Portillo's Chocolate Cake...mmm...

Dear Portillo's Chocolate Cake,

It's been so long since we last crossed paths.

I'd forgotten how moist and gooey you are, how you tempt me beyond all reason.

Diet? Pshaw! The fact that it's summertime and bathing suit season? Meh.

None of that mattters anymore. You are everything that chocolate cake should be. Your taste is not marred by fondant and decorative trinkets. And let's be honest: I cannot resist you.

I am going to eat you and I am going to enjoy every bite.

It will not be pretty, but it will be delicious.

Bada-boom, bada-bingsoo!

I'm pretty sure I've found a way to save on air conditioning costs, but it may involve buying new (bigger) pants. Move over, freon, meet bingsoo.

Bingsoo, or patbingsoo, is a Korean dessert that's like ice cream sundae meets snowcone meets fruit cup. There are many variations of toppings, but it's typically a bed of shaved ice swimming in slightly sweetened milk, topped with fresh fruit, sweet red beans and maybe even tiny, chewy pieces of mochi.

It's just one version of the ubiquitous, cross-cultural shaved ice dessert. In Japan, it's kakigori. In the Philippines, it's halo-halo. Taiwan has tsua-bing. And there's Mexican raspado. Or the technicolored American snow cone. Different names with one purpose: tasty, personal air conditioning.

A stretch of 90-plus-degree days pushed me into a bingsoo kick recently, so thank goodness the nearby Korean cafes make some of the best bingsoo in town. I place my order, get an icy dessert about the size of a head of lettuce, crunch my way through it (I think it's made to share, but I often go solo—surprise, surprise) and immediately get major goosebumps and start shivering.

Just enough to distract my attention away from my bingsoo baby belly. And the summer heat.

.g.

Cupcake, anyone? It's someone's birthday somewhere.

We just had Swirlz cupcakes at work for someone's birthday. I totally wasn't even going to grab one because I had just tried on dresses in some very unflattering lighting. But my food id took over as usual. Let me tell you about the cupcake that I was lucky enough to randomly grab.

Here is the description from the Swirlz website: 

Banana Nutella

Moist banana cake with an indulgent Nutella Buttercream (chocolate-hazelnut).

But let me be more specific (especially because I ate it too fast to remember to take a photo).

First, banana cake. Yummyyyyyy. I can't say the m-word, but it was definitely the opposite of dry.  I freaking love banana cake. Well, banana-flavored stuff in general. Ironically, I don't love bananas.  

Next, a thin layer of NUTELLA. Yes, Nutella. @#$%. (If you read .g.'s previous post, then you know what's up with Nutella.) 

Then, a layer of fluffy, delicious hazelnut buttercream frosting. I don't know who decided to start adding a layer between the cupcake and the frosting, but that person is a f***ing genius.

Holy @#$%, it was delicious. I didn't lick my plate, but I did lick the fork and knife. (Yep, I use utensils to eat my cupcakes. I'm not a barbarian.)

Holy crap. I'm in a total cupcakegasm afterglow. Thank you, Swirlz. For realz.

.mlb.

This makes me completely nutty.

I know I sound like a current-day 16-year-old saying how cool the "new" band Nirvana is, but I must proclaim: Nutella rocks my world. Yeah, so, I'm a few decades late on the Nutella praise bandwagon. So I'm no breakfast spreads hipster. But it is amazing to me that I had managed to go through so much of my life without chocolate hazelnut spread to dollop on anything from toast to peanut butter pretzels. Oh, and apples and spoons. And sometimes butter knives. It started last November, when I was watching a random playlist of old Giada DeLaurentiis episodes on Hulu and saw enough to realize Nutella could be a staple of my diet while maintaining super-white teeth and a tiny waist. I bought a small jar so I could make her grilled Nutella sandwiches. Then, the two-packs of family-sized jars of Nutella were on sale at Costco later that month and I bought two, saying loudly, "This will be great for all Christmas cookies and desserts I have to bake for everyone." I really said that. And I truly believed it, too. But now it's March and the fourth jar is in my pantry, down to just a thin layer of beautiful brown with sad and desperate scrape marks marring the surface.

Too bad I didn't realize that saving the gold tops of Nutella jars could get me free Nutella stuff, like a handy plastic spreader that can reach the sides and corners of Nutella jars. Daaaamn yoooou, Ferrero! Now I have to buy at least three more jars of your evil concoction so I have something to show for it besides, perhaps an extra inch to pinch on my waist. (False advertising, Giada. Damn you, too.)
.g.

Mo mochi makes me mo happy.

Mmm-mmm-mmmochi. It's a killer treat. Literally. People die eating these sticky rice balls for new year in Japan. Yet it doesn't seem to stop even the frailest new year revelers from trying to gulp down the potentially air-blocking goodness. And now Western mutations of mochi have appeared on frozen yogurt and around dollops of ice cream in the grocery store freezer. Which means my teeth have found yet another carby treat to sink themselves into. (Such busy buggers, those teeth. Some days I can't keep up with what they're chomping.) Trader Joe's has a six-pack of coconut mochi ice cream in mango, coconut and chocolate that really should come in a Costco-sized 36-pack but doesn't. The mochi is not as choke-tastically thick or soft as the traditional stuff, but it does just fine with the filling made of coconut milk. Nondairy means healthier, right? Which means these are, like, good for you, right? Just say yes.
.g.

Ode to My Latte, a Haiku

Tedious Bored meeting.
Agenda plods on and on...
Huzzah! Latte saves!
.mb.

If they sold this at the theater, I'd become a movie critic.

Marcy Playground summed up my feelings about Garrett's Chicago Mix back in the late '90s. Sex and candy. Yessiree. That's maybe the best cliché way I can describe fresh cheesy popcorn (cooked with evilly good coconut and palm oils) tossed together with brown sugary and buttery caramel corn. A bite of cheesy goodness makes you want something sweet, and how convenient – there it is! Then the sweetness makes you crave a bit of saltiness, and – "Oh, hello, I was just in the neighborhood."

And then suddenly, it's midnight and the bag (or gallon tin) of Garrett's your visitor brought you from Chicago two hours ago is shockingly nearing empty. And your tummy is full of happy. Which you might regret in the morning. It's enough to make an ex-pat wish she were still living in Chicago, but then again, maybe not. Because being across the country means your friends and family will graciously bring you the popcorn and you won't have to stand in the line down the block for your Chicago Mix.
.g.

You know what's good?

Food.

You know what else is good? Talking about food. And talking about food while eating food.

If you're reading this, it's probably because you're like us and enjoy eating, trying new food and telling other people about it.

After years of laughing about how much we talk about food and how often we tag our memories with details of certain meals, we decided it would be a waste not to share those stories with others like us.

We are not foodies or restaurant critics. We're three regular gals who are equal-opportunity eaters. Fortunately, we balance (and stoke, let's be realistic) epic appetites by training for long-distance running races and triathlons.

If something sounds tasty, we'll try it. If something is good, we'll say it — whether it's from a five-star joint at the top of a skyscraper, a grocery bag or a food truck. If something's really good, we tend to repeat our praise for it over and over, like missionaries trying to convert others to our little cult of food.

"AngryFoodLove" is what we feel when something is so good that it's hard to sum up in regular words. It's sort of akin to how overly perfumed aunties want to pinch the cheeks of incredibly cute babies. But more extreme. And about food. You get it.

Enjoy.