La la Land....

Well here is the post you have all been waiting for!!!

See how the air looks all thick and smoky... and SMOGY! YUCK! LA was definitely cool and Aaron and I are happy that we went. However, there was SO much smog... all weekend long! I thought that stuff clears up over the weekend? The picture above was taken on Sunday from Griffith Park which overlooks all of LA. We could barely make out the skyline with the smog. Also, I had a headache and was sneezing all weekend and I am sure its from the smog. BLECK! I can't believe all the people in LA put up with this stuff. Its scary to think of the long term health problems people are going to have there.

The other thing we hated about LA... TRAFFIC. OMG. I cannot even begin to tell you how much traffic we got into. We stayed in West Hollywood which is about 8 miles from Downtown, Little Tokyo, Griffin Observatory http://www.griffithobs.org/, the Tarpits, and every where else we wanted to go. Only 8 little miles... we thought with a car we were fine. We were wrong, we were very, very, wrong. It took us over an hour to get to downtown LA and all of those other places too! It was unreal. We also got a bit lost one day, which was our fault, but seriously, the traffic was unreal.

Well, lets get started on the recap. We stayed at the Standard Hotel which is very interesting and includes some random chick sitting in a fish tank in the lobby, a weird lounge with fish flying above and desert scenes on the walls.

This fish was one of a few....randomly hanging from the ceiling. Um? Am I missing something?

This was the wall covering in the lounge...which makes you feel like you are in...the desert? Why? I just think the hotel was maybe a little bit too trendy for me? It was all very minimalistic but kind of new age at the same time. It was pretty cool in all honesty, but definitely not your normal hotel. In the rooms they had all kinds of things for sale...including condoms, star maps of Hollywood, $100 bottles of champagne, specialty candles, bubble bath, cds....They also had little cacti for sale for $20. I guess that was a continuation of the desert theme.

Aaron ordered a beer in the lounge. This lounge was exclusive enough that they had a guest list and several security guards. Even so....they brought Aaron this... a 40 oz beer in a brown paper bag. Aaron was in heaven. I thought it was...odd?

Isn't he great? I think the 40 got to his head. :) The first night we got in pretty late so we hung out at the hotel and went to dinner and this really good Japanese Tapas Bar that was right down the street on Sunset. We had all kinds of tasty treats including a green papaya salad, shrimp balls, salmon rolls in soy paper, and crispy rice with seared ahi. It was all so good. I should mention that even though I am abstaining from meat including beef, poultry, and pork, I am still eating fish. I didn't have the gall to take pictures in the restaurant... I never feel quite at ease in LA and thought pictures of my shrimp balls would not add to my cool LA attitude...um right.

The next morning we went to the Original LA Farmer's Market. It was so cool! It's a permanent structure with all kinds of food stands and farm stands...shops, bars, etc. We looked around and settled on an organic Mexican eatery. I had a grilled veggie burrito that was amazing and not too heavy. Aaron had a sampler plate of 12 kinds of mini tacos. He said they were great! We sat a little bar and had a SF favorite... Anchor Steam Beer. It was such a fun way to spend a Saturday morning. We then went into a little French shop that was REALLY hard to resist. I bought some tea... Kusmi Tea and some French Macaroons. We are still savoring the cookies and I can't stop drinking my new Gunpowder Green Tea from Paris. :)

After the Farmer's Market we headed to Little Tokyo.  The above was some kind of tower at the entrance. We also met up with my old college friend Aimee. She was really busy because she is an editor for a teen star magazine and the Grammy's were the next day...so she had interviews, etc. to do . But we saw her for a little while and it was great to catch up.  Aimee and I were in the same sorority... eek! a sorority! at SDSU and we were roommates too. We did tons of fun things together and used to love spending time at the beach. While I still consider us good friends, we don't see each other that often anymore....it still seems like we know one another really well and like we hadn't been apart for as long as we have.

After hanging with Aimee, we did a little bit of shopping and I got some cool new kicks...

I also picked up some bento boxes which will make it onto the blog. Little Tokyo was really cool...lots of food stands and shops and museums...that we didn't have time to go to because of the traffic. 

We made our way back to the hotel after stopping at Vito's pizza http://www.vitopizza.com/ for some dinner. I had some great veggie slices and Aaron had some kind of meat deluxe business. It was good, thin crust pizza with lots of veggies and not very much cheese....nice and light. We relaxed for a while and then headed to the Nokia Theatre district so we could meet up with an old friend I haven't seen since high school! Lindsey (otherwise known as SUGI) was one of my best friends in high school. She was the ASB president, the cheer captain, the president of the dance team, on and on. She was amazing and really a great dancer. She has followed her dreams to LA and after attending UCLA she now has a full time career in teaching high school dance, coaching cheer, and she has her own dance studio. I am sorry I did not get any pictures because she looks lovely. I also met her husband and they have three children who did not join us. Although many years have passed and many changes have happened in our lives, it was like we had never been apart...it was really great to see her. It's funny how time can change some things so much... and how time sometimes time can't touch friendships. 

After we had a couple of drinks with Lindsey and her husband...we headed to the Eddie Izzard show! It was fantastic. I am not going to try and recreate any of the jokes because it just won't sound as funny. He mainly joked about Sarah Palin and God. It was great. The energy was unreal... I had never been to a big comedy show like that and it was really, really, cool. What a nice, big theater too!

The next morning we had breakfast at a little French Place and then headed to the La Brea Tar Pits. Interesting! It was full of TAR! There was tar everywhere. There were also some cool buildings...some museums, etc.

After looking at the cool museums.. we saw some ....can you guess....TAR!

It was all over the place... it grew in the trees.....

And it really was everywhere. 

This is me! See the little paw prints on the ground? I think it was supposed to be "tar prints"....

This man was playing his guitar in front of the tar pit museum and I just found him very charming with his hat and old guitar. The whole place was so surreal with the tar pits being right in the middle of all these tall modern buildings. Weird. 

Then we headed up to the Griffith Observatory which was very cool despite all the fog. 

Here is Aaron trying on some astronaut stuff inside.....

This was a really neat thing in front of the observatory. It had statues of astronomers (several of which were also philosophers). I really liked it...so Aaron took a picture of me......

Don't I look...philosophical? :)

After the observatory we drove to Sunset again and found all kinds of cool little restaurants and shops. We ate some veggie burgers for lunch, poked around, and headed home. 

Like I said, all in all, it was a great trip but I really don't like LA. Too much traffic, smog, and snotty people. The people in LA are NOT nice and are so perfect they made me feel self conscious.  There are tons of amazing things to do and see but I don't think I could live there. 

A whole new respect...

I have a whole new respect for bloggers....keeping up with this is hard work!!!! I have been excruciatingly busy lately with work mainly, and yoga, travel, visitors, etc. I literally have been running non stop. By the time I get home and eat dinner, I read about 20-30 pages of a book and CRASH. I work in recruiting and basically my job is sales. I am working at a start up company so no one knows us and I am doing a lot of networking, lunching, happy hours, coffee meetings (well... tea for me :) )etc. to get our name out there. This makes my work days go by incredibly quickly but I also have to give up my lunches and often my evenings for meetings and when I don't have meetings, I am catching up on all the administrative work I can't do when I am at meetings! What a cycle! I am not complaining, I really like my job, I am just working a ton.

On top of that, I am keeping up with my goal of going to yoga class at least 5 times a week, walking my dog everyday for at least 20 minutes (sometimes it's more), cooking healthy foods, trying to get in some reading and balancing all my trips and visitors. This month we have visitors for three of the weekends, we are house sitting a for friend for one weekend, and the first weekend in March we are going to the car show in Yuma. Phew! Busy!

I actually missed out on one of my favorite activities tonight...cooking club! because I got filling today and my jaw and tooth were sore...and honestly, I was just tired!

So... the dentist. Me and the dentist are not friends. I have always had trouble with my teeth...endless fillings, gum surgery at the age of 10, braces times two, headgear, root canals, crowns...ugh! I don't drink soda, I rarely eat sugary things, and I take incredible care of my teeth. I brush three times a day with an electronic sonic brush, I have floss EVERYWHERE and floss literally two to three times a day, and I use a fluoride rinse  2 to 3 times a week. Honestly,  I think its genetic. It has been such a challenge my whole life. Over the past couple of years, I have developed a real fear of the dentist...not so much for general cleanings, but when I need to get any work done. Seriously... I freak out. For a while I had to take some kind of sedatives and have someone drive me to the appointment (usually this ended up being my boss...and I was totally loopy in the middle of the day. Yeah! Fun.). Now I have a dentist that will use Nitrous at request (and for $120!!!!) which makes me feel silly but I can't do it without. I get all panicked and shaky and sweaty and seriously can't take it. So the filling I had scheduled for today had been rescheduled.....three times... at my request. I kept making up excuses "I am too busy at work".... but really I was just scared shitless. Finally I went today and they are really nice and sensitive to my fears but they treat me like a little kid and kind of make fun of me. And I get all stressy and I just can't even begin to describe how much I hate it. All of that stress is so draining! I try not to stress but I think its beyond my mental control. Today I just kept picturing myself on the beach in Maui and that helped, but didn't preclude me from being sore, tired and drained when it was all said and done. Phew! I don't think I would have been any fun at cooking club tonight anyway.

On a side note, Aaron never flosses, eats sweets and drinks soda...and he NEVER has issues. Harumph. At least I have been told I have a nice smile. :)

CSA Delivery and Clean out the Fridge Day!

Every other Monday I get my CSA Package from Be Wise Ranch http://www.bewiseranch.com/. I pay $30 for a large box every other week.  Here is some of last night's shipment. It included strawberries, oranges, carrots, cherry tomatoes, bok choy, some interesting greens, radishes, turnips, sweet potatoes, limes, lemons, cabbage, and an avocado. This shipment was a little bit smaller than they usually are and I am guessing that is because of all the crazy rain we have been having... I hope their crops aren't too badly damaged. Regardless, I think it's such a great deal! This is all organic, locally grown produce that is delicious and my biweekly payment helps support a local farm....and I just think that is really cool! The shipments usually last about a week and a half (the fruit runs out quicker) but this is where the majority of my produce comes from. If you are interested in finding a CSA in your area, check out this site:   http://www.localharvest.org/ The site also lists farmer's markets. I can't stress the importance of buying local produce and goods....The CSA has been great in also trying to come up with recipes for different things than I usually buy. Like turnips...anyone have any recipe ideas for those?

Here is another shot....the strawberries were surprisingly good....very sweet for being pretty early in the year for them...

And another.....

Usually on Sunday's Aaron goes to work on his car (he is rebuilding a 53 Chevy, "Rat Rod" Style) in Lakeside which is about 40 miles from our house. His dad, Vito, lives out there and has lots of cars, property, and equipment to work on cars.  Aaron and Vito get to bond and Aaron gets to work on this cool car under the expert supervision of his dad. In the past few years Aaron and I have been together, I have learned far more about cars than I EVER wanted to or expected to. But I have to say it's been really fun to watch Aaron work and car culture is surprisingly fun. Just don't ask me to tell you the difference from a 53 to 54 to 55 Chevy.... I still can't remember! It's a really nice way for us to spend time with Vito and his wife Nathalee, whom I absolutely love. They are great fun.  We are going to Yuma, AZ, for a show called "Midnight at the Oasis" in March.  Aaron and I are always the youngest people there by about 20 years.  It's a whole weekend of cars and car culture. Check out the website... http://www.caballeros.org/ It's kind of funny that I like to go, if you knew me well you would know I like France and fine food and shopping and girly, fancy things. (In all honesty, I spend most of the time reading out by the pool!) But I really think one of the best aspects of our relationship is that we have our own hobbies to focus on.  I will have to post some pictures of the car... I think it will be pretty fun to cruise around in the rat rod once it's done....people will definitely be looking. 

While Aaron spends Sunday's on his car, I get a whole day to myself. I didn't really love it at first because Aaron and I really work a ton during the week and the weekend was our time. But now I don't mind it because I usually spend Sunday's with my friends, or by myself, doing yoga, going to the farmer's markets, taking long hikes, reading, catching up girly tv shows, etc.  

I also usually spend a few hours on Sunday cooking some basic foods to have ready for lunches and dinners for the week. I usually make a big dinner on Sunday like soup, risotto, etc, that we can have lots of leftovers from. I also like to cook one kind of dry bean or dry lentil to add to things like salads or bowls during the week. And I also cook up one kind of whole grain or rice for the week.  I find if I keep a few of these things on hand already cooked, I can just add in some veggies and have a complete meal in minutes. When you work 10-12 hours a day like me and Aaron, it's important to plan ahead, or you will just have tons of crappy, non homemade food!

Since we were in LA all weekend, I really didn't have time to do that this weekend. So last night I made it a priority and after cleaning all my produce from my CSA (another great time saver I learned from Raechel Ray) I had tons of veggie trimmings and other leftovers in the fridge to deal with. I used the veggie trimmings to make a large pot of home made vegetable stock. You can just save all the leftover bits of the veggies you use for a week, put them in a large pot with water, a dash of salt, and any fresh herbs you want. Boil for 1-2 hours until the broth tastes good and then strain it out.  Keep in the fridge for a week or freeze for? a couple months? It's such a cheap and healthier version of store bought stock...it's actually free because I normally would throw these veggie bits away. (I wish I had a compost pile, but that's another story.)

I also juiced all the grapefruits from Rosemary and a big bag of tangerines that were too seedy to eat. I bet I only got about 2 cups of juice from about 20 pieces of fruit! It sure tastes good though. 

I also made two big pots of soup. One was cooked with a variety of beans and grains. Basically, I chopped garlic, onions, carrots, and celery and sautéed them with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil. I used 1 cup of mixed beans and lentils and added about 8 cups of watered down stock. I also threw in two bay leaves and some dry thyme (although I think fresh thyme would have been better). After about an hour and a half of simmering when the beans were nice and soft, I added about 2 cups of tomato puree, salt, and pepper. I also had a rind of pecorino romano cheese so I threw that in. The soup was good but a little too tomato-ee. I think I will add some honey or agave when we eat it again so they taste more like baked beans than soup.  Here is our dinner with little vegan cheese and arugula sandwiches. The sandwiches are on a pretty new Japanese tray I bought this weekend in LA in Little Tokyo.  It was a good little dinner and I love my new dish. So pretty. 

The last thing I made last night was the second pot of soup...again a real mish mosh, clean out your fridge kind of soup. I had made a spoof on a tomato gratin from Barefoot Contessa last week. It was basically whole grain bread, fresh tomatoes, olive oil and dried herbs baked together. It was good but we had left overs. I have seen a couple of varieties of Italian soup cooked with bread to thicken it, so I thought, why not make the leftovers into soup? Again, I used carrots, celery, garlic and onions and sautéed them together. Then I added about 2 cups of baked fresh tomatoes and 2 cups of the bread. If you don't have the leftovers like I did, you could just chop up some tomatoes and day old bread.  Then I added in about 2 cups of mushroom broth and 8 oz of sliced crimini mushrooms. I also added the rest of the pureed tomatoes from the other soup...maybe 1 cup? I let it simmer for about 15 minutes until it thickened. We just ate it for dinner tonight after reheating it on the stove...OMG! It was so good! Aaron scarfed it up. I sprinkled some fresh parsley on top for some color and it was amazing. Really great, simple, earthy food. And now I have two portions for lunch or last minute dinner.

And I think that does it for a long post. LA update coming soon. Good nite! 

Did I leave the gas on?

In case you don't know this guy, his name is Eddie Izzard. He is the best comedian on the planet. And I am going to see him in LA tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!! AHAHAHAA I am so excited to see him I just can't sit still! He is the funniest, smartest person EVER. Look him up.  Aaron and I are leaving right after work for a whole weekend of LA fun so I probably won't blog again until Sunday or Monday. 

On a completely unrelated note, I wanted to share some pictures with you from last week. I have some really cool distant cousins that live in Cardiff by the Sea, which is a little beach town about 5 miles north of where I live. These cousins just came into my life in May (it seems like a lot of cool things happened to me in May.... discovering blogs....learning about vegetarianism, meetings my cousins....lots of vacations....interestingly enough that same month I had a fortune cookie that said "You are about to begin something new and wonderful" Hmmmm.... anyway, I digress.)  So these mystery cousins consist of 4 generations and I have developed a nice friendship with one of them, Rosemary. Rosemary lives with her partner, Raymond, in this little house overlooking the Pacific ocean. They are both artists...Rosemary does giant brush painting (and tai chi, and yoga, and other things....) and Raymond is a photographer. They both love art and are lucky to do it for a living. They both also teach to share their knowledge. Their house is just great! It's full of their art work and such a nice view.  It always seems they have some kind of jazz or classical music playing too.  They have lovely land with tons of fruit trees and flowers, and bonsai. See some of the gorgeous-nous below:

This flower tree is so pretty! I think Raymond told me they are camilias. Initially I felt it was sad the blossoms were dropping to the ground but Raymond quickly corrected me. He told me it was like the flowers were meant to be scattered on the ground...just for him! :)

This is a grapefruit tree and Rosemary gave me a whole bag to use. She said they would be a bit tart but great for some cocktail mixers with lemoncelo or some other sweet liquor. I haven't had time to try them yet, but I will. It sounds delish! The building in the back is Rosemary's studio where she has classes on giant brush painting and where she keeps her art supplies, etc. There is a large wall of windows looking out to the ocean and there is also a large wall filled with books and records...thousands I would assume! What I wouldn't give to spend a day picking through those records and listening to them...It is truly an amazing studio and she is so lucky to have it. She also practices yoga in there. Rosemary's mother, Dorothea, is 90+ and also does yoga...she can do handstands!!!! I can't even do handstands! Dorothea lives across the street and is wonderful, more on her later. 

While I am very happy that Rosemary, Raymond, and the rest of their family have come into my life, it's kind of sad I have these cool cousins living so close and I just met them!  They are so full of creativity and caring and are truly remarkable people. I look forward to continuing to cultivate our relationships and hope I can take some classes from both of them!

Last Sunday I spent some time with Rosemary and we went to the Leucadia Farmer's Market. We had such a nice time.  The sun was out for the first time in a week and we shared a leisurely vegetarian lunch and each others' company.  The Leucadia Farmer's market is great! You can see the ocean from there and they always have musicians playing.  They have great products not available at other farmer's markets in San Diego. It's a little more hippy-ish...just like Leucadia. :)  

That is where I bought the aforementioned guavas, some sweet potatoes, apples, pears, asian pears (Aaron's favorite), oranges and some iris. We get our CSA package every other week and while most of the vegetables keep us occupied through the two weeks, we eat the fruit within one week so I go to a farmer's market to supplement. I also bought some green juice that I took a large swig of each morning. It was $8 but was pretty big (Maybe a liter?) and full of kale and other green stuff... as I understand, juicing is REALLY pricey and this seemed like a good deal for what I imagined was probably 4-5 pounds worth of produce in one bottle. It was very planty tasting, but I really liked it! It gave me tons of energy and I think I get the whole juicing thing. I don't have the money or space for a juicer but will definitely pick up this zesty green juice whenever I can. 

Well, I am off to LA for Eddie, visiting with some old friends, the La Brea Tar Pits, The Getty Museum, Venice Beach, maybe Santa Monica, the LA Original Farmer's Market, Little Tokyo....Yeah! A little vacation with my Honey!

Happy Friday everyone (and don't forget to not leave the gas on....hee...hee)!

Locust Pose and Lotus... Roots?

I am sure some of you know more about yoga than others so for the sake of the newbies, I will do some explaining.

The type of yoga I do is vinyasa yoga. Basically, vinyasa yoga is a flowing form of yoga with lots of breathing and flowing postures. It is much more aggressive and active than more traditional and well known hatha yoga. The studio I go to also heats the room to 105 degrees, and sometimes with so many people in there, the room gets even hotter. Luckily, they clean the floor constantly and the floor is antibacterial. The heat really allows for better flexibility and all that sweating is great for getting your body rid of toxins that you eat, breath, and live in everyday. It is such an incredible workout for your cardio system, your muscles and joints, and for calming your mind after a long day. I LOVE it!

As if heated vinyasa wasn't hard enough, the studio I go to also does sculpt classes where you basically do vinyasa yoga and combine posses with weights! and also do a bunch of other weight work. These are usually the most popular classes and fill up with 30-45 people....so add their body heat to the heated room, and you end up with a hot sweaty mess.

Last night I was taking the hardest sculpt class. I usually just take little child pose breaks when I need to and usually can make it through ok. Last night...not so much. About half way through the class I got super nauseated and after about 40 minutes I literally could not do anything else! I did not feel so badly because I was next to a very buffed guy who couldn't do anymore either! The instructor was nuts!

For the last 5 minutes of class we did some stretching and spine strengtheners. There are many spine strengtheners where you lay on your stomach and lift your chest, legs, etc., to strengthen the spine, particularly after a bunch of crunches. One of those poses is called "locust pose" and last night I couldn't help but giggle at the resemblance of the name to the resemblance of my planned dinner last night!

I tried another super food for the first time....lotus roots! Inspired buy The Kind Diet, I roasted slices of lotus root with garlic infused olive oil and a dash of sea salt for 20 minutes at 375. My slices were pre-sliced and I think it would have been tastier and taken less time if they were thinner. Then I took them out of the oven and I tossed them with a little maple syrup / agave mixture from Trader Joes (maybe 2 tablespoons) and put them back in the oven for about 15 more minutes. They got nice and brown and were really pretty tasty! We also steamed some unpictured bok choy whole and then topped it with flax seed oil and ume vinegar and a dash of black sesame seeds. This was also inspired from The Kind Diet and I have to say, it was amazing! Aaron doesn't even like boy choy, and I hate flax seed oil, but the combination was great! We scarfed it up. For a little substance, I made "asian burritos" again inspired by The Grains of Paradise, with rice paper, baked tofu, lettuce, and these pretty purple and orange baby carrots from a little farm stand in my neighborhood. We dipped those in a soy / sweet chili sauce.

Aaron sat back after dinner and said, "that was a good dinner...actually, that was a great dinner! Thanks, Honey!" See, you can make a meat eater like tofu and...bok choy! Note to self: If you want Aaron to eat his vegetables, just add maple syrup! Ha! It was a filling and healthy dinner and after that crazy yoga class and a few pages of vampire love reading...it was off to bed.

Needless to say, I slept like a rock last night and this morning my normally difficult vinyasa flow class felt like an easy dream. A great way to wake up in the morning and stretch my sore muscles from last night. And it was especially great followed by a tropical smoothie with oat milk, frozen bananas, frozen mango, fresh guava, and a little coconut water. I also added some yogurt which is the first dairy product I have had in almost a month! It was a great way to rehydrate and get some protein and potassium too.

Here is one of the guavas from my farmer's market in Leucadia. The man who sold these to me said they are a super food too! (what's with all these super foods lately? I am a super food! Hee...hee....) Anyway, I guess they have something like 8 times the potassium of a banana. They sure smell good, my whole house smells like guavas. They have lots of seeds that you can just eat but they all blended away in the smoothie.

(Sorry for the lack luster pictures on this post and the last...food pictures are hard! I am sure I will master it soon. I will keep adding my pictures of flowers and other scenes to keep you interested. Those are much prettier.)

One last note on food... everyone seems to like soy milk as an alternative milk. I think people are not educated as to how many milks there are!!! I just try to limit my soy milk intake because I would rather have soy in tofu or soybeans, or ice cream, etc. I really like almond milk, rice milk, and Trader Joe's has this mixed grain milk which is really good. Hemp milk is also surprisingly good. (Don't worry, it's not green.) But my favorite is Oat Milk. It has a really good flavor and has about 4 grams of protein per cup. It tastes incredible with oat meal! All this talk of food is making me hungry. Off to eat some lunch!

Recent Eatings...

While I certainly have not mastered the photography of food, I think I should share some of my recent "eats" with you. As I mentioned, I started cooking vegetarian (much to the dismay of my meat loving boyfriend) as much as possible around May of 2009. I have received tons of inspiration from Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks and Supernatural Cooking as well as The Grains of Paradise Blog. I have tried a number of ingredients I had no previous experience with like tempeh, nutritional yeast, and Kabocha Squash. I have also been using lots of dried beans, lentils, and whole grains. I have really tried some delish dishes! Some have not been so good, but cooking with new ingredients is an adventure and I enjoy the ride. I started out the year with a few weeks on the Fat Flush Plan, which is supposed to be a two week diet to detox the body and organs. It is a book and I have done the diet a few times in the past. It is great...you loose weight, get great sleep, your hair, nails and skin glow...it's really great for you. But it is not really fun for a foodie...no fats, salts, sugars, basically, if it has flavor, you can't have it! A few days into it I decided to stay away from meat which was a real challenge because the Fat Flush does not allow carbs or dairy either...I had to sneak in some beans and whole grains to get enough protein. I realized it might just be better to try out a health vegan / vegetarian diet for a few weeks and see what happens.

I made an incredible orange roasted tempeh dish from 101 cookbooks website. This was AMAZING. I highly recommend it. Heidi Swanson is my hero.

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/orange-panglazed-tempeh-recipe.html

Also, I tried my hand at vegan mac and cheese. I added roasted cauliflower and garbanzo beans. There are many recipes for Vegan Mac and Cheese. I used a combination of Nutritional yeast, garlic, oat milk, salt and pepper, mustard, and tamari. I blended everything in the blender and heated it in the microwave. Nutritional Yeast has lots of protein and is very low in fat and has all kinds of nutritional amazing-ness. I haven't perfected this recipe yet, but will post it when I do. My BF even liked this dish...it was really tasty!

Also, I made us a really pretty breakfast of sliced grapefruits, oranges, and minolas. On top I added some agave, sliced almonds, and flax seeds. It was so good and pretty!

Well, I am off to make a healthy dinner for myself: wild rice with chard, kabocha squash, chickpeas, pinenuts and some dried currants. I think it sounds delish!

Aaron has had a rough day, so I am making him a little frozen pizza.

I am also going to cook a tomato gratin that Barefoot Contessa showed on her show on the Food Network for lunches for us for the next day or so.

Have a good evening!

Feelings on France

As you will all too soon come to find out... I love everything French! I love the French Language, French Food, French Culture, Design, Music....the supposed "French Attitude"....I truly adore the things that make the French so very... French. Although I have high hopes of calling France my home at some point, I am happy to say that I have been able to travel to France a fair amount of times.

I traveled to France for the first time immediately following my graduation from SDSU in 2001. I spent 30 days in Europe mostly by myself and had a Eurorail pass and freedom to go where ever I wanted! Not surprisingly, I spent 10 of those 30 days in Paris. I also went to Nice and Marseilles and Lilles on that trip. I immediately fell in love with the romantics ways of the French....they pay so much attention to all of the details, don't they? I just love how they wrap their food and deserts in such pretty packages.... and how they put so much care and presentation into their store displays, and gardens, and scarves...I could go on and on. I loved the lights in Paris, the cafes, and the people! I speak enough French to get by and people were much more apt to talk to me. I met many lovely French people...some even welcomed me into their homes! Unfortunately I did not have a digital camera in 2001, so I won't be able to share pictures from that trip. It was a wild time...being a 22 year old free in Europe! I might share more about that adventure later...or not. :)

My next trip to France was exclusively to Paris...my mother lived in Paris for about 3 months in 2006...what a life, huh? Well, I went to visit her for a week and stayed in her luscious little 1 bedroom apartment in the 13th arrondisment.

Here is a picture of flowers at a Parisian Flower Market.... see what I mean about the attention to detail?

I obviously love French Flowers too!

On this particular trip one of the biggest joys was having access to a full kitchen where we could cook real French food from their glorious farmer's markets, grocery stores, fish markets, and boulangeries. It was absolute heaven! The apartment had a very modern kitchen that was fully stocked with the essentials like olive oil, etc, for cooking. I don't remember everything we cooked but I do remember wonderful homemade pizzas, and a horrible attempt at fresh sardines. I have had sardines before that were fresh and just wonderful...mine were not so lucky. They were full of bones and inedible. C'est la vie. It was fun cooking anyway and eating on the little outdoor patio in such an amazing city.

I also recall a great traditional fondue dinner at a little hole in the wall on my mom's street... "Rue des Cinq Diamonts". Fondue as most American's know it with swiss cheese is actually swiss! The French take their fondue as hot oil and it is served with raw vegetables and meats. You actually cook the meats and veggies in the hot oil. It was wonderful (this was before I was afraid of meat). We also were served cheese fondue with amazing fresh baked French Bread. The little restaurant had no more than 5 tables and was run by this robust French woman and her husband. Neither one of them spoke a word of English, so needless to say it was interesting. But I managed and had a great fondue dinner.

Isn't it amazing how dinner like this can really stand out in your mind?

My last trip to France was much more recent, and I would like to post a lot more pictures about it. I will do that at a later date. I really need to figure out the formatting of the pictures on this blog! Any suggestions are much appreciated! Is there a book about Blogging for Dummies?

For me... my feelings on France are always feelings of longing...longing to be there, getting a nice hot baguette, buying a lovely bottle of wine to share with a new or old friend, taking a long walk along the Seine, visiting all the gorgeous restaurants and museums and shops. Trying my best to speak French....sunbathing in Luxemburg gardens with a good book, riding the trains, taking photos of all the beauty the country has to offer.

J'adore France!