Burger of the Week #201

I don't know clustercuss, but judging from her Instagram posts... we're kindred spirits.*

*at the time when I saw this instagram post, I was eating ice cream (from the container), binge watching Netflix and doing embroidery.

Candy for Adults

For those of us who choose to hibernate during winter months, we can get through cold days by satisfying our sweet tooth with homemade imitations of the childhood foods we crave.

I fattened myself up the last few weekends with two very successful recipes— Homemade Snickers Bars and S'mores Bites. Using ingredients that I had on hand (it's true... I may keep more in the house than most! However, I did substitute the peanuts in the Snickers with almonds and pecans, because that's what I had) I was able to, quite quickly make some sugar-filled knock-offs.

Look at all that preservative-filled sugar! The basis for the Snickers bars, these cavity instigators are delightfully rich, and they lack that lingering, chemically after-taste of pre-packaged candy bars.

The s'mores were wickedly delicious and it was so hard to stop eating them (much like real campfire s'mores!) The marshmallow stayed soft and and the chocolate relatively melted. The trick is to cook the crust thoroughly to make popping them out of the muffin trays easier (I did both mini and regular sized in silicon trays – the minis are great for sharing, the larger great for gorging...)

Both of these are recipes that I will totally visit again. Each took about 30 minutes and tasted just as a good a few days later. 

It's one of the great things about being a grown-up—our candy is more "sophisticated" and we're allowed to eat as much of it as we want! And I recommend eating it all!

*Recipes: Homemade Snickers from Imperial Sugar / S'more Bites from the First Year Blog

A Diet of Nuts and Kale?

So I realize my diet may be a mystery to some. Let me explain. I am in fact a vegetarian. I eat a hamburger every 100 weeks for the interest of BOTW on this blog. And I eat a tiny bit of meat when I travel internationally— when I feel it's an important part of experience the culture of the places I'm visiting. The rest of my days, as in 98.7% of my life, I'm a fairly strict veg-fiend. 

I've recently decided to back off cow's milk, and try to source eggs from a local farmer. I am not, however, going vegan, as I will never give up Cheese. 

I bring this up now, because moments ago I finished Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. It was a quick read, one meant to motivate you by scaring the cookies right out of your cupboards. 

I found this book to be: 
20% common sense
20% over-the-top organic label pushing
20% written by psychotic drill sergents
40% reaffirming in my position as a vegetarian

If the World followed their advice, we'd be an army of anorexics eating nothing but nuts and kale. The most frustrating part was, that in their obsession with get skinny, get skinny, get skinny (being skinny is the best, you guys), they never mention exercise (aside from one small paragraph on page 188—and apparently if everyone did yoga, we'd achieve world peace).

Basically what they do, is pressure you to replace your current diet with expensive organic name brands. If it doesn't meet Skinny Bitch approval, don't put it in your mouth. Health is Wealth Chicken-free Nuggets, Now&Zen UnSteak, Amy's Organic Tofu Scramble, or LightLife Smart Bacon. MmmmMmm, now doesn't that sound yummy?

I have been a vegetarian for 5 years, and I have never found a need to imitate meat, I simply don't eat it. No tofu, no seitan, no tempeh, no pressed faux chicken patties. Why fake it? It's not going to taste nearly as good—in fact, it's likely to taste like paste. Instead I replace meat with beans, mushrooms or potatoes. 

I don't think Skinny Bitch was a wasted read. Like I said, it reminded me of the reasons I decided not to eat meat in the first place, and it urged me to be more conscious about the things I do eat. If you're unfamiliar with the meat industry, the unethical motivations of the USDA, and the basic distinctions between phrases like "all natural" or "organic", then I do highly recommend. It is important to know that all food is NOT created equal. 

I do agree with Freedman and Barnouin, you should know what you're putting in your body. But there's smart and there's extreme. And we want to be skinny bitches, not crazy bitches. And only crazy bitches give up cheese.


***If you looking for really great reads on what you should eat, and reasons why you should support the American meat industry, I recommend Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. Both are great as audio backs. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. is a good rule to start with. 

Burger of the Week #200

Week #200... another milestone for BOTW... For Burger #100, I went to Graydon's Crossing and had a grass fed hamburger (this is a big deal since I'm a vegetarian...)

I wanted to do something different for #200, so I had my friend Matt make me a burger using pre-approved beef from Montello Meat Market at the Downtown Market.

Matt hand-ground the meat and made simple patties with just salt and olive oil as seasoning. He fried them (breifly) on a cast iron skillet and served them with Shed's BBQ, Kraft Cheddar singles and sautéed onions.

I couldn't eat this burger fast enough. It was unbelievable. Cooked fully through, with a seared outside and juicy middle, it has me seriously questioning my vegetarian status. Now that is some serious beef. 

So if you're looking to invest in a small burger joint let me know and I'll hook you up with a master chef!

Burger of the Week #199

This puzzle was insanely hard. And I feel like it shouldn't have been. But the grease and glare made it difficult to determine what was actually on a piece. A little determination and a few 3 am nights got it done. Happy birthday me.*

*There was birthday retribution to the gift giver. A mosaiced Yoda puzzle turned out to be his downfall.

Carbs, Carbs, Carbs

It's winter. It's cold. I'm hibernating. I love food. 

I kept myself plenty full this cold, February weekend. And when I have successful kitchen exploits I like to share them. 


Vegetarian Baked Beans
When I was in San Diego I had some killer vegan baked beans at Tiger Tiger(!). So good in fact, that I got up close to examine that they really didn't have bacon in them. And I wanted to try and recreate some of that awesomeness. 

This was my first time using dried beans. Which meant this was really an all night/all day process—8 hours soaking and 8 hours in the crock-pot. I was pretty skeptical that this was going to work, because I started with white beans, but they definitely ended up  red, and packed with flavor. 

I'm not going to lie, they are pretty fan-friggin'tastic. And ultimately, aside from the plan ahead/timeline factor, incredibly easy.


Butternut Squash and Chickpea Curry
Another very simple recipe, that was full of hearty flavor. This went together pretty quick, aside from the cutting of the butternut squash, which I kind of mangled. I'd recommend having the squash cut up before you start cooking. 

I'm a big fan of both curry and butternut squash, and I think the flavors really here complimented each other. I added an apple to mine which gave it a hint of sweetness. Peas would also be good in here. This was even really good as leftovers, because the squash became even softer and more curry infused. It's rare that I think something makes decent leftovers, and that can be important when cooking for one.
(click image above to see enlarged recipe from Better Homes and Gardens)


Grown-Up Tator-Tots.
I was kind of annoyed with how long these were taking when I was making them. But wow, hello tasty. I continued to eat these until I felt I was going to burst in a similar fashion. And then I dreamt of garlic. 

It was a weekend full of good food, with overall very little effort—which, let's be honest, just makes it all the more tastier. Time to roll myself up the stairs. 

Behind the Scenes

On our brief stay in LA, we toured the main Warner Brothers lot, which has been a premier media company / film studio since the early 1900s. The company was started by the four Warner Brothers in 1903, but it was made famous by a dog (Rin Tin Tin) in 1929.

We were there on a weekend, so nothing was filming, and truthfully, it sounds like much film production these days is done out of state or out of country, due to various tax incentives and locations that are offered. So the lot itself was very quiet, lacking the rush and hub-bub that I imagine on film set. 

In some respects it was very interesting, like they add gum and cracks to sidewalks, because if the sidewalks on a city street were pristine, it would look fake. But on a larger scale, it was a little disenchanting. I know TV isn't real, but I was alarmed by how funky and fake it all looked. Without the added affect of lights and props, these buildings, which are just fronts, look like just that—a broken down cutout of a deserted town that's crumbling. 

And yet, these same streets, show up everywhere...

Welcome to Anytown, USA. This "Midwest Street" transforms into any small town. By swapping out the hardware, the signage, the awnings and even the paint color, it changes towns and even spans decades. Let's take a closer look...

The Neighborhood Grocery Store....

As the Dixie Stop in Bluebell, Alabama – Hart of Dixie

and as Doose's Market in Stars Hollow, Connecticut – Gilmore Girls


The Town Square and Gazebo
The most ridiculous, eye-rolling, fact from the tour, and I still want to believe they were just messing with us... is that when they need to shoot a winter scene they pluck the leaves from the live trees, and then when they need to shoot a summer or a fall scene, they zip tie leaves of the appropriate color back on the trees. (We could actually see some strings and zip ties hanging from the empty tree branches... so this may be true). 

Bluebell Town Square - Hart of Dixie
Stars Hollow Town Square - Gilmore Girls

The School Building/City Hall
Stars Hollow High School - Gilmore Girls

 Rosewood City Hall - Pretty Little Liars

The Local Eatery
Luke's Diner - Gilmore Girls

 Apple Rose Grille - Pretty Little Liars
 
The interior set we toured was The Big Bang Theory, and honestly that was much more as imagined, with dollhouse style rooms set up within one warehouse. We also sat on the sofa from Central Perk from the Friends set, which is an alarmingly small set, showing how important camera angles are. 

Overall, the tour made a Hollywood set seem a bit less glamorous, and merely a bag of camera tricks. But it also made me want to go back and rewatch some of my favoirite shows and see which repeat places I can spy!


*Images for the shows were pulled from Google image search.

Burger of the Week #198

Burger speakers. Here's hoping scent comes out as well as sound.

Crossing Florida into Spain

My last day in California, I spent the majority of the day strolling (and at some points hiking strenuously) through Balboa Park. Named for the explorer Balboa, the first European to reach the Pacific ocean, it's a 1,200 acre park/cultural center in San Diego. I'll liken it to Central Park in NYC, but it's actually very different (mainly in that it's much less flat).

The Park is split by a major road, one side being primarily a Canyon preserve with trail running, picnic areas, ball fields, tennis courts, lap pool, disc golf and actual golf, and the second side being a cultural hub of museums, tea gardens, art houses and the San Diego Zoo.

The main hub is El Prado, a long promenade of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, which was built to host the 1915 Panama-California Exposition which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal. San Diego was the first port of call after vessels exit the Panama Canal, and the city wanted to introduce itself to the world. At the time, San Diego had a meager population of 40,000.

Congress had set aside 5 million dollars to celebrate the completion of the canal, but most of it was going Panama-Pacific International Convention (world's fair) that was taking place simultaneously in San Francisco. But the San Diego fair met with such approval and admiration that Theodore Roosevelt recommended that the buildings, which were of such "rare phenomenal taste and beauty", stay as permanent additions.

The park's use has changed over the decades, being used for the 1935 California Pacific International Expo and as Naval training grounds during the World Wars. In recent years, its received over 12 million visitors a year. 

For me, visiting the park was a fulfilling experience. Once I crossed Florida Avenue, it was like walking out of this solitary desert and right into the busy streets of Europe. I spent much of the afternoon laying on a bench in a quiet sculpture garden. Nearby, under a bell tower and a shining cupola, somewhere I couldn't see but I could hear, a string violin played softly. People walked along the streets while I read my book, in what felt like, my own private piazza.

Among the Animals

When I was a kid, we used to fill out a football pool every week. I'd pick teams for arbitrary reasons... Tampa Bay because it was warm there, Jacksonville because I liked the colors of their uniforms and San Diego because they had a good zoo.

I had never been there, but, as far as zoos go, it's legendary. And, 20 years later, now that I finally made it there, it really is worth the hype. 

I spent 5.5+ hours in the 100 acre zoo. Which was enough time for me to see most of it, thoroughly. The animal selection was vast* (and fortunately I was there long enough to see most of them active), the staff was friendly, knowledgeable and for the most part seemed to genuinely care about the animals, and the landscaping, botanical aspect of it was amazing.

I would say, aside from my internal gut that struggles with seeing animals in cages, the only negative thing I have to say about the San Diego Zoo reflects on the people visiting it. Pushy parents with strollers the size of Montana, adults who crowd the glass so other kids/visitors can't see through or move past them, and kids banging on the glass while parents take iPhone videos. At times, I felt like the animals we were all fighting to see, were actually the civilized beings.

But the zoo, the zoo is great.

*Panda's are actually way cooler than I expected.

Dressing for our Friends

LA fashion photographer, Viktorija Pashuta has transformed the qualities and usability functions of each social platform into human characters, in What if Guys were Social Icons.
 

Pashuta has personified the icons that we see everyday when we log into our social media accounts. As a regular source of communication, he believes these these networks come alive as we use them. Portrayed through fashion, each social network in his photo series has its own character and style. Facebook is depicted as casual, Twitter as classic, Pinterest as creative, Linkedin as business, Instagram as vintage, Flickr as artsy, Tumblr as hip and Google+ as innovative.

This series was Part II, following What if Girls were Internet Browsers, where the same concept was applied to women and browser icons. "We see Internet browsers icons every day and looking at my desktop screen I came up with the inspirations to glamorize boring icons and bring them to life in a form of beautiful fashionable girls," Pashuta wrote. 

Internet Explorer is flashy, Firefox sexy, Opera elegant, Chrome utilitarian and Safari - trendy/hip. 

I find these depictions inspired, amusing, and overall pretty accurate.They all just look so shiny, like the bouncy little icons on my applications dock.