Caked Up | We 12/21

I woke up around 10 AM to Matthew asking to go to Uniqlo. It was in a fancy part of town and the mall had a lot of luxury stores, but the Uniqlo may have been larger than the Chicago one I went to after North Coast. It was a single floor, but took but what felt like several stores' worth of space with sections dedicated to UT shirts, ultra light down jackets, and the recent Marni collaboration among the usual sections.

It was alright following Matthew around as he looked for a cardigan, but it seemed like he was set on achieving a single look and essentially bought an outfit by itself. I heard this kind of shopping is typical from fashion YouTube channels, but it was strange to see it in person. It was especially strange seeing him essentially ask me to freestyle an outfit for him to buy, as if I was on some cooking show and received unrelated ingredients to make something from within a time limit.

The whole thing was eye-opening since I only usually window shop for clothes with others, but it also made me see how satisfying spending money can be for people. I was surprised he thought the checkout system of all things was cool. You drop the items into a basket and what I guess are sensors in the tags total everything up without scanning. I suppose the system makes checkout faster, but I wonder if it hits the "retail therapy" spot of the brain harder than usual.

Then Matthew wanted to go to the Galleria, which had a store with a deal on tee shirts. It turned out the store is a boardshop, so it was fun seeing skateboard parts and shoes so long after my retirement. What really got my attention though was the snowboarding apparel. I heard about Burton, how they make quality functional outdoor gear and some designers like Errolson Hugh worked with them before, but it was a treat getting to see and feel some pieces in person. It's as if I was in a luxury retailer feeling the leather of the handbags, but with gore-tex jackets nearly worth $1000.

After buying his shirts, Matthew got called into work so he advised that I get something from the food court for lunch and left. I saw he was in a hurry so I chose a store on impulse and bought a small ramen and koma gimbap set. Little did I know that it cost $18, but the damage was already done. I walked back home since it was nearby and ate some 85 bread with Adrian as he kept being shocked at how much I paid for the set, which made me regret my actions even more. Eventually he had to go back to work so I chilled on the couch still unable to connect my computer to the internet.

Naturally this chilling turned into a nap and I had a time travel wake-up around 4 PM. Then I continued trying to connect to the internet, eventually succeeding when Adrian asked me what I wanted for dinner. We settled on going shopping to cook for ourselves and picking up ingredients on the way, but he wanted to make a saengcream cake, which was surprising.

He picked up the ingredients, but forgot a few and went back, this time with me and Matthew. There we got the rest of the baking ingredients along with some steak Adrian got on a whim, but he was temped to buy a lot more out of hunger. Thankfully we escaped before it became a problem and went home to cook.

We made pasta with a pack of marked-down Kobe ground beef, which was pretty tasty. Adrian also seared a steak, which tasted alright but was a lot of fun to witness him preparing. After cooking it he placed the steak on a cutting board with seasoning, trying to wrap it around a cube of butter. This was both as cursed and as hilarious as seeing him stick butter into hot water to soften it, which made witnessing it a fantastic ab workout due to the laughter. Another similar moment happened when we both separately stepped in a puddle of water from someone's messy dishwashing, both times screaming in shock at the feeling.

At that point Matthew came back with the girl he's been talking with and they hung out in his room so Adrian and I sat bored wondering what to do since it was only 9 PM. We considered acting like Matthew's parents to embarrass him in front of the girl, but eventually looked at the baking recipes and decided to try the olive oil cake, with the saengcream cake as a possibility tomorrow. Thankfully the olive oil cake was simple and familiar, so I got it started without any problems. Later into preparing it though, Adrian had to take a phone call for a while so I put the cake into the oven and started cleaning by myself.

Eventually Adrian emerged from his call, but the cake was still cooling so he went to bed. I'm eating this cake now while watching volleyball game footage and it's just like it's always been: I got scared that I overcooked it and the edges are a bit firm and crumbly, but the center is moist and the whole thing is delicious. I'm excited to not be hungry tomorrow enjoying the cake and leftover pasta and I'll be sure to ask about some leftovers I eyed in the fridge too.