travel

coconut rainbow popsicles

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i am staying in the world's cutest airbnb in silver lake this week. it has a tomato plant, a vintage oven, a huge stash of za'atar, and a million stairs leading up to it that make me feel like i'm in a treehouse! (a climate controlled treehouse, thank heavens, because it was one hundred and twelve degrees this week!! don't smell me.) it also has some pretty delicious light pouring in at all hours of the day, so lily and alana and i made our #popsicleweek popsicles in my little kitchen. we used coconut milk, lemongrass, and the most beautiful pluots from the hollywood farmers' market, and then each took a layer to do our thang and make the popsicle equivalent to friendship bracelets. kewt. they tasted like grownup pudding pops, 10/10 would recommend. 

alana infused her layer with lemongrass for the pale green top,

lily mixed in some pluot juice for the bright pink center,

i made a malabi-inspired mix with rosewater, vanilla, and cinnamon,

and then we did a chocolate drizzle and bedazzled them with pistachios, rose petals, coconut, and glee. 

and then! billy, king of popsicle week, waltzed right in with adrianna and approved of the whole thing and it was, as the kids these days would say, gucci.

my life as a silver lake person has been so tasty and stone-fruit-filled, i can't wait to tell you more about it. but i just have a few more sleeps here, so i'm gonna go cook a branzino because mastering the art of branzino is going to be one thing i do before i leave california. bye!

malabi pops

(this is layer #3 of these coconut rainbow popsicles. click here for the lemongrass layer and here for the pluot layer.)

ingredients

1 c full-fat coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
1/2 tsp rosewater
a pinch of kosher salt
a pinch of cinnamon
2 tb maple syrup, or to taste

optional toppings:

melted chocolate, crushed pistachios, rosebuds, toasted coconut

clues

make your lemongrass layer, pour into the bottom third of your popsicle molds and freeze for 45 minutes. make your pluot layer, pour on top of the lemongrass layer and freeze 15 minutes. insert popsicle sticks and then freeze for another 15 minutes. 

mix together all ingredients for this layer. taste and adjust as desired. pour on top of the pluot layer and freeze for an hour. drizzle with chocolate and top with pistachios, rosebuds, and coconut, if desired. enjoy!

-yeh!

everything i ate and drank on oahu

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(or, most of it)

welcome to part 2 of my hawaii posts! (part 1, everything i consumed on maui, is here.)

one bite of every flavor of malasada from leonard's. they were hot doughy balls of insanity that melted swiftly in my mouth. 

plate lunch, with butter mochi for dessert. and entertainment was provided by lily's first bite of spam!!!! so proud of you, lil.

chicken katsu musubi. well, technically it was onigirazu. (i think the only difference is the sandwichy shape...?) it was so satisfying and photogenic, i could eat fried chicken on a bed of that rice til the cows come home. i am itching to make steph's recipe for them now.

the entire menu at the pig and the lady, complete with savory beignets dunked in parmesan foam, a scallion pancake tartare situation, and schmaltz bread, all broken up by "don't go chasing waterfalls" snapchat sing-alongs and the like. it was one of **those** meals, where time is nonexistent and the cocktails disappear. 

the prettiest sushi in the world, followed by the prettiest tartare in the world.

a traditional hawaiian feast at helena's with the sweetest new friends. i had my first poi and kalua pig! and now i'm adding alana's slow cooker kalua pig recipe to my to-make list.

a smoky mezcal cocktail that took my breath away, at the way-too-cool-for-school speakeasy-ish bar leather apron.

a smily face flat white. :) :) 

oahu is so different from maui! we were only there for about 48 hours, but i loved that it had the feel of a big city and the warmth of a small town. (or maybe that's cause we were traveling with alana! i think alana knows every single person on oahu.) we ate so much good food and still managed to squeeze in a double jeopardy viewing slumber party, a trip to the mall for a frida kahlo shirt that i could not live without, and a hike up diamond head. with the exception of the turbulence on the way back to maui, oahu was such a wonderful little side trip. 10/10, would recommend. 

-yeh!

thank you, modern honolulu (and #friendswithbenefits), island air, and nella media group for a delicious few days in oahu!! love to my #slamsquad2016!!

everything i ate and drank on maui

in ,

(or, most of it!)

the freshest poke bowls i will probably ever have, from the back of a liquor store, gobbled up on the beach under the dreamy influence of westbound jetlag. it was our very first stop and it was the perfect stop. 

spam musubi. tons of it, and not nearly enough.

a spring break-style fishbowl cocktail with four straws at a restaurant called --wait for it-- humuhumunukunukuapua'a. (now say it out loud! you can do it.)

a man made out of fondant who starred in the fanciest turn down service on earth. lily and i named him don. i miss don. 

millions of garlic and onion macadamia nuts. i kept them in the glove compartment, right next to my map, just in case anyone got hangry. 

a very coconutty squash soup that is making me wish i had a squash right this very moment. we all wore flower crowns while we ate it and it was part of a beautiful supper club called feast, which was so whimsical and great. 

saigon fries: peanuts, cilantro, hoisin, aioli, and sriracha on crinkly fries, slayyyyyyyy meeeeeee.

perfectly crispy pork belly from the magic mind of jimmy bannos, jr., who was on the island at the same time we were. it was so fun running into a part of chicago so far from home!

a mountain of croissants after an early morning spent watching the sun rise from above the clouds, on the mars-like dormant volcano, haleakala. we groggily ate our croissants in lily's childhood yard, which felt right out of willy wonka, if willy wonka was a tropical fruit factory. 

wedding cake flavored shave ice on a bed of mochi and macadamia ice cream, under a blanket of condensed milk. it was the best afternoon pick-me-up. i wonder what it would take to get someone from maui to come and open up a shave ice place in grand forks. we have so much snow, i can make the mochi, and whatever wedding cake flavored syrup is, i'm sure we can make it happen, right?

the new object of my obsession: japanese breakfast. my rice cooker has gotten a workout in the days since i've been back! sushi rice, miso, pickles, furikake. and i've been adding an egg and an avocado. so tasty. 

taro leaf pesto, goat cheese tempura, gnocchi mac and cheese, and many other delights at cane and canoe. 

a deliciously doughy rhubarb empanada from the cutest little place in the cutest little town.

shakshuka! it wasn't on many menus on maui, but obviously when i spotted it i went for it. and it was filled with chickpeas! i'm into this. gonna add chickpeas to my next shakshuka. 

one of the thousands of taro breeds in existence (did you know so many existed?!) at this beautiful taro farm.

a new-to-me fruit, the longan! chewy, lychee-like, totally cute.

a big juicy pineapple freshly yanked from the ground, chopped with a machete, and enjoyed near the presence of a one-legged rooster. and then washed down with macadamia nut rum. 

...and when we weren't eating, we were singing and laughing and telling secrets in hot tubs. and listening to the bird calls from the hammock grove and attempting to dance hula. we strolled through lavender fields and swam in the ocean and even made new whale friends and goat friends! believe what everyone says, maui is a dream. i loved it so much and i can't wait to be back.

-yeh!

thank you, maui visitors and convection bureau, for a magnificent week in maui. and further thank yous to: incase, paia inn, feast hawaii, trilogy, and of course to the wonderful bbs of #slamsquad2016! check out alana's, steph's, and lily's recaps! 

los angeles

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hello from the air! i am en route from los angeles to maui with alana, who is asleep already, lily, who is crying about hunger games, and stephanie, who is dusted with a pleasant coating of furikake due to a minor snacksplosion upon boarding. i can’t blame her, we were up before the sun to catch our flight after a very wild night of meat, gossip, and backstreet boys sing-alongs in koreatown. my stop in los angeles was entirely too short but i managed to squeeze in time with loved ones and some very meaningful firsts—some more overdue than others:

  1. my first bite of spam. wow! spam musubi packs a deceptive amount of satisfaction into one compact delight. it’s, like, fried baloney sandwich satisfying and upon first bite it shot straight to the top of my list of things i’m most excited to experience in hawaii. 
  2. my first time subbing out the bagel in my bagel and lox with *wait for it* a freshly baked popover, c/o karen. it was a textural revelation since lox and popovers require a very similar amount of energy to be exerted in order to bite through them. i would do this again, absolutely.
  3. my first visit to canter’s!!! you didn’t tell me they had beaver mustard! what a jolly condiment. ordering a pastrami sandwich and an egg cream so far from new york made me a little uneasy, but from the comfort of a big squishy booth and over talk of paparazzi and time travel, i slowly settled in for a proper first canter’s experience. 
  4. my first shaved ice. which also jumped right to the top of my hawaii list. so fluffy, so sweet, so perfect with black sesame mochi bits hidden throughout. 
  5. my first time going directly from an 85-course korean barbecue carnivorgy to an alta california taco obligation where no menu item was left unordered and no hyperbolic shouts of joy were spared during the passing of the chorizo vampiros. 
  6. my first spork tattoo sighting. should i reconsider my decision not to get a tattoo in hawaii?
  7. my first dollar taco. small but extraordinarily mighty. 
  8. my first gjusta, my first olive & june, my first boozy push-up pop (!!!).
  9. my first time meeting adrianna, karen, lynn, and kelly, who are all every bit as wonderful as their internet presences suggest.
  10. my first zankou chicken garlic sauce, which looks like nothing but tastes too good to be true.

phew! i am off to go have some seconds now. seconds of water, because getting dehydrated on a plane is a fear that i have. thank you, los angeles and all of your lovely people, for a perfect pre-hawaii weekend <3 <3 <3

-yeh!