It's all Bourdain's fault

You know, as in Anthony Bourdain? I fully blame my current obsession with food and cooking and all things 'foodie' on him. Well, it's not all his fault, but it all started with him....

See, I was at Barnes and Noble a couple years ago, perusing the paperbacks, when I stumbled upon his first non-fiction book Kitchen Confidential. I read the back cover and I was sold. When I finally got it home and started reading it, I couldn't put it down. The world he described was so unlike anything I'd ever experienced and I was entranced with all of it. Granted, I didn't feel a sudden pull to the profession of being a cook, but I was mesmerized by his stories nonetheless. So, I sought out his second book and then his third....

But, that wasn't enough. I wanted to learn more about the world of the professional chef and somehow managed to find Michael Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef-- an account of what it is like to be a student at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) through first-hand experience and interviews. And again, I was struck with how different this world is from my own. I continued to read various books on the subject and would occasionally check in and read Ruhlman's blog, too. I didn't have a ton of background in this new foodie world I was delving into, but I was really enjoying learning all about it.

And all of this talk of 'fresh' and 'homemade' and 'from scratch' started affecting the way I looked at the food I made at home. I was inspired to start cooking more in my own little measly kitchen. Not just your run of the mill stuff, but slightly more complicated dishes that relied on more than just canned or frozen ingredients. And wouldn't you know, I actually enjoyed it. Like, a lot. Especially when most of the meals I made actually tasted good; much better than the half-hearted stuff I had gotten used to making.

My confidence in the kitchen grew and over the past few months I've made a real effort to branch out and consistently try new recipes. Even if it doesn't turn out, at least I'm trying new things and hopefully increasing my skill set at the same time. But, I have still been intimidated to try anything from a 'real' chef. Those recipes from Real Simple and Cooking Light are cake, but one from Bon Appetit or Martha Stewart? Well, those completely frighten me!

But last week, I stumbled upon The French Laundry at Home through Ruhlman's blog. Carol is a lady that began a project to make every recipe in The French Laundry Cookbook; the reason of which, can be found here. I started scrolling through her blog and was awe-struck. She isn't a professional chef, but there she is anyways, working her way through the cookbook, blogging about both her successes and mishaps along the way.

And there it was again -- inspiration. If she can do it, why can't I? Maybe not make all 150 of them, but the idea of trying even a few of those insanely beautiful, gourmet recipes was so exciting! So much so, that I went out that night to buy the book (long story short, I had to order it, but it just got here tonight!)

As I've waited for the book to arrive and my anticipation has grown, I've also realized that this endeavor is purely selfish -- it's not to try and master a recipe for times when company comes over nor is it to provide weeknight meals for the hubs and I. This is purely to try something new and bold, that frightens me as much as it excites me. I am giddy! Also, if you're local, don't be surprised if you get a random call from me to come over one day and sample some goodies. Even if the goods aren't perfect, I'd like to share if they're somewhat edible. ;)

I plan on blogging about the recipes I try, complete with pictures -- the good, the bad, and the ugly. However, please be sure to visit Carol's blog and give her some comment love -- she is a great writer, an obviously talented cook and the whole reason I'm starting this little project in the first place. And for all you food porn fanatics, there are plenty of things to drool over there ;)

I know I started off blaming Bourdain, but maybe I should be thanking him? I guess so. Without stumbling upon that book of his in the first place, I would have never known what I was missing in the kitchen. :)

30 by 30

I finally finished the list. I was actually surprised at how difficult it was to come up with a total of 30 separate things I'd like to do before my 30th birthday. I've been very blessed and have been able to experience/do a lot of things that were important to me throughout my life, which made making this list a bit difficult. I've also categorized the list more for my own OCD tendencies than anything else. And again, a huge thanks to Jess for the inspiration for this! :) I've had a lot of fun thinking about all the stuff I'd like to accomplish over the next 18 months and I'm excited to get started!

Home-Life
1. Buy our first home
2. Find a church and start attending regularly
3. Go with my mom on a girls-only weekend trip
4. Call/visit my brother more

Service Projects
5. Volunteer at a food bank or soup kitchen
6. Adopt a family for the holidays

Health/Fitness
7. Participate in the 3-day Breast Cancer Walk
8. Run a 5K
9. Find my 'happy and healthy' weight and maintain it
10. Take a master class with Wade Robson
11. Go for a run on a local beach

Food-related
12. Take a knife skills class
13. Learn to make a good piecrust
14. Make homemade bread
15. Learn to make homemade chicken/beef stocks and use them regularly in cooking
16. Go wine-tasting with the hubs
17. Try at least a dozen recipes from The French Laundry Cookbook
18. Eat at a Michelin-starred restaurant*
19. Attend a class(es) at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA); either Napa or [hopefully] NY campus*

Fashion/Beauty
20. Learn to apply false eyelashes
21. Own a pair of designer shoes
22. Add several classic pieces to my wardrobe

Miscellaneous
23. Read at least 10 classics that I didn't read in school
24. Meet and have a book signed by an author that is important to me
25. Attend a Patriots game
26. Finish our wedding/honeymoon scrapbooks
27. Visit NYC
28. See a Broadway show
29. Watch the sunrise
30. Visit local museums that I still haven't explored

So, there it is. I figure I'll do updates every couple months to track my progress. Should be fun!

* These are things I'd actually like to do to celebrate my 30th birthday. When the hubs heard that I actually wanted to take serious cooking classes he looked at me like I'd grown a second head. Oh well, it's my birthday and I'll cook if I want to. ha!

Almost Monday again

After a short work week, I had another long weekend.

Yay!

And still, it went by far too quickly.

Boo!

Another quick note before I jump into the weekend review. I've decided in the interest of keeping my friend's identities somewhat a mystery, I'm going to start using nicknames. Now, I will admit upfront that I'm horrible at giving nicknames to people. So, I apologize in advance if you're reading along and are thinking 'wow, that is me, but that is an awful alias!' I might enlist the hubs for some help in this dept. since he is a master nickname-giver. We'll see. In the meantime, you're just stuck with whatever uncreative things my mind can come up with. ;)

And now on to the weekend adventures:

Friday
I had the day off, which is always a good thing. After sleeping in, I made it to the gym for my favorite step class and my instructor had brought her new baby with her. (A babysitter was there too, so class continued as normal.) She is just a precious little soul and it was so good to finally meet her. Class was hard and it left me just exhausted. After a quick lunch, I found myself not able to motivate to get off the couch for anything. The weather combined with the lack of sleep during the week made for a very lazy me.

Hubs and I had date night plans, but at the last minute we scrapped them for a night in instead. Our favorite fancy at-home meal is seared steak with roasted asparagus and white cheddar-onion mashed potatoes, paired with a bottle of red wine. I've made it so many times at this point, that I almost don't need the recipe anymore. Dinner came together quickly and then we watched The Bourne Supremacy (what can I say, we're extremely behind on our movie watching) while we ate.

Saturday
I was up fairly early so I could get ready and then head down to meet my friend Blondie (formerly known as K) at South Coast Plaza for a day of shopping, talking, eating and drinking. We're quiet proficient at all of the above. ;) She was running a bit late b/c puppy class ran longer than expected, so I shopped a bit by myself while waiting for her. I picked up the new Shu Uemura Mini Eyelash curler, some Kiehl's shampoo and a couple of kitchen gadgets from Macy's. I also popped into the Ferragamo store, a store I'm not known to frequent, and found a pair of classic black work heels that I've fallen in love with. [Side note: I still have an "IOU" from the hubs for a fancy schmancy pair of shoes leftover from the honeymoon. I think I'm ready to cash it in. Wheee!]

After Blondie arrived, we stopped for lunch at Wahoo's and then bummed around some shops. We spent hours catching up what's happened over the last couple of months and started to throw around bridal shower/bachelorette party ideas for our friend Vino's wedding in the fall and Blondie's sister's wedding in the summer. We thought a stop at the Border's wedding section would provide some inspiration, but instead it just provided a comfortable place for us to sit and talk over coffee about my crazy family and how much fun it is to be an adult [insert sarcasm here].

The rest of the afternoon went quickly and we capped off the night with dinner and dessert, complete with lots of strong coffee for the drive home, at the Nordstrom cafe. We were some of the last people to leave and by then, the rain had started up. Again. The drive back to LA was rough. The rain and wind were kinda crazy, but thankfully, I still made it home in about an hour.

Sunday
Ugh. I had to wake up far earlier than I cared to in order to do a couple of time sensitive things for work. And then I couldn't go back to sleep. Sigh. So, I read a little, had a quick shower and then fixed breakfast before hubs and I headed off to Staples Center to watch the Lakers take on the Cleveland Cavaliers. Such a great game... until we managed to lose. :( One upside was getting to see LeBron James in person; he truly is a man-child, just such a presence on the court, even amongst a bunch of other very tall players.

I'm still sleep-deprived and fell alseep on the ride home and have been kickin' it on the couch ever since. The poor hubs is working away in the office, drinking copious amounts of tea to try and stay awake. Sad. And I guess at some point we should figure out what we're doing for dinner. Hmmm, I'm fresh out of motiviation to make anything so it should be an interesting night.

And, like the title says, it's almost Monday again. Busy week ahead with a real debbie downer weekend to look forward to. I'm trying to just focus on the good stuff though. Trying is the key word of course. Here is to a good week folks!

My Brother

Disclaimer: I usually try to make my blog posts upbeat and chipper. However, I'm not very upbeat and chipper right now. In fact, I'm down-right frustrated, angry and "so over it". The "it" to be described in future posts. I'm still gonna have a lot of happy posts b/c overall, my life is great and I am beyond lucky. I'm just afraid that all this frustration has got to get out somewhere, and that somewhere is here.

I have a younger brother, born about 4 years after me. My mom has these great stories of me being so protective of him when he was first born. [I guess when he'd cry I'd go to her all upset and say 'Don't make my brother cry!', like I was afraid she was hurting him or something.] And as kids, we got along well. I'd play GI Joes with him, he'd play Barbies with me and we'd watch WWE wrestling together. Sounds crazy, but we had a lot of fun.

Somewhere along the way though, things changed. I was the 'easy child', always did what I was told, did well in school, didn't need a lot of boundaries because I was too afraid of disappointing anyone to actually try and break any rules that were out there. My brother, however, tested boundaries and while he did okay in school, he was always compared to his 'older sister'. My mom did a great job raising us, but my dad wasn't always around. I think my brother missed him, missed having a male figure in his life. I'm sure that was never easy. But I didn't think like that when I was a teenager. Instead, it was just easier to say that he was the one with issues and it wasn't my problem. We started fighting. Nothing physical, but the attitude and nasty words we threw back and forth to one another was nothing short of ugly. And it got worse and worse til I went off to college. And then we just basically stopped talking.

I went about my business, doing well in school, loving the freedom college allowed me, while my brother stayed at home and continued to rebel against everything and everyone. It just drove us farther and farther apart. The few phone conversations we had always ended poorly. We just didn't see eye to eye on anything. I'd try to give him advice and he shrug it off as his 'know-it-all' older sister just trying to be the smart one again. I was so tired of the drama that seemed to constantly surround him that talking to him was a burden.

Everything came to a head about 5 years ago. I was home visiting my mom, he still lived there. I inadvertantly hurt his feelings and he just lost it. The details aren't important, but after a vicious verbal exchange I just knew that our relationship had been damaged beyond all repair. It broke my mom's heart. She wanted her kids to be close and to be able to depend on each other. I knew that we'd never get there.

Apologies were later exchanged, but it was just words. We were both still very hurt by what was said. Sometimes it's easy to forgive, but that forgetting part is much more difficult. We still didn't really talk and the few times we did, it was strained at best.

My wedding approached and I asked my husband to have my brother in the bridal party, which he gladly did. Even that did little to help mend the fences between us. The wedding pictures show a nuclear family all smiling and happy. The reality was, in a crisis, my brother would be low on the list of the people I would call first.

Around this time, my grandfather started getting sick and going downhill. He lived with my parents and my brother was still living there, too. The strain of the situation was wearing on my mom, and my brother would sometimes call with updates, but again, the conversations always ended with both of us exasperated with the other.

And then, one night, it all changed.

My brother and I had just chatted and like always, the conversation didn't end well. A few minutes later though, my mom called. She had just talked to my brother. He mentioned that his initial reaction to something I said that he didn't agree with was to yell at me. But instead, he was quiet and just thought about it for a minute. And realized that maybe I had a valid point. And in that instant, everything was different. I just knew it.

I quickly got my mom off the phone and immediately called my brother. We both knew that the conversation would be different this time. It was. We talked for 3 hours, never once raising our voices. There were a lot of tears, a lot of sincere apologies, a lot of explanations of anger and frustration that had been building for years. And that night, in October 2006, we began truly rebuilding our relationship.

God works in mysterious ways because the timing couldn't have been better.

In December 2006, my dad dropped a financial bomb on my mom 6 days before Christmas that would rock the entire family. In January 2007, she filed for divorce. In February 2007, my grandfather (my mom's dad) passed away.

And through it all, my brother and I talked and cried together and screamed together and supported one another when we both knew no one else in the world could be better for the task. Not spouses, not friends, not even parents.

I'd like to say that I would have gotten through the last year okay without him. But that would be a lie. I think my brother would say the same thing about me. We have not only mended our relationship, but we're closer than we've ever been. We don't always 100% agree with one another and sometimes we still get frustrated with the other person, but we're human. The bottom line though is we respect each other. We have the other's best interest at heart. We look out for each other. My mom is beyond ecstatic.

The only downside to all of this, is that there has been so much family stuff that we've been dealing with, that we haven't gotten to know each other as much as we'd like. My brother commented last night that he still doesn't really know what I do on a day to day basis (and vice versa) because so many of our conversations are just about damage control within the family. This year, I'm making an effort to change that.

I can't put into words how grateful I am that we found a way to start over. To truly deal with the past and then put it away. I love him a lot and am so happy to have him as my brother.

Randomness

It's a very short week for me as Monday was a holiday and Friday is my regular day off. One work day down, only 2 more to go! Wheeee!

I'm trying desperately to get back in the groove after being a bit "off" last week, but the short week is making that difficult. I have managed to cook dinner 2 nights in a row (after several nights of takeout) and I made it to a hip hop class last night after blowing off the gym on Monday. All good things, but I still feel like I'm struggling. Eh, at least the week is almost over and there are lots of fun things to look forward to for the weekend.

Yesterday I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon that was supposed to be just a cleaning. Yet, it turned into a cleaning + a filling. :( It really didn't hurt, but the novocaine lasted a really long time. Made eating in the afternoon difficult so I was a total little piggy at dinner. Oink oink.

One of my blogger pals, Jess, created a "30 by 30" to-do list that I find quite interesting. So much so, that I've been working on my own list and plan on posting it here. It's not quite finished yet, but maybe by next week or so.

I've got several other blog post ideas floating around in my head, but I've just been too tired and preoccupied with other stuff to actually sit down and expouse on said topics. Soon though, very soon.

MIA

Yup, that's been me. I don't have a great reason, but I'm back with somewhat abbreviated recap. Yay!

Last weekend, I went to the awesome Fondue Party and Charity Event thrown by the OC nesties who are running the LA Marathon with Team in Training (recaps can be found here, here and here). It was a great night; I got to finally meet some of the OC girls, eat a ton of yummy cheese and chocolate and drive down and back with a crazy carload of LA girls. Oh, and I won a one-hour massage GC in the raffle! Score! All in all a great night. But then, the weekend went downhill.

The next morning I woke up feeling severly hungover; not an issue except for the fact that the night before I was DD. I progressively felt worse as the day went on and wound up missing my friend's 30th birthday party that night as I just couldn't get myself off the couch to make an appearance. Boooo! I was sick the rest of the weekend and early into last week. Not fun.

My routine has just been "off" since then and am just now feeling like I've got things back on track. This week it's back to normal. :)

Today I did make it out to a Blog Party bruch organized by the monkey (good times as expected), but had to leave way too early to watch my boyfriend (aka Tom Brady) play in the AFC championship game. They won. It's been a good day ;)

Delurking is Delightful

Come out, come out, wherever you are....

It's National Delurking Week folks (thanks for the heads-up nanners!) If you've been reading, but haven't been commenting, now is the time to do so. Oh come on, you know you want to :)