Why Do I Subscribe to This Nonsense?

And people say the press is mean!

 

 

 

This is so mean I can't even believe someone had the heart to write this cover title.  For starters, she's PREGNANT!  Pregnant people are supposed to gain weight.  Yes, I think she should get some sort of award for the worst dressed baby bump ever, but not because she's "fat".  Just because no one needs to be wearing an ass tight leather skirt when you are 6 months pregnant and it doesn't fit.  Embrace the bump Kimmy.

 

Secondly, most women can't stop eating.  It's in our DNA.  This is not new news.

 

That little picture in the corner of her stuffing her mouth just makes me mad.  Men do this too you know?  It also made me mad because I just received a forearm sized bar of Toblerone in the mail from my Mother in Law for Easter and subsequently clawed into like a bear, eating half in one sitting.  So I guess I'm still reeling from that.  Oops.

 

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Side Note: That stuff is just straight up good as hell.

 

Long story short - Meanest Cover Title Ever.  Not cool In Touch.  Way not cool.

Equal Rights for All...And more butter for Paula

Yesterday it made me giggle out of embarrassment every time I scrolled through Facebook and saw, among the sea of Equal Rights profile pictures, the silly people who had just changed their profile pictures to "selfies" (even typing that makes me feel like a dbag, btw) and pictures of sandwiches. 

 

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It all feels a little ridiculous when all anyone else who watches the news can talk about is a' brewin' on the news feed. I just kept wondering..."do they even know?"

 

But I can get on board with a little ridiculousness.  So keep posting those pictures of your feet on the beach and your trip to the aquarium.  At least nobody forbids sea life to be with who they want.

 

And just for a little giggle in the sea of a very serious issue, I present to you, Paula Deen getting hit in the face with a ham.  I love that woman.

 

 

Monster Family

I really can't tell what's going on here.  This was sent by my sister, "I think there is some sort of Brady Bunch situation going on here."

 

 

 

There may be two dads, dressed alike.  There might be only two members of the family that have interests suspended over their heads.  I guess the girls are content with just a wave and a high side ponytail.  Simply girls.

 

And the dogs might be made out of tricycles.  But they love those dogs, guys.  It says so right below the sensible family of 10, of course.

 

But what really gets me here is the Monster Energy Drink sticker.  An over caffeineated, jittery, heart palpating matriarch or patriarch just isn't what first comes to mind when you think of this large of a family.  I guess they need that boost to keep up with the gang.

 

Who knows maybe this driver just won some free decal stickers and decided to put up the whole kit and caboodle.  That takes less explaining.

Buffalo Chicken Cannolis

Friday night I made these:

 

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They in no way looked as beautiful as the ones pictured above, but they were delicious!  I can't recommend them enough.  That is, of course, if you love things that are decadent, crunchy, and buffalo flavored.  If not than don't bother.  And also go get your head checked because you are crazy!

 

Click here for the step by step recipe.  I used scallions instead of celery and ranch instead of blue cheese.  It's kind of funny that I love all things buffalo, but hate two of the most commonly used buffalo accoutrements - celery and blue cheese.  YUCK!

 

While you're clicking, also check out this blog from the person who shared this recipe.  Two words - Food.  Porn.

 

Now I really wish I had some leftovers.  Mondays sure would be a lot less painless if we could eat decadent things for lunch and get skinny from them.   A girl can dream!

Competition Dining

Last night I went to my first ever dining competition.  And it was so much fun!

 

The competition is called Fire on the Dock and it took place at Bluewater Grill on Wrightsville Beach.

 

We got to taste 6 courses from 2 chefs.  The tastings were blind, the voting was via Smartphone, and the secret ingredients were Pepsi and Peanuts.

 

We were told to judge on Presentation, Aroma, Flavor, Creativity (regarding use of secret ingredients), and Execution.  I was pretty cutthroat in my voting.  You don't spend the better part of a decade obsessing over food just to giveaway 5's willy nilly.  No ma'am.

 

My pictures aren't very glamours, per usual, but let me show you what we had in our casual 6 course meal ;)

 

Andouille & Hillsborough Farmers Cheese Fritter
with Chilled Lobster, Crawfish, Roasted Peanut & Papaya Salad, & Lemon Pepsi Vinaigrette

 This fritter was pretty epic.  So rich and cheesy from the goat cheese.  Definitely my favorite appetizer.

 

 

 Five Spice Peanut Tempura Shrimp
with Citrus, Radish & Pickled Vegetable Salad, Sweet & Spicy Pepsi Chili Glaze, & Cilantro Peanut Pesto

I gave this one a poor score for presentation because it looked like two turds on my plate.  I also gave it a mediocre score for flavor because it was highly over fried.  High score for creativity with the Cilantro Peanut Pesto though.  Nice touch.

 

 

Spiced Pepsi Marinated Veal Medallions
with Bing Cherry Pepsi Compote, Hillsborough Farms Goat Cheese Polenta Cake, Roasted Oyster Mushrooms & Asparagus Tips

This was my first foray into veal. And might I say that it looks and tastes just like pork, only with much more guilty and hesitation. Hell yes for that Oyster Mushroom. Hell yes.

That cherry Pepsi compote got high scores for creativity from me.  I'm not a big sweets with my savory person.  But I wasn't judging for myself, so I tried to be subjective.  Basically I was doing God's work.

 

Pepsi Marinated Certified Angus Beef® Teres Major
with Roasted Peanut & Southern Greens Pesto, Rosemary Mashed Potatoes, Truffled Wild Mushrooms & Pepsi Onion Straws

This was DANK.  Seriously the best mashed potatoes I've ever had.  And the truffled wild mushrooms and southern greens pesto were earthy and delicious.  Apparently Teres Major is like the armpit muscle of cows.  I highly regretted that Google search, but enjoyed it nonetheless...mostly.

 

Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse & Pepsi Cinnamon Rum Mousse
with Espresso Cream, Roasted Peanut & Caramel Drizzle, & Peanut Shortbread Cookie

The description pretty much says it all.  It was delicious.  Grant said he'd had better cookies, but he also fancies himself a very critical Cookie Monster so the chef had no chance against him.

 

Pepsi Fudge Cake
with Sweet Peanut Icing, Candied Bacon, Peanut Brittle & Pepsi Spiced Caramel

I liked the drizzle of Pepsi spiced caramel.  However, I did not like the presentation (everyone can make an upside down cake in a cupcake tin).  I also thought the candied bacon was too rich.  I just think bacon is too overpowering in general.  Sue me.

 

The highlights of the night included:

 

1) Being about to stick your face in your food and smell it, because it was required.

 

2) Being about to be on your phone the whole night without judgement.

 

3) The Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma'am style of eating the plates and then immediately judging them.

 

4) The fact that the person next to me was named Destany.

 

5) The wasted girl next to Grant who drank 5 glasses of wine and then spilled her drink all over her date.

 

6) The passion for food and drink of my table mates.  I went to a black-tie dinner last weekend in which NO ONE at my table drank, thus shaming me into not drinking.  They also didn't know what Endive was and thought that the mint on their dessert was grass.  I'm not judging.  I just take my culinary experiences seriously and like to be around those who do too.  You know you're in for a good crowd when you are at a paid dining competition.  No water drinking, gourmet haters in this crowd!

 

The results of the competition are here if you're interested:  http://www.competitiondining.com/results/22-north-v-sweet-n-savory

 

I highly recommend this experience if you get the chance.  There are still dates left in Wilmington and they also put it on in Greensboro, Raleigh, Asheville, and Charlotte.

Jewels for a cause

Have you ever heard of the Noonday Collection?  Until last week, I hadn't either.  I heard of it through EatLiveRun.com, a great food blog that I've been reading for years. 

 

The blogger just became an "ambassador" for the brand, and I just became a customer.  I bought this beautiful necklace.

 

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I just received it in the mail and it is even more striking in person.  I love the contrast of the bright blue thread against the gold beads.

 

I also love shopping when you can justify it by helping people.  All the jewelry from Noonday Collection is fair trade and is made by struggling artisans, providing them with a path out of poverty. 

 

The "ambassadors" also make money so it's not a 100% donation to the artisans.  But it's still charitable shopping as far as I'm concerned.

 

I also really want this:

 

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and this:

 

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But I have to pace myself.  All in the name of charity and my neck.

Fruit Heart

The only time I've ever seen a bumper sticker more random than this:

 

 

 

was when I saw one that said, "I'd Rather Be Basket Weaving".  That was before my days of stalking license plates and bumper stickers down the road so I have no photographic evidence.  But trust me, it happened.

I'm So Not a Barbie Girl

Have you seen these people recently?:

 

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Yes those are real people.  They are known as the "Real Life Ken and Barbie" and, quite frankly, they terrify me.

 

Care to know more?  Read this article here about how they recently met each other and "hated the site of each other."  I guess it takes a crazy to know and hate a crazy!

 

My mom also gave me her copy of "The Week" recently in which Barbie, real name Valeria Lukyanova, says that she feels sorry for women who are unhappy with their lives.  "They are sitting at home making cabbage soup.  I feel sorry for them."

 

Yea, faux Barbie.  Because those are the only two options.  Being a stay-at-home-cabbage-soup-maker, or transforming yourself into a genetically impossible plastic doll. 

 

What happens if this nutjob gets a zit on her perfectly porcelain skin?  The original Barbie didn't come with Clearasil now did she?  I bet Ken doesn't like that one little bit.

 

Also, she has maintained her figure by subsisting on nothing but fruit and vegetable juices for the past year.  And if that doesn't make you angry enough, she goes on to say, "In recent weeks I have not been hungry at all; I'm hoping it's the final stage before I can subsist on air and light alone." 

 

So even though she may be delusional and fake, at least she's rational. 

 

 

DIABETES!

One of my friends spotted this last week and sent it to me. 

 

 

 

She said, "Do you think this guy is a diabetes advocate, doctor or just someone who really likes his sugar??"

 

What does it all mean?!

 

Isn't that like me having a license plate that just says SEASONAL ALLERGIES?  With no explanation.  Surely this isn't raising money for the cause. 

 

So...it's just a word on a plate I guess.  Perhaps we will never know.

Not News, News

Am I crazy for thinking that this is the most non-news news I've ever seen on a magazine cover?

 

 

 

That's just swell that you are going to wait until marriage to have sex, but why does the whole world need to know that?  If anything, you'd think that someone conservative enough to wait until "I Do" to have sex would also be conservative enough to not broadcast that on an internationally circulated magazine cover.  But clearly you would be wrong!

 

And guess what?  A lot of people wait until they are married to have sex.  They are called virgins.  And they don't need everyone to know.  Being a "born again virgin" is 100% not a real thing.  You shouldn't be getting all this credit, Sean, when it's the real virgins who do the hard work.

 

Go back to featuring the real news, People magazine, like how Miley Cyrus might be, but we're all not really sure, but we pretend to care, breaking up with her fiance.  That's hard hitting, at least compared to this.

Ice Cream Sundays - Volun-Tiramisu

 

 

It's getting harder and harder to do, but I finally found a new flavor to try this week.  In case you can't read that description it reads:

Coffee Mascarpone Ice Cream with Cocoa Dusted Coffee Rum Lady Finger Pieces. 

AKA, Heaven.

 

This flavor was magnifico!  I love coffee flavored anything and with a little kick of rum in there, thank you Ms. Jackson!

 

I also loved the lady finger pieces.  They weren't too mushy as I'd anticipated.  They still had some body to them despite being crushed under all the sweet, tangy coffee ice cream since conception.  Way to stay strong, lady finger pieces!

 

I don't know what the deal is with these exclusive Volunteer flavors with Target, like if money goes to help anyone.  But I know that without this line I would've run out of new flavors available in my area long ago.  So thank you volunteers, Target, and Ben and Jerry's for keeping this fattening lactose train going.  Choo Choo!

 

Summary:

 

Flavors Tried - 39

 

Favorite Flavors - Mint Chocolate Cookie, Creme Brulee

Lexus not do that

Oh, sugar, baby, honey child...No.

 

 

 

You really put the Ass in Classy, Miss Lisa!

Skinny Cow Heavenly Crisp

These things are so awesome you guys.  Heavenly, if you will.

 

 

 

They taste just like Girl Scout Peanut Butter Patties but with several added benefits:

 

1. You can get them year round

 

2. They come individually wrapped so you don't accidentally eat 15 in one sitting...not that I've done that...

 

3. They are only 110 calories per bar and the bars are big!

 

4. You won't have to share them with your husband or boyfriend because no self-respecting man would eat a food called Skinny Cow.

 

5. They have a wafer-life construction that reminds me of the Nutty Buddy days of yore.  And by yore I mean Daisy Scouts, which I only went to because of the Nutty Buddy bars.  I didn't get a lot of badges, needless to say.

 

6. They make the perfect on-the-way-home-from-the-grocery-store-snack.  What?  You make it all the way home without eating some of your groceries?  That's just crazy.

 

Try them today.  You won't be sorry.

Elephant Shoe

And so it ends - another season of the Bachelor.  Which means a new love is blossoming and a fresh breakup is just right around the corner.

 

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I laughed, I cried, I drank wine and ate a lot of black beans.  But mostly I just felt really sorry for the elephant that served as the getaway vehichle for Sean and Katherine.  Did you see how far up his butt that rope went?  Poor guy.  Poor guy's butt. 

 

I want to go on record as saying that I do not think elephants were meant to be riden.  Not by humans, not by fitness models, and not by realty show contestants in Thailand.  Some things are sacred ABC.  Including an elephant's ass cheeks.

 

Mazel Tov to the lovebirds!

Just Awesome

OWN

Yesterday, in what can only be described as the least productive day of my life, I watched 12 straight hours of the OWN Network.  "The Oprah Show: Where Are They Now" can really suck you in, apparently.

 

Oprah mentioned the makeovers of seasons past a lot and admitted that the AFTER results were often much, much worse than the BEFORE's.  I think that admission is strongly supported by this image that flashed across the screen, inexplicably without comment:

 

 

 

You aren't reading Hebrew here.  That's really the AFTER on the right.  So they basically took a normal looking man in jeans and a button up shirt and "transformed" him into a tube-sock wearing, high-top sporting, man purse toting goober in sweat pant capris. 

 

It turns out Oprah's Midas Touch has one very extreme exception.

When You're Here, Drink Wine

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I thought this was fitting for a Friday.  I recently remembered a most hilarious article that my former coworker and I found online while trying to look up nutritional facts for Olive Garden, which, by the way, are atrocious. 

 

Don't Eat at the Olive Garden.

 

Perhaps the most scathing review of a restaurant I have ever read besides the NY Times Review of Guy Fieri's restaurant in Time Square (which you absolutely must read here).

 

Doug Shaw, the author, thinks Olive Garden pushes wine too hard on its customers.  And frankly, he is pissed.

 

My favorite lines in the review are the following:

 

"The present purpose of the Olive Garden is to sell you their wine. That's it. The food and the commercials exist to get you there to sell you wine. The chairs are there so you have a place to sit while you buy their wine. The tables are there so the wine has a place to be. The air-conditioner is there so the wine doesn't go bad."

 

"I have an acquaintance who is a serious alcoholic. As soon as you walk in the door, he is waving a bottle at you, trying to get you to have a drink with him so he has an excuse to have several. Even at his worst he is not as obnoxious as the Olive Garden is."

 

"If you had a better time at the local restaurant, email me and let me know. And if I am in town, I will let you buy me a glass of wine there. If you honestly thought that the Olive Garden offered you a better dining experience, I will let you buy me dinner there, and I will buy you a glass of their wine."



Work it out

Have you heard of the latest trend in excercise?  It's not Barre method or Zumba-ing your ass off.  It's working out in high heels.  And it looks highly dangerous.  Workouts in High Heels article. 

 

I would break my ankle so very, very fast in this class.  It's all I can do in a regular circumstance to wear a 1-inch wedge heel for half an hour.  Dancing around in heels for an hour cardio sesh?  No sir, no ma'am!

 

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According to the article, "One of the authors, said it is hard to assess whether working out in heels is more dangerous than simply walking in them, "beyond the risk of falling due to a reduced foot contact on the floor."  I would say that boils down to a resounding: Yes, it is more dangerous.

 

The only thing that makes me want to try this is the mention of Crunch Fitness's class "Stilleto Strength", which incorporates an aerobic portion where students "go into 'work it girl' mode."  Hell. Yes.  I'd love to watch this go down...from a window...in my sneakers. 

MerMAN!

Either this person is the biggest Zoolander fan ever, or he fancies himself a mythical sea creature. 

 

 

Either way, bold choice for a personalized license my friend.  Bold choice.

 

 

Israeli Couscous and Tuna Salad

Last night I made this recipe from Ina's Foolproof Cookbook - Israeli Couscous & Tuna Salad

 

It was so good that Grant Ooh'ed and Aah'ed and proclaimed, "You could sell this!"

 

I don't know what that means exactly, since I, in fact, bought this, but I took it as a huge compliment. 

 

He also pronounced it "Coo Coo" when he was helping me make it, but that is really neither here nor there. It's just cute.

 

I highly recommend this recipe.  It has so many vibrant flavors but none of them were too sharp or too overpowering.  I used sun-dried tomatoes instead of roasted red peppers because I had them on hand (thanks mom!).

 

This was my first time experiencing Israeli Couscous and I am in love!  It is so light and airy and cute and petite.  All the things I wish I was, wrapped up in a teensy weensy pasta.  It also looked gourmet and only cost <$2 for the bag so you best believe I'm going to be back for more.

 

This is my photo of the creation:

 

 

 

This is the photo from Food Network just to prove it can look good and not like dark question mark:

 

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I Don't Like Mondays, either

I heard this song and, although I couldn't believe it was a real song, I just had to share.  Thank you Tori for putting into words what we all think on this most dreadful of days. 

 

Woopdedo!!

This plate I love just for the simplicity of it.  And because it's really one of the most fun words to say.  Ever.  Try saying it with gusto and not feeling just a little happier. 

 

Oh that's right - not possible.

 

Pin

I wanted to put this little creation on Pinterest and apparently it has to come from a website, so I'm killing two birds with one post.

 

I was bored out my damn mind last Saturday and came up with what I thought was a clever use of Old Bay for a Bloody Mary bar. 

 

First, place a lot of Old Bay on a small plate and use it to rim your Bloody Mary glasses, in the same vein as you would salt a margarita glass.  Only this version will make your lips tingle until the point that they are pretty much numb.

 

 

 

Second, spread out the remainder of the Old Bay in an even layer and carve your school's letter/logo out of it.

 

 

Go Heels!

 

There you have it, just in time for the weekend!

Sickness Be Gone

Ladies and Gentleman of the Jury - I am guilty of being a huge hypocrite.

 



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After writing this post and this post about men being total wimps about getting sick, I straight up got my ass handed to me by some freak hybrid cold/flu/sinus infection/heinousness that turned me into a whimpering puddle of tissues and sad faces.

 

Out of all the Karmic gods, the god of the sinuses must be the most vindictive, because that bitch ruled me for over a week.  Luckily the god of Zpack came through and saved the day.

 

It's a good thing I don't lose my appetite when I get sick because I had to eat ALL of my words and chase them with lots of Orange Juice.

 

Never again will I make fun of the man cold.  Because the only thing worse than being sick is being sick without the possibility of sympathy. 

 

I rest my case.