Hokey pokey.

My sincerest apologies for the recent drought in culinary experimentation. But please bear with me for a little while longer as it is that time of the year again when my meals consist of leftovers from the previous night, and I start using, dare I say it - the microwave oven.

This one, however, doesn't require any sort of radiation: ICE CREAM.

As my loyal followers know, I tend to lean more towards the savory than the sweet. I rarely bake a cake and I don't do chocolate. But ice cream... ice cream makes me weak in the knees. (Except chocolate ice cream, of course.) Once in a while, I come across an ice cream flavor that is inexplicably, indescribably, wonderfully, epically mind-blowing. A few years ago, it was the ever-elusive Green Tea from Häagen-Dazs. This time, it was Hokey Pokey from New Zealand Natural at L.A. Live. (Both flavors which my VONS now carries. I love VONS!) So how do I even begin to describe this to you? There are crystallized balls of butterscotch (yes, CRYSTALS of BUTTERSCOTCH) folded into a honeycomb-flavored ice cream that is thick and creamy and good.

I know, right?

This is probably a good time to say that I also love caramel, butterscotch, toffee and everything else in the "sugar + cream + crack" category. I get that from my dad. And he loves to remind me every time he finds a new pint of ice cream in the freezer, courtesy of yours truly. He doesn't know it, but we actually have much more in common than that, as much as it pains me to admit it. He reads the Korea Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal and msnbc on a daily basis. I check the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and BBC during my study breaks. (This is the basis of our conversations: health care reform, Sarah Palin, Dokdo island, etc.) We're both cynics, critics and conspiracy theorists at heart. He hurts easily, but he's quick to forgive. I'm always on the verge of tears, but I'm just as ready to swallow them. And most importantly, we both appreciate a scoop of honeycomb-flavored ice cream with crystallized balls of butterscotch. I just can't get over it...

Food for thought (courtesy of wikipedia.org): "Before the invention of ice cream cones, ice cream was often sold wrapped in waxed paper and known as a hokey-pokey (possibly a corruption of the Italian ecco un poco - 'here is a little') An Italian ice cream street vendor was called a hokey-pokey man."

Crabs.

My food cravings are very specific. My friends will attest to this. They can range from hard-shell tacos to fried green onion pancakes from Earthen Restaurant. (http://www.yelp.com/biz/earthen-restaurants-hacienda-heights) On this particular Saturday, I was craving steamed Dungeness crab. As evidenced by the existence of my blog alone, I'm not particularly reluctant to make what I want to eat. If I'm craving something, I'll make it or find a restaurant that will make it for me. Even as a party of 1. (I overcame the fear of eating alone in public long ago while living in Tokyo.) So naturally, I made the trek out to the nearest Chinese market for a live Dungeness crab. ($2.99/ lb.!)

In the kitchen is where I find my solace. Not just in the food that I make, but the process - whether it's de-veining shrimp or zesting a lemon. There is something uniquely therapeutic about de-shelling a crab and something inexplicably fulfilling about retrieving a perfectly intact lump of crab meat.

The aftermath:
I obviously didn't think this one through. Usually when I take pictures of my creations, I attempt to create the illusion of a professionally taken photograph with my now-endangered Canon Powershot SD430 (5.0 megapixels!). And usually, I take a picture of the dish before I devour it. I failed on both accounts. Regardless, this party of 1 thoroughly enjoyed the Dungeness crab, along with a glass of Moscato.

The Luck of the Irish.

At the risk of being branded as lush, I dedicate this entry to yet another alcoholic beverage.

Sometimes, grilled cheese and moules frites are just not what I need. Sometimes, what I need is a BJ's Irish Root Beer.
A what? A BJ's Irish Root Beer.

Jameson whiskey + Bailey's Irish Cream + Bols Butterscotch Schnapps + BJ's handcrafted root beer
=
liquid cure for a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

I have a hard time dealing with disappointment. Whether it's finding out that I didn't do as well as I had hoped on an exam. Or my neighborhood's Blockbuster not carrying that obscure foreign film that I wanted to watch. The floodgates open wide and I feel my world shattering into a million pieces as the tears continue to flow in an endless stream. I couldn't explain this phenomenon before, but I'm beginning to think that it has something to do with the fact that I live in a constant state of anxiety, frustration, and anger. Even the slightest disappointment or the smallest departure from my expectations causes all of those emotions to surface.

Today, BP made me mad. Real mad. And all those emotions surfaced again. To make me feel better, BP took me to BJ's for dinner. I ordered the BJ's Irish Root Beer. And everything did become better.

At least for now.