Well... that's never happened to me before.

I don't think I've ever walked into my building after lunch with a bag full of frozen meat. Yes, frozen meat.

I went out for lunch, and I came back with a bag stuffed with quality frozen meat, quietly wondering to myself how on earth I was going to fit this much meat into the already crowded community freezer at work. It was a very interesting 'I Love Lucy' moment. Well, almost. There was no walk in freezer to get locked into, thank Goodness. If there were, chances are i would have already gotten locked in. I have luck like that.



Now, I don't want you to think I go around every day just purchasing frozen meat for the heck of it. but I love Omaha Steaks. It's amazing, amazing food, and if they advertise to me that I can get an assortment of some of their best meat that usually goes for around $150 for 49.99? I'm gonna get it.

Freezer hijnks or not.

Still. I had no idea it would be THAT much meat. I showed up at the store with my little coupon and my eyes grew progressively bigger when the sales rep just kept piling on boxes and boxes of... meat.

Walking back into work with a bag full of frozen expensive meat? Surreal.

The looks from the security guards, however? Priceless.

Thanksgiving 2008 - Greased Lightning...

As bitter as I was in my last post about Thanksgiving and the Turkey With No Brine, I do have to admit, my Tia roasts a pretty good bird. There. I said it. Though I will also argue that stuffing the stuffing in the bird makes it mushy and gross and stuffing should be baked independant of that.

But I'm also a non-traditionalist food snob.

And I think I make a pretty mean ham. Even if I do think I over cooked it a little (or over-heated it, since the dern thing was pre-cooked), and nearly reduced my mother to tears when she found out that I was planning on doing it without pineapple and cherries.

Man, she went nuts. And told me I had to go to the grocery store right that minute to get pineapples and cherries because if i didn't then the world would end or something. Luckily, I got to the grocery store around 10AM on Thanksgiving, which is enough time to make parking a head ache (I avoided the lot completely and did street parking) but not bad enough that I wanted to stab someone in the canned fruit aisle.

While there, I sucked it up and bought some fresh cranberries too, even though my family will be heathens and still go with the jellied can stuff.

Still, did anyone else feel like this holiday crept up on them without notice? Usually we can see this one coming a mile away, but this year it was here and gone in the blink of an eye.

You could tell we weren't ready for it. My mother, in charge of only greanbeans and corn, was so delighted she had nothing to do this holiday she decided not to even worry about a green bean casserole and just threw a bunch of butter in it. My sister, in charge of the bread, came over with only four packs of twelve for three families, and ended up having to cook two batches of cornbread to make up for it. My aunt, in charge of mashed potatoes, forgot to bring the gravy. My other aunt, the hostess (and non-turkey briner), forgot to suck out some of the Turkey juice and ended up with grease in the oven, which meant it caught on fire.

Which meant we spent about twenty minutes standing outside while my uncles tried to fan out smoke, and the bread that my sister brought ended up... well... smoked.




Which meant the yams weren't cooked. So no yams this year.

And in the midst of all that, my five year old cousin decided it was a good time to ask the group what sex was.

This with a nun at the table.




All in all, another great Thanksgiving, even if no one was quite prepared for it.

Except for maybe Thalia, who spent most of the turkey time standing around my uncle's legs as he carved the turkey, hoping for a slice or two.

She got greenbeans from my cousins instead.

view the rest of the pics here.

I'd Be A Lot More Thankful If I Could BRINE the darn turkey...

I'm not going to kid myself. I'm never going to be on Top Chef, and I seem to have an anti-green thumb that results me killing any herb I try to grow out back (my basil is fighting but the fight, it's losing).

Even so, I love to cook. I've always loved to cook. Even when I was a little kid and thought 'cooking' meant being able to boil water and make the Top Ramen by myself, I've always just ... enjoyed food.

This lands me in trouble for a number of reasons, in a number of ways.

1. I'm Mexican.
Well, Mexican-American, and though my Mom is Texas-born and raised, my Dad is very much a Mexican man. This means that, although Mom did like to branch out, a typical dinner for us included Mexican staples: something fried, something carb-y, and tortillas (also, you haven't lived until you've heated up a fresh warm tortilla and lathered it with peanutbutter and jam. Yum). Sounds fattening, but Mexican's LOVE to cook. And they know what they like. What does this mean? Well, there generally isn't much a welcome wagon for that upstart young kid who wants to do things a little differently.

Case in point: Grilling. I love grilling. I want to grill more. I can't. Because my dad grills. The problem when he grills though, is he likes to turn the meat over and over and over until it's overcooked and (still tasty) dry. I also one time handed him a soaked cedar wood plank in which to smoke some salmon fillets and he looked at me like I had lost my damn mind.

"What the hell am I going to do with this?!" he asked me, and thrust it back at me.

I thrust it back. "Put the salmon on it."

He glared at it. "It's going to burn."

"No, I soaked it."

"It's wood!"

This went on for a while until my Mom (who has always tried to encourage my culinary endeavors - except when I make a nice lemon butter sauce for a crab ravoli, or over salt something), told him to let me do it.

He grudgingly did. And then made me stand by the grill with a hose in case the whole thing went up in flames.

2. I'm chubby.
My metabolism, it is not so nice to me. This means that if I want to eat half of what I aspire to, and keep my shape, I must work out for an obscene amount every day, and run.

I hate running. It's so boring. And I know from whist I speak. I ran a damn marathon. Didn't make me feel accomplished at all. I felt lik a chump. Also? It hurts.

I've realized I will never be a skinny bitch, but it would be nice not to be a lazy overweight one.

Still, it's very hard to come home and be content with grilled salmon (no salt) when my mother has just fried chicken and fries.

3. I'm a snob.
Seriously. I'm one of those really annoying people who can't handle Hershey's chocolate anymore unless it's M&M's because it doesn't taste like chocolate. Who'll insist loudly to anyone who listens that white chocolate is not chocolate (it's made from COCOA BUTTER, dammit). Who'll be okay with paying eighty dollars for a kobe steak I can't afford because it's fricken' KOBE STEAK, and gets an immense food orgasm from anything organic (even if it goes bad two days later).

Combine these three and I become an extremely irritable person around Thanksgiving: the food holiday.

Why? Because I have a dream. I have a dream of a moist juicy turkey. Of stuffing made with real cornbread and cranberry sauce that isn't splotched from a can, but is instead carefully crafted from REAL cranberries, with some sugar and cornstarch and just the right amount of heat.

Of a gravy made from a roux and those drippings from the turkey.

Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of the short cuts at some point. I like Stoeffer's stuffing as much as the next person, but I just think it would be nice to even get the chance to be able to do something a little different for the holiday.

My mother, dear that she is, always tries to curb my little chef-y aspirations by giving me teeny assignments. Dessert one year. Cranberry sauce the next. Sweet Potatoes the year after.

This year? I thought I hit the motherload. Now, I realize this is a silly aspiration, but ever since I fell in love with Alton Brown and Good Eats, I've had an insane desire to brine the turkey.

I know. It's hardly the most grand aspiration, but to be able to eat a moist turkey without drowning it in gravy that came in powder form on Thanksgiving would be like ... Christmas.

Imagine my happiness when I was told that this year, I could do it. I could make the turkey. My face lit up. I poured over the brine recipe and mentally worked together my checklist of how I was to prepare this bird. I mentally envisioned my family members (and there's a hella lot of 'em) exclaiming they had never loved a turkey like this before.

My dreams came to a crashing halt when my aunt got wind of this and shut it down. "I always make the turkey!" she complained (which is a total lie), and just like that, I'm making the ham.

The HAM.

I don't even LIKE ham. Well, not the big honking slices, at least.

My dreams of a brine or even a good salt crust were dashed. And I'm making the dumb ham.

Phooey.

Screwit. They can eat their cranberry sauce from the can, and make their sweet potatoes from the can too. I don't care.

My dreams will not be dashed. One day I WILL brine the turkey.

Tradition be damned.

Until then, I shall content myself tonight with a pound of crab meat and freshly made crab cakes.

And my aunt can't have any.

Oh, right. Happy Thanksgiving and all that.

The Lesser of Two Evils - MSN shows you how

MSN is running an interesting article on actual calorie and fat content of various fast food fallacies. Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you want to lose weight, you should avoid fast food altogether (Unless you want to buy one crummy sandwhich with a flavorless 'grilled' chicken breast), but I definately understand the craving. Particularly at 2AM on a Friday night after a long night in a bar. And you're feeling twitchy.

Fascinating stuff. Did you know you a Big Mac is actually better for you than a Whopper?

I know. Now you have an excuse.

Check it out.

Vegas, baby!

In true Los Angeles Resident fashion, when faced with the prospect of a long weekend, thoughts immediately turned to Las Vegas. I'm not a gambler (love Texas Hold 'Em, but Slots bore me to tears), but Vegas has some awesome attractions if you know where to look. Thanks to a nice tax refund, it was a weekend in which I could splurge, just a little, and so with some planning, we got a decent price for the Hilton, two reservations at BOA Las Vegas and the Eiffel Tower Restaurant, tickets for Cirque de Soleil's pornesqe Zumanity, and reservations for horseback riding in the canyons outside of Las Vegas.

Despite the fact that I'm way over weight and I should be following a strict diet to get back into shape in time for my fearless comeback for the third season of American Gladiators (in which my sole purpose will be to get rocked on Joust by Crush and thus fulfill the fantasy of nearly every male/woman who watches that show), this weekend I have given myself a bye. And with good reason. The food? was awesome.

But first things first. Taking off at 7AM on Saturday morning was a well-intentioned bid to get away from traffic, and unfortunately for us, it worked a little too well. We landed at the state line a good three hours before we could check into the hotel. So to kill time we stopped at my favorite on the way destination: Buffalo Bill Casino, a wild west themed casino which is part of a trio clustered on the state line that features, among other things, an awesome buffet, a roller coaster, and a huge outlet fashion mall. We got our buffet on and then I was let loose in the Coach outlet where we arrived in time for their big president's day sale (thank you, Mr. Lincoln).

I got way more giddy than I thought I'd be, but all seemed to work well, for I got a wristlet for 15 bucks and a brand new wallet for 60, down from 200.

Giddiness aside, we went on our way to Vegas, and were able to check into the Hilton, where it occured to me that I actually was feeding Paris Hilton and her backyard breeding tendencies. After forcing that panic attack aside, there was time to settle in and take a nap before heading over to the BOA steakhouse at Cesear's Palace on the strip. We were at the Hilton, maybe two or three blocks away. It took us an hour to get there and find the parking lot. Vegas doesn't fool around, bitches.

Once we got there, however, we were seated after about a fifteen minute wait, and were treated to quite a view.

Pretty damned gorgeous (thanks Sam, for the picture).

Then it was time to sit down and eat food off our pricey menues. But first? Cocktails. I had a Goldsmith, which was an effortlessly smooth infusion of apples, cinamen, vodka, bourban, nutmeg, and pineapple juice. Just... yum.

Appetizers! In which I had three jumbo prawns that sadly... were just that. Big ass Shrimp. I was hoping for a little more, but at six dollars a pop, I could have done better. Still, moving on to the fish of the day special, which was quite scrumptious. Pan-seared habilut over roasted yukon gold potatoes, with a baby leaves salad on top and a vinnegarette. Pretty yum. For dessert? The fried cheesecake. Which is as rich as it sounds and twice as fattening. It was served with a banana icecream that was absolutely delicious.

Too late for the Shark Reef, and not in the mood for clubbing, we headed back to the hotel and tried to cheat the system by watching a movie on Netflix.com. We were, however, stomped upon when we realized the hotel's wireless connection is crap. Touche, hotel. Touche.

Resigned to not knowing what would happen to the rest of the mediocre yet oddly compelling 'Love on the Side', we hit the lights out, because we needed to be up and early for our horesbackriding reservations.

So at 7:30Am, we waited in the parking lot of the Circus Circus for our tour bus to come pick us up. While there, we were witness to a terrific car crash between a cabbie and an employee, which lends credence to the idea that it's not just LA people who are terrible ass drivers. Everyone was okay, however, the whole crash-into-the-car-who-makes-a-left-turn-without-looking thing is pretty stupidly cliche. Look where you're going, peeps. We got picked, and along with about fifteen other people, were bussed to Red Rock Canyon, which is an absolutely beautiful bit of desert that not a lot of tourists know about, but should. The last time my friends and I went, we spent a good 3 hours scampering over rocks and marveling at the gorgeous scenery. This time, we were paired with a horse. Because I've become quite the hefty girl, I was paired with a huge ass horsey named Dunny. The cute cowboy was apparently quite surprised that I actually had the flexibility to make it in the stirrups on my own, but little does he know that a) 8 years of martial arts/kick boxing doth a stretchy girl make and b) my version of horse riding is of the Mexican pueblo style, which means you get on and if the horse throws you, you didn't hold on hard enough. Anyway, Dunny and I went our way and away we went, to explore the canyons of Red Rock in a straight line.

Again, the view? was spectacular.

Dunny himself was quite obviously a man's horse, who didn't quite like the lady sitting on his back. He had a mind of his own, but we eventually came to an understanding (that being, he would do whatever the hell he wanted, and I would push and pull a little but eventually let him), and after two hours of riding and pretty scenery my butt was killing me and my horse was hungry.

Still, I love horses. I want one. Even if they're big and smelly and poop a lot.

From there , we had just enough time to make it back to the hotel, nap and then shower and change for our reservations at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant, set in the Eiffel Tower in the Paris hotel. The view, again, was quite spectacular. The enviroment was very foofy, which meant fancy dress and no free refills (bastards). Still, we were able to see the Bellagio water show, and I was treated to an amazing crab salad (the prettiest I've ever eaten), and my first ever chocolate soufle. It was poofy.

Then it was time to hit Zumanity at the New York New York. Not a show to attend with mother, people. First of all? It's a Cique Show, which means of course, it's weird. Add to that? Topless everything. Every acrobatic manuever you can think of? With boobs. And dildos. And a lot of audience participation. Banana fellacio. Topless contortionists. Gorgeous drag queens. And an S&M scene involving choking.

Really quite gorgeous.

Really quite adult.

To sum up, you're typical Cirque show: topless.

Watching them all gave me the explicit urge to go work out.

So I took a nap instead.

Though I did have a salad for lunch today. That's a start, right?

The Secret To Chopping Onions

I need to know. Because I love to cooke, but onions are my arch Nemesis.

I don't just cry when I chop them. I turn into a blubbering, eye stinging, tortured mess. You know, if I were ever a super hero? My vulnerability would be those damned onions. Seriously, I could be saving a vault full of hostages, get an arm chopped off, and keep going, but if those people pulled out fresh onions and threw them in my face?

Game over.

It was never more evident than this morning, when I endeavored to put together some quick ingrediants for a pot roast to throw in the slow cooker before I went to work. It was pretty simple: meat, potatoes, carrots, worcheshire sauce, garlic, red wine vinegar, ketchup, rosemary... and onions.

Those EFFIN' onions!

Oh my GOD. Those damned fumes hit me so hard I could have been run over with a truck. Eyes stinging, watering so badly I was chopping blind, I was praying that the torture would end without me chopping off a finger because I friggin' couldn't see.

If I wasn't already literally sobbing, I would have cried from the pain.

Four hours later, my eyes are STILL stinging. I feel like I've been tortured and am dealing with post traumatic shock.

I can't take it, ya'll. I need to face my onion fear head on. Thank God, a quick google search has led me to a list of options in dealing with my nemesis: the onion.

From the Ludicrous to the Fairly Reasonable:

1. Holding a match in your teeth.
Apparently the match head is supposed to absorb the fumes. That doesn't sound fun for me unless I'd get to light the match. Still... if it didn't work I'd be a crying mess and setting my mouth on fire. Moving on.

2. Use a Sharp Knife.
The sharper the knife the less acid fume is released. Fine. Be reasonable.

3. Put the Onion In the Freezer
Okay... maybe I'm being a food snob here but... wouldn't that just mess with the taste of the onions? If you freeze it then wouldn't it be like freezing a tomatoe and messing up the... er.. fruit cells? Or something?

4. Use goggles.
Fashion be damned, I might actually try this. People seem to swear by it. Now if only I swam enough to own a pair.

5. Put it under running water.
Okay... I'm a pretty consistant chopper but this seems kinda silly unless you want to cut your hand off.

6. Chop more onions.
Apparently you can build up immunity to it if you just chop more onions. Sounds like a brute's plan. But I've always liked a little pain.

7. Remove the root and bulb.
Cutting around the root and removing the bulb apparently eliminates the threat. And also like... half the onion.


Hmm. What to do. What to try? Does anyone have any onion cutting secrets?

New Study Reveals: Rats hate Sweet N Low

CNN reports on a new study done on rats that indicates that sugar substitutes actually caused the rats to gain a significant amount of weight as opposed to the rats that were fed sugar.

The use of sugar substitutes has always been controversal, particularly because they contain chemicles like Aspartame, Chlorline, etc. There are an equal amount of studies and websites pointing both ways and trying to figure out where you can consume it or not can get just as bewildering.

Aspartame.org swears it's safe. Dorway.com says it's a toxic poison. Chemicals like Aspartame are used in everything from Coke Zero to Sweet N Low, and uninformed consumers can think of it as a wonder drug that allows them to get their cake and eat it too.

My take? As someone who has been both super healthy and super overweight, the honest to goodness truth is that too much of anything is bad. The truth to real health is portion control and balance. Whether or not you think Asparateme is a poison, you shouldn't be drinking 3 cokes a day, anyway.

And before sugar gets on it's high horse, remember that sugar itself? Is bleached.

I'm just saying.

For the hard core truth, SkinnyBitch is a tough-love kind of book that curses you out and withholds no truth about the food you're eating.

It also takes any joy you have out of eating, unless you seriously enjoy eating nuts and tofu, but... still, it's good to be informed.

DINE OUT - DINE LA WEEK IN LOS ANGELES

Stumbled upon something on accident, and it's awesome.

This week is DINE LA week in LA, and participating restaurants have put together specific tasting menus for next to nothing.

Tonight a friend and I dined at Luna Park, on La Brea, and I had:

- Warm Goat Cheese Fondue with Grilled Bread and Sliced Apples
- Breaded Pork Cutlet, Mashed Potatos, mushrooms and String Beans
- Make Your Own S'mores - Molten Marshmallow, Bittersweet Chocolate and Housemade Graham Cookies

The grand total? 15 bucks.

You can't beat that. Check out the restaurants, make your reservations, and try out some amazing meals.

DINELA ends February 1st.