Good Eats: Molly's

Good Eats: I'm a fan of food. So for my Good Eats series, I will highlight either good recipes or restaurants that I've recently come across.

Restaurant Review: Molly's

Last Friday was Girls Night Out (GNO henceforth) to see Pride and Prejudice at BYU. Of course, with such an event, you have to go out for dinner! I've always wanted to try Molly's while I was going to school in Provo, but it was only open for lunch and it was inconvenient. Well, ta da! It was open for dinner on Friday. 

We popped on by and it was busy! Which is always a good sign. The restaurant was a little small, but the food was delicious. The eating area was light and friendly. It is homestyle BBQ with the most gorgeous dinner rolls I think I've ever seen. The lemonade was sweet with a little splash of pineapple juice, which made is 10x better than any other lemonade I've had recently.

Lastly, if nothing else convinces you, four words: chocolate-cream-cheese-cake. Yes, it was real and it was beautiful delicious.

Bergen Trip!

So looking over my blog, I seem to be more than a little remiss in keeping it updated while I was in Norway. I had such plans!
However, I still have pictures, so I thought that I'd share some with you today.

These come from a little side trip we took to Norway's west coast towards the end of July. We took a train from Oslo to Bergen and saw some of the most stunning scenery that you can imagine. Truly! The ride has been described as one of the most scenic in the world! See here if you want to learn more.

See?? Isn't it beautiful?! These are taken from the Hardangervidda, the highest mountain plateau in Europe. I thought it had a soulful, Wuthering Heights kind of feel to the landscape. But there were lots of waterfalls, glaciers, mountains, and forests.

Welcome to Bergen

This was the sight we saw when our train pulled into Bergen. The city is absolutely ADORABLE. It reminds me of a smaller, Norwegian San Francisco. It has the hills, the sea food and the colorful houses.

Scene from the top of a mountain, Bergen in the background

We dropped off our stuff at our hostel (more on that later) and took the funicular. The funicular is like a tram that you ride up the mountain. It was a pretty view. Our professor took us on a hike even further up the mountain. Again, it was a pretty view. I didn't really understand why we had to put that much work into seeing the same sight just at a higher altitude, but apparently, there is a hidden joy to hiking and nature that I have yet to find...

After our adventure on the mountain, we had dinner at Peppe's Pizza! Hurrah! And it was Dr. Kramer's birthday, double hurrah! He threatened to walk out and leave us with the check if we had the servers come to sing him happy birthday.

We disregarded his warning and had the servers sing happy birthday anyways. Secretly, I think he really enjoyed it...
The next day was our Norway in a Nutshell. We saw Norway via train, bus and boat. It was, stunning, as usual.

Experiencing the scenery really helped me to better understand where the mythology and folklore comes from. I mean, who wouldn't see trolls in the mountains when you are surrounded by them?
It also explains why Norwegian mythology ends so violently. Looking at the dramatic landscape, the world just has to end in fire and ice.

The next day, our last day in Bergen, was our visit out to Troldhaugen, or Edvard Grieg's museum/home.

This is the concert hall that they built just a little ways from his house.

We were fortunate enough to attend a concert of some of his piano pieces in that very, grass-covered, concert hall and it was AWESOME.

After the concert, we went back to Bergen to check out of our hostel and explore the city before our train ride back to Oslo that night.

This is Bryggen, the old wharf area of Bergen.

Yes, this is probably the most recognizable part of Bergen. It's on all the tourist things. These buildings are hundreds of years old from the old Hanseatic league traders that made Bergen an important part of Northern Europe economics. They are also a part of UNESCO's world heritage sites, so they are all sorts of famous. It's really neat to walk past them and peer down the alleyways between buildings and see how much they lean. When I say lean, I mean lean. It's practically a miracle that they are still standing! Bergen is cosy like that. They have lots of curvy cobble-stoned streets and alleys and old buildings. Lots of charm, lots of personality.

Besides Bryggen, I wandered all of the city with my professor. We looked at the theater building with all these crazy carvings; St. John's Church (very big and very red); the Bergen Cathedral; this old medieval fortress called Håkons hall and Rosenkrantz tower; AND the fish market.

Since Bergen is by the coast, they have a pretty vibrant fresh fish market. There are all these different languages being spoken because of so many tourists and there were crabs literally jumping out of their containers! Live produce, man! It was freakin me out. I wasn't into the whole seafood thing, so I opted for a kebab instead. (SO GOOD. So much meat for so little money.) The other girls got plateloads of seafood. I even tried a little whale from one of the girls' plates... It was interesting.  I just had to try it because where else in the world would I have the same opportunity, hmmm? Norway is one of the few countries that still participates in whaling, which is so odd considering how pro-environment they are...

After the fish market, we went to our hostel to collect our things and meet back at the train station. Unfortunately, when we got to the hostel, I discovered that someone made off with my backpack. Sad day, I know. I was most distressed about loosing my journal that I had just finished. Two years of my life, sporadically recorded, gone forever.

Bergen YMCA, beware of your luggage...

After a brief mourning period, I got over it. I am glad that it was my backpack instead of the others. Besides my journal, packed with sentimental value, all I had in there was some clothes and some chargers; so nothing that cannot be replaced. (All the good stuff was with me the whole time.) I will just be more careful about my items in the future.

When we met up with our professor again at the train station, that is when we heard about the bombing and the shootings. We were shocked and stunned. We quickly contacted our family and our host families. Everyone was ok and safe and we just read the news as it came online as we waited for our train. It was unbelievable that something like that could have happened to a country that we had come to love so dearly, but bad things do happen to good people, so we had to deal with the tragedy the best way that we knew how. And even though it was a truly sorrowful experience, I thought Norway's reaction was one of the most beautiful and heartfelt that I've ever seen. The rose memorial has been burned into my heart forever and I will always, always remember it.

Jeg elsker dette landet. <3

Jeg er her!

My luggage. Yes, it's quite impressive, I know.

Elegant Lutheran Church we walked by

Norwegian Palace and statue

Norwegian Hotdog. First official meal in Norway. De-lish!

The girls by the Oslo fjord. WOOO! Left to Right: Steph, Me, Carolyn, Holly

So, I finally made it! I am in Norway and loving every minute of it. It certainly has taken some getting used to. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Probably the biggest adjustment for me is the time difference. It's like half a day's difference from here to back home. Which means, when I'm awake, my family and friends are asleep and when I am asleep, they are awake and doing things. So it just requires a little more thinking then I am used to. Also, it's really weird not having a phone. Like, really weird. I am so used to having a constant connection with the world, that it's perfectly strange to actually try to coordinate things  before I actually get there. Also! Public transportation. It's really a new world for me here. Back home, things are just a lot further apart that public transportation is really awful. But here, it's like, everyone does it. And I can't imagine driving on my own here. It looks like mayhem! There aren't many lane lines on the roads, so I guess technically there can be as many lanes as you want. No, no, I'm sure Norway has it's own rules. 

What has been really neat is seeing how much of it I actually understand. It's true that everyone here speaks English, which is kind of a bummer but also, super helpful. I can read signs and talk to people. It's really amazing.

So we flew into the Gardemoen airport around 10:30 Saturday morning after flying all day Friday. Seriously, I mean ALL day. We got to the SLC airport around 5:30 am. Then to Houston and then to Newark. Talk about turbulence! I was a quite queasy in Newark and was NOT looking forward to another, longer flight if it was going to be as bumpy as it was. Miracles of all miracles, it wasn't! The flight from Newark to Oslo was probably one of the best ever. Seriously. Even though I didn't get the best sleep of my life, it was pretty nice for what it was. Flying into Oslo was like a story out of LOTR or something. It was just so green and mystical with the lingering clouds. A perfect picture of beauty.

Once we got our luggage and stuff, we met up with our Professor, took a train from the airport into the city and met up with another girl from our group who got there a couple of days before us. We got our public transportation passes and went to her place and crashed. (Let me tell you, hauling luggage onto a crowded tram during rush hour is NOT fun.) She let us sleep for a couple of hours, but thankfully, got us up so when it was actually nighttime, we could sleep again.*

After Saturday was come and gone (seriously, that day lasted forever...) it was Sunday! Which meant we got to see the ward and meet our host families. It was fun to see some of the missionaries from the MTC. I doubt they recognized me much, but it was still fun. After church, our host families took us home with them and we got settled in. The two girls I came with left with one family and I was on my own with another. Carolyn was invited by my family to come to Sunday dinner so we hung out for a couple hours. My host family has two daughters my age living at home right now, and the parents were out of town over the weekend for a business meeting, so it was quite the girls night that first night. We watched a whole slew of movies, including The Legend of Johnny Lingo (church revamped classic), North and South (yes, all four hours) and then some episodes of Dr. Who (which, I've never seen before but I'm slowly becoming a believer).

Monday, I put on my big-girl pants and tried this whole public transportation business by myself. And I made it! We got together with our professor and walked around the city for hours! It was amazing. And then I came back to my house, safe and sound. Later that night, we went back into the city to meet with the young single adults of the ward for family home evening. It was strange, though because as we drove past a street downtown, we saw the Norwegian police all decked out in riot gear. Extremely unusual. Back home for more Dr. Who. Every episode ended with me on the edge of my seat! It was getting hard to handle. 

Tuesday was a little more relaxed. I have some papers that I need to get finished graded and turned in, but I decided to update my blog instead. 

I have my priorities. :)

Anyways, more to come, per usual.

*BTW when I saw "us" and "we" I am not referring to myself in the third person. There were literally three of us girls flying out together. Hence, the "we"

Good Eats: Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

At the start of the new spring semester, we got new FHE families. (For those of you who unfamiliar with LDS terminology, go here.) I wanted to make a good impression on my fellow wardmates, so I brainstormed some good eats ideas. Nay was in a cookie mood, so she suggested Cookies and Cream cupcakes. At first I was hesitant, but I found a recipe. (Here)
Aaaand, it was a hit!
Seriously, these are good stuff. A little on the rich side, so they are definitely a special time dessert. But they are soo good.
When I was topping them off with the icing, I kind of felt like DC Cupcakes except without all the drama and whining. I don't really understand the whole cupcake craze. I mean, seriously, a whole wedding cake out of cupcakes? But they are ok sometimes, and this recipe is so good. It's definitely going in my cookbook.

Good Eats: JCW Burger Boys

A variety of condiments!

Sometimes my roommates and I joke around that we should start a burger blog. Actually, we aren't joking that much. There is a startling variety of burger places in Utah Valley. And we eat at a lot of them and we still haven't run out of new burger places to eat at. So, like I said, we kind of like burger pros or something.
I had read about JCW's when they were still in Lehi or American Fork (so far enough away from Provo that it would have been an extra special trip to make it out there for just a simple dinner). But then they moved to Provo! And poof, we had no more excuses not to go. So we did.
It was a celebratory end-of-semester/finals thing with the roomies.

Product Placement

 Overall, the food is really good burger food. The fries were nice and thick and hot! The burgers were huge and they had a variety of toppings and flavors. Seriously, if you get more than one patty, it makes it hard to get into your mouth. The buns were different too. I can't really describe it which is another sign that I am not the best food blogger, but one fault was that the buns crumbled pretty quickly as you were trying to eat the thing. So there were some pros and cons there.

This is Stell's "how-am-I-supposed-to-eat-this-thing" face

Close up shot of the goodness...

So definitely wouldn't come here every night for health reasons (obviously...) and a little pricey but if you want some good burger joint food with a nice, clean atmosphere, JCW's is a good choice. If you are at all familiar with the Burger Supreme/Crown Burger/Apollo Burger (I swear, they were all started by the same people...) chain here in UT then you have a pretty good idea of what the food tastes like but unlike those places which are very dark on the inside (maroon tiling and dark wood paneling come off somewhat dour when you are trying to enjoy your dinner) JCW's is bright, clean, and happy.

My Shake face. Specifically ice cream shake-face.

Oh! And their ice cream is de-lish. They also come in huge sizes, so underestimate your hunger pains and get a small or mini. Trust me, you will be glad you did. You don't get as much for your money as say Iceberg shakes, but in the world of ice cream, they are not too shabby.
P.S. Blogger has been all sorts of messed up. I don't know where my review on the movie Something Borrowed  went, but I am kinda bummed that it is gone now...I don't have the energy to rant about it again. Hopefully it will get restored. It was a good one too. :(

Good Eats: Cake Pops!

Original source for the idea: Bakerella.com
Directions: here.
To make the actual cake pops from the cake ball directions above, just place sticks in them and dip them in chocolate and voila! Cake Pops.
Bakerella has all sorts of creative variations which are way beyond my talent or motivation level, but they are pretty to look at. Mine were just good to eat. :)
Basically, you make a cake mix (or from scratch, which is what we did because it's really the only way to go) and once the cake is cooled you crumbled it into one giant bowl. Take frosting (you can really mix and match flavors any way you want.) and hand mix it into the crumbled cake. It's kind of like making hamburger patties, because it's cold and sticky. You want to just put enough frosting into the mix that the cake will stick together in a ball form. Once they are formed, stick them in the freezer while you get the dip ready!

These are our cake pops, freezing in the freezer.

So, because we are the highly creative, poor college students that we are, to top the cake pops we scrounged around for any kind of chocolate. And I do mean any.

 Even an old (age undetermined) Easter bunny was sacrificed into the pot for pure deliciousness.

 Look! He's happy to see you! :)

 Nay is quite skilled at dipping things. Strawberries, cake pops, you name it, she'll dip it. One thing we learned from this experience is to invest in some melting chocolate or candy coating. We found out that when you add milk to the various assorted chocolates we had gathered, it never really hardens up, so the cake pops were more like brownies on a stick. Still, they were quite addicting and fun to make. But probably not often, because as one recipient noted, it's like a heart-attack on a stick.

But oh what a way to go. ;)
Let me know if you try these out!

Easters!

 

As a sort of celebration after this last semester, Shannon and I headed down to Toquerville, UT to spend a couple of days with her parents. And since it was Easter weekend as well, we did the usual activities. 

 

 We dyed eggs all sorts of colors...

 Shannon lost at the cutesy cardboard pop-out matching game. This is a picture of her sad "oh, I lost" face.

  These are all of my cards. (I won!)

 Shannon's mom taught us how to decorate cakes. Key to success? Hand muscles. It is really the only trick, learning how to grip the frosting and move it just right. Having the right kind of frosting helps too. Still, we did it!

 The finished product...

 Isn't it the gaudiest thing you've ever seen? :) Can you find the bunny?

This last picture is all the tips we used. The frosting always got stuck, which was gross, but it sure made for a colorful picture!
Happy belated Easter!

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ladies and Gents,

It's getting closer! Today, I bought my ticket to Norway. So soon, I will be flying away from here to more exotic locales. Oh, I'm nervous! But so excited. [[[That is 17 hours of flying.]]] Luckily, I will have some finals to be grading, so it shouldn't be too boring waiting to go from one airport to another.

However, there is so many rules, regulations, exceptions and loopholes;  it's a miracle that people actually get anywhere. I will be crossing the Atlantic Ocean, which now that I think of it, will be a first. I have only ever seen the Pacific. Let's be honest though, this trip is going to be full of firsts.

Sometimes, I go to bed thinking of Norwegian phrases that I might have to use. Which, you know, is fun, but it sure makes my dreams very strange when I fall asleep with half-English, half-Norwegian sentences floating through my head. We had a lady from Norway come speak to our study abroad prep class last week. She let us know what to pack, what to expect, what food to look for.

Apparently, there is a LOT of cheese and other dairy products. And there isn't a whole lot by the way of spicy food. Norwegians are a very "salt and pepper" type of people. This works for me. Despite of my Latino heritage, I'm the one that can't handle anything hotter than extra mild salsa. But bread, cheese, milk and potatoes? Sure thing! Maybe next time I travel, I will try a location with a bit more extreme foodstuffs. Maybe.

Oh, speaking of food and travel: I am currently reading Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. [I haven't seen the movie yet.] There are three parts of the book, and I have only gotten through Part 1: Italy.

                Oh my goodness.

I have never been more hungry or jealous reading a book before in my entire life. The book is about Gilbert and the year she spent in Italy, India and Indonesia to find herself and to rebuild her soul. She spent four months in Italy, learning Italian and eating.

SO MUCH GOOD FOOD.

Every couple of pages, she tries to describe indescribable dishes. She finds these little hidden eateries that have no name but all the locals go there and every time its almost a spiritual experience with the food. Which, you know happens. Really good food and good company to share it with? It's one of the best feelings in the world; it's pure joy. I am constantly amazed at how many combinations of flavors, textures and ingredients that go into the recipes of the world. It's a cause for celebration, knowing that you could never eat the same thing twice, changing the recipe with a slight flick of the wrist.

Ok. So besides my impromptu ode to food, this post is dedicated to travel. Be assured, I will keep this blog up-to-date with all my adventures.

Where'er they be found.

Good Eats: Valentine's Day Challenge

 

This is a lesson in perfection. What you see is not always what you get...

Case in point:

 Those cookies above do not equal the cookies below.

 Even though they were ugly, they tasted pretty decent.

 Maybe perfection is overrated a little too much.
Wishing you and yours a Happy Valentine's Day.
Go kiss someone!

Good Eats: Aebleskiver!

Look at how crafty I am!

I made aebleskiver!
They are this delightful little Danish...thing. A little like pancakes, but a little different.
Supposedly, the history of aebleskiver is something like this:

Once upon a time, Vikings were tired after a rather exhausting raid and so they got back to their ship and they wanted something to eat. Pancakes! However, they didn't have anything to cook it on but a badly dented shield, so they made do with what they had. Pancake batter in a dented shield and viola! You get aebleskiver. 

The name, when literally translated means "apple slices" which...doesn't make all that much sense seeing as there usually isn't any apples in them any more...but it's fun to say!

"abe-el-skae-ber" would be the phonetic way of saying it. Danish...it's all at the back of your throat, just swallow the words.

Anyways, this ^ is the type of pan you use to make them with. You pour in the batter and turn it as it cooks so it's done all the way in the inside and golden brown all around the outside.

I am going to make them for my History 201 TA class on Thursday. I get to teach and since there is a connection between  Scandinavia and the Kievan Rus, why not make class more enjoyable with treats!
Except, since this was my first time, they are a little gooey.
However, in the immortal words of Scarlett O'hara, "Tomorrow is another day!"
...
And tomorrow will bring more aebleskiver.

p.s. I made these Norwegian cupcakes a couple of weeks ago. They are really just chocolate cupcakes with the Norwegian flag in icing on the top. Still, I think they are pretty creative. They tasted pretty good too.

Here is Nay, modeling them for everyone.
Labor of love, I tell ya, labor of love.