So I disappeared for a bit...

2013 was a bit of a shit year, to be honest. After I read and reviewed Ghostwritten, my life sort of went down the rabbit hole. My boyfriend and I broke up -- we were in a long-distance relationship, so the absence shouldn't have mattered so much, right? Even so.

So I disappeared for a bit, and I stopped reading, and I stopped reviewing. I found it difficult to sit still by myself with my thoughts, and so I was just running around, doing as much as I possibly could. I went to Kep on weekends with new friends, went to Jakarta on another weekend to visit an old friend. I started cooking again, this time trying to make Chinese-style noodles (hor fun), or pierogis, or just meals that consisted of the four food groups. I adopted a kitten and named him Biggie Smalls. I fought with friends, made up with friends, said goodbye to friends. I went to new places, new events that I wouldn't have bothered with six months ago, and I met up with old friends who visited Phnom Penh. I bought a nice camera and (somewhat) learned how to use it. 

First day in Jakarta

Jakarta city-view

Parts of the city were waterlogged when I was there. 

But people still seemed positively cheerful 

With Christi and her boyfriend, hanging outside in the balcony

Biggie Smalls, when he was very small

Biggie Smalls, two months later. Dude got huge!

My pierogis. I was very proud of 'em. 

Jane and I looking like hot bitches on our way to a classical music concert (Photo by Ben Woods*)

At the night market with friends (Photo by Ben Woods)

Always at Liquid. Etan (third from left) visited me in Phnom Penh for about 48 hours. (Photo by Ben Woods)

And this was all while working my ass off at my job, which is utterly life-consuming in some ways. Work was a relief during this time. I complain about it a lot, but I do love it. 

In March, I returned to the States for a month for Cynthia's wedding. It was beautiful, of course, and it was great seeing her again. Talking to her always feels like such a relief, like nothing's ever going to change between us and that if there's one thing that I can rely on to be constant in my life, it's my friendship with her. Her husband, Chris, was very sweet, very funny, and loves her very much (obvi), and I, naturally, think that he's lucky to have found a woman like Cynthia.

We don't like each other. 

Puppies kissing Cynthia before the ceremony

Cynthia walks down the aisle with her father

I also got to spend some time with my mother. We took a trip to central California, to Solvang, and its surrounding towns. This place was like weird farm central. We went to an ostrich farm, a miniature horse farm, a miniature donkey farm and a lavender farm. My mom also accompanied me to a beer brewery, called Figueroa Mountain Brewery.

miniature ponies!

miniature donkeys! (This one was sweet)

The donkey was trying to get my mom to pet him. 

Ostriches are fucking freakish looking. Also ginormous, and have huge talons. 

Then New York, which was exhilarating and exhausting. I stayed with Marissa, and just had a schedule full of seeing family, friends, mentors, and former colleagues. I drank way too much beer, ate way too much good food, and spent... not as much money as I expected, which was a nice surprise given how expensive the city can be. But I guess since I was visiting from Cambodia, everyone seemed to want buy me lunch, dinner, drinks. I also got to go to a concert in Bushwick, which made me so happy. Haven't heard live music in ages. The band was Crushed Out aka Boom Chick -- a drum/guitar duo. They were great.

View of uptown from my uncle's office. He works near WTC.

My cousin. She got so big! And understands words now. 

I meet the Polish hotties in the East Village.

I miss these girls so much. 

got a hipster card from the girls

Last week, May 3, was my two-year anniversary in Cambodia with Emily. We didn't do much -- just had sushi for dinner to commemorate it, then went out drinking with a buddy who was back in town.

Two years in Cambodia. Nuts.

Anyway, it's been a pretty eventful four months. I'm glad that I was more willing to put myself out there and do different things, but obviously there have been some down sides to being unwilling to settle down and allow myself to be ok with just. sitting. still. But I'm trying, right now, I really, really am. I've even started reading again -- besides that Ron Vitale book I reviewed below, I've read three other books. I'm aware that puts me way behind my CBR5 goal of 26, but I'll keep trying.

(*My friend, Ben, has more photos of Phnom Penh at his tumblr. He's a great photographer.)

Craving coffee in Vietnam

Sitting in a coffee shop in Hoi An looking at my photos.

When we were in Vietnam, we kept going on a search for good, Western-style coffee. While I enjoy the thick, sweet-flavored coffee that are usually served in most places in Vietnam (and also in Cambodia), we started to miss the familiar kick of espresso. In Hoi An, we found this little coffee shop that actually had a Lavazza machine! The first we've seen in Vietnam!

The owner of this little joint boasted that foreigners would come back day after day on their vacation just for their poison since theirs is the only place with a superior Italian coffee-brewing machine. Well, call us typical, but we stopped back at least once a day for the three days we spent in Hoi An.

Also, despite its sign, the place does not serve banh mi sandwiches.

Amok amok amok

I got inspired by other Cambodian food blogs to finally do my giant fish amok post, so go read it because I put effort into it.

Eating in Cambodia, part two

Did I ever mention I'm part of a food-blogging trio? Well, before I moved to Phnom Penh, we were just roaming around NYC eating and having fun, and then writing about it after. The other two, Rachizle and Etanbomb, are pretty voracious eaters too (and funny) so we just call ourselves funeaters.

Anyway, I did my first food post from PP about crab in Kep, so do check it out.

Fun Eaters!

The Food They Carry

This post is dedicated to Jen K. Stay safe in Iraq.

Ashley Gilbertson – a war photographer who I recognized as Dexter Filkin's colleague in his book, The Forever War (BEST BOOK EVER) – recently wrote an interesting article in The New York Times about the types of food that the troops in Iraq carry. Each country's combat ration hold practical items, but there are also foods that serve to remind a soldier of his home. The American Meals Ready to Eat (M.R.E.) include peanut butter and tortillas; the Swedes and Norwegians have cod stew with sour cream and potato; the Germans have goulash.

Gilbertson also put together a neat interactive where he photographed each country's combat ration and their foods against a lighted-up surface.* I included some of my favorites below. If you have some time, you should take a look at the article and click through the interactive.

United States - I love that they get skittles.

South Korea - Of course there's kimchi.

Ukraine - I really liked how bland and drab this country's food looked compared to all the other countries.

Ashley Gilbertson wrote:

In combat, eating is often the only good thing about a day. When a soldier or marine sits down to warm up his M.R.E., he’s not being shot at, he’s not losing friends. It’s almost a ritual, and the very act of opening one of these packages suggests safety, however brief it may be.

*It's sort of reminiscent of what David Littschwager did with his One Cubic Foot project in National Geographic - where he went to different locations and stuck an alloted space of about cubic foot, then took living organism out to photograph them and made it into a photo collage.

All photos by Ashley Gilbertson/VII Network, For The New York Times.

My computer has no virus, I do not have swine flu, and no one called me dirty names today. Phew

Two weeks ago, my uncle asked me what I wanted for my birthday. Keeping the Cannonball Read in mind, I said, "A book!" Well, being as awesome as they are, guess what he and his girlfriend got me?

.....












Yes! I am now a very proud owner of a Kindle! I was so excited when I saw the Amazon box because I was like, "OMG IS THIS WHAT I THINK IT IS!!" (By the way, that's Ralph Ellison on the power save page. Which is funny because The Invisible Man completely frustrated me in high school. It's ok – I still love it!)

I mean, two weeks ago, I'm sure I said something along the lines (to friends) about how I like books better because it's tactile and personal like newspapers and blah blah blah, but now that I have this, I am so excited about it!

I really did have a lovely birthday today, especially since I was kinda expecting a shit storm to descend upon me. It's tradition for me to have the worst absolute luck on my birthday. Serious, ever since my 6th birthday when my mom threw a party for me and all my ballet friends were invited and then some adult there called me a little pig because I was pigging out on cake, and then other people caught on to that and thought it was pretty funny, and being a 6-year-old, I was naturally upset about it. Didn't want another birthday party for a very long time.

On my 16th birthday, I got a computer virus on my home computer that I shared with my mother. A porn virus! Yea, that was awkward. Not what you think – a friend's AIM profile was hacked and had a link with the requisite "This is AWESOME!" So I clicked. Palm/Face. The funniest thing was when the technician guy came and he just looked at me and said, "Porn sites are very bad for computers." I felt so embarrassed that I couldn't even explain how those pesky popups with blow jobs and penetration got on our computer.

Everything else bad that happened is too personal to go into great detail, but trust me – my birthdays are bad luck. My yearly ritual is to go about my daily routine and then get home and sit in bed and hope nothing happens.

But yes, this year's was nice, and not just because of the Kindle. I suspect the past couple weeks of terribleness (I had a shitty, shitty month in terms of everything in my life) might have cancelled out the Birthday Bad Luck. There needs to be a balance somewhere, right? I'm superstitious like that.

I had the day off from work (I usually get Tuesdays off) and I went to Crunch on a guest pass with my friend, Jana. That was an eye-opener. I hate gyms because I feel like a hamster on the treadmill and I don't like looking at myself in the mirror for long periods of time. However, since it was my first time working out in a long time, it was actually kinda nice to get sweaty and play pretend-healthy. The best part of the gym was the showers in the locked rooms! Yea, it does not take much to impress me apparently. I was just in awe that they had shampoo, conditioner and body wash, and you are standing on nice black tiles and the hot water was actually hot and cold water came out when you turned the dial, and you get to use lots of towels when you get out. It kinda reminded me of being in public pools as a kid and I just liked that so much.

Then Jana and I went to lunch at a low-key restaurant down the street, The Smile, and I had the creamiest, butternutty butternut squash soup. My sandwich – a baguette with black forest ham, gruyere and grain mustard – was pretty sweet too, but the soup was definitely a highlight. After, I wandered around the city looking for a gift for my uncle's girlfriend because it's her birthday on Friday. Then I finished a book that I've kinda been sloughing through (review should be up in a couple days).

For dinner, my uncle and his girlfriend brought me and my friend, Marissa, to the Gramercy Tavern. It was pretty fancypants and I was definitely under-dressed so I felt a little out-of-place. I relaxed after a couple sips of wine and good conversation with awesome company. The food was so delicious and unexpected too. My uncle had venison and he said it was delicious. That dish came with potato pancakes! I tried a flat iron steak for the first time tonight, and flat iron is basically the meat behind a cow's shoulder. It was braised and accompanied with slices of sirloin steak, all served with a drizzle of burnt milk (what is burnt milk? I'm not sure – Google can help you here – but it was pretty tasty.) The flat iron was the best part of the dish though. It was like happiness in my mouth.

Finally, walking home from the train, I spoke to the boyfriend (He's out of town) and he told me that he got me a subscription to New York Magazine! My jaw dropped and I am so excited for my first issue! He used to get a bulk subscription and NYMag was included and I would be allowed to steal it because he initially thought it was a girly magazine (I think they were fashion week covers or the design issue when he started receiving them.) He likes it now though (Phew, I guess i don't have to break up with him then. Totally kidding.)

So yea, that gift was unexpected and completely useful and a perfect fit for me. The boyfriend always finds the best ways to surprise me. He had asked me for my address yesterday and I thought he was going to send flowers or something (I complained last week that he needs to give me flowers) but he got me something much, much better.

Good day!

Ok, one more photo of the Kindle!

And here's one of Max lazing on the empty Kindle box. Max is our fiesty house cat. Do you know that blogger demands that you spell-check the word fiesty?

Friends in The City!

I am so incredibly lucky! My two best friends from high school decided to pick this semester to visit me. The above appears to be the only picture that I could find off Facebook of the three of us together (I think it says something about our generation that we don't look to our photo albums, or even or online photo albums, to find our pictures now; we turn, instead, to Facebook.) What you can't see in this picture, which was taken at prom, is that I was sea sick for the majority of prom and therefore moody.

Katie came to the city last week for her spring break and it was just so nice seeing her and bringing her to the places that I love. I took her and her friend, Taylor, to Grey Dog Cafe, and she had my favorite sandwich that comes with brie, granny-smith apple, turkey, and raspberry mustard (which is key to the sandwich.) I also took her to Cafe Orlin, which is this delightful restaurant in the East Village that has such a homey feeling, and exposed brick interior. And of course, the food is really good- if anyone makes it there, I recommend the salmon, or the cuban sandwich.

Having Katie here also encouraged me to go to some new places that I wouldn't normally go. We drank up a storm (bartender gave us pretty girls free drinks, as you can see from that picture there) at Off The Wagon, a frat-a-licious establishment that I've only been once before and had judged it quite unfairly since my second experience there with Katie was a lot of fun.

Next month, my best friend Cynthia is coming to visit! She would only be in town for three days, but it would be right before my graduation which means I would not have any homework to deal with while she's here. I am so excited, and I have already started making a list of places that I have to take her. She is no stranger to New York though. The last time she visited was during my freshman year, and one of the places I took her was to a salsa bar in Brooklyn (that place has since closed down.) The night ended in a diner, in which she later informed me that she puked in the bathroom- hardly her fault, I say, since the bartender at the salsa bar was sneaking her drinks when no one was looking.

I can't wait for Cynthia to come!