sad

RIP Estelle from Golden Girls. I’ll miss you.

-leigh

 

next blogger=who knows?

diversity day.

Well, I’m home. Something else is new, too. This blog is going BIG TIME because I’m switching things up. Variety is the spice of life.

From this point onward, my blogging will be joined by others, specifically a select few who I believe will bring their wit and insight to my humble blog. Additionally, they will provide glimpses of a new world that may or may not involve Kashi, oatmeal, or granola bars. I know.

Besides, I’m getting tired of posting every day and taking pictures of everything I eat/do is getting annoying. Share the love!

Tommorrow’s blog post will be from Mia.

Mia is a small Canadian Jew. She is a loyal viewer of Top Chef seasons 2-3 and has eaten an amuse bouche. She is a vegetarian. She is a loyal fan of both Ira and Franny Glass, enjoys puns, and has good taste in music. Trust her.

saturday morning

i’m in boulder.

news

I got new glasses. These, but tortoise-shell. For some reason I almost just typed corduroy instead of tortoise-shell.

Tommorrow I leave on my trip. I’ll live-blog it, obviously.

it’s true.

Look at me. I am a woman of my word. When I pledge to attempt to eat more interesting things to please you, the reading public (since I have all of 5 readers), look what I do.

I eat at Taco Cabana.

Truth be told, I have a love/hate relationship with TC.

Pros: 1. It’s open really late, and when you spent 18 years of your life in a place where the only other place open past 11:00pm is Walmart, you embrace Taco Cabana with open arms. 2. tortillas tortillas tortillas. 3. The condiment bar: seriously. Where else can I get 50 containers of pico de gallo in miniature plastic (not to mention stackable) cups? At what other restaurant can I squeeze an entire cup full of lime juice and make my own limeade when I don’t wnat to pay for a drink? What the heck is that disgusting, dark brown stuff by the cilantro that vaguely resembles a cousin of salsa? Oh, Taco Cabana. It’s true. Only you.

Cons: 1. Taco Cabana is dark and depressing. Without fail. Sometimes the low-wattage, flickering overhead bulb makes me feel like I’m in a horror movie. Fortunately, we usually leave before I’m forced to slit my wrists with the stale tortilla chips. 2. Today I saw a man there who weighed approximately 500 pounds shoveling refried beans down his gullet like we were living in the midst of a famine (not sure whether to label this pro or con because it was equal parts amazing and disgusting. A giant feat, it was. Pun intended).  3. I have issues with my food coming out frighteningly fast. Yes, genius, I know it’s fast food but sometimes I think they hand me my enchilada before I’ve even ordered. The problem, I think, is really not with the speed. Really, it’s the thought of my poor tacos marinating in lard and salt for hours on end under a grow light that irks me. Can’t they at least pretend that they’re back there preparing it? Spend a little more time wrapping that foil in order to give me some peace of mind? Come on, Taco Cabana. Customer service is key and don’t get me started on the bathrooms.

Despite it’s flaws, I love Taco Cabana, really I do, and I don’t know why. Normally I shy away from fast food because, well, it’s disgusting, but there’s just something about the vulgarity of Taco Cabana that draws me in time after time. Like an abused girlfriend I go back, thinking, “maybe it’s changed.” Maybe things really will be different this time. However, the harsh face of reality proves right as once again, my meal was pretty marginal. I’ll never learn.

most unproductive day ever!

I’m starting to think it’s time for a change! I’m getting so restless and it’s only July. All of these feelings seem to regularly rise and converge (Flannery reference? yes?) always at around 4:00 in the afternoon. 4:00 is the most miserable part of the day, I kid you not.

I also decided to make some “chickpea cutlets” from my new cookbook. Nothing says soothing more than chickpeas.

Right now I’m drinking some Yogi “Meditative Time” Tea. While it’s pretty good, I can unfortunately report no “meditative” side effects as the package suggests. However, it does have a slightly familiar herb-y taste that I can’t quite figure out. It kind of tastes like…a pine tree. Oh, it’s sage.

i’ve outdone myself

After my soup success, I had a bit of free time and decided to be adventurous. I decided I’d make bread. Yes, homemade bread. Though a rare commodity, it does still exist. Lord knows why I thought this would be a good idea, but I went through with it.

What I learned: store-bought bread exists for a reason because making bread sucks. Especially when you have to revert to eighteenth-century methods like rigorously kneading and beating the crap out of the dough and then letting it sit and rise for ungodly amounts of time because you don‘t own a mixer. Nonetheless, I made bread. Edible bread for that matter. Actually, this project started as bread and ended up as rolls that are actually…good. Really good. They’re really doughy and soft, and it’s also interesting to note that the only ingredients are flour, yeast, and water, a far cry from the countless preservatives and questionable cooking oils found in a loaf of Wonder Bread.

The lump of dough after it rose overnight-

Rolled out for more rising:

Baked. Kind of reminds me of english muffins:

And in sandwich form:

i am also a spokesperson for

Lysine, which is an amino acid, which I took because I was getting a cold sore and I read in “Nutritional Healing”, the Bible of nutrition quandries, that lysine aids in “tissue repair.” Lo and behold, it actually worked! Though my cold sore isn’t completely healed, it is certainly less painful than some particularly brutal ones I can remember from months past. Thanks, lysine! (I said this like David Sedaris says, “thanks stadium pal!” in this video).

when bad things happen to good people

i want my bicycle now, please

Public Service Announcement: Lately I have really been wanting to ride my bike lots of places except there’s a problem since I don’t have one. I have yet to find a good-quality, yet affordable bike that I want. It’s a seller’s market out there in the biking world, and I’ve yet to find a keeper on craigslist or elsewhere. Bikeless, I’m forced to ride my mom’s rusty old Trek that is both annoying (squeaky) and dangerous (questionable brake quality). One time I was riding it and my shoestring got caught in the chain. Fortunately, my spry acrobatic abilites were able to save me, but next time, who knows? If you know of someone selling a size small or xsmall bike, I’m interested ASAP.

Larabar of the day: Cherry Pie

 

no almond left behind

Yesterday I got a new jar of almond butter. Yesterday evening I consumed many spoonfuls of it before I went to bed. It wasn’t my proudest moment. AB is crack.

the customer is always right

False. This is the worst ideal ever adopted by humanity. the customer sometimes feels the need to use the assumption that they are right as an excuse to act like a selfish child. This was proven today, when a woman made me run around the store on a quest for a “soft-bristed” toothbrush that was clearly pivotal to her survival. When I came back with her soft-bristled toothbrush, instead of thanking me, she looked at me disapprovingly and said (direct quote), “you don’t have any girl colors? this doesn’t match my room.” I’m not even kidding. I wanted to smack her. Instead I ignored her question, handed her a sales flyer, and said, “have a great weekend!”  Yes, rather than confronting her, I decided that passive-aggressively snubbing her was the most logical solution. Customer service.

 

 A recipe: Blueberry-banana smoothie.

• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 banana (frozen)
• 1 cup vanilla soy milk
• 1/2 cup Stonyfield vanilla yogurt
• pinch of sugar

wednesday.

When I was a young(er) girl, I had a single aspiration for my life. A lone goal, a fleeting desire that I hoped with each breath to be closer to attaining: I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast. I had it all planned out, and it would be so great: I would be America’s golden girl. I would be like a daughter to Bela Karoli, and he would tell me in his creepy Romanian accent, “Leigh, you are better than Mary Lou.” Maybe I’d even get injured like Keri Strugg, but still pull through and help the team reach Olympic gold. Then I’d do my Wheaties endorsement and be set for life.

Actually, no. This isn’t entirely true. Though I did regularly attend a weekly gymnastics classe in elementary school, I realized early on that while I could do a back walkover on the high balance beam and a roundoff-back handspring-back tuck! in my floor routine (which was choreographed to the theme from “Aladdin”), being the next Nadia Comaneci was not a realistic hope for my future. Though I was small and liked to wear leotards, I was simply not Romanian enough to become a career gymnast. Instead, I reasoned that the next best thing, the consolidation prize for surrendering my Olympic gold, was to instead faithfully watch/criticize/mock gymnastics in every Olympic games from that point onward. That’s right. And come this August, I will be glued to my television once more, shamelessly soaking up the glorious event that is the Olympics. Maybe I’ll have an Olympics-themed dinner party, and we can wave American flags and I’ll wear my leotard. Maybe not. And while perhaps this obsession of mine is a bit ridiculous, don’t tell me that there is no small sense of satisfaction involved when you see that yes, people in this world are still wearing velvet scrunchies.

…Okay, so I just looked up Olympics videos on YouTube.

Spinach salad with strawberries. Fancy.