Diary of a "Skinny" Fat Kid

Ok so I have to be honest that last post about baking, yeah that didn’t happen, I was all hopeful that I could be one of those awesome bloggers that cooks and bakes and posts pictures and recipes and you go holy eff how do you eat all this delicious stuff you make, never talk about working out, but still look awesomez in every outfit you post (and somehow also has time to go to the flea market every Saturday and decoupage dressers and make DIY jewelry), but alas, I live in the city of indulgence where eating out 4 days a week is not at all uncommon and people go to brunch more religiously than any church. And staying in on a Friday night to try out baking a new type of olive oil cake, yeah not gonna happen, I’ll do that when I’m 90. So yeah I don’t really have the time to bake these days and with summer around the corner the only thing I will be cooking is healthy breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Boring yes, but will I be happy that first day I have to put on a bathing suit, meh, probs not but at least I’ll feel like I put in a marginal effort. And it turns out I always forget to take pictures of the food while I’m cooking (well not forget I just am the type of person who attempts to clean up after myself while cooking so the kitchen is not a total disaster scene when I’m done and thus the times when I’m not actively chopping or sautéing or whatever is spent washing dishes or putting things away not snapping whimsical hipstamatic pictures) and let’s be serious I am a ravenous beast by the time I finish cooking and do not take the time to take pictures I just make my way from the kitchen to the couch as quickly as possible to start eating, so all I have are pictures of half eaten not nearly as pretty looking food, like this lovely half eaten pork chop that I posted above and sent a picture of to Alli face with the “recipe” (aint that a sexy pork chop)  food blogger I am not, but good cook, yeah I’m decent. I say recipe in quotes because I don’t really believe in them, I kind of just wing it, eyeball it, or when appropriate taste things till I get it to where I want it (obvious disclaimer since I apparently have an international readership beyond just my friends according to my stats, the tasting till it’s right does not apply to raw eggs, pork, chicken, etc, use your head I don’t want anyone coming down with trichinosis and blaming my blog). So either way don’t expect any cute pictures of profiteroles or cranberry raisin scones or anything any time soon, and I won’t bore you with posts about healthy food unless it’s like super delicious and tastes like it’s bad for you but it’s not, which are, by the way, my favorite types of foods, since at heart I am just a fat kid that wants to be skinny, I see a book deal in the works, Diary of Wannabe Skinny Fat Kid.

Clarissa...How One Woman Explained It Alll

This Malcom Gladwell Book Generator seriously made me laugh, while I do really like The Tipping Point I have to admit this is pretty funny, this is definitely the next book I am going to focus on reading, I really hope there are whole chapters dedicated to both Ferguson Darling and Sam.

When Life Hands You Meyer Lemons...Make Meyer Lemon Cake...duh

Ok so since moving into my new apartment I have really been keeping up with my plans to cook more for myself, now basically the only thing I order for delivery is sushi (since I cannot do it any sort of justice myself and really I think Hana makes my sushi on the way up the stairs to my apartment because it legit take 10 mins from when I put down my phone till they’re at my front door, hell it takes me practically 10 mins to make it up those 4 flights as it is without sushi knives, fish, wasabi, etc, so those dudes, I can’t compete). That being said I have been going to Trader Joe’s (seriously cannot get enough of that place) at least weekly and whipping up some delicious stuff (if I do say so myself), I’m even eating breakfast at home every day now so definitely saving some money and calories. However, as some of you might remember (though it’s been quite some time since this was regular practice) I am also a pretty good baker and used to at the very least whip up baked goods and bring them into my office or over to people’s houses about once or twice a month, well living in 1G, with Federico nipping at everything I made in the kitchen asking if I was “done with that” and being faced with potentially massive mountains of dishes that needed to be washed prior to even starting to bake rather put me off the whole endeavor, that and a friend this summer pretty much dared me to attempt to make his mother’s 8 (yes you read right 8) layer fudge cake in his kitchen rather than my own (baking away not a good plan) and with fairly questionable equipment and it was (I thought) a miserable failure, though he did eat the whole thing himself. However, with my new digs I have resolved to try to start baking at least once a month again; first up will be Meyer Lemon Olive Oil Cake with Homemade Crème Fraiche, mostly because I have all the ingredients (except for the Meyer Lemons which I have seriously been eyeing every time I’ve gone to Trader Joe’s recently) and it looks easy and really delicious, so get ready to eat kids, I’m off to Willams and Sonoma tonight (after spin class..see below) to get a few items I have found to be wanting in my kitchen

• Lemon Zester
• Mortar and Pestle
• Mandoline Slicer
• Meat Thermometer (after someone at 1G, still don't know who,put mine in the dishwasher which meat thermometers no like, they melt, but I'm over it I swear)
• Cake Plate (to store all of these baked goods I've convinced myself  I'm going to make)
Yes I am a dork, what normal 27 year old girl needs any kind of zester, perhaps I need more zester in my life in general, oh well, and thankfully this new plan also coincided with a recently renewed interest in going to the gym, so net net I think I’ll be A-OK.



My liver is nervous

Wow kids…if any of you are even still out there reading…I have been a bad bad blogger, I had been on a tear of blogging…inspired by Liz’s awkward promise to blog every day till Jan 31 or something which she sort of kept to….and then I just totes fell off the face of the earth…real (non interwebz) life has been cray cray hectic…though I can’t blame it on moving since that was like 2 months ago and I way wore out that excuse in every aspect of my life,  new excuse…I finally got an iPhone and angry birds has taken over all my free time…not so believable…hey (too bad it’s almost the truth) promise to get back on track…already have a blog post in mind for Monday…but cannot dedicate any brain cells or energy to writing that right now…conserving all of my energy for this weekends activities…which will kick off tonight with all you can drink/eat sushi and sake bombing…and I openly admit I’m old and nervous…and need to take a nap before hand…god I am an old woman….I should probably bring a sweater in case I get chilly…to think only last year I was seen at the now closed Cube 63 (tears) doing shots of red wine with abandon with the waiters while they played Shots Shots Shots on repeat while half the table wore matching neon snow hats purchased at none other than the epicenter of haute couture….Walgreens (excuse the blurry picture the waiters at Cube played Shots on repeat so many times our camera buckled under the peer pressure and got wasted too…that drunk fuck…falling down on the job)…and then our whole table got into a verbal brawl with the girls next to us….which resulted in us departing the restaurant only to have  Blair return…all old western gungslinger style…throw open the front door and pronounce at top volume….WHAT?!?!?...WHAT?!?!?....with Feddy in the background giving them the double middle finger salute…what a classy crowd this restaurant attracted…I have no idea why they closed.

Wha...what is a weekend?!?!?

Ok so I admit it I am a closet Masterpiece Theater junky, Alistair Cooke has always and will always be my boy, heck if it’s on PBS I’ll probably watch it, though I guess after blogging about it everyone will now know my secret. But I have to share openly now because over the last three weeks I have been COMPLETELY hooked on a new mini-series Dowton Abbey, I thought I was probably the only person in America under the age of 50 watching the show until CashMoney alerted me to the fact that NY Mag  had done a whole article about the series, in particular Maggie Smith’s absolutely pitch perfect performance as Lady Grantham. The production is rich (I think I read somewhere it costs something a million pounds per hour of television to produce eeep) and unlike Julian Fellowes usual film work where only key story lines for the servants are brought to light, here the whole political landscape of both upstairs (those who are to the manor born) and downstairs (the ladies maids, and cooks, butlers, and footman etc) are completely brought to light. And seriously back to Maggie Smith she is honestly given some of the best zingers in the whole show (particularly when one character explains that he has a job as an attorney, how very middle class, but will have plenty of time to attend to something at the weekend…to which she replies with great trepidation “Wh…what is a weekend?” )and delivers them with such dead pan I can barely keep from falling off the couch laughing (now this is coming from a true masterpiece lover) but I ensure you, you will have trouble stifling at least a giggle.

Breen Breen the Dancing Machine

So Blair’s mom was in town this past weekend, unfortunately I was a bit under the weather on Saturday evening and wasn’t able to make it out to dinner with the group at Abe and Arthur’s but made up for it with a two hour dance party at 1G as pictured above…no one belts out tunes into a “microphone” (aka Swiffer Wet Jet) like this girl…see above. And yesterday I was lucky enough to accompany Momma Breen to her final treatment for breast cancer, she underwent 6 weeks of chemo and 6 weeks of radiation and yesterday was her last session of radiation, so the whole family headed out with her and they had her bang a gong to signify the end of her treatment, what I wasn’t at all surprised to hear (but it’s still always nice) was that all of the staff that she saw on a daily basis would miss her terribly, and what a posterchild for good attitude she was throughout her treatment, nothing keeps you healthier than having a smile on your face and laughing as much as possible, and my mother is certainly living proof of that. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of said gong ceremony because I was a space cadet and forgot I could take one with my blackberry, luckily my aunt has an action shot which I hope she posts on facebook!

PS. And for those of you who did not catch the incredible handi-work I did with the title of this post, Gene Gene The Dancing Machine was a recurring skit on the Gong Show and with references to gongs and dance parties in the same post I thought it only appropriate

This changes everything...again

So I pose a question to all, I have for the past 3 or so years been dying to get an iPhone…despite the fact that when I am pretty much all thumbs when it comes to texting on the thing, prepare yourself for some humdingers, I think once I tried to type “That sounds fantastic” and ended up with something to the effect of “thank you hippopotomaus” damn autotext thing, imagine how well that went over…I’ll tell you how…like a lead balloon. Anyway so do I bite the bullet and jump like all the rest of the Verizon beholden and get the thing Feb 10, every fibre of my body wants to run out to the Verizon store now and get in line (well not really I think people who camp out for anything be it Twilight or Harry Potter or the newest release of Call of Duty are just losers with a capital L…newsflash Edward Cullen is not real and Robert Pattison has no interest in dating you..ever..he’s with angry old Pot O Stew…please don’t be mad Chrissy). That being said do I buy the phone immediately as in during normal daylight hours on February 10^th or take the really lazy route and have it mailed to me, or should I wait at least a week or two to see if the thing totally sucks. I mean already I know that Verizon’s technology is such that you can’t use more than one application at time, and this won’t be available until the iPhone 5 comes out NEXT YEAR…seriously a whole year….and seriously Verizon haven’t you wanted the iPhone since like the dawn of Christ how come you didn’t have your technology aligned perfectly so that when Apple gave you the go ahead you coulda been like cool man we’re ready. Anyway that’s neither here nor there, I will definitely buy the iPhone 5 when it comes out, but do I wait a WHOLE YEAR (jeez I can’t really believe that’s true) or suck it up and buy the iPhone 4 with a 1 year contract (paying more obviously) and upgrade next year, I have to think that anything even a slightly lower functioning iPhone will be superior to my current it’s actually painful to browse the internet on it and I only do it in dire circumstances Blackberry, what does everyone think? I know what I think…I want the iPhone so badly I might die….is that enough to justify it??