hillvalley

We did the same thing with alcohol in college.

The sushi making was a complete success!!! I am so excited. Activities like this remind me of why I put up with a low paying but still highly stressful job. Every kid tried it, which is amazing. Of course, we bribed them with the promise of candy after they tried it, but they still tried it. In the immortal words of Mikey's brother, "they liked it!" We made cucmber maki without wasabi. The rice was sushi grain (I can't think of the term right now) but was not seasoned. Except for cooking the rice (we have a hot plate in the room so we cooked it there) the kids did everything. They cut the cucumbers, rolled the sushi and sliced it. Half the class has some form of imparement that makes tasks like this hard, yet everyone tried, which is all we ask. Everyone tried a piece of nori (seaweed) first before they knew what it was. Once they found out what it was, four of the boys liked it. One child, (let's call him Eric)who I have a special relationship with, looked at me like I was crazy when he figured out what he had eaten. Granted, the only seaweed Eric knew before today was on Spongebob Squarepants, but he still thinks I am crazy for eating this stuff. Wait 'till he tries tofu on Friday!!! Everyone had a pair of chopsticks with a matching soy sauce dish. I have a great set from Zabars that are red, yellow and black plastic. 5 of the kids liked it and ate more than one piece. Two of the kids ate one tiny bite, but at least they ate it. These are kids with very sensitive mouths and only eat about half a dozen foods, so any attempt at something different is huge. Eric is now positive that I am crazy. The rest of them had a ball posing for pictures while eating their sushi. I'll download them tomorrow and they will become our screen saver. A couple of kids think they are famous because they are on the computer. We forgot about the gari (ginger) so I will include it in our food tasting on Friday. The boys have asked if we can eat more seaweed and when am I bringing them more sushi. I am thinking of bringing in natto (fermented soybeans which does not smell or look good unless you love the stuff, which I do) to see their reaction. This ended up being more about my experience with food than I expected, but when you watch kids eat their first piece of sushi, it becomes that kind of day!

Since we are dealing DC, I don't think it really matters. Now if we were in NY or Florida, that would be another story..... I am a big fan of Krupin's too, but the service can be a nightmare.

Do you get to leave for lunch? I eat with my kids four days a week. (groan)

Snack today was popcorn and cheezits. I am trying out a new tea at work, Tazo's Calm. I am a little dissappointed, it tastes like chamomile, but it will do for now. Lunch was the rest of the rotini from Sunday night. I don't have much of an appetite so that was all I could get down. For the holidays I recieved about $40 worth of gift certificates to Starbucks. I don't know what to spend it on, since I don't drink that much coffee and I can only have so many Vanilla Creme's without getting sick of them. Any suggestions?

By the time I got to the tea it had become cold, but I drank it anyway. Used the tea to wash down some carmel covered popcorn and almonds, from the same student who gave me the Godiva. It's ironic that this family gave food as gifts because their kids is a terrible eater, and a portion of my day is spent trying to get him to eat. Tomorrow in cooking we are making sushi. If I remember my mat.

Oh yeah, still can't figure out how to resize my photos. I'll try some more tomorrow.

I am having a mug of organic chamomile tea with tonight's Godiva truffle. I wish the package said what flavor the truffles are. I am not great at figuring out flavors in sweets. I am really good at figuring out savory dishes though. Tonights truffle is the ultimate truffle assortment let down. The cherry truffle. The only one in the box I won't eat. I hate cherry. Period. Except for marachinos. And cherry stems. Yuck. I give Godiva credit though. It was a nice combination of cherry and chocolate, not too much of one or the other. And it was roled in red sugar. I am a sucker for sprinkles. Now I am craving something sweet.

Martha would eat her alive faster than you can say "It's a good thing".

For Hannukah I got new nonstick pans and tonight I finally got to break one in. I sauteed scallops with a little chopped shallot and then baby spinach with 4 cloves of chopped garlic. Chopping garlic is one of my favorite things to do in the kitchen. Everything but the scallops were organic. I tried to post some pics, but am having trouble uploading them into ImageGullet. The files are too big. Is it possible to shrink them?

We had to put it off until this week. I got them Caripori, which are hard candy sticks, because they were on sale and had cola flavors. So far they have only tried nori, but a lot of them liked it, which was very surprising. We are making sushi tomorrow and will try the rest of the foods later this week. Check out my blog for all the details!

It's always interesting when you read the fine print. The name of the company is Beluga Caviar Co., which led me to believe I was buying better caviar then I thought. On the other hand, the ingredients only list sturgeon roe and salt. Nothing about dye. For what it's worth, I have had the cheap stuff and the good stuff and this was in the middle, but closer to the good stuff. It had the same texture as sevruga or beluga. It was silky and delicious. And I would never waste the good stuff on an omlette. That's why I was excited to try American caviar.

It's still there...can't imagine that corner without it.

I also am a big fan of Lebanese Taverna. Taipaie Tokyo (my spelling is wrong I am sure) on Nicholson is a sushi bar and take out Chinese place. The noodle soups from the Chinese side are really good. Tamari Cafe, on the Pike, has great Japanese. Lots of Donburi and noodle soups. Not a great place for sushi though. Across the way there is a Korean restaurant that is suppose to be good. I haven't gotten around to trying it yet though.

My kids are 9-10 chronologically. They all have some form of retardation or Autism, so their emotional ages are somewhere between 4-10. I have 8 students, 6 boys and 2 girls, which is a fairly typical ratio for special ed. I would love to post pictures of them but due to confidentiallity laws I am not allowed. The only time I take away food from my kids is when they are eating or chewing gum in class when they are trying to sneak it, or they stole it from us. I am the teacher who sneaks you candy under the table when no one is looking and you just worked really hard. We use food as a motivator with some of our kids, so there is always someone eating in the room. This afternoon we had cookies and really bad Girl Scout chocolates. The cookies were butter cookies with sugar sprinkles on top, my favorite. The chocolates had mint in them, but just didn't compare with the Godiva waiting at home. I love sweets, but am usually satisfied after just a few bites, so eating one piece at a time isn't that hard.

Dayum! I wish you had a web cam. I've always wanted to see what goes on in the teachers' lounge =R= My teacher's lounge isn't much, just an empty room they haven't turned into a classroom yet. The real action takes place at the secretary's desk and the kitchen. Everyone knows that secretarys really run the school!

I am one of those people who is very sensitive to caffeine. One cup of coffee and I am bouncing off the walls. I also take a medication that tends to keep me awake, so that helps on those mornings when I feel like I need coffee.

Greetings from the teacher's lounge...... A little known secret about many schools (at least the two I have worked in) is that there is food around all the time. People brought in their leftovers from the holidays. This morning I have had countless cookies, mainly chocolate chip. I also had a handful of chocolate covered carmel corn. Yummm Snack was animal crackers and cheeze-its. This morning was a bit crazy so I am behind on my water consumption. Everyone is walking around in a sort of daze. We know why we are here, we just can't remember what we are supposed to be doing. Lunch was the rest of the pasta from last night. Not enough cheese so it was pretty bland. Time for recess......

Just finished a bowl of miso soup with hot seasame oil. I eat a fair amount of Japanese food, although this board has inspired me to try more in the past few months. I won't be able to get to a computer before tomorrow afternoon so I will give you a brief look into what I eat durng the day. Breakfast is always a nightmare. I have never been very good at eating it. Lately it has been toast with raspberry jam, both organic. I have no food in the house, so I probably won't eat until 11 when my students have snack. Snack. One of the best parts about my job. How many of you have a snacked programmed into your day every day? And have eight people to remind you in case you forget? It tends to be carb heavy, which makes me happy. I have no idea what is in the classroom since I didn't have anything to do with food in December. (I have two coteachers and an aide in the room with me. I am very lucky.) I'll do inventory tomorrow. Whatever it is the kids will complain because the last week of school all they ate was cookies and now it is back to crackers and pretzels. Lunch is usually whatever I had for dinner. Tomorrow it will be rotini with parmesean. I drink a lot of water all day. Usually between 50-64 oz. a day. I have water bottles everywhere, beside my bed, in my car, two or three in the classroom. During the winter I also drink a lot of herbal tea. No coffee, very little soda. I try to avoid caffine at all costs. When I do have caffine it is usually in either a vanilla latte, green tea, bubble tea or a diet coke. Tonight I will have a Godiva truffle when I go to sleep. I have a rediculous amount of chocolate in the apartment right now. I tend to get a lot of it as holiday gifts and I haven't been able to eat it yet.

Dinner tonight was rotini with evoo and lots of parmesean. I made enough for lunch tomorrow, but as I was draining the pasta about 1/3 of it fell into the sink. aaagggggg. Lunch is a higher priority than dinner, so I didn't have as much as I wanted. Will have to have a late evening snack. About me....the basics are that I am single woman in my late 20's. I have spent most of my life in DC and absolutely love my city. I live alone so I don't have to worry about cooking/eating what others want me to, which is nice. I am a total foodie and always have been. Food is my hobby/passion. My eating habits are much more European than American. It is very rare that I go food shopping for more than a couple of days worth of food. Usually I stop on my way home from work and pick up whatever I am craving at that moment. I also hate the freezer, so I rarely eat anything frozen, or freeze anything for later. During the day I am a special education teacher and at night I am working on my master's. I go back to work tomorrow (groan) but have another week before my classes start. I teach at a private school, but 60% of my class is considered innercity. Most of my students are adventurous eaters, so I try to bring in different foods for them to try. This week we will probably try Japanese foods, since we are finishing up studying Japan. While I was sick I ate a lot of nori and rice, and they loved the seaweed!!! Keep in mind that for most of these kids Taco Bell is fancy eating. By the way, in case you couldn't tell, my students are my passion. I feel strongly that I should introduce them to as many different cultures as possible, and make trying new things as much fun as possible. I just looked up and saw what time it is. It's a good thing I don't have class next week, I have a feeling this will take up my studying time!

Torakris tagged me while I was taking a nap so I guess it is me this week. Since it is Monday in Japan I will start now. I just finished my last homemade ginger molassas cookies that my friend's mother made. I have never liked them before but this time they were increadible! Soft and chewy, it was like eating candy. If I wasn't following an amazing month of blogging (Thank you Ronnie, jackal and torakris) I suppose I would be less intimidated. On the other hand I will be eating a bit better than I normally do (which isn't saying much). I have had a stomache virus since the beginning of December and just started eating normal food New Year's Eve. Since it has been so long since I ate well, I am eating whatever my heart desires. One disclaimer: I am a terrible speller, so plees bear with mee! Here goes........ Edited because I think faster than I type.

Excellent choice! Come on hillvalley =R= I guess it's me!

So.....how did it turn out? Did Diana think it was worth the effort?

Unfortunately, DC's Chinatown is slowly dying. That neighborhood is in the middle of a "revitalization" thanks to the MCI center and the new convention center, but at the expense of Chinatown. Soon all that will be left is the Hooter's sign that is written in Chinese.

Now that I have mastered the art of chicken stock I want to learn how to make soups. I just have to find a place to start. The fact that it is 69 degrees outside doesn't exactly make me want to get started though.