So, with the turn of the new year, I’ve got quite a bit more on my plate than usual. I’m reviving my food blog, I’m bringing my journal back to life again, and taking a new position with the college. Quite a number of things I’ve been straightening out are finally coming to fruition. (Hooray!) Let’s see, what is there of note on the homefront… Now that I think about it, not a whole lot, which is incredibly nice. Things are going quite smoothly, and after coming back from a holiday full of visiting around, I’m well due for some nice R&R back in my little apartment. I’m sure I’ll fill you all in in the coming posts.

Alright, so with this post, I have to chat a bit about Biscotti. If you’ve ever met me, you’d probably figure out I’m a bit of a tea and scone freak. I love the dense, hard-packed feeling of a scone. However, especially around the holidays, I have to trade in my love of scones for Biscotti.

If you’re curious about recipes, and where I found these particularly delicious examples, feel free to comment or message me, and I’ll make sure you find your dream biscotti.

Stay hungry!

ANYWAY. So, one of my favorite dishes that I tend to drool over are any kind of dumplings. Dim Sum, Pot Stickers, Jaozi, Mochi, Gyoza, whatever you call them, I love, LOVE some dumplings. (Runner up? Pad Thai. Shocking for a guy who loves PB&J? Not so much.) That all being said, here is some delicious dumpling food porn for your Wednesday hunger pangs. As per always, if you want any of the recipes for the following pictures, I’d love to redirect you to their original sites. Enjoy!

Also, spread the love about the site! I love to post food porn I enjoy, but would love some outside input as to what you guys might want to see. Let me know!

After some prompting from close friends, (Lang, I’m looking at you.) I thought I’d get back to posting! As to updates as to where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to, I’ll have a bit of ground to cover, so I’ll get to the guts of the food porn before I bludgeon you with a life-update or two. (It’s been a long time coming, but oh, how sweet it is.)

But you wanted food porn? Well, I’ve got some RIGHT HERE.

MINI-FOOD PORN: CAKE EDITION.

I’m going to warn you right now, this is slight inspiration for the coming Cake-tastrophie that I’ll be helping Brittany create in the next few weeks.

Well, there have been quite a few things of importance in the last couple of weeks, so we’ll start with the big stuff first.

About two weeks ago, my dad had a major accident. This is exactly what I’ve been told so far, so I’ll just relay exactly what I’ve been told. He was out biking on his own when his heart medication caused some kidney failure, which lead to him passing out hard into the pavement. Hard. He broke 7 ribs, and punctured his lung. Well, luckily someone found him, and called an ambulance. On the way to the hospital, his heart stopped. It took the EMT’s 25 minutes to revive him, and pretty much gave him 25 minutes without oxygen to the brain.

Oh, but we don’t stop there.

Once at the hospital, covered in blood, the doctors lowered his core temperature to 30 degrees Celsius, so they could stablize his organs before they dealt with his pain. AND YOU KNOW WHAT? He’s recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital tomorrow! Granted, he’ll be on pain medication for a while, and then dealing with a new defibrillator / pacemaker, but hey, it’s better than the alternative. It would seem that the Tangvald family is tougher to kill than one would think.

Moving on from family accidents, I bring some pretty awesome news to light. I mentioned Brittany earlier in this post, but I have to re-introduce her in a more formal way. Let me put it to you like this: Have you ever had a rogue thought completely blindside you on some idle Tuesday? So much so that it completely changes anything you’ve ever thought of on a particular subject? Well, that happened to me, and I couldn’t be happier. Sappy moments aside, she and I have decided that we’ll be having a Cake-a-palooza in the coming weeks simply to say that we could bake 9 cakes and make a cake monstrosity. Granted, these won’t be just your normal, average cakes. (Had to plan it out a bit, go from densest confection to lightest.) No, no. Not normal cakes at all. Peanut Butter Squares, Cheesecake, Brownie, just to name a few types of cake that’ll be thrown into the mix of this monstrosity of a legend.

Onward and upwards from this emotional rollercoaster of a post, I’d like to let you know that I WILL be posting a bit more frequently. Namely because I’m getting back into the swing of things writing-wise. (Alllllriiiiiiight!) So, check back often.

We’re OPEN FOR ADVENTURE.

Rock Hudson, about to find out what February feels like from James Dean.

Anyways, I thought I’d get a kick in the pants (or punch in the groin.) and write a little bit with onset of warmer weather. February seems to always have been the odd-month-out. I’m pretty sure something that comes with this month does something to the chemical balance in my brain, seeing as I always feel like I’ve been donkey-kicked in the chest by the end of it. Onwards and upwards, as I say! We shall not tarry here!

So, this all brings me to my next point. Seeing as my internship is coming to an end this May, I’ve decided to take it upon myself and adventure. I’ve called my friend Kasey in Hawaii, and (hopefully.) in the next couple of days I’ll be able to get a hold of her again. I’m going to give living in Hawaii a shot, and I’m going to try and live on a boat. (Or shoddy apartment, either way.) However, this might raise a few eyebrows for a couple of reasons:

• I know nothing of boating. (except being on the rowing team in high school, but that doesn’t count.)
• Odin needs to find some kind of employment whilst over there. (Blergh, I hate being an adult.)

So I might swing a job on the main island in the University of Hawaii, or just bum it out for a year or so. So far, my future is a bit of a blank check. Tentative plans all around, but adventures nonetheless.

Got to start somewhere, right?

On that note, I’ve also thrown in a couple of applications to LEGO in hopes of getting employment for their corporate site. (Since it’s been my dream to work with LEGO since, well, I don’t know, FOREVER.) This application is a bit of transition from the Hawaii idea, but it’s also a part of my new “get-up-and-go-adventure” attitude. I needed a jump-start, so I thought to myself “Well, I haven’t done anything ridiculous in a while, so this would be a good place to start.” I mean, why not learn a new language and work for an international company that makes creative toys? Hell, I’ve only been wanting to work for Lego since I became acquainted with them.

Anyways, so the idea so far is to throw in a couple of applications to get on Lego’s radar in hopes of becoming seen as an “interested” applicant. Meanwhile, I learn some languages (Spanish and Dutch primarily.) while I work on polishing up the ole’ resumé while I work a tech job here in Ohio for the next year or so. Fingers crossed, things will start pointing in the right direction.

Onwards!

• It could be the fact that my attire, once I get home, has usually consisted of sweatpant shorts, my flannel robe, and gigantic cartoon slippers. (DAMN IT, I’M AN ADULT.)
• The fact that I have a pet snake. (Which still boggles my mind, seeing as he’s very sweet and snakes are literally the easiest animals to take care of.)
• The iPod that I have set up in my kitchen seems to play Andrew Bird and Radiohead on an endless loop. Also, my kitchen smells of baked goods. Too many baked goods.

All that aside, onto more storytelling!

In the past couple of weeks from my return from Seattle, I’ve been dreaming of grilling some fish. It’s a capital of fresh fish and produce up there, for certain. In the short time I was there, I headed up to the Pike Place Public Market. If you haven’t been there, and you live up in that corner of North America, shame on you. Seriously though, this place is an absolute trip. We had just about every single kind of food you could possibly think of could suddenly be at your fingertips. My brothers and I had our grubby little paws on just about everything. Crêpes, fish, the original Starbucks (!) Hell, I even had duck for the first time. (Hot DAMN was it good too!) All in all, it was pretty much straight up fresh food porn. That being said, let me decorate your brain with some images of what we saw.

While Pike Place was amazing, I think that some of the places that stuck out in my mind the most were actually over in Portland. Two places in particular, one of which was Voodoo Doughnuts. This place came to mind while I was looking up some food porn a while back. I had come across this picture:

Awesome.

What thus happened? I needed to find out where this little guy came from. It wasn’t a kind of “I want to find this thing on my off-time.” sort of deal. No, I dropped everything I was doing and went all crazy on every search engine I could find to figure out the origin of this sugar-coated fetish.

Portland.

I could find it in Portland.

So, to make a long story short, we went there, it was awesome, but they didn’t have any voodoo dolls. What did I have instead you ask?

EL DIABLO

Portland never ceases to amaze with items like this. I mean, come on. How much more hardcore is this doughnut than others? Much, MUCH more. Pentagram in icing, along with chocolate cake doughnut, chocolate icing, red cinnamon sprinkles, and chocolate chips in the middle. After eating this I was practically vibrating from all the sugar I had just consumed. That being said, I visited with my friend Erin Britt at the Rimsky-Korsakoffee House, and if you haven’t gone there to just chill out and catch up with your friends, well, you haven’t lived. It is one of the coolest coffee places I’ve ever been to, and the coffee was so potent, I’m pretty sure that I freaked Erin out with the my horrifying disproportionate ratio of words to breathing. (Something like 16 words a second. I am a terrifying human being.)

That all being said and done, I’d like to think that this would be the calm before the storm. I know you’re curious, so what might the next edition of food porn be?

BREAKFAST EDITION. HOME-COOKED STYLE.

• Snagged a B.A in English.
• Currently working an internship at the College of Wooster, takin’ care of the computers and students.
• First year living out on my own. (Let me tell you, I sure do love it.)
• Almost entirely supporting myself. (Aside from some groceries here and there from the folks back home.)

While many people might think that my life is a little boring currently, I’ve got some new things coming up in the next couple of months. First off, I’ll be throwing a casting call video to the wonderful people of Norway for a reality television show. (They needed Americans who have an ancestry in Norway. Why the hell not?)

I’ve also decided that I’m in need of a little more adventure in my life, so I might be heading out with my friend Sam VanFleet to Mexico, just to drive down and explore some place new. Granted, I haven’t though much into it, but I believe that it would be a good idea to travel somewhere.

I’ve found out a way for me to blog on the go! I’m actually using my iPad as a way to get myself into blogging once more. I know, it’s been a long while since I have posted anything, but I’ve had a bit if a busy life. (Dad’s been sick, working my first real job out of college, you know. Life things.)

Tis holiday should be something a little different seeing as my family will be in Seattle for the duration of my Christmas break. My mom decided that she was going to see her friend Hilary over in Portland, and I decided that if in was to head out and work in Seattle, then maybe I better scope out the area first. Pike Place Market food porn? I think so.

It’s been a good run, November. With that, we’re moving up on the writing scale. One step at a time, I suppose.

Couldn't agree more.

Uh...Erm...

In other news, I recently returned from a trip to Boston. Sam VanFleet and I had decided to run the Rugged Maniac 5K Obstacle Course, but we didn’t want to fly. Oh, no. That’d ruin the ten hour car drive! And who would want to do a think like that? Not us, apparently. It was a good trip, and I promise, I absolutely swear I’ll fill you all in on the details soon.

So, for next time: the Mysterious Disappearance UNVEILED!

Where did our protagonist Odin go?

What did he do while he was gone?

Did he actually win the bear wrestling competition?