I make my own Pad Thai

I consumed a ridiculous amount of Pad Thai in college. Just around the corner from my last apartment, there was an excellent Thai restaurant that my roommates and I frequented....frequently. We would run over to celebrate the important things in life, like birthdays, good test scores, and Tuesdays. Pad Thai was there for engagements, and break-ups, and cancelled television series. I love you, Pad Thai.

You would think that eating so much Thai food in college would eventually dampen my love of curries and mango sticky rice. Not so. I think my love of Thai food comes from not knowing such foods existed. Though mom is an excellent cook and dad is quite the foodie, I somehow missed out on dishes from regions other than Mexico, Italy, or France. Granted, this girl loves tacos and a good baguette, but I'm pretty confident could happily live off of dumplings and rice swaddled in spicy coconut sauces. My logic is basically this: because I didn't eat it growing up, I need to make up for lost time.  

This week signals a break through in my Pad Thai consumption. A co-worker shops at this Asian market in West Valley and you know that's we did on our lunch break on Thursday. I tried to not food-geek out too much, but just know I was unsuccessful. I might have slightly frightened my co-workers when I got exuberant over steamer baskets but they'll survive

I had my arms full of mung bean sprouts, rice noodles, kefir limes, and other Pad Thai essentials (plus about 5 of those amazing yellow mangoes) a store clerk handed me a basket while I mentally thought "Oh good, now I can buy even more things and look less ridiculous".

For some reason I thought we would just slip in and I would grab some cool aloe drink and call it a day, so I didn't bother with a cart or anything. I should have known I would have walked out with bags brimming and dying to run home to make Pad Thai (read: eat the entire recipe that should feed about 8 people).

I tackled making dinner that night, but regretted not getting ingredients for a double batch. I sautéed veggies in garlic and coconut oil, but cooked them oh so lightly. I love Pad Thai where it still feels fresh and kinda crunchy. The cilantro on top certainly helps with that as does a squeeze of lime.

The dish was a hit with me and the family which is an added bonus I guess. I'm glad it was met with rave reviews but I've never been awesome at sharing. I did eat this bowl and subsequent bowls of Pad Thai with chopsticks because I have difficulty pacing myself with a fork. Be glad a poorly lit photo was taken before the bowl was licked clean.

Just like Mum

This weekend was spent down memory lane as I came to Holladay to nanny 2 of the 3 kids I spend quite a few summers with. They have gotten older, and no longer run to see what surprises I had in my big Mary Poppins bag. Which makes me sad...I enjoyed those little science and art projects almost as much as the kids did. I did have a project or two planned but this time around, the weekend was a quick blitz of soccer practice, soccer games, and track meets. Though I've enjoyed the rain Utah's recently been swimming in, the sunshine made for a great afternoon outside. Egg drop contests and shadow art will have to wait however, tired kids with busy schedules demanded a more relaxed weekend of cookie baking. I estimate about 7 dozen's worth of both sugar cookies and chocolate chip. The thick sugar cookies with sour cream icing made for a quick breakfast on Sunday (unbeknownst to me) but the real stars were of course, the classic chocolate chip. 

I had tried to make chocolate cookies like my mom had a few times but didn't get it quite right until I watched her from start to finish. Missing from the margins but present in her memory are little additions to the recipe that make all the difference. Make sure you cream the butter and sugar for a 'good long while '(no precise timing here, a good long while is determined by texture and color), add the chocolate chips and flour together instead of in batches, and upping the flour content are just a few secrets that resulted in my sub-par recreation attempts. You would think that following the worn recipe exactly would yield cookies just like mom: not quite. But I've tinkered with what I've seen and made an adaptation or two for myself. 

As good as mine are, the old cliche rings true; there's something about your mother's cooking. That something very well could be excellent cooking skills paired with nostalgia. These cookies have been around for years of my life, and structured  my childhood afternoon snack. A favorite family story involves elementary aged older brother J coming home from school one day to a plate of chocolate cookies. A cookie in hand and one in his mouth he asked my mom "mom these are really good, but next time, can you have them warm when I come home?" Cute. 

I'm much less picky. Warm, cooled, half-baked, or even the raw dough, these cookies are excellent. And according to Emily Ruth, make an excellent dinner. 

Pretending to be a Grown-up

I always wondered what would happen after I graduated from my university. I was flustered, and a bit lost without school. School has always been the natural progression of my life. Elementary school evolved to the junior high (which did wiped out my self confidence), but was incrementally gained back during high school. Soon enough, I graduated with a pretty good sense of who I was, but without a direction of where I was going. And school was gone. 

But now that day I thought would never come has come….and gone. When I was little, I thought college was always this far off date that I thought I would reach when I was old. At 22, let me tell you that you don’t graduate college when you are old. You graduate and then the world really opens up to you, presenting limitless opportunities. How daunting. 

Just one beauty of my walks to work

So now what? 

 I decided to get my feet wet in the grown up world, acquiring an internship with a pretty grown up company in Salt Lake City. I wear tailored pants. I take company lunches.  I even have an ID card with security clearance and everything. But to let you in on the secret, the key to being a grown up is pretending. I never thought I would thank my vivid childhood imagination and role-playing Harry Potter skills into my early twenties, but I do. As it turns out, these skills as a kid have really come in handy as you try and pretend to play grown up.  Pretending to play Harry Potter was a little easier, but there isn’t much difference in the skill set.  

 I realized this fact of life as I helped younger sister #2 helped register for classes. It was late, she was stressed out, and proclaimed that she wasn’t ready to go to college. But that’s the ticket, the unpreparedness of it all. Being grown up doesn’t come with a handbook of rules, just loose guidelines from friends and family…. and frantic Google searches. Apart from that, it’s mostly an unwritten book for you to scribble all over.    

For now, this page of life is turned to playing grown up, but not too seriously. As far as I’m concerned, this time is meant for adventure. You have your whole life to be a grown up so I intend on a couple practice runs with several adventures in between. While my paychecks don’t have to go toward payments and bills, they are carefully stashed away towards my adventures. While work is very grown up (but still fun), what everyone doesn’t know is that lunches at my desk are spent looking up flights to south east Asia and research about mango sticky rice.  

 And I most definitely keep fruit snacks inside of my bag