I bought some Chococat stickers over the weekend. Hopefully this is not a sign that I will soon become obsessed with Japanese animated characters.
Oh wait. I did buy a Hawaiian Hello Kitty cell phone charm. She has a little surf board – and instead of being white, she has a nice tan from her vacation. Apparently cell phone charms are all the rage, as every souvenir shop there had about 300 different kinds.
I am really regretting not purchasing a Hello Kitty cell phone charm that was shaped like sushi. I can’t find a picture, so I’ll just have to describe it.. it looked like a piece of sashimi, and the (white) hello kitty’s head was sticking out of the rice part, as if her body were buried in the rice. What Hello Kitty fan would want to imagine dipping her in some soy sauce? Yikes.
Update: You can, indeed, eat Hello Kitty sushi. I have been proven wrong.
So, we had our first official hot dog night. Nathan’s hot dogs (our personal favorite) were on sale at Harris Teeter. We stocked up on mustard varieties, sauerkraut (just for Oak) and waffle fries. After searching the grocery store to no avail, we even made some NY red onion sauce inspired by our favorite Lowe’s hot dog vendor.
The sauce came out almost exactly like the sauce we’re used to, but the recipe is a bit skewed. First of all, 4 cups of water is way too much. I think Oak put in 2 cups, and a cup of ketchup instead. Also, be prepared to simmer for 1.5-2 hours to reduce and carmelize the sauce. But oh, yummers. I feel that is about all the dressing a hot dog really needs. (Oak disagrees wholeheartedly with this, and loads his dogs up with many varieties of toppings.)
I’m really wondering why the red onion sauce doesn’t come premade, though. Hello, business opportunity!
Cirque du Soleil: Delirium came to Raleigh this week, and we went to see it on Wednesday night.
It was very much different than the other two Cirque du soleil shows that we’ve seen. Delirium is the first show designed for an arena performance (basically in the “round”, so it can be viewed from both sides). They had two HUGE screens on either side of the stage, that sometimes showed the characters superimposed on other images, or different parts of the stage on one screen. It was pretty impressive.
On top of that, a huge scrim came down on either side of the stage that projected images that basically looked like they were “floating” over the people on the stage.
I sort of missed the extensive acrobatics (though there were some, this one was based more on music and dance) and the bright clown costumes and masks. The technology used though, was pretty darn impressive.
Have you noticed how hot the Cirque du soleil merchandise is? A little pricey but worth it for a souvenir shirt that is so unique and interesting!
I have finally confirmed my original thoughts that the NC DMV is, indeed, out to get me and any immediate family members (my mom’s experience with the NC DMV is a much longer and more frustrating story than this one).
After that first experience when I first moved here, I did manage to get a drivers license. A trip last year to change my address wasn’t so bad (even though they charge you for it – $15!! ouch!). But, this name-changing experience has put me over the edge with the department of motor vehicles.
A few weeks ago, I went to social security for a new card. They accepted our marriage license just fine. My new Social Security card arrived earlier this week. I had confirmed, through the DMV website, that I needed our marriage license from the Bahamas and my new social security card to get my drivers license updated.
So, I arrive at the DMV. Luckily, this time, there was no line (otherwise I’d be fuming even worse right now). Apparently, NC does not recognize the Bahamas marriage license (even though the Federal government did!). They give me a form for an “Affadavit of name change” that I have to get notarized. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the person on the DMV site would have told me this?
Anyway, if that weren’t enough, I go to a local notary at lunchtime today. She tells me that I could have gotten the document notarized at the DMV because a lot of the employees there are required to be notary publics. WOULDN’T IT HAVE BEEN NICE IF THEY HAD SUGGESTED THAT TO ME so I could have gotten it done then, instead of sending me off with a form, and telling me to return later?
So, I have to return to the DMV with this notarized document tomorrow, I guess, because no doubt they are off on Friday. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
Mark one off the 50 things to eat before you die list. Oak and I (unfortunately) tried Durian on our honeymoon.
Durian, according to slashfood, has an unmistakable odor, described as everything from a combination of onions and sweaty socks to rotting fish and sewage.
The Durian-flavored bubble tea pretty much told that story. We came across it in Chinatown in Honolulu. I took only one sip, to be surprised by a pleasant sweet melon taste – oh wait… why does this taste like onions? It was very odd and I immediately handed the drink back to Oak, who seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. I think he mostly was enjoying the tapioca balls. I made him throw it out about 10 minutes later because the stench, even in the open streets, was a bit much for me to bear.
Even in that one sip, I could taste the durian for about an hour afterwards. Ah, well, Anthony Bourdain tasted it, and now, so did we.
We ventured to Chapel Hill this weekend for a visit to A Southern season. We’ve been many times before but I don’t think I have ever actually written about it.
Southern Season is this amazing gourmet foods store. It’s the place we go where we can’t find an ingredient in the grocery stores. Last time we went, Oak found aleppo pepper, a mediterannean spice that he needed to make the warm hummus recipe from Talullas.
This picture is actually about half of the tea and coffee section. It is so freaking ridiculous. They have about every food and beverage you could imagine, an amazing prepared foods, meat, and deli section, an variety of candies and chocolates from around the world that I make an effort to not go near, etc. Of course half the time is spent going around looking for food samples.
Oak always spends about 20 minutes staring at the spices and salts. That is my opportunity to browse the housewares and cards. Phew!
It seems like every time we go we have some kind of thing that stumps the workers. This time we were looking for toasted sesame oil (which you’d think they would have). We also were curious about mock duck, but no avail.
My main goal was to get goodies for in crepes, since we used our new crepe maker for the first time yesterday. Unfortunately I overlooked the fact that you need whole milk for the crepe batter, so I told Oak just to put my skim milk in there. This apparently does make a difference, because the crepes were extremely crunch-o-licious. (Of course with nutella and jam on them they were still tasty, but not quite as attractive and tender as we were expecting.) Maybe I’ll take some pictures next time when I read the ingredient list properly.
In celebration of our marriage, Oak is going to be contributing to the carrievision.com weblog, as you see below in his declaration of his fondness for wedding confections.
We’re close to celebrating our one-month anniversary – March 8th, we were married on the beach on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. We had a great group of friends and family with us – we couldn’t have asked for a better wedding! I think that everyone that came with us had a great time, too.
We’ll be having a bunch of pictures from our wedding and honeymoon posted soon but to wet your appetite, here are the photos that the wedding photographer took.
Our house is still pretty disasterous with wedding memorabilia, souvenirs, etc. still not quite unpacked. Whoops! Are we lazy or is married life just that hectic?
