January 2012
5 posts
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two salads this week!: all about kale
In atonement for my failure to blog last week, I’m featuring two salads this week!
Ambitious, I know.
Both of these dishes hold a special place in my heart (and are, incidentally, good for the heart) because they incorporate one of my favorite vegetables on Mother Earth, kale.
Kale is this leafy, tough vegetable. It’s slightly bitter to the taste and is even described by some as...
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pitter-patter, a vanilla cake!
Rainy days are something of an anomaly in Southern California; so when they do come around, it’s kind of a big deal. Lazy students skip class, unaccustomed locals wear their flip-flops out (for want of proper rain shoes), and all across city borders, everybody and their mothers gripe and grumble about the rain somehow disrupting the sunny, mid-70’s equilibrium that characterizes the...
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a salad a week: warm mushroom
One of my favorite ways to make and eat a salad is to mix warm and cold ingredients.
This one is simple enough: slice up some mushrooms (I used crimini mushrooms, which is basically a fancy name for “mini portobellos”), saute them with butter or extra virgin olive oil, some balsamic vinegar, and a wee bit of salt and crushed black pepper to taste.
Feeling mischievous? Consider...
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a salad a week: quinoa
In case you missed the memo, I really, really love salad.
My fondness for salad is so far-reaching, in fact, that it spans entire continents.
Back in Taiwan, even my raging In-N-Out cravings paled in comparison to the longing I felt to wolf down a plate of fresh, raw dark green veggies.
People never understand me when I assert that it’s impossible to find a decent salad in Asia. So...
December 2011
3 posts
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The Future has an Ancient Heart →
You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don’t have to explain what you plan to do with your life. You don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. You don’t have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or...
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November 2011
5 posts
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SF Magazine: The big squeeze →
“In New York […] there’s always been this sense that if you’re a writer or an actor or whatever, you just put up with anything. You live in a shoebox. It’s fine. But in San Francisco, you expected that you’d have a bay window, maybe a tree. That concept seems to be on its way out.”
I have this overreaching, guileless mental picture of my not-so-distant future self living in a small flat...
Anonymous asked: Emma, I love to check your blog, whenever possible. It is very interesting and inspiring as well, many times, it brightens my day! I remember the memories we had during summer of 2010 during ADVENT, and last summer at the Taipei City Hall. Thanks for posting these cute/professional pictures and encouraging words! Hope all is well with you, and keep me updated through this lovely blog of yours (:...
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October 2011
6 posts
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San Francisco, I'm coming back for you.
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How to craft a great pizza
As kooky as it sounds, one of my ultimate comfort foods is a well-made, NY-style pizza. There’s something about gooey, melty cheese atop a layer of crispy dough that meets all my taste buds in just the right spots.
Strangely, I don’t go out of my way to get pizza often. I prefer to satisfy my pizza cravings in the kitchen because homemade is a great alternative to the mass-produced,...
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September 2011
7 posts
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Soli Deo gloria: nostalgia. →
theorangetree:
This is the beauty of freshmen ministry.
Three years ago…
Us now. Three years later…
There’s something very special about freshmen ministry. Maybe it’s the fact that they were my first community of sisters that I got to know. Maybe it’s because we all learned and grew together as we…
These are my babies-turned-big-bad-seniors and post-grads! The mere thought of them...
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ahingg asked: I came across your blog a couple of months ago and left an anonymous comment about how I found your blog to be inspiring. I'm following you now, but I just didn't want you to be too creeped out so I'm just letting you know!
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two exciting announcements!
I’m home!—and currently transitioning into my next full-time job—tidying up my disaster of a room.
I’ll be interning with TechCrunchTV at Disrupt SF from Sept. 11-14. I’m practically tripping over myself with anticipation! More updates to come!
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August 2011
14 posts
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the final notes
It is a quiet, solitary Sunday afternoon. I am in my room, peeling clothes off their hangers and stacking pairs of shoes one on top of the other, watching my life as I’ve known it for the past ten months collect and fill my two suitcases. I pause and wonder how many more times I’ll undergo the same process of packing & unpacking, leaving & arriving, ending & starting over,...
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“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did...”
– Steve Jobs, circa February 1996
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31 startups emerge from 500 Startups Demo Day →
Like any um, normal* girlfriend, I have a Google alert set for my boyfriend’s name—because I’m all about staying up-to-date with the latest Internet trends, even if it borders on cyber-stalking (ha-ha, I’m joking—I’m not that creepy, I promise.) Thus, when I woke up this morning, I was delighted to find this alert notification in my inbox: an article on the 500...
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The Oatmeal: When to use i.e. in a sentence →
As a self-proclaimed grammar fiend, I found these guides to be (entertaining and) extremely conducive to my tendency to copyedit just about everything that happens to fall within my range of vision—though I admit that I make my fair share of grammar faux pas every now and then!
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My Irvine/OC mini restaurant guide: girly lunch...
If you know me personally, you should also be familiar with my intense fondness for cute cafes and restaurants. And by “cute” I mean dainty, estrogen-friendly, places-you-have-to-wittingly-drag-your-boyfriend-to establishments that specialize in the following: sandwiches, organic salads, vegetarian offerings, cupcakes, latte art… and chocolate. Of course, lots and lots of...
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For all you single ladies in such a hurry to get...
Ruth patiently waited on her mate, Boaz. While waiting on your Boaz, don’t settle for any of his relatives: Brokeaz, Poaz, Lyinaz, Cheatinaz, Dumbaz, Fakeaz, Cheapaz, Goodfornothinaz, Lazyaz, or Marriedaz! And especially his third cousin Beatinyoaz.
Please… wait on your Boaz & make sure he respects Yoaz!
I have no idea where this nugget of wisdom originated from, but if I were...
July 2011
13 posts
2 tags
in the details
As a painfully meticulous person, I have a knack for noticing—and mulling over—tiny (trivial) details.
Usually, I drive myself off the walls with my overly inquisitive tendencies.
—that is, until I picked up a camera for the first time.
Now, I just channel my compulsions into my photography and call it “art.”
The trade-off ain’t too shabby, if you...
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“I rummage through my backpack for a guidebook and turn the pages till I find the...”
– Ann Kidd, Traveling with Pomegranates
I will return.
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JUST WORK HARD : IT'S NOT HARD WORK by Bobby... →
The raw, unfiltered truth about our generation. Amen to this.
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東門市場
Last Saturday morning, my mom and aunts made a trip to Dongmen Market, a traditional street market in Taipei, to stock up on fruits and vegetables for what must’ve been at least the third time this week (our household really does it big on these two food groups!) I decided to tag along in spite of the sticky, humid heat, partly for the photo ops but mainly because I wanted to savor every...
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flaneurcafe asked: Happy belated birthday! I love your photos--what kind of camera do you use?
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23 in Taipei
Last month, I celebrated my birthday overseas for the first time ever! It was… sort of fabulous. Allow me to elaborate:
Thanks to my generous friends for celebrating with me and helping me ring in my 23rd with style and class!
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Life, legacies, love
My good friend Ashley, one of the most nurturing, motherly people I know, wrote a blog post about her grandmother who recently passed that made me laugh, then tear. I don’t think my astonishment with the lengths to which Ashley cared for and loved on her grandmother ever faded with time. That sort of love is so sacred and divine that it simply floors you, robs you of all prior reason, and...
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