Vers l'absurde

What's done, is done.

2008-01-03T14:53:00.000-05:00

I could write a more wordy explanation up here, but really, the fact that I haven't the desire to says it all. It was a lovely run, and I truly appreciate all of you, but it's over.

If you need to get in touch with me, really get in touch with me, you'll know how to.

Nemo and the french fries say Merry Christmas.

2007-12-23T01:27:00.000-05:00

I finally decided that I really needed a Christmas tree. Unfortunately, I could not find a 4-foot iridescent white one, so I settled for silver tinsel. It's sparkly. I quite like it.

There's a hot dog ornament as well as a pizza slice ornament on there also. But I didn't buy the hamburger one, because I decided that I didn't need a full junk food tree, just mostly a junk food Christmas tree.

Also, doesn't it seem that Christmas is often synonymous with baking? I made a chocolate hazelnut torte for a holiday party, as well as Mexican wedding cakes, rugelach pinwheels, and whole wheat sables with chocolate nibs for our wine night. I am totally cookie-d out. Also liquor-ed out - do you think it's a sign that maybe you drink too much when the bartender at your Monday night drinking spot invites you to his holiday party? And that, at the party, other waitresses from the restaurant recognise you and your friends as "the girls who can hold their martinis"? Just wondering.

Happy holidays! Maybe there be lots of cookies and martinis!

What I have done since my exams ended.

2007-12-06T19:05:00.000-05:00

*Went and had my three martini lunch as soon as I turned in the suckers.

*Bought a Chanel purse after all (but in the caviar leather instead of lambskin). There are no words that can properly express my glee every time I look at it.

*Drank more.

*Made a dulce de leche cheesecake for Thanksgiving, along with a gingerbread roll with lemon cream and vegan chocolate mousse (something for everyone!)

*Had another wine night. Soaves were the theme this time, the winning one being the 2005 Pieropan Soave Classico - again my pick! (I am also always a big fan of the Prà Soave Classico). Dinner was supposed to be a porchetta, but I found out the butcher gave me the wrong cut, so it became a pork loin roast instead, which luckily turned out well, seasoned with fennel, lemon, bay leaves, and grains of paradise. (There were rosemary roasted potatoes as well.) Dessert was a torta di mele al burro, which was the biggest dessert hit yet.

*Made button wreath ornaments for an ornament swap.

*Went to Disneyland! The happiest place on earth, because it is the cleanest.

*Drank more. My liver LOVES me.

*Found out that I need to move my preliminary orals up by three months, as one of my committee members is going on sabbatical in the spring. ARGH.

*Made mendiants, this year's holiday present (aka bribe) for professors and others with whom I work.

*I mean, the bartender just kept pouring lychee martinis. What was I going to do, refuse them? Quelle horreur!

A week of qualifying exams.

2007-11-20T22:39:00.000-05:00

One week. Three take-home questions designed to test the "breadth" and "depth" of your "knowledge". GO.

Day 1 - Tuesday

Pick up exam. Go to supermarket. Get home. Look at questions. Hey, not too terrible! Hey, the first question is like your master's thesis! Cut and paste, cut and paste. This is awesome. Who said that exams were hard? Tra la la la.

Day 2 - Wednesday

Done with first question, hurrah! Really read the other two questions. Oh, crap. No cutting and pasting possible. Must actually write. Who said that staying in school forever was a good idea? Writing requires brain power. Brain so does not want to function. Order Indian food. Who thought that ordering enough for 10 people was a good idea? Proceed to eat Indian food for lunch and dinner the next four days. Good thing you like saag paneer and lamb vindaloo.

Day 3 - Thursday

SO FREAKING SORE. Nobody said that sitting in a chair for 12 hours a day was this physically exhausting. Eyes hurt. Neck hurts. Shoulders hurt. Back hurts. Wrists hurt. Fingers hurt. And these questions suck. SUCK.

Day 4 - Friday

STILL SORE. Getting sorer by the minute. Seriously consider dropping out of school and opening a bakery. Bakeries are fun. Bakeries don't make you write papers. Also, there is nothing left to read on the internets. Not that reading is possible due to all the muscle strain. Wonder if applying for worker's comp is possible. Start to feel really sorry for self. Decide that a new purse is necessary. Unfortunately settle on a Chanel 2.55. Need need want want. Those suckers are expensive. Attempt to validate purchase by the amount of sorryness felt for self. Feeling really really really sorry. Is three "reallys" enough? Look at "cheaper" purses. It is a warped, warped world when $1500 Marc Jacobs bags are a "bargain" compared to Chanels. But now? Have become a veritable expert in identifying fake Chanels.

Day 5 - Saturday

Even God took a break. Sure, he took a break on the seventh day, but we're not God here. Sleep in? Check. Go see Labryinth at the nearby movie theatre? Check. Take a nap? Check. Attempt to sit in chair and work for a little. NO CHECK. Body is physically rejecting chair. REPEAT, NO CHECK. Go out for sushi? Check. See Yo-Yo Ma? Check. Drool with envy at all the Chanel purses? Check. Decide that some are fake due to newly-developed fake-identifying skills? Check. Go to bed early? Check. Do no work? Check.

Day 6 - Sunday

Totally resonate with favorite character on Dirty Sexy Money, Jeremy, and his totally super skill of zoning out: "Well, I've always had this uncanny ability to just chill. You know, like I can be sitting in a chair, and it's 2 o'clock. Next thing I know, boom! 4 o'clock." Oh yeah. Play hours upon hours of Peggle. Realize that if there was less procrastination and more writing, could've been done several days ago. But Peggle is so mesmerizing. Questions about social competence and bilingual narratives can just SUCK IT. Consider actually buying Peggle, but don't want to admit that there might be an addiction-borne-out-of-procrastination problem. Get exam-taking friend hooked on Peggle also. At least something got accomplished. Out of Indian food. Order Chinese. CRAP. Someone does NOT understand the concept of "ordering in moderation."

Day 7 - Monday

Is this over yet? Think that it is really funny that advisor thinks these quals are so important that she spent 2 hours asking around for your password (why would someone else have your password?), so as to not bother you, in order to resubmit a paper for you due today to a journal. Okay, quals are that important. Will miss not being made to do anything. Crap. Really like having other people do things for you. Decide to clean apartment. Throw out 4 months worth of magazines. 15 magazines/month * 4 months = lots of magazines. Bemoan fact that books and stuff for school are taking over the bookshelves. Excited for spa day scheduled with a friend the day after handing in exams. Still want Chanel purse. Le sigh. Also? Peggle.

Day 8 - Tuesday

Hand in exams at 11:30am!!!!! Go to bar. Go straight to bar and do not look back. Aim to be drunk within the hour. At last, an attainable goal.

Tasting tempranillo.

2007-11-08T12:03:00.000-05:00

The only good thing about my impending exams is that I can use them to get out of virtually any school-related task I don't feel like doing. "Ah, I would.... but I have my exams...." is all I have to say, and everyone takes back whatever request they had just made of me. They're like my get out of jail free card. But I won't miss them when they're done. Not at all.

And it's not like I've been studying, either. Hah! There's only so much reading you can do. And I'm (probably unwisely) about to jet out of town to go to Boston/Vermont for the weekend, where a friend is getting married and where I am sure it is butt-freezing cold. To bring my fur coat or not? If only my life consisted of such trivial decisions all the time. It would be so much easier.

But hey, I'm pretty much going to be drunk all weekend. (Doesn't hurt that the reception for the wedding starts at 3pm.) And if there's a better way to prepare for my exams, I don't wanna know about it.

Oh! Yeah! And I had another wine tasting party last week. These things are fun. Since the theme was tempranillos, I accordingly made a Spanish-themed meal, with this super-easy tomato paella recipe that's already been touted 'round the internets for its amazing simplicity. (Personally, I think the dish needed a little extra salt, but I was just getting over a cold and nobody else thought so, so perhaps it doesn't).

There were also two different tortillas españolas - one, the traditional simple egg-onion-potato one, the other a fancier version with mushrooms, caramelized onions, and truffle oil. One is also a lot prettier than the other because gosh, it's hard to flip those things. Hint: Leave it to cook a lot longer in the pan than the recipe says, otherwise you end up with an utter mess.

Dessert were little pistachio-saffron shortbreads. And yes, I like using my cake dome as often as I can. It makes everything more festive.

The winning wine this round was a Viña Santurnia Reserva 2001. It's mostly tempranillo, with some mazuelo and graciano blended in. It was lovely and smooth, and it comes wrapped in some thin gold cord. You can't beat it for style.

Happy pumpkin day!

2007-10-31T10:49:00.000-04:00

(My first-ever attempt at carving a pumpkin. Not bad, eh?)

Du vin, du vin!

2007-10-20T14:53:00.000-04:00

After a week where I blew off stress from studying (qualifying doctoral exams in less than a month!), I ended each day with either going to flamenco or pilates. By the time Friday rolled around and I had my weekly tennis game with one of my friends, my arms - no, verily, my entire body was protesting the unusual amount of physical activity it had seen of late. It just did Not Want To Engage In Any More Physical Exertion. I could feel my muscles being all, why are you making us move? We do not want to contract and expand anymore. We want you to stop moving. And all I wanted was to do drink a lot of orange juice. Is this how people who regularly work out feel like? Because, dude, it sucks.

(Also, I realised that the additional soreness might have been due to the fact that at the childcare center where I volunteer Friday mornings, I had spent the whole time holding this one very cute but very-liking-to-be-carried-all-the-damn-time child.)

So, when we went to the bar afterwards (yes, we play tennis and then go drinking), I got a nice big glass of orange juice along with my drinks. Because there's no denying a craving like that.

Anyways, there was one other trip I made right before starting school anew. After I got back from Nashville, I was home just long enough to sleep and half unpack my suitcase before I headed out again, this time to Santa Barbara. There was some neurotrauma conference there, which I wasn't initially going to go to, but then given that they were going to pay for my lodging, and that the conference was free - well, hell, there's really no reason not to go. So I convinced one of my friends that hey, didn't she want to stay in a free hotel room?

Of course, me being me, I went to approximately 10% of the actual conference before I got bored of listening to people talk (being hungover for the 2nd day might have had something to do with my intolerance of lecturers), and we went up to wine country to do some wine tasting. Nothing like hitting the bottle at 10am.

It's interesting how Sideways (which I still haven't seen, primarily on my own personal principle that when an indie movie has been raved about from here to kingdom come, I won't see it because I know that I invaribly won't like it) has had in terms of influence upon the area. When we asked the concierge where to go, she whipped out a bright green map that listed where the movie characters had gone. But we didn't want what was in the movie, we really just wanted good wine. At our first stop, the woman at the tasting room pooh-poohed the map, and directed us to some really good finds. The concierge, on the other hand, sent us to a place where seriously, I couldn't even finish my tastes, the wine was that bad. Lesson of the story: do not always trust the concierge.

I have to say, of the four places we went to, the standouts were definitely Curtis and Rusack. I don't know how hard it is to find this wine outside of Southern California, but if you come across a bottle from either of these wineries, I'd definitely give them a try.

Our haul at the end of our wine tasting.
It really just looks like a lot because they put
each bottle in its own individual bag. I swear.

Studying's taken all the words out of me...

2007-10-14T21:03:00.000-04:00

... so pictures will have to do.

That trip I took waaay back in September? (It seems so long ago.) A friend and I decided to hie on down to Nashville, for some rest and relaxation before school started anew. (No, I don't really remember why we chose Nashville as opposed to some other city. It's just one of those things that happens.)

Highlights of the trip:

*Finding out that apparently, in the South, "biscuit" also means a hot girl. At least according to a Vandy grad.

*Said Vandy grad owns a restaurant in Nashville, and had us consult on a new cocktail list they were drawing up. And by consult, I mean trying out their new cocktails. If ever there was a perfect job for me...

*Speaking of biscuits, eating as many biscuits as humanly possible in 4 days...

*...Along with drinking as much sweet tea as I could. No wonder I didn't sleep the entire trip.

*Oh yeah, and eating as much meat, preferably fried, as I could as well. I think I left Nashville with my arteries partially clogged.

*Not sure if this is really a "highlight", but being asked by a middle-aged biker if I had ever been kidnapped. This was after he and his friends had requested a picture with us, and (ew!) after he asked if it was okay if he kissed me on the cheek (ew! I cringe just thinking of this now!) You have never seen me leave a bar faster.

*Coming up with the "spectrum of hotness" and the "spectrum of intelligence." Seriously, pure genius. If only it could be bottled. It'd probably reek of vodka but be effervescent like prosecco.

*Seeing Crystal Gayle, and a whole host of other moderately famous folk and bluegrass singers, at a birthday party at the Bluebird Café.

Think pink!

2007-10-08T08:08:00.000-04:00

One of the most absolutely worst ideas ever is flying hungover. I'm trying to think of something that would equal that miserable pain, but I'm hard-pressed at the moment. But it's something I completely forgot the last time I took a trip. I mean, wouldn't it be a grand idea to have a wine tasting at my house? Wine tasting! Fun!

Why, yes, I also made the wine bags so that we could have a blind tasting.
I wanted them to match, you see.

I've long wanted to start some sort of wine club, where friends and I get together to have relatively organized tastings to learn more about wine. I love me some wine, but I don't remember as much as I should about it, which is just pitiful given that I've worked in the wine section of an auction house and at a wine bar. So it was time for a wine club, hosted at my place (I like having parties!), so that we can hopefully learn more about wine. That, or just drink some more.

The theme last month was sparkling pink rosés. (The best thing about hosting this is that I get to choose the themes). Finding ones that ran under $20 was more difficult, but not impossible.

And, of course, I cooked. Keeping in theme (also, given that Funny Face was my inspiration behind my choice - think pink!), I made a more French-themed meal, with pissalidières accompanied by a simple green salad, some cheese with homemade fig jam, and for dessert, cannelés! The latter is one of my most favorite treats, but bakeries around me (the few that make them) charge dearly for them. I don't understand why. They're so ridiculously easy to make that now I'm going to be making them all the time. Or I would be, if I didn't want to gain 50 pounds.

We tried a couple different crémants d'Alsace, a crémant de Bourgogne, and other pinks as well. The winner (we rated wines based on a standard wine tasting scoring sheet) was - yay! - one that I chose, a Cerdon de Bugey. It was so effervescent that when I took off the wire cage keeping the cork in, the cork popped off by itself. I bought it from the guy who owns my favorite wine bar, so I got it at a marked discount, although you can find it here (unfortunately, you'll have to be put on the waiting list). If you can get your hands on it, I highly recommend it.

By the end of the night...
(and yes, one person didn't really read the email and
brought a regular rosé, not a sparkling one. Oh well.)

Just, next time, I'm not scheduling any wine tastings when I have to wake up at 5am the next day to fly somewhere. Even all the McDonald's in the world didn't help that hangover.

(Grr.. I am having problems with my borders, but am too lazy to figure out why.)

This totally falls under the heading of, "That's so damn easy, why didn't I do it before?"

2007-09-30T18:38:00.000-04:00

So, did you hear the one about how microwave popcorn can give you cancer?

Yes, I know that's relatively old news, but still. I love popcorn as a snack, but given those news, and the fact that I'm trying to eat less food with chemicals, that was enough to turn me off microwaveable popcorn. That, and the fact that I could never pop a perfect bag; I always end up with either too many unpopped kernels or too many burnt ones.

But! You can pop microwave in a pot on the stove! This is really old news, and I've had friends who prepare it this way, but for some reason it never occurred to me that I could do it myself. But you can, and this makes the best popcorn ever! Now there's no reason to ever buy microwaveable popcorn again.

It's so simple. I do everything by eye, so don't have any real measurements. But since I started making popcorn this way, I've never had a bad bowl of popcorn.

Pour some canola oil into a medium-sized pot. (I have three pots, and I use the medium-sized one. I have no idea how big it really is.) Add some salt at this time - apparently, salt at popcorn-popping temperatures doesn't burn! And, by adding the salt now, it gets better distributed. Add three kernels of popcorn, cover the pot, and wait for the three kernels to pop. When they've popped, add the rest of your popcorn - somewhere in between 1/4 to 1/3rd of a cup is enough for me. At this time, I like to add the rest of my seasonings as well - less than a teaspoon is probably sufficient, adjust depending on what you're using (unless you're using sugar - thought I'd make kettle corn, but did that result in some nasty burned crap - or cheese). Put the lid back on, give your pot a good swirl, and wait for all the popcorn to pop. That's it! So simple!

Why is my popcorn slightly green, you ask? Because lately, I've become a total spirulina junkie, and I'm not the only one. Not to share too much, but it's totally helped me with any digestive issues I may or may not have had.

And why yes, that was Crystal Gayle in the picture in the post below. But how I ended up seeing her sing, well, that's for another time.

It's like a game.

2007-09-23T08:57:00.000-04:00

Who is this? Where was this taken?

And for bonus points, why was I there?**

**Okay, that's a trick question with no real answer. Also, that's the best I can come up with given that I'm only home for 12 hours, including sleeping time, between trips.

Brazilian import/export business. That'll do it.

2007-09-13T10:22:00.000-04:00

Maybe it's just me, but anytime I hear "import/export", I always think of either drugs, prostitution, or something else highly illegal that makes a lot of money. Yet, there is the tinge of perhaps-this-is-a-legitimate-business. Heh.

If we can manage to sneak this into our alumni notes, I'll let you know!

Enough of what idle minds think up. Yes, I did take an extended leave from writing here, without warning, and did think of making it permanent. What with all the academic writing I've been doing of late, and the fact that, you know, I like to have a life where I get out of the house and do fun things, I didn't have the energy or wherewithal to write more, especially when it wasn't required. I'm still a little ambivalent about continuing here - I've enjoyed it, but I feel bad when I'm not constantly posting new bits. So we'll see how this continues along. It'll probably be more sporadic, that's for sure, and I'm not making any promises I can't keep.

Anyways. Did you know it was my birthday last weekend? No? Well, shame on you. It was, and I am now one year older (albeit probably no more mature nor wiser).

And thus, I decided to drown my liver in vodka (there is a Russian-themed vodka bar near my apartment. To say that it's my new favorite place is an understatement). But before we could drink, I decided to be "responsible" and feed a small group of close friends beforehand - because, you know, food before alcohol is good, while food after alcohol doesn't do a damn thing to soak up any of that booze, no matter how good it tastes.

So there were little baked wonton cups filled with either feta, fried onions, and sautéed mushrooms or chèvre, figs, and bacon. There were marinated carrots and a spinach and corn salad (no picture, sadly) to go along with meatball sliders.

And of course there was cake - a Smith Island cake, which is actually far easier to make than it looks.

Party favors are always a must - this year, I made baby madeleines and put them in a charming white lacquered box. Pretty pretty!

And of all treats, someone brought me a box of the cutest baby cupcakes and dessert shots, which made for a fine hangover treat as I lay on the couch watching Federer beat Djokovic, and wondering how I could find myself a nice 6'3 tennis player to massage my back. Because wouldn't that just be the life?

Why yes, I'm still alive.

2007-09-10T14:19:00.000-04:00

Is there an alternate way of saying "Brazilian escort service", making it just vague enough so that people think you're talking about a Brazilian escort service, but they can't be 100% sure that you're not joking and you're not talking about a legitimate enterprise, so they have to include it in the class notes of your alumni magazine?

Just wondering.

"Don't tempt me, I can resist anything but temptation."

2007-08-20T08:38:00.000-04:00

Q: What do you do when the temperatures start to approach the triple digits?

A: Why, you go to where the temperatures are already in the triple digits.

Seems a bit counter-intuitive, yes. But a friend's parents were out of town, so a gaggle of us went out to their house near Palm Springs to spend some time in the blazing sun. After all, there were tans to be worked on, and no place better to do it where the temperatures don't get much below 80 degrees at night and there's a lovely pool to be laying next to.

And you know it's going to be good times when within the first half hour, the following was said:

"It's not actually the size of your ass that determines if it is porn or not."

"What are signs of sex?"
"You mean, like physical signs?"
"You feel it in the poonanny."

So, yes. Anyways.

A typical day consisted of rolling out of bed, perhaps a wee bit hungover, then going straight to the pool and contemplating how we could heckle the golfers (The house was located near the 8th hole of a golf course). We made ourselves "spa lunches" - for instance, like the ridiculously healthy mayo-less chicken salad over grilled zucchini. But "spa lunch" needs to be in quotes, because they were usually served up with "spa water", which looked like club soda with lemon and cucumbers, but with the addition of a healthy serving of vodka. This was, of course, followed by returning poolside with a bottle or two of wine for the rest of the afternoon.

We're just working on our own Valley of the Dolls type scene. But with alcohol instead of pills.

And no computers were turned on during the entire duration of the stay. It was bliss.

One favourite night was when we headed over to a friend's parents' house for afternoon cocktails... only to end up staying there the rest of the night, as they grilled steaks and other delectable treats while we all worked our way through another case of wine.

Or perhaps it was the night we ran out to Wal-mart to get fake eyelashes, so that we could drink champagne and stage a pillow fight photoshoot whilst all made up (you know, to make the guys in our lives happy).

There would be perhaps more incriminating pictures, but I'm saving those for blackmail purposes. Or, also, saving myself from potential future blackmail.

It really hasn't been that hot of a hot summer. This is a good thing.

2007-08-08T16:49:00.000-04:00

Ranking really really high on the list of things I do not like to eat is yogurt.

I have never liked yogurt. There's something about its taste and consistency that are extremely off-putting. I also do not like sour cream, cottage cheese, nor mayonnaise as well, in case you were wondering. (Yet I really like aioli. Maybe it's the addition of garlic. Maybe it's the fact that it doesn't come in a gross cruddy glass jar that's been sitting in the fridge for aeons.)

Every couple of years, I'll try yogurt again, because I know it's supposed to be healthy and all that crap. The last round, approximately two years ago, had me trying all sorts of different yogurts, including that famed Fage. The only one I came remotely close to even being okay with was this brand called Liberté, which I had when the owners of a B&B in Montreal served it for breakfast. I bought some to try again at home, and realized that perhaps yogurt loses its healthy qualities when you dump truckloads of granola and honey atop it.

And yes, I do hate Pinkberry, because - it's supposed to taste like yogurt, but in frozen soft serve form. Guess what? It doesn't make it any more palatable to me.

Really, the only way I could have yogurt was if it was baked into a cake. Then it's not yogurt, it's cake. And the only bad cake is moldy cake.

But recently, I came across this lovely recipe that actually has me buying yogurt. I know! It's absolute madness! At my advisor's house last month, she had me make this chilled cucumber and yogurt soup, and it's not like I could say no, I refuse on the principles that I hate yogurt (especially since I had offered to help with dinner). Obviously I had to have some at dinner as well, and guess what? I didn't hate it!

It's a really light, refreshing summer soup. It falls under my "ladies who lunch" category - this is the type of soup that I'd imagine them having. It'd be perfect at a tea, or perhaps with some nice crusty bread, as a light dinner.

***

Chilled cucumber and yogurt soup with mint
Adapted from Patricia Wells's Vegetable Harvest (2007)

The original recipe calls for dill to be added. I don't like the taste of dill, so I omitted it. But if you really want dill, use 2 tablespoons when you blend the soup together, and then extra as garnish. I served the soup here in clear glasses. If only I had a patio - it's the perfect thing to sit outside and sip (aside from alcohol, of course).

It's also nice to perk it up a little with a squeeze of lime when serving it.

Ingredients
1 European or hothouse cucumber (about 1 pound)
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 cups nonfat yogurt
1 plump moist clove garlic, peeled, halved, green germ removed, minced
1/3 cup finely minced fresh mint leaves

Trim and peel the cucumber and cut into chunks. In a blender, combine the cucumber, salt, yogurt, garlic, and 2 tablespoons of mint. Purée.

Taste for seasoning. Transfer to a bowl and cover securely. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.

At serving time, reblend the soup to a smooth purée with an immersion blender, a food processor, or a blender (or, just shake it all really well). Pour the soup into the chilled soup bowls. Garnish with the remaining mint and serve.

He might get a 10 for perseverance, but he gets an 11 for stupidity.

2007-08-02T08:33:00.000-04:00

If this isn't the worst pickup line(s) I've heard (can't really remember all of them now; I try to block the pain), it definitely ranks way way way up there.

Setting: Bar in Westwood, near UCLA. Monday nights are the nights a couple of us go and get drunk, to start the week off right. Also, the bartender is awesome and is our friend.

Male: I'm a nurse at UCLA - #3 in the nation, #1 on the West coast.

Me (to my friend): Are you kidding me? That's his line? That's his opening gambit? That's the best he's got?

Me (to the idiot male): That's nice. I knew that already. I do research there.

So then we proceed to ignore the guy. And we talk to our friend the bartender, who tells us about an even worse opening play: one of his friends went home with a guy, they're fooling around on the bed, and then the guy reaches under his bed (?!), pulls out a handful of Cool Whip (?!?!), and smears it on her face (?!?!?!?!). We all agree, that is definitely the worst ever.

Male, again: My name is Adam. Do you girls like to party?

My friend: Whatthefuck?

Male: You girls look like you'd do keg stands.

My friend: Bartender, please save us.

Bartender: Hey, you harassing the mothers of my children?

My friend: Can't he see that I am married? (She is, but not to the bartender.) What do I have to do, wave it in his face some more?

Me: You probably have to punch him using that hand, so that the ring gets indented in his cheek or something.

And so we proceed to talk amongst ourselves. Again. Excluding the idiot male nurse (or murse, as the bartender starts calling him). Yet, to no avail.

Male, again: Hey, my name is Adam and I'm a nurse at UCLA. 3rd in the country, 1st on the West coast.

Me: Are you fucking kidding me?

My friend: We could definitely take him out. He's sipping on some wine, and we've had four martinis apiece. (Sadly, this is true. But we'd been there for over 6 hours. Wow. I don't know what's worse - 4 martinis on a Monday, or being in a bar for over 6 hours. On a Monday.)

Me: As much as I like hanging out here, I think we're really going to have to call it a night.

Bartender: Until next week?

Me and my friend: Unfortunately, yes.

Naked: good in some contexts, not-so-good in others

2007-07-30T11:24:00.000-04:00

I'm the sort who, whilst tanning on the beach, likes to undo the straps of her bikini top as to avoid tan lines on her back. So, I suppose, that were you to encounter me on the beach while I'm lying on my stomach, you might think that I have no top on. But I do. You just can't see it at the moment.

Hence, I guess I shouldn't be so surprised that while I was lying on my stomach, trying to get my back tanner, that some old European guy (complete with short shorts, hairy chest and back, and gold chain) came over to me and asked, "Is this a topless beach?"

And then to follow it up with, "In my country, there are lots of topless beaches. There are even all-nude beaches! There is no shame in nudity there!"

It's always the ones you don't want to see naked who revel in it the most.

***

Anyway. I know that it's summer, and I know that turning on the oven in the summer is a complete anathema, but sometimes a little bit of heat has to be endured for some good food. Namely, salmon - I'm very particular with how I like my salmon cooked. I want it just this side of raw, which usually means that searing, pan-frying, grilling, roasting... all those options for cooking salmon are out, unless the person cooking is really skilled and can keep most of the salmon raw. Plus, those methods quite literally make the kitchen stink of fish for days.

I was thus overjoyed to find a recipe in the LA Times a couple of weeks back for slow-cooked salmon. Essentially, you roast your salmon in an oven set at very low heat, which cooks the salmon yet keeps it moist and your kitchen odor-free. It really works.

Obviously, only use good salmon for this, as this method of cooking only enhances the freshness of the fish. Not-fresh fish = not-fresh results. Since I've been spending more time at the beach, I usually make a point to stop by a fish market on my way home, where nearly everything's been caught that day.

While the recipe calls for roasting the salmon on a bed of onions, I used oranges since I didn't have any onions in my apartment, and I figured that oranges would work fine. They did, and they imbued the skin with the slightest hint of orange flavor. Anything to create a rack so that any fishy juices end up in the bottom of the pan rather than back in the fish.

***

Before and after shots of the salmon. Really, not so much difference there.

Slow-roasted salmon
Adapted from the LA Times

For each serving:
1 salmon fillet (5-6 ounces)
coarse sea salt
olive oil
1/2 large onion, peeled and thinly sliced (or, thinly sliced citrus fruit)
1 tablespoon chopped fines herbes (or, whatever. I skipped this part)

Sprinkle the salmon evenly with sea salt to taste, about 1/4 teaspoon on each fillet. Set aside for about 30 minutes to bring to room temperature.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 225 degrees.

Brush about 2 tablespoons olive oil over a shallow baking dish just large enough to hold the salmon in one layer. Strew the onion (or citrus) slices over the oil. Brush the fillets lightly with olive oil (about 1 tablespoon per fillet) and place them on the onions, skin side down.

Bake until the salmon is done to your taste. According to the recipe, almost raw is 10 minutes, cooked through is 30 minutes. I let it go for 25 minutes, and the thickest parts of the fillet were still a bit raw. Then again, my oven tends to run a wee bit on the cooler side.

Remove the salmon from the oven, and discard the onion slices. Sprinkle the salmon with the chopped fines herbes, and serve hot or cold. I served mine with a side of corn fritters (corn bought from the farmers' market, of course), some basil from one of my plants, and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

In the summer, it's all about the simple things.

2007-07-24T08:20:00.000-04:00

It's really the lazy days of summer, with not much to do during the day but work on papers. There was that little stint of jury duty, but luckily I got out after one day after not having been put on a panel. Which is good, really, because I was having a difficult time thinking up good explanations as to why I shouldn't be put on a jury were I to be called. I thought the going out with 4 different lawyers in the past, all of whom now work in litigation in either LA or DC, would do the trick. Good thing I didn't have to go about expounding on that. It might've been awkward.

So one of the things I associate with summer is iced coffee. Actually, I do drink iced coffee throughout the year, even in the winter, but winters in LA rarely get so cold that partaking in iced coffee would be a foreign idea. I think it's because that summer I lived in New York, which does get swelteringly hot and humid and just gross, iced coffee, from the little deli around the corner from my work, was one of the few things that kept me sane (and awake).

But never had I had cold-brewed iced coffee before. The description of it made my mouth water: "Without the bitterness produced by hot water, the cold-brewed coffee had hints of chocolate, even caramel. I dropped my sugar packet — no need for it. The best brews hardly need cream. It really is the kind of thing a gentleman might spend five days in hot-coffee solitary confinement for."

Even if I did think it a bit of a hyperbole - no sugar in coffee? What a foreign concept! Especially since my coffee is always more milk and sugar than actual coffee. So I just had to try it.

And indeed - I've now cut down the sugar to a mere sprinkling, if any, although I do prefer it with more milk than water. It's a great summer treat, and you can make a lot of the concentrate and keep it in the fridge, making yourself a newly-mixed cup of iced coffee whenever you want.

******

Cold-brewed iced coffee
Recipe adapted from the New York Times

The recipe linked makes enough for two drinks, or so they say. They also serve it with equal parts coffee and equal parts water, putting milk in at the end. Since I take my coffee with a lot of milk, the water just... well, waters everything down. Also, I use a French press to make my iced coffee, since it saves on the twice-filtering step. Sure, there might be a little bit of sediment leftover, but that usually sinks to the bottom of the container I store the concentrate in. Don't swirl it around, and you won't get any in your drink. Measurements are for a 32 ounce French press - at least, that's the size I think mine is. And make sure you use good coffee, but that goes without being said.

Put 1 cup of coffee, medium-coarsely ground, in your French press, along with 4.5 cups of water. Stir very gently, making sure that all the coffee is moist, but more likely than not, you'll be at the very tippy top of your French press. I guess you could reduce the measurements a bit so that it all fits in neatly, but whatevs. Put the top of your French press on, but don't push down on the strainer. Leave overnight. I find that 12-18 hours works best. Strain, carefully. Do this in the sink so that you don't get coffee everywhere. I know this from experience.

Fill a glass with ice cubes. The ratio of coffee-to-milk that I like is 1:2 (1 part coffee, two parts milk). Add a touch of sugar if you must, but you'd be surprised (as I was) to learn that you don't need very much at all. Enjoy on a warm summer afternoon, or anytime, really.

How to catch crawfish.

2007-07-16T07:56:00.000-04:00

What doesn't work:

*Reaching into the water and trying to simply grab them
*Using gummy bears as bait
*Trying to whack them with a kayak paddle
*Pretending the kayak paddle is a rock, then lifting the unsuspecting crawfish out of the water once they're atop the paddle
*Aggressively attempting to trap them between a rock and a hard place, using the paddle to move them along

What does work:

*An actual trap with a chicken carcass as bait, left overnight.

Conclusions:

Unfortunately, since we still had only eight the next morning (I blame the fact that we put the trap where the current was especially strong), that wasn't enough for a meal so we had to let them go. Next time, bring a net.

I'm just a lazy writer these days.

2007-07-10T10:46:00.000-04:00

You know how sometimes, all it takes is the merest suggestion of a disease and you instantly think you've contracted it? Oh, wait, that's only me? Sigh. Anyways, I volunteer at a preschool on Friday mornings, and one of the children was rubbing her eye... and then one of teachers told me that that particular child's father recently had pinkeye..

..And next thing you know, why, didn't my left eye feel like it was on fire.

(It turned out that there was just an eyelash in my eye. No conjunctivitis for me!)

So I could write about the day trip we took up to Santa Barbara, in which we manage to cram in tanning on the beach, wine tasting, antique shopping, drinks with a friend who lives there, and a couple of good meals.. but you got the whole summary of our trip, right there. Maybe another time.

And anyways. I'm in Oregon for the week. The trip will pretty much be a repeat of this, although hopefully without the large scary bug.

The first sorbet of the season.

2007-07-03T10:48:00.000-04:00

I'm not really an ice cream person - I can have a taste or two, but in the end, it sort of bores me. Shocking, I know. I think it's also in part because I'm a slow eater, and when you're a slow eater, iced treats melt. I know some people like that ice cream soup, but I can't stand it at all.

However, this doesn't stop me from wanting to make all sorts of ice creams and sorbets. There's something oddly satisfying about it, from preparing the custard/sorbet base to watching it whirl around in the ice cream machine, miraculously producing ... well, ice cream. Or sorbet.

I know I made a roasted banana ice cream a couple of months back, but my ice cream maker had gone back into hibernation until recently. With all the plethora of summer fruits, I always end up buying way too much and they always go mushy before I can get around to eating them.

Hence, the ice cream maker has come out again, so that I can take full advantage of these softened fruits and not let anything go to waste.

First up is a cantaloupe sorbet, spiked with a little lime juice to keep it from being overly sweet. And it was simple as pie - I took the flesh from a large cantaloupe and pureed it in the blender, adding in the juice of one lime. A simple syrup was made by combining half a cup of water and half a cup of sugar. All of this was mixed together and set in the fridge to chill, then churned in the ice cream maker.

It captures the aroma of fresh cantaloupe perfectly, with a wee bit of tartness to keep it interesting. And what's not to like about that?

Guess what I'm bringing to my friend's Fourth of July BBQ tomorrow?

(This is also being submitted for Meeta's Monthly Mingle: Ice cream.)

It's funny how you can totally swear you'll move back to a place, then massive humidity hits and it's all, "I'm going back to LA, suckas!"

2007-06-26T10:35:00.000-04:00

Excerpt from email written at 3 this morning to friends. (Why so early, you ask? Because my flight obnoxiously got in at 1:30am.)

In addition to the complete and utter Masshole-y flight attendants (see definition #3), complete with both accents and attitudes, my flight home was marked by two particular interesting (and I use that loosely) people: 1) A pre-teen, who, right before the plane was ready to take off, decided to flee the plane as if the very hounds of hell were chasing after him, followed closely by his (adult) traveling companion, thereby involving a 40 minute delay as the state police had to come and deal with things and their luggage had to be taken off the plane, and 2) a bearded woman.

I am not even kidding about the second one.

Anyways, so, right. Where were we? I was in Boston, where were you? And it was a spectacularly lovely weekend - the weather was just absolutely perfect, up until Monday when I left.

At the ICA.

Some of the things I did:
*Visited the new ICA. While the art is eh, the building is awesome
*Got lobster rolls out in East Boston. Vow every trip to return for MORE.
*Went to the Bueno Queso Social Club. It's as much fun as it sounds. Maybe more.
*Went to the SoWa Open Market.
*Saw the Edward Hopper exhibit at the MFA. Thanks, BU, for not putting an expiration date on your student ID cards, even when one's only taken a summer course there aeons ago, thereby enabling me to get into the museum for free.
*Generally, ate well, drank well, slept well, and had a lot of fun. As always.

At Belle Isle Seafood, which, when my friend was telling me about it, I thought she was saying "Bell Eel", and I was really hesitant about going someplace with that kind of name

It's funny how Fake Boyfriend, every trip, talks to me like I've never been to Boston before. For instance, he asked me about my plans for the one of the days while he was at work, and when I told him I was going to the MFA, he went into lengthy detail (worked at putting me to sleep, at least) about how to get to an appropriate T-station and which train to take out there. Maybe men just have a natural inclination (at least around me) to be a wee bit all, "Look at me, I'm a male, hear me roar!" Or, "Look at me, I'm a male, I know my directions!"

View from the apartment; and yes, the apartment building has a floor "3.5"

FB's moved to the South End, which is rather annoying to get to by public transportation (at least by T), but it's a lovely part of Boston I heretofore haven't really gotten to know well. While all the brownstones are super-cute (and super-expensive), unless you're one of the lucky (or willing to pay lots of money), you must park on the street. What do you do when it snows? Ah, that's why I don't live in Boston right now. Plus, did you hear that it gets humid in the summer?

Bueno queso indeed. And buenas otras cosas also.

But, as always, it's good to be home. Home, where I live alone, and don't have to hear finance guys (FB and all his friends are in finance) talk about "low hanging fruit", how GREAT is the fund they're working on, should they call China now to see if they can get any additional info, oh dear, haven't checked the Blackberry every minute, how much the principal partners at their firms are worth, etcetc. It's enough to drive a girl to drink.

Why, yes. Sometimes I have the humor of a 13-year-old boy.

Sunscreen sprays are great - this time, I'm only burned a wee bit on my bum.

2007-06-18T08:22:00.000-04:00

Is there a summer day more perfect than a couple of hours lying out at the beach - and by happenstance, catching some sort of surfing competition - followed by fried seafood? Maybe if lobster rolls were also involved, but fried clam strips are not a bad thing either.

Incidentally, I do a very good impression of a stoned surfer. It's one of my many talents.

Oh, and then to follow that all up with a dinner party! It's during the summer when I really wish I had some sort of patio or deck, so I could grill all the time. Because I would, and it would be fun. But, in lieu of that, and given the fact that one of my friends at this dinner was a vegetarian, I opted for a lighter beginning-of-summer meal, with tons of fresh fruits and vegetables.

I served a simple canapé of little toasts spread with my strawberry basil pesto, topped with radishes fresh from the farmers' market and sprinkled with sea salt along with prosecco juleps. I love regular ol' mint juleps (shockingly, the bartender last night did NOT know how to make a mint julep from scratch. I was appalled. There are such things as mint julep mixes? Egads! And yes, I went drinking on a Sunday night), but most people find them too strong. This drink was a great compromise. The appetizer was an adaptation of a recipe from Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte, which in turn was inspired by a tapas restaurant in Barcelona.

Then it was time for ricotta gnocchi with mushrooms, sweet corn, and sage brown butter. I have to say that while making this, I wasn't too sure that it was going to come out - after all, my gnocchi didn't look anything like the picture. But Sunday Suppers at Lucques hasn't let me down yet, and somehow it all turned out spectacularly well, and I might have to make this dish all of the time now. I could also just eat the buttered corn for days on end. I'm far too lazy to type the long recipe out, but if you have it... instead of using toasted regular breadcrumbs, I instead showered the pasta with panko breadcrumbs, which was far easier and added a nice texture to the dish. It was served with a zucchini carpaccio salad - the squash again purchased from the farmers' market.

And then, for dessert - a sugary-sweet pavlova, served with strawberries macerated in balsamic vinegar for a bit of a tart kick and whipped cream, along with some choco-mocca liqueur. I've read a few reports of pavlovas, and it's really easy to let the dish get too sweet. I think that the balsamic vinegar, as well as the fact that the whipped cream wasn't sweetened (just flavored a touch with some vanilla extract) was important in keep the dessert from being a dentist's nightmare.

That I pulled this all off in just under three hours amazes me (note to self: going to the beach before a dinner party isn't always the best of ideas), but it all worked out in the end. And if I could get a buttered corn IV implanted in my arm, I'd be SO happy.

******

Prosecco juleps
Recipe from the LA Times
Serves 1, multiply to make more

4 mint leaves (or 2 shiso leaves)
1 tablespoon simple syrup
6 ounces chilled Prosecco
dash bourbon (I'd use more, perhaps a tablespoon, but I like bourbon)

In a cocktail shaker, combine the mint leaves and simple syrup. Press on the leaves with a muddler to break the shiso into very small pieces (flecks, not large pieces). Slowly pour the Prosecco into the shaker, letting the bubbles subside. Strain into a flute glass (you will have small flecks of mint in the flute glass).

Or, you can do the muddling in a mortar and pestle, then just spoon a tablespoon of the mint + simple syrup combination into your flute glass, pouring the champagne straight atop. Guess which way I did things?

Top with bourbon.

******

Canned tuna with beans, roasted red peppers
Adapted from Cooking for Mr. Latte
Serves 4

Even though all the ingredients come from cans, this dish is surprisingly fresh tasting - perhaps because it's so simple. The original recipe calls for a creamy red pepper spread, but I had already used every single last bowl in my kitchen and really balked at taking out the blender as well. So, instead, I sliced up the roasted red peppers and left them as is. Also, I couldn't find marinated white beans, so I dressed my own. Easy peasy.

12 ounces tuna preserved in olive oil
1/4-1/2 teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika
2 red bell peppers, roasted, deskinned, deseeded, and sliced
1 can white beans
truffle oil
red wine vinegar
parsley, chopped

Begin with all ingredients at room temperature.

Drain the tuna from the oil and place it in a bowl. Sprinkle over the paprika and stir gently to mix.

Drain the white beans, and rinse them a couple of times to make sure you've gotten rid of all the excess starch. Place the beans in a bowl, and drizzle with truffle olive oil and red wine vinegar. Be sparing - you don't need them soaking in the oil and vinegar. Toss to combine.

Arrange the tuna, white beans, and roasted red peppers on the plate. Sprinkle the chopped parsley over the beans. Et voila!

As soon as I finish editing this one stupid paper, I am DONE for the academic year! Yet, still procrastinating.

2007-06-15T07:20:00.000-04:00

Ideas for dates that interest me not at all:

*Shark petting
*Going to a Dodgers game
*Karaoke
*Watching cage fighting
*Walking on coals
*Having a Star Wars marathon
*Going paintballing
*Hiking

Game for you: guess which have been suggested to me recently! And guess which I've gone on!

(I am trying to come up with more repulsive [to me, at least] ideas, but am having problems. My head hurts.)

Anyways, do you find yourself with a plethora of strawberries and basil, and you just don't know what to do with them? Why, you could make yourself some strawberry basil pesto, which is an interesting twist on your regular ol' plain basil pesto. I think I used more strawberries than I was supposed to, since my pesto is markedly pink, whereas the one in the picture in the recipe link isn't, but surprisingly, the strawberry taste isn't overwhelming. Were I to make this in the future (ooh, what a lovely Valentine's day dish this would make, or something for a baby shower, or some other girly event), I'd probably return to using pine nuts, or I'd make sure the almonds were really well ground up. While I show it above with pasta, can you imagine it tossed with heirloom tomatoes? Oh, now that would be a really felicitous marriage of flavours indeed. Or, ooh, who is having a dinner party this weekend where this would serve as the basis for a lovely canapé?

Procrastination and improvisation.

2007-06-11T08:34:00.000-04:00

You know how you can pretty much be 100% sure that you don't want to see a guy anymore? When you realise that you'd rather do homework than call him back, let alone go out with him again. Yes, that's pretty much a definite right there.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Yes, homework. Really. I was so productive the last couple of weeks.

Anyways.

In my quest to Spend More Time outdoors, my friends and I decided to go to one of those outdoor movie screenings. I have tried to go to Shakespeare in the Park (in whichever city I've lived in - seems like all big cities have something along these lines) in the past, but, and it might be blasphemous to say so, I really am not the biggest fan of performed Shakespeare. I've been to performances since I was 15, and it's never done it for me. I always end up 1) falling asleep, 0r 2) leaving somewhere around the first act.

Back to the movies. The gates opened at 7:30. I thought I was being all smart and clever by getting to the cemetery by 7:20, figuring I'd drive around a bit to look for street parking before probably having to eventually park in the parking lot.... only to be stuck in the most horrendous line of non-moving traffic I have ever experienced. By 7:50, I had moved precisely half a block.

No wait, a little bit more.

2/3rds of a block.

Frustrated, I called my friends whom I was meeting there and told them I was leaving, I didn't even know what the movie of the night was even about. Similarly stuck in non-moving traffic, they said they were going to abandon their post as well... and since we had all the picnic food, and my apartment was the closest one to the cemetery, well, we'd just have a picnic at my apartment.

Yes, the lawn chairs and picnic blankets were still brought out and we had a jolly ol' picnic in my apartment watching a far funnier movie.

(You know, I could spend my morning working on my last final, or I could go to the movies. Guess what wins? Really, why isn't there someone around to whom you don't want to talk when you need it?)

When will it be summer already?

2007-06-04T07:08:00.000-04:00

Granted, it's not quite summer for me yet, neither academically (almost, though!) nor even technically seasonally, and while we're still getting that dratted marine layer coming in early in the evenings and leaving late in the mornings, it's still practically summer. Why, the burn on my shoulders says it is. (You'd think that I'd learn that prolonged time spent outside, even if not on the beach, could result in a sunburn. No, lesson not learned yet.)

In the style of Splendora, here's a list of my summer picks.

What to wear: Patrick Robinson Silk Crinkle Georgette Dress. Shh, it's from Target! Regardless, it's super-cute on, takes you easily from day to night with just a change of shoes and accessories, and it's machine-washable. Can you ask for anything more from a dress?

What to flip flop: Havaianas, in any color. I'm sorry, there's really no other acceptable substitute.

What to ballet flat: Melissa + Campana Sapatilha in gold. Comfortable, and they don't look like your regular plastic jellies.

What to heel: What, you want real shoes? It's the summer. But, if you must, these Lucie high heels from J. Crew will certainly do the trick. You can never go wrong with a classic strappy black stiletto.

What to makeup: Fresh High Noon Freshface Glow. A bit of this, a touch of mascara (my current favorite), some lip balm, and you're good to go!

What to bag: Kate Spade Cape Cod Griffen Shopper. Does anything remind you more of summer than a good ol' Maine lobster? Oh, wait, that's just me? Anyways. I'm not usually a plastic PVC bag sort of girl, but I couldn't pass this one up, with of course this used to keep wallet, phone, etc shielded from the curious eyes of others. If not, then the ever-classic Hervé Chapelier, in all its myriad of forms and color combinations, is always great for the beach, the park, extra just-in-case bag when traveling, etc. It might not be as trendy as it was a couple of years ago, but that's a good thing in my book.

What to sunglass: Do you constantly lose, scratch, sit on, etc your sunglasses? Oh wait, that's just me again? These sunglasses are perfect for you (and me) then (although I'm not quite sure why they look so ugly online).

What to eat: Otsu, first seen here, more recently seen here. Oh my, but this dish is good. I made some last night for lunch this week, and couldn't help but eating the dressed noodles straight out of the mixing bowl. It's a great vegetarian dish with plenty of protein, nice and light for the summer, and I think that if you replaced the honey, it'd be perfect for your vegan friends as well.

What to drink: Pernod. I used to hate anise, and couldn't tolerate Ricard, but I had Pernod again for the first time in many years at a pique-nique yesterday (that I had already had several glasses of wine probably helped matters), and couldn't help but gush about how perfect a summer drink it is. (Yes, I know the same company makes Pernod and Ricard. I had Ricard again as well yesterday, and far prefer the Pernod.) It's light and summery and requires nothing more than water as a mixer. (What's next, I start playing pétanque?)

What to do: Spend as much time outside as humanly possible. Go to the beach, have picnics and BBQs, go to outdoor concerts and movie screenings, etc. But don't forget the sunscreen!

What to read: Anything not academic. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have very much of a choice there.

I wish the trash trucks wouldn't wake me up at 8AM on a holiday. Especially when I was having a rather nice dream about shopping and speaking French.

2007-05-28T10:01:00.000-04:00

Where I would much rather be right now.

I'd apologise for it being a week since I last wrote, but I don't feel sorry, for it's not only approaching the end of the quarter (which means papers! Although, true, I only have one to write), but my advisor wants me to put out a paper for publication within the month (on a topic I'm not terribly familiar with, but, "it's a challenge!" she says), and I have annoying things to do like, um, write a review paper, do more research, and TA and stuff. To say I don't really feel compelled to write more is an understatement. I'm just waiting for the summer so I can... oh, right. Do more research.

(Right now is not the right time to be asking if I am enjoying pursuing my PhD.)

But a girl needs to eat, and not eat yummy fatty food, like duck and bacon and cupcakes, all the time. Not that there's anything wrong with it. But a break had every once in awhile is a relief for the system.

So, even though it's Memorial Day, and it's my second night this weekend having BBQ, I present you with two lighter options, in case eating grilled meats isn't your cup of tea or you need to detox after gorging yourself on meat. Ha. My mind went in the gutter there for a second, sorry.

(Yet, of course, the two following dishes do involve meat [it can't be avoided!], although it's easily subbed out in one of them, at least. More importantly, for me at least, they're lower on the carbs, which to me equals healthy.)

******

Quinoa with bell peppers, chickpeas, mushrooms, and bacon
Quite obviously, this salad can be amended in a plethora of ways. You don't need the bacon, or the pepper, or the mushrooms (although I would really recommend the chickpeas, they're dynamite cooked like this), and you can sub in anything else you want. But I have to say, this combination is rather tasty. And even better, it's healthy, and keeps quite nicely for lunch.

1 cup quinoa
6 slices of bacon, chopped
1 can chickpeas, drained
1/2 pound of mushrooms, sliced
1 bell pepper, chopped

Cook the quinoa according to the directions on the package. (Or, roughly, add the 1 cup of quinoa and 2 cups of water to a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cover, cooking until all the water is absorbed, approximately 15-20 minutes.)

Fry the bacon in a large pan. When the bacon is crisp, remove the bacon to a paper towel to drain, but keep the fat in the pan. Add the chickpeas to the pan, and fry for several minutes, until the chickpeas are nice and golden (I dare you not to eat all the chickpeas after this step). Add the chickpeas to the cooked quinoa.

In the same pan, add more olive oil if you need it, then saute the mushrooms until they are lovely and brown and limp. Season with salt and pepper at this point.

Add the mushrooms and chopped bell pepper to the quinoa and chickpeas, and toss to combine. If you have some parsley lying around, I'd chop some up and throw it in at this point, but I didn't have any.

******

Duck soup
Quite obviously, this is an improvised soup made from the leftover duck bones I had from the roast duck. It's actually a wee bit unctuous, probably due to the fact that duck is a fatty bird and I was too lazy to strain out all the fat properly. It also relies heavily on stuff-in-the-fridge-or-pantry, and again, is quite open to improvisation, hence my lack of exact amounts, since I have no idea how much of anything I used.

1 duck carcass
dried mushrooms
meatballs (my mom made these and gave them to me. I think they're pork. I'm not really quite sure. I don't ask sometimes.)
tofu, cut into cubes
soy sauce

Make duck stock from the carcass by covering the bones with water and letting it all simmer for a couple of hours. After cooling, refrigerate the stock overnight. Skim off all the fat the next morning. You'll probably have around, oh, say, 10-12 cups of stock. You don't need all of it for the soup, unless you want a lot of soup. It's your perogative. I froze about 2/3rds of the stock I made.

Pour the amount of stock you want in a large saucepan, and add the meatballs at this step if they were previously frozen (mine were). Bring to a light boil. Add the dried mushrooms and tofu, and let it all simmer together for a bit, until the mushrooms are reconstituted and the tofu is warmed through. Salt the soup at this point. I actually undersalted the soup so that I could add some soy sauce later for more depth of flavor.

If you had some udon or soba noodles, they'd probably be awesome in the soup. But I didn't, and I was trying to give myself a break from starches anyway.

It was a meaty weekend.

2007-05-21T07:56:00.000-04:00

Me: Yay! My friend from DC is coming this weekend! She wants lots of bacon.
Friend: Why bacon? LA isn't particularly known for its bacon, is it?
Me: Ummm...
Friend: It's you! She associates you with bacon!

And yes, my friend from DC does associate me with bacon, just as I her. We don't send each other emails updating the other on what's happening in our lives; we send each other articles about red meat and bacon. You think I'm kidding, but I'm so not. It's a great friendship.

And if you can't get out of town, the next best thing is to have an out-of-town guest who only requests two things: bacon and booze. It makes life easy, and you're forced into relaxing too since you can hardly do work when bacon and booze are in the picture for an entire weekend.

(I recently got a massage, and the masseuse, after one minute of rubbing my back, said, "You're a student, aren't you." Oh, so sad that my knotted-up back muscles give me away so quickly.)

So there was bacon had, in addition to massive amounts of shopping. Our weekend went roughly like this: eat shop eat drink shop eat shop drink drink.

And then there was duck.

I've had this duck sitting in my freezer for the last couple of months, a gag gift from my sister who knows I'm obsessed with eating duck. Even though it weighed 4 pounds, and technically supposed was able to feed four people, it seemed a little small for any of the recent dinner parties I've thrown. But it's perfect for two people!

After consulting several recipes, I said, ah, crap, what the heck, I'm just going to stick it in the oven and hope it turns out well. Okay, it was a little more involved than that, but not by much. And after a mini Ocean's marathon (Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Twelve, accompanied with several martinis and wine), the duck was ready. And good. And I have leftovers I'm totally looking forward to putting in duck quesadillas.

Bacon, booze, buying, and birds. It's a happy life.

******

Crispy skinned roast duck
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking.
Serves 2-3, depending on level of hunger and desired level of neatness in carving up the duck.

Salt
1 duck, approximately 4 pounds, all cleaned up and out
Two clementines
Baby potatoes
Onions

Wash and dry the duck. Rub the entire duck with salt, approximately 3/4 teaspoon for every pound of duck. Pierce the clementines with a knife and place in the cavity of the duck. Place in bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit in the fridge overnight.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Pierce the duck all over with a toothpick (this is to allow the fat to drain out. You're supposed to use a small thin knife, etcetc, but a toothpick worked fine, especially since I have those slightly larger round ones, almost like a bamboo skewer). Halve the baby potatoes, and peel and cut the onions into large wedges. Arrange the potatoes and onions in the roasting pan, drizzle with some olive oil, and place the duck atop. (I had a roasting rack, so I used that to elevate the duck).

Roast the duck for approximately 3-4 hours. Or, you can be impatient as I was, and roast it for approximately 2.5 hours at 250 degrees Fahrenheit, then for an hour at 300 degrees. I turned the duck a couple of times, and stirred the potatoes and onions occasionally to make sure they didn't burn. I also pierced the duck each time before I turned it.

Turn the oven up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (or, for me, 370, because I wanted the duck to be done already, and my oven does skew a bit cooler than what it actually says) and roast for another 35-45 minutes. Make sure your duck is breast-side up for this last roasting at the higher temperature so that the skin browns more attractively for presentation's sake.

Serve alongside with the potatoes and onions. I suppose one could make a gravy out of the remaining pan juices, but we were too hungry and I was too lazy. The duck was nice and moist all on its own, so making the gravy might have been a touch superfluous anyway.

The ramblings of my mind even confuse me, sometimes.

2007-05-16T07:07:00.000-04:00

Graffiti on a wall in Portland. Still not quite exactly sure of its significance.

You know it's been one of those nights when you're awoken by someone gently but insistently pounding on the bedroom door, turn over to get your bearings, and realize you don't remember the name of the guy whose bed you're in.

(The one at the door? Your friend, who's ready to go home now, thankyouverymuch, given that apparently the guy she hooked up with snores.)

One quibble: WHY are there no diners in LA? Because surely, a diner would be open at 6:15am as the two of you make your way home.

Something to think about: When I tell guys I meet in bars that I'm getting my PhD, with the intention of becoming a professor, half don't know what to do with this information while the other half invaribly respond with, "Wow, if you were my professor, I'd totally want to do you," or some variation thereof.

Now, I believe that in the narrow expanses of the male brain, this is considered a compliment. I also assume this has something to do with some lingering adolescent lust processes I don't even want to get into right now. However, the thoughts that fly through my mind (or plod, depending on the amount of alcohol I've had), are 1) Couldn't you come up with a better line?, 2) WTF, what about my brain, nearly 24 years of schooling, can you be attracted to me for my mind, and 3) Really? Sex? That's really always on your mind, isn't it.

Also, it always makes me a little self-conscious for the week or so (until I forget) post-"compliment" when I'm actually in class TAing, because I can't help but be suspicious as to what exactly is going on in the heads of the guys in my classroom. Besides how boring the lecture is and exactly how much Vitamin C is in those protein shakes they're drinking, that is.

(Of course, since I'm usually tipsy, if not drunk, by this point, my response is something along the lines of... well, me blinking a bit and taking a big swig of my drink. I haven't yet been able to figure out an appropriately witty, whether insulting or flattering, response yet.)

(Ohohoh! I have a retort now! Two retorts, in fact, depending on the how attractive said guy is. Response A, for a cute guy, is, "If you were my student, I'd do you too." Too forward? Perhaps. But it would be funny! Response B, for someone less than desirable, is, "If you were my student, I would be wondering why you were so old and yet in my class." Too mean? Hee. I think it's still funny. I will let you know if ever I remember to use them. Gosh. Sometimes, I am no worse than a guy with my ability to come up with stupid lines, I think.)

Perhaps I shouldn't be hypocritical, since when drunk in Cancun one night, my friend and I made a ranked list of our professors in order according who we would most want to have sex with. Yes. Alcohol tends to make the mind wander to such topics. And don't you dare tell me that you never entertained such thoughts about your cute professors. Since there are so few male faculty, we had to bring in male administrators and even our favourite bartenders. Yes, we made a list. Yes, it's actually on paper somewhere. Hey, we incorporated their personality into our rankings too, so we're not all doing it based on looks.

If that book gets into the wrong hands, we're so screwed.

The city of (currently no) roses.

2007-05-12T10:29:00.000-04:00

Oh, right. So I'm not still in Portland. It was only a quick weekend trip, after all. It's just that... well, it was swelteringly hot in LA when I got back, and obviously when it's that hot I just lie there on my couch eating bonbons and watching TV, and... yeah.

I don't think I expected Portland to be quite as small and quiet as it was. I think I expected something more along the lines of Seattle, where I was in December - not as lively as LA, but definitely not a quiet surburbia. Yet it was calm and quiet, albeit with massive industrialization along the river, which was another surprise. And perhaps the biggest surprise of all was that Things Close Early, namely restaurants. We got in rather late on Friday night (thanks, United, for the 2.5 hour flight delay!), and on Saturday night we also wanted a late dinner, and it was a real problem finding anyone who served around 10pm. On a weekday night, perhaps that wouldn't be so surprising, but it was a weekend after all. And as we'd drive by bars in our cab to and from dinner, they'd be on the emptier side.

Yes, many signs, for clothing stores and restaurants alike, had this peculiar thing where they said they'd be open from a particular time to and "-ish" closing time. Like "8-ish". Or, in some cases, "until close". What does that mean? I abhor such vagueness, especially when it comes between me and my food. (And apparently, it means they close early.)

Along the line of signs - I suppose that every establishment that serves alcohol has to have a sign saying whether minors are allowed there or not. Check out the picture of the sign above to see what I mean. (Reminds me of the required signs in Seattle in dining establishments which say, "No firearms permitted on these premises." Is that a really big problem, people secretly packing heat?) And do you see the BIG GLARING grammatical error on the sign? These signs are distributed by the city, I assume - didn't someone proofread them for such errors? I guess not.

All of that aside, my friend and I had a most lovely time there. We walked over two miles every day, exploring the city (although it would have been nice if one of the many people we asked for directions told us that the roses weren't actually in bloom at the International Test Rose Garden before we got there), and managed to get a fair amount of shopping in as well. (Yay for no sales tax!) And oh yes, the wine tasting - that case of wine in the previous post was split between me and my friend, and I'm glad we limited ourselves to 6 bottles apiece since I have no idea how, if we'd each bought a case, ever have gotten it home, not to mention just to our hotel, without us losing our sanity. Did I mention that we did a lot of shopping before the wine tasting? And that if some nice winery owner hadn't told us to leave our shopping with her, we wouldn't have been able to navigate the crush of people at the tasting? Oh, and that a conservative estimate of how much we drank at that tasting (given that there were 20 wineries with an average of 1.5 tastes of wine apiece [most wineries had one or two wines to taste, a few had more than 3] and about 4.5 tastes to a glass), was roughly 6 glasses in under three hours? Which normally wouldn't be that bad, but we hadn't really eaten and we had walked A Lot.

Fun times. There should always be big wine festivals when I'm traveling. And lots of shopping. But now it's back to the grind, and I have to say, I just proctored a midterm for the class I'm TAing, and I'm appalled at how many students didn't know what "antecedent" means, even though we used it in class at least once a day. Appalled. Maybe they shouldn't be proofreading any city-distributed signs anytime soon.

Things I now know.

2007-05-07T07:38:00.000-04:00

1 case of wine equals...

...lots and lots of tasting different wines
...running around to find a suitable packing box
...lots of packing tape
...gently twirling around with the box to make sure that the bottles are secure
...nearly 42 pounds
...wishing I had done more weights last week
...lots of hoping that nothing goes wrong in transit
...a whole ton of good times and happiness

Everything's better with a little bacon.

2007-05-03T07:37:00.000-04:00

While I've been making this shredded carrot and avocado salad an awful lot lately (I love carrots, I love avocados, and I top it all with a little chopped egg and boy, I definitely love eggs), all the sugar* in the carrots ends up giving me an awful sugar high, resulting in me crashing a short time later and desperately wanting to take a nap. Of course, this is all so very well-timed, as I eat the salad during the first half of class, and end up yawning the rest of the time.

*Okay, so I was trying to figure out the glycemic index for carrots, and it turns out they don't raise your blood sugar after all. So I'm just bored in class, then.

Anyways. I decided to change it up a little with lunch. Even if carrots aren't as high as previously thought on the glycemic index, I still get a mild sugar rush after eating that much shredded carrot in one sitting. So I cobbled something together out of some pantry staples. Made some lentils (good lil' French lentils, of course). While those were cooking, I chopped up some bacon (I did not claim this recipe was the healthiest, although this is the only fat I use in the entire recipe) and fried it up. After the bacon was crisp, I removed it to drain, and tossed the remaining bacon grease and some red wine vinegar with the cooked, drained lentils. Then, I added some chopped red bell pepper, some chopped parsley, and mixed it all up, adding back the chopped bacon.

So easy, so tasty, and no nasty sugar rush. Plus, this meal is actually filling, unlike the carrot salad where afterwards all I want are some Cheetos.

Hey! Yay! I'm off to Portland, Oregon, this weekend for some fun fun times. How could it not be fun, given that I will definitely be here? Everything's also better with some wine.

My weekend, in brief, with pictures.

2007-04-30T08:22:00.000-04:00

I wonder what it says about me when I go to a book festival (where there are a Great Number of booths and books) and end up with only 1) a children's book and 2) the above poster. What can I say? I love Hilary Knight. And his illustrations. And I love love love Eloise.

(Okay, at the festival, I also heard some very interesting people talk about food and saw a really hot chef make some food. Good news: He's moved out to LA. Commence stalking! Bad news: He is SHORT. And a wee bit of an asshat.)

Note to self: Buy more flowers for the apartment. Even amidst all the clutter, they still cheer things up. These gerbera daisies were originally sort of wilty, so I left the stems longer so they'd droop more attractively over the edges of the vase. But then, they perked right up in the water, the stems becoming stick straight. And they're so pretty. So yes, buy more flowers. Although, in order to make my favourite farmers' market on Sunday to get flowers, this would probably have to entail me not being so hungover I sleep 'til noon. Hm. Drink less? No, not an option. Buy flowers from supermarket then, I guess.

Great option for leftover baguette slices? French toast! I like to sprinkle mine with sugar immediately after transferring them to the plate - the sugar melts a little and becomes a nice little sweet crust. Yum! They are even cuter because they are small. (You can't really tell how small and cute they are in the above picture because the plate is small too.) Small things are cute. Except for perhaps small guys. (Okay, they can be cute, but I don't find them attractive. There is a difference, there.) You just wonder if they didn't drink enough milk growing up.

Absolutely bananas.

2007-04-26T07:19:00.000-04:00

Last night, after a talk by David Sedaris, after waiting forty-five minutes to have our books signed by him, when we were only eighth in line. By the way, he is hysterically funny.

Me: Okay, I was totally joking when I said that he was drawing in people's books, but he totally was. What did he draw in your book?

Friend: It's a Christmas tree. It would have been appropriate for his Holidays on Ice book, but not this one!

Me: OH, you have the Christmas tree on a barstool! You know, the one in the story he told!

Friend: Oh, do you think it's because I told him I write treatments for music videos and told him about Fergie, and now he thinks that the Christmas tree on a barstool from his white trash story is appropriate for me?

Me: Don't forget the dirty girl scout. That is why it took us 45 minutes to get our books signed. Because he was doodling in them.

Friend: What did he draw in yours?

Me: He didn't draw anything.. He wrote, "We're all very proud of you."

Friend: Is that because you told him you're a grad student here?

Me: It sounds like it's loaded with a heavy dose of sarcasm. I wouldn't put it past him.

******

Anyways, maybe you're not here for that. Maybe you're here to find out what I made for dessert at my last - well, first of my last two - dinner parties! Now, I hate bananas. (B-A-N-A-N-A-S - sorry, now that song is stuck in my head.) I previously only liked bananas when they're set on fire (ie, en flambé), or when there were copious amounts of ice cream served atop. But then, I ran into these two recipes, and I knew I had to make them. Even with my banana hatred and all.

The first was a roasted banana ice cream, recipe by David Lebovitz. Ooh, yes. Roasted bananas. Bananas tossed with brown sugar and butter and roasted in the oven until brown and caramely. Plus, this recipe was also easy, and didn't use eggs (many ice cream recipes use too many eggs for me. I prefer to not know how high in cholesterol my desserts are. I like to live in blissful ignorance).

The tart, before I took it out of the pan. I "decorated" with the leftover puff pastry scraps because I didn't know what else to do with them.

But then, even easier, if that's possible, is this banana maple tarte tatin. Really, this dessert is so ludicrously easy to make it almost seems like a joke. Sliced-up bananas arranged in a pool of melted butter, vanilla, and maple syrup, a round of puff pastry placed atop, and placed in the oven to bake. That's it. There's no fussing. And it comes out marvelously.

And even better with a scoop of roasted banana ice cream on top, the slightly burnt-caramel taste of the ice cream cutting down on the what would otherwise be massive sweetness overload.

Guess what? Turns out I do like bananas (cooked, with lots of sugar) after all.

Updated 7 May 2007:
This is also an entry for LiveStrong day - members of my family, unfortunately, have had bouts with different kinds of cancer. It's horrible, and it's horrible that sometimes, it can't be cured. Had I the patience for scientific research, it's probably something that I'd really want to work on, but I will leave that kind of stuff for the people with brains.

Technorati Tags: A Taste Of Yellow

Cooking the night away.

2007-04-23T08:16:00.000-04:00

The best thing about dinner parties is that I'm in charge. And I like that feeling. The worst thing about them is... well, the worst thing is when you decide that you're going to have two in one weekend, which essentially means that anything else you've planned to do (say, like.. homework), can't be done - which is okay, since it's still early in the quarter, but never again.

Saturday night was dinner with some close friends. Recently, I bought The New Spanish Table, by Anya von Bremzen, which is a lovely cookbook that all about Spanish cuisine. The author presents classic Spanish recipes and updates them, taking inspiration from contemporary Spanish chefs in some cases. There's a whole section on empanadas, yum! My only quibble is that there aren't enough pictures of the actual recipes in the book.

After starting out with some avocado and radish canapés (no, not Spanish, but easy to make since I had all the ingredients. I did sub smoked paprika and regular sea salt for the smoked sea salt, and it worked out nicely) and my new favorite drink, the aviation, we moved on to a white bean soup drizzled with truffle oil and served with pig candy. (Okay, not Spanish either. I'm getting there). The soup was okay, but it really was just a vehicle for the pig candy, since I knew the people I was cooking for love bacon and love it even more with sugar and spice.

Ah, and then we get to the Spanish dishes at last. Beef fricando with mushrooms and hazelnuts served with green salad with apricots and hazelnuts. The little introductions before each recipe explain what it is and give a bit of history and backdrop, which is always helpful when you're trying to explain the dish to your friends. Thusly, fricandó, per the book, is "Catalan bourgeois home cooking par excellence." And there's a wee bit of chocolate in the recipe, and who doesn't like cooking with chocolate? More importantly, what it is is a braised dish, and I love braised dishes because 1) it's hard to mess them up and 2) you're not stuck slaving behind the stove while your friends are sitting at the dinner table, since it's mostly all done in advance. The salad was a nice light counterpoint to the meat, sparkling fresh with the citrus vinaigrette.

Sautéed mushrooms, pig candy, and picada

And for dessert? Well, dessert, especially in this case, deserves its own entire post.

******

Beef fricando with mushrooms and hazelnuts
Serves 6 to 8
From The New Spanish Table

Actually, the original recipe calls for veal cutlets (1/3 - 1/4 inch thick), but it said I could sub in beef which I did. If you do use veal, you only need to braise the dish for 45 minutes.

1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
1 cup boiling chicken stock
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 pound small wild mushrooms (the recipe calls for chanterelles, I just used cremini)
coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds chuck or round steaks, about 1/2 inch thick
all-purpose flour
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 medium-sized carrot, finely diced
6 large garlic cloves, chopped
3 medium-size tomatoes, cut in half and grated on a grater, then skins discarded*
1/2 cup dry, but fruity, rosé wine (24 bottles of wine in my apartment, and not one a rosé. I used pinot noir, which seemed to be fine)
1/3 cup hazelnuts, lightly toasted and skinned
1 tablespoon grated bittersweet chocolate
2 tablespoons minced fresh flat-leaf parsley, plus more for garnish

1. Place the dried porcini and the boiling stock in a small heatproof bowl (or, to save yourself from washing one more bowl - just stick the mushrooms in the pot of boiling stock) and let soak until softened (around 30 minutes). Drain the porcini in a small sieve lined with a coffee filter or cheesecloth, setting aside the soaking liquid. Chop the porcini and set aside.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oilve oil in a large deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add the fresh mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they are lightly browned and release and reabsorb their liquid (5-7 minutes). Season the cooked mushrooms wiht salt and pepper to taste and set aside. Wipe out the skillet.

3. Season the beef generously with salt and pepper. Spread a thin layer of flour on a large plate and lightly dust the beef in the flour. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to the skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Working in batches, cook the beef steaks until lightly browned (about 2 minutes/side), transferring the browned cutlets to a bowl.

4. When all the steaks have been browned, add the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and add the onion, carrot, garlic, and chopped porcini to the skillet. Cook until the vegetables are softened and lightly browned (5-7 minutes). Add the tomatoes, increase the heat to high, and cook until the tomatoes are slightly thickened and reduced, about 5 minutes. Add the 1/2 cup wine and the reserved mushroom soaking liquid and bring to a boil, scraping the bottom of the skillet to dislodge the brown bits. Add the veal and turn to coat it with the sauce. Cover the skillet, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the sauce is rich tasting and the mat is extremely tender, about 90 minutes.

5. While the beef is cooking, make the picada: Place the hazelnuts in a mini food processor and coarsely grind them. Remover half of the hazelnuts from the food processor and set aside for garnish. Finely grind the remaining hazelnuts. Add the chocolate and 2 tablespoons parsley and pulse to combine.

6. When the beef is done, transfer the cutlets to a bowl and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm. Add the cooked fresh mushoroms to the sauce and cook until warmed through (about 1 minute). If the sauce seems too thick, add more wine. Stir the picada into the sauce and cook, stirring, over medium-low heat, until the chocolate melts and the sauce is rich and flavorful (about 1 minute). Return the veal to the skillet, turn to coat it in the sauce, and cook until warmed through (2-3 minutes). Transfer the veal to a serving dish, pour the sauce on top, and sprinkle the reserved coarsely ground hazelnuts and the parsley over it.

*This was the most pain-in-the-behind step ever - I boiled the tomatoes for a minute to remove the skins and then grated them, which just resulted in - guess what? Tomato mush. Next time, it's the blender for them.

Green salad with apricots and hazelnuts
Serves 6
From The New Spanish Table

1/3 cup finely slivered dried apricots
1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted, skinned, and coarsely chopped
10-12 cups mesclun, rinsed and dried
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
1/2 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Gently toss the apricots, hazelnuts, and mesclun in a large salad bowl to mix.

2. Place the vinegar, orange juice, and honey in a small bowl and whisk until the honey dissolves.

3. Carefully toss the salad with the olive oil until the leaves are evenly coated. Add the vinegar mixture and toss until evenly distributed. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

(Apparently, I just didn't read the recipe, and mixed vinegar, OJ, honey, and the olive oil, salt, and pepper and tossed the salad with all those ingredients at once. It worked fine. The next night, I made the dressing without the honey, and that worked nicely as well.)

Life through the bottom of a champagne flute

2007-04-18T22:18:00.000-04:00

Long title: This is what happens when you go to a champagne tasting and are served 7 glasses of champagne, and down some of your weak-livered friend's glasses as well. And you don't have nearly enough food to compensate for the amount of alcohol had.

Act I: Anticipation

Me: Oooh, look at that guy at the center table. He's cute.

Friend: Which one?

Me: No, not the short little wee bald one with the glasses. The one where you can only see the back of his head. I think he's cute.

Friend: How can you tell?

Me: I just can. Ooh look, you can see his profile too. He's cute from the side as well. This bodes well.

Friend: Yeah, maybe. Now you just have to see him from the front.

[Drink, nibble, drink drink drink, nibble, drink drink. Or something like that.]

Me: Hey! He's cute from the three-quarters profile as well. Marring some awful growth on the quarter of his face I can't see, he's definitely cute.

Friend: And it looks like he knows his wine because he asks [the person whose family makes all the Champagne] very detailed questions. He has a nice French accent also.

Me: Ah, I'm in love. Or tipsy. Yes, definitely tipsy. And maybe a little in love as well.

Friend: Well, he does keep looking back over here.

Me: [drawing an air heart with my fingers]

Act II: Revelation

[drink drink Oooh the wine bar owner (Lou) is going to sit down and chat with us for a bit! I love Lou! drink drink]

Me: So who's all at that center table with the wine maker?

Lou: Well, you know next to you is Jonathan..

Me: [nodnodnod, he is not answering my question]

Lou: He just found out he won the Pulitzer today

Me: Oh, that's exciting! He totally deserves it. I love his writing. Now, at the center table..

Lou: [says things, but all I hear is..] blah blah importer blah importer's wife blahblah writer for LA Times blahblahblah... sommelier...

Me: Where's he a sommelier?

Lou: Hm, I don't remember. Hey, which Champagne is your favorite?

Me: [vague gesture at one of the many glasses at our table]

Lou: [says to find him before he leaves, gets up to circulate some more]

Me: Heh, I only asked him about that table to find out more about that guy.

Friend: Yes, I was wondering if that was why.

Me: Sommelier. I could marry a sommelier. If we didn't have a lot of money, at least he could keep me in wine.

Friend: Too bad he didn't know where he works. We could make that our next outing.

Me: Dammit, I'm going to have to find out.

Act III: Sobriety

Me: [Get up to say bye to Lou, weaving perhaps just a little bit after all that alcohol. Remind of him secret plan. Anyways. Drunk on a Monday night. That's always a good start to the week.]

Friend: Hey, the guy talked to you! What did he say?

Me: Hm, you know, I don't really remember. All I remember he asked me some questions in French, and I responded in French.

Friend: How did he know you knew French?

Me: I don't know, but dude, he is like my height. Actually, I think that I might be taller than he is. And, that vest he is wearing? Houndstooth? It's so ugly! Houndstooth!

Friend: So that means you're not having his babies?

Me: Houndstooth. Short.

...

Me: But we should still try to figure out where he works.

8 weeks until the end of the school year!

2007-04-16T08:05:00.000-04:00

I don't know why I don't go to brunch more often; it's the meal that makes me the happiest every time I have it. Maybe it's because I love eggs Benedict just so much. Brunch without eggs Benedict is a brunch not worth having, although the hollandaise sauce has to be good. Crappy hollandaise sauce is the pits.

So I've been terribly busy (again), hence the lack of posting. I'd apologize, but that's getting old, and I know that this quarter is a rather busy one, so my presence here will be sporadic, unfortunately. But here are a couple of my favourite.. episodes, I guess you'd call them, from the previous week:

Setting: In another class I'm TAing. We're going around the room, introducing ourselves and saying what we're interested in, etcetc. The class is a mid-level seminar on early childhood development and education. Keep in mind that the professor for this class is so old, she has grandchildren my age.

Student: I want to be the male version of Paris Hilton.

Me: [ohmygod really? Is he going to be a problem this quarter? I did not sign up for a class in divadom. Why are there so many theatre majors in this class?]

Professor: Well, then, you better hope you drew the right lottery ticket.

Setting: This volunteer leadership forum I was helping organize. I had sent out reminders to all our speakers 10 days previously, asking if they needed any special setup or equipment in their rooms. One speaker comes in, who had responded to my email with, "Nope! I'm not bringing a thing and won't need a thing!" Ah, an easy speaker, I mistakenly thought.

Speaker: Hey, can I see the schedule so I know what I'm talking about? Oh. Evaluating impact, huh? Hmm. That's going to be harder to pull together than I thought.

Me: [watching, goggle-eyed, as he proceeds to start coming up with his speech, right then and there. At least he's true to his word.]

If pictures are a thousand words...

2007-04-09T08:37:00.000-04:00

Well, then, I've just given you a novella.

Random thoughts:

It is very odd not being allowed to flush toilet paper. It just doesn't seem right. However, it is infinitely preferable to having your toilet stop up. Again.

Apply sunscreen. If you think you've put on enough, you probably haven't. Apply more.

WHY are there no lane markers, and very very few traffic lights, in the city?

And WHY must you tailgate incessantly?

Do you violate the concept of an eco-friendly hotel when you sleep with all the lights on because maybe you saw a cockroach one afternoon and don't want it possibly crawling over your feet at night?

Multiple piña coladas with every meal is very pleasant indeed. It's even better knowing that they're freshly made and the ingredients don't come from cans or bottled mixes.

Having a beer with your feet in the sand watching the sunset? Absolutely lovely.

Oh my, it's good to be home again.

2007-04-02T21:51:00.000-04:00

While I am one voracious meat eater, of late, I've been eschewing those lovely red bloody proteins in favour of fish. It started in Mexico, where everywhere we ate, from fancier restaurants to simpler shacks on the beach, had awesome fish. Plus, when it's as hot as it was there, I have no desire to eat meat. And the trend continued for whatever reason when I went on to Boston. Those cows I'd otherwise be consuming must be grateful.

Another dining trend that took place was the near absence of fruits and vegetables from my diet, unless they were blended into alcoholic drinks (see: pina coladas). This was a sad truth I realised when I had lunch with a friend today after getting back (yes, I went straight to school after my 6am EDT flight landed at 9:30am PDT), and she had half a melon sliced up as part of her meal.

Fruit? Vegetables? What are those?

Such is the sad state of my diet when I travel. Everything goes to hell.

I did pick up some oranges at the market today when I stopped by to refill my fridge. But, I was still in the mood for more fish. Fish! Why all the fish lately, I don't even know. And what I wanted was fish that was soft and tender, almost buttery in texture. I'd had fish like that when in Boston, and I wanted it again. I came up with the perfect solution in oven-steamed fish - a lovely slab of cod became transformed into a dish so fork-tender and delicious - well, perhaps I won't be returning to meat anytime soon.

To accompany the fish, I made mujadara, which served as a nice accompaniment, and I'd been wanting to make it since I read the recipe. Perhaps there were no vegetables in this meal (still), but it was still super-healthy. And the onions have got to count for something, right?

Pictures of my trip, from the heat and humidity of Cancun to the chill and dryness of Boston, will come at some point in the future. I am just too wiped out to deal with all of that right now. (Also, I am trying really really really hard not to puke while watching the idiotic goings-on the newest gagfest: The Bachelor: Officer and a Gentleman. Oh my gosh. This is so painful. $20 bucks he keeps only the blondes, the ones from the South and Midwest, and the ones under 25. I normally don't watch this show, but I couldn't find my remote after Dancing With the Stars ended. I am going to find it now. I cannot tolerate anymore inane comments or seeing him grab another girl's ass. By the way, do you know why a hot 30-year-old Navy doctor is still single? Because he is undoubtedly either a) boring, b) stupid, c) an asshole, or d) all of the above.)

By the way, I am so excited to sleep in my own bed tonight.

******

Oven-steamed fish

The best part about making this fish? Your kitchen doesn't end up stinking like cooked fish, which it often does when you cook fish in other ways, such as pan-searing it or poaching it.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Drizzle a bit of olive oil on a piece of tin foil (approximately 12 inches by 12 inches). Place the fish fillet (I used black-skinned cod; it was approximately 7 ounces in weight, I think) on the foil, season with salt and pepper, and pour a little more olive oil over the fish. Wrap the fish in foil, forming an envelope. Place on a baking sheet and cook in the oven for about 15-18 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fish. Be careful removing the fish from the foil envelope - the fish will have emitted some juices that have the potential to scald.

I could lie on the beach forever. Or at least until I turn lobster-red.

2007-03-28T08:45:00.000-04:00

Yes, I am still alive. Cancun was fun, although truly, I don't feel any urge to return there in the near future (unlike every time I return from Paris). The beaches there are lovely, and the water is that gorgeous Caribbean blue. Of course, like the idiot I am, I didn't apply sunscreen properly, and have ended up with a burn around where my bikini lay (every year, this happens. You'd have thought I'd have learned my lesson by now, but I haven't), and my forehead is ever-so-slightly peeling. It's really attractive.

While our B&B in Cancun supposedly had wireless internet access, I couldn't get it to work, which meant that I couldn't check my email - the longest I've gone without checking email, I think, since I entered college. (My phone did work down there, but I screened all my calls. And by "screened", I meant "ignored.") It was a lovely vacation, but now it's back to the grind.

And by grind, I mean that I'm in Boston for a conference, undoubtedly the majority of which I'll end up skipping again (like last year, although this is a different conference). I guess I have to attend the part where I present my poster, but aside from that...

How I pack. (Quick answer: not effectively at all.)

2007-03-21T10:00:00.000-04:00

For the several days leading up to a trip (the number of days beforehand depends on the duration of the trip - if it's only a weekend, then this process generally starts the day before, if longer, it can start up to a week preceding date of departure), I dump everything I think I might need into a pile in the center of my living room. I'll walk into my bathroom to brush my teeth, espy a bottle of something (conditioner, lotion, who knows what), and add it to the growing pile. I'll walk into my closet (yes, I have a walk-in closet, are you jealous?) to put on makeup, and find some article of clothing that looks like it'll travel well and throw it into my living room. Needless to say, my apartment is somewhat of a haphazard mess right now, with bikinis and books and and sweaters and assorted toiletries littering the ground.

So I'll be gone for a bit (until April! Yay!) and while I'll definitely have internet access in Boston, and reportedly our B&B in Cancun has wireless as well - really, there'll be other things to do than to sit at my computer and procrastinate on work. Because HAHA, no work!

In the meantime, you can attempt these muffins. I say attempt, because while they smelled good and looked good - they only tasted okay, and stuck horribly to the muffin tin liners. I'm not quite sure where I messed up, but mess up somewhere I did (unless the recipe is just faulty, which I like to think is actually the case). Note: do NOT substitute the Meyer lemons with regular ones, it just won't work as well (that's not where I messed up, by the way). I'd made them with the intent of adding a bit of sunshine to the dreary LA weather we've been having, but this time, appearances were better than reality.

But that's okay, because I will be on the beach enjoying a drink this time tomorrow. Can't wait!

******

Meyer lemon muffins
recipe from the LA Times

2 cups flour
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 Meyer lemons, divided
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon Ceylon cinnamon (can substitute with 1/8 teaspoon regular ground cassia cinnamon)

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine the flour, 1 cup sugar, the baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.

2. Cut two lemons into 1-inch pieces. (You should also probably take out the seeds at this point.) Put them in a blender and pulse until the lemon is finely chopped. In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add the milk, butter and chopped lemon. Stir.

3. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the lemon mixture. Stir just until all ingredients are moistened.

4. Spoon the batter into well-buttered cups of muffin pans, filling each half full. (I filled each 2/3rds full - it worked better.)

5. Combine the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Sprinkle about one-fourth teaspoon over each muffin. Cut the remaining lemon into 9 paper-thin slices; cut each slice in half. Top each muffin with half a slice of lemon.

6. Bake about 20 minutes, until golden brown. Run a small spatula or knife around each of the muffins to loosen, remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.

You'd think I'd be bored talking about food, but I'm not.

2007-03-19T09:04:00.000-04:00

I have friends who tell me to drop out of school and become a party planner/caterer. While this is indeed a tempting proposition, I'm not about to do it anytime soon because 1) my advisor would kill me (maybe not kill, but I'd be as good as dead to her) and 2) I know that if I made my hobby into a job, I'd end up hating it. And really, I do enjoy school (the majority of the time), as it does give me the freedom to throw parties when I want (and spend as much time beforehand preparing for them).

Or just dinner parties. I've fallen out of the habit of having dinner parties since moving back to Los Angeles, which is really such a pity. In Providence, I had a good friend with whom I'd cook with on a fairly regular basis, and in Boston, the same situation where we were always over at each others' apartments making dinners. So maybe it's my friends. Maybe I need new ones. (I jest!)

But it's high time that I entertained on a more regular basis, and not just during my biannual (or triannual, depending on my mood and inclination) parties. While those are fun, and allow me to practice my hors d'oeuvres-making, it's the more intense dinner parties that I miss. So, I decided to start them up again (without a cooking partner, sadly).

Since this first dinner party pretty much coincided with Saint Patrick's Day (okay, it fell the evening before), I decided to make a Saint Patrick's Day dinner, using a set of dishes created for that very dinner found in Sunday Suppers at Lucques, by Suzanne Goin. Not only did she attend my same alma mater (and went to an all-girl's school in the area - not the one I attended, but an all-girl's school just the same), but I love her restaurants (Lucques and AOC) to bits and pieces. I've had this cookbook for well over a year (and even had her sign it at the last LA Times Book Festival), but had never gotten around to making anything from it. So it was high time I rectified that situation.

To start, I made a simple salad of blood oranges and fennel, both sliced thin and dressed with an olive oil + blood orange juice + pomegranate vinegar dressing, perked up with a squeeze of lemon juice, some salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of roasted walnuts.

By the way, the potatoes make excellent leftovers.

I was rather happy with the main course, although since clams cook quickly, I actually couldn't prepare it beforehand and I ended up making it (though I'd finished the chopping prep work) while everyone else ate the salad. This, I was not such a fan of, but there was no other real alternative. And by the way, champ is just another way of saying mashed potatoes with onions. Don't let the fancy name fool you. Also, I was most impressed with the scones - they came out light and scone-y, and I'd definitely make them again. For breakfast, they'd be superb with some butter and jam.

And for dessert, I'd planned on a strawberry cobbler, but then at the last minute decided that the sliced strawberries macerated with some sugar and a touch of balsamic vinegar would be just fine served over ice cream. And that's what I did.

Obviously, there was alcohol throughout - there was a quick cocktail I made with leftover blood orange juice, vodka, and soda water, then some pink bubbly, then moved onto a nice sauvignon blanc and finished with several rounds of Frangelico. Because a meal's not complete until you've had a lot to drink as well.

In looking at this picture, I am oddly reminded of that scene in Alice in Wonderland with the walrus who eats all the oysters. Different type of bivalve, true, but still.

******

(All recipes adapted from Sunday Suppers at Lucques.)
While substitutions weren't recommended, substitute I had to do because some of the ingredients, you can only really find at farmers' markets and I hadn't the time to run around chasing them down. Per the book, scallions can be used in place of spring onions (and, in fact, at Whole Foods, both names were on the label which is actually wrong, since they are different). And in lieu of green garlic, you can use sliced garlic cloves and sliced scallions.

Buttered cockles with peas and pea shoots
(Or, really, just peas, because I couldn't find pea shoots)
Supposedly serves six, but there was just the right amount for four of us

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1.5 cups thinly sliced spring onions plus 1 cup thinly sliced spring onion tops
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
3 pounds cockles or small Manila clams
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup chicken stock
1.75 cups peas (I used frozen, and didn't bother thawing them beforehand)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 lemon
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
4 ounces pea shoots
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat a large wide-bottomed sauté pan or Dutch oven. Swirl in the olive oil and wait 1 minute. Add the spring onions, thyme, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook until the onions are just wilted (about two minutes). Add the cockles to the pan, and stir well to coat them with the onions and oil. Cook 2 minutes, add the white wine, and cover the pan.

Steam the cockles 3 to 4 minutes, until they start to open. Remove the lid and pour in the stock. When the stock comes to a boil, add the peas. Cook for a minute and then add the butter, stirring to incorporate. Season with a squeeze of lemon juice and taste for seasoning. I think I left out the lemon juice step by accident, and it was fine.

Quickly toss the parsley, pea shoots, and spring onion tops into the pot. Stir just until the greens begin to wilt (a couple of minutes), and transfer to a large warm shallow bowl.

Oh, and remember not to eat the unopened cockles!

Green garlic champ

1.5 pounds fingerling or small yellow potatoes (I ended up using regular large white ones, and it was fine)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1.5 cups thinly sliced green garlic
1/2 teaspoon thyme leaves
1/4 cup heavy cream
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cook the potatoes in a large pot of heavily salted boiling water until tender (about 15 minutes, depending on the size and type of potato - you can stab the potatoes with a fork to test this). When the potatoes have just cooled, crush them slightly on a cutting board with the hell of your hand or the back of a large spoon.

Heat a medium pot. Add the butter, and when it foams, add the green garlic, thyme, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of pepper. Cook 3 to 4 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon, until the green garlic has softened.

Add the potatoes, stirring and mashing them to incorporate all of the ingredients. Season with 3/4 teaspoon salt and cook another 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the cream. Taste for seasoning.

Brown scones
Makes 12 scones

2.25 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour (I used white whole-wheat flour)
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons plus two teaspoons baking powder
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Place the flours, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a food processor, and process 30 seconds, until well-combined.

Add the butter and pulse until the mixture is a coarse meal (about 10 pulses)

With the machine running, quickly pour in 1 cup of the buttermilk. Stop the machine as soon as the dough comes together. Make sure to not overwork the dough.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and bring it together with your hands into a large ball. Divide the dough into 3 pieces, and shape each of them into a 5-inch-wide disc. Cut each disc into quarters.

Brush the tops of the scones with a little buttermilk. Place on a lightly buttered baking sheet and bake 25 minutes, until the scones are golden brown. You'll want to serve the scones warm, so if you make them in advance, make sure to heat them back up in the oven before serving.

You BET I'm counting down the days.

2007-03-15T07:57:00.000-04:00

SEVEN DAYS. SEVEN DAYS AND I WILL BE ON THE BEACH IN MEXICO.

Anyway, so, about a year and a half of living in this current address, I finally decided to get off my lazy behind and put up curtains. Sometimes, I'm a wee bit slow when it comes around to doing certain things. Putting away clothes, unpacking those last three boxes full of papers I have, and putting up curtains.

It's because... well, I already had window coverings. Those ugly ugly vertical blinds did their job quite well, even if they were an eyesore and annoying clacked together every time I opened the window to let the breeze in. They were utilitarian.

(Of course, this means that it's 12 days until I'm in Boston and hopefully not freezing my behind off. As much as I want to wear my fur coat, pleeeeease let it be at least in the 50s so that I don't have to ship that behemoth to the hotel.)

And I couldn't decide what colour curtains I wanted - which is so key, you know. And, I couldn't figure out how to take down those vertical blinds without ripping out chunks of the wall, which I somehow feel would not be kindly looked upon since I'm renting.

But then! In a fit of massive procrastination, I figured it all out!

(Of course, if I end up shipping my stupid coat, it will be unseasonably warm. If I do not, it will be freezing cold. I lose either way.)

It took awhile (and a couple of broken fingernails), but I took each vertical slat out of the little plastic pinchy thing holding it in place. And then, with the help of these super-duper cool hooks from Ikea, I hung the curtains by inserting the hook into the little hole in the pinchy thing, then clipping the curtain to the hook.

Of course, I had to gussy the entire operation up with some cheery ribbon bows, so that at least some of the ugliness was hidden.

(At least I will be tan even if I do freeze. That is some sort of consolation.)

Those white sheer curtains? I had to double up the number of loops per clip because Ikea only had one set left of those curtain hangers, and I didn't feel like driving to another one to look for some more. And if it looks likes the clips are just sort of resting on the rail - well, you'd be right. I couldn't figure out how else to get them up there.

The ugly vertical blinds are now all crammed under my bed, collecting further dust. And I am ever so happy with my ingenuity.

Now, if only I could get around to unpacking those last three boxes (or the three suitcases filled with winter clothes). Then I'll finally be all moved in.

(I'm shipping the stupid coat. And probably extra pairs of shoes as well.)

A tart for a tart.

2007-03-12T08:41:00.000-04:00

So, I was supposed to make this quiche for a potluck, but then decided that I'd rather have it myself and not share with others. That's me, the generous giving one. (No worries, I made a coffee hazelnut chocolate chip sour cream cake for the event, so I doubt they're too sad).

Again, I turned to my trusty Joy of Cooking for the recipe. This is the cookbook I grew up with, and the first recipes I ever made were from this book (chocolate chip cookies and lemon bars, if I recall correctly). Since my mother wasn't about to give her copy of the cookbook up, I asked for the newest version for Christmas this past year. It's a very handy manual - clearly written and usually my first go-to book whenever I want to make anything. Nothing I've made from this cookbook has turned out poorly, which is either a testament to the fact that I think that everything I make is great or the quality of the recipe-writing. Probably the latter (with a smidge of the former thrown in - I've got a healthy ego).

Anyways, so quiche. I wanted a ham and cheese quiche, therefore had to improvise. (Quiche lorraine, if you're interested, has bacon and traditionally NO cheese. I didn't know that. I wanted cheese. And regular ham, not bacon). I started out with the basic recipe for a cheese quiche, and then made some changes along the way. Obviously, this recipe is open for a lot of fiddling around, and you can add any fillings you want. Not a meat-eater? Substitute spinach and/or mushrooms and/or any other vegetables you like. Use a different kind of cheese. Use multiple cheeses. Don't use cheese. Add sauteed leeks. Et cetera. (A guideline - you want approximately 1.5-2 cups of whatever filling you use, aside from the cheese.) The important thing to do is make sure that whatever filling you use, that it's cooked and drained of any excess liquids as to not make the crust soggy.

The crust, while very easy to make, was a bit more crumbly than flaky, which I suppose was to be expected since I did pat it into the pan. While I prefer flakier crusts, I am also exceedingly lazy and hate rolling pie crusts out. (You can see further evidence of my laziness in the uneven exposed crust. Whatever. I was hungry and it worked.) This was a nice simple substitute, and should allay any worries people have about the difficulties of making pie crusts.

Yum! Quiche! If I were a bit healthier I'd bring it along with a salad for lunch, but salad is a silent killer (see Jeffrey Steingarten, The Man Who Ate Everything, pp. 177-186). Sometimes, I agree.

******

Ham and cheese quiche
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces, softened
2-3 tablespoons heavy cream
2 egg yolks, beaten

1.5 cups shredded cheese (I used Emmenthaler)
1.5 cups diced ham (good ham, not those thin prepacked deli slices. You want something that has a presence)
2 eggs + 2 egg whites (leftover from the 2 egg yolks you separated out above, obviously)
1 cup heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Whisk the flour and salt together. Add butter. Mash with the back of a fork until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Drizzle cream over the top, and stir until the crumbs look damp and hold together when pinched. You can do all of these steps in a food processor, but I haven't taken mine out of the box yet.

Pat the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie pan. Thoroughly prick the sides and bottom of the crust with a fork. Bake for about 18-20 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

While still warm, brush the baked crust with the beaten egg yolks and pop back into the oven for a couple of minutes, as you finish preparing the rest of the quiche. (This creates a glaze which prevents the crust from being soggy when you pour the egg mixture in.)

Meanwhile, whisk together the cream, eggs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Make sure that no streaks of egg white remain.

Take the pie crust out of the oven. Sprinkle the cheese over the bottom of the crust, then follow with ham. Pour the egg mixture evenly over the cheese in the pastry shell.

Bake until the filling is puffed around the sides and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, approximately 30-40 minutes. (You can place the quiche on a baking sheet in case you are worried about spillage). Let stand 10 minutes before slicing.

This would probably be funnier if you were wasted at 10pm on a Monday night. Or if you were 15 and high.

2007-03-07T22:16:00.000-05:00

"Let's get french fries."

"And ice cream."

"Ooh, definitely ice cream."

"How about Norm's?"

"I've never been there before. Isn't it like Denny's? I sorta feel like onion rings too."

"They have ads on TV! I'm going to call them. Los Angeles. Can you connect me to Norm's? Hello? Hi. Do you have onion rings? Hmm. Okay. Do you have french fries? What kind of french fries? Okay. Can you tell me what your dessert offerings are? That's super. Tell me, what's your stance on soft serve ice cream? Do you have any? Soft serve. Ice cream. Yes. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Have a great evening. Okay, they have onion rings."

"Do they have soft serve?"

"No."

"McDonald's it is then."

There are days when all you want is pasta.

2007-03-05T07:21:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, you don't want anything fancy. No siree. Sometimes you want something simple and satisfying, carbs be damned. And, for me at least, that something generally finds itself in the form of pasta. (Not that I'm on a low-carb diet, per se. I never could be! But, given that I have to be in a bikini 17 days, I've been cutting back a wee bit. Or at least trying to.)

And so I went through my online archive of recipes I'd clipped from various web sources, when I realised - oh, look, I have an entire shelf full of cookbooks that just collect dust, I should use a recipe from one of them. So I did. I initially was going to use the meatball recipe from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (after all, it made sense, this dish being an Italian one). Since I didn't want to buy milk nor bread (her recipe calls for a slice of white bread soaked in milk), as leftovers of both end up sitting around and eventually getting moldy, I ended up with a recipe from The Joy of Cooking - the new version, which, luckily, is just as good as the 1975 version.

So yeah! Spaghetti and meatballs, yay! While the recipe called for large 2-inch meatballs, I prefer mine smaller so that I can have more. I know, I probably don't actually have more meatwise, but it's all about perception. And more is better!

(Unless you're talking about yucky things, of course. Then less is better.)

******

Italian meatballs
Makes about 35 1-inch meatballs
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

1 pound ground beef
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup dried bread crumbs
1 large egg, beaten
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (I ended up using only 1/4 cup)
2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine everything but the flour and olive oil in a large bowl. Mix sith your hands. Scoop out the mixture in tablespoons and form into 1-inch balls. Dredge the meatballs in flour.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Brown the meatballs in batches. Place in a baking pan and cook in a preheated 375 degree oven for 8 minutes. Add to the tomato sauce.

Tomato sauce
Makes 2 2/3 cups (just barely enough for a pound of pasta. If you like lots of sauce, I'd either double or only toss with 1/2 pound of pasta).

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small carrot, finely chopped
1 celery rib with leaves, finely chopped (I didn't have any celery, so I left this out. You can too!)
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon chopped basil, rosemary, sage, or thyme (I used rosemary as that's the only fresh herb I haven't killed. Yet.)
1 3/4 pounds ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped, OR one 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, with their juice
2 teaspoons tomato paste
3/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and parsley. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are very soft (15-20 minutes).

Add garlic and herbs and cook, stirring, for about 30 seconds.

Stir in the tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, and black pepper. (I also added some red pepper flakes, because I've been on a wee bit of a spicy kick lately.) Simmer, uncovered, crushing the canned tomatoes with the side of a spoon to break them up, until the sauce is thickened, 15 to 20 minutes.

Pass through a food mill if desired (ha - more to clean? No way).

Odds and ends.

2007-02-28T07:15:00.000-05:00

If a place is anywhere within 1.5 miles of my apartment, I've decided that I need to walk there instead of drive (exceptions: pedicures, the library, and grocery shopping). Downsides: Getting to the place is fine, having to trudge back sorta sucks. (Finding a willing friend to drive me back is always nice.) Also: next time I decide to walk a mile in heels, I need to be stopped. I swear, I think one of my toes is broken or disjointed or something.

When drunk, I will mistakenly think you said "Poland" when you actually said "Holland," and I will then spend a large percentage of the night wondering why you speak Dutch and not Polish, and wondering if there really is an Amsterdam in Poland. No love for the pierogis? Oh. Right. More vodka, please. But it's okay, because I will still refer to you as the "Polish Guy" when later describing you to my friends, even though you're obviously not from there. And you have such pretty hair! I wish my hair was that pretty too! Too bad you are boring.

Another boring guy? A 4-year resident in orthopedic surgery. If you're going to spend the majority of your week in a career, you need to enjoy it more than just "meh". Strong as an ox, perhaps, but definitely about as smart as one too. Thank you, 4th-year-resident, for being further validation that leaving medical school was indeed the right decision. (And he said that that night was the one night out a month he has. And then tried to get me to go back to his apartment. Dude. I'm not going to be your Miss February. Where is the Polish guy with the pretty hair?)

I absolutely love J.Crew right now. I hadn't been there for, oh, about 7 years, because they were all boring khaki-and-cabled-knit-sweaters-in-unattractive-boxy-cuts, but they've changed! They're not boring anymore! They're now preppy in the way I adore - currently, it's Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket meets beachy Europe for the spring. I am in love. They have also increased the amount of navy in my wardrobe by 500%.

However, my love of Banana Republic has come to a screeching halt, because they have become all boring office-y. Really boring, and really office-y.

In addition to all the clothes I've bought recently, here are two more of my most recent favourite purchases: a firefly lamp and these recycled bottle vases (by my favourite, Tord Boontje, in conjunction with Emma Woffenden).

(Maybe I need to stop shopping.)

I am taking my first flamenco class today! (I've been wanting to do this for ages, and recently saw Sara Baras, who is phenomenal). And importantly: the shoes are cute.

Thoughts while watching the oscars: When did all the actresses get so freaking skinny? Maybe they need to eat this dish. A lot of it.

2007-02-26T09:42:00.000-05:00

Bread and cheese (okay, and some chard and onions). What better combination, right?

I've been wanting to make this recipe for chard, onion, and gruyère panade since I first read about it, over a year ago. Over a year ago! Why did I wait so long? How could a dish like this not be utterly scrumptious? What is up with me and my procrastination?

And utterly scrumptious it was, indeed. Warm, gooey, and soupy... I even felt a wee bit virtuous since there was the inclusion of swiss chard. I mean, a vegetable is a vegetable, even when surrounded by the happy marriage of carbs and cheese.

My only quibble is that it used up an awful lot of pans and pots to put this dish together, and I hate washing dishes (I cook so I don't have to clean up; that's always everyone else's task).

Personal cooking notes: I probably would have used more chard (I have no idea how much I used, whatever amount there is in one bunch you buy from the market), just to offset the amount of cheese and bread there was. The inclusion of red pepper flakes might not go amiss and would make the brothe a little bit punchier. Oh, and of course I don't own a large soufflé dish, so instead I used an oven-safe pot that I generally use for cooking pasta and making tomato sauces. It was perhaps not the prettiest presentation, but it worked quite fine.

I am beyond excited to take this to school for lunch today. Perhaps it'll make my lunchtime colloquium bearable.

Breakfast goodies.

2007-02-23T08:31:00.000-05:00

Need a nice weekend treat? Heck, why wait for the weekend, why don't you have a nice treat every morning? These banana-chocolate chip muffins oughta do the trick, I think. I really wish I remember where I got the recipe from, but I emailed it to myself and of course didn't mail the source citation. But I changed it a little bit, so now they're my own version anyways, right? I get a secret small kick out of the fact that the chocolate chips are only in the chocolate batter and the walnuts in the plain banana batter, but nobody else picked up on it. But that's okay. I like knowing things that other people don't. It makes me feel special.

These muffins, they're a real treat. They make early mornings a wee bit more tolerable.

******

Banana chocolate chip muffins

1/4 c. butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
3 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1/3 c. buttermilk
1/2 t. vanilla
2 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
2 T cocoa powder
chocolate chips (I have no idea how much, I just used what I thought looked good)
chopped walnuts (still no idea how much I used)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until well-combined. Add bananas (I just added them in chunks), eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat until blended.

Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir until just combined.

Remove approximately half the batter and add the cocoa and chocolate chips to it. Add the walnuts to the non-cocoa-ed batter.

Alternate spoonfuls of the plain batter and chocolate batter into muffin tins. You can swirl the batter slightly if you really want to, but I was too lazy.

Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes, or 'til done.

Tartin' it up.

2007-02-20T08:26:00.000-05:00

Has this site devolved into one about cooking? Maybe. Maybe I thought you were tired of hearing about how, again, a friend and I somehow ended up back at these goobers' bachelor pad post-drinking, where they tried really really hard to get into our pants, but my friend had already said at the outset, "If we come back with you, you can't make a move on us," to which they agreed... and then they were stuck trying to figure out how to make their move while sorta keeping true to their word. In short, they couldn't figure it out (although did they ever try, and their efforts included a lot of wine, champagne, candles, and Journey), and while one looked like Matt Dillon, if you think he's cute, he got progressively less cute the more he talked, and he talked a lot. There is nothing worse than an insecure guy. (Perhaps an insecure dog that pukes blood when its owner isn't around, but that's another story.)

Plus, I'm still trying to figure out how they got back to their place and lit a whole bunch of candles before we got there, when we got our car first from the valet.

(Yes, it was very very cheesy. I almost snorted with laughter when I walked in.)

Anyway. Back to food, where the more cheese you have, the better.

So I had a whole bunch of asparagus. And while I love nothing more than asparagus roasted in the oven with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, I wanted to fancy it up this time. I went through recipes I had saved, and came upon this lovely recipe for an asparagus and potato tart. Super-elegant, and it involved puff pastry. And I love puff pastry.

I ended up changing it around a bit, based on what I had at home. For one, I didn't have any crème double, so I used half-and-half (again). Since I didn't have a rectangular tart pan, after rolling out my puff pastry dough a bit to make it thinner, I used an 8x8 brownie tin, laying the dough in the pan and then folding the extra dough over itself around the edges to form a nice vessel into which to arrange my tart. And, for the life of me, I could not figure out how to cram 2 potatoes' worth of slices into my tart, and settled for a couple of layers. Oh, by the way? You'll think that 2 eggs + cream is too much liquid, but surprisingly, it isn't. It really does fit. Finally, rather than arranging the asparagus spears so all the tips were at one end, I alternated them so that everyone could get a nice piece with both tips and ends. Because I am generous like that.

I had all those leftover potatoes, though! So I improvised a tortilla española with the excess potatoes, adding in some onions as well.

It was a study in contrasts - a restrained, elegant asparagus tart (with puff pastry!) juxtaposed with a more rustic, homely tortilla. But slices of both with some leafy spinach lightly dressed, and they made for a lovely light evening supper.

Adding a bit of preppiness to your lunchbox.

2007-02-16T09:01:00.000-05:00

We're in our 6th week of classes, which means that in a little over a month, I'll be on the beaches of Mexico. You have no idea how excited that makes me. Especially because it'll also mean that I'll have finished an IRB amendment, gotten data analysed and written up for a conference, and will have otherwise survived what has been the most hectic quarter of my academic career.

I just can't wait. Although I don't know if it'll get better or worse from here, I can't really tell.

Anyways, this week for lunch? Well, I had some leftover smoked salmon (no, I don't know why I had any leftover, usually I wolf it down. But I did), and I needed to use it up. For whatever reason, mixing it in with pasta sounded rather appetizing to me - not to mention, I need the carbs during the school day. I scrounged around on the internet for recipes, and eventually ended up with this amalgam that I pieced together from various sources. It's not heavy at all, and even has some vegetables thrown in there! I know, how did those green things find themselves in my lunchbox? It's a miracle!

Plus, it's a rather attractive dish. And you know, looks count, like so much.

******

Fusilli with smoked salmon and peas
Serves... well, 2 for dinner, plus enough leftover for about 3 lunches

1 package fusilli pasta
1.5 cup frozen peas
1 T. butter
1 small onion, diced
7 oz smoked salmon, chopped into whatever size you want
3/4 c. half-and-half
About 1 c. grated parmesan
Salt and pepper

Cook pasta according to directions. In the last two minutes of cooking the pasta, throw the peas in there to thaw them out. When done, drain the pasta and peas.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large pan (I used a wok). Cook the onion until wilted and translucent. Add the smoked salmon, and cook until it just becomes opaque. Add the half-and-half and warm it up. In the same pan (hence, why I used a large one), add your pasta and toss to combine all the ingredients, adding the grated cheese whilst tossing. You'll start out with a large pool of half-and-half at the bottom of your pan, which will eventually disappear. Where did it go? My guess? INTO the pasta. Yum. It's not unhealthy, what are you talking about?

Season with salt and flavour with pepper to taste.

(Can you tell I made this recipe up?)

Cake domes make everything look better.

2007-02-14T12:01:00.000-05:00

So Jen reminded me that hey! I have a website! And again, as always, I have no good reason for not writing anything. I mean, procrastination is like my second job. Yet, of late, procrastination hasn't found an outlet in wanting-to-write, perhaps because I spend so much time writing (or at least thinking about writing) academic stuff that those words! They just don't want to come out anymore!

(I recently told a guy, who had basically commanded me to tell him something funny [wtf? I am not a trick dog], that "I don't think after 5pm." Which I thought was actually funny, but also, sadly a bit true. Although it's more like 7pm, really.)

By the way, I don't know why I attract the nutjobs. I am really really confused. The other night at a bar, a (very drunk) guy decided that the best way to get my attention was to do that fishing dance, you know, where the guy pretends to reel his partner in? My friend told me that I should bring my hands up to my cheeks to make fish fins (so much easier to show than to explain), but apparently the crazies have no problems finding me; I just don't want to give them a reason to stick around.

But who cares! It is Valentine's Day! If that's not an excuse to stuff yourself silly with chocolate (or, red velvet cupcakes), I don't know what is.

Finally! A non-meat post!

2007-02-05T07:06:00.000-05:00

Given that I haven't much time to cook during the week anymore (see below post for the general craziness that is my life), I have to make the most out of those opportunities when I do happen to find time to make myself dinner - for not only do I have to make dinner that night, but I need to plan to bring leftovers at least a couple times a week to school for lunch, since there are only so many times I can visit the salad/soup bar.

So I'm always on the search to find a recipe that'll keep well and that won't bore me the third time I've eaten it in a week. And one that is filling enough so I don't end up pillaging the vending machines for Cheez-its and Cheetoes. For instance, this chicken salad and this sausage-and-lentil dish work well (although I do have to say that with all that protein in the chicken salad, I'm still left hungry and always must supplement with chips, preferably salt and vinegar ones, because those are the only chips I want to eat right now).

This week, the plat de la semaine is a rather engaging chard and saffron tart, first espied in the paper, but then I was reminded of it here, where the description of it was just too tempting to pass up. Plus, if I don't go to the salad bar, I forget to eat vegetables (although I do always hope that my multivitamin somehow makes up for some of it).

I have to say, while making the tart, I had my doubts that it'd turn out nicely. For one, the tart crust seemed rather thin in places (which was probably more my fault than the dough's fault). Oh, and I couldn't even find my tart pan, so made it in a regular pie pan. And while cooking the chard down (I cheated and used a pre-chopped mix from Trader Joe's that was largely chard with some other dark leafy green mixed in), I really didn't think that it was all going to fit into my crust. But it did, and miraculously, the crust baked up quite nicely, attractively puffing out a bit over the top of the egg+chard combination.

I suppose it does resemble a quiche, but it doesn't taste as rich as quiches I've had in the past. Which is sometimes a good thing.

Oh, and definitely do not leave out the pine nuts. While they sort of visually blend into the crazy maze of yellow-and-green, they add a nice little sweetness that compliments the dish nicely. And the dish itself certainly is a lot prettier than the chicken salad and sausage-and-lentil dish I've brought to school in the past, which unfortunately tend to look like mush.

Vending machines, you are safe from me. At least for today.

******

Chard and Saffron Tart
Serves 6 to 8
From the Los Angeles Times, recipe adapted from The Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison, who makes no-meat food taste good.

1 large bunch chard, enough to make 7 cups leaves, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large yellow onion, cut into 1/4 -inch dice
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups half and half
Large pinch saffron threads, soaked in 1 tablespoon hot water
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
Nutmeg
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons pine nuts
1 recipe yeasted tart dough (below)

1. Cut the chard leaves away from the stems and save the stems for another purpose. Chop the leaves into pieces roughly an inch square, wash them in a large bowl of water and set them aside in a colander.

2. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. In a wide skillet, heat the butter and oil over medium heat; add the onion and cook it until it is translucent and soft, about 6 minutes. Add the garlic, the chard leaves (by handfuls, if necessary, until they all fit) and the salt. Turn the leaves over repeatedly with a pair of tongs so that they are all exposed to the heat of the pan and cook until they are tender, 5 minutes or more. When the chard mixture is cooled, squeeze out any excess moisture with paper towels.

3. To make the custard, beat the eggs, then stir in the half and half, infused saffron, lemon peel, grated Parmesan, a few scrapings of nutmeg and the parsley. Stir in the chard and onion mixture. Season with more salt, if needed, and freshly ground black pepper.

4. Toast the pine nuts in a small pan over medium heat until they are lightly colored, 2 minutes. Pour the filling into the tart shell and scatter the pine nuts over the surface. Bake until the top is golden and firm, about 40 minutes.

Yeasted tart dough

1 teaspoon active dry yeast ( 1/2 package)
Pinch sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
About 1 1/4 cups unbleached white flour, divided
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons crème fraîche

1. Dissolve the yeast and sugar in one-fourth cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees) and set it in a warm place.

2. If the egg is cold from the refrigerator, cover it with hot water and let it sit a few minutes to bring it up to room temperature. Combine 1 cup of the flour and the salt in a bowl and make a well. Break the egg into the middle of it; add the crème fraîche and pour in the yeast mixture, which should be foamy with bubbles. Mix everything together with a wooden spoon to form a smooth, soft dough, adding more flour as necessary. Dust it with flour, gather it into a ball, set it in a clean bowl and cover. Let the dough rise in a warm place, 45 minutes to an hour. If you are not ready to shape the dough at this time, punch it down and let it rise again.

3. Flatten the dough, place it in the center of the tart pan, and press it out to the edge using either your knuckles or the heel of your hand. Add only enough flour to keep the dough from sticking. If the dough shrinks back while you are shaping it, cover it with a towel, let it relax for 20 minutes, then finish pressing it out. It should be about one-fourth inch higher than the rim of the pan. It can be filled immediately or refrigerated until needed.

Yes, it's another lobster picture, for no other reason than that I feel like some now.

2007-02-01T17:17:00.000-05:00

I know. I've been really busy. All my posts have consisted of how much I drink and the goobers I meet in bars. Like I told one guy in a bar, "Mommy drinks because baby cries." (Yes, apparently at one point, I thought it would drive that guy away if I told him I had a 3-year-old child. Luckily, since I work with young children sometimes, it wasn't too hard to come up with very vivid details about this child. In case you're interested, her name was Melanie, she has the cutest head of brunette curls, she likes the colour pink, and she cries A LOT. There was more, but I can't remember it all.)

Or maybe it was, "Baby cries because mommy drinks." Either way. It's the whole chicken-and-egg conundrum.

(Sadly, this tactic did not get rid of the guy. Who'd have thunk?)

Perhaps a more accurate statement would be, "I drink because I work so damn much." While I'm certainly not complaining (okay, I'm only complaining a wee bit), in addition to still taking a full course load, I am currently working on four (that's right, FOUR) different research projects that are at various stages, ranging the gamut from from inception to analysis, and stupidly I still make plans to do something every night, whether it be play tennis, get dinner with friends, or drink. And if I work hard, I get to play hard too, right?

On the plus side, all this latent stress has been awesome for my game. My tennis game, that is. My meeting-guys game, well, you've read the stories of the goobers (and to be fair, it's more that their game is sadly pathetic and I just happen to be an innocent bystander). They'll make great stories for the grandchildren.

I get drunk, and I send drunk rambly emails at 3am. At least this one is in English.

2007-01-29T11:07:00.000-05:00

(Yes, below is the exact text I sent. When drunk, I try my best to write sober. Except for the rambly bit.)

So, poor Jen. She was sad because she couldn’t find me anyone to talk to at James’ Beach – a place, where I’ve repeatedly tried convincing her, is a place where, somehow, I, in my most passive of states, have still somehow met people.

I don’t know why that is. How is it that there, I somehow meet the most interesting characters worthy of a soap opera? I’m still not sure, especially as I take special caution never to talk to any members of the opposite sex first. Ah, the passivity of it all.

By the way, when I got there tonight, the bartender made eye contact with me, and after doing so, held up a bottle of Mandarin, practically saluting me.

It doesn’t make me an alcoholic, does it, when the bartender greets you with your drink? No! After all, I know the CAGE questions, and I never answer "yes" to any of them.

As an aside, curiously, in the many number of times I’ve been there, I’ve never recognized anyone in the crowd. Or maybe I’ve been too drunk to recognize repeat members of the crowd. That’s a very real possibility. Did I tell you about the Dutch guy? Oh, that was a weirdo, exemplary of the other guys I’ve met there. But no New Zealanders tonight. Thank god, I couldn’t have handled any more Incredible Hulk hands bruising me.

Anyways, you’ll be exceedingly sad to note – or perhaps happy, because you didn’t have to deal with being my wingwoman yet another time – that in the penultimate moment before our leaving the bar, a guy came up to us (he had talked to us previously, at which point I had discovered he lived in Ventura and was from Maine and then he left and told us to join him and his friends at a table, which of course we didn’t do, because – well, obviously. As soon as he left after telling me to do so, I quite instantly forgot. Such is the efficacy of my short-term memory), and asked, ever so cleverly, “So, do you girls smoke ganja?”

I mean, really. Have you taken a good look at me? Does it look like I smoke pot? Don’t I cultivate the stuck-up persona enough? I mean, I try ever so hard at it.

(And this is why I get strange 70-yo men hitting on me outside shows at UCLA, telling me that I look like a real lady. Rah!)

Anyways. Yes, ganja. I have to tell you, as I told him, to be quite frank, that pot never did it for me. I tried it multiple times in college – are you kidding me? An altered state of consciousness without any calories from booze? I’d have been a faithful devotee in a heartbeat – had it worked for me. But it never did, and it sucked. To this day, I still am quite peeved about it all. It’s not fair that I don’t get to join in.

To get to the point. Aforementioned guy. Upon finding out that, that hey, I didn’t like pot? Well, neither did he, but he had a big bed in a hotel he was renting with his friend. In my stupidity (and 6 drinks in), I didn’t ask him which hotel. I hate to be shallow, but had it been Shutters on the Beach – well, I might have been more amenable than were it a hostel down the road. Thankfully, Jen was already getting the car from the valet, so I only had to beg my leave because hey! My friend was going to leave, and thankyousoverymuch, but really, I don’t need you to drive me back to your hotel nor to pay for my cab ride in the morning. Really, I promise.

But he was tall, blond, and dumb – very often, the way I like them. I still haven’t figured out what it is, this tallblonddumb thing. Maybe I am bettering the propagation of our species, since I’m the opposite of that, and you know, genetic mixing is generally good. But anyways. So I made out with him a bit at the bar – which usually, I don’t indulge in, contrary to many people’s beliefs – and gave him my number (jeesums, I might have to change my number soon, who knows who in this Southern California region has it), and he said he’d call after a few joints.

Super! I just can’t wait!

(for someone who, while he is tall, blond, and dumb, will probably be impotent after all of that, and besides, I’ll be sleeping. And few things make me more annoyed than waking up after I’ve fallen asleep.)

Gosh, aren’t you glad you weren’t out tonight? Because, did I mention? He and his friends had big beds. And great pot from Northern California. Awesome.

Happiness is...

2007-01-25T07:10:00.000-05:00

...lobster, straight from the ocean into the pot into my stomach.

Now, if only lobster rolls were more readily available here. Then I'd really be in heaven.

Puff pastry makes everything more sophisticated.

2007-01-23T07:17:00.000-05:00

I'm doing quite well on the international front when it comes to meeting guys in bars. First, the Israeli yardboy (okay, he said landscape architect, but yardboy is funnier), the New Zealander who was 26-going-on-12, and now the German bonds trader who tried to hit on me by talking to my friend. Yes, it's quite the United Nations of idiots.

Anyways. I think that I like to throw parties because it gives me an excuse to make lots of little appetizers, something I usually don't indulge in when having people over for dinner because, well, it's work and takes a lot more time than throwing together a meal. This time, it was a James Bond-inspired party - inspired in the loosest sense, since all I really wanted were martinis. (And Dr. No played in the background, which was about as much theme-ing I could deal with.)

On the menu this time around:

Herb-marinated olives
Spicy almonds (from The Martha Stewart Cookbook)
Spiced pepitas (forgot where I got this recipe from)
Mini sausage rolls (from Appetizers, Finger Foods, Buffets, and Parties)
Mushroom squares (an improvisation on my part)
Mini Meyer lemon cupcakes (complete with candied lemon rind!)
Brownies (I cheated and used a mix from Trader Joe's)

Seriously, anything with puff pastry looks instantly lovely and grown-up and tastes good. I normally would've made it myself, but I didn't have that much free time on my hands.

Yes, please note that with the exception of the gin bottle, the shot glasses all match the bottles atop which they're resting.

And for drinks?

the Vesper
the Americano
the Negroni

In case you wanted to know the proportions of the drinks:

I'm a big fan of signs.

By the way, the Vesper martini, mentioned in Casino Royale? In the words of one of my friends: "It's like drinking firewater." So be warned.

I mean, I'm really hoping that I heard wrong because I'm half-deaf sometimes, but I'm afraid that wasn't the case in this instance.

2007-01-16T16:35:00.000-05:00

I'm in this class where two people a week need to come up with questions post-lecture to lead discussion. The topic of the day today was focused on DRD4, a gene which codes for a dopamine-receptor associated with ADHD and "novelty-seeking behavior", and is sometimes colloquially called the "migratory gene" because longer alleles are found in populations that have, historically, migrated further distances. (These longer alleles are also what is associated with ADHD, novelty-seeking behavior, and a whole host of other characteristics.) I don't explain it very well, but if you're interested, go here (scroll down a bit), here, and here, for starters.

Anyways, this is the dialogue that happened between me and the girl who sat next to me in class today:

Other girl: "I'm supposed to ask a question in class today, but I just don't know what to ask."
Me: "Yes, it's a difficult subject."
OG: "Well, I just don't believe in evolution."
Me: "..."

Now, I'm all for different opinions and viewpoints and stuff like that, but Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

(That's why there's a picture of the ocean at the top of this post. Because it is calming.)

Indeed, only God knows.

2007-01-14T15:03:00.000-05:00

Normally, I wouldn't cut and paste an entire wedding column here, but I am hungover and procrastinating on work, a state which I find myself in every Sunday. Maybe one shouldn't return to the apartment of a bunch of New Zealanders met earlier in a bar and play Cranium and Pictionary - drunk, of course - until 4 in the morning because one couldn't figure out how to politely extricate oneself from said situation. And there was that whole bit about the guy playfully - but continually, sort of like a 12-year-old - hitting you with fake Incredible Hulk hands. And now one owes her wingwoman another dozen drinks. I'm just saying.

Anyway, this has to be the BEST Vows column I have ever read in my many years of reading the Sunday NYTimes wedding section. I tried to cut and paste only the choice tidbits, because this is rather lengthy, but the entire thing is a choice tidbit in and of itself. And I have taken the liberty of italicizing the parts I thought were particularly awesome.

SHE gets me,” David Mandel said of his bride, Dr. Rebecca Whitney. And Mr. Mandel, an executive producer of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO, is not an easy man to get.

“I don’t like human beings,” he said, only half in jest. “I’m bothered by real and perceived slights, and I hold grudges for billions of years.”

He lives in a dark Los Angeles apartment with blackout shades covering all of the windows to protect his collection of comic books, toy robots and “Star Wars” stormtrooper helmets.

He and Dr. Whitney, an athletic pediatrician who grew up on a farm in western Maine, met in 1988 on the first day of their freshman year at Harvard. She immediately fell in love — with Mr. Mandel’s roommate.

It was a short-lived romance, but long enough for her to develop an appreciation of Mr. Mandel’s late-night video marathons and other quirks.

“It’s like you’re a kid, and you’re playing with someone who has tons of toys, who’s going to keep you up past your bedtime,” Dr. Whitney, 36, said of times past and present.

Toys and games Mr. Mandel excelled at, but women were another story.

“I was sad and shy and not exactly sure what one is supposed to do,” Mr. Mandel, also 36, said. Over their first summer break he sent her newsletters and mix tapes. But she didn’t get the message.

During winter break in their sophomore year he invited her to a New Year’s Eve party at his parents’ apartment in New York, which he gave solely to see her. As she left the party, he handed her a puzzling gift. “It was the screenplay of ‘The War of the Roses,’ inscribed ‘To my own Barbara Rose, who can hit me without hurting me and hurt me without hitting me,’ ” she recalled. (The inscription was borrowed from something Gilda Radner once said about John Belushi.)

He invited her to a spring formal in their sophomore year, but the date ended without so much as a kiss. Then the last night before spring vacation they took a long walk in the rain, and, Mr. Mandel said, “all these intense emotions came pouring out, and declarations of love.”

As Dr. Whitney remembered it, “Dave said we either had to marry each other or never speak again.” She panicked, telling him she preferred to take things slow and stay friends.

He was adamantly opposed. “What’s the point of having all these feelings and backing away?” he asked.

He gave her the silent treatment, for the next four years. “By the time I knew they were an item, they were over,” said Dustin Chao, another onetime roommate of Mr. Mandel’s.

After they graduated in 1992 she left for Greece to teach English, and he went to New York, where within a year he was writing for “Saturday Night Live.” “My friends would record the shows and send them to me,” Dr. Whitney said, acknowledging she had been keeping tabs on him.

Two years later, they ran into each other at a Gray’s Papaya stand on the Upper West Side of Manhattan after she moved to New York to pursue a career in publishing. They warily resumed contact.

Then in spring 1995, Mr. Mandel was hired as a writer for “Seinfeld.” The week he was to move to Los Angeles, where the show was produced, they had a quarrel that ended on a street corner.

“We started off arguing about what happened in college,” he said. But as it went on, he realized that for seven years he had been comparing every other woman he dated with her.

So he did what he had wanted to do from Day 1. He grabbed her, and, he fondly recalled, “We had a very cinematic kiss.”

It was their first kiss, and, Dr. Whitney said, “it meant everything.” The next day he left for California. They began a long-distance relationship, but soon he was working around the clock. Within a year they had broken it off.

Mr. Mandel’s response was to write “a ‘Seinfeld’ episode about her,” he said. “It’s the modern equivalent of a Shakespeare sonnet.”

He explained that in the episode, called “Bizarro Jerry,” Jerry Seinfeld dates a woman with “man hands.” Dr. Whitney, who winces when he mentions it, chimed in, “I would like to clarify that my hands are farm hands and not man hands.”

While he was broadcasting what he calls “one of her wonderful neuroses” on national television, Dr. Whitney, who comes from a family of physicians, was attending Tulane School of Medicine in New Orleans.

“Part of my own personality quirk is fighting the inevitable by trying everything else along the way,” she said, speaking about her career choice but hinting at more.

Although she had started dating at Tulane, when he invited her to the Emmy Awards in 1997, she accepted. She, too, found that all her other dates suffered by comparison.

“If I could have found any way to live happily without him, I would have done it,” she said.

So they renewed their relationship, and after she graduated, she went to Los Angeles for her residency. They were finally living in the same city and dating. But now he wanted to take things slow, leading to what he called “great and glorious crazy fights.”

Dr. Whitney was less rapturous about them. “I come from a family of pacifists,” she said. “No one ever yells. We raise animals.”

Yet they made slow progress toward marriage.

“What makes a great story, a great movie, is multiple acts,” Mr. Mandel commented about their 18-year courtship. “Great victories are only achieved over great obstacles.”

And, in Mr. Chao’s view, Dr. Whitney overcame a particularly difficult obstacle: “Becky convinced David that life can be good with a little less ‘Star Wars’ and a little more exercise.”

On New Year’s Eve this year, 250 guests gathered in the Art Deco grandeur of Cipriani 42nd Street in New York. The bride walked down the aisle as a brass quintet played “God Only Knows,” the Beach Boys song.

The couple had prepared personalized vows, which Rabbi James Kaufman spoke. “You are the only one I know who will never bore me,” he recited, as he stood with them beneath a white canopy surrounded by soaring marble columns.

Just before midnight, waiters passed out black leis, silver noisemakers and colored hats. Then, as 2007 began, gold and silver balloons dropped from the ceiling. Holding each other close, as if to make up for years of separation, Dr. Whitney and Mr. Mandel beamed while the Beach Boys sang:

God only knows what I’d be without you.

I don't even know where to begin.

Stupid is as stupid does.

2007-01-11T09:09:00.000-05:00

"Do you think that you're going to remember everything forever?"
"Are you talking about memory?"
"Yeah, sometimes while I'm doing things I think I'm going to remember them for the rest of my life, and then I forget about them."

"I'm Borat Junior. No, I'm Borat petit."

Installment #2 of The State of Dating in LA. Poor Lou. We go to his wine bar, and then we egregiously eavesdrop on people having dates. Well, rather than "eavesdropping", I like to think of it as "paying attention to what's being said in shared space." And then we make fun of them behind their backs. And then try get the rest of the staff in on it as well, who really really want to participate but (smartly) need to remain professional.

(And the staff wonders why I don't bring dates there. I am smarter than that! Also, the last time I brought a male friend - not even a date! - there, they made faces at me all night long and waggled their brows suggestively. It's like going to a place run by my family or my best friends. Best friends/family who aren't going to get to meet anyone I go out with until I deem it is okay. After about 50 gazillion dates - by which point I'll probably have already been sick of him and will have started over anew.)

But if people on said dates weren't so lame - well, then. I wouldn't have anything to write about. And I didn't ask for them to be lame; they just are. So really. I am just an exceedingly observant member of society. And I take field notes. Sorta like an anthropologist. That is all.

I just know that with all this temperate weather on the East coast now, there is going to be a blizzard when I make it out there in March.

2007-01-08T07:52:00.000-05:00

Gosh, where have I been? The new year comes, and off I disappear. Nothing exciting, though - I've just been exceedingly lazy, procrastinating on everything that doesn't involve going out and drinking. Preparations for the fact that classes start (ergh, again)... today? Nope. Making an accordion book for the newest member of our supper club? Nope. Shopping? Oh wait, that's a yes. Always a yes. Drinking? Definite yes. Updating this website? Nope.

Anyhow. Apparently, I like to think that, sometimes, I can teach people manners in bars. Obviously, I'm usually tipsy when this kicks in. And I'm either bored with whom I'm talking to or have decided that they're icky. One night when out with a friend last week, I ended up talking to this very nice albeit slightly boring landscape architect. My poor friend got stuck being my wingwoman, talking to his equally boring friend whilst giving me dirty looks for having saddled her with the job. It's not my fault, I did make sure she thought he wasn't completely hideous before abandoning her. I am nice like that. And I owe her at least 10 drinks. He and his friend kept talking to each other - patently about the two of us - in Hebrew. Annoyed - because this definitely counts as rude - I turned to my guy and asked, "Do you and your friend speak French?" Upon his negative reply, I immediately started talking to my friend in French, because hey, those guys deserved it. And then he wanted to know what I'd said, and I just shrugged and said I couldn't tell him, too bad! That's me, meting out justice - or manners - wherever and whenever I can. I should wear a superhero cape while I'm doing this.

(This, however, did not dampen his desire to talk to me, as it usually does - I usually employ these tactics when I'm done with talking to someone - and in fact, since I was driving that night, he offered to pay for my friend's cab home if I wanted to go back to his place.)

And by the way, that picture above is not just mush, but it's actually the best chicken salad I've ever had. I had some leftover roast chicken sitting around, but since I hate mayonnaise I never have any in my fridge. Instead, after dicing the chicken, I tossed it in a exceedingly simple mixture of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then added chopped almonds, diced celery, and dried cranberries. Since there's no mayo involved, it's not goopy at all and keeps rather well for a couple of days. I highly recommend it, especially since it lends itself to all sorts of nut+dried fruit combinations.

Happy new year!

2007-01-01T13:16:00.000-05:00

Ah yes, the new year hangover breakfast, consisting of potatoes and onions leftover from a previously roasted chicken, scrambled with eggs, and drizzled with a touch of truffle oil. With the Rose Parade on in the background, of course.

And to start off this new year, a list looking at last year's travels (where I spent at least one night), inspired by this post.

Paris, France
San Francisco, CA
San Jose, CA
Boston, MA*
Providence, RI
Bumfuck, OR**
San Diego, CA
New York, NY
Washington, DC
Seattle, WA

*Cities visited more than once on non-consecutive days
**Okay, not its real name, but what else do you call a town of around 900 people?

Here's to more travels - and food and drink and good stories, of course - in the upcoming year.

Happy holidays!

2006-12-25T09:55:00.000-05:00

Best party trick ever: the one where your cousins taught their 13-month-old baby to open her mouth and stick out her tongue every time they say, "Open your mouth." On cue. Every time. (Unless she's tired.) Even if she has food in her mouth. It never never never gets old.

Hope you're having as much fun with your family and friends!

(Edited to add: This is also a submission for Sugar High Friday #26 - Sugar art. I always want to participate in these things but never manage to make the deadline to do so. But this time I did! In case you're interested - yes, I did make this bûche de Noël. Chocolate sponge cake around coffee-flavoured whipped cream, with a quick chocolate buttercream icing. Dressed with mushroom meringues dusted with cocoa powder and candied rosemary, it took a bit of time but was definitely worth it in the end. Unfortunately, it's not on an attractive serving platter, but I had to transport it from my apartment to my aunt's house and then forgot to bring the platter along. Still tasted good!)

If you think I'm kidding when I say that nearly all of my meals for the past several days have consisted of wine and lots of cheese - I'm not.

2006-12-21T08:01:00.000-05:00

Standing over a stupid pot full of boiling caramel and watching it for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour? You mean that's not your idea of fun? I can't imagine why not. Do you really have anything better to do with your time? Oh, you mean you're not procrastinating on your work because you have real jobs that don't include homework? How nice that must be.

But in a sense, this recipe is even better than the caramels for procrastination. Apple butter - which, as far as I can tell, is applesauce that's been boiled down for forever - takes several hours on the stove to reduce, so as long as you're home and not doing anything but yet you don't want to have to attend to whatever it is you're making, you can easily make a batch. As an added bonus, your house will smell all wintry and apple cider-y. Which is never a bad thing.

You don't even really have to pay any attention to the canning process, which was new to me too. (So hopefully, recipients of this present will not all die from salmonella or botulism. I really really hope not.) And you don't need any special equipment, either! (Because the last thing I need is yet another kitchen item I use once a year). Instead of a canning rack, I put a dish towel at the bottom of the pot I used to boil the cans in, the idea being that you just don't want the boiling action to cause the jars to hit each other or the pot with breakage ensuing. And I looked for canning tongs, so I could use them to take the jars out of the hot water, but in their absence I instead drained the pot of boiling water, waited a couple of minutes for the jars to cool down, and then used another dish towel to take the jars out of the pot and put them onto a rack. See? I can improvise!

Oh, yes, to sterilize the jars and lids: I washed the jars really well, then set them upside down in my oven at 225 degrees Fahrenheit until I needed them (you should leave them in there for at least 15 minutes. And for the lids, I let them simmer (but not boil) in a pan of water on my stovetop.

Incidentally, perhaps I didn't let the mixture reduce enough (another way to check to see if the butter is reduced enough is to put a small spoonful on a cold plate - if you get a ring of water, you're not done yet. But I didn't get a ring of water!), but I ended up with enough apple butter to fill 8 8oz. jars, with a full 16 oz. tupperware container leftover. Not that I'm complaining. Spread on some multi-grain toast with thin slices of aged cheddar, it made for a very satisfying breakfast, lunch, and snack (not dinner also, a girl needs some variety).

******

Apple Butter
Recipe courtesy Gourmet Magazine
Show: Cooking Live
Episode: Basics of Preserving

Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 4 hours
Yield: about 2 pints

6 pounds Granny Smith or other tart apples, unpeeled, cored, and sliced
2 1/2 cups apple cider
2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
2 strips of lemon zest, each 2 1/2 inches long
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large saucepan cook the apples in the cider over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, or until tender. Puree them through the medium disk of a food mill into another saucepan and add the remaining ingredients.

Cook the mixture over very low heat, stirring occasionally, for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, or until very thick. Discard the lemon zest and spoon the mixture into 2 sterilized 1-pint Mason-type jars, filling them to within 1/2-inch of the top. Wipe the rims with a dampened cloth and seal the jars with the lids.

Put the jars in a water bath canner or a rack in a deep kettle and add enough water to cover the jars by 2 inches. Bring to a boil and process, covered, for 10 minutes. Transfer the jars with canning tongs to a rack and let them cool. Let the apple butter mellow in a cool, dark place for at least 1 week.

For once, a post where I don't talk about how drunk I was this weekend. Which, btw? Was very very very drunk.

2006-12-18T08:33:00.000-05:00

Dumbass*: brr it's chilly outside
Me: Buy a sweater.
Dumbass: i refuse to buy winter clothing this year
Me: Then really, you have no one but yourself to blame if you're cold.

*Dumbass, here, referring to a stupid blockhead ex who moved out here for me even though I told him not to, now lives less than one-tenth of a mile away (which is closer than he ever lived to me when we were in college) and I still refuse to see him. Yet, he apparently doesn't get the message that he should never call (oh wait! He hasn't my new cell phone number! ON PURPOSE) nor IM me (unfortunately, I'm too lazy to change my SN). And he's from Boston; too bad he didn't stay there and far away from me.

But yes, the nice warm temperatures have finally loosened their hold on LA, and it's currently a chilly 44 degrees as I write this (but it's early yet, and ought to get up to the low 60s today, so I'm not really complaining). Winter is finally here, and oh yeah, did you know? Only ONE week left until Christmas. When did that happen? And is your Christmas shopping done yet?

(I know, there are other holidays out there too. But me, I celebrate Christmas. And this here website is all about me, hadn't you figured that out yet?)

In case you haven't, and you really don't want to brave the massive throngs of panicked last-minute shoppers (I don't blame you), this week I'll feature what I made for some presents this year whilst procrastinating on my schoolwork. If nothing else, I'm efficient at everything else when papers are due. And this year I decided to experiment. So no better time than gift-giving time, when I can inflict a whole group of my friends with my kitchen experiments.

For you see, I've never made candy before. I've always wanted to, but I haven't. I remember when I was little and flipping through my mom's copy of The Joy of Cooking and wanting to make salt-water taffy, but we didn't have a candy thermometer. So I never got to make it. But then December's issue of Gourmet featured these lovely salted chocolate caramels, which is practically my ideal candy - chocolate AND salt AND caramel, all in one little bite? I was sold.

Surprisingly, the recipe was easy to follow and the caramels actually became caramels (although I did let them boil a wee bit too long, so there's the slight graininess of tootsie pops). Unfortunately, as I found out, you can't leave the boiling pot of caramel alone for too long (really, it just takes 3 minutes, and you're over the 255 degree point at which you're supposed to take the pot off heat), so it's not really something you should make if you're being distracted by other matters.

But if you're willing to spend the approximate hour it takes (or thereabouts, depending on if your chocolate is already chopped or not), you'll have some nice little treats for your friends and family. Oh, and definitely sprinkle some more sea salt atop the caramels before wrapping - it adds a nice touch.

And for packaging, I made paper snowflakes and put them in the cello bag, enveloping the caramels. I don't think anyone but me - and now you - knows that they're snowflakes, but sometimes those secret details are fun.

Salted chocolate caramels
Gourmet, December 2006

2 cups heavy cream
10 1/2 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (no more than 60% cacao if marked), finely chopped
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces
2 teaspoons flaky sea salt such as Maldon
Vegetable oil for greasing

Special equipment: parchment paper; a candy thermometer

Line bottom and sides of an 8-inch straight-sided square metal baking pan with 2 long sheets of crisscrossed parchment.

Bring cream just to a boil in a 1- to 1 1/2-quart heavy saucepan over moderately high heat, then reduce heat to low and add chocolate. Let stand 1 minute, then stir until chocolate is completely melted. Remove from heat.

Bring sugar, corn syrup, water, and salt to a boil in a 5- to 6-quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil, uncovered, without stirring but gently swirling pan occasionally, until sugar is deep golden, about 10 minutes. Tilt pan and carefully pour in chocolate mixture (mixture will bubble and steam vigorously). Continue to boil over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until mixture registers 255°F on thermometer, about 15 minutes. Add butter, stirring until completely melted, then immediately pour into lined baking pan (do not scrape any caramel clinging to bottom or side of saucepan). Let caramel stand 10 minutes, then sprinkle evenly with sea salt. Cool completely in pan on a rack, about 2 hours.

Carefully invert caramel onto a clean, dry cutting board, then peel off parchment. Turn caramel salt side up. Lightly oil blade of a large heavy knife and cut into 1-inch squares.

Cooks' notes:
• If desired, additional sea salt can be pressed onto caramels after cutting.
• Caramels keep, layered between sheets of parchment or wax paper, in an airtight container at cool room temperature 2 weeks.
• Caramels can be wrapped in 4-inch squares of wax paper; twist ends to close.

Makes about 64 candies.

And so, for the next couple of weeks I'll just be a waste of space.

2006-12-15T08:34:00.000-05:00

Yayayay I am done done done (at least, just for the quarter). And I got myself a new ipod to celebrate. (More like, I got myself an ipod to procrastinate working on the final edits, but I finally buckled down.)

Also celebrated last night by having a dinner of just cheese and wine. But very good cheese and wine! At my most favourite place ever! Oof, do you think that's why I have a headache today?

Edited to add: Some of the best hangover tips ever (scroll down for bartenders' suggestions).

The procrastinator's guide to writing papers.

2006-12-14T21:34:00.000-05:00

ONE LOUSY STINKING PAPER LEFT, and it has taken me 5 days, which is about 3 days longer than I wanted to take, to write it. And I am still writing it. But I am almost done! Almost! Like, 89.34% done! But I had this TREMENDOUS mental block (haha! Which is funny, because it's about working memory and traumatic brain injuries - maybe I incurred one recently as that would explain so much) and every time I sat down at my computer to write, it'd be like I was possessed by the ghost of procrastinators past.

In the spirit of things (haha! I am sometimes funny!), now's the perfect time to write my list entitled: How Not To Effectively Write Papers, also known as, How To Maximize One's Procrastination Because One is Too Glued to the Internet to Willingly Disconnect From It.

Get really really drunk both Friday and Saturday nights, thereby rendering Saturday day and Sunday day absolutely stinking useless, unless you don't consider reading fashion magazines useless. (I don't.)
Play this gladiator game. The animated blood and gore are especially funny.

Write all your Christmas cards. Since buying holiday-themed stamps would require getting out of your pajamas, decide to send carefully decide who gets which superhero stamp, and hope they get the inside joke that probably only exists in your head.

Finally see what Ugly Betty is all about. Decide that it is the BEST new TV show ever
(yes, sometimes I apparently live under a rock, but I like My Name is Earl!), and watch all the episodes that are online.

And then read all the recaps on Television Without Pity to see what you've missed.

Online sudoku. Hey, at least you're giving your brain a workout, right?

Come up with the theme for your January party, because it's never too soon to start planning. (It's a surprise! Except for everyone I already told.)

Plan a party for March (in Boston!) also, because really? It's never too soon. (And because Fake Boyfriend owes me a party, whether he realises it or not.)

Willingly go to school to work at your advisor's center, even though on a normal day it'd be like pulling teeth to get you in.

To buy an ipod or not to buy?: That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the indignities of the world around you, or to take joy in that the world is a noisy one just waiting for you to eavesdrop upon it.

Two words: online shopping. (I can't even list all the sites I've visited recently, so I'm not going to try.)

Contemplate ALL the fun things you're going to do after you're done, like Christmas present shopping and making and wrapping, and re-covering ottomans, and cleaning, and mopping, and dusting, and ... yeah.

Write this damn list up.

Okay. See? That killed a whole lot of time, and ... oh, right. The magic paper-writing fairy hasn't come and taken care of matters for me. Shit.

Dragging a short weekend trip out to three posts...

2006-12-11T10:41:00.000-05:00

I just love markets. Or really, I just love food - and it always makes for good photo-taking subjects.

The last time I was in Seattle, I was 12, so I really didn't remember that much of it upon return. I did remember Pike Place Market - or, at least, that I'd bought a clay whistle/musical instrument thingy there, and was amused to find that there was still a stall there selling those clay whistles. But somehow, I thought there would be more food involved and fewer chintzy stalls. That didn't really stop us from eating our way through the market - oyster shooters? Why not? Freshly-made doughnuts? Don't mind if I do (especially because the guy there was sweet/corny [depending on your interpretation], and when I asked for a half-dozen of those fried bits of happiness, he told me, "For you, the sun, moon, and stars." Love it.). Cheese curds? Oh, we'll take a container and snack on them throughout the rest of the day, sneaking those squeaky bites in the middle of the museum.

But aren't vacations always about eating? That's what I thought, at least.

And though this didn't take place in Seattle, but rather back home over the weekend, I just had to include it. I was at a bar with a friend, and had purposefully programmed the wrong phone number into an idiot's Blackberry. It was my first time using a Blackberry, and if I could figure out how to enter phone numbers while definitely really drunk, he must've been really stupid. "Does your number start with 403?" he asked me, after I put in my defunct Providence number. "Oh, I didn't put in 401? Eh, 403 works too," I replied. Drunkards all around. AND THEN HE STARTED STROKING MY COAT, not my fur this time but rather a black trenchcoat draped over my arm.

I just do not understand it anymore.

Seriously, I'd move to Seattle if it had LA weather.

2006-12-06T08:32:00.000-05:00

A conversation I should have included in the previous post:

"So, what brings you girls to Seattle?"
"We're on vacation."
"Vacation? Seattle? Where are you from?"
"Los Angeles."
"Ahh, Los Angeles. And you went on vacation? To Seattle?"

This further illustrates two points: 1) People don't go on vacation nearly enough; we started saying "holiday" in lieu of "vacation" because it got fewer puzzled looks; and 2) Who goes to cold cold places on vacation? People who think that everywhere should be warm every day of the year because they're from LA. Apparently, sometimes I forget I lived on the East coast for 7 years.

Also, people warned me that Seattle might be a more PETA-friendly than fur-friendly city, but as a matter of fact, I found it to be quite the opposite. In fact, I'm wondering if Seattle doesn't possess a larger gay population than I thought - if not gay, then rivaling parts of LA (and many of my exes) in its metrosexuality. You have NO IDEA how much attention my coat got in bars. Not me. MY COAT. It got hit on more than I did. I had groups of guys - whom I had assumed were straight, or at least cute - actually come up to me and ask me if they could touch my coat. Or maybe this is some sort of weird Pacific Northwest mating ritual of which I'm unaware. Or maybe they had never seen girls wear coats before - you have no idea the number of scantily-dressed girls (I'm talking miniskirts and tubetops, and NO sweaters, tights, or coats in sight) we saw running around in the below-4o weather.

All I know is that one guy actually rubbed his cheek against my coat, and another one told me that he was just going to stroke my coat all night long. I decided to ignore the innuendo in that latter statement, especially since he was super-drunk, super-annoying, and super-sad if it's to believed that he's lived in Seattle for a year but only has 5 friends. My coat and I weren't going to make it 7.

In fact, one rather cute guy, as we walked away from him because HELLO all this coat-touching was really weird and I needed another drink, actually told me, "It's your loss for not talking to me." Well, maybe you should stop fondling my coat first, because it's just wigging me out.

And of course we ate lots of good meals - we're voracious little foodies, after all. And because I finally learned how to embed Flikr slideshows, all the best pictures are conveniently located there (plus, I killed like 3 minutes learning how to do this - every second counts when one's procrastinating on finals).

And did I mention that amidst all the drinking (at every meal and more), shopping, touristing (we went to Pike Place Market and the Experience Music Project Museum), we got our hair cut? That's right, I went on vacation and came back with a new hairdo (and shoes and jewelry and chocolate, but that's besides the point). We randomly walked by a nice-looking hair salon and decided, on a whim, that we were overdue for a salon visit. And seriously, I got perhaps one of the better hair cuts I've had (and an absolutely fabulous scalp massage) there. Who knew that it was recently rated Seattle's best hair salon by a local magazine? Spontaneity sometimes rocks.

Ah, the weather naivete of those who live in LA.

2006-12-04T08:05:00.000-05:00

I do have lots of food pictures this time, but it'll take me awhile to sort through all of them. In the meantime, you can say a warm hello to the newest pair of my extensive shoe family. I'm in love love love.

Back in early September. You know, when it's still summer and warm.
"Yeah, I've always wanted to go to Seattle or Portland. I haven't been since I was 12, so that doesn't really count."
"Oh, I've always wanted to go to Seattle too!"
"You wanna go up for a weekend?"
"Sure, sounds good to me. When can you go?"
"Hrm, I already have trips planned for September and the end of October..."
"And I'm out of town for most of November.."
"And then there's Thanksgiving.."
"How about the first weekend of December?"
"Sounds good to me, let's book our tickets!"

Last Friday, en route to the airport, when the reality of the situation hit us.
"Dude, did you see how much rain Seattle's gotten?"
"And did you check the weather? I hope you brought warm clothes!"
"You know, it didn't even cross my mind that it might be cold in Seattle."
"Yeah, I mean, like, hello, it's on the West coast! I just automatically assumed it would be warm."
"Yeah, 35 degrees isn't so much warm as it is freezing."
"Why are we leaving LA to go somewhere where it's cold?"
"I can't believe we didn't even take weather into consideration."
"This is the last time we go anywhere making that mistake."

Wandering around cold cold Seattle.
"I'm not just crabby, I'm cold crabby."
"I think we're pretty much as far north as you can get in the US without going to Alaska."
"And Alaska is best experienced from a cruise ship. You know, where you can stay warm."
"I have no desire to go to Alaska. Even though I could wear my fur coat up there."
"This is when you start asking people, why would you choose to live somewhere where it's so cold? Just why?"
"Just be glad it's not raining or snowing."
"Because then I'd definitely never leave the hotel room."

On the plane back to warm LA.
"Ah, it's currently 77 degrees at home."
"Now that's a temperature I understand."
"Next time, we are definitely taking seasons into consideration."

Gosh, I just plan my trips SO WELL weather-wise.

2006-11-30T08:16:00.000-05:00

It's the end of week 9 (out of 10 weeks) of classes. I have two papers and a presentation due in the next two weeks. I need to track down professors, who never seem to be on campus, to get the first half of my master's thesis signed off. Winter has been flirting with LA, as seen by the fact that it drops to the high-40s at night.

So what BETTER time to go to Seattle, where it has been SNOWING and the highs there are lower than the lows here? (Cue sarcasm.)

Guilty admission: I still haven't unpacked all my winter clothes from when I moved back from Boston (14 months ago, if you're keeping tabs. I am lazy. Or efficient - why waste time unpacking clothes I don't need?). Guess I'm opening those suitcases now.

Plus side: Hello, fur coat!! And who said that I wouldn't be using it on the West coast?

Procrastinating on work doesn't make me a better writer.

2006-11-27T16:42:00.000-05:00

Seriously, when the crosstown rivalry takes itself to coloured tortilla chips...

Thanksgiving has come and gone, sadly - I love me some mashed potatoes and stuffing. But better yet, Fake Boyfriend was in town this weekend on a business trip, doing, quite literally, market research, which entailed him dragging my sorry ass to way too many supermarkets on Sunday. Sunday, a day when I try not to even get out of my pajamas, let alone leave my apartment. And we were slightly hungover from the night before, oops. But! It was lovely, especially since I didn't have to pay for a single meal all weekend, and we hit all my favourites (which are now his favourites too, because of course I have excellent taste). And, smart boy that he is, we stopped working (note that there is a "we" in this working. I still don't know how I got conscripted into doing this - I think I just wasn't given any options) in time for afternoon drinks (at 3pm, but you know, any hour can be drinking hour).

And he couldn't get over how nice the weather was here, and how pretty the ocean is in November, which you know, is pretty much the only reason to live here. But - a good reason you can use to annoy people who live in places where it snows.

Seeing that it was over 90 degrees yesterday, I don't really need to hit up a tropical climate for spring break...

2006-11-20T07:31:00.000-05:00

So fine, this isn't a picture of a Mexican beach, but rather Malibu. But it's still pretty. I'd have posted something from Puerto Rico, since that's at least closer, but I can't find any of those pictures right now (read: lazy).

Instead of doing work, I've been busy procrastinating by planning my spring break to Cancun. Yes, that's right. After years of going to Paris for spring break, because I like to pretend to be all cultured and cosmopolitan, I've finally given in and succumbed to the stereotypical spring break plans. Or, I have a stupid conference in Boston that takes place the latter half of my week of spring break, and Cancun is really the only reasonably-priced destination that is (sort of) on the way to Boston from LA. On the way, if you count an approximately 2,000 mile detour "on the way". (Some people have mocked me for this. They're just jealous that they no longer have spring breaks.) And like hell I was giving up my whole spring break for something so lame as a conference which takes place in a cold city, to which I actually do have to go since I'm presenting a paper there. A paper I have yet to finish writing, but that is a different story and not entirely my fault.

So really, this was the best of both worlds, you see. I get a minuscule spring break, and I "get" to attend this conference. It will be awesome when I get to Boston and freeze to death after having spent 5 days on the beach. At least I will be tan as I shiver in my fur coat.

Also, I've never been to Mexico! This'll be fun!

(Actually, I initially wanted to go to Oaxaca. But... civil unrest! And crappy flight times! Then I was looking at Mexico City, but... Kidnappings! Lots of crime! And given that Cancun caters to tourists, it's actually the safest place to go. So rampant tourism, in this case, is actually a good thing.)

Anyways, so instead of, ahem, writing, I've been reading about Cancun even though the trip is four months off - which is really not a long time at all. Plane flights have been booked, as well as a darling bed-and-breakfast (so no, we're not staying on that strip of crazy-drunk-ass-wet-t-shirt-contest-all-inclusive hotel madness - gosh, I need to retain some vestiges of my snobbery). And I've been reading about the city, bemoaning the apparent lack of decent dining but excited for beaches and Mayan ruins.

In case you too are planning a trip to Cancun, here's some great information I found online:

Nudity

Some women go topless on the beaches in Cancun, however this is more prevalent on the beaches in Playa del Carmen and the Mayan Riviera. Thongs are very popular as well. If you are a guy reading this you may think, excellent! You may however change your mind because lots of women who do go topless and wear a thong shouldn't. On the flip side many men parade around in their skintight speedos leaving nothing to the imagination. What's up with that?

Beach Fashion

It is interesting because you can tell where people are from by what they wear on the beach. Canadian and American men wear shorts, sunglasses and hats while Europeans wear speedos, jewelry and sunglasses. The Mexican men ware [sic] shorts, usually no hats or sunglasses.

European women have the most awesome bathing suits, especially the Italian women.

Beach Culture

The beaches in Mexico surprisingly are not as entertaining as beaches in Cuba. This will all change after Fidel dies and the Cubans are allowed to travel. This will mean a dramatic export of musicians and general freaks to Mexican beaches, Playa del Carmen in general.

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. The funny thing is that the rest of the website is more informational in tone, and actually rather helpful (or at least seemingly so), so I don't know how these pithy tidbits got up there.

So yes, I do have a frog in my throat.

2006-11-16T10:08:00.000-05:00

In all the lovely ways that irony plays itself out in my life, it now appears that I've got laryngitis, which wouldn't be so bad in and of itself were it not for the fact that it is accompanied by a particularly unlovely hacking cough. But people tell me guys like a raspy voice - although, when I was out last night (I mean, it was a party in the penthouse with open bar - couldn't turn it down!), I seemed to be only able to find gay guys to talk to. But they were far more brilliantly interesting than anyone else there. I mean, I don't know who else would propose brownie shots (actually, just brownies that we "clinked", took a bite of, and then immediately returned to the tray because they were gross) and with whom I could've had a more scintillating talk about human sexuality. And while I find it rather hard to talk on the phone, I do inspire all sorts of pity with my consumptive cough. Or, at least, I can use it as an excuse to skip classes, because even if I don't feel bad, I at least sound like I'm carrying the plague.

And in times like this, is there anything better than grilled cheese sandwiches (made with homemade bread, of course) and tomato soup? Because if there is, I haven't found it yet).

Really, sometimes it's just futile.

2006-11-12T04:48:00.000-05:00

A little stuffed frog prince that I made for a friend. He's sort of gimpy, but then if he's a real blue-blood, perhaps that's not surprising.

Scene: At a party, where, for perhaps one of the first times ever, I felt on the old side (and at 26, that's usually pretty hard to accomplish). Maybe it had to do something with the fact that the people throwing the party were no more than a year or two out of college, but still in that college mentality where living in a teeny apartment where sharing a bathroom with 3 other people is still okay, as is having walk-through bedrooms and bedrooms without walls.

Stupid male: So, did we go to high school together?
Me: Hmm?
Stupid male: I think we went to high school together.
Me: No, I don't think so.
Stupid male: Are you sure? We didn't go to Santa Monica High together?
Me: I'm pretty sure we didn't.
Stupid male: Well, I wasn't sure initially, but then my friend over there [gestures to another misguided male] agreed with me and said he recognised you, so I'm pretty sure we were at the same high school.
Me: Well, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. I went to an all-girls' high school, so unless you and your friend both had sex changes, no, we did not go to high school together.

And now, we return to food.

2006-11-08T17:32:00.000-05:00

"What can you cook?"

I always think that's the most bizarre question, which I often get when I tell people I like to cook. What can I cook? Well, I daresay, I can make anything I want - it's just a matter of wanting to make it. For instance, when I was 12, I decided I needed to make puff pastry from scratch. I don't know if I'd be crazy enough (or just have enough time) to do it again, but I can do it. It's just the simple matter of following a recipe.

But what I like to make, that would probably be a better question. And I've come to realise that I really like meaty dishes that are generally braised, so that they can sit on the stove (or in the oven) for an hour or two, making the entire apartment fragrant with their yummy smells. Plus, this slow method of cooking results in a flavourful dish without adding too much extra fat. The champvallon I made earlier this year is still a favourite, although I haven't recapped it since - well, such heavy dishes are better when there's a bit of a nip in the air. But when I saw this recipe for lentils and sausages - well, my mouth watered, and even though it's been unseasonably warm (77 degrees when I left the house at 8:30am this morning!).

I used more onions than the recipe called for, since I do like braised onions. And instead of Toulouse sausages, I used some spicy linguiça (bought from a favourite meat place) to add a bit of an extra kick. If I were to make this again, I'd also add some mushrooms.

The results were scrumptious, reminding me a bit of coq au vin, but somehow meatier. And there was plenty leftover to take to school for a couple of days, which is always nice (there are only so many trips to the salad bar one can take).

My friends have been complaining about how warm it is, but I love it. This is one of the things that makes living in Los Angeles tolerable. If you want cold, go back to the East coast.

I know I said I'd write about food...

2006-11-06T07:34:00.000-05:00

But instead, I'd just like to point out what everyone knows - that this whole "falling back" thing timewise - just sucks. Not only because it now gets dark around 5pm - but also because, if you're me, and you prefer (unless it's happy hour) not to drink until the sun sets... Well, now that the sun sets so damn early, you start drinking earlier, and get talked into going to places that look like this:

Sorry for all the trees in the pictures, but you can still sort of make out how it looks like a sketchy-ass dive of a hotel, even though it's a bar.

And then you show up and wonder why nobody is there. But checking the clock - oh dear, it's only 8pm, and you're tired already. But there are still many more drinking hours left before the night is over.

Daylight savings time (or the lack thereof): Helping make people better alcoholics every day.

Sorry, no food pictures this time.

2006-11-03T09:22:00.000-05:00

Don't be fooled by how sunny it is in this picture. It was still freaking cold.

"Where's your fur coat?"

That's what one of my friends asked me upon first sight. True, Boston was cold, and I whined a lot about the cold, but, to be fair, it wasn't that cold. Sad how one can adapt so quickly.

(Gosh, am I a brat, or what? First class, furs - to be fair, I used miles to upgrade my ticket [although really? The first class ticket I had to Paris earlier this year beats all], and the fur was found at a vintage store [although reworked to fit me to a tee].)

Of course, I totally ignored the weather report when packing, and smartly brought along two pairs of ballet flats and one pair of strappy sandals. Not so smart, but what does it matter? Between the torrential downpour on Saturday and the high winds on Sunday, there really wasn't much leaving of the apartment during the day.

Super-cool sound installation.

I wish I had scandalous stories, but the reality it that it was just a nice relaxing weekend in Boston. (A city I realise I miss dearly, even though the weather blows. Sometimes literally). Seriously, it was like Fake Boyfriend and I had been married for years and just puttered around. We bought chairs for his loft, and rearranged some paintings. We went window-shopping. We watched movies. We drank a lot. We did work. We ate. In perhaps the ultimate in suburban coupledom, we even went to Target to look for new dining room tables. (Btw? Tord Boontje? At Target? I love! Behnaz Sarafpour? Sadly, not so much.)

You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. It was an exercise in utter banal normality. Even if now his parents (yes, there was a family supper thrown in there since his parents wanted to see me while I was in town) think we're sleeping together.

His mother: Aren't his couches comfortable? Are you sleeping on them, or has my son been a gentleman and given you his bed?
FB: Oh, we've been sharing a bed.

Which was technically the truth, but we were really only doing so because it was more comfortable than either of us sleeping on the couches. That, and the heat wasn't turned on high enough - sharing a bed means sharing body warmth, you know. But you know, everyone's always assumed that we've dated/are dating, from way back when we met in Paris our junior year (cue the cooing now, you can't help it), so this doesn't really change matters. It also is probably because he has exchanges like this:

FB: Oh yeah, she's [gesturing to me, who is obviously not paying attention because hi! They have ipods loaded with all sorts of fun music to which to listen!] from LA.
DJ in Louis Boston: So, how do you two know each other?
FB: We met in Paris while studying abroad, and we've kept in touch since.

Yes, again, technically the truth, but people are wont to read into such statements and assume that we've been carrying on a torrid love affair, and have been for the last 6 years or so. Which would make me one big cheater, since I've definitely gone out with other guys in that interim. I suppose I could bring it up, his answering of questions, but it doesn't bother me that much since I find it sort of amusing. Plus, don't you know? We're going to be married in 10 years anyways - at least fake-married, since we're on the fake-pathway in this fake-relationship.

Fall really is a lovely season. Too bad it lasts for such a short time.

And yes, I know it's Nanoplemowo, or however it's spelled, and I seriously considered joining - but then I figured nobody wanted to read daily ramblings, because there's no way I have the energy to produce quality writing every day for a month, seeing that I'm struggling as it is.

But be excited! Next week! I remember that my kitchen exists!

Flying first class is always worth it.

2006-10-31T08:52:00.000-05:00

A couple of pictures from my flight back to LA, where one can wear flip flops in October without freezing one's toes off. More on my trip later, when I have time to sit down and write.

As if the frigid temperatures weren't bad enough.

2006-10-28T07:29:00.000-04:00

Sure, they say a high of 58, but yesterday there was supposed to be a high of 53, and I don't think it ever got above 45. As one of my friends says, these are not temperatures, these are ages, and ages we're not going to hit for awhile. And today it's raining like it's freaking Noah's Ark, and there is a flood advisory and high wind warning in effect. Good thing Fake Boyfriend brought a projector from work home so we can project movies onto one of the walls of his apartment. And good thing too that I can send him out to get the essentials, like food and booze. Because you must be joking if you think I'm leaving the apartment in these kinds of conditions.

THIS is one of the primary reasons why I left New England.

2006-10-25T08:19:00.000-04:00

I don't think I've worn pants, let alone socks or closed-toe shoes, in at least 5 months. I have forgotten the concept of layering. This is going to suck.

See you next week, unless I've frozen to death.

More pickup lines that don't work.

2006-10-23T08:20:00.000-04:00

(What I really want to post here is a picture of one of my friends walking around with a 10-inch long plastic penis sticking out of his back pocket, but unfortunately the picture is still on another friend's camera. So you can just imagine that it's here.)

"Can you see us together? Don't you think we'd make a great couple? Huh? Yeah?"
[Keep in mind, this guy looked a bit like this actor, but drunker and more bloated. Winner!]

"I know, you're still a virgin, aren't you?"
[Seriously, this was actually said to me.]

"What's the oldest guy you'd sleep with?"
[Said by previous bloated drunk, who was 44. 44! And gross!]

"You need to feel the moneymaker."
[Okay, perhaps not really a pickup line since it was said by my aforementioned friend who had stuffed the fake penis down his pants, but it was still sort of gross and creepy.]

By the way, those cane-style umbrellas make for excellent pointing mechanisms and self-defense weapons. I wonder if there's a way I can incorporate one in my daily wear, without seeming like a nutjob.

I'm going as the Morton Salt Girl. I've the yellow slicker and all.

2006-10-19T22:45:00.000-04:00

Oh right. It's nearing that time of year where dressing up in costume is not only acceptable, but expected. Where begging for candy is what-is-done, even though you never really get anything good, and besides - make sure the wrapper's not torn or oddly warped, you don't know what those strangers have done to it!

Halloween was never big in my family, and I never cottoned to it as an adult (eek, is that what I am now?). I've never had the time nor the inclination to come up with a good costume, and have lived in apartment buildings where children apparently don't go knocking on strangers' doors (although I wouldn't mind a Girl Scout when it's cookie season).

But this year, alas, I've been forced into coming up with something more than just doctor (hi, I have a white coat, with my name embroidered on it, that is just collecting dust in the closet), or a professor (so easy with a tweed blazer and the right glasses), or something else that similarly can be termed a cop-out.

So, in an absolute fit of genius (or procrastination, perhaps), I thought I'd be Rainbow Brite! I mean, how cute is that? And it wouldn't be a very hard costume - all I'd really need would be a blue dress/tank-top-and-skirt-combo and some rainbow-striped legwarmers/armwarmers. I mean, those are easily found, right?

HA.

Sure, I got the tank top and skirt easily enough (even though they were vastly overpriced for what they were). But the rainbow-striped legwarmers! I was stymied! Stores that you'd expect to carry such things didn't. (Surprisingly, whenever I brought up I was looking for rainbow legwarmers, people immediately were all, "You're going to be Rainbow Brite?" That's not the first association I make with rainbow legwarmers. Ask me, and I'm more inclined to be like, "Whatthefuck, you're going as a badly-dressed person from the 80s?")

So I went online. And hooboy, there are some people out there who like Rainbow Brite a little too much. But to my surprise - guess what? You can be slutty Rainbow Brite!

Now, really. I understand if you want to be something particuarly slutty on Halloween - apparently, Halloween is a free pass to let your inner skank out. For instance, there is the ever-popular Playboy Bunny.

Now, that I understand, and props to you for dressing up like that. When I'm in public, I generally like to wear more than just a leotard (unless I'm on the beach, but that's a different matter), but if you have the body and the inclination, I say, go for it.

But I must draw the line at cartoon characters. They're supposed to be CUTE, not SLUTTY.

I mean, Strawberry Shortcake reimagined as some sort of gingham pinup wonder (with really ugly shoes)? No. Strawberry Shortcake, and Rainbow Brite - and heaven forbid, Care Bears...

That's right, that's a Care Bear. Prostitute Bear is more like it.

Sure, you can be flirty cute, as I probably would've been had I been able to find rainbow legwarmers. I mean, I'm not going to go around in a paper bag or anything (and I'm not a prude, really) and the skirt I found might have been a wee bit short (but nothing approximating crotch-height) - but I just wasn't going to be the prostitute version of what should remain as pure and innocent childhood memories.

But Dorothy, you know that that was all just an allegory for a skank looking for money. Especially in those shoes - do you really think she went tripping down a yellow brick road in those things?

Hi! I write so I can whine!

2006-10-16T08:43:00.000-04:00

Ack, it's been a week already? Funny how time flies... when you have craploads of work to do. Even though I have an enviable 2.5 days of classes and 5-day weekends, I have so much schoolwork to do (namely, writing parts of my master's thesis, editing parts of my master's thesis, rewriting parts of my master's thesis, wanting to burn my master's thesis [if only it wasn't an electronic file - although I suppose I could print it out and then burn it], etc). Combine that with plans of some sort every single night (but fun plans, so I can't give them up), and you might begin to see that I am on the verge of sheer exhaustion. If I didn't have to see a single soul for the next couple of days, I'd be happy.

I mean, I am already over a month behind in reading all the gazillion magazines I subscribe to (in case you're interested: Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Elle, Allure, Lucky, Domino, Gourmet, Saveur, Time, Condé Nast Traveler, Los Angeles Magazine), I barely have time to flip through the gazillion catalogues I receive (my apartment is apparently where trees go to die) and have hours of television-watching to catch up on. And since I spend so much of my time writing, do you really think that in the two seconds of free time I have I want to write MORE?

But I haven't forgotten you completely, my dears. We'll see what the following days bring. (If they brought me a nice red velvet cupcake, or better yet, a stupid Halloween costume, I wouldn't complain.)

More monday randomness.

2006-10-09T09:16:00.000-04:00

The picture really has no relevance to anything, except for the fact that it was SO GOOD and LOOK at ALL the treats!! Hello, diabetic coma.

Is it strange to be so attached to a phone number? Last week, I finally gave up my old Providence phone number for a new Los Angeles number. It certainly makes sense, for (hopefully - although it is a very cute city and a great college town) I'll never live in Providence again, and I was tired of people going, "401? Where is that from? Northern California?" But I liked being from elsewhere, even though I'm from here originally. I like being different like that.

But it was a big decision, and one I wavered on for a long time, because I liked those ten digits which have been a part of me for the past five years. I almost didn't do it this time 'round, but then realised I was being ridiculous.

People are funny with their phone numbers. I had an ex who changed his phone number every time he moved to a new city (even if it was just for the summer), which was really annoying because I was forever having to update his information, but he liked being a part of where he was living. I've had friends who've thrown fits to get the "proper" area code, because heaven forbid they have a less desirable area code for the city in which they live. There's a certain cachet in some area codes, which is amusing because hi! Three digits don't really define you - but yet in some psychological sense, they do.

With that 401 link, I was still tied in some physical sense to the East coast. Now, I've sort of grudgingly settled into admitting that I'll be in LA for the time being.

At the very least, then, you'd think it could be sunny outside.

The state of dating in LA.

2006-10-04T08:04:00.000-04:00

Monday night, I had the great honour of experiencing what might have been the worst date EVER, in the whole entire world. Here are a few snippits:

"A lot of my exes have been Asian. Asian girls love Italian men. They were totally into me, but I wasn't into them. I'm lazy. It was easy. And they were so into me, and you know, I'm lazy."

When asked to STOP talking about all his exes already, he barreled right on ahead with, "Hahaha, there's more... back in high school..." (emphasis mine.)

There'd be more, but I was too busy making fun of him with my friend and the owner of my favourite wine bar. (Maybe I should start abbreviating it "MFWB".) That's right - fortunately, I wasn't on said date, but rather just egregiously eavesdropping on that horrendous date. Not that the guy noticed - he was too wrapped up in himself and talking too loudly to realise what was happening in the world around him. And yes, it was a date - both the owner and another guy at the wine bar said her body language totally said "date". Although had I been in her position, even if on the date, my body language would have said, "No amount of good wine in the world is worth this asshat."

That's not to say I haven't met my fair share of interesting characters too. For instance, there's the cute pilot who's unfortunately mean to cats. He doesn't abuse them, but he's not the nicest person when it comes to cats (and the story I've heard only involves one cat; I don't think he's a repeat offender). I've been trying to figure out how I feel about that, since (sorry all you cat owners) I'm not the biggest cat person either, but my friends have been ix-naying him. And then there was this other guy who works on one of my favourite TV shows, but not only did he ask a host of weird questions (in addition to trying to get me to come to him at the bar - HAHA! I move for nobody, I am like the mountain), he was Dutch (which isn't necessarily synonymous with "odd", but in this case is) and said he was "sort of seeing someone." Stupid, stupid. I'm tired just thinking about these people.

Anyway, I realise that I'm busy every night from now until past the first weekend of November - how I'm going to balance this with school, who knows! Good thing I have 5-day weekends!

Fishy monday.

2006-10-02T09:12:00.000-04:00

I've been obsessed with fresh sardines since I had them at one of my favourite sushi restaurants. Although I'd never had them before, I just assumed that they would be really salty and oily. Like anchovies, with which I frequently confuse them.

But do you know how hard it is to find sardines in Los Angeles? I'm talking about fresh sardines, with their heads still on and all. Rumor has it that they can be found in Korean and Japanese markets, but none of the ones I've gone to so far carry them, or didn't have them that day. They also come by special delivery to a fish market in the area, but there is a waiting list approximately 50 people long and if you can't pick up the sardines right away when they get a delivery in, you lose out.

So imagine how happy I was when whilst visiting my friend in DC, we found fresh sardines at Whole Foods while shopping for dinner. (My friend? Not as thrilled. I think it's because their heads were still on.) I had to have some! Rah for sardines!

By the way, cleaning sardines isn't as easy as instructions would have you believe. Just pop off the head with your thumb, pull out the spine, remove any small bones, and that's it! HAHAHA. To say that the kitchen area where I was working looked like a mini fishy crime scene is not an exaggeration, with guts and bones everywhere.

However, the prepared sardines were still delicious, if a little full of bones because I got bored of deboning them. It makes the eating process more exciting if you have to worry about choking.

Next time I find sardines, I'm wondering if the fishmonger will be able to fillet them for me, because I just don't have the patience. But I'd be willing to work on my technique, once I find them in LA. I don't want to have to fly to the East coast every time I want to prepare sardines myself.

Only one day of classes, and I'm POOPED.

2006-09-29T09:26:00.000-04:00

duck breast + salt + time = duck proscuitto

Seriously, that's all that it takes. Surprisingly easy for surprisingly sophisticated results. A more specific recipe can be found in Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, since I'm too lazy to type it out. Here, I cubed the proscuitto and tossed it in a salad with mâche, dried cranberries, sugar-and-spice pepitas, chèvre, and a light vinaigrette. It's a transitioning-into-fall salad - nothing's cooked, in a nod to waning summer nights, but the flavours are slightly heavier, in an admission that fall's here.

The pepitas on their own, by the way, are quite tasty. And they have a whole host of nutitional benefits.

By the way, apparently I've forgotten, but:

hangover + little sleep + classes + no nap time = bad combination

You'd think that after 23 years of school (okay, but in only 9 of those years did I drink) I'd have learned, but apparently I still haven't yet. Good thing I don't have classes Mondays or Fridays, isn't it though?

Probably the last crafy thing you'll see in awhile. Or not really, I'm just going back to school.

2006-09-27T09:23:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's really the end of my summer, as classes start tomorrow. And, with such proper timing, apparently I'm sick (luckily not enough to be incapacitating, but just enough to be annoying). Oh, woe is poor me.

Anyway, I had seen the instructions for making this stuffed octopus and decided that I just had to make my own, which turned out pretty well, if I say so myself. It took longer than it probably should've, since I kept getting turned around with the legs and putting them on wrong. But now, I sort of don't want to give it to one of the five gazillion babies I know because it's so cute, but what use have I for a stuffed octopus? None at all. So, to a baby it will go. Even though s/he will probably just drool all over it.

If you want to make your own, instructions are here. Notes: I used significantly more of Color A than the instructions state - more like 8 or 9 ounces rather than the 4 stated there. Same with Color B - I think I used around 4 ounces. In terms of attaching the legs, the instructions are not very clear in the least and there is a certain alignment you need so that you can finish off the belly part of the octopus. In essence, just make sure all the openings are on the same side otherwise you'll run into problems later.

In the meantime, I'm going to take my poor (not really terribly) sick self to the couch and watch loads of bad daytime TV. How this is different from when I'm not sick - well, not very much.

Argh! Classes start this week!

2006-09-25T09:43:00.000-04:00

I wish I could say that I'd digitally altered the lighting in this photograph (HAHA, like I know how to use Photoshop), or that it had been an especially pretty sunrise/sunset. In reality, however, this picture was taken in the middle of the day - the lovely orange-ish hue is due to the fires that're ripping up California. In fact, when I flew into Burbank on my way back from DC last week, the pilot told us that if we smelled smoke, it wasn't the plane falling apart, but rather, it was all due to the fire.

However, I do have to say, the light was particularly pretty last week, as though we were on the set of a movie set on the Italian riviera. But no. It's just Ventura County burning up.

(By the way, why is it that my plants flourish in my absence? Every time I go away, I come back and they're happier than ever. Yet in my presence, they threaten imminent death.)