You're Invited

All I want is to throw a swank-ass dinner party in my own apartment with good friends, delicious food, and lots of booze.  

Lust

As I get more and more into scuba diving I'm constantly thinking about investing in a camera.  There are just some things about diving that I can't put into words and want to share with people.  Being able to film and capture those moments give me the ability to do so.  My friend Sarah just got a GoPro camera that she's in love with and let me tell you, I'm seriously jealous.  The GoPro HD Hero2: Surf Edition sounds perfect for me.  It can go down to 60 meters or 197 feet deep which is perfect for all sorts of dives.  After I sacrifice some of my paychecks towards school and books this will definitely be my next purchase.

All photos courtesy of GoPro

Nosh: Ichiriki

I've been told over and over again how awesome Ichiriki is yet I've never gone out and actually tried it. Tonight my mama and I were in the mood for comfort food and for her, comfort means soupy Japanese food.  She suggested Ichiriki and off we went.

Ichiriki is a nabemono, or hot pot, restaurant.  Here, you cook your own dish in hot dashi, or soup, on a gas stove at your table.  I was nervous at first because looking at the menu, I don't eat half the things on it.  I don't like red meat, I'm not the biggest fan of some vegetables like mushrooms, and I'm not big on shrimp and scallops, all of which are a prominent part of the menu items.  Luckily Ichiriki catered to my odd taste and happily substituted ingredients I didn't want with ones I did.  

I got the signature nabe, Ichiriki dashi which is a shoyu base with chicken and ramen.  Mama got the paitan nabe which is a pork dashi, all the ingredients, and udon.  Later we decided to turn our leftover dashi into zosui, or rice porridge with egg and nori.  The zosui was the best decision we made all night.   

My nabe ingredients

Ramen noodles

Mama's nabe ingredients

Udon noodles

Dashi before (left: pork dashi, right: Ichiriki shoyu dashi)

After! Nabe is complete! Itadakimasu!!

Gotta have that Asahi

The zosui, a how-to:

 1. Bring dashi to a boil

2. Add rice and let simmer and soak up dash

3. Scramble egg and pour into dashi evenly

4. Let egg cook until soft

5. Add nori

6. DEVOUR

Gochisosama

Mac Attack

I did it. I finally, finally caved and converted to mac.  I joked around with my sister, who got her mac a few months ago, that we've finally conformed.  Conformity is expensive!  But the tesimony from the countless mac users helped make the decision to switch that much easier.  I guess I get to cross off one of the 25 things to do before I turn 25 tasks.

Seems do-able