it's not real. But this is everything I've wanted since I started reading Harry Potter nigh on 20 years ago, so I'm just...I'm just gonna enjoy it, 'kay?

Flying a Kite in the Dark

I decided I wanted to fly a kite in the dark.

My parents were freaking out, saying, "That's dangerous!" Here's the thing though...there are streetlights everywhere, so we can see everything even when it's technically dark, so how is it dangerous?

I guess I won the argument, because I was allowed to fly a kite around 10:00 p.m. in the front yard with my brothers.

It was everything I'd hoped and dreamed it would be.

That's all.

My Other Week with HelloFresh

My final two recipes with HelloFresh were Crab Cakes Under a Lemon-Dressed Salad with Fingerling Potatoes and Lemon Aioli and Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Cucumber Tomato Salad. Once again, one of the recipes I'd chosen (the crab cakes) was premium, so I paid $10 extra for the privilege of trying it.

After several days of lollygagging about in New York, cooking for myself again was a little intimidating, so I was pleased I had HelloFresh to ease back into it. No grocery shopping or meal planning required. Huzzah!

The first meal I prepared was the Crab Cakes Under a Lemon-Dressed Salad with Fingerling Potatoes and Lemon Aioli. I've been wanting to learn to make my own crab cakes for a while, so I was annoyed (but in retrospect, should not have been surprised) to see that the crab cakes were pre-assembled. They just wanted pan-cooking. Great for speediness, but not so great for learning crab cake skillz. Boo.

I was also sad to see that "lemon-dressed salad" was actually code for "lemony arugula from a previous recipe but now it's disguised as a salad through the addition of grape tomatoes and chopped scallions." You can't fool me, HelloFresh! Not even for a minute.

Also, I do want to note that while I've never had a problem with ingredient quality in my other food subscription box deliveries, the produce for this recipe was a bit sad. I made the crab cakes the day after receiving the box. The arugula and scallions were already wilty, and the tomatoes appeared to be not long for this world.

As with previous HelloFresh recipes, every recipe step was kind of meshed together into a weird simultaneous rush. I was washing and drying and chopping produce, roasting the fingerling potatoes, cooking the crab cakes, mixing the aioli, and assembling the salad at essentially the same time.

The potatoes were essentially the same as the three varieties of potato I made with Blue Apron except they were fingerlings, not Yukon golds, and the spice blend was just a packet of pure smoked paprika. Smoked paprika was one of the many ingredients in the salmon burger spice blend. I'd enjoyed that spice blend, so I was curious to see how smoked paprika did on its own.

Also like the salmon burgers, the crab cakes were ridiculous to cook. Very difficult to flip over without breaking in half!

Finally, I was dismayed to see that the lemon-dressed salad called for only half the packet of arugula. I didn't want to waste half a packet of arugula! And I don't even like arugula! (I ended up giving the rest to my mom and telling her the recipe for the lemony arugula. She's the kind of person who would think lemony arugula is a treat.)

In spite of my little gripes and the hectic nature of everything, the preparations themselves weren't complex. When all was done (it's been a few weeks, so I forget the exact cook time, but I think it took about forty-five minutes), I plated everything, even following the instructions to put the crab cakes under the salad.

I forgot to garnish the plate with the remaining scallions, but nobody cares because topping food with scallions for no reason is stupid.

The Verdict: Very tasty! The crab cakes were great, I loved the potatoes seasoned with spiced paprika, and the arugula was much more palatable as a lemon-dressed salad. I ended up eating most of it this time around. The lemon aioli was great on the cakes, the potatoes, and the salad. Also, putting the salad on top of the crab cakes did let the lemon and tomato juices soak into the crab cakes, which believe you me was a wonderful thing. The recipe did only make two servings, which were light enough that I had room for dessert after.

What I'd Do Differently: I still want to learn to make crab cakes on my own; I don't want to be reliant on pre-packaged crab cakes (quality ones are $$$). But I would definitely serve them with these potatoes, the aoili, and a salad with tomatoes and lemon (though possibly with lettuce or another viable arugula substitute).

My second choice for the week was Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Cucumber Tomato Salad.

I'm really not a big pork person, especially when it comes to pulled pork. I am, however, a secret lover of fun grilled cheese recipes. And one of the great things about these subscription boxes is that it's easier to get out of your comfort zone when you're only cooking a few servings of food at a time.

I was therefore pretty excited to try these sandwiches, but the day I got my box, Little Sister told me that she and Mr. Little Sister had also ordered this recipe (in a complimentary box I sent them because HelloFresh does that), and it was disappointing. Little Sister loves pulled pork, so I figured that if she didn't like the sandwiches, I wouldn't like them either.

Once again, the produce was sketch. I made the sandwiches three days after I made the crab cakes, and by that point, the tomato and the cucumber were disconcertingly soft.

As I looked at the recipe, I understood Little Sister's disappointment. First of all, I'd been imagining cooking pork in some kind of sweet sauce, like Cafe Rio pork. The pork was actually pre-cooked and pre-shredded with no apparent sauce whatsoever. Also, I was supposed to make an "onion jam" to go with it. What?! Onion on my grilled cheese? No, thank you! Onions in a jam? Definitely no, thank you! Onions do not go in jam.

Regardless of my personal feelings, I felt duty-bound to try the recipe out, so I prepared the produce as usual. I made the onion jam with the onion, olive oil, sugar, vinegar, and salt and pepper. I also crisped up the pork in a pan with more oil and salt and pepper. I then filled the big slices of bread with cheddar cheese, the pork, and the onion jam. Happily, grilling the sandwiches without them coming all apart was not as big of a challenge as I expected.

While all of this was going on, I was also making the salad. Which took like two seconds. Chopped cucumber and tomato in a bowl with more vinegar, oil, and salt and pepper. Done. Again, it's been a little while, but I believe the whole process lasted about fifty-five minutes.

The Verdict: Ummmm wow. This was actually really good! Well, the salad was nothing special. The sandwiches, though! The pork was crispy and salty while the onions were a little sweet and a little tart. I couldn't get enough. While there was only enough bread and salad for two servings, I ended up having enough filling for four sandwiches (I made the final two using bread from the store). If you average that out, this was another three-serving meal.

What I'd Do Differently: I'm just hoping I can find similarly packaged pork to make these again some day! So good! I'd serve them with the salad, too...just with fresher veggies.

The First Day Is Always the Worst Day

I needed a vacation.

I hadn't gone on a real vacation since Disneyland eighteen months ago. I've gone out of town, sure, but always for reasons fraught with family obligation. I've taken days off work, but always for illness or holiday or church reasons or special events. I never get a chance to recharge or relax, and my ability to hold myself together has worn thin.

In January, I was investigating a possible trip back to Europe; I'd been tentatively planning to go in spring of 2018 for a while. So I didn't vacation at all in 2017, and I saved...and I saved...and I saved. I had plenty of money to go on a trip! My plan was book and pay for the trip in January...go in the spring...and buy a new car in the summer. I couldn't find anyone to go with, but I wasn't giving up; there was still time.

I ended up buying a new car in January instead, and I was hesitant to dip any more into my savings for an expensive trip. I felt like Heavenly Father was saying, "DON'T GO TO EUROPE THIS SPRING" because nothing was coming together. So I didn't book anything, though I was still toying with the idea of going later in the year. Then my appendix had to come out, and I had to pay the people who took it out, and it quickly became apparent that this year was just not going to be my year.

Little Sister and her husband went back to NYC around the same time I bought my new car, and she could only gush about the awesome Jim Henson exhibit that I'd wanted to see in New York City three years before. So when I was weighing the idea of going on vacation, I decided: what the heck? Why not go back to New York City so that I could finally see the dang exhibit, eat whatever I wanted, and spend time with Older Sister? The idea appealed to me, particularly because Older Sister would be working, so I could do whatever amused me. The subway system is easy to use; I could get around with no trouble and generally have a good time. And I could stay with Older Sister, which would be very inexpensive.

So (after several weeks of hemming and hawing), I finally committed to Older Sister to come and visit. However, after I'd done so, my mother cornered me and said that I should take Little Brother with me.

That kind of killed the point of the vacation, especially since Mom wanted me to take him to the Statue of Liberty and to Trinity Church and to her favorite restaurants and generally do a bunch of things that I had no intention of doing. So I laid it out straight for Little Brother: this was my trip, and while he could come, he would more or less have to do whatever I wanted.

He said okay, and the plans commenced.

Now, before you think I'm a mean older sister, let it be known that I made sure to include Little Brother in the plans. I made room for the things that were non-negotiable for him: going to the Times Square Disney store, going to the 9/11 Memorial, getting dim sum in Chinatown, a museum called the Museum of Jewish Heritage. He also wanted to go to the Jim Henson exhibit as much as I did.

The flight was booked and the musical tickets were purchased, and in what seemed like no time at all, the day of the trip had arrived and Little Brother and I were waiting at the airport late, late at night.

A few things to know about Little Brother:

• He loves Disney and knows the most about it. Of anyone. On earth. Probably.
• He loves theming.
• He loves beautiful things.
• He loves our Jewish heritage and taught himself to make delicious challah bread. Unlike me, he looks like a full-blooded Jew.
• He loves most of the things I love, except for Harry Potter, and his appreciation for Jim Henson has turned him into an accomplished amateur puppeteer.
• He secretly kind of wants to be YouTube famous.
• He has about a million original stories, musicals, and TV shows hiding inside his brain. They come out if you listen to him talk long enough.
• After our sibling date where I introduced him to sushi, sushi became his most-favorite food.

While we were waiting, he showed me a bunch of his Snaps from Snapchat, something I've never used. It would appear that Little Brother mostly uses it to send droll pictures to his friends.

As usual, we were red eyeing it out to New York. The flight was uneventful, but...odd. First of all, when we were loading onto the plane, a man with an accent I couldn't identify asked me (I think) to check one of his items in my name. He said (I think) that he and his wife and his two kids had too many items to check even though the flight had just announced complimentary checking since there was plenty of room.

They were a cute family, but they were strangers, so I refused. I felt bad, but it's basic airline safety not to accept things from people you don't know! Luckily, we saw later that the flight had checked their extra items with no fuss.

The other odd things about the flight were as follows: 1) The plane was abnormally loud. Little Brother was sitting next to me, but I could barely hear him all night. 2) The flight attendants were weirdly sneaky. I was half-asleep the whole flight, so I barely remember, but I seem to remember that they...didn't really talk? They just communicated with a series of gestures mostly, so that they didn't wake up passengers, I guess. But it was really hard for me to see said gestures since I was trying to sleep and wore no glasses or contacts! 3) The girl sitting next to us promptly fell asleep about as soon as the plane took off and barely moved all night. I even climbed over her to reach the restroom, yet she didn't stir. (Note: I went to the restroom barefoot. That was a mistake. The floor was gross.) Then, just moments before we landed, she woke up like clockwork. ???!

Neither Little Brother nor I slept well. I don't know about Little Brother, but I'd gotten up pretty early the morning of the day we'd left, and I was miserable and exhausted. I do know that at one point I accidentally squirted hand sanitizer in his eye, and he screamed at me. But it was a controlled scream. No one heard it but me. Not even the sleeping girl; she didn't move an inch.

I was adamant that we book our flight to JFK so that we could utilize the air train. Once we'd disembarked and gathered our luggage, we took the train, no problem, to Jamaica Station. Then we took the E Train to Times Square, walked a very long time through the subway to get to a connecting station, and took a 1 Train uptown.

Finally, we made it to the Upper West Side, where Older Sister lives in a beautiful 100-year-old building with 11 roommates. Yup, count 'em—11.

A few things to know about Older Sister:

• She's crazy ambitious. She took a double courseload and finished her six-semester graduate school program in three semesters, something that had never been done before.
• She's always wanted to live in New York City.
• She's always claimed to hate "Asian" food, saying it all tastes the same and is gross.
• She works for a non-profit that teaches underprivileged kids to dance.
• She, too, looks like she could be full-blooded Jewish. When she first moved to the city, she did some babysitting for a Jewish family and would sometimes be mistaken for a relative. On Saturdays, she wears her Sunday clothes to the Manhattan temple for a shift as a temple worker, and on the streets she's often mistaken for a Jew from a more conservative sect.
• She, too, secretly wants to be famous, but not YouTube famous.
• She loves the finer things in life and has never cared much for discomfort.

So even though I knew that she was living in a crowded apartment with no space to herself, it still amazed me. It's a testament to how much she loves New York City, because she's always been the kind of person who's always wanted to live somewhere that was nice and cutely decorated and very much her own.

Not that the apartment wasn't not nice, it just barely had room to exist at all. The whole thing, square-foot-wise, surely didn't exceed the amount of space I share with my two roommates. And her bedroom, which sleeps two people, is about the same size as my bedroom minus the closet. My bedroom is okay, but on the small side, for a single person; for two people, it would be pretty cramped!

The roommate had kindly stayed elsewhere so that Older Sister could have us in her room with her. I got the top bunk of the bunk bed. Little Brother got a cot-type bed on the floor. We could hang out in the apartment, but we couldn't wear shoes while we did so. We could shower in one of two bathrooms (except if it was after 11:00 p.m., in which case we had to shower in a tiny little bathroom—more on that later). Before she left for work, Older Sister presented us with a brassy-looking set of keys. One for the apartment building; one for the apartment. We were cautioned to be very careful not to break the lock, which had apparently happened before.

We crashed for an hour or so. Then...the city.

I gave Little Brother a first day similar to my first day on my first trip. First, the Disney store, which was everything Little Brother had dreamed of. Then lunch at Junior's. I'd heard that the food was better if you ordered something Jewish-style.

Sadly, it was still kind of meh. However, it pleased Little Brother to order a brisket sandwich with a latke and applesauce.

After, we took a subway downtown. At this point, we discovered that while the subway was easy to use (seriously—this was the first trip where I was the subway navigator, and there were hardly any bumps), our smartphones didn't seem to operate properly on the streets. (Over-saturation of people sucking up data?) It took us approximately six million years to find the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

The museum was not what we were expecting. The lady at the front desk asked us how we'd heard of it, and I breezily said, "We were just looking for a good Jewish museum!" But whether it was a good Jewish museum is...up for debate. There was some good stuff, but it wasn't very well-presented, and they kind of brushed over the Holocaust, mostly focusing on Jewish culture before it and how said culture recovered after. There were some cool artifacts, but I didn't learn very many new things. The most interesting tidbit was the fact that in some countries during Hitler's regime, Jews who didn't have "Jewish" names were required to take on the name or middle name of Israel or Sara.

Following the museum, we crashed. I was incredibly exhausted: dead on my feet and barely aware. I had no idea how I was going to stay up to watch Anastasia that night. But after lazing in Older Sister's apartment for a bit, I summoned the energy to arise, dress, and lead Little Brother to Tonn Ramen.

Older Sister, she who hates all Asian food, picked Tonn Ramen for dinner. She'd tried it and actually liked it! However, she ended up staying at work late and then babysitting afterward, so she didn't join us for our first taste of restaurant ramen.

Tonn Ramen is one of the more eccentric places I've been in New York City! Little Brother described the restaurant as "in a garage." It was below street level, tiny, and crowded. Everything about it seemed to be designed to make diners as uncomfortable as possible so that they would order, eat, and leave. The whole front of the restaurant was open, so we could feel the breeze from the street. The bar stools were difficult to keep a seat on, and I could never quite get myself into a position where I didn't feel I was about to fall off. The waiters whisked from place to place, quickly collecting orders which were then assembled in a matter or minutes. Not that anyone was rude or made us feel unwanted—but there was a slight feeling of, "Oh, we're very busy, so you should be glad we could squeeze you in!" Coupled with the fact that the restaurant was open during limited hours, the general air was one of exclusivity.

In any case, we quickly ate our ramen and paid. Mine is pictured below. It was tasty, although it was still ramen.

The vegetables and spices woke me up a bit. By the time we got to the Broadhurst Theatre, I was feeling much more excited about taking Little Brother to his first Broadway musical!

However. While Anastasia was delightful, it was rough. They completely rewrote the plot and dialogue, losing a lot of what made the animated movie so good. There also was a nice opportunity for them to tie up one character's philosophical qualms (his father was one of the guards who shot the royal family to death, so he is committed to making sure Anastasia is actually dead; his turn of heart would have been more realistic had it been revealed that his father actually helped Anastasia escape), but they passed that over for some unconvincing mumbo-jumbo. Overall, the movie, with its magic and demons and sold souls, actually seemed a lot more realistic than this historically accurate version. The special effects were dope, though, and the performers did do a good job with what they had.

We briefly stage-doored so that Little Brother could get a quick video of Christy Altomare for his friends. Then we took the subway home, utterly exhausted. (Confession: I'd fallen asleep for several seconds during the show.) As I showered (in the big shower) and hauled myself up the bunk bed ladder, I was wondering if this trip was a good idea or if I would regret it.

My Week with HelloFresh

After my venture into the world of Blue Apron, I succumbed to trying HelloFresh. I was having way too much fun! I'd learned several new dishes with Blue Apron, and I was hungry for what HelloFresh could teach me. And feed me.

My first two recipes were Lobster Ravioli and Shrimp with Tomatoes and Tarragon Cream Sauce and Mushroom Chicken Gravy over Couscous with Lemony Arugula.

First Impressions: My first impressions of HelloFresh were a wild ride. I was very impressed upon seeing the menu. The first two weeks of HelloFresh offered a lot more recipes I wanted to try than the first two weeks of Blue Apron did. However, I was less impressed when I realized that two of the four recipes I selected were "premium," meaning that I had to pay $10 extra to try them. (Both were seafood-based. Other premium recipes offered by HelloFresh on other weeks offer other luxury proteins like duck.) I was annoyed that the best recipes cost extra money when it's already REALLY EXPENSIVE. Whatever. With my super steep discount, I could afford $10 extra a week. Even if it was totally irritating.

Then my box came. My box had been attacked by a bear, apparently.

When I unpacked the box, I was annoyed again because there was like double the amount of packaging that had been in my Blue Apron boxes. So I had to throw away/recycle a ton of stuff. But unlike with Blue Apron, the ingredients came pre-divided by recipe, and that was nice.

Because fish tends to spoil more quickly, I started with the Lobster Ravioli and Shrimp with Tomatoes and Tarragon Cream Sauce.

You'll notice that the ravioli came pre-prepared. I guess that's to be expected since it is lobster ravioli. But that did disappoint me a little. I want to learn new skills here!

I began to prepare the veggies and heat the water for the ravioli. As I began the recipe, I noticed that it was kind of difficult to follow. The writing was a little confusing; a lot of steps had to happen simultaneously, but it wasn't clear that they were happening simultaneously until you read through it a few times. So I felt rushed, rushed, rushed as I jumped from chopping tarragon to cooking tomatoes to straining ravioli to rinsing shrimp.

The cream sauce recipe was very simple to the point of being ingenious. It was just grape tomatoes, a few ounces of sour cream, a bit of butter, the tarragon, salt and pepper, and shrimp. (The recipe called for using only a tablespoon of tarragon and adding it gradually to be sure you liked it, but I just added it all in.) Soon (within just thirty-five minutes) everything was ready!

The Verdict: The sauce was delicious! I usually take my pasta with a healthy heap of Parmesan, but this recipe didn't need it. I also thought that the amount of tarragon was perfect. (Though tarragon does taste slightly of black licorice, which I love but which most people don't. So you may not agree with my assessment if you tried it.)

The ravioli, on the other hand, was nothing special. I've had lobster ravioli in New York and at Olive Garden, and both times it was far better than the HelloFresh ravioli. This wasn't bad, just...a little tasteless. Not very lobster-y. What exactly did I pay $10 extra for? In any case, there was definitely enough for three filling meals.

What I'd Do Differently: This recipe would be simple to replicate, except for the lobster ravioli. That's okay, though—next time I'll just use my grocery store pasta of choice, mushroom agnolotti.

A few days later, I prepared the Mushroom Chicken Gravy over Couscous with Lemony Arugula.

I've never cooked with fresh thyme before, so that was exciting. I've also never made couscous before except from a box, and it was always the tiny, gritty kind with lots of spices. This recipe called for Israeli couscous, a fluffy pearl-like couscous that apparently was created by enterprising food people to combat a rice shortage in Israel some time ago.

Also...arugula. Something else I've not only never cooked but rarely eaten. I was very suspicious of the arugula. The recipe called for washing it and tossing it uncooked with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice. However, I remained unsure. I was afraid  that when my children ask me on my deathbed what my greatest regret is, I will say, "Allowing HelloFresh to convince me that tossing uncooked arugula with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice would actually make it edible."

Once again, the recipe was a little jumbled and everything was happening simultaneously, making me feel a little frantic as I prepared the produce, cooked the couscous, seared the chicken, tossed the arugula, moved the chicken to the oven, and made a pan gravy from the fond, the mushrooms, the garlic, the chicken stock concentrate, the thyme sprigs, the mustard, the sour cream, some water, and some salt and pepper.

I cannot stress how delicious this smelled while cooking! The scent of fresh thyme was so heavenly! When everything was done, I plated it right up with a bit of reserved thyme and a quarter lemon, which I squeezed over the chicken, gravy, and couscous.

The Verdict: This. Was. Incredible. The chicken was juicy and tender, the mushroom gravy was super flavorful, and the unseasoned couscous was a needed contrast to the rich flavors of the gravy and the lemon juice. The arugula, sadly, was as I feared: arugula that was still arugula, lemony or no. I ended up eating a few pieces per serving and tossing the rest.

I was glad that this recipe was so delicious and that it taught me some new things. It was pretty easy and quick, too, taking only fifty minutes from prep to plate. The only negative was that this was the first subscription box meal that actually was only sufficient for two servings. Except for the arugula. There were more than two servings of arugula. There was enough arugula to feed a small army of people who only eat arugula.

What I'd Do Differently: Nothing! Okay, I wouldn't serve lemony arugula as one of my side dishes, but everything else about this meal was magnifique.

So ends my first week of HelloFresh! After finishing this delight, I left for New York City with my second HelloFresh week scheduled for my return. I'll tell you how my second week measured up, but not before the tale of my vacation. Stay tuned!

My Other Week with Blue Apron

Time to recount my second week of trying Blue Apron!

I didn't establish this last time, but you might like to know that each week, Blue Apron offers eight recipes to choose from. It's good variety, and if you absolutely hate everything being offered that week, skipping is an option.

For me, choosing the recipes was the hardest part of signing up. For my second week, I went with Salmon Burgers & Smoky Potatoes with Tartar Sauce and Maple & Barbecue-Glazed Chicken Wings with Sweet Potato Wedges & Coleslaw.

No bonus recipe this time! I was way more sad about that than I should have been. Also, I realized belatedly that three of my four Blue Apron recipes featured a roasted potato dish. Heh heh...whoops.

First off, Salmon Burgers & Smoky Potatoes with Tartar Sauce.

I was especially delighted with the one-egg carton.

I've never had salmon burgers before, and I was expecting them to be a lot more complicated than they were. This recipe took me just under an hour from start to finish.

First I chopped and cooked the potatoes. They were the exact same potatoes from the steak recipe last week, just with a different spice blend. To avoid having underdone potatoes again, I cooked them eight minutes longer than the recipe required.

The burgers required cooking the salmon, chopping it up, and mixing it with an egg and spices (and that mythical "garlic paste" first seen in the steak recipe). Then I formed it into patties to be cooked again.

I was rather proud of my patties.

However, I made the mistake of thinking I could fit them both in a small pan, and I ended up having to slightly deform one to get them both in there.

Although getting the patties off the plates and into the pan was really hard! They didn't stay together well, probably because they were simultaneously both heavy and wide. That also contributed to the deformity. While I was turning them, I said aloud, "How do I do this without them falling apart?" The answer was that I couldn't, and each patty lost a bit of mass and cracked as I turned it.

The only things left to do were mix sour cream and pickle relish to make a homemade tartar sauce and toast the buns in the pan. The bun-toasting was a nice touch that helped reduce my aversion to homemade burgers!

I was running out of clean dishes and ended up eating off the same plate I'd put the patties on after cooking, thus the grease.

The Verdict: The potatoes turned out wonderfully: slightly blackened and crisped on the outside and mealy on the inside! The spice blend was better than last time, too (though I could barely taste it). The salmon burgers were delicious, although the patties were not only difficult to cook but also much too big to comfortably eat one burgers in a single sitting. This meal could easily have been stretched into three or even four servings.

My chief comment is that, although most Blue Apron recipes contain an abundance of produce, this one didn't. The only thing resembling a vegetable was the pickle relish in the homemade tartar sauce (which was good, but not amazing). I imagine this was because of the cost of the salmon: they felt obligated to do just potatoes because cheap. Still, some veggies would have spruced the burger up mightily.

What I'd Do Differently: Make smaller patties from the same amount of salmon. I'd probably have to use a different spice mix in the burgers and the potatoes as the Blue Apron-provided one lists the ingredients but not the proportions. I'd probably replace the tartar sauce with fry sauce. I know that sounds gross, and trust me, I'd never put fry sauce on a regular piece of salmon—but this burger is processed in such a way that it wouldn't be a travesty. Finally,  I'd also add a slice of tomato and a slice of American cheese. Maybe even a bit of lettuce.

The last recipe I tried was the Maple & Barbecue-Glazed Chicken Wings with Sweet Potato Wedges & Coleslaw.

I actually don't like chicken wings that much. Or sweet potato wedges (I prefer my sweet potatoes mashed with honey butter if I must eat them at all). Or coleslaw.

You're probably wondering, "Then why did you choose this recipe?" I chose it because I was curious about learning to cook chicken wings. Like, who makes those for dinner?! It was too good a learning opportunity to pass up (come to think of it, I felt similarly about the salmon burgers). Also, my opposition to chicken wings is more that they're so messy and difficult to eat while yielding so little meat than it is the flavor. So they did sound tasty, especially compared to the other menu offerings for the week. And since I can endure sweet potato wedges and coleslaw if needed, I thought it was worth a try.

Unlike the other potatoes, the sweet potato wedges cooked to perfection at the recommended time and temperature. They actually looked rather appetizing after they came out of the oven!

The coleslaw and chicken wings were both fussy dishes. Because of that, and because both the chicken wings and potato wedges had to cook a half hour in the oven, this recipe was by far the longest I tried. It took me at least an hour and a half to do everything.

This recipe also occasioned my one and only Blue Apron error. I accidentally added the vinegar that was supposed to go in both the wing sauce and the coleslaw to just the coleslaw. It had minimal effect on the coleslaw flavor, but I felt like the chicken wing sauce needed all three flavors. I rummaged about for a viable substitute and ended up using Sprite from a can left over from my Christmas stocking.

Once the wings were seasoned, baked, tossed in half the sauce, baked again, tossed again in the other half of the sauce, and garnished with green onions, and once the vegetables were peeled/grated/chopped and steeped in vinegar, sugar, and mayonnaise for an appropriate length of time, my dinner was ready!

The Verdict: Once again, there was a ton of food: enough for three meals. The chicken glaze/sauce was good. However, as with all chicken wings, the effort it took to extract the meat wasn't worth it. The potato wedges were better than expected (although I did happen to have some honey butter to put on them). The coleslaw probably was the second-best coleslaw I've had, after that coleslaw that Saladmaster lady (who looking back I can't believe now I even let in my house) made. So the dishes were decent. However...the sauce was sweet. The coleslaw was sweet (because sugar). The sweet potato wedges were, obviously, sweet. So when eaten together, the effect was a bit unappetizing. Why are they selling these three dishes together? I especially can't understand why the coleslaw has the scallion/green onion bottoms in it. Did they just add them to the coleslaw so that they wouldn't waste them when garnishing the chicken? Is the coleslaw on the menu for that exact reason? I hope not—I've never before seen onions in coleslaw, and I hope it's not a thing.

What I'd Do Differently: Use the sauce on non-wing chicken. Skip the green onion garnish, which adds absolutely nothing except visual fanciness. Serve with a potato dish and some cooked carrots and maybe some cornbread. However, it's unlikely that I'd revisit this recipe unless I really had a hankering for barbecue chicken.

I thought I would be strapped for cash and very hungry during this Blue Apron experiment. Weirdly enough, I actually ended up saving money since I barely ate out. (Though that wouldn't have been the case without the discount, which allowed the service to fit within my grocery budget. Without the discount, the price would have exceeded my entire weekly grocery budget. It also helped that all the meals ended up being enough for three servings instead of the advertised two.) I guess that since I was no longer eating the same thing for seven days straight, eating out had less appeal. I was always full of yummy home-cooked food!

On the other hand, cooking so much got a little exhausting. One week I cooked literally every other day. All that cooking also led to a lot of loading and unloading the dishwasher, and I hate loading and unloading the dishwasher. I'm ready for a break!

I won't be continuing this unless I get more discounts. But while it lasted, I loved trying new recipes and eating new things! I had such a good time that when I got a gift card for HelloFresh (it was included with my new sneakers for...some reason...?), I decided I'd like to try that next! Stay tuned for more food subscription box shenanigans and opinionated opinions.

A Farewell to My Adventure Buddy

Anyone who knows me knows that I loooooove my Honda, Bernard. He is a beautiful white 1998 Honda EX. I named him after Bernard from The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under.

After the winter of 2015-2016, Bernard's issues trickled away. However, in 2017, they ramped up again. While my mechanic's service has been...less than satisfactory in recent times, a large part of things was that Bernard is just getting old. He turned 20 in May.

Anyway, during December and January, he was in and out of the shop. Every cold morning that he wouldn't start or didn't drive well was a sore blow to me. I had to get to work. Taking the bus was freezing, added one to two hours to my commute time each day, and required planning so that I could get up suuuper early and leave work a bit early, too. Taking one of my parents' cars was only possible on the days that their spare car would start (said spare car doesn't do well in the cold).

It was frustrating. I was not happy. And one January morning when my parents were kind enough to take Bernard to the mechanic for me, they called me to tell me that he needed $900 worth of repairs to fix his radiator and keep him from overheating.

Now, Bernard's not worth very much these days. We stopped insuring him shortly before this. So hearing that he needed repairs that far exceeded his own value made my radiator break down. In a matter of speaking. I was certainly overheating from irritation and a bit of anger. This was the fifth or sixth time I'd brought Bernard to the mechanic in the space of not very many weeks, and I was tired of pouring money into my beloved but dying car.

In a moment of impulsiveness, I burst out, "Then tell them not to go ahead with the repairs, because I will be buying a new car!"

I will tell you more about the car-buying process later, but for now, I will merely say that I miraculously managed to obtain a new car that same week. It's the quickest turn-around I've ever had on a big life decision.

Once I had a new car, the next natural step was to get rid of Bernard, right? Well...I really didn't want to! I had plans to donate him to a high school shop program (since his resell value wasn't enough to try to find a buyer, although in November I'd bought him new snow tires, which I had removed since they were worth more than the entire car). But the shop teacher was rather busy/flaky—I was pretty busy/flaky besides being reluctant—so it took four months to finally part with my sweet, sweet Bernard. He's only been gone a couple of weeks, and I miss him dearly.

Goodbye, my beautiful Bernard. We had many good times together. I'll never, ever forget you!

On the Way Home

Context: This post is about a trip to San Diego.

Before we started flying on our Disney trips, we'd drive through Las Vegas on our way to California, and we'd always stay in Virgin River in a place called the Virgin River Inn. And casino. The casino always intimidated me slightly, with its thick red carpet and flashing lights on the machines and the slight smell of cigarette smoke. The buffet was really good though (which was why I can tell you what the casino was like—our parents walked us through the casino to get to the buffet).

We had a room booked in the Virgin River Inn for our return trip, and I was looking forward to seeing my old haunt and eating at the buffet. However, on our way to San Diego, we passed through a dinky Nevada town called Primm, which had two casino-hotels called Buffalo Bill's and Whiskey Pete's. My mother had a brilliant idea, which was that if we booked a hotel in Primm and canceled our reservation at the Virgin River Inn, we could spend more time with her brother because our room for the night would be that much closer to San Diego. My father acquiesced to this wish, leading us to leave San Diego around three instead of around noon as originally planned.

Since I was mainly on the trip to be a driving slave, I drove about one-third of the time, and that was not fun (especially in the Las Vegas traffic). We eventually made it home safely the next day, but I',m going to skip over all that and just tell you about Buffalo Bill's Resort & Casino!

By the time we got there, it was kind of late (late for road-tripping, anyway), and we were all kinds of exhausted. I have actual gaps in my memory of arriving, although I do remember this dialogue happening as we got out of the vehicle:

MOM: Something something a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

A BROTHER: A bird in the hand is worth two in the tush.

A BROTHER: A bird in the bush is worth two in the tush!

We got into the hotel by way of a side door with a security guard, who informed us that we would have to go to the casino itself to check in. We pulled our suitcases through long, silent hallways.

LITTLE BROTHER: Why is this the hotel from The Shining?

After several minutes (not even joking), we emerged in the casino, a cavernous room with a high ceiling and a rollercoaster and a defunct log flume and an actual western town.

You'll notice that this western town features creepy mannequins of cowboys. There was also an in-casino buffet (that was closed, boo), a Denny's, a McDonald's, and a movie theatre showing Black Panther. And elsewhere in the hotel, there was a pool shaped like a buffalo.

Mom was slightly horrified. I, however, was delighted and fascinated.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I want to come here on my honeymoon.