Vietnamese Pork Chops
Don’t tell anyone but I spent a month in Vietnam competing in an International beauty pageant as Miss USA. I was only 20 years old so my dad went with me. We spent time in Singapore as well and I fell in LOVE with Southeast Asia. I ended up going back for my honeymoon to Bali and Thailand. I love the people, the food, culture, country, history – all of it.
Brussels and Bacon
About a year ago we visited some great friends down in Encinitas. They are total foodies so I LOVE eating with them. One night they spoiled us rotten and made these amazing New York Steaks with clarified butter, a delicious fennel salad and brussels with bacon.
General Bistro’s Orange Chicken
I just spent the day with twenty kids under the age of six. We went on a field trip to one of the parks here and I had no less than 1,000 heart attacks. There is this pretty large sized lake within the park that is a beautiful shade of toxic green. The ducks enjoy swimming in it as well as some fish and I was actually surprised none of them had an extra head or wing.
Cajun Beer Battered Avocado Tacos with Corn and Red Pepper Salsa
We are back from our Disney cruise to Vancouver. I swear it took me three days to get rid of my sea legs. We had a great time exploring San Francisco and catching up with old friends, a cold and rainy day in Victoria where we spent time with some peacocks, baby pigs and goats and explored the city and we ended the cruise in Vancouver where we explored Granville Island, toured the city and ate some ridiculously great food and drank some amazing craft beers.
Highlights:
1. Each city we visited boasted that their Chinatown was the largest Chinatown in North America.
2. Buggies and Pixie drank out of a toilet/drinking fountain at the Observatory in San Francisco.
3. Pixie sang “California Here I Come” while standing on the Golden Gate Bridge.
4. The International waters off of California are neither warm nor calm during the month of May.
5. No one puked.
Carnitas Pizza
What is it with kids dumping every single damn toy out of every bin every single day? I was drowning in barbies, stepping on legos (if you haven’t had the pleasure of stepping on a lego yet, oh just you wait! Your time is coming), being run over by Thomas and the gang of Cars Land and cursing every Disney Princess to have lived.
I took the proactive by the book Mommy approach and created a reward chart for each of my little rugrats.
Harvest Salad
What a busy few days it has been! On Friday I had the pleasure of recording a little blurb for KEYT morning news out of Santa Barbara. I had so much fun! Granted I got up at 3:30 in the morning and my bleary and puffy eyed little self had to be in Santa Barbara by 5:30 but who cares! It was a blast. The lovely Lisa Carey who is handling all of the PR for the event was with me as well. You can see a clip of it here.
Harvest Soup
About five years ago, Jessica and I catered an Italian themed engagement party. We did a food test first with our hubby’s and then for the client to make sure everything was delicious. And to give us an excuse to get together and cook. And drink wine. One of the items we served was this Harvest Soup. Actually at the time we called it Tuscan soup. It’s so easy and so yum. A great starter for Thanksgiving. Or serve it in a shot glass with the crostini poking out. Or make a big ol’ whopping bowl all to yourself for dinner. That’s what I would do.
Bourbon Chicken with Caramelized Shallots
Sometimes I forget how to be an adult. I forget how to talk about life, love, and fears outside of them being associated directly with my children. You see, the moment Pixie was born my life changed forever.
Portobello Mushroom Burger
Really? I mean really? 108 degrees in Los Angeles today? Hey, Mother Nature! Did you not get the memo? It’s October 1st. We are supposed to be cooling down now, not heating up! And there was no escaping this heat for me today as I was outside for most of the day.
Today I had the pleasure of going to a local farm with Buggies class on a field trip. Yes, I spent my day with tractor rides, pumpkin picking, tons of kids, corn mazes and working on my swassiness. Swassy: an adjective to describe the sweat and heat in your um….nether regions. Swamp + Ass = Swassy. Learn it and live it people.