yummy.

Wanna easy and super quick dinner recipe? I saw this on Freakgirl and made it last night. I also threw in some sweet cherry tomatoes about 2 minutes before I served. Totally pretty and delish.

I served it with a caprese salad. Took about 15 minutes to make, top.

Enjoy.

"Please sir, can I have some more?"

Um, Malan from Taiwan, were you trying to be Oliver Twist? Huh. Well-played.

Readers, this season of Project Runway is already displeasing me. Now, I love a good reality TV fight as much as the next girl, but are you trying to tell me that Vincent has more vision, more point of view, more talent than Malan from Taiwan? Granted, Malan from Taiwan is a freak, and his accent is fake and he TOTALLY made up a story about his mother not believing he could be a designer…..but at least his horrid, poop-hued, quilted, nightmare of a dress was born out of a vision that required talent. Vincent’s dress was safe and boring and looked like anything I could pick up off the rack at Nordstrom.

Oh, Nina Garcia……you fickle pickle. First you don’t want “safe and boring” and then you apparently DO want safe and boring.

Here’s who I LOVE: Robert, (who WOULDN’T love a man who designs for Barbie Dolls AND has a sense of humor about it); Michael (his coffee filter dress was fantastic) and Bonnie (just because she is adorable, no other reason).

Here’s who I want to throttle: Jeffrey (grow up already, being cool is NOT THAT IMPORTANT ANYMORE); Keith Michael (Perhaps you should NOT grope Miss USA so inappropriately?) and Kayne (Is he AWARE that he looks exactly like Sid Vicious?).

And Tim Gunn, I missed you. So lovely to have you back in my life.

My true colors

I picked up this Meme from Bookworm:

1. Movies I rented because the cool people liked them, but I never could finish: Mighty Aphrodite, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Cookie’s Fortune

2. Movies I watched with the cool people but secretly hated: Bottle Rocket, Barton Fink & Blue Velvet

3. Books I started because the cool people like them, but I could never finish: Midnight’s Children, Geek Love & Cryptonomicon (or however it’s spelled)

4. Music I tried to like because the cool people like it, but really it makes me want to puncture my own eardrums to escape the pain of the irritating, cat-mating howling: Miles Davis, The Beta Band & Neil Young

5. Music I secretly sometimes like, but don’t want the cool people to know: Evanescence (along with 14-year-old goth girls everywhere), Linkin Park & The Rent Soundtrack

6. Foods I secretly like, even though the cool people sneer at them: Cherry Jello, Tacos with ground beef (not chicken, not fish, not carne asada…..JUST GROUND BEEF)& Scalloped potatoes from a box

7. “Cool” foods I hate: gorganzola cheese, raw tuna & capers

Happy Birthday Boyfriend!

It's his 34th. And he is kinda sad about it.

This morning at 3:30 AM, I showered him with love and affection by kicking him in the butt in my sleep and waking him up. But I also got him this. And this. So, he can't complain that much.

And tonight, we shall eat the best chicken parmesan in Noe Valley with our friends. So cheer up and feel better, Camper.

I love you.

REVIEW: The Devil's Teeth

I firmly believe I am going to die in a violent Great White Shark attack. Doesn’t everyone? No, just me?

I think my irrational fear really took root when I moved to San Francisco and I started hearing about and reading about all the sharks that just chill out on our coastline…..waiting to take a chomp out of me. In fact, when I’m at Stinson beach, I don’t see how pretty our coastline is, or how beautiful the waves are, or how cute the surfer boys are……I see Great White Sharks ……lined up……….looking right at me. And they look hungry.

I have a reason to be worried. Boyfriend surfs. And he tries to convince me that surfing is safer than driving in a car. Some nonsense about the odds of being hit by a car is greater than being eaten by a great white shark. Whatever. I don’t want to hear it. All I know is Boyfriend looks a lot like shark bait when he is sitting out on his board in Bolinas (where Great White Sharks are frequently seen, by the way) and I just don’t need that added stress in my life.

So, it was with sick fascination that I picked up this book about the Great White Shark project on the Farallon islands. The Farallons (pronounced Fair Alons) are chain of islands just a mere 30 miles off the San Francisco coast. The islands are usually socked in with fog, but on an exceptionally clear day, you can see the islands from the Golden Gate bridge….and they do, in fact, resemble big giant devil’s teeth.

Here’s the nutshell: The author is a reporter who becomes obsessed with a team of researchers who live on the island year round to monitor the behavior of the two groups of Great White Shark: the Sisterhood (sharks ranging from 16 to 20 feet long) and the Rat Packers (“smaller sharks” ranging 12-16 feet long). Susan (the author) gets to know the two main researchers on the island, sweet talks them into letting her follow them around for a while, secures herself a yacht to live on for six weeks outside the island (only a handful of people are actually permitted ON the island), straps on a camera and goes on Shark Watch.

Now, Shark Watch includes sitting in a small fishing boat while 16-foot sharks swim aggressively around the boat. Sometimes the sharks attack a seal…..sometime they attack the boat. Wow, sign me up!

What’s really good about the book: The author is a really good writer and you can tell she has done her research. There are plenty of stories about encounters with Great Whites and their feeding habits, their personalities and their preference for surfers as an afternoon snack (Boyfriend, ARE YOU LISTENING?). She provides a lot of history of the island and its previous inhabitants. Plus, if you are familiar with the Bay Area, there is a lot of local flavor to enjoy.

What’s bad about the book: About ¾ of the way through, the book turned into a really sad commentary about how ill prepared the author was to man a borrowed yacht by herself. She admits freely that she lied about her boating experience to the boat’s captain. After bad weather forces her to abandon the boat, which becomes lost at sea for several months, she illegally stays on the island, which eventually costs one of the researchers his job. There’s also a lot of discussion in this book about bird poop, which to be honest…..just doesn’t interest me in the slightest.

Still, if you can get past her arrogance and the disappointing ending…..it’s a fun little read. I enjoyed it, although it will give me nightmares for days.

Review: Breakup Babe: The Novel

I tend not to buy “chick lit” books. Not because I’m above it or anything (believe me, I have read Bridget Jones Diary and The Devil Wears Prada and enjoyed every delightful page) but I usually think that my friends and I are way smarter and funnier than most of the women in chick lit books, so I usually don’t even bother.

But I picked up this book b/c I was getting on a plane and I needed something silly to keep me interested for 5 hours.

Color me hooked.

It’s not Pulitzer-prize material or anything, but it’s some good stuff, people. Here’s the nutshell……Rachel gets dumped by her boyfriend of 2 years, who just happens to work down the hall from her, and begins to blog about her experience getting over him.

Rachel's experience pretty much includes drinking too much wine, taking a lot of much-needed antidepressants and sleeping with too many inappropriate men.

Sound familiar? Been there, done that? Well, I have. Ok, I only slept with one inappropriate man (shhhh, my sister and Boyfriend read this site). But this book is relate-able. I mean, what woman HASN’T gone on the heartbreak diet after a break-up and thought to herself, “Ok, so I’m possibly going to die hopelessly alone but GODDAMN if my ass doesn’t look good in these size 4 jeans”?

What I liked about this book is that Rachel does move on, she does learn a few things about herself and she never gets preachy or annoying in her break-up process. This book could have easily moved into the “I am Womyn, hear me roar” realm, but she manages to stay humble and humorous at the same time.

UPDATE: In the couple hours that I wrote this review, I got a text from a very close friend that she and her long-term boyfriend just split up and it just breaks my heart.

Boo, if you are reading this, I’m so sorry and we are going to do whatever we can to get you feeling better. I’m putting this book on your required reading list, along with frequent walks in GG park, dinners with the girls and a lot of trips to Sephora. Hang in there, my good friend.

Review: Sea Glass

Sometimes I just really need to read a book featuring one dimensional characters who don’t invoke any emotion in me at all, but I still care enough about to finish the book. I continually find these characters in Anita Shreve’s books.

I liked The Pilot’s Wife. I didn’t quite get why Oprah loved it so much, but whatever. I really, really liked Fortune’s Rocks, even though I was slightly dismayed I was rooting for a relationship between a 16-year-old girl and a 40-year-old man. Ew. And I thought The Weight of Water was a downright page turner, even though I can’t remember a single thing that happened.

So, my experience reading Anita Shreve books has been quite positive in the past. Sadly, this all came to a screeching halt with Sea Glass. This book could NOT BE more formulaic. Does this sound familiar? About 200 page of character development on six different people who all live near each other. Gee, I wonder if they are going to meet? Yep, they do. One character is trapped in a loveless relationship and another character just had his heart broken. I wonder if they are going to fall in love? Yep, they do. A selfish, very wealthy woman moves next door to a family left destitute by the Great Depression. I wonder if she is going be moved to philanthropy. Yep, she does. All characters in the book unite to fight the injustices to mill workers (the book is set in New Hampshire). Gee, I wonder if any of the main characters, maybe someone we hate and someone we really really love, will get hurt in the ensuing riots between mill owners and union workers? Yep, they do.

Here’s the nutshell: Honora and Bad Husband move to the beach. She collects a bunch of sea glass. He loses everything in the depression and has to start working at the mills. He gets involved (for purely selfish reasons) in the union movement and brings a bunch of union guys home to plan a strike. Hot Union Guy falls in love with Honora. She falls in love with him. There’s a strike. Bad husband and Hot Union Guy die. Oh, and the sea glass represents all the people she met and cared about during her time on the beach. Blah. The End.