Sunday, May 26, 2013

good evening mr. darcy

Okay, I'm doing this. I've had reading it on my "to-do" list for two-plus years now and it's been sitting on my bookshelf at least five times longer than that (my copy cost $4.95; current Amazon price: $8.54). So no more excuses. Even though I'd much rather watch either the Colin Firth (cuz he's the perfect Mr. Darcy) or Keira Knightley (seven words: the walk through the morning fog scene) versions, I'm going to read this book... all 334 tiny pages, written in 19th Century English that hurts my brain, of it.


Would you like to know how I know I'm going to read this now versus the three or four times I've started and never finished it before?

The reason is simple.

What I really would like to be reading right now is a new book by Meg Wolitzer titled The Intertestings: A Novel, which is getting rave reviews from The New York TimesEntertainment Weekly, and my writing idol Judy Blume, who has tweeted that she's "reading and enjoying it so much right now."

But I'm not allowing myself to buy that until I get to page 300 of Pride & Prejudice. And I'm not allowed to open it when it arrives from Amazon Prime until page 334 is read. Yes, I'm basically bribing myself.

I'm currently on Chapter 7, page 22. Only 54 chapters and 312 pages more to go!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

hot & spicy

Exciting discovery outside tonight -- My Serrano chile pepper plant is sprouting peppers! I'm almost ready to start my summer guacamole-fest with two parts home-grown ingredients (peppers and cilantro).



Saturday, May 11, 2013

tea, gardens and priceless manuscripts -- oh my!

                                                                                                                           

A few weeks ago, I along with some of my poker pals, visited The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. Our main point of business was having a civilized afternoon tea in the Rose Garden Tea Room. But there is so much to see, two of us ended up staying all day!
We arrived at The Huntington just as it was opening and had reservations for tea right away. One thing to note about tea here is, even if all you are doing is having tea, you still need to pay admission ($20-23 depending on the day) to get onto the property. So once we waited in the line to get in, we rushed down the flower-paved paths to the Rose Garden Tea Room. 

Inside, once we were seated, a delish basket of scones was brought to our table and our tea orders were taken. After that, we were free to help ourselves to sandwiches, cheeses, fruit, pasta salads and petite desserts from the buffet in the middle of the room. The buffet makes this a little less formal than most afternoon teas with their three-tiered trays of food, but it didn't take away from its deliciousness. The chicken and salmon sandwiches were to die for! The pasta salads were yummy. And they had lemon bars... my second favorite pastry after scones. Did I mention they brought us a basket of those? And when we didn't finish everything in our basket, they brought us a little baggie to take them home in. Bonus points for that!

Basket-o-SCONES!
















Cream cheese, egg salad, chicken salad
and salmon sandwiches
Chocolate mousse, strawberries, fruit tart and lemon bar - oh my!




Once we finished eating, we explored the grounds of The Huntington. This place is amazing! In addition to the many distinct gardens I photographed below, there is also a research Library, which houses rare books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, maps, and other materials in the fields of British and American history. Many of these items are things you'd think would be in London, New York, or Washington... not San Marino, CA. Two prime examples: a copy of the Gutenberg bible and early editions of Shakespeare's works. 

The Art Collection also includes crazy-rare, historical things you'd never expect to see here, like The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment of the United States. For Pasadena architecture lovers, there is a large Greene & Greene Collection. There is also a huge collection of European and American art. A person could literally spend days looking at everything here. 

But it was a gorgeous spring day outside, and we had a lot of scones to work off, so we spent most of the day wandering the gardens... all of them! Here are just a few photos:

Rainbow of Flowers
Pretty snapdragons, lilies and more in one of the gardens on the way to the Rose Garden Tea Room.
Japanese Gardens
Duckie Island
This is under the bridge in the Japanese Garden. They even have their own little duck house :)
BONSAI!
One of the many, many Bonsai trees at the top of the Japanese Garden.
Lily Pond
Needs some more purple and blue to compete with my fave Monet lilies though ;)
Succulent Ice Plant  
I loved these so much (they ARE purple after all ;) that I went out and got some for my own garden. 
(Fat) LIZARDS!
There were tons of Lizards out sunning themselves that day, especially in the Desert Garden Exhibit.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

red o es delicioso

Happy Cinco de Mayo! This is a day that people traditionally eat great Mexican food and drink margaritas. But -- being the non-comforming Aquarian that I am -- I did that earlier this week cuz I have a rule to never go to a Mexican food restaurant on Cinco de Mayo or an Irish Pub on St. Patrick's Day. (It allows me to avoid the drunken fools that tend to use these "holidays" as an excuse to act like drunken fools, who I have zero patience for.)

My Mexican food restaurant of choice? Red O on Melrose Avenue, which features menus designed by renowned chef Rick Bayless, and is one of the "places to eat" on my 2013 list of things to do in LA. It also happens to be down the street and around the corner from my pal Marleine's awesome new place. So she joined me for Girl's Night Out. She'd been to the restaurant before and recommended the margies and that we split a bunch of stuff rather than just ordering individual entrees, and as usual, her recommendations were spot on.

Here's what we enjoyed:




La Dama Margarita 
(Karma tequila, serrano chile, mango grenadine, lime juice, a drizzle of  pomegranate liqueur. Garnished with fresh pomegranate seeds. Begins sweet & finishes with a bite!)

This was delish, even though it tasted more like a sweet cocktail than a margarita. I was worried the serrano chile would make it too spicy, but it didn't -- just gave it some nice spice, so that the sweetness wasn't too overpowering.

And I loved the pomegranate seeds floating around :)







Classic Guacamole 
(Freshly made, chunky, sundried tomato, onion, with warm chips & salsa)

This was good but nothing spectacularly different. I didn't even notice the sundried tomato, which is what would set this apart from normal guac. But you can't really go wrong with chips and dip. 




Pork Belly Sopes
(Niman Ranch pork belly, black beans, salsa negra, sesame)

These were something totally new to me and I really liked them. The salsa negra was amaze-balls! And the pork belly was seasoned and cooked just right.



Fresh Corn and Goat Cheese Tamales
(Fresh ground corn masa steamed in corn husks, roasted poblano chiles)

I've never met a tamale I didn't like and these were no exception. Really loved these actually. The goat cheese plus corn mesa was a totally new and very yummy taste combination.



Red Chile-Braised Short Rib Enchiladas
(Red guajillo chile sauce, melted Sonoma Jack, black beans, frisee, watercress)

All the enchiladas on the menu sounded really good, but I settled on these because short rib tacos are the best item on the Kogi BBQ menu (which has nothing to do with Red O except they have made me think good things about short rib ;). These were good too, but what really stood out was the chile sauce and the cheesy gooey goodness.









Mexican Chocolate Torta

(Mexican chocolate mousse, canela ice cream, caramelized almond crunch with local berries)

Choosing a dessert was really hard. After I ruled out the options with coconut (which I can't eat) and cheesecake (which I don't really like), we might as well have flipped a coin. Our waiter helped us narrow it down by telling us the three most popular items on the menu, and from that we chose the chocolate torta. The mousse was great, the cinnamon ice cream was soooo good, and once again pomegrante seeds made an appearance, adding a crisp tangy texture and taste to the soft sweet mousse and ice cream.