Texas.

Somehow all my posts became about food, but I didn't mean for this to become a food blog. I haven't really written anything about my personal life in a while, so I figured now would be a good time. Although this post does feature food, too. Oh well.

I went back home to Texas two weeks ago and had a really great time seeing family and friends, and of course, stuffing my face. If you follow me on Instagram you have already seen most of these photos, but I don't care what you think deal with it.

I ate a lot. My parents made so much awesome food while I was home in Houston, including this Filipino dish, pancit palabok.

More food at home (clockwise): Vietnamese sandwich, a fresh coconut for drinking, and a lot of Filipino desserts: bibingka (a type of rice cake), puto (the colored rice cakes), kutsinta (orange sticky rice cake), pichi-pichi (sweet gelatinous dessert made from grated cassava), and kamote (a type of sweet potato I think)  

I also looked through a bunch of old photo albums one day when I was bored.

Then I drove to Austin with my brother.

Did some cool things with cool people.

And ate a lot of great food. Clockwise: Mexican martini, sno cone from Casey's New Orleans Sno Balls, BBQ from Stiles Switch BBQ, chicken enchiladas from Polvos

I already can't wait to go back again, but it probably won't be until Thanksgiving :(

Other things:

• It's starting to get cooler in New York and I'm still not used to real seasons so I find it odd that it's cooling down so early in September. I like it, but then again I don't because I feel like summer wasn't long enough. I need more time to wear cut offs and sundresses, goddammit.
• I enjoy my job and the people I work with. I'm starting to work on different projects and clients, so that has been really interesting and cool. Yay for being a functioning adult in the real world.
• I went to Meatopia last weekend which is a meat food festival here in New York, and it was AWESOME. Separate entry about that coming very soon.
• :) :) :)

Eating Astoria: Fatty's Cafe

I'm so behind on blogging! This is the first of three Eating Astoria posts I've had planned for awhile, hopefully I'll get them all posted. I'm back home in Texas for the week so I have a little extra time to spare. Also, look out for some Texas themed posts, because damn I missed food from home. Anyway, back to Fatty's.

I wanted to try Fatty's on Ditmars originally because they had mofongo, which I've always wanted to try. Unfortunately they only served it at brunch and we went for dinner. They serve Latin American food here, and everything was really delicious and filling.

Hard to mess up guac and chips. And if they do, just leave the restaurant immediately because that means they can't get anything right.

Kind of pricey mojitos, but damn they were strong.

I love empanadas. I think we got cheese, beef, and chorizo.

My entree: Steak frite, with shallots and parsley butter. I substituted frites for tostones, fried plantains. I ate the whole thing.

My friend got this giant burrito, I think it's wrapped in a black bean tortilla or something?

 

And my other friend got the grilled skirt steak and a side of asparagus. Real meat-heavy meals if you can't tell.

We were completely stuffed when we left. I definitely want to come back for brunch and finally try mofongo, plus I've read they have a lovely outside patio in the daytime. Also I could use another one of those mojitos.

Eating Astoria: Queens Comfort

I decided to try out Queens Comfort after reading through their eclectic and mouth-watering menu (Cap'n Crunch chicken fingers, PB&J burger, chicken and waffles, Mexican-style grilled corn, to name a few). It's located on 30th Ave and as we walked down the street on an early Saturday night, it was bustling and busy and dotted with a ton of crowded restaurants and bars that we made note to try out in the future. 30th Ave is totally happenin' and it's a 15 minute walk from my apartment so we're definitely planning on going out there one of these nights. Anyway, Queens Comfort is totally cute and everything we got was SO DELICIOUS OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY.

Their version of elote, which is Mexican-style grilled corn, similar to the corn you get in front of the H-E-B or Fiesta in Texas. This was smothered in mayo and Parmesan cheese and Sriracha sauce and tasted like home.

CAP'N CRUNCH CHICKEN FINGERS. No, your eyes do nay deceive you, that is powdered up Cap'n Crunch Cereal. Food on a whole other level. This is real life you guys.

For my entree I couldn't decide between the meatloaf sandwich or the beer braised chicken flautas, but after chomping down on two appetizers I thought the chicken flautas would be the lighter option of the two. It probably was, but not by much, because I got 3 gigantic flautas on a huge bed of corn salsa/salad stuff. It was really tasty, plus I always appreciate any dish that comes with a fried egg on top.

My roommate ordered the fried chicken and waffles, which were also, of course crazy good.

Another awesome plus is that the restaurant is BYOB, so we walked into a Duane Reade and picked up a six-pack to enjoy with our ridiculous meal.

We probably went a bit overboard on the food, because I was uncomfortably full after all of that, plus drinking two beers. Somehow, I dragged myself all the way home, collapsed on the couch and refused to move for the rest of the night. But it was so worth it. NO. REGRETS.

Eating Astoria: Telly's Taverna

This is the first installment in what will (hopefully) be an ongoing series in which I will attempt to eat my way through Astoria, one gyro at a time. 

I definitely moved to the right part of town. Astoria is known for a wide variety of awesome food from all parts of the world, and I plan on eating as much of it as I can. Last Sunday night I started with the cuisine which the area might be best known for, which is Greek food. After some Yelping and food blog perusal, I decided to try out Telly's Taverna.

Greek salad. I think feta cheese should always come in chunks that big.

Pastitsio, a creamy, cheesy Greek version of lasagna. The two things on either side were super tasty potatoes.

Grilled octopus. Tastes way better than it looks.

Pretty summer night for stuffing your face with Greek food.

Loukomades, fried dough balls covered in honey and cinnamon. I probably could've eaten about 20 of these. Plus, they were on the house!

I don't think I could ever be a really good food critic, because all of my reviews would probably be, "The food was awesome," or "The food was really good," or "The food wasn't that great but I ate it anyway." But everything was really good, and we ate our food and sipped on wine outside on a nice, warm summer night, and left with tummies full and heads pleasantly buzzing.

Some things

Had grilled octopus for dinner, made blueberry waffles for brunch

Just listening to Mandy Moore's first album NBD

My new glasses come in the mail tomorrow I'm gonna wear them all the fuckin' time

Is it possible to want to smoke a cigarette and not want to smoke a cigarette at the same time

This cat I'm fostering loves ice cream 

A band I love is following me on Twitter is this the best day ever or what

I probably slept for like 15 hours out of the 24 that was yesterday

Most of my summer so far has been spent chasing Mister Softee around my neighborhood

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

In an effort to try to become a normal well-functioning adult these past couple of months, I have completely neglected this blog. To my three readers, I apologize, and I want to try to make a conscious effort to update this thing, if not for your sake then at least for mine. I haven't had much of a chance to write too many things that are longer than 140 characters at a time (since I work in social media), and I'm desperately out of practice. I also have done a shit job of recording my time here in New York and I'd like to remedy that. So I guess as a start, I want to list out what the hell's been going on in my life since March.

I got hired full-time at my new jobby job
I started freelancing at a huge ad agency, doing social media and tweeting tweets and Facebooking Facebooks, and I got hired full-time! It's been a new and different experience and I've been learning a lot about the advertising world and expanding my social media skills and know how. While it isn't what I originally set out to do when I moved to New York City, I've come to terms with the fact that goals change and I don't regret this particular career path I've set out on. It's pretty awesome and the company is cool and the people are cool and the accounts I work on are cool and everything's just cool, man.

I moved to a different borough
In May I moved from the East Village in Manhattan to Astoria in Queens. It's definitely been a bit of an adjustment, especially in terms of my commute to work. I used to be able to walk, and now I have about an hour's commute into the city. But the change has been a good one, the apartment I share with my two roommates is really spacious, especially the kitchen, and my bedroom has an actual closet! I've been really slow in decorating and getting everything together because of work and being social and whatnot, but the place is definitely coming together and I love this apartment so far. Plus, it's so cheap compared to what I was paying in the Village, so that's a definite plus. Also we live right by a big, beautiful park and the water, and Astoria is known for its beer gardens and some amazing restaurants which I have yet to try but I'm very excited about exploring this part of New York, especially now that it's finally summer. Here's a few pictures of life in Queens so far:

Clockwise from top L: Hanging out in Astoria Park, drinking homemade iced tea on my fire escape, the sign of Mr. Tasty aka white Drake that I pass by on my way to the subway every day, vanilla sprinkle cone by the water



I got a cat!
I'm actually just fostering one. This little guy is named Louis, and he's cute and cuddly and I keep having to remind myself not to get too attached because he's being adopted in a few more days.

Other small things that don't matter as much

• Decided to grow my hair out reeeaaalllly long for the first time in a few years. I haven't gotten a haircut in forever. Trying to see how long I can go before I get annoyed and chop it all off again.
• I've been cooking a lot more since my kitchen space in the new apartment probably doubled from the last place. New things I've attempted to make: blueberry waffles, alfredo sauce from scratch, green chicken enchiladas, homemade iced tea. Mostly, it's been a success.
• Also I got on Instagram if you couldn't tell by the pictures, so friend me or follow me or whatever it is you do on there if you want. My username is jo__baby, with 2 underscores.

That's all I got for now.

Things I definitely did not do today

1. Watch five episodes in a row of Law and Order: Criminal Intent
2. Seriously contemplate spending wasting another $13 on a pack of cigarettes at the corner store
3. Seriously contemplate spending the entire day chain smoking them on my fire escape
4. Spend 15 minutes staring at the blinking cursor of my empty blog entry because I can never think of anything of value to write
5. Realize that is what I always think when I click on new post
6. Almost erase this entire thing before impulsively clicking on "Publish" before I could change my mind

New year, new shoe(s)

I don't try hard enough to update this thing. I think it's mostly because I think too hard about what I want to write about, think it sounds like shit after I write and erase it like it never even happened. For my first blog post of the year I guess I'll just talk about myself or something, since I'm so goddamn fascinating, am I right? I rang in 2012 in Austin with some great people, and despite starting off the year with a few minor health setbacks, I'm doing pretty well so far. Work keeps me insanely busy but nothing new there.

The first week or so after getting back I was a little sad because I missed Texas so much. I usually go through a post-Texas depression every time I come back to New York from home, but it's never lasted as long as this last time. Usually I'm good and happy to be back after a day or two, but I realized on this last trip how much I really missed everyone in Houston/Austin, and how I probably won't find a group of people like them anywhere. It was the first time since I've moved that I seriously considered for a minute moving back. I'll never ever rule out moving back to Texas, I feel like there will always be a place in my heart for Austin especially. I think on this past trip home I really connected with people that I hadn't before and I truly do miss their company. I feel like even though I've finally settled down in this city, everything is just so up in the air and I still don't even know where my life is heading really. I guess we'll see. I wonder when it's going to snow here.