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Book It Better Late than Never!

I am sure many people are familiar with Book It, the reading incentive program sponsored by Pizza Hut. Sadly our local Pizza Hut shut down recently so there was a lot of question on whether to participate in Book It or not.  The school decided to have the students participate if they would like, knowing that the coupons for pizzas could be used nearby at the Pizza Hut in Decorah or even Rochester.    So here is the information.  Please read carefully.

October is the kick off month for the reading incentive program of "Book - It". Because the schools decision to participate was made after October 1st, we will be starting this reading incentive program November 1st.  While I am not requiring all students to participate in "Book-It", sponsored by Pizza Hut, I am encouraging everyone to do it.  Why not get a free pizza out of reading at home?  Seems silly to pass it up.  I will a calendar home today with each 3rd grade student asking them to record his/her reading each night working towards or past the goal written on the calendar.  At the end of the month, please return the calendar, with a parents signature, and your child will be given his/her coupon for a free pizza.  A new calendar will be sent home at the beginning of every month with the "goal" increasing each time. 

In the past, those students who participated in the Book-It program every month and met their goal were treated to a pizza lunch with me, Mrs. Kerian, at the end of the reading incentive designated time (usually March or April).   With the Healthy Kids Act in place in schools, we are not able to do that any more.  Third grade teachers will meet soon to come up with something just as fun and yummy.  So, stay tuned for information for those students who participate, meet their goal or pass it, and turn in their calendar every month.  Last year the students who read every month returned their reading calendar celebrated by having "dinner and a movie" with Mrs. Kerian over lunch period, with some extra snacks provided by me as well.   

So for now.....GET READING! :)

Available link for download

Black Sesame Sugar Cookies with Lemon Curd

A few weekends ago, Erlend and I headed over to the Inner Richmond neighborhood to pick up his surprise Princess Cake for my birthday and to do some grocery shopping in the hood's cheap Asian supermarkets. Wandering down Clement Street is a treat in itself — the avenue is lined with dim sum shops full of shelves containing fresh hand-pulled noodles and sesame balls, as well as Chinese rotisseries proudly displaying Peking duck and slabs of golden, roasted pork.

On a whim, we wandered into a nondescript store that advertised xiao long bao soup dumplings and nothing more. Inside was a whole display case offering not only every type of dumpling imaginable (soup or otherwise!), but also a multitude of buns. Steamed pork, lotus paste, or egg yolk buns — there they all were, gleaming at us invitingly. In my excitement, I ordered my default: xiao long bao soup dumplings and a red bean-filled sesame ball. Erlend, always the more patient of us two, took his time to consider all the options available and walked away with zhir ma bao, a steamed bun filled with black sesame paste.

I've always considered myself pretty well-versed in Chinese food (since Chinese cuisine in general tends to be my favorite food), but I'd never had anything like the black sesame paste bun before. The black sesame paste inside almost had the texture and taste of Middle Eastern halva, but made with Chinese black sesame seeds instead of the white ones used for tahini. One bite and I was obsessed —I had forgotten how good black sesame dessert could be! Despite the fact that we'd finished our shopping, I made Erlend go back to the store with me so I could pick up a giant bag of black sesame seeds to play with:


I've made black sesame desserts before (most notably, these black sesame buttermilk rolls with goat milk glaze), but it's easy to forget about the ingredient as it's always being overshadowed by matcha, the dessert ingredient du jour. This time, I ended up making black sesame sugar cookies instead of steamed buns, mostly because I left my bamboo steamer back in Portland and, truth be told, my bun folding and rolling skills could use some work.

The cookies themselves, however, are an homage to the buns we discovered that morning — unapologetically black sesame flavored, with nothing else to hide the unique toasty, woody flavor of black sesame. Although I loved the cookies on their own, I decided to brighten them up with a little dollop of fresh, homemade lemon curd:


The two are an odd flavor combination at first, but you'll soon find that the tart sweetness of the lemon is actually a brilliant companion to the heavy black sesame.

And don't worry! As for those zhir ma bao buns that I talked about with such wonder, I'm working on a recipe, I swear. But let's eat these cookies first.


Some baker's notes:

• Black sesame seeds are available in the bulk sections of fancy grocery stores like Whole Foods, or Asian specialty supermarkets. You can also find them online.


• If you want to break down the cooking time, you can make the lemon curd up to 1 month in advanced! The curd keeps well in an airtight glass jar in the refrigerator.


• The cookie recipe starts by instructing you on how to make black sesame sugar using an oven and a food processor, thanks to this utterly genius recipe by Mandy of Lady and Pups. The recipe will make slightly more than what's needed for the rolls, and you can store whatever's leftover in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 month (similarly, you can make the sugar in advanced for up to 1 month). It's important to refrigerate the sugar since black sesame seeds have a ton of oil in them and go rancid fast. However, my leftover sugar never lasts that long — I often find myself reaching for it and stirring it into my green tea or coffee. You can also roll the raw cookie dough in a small bowl of extra sugar before baking to give the cookies a black sesame sugar glaze.
  

get the recipe »

Available link for download

Birchbox January 2014 Review

Birchbox has a reputation for being a little bit bland. It was a surprise, then, to open my box and see so many different colors and shapes. Seriously, look at this. Its what Birchbox ads are made of:

VISUALLY APPEALING.

Were the products amazing? Eh. Still, say what you will about my Birchbox this month... It wasnt bland.

Here is what I got:

Nail Rock Manicure Glitter in Red Glitter (full size at 0.34 fl oz for the polish, 0.18oz for the glitter), retail value $7.00


I was really excited about getting this product because... well, glitter and nail polish. I also really like the color-- if you need a reference, its very similar to the red that McDonalds prints on their ketchup packets.

As you are all probably aware, I am not particularly good at doing my nails. I am also impatient as fuck. That means that if I try to do any sort of nail art the day that I paint my nails, everything ends in tragedy. My strategy, then, is to do my nails at night, go to bed (so I am literally 100% sure that my nails are dry when I try something fancy), and then do whatever miscellaneous nail art I wanted to do. (And were using the word "nail art" pretty loosely here.)

When I applied the nail polish itself, I was already pretty not-blown-away by the formula. Its very thin and watery. It feels like a quick-dry nail polish... but, like, worse. Then, I could not get it opaque for the life of me. I did four coats of the stuff before getting frustrated and giving up. I figured I would do a half-moon manicure and just cover the tips of my nails with glitter, and no one would be the wiser. I went to bed.

When I woke up the next day, my nails looked like this:


That is absolutely unacceptable. I spent the rest of my day watching as little flakes of nail polish drifted off my fingers.

Beauty Rock is not a brand that I have had success with in general. The Nail Rock Nail Wraps were terrible... and I tried out (and didnt review. Let me know if you are aching for one!) the Eye Rock Designer Liners and they possibly the worst product I have ever used. I just wasnt expecting this to be so bad because nail polish and glitter isnt exactly a complicated product concept.

Serge Normant Meta Revive Dry Conditioner (1.2 oz), approximate retail value $9.38


Dry shampoo is not the same thing as regular shampoo. It just doesnt serve the same function. If you have gunk in your hair, dry shampoo wont get it out. Thus, I am, in theory, willing to kind of cut dry conditioner a break if it doesnt actually add back in oils or (for some conditioners) coat your hair in silicone, which is how conditioner does its job.

However, a few glances through the ingredient list of the Serge Normant Dry Conditioner and I am baffled at how they can call it conditioner. In fact, based on its ingredients, it looks exactly like a dry shampoo. Ingredients like Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate are included to absorb oil. I dont understand how that fits with the concept of a dry conditioner. A few ingredients are kind of conditioner-y (e.g. Butylene Glycol, a humectant), but those ingredients are commonly used in dry shampoo, as well.


Looking the Birchbox description of what ingredients are supposedly making this product function is even more baffling. Birchbox states, "Argan oil makes hair soft and supple while fortifying the cuticle to help hair shine. Cornstarch absorbs oil without weighing down your mane."

Okay, lets go ahead and look at the actual ingredients of this product, for a minute: Butane, Propane, SD Alcohol 40-B, Ethyl Trisiloxane, Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate, Butylene Glycol, Diisopropyl Adipate, Quaternium-91, Cetrimonium Methosulfate, Cetearyl Alcohol, Fragrance, Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein PG-Propyl Silanetriol, Polyquaternium-59, Butylene Glycol, Argania Spinosa Kernel Oil, Disteardimonium Hectorite.

See where argan oil ("Argania Spinosa Kernel Oil") is located on that list? Four ingredients after "fragrance"? (For those of you not already aware, the order of ingredients is indicative of the amount of the ingredient in the product. The product contains more of the ingredients at the beginning of the list.)

See where cornstarch is located? Yeah, me neither. Its not even on the ingredients list.

In other words: bull-fucking-shit, Birchbox.

Now, lets go ahead and look at what this product actually did to my hair. Here is my hair pre-dry conditioner:


Here is my hair post-dry conditioner.


It did absolutely nothing. It doesnt work and theory and it doesnt work in practice.

100% Pure Fruit Pigmented Mascara in Black Tea (0.1oz), approximate retail value $7.50


I had really low expectations for this product. My last 100% Pure Product, a green apple body cream, smelled like Jolly Ranchers and had no redeeming qualities. Both the brand and the product seem gimmicky to me. ("While picking blackberries in her garden, 100% Pure founder Susie Wang noticed that the fruit stained her skin a beautiful deep red color—and had an epiphany: All-natural pigments could mimic the brilliance of harsh artificial dyes, minus the irritating side effects." Okay, naturalistic fallacy.)


To my surprise, though, this mascara is actually super, super awesome. I really like mascaras that are effortless. To me, this is the perfect, effortless mascara. It looks as natural as a black mascara can look and it gives lots of length without causing clumpy spider legs.

Before mascara:


After mascara:


One more view. Before mascara:


After mascara:


I definitely would consider purchasing a full size of this product. The only caveat I have is that it doesnt smell amazing. The "black tea" scent is reminiscent of blueberry cough syrup.

ZENMED Gentle Cleansing Cream (0.33 fl oz), approximate retail value $1.05


I dont have a lot to say about this product because it is (unlike the rest of my box) boring. I was amused that the back of the product read, "ideal for mature or dry skin", as I definitely do not have either mature or dry skin; I have the skin of a greasy 15-year-old. I also thought Birchboxs explanation of why its supposedly awesome was funny: "Thanks to a pH-balanced formula, this gentle cleanser washes away dirt and oil without disrupting skin’s acid mantle, aka the invisible shield that protects skin from environmental aggressors." That is technically true. However, if you have a product that is NOT designed with your skins pH in mind, that is a bad product and you really shouldnt use it.

Bland cleansers are good things, ultimately. But its awfully hard to get worked up about them.

Ahmad Teas in Mint Mystique, Apricot Sunrise, and English Tea No. 1 (3 bags), approximate retail value $0.53


Finally, I got tea. I know some people hate getting tea in their Birchboxes, but I dont mind. The Mighty Leaf Tropical Green Tea that I got from Birchbox is currently part of my weekday morning routine.

These three, unfortunately, didnt blow me away. The Mint Green Tea was fine, but I thought that black teas were too bitter. Im a green tea drinker, though, so take my opinions with a grain of salt.

Total Box Value: $25.44

Overall, I think this box was fine. The awesome mascara (which I have been using as my "I am running late so I guess Im going light on the makeup today" mascara) saved the other products that werent as loveable. (When I add in the value of Birchbox points, though, I feel a lot more happy about my box!) I think the huge variety of products and the large sample sizes, though, bode well for the start of 2014.

If you realize that Birchbox is what is missing in your life, for some reason, you are welcome to use my referral link by clicking here.

Available link for download