Shame on me! No cookies for me!

How dare I neglect this blog for so long?!

I'm terribly sorry. Life has been hectic, as usual.

My sister, Anna, is doing fine. She's been eating like a pig, as usual.

Just for today, let's step outside the subject of Anna (the Man-Eating Cow) for two seconds, and talk about her family, the people who were there to witness the progress of Anna as a two year old toddler devouring a cow, to Anna the eighteen year old cow devouring a man.

First, let's meet Mr. and Mrs. Li

Please don't be fool by their friendly smiles. They are 100% complete dorks. In fact, if you look closer, you can see horns sprouting from Mr. Li's head. Ha!

I know, I know.

My parents are dorks :).

Now, how does this relate to a food blog? My parents met working in the same restaurant in China. She was a waitress and he was a cook. A quick detour from the story: my mother told me how they used to calculate the dim sum charge by seeing how many small plates, medium plates and big plates are on the table. Some time later, the restaurant was noticing that they weren't only losing money, they were also missing ALOT of plates. Turns out the cheap Asian customers were throwing plates out of windows when the waitresses weren't looking to cheapen their bill. So then the waitresses started to stamp a card to show how much dim sum they served.

Anyways, back to the dor..uhm.. parents. After my parents came to America and worked off their debt to my uncle, they saved up enough money to purchase a small restaurant in Upper Darby. Ever since then, our entire lives been revolved around food. While normal kids get chores such as washing dishes and laundry, Anna and I started off as pitiful shrimp peelers, fortune cookies wrapper, snow-peas and string beans.. thingie removers and eventually upgraded to order takers and phone answerers for the restaurant.

As normal Asian parents, my parents are incapable of touchy display of affections therefore they resort to normal asian parents's display of affections: food. The amount of food they shoveled on our plates were suppose to demostrate the love they have for us. I guess partly because as a child, my father didn't have much to eat so now each time me or any of my sisters express a liking towards a certain food, he would go out and buy a trunkload of it or cook it excessively for the next month. While this is not particularly helping me with my weight, it's nice to know that my parents have a way of expressing their love.

Yea, they are dorks. But I still love them... at times.

Ew, you have white stains on your skirt.

Anna's daily eating:

breaksfast:
1/2 cup of soy bean milk (she spilled the rest on herself)
3 bites of sandwich

Lunch:
smushed kitkat that she stole from the office
the rest of the sandwich

Snack:
1/4 bowl of noodle
several dried fruits
two cheetos

Dinner:
Rice with egg and meat

When I came home from work, Anna filled me in on her daily eating. Apparently for breaksfast, she was running late so she brought a cup of soybean milk to drink on the ride to school. Upon exiting the car, she had some difficult getting out without tilting the cup while holding on to her textbooks and heavy bookbag. After the car speed away, she pulled an Anna.

An Anna: an action that is so idiotic that is almost impossible to achieve in real life.


Anna somehow managed to pour half the cup of soy bean milk all over herself. No, this was not in the bumpy car ride. Nor was this upon exiting the complicated car door with a whole bunch of crrap. Instead, this happened when she was in the clear, from all danger, except herself apparently. What makes this even more of an Anna was that she didn't realize that her soy bean milk left a huge white stain on the side of her dress until 4th period.

I was laughing at this point of the story and was like "Ew Anna. What would people think?"

Anna replied, " Oh they probably think: ew anna ate a big sandwich and squirted mayo on herself".

And taht is probably true.

Stressful Sister = More Leftover for Hungry Anna

After school today, Rob picked me up and drove me to Longhorn Steakhouse for an early dinner.

He ordered:
cheese fries
czr salad
surf & turf
and an lobster tail

I ordered:
chilli
garden salad
steak & crab

I decided to bring anna home a doggie bag of my leftovers. So Rob was making fun of me the entire time by declaring everything I left on my plate "saved for anna". Such as two cubes of tomato, one brunt fry, a dollap of butter etc etc. However, lucky for Anna, as soon as my entree came out, I recieved a phone calling from my parents commanding me to come home and translate an emergency. I was too stressed to eat, so I boxed everything up (including a few pieces of Rob's shrimp and lobster). This litte ingrate complained that my steak (medium well) was too bloody for her. She apparently have no taste buds along with smell... buds, and likes her steak chewy and brunt. She liked everything else though and finished and licked the box.

I kid.
She ate it all gracefully with her pinkie in the air.

Back to School Starvation

Because I brought Anna her favorite candy : Andes Thin Mints. She actually recorded everything she ate from this morning til afterwork on a post -it for me.



From 7 Am (when she woke up) to 2:30 (when she gets out of school) to 5:30 (when she gets off work), Anna ate exactly:



1 Lemon Cake (that i stole from my bakery)

Fear not, she's not an anorexic. She's just a overworked yearbook-aholic... is there meetings for people like her?

so, after about 9 hours of starvation, she came home to eat.



6 almonds

1 chickpea (she didn't realize it was a chickpea until i pointed it out. She thought it was a retarded cashew)

6 cashews

1 cherry (she doesn't really like cherry)

1 cup of soy bean milk (the package advertise it as "student something soybean milk"

6 pieces of seaweed

1 dried strawberry

1 dried kiwi (my aunt brought a bag of dehydrated fruits from maryland)

1 dried mango

1 Rafallelo (they are the white chocolate version of Ferrero Rocher. It's an almond covered in white chocolate surrounded by a wafer then covered by more white chocolated and dusted with coconut)

6 Andes Mint

1/2 a bar of Twix ( I ate the other half)

A bowl of rice with shrimps and veggies

1 piece of bread spreaded with Nutella (best food ever)

2 "Turtles"



Now, now. I know what you are all thinking.

"What are these "Turtles" thing? It couldn't be real turtles because they are in quotations. Then what are they?!"



They are unbelievably awesome treats that my co-worker the magnificent Betty brought in for our Christmas work party. She gave me the recipe back in december however the prices for pecans was a bit too steep for my college student bank account. However today, I was just like "ah, screw it." Brought it and made it.



It was soooo good. I'm enclosing the recipe below.



1 bag of Rolo

1 bag of waffle pretzels

1 bag of whole pecan



Place the pretzels on a non-stick cookie sheet. Distance themselve from their neighbors. Then begin the horrible task of unwrapping all your Rolos. Place one Rolo on each pretzel. Repeat this step until all the naked pretzels are covered with a Rolo. When you are done, place the tray in the oven at 350 for no more than 3 minutes.



I was making fun of my mother for a minute too long and my chocolate melted a bit too much. It still tasted good however it's harder to work with. Okay. After the chocolate soften, stick a pecan on top of it and squish it down pretty good. Repeat for as many pretzels as you have. Allow the yummy combination to cool for a few seconds. Then proceed to eat as much as you want :)



Enjoy!


They are salty, crunchly and sweet little morsels of the gods.

Interview with a Veggie-pire

As an American-born Chinese teenager growing up in Center City, I had sampled almost everything and eaten nearly every animal known to walk on land. Beef,chicken, pork and fish are served every night on our dining room table. Strange animals had been boiled down in soups. I have eaten things that normal people wouldn't even think of eating... snakes, dogs, pigeons, jelly fishes, sea horses. Yup. Strange right? Not for me.



What is strange is the lack of eating an animal for a day. That is why I found my friend, Clare ( tall white Irish vegetarian for short) strange... in a good way of course. Therefore I decided to interview her via IM (thank god for technology) to see her point of view.



Me (aka Anna's starving sister): So, Clare, what is your reason for becoming a vegetarian in the first place?
Tall White Irish Vegetarian: Well, in my freshman year, this girl was talking to me about KFC and how they were really mean to their chickens. So at first I just didn't eat KFC, then after awhile I decided to just beome a full fledged vegetarian because I didn't like to think about how the animals were treated. I figured it wouldn't be too hard since I didn't eat a lot of meat anyway.


Me: So what do you eat?
TWIV: I love any form of potato. I could live off of them. I love junk food, chips, cheese, ice cream, water ice, pizza, candy, and lots of other things I can't think of. Oh, and I love ranch dressing on basically anything! And french fries!


Me: Does it upset you when your friends aka Anna the eatasarous eat meat?
TWIV: It doesn't bother me when people eat meat. Being a vegetarian is my choice and it shouldn't affect other people.


Me: Have you consider being a vegan?
TWIV: I could NEVER be a vegan. It would be too hard for me, I love dairy too much. Plus, my parents and my doctor would be even more worried about my protein intake


Me: Do you still eat fish and seafood?
TWIV: No, only cause I don't like it. Well, mostly cause I don't like it, but I feel bad for them too.
Me: Shrimp including?
TWIV: Ewwws! I've never tried it
Me: ... you have never eaten shrimp?!
TWIV: Nope.
Me: ...weird.
TWIV: Not as weird as your face!
Me: uh..


Me: Is it hard eating out when you are a vegetarian?
TWIV: Usually there's at least one meal that's vegetarian in most restaurants. It's annoying if there's not much of a choice, but I've got to say a lot of restaurants are good about it


Me: How does being friends with Anna the Asian eating machine affect you and your food?
TWIV: It's cool cause I eat a lot too. So when we go to restaurants, it's fun to order alot of food and eat it all together!


Me: Have you ever seen her eating and thought "Oh god, this beast is gonna eat all of america. I must shoot her now to save the world!"?
TWIV: ...no, I actually have not. Though, I can't judge her when I eat at least as much as her!




A big thank you for Clare the Veggie-monster for giving her time and sanity to answer my question. Also, a big applause goes to her too for being able to look sexy while eating a raw potato!

The first day.

My lovely sister ate:

1 bowl of beef noodle that my cousin cooked. (i thought it was too garlicky but she [anna] likes it. Just because she can't smell her breath doesnt mean that no one else can)

several Mint M&Ms (which doesnt really help her breath)

Hershey Kiss Trios (which she hid in my closet yet proceed to eat them herself....hm, its not in my closet anymore either...)

Seaweed crackers (she may have finished the bag because I can't find it anywhere. Yikes. Sorry, wasn't her. She had several crackers and feed the rest to my other sister in her cage)

Bowl of rice with various meat and veggies

Lemon Tea (with very bad aftertaste that she couldn't detect)

1/2 a bottle of Pepsi (which she opened yesterday)

-it was a slow day today. give her time.

The reason for existence.

Several months ago, I opened up a pack of snack and left it with my sister Anna in the computer room. A few minutes later, I returned to found the bag nearly empty. I made fun of her for days for being such a pig and devouring all the ____________. Yes. Blank. Because now, I can not remember what it was exactly that she ate. Therefore, hence this blog to record and monitor Anna's daily eating adventures. Enjoy!