What's wrong with Steve?

I watched All About Steve this weekend and kinda liked it.  Sandie was at her silliest best and Bradley Cooper even looked good with that weird haircut. The supporting cast were funny and even endearing at times.  I chuckled out loud a few times and am considering buying some red boots! I don't know what all the fuss was about...sure, it was not the best movie, but I have seen far worse (ahem, Wild Things, Hostel). Plus, the message at the end is that it is ok to be different. How can you not like that? I give it a solid "C".

The Girl with the Swedish Obsession

 

My latest obsession: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I know what you're thinking, the books right? Well, not exactly. I haven't read the books (yet), but I've seen two of the three Swedish made movies and I am officially obsessed.

It all started with an article I read in EW magazine about the Millennium Trilogy and its author Stieg Larson. I was compelled by 1) the fact that Stieg died before his books were published and became a worldwide phenomenom,  2) the original title of the book translates to "Men Who Hate Women", 3) the violence committed against women is very disturbing, yet the "hero" of the trilogy is a waif like woman, 4)  he didn't marry his long time girlfriend to protect her , 5) said girlfriend is in a legal battle with his family because Stieg didn't leave a will and the Swedish don't recognize domestic partnerships. (Side Note: My Harry Potter obsession also began due to an article I read on J.K. Rowling in Time Magazine)

I had seen the books being carried around town, had read rave reviews about the books and heard that a Swedish version of the first book was out in theaters, but crime novels are not my cup of tea, so I was not really interested in reading the books. Yet, I continued to read articles about the books and their author. Then one day as I was updating our Netflix queue, I noticed that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was available to stream instantly. I added it to our queue and we sat down to watch it over Thai food.  This is the day the obsession really began. You see, all three books have already been made into Swedish films and all three, yes all THREE, were released in other parts of the world in 2009. Only the first film had been released in the US. Imagine my elation, as we walked down State Street in Santa Barbara by a movie theater with a poster for The Girl Who Played With Fire and a heading of "Coming Soon"! So, on Sunday we took a field trip to the Embarcadero Cinemas and saw the second film. There is no US release date for the last film of the trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, but here is the trailer to feed the obsession in the meantime.

What I like about the movies are the characters of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, their relationship, the intriguing, interwoven storylines, the Swedish landscape, the muted yet mesmerizing colors the films are shot in. There is very little dialogue (or maybe I just tune it out since it's Swedish), but the movies drew me in. I don't know if it is the character or the actress, but there is something about Lisbeth that I can't stop thinking about.  She is one kick ass woman!

To top it all off, the Americans have decided to do their own adaptation of the Millennium Trilogy, so my obsession will be well fed! If the movie can get me this obsessed, I can't imagine what reading the books will do to me. We'll see in a couple of days--I've just put in my order on Amazon for Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy ! How soon can Friday come??

One kabob, two kabob, three kabob, four!

Week 22 & Week 23 (June 2 & June 9)

I've been neglecting this blog, I know. I don't know what it was about June that has kept me so busy, but it has. So now that we are half way through July (I KNOW, can you believe it!), I thought I'd better catch up! So here we go again:

Since we eat so much chicken, we decided to try out two new marinades and make kabobs.

Lately we've been running to Whole Foods to get our exercise in for the day and pick up dinner. I saw the Honey Mustard Chicken and Veggie Kabobs marinade in their weekly bulletin and decided to give it a try.

The honey mustard marinade was very easy and only required a few main ingredients: honey mustard, lemon, EVOO and salt/pepper. 

The second marinade was from the June Real Simple magazine.  The recipe was for Soy-glazed fish with sauteed summer squash, but I thought it would be good on chicken so we decided to try it as well. This recipe was also very simple and required a few main ingredients: brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger, EVOO and salt/pepper.

While the chicken was marinading, I soaked the skewers. Did you know that if you soak the skewers for 15-20 minutes, it makes the items on the kabobs easier to slide off? Try it, it really works!

I threw the kabobs on the grill...

And served the kabobs with some rice pilaf!

Our ratings:
Honey mustard marinade: 8.5 (Mayra:8, Geoffrey: 9)
Soy Glaze: 9 (Mayra 9, Geoffrey 9)

Fish Food

Week 20 & Week 21 (May 19 & May 26 made up on June 5) 

I know, I am behind. The end of May was very busy for us, so we kept postponing our cooking nights and then suddenly we were two behind, going on three.

SO...

I decided that since I tried out two new recipes for Geoffrey's birthday party at Hog Island, those kinda count. Right? Why yes, yes they do! I know this is cheating, but whatever, my blog, my rules:)

Recipe #1: Hog Island Hog Wash
This recipe called for two types of rice vinegar, a seasoned rice vinegar and a natural rice vinegar. What's the difference you ask? Natural rice vinegar is made by fermenting rice grain. It is all natural, contains no sodium or sugar, no calories and is gluten and fat free. Seasoned rice vinegar is made by adding sake, salt and sugar. It is still gluten/fat free but does contain calories and sodium. Seasoned rice vinegar is often used to make sushi rice. The recipe was easy to make and very flavorful. As with the pickling of the veggies for the Banh Mi, the vinegar smell was overwhelming at first but the taste was refreshing and light. This was a nice accoutrement and made having my first oyster that I can remember easier to swallow (haha, get it?)! Our rating for this recipe: a solid 9 (Mayra: 9, Geoffrey: 9)

(L-R: Sarah, Geoffrey, Hog Wash in snowman mason jar, Liars Dice and Rob)

Recipe #2: Mussels and Clams Ala Mayra
While I was in line waiting to buy more oysters for the group, I noticed that Hog Island also sold clams and mussels. Since these are two of Geoffrey's favorite things, I decided to try to cook some over the grill. If you know me, and if you are reading this blog you do, I am not a fan of the shellfish (or anything fishy, for that matter), so I am not the most experienced with cooking these things. BUT, I have watched enough cooking shows to know that all you really need for shellfish is some butter, garlic, wine, salt and pepper. Luckily, I had most of the above ingredients and due to my quickfire experience on Pine street, was able to improvise with the items I didn't have. With help from my sous chef Kat, we were able to whip up a couple of batches of clams and mussels in a white wine sauce.

 Below is my recipe (approximately).

2 lbs of clams
1 lb of mussels
4-5 tbsp unsalted butter
2-3 cups dry white wine
3-4 garlic cloves, minced (or 2 large shallots)
fresh herbs (cilantro, parsley, whatever floats your boat)
1-2 lemons
salt and pepper
(Note: I used leftover Hog Wash and Mignonette in place of garlic, herbs, lemon)

Combine all items and cover over medium heat, mixing occasionally until the shellfish open. Serve immediately with crusty bread for soaking up the sauce.

Geoffrey rated this recipe a 7 (meanie!), but it was a HIT with everyone else. At least I think it was:)

You Geoffrey'd me up!

Last Friday was Geoffrey's birthday! He turned the BIG 31. This blog post is dedicated to him.

Highlights of Geoffrey's birthday weekend include:

• We both took the day off and slept in (well, Geo did and I starting writing this blog but didn't get very far). 
• We had birthday breakfast at Mama's in North Beach Nini's in San Mateo with the rest of the Gonzalez family. 
• We had a delicious birthday dinner with Jeremy and Lindsay at RN74 and listened to some New Orleans music by Dr. John at Yoshi's.
• We had an amazing day at Hog Island Oyster Farm with family and friends.

• We shucked oysters, bbq'd, enjoyed clams, mussels, cupcakes, sparkling wine, Hawaiian beer and many other goodies.

•  I shucked oysters like a pro and even ate one!

• Had pizza and game night (and a lovely brunch the next morning) with some of our fantastic friends from L.A. Ting was the winner of Balderdash with such convincing definitions like "zoutch: rhymes with 'ouch'".

• Also of note, the girls won the fastest game of Cranium ever, even though we couldn't correctly spell adrenaline backwards (ahem, due to someone having a little too much sparkly;)!

• We went to see Get Him to The Greek since Geoffrey loves Jonah Hill (his body double, he says). The movie was surprisingly funny! Interesting fact: We saw this movie being filmed last year when we were in Vegas for my 30th birthday and the release date was on Geoffrey's 31st birthday! Plus one of the jokes throughout the movie is about smoking a "Jeffrey" (hence my blog title) AND we actually know people who have smoked something like a "Jeffrey" and had a similar experience (haha, you know who you are!). "When the world slips you a Jeffrey, stroke the furry wall." <--That must have some sort of double meaning.

• Lastly, the 31st birthday celebration ended with a Bone Thugs-N- Harmony concert at the Independent. Apparently, a dream come true for Geoffrey. He (and his side kick Jason) were acting like giddy little school girls! It was a good concert and a great way to top off Geoffrey's 31st birthday celebration. (I had a video to upload here, but can't figure out how to do it. Stay tuned.)

Happy Birthday Geoffrey!!!!

Hope Floats

You were lucky to have me. But you know what? I think I already got the best part of you. And she's standing right out there, and she's waiting for me. I don't know... what's left just doesn't look so good anymore. So why'd you come back? You want my permission? You want my... condolences? Why did you come back?

So it has been a while since I've posted anything about my dear Sandra. Amidst her recent highs (she won the Oscar! she's a Mama!) and lows (husband's philandering, giving back a Razzie, divorce filing), I was secretly hoping that things would turn back to normal and that she could be happy. But then I read this and it just made me so upset. What is he doing?? Is he trying to win her back?? Everyone knows Sandy is a very private person and Jesse airing their dirty laundry on national TV and making comments like "I took a pretty amazing life and marriage and threw it away" makes me cringe. He's bringing the affair out in the open again, even after Sandra is trying to move on. I hope that Sandra doesn't fall for his apology (or whatever it is he is doing). She deserves better. She deserves Justin Matise.

Detoxing and Cinco de Mayo

 

 (Pictured: Herbert and Ignacio the Piñata)

Week 18 & Week 19 (May 5 & May 12) 

I was detoxing this week so had a very strict meal plan I needed to follow. So when our cooking night came along (on Cinco de Mayo), I used the turkey burger recipe that the Clean Food Detox Plan suggested. I was so hungry that I downed the burger, so didn't get a chance to take pictures of it. But it was surprisingly a very delicious burger.

The following week a friend was in need of pictures for a recipe book and we decided we'd try one of the recipes for our cooking night. We chose Tobacco Onions, which was a recipe for onion rings. We thought a burger would pair well with the onion rings, so we used the turkey burger recipe again. And it gave us a chance to take pictures this time.

 

The Tobacco onion recipe called for both red and yellow onions.

I made the flour mixture (flour, cayenne, paprika, salt and pepper) and floured the onions.

Then fried the onions. We don't have a fryer, so I used an old school teapot as a make-shift fryer.

The first couple of batches didn't come out as golden as we would have liked. I was also a little concerned that the flour mixture was not sticking to the onions and was thinking about using an egg wash, but found that this was resolved as soon as the oil got hotter.  (I recommend using a thermometer to make sure the oil is hot enough to fry in).

The last batches came out crispier and golden! They reminded me of a birds nest and Geoffrey thought of Hamburger Hamlet's onion strings.

I topped my burger with the tobacco onions.

Geoffrey had his as a side.

We found the recipes to be easy. The burger was tasty and the onions melted in our mouths and complemented the turkey burgers well.

Mmmm, that was a good burger!