Mother's day and a mystery

Bloop!

What's this little guy doing here?  Back to the pan!

That's right!  In the last post, I was up all night making these panda cupcakes! :D  They are entirely edible <3

Eeeep, Balto looks scary!  Do they stand up to the test?

Yes, a pass from Balto!

Hehe, I felt a little bad about gulping one of them down, but their chocolate chip and vanilla buttercream faces tasted just right with the chocolate cupcake base. :3  I also made vanilla cupcakes too which turned out more aesthetically pleasing, since it was harder to see beneath the frosting.  I made 96 mini pandas and 4 regular cupcake-sized ones, so it was like having a zoo in the kitchen!  Whee!  *sudden urge to eat frosted animal cookies* @_@

Haha, this one looks so freaked out.  O_O!

I took them to the charity fair at the temple my parents go to, and it was set up as a bake sale (or AMC Night Market if you know what that is ;D).  We arrived a several hours before the event started and helped out in the kitchen to prepare the food.  There were TONS of different types of food being sold, and it was amazing watching it all come out of the kitchen :O!  The fair was advertised as a fundraiser, Buddha's birthday, and Mother's Day event... three-in-one!

Before the fair started, I walked around and took a few pictures, but I should have taken pictures *during* the actual fair.  There were so many people that it was hard to walk around, and food kept being purchased and were constantly replenished from people shuffling back and forth between the kitchen.  Wow~  It was like a professional catering business or something :)

There was cold sesame noodles, chow mian, rice noodles oil rice, stewed tofu and seaweed, tea eggs, taro sago dessert, milk tea, passion fruit green tea, egg rolls, salty dumplings, malay-style sweet corn, bread with ice cream, new year's cake, tempura vegetables, and snacks for everyone to buy and enjoy!~

So a few pictures of quiet set up before the chaos began.  Seriously, it was chaos-- people were running towards us waving tickets in their hands and pointing to packages on the tables :P

Homemade Chinese New Year Cake (It's not New Years..?)

Taiwanese tea eggs

Oil rice and stir fried rice noodles

Cold sesame noodles and chow mian

I have to reiterate that all these were made and prepped in the kitchens.  And there were at least a hundred boxes of each dish.  Amazing!  They look beautiful, don't they?  I really like the idea of pre-packing the food for sale, instead of having an open pot and serving portions out of it.  It keeps the quantity relatively the same, and people can take it back home to eat later.  Definitely a plus, since many people bought seconds for dinner later!  ^__^  And I think eating out of a little clear box is quite enjoyable and more festive :)

If you say this isn't beautiful, you're not human.  :P

The kids manned the snack and drink booth, which included milk tea and passion fruit green tea.  The snacks were sold in a package: three of my mini panda cupcakes and a chocolate dipped rice krispie treat.  I worked with two youngsters to fill up cups of brewed milk tea and green tea for thirsty patrons.  Hehe, so fun to work with them.  I feel like I fit right in even though I'm more than six years older them!  ;)  We kept making random jokes I'm sure my "more mature" friends would just stare blankly at!

Emily and Mallory!

They are the oldest of the kid group (aside from me, of course!) and are rising freshmen in high school!  Emily was surprised to find out that I'm a college student... good thing I didn't tell her which year I'm in, haha!

We were working the whole time, but I managed to try the taro sago dessert (西米露) which was SOOO GOOOOOOOD, love the soft chunks of real taro in creamy liquid and some of the fried veggies, which were nicely spiced and delish!  I'm sure the other food was just as good :D

Afterwards, I got a haircut!  My mom told the stylist to cut off 2 inches in Chinese when I said 1 inch, and I'm pretty sure he listened to her, because my hair is much shorter now D:  And I have legit bangs... durr.. Haha!  okay, well I'll just think of it as getting 2 hairstyles for my buck, since when it grows longer in St. Louis, I'll have regular hair again!~

My dad took a picture in Shandong Noodle and Dumpling House (山东面馆 ) where we got a package of glutinous rice meatballs... sounds weird, but they are oh-so-delish!~  

Happy Mother's Day!  ^_^

:)  See the resemblance?

I came back home and cleaned out my closet, which was transforming into a jungle of papers and swim suits (I hang all my bikinis and swim suits in there and keep all my past school work papers there too!).  I saw a few posters hiding in the corner and pulled them out.  I couldn't help but go "Awww..."  Umm, not because what I saw was cute or anything, haha!  But memories~  :')

Do I still look the same? :)

This one has a funny story (kinda)!

When my non-swimming friends saw this in the hallway in high school, they saw the picture of my in mid-butterfly and said I looked like Godzilla wanting to kill the camera man.  And when they saw the picture where I was diving in with my arms outstretched, they joked that the guy timing me looked super bored and/or was staring at my butt.  XD  Too bad, nothing for him to stare at, HAHA!

But something that makes me go super "Aww" is this picture:

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

It's our ORIGINAL relay team when SCAT was still a swimming team!  Kierra, Kenna, Jeanette, and me.  <3  I remember getting hyped up and excited for our relays, since all of us flew in the water together!  We would watch movies in another's hotel rooms when we went out of town for swimming meets, and I remember us switching goodie bags when we went to TAGS  :') 

Before I get all teary, I'll save myself with a picture of ... FOOOOOOD.  Haha!

This is a family dinner!

Yep, not a full-family either.  My sister isn't here, so it's just my parents and me eating.  Notice the vegetables.  Haha, my friends always joke about how I'm always freaking out about how there are no vegetables in the meals we eat when we dine out, but they have to take into account of what I grew up with! ;D  At the end of dinner, there was only half a plate of green veggies left and the non-veggie plates were still half-uneaten!  Yes, my last name's homonym suits me well ("vegetable")... as does the literal meaning of my Chinese first name ("celery!").  Hehe!!  Okay, well, I'm not supposed to say my first name is celery.. it's supposed to be "the Chinese character in the name of that really famous author of that really elegant book called 'The Dream of the Red Chambers'."  There you go :)

Large rice noodle ... er.. tubes.  XD

Haha, I have no idea what they are called in English.  He Fen (河粉) was my favorite dim sum dish when I was a child!  They are served with a sweet soy sauce and come in different varieties like beef and shrimp.  I used to only opt for beef, but I think shrimp is growing on me.  These are from the Welcome supermakert in Chinatown.  After being steamed in a rice cooker, they are soft, pliable, and delicious ^^b

Glutenous rice meatballs!

Those are the things I was talking about when we took the picture at Shandong noodle house.  See?  Don't they look yummy?  It's a meatball (made of meat, carrots, and turnip) encased in a soft and sticky armor of glutenous rice.  SO GOOD!  probably my favorite item from the restaurant!  We also steam these to seal in the moisture and keep them soft~ ^^  I think the more aesthetic name for them is "Chinese pearl meatballs," but that doesn't say anything about what it's made of :P

Mmm, I love dinner at home! <3  Please cook for me when I'm at school too D:

And this a view from our home!

Haha.. Not.  XD  It's a shot of my TV (See Toshiba on the bottom?) when I was recording a 4 minute "exclusive preview" of the Spiderman movie!  It was a special for America's Got Talent that was playing, and I grabbed my camera and filmed it so I could share with friends to get them excited... and make them go with me to see it, haha!  But my evil plan failed, because after I finished watching the preview from like.. 2 inches from the screen, I looked down at my camera and realized I took a picture instead of a movie =_=  Durrr.. It was basically an extra scene added to the trailer we saw in movies for the Avengers, so no biggie! :D

On another note, my mom got an iPad!  *most hilarious thought to me ever*  Why?  Because out of the three of us, I would have expected her as the LAST one to get a touchscreen whatever.  I still have a non-smartphone (not a dumbphone, my phone's cool! ;P)!  But anyways, it turned out as I expected.  She sent my dad and me to the mall to buy one, and when we brought it back and tried teaching her how to use it, she gave up and ignored it.  But she still asked me to order a cover and screen protector from Amazon.  *sigh*  WHYYY?!  Why spend $400 on this APPLE product (*PC loyalty*) and then leave it?!  ORZ  *no comprehend*

But later the iPad redeemed itself when this popped up:

Ooooooh... wait, what?

Haha, I have no idea how this popped up, but it's kind of scary... like the iPad KNOWS who I am and wants to curry favor with me.  It's one of my favorite pictures of Seungri :D  Anyone want to guess whyyyyyyy?~  Tee hee~  Anyways, I was trying to show my mom what type of guy I thought was attractive and somehow accidentally saved his picture (Yeah.. *accidentally*).  Then it appeared as the lock screen? But mystery aside, I've changed the lock screen to something else just as good... a picture of dessert.  :P

Yep yep, so I sort of have an Apple product now, since neither of my parents seem motivated to learn how to use it-- yay!  It's fun to flick your finger around and typing is pretty easy, but Flipboard is mad addicting.  Bad, bad, bad!  

~*~

A random anecdote~  I actually sometimes write up these posts and use Blogger settings to automatically post them at a later time.   That's so when I finish three posts in one day, people don't get slammed with a barrage of food pictures and random "Haha's" and my twelve-year old whims :P  It's really convenient, because I can just ignore the blog for a while during weeks I'm studying, but things will still be put up and my friends will still be able to know what I'm up to ^^

But on one hand, I lost a comment, nooooo!  D:  Haha~  I got a notification that someone had commented on the blog and their comment was attached in the message.  A new visitor (gasp!), who took the name of an European-inspired cafe in Houston and had a signature as "Top 50 Restaurants in Houston," (double gasp!) had chanced upon my entries and left a really nice and friendly post.  When I clicked to go look at it on the actual blog (which was a day later), it was no where to be found.  I Googled the name and found out it was a *real* cafe and patisserie 20 minutes away from where my sister lives, and their website looked amazing.  The concept and food got me really excited too *triple gasp can't inhale anymore!*.  I wonder if someone from the cafe had left me a comment.  I tried replying, but they used a "no reply" option, bummer~ Can't tell them thanks for stopping by and that I already called my sister to visit with me there some time in August :P  Why did they delete their comment?  Dunno, maybe concerned with privacy, so I didn't mention the username here.  But maybe it was because I had the blog automatically update something, and they felt like I was ignoring their comment and was sad?  Oh no's, what if I pissed off a manager of a Top 50 Houston restaurant... will I ever be able to eat there with dignity?! Watch it end up being something like the visitor just really likes to eat there.  Yay, I won't be scared of laxatives in my soup, but I still scared off a visitor D:  Hahaha, yes, these are the very deep philosophical thoughts of my mind: "Why did someone delete their comment?  Oh no's!  It's the next Why/Whodunnit~"  ;) 

Anyways, I'd like to apologize in advance if I seem like I'm sometimes ignoring people's comments, to this recent visitor and to my friends who read my entries.  I reply to comments when I see them, but that's not necessarily before my automatically scheduled posts appear!  ^_^''

Here's a picture of the cafe with the same name as the visitor's name that I found online.  I like the atmosphere that it gives off, and it's so beautiful inside!  I would show you pictures I found online too, but they all had the name somewhere in the picture.  :)  Mystery, mystery!