Dinner for Mr. Chokkattu’s family and my first attempt at a foodwishes recipe!
The chicken was alright because we had to replace some ingredients, but the potatoes and the sauce were great!
Link to his blog post here.
Link to the chicken recipe here (try not to darken the sauce too much…not that I know from experience.)
Bloo, my stuffed representation of the internet sensation Boo started smoking under the supervision of my boyfriend. I am so disappointed.
I decided it would be a lovely idea to leave Bloo with Mr. Chokkattu for a fun day at his office and workplace, to be returned to me the next time he sees me this week: Tuesday, if nothing goes wrong. The morning went fairly well:
I found this interesting little chain of videos about the affects of poverty on the mind and food stamps. As someone whose family whose circumstances once warranted the use of food stamps, the amount of prejudice I’ve encountered over the years is staggering. My mother was pretty obviously not a welfare queen and there was no one waiting in those offices that even came close to the image that’s stuck in someone’s mind for a reason.
How Poverty Changes Your Brain:
How Food Stamps Work:
What Living on Food Stamps is Really Like:
I guess it’s really fitting that recovery comes with the smiles and the kindness of family. I have the smallest family out of the group I’m with, but I still feel that caring big family vibe when I decide to count my extended family and my friends, and their families, and I think this sort of inclusion, if sometimes grating and bothersome as families can be, was wholly invaluable to our activities yesterday. I mean, the first thing we did was go to the mall on a Sunday.
Dolphin Mall is gigantic and gorgeous and sure, it’s ultimately a shopping mall, but it also has a Dave & Buster’s, a bowling alley, a mini-golf course, and a movie theater alongside its dozens of sit-down restaurants and food court. It is the largest value retail shopping center in the Miami-Dade County. Plus, I needed a swimsuit that wasn’t from Goodwill. (And a top and two skirts from Garage, which basically doesn’t exist where I live.) Which reminds me, I still don’t have clothes for St. Patrick’s day. I need to fit that in somewhere.
I started my new job today. And the hectic craziness that is going to be my life until at least May. And if I have it my way, the rest of my non-retired life will be fairly similar.
Sleepy train station picture! One transfer, about an hour (more like 40 minutes), all-in-all a decent commute. I don’t start too early, so there isn’t that much of a fight for sitting room which is nice.
https://www.yahoo.com/health/why-p-f-changs-is-being-sued-over-its-109996603802.html
This is a departure from what I normally write about, but I just wanted to write that this is a stupid issue. Having an allergy is not a disability. No one’s holding a gun to your head when you choose to visit an establishment. If you’re struggling to save money because of your out-of-house food choices, you should probably reassess the value of those choices. If you can’t afford the restaurant’s having to buy and house completely separate (and more expensive! I’ve cooked gluten-free before, it seems like a really expensive allergy to have just in general) ingredients and equipment to prepare food you can eat, then you should probably stay home.
Cooking’s fun, and cooking teachers are ubiquitous. Maybe Ms. Phillips should watch some more Youtube videos.
Anne can help!
Actually called: Wix Breakfast: Life Attracts Life- Give Your Brand a Personality Boost! 
School’s getting closer, so I decided to retrain myself for it by going to bed ridiculously late and waking up ridiculously early for a lecture! Yay! I found it on Eventbrite while browsing and took a chance.
And I’m really glad I did. It was a really interesting seminar, a little on the short side, full of little tips I would have never thought of, like how important emotional touchstones, big and small (“anything from a big brand experience to a tweet”), are to a customer base. There are tons of examples of these connections with consumers that I can think of. Some smaller gestures include Xbox’s (T, F) and T-Mobile’s (T, F) avid usage of their twitter handles and Facebook support apps to annual events like Krispy Kreme’s Day of the Dozens, Talk Like a Pirate, and National Doughnut Days. Everyone remembers larger political gestures like Oreo’s support for gay pride, to well-established, company-wide policies like Starbucks’ C.A.F.E Practices (they work with Conservation International to keep the farming sustainable) and TOMS Shoes policy of donating a pair of shoes for every pair purchased. All of them work to improve the perception of the brand and endear its consumers to it, while actually decreasing a little of the bad in the world at the same time. And of course, little gestures like that are key for small business owners to create their own communities; Milk Sugar Love’s content on their Facebook page regularly attempts to engage users with questions and relatable expressions.
Also, I just woke up after going to bed at probably 4PM.
I need the resources to do this. We didn’t really make a lot of food this holiday 
And a ninja. Christmas ninja!
Casting call out for a ninja!
Also, go team internet! Another fine example of someone Youtube viewers gave power to who does something great with that power; and didn’t, ya know, abuse it because it makes it easier to get laid that way.
https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/heres-why-women-want-to-smell-like-dessert-100766803358.html
You might not know the term, but everyone’s smelled a gourmand before. Just step into Bath and Body Works for titles like “Warm Vanilla Sugar” and “Winter Candy Apple” to get a sense of the category. Gourmands are fragrances reminiscent of sweet foods, like desserts.
This category is still a fairly tween/teenager-run show, but I haven’t necessarily seen a big change in what people like as I’ve gotten older. Now I buy Philosophy gifts for my friends instead of Bath and Body Works sets, but they still have names like “Vanilla Birthday Cake”, “Almond Glazed”, and “Sugary Cinnamon Icing.”
Pomelo girl thoughts 