He gave me a ring for my birthday, the year he asked me out.
“It’s not an engagement ring,” he insisted. “It’s just a ring.”
It may not have been intended as an engagement ring, but it was more than “just” a ring. A plain silver band, with “AlliSon” and the date of our anniversary inscribed inside, I wore it every day – and then constantly had to explain to my friends and family that, no, we’re not engaged yet, it’s just a ring.
“Soon,” he would tell me. “I’ll propose soon.”
The man has a funny definition of “soon”.
He didn’t propose that year, nor the year after that.
Nor the next year, nor the next year…
in fact, it took him NINE WHOLE YEARS before that boy got down on his knee.
Some of you have told me that I’m such an interesting person, which is so sweet but also so funny to me because up until recently, I would have told you I’m not interesting at all. I have no good stories. There’s nothing in my life worth talking about.
And I 100% believed that.
I am very quiet in person. I find it extremely difficult to talk about myself – or at all – around other people.
Seriously, I’ve always been so bad at storytelling, and at coming off as interesting, that my own freaking husband is constantly telling me how surprised he is that I have so many stories to tell.
A lot of you are probably like me – you think that you’re completely uninteresting.
We had a couple of questions about miso paste in the last video’s comments, so I thought I’d do a little overview for you on what miso is, and the different types of miso.
Miso is fermented soybean paste. It’s used in a lot of Japanese cooking – if you’ve ever had Japanese food before, then you’ve probably tried miso soup! But these days, we’re also starting to see it used a lot more generally – in things like this blueberry miso crumb cake.
This blueberry cake recipe uses white miso, also known as shiro miso. This is the lightest in flavor, and least salty of the common types of miso.
Then there’s red miso, also known as aka miso. This is the most fermented type of miso, usually for a year or two.
Awase miso is mixed miso – a mix of the white and red types.
There are a ton of other types of miso, but those are the basic types that you’ll run into most often – I hope this helps!
Honestly, I wasn’t a huge fan of the miso in this crumb cake. The cake itself was tasty and I’d happily eat it again, but the miso definitely burned while baking, and ended up SUPER salty and a bit bitter.
I don’t personally love the “miso all the things” trend, but hey, it’s entirely possible my miso mishaps were user error and this is actually a tasty recipe if you don’t fuck it up.
Buuuut if I do ever make this recipe again, I’ll definitely be omitting the miso.
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted, cooled slightly, plus more for pan
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (219 g), plus more for pan
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 large eggs
1 cup (packed) (200 g) light brown sugar
1 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 pint blueberries
Cooking Directions
For the crumble, mix flour, sugar, butter, and miso in a small bowl until combined. Let sit until ready to use.
Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly grease a 9″ cake pan with butter. Lightly dust with flour, tapping out excess. Whisk baking powder, salt, baking soda, and 1 3/4 cups flour in a large bowl to combine.
Whisk eggs, brown sugar, and yogurt in a medium bowl. Add vanilla and 1 cup melted butter and whisk to combine. Using a rubber spatula, mix dry ingredients into egg mixture until well combined, but do not overmix. Mix in blueberries.
Transfer batter to prepared pan and spread in an even layer. Top with reserved crumble.
Bake cake, checking after 30 minutes and tenting with foil only if crumble is getting very dark (some color is fine), until top of cake is firm and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 60–70 minutes total. Let cake cool in pan, at least 2 hours, then cut into slices in pan.
For the last couple of years before he passed away, my dad was paralyzed from the waist down and almost entirely bedridden. We all knew his time was limited, so we started doing Sunday dinners with him every week.
At the time, my now sister-in-law was fully vegan, so it became a fun project for me to find really tasty dishes that not only could she eat, but that the entire family would enjoy.
Although she’s no longer vegan, there’s one dish that not only has she requested over and over again, but now my entire extended family is addicted to it… and that is these carrots.
They’re sweet and savory, caramelized and oh so addictively good. And I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that when the entire family gets together, I can make 20 lbs of carrots and they’ll all disappear.
Toss the carrots in half of the mixture of the oil, maple syrup, mustards, miso, vinegar, soy sauce and garlic, arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake in a preheated 400F/200C oven until tender and lightly golden brown, about 20-30 minutes, turning half way through, before tossing them in the remaining glaze and serving.
Among those who know us, there’s an ongoing joke that Son has never taken me on a date. But to be fair, I’m sure there’s been at least one or two in the 15 years we’ve been together.
That being said… our first date was only barely a date, though to be honest it was more my fault than his. He wanted to take me to a restaurant/arcade-type place called BJs, but my socially anxious ass was like NOPE HOW ‘BOUT NOT.
So instead, we sat on a bench in the middle of the mall, and just chatted for hours.
And then he drove me to a Chili’s, fully intending to get food… and instead we sat in the car and talked some more.
But keep in mind, I was still recovering from a car accident, so on top of my usual social anxiety I was also super self-conscious about how beat-up I looked at the time.
So… no food happened on that first date. But a first kiss might’ve happened…
I miss cooking for other people. I miss holidays with family, and potlucks, and the cookbook club I used to do with my aerialist friends. I miss overflowing tables because we all cook way too much food, and leftovers for DAYS.
I miss randomly dropping off goodies at my gym, or PT office, or delivering them to my neighbors who were all absolutely flabbergasted the first time I ever delivered them all boxes of holiday goodies the first year we lived here.
I’m the kind of person who shows their love through food, so to not be able to do that because of COVID? Is just SO frustrating.
So as I always say – please, please wear your masks. Stay safe. Stay distanced. Stay home when you can. And hopefully… hopefully soon, we can all feed one other again.
Since my family just did a smaller, “drop-off” Thanksgiving this year with those of us who are local (instead of the big potluck that we normally have with the entire extended family), I took the opportunity to experiment a little.
I was asked to make the mashed potatoes, so I decided on this recipe! I left the onions on the side because some family members aren’t onion fans.
With or without the onions, I was very happy with how these turned out. They’re a new favorite!
Boil the potatoes until cooked through, and drain. Transfer to a bowl and add the butter, milk, salt, and pepper, then mash until smooth. Mix in the caramelized onions.
Top with french fried onions and chopped parsley, if using.
But I am of the very correct opinion that there is never such thing as too many caramelized onions… so here you go again.
Caramelized Onions
Ingredients
4 big onions (or lots of little ones!)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp unsalted butter
Cooking Directions
Peel and thinly slice the onions.
Heat a nonstick pan over medium-low heat, then add the oil and butter.
Add the onions and cover 15 minutes. Then remove the cover and cook for another 1 1/2 – 2 hours, stirring occasionally until the onions are nice and caramelized.
I grew up in a family that were big fans of ice skating. Fellow Japanese-American Kristi Yamaguchi was our hero, and seeing Stars on Ice at the Forum as it came through LA every year was an important annual tradition.
In middle school, I decided I wanted to take ice skating lessons, so off we went every Friday after school to the rink. I loved zooming around the rink as fast as I could go, and quickly got good enough at gliding in an arabesque to show off at my school’s annual ice skating fundraiser event.
But anything beyond that? NOPE. I hated how big and unwieldy ice skates were, and crossing one foot over the other to go around a curve?! seemed like a completely unreasonable ask.
And don’t even get me started on jumping from one foot to another. I never even got close to doing the kinds of tricks Kristi could do.
In ice skating, and in life – I always let fear hold me back far too much.
This is the second year in a row that I’ve made this hot chocolate mix to give to my family around the holidays, because it’s such a huge hit!
It’s incredibly good, but I really love that it’s neither cloyingly sweet nor so rich that it immediately makes you want to take a nap.
Personally I’m not typically a fan of the types of hot chocolate made with actual chocolate bars, because they tend to be so thick and overwhelming to me.
1/2 tsp pure ground vanilla bean powder or 1 leftover vanilla pod
Cooking Directions
In the bowl of a food processor, combine toasted sugar, white chocolate, dark chocolate, Dutch cocoa, malted milk powder, instant espresso, salt, and vanilla powder (if using). Pulse until chocolate is fully ground and mixture looks powdery and dry. Transfer to airtight container and add the leftover vanilla bean pod (if using). Store at cool room temperature up until the date stamped on the package of white chocolate.
To use, stir about 1 ounce (2 tbsp; 28g) of the mix into 6 oz hot milk. Season to taste with additional salt or vanilla, and serve hot.
When Son finally tried to ask me out again, at first I tried to find every possible excuse to say no.
Not because I didn’t want to, but because I’ve been a shy, awkward, anxious person all my life and HOLY SHIT HOT GUY ASKING ME OUT, TIME TO PANIC, WHAT DO I DO.
Um, um, um, what excuses can I use to get out of it…
“Oh… I can’t that weekend, I have a show!” I actually did have a performance scheduled with an old dance partner, but CONVENIENT EXCUSE AMIRITE?
But despite having kind of temporarily given up on me a few months before, ya boi is nothing if not persistant. And despite my excuses – we soon had a date scheduled after one of our ballroom rehearsals.
