How much do you enjoy planning for a vacation when compared to the actual vacation? If you’re typical, according to [a study reported in the New York Times](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/how-vacations-affect-your-happiness/), the anticipation is better than the actual trip:

> The study, published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life, showed that the largest boost in happiness comes from the simple act of planning a vacation. In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks.

I’m going to go ahead and misinterpret these results for my own ends, because why not?

Iris and I have been planning our trip to Japan for _over three years._ Any time we don’t know what to talk about, we plan our trip. We’ve been working on it since Iris was two and it was just a crazy idea (“someday I want to take my kid to Japan”). Now we leave in about two weeks.

What’s going to happen in Tokyo? Who knows? Maybe it’ll be a disaster and we’ll spend the whole time overtired and grumpy:

> And for some travelers, the holiday itself was stressful. “In comments from people, the thing they mentioned most referred to disagreements with a travel partner or being ill,” Mr. Nawijn said.

I hope not. But it doesn’t matter. When this trip is over, we get to start planning the next one. I’m looking forward to that as much as the shinkansen and sukiyaki.

Iris and I do a Mad Libs desk calendar every morning. This morning’s installment was especially food-related:

> VACATION WANT ADS

> Do you need a house sitter? While you are frying around the country, who is looking after your furry house? Burglars could steal your biscuits. Who will feed your pet lion? We will unwittingly take care of everything. Call Bacon Sitters Unlimited.

We can’t stop saying “burglars could steal your biscuits.” And now you can’t either.

If you’re not interested in audio, I promise not to flog my new project too often. But wow, the response to [Spilled Milk](http://www.spilledmilkpodcast.com/) has been insane. Either I am as great as I think I am, or I teamed up with the world’s most popular food blogger. In any case, check this out:

Those are the absolutely unretouched rankings of food podcasts on iTunes, as of 8am on January 23, 2010.

We released episode two yesterday, our celebration of winter squash and how to bust it open, and you can get it right now, for free, on the [Spilled Milk site](http://www.spilledmilkpodcast.com/2010/01/21/episode-2-winter-squash/) or [on iTunes](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=349527672).

We’ll be working hard throughout 2010 to bring you more shows, better audio, and dumber jokes. Thanks for listening.

I’ve made two delicious rice-based dishes recently that I want to tell you about.

First, I was invited to a Southern food party. Since I’m incapable of following rules, I thought about bringing a southern Thai dish, like massaman curry or fish maw soup. Nah, too much work. Then I remembered the Lee Bros’ Saigon Hoppin’ John. Perfect!

Hoppin’ John is black-eyed peas and rice. (I’m going to try really hard to get through this without making a joke about “My Humps.”) It’s a traditional New Year’s dish in the South. It’s usually made with bacon, but the Saigon version omits the bacon and adds coconut milk, lemongrass, and ginger. I made it with your basic long-grain S&W rice, and it’s an extremely satisfying vegetarian meal. (Okay, I used chicken broth and fish sauce, so it was an extremely satisfying almost-vegetarian meal.)

[Here’s the recipe](http://www.culinate.com/books/collections/all_books/The+Lee+Bros.+Southern+Cookbook/saigon_hoppin_john)

Next, I made myself this lunch that was so good, I took a picture:

That’s _dokbokki,_ Korean rice cakes with hot sauce. It’s from the [Momofuku Cookbook](http://www.amazon.com/dp/030745195X/?tag=mamstesgrubshack). The rice cakes are the Korean equivalent of mochi, pounded and molded glutinous rice. Super-chewy and satisfying, the savory equivalent of [Hi-Chew](http://www.gourmet.com/food/2009/07/hi-chew-candy-better-than-a-real-mango). They’re sold in every Japanese and Korean market, frozen or refrigerated. For this recipe, you want the hot dog-shaped ones. They look weird but are a completely natural product made of nothing but rice, water, and salt.

In order to make Momofuku’s dokbokki, you need to make a couple of condiments: Korean Red Dragon Sauce, which is just a mixture of off-the-shelf chile sauce and a couple of other things you probably already have; and caramelized onions. (David Chang called them roasted onions, but they’re just totally standard caramelized onions.) Once you’ve made these things, you can make yourself crispy, chewy, spicy dokbokki in less than ten minutes. And you should.

[Here’s the recipe](http://www.inuyaki.com/archives/2495)

Have you ever wanted to hear what would happen if your two favorite bloggers teamed up? Assuming your two favorite bloggers are me and Molly Wizenberg of [Orangette](http://orangette.net/), you’re in luck:

[Spilled Milk](http://www.spilledmilkpodcast.com/)

The first episode (fried eggs) is available right now on the web site. Coming soon to iTunes. Second episode (winter squash) coming in two weeks. We live only to make you laugh. That means if you don’t laugh, we will die. Think about that.