Who would you love to meet for lunch?

I could answer this in a few ways. One way would be with celebrities. I would like to bring some people back to life such as Audrey Hepburn and Lucille Ball. I could see eating lunch with some famous chefs including Tom Colicchio and other people from Top Chef. Maybe cook lunch with them? Eat in one of their restaurants? I could also go with the real people who I have only “met” through the blog-osphere. People such as Joy The Baker or the Pioneer Woman. I did go to the Foodbuzz weekend in November last year, and I met some really great bloggers there. That was fun, even though I had to work through most of it. I could also say that I would love to meet up with my friends from college that I have not seen since graduating. I could even say that I would want to meet up with the people I was friends with in high school. That would be interesting. Any of these situations would be interesting. Where would we eat? What would we eat? Would it just be lunch or a whole day? I guess with the celebrities and the chefs, it would be in a fancier restaurant than with my friends, assuming that we are paying for the lunch. If we didn’t have to pay, I guess the place would be similar across the board.  Eating lunch with these people at once would not be allowed. The food bloggers and the chefs can get together, because that’s cool. It can also be people and celebrities together, like one “regular” person and one celebrity each. But I think those are the only combos allowed. No need to have bloggers with friends that I haven’t seen in years. So I guess I have a variety of people who I would want to meet for lunch. Have to have multiple lunches and a way to bring people back from the dead (only the good ones). Maybe someday….

Do you like to dive into things or take your time getting acclimated?

It depends on the situation, but for most things, I like taking my time getting acclimated. I took my time getting used to living in San Francisco and then I dove into my first apartment and first job. I then took my time finding the next apartment, where I live now, and I am trying to find the right job for me and trying to learn what is right for me at this time. I dove right into college and knew that I wanted to go to school for baking and pastry and get a career in the hospitality industry. I sometimes think what my life would be like if I went to a less specialized school and took more classes other than the culinary/pastry related classes. I am taking classes online and some of the classes are general knowledge such as Biology and Economics. I like that I will also have to take electives that are not related to the hotel and restaurant management courses. I think I might take some art history classes or something like that. I wish I had the opportunity to study abroad like most other college students do so I would not feel left out when I talk to people my age about their experiences overseas that they had and the countries they’ve been to.

This is all about my professional life and my career…about my social life…I definitely dove into that because I did not know anyone in San Francisco before moving here. Now I have been to events and have made friends and connections and know people through these things. Relationships were something I dove into, but now I take them more seriously, and I take my time getting to know someone before getting too serious. It is all interesting to think about in the “age of the Internet” since there’s online dating and blogs and everything else that is out there about me that people can see before even meeting me in person. I can also do a search on the person I might meet online or in the “real world” to see who they are.

So, in different situations, I dive right in, in other situations, I just move one step at a time. I think I generally choose the right path and while I think about how my life would be different if I chose differently, I have no regrets and I also believe that everything happens for a reason. If I did not dive into something, life would be boring and not adventurous.

So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it.

I am sorry I have not kept up with the NaBloPoMo challenge as well as I did last month, but I have been busy in the past few days and have not had time to post anything. My mom moved to SF on the 8th so I have spent time with her and showing her all the city has to offer. I enjoy having someone to share the city with (besides my friends) where I can be the tour guide. I like being the one that knows how to get from place to place and where the best places in each neighborhood. It also gives me a chance to figure out more of the city than I have discovered in the past 3 years. I feel like I have learned a lot about it, but could always learn more. I am an explorer and I like getting lost and then found again, especially discovering new restaurants or fun shops or parks to hang out at, and especially with another person. So I want to know, what are your favorite places in San Francisco? Best restaurants/cafes in each neighborhood?

I will try to update daily as I should be, but at least every other day. Again, I am sorry for not keeping up with the posts (and thank you for understanding. )

“Yesterday came suddenly…”

I realize that I forgot to post something yesterday, so I am planning on posting twice today to make up for it (doesn’t mean that’s going to happen, but I’ll try)

Yesterday’s post was supposed to be “Do you consider yourself a strong swimmer?” I definitely do not consider myself a strong swimmer, though I wish I was and I try to be. I took swimming lessons when I was younger and still fail to do the backstroke without going on a diagonal. I am afraid of going in too deep when swimming in the ocean. I think I just got jinxed with my name being associated with a mermaid. Everyone thinks I should be a good swimmer because of that. Well, they would be wrong. I like swimming, and even go the pool for exercise and not going on the elliptical for 30 minutes, and I have fun swimming, but I am simply not good at. Also, I never really learned how to dive. I learned once, but not formally, only on a family vacation. But that’s okay, it’s not really a skill you need in life. Why do you need to be able to swim? To help save a life? Maybe, but seems so highly unlikely. Why are there lifeguards? These are the people who are strong swimmers. That’s all you need. Just one person in the group that is a strong swimmer. Because you never swim alone. Everyone knows that. Anyway, that should be enough to make up for yesterday and to hold you over until my next post, which may, or may not be, later today.

What kind of fish are you most like?

It is kind of funny to write this after doing improv because it’s like I should get up and act like that fish. This is a fun(ny) question. Like asking about a spirit animal or something like that. What kind of fish am I most like? I don’t really know how to answer that. I don’t even know that many fish. I know clown fish thanks to Finding Nemo. There’s also the fish that Dory is-regal blue tang fish. If it is about being forgetful, then yes, I am like Dory. I am also a friend that helps you out and tries my hardest to do the right thing. There was also Gil-a Moorish Idol-who helped Nemo when he was in the tank at the dentist’s office. I think of myself as a problem solver, and this fish tried to help Nemo escape back into the ocean to find his father. So maybe I am a combination of these fish characters from the movie. Then again, this is not about characters in a movie, it is about fish. I am still not sure about this one. I do not like to eat salmon. Maybe because I relate to it in some way? Hmm…what other fish are there? Cod. That just sounds boring. This is almost getting depressing. I can’t even think of another type of fish to try to compare myself to. I know people think of The Little Mermaid when they hear my name for the first time, but that’s a whole different story. It does remind me of another fish character, Flounder. Flounder was Ariel’s best friend. Kept her company while looking for thing-a-ma-bobs and trying to get a glimpse of life on land. That seems like a character I can relate to…someone who helps a friend out and keeps on believing even after knowing it may not work out this time. Uhm…maybe I need some other responses to get ideas about which fish I am most like. So help me out and add a comment answering the question yourself and then maybe I can find my real answer.

Since this is a food blog, and I have been straying slightly from that theme, I’m going to bring it back slightly by adding a cooking demo video to this post, involving fish: (maybe involving the type of fish I am most like?!)

Are you scared of being in open water?

Taking this question literally, no, I am not afraid of being in open water. I have been on a boat before and I was in the ocean swimming and snorkeling before. Taking this question in a different direction and having the open water be an unsure place, then yes, I am scared. I am not fond of being away from my comfort zone. That’s why it’s called a comfort zone. A place where you know everything is going to be okay. Now, I have expanded that comfort zone from Connecticut to New York to California. I have lived in these places and I have lived with a variety of people and have done things I was not comfortable with, but realized that everything was going to be okay. You have to have a positive, open-minded, “go-with-the-flow” mind to be able to pick up and just move your life from one place to another. I was definitely scared to do this, to travel to this unknown place, where I did not know anyone and did not know where I was going to live or what I was going to do. But I was confident in myself and I had family and friends that backed me up. I did the best I could and worked hard at finding an apartment and a job. I did it without knowing much and I was successful at it. I do not think I would be the person I am today if I did not take that first step out of my comfort zone and into “open water”

What is the strangest thing you’ve ever seen in the water?

I would not call it strange, since these animals belong in water, but it was strange seeing dolphins so close to home. The first time I was at Baker Beach in San Francisco, I was looking out and saw dolphins swimming in the water. They were even somewhat close to shore. I tried to take some pictures, but kept missing them. There were other people who saw them though. It was interesting to me since I had lived in Florida for a short time and my roommates then had gone out on a boat and saw them in the Gulf, but I wasn’t even on a boat. Just sitting in the sand enjoying the sunshine and warmth. So, it wasn’t strange to see them in the water, but strange to see them in the setting I was in. I know that San Francisco is sorta famous for the seals that hang out at the piers near Fisherman’s Wharf, and I’ve heard there are parrots that live in the Palm trees that are along the Embarccadero (yet I have not seen those) so I know that there’s some creatures that lurk around these parts (as well as some interesting characters) so when I tell this story, people seem surprised, yet seem to believe it. It was pretty cool to see dolphins without leaving home, but now I just want to see them again. And get some pictures. But for now, here’s a cute dolphin (and cat) video (because what else is YouTube good for?):

And that has made all the difference.

That is the last line of one of my favorite poems. I took this prompt from the February NaBloPoMo: “ Look up a favorite poem, then take the last line and use it as the first line of today’s post.” This is the last sentence of the poem, which will give the title of the poem away:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

If you haven’t guessed it by now, it is Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken.

I like the poem because it shows that you have to make choices in life and sometimes the choice involves one path that everyone takes and one path that is, well, less traveled. For example, there’s the graduate high school-go to college-get a job, typical path. There’s also the graduate from high school-take a year off-go to college-get a job path. There are also several other variations of these paths that others have taken. I think that it depends on a lot of things which of those paths you take and which is right for you. There are some people who follow the first, and probably most traveled path because of how they grew up. It’s the thing to do. It’s the right thing. I took that path. I sometimes think about what life would be like if I took the latter and taken that “leap year”. What would I have done? Would I have done the “typical” travel through Europe thing? Where would I be today? What would I be doing? Would my life be (mostly) the same? Of course, no one could answer those questions, but it is fun to think about. I do think that I would not have met the same people I met because of moving to San Francisco when I did. I would not have had the same first apartment and I would not have had the same first job. It would’ve been different if I chose the “road not taken”. That last line of the poem could never be truer.

Was there a typical path that you took? Or was there a “road less traveled by” that you did take? What were the results?

By the way, here’s the full poem:

The Road Not Taken; by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

What does the word HOME mean to you?

I think the word home could have a lot of meanings. I grew up in the same house for the first 18 years of my life. I never moved, was never away from home except for family vacations. That house was my home for a long time. It felt weird the first time I was in college and called my dorm room home. Was it really my home? I suppose it was. I lived there. I had friends there. But then again, I called going back to Connecticut going home. I still called going back there “going home” after I moved to San Francisco. I was once on a plane back “home”, to Connecticut, and the person asked if I was going home or just for a visit. I almost didn’t know how to answer. I was going for a visit back home. But San Francisco was my home now. Even when I was traveling to Israel, everyone was calling that the “homeland”, which I understood only as the “home” of the Jewish people. However, once we landed, our American tour guides said to me, “welcome home”. I guess you could say that “home” is where you feel safe. It’s the base place where you live or once lived. A lot of people say “home is where the heart is”. I even knew someone who had a tattoo of a house with a heart on the inside and said that is what it meant to her. I can believe that. Home is where the heart is if you love being there. I can say that the place I lived in while in Florida for 18 weeks was my home, but I did not love it, so my heart was not there. I think that was the only time I did not really like where I was living. I even liked that I could go to my dad’s apartment on the weekends I was supposed to be there after my parents split. It was a second home. I guess you could say I have called a lot of places home over the years and I think that means a lot. It takes a lot to turn a house into a home. It takes living in it for a long time and putting care into it and really loving it before being able to call a place a home. I am happy to call San Francisco home and I think I will be calling it home for a very long time.

Where would you like to go swimming? (NaBloPoMo July: Post 1)

I have decided to take the challenge again, and take part in NaBloPoMo for the month of July. This month’s theme is SWIM. While I do not have to stick to the theme, which might be done by writing based on the prompts given on their website, I do have to write something everyday for the month of July. I did it in June, and I had fun writing about things that inspire me and I hope to inspire others.

Today’s question/prompt is, as the title of the post says, “where would you like to go swimming?”. I would love to swim in the ocean. The Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii would be nice since I’ve never been there. I liked swimming/floating in the Dead Sea and I would love to do that especially since it would mean I was back in Israel. I would like to swim in the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia.   These are just some of the places I would like to swim in though I know there are more. I would go swimming in a pool in my backyard, if both of those existed, but since they do not, I go to the YMCA and swim there. I am not a strong swimmer, but I like it as a break from the usual gym routine. If I could, I would swim in these places, and I hope that some day I will have the chance to do so.