my first food post!

When I first came to Chicago I had to cut a lot out of my budget, and as a result perfected 4 dishes that were on constant rotation. My favorite meal remains brown rice, edamame, and tofu, with red curry. It lasts 3-4 meals, is healthy, and just as good re-heated. However in the past 12 months I have certainly diversified my cooking portfolio. I wok it up on a regular basis, I have things in my pantry that do not have english labels, and I follow food blogs to not only find new recipes but also new techniques that this little brain would have never thought of. (Like adding your dressing to the pan when heating up shrimp/chicken/whatever for a salad - my favorite so far!) I also realized my interest in cooking has gone a little bit past "ok I need food to survive" when I was like a kid on Christmas morning after my mini food processor arrived. I CAN NOT WAIT to try the edamame dip I have been wanting to make.

Last night we had Trader Joe's orange chicken with some fabulous brown rice and rice noodles that my boyyyyfran so expertly stir fried. Tonight it's low fat mac and cheese with BBQ tofu (for me) and some kind of meat (for him.)

This will not turn into a food blog, trust me. But I figure I yip yap about everything else, food might as well be mentioned every so often.

me in my house alone..

"it's been a long night in new york city
it's been a long time since 22
i don't remember you looking any better
but then again, i don't remember you."
j. mayer

to thrift

I am an avid thrifter. And I have no prejudices. I thrift for ball jars, pyrex, vintage pyrex, clothes, clutches, jewelery, pictures, vintage postcards, shoes, scarves, planters, tablecloths, milk glass anything, lamps, etc. Sometimes I leave with $20 worth of treasures I never knew I needed, and other times I will walk out happy as a clam with $1.50 scarf I know will go with everything this fall (seriously, I just found that scarf. It's giant and filled with yellow and corals and blues and browns and it is just perrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfection) I realize that not only do my boyfriend and I have a shared love for each other, we also unfortunately love STUFF and so my thrift store ventures have been limited since moving to our small nest. So I've decided to make a list of things that I just absolutely positively must buy if I find, and I will stick to this list. For as long as I can.

1. A vintage scale for our kitchen. It doesn't even have to work, actually I'd prefer it not to so I can balance the Ball Jar that holds my coffee on one side, and maybe our salt and pepper on the other side.
2. An awesome lamp for our kitchen table
3. One very large container for all of our mixing utensils
4. Something to hold all my magazines because cluttering the living room table is so full of anxiety
5. More Ball Jars because let's be honest, a dozen is just not enough.

I said limited people, not eliminated.

diana style

In very strange ways I am sometimes upset that I missed the days of Jackie Kennedy, Sohpia Loren, or Grace Kelly. When women exemplified what it is to be of substance and true beauty whether they are the grieving widow of our President or being crowned the Princess of Monaco. There was a real pride in femininity, in being subtly sexy, and chic. Those days ended when Madonna forced herself into pop culture and somehow it became more about being current, and less about being timeless. With one exception. Princess Diana.

I was born to a mother that hand on my heart, was in love with Princess Diana. She stayed up to watch the wedding, she was coincidentally pregnant with Ross the same time Diana was pregnant with William. She HATED Princess Charles and "that ugly Camilla." I remember going to visit my grandparents and half way through the 3 hour car ride Eileen telling Ross to "step on it" so she wouldn't miss the now infamous BBC interview with Martin Bashiir. I think what made Diana so captivating was her ability to relate to women. My mom was born in New Mexico, in 1949, a world away from Diana. And yet there was a common link. They were flawed, yet strong. Silly, yet refined. Diana was truly admirable, and someone who left this world a bit better when she left.

While I admire her for wearing a short black dress as a giant "F-You" to Charles right after the divorce, and her spread in Vanity Fair is to this day, one of my absolute favorites, I was struck at an early age with her humanitarian efforts. When I asked my mom why Prince Charles didn't like Diana volunteering she said "It's because a lot of people refuse to see beyond themselves." And it was then that I vowed to never be a person that can be said about.

adam and eve

I went through a stage where I was convinced that being a female in a male's world is in a word: unfair. I read tons of books that examined why men have always been considered the "superior" gender, how our present day gender roles were created, and how women have generally been screwed in the land of the free, and home of the brave. Reading for months about this topic turned Anna Lewis into one extremely bitter feminist. But I snapped out of it, because I am blessed to have three incredibly strong relationships with my Dad and brothers. I have never been made to feel inferior or been encouraged less to do something because I am a girl. And now I can say that I happily live with a guy who is a daily reminder of everything that is wonderful about men. They are able to lift extremely heavy furniture, figure out how to build the sometimes complicated items from IKEA, and they provide an enormous amount of heat in the winter to snuggle up next to. But there are still a few things I am really really confused about:

1. Why do you have to spit? I have been walking down the sidewalk, driving a car, standing outside a bar, and heard that GOD AWFUL hawking noise and I know what's coming. It's a big ol' wad of your bile and I don't get it. I have seen maybe 2 women in my life spit, and their names were Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain after they won the World Cup. What is going on in the guts of males that the majority of them "have" to spit in public? It's disgusting, it's repulsive, and I've never heard anyone say "OMG! Did you see that guy who just hawked a giant loogie? He is so hot."

2. Adjust yourselves in the bathroom. You don't see me leaning over in public because my girls are not comfortable in my bra so do it behind closed doors.

3. The argument of "Who is better at sports? Men or women?" I have never heard a woman bring up this subject and yet countless guys feel the need to remind us, that women do not play football and the WNBA is kind of a joke. Hey guess what?! WE CREATE A HUMAN LIFE INSIDE OUR BODIES. An actual human lives inside of us for 9 months and then we have to rely on nothing more than our bodies to push it out. WE DON'T CARE IF YOU CAN DRIBBLE A BIG ORANGE BALL BETTER THAN WE CAN.