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. :(

Killer Klown Halloween

I know, I know.  This post is over a month late.  I had intended on posting about it in a more timely fashion, but obviously I didn't.  So last month I went to the most amazingly extravagant Halloween party in Palos Verdes Estates.  This was my first time dressing up for halloween since I was a kid. I had a hard time picking a costume. I didn't want anything too silly or too sexy/slutty. I ended up being Padme and The Boy was Anakin. Have I mentioned before that The Boy is a huge Star Wars fan? HUGE. Anyways, costumes are expensive. I was shocked at how much they cost. Some costumes were $100 or more. It's not like these costumes are made of the best material or are very high quality.

Anyways, the party was INSANE.  The theme was Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  The house itself is 15,000 square feet.  we got to go inside the house. Party goers weren't allowed to go inside, but we knew some of the vendors so we were given access to the house. It was such a beautiful house. They had 2 kitchens and a elevator. I think the house had at least 4 different levels. And the ceilings - the ceilings were painted with clouds and angels and things like that. The entrance to the party was a maze.  There were circus performers, magicians, even a monkey!  It was open bar with the good liqour too, not just the cheap stuff.  There were passed hor's d'oeuvres that were really really really yummy such as truffle french fries in little martini glasses, scoops of cotton candy ice cream on served on little spoons, mini corn dogs, sliders, and basil mushroom crostinis.  There were women "dressed" only in body paint dancing around.  The guest list for the party was 3,000. 3,000 people in one house. Not even the house, the backyard. My backyard probably couldn't fit more than 30 people.  It was said that the cost of the party was equivialent to the price of a house.  I'm sure this party was well over $200,000.  That's a huge amount of money - HUGE!  Can you imagine having that much disposible income that you could afford to throw such extravagant parties?   These people have some serious money. This is the third year they have thrown this party. I hope I get to go again next year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I haven't posted in awhile. I have no excuse really, other than my complete lameness. Nothing very new or exciting as far as updates. Work is work. School is school. I was really sick with the flu for awhile. The timing couldn't have been worse. I just started an 8 week accounting class when I got sick. I wasn't really able to read or study so I had to drop the class. With such a short class, I just couldn't see myself being able to catch up and still do well in the class. I'm already signed up to take the class next semester, but I really wanted to get it over with now.  

I have a few posts that are half written.  I'll try to finish those up and post those soon.  Until then, Happy Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  :)

And the word of the day is

Maverick! Maverick, Maverick, Maverick! Sarah Palin really loves that word. She did perform better in the debates than I thought she would. That doesn't say much though, considering expectations were pretty low. I wish John McCain had chosen a better running mate. It seems to me like Palin just memorizes things and spews out whatever comes to mind without paying attention to the question asked of her. She just smiles and winks and thinks that will do it for her. She comes off as being way too folksy. I couldn't stand it. Ugh. I wish they were having another debate.

Finally!

The Chargers won a game! The past 2 games have been heart breakers! 2 games lost in the last final seconds of the game. Seriously?! You're killing me Smalls! As I watched that game against the Bronocs, aw man, I actually wanted to kill someone. Freaking Hochuli! It does make me feel better that he owns up to his mistake and feels horrible about it. This next game against the Raiders should be fun, especially since The Boy is a Raiders fan (Boo!). I need to go out and by me a new Chargers jersey. Woo hoo!

Update

Remember before, when I said The Boy was taking his medical board exam and how I was excited that all the crazy studying was over and I'd have my fun boyfriend back? Turns out not so much. Unfortunately The Boy didn't pass. :(

It's not uncommon to not pass this test. Most people say that Step 1 is the hardest part of the boards and a lot of people take it twice or even three times before passing. I know it's hard for him right now. So much time and effort had gone in to studying. He was so ready to move forward and get on to the next part of his med school education. He was thisclose to passing too. He has to wait another month before he can take it again. This month will be hard on him I'm sure. He was SO tired of studying for this test. Now he has to do it all over again. My heart breaks for him. To add insult to injury, his mom wasn't too supportive when she found out he didn't pass. One of the first things she said to him was, "What are we going to tell people?" Since then she's also told him that she stays awake at night trying to come up with a story to tell people about his test results. She's decided that she's going to tell people that he missed it by one or two points. His response to that was "why do you have to think of something to tell people. I'm not ashamed of not passing." She said she knows, but she has to come up with something to tell people. This hurts The Boy a lot. He feels as if his mom is embarrassed or ashamed that he didn't pass. I tell him how proud I am of him for all his hard work. I'm sure that makes him feel better, but it doesn't make up for the way his mom feels about it. I can see how depressed and sad he is when he talks about it. Please send good thoughts his way. He's gonna need it.

Why don't you like me?

As I've said before, I'm very close to my family. I have one cousin in particular that I'm very close to. Tony is like a brother to me. He is only 5 days older than me and we lived together for about 3 years in LA. After I moved back to San Diego from LA, Tony started dating this girl named Maria. Tony and Maria have been dating for abou 2 years now. I'm not a big fan of Maria, although I really wish I was. See, Maria doesn't really make the effort to get to know me, which bothers me since Tony and I are so close. If ever I was in LA, Tony and I would plan to get together to hang out for dinner or something like that. Maria would never come. One time I was even at their apartment and I thought she wasn't home. She was home. She just never came out of her room! I was there for 5 hours and she didn't come out once. At first, I was just like whatever. Now Tony and Maria live in Chicago. They fly out to LA a few times a year. When they do, my sister and I always make the effort to go and share a meal with Tony. Maria NEVER comes. I understand that she also wants to see her family, but she could at least get to know our family a little bit. One meal at least. She always come up with the lamest excuses too. The latest one she gave this past weekend was that she had to go shopping for a dress. We weren't meeting up for dinner until 9:30 PM. What kind of store is she shopping at that is open past 9?! When Tony first started dating Maria I was so excited for him. I was hoping that Maria and I would become close too. I hope some day this changes. People tell me that maybe she's intimidated by me, but I don't see why she would be. I don' think I've ever been rude or mean to her. I'm hesitant to bring this up with Tony. I'm afraid he'll get defensive and think I don't like her. Then he'll go tell her what I said and that will make things even worse. Plus, I suck at discussing uncomfortable topics. I'm the post non-confrontational person in the world.

Things in three's?

I've heard a theory that things happen in three's - weddings, births, deaths. I hope this isn't true. Why you ask? Because right now another one of my uncle's is on life support. My mom and many other family members are flying out to Seattle today to be there before they pull the plug. What is going on? Within 2 months there are 2 deaths on my mom's side of the family. My goodness. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. Sadly, the odds are against us. See, my mom's side of the family is HUGE. She has 11 siblings, 5 half brothers and sisters and 5 full siblings. The half-siblings are all getting up in there in years. They're all over 75 and for some, their health isn't so good.

I wasn't even prepared for this one. With my last uncle, he was sick for months and we knew it was coming. This time not so much. Here's what happened. Monday my uncle had a mild stroke. He was doing fine after a few days and then he went home. There was a good prognosis and everyone said he'd be okay. I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought everything would be okay. I didn't think anything of it after that. On Thursday he wasn't feeling well again so they forced him to go back to the hospital. They determined he suffered another mild stroke so he had to stay in the hospital again. He went into the bathroom and didn't come out for a long time. They went into the bathroom to check on him and he was on the floor. He had a major heart attack. That's when he went on life support. My mom called me at work Friday morning to book her a flight to Seattle which shocked me. At this point I thought my uncle was fine. No one told me he was back in the hospital. I might not be able to make to Seattle in time. I have things going on at work that I just can't miss. I'm going to leave Monday night, but have to be back in San Diego by Saturday afternoon. I really hope things to happen in three's. :(

What are you looking at?

The Boy and I attended the Robin Thicke concert at the House of Blues the other night. It was a great show. Robin Thicke's new album is going to be sooooo good. I can't wait until it comes out next month. The show could've been a little bit more pleasurable though. I say this because it was super hot in there. It was as if there was no air conditioning up in there.  Part of me wanted to leave it was so hot.  Some people actually did leave.  Also, The Boy is kind of annoying at concerts.  He's always people watching and then he points out the funny people to me.  If I don't look he keeps bothering me.  When he does this, I'm thinking to myself "Dude, I didn't come here to look at these other people.  That's insert performer's name up there.  I'd rather look at him instead."  I've noticed he only does this at concerts where the performers are male.  Coincidence?  I think not.  

I'm baaaaack

It's been over a month since my last post. I started writing, but never finished a whole slew of posts. I decided to just delete them all. Nothing new or exciting going on in my life lately. The Boy has 2 weeks until he takes the first part of his medical boards. He is NOT fun to be around lately. I've spend pretty much the past few weekends in LA watching him study. Exciting, no? Can not wait until he is done with this test. Then I can have my fun boyfriend back. However this also means that he may potentially be leaving. See, once passes this test he'll start his clinical rotations. He may do these in New York, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Detroit, or a number of other cities. My vote is for some where in Los Angeles, as close to home as possible. He doesn't get to choose were he does them though, so where he'll be is pretty much up in the air right now.


I start classes again soon. I'm so not looking forward to it. I'm taking a bunch of accounting classes next semester. I hate accounting it's so hard for me. Mainly because the classes I'm taking are online. Accounting is hard to learn on your own! My friend Lana was taking the same classes as me before and we would help each other out. She's in law school now so I'm on my own with these coming up classes. I have nobody to be miserable with. Gotta get back to work, but I'll try to post a little bit more frequently from now on. :)

Viva Las Vegas take 2

Off to Vegas again. This time we're flying. I'm actually at the airport right now.

Unfortunatley, the premise of this trip isn't as happy as our last planned trip to Vegas. My uncle passed away over the weekend. The funeral is tomorrow. On a happier note, The Boy's birthday was Monday so we're staying in Vegas until Sunday to celebrate. We have some friends that were already planning on being in Vegas for the weekend and some of my cousins have decided to stay the weekend in Vegas as well.

I hope our travel to Vegas isn't as eventful as our previous trip.

Breakfast of Champions

I've posted before about my love for breakfast. I think it's something that was instilled with me since I was young. I always had breakfast in the morning. My Dad would wake up early in the morning and make be breakfast EVERY morning before school. After which he would go straight back to bed. He would actually wake up at 6:30 am, cook me breakfast, then go right back to bed. He was retired so he didn't have to get up to go to work or anything.

My new favorite breakfast meal is greek yogurt. Greek-style honey yogurt from Trader Joe's to be exact. I sprinkle it with some granola and a little bit of honey for some extra sweetness (I have the world's biggest sweet tooth). I prefer Greek yogurt to regular yogurt because it's creamier and thicker. If you haven't tried it, you should.

One good thing

that came out of the Vegas fiasco, is that I discovered a new shampoo and conditioner that I now love. We slept at Ed and Jen's house that night. Since we were supposed to be staying at a hotel in Vegas, I didn't bring any shampoo and conditioner to use. I was planning on just using whatever stuff the hotel had so I had to use the shampoo that Jen had in her spare bedroom. It's Herbal Essences Helio Hydration. It smells so good and makes my hair so soft. Last week I went to my favorite (Target!) and bought myself two bottles.

To sue or not to sue

After last weekend's road trip to Vegas fiasco, a lot of people have been telling us we should sue the rental car company and/or Jeep. I don't know though. I don't want to be one of those people who sue for no reason. As long as we aren't liable for the car and the company compensates us for what was lost in the fire, I'll be happy. I have to admit, the thought of suing is pretty appealing. We did miss out on a Vegas vacation. We could've potentially been hurt in the fire or ran over or hit on the freeway as we ran away from the burning car. And the thing that bothers me the most is that I didn't get to see my uncle one last time. My uncle has been very sick for the past few months and it's getting down to the end for him. He's been in the ICU for a week and a half now. That weekend we would've been in Vegas would've been the last time I would've seen him alive. That lost opportunity right there is priceless.

Happy birthday, Max!

Max turned 7 today, although he is a puppy at heart. He's the world's biggest baby and I just love him to death. Today The Boy and I are going to take Max to the park to let him play and by play I mean with other people. Max doesn't like to play with other dogs. He prefers people. I bought him some new toys and some special doggie treats for him to enjoy later.

The Boy says I spoil Max too much. It's true, I do. It's hard not to. I can't help myself. My poor guy has been through a lot the past few years. What can be so hard on a dog, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. A little over 2 years ago Max suffered from Fibrocartilaginous Embolism or FCE. Basically, it's like a stroke to the spine. He lost use of his back right leg for a week or so. It was horrible to watch him deal with it. Normally Max is a happy go lucky kinda dog, always wanting to play and run around and eat. When this happened, all he did was lay down for days. He didn't want to play fetch. He didn't want to eat. He just laid there. He was depressed. Not even food got him excited. His leg would drag behind him when he walked and so that started to get scratched up and bleed. We had to keep it taped up until he was able to raise it off the ground when he walked. It was a sad sight to see him walking around with his leg dragging on the floor after him. I just wanted to follow him around and hold his little leg up for him. Slowly but surely, he began to regain use of his leg. It's still a little bit weak. He falls down a lot and sometimes his leg shakes when he's standing, but my little guy is a trooper! Within a week of his injury he was back to wanting to play again. It broke my heart, because we weren't supposed to let him walk a lot, let alone play, for a month or so.

Flash forward to June of last year. We had taken Max to the dog park to play fetch. Keep in mind that this is one of the first times I'd taken Max to the dog park since the whole FCE thing. I'd been wary of bringing him to such a big open space to run around in. I didn't want him to over exert himself and hurt his leg. I finally thought his leg was getting to be strong enough to go to the park. We had been there, playing fetch all of 5 minutes, when Max jumped up for the ball. He starts to walk back to The Boy and I when I notice he isn't using his back right leg. Yes, the same leg that was injured due to the FCE - the same leg! He wouldn't put it on the ground. He just kept it raised and was limping around on his other 3 legs. I was so scared. I didn't know what to think. Was it the FCE again? The Boy picked him up (which is not easy as Max weighs about 100 pounds) and we took him to the vet right away. The vet examined him and knew right away that Max had torn his little doggie ACL and would need surgery. He had the surgery 3 days later.

As my little guy gets older, I worry about him more and more (Yes, I'm a big worry wort). His leg is weak sometimes and all of the injuries he has had makes him more susceptible to arthritis. He walks with a limp too. He moves like an old man sometimes. The Boy says I worry too much, but Max is my baby. I'm his mom. I'm supposed to worry.