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.

Tuesday 1.26.10

I met my friend Tim to go have some bison burgers and beers at Hamilton’s in South Park despite my attempt to detox until Thursday. I had shit to do at home and was really trying to get some blogging done! (HA!) but was coaxed pretty easily by the thought of a delicious bison burger. I also hadn’t seen Tim since October when he left Naughty America. It was Bison Brewery Night.

Hamilton’s is a beer and wine bar with a ton of amazing choices.

It used to be a cool dive called Sparky’s but has really turned into a quality beer place since they changed in ’06. They have some strong ass beers! I got there about 30 seconds too late because the guy in line in front of me had the last bison burger. Fail. I ended up eating bacon wrapped hotdogs with salsa on them.

They weren’t bad but then again bacon wrapped anything tastes good….I had a bunch of yummy beers (over the course of the night I tried Lil big beer, Triple Rock Pinnacle Pale Ale,, New Belgium Mighty Arrow Pale Ale and Avery White Rascal) and was getting into deep conversations with Jarin and Tim about having sex with midgets and Siamese twins.

We were speculating on how strange it would be to date if you were a Siamese twin. Some of them are attached at the head and some are attached at the body. If you are dating one of them do you choose which one to makeout with before the night starts? Do you ignore one if you are on a date with the other? (“No Janice, I wasn’t talking to you. I am out with Janet tonight”) Or is it really considered a threeway??  I am pretty sure we freaked out Tim’s friend by our conversation. Nice kid though. Tim left and Jarin and I stayed talking about all kinds of odd stuff. I was telling him about a psychic experience I had 5 years ago and although he doesn’t believe in that stuff (as most reasonably intelligent people do not either) I think I had him convinced about what happened to me. I don’t want to get into it here and now… maybe on the next rainy day. It’s very personal and was a life changing experience. I have to get up the nerve to tell you what happened. Sorry I know that’s rude to bring it up and not tell you the full story.