Category: Uncategorized

Embarrassing End to a Flight

4 Comments

I arrived at JFK!  I’m waiting for my connection to Syracuse, then I’m waiting for my ride who will pick me up in the afternoon.  It’s going to be a long day!

For the long day, I packed a pb & j along with an apple and some carrots.

Looks tasty… right?  Err not really but I’m sure it will be 🙂

I’ll enjoy those at some point when I get hungry.

Now I’m enjoying some coffee (tall soy misto, no foam, please!)

Glad to know I’m back in NY.  I didn’t even get a smile from the girl working at Starbucks… Oh happy day!

On to the embarrasing-ness… So we were making our initial descent into JFK when I started to feel really sick.  I was nauseous, hot then cold.  I seriously thought I was going to throw up.  So I got up and headed to the bathroom.  The bathroom closest to me was “defective” according to the sign so the flight attendant told me to go to the front one.  She was walking behind me the whole time.  Then all of a sudden, I was on the floor with the flight attendant holding my head!

I managed to pass out on the floor of the airplane!

It was really embarrassing!  The strange thing is I felt a million times better after I regained consciousness!  I’m feeling a little shakey but overall okay.  I don’t know how that happened.  The rest of the time on the plane, people stared and it was awkward and the flight attendant constantly asked how I was feeling!  Thanks Delta crew for being so friendly and caring!

Anyway, I guess I’ll watch a movie or write future blog posts (food security maybe… it’s kind of been a while…).

Have a great day!

Edit: I found an interesting article about skin lightening on the NY Times just now.   In India, there were TONS of commercials for skin lightening products.  I had no idea that people used them here!  While I’m latina, I’ve always been very pale.  I didn’t really think people would really want to lighten their skin in the US.  The grass is always greener on the other side, I guess?   Any thoughts on the subject?

Reaching My Goals

8 Comments

I made it back to LA tonight.  I spent the evening watching the news with the madre.  She then informed me that she had something for me.  This is quite strange in my family… not the buying things but the surprise aspect…

Example: The past few Christmases/Birthdays I’ve been buying my presents and wrapping them myself then signing the card “Mami y Papi” or “Santa”… get the idea?

What was this surprise?

A fantastic sparkly, leopard print sweater that I saw at Macy’s last week when we went shopping.  This will come in handy as one of my goals for 2010 is to dress better (or really just get dressed everyday…).  I love sweaters!  Thanks, Madre!

The next exciting thing is this: the Madre’s make up drawer (my mom is a sassy one in case you haven’t noticed)

Eye shadow and lip gloss.

I’ve decided to start wearing lip gloss.  How does this fit into my goals for 2010?

One of my goals was to stop talking about the things I don’t like about myself and accept myself the way I am (if not fix it).

Well, I’m going to do that.  I never wear lip gloss or lipstick (with the exception of Halloween or themed parties) because I don’t like my lips.  Certain things can’t be changed.  I can’t make my lips smaller.  So instead I’m learning to accept myself.  My brother can tease me all he wants but I’m embracing the bigness/fullness/voluptuousness of my lips and rocking some pink lip gloss from now on!

Is there anything you have learned to embrace about yourself?  Any works in progress?

P.S. Another step toward reaching my 2010 goals will be revealed as I get back to Ithaca on Saturday!  Stay Tuned!

January Recipe Challenge: Asia

6 Comments

The lovely fella lives in the Silicon Valley.  The first time I visited him here was when I had just gotten back from India in July of 2009.  I kept noticing a ton of Indian markets, restaurants and shops.  I’m not sure if it’s because I had India on the brain or there are legitimately just a lot of Indian places!  Apparently, the Silicon Valley (or the South Bay in general?) has a large Indian population.  So for yet another addition to the January Recipe Challenge, I decided to make something Indian!

Indian is probably one of my favorite foods, I love everything from curries to dosa, but I’ve always been too scared to make it as it seems really daunting. With the availability of Indian products and the January Recipe Challenge as my impetus, I sucked it up and decided to try making something Indian.

Tonight, I actually made two recipes!  Palak Paneer (Spinach and Cheese) and Channa Masala.  Both are fairly common at any North India/Punjabi restaurant.  They are also vegetarian!  Actually in case you didn’t know… A lot of people in India are vegetarians for religious reasons.

I found two great recipes from Manjula’s Kitchen.  I really liked her site because she had videos of her making the recipes!  This inspired great confidence in her!

Just as in the Swedish recipes I made earlier this week, I had to make due with the appliances the lovely fella has, which means no measuring cups or spoons or a blender which was kind of necessary.  I had to eyeball it all but surprisingly it turned out really well!  So here are the recipes with the tweeks that I made to them (remember I eyeballed these amounts).

Palak Paneer

Inspired by Manjula’s Kitchen Palak (Spinach) Paneer

4 cups fresh spinach, chopped
6-7 oz store bought paneer
1/2 can tomato puree
1 tsp finely chopped ginger
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1-2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
salt to taste
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 tomato, sliced for garnish

Ingredients all together:

Can you believe they have Goofy on the spinach package?! Not sure how I feel about this...

First we quickly browned the paneer in a bit of oil and then set aside.

Then we added a tad more oil (probably a total of 2 tbsp, you really don’t need to add more in my opinion…) and added the spices (coriander, turmeric, cumin seeds) and cooked those for about a minute.

Then we added the tomato puree and ginger and let that cook for a few minutes.  Once the tomato sauce reduced by half, we added the spinach and a little bit of water (I saw her do this in the video that’s why I did it too) and covered it and let it simmer on medium/low heat for about 10 minutes.

In the meantime, we combined the cream and flour in a small bowl.  After the spinach mixture has simmered, we added the cream mixture and let it cook for a few minutes.  Then cover it again and let is simmer for about 5 minutes.  Then added the paneer back and and let is simmer for a few more minutes! Then it’s ready to eat!

Ours didn’t look quite right but I think it was the lack of blender.  It still tasted great!

Next we made the Channa Masala.

Again we didn’t have all the necessary equipment (mainly a blender and measuring spoons so I eyeballed it all and just finely chopped all the ingredients).  Also note that the channa masala is also vegan!

Channa Masala

inspired by Manjula’s Kitchen’s Chola (Channa Masala)

1 can (15oz) garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 can tomato puree
1 tsp finely chopped ginger
1 small green chili (use less for less picante!)
2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chopped cilantro
1/4 tsp garam masala powder

I forgot to take a picture of all the ingredients for this one but they were kind of similar to the Palak Paneer ingredients.

First, we heated the oil in the pan.  Once the oil was hot, we added the cumin seeds and cooked them til they made a cracking noise.  Then we added the flour and cooked it for about a minute. Once that had cooked for a minute or so, we added the tomato puree, ginger, green chili, coriander, turmeric and red chili powder.  This simmered for about 4 minutes.

Then we added the garbanzo beans plus 1/2 cup of water and let that simmer for about 7-8 minutes, stirring every so often.

Lastly, we added the cilantro and garam masala and let that cook for a minute and it was all ready! Serve with rice, naan, raita, tomato slices or anything else you like!

We enjoyed these two fabulous dishes with some Naan we got at Costco (the Costco here sells a ton of India products… large Indian population I guess…).

Of course, it was eaten with fingers not silverware…

I thought this was very delicious!  The lovely fella liked it too!  The Channa Masala was a little too spicy for him but nothing a little water couldn’t fix.  We actually realized we pretty much doubled the green chili, so it was extra spicy.  I thought it was perfect but I really like spicy food.

I know Indian food sounds intense and complicated (or at least it did to me) but give it a try!  It really wasn’t that difficult, just requires a bit of ingredient hunting!

Tomorrow I’m headed back to LA then Friday I go back to Ithaca!  I don’t want break to end, but I have a little bit of a blog revamp coming when I get back to Ithaca so stay tuned for that!

Have a great night!

His and Hers

9 Comments

This morning I used some old bread and made the lovely fella some french toast.

His Breakfast:

I, on the other hand, don’t care much for french toast.  Okay really, I hate it… So instead I had some broccoli and a black bean burger.

Her Breakfast:

Tasty!  I’m in desperate need of fruit and vegetables!  I feel like I’ve been on food overload the past few days!  I do however LOVE the lovely fella’s big white plates!  They make everything looks so good!

Do you eat differently from your significant other?

Have a great day!

Napa: Wine, Wine and More Wine

10 Comments

Yesterday we left about mid-day and headed up to Napa!  It’s only about an hour and a half drive from the lovely fella’s place in Mountain View.  We found a deal on Travel Zoo for a hotel plus wine tastings at 3 vineyards and 3 half bottles of wine!

The first stop was Peju.  This was one of our free wine tastings.  The vineyard and tasting room was very lovely!

They had some interesting trees in the entrance…

We tasted 5 wines: 1 white, 1 red/white blend, 2 Cabs and a Port.  My favorite was the 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon.

This also happened to be the half bottle that they gave us!  So that was convenient.  I liked this place but sadly there was another couple tasting next to us so I felt really rushed.  They flew through it and it felt like we needed to go at their pace.  Oh well.  It was still fun and tasty!

The next stop was: Castello di Amorosa.

It was a lovely location with a great view, not to mention the winery was in the shape of a castle! This wasn’t included in our three free tastings but the lovely fella heard it was good so we went.  I’m glad we did! This was my favorite of the three we went to!

We tried some wonderful wines here too!  I don’t usually like sweet wines but the ones here were particularly delicious!

The final winery we went to Madonna Estate for a free tasting.  It was very small but nice.  We were the only ones in the tasting room.  They didn’t have half bottles so we got a free full sized bottle of Riesling.

The man in the tasting room suggested a restaurant for dinner.  He was Italian so naturally  he suggested an Italian restaurant (Zagat also said it was delicious).  So for dinner we went to Bistro Don Giovanni.

We were wined-out so we stuck to water.  First, we were served some rosemary focaccia.  It was extremely oily, but naturally very delicious!

The lovely fella and I shared a beet and haricot verts salad with avocado, fennel and roquefort vinaigrette.  This was very good.  Light and flavorful!

As an entree, I got the Ricotta and Pesto Ravioli with a lemon cream sauce.  This was OOH SO GOOD!  I can’t even tell you how delicious it was!  I love lemony things but this was literally out of this world!

The lovely fella got an (unphotographed) Rigatoni with lamb meatballs.  He enjoyed his as well!  I definitely recommend Bistro Don Giovanni for anyone going to Napa.  It was delicious and reasonably priced!

We decided to skip dessert there since nothing looked too good.  Instead, we stopped by Whole Foods for a bakery treat!  I got a cupcake (which took me hours to eat since it was so sweet):

The lovely fella got an almond cannoli.  I’m not a huge fan of cannolis but he really enjoyed it…

Warning: Hipster Hating Ranting to Come!

The next day we left and stopped in San Francisco for breakfast/lunch.  We went to Tartine Bakery.  This hipster watering hole was delicious!  I got a 3 Cheese Pressed Sandwich and the lovely fella got a ham croque monsieur.  Mine was simply to die for!  It was also HUGE!  I ate 2/3 of it and thought I was going to explode!

The food was fantastic (I seriously can’t get over how good this place was); however, I didn’t like the cafe itself.  It was ridiculously crowded with hipsters talking about Europe and art.  I didn’t feel like I could really enjoy my meal to the full extent.   I also felt silly pulling out my camera, maybe I would have if I had been sitting outside with a little more arm room.  I literally felt like I was living in the this blog.  I’m not sure why I was so irked by the patrons of this place.  I think it just felt a little pretentious to me.  Strangely enough, the place was kind of dirty too.  You bus your own tables (which isn’t a problem at all) but that means all the tables were really dirty.  The occasional wipe down would have been appreciated.

I would love to go back!  It was seriously amazingly good!  But next time, I’ll get it to go and enjoy my sandwich or pastry elsewhere 🙂

Now we’re back in Mountain View trying to figure out what to do the rest of the day!  Maybe we’ll have some more wine… because obviously we haven’t had enough…  On that note, this blog is supposed to be about healthy eating… don’t worry that will resume soon!  When I’m back at home (aka Ithaca) I rarely eat out plus I have a healthy plan for the next few months, more on that later!

What’s your favorite type of wine?

January Recipe Challenge: Europe

8 Comments

The lovely fella bought a Swedish cookbook at Ikea last week.  So I thought it would be a great for the January Recipe Challenge.  Again, I don’t know much about Sweden other than its neutrality in WWII, they have a lot of immigrants and Alexander Skarsgard is from there… so I have no idea how authentic this is but it looked delicious and vegetarian (which seems rare in Swedish cuisine from looking at that cookbook!).

We decided to make Forest Mushroom Soup (Soppa på blandsvamp).

The only difficulty in making this recipe was finding the right mushrooms and the fact that the lovely fella doesn’t have measuring tools.  So here’s our tweeked version (estimated as we couldn’t actually measure):

Forest Mushroom Soup/Soppa på blandsvamp

inspired by Ikea’s Swedish Cooking

2 tbsp butter
8oz cremini mushrooms
3.5 oz shitake mushrooms
6 oz portabella mushrooms
1 onion
1 garlic clove
3-4 tablespoons whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons red wine (or really just a splash!  The recipe called for sherry but we didn’t want to spend money on it so we decided to use red wine instead… not the same… I know but it was still really good!)
3 cups low sodium vegetable broth
about 1/4 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste

We enjoyed a glass of wine while we cooked!  The lovely fella got me this bottle of wine for Valentine’s Day last year with the intention that we would drink it then but it didn’t happen and he’s had it ever since.

It was very tasty, especially after it aerated for 20 minutes!  So we gathered the ingredients:

Then cleaned and sliced the mushrooms then chopped the onion and garlic.

From what I’ve heard… Mushrooms should be wiped with a damp cloth or paper towel not run under water.


We melted the butter then sauteed this all for about five minutes.

Then added the flour and stirred it.  Added a splash of red wine.  Next we added the broth, cream, salt and pepper and let it simmer for a few minutes.

Then we served and enjoyed it with our wine!

This recipe was quick, easy and delicious!  The mushrooms were fantastic and made it really “meaty.”  It was a perfect light meal!  It would be great with a big hunk of crusty bread (unfortunately we ate our fair share of bread and cheese while the soup simmered!).

Then we went to see It’s Complicated, which was hilarious!  I won’t spoil it but I really enjoyed it!

Tomorrow, we’re headed to Napa for wine tasting and all around fun!  Hope you had a great weekend!  Goodnight!

Green Beans!

2 Comments

This morning I went to the lovely fella’s apartment gym again.  I did 3 miles in 28:40!  I’m a slow poke so that was kind of fast for me.

Then we headed to Costco, for the purpose of eating samples and frozen yogurt.  After Costco, we headed to Trader Joe’s to get ingredients for dinner tonight.  We’ve been eating out a lot lately so we decided to stay in tonight.  We’re making a recipe from another continent for the January Recipe Challenge!

While at Trader Joe’s, I came across this interesting thing: Green Beans.

Not just any green beans.  These are crunchy and lightly salted.  However, interestingly enough they’re really sweet too!  Who knew green beans were sweet!  They look like green beans too!

The ingredients were green beans, canola oil, tapioca starch and salt.  Not too bad right?  The first one wasn’t that great but the next few or maybe 50 were delicious!  I wonder if they lose all the nutrients that fresh green beans have?  Any thoughts?


Tonight we’re making a new recipe and going to the movies!  Have a great evening!

Food in the City

6 Comments

Today, the lovely fella and I met my friend Emily in San Francisco (aka The City… I understand that on the East Coast “The City” means NYC but here it means SF).  We met at the Ferry Building because I’ve been wanting to go to the Farmer’s Market there for a long long time.

Upon arriving, we were all starving so we had lunch in the Ferry Building.  We stopped at a sandwich shop called Lulu Petite.

I got a delicious eggplant sandwich.  Ooooh soooo good!  Words can’t even describe how good this was!

Emily almost couldn’t wait!

Then we walked around the Farmer’s Market for a bit, where I bought a persimmon!

I love persimmons.  They’re so expensive in Ithaca ($2 each!  Can you believe that!!?!?!)  Here I got 4 for $2.95.  Still pricey but not as bad as in Ithaca.  Colorful and delicious!

Then we headed to Tcho!  A chocolate factory located on one of the piers!

They had samples!

And I got a shot of chocolate.  Oh my goodness!  This was heaven in my mouth! So rich, so good!  This was the perfect amount!  Emily got a hot chocolate which was also delicious and perfect on this chilly day!

The rest of the afternoon was spent perusing stores throughout the city.  Randomly, we ran into my friend Alex at Anthropologie who was shopping with his girlfriend.  It was so nice to see him! He’s a superstar living in the city now in a sweet apartment and working for Yelp!

Then after many hours of dragging the lovely fella to store after store, we met up with Emily’s fella, Joss, and headed to dinner.  We went to Puerto Alegre a Mexican restaurant in the Mission.  Oh so good as well!  I had one enchilada!  Sadly no pictures as it was really dark in there.

I had a fun food filled day with friends!  I hope your day was fantastic too!

Have a great night!

Chez Panisse

9 Comments

This morning I did a quick work out in the lovely fellas apartment gym.  It was so nice to use a gym again!  I wish I lived in an apartment building that had a gym!  Then we headed to Oakland for the lovely fella’s dentist appointment.  The appointment was a quick check up (took literally 5 minutes), then we had a quick lunch in Emeryville.

We had a few hours to kill before out dinner at Chez Panisse!  So we went to every Marshall’s in the Bay Area looking for these red pumps that I’m dying to get.  Every place has them, none in my size!  Breaking my heart!

On to Chez Panisse… Chez Panisse is Alice Waters’ restaurant in Berkeley.  In the four years I lived in Berkeley I never went because it’s a bit pricey.  We went to the Cafe (as opposed to the restaurant downstairs).  The menu changes daily so we didn’t know what to expect when we got there.  According to the menu, their “produce, meat, poultry, and fish come from farms, ranches, and fisheries guided by principles of sustainability,” which is an added bonus!

We arrived and were served some bread to enjoy with our wine.  Very tasty!

I started with the “Baked Andante Dairy goat cheese with garden lettuces.”  Oh goodness… this was DELICIOUS!  This may have been my favorite thing all evening.

The lovely fella got the “Sunchoke and celery with white truffle oil.”  This was very delicious as well.  Nice and creamy.

For my entree, I got the “Fried butternut squash bondas with Indian spices, chickpeas, cauliflower, and mint raita.”  This was a fantastic flavor combination.  The mint raita made everything especially delicious.

The lovely fella got the “Soul Food Farm coq au vin with pancetta, chanterelle mushrooms,
and hand-cut noodles.”  I tried some of the mushrooms and noodles.  This was OUTSTANDING!  If I ate meat, I would definitely order this!

For dessert, we shared the “Hachiya persimmon pudding with bourbon cream,” along with some coffee.  This was the perfect end to the meal, not too heavy and not too sweet but oh so good!

Chez Panisse was everything I expected it to be and more!  I swear I’ve been talking about this place for year!  Thanks lovely fella for taking me 🙂  (He’s a Chez Panisse veteran.  He’s been with his familia many times!)

Tomorrow we’re going to San Francisco to meet up with some friends and hopefully enjoy the city and the day!

Have a great night!

Made it!

1 Comment

Hey all!

I made it the Bay Area!  Upon arriving, we went to dinner.  The lovely fella’s dad was in town on a business trip so he took us to a great restaurant called Parcel 104.  Delicious!  The menu was seasonal and local!  I had a delicious artichoke 3 ways (pureed, braised and fried) and a beet salad and a small carrot cake dessert that was amazing!  I didn’t take pictures but I wish I had because the food was so photogenic!

This morning, I got in a quick work out in the lovely fella’s apartment gym.  Now we’re headed to Berkeley/Oakland because the lovely fella has a dentist appointment.  Then we’re going to dinner at CHEZ PANISSE!  I can’t wait!  I’ll be back with an update and pictures!!

Have a great day!