Monday July 12, 2010

Nikki Benz did great in yoga this am! Her boobs got in the way of several of the poses, but she did not leave the room and she tried to do everything…I think she only sat out on one of the postures. When the instructor asked her name she hesistated and told her “Nikki” instead of her real name. Then at the end of class the person at the front desk brought an envelope down with her real first and last name and the instructor was like “Nikki, what is your last name?” She was confused, I was dying laughing and Nikki was like “Well, yes that on the envelope is my legal name but I go by Nikki.” I wonder if anyone in the class recognized her. Or her boobs. At one point in the middle of class I looked at her inquisitively and did a thumbs up thing…asking if she was ok. She looked at me with a disheveled crazy look of exhaustion and sweat and pain all at once and whispered: “I love yoga.” She, like me, had never done any kind of yoga before but came with the intention of knocking out an intense amount of cardio in 90 minutes. We both HATE doing the machines at the gym. I get super bored and want to get off the elliptical after 15 minutes. Anyways, she said she was hooked and I hope that she does it back in LA or wherever she’s on the road.

I started to take a photo of this cute kitty and of course the owner flew out of nowhere screaming at me to leave money. He actually made me put the $ in the jar before I snapped the pic. Another man walking by got all in his face about how he can’t stop me from taking the photo and blah blah blah. The thing is, I don’t even mind giving the guy a buck. The cat looks pretty content.

St Patrick’s Cathedral (You gotta check out the inside if you have the chance… I didn’t go in today because I have already seen it and I didn’t want Nikki and I to burst into flames today. It was already too hot outside.)

For lunch we attempted to eat Japanese food at Cafe Zaiya but were sadly disappointed that it was not like a real Japanese place. I heard about it online from Midtown Lunch and it was one of their recommendations for a “fun” lunch. It was prepackaged like at the grocery store…ewww…but at this point we were hungry and it was the in-between time of sushi restaurants. The bakery and dessert selection was impressive so we decided to check it out. The green tea cake was too dry for me.

The lychee gelee was decent, but the texture was a little bit too slick for me. And I am not a huge fan of the lychee fruit. Only in my fruity martinis really.

The black sesame ice cream on the other hand! FTW! (For the win) It was nutty and yummy…it had an almost peanut butter flavor. It was gray with black flecks. I am in love and hope that I see this again very soon. Or I will be looking for it in Japan.

After lunch we were in a bit of a food coma and Nikki was in her state of deep relaxation and yoga retardedness so we just started walking …heading towards Bryant Park tp see if we could find some coffee and a grassy area to chill out. But, we miraculously found a bar with some yummy cocktails. Try saying “watermelonade.” Just try. Isn’t that a difficult word to get out? It’s just weird.

Meet Sophie, a 7 month old Portugese Podengo!

I had several drinks, Nikki could barely finish one. What a lightweight. We went back to our respective hotels and chilled out to get ready for our big night out on the town…. We went to Stanton Social to see Chris Santos the owner and executive chef and his wife, Taryn. Again this is one of those special situations where somehow through the magic of the universe I was supposed to meet these people. Chris is a culinary wizard and renowned chef and she is a talented erotic fine art photographer. (Do you recognize him from the show Chopped??) And on the left is Marc, a guy that we met last year when we were out with Chris and Taryn.

Nice tan lines, Laura. Sheesh don’t you have a mirror in the hotel? Wear something that doesn’t look so dumb next time.

Just like last time, Chris had us do the tasting menu of his favorite things. Ceasar salad bites…

Amazing potato and goat cheese pierogies with caramelized onions and truffle creme fraiche (I could have eaten an entire bowl of the creme fraiche!) and also his version of a Nori spiced tuna tartare roll.

FOR THE WIN: hand pulled chicken arepas with manchego and jalapeno salsa verde.

Shrimp (for some reason I am looking at the menu right now and I don’t see this…) it was delicious whatever was on there… I don’t remember. I see corn. lol

Red snapper tacos with creamy avocado and spicy mango (second place winner )

I was utterly stuffed at this point but I did try the meatball slider (if I was hungry I would have eaten a half dozen of them) and the beef carpaccio was deelish too… and would you believe that I didn’t even touch the lobster roll? Am I lobstered out from my trip? No, just full.

They were having a semi-private party upstairs so we rolled our fat asses (well mine, not Nikki’s) up to the tables/lounge. Marc is obviously enamored by Nikki in all of her beauty.

Definitely my favorite picture of the night. lol

We went to another club called Avenue. I love that they are sooo cool they don’t even need a website. Unless I am straight up dumb, I do not see anything to click on that site. On this site it says “Tough Door”…well not if you are with celebrity chef Chris Santos! ahhahahaha! Seriously, thank you Chris for such an amazing night of fine food and drinks…Thank you so much for your hospitality. I had a blast and if you come to San Diego, it’s on me!

I am such a 2 beer queer.

At about 3am I was a little bit cross eyed as you can see in this picture so Nikki and I said our goodbyes and we went home. Yoga tomorrow? oooooh I dunno… I have to check out of my hotel by 11:00. This might be rough.

 

Wednesday July 7, 2010

Laura and I were up super early to go to Bikram Yoga so we were able to catch this beautiful sunrise over Casco Bay. I want to say that body of land is Great Diamond Island but I am not entirely sure now that I look at the map. I took a ton of pictures (shocking) and couldn’t narrow it down to just one or two so here ya go.

Laura has practiced a ton of yoga in her life so she was ready and willing to try heated brainwashing with me. She had heard how tough it was and was happy to have someone to go with her who knew what was going on. The instructor  informed me that the guy who owns the Old Town studio in San Diego is actually Bikram’s right hand man and is at all of the trainings around the country. This explains why at every single studio I have been to on my trip they knew who he was and they would say things like ”You must be a serious yogi” or “Oh it won’t feel that hot for you today” or my favorite “Ahhh so this will be easy for you today!” (lol ya not so much… it’s still a bitch every day.) Laura had a little panic attack when we first walked in the room because of the overwhelming heat, but she did awesome and I think she only skipped one half of one posture. The instructor told me that I had “beautiful”  posture on at least 2 of the poses and told her that she was doing one perfectly. Granted we are both named Laura so when she would say “Beautiful posture, Laura” we would both look at each other to see who the hell she was referring to. It was pretty funny. After class she told me that she was shocked that I had only been practicing for a few months. Now don’t get me wrong… I am flexible alright, I just suck at the standing leg balancing poses. I can bend in half but I cannot for the life of me balance on my left leg. Yet. How, you ask, will it improve my sex life? I dunno. If I find myself in the Japanese ham sandwich pose in the bedroom someday I will be sure to share it with you all. On a side note, Laura had yoga brain all morning from her state of deep relaxation (and exhaustion.) She was driving like an idiot on the road and she couldn’t form complete sentences for  hours. The best part of this story is that when we got to lunch she realized that she had forgotten her wallet at home. Not just at home on the kitchen table…she had left it on the front lawn wide open!! Only in a small town do you leave your wallet on the lawn and come home 6 hours later and find it in the same exact spot, untouched. Hilarious.

Before we went out for the day I snapped a fish eye shot of the beach. I don’t always remember to use this lens when it comes to anything other than people or animals…

Breakfast (ham and cheese croissants) was at the famous Standard Baking Company (take note that the restaurant above it is Fore Street. More on that later this evening)

We walked over to the Harbor Fish Market just to take a peek at their operation… Can you believe how cheap lobster is!? $4.50 a pound?! Are you kidding me? I mean, I can’t afford NOT to eat it. I seriously might consider moving back East for the lobster alone.

This is pretty gross…they won’t go away and I am not even sure where I picked these up. It might have been outside on 4th of July. Although I did have bug spray on that night. They don’t itch, they just look like the freaking measels. This is one of the few things that I do not miss about New England.

For lunch we drove out to Cape Elizabeth to a place called The Lobster Shack (are you really that surpised? come on) at an area called Two Lights.

P.S. I am still not sick of lobster one bit. The sun was shining again and we had the perfect view of the ocean while we ate our lunches. Again, thank you Mother Nature for the amazing weather on my trip. I will not ask for much more this summer.

For the very first time in my life I approached this crustacean a different way. I shucked the whole thing before eating it. Normally I crack open a claw and gobble it down as fast as I can. Repeat with each of it’s body parts. Today for some reason I chose to disassemble the whole thing and then enjoy it all at once. I guess this is all part of my “learning how to do things at a more leisurely pace” that I am striving for.

I was so full after lunch that I almost vommed when I saw this algae pool.

When Laura first moved to Maine a hundred years ago from NY/CT she got a job taking people on tours of the coastline so she can probably chime in here in the comments section and tell us all why the rocks look like wood. Or if you are so inclined you can read all of this.

The stones are very brittle.

We cruised on down to the most photographed lighthouse in the whole world: Portland Head Light.

I had forgotten Namwah the Pink Monkey in CT last week so Denise had to fedex it to me… I couldn’t miss an opportunity for him to visit this place! (I really need to update that site, I haven’t put any new pics on there since last summer and I haven’t even put Africa up from 2008. Lame)

The Annie C. Maguire Shipwreck

When Laura lived in Portland right after college with our other friends Mike and Alison they used to go into this abandoned mansion and screw around and take pictures of each other. I was bummed that it’s been chained off, I was looking forward to some cool shots.

This must have also been some sort of old military bunker. It’s covered in graffiti now

We got our feet wet in this bay… it was pretty effing cold.

The houses along the coast are just massive

Hey Christian! Look at my new mansion! You are still going to have to sleep in a tent on the beach though.

It was Wine O’Clock at this point so we went to Salt Water Grille and enjoyed the view of the marina.

Geary’s local brew

Omg tell me this isn’t the cutest waiting area for kids in a restaurant that you have ever seen?

Laura picked up the little one and we tried to go check out the neighbor’s chickens but were afraid that they would escape the little house they were in so we chickened out. Ladies and gentlemen, chickens do not like fish eye lenses.

Back to the beach for our nightly ritual…this time we had a spectacular view of the yacht races.

The little man fell face first into the water and got up laughing.

For dinner we went to Fore Street! You might remember Lance and Tina, the couple that sat next to me during my 25 course tasting at Alinea in Chicago in May? They arrived about at the halfway point of my meal and we started chatting about good places to eat in Boston and Maine and Chicago… They both work here at Fore Street and told me that if I made it to Portland I had to check it out. I emailed them and voila! we had a reservation. I was disappointed because they were supposed to have a whole boar delivered there this afternoon and Tina was going to let me come in and take pictures of them disassembling it. Unfortunately with the holiday the delivery was going to happen the next day.

She saved a tomato tart just for us Holy crap this thing was amazing. Goat cheese, juicy ripe tomatoes and a flaky buttery tart.

She made sure we had Wood Oven Roasted Maine Mussels sent to the table asap as well…they are from Orr’s Island and were served in a garlic almond butter broth. (I didn’t want to lick the plate for the LTP award just yet because a) I didn’t want to stick my face in a skillet, b) freak Laura and Bob out and c) eat raw garlic this early in the evening. Ya never know.) They were really delicious. (Side note: one time Bob ate 100 mussels in one sitting. And then ate a lobster afterwards. Hey what’s up Man Vs. Food!? )

Something new they were testing this evening: lobster tartare with a dressing of butternut squash oil, aleppo sauce, grape seed oil, chervil, tarragon, scallions and tomato. Then topped with sea salt and olive oil. I have tried raw crab and raw shrimp before and they were both pretty flavorless but I was willing to give it a shot. Especially since this whole trip is lobster lobster lobster.  Sadly, I learned that shellfish just shouldn’t be served raw. The texture was not like any other raw fish…it lacked substance. I don’t want to say slimy…just not meaty enough to be delictable. I was honest with the server and told him that I felt like they were overcompensating for the lack of flavor in the lobster itself by adding too many things to the sauce. It was pretty, but that’s about it. (they took it off the bill so that was nice)

Pan Seared Heritage Pork Belly from South Berwick. Prepared with pickled onion, garlic scapes, mustard, herbs and rich jus. Bob tried to get me to not eat the fatty part and I just laughed at him and threatened to order another one. lol The mustard was an interesting twist on all the pork belly I have tried in the past.

Oysters from Maine and New Brunswick, Canada: Muscongus Bay, Pulpit Harbor and Peacock Cove. Melt in your mouth delicious of course. I am definitely spoiled this trip and will think twice about ordering oysters just anywhere from now on.

I was getting full so I chose another appetizer for my entree: Oxtail Terrine from Montana (I know it doesn’t really fit in with the local fare theme of the night, but the server was raving about it and I have only had oxtail one other time) It was a cold pate served with whole grain mustard, green beans and cranberries. It was great…I think some people might not be able to get past the texture of the oxtail cartilage in there, though.

Laura and Bob ordered the Whole Wild Black Sea Bass which is filleted right at the table. The thick buttery sauce was out of this world and when I discovered that there were chanterelle mushrooms in there I almost jumped across the table and stuck my whole face in there. But it wasn’t mine to lick, and Laura was doing a number on it as well. HAHA! Our server Gabriel was fantastic and so patient with all of my questions and note taking. He was a photography buff, too so we had some shop talk as well. Overall an awesome dining experience and something you cannot miss if you are in Portland.

After dinner Tina and Lance (who were not working tonight) met us out at a place called Sonny’s where it seemed like everyone in the town stopped in and everyone knew them. I had no idea how small of a city this was… it was hysterical. You know when sometimes people come and go in your life and you don’t know why…this is Tina and Lance. There is definitely a reason our paths have crossed. They are good people and I hope to continue our friendship despite the distance between us.

Jeff who runs the So Cal division of Shipyard also happened to be in town so he came out for a drink too! Jeff and my nephew Danny went to college at USM here in Portland so Jeff comes home a lot to see his family. I was hoping to spend more time with him in his home turf but the timing wasn’t right. He lived with me for a few months at my house a few years back and it’s so dumb that  we never see each other in San Diego and have to be on the other side of the continental US to spend time together. Wicked retahded.

Laura and I had a great few days together, I am lucky that she was able to take time off and show me around town. She is so positive and full of energy and is fun to be around and I cherish the fact that we have remained friends after all these years.

Wednesday June 30, 2010

I went to Bikram Yoga in Boston this morning…the money I have spent on this trip for out of town yoga classes now totals $180. (I have been getting the weekly/monthly deals since I will be back in CT, NYC and Boston again during the trip.) It seems like the studio in San Diego has a more sophisticated heating system because the instructor in Boston kept futzing with the heater and the fans throughout the class. I was on the left side of the room (away from the window) and it is my belief that I chose poorly and was situated in the part of the room that was like Dante’s Inferno. Damn…I was dying and my contacts were drying out from the fan that blows the heat around. He did open the door and window a few times to cool things down, but I prefer the more controlled constant heat of Old Town. It’s hard to explain. I was excited that he called me out during one of the postures telling me that I was doing it “excellent!” (It’s the Japanese ham sandwich one if you have taken Bikram in Old Town you know what I am talking about. I have not heard this anywhere else btw. lol What IS a Japanese ham sandwich!?) Trust me, I suck at a bunch of other ones, so excelling at one is good news. He kept calling women whose names he didn’t know “sweetheart” and it pissed this one lady off so bad she called him rude and walked out the door! Hahaha! Personally, I don’t give a shit if an older man calls me “sweetie” or “sweetheart” but she was not having it. The guy wasn’t that old…maybe 50? Maybe if she sticks with yoga she will be able to let that whole thing go

I headed down to the World Trade Center/Seaport area to buy a ticket for the ferry to Provincetown, Cape Cod. Look at these creepy jellyfish all over the place. Does anyone know what kind they are? I googled and saw something called “drifters” but is anyone an expert in this stuff?

Another gorgeous day in Boston.

I love the cute little beach houses of New England. Well, these are actually pretty huge. lol

Provincetown: tragic that a hag such as myself has never been to a fag haven like P-town!

A tribute to the fishing villages and the women of Portugese descent.

The display outside of the dune tour place … so cute!

Tommy! Better than Becky’s Bungalow, huh??

My elementary school friend Jessica picked me up at the ferry dock…she actually lives in San Diego but is visiting her Mom on the Cape for the next couple weeks. We never see each other in San Diego because we are both assholes, but we are both currently unemployed and have somehow connected on the other side of the United States. So redic.

Provincetown is your typical New England beach town but it’s bustling and more hectic than some of the others. And very gay.

We went for a snack and a glass of wine and then headed to Eastham where Jessica’s Mom and Chris live. (Jess’s Mom is like my surrogate…more on that later…and she and Chris has been together forever.) They technically live there but are closer to Orleans, one of the more populated towns on the Cape.

They live in a contemporary Cape Cod house…the side of the house is cedar shingles. Very typical of New England beach houses.

An awesome functioning train set in the backyard that Chris has built.

And a typical New England dinner of boiled Maine lobster, steamers and corn on the cob.

I feel right at home with Jessica and her family because I lived with them for a while when I was 19 years old. I moved to San Diego immediately after high school in the summer of 1989 and when I freaked out and missed my friends (exbf) so much after one semester I moved back to CT right after the new year of 1990. I refused to move back in with my Dad and my evil step-monster so I put the word out to all of my friends that I needed a place to live. Jessica, her sister Sara (who also lives in San Diego) and their Mom and I all lived in a big house for a semester and a summer. Talk about estrogen overload! It was a blast. I paid Mom a little bit of money, they saved me from having to live with the wicked witch and Jessica and Sara and I were 3 crazy roommates. It was so much fun living there because my own sisters were so much older than me and I never really experienced all that girl stuff. I think it also prepared me for living with roommates and being on my own. This is part of what I was referring to the other day about being forced into independence at an early age. Paying rent as a teenager while living down the street from your parents is a little odd, but was definitely a turning point in my life. I ended up staying in CT for only another 2 years before permanently settling in CA.

It was also really cool to reconnect with Chris who is a very talented and established documentary filmmaker. Definitely check out his website and see what he is capable of… I had a boner when he showed me his editing and recording studio and let me hold his Panasonic HDX 900. Next time I have fifty grand laying around I think I will buy one. I told him if he is ever out in SoCal on a job to please call me and I will be his apprentice, assistant, slave, bitch, gopher, whatever! We talked shop for a while and he showed me some of the cool stuff he had been working on.

I feel really blessed to have the opportunity, the time, the means and my health to travel and be with people that I love. So often you get too busy and lose touch with the people in your past. I am very fortunate to be in a position that I can take this time to go back to my childhood and relive the things and be around the people that helped shape me into who I am today. I took so much for granted as a teenager and am so excited to be living those years again, even if it is just for a few weeks.

I went to Bikram Yoga last Thursday, Friday, Saturday, (took Sunday off), Monday and as I write this it is Tuesday morning around 9:00am and I went again this morning. Yesterday I got up and drove to the studio at 6:15 am and saw the mean guy in the window and turned around and went back home. Fuck that. I will go back at 9:00 and NOT get yelled at. Yesterday after class for many hours my body could not decide if it was hot or cold. I would break out in the sweats and then get the chills. Repeatedly until the early afternoon. Then my face was just burning up until I went to bed at 10:00pm. I could smell toxins exiting my body all day long on Monday. I am constantly hungry and never feel satisfied. I am drinking close to 2 gallons of water per day and make 15+ trips to the toilet. I fart twice as much as I normally fart. Today I have strange bug bites (staph??? ack!) all over my arms. My body does not know what is happening to it.  

I have not lost any pounds but I can feel my upper and lower body tightening up and getting stronger. I lifted weights in my upper body a few days last week and will do it again later this week as I will be out of town and can’t do yoga. I am trying harder in the poses to hold them longer, balance longer and stare at myself in the front mirror and not let go. Concentration is the key. Some days are hotter and more difficult than others. Some days I think I won’t be able to make it unless I get a breath of fresh air. And other days I can do all the poses without sitting any out. My blood pressure is still all over the place. I am checking it first thing in the am, a few hours after yoga and then in the evenings. Sometimes it’s higher when I am upset about something. The goal is to let things go. I am getting there, slowly. I am committed to this program.

Tuesday May 25, 2010

I got my ass out of bed at 5:45 am to go to Bikram yoga again. I know I will feel good after I’m done but it’s still hard to get up out of bed at that hour to get in the car to go to a place where I will be knowingly tortured. My instructor today was a real big militant prick that Lauren hates. She hates him. He hates her. She avoids his class like the plague and now I know why. I started having a little anxiety today during the class about my appointment with the cardiologist this afternoon. I was tripping out that maybe this was bad for my heart because I felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest and across the floor. I was super dizzy and it felt hotter in there today than ever before. People were dropping like flies. In Bikram yoga you do each posture two times. I laid still for an entire posture and when I was laying still for the next one to get ahold of myself he said “Miss please do the second one” to me. Fine. I got up and did it. The very next one was too much and I walked out of the room. This is our conversation…

Dickhead: “Are you OK?”

Me: (gentle nod yes as I walk towards the door)

Dickhead: “If you are OK then why are you leaving?”

Me: “Well obviously I am not OK.”

I mean come on dude, what does OK mean? Am I going to die? No. Am I feeling like I need to get up and get some cool air? YES THAT’S WHY I AM LEAVING THE FUCKING ROOM. The strange part was that there were other people that go there all the time who are clearly better than me sitting postures out and walking out the door. What was his beef with me today? I swear to you, it does not make me want to get out of bed to continue this horseshit. Isn’t being mean and getting me upset the OPPOSITE of what yoga is all about? I called Lauren after class and she said that he is super rude and runs his classes like a goddamn drill sergeant. She also told me that the Old Town studio prides itself on being hotter and stricter than the other studios. wtf grrrr. I guess one way to look at it is if I can make it through their classes it won’t be any harder anywhere else I might try.

OK onto my appointment with the cardiologist. He said I was totally fine and that I can continue eating whatever I wanted and I should definitely drink more and maybe do some cocaine. Alright, alright … that’s not what he said. I need to do a blood test for cholesterol, kidneys and also thyroid. My blood pressure was fucking sky high (150/90) and I need to buy a cuff and test at home during normal activities and moods, try to cut out more salt and of course keep excercising and lose that last 10 pounds. He wants to see me in a month after I monitor my own blood pressure at home and then we will discuss putting me on meds if it’s not down. He didn’t seem too worried about me dying this week nor needing a valve replacement anytime soon so that is good news. I will be going in to do the blood work next week when I get back from my trip to Chicago.

Which brings me to my next topic! I am leaving in the morning for Chi-town for the weekend and I am about to burst at the seams because I am eating at none other than Alinea, L20 and Moto. If you know anything about molecular gastronomy you have definitely heard of Alinea and Moto. L20 was recommended to me by Dex who owns Quality Social in San Diego and Old Town Social in Chicago. Apparently L20 is Esquire magazines #1 restaurant of the year. Here’s the thing. I was on the wait list for Alinea for Wednesday night but it was not looking promising so Dex put me in at L20 on his hookup for Wednesday BUT Alinea called me to tell me they had a cancellation! I was in a meeting (yes an actual business meeting that I can’t exactly talk about yet) when they called and when I called them back they were not answering because they are not open on Tuesdays for dinner and their offices were closed with the time change. I mean Christ they gave me 15 minutes to call back before they closed. I swear to you if I end up losing both of these reservations because of my juggling act I will flip my lid. If I end up eating at some shithole while I am a culinary heaven like Chicago I might just jump off the Sears Tower. If I make it to all of these places I can assure you that I will be doing all of their tasting menus and then “Laura On a Budget” will come back in full force next week. Like I said, I pick and choose this budget thing. Did I mention that I actually used a coupon last week? lol

Someone on Twitter sent me this blog today about a new food show called Future Food. Looks pretty fun!

Check out this video from Moto…

I went over to Sigrid’s to hang out with her and the baby and Kim and we ate dinner had a glass of wine and watched the first part of the Bachelorette before I got annoyed and left. I have a super early flight out tomorrow…

Monday May 17, 2010

Over the weekend I realized I had put on 3 pounds so I got my ass out of bed at 6am and went to Bikram Yoga. Again. Let’s try this for reals this time, ok? There is no easier way to lose that many calories in that amount of time and I just need to buckle down and do it. I signed up for the 30 day membership and now that I am on a budget, I can tell you I will not waste that money by not going. Surprisingly it was not as painful as the last few times. I am going to go every other day until my body gets used to it. After yoga I went to the gym and lifted weights and a bit more cardio. I am about as serious as a heart attack this time. (ok sorry)

I spent the better part of the day narrowing down the Australia and New Zealand photos and tidying up the edit process. Ryan came over to talk more about the Super Secret Project and we had a glass of wine and ironed some stuff out. He was going to drop me off at Vagabond so I could have dinner with Pearla but we managed to talk him into staying with us for dinner. (Do you like the new logo? Thank you Taylor! Now I won’t mind if all of you fucks who steal my photos and post them all over Facebook do so.)

Vagabond is a small restaurant in South Park featuring food from around the world. It’s usually pretty busy and the food is usually very good. Plus they have good deals on wine and an amazing basil martini. The first 2 times I ate there the food was fantastic and then the last two times I wasn’t that impressed. I was hoping that they would win my trust again tonight. Pearla and I had made plans to eat dinner and I referenced the list again and gave her a few choices.

Tonight’s items that I was checking off the “50 foods in San Diego before you die” list are #24 Truffle Pomme Frite and #29 Moules Frites.  Both dishes were amazing.

I love when there is a lamp right above my table and I can put the food right there and the photos come out perfect without using flash. It’s the little things that excite me, folks.

We also ordered the French cheese and meat platter.

And for entrees we shared the forest mushroom linguini with chicken (proscuitto yummm) and the wagyu skirt steak which was not very flavorful but cooked rare enough for my liking. Pearla changes up her vegetarian behaviors from day to day, place to place… so I was impressed that she ate the mussels and the steak. She never eats seafood so her Dad will be proud, and she doesn’t really eat meat in restaurants having worked in them for years. Gross. And she doesn’t eat a slab of pork but loves bacon.

It had a bunch of soybeans and lentils which I am not a fan of at all.

The place definitely redeemed itself, but the service was another story. With all due respect, our waiter was also the bartender… but he was definitely dropping the ball. When I had waited for about 10 minutes for a glass of wine I saw him texting someone on his cell phone and he saw that I was staring at him. He obviously forgot and then ran to get my wine. He also forgot to give me a glass of water and forgot to bring us more bread. I wouldn’t normally write about any of this but when I busted out my camera he asked what I was shooting the pictures for.  I told him I had a food blog so I mean come on… you would think he would have been a little more attentive. Perhaps he was stoned. I dunno.

This is Pearla’s reaction when I showed her the video of the chimney swifts. No one can believe how creepy it is til I show them. (In case you missed that blog entry check it out….)

We had a great dinner with great conversation. Pearla has been running her family restaurant Bacione in Hillcrest for many years.  Between working 40 hours a week as a designer at Naughty America and then working til 10 or 11 o’clock at night she has not been able to enjoy a leisurely dinner in a long time. Recently her family sold the restaurant and she literally does not know what to do with herself. Having worked 80 hours a week for 10 years (maybe more? maybe 15?) and only taking Sundays to herself she’s a bit lost with her new free time. She’s sad that she had to give up everything she knew, but I am excited for her to really take some time to get to know herself again. I hired Pearla 3 years ago as a photoshop artist and she has grown so much and is now the lead designer over there. She is one of the people that I miss the most. For the last few months that I was there our offices were right next to each other and if I was having a bad day she could almost feel the energy coming through the walls. (Or maybe she could just hear me screaming at someone and slamming the phone on the receiver. lol) She would instinctively know to come check on me and see if I need anything. Mainly food or coffee  If you need some design work hit me up and I will put you in touch with her… she’s very talented.

March 19, 2010

In 2003 I went to an adult industry tradeshow on the island of Curacao. (pics here) It’s about 40 miles north of Venezuela and is a beautiful quaint island with a strong Dutch influence. Interestingly enough (I forgot to mention this yesterday) that was the one and only time that I had ever attempted to SCUBA. One of the big sponsoring companies was offering a day trip full of activities which included feeding sea turtles and sharks and swimming with dolphins and manta rays. Swimming with dolphins was amazing! It was a really neat experience and I highly recommend it if you ever have a chance to do it. The water is shallow enough, they are not aggressive at all and they love to swim beside you. (obvi) They looped around the pool over and over and nudged us to keep swimming. If you got tired you moved to the edge of the pool and they go nudge someone else.  It was peaceful and made you feel like Jacque fucking Cousteau. However, the rest our days activities included a stinky wetsuit, breathing apparatus, tanks, fins, mask and a basket full of dead fish. I was hungover, wasn’t paying attention to the instructor during the 20 minute SCUBA lesson and once we got into the water I realized the sea turtles were trying to bite my damn fingers off if I put them near the top of the chain link fence separating us. Coupled with the instructor warning me to be careful and not step on the surface of the ocean because of the fish that like to bite and the giant grouper heading towards me the size of Moby Dick… well… needless to say….  I didn’t last very long out there. 2 other girls flipped out and we all frantically swam back to the shore.

Sooooo, prior to me leaving on that trip, boss-man made me promise to do one Bikram yoga class. (If you are unaware of this type of yoga and are too lazy to click that link, I will tell you that it’s conducted in a room heated to 120 degrees and consists of 26 poses that are repeated twice. They look pretty simple, but I can assure you that the human body doesn’t do most of that naturally and without a lot of practice. Oh, and people who do Bikram regularly are like cultists.) I went to the school in Old Town and had a very mean and very strict lady as my teacher. She even went so far as to follow this one dude out to the bathroom when he ran out to vomit. I could hear her talking through her microphone in the studio while she was calling out to him in the men’s bathroom to come back to the class and stick it out. There was another guy who was recovering from knee surgery and she was riding his ass about a pose that he was doing wrong. It was an awkward experience and I never went back.

It’s funny that 7 years later I am attempting to conquer both of these “fears” (for lack of a better word.) I am ready to take on new challenges in life and ready to get past the mental obstacles stopping me from whatever it is that intimidates me. I can no longer use the excuse that I don’t have time to do Bikram.

I attended the 6:30 am class and the teacher was very nice and helpful and of course singled me out so that she could assist me with any confusion I might have about proper posture or posing. She even warned me in the first pose not to strain too hard. This woman was great and I had a great experience. I didn’t even think about wearing my contact lenses and my glasses got hot and were steamed up pretty quickly. I actually had to take them off for many of the poses and as you know, I am fucking blind. I never really got the nauseas feeling that I had last time, perhaps because I was in the first class of the day and maybe the room isn’t quite as hot as a 4:30 pm class mid-summer. It’s quiet, stinky and you can hear the sweat droplets hitting the mat of the people next to you. It is an intense workout for not moving very much and one that burns approximately 1000 calories for someone of my weight. 90 minutes of pure hell, but goddamn it 1000 calories is a long time at the gym doing tedious cardio that I hate.  Even though I have never gone through labor I like to describe Bikram as if it’s like those women who scream in pain and curse their husbands and boyfriends and swear up and down they will never go through anything like that ever again… and then miraculously, when the baby comes out and it’s all over, they say that they will do it again in a heartbeat. Bikram heated yoga is the same thing to me. I wanted to die. My head was throbbing and I felt like I couldn’t go on another minute without fainting and yet, when it was done… I felt amazing and wanted to do it again 4 hours late. (As I write this the next day my leg and neck muscles are getting more sore and tighter by the minute. Ouch.)

I took the train to LA and met my friend Ben for lunch at a French place called Church and State. The food was fucking amazing and several times we caught ourselves saying “That was the best ______ that I have ever had.” The steak tartare was great. I actually added a little bit of salt to mine, but it was pretty damn good on it’s own.

Ben had the sea-bass (Loup de Mer a la Grenobloise) with small cauliflower bits. I made the waiter ask the chef what was in it so I could share it with you all: butter, lemon, capers, parsley, chicken stock and the secret twist was reconstituted raisins in a muscat. I would totally have licked the plate but it wasn’t mine and I didn’t want to freak Ben or the waiter out too bad.

I had the roasted chicken (Poulet Roti) with Brussel Sprouts, small diced ham chunks in a red wine sauce. It was delicious, but did not compare to the sauce of the sea-bass dish.

The cappuccino was out of this world also. Go check this place out for sure. It is super loud if you go during the lunch rush, so if you are looking to do some chitchatting I would hit it after 2:30 pm. It was good to catch up with Ben. He is an amazing photographer who has been working in adult for years but is recently taking the time to work on some cool fine art projects to further his mainstream career. He does weddings, fashion and is working on a project now called Project1site.com where he forces himself to create at least one fine art image every single day for a year. He started on January 1^st and will end on December 31^st. Some days are tough… when you want to curl up in a ball and go to bed because you worked 12 hours and have a head cold, you still have to make that shot. I admire his determination.  I hope that someday we can work together again professionally, whatever that may be.

After lunch we went to Little Tokyo and walked around for a bit before 818 picked me up. Ben and I said our goodbyes and I promised to be in touch as soon as I got back from Australia. 818 and I headed back to his place and I made a reservation for dinner at a placed I had been wanting to try called Lucques on Melrose. I took a quick nap before we were supposed to meet up with Puma Swede and Keiran Lee. At approximately 8:22 as we were walking out the door to meet them for an 8:30 dinner reservation the door slammed shut and 818 realized that he had locked his keys in the apartment. AND his roommate was all the way in Torrance on her way to San Diego for the weekend. Oh that is just awesome. (sound of record scratching) Call the restaurant and cancel the table, Puma and Keiran pick me up while he waits for roommate to come back. We then drive to Katsu-ya to put our name in at 9:10 for a 45 minute to one hour wait. No biggie, that is another place in LA I wanted to try. I kept hearing how it’s the best sushi in the Valley. So we go over to Fox and Hounds for a beer and then head back to the sushi bar in about 45 minutes. ANOTHER FORTY FIVE MINUTES LATER we finally get seated. The food was decent but was definitely not worth an hour and a half wait. The only interesting looking thing we ordered was this soft shell crab thingy with a creamy spicy sauce and it was still pretty average.

Puma was very well behaved and didn’t try to grope me or molest me at all. Now I am beginning to think that it is all Nikki Benz. Hmmmm. Or she read my blog from last time and saw how annoyed I was.

They are such a loving couple.

HA! They are actually both certifiably insane. But I love ‘em!

We thought we would play switcheroo tonight and maybe mix things up a bit. Umm, just kidding.

On a side note, while 818 and I were sitting in the lobby of his building waiting for the key debacle to be resolved I asked him if he cared to know the itinerary for our trip next week. He said “Nah.” I love that he is just going with the flow and trusting me. The only thing he knows is that we are flying to Sydney first and ending in Auckland NZ and driving around in a motorhome for 4 days. We are both a little bit of control freaks so I am amazed that he is not even concerned about this. It is teaching me a valuable lesson in letting go.