Holiday season determination

Surprised that I am making another post! But I like it here in this 2010s internet space. 

The last two years have been kind of brutal and I was too sad to get into Christmas last year, even though its my favorite.  But this year I've been determined to feel cozy and festive In Spite of It All. Like I will be the orchestra on the sinking Titanic but jolly, not sad. I Will Go Down With This Ship a la Dido but again, jolly not heartbreak. November went by way too fast before I could get into it so I'm really trying to double down over the next few weeks and max out on holiday cheer.  

Katsu dinner before watching the new Predator movie lol. The movie was pure brain sugar and the katsu was the savory version of that. We went to the AMC on 34th and I didn't realize that the tree lighting was happening at the same time. I love midtown festive decor but I did not like the crowd. The windows at Saks this year were also extremely ugly. It looked AI generated but 3D. 

Made myself a little solo Korean dinner. 

I had a giant head of bok choy from a Too Good to Go bag so I used it to make a quick kimchi. Probably would be better with baby bok choy.  

Girl dinner

Made this miso onion dip and crudite platter for a Friendsgiving and then made it again for Thanksgiving. It was a hit and I think is my new party treat until I get tired of it. 

I also made this sour cream (Lactaid version) and ikura dip. I mixed mentaiko into the sour cream and just did the ikura as a layer on top with some lemon zest and chives. Served with chips, of course. 

resurrection?

I've been thinking about bringing back this blog for a while but then it just took the form of my snack.space Instagram instead. And I thought that was probably a better idea since whenever I go through my old posts here, I feel extremely cringe. Then I thought about making a Substack but I haven't totally figured that platform out and it stressed me out. 

But I really miss this food blog and this version/era of the internet. And the last time I made a post was almost 10 years ago. And 10 years ago felt like a really nice time. Less scary, less dire. But then again here is an excerpt from a 2013 post: 

"I am having one of those freak out moments where you suddenly feel like it's totally time to re-evaluate everything in your life but you don't know what to do about anything. Maybe it's a pre-quarter-life crisis? Or I just freak out when I discover that there are a lot of holes in my life plans. Just fill the holes with food..." 

So maybe everything is the same. I don't know.  At least I'm consistent.

Anyway, I hope my original 5 ieat19meal readers are still out there. I hope you see this. You probably will because I'm going to post this link on my snack.space IG. 

Getting into my food pics:

4th of July hot dog. I had another one later. I hate it here but I like hot dogs. 

Necessary naegmyun. Still haven't found the best spot for this in NY but I'm not too hard to please when it's hot and I need slushy broth. It's nice that we have a car though, that helps. 

I made some peanutty cold udon noodles with the last dregs of vegetables in my fridge. It was good but honestly the noodles kind of sucked. Key Foods only had one kind so I had no choice. I'm surprised that my neighborhood hasn't gotten a proper Asian grocery store yet. How much more expensive does it need to get before we get an Hmart? 

Sorry about the flip flop. I really wanted like 1995 American buffet pizza and salad. So that's a Celeste frozen pizza and a Caesar salad with some bagged croutons. But I made my own dressing, that was nice.