Lists

This list has been making the rounds on many of the blogs I read so I figured I'd post it on mine too.  This is a list of what every omnivore should try.  The bold ones are the ones I've had which is 55 out of the 100.  Not too bad, but not overly adventurous I guess.  

The Omnivore’s Hundred

1. Venison

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare

5. Crocodile

6. Black pudding

7. Cheese fondue

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari

12. Pho

13. PB&J sandwich

14. Aloo gobi

15. Hot dog from a street cart

16. Epoisses

17. Black truffle

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes

22. Fresh wild berries

23. Foie gras

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn, or head cheese

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters

29. Baklava

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl

33. Salted lassi

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar

37. Clotted cream tea

38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail

41. Curried goat

42. Whole insects

43. Phaal

44. Goat’s milk

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more

46. Fugu

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut

50. Sea urchin

51. Prickly pear

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone

54. Paneer

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal

56. Spaetzle

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV

59. Poutine

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads

63. Kaolin

64. Currywurst

65. Durian

66. Frogs’ legs

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis

69. Fried plantain

70. Chitterlings, or andouillette

71. Gazpacho

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe

74. Gjetost, or brunost

75. Roadkill

76. Baijiu

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! My Christmas was great. I was a bit exhausted the days leading up to Christmas Eve and Christmas. It was baking nonstop for me. I wanted to take pictures and post them on here, but I forgot to with all the craziness going on. I made Magic Bars, cranberry bliss bars, red velvet cupcakes, peppermint truffles, and persimmon bread - loaves and loaves of persimmon bread). Everyone in my extended family loves loves loves persimmons. They all have trees growing in their yards and even go persimmon picking somewhere in Escondido I think. My mom had asked me to make persimmon bread for her one day so I made one. My aunts had some and they all enjoyed it so they all gave me their bags and bags of persimmons they had which were starting to get over-ripe and there was no way they'd eat them all before they went rotten. I probably ended up baking about 30 loaves of persimmon bread. I was wiped out after that and now I don't want to bake for awhile.

I got some pretty great gifts this year. I got lots of make-up, some perfume, a couple of jackets, lots of gift cards and some money. I love that my aunts still think of me as a "kid" and still give me Christmas money. Makes me feel young! I hope everyone else got some good stuff. I spent Christmas Eve at my parents house with all of our extended family and The Boy. I love my family. Now that we are all getting older, we see each other less and less so it's great to see everyone together on the holidays. It's a night filled with lots of food, laughter, and love. We carried on the festivities the next day at my aunt's house. The Boy left Christmas morning to be with him family and I went up there Christmas Day night after the Laker game. I kinda didn't want to go though. It was raining and I didn't want to leave my family. :(

Tomorrow we are going out in LA! I'm very excited. I haven't been out dancing with the girls for awhile now. Happy New Year's everyone! Have fun and stay safe!

Stila Sale Online

Check it out! I have heard that some people had trouble last year with shipping or cancel orders. I'm going to give it a try. Hurry - it ends Monday!

It's that time of year again

Are you ready for the holidays? I'm not. I totally thought I had all this time to prepare. I've been thinking about presents and cards and baking for weeks now. I just haven't made any concrete plans. I kept telling myself that I have tons of time and that I can do it all later. I don't know why. For some reason I just didn't want to be eager beaver about Christmas this year. Now I'm rushing to get things done. I just really didn't realize that Christmas is next week already. I think part of me just doesn't want to deal with the holidays this year. I was already pretty disappointed about the holidays this year since a lot of my extended family won't be around this year and then Max passed away which makes it even worse. Anyways, I'm almost done making my cards and I'm doing most of my baking next week. I had wanted to bake lots of stuff this year, but now I'm scaling back on my baking plans. Partly because I don't have time and partly to save money. :(

I am done with my present buying! It helped that I'm not giving out as many presents this year. A lot of my friends and I have decided to just do Secret Santa or White Elephant gift exchanges this year. We are all feeling the crunch of the economy this year. I did get some great deals on the presents I did buy. December is a great time for sample sales. This weekend I went to a bunch of them and scored big time. The best sale of them all was the Stila Warehouse sale.

Most of what I bought were presents. I only got a few items for myself. I regret that now though. Everything was such a good deal that I should have gotten more for myself. Oh well. There is always next time! Here is what I got:

Blanc Palette

Retail $32, Sale Price $10

Red Carpet Look

Retail $40, Sale $15

Chocolate Palette

Retail $40, Sale $15

Two Lip Glazes 

Retail Price $22, Sale Price $5

The Perfect Face Kit

Retail $45, Sale $20

The Stila Stars

Retail $55, Sale $25

Bronzer

Retail $28, Sale $7

Total retail price of all items comes out to $284. Actual price paid was $102. Plus there was no tax so that's even more savings! Woo hoo! I wish all shopping was like this.

Life Goes On

I want to start this post by thanking you guys for your kind words about my last post. It means a lot to me.

Over the past few weeks I've been adjusting to life without my dog. It's a pretty big change. There is an absence of dog fur. Max was a big shedder. We tried all kinds of remedies to try and reduce the shedding, but to no avail. His fur was everywhere and would get all over our clothes and furniture. When we would go out, I would wait until we were about to leave to put my clothes on so that I wouldn't get fur all over them. I had to vacuum ALL THE TIME. I'm no longer worried about him all the time. When we would go out, I'd feel bad for leaving him alone. He hated being alone. Because of this I would try not leave him alone all day. If we were out all day, I'd want to be home at night. Or if I knew we would be out at night, I would try to stay home with him as much as possible during the day. Like this weekend, The Boy and I were out all day long on both Friday and Saturday. I never would've done that if Max were still here. And the biggest challenge for me is Max's company. It's a lot quieter without him. I miss his companionship and just having him there to pet and hug.

Everybody has been telling us to get another dog. It's always "get another dog already" or "when are you getting another one." Ugh, I'm so not ready for another dog yet. Someday, yes. Just not now.

And here is number three :(

I'm so sad to share with you all number three. I lost my sweet sweet dog, Max last week. He was 8 years and 2 months old. We came home from dinner and found him laying on the floor. We thought he was just sleeping, but he didn't get up. Normally he gets up right away to greet us. That night he didn't move. The Boy went over to try to wake him and Max obviously didn't move. That's when it hit us. From there everything was such a blur. The Boy was so upset, as was I. I won't go into any further detail as it's pretty hard to think about and it's probably not such a fun read.

I miss Max so so much. He was such a good and loving dog. (Although he wasn't so good when he was a puppy. Have you read Marley and Me? Marley and him could so be brothers. They even look like twins!) He totally thought he was human and not a dog. We couldn't get him to play with other dogs. At dog parks he would ignore the other dogs and run up to other people to play with instead. If we left him outside to play with our friend's dog, he would just sit outside the door and cry and wait for us to let him back in. He loved attention and always wanted to be pet or hugged or to sit in my lap (he's a big heavy dog so that wasn't always so comfortable.) He would lay down on me or sit on my chest in the morning (I think he was trying to wake me up). He loved loved loved to eat. Sometimes he would grab a can of his food and bring it to us and ask us to feed him. A few times I even found him laying down on the floor with a can of food in between his legs. I miss him so much my heart hurts. It's still so new and fresh that sometimes I forget he's not here anymore. For example, I'll be talking to The Boy on the phone and I'll start to ask him what Max is doing and I'll stop mid-sentence. When I wake up in the morning I look for him. I've been slowly getting a little better. I was pretty depressed the first few days. I pretty much just slepst all day long. Good thing it happened on a Friday and I had the weekend to get over it. I miss my Max. :(