You Say Po-tay-to, I Say Po-tah-to

Either way, I baked a couple in the microwave last night. Now, I know that that doesn't sound like the most exciting thing ever, but this blog is about the little things as well as the big ones. I've never baked potatoes in the microwave, ergo it is a viable blog topic.

It all started with the potato button on our new microwave - but perhaps I should take a moment to explain the new microwave. A few weeks ago, I came downstairs in the morning to see a sign on our microwave with the word "Busted" in my brother's handwriting. I opened it, just to check it out, and saw the side plate had been blown off and was sitting on the turn table with a big, black scorch mark. Apparently, there had been flames and sparks involved in the microwave's demise.

For a few weeks after that, we used a microwave that was in our RV, but had never been used by us. The trailer microwave was old, grimy, and smelled suspicious. Furthermore, upon using it the first time I heard a variety of strange popping noises and discovered trace amounts of foreign material in my food. I also witnessed a small larvae-looking insect crawling out of the microwave. Needless to say, I avoided using this microwave whenever possible and covered my food when the microwave was necessary.

Eventually, however, my parents bought a new microwave. The new appliance is beautiful with its gleaming white color and variety of fancy buttons, one of which was the potato button. Taking care to poke each potato several times with a fork (lest the potatoes built up too much pressure and exploded) I placed the potatoes in the microwave, pressed the potato button (which, handily, let me select how many potatoes I was baking) and stood back in uncertain hesitancy. I was still concerned about spontaneous explosion, especially if the power of said explosion was especially energetic, causing the microwave door to blow off and hit me in the face. I was further concerned when I heard various sizzling and popping noises inside the microwave.

Seven minutes later, the microwave beeped, and guess what? The potatoes were baked! They actually turned out really well. So there you have it. If you want a baked potato, but don't have enough time to bake them in the oven, go the microwave route. It totally works!

I Feel Pretty

The other day, I sat down to paint my nails with my usual black nail polish and decided that I wanted to do a little more this time around. I resolved upon drawing little yellow flowers and adding stems and leaves to them. I practiced first on a piece of wax paper, and then used the wax paper like an easel, putting drops of the yellow and green polish on the paper and using a toothpick to apply it. Here's a tip: designs will be much neater if you wait for each element to dry before adding another; doing this keeps the polish from all pooling together on your fingernail. Also, if I had had a clear topcoat, that would have been a great thing to add in the end. I did all right on my right hand, but the left was a little tricky, since I'm left handed. Here's how it turned out:

Fit to Be Thai-ed

Welcome to the very first post of my new blog! I'm really looking forward to the experience of this blog. I hope that you will join this picky girl on her quest to try new things.

I'm especially picky when it comes to food, so it seemed only fitting that I should try a new food for the kick-off of "Guess What I Did Today?". Anyone who has ever eaten around me can say that I'm a pretty picky eater. I'm probably most picky with vegetables; I don't really like many at all. I also have a weirdly low tolerance for spicy foods, which sometimes causes trouble, and I'm very particular with textures. For example, I generally avoid foods that have any sort of flour dusting because I really can't stand the feel of the stuff. I know, it's weird.

Now that you understand my picky eating habits, you can understand my caution in trying new foods that warrants an opening blog post. I went to a local Thai restaurant with a couple of friends to get my first taste of the exotic cuisine. I ordered the Pad Thai with chicken, seen below. Pad Thai involves rice noodles, bean sprouts, eggs, peanuts, green onions, and a sauce that I don't know the name of. Oh, and that lovely lime wedge hanging out on the side there.

Don't be fooled; there was a lot of food on that dish. It's one of those tricky plates that are secretly a bowl.

Here I am, apprehensively loading up my fork with the first taste of Pad Thai...

and trying it.
The verdict? I liked it, though I do admit to doing a bit of picking about in the Thai food. I really don't like green onions, so I only took one bite with those. The bean sprouts weren't bad, and I didn't even mind the peanuts. The rice noodles kind of weirded me out because the texture was a bit odd and they took a long time to chew, but I loved the chicken. I also really liked the eggs in it. I think that next time I go I'll probably get curry or something similar that I can eat over rice because I did like all of the seasonings.

The dessert menu made us laugh because it didn't seem very authentic. Nevertheless, we ordered a slice of chocolate mousse cake to share which was very delicious.

Looks great, right? P.S., the atmosphere of the restaurant was really great. They even had these really cool trays for our checks.
Nice, right?
So there you have it, my first taste of Thai food and the first post of my new blog. Look for more posts in the near future! Possible new things to try include driving through the canyon to Brigham City (I've never actually done it, other than driving with an instructor) and shooting a gun.

Feel free to make suggestions of things that I need to try! I'll do anything that's not too crazy ;)