Pork Buns, I Love You

Saturday, September 15, 2012


I did it. I finally tried the Momofuku pork bun recipe that Monkey sent me ages ago. The opportunity presented itself in the form of a causal coworker get together at my house, meant to be centered on board games (namely Settlers of Cataan) and food. I decided to use my guests as guinea pigs in this pork bun experiment. Verdict?

Pretty damn good.

The pork belly took a while to cook but the flavor was delicious. The dough for the buns didn't puff as much as I would have expected (probably because my yeast was old) but they still turned out surprisingly fluffy. This recipe definitely took effort. I cooked the meat last night and was sweat shop bun making/steaming this morning. In retrospect, I should have made everything in advance and frozen the buns till ready to cook (as the recipe suggests). Maybe I would have had more time to actually hang out with guests instead of running around like mad.

Sadly, my tooth was acting up (I believe I have yet to blog about my missing tooth...don't fret I know you're dying for the gory details so I'll post soon) so I didn't really eat as many as I wanted. That is to say I ate like 5 instead of the 20 I would have liked.

Here's the spread. One of my coworkers helped me make chicken wings (deep fried and slathered in delicious teriyaki style sauce). Others brought aloo gobi style cauliflowers/potatoes, an asian noodle salad, and beer. Everything was tasty. Sadly we spent so much time eating and chatting that we didn't have time to play board games. Next time!

Baby State of Affairs: 1 Year!!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012


Today we took BB in for his 1 year check up. Aside from 3 tear inducing shots, it was a great visit. He was an angel to the pediatrician (compared to last time when he was sick and wanted nothing to do with the woman). As suspected, he's still a big ass baby.

Weight: 23.75 lbs (83%)
Height: 31 inches (87%)
Head: 18.5 inches (75%)

On the sleep front, he's still sleeping a solid 11-12 hours at night and taking one 2-2.5 hour nap during the day. He typically wakes up around 7:30, naps at 11:30, then goes to bed at 7:30ish. Usually we can put him down awake after feeding him a bottle and he'll just play by himself until he falls asleep. Every now and then he wails and you need to go back in and hold him but it's less and less the norm.

On the food front, he eats 3 large meals a day. Breakfast is usually a blend of fruits, lunch a blend of veggies and beans or rice, and dinner a meal of oatmeal with cinnamon and sometimes fruit again. I know, it's a bit strange that he eats oatmeal at night. We'll start making the meals more like adult meals in the short future.

As of last week, I dropped the night time feed, mostly because I was taking a two day trip to Vancouver for work and I really didn't want to bring the pump. It was with mixed feeling that I ended the breastfeeding. Sad because you lose that precious moment with your baby (I never really understood this description until I experienced for myself), but relieved that you can move on and do things like sleep on your stomach again haha. I'm pretty amazed that I breastfed till almost a year. It seemed unfathomable to me when I first started that someone could nurse for so long, but now I understand the appeal.

Anyway, BB currently drinks about 28 oz of formula, but we're going to switch to whole milk as soon as the current batch of formula runs out. The doctor also recommended we start giving him more snacks (we give him puffs sporadically) and reduce the milk intake to 20-24 oz. He's got 7 teeth and one more coming in. Two more seem like they'll come in in the next month. Ah Ma has started brushing those itty bitty teeth. I'll have to watch and learn how she convinces him to bear the grooming.

On the language front, he babbles like crazy and sporadically says "mama" and "dada". Sometimes he attempts to repeat what you say if you say it often enough. More than anything though he understands word associations. Badge claims he knows around 20 words. I definitely agree it's > 10 but not so sure about 20...maybe 15. We're continuing to do controlled experiments so this really has been proven. Aside from the words I previously mentioned in his repertoire, he knows "monkey", "lion", "bunny", "ghost bear" (our nickname for this bear blanket he has) and "doggie" as it relates to his stuffed animals. He turns and looks at me for "mama", Badge for "dada", my mom for "ah ma", and even Monkey for "auntie alice". He looks out the window when we say "birdie" or "airplane", and even looks around for the cats when we say "kitty cat". Crazy!

On the walking front, he cruises around the play pen perimeter like a drunken sailor. Once I turned around and caught him standing unassisted for a couple seconds. I imagine in the next month or so he should be walking. We'll see! Overall, he's still the same silly lovable bundle of joy. Welcome to toddlerhood BB!


First Birthday Party

Monday, September 3, 2012


Last Thurs, Aug 30th, Baby Burrito turned one year old! I can't believe it. To think that last year, I was at the hospital pushing a tiny baby out of my body (sorry for the visual). Astounding. It's been a crazy year. Lots of stressful and difficult moments, but they're far eclipsed by the wonderful heart-bursting-with-love type ones.


On Saturday, we had a small birthday party at our place. As previously mentioned, I had many small diy projects going on. I made yarn letters for his name, created cute garlands out of cut up paper and yarn, cut out "happy birthday" (admittedly rather messy looking, oops), made a photo timeline (forgot to take pics of it), cut out cute paper birds (first word he recognized) and bought some blue poms poms and balloons as additional decor. Not bad! On the food front, Monkey and I made a crack-like spinach artichoke dip, mango salsa, and guacamole (chips on the side). We also made spiced nuts and chopped up fruit and cheese. For the cake, I made a delicious yellow double layer cake with chocolate frosting. It was a new recipe and turned out quite nicely.



Though I'm sure he was oblivious to what was going on, I like to think Baby Burrito had a good time and enjoyed the official passing of his first year of life. He got to try some cake which was his first time eating sugar really. I think he was dubious but liked it after a while. Badge tried to enforce a no gift policy which everyone ignored. Thanks for all the gifts everyone!!


Many more pictures here