why i love the darling boy, reason #154

because despite everything--and i mean everything--that happens, including things that make me go nutsy-cukoo; things other people give me shit for; things out my control; things that make me laugh, cry, groan, grit my teeth, whine, grin, giggle, tear my hair out, swear, sing, and smile--despite all that and the proverbial bag of chips, i can't not love him. and at the end of the day, that's enough for me.

dinner!

for someone who is often labeled as being a "foodie" and who went to the trouble of getting a professional certification from a cooking school and who edits the food content on a certain smoking hot blog i sure as hell don't cook very often. i'm not completely sure why this is, because i love grocery shopping and i love chopping and prepping and good golly i love eating, but for the past few weeks (months?) i've cooked very little and baked just a bit. the other day the darling boy (half jokingly?) asked me if i was going to make us something for lunch, and i had to confess that i was playing the part of old mother hubbard. well, actually, i was more like mother "lots of random items of which none combine to make a decent meal" hubbard, with my errant can of lychees, frozen brittany veggie medley, and oodles of vinegars, sauces, and oils.

i think a big part of my not cooking comes from the fact that more often than not i am cooking for just me; while i have two built in best buddies in the form of roommates we don't cook communally (although they will happily taste test just about anything i offer up) and the darling boy and i have an ongoing menage a trois with the menu from a local thai food delivery place (he will carry away my homemade cookies and treats by the brimming handful). cooking for one is fine, except that it means leftovers, and while i adore eating the contents of my restaurant doggie bag the day after (i like to eat this kind of stuff cold--weird, huh?) i grow easily bored of eating piece of chicken number six in an eight piece series. hell, i grow weary of piece number two, to be frank. so i cheat and load up on packaged stuff from trader joe's or kraft dinner (er, mac & cheese for the yanks) and i put cooking on the backburner (hardy har har).

tonight, however, i faced my foe in the form of a fresh set of three boneless pork loin chops. i scanned a cookbook or two and found something from martha stewart that i could riff on; sometimes i like to take the jazzy jam session approach to mealtime, you know? swap out the oj called for in the recipe with some of the grapefruit juice on hand in the fridge, crumble in some of the dried oregano i got this summer as a gift, chop some garlic, drop in a pinch of sugar and a twist of the peppermill, toss in a an eyeballed two tablespoons of soy sauce, and voila--a marinade! i steamed some baby broccoli, cut up some heirloom cherry tomatoes and drizzled them with olive oil, s & p and some freshly grated parmesan, and cooked up the chops.

hey! i made me some dinner! it was quite tasty, and quite easy, and loads of fun. yes, i have some leftovers, but i'm just going to have to get over that. i want to do more cooking in the near future... and when a certain someone comes over for lunch, i want to pick up my chef's knife and not a takeout menu and the phone.

temporary torontoist

i'm back from my trip to my old hometown, and i had such an amazingly wonderful time! the weather was for the most part picture perfect (literally, as my photo set will attest to) and i got to see both people and places that i'd lost touch with over the years. my feet have a thousand tales to tell (mostly beginning with "ouch!") of all the walking i did through a handful of areas and neighborhoods in the big, beautiful city, and my mouth did its fair share of non-stop gabbing with my fabulous gal-pals with whom i am beyond ecstatic to have spent time with and gotten back into the swing of things with. i got to cruise the aisles of a local grocery store, jaw dragging on the floor at all the cool grocery-products we can't get here in the states (i took pictures in dominion! i am so weird!) and i got to cruise the city on streetcars, buses, and subways like an old pro. i got to hear gordon ramsay say the f-word in all its glory uncensored on the food network, and i got to see several episodes of canada's next top model (which is strangely different yet eerily the same as its american counterpart).

i spent the better part of my trip avoiding the film festival crowd, although they were--to my disgust and embarrassment--unavoidable on my flights to and fro. i did not see anyone from my beloved degrassi--of any generation, but i did see the beaches; a cool urban conservatory-park; a parade of motorcyclists bearing stuffed animals; casa loma decked out as a television show broadcast venue; lots of fun local newscasts; the captain john's seafood boat; a dead pigeon on queen street west that made me and my friend jump and scream; an insanely violent and unexpected thunder and lightening storm plus a massive and windy downpour; my old school, houses, 'hoods and haunts (particularly the travesty that is yonge and st. clair--why? why did no one consult me on this?); places i'd never seen, like kensington market, baldwin village, and everything on queen street east; horrific and unapologetic brunch service at a restaurant called hello toast (and you are lucky as hell i am not doing any restaurant reviews from my trip); and my hand disappearing inside a bag of ketchup chips--repeatedly.

but then it was time to pack up all my pirate cookies and laura secord french mint chocolate bars and new party shoes and head home to a waiting darling boy, my dear darling housemates, my bed, a full range of clothes to choose from, lola the prius and the new window that replaced the one that some awful vandalizing thief smashed last week (oh, yeah, did i mention?), my phone no longer in roaming mode, and the ability to pause and record televised programs. ah, sweet, sweet home. work starts next week, but i am still in vacation mode, enjoying every free moment while it lasts. it was fun to be a temporary torontoist, but you can take the girl out of los angeles, but you can't keep her from being an LAist!

why i love the darling boy, reason #681

because during the course of a pretend phone conversation aimed at demonstrating how rude people can be when taking a call on a cell while in the company of others he somehow managed to work in the words "nacho cheese."

it's too darn hot!



do you see that? seriously--up on the right hand side of the climate screen on my car it has the temperature as 108 degrees fahrenheit. i swear to gawd yesterday i got out of my car in the parking lot of a bookstore and felt like hot knives were stabbing my eyeballs and someone was trying to smother me with a wool blanket that was on fire. this heat just sucks the life out of me; i come home and want to do little more than lie still in a cool and darkened room. i am up late at night and have been fighting off killer headaches all week. this week has required all of my strength and focus, and dammit, this heat wave isn't helping. when the ads come on the radio asking us to "flex our power" and avoid running appliances during the daytime hours and keep the a/c to 78 (good god, 78?) and to turn off any unnecessary lights and so on i just think that i need to flex my own dang power and turn off my switch and conserve energy, too. this morning lqt and i went on a walking tour of angelino heights, and we were scrambling to find even the slimmest scrap of shade. it's like there's no relief. that's how i've felt all week, on several fronts. no relief. i'm living in a fever.