Sabado Gigante

So....
Where to start?
A couple of Saturdays ago we went to visit my cousin Art and his wife Amanda at their apartment Downtown.

It looked like it was going to be a standard hang-out. A little small talk, some good food. Some Wii. Or so we thought. Here is a list of events we thought were odd. It was one of those Saturdays where everything goes suspiciously sour, through no fault of your own.

1. Broken table leg. It all went downhill when Art's patio table broke and fell on my foot. There was no warning, one second I'm eating delicious chips and salsa and the next a table leg falls on my foot causing mild pain. Actually, I misrepresented. There should have been a warning because Amanda has been asking Art to fix that table since they moved here and the lummox hasn't done it.

2. A butt situation. After dinner we went to get gelato at our favorite place since we were so close. The gelato was great. Then we walked around Little Italy, just for fun when we stopped at a Red Mango. Having heard good things Art walks in to get himself a smoothie and the rest of us stay outside because Maggie was with us. As soon as we sat down we noticed through the window of Red Mango, that the man in line in front of Art was going to town on his significant other's butt. Under her jeans. Yes, it was unnerving but like bad weather at a sporting event, you just don't get up and walk away. I mean, after all, you've paid for the tickets.

So we sat there witnessing this in disgust and admiration for this guy's bravado.

3. A worse butt situation. I like to think of this as the piece de resistance of the evening.
Soon after Butt Situation #1 dissolved #2 started. Art had gotten his smoothie, which to add to the evening was gross, and had joined us outside of Red Mango as we sat in chairs people watching. We had just finished discussing the first butt situation when the second arose. With a vengeance.
A strange slapping sound rushed by Red Mango, produced by a man running bare-foot into a parking lot.

Brandon: "Holy cow, was that guy in his underwear?"
Nat: "No, he just had shorts on"
B: "I'm pretty sure it was a dude in his underwear."
N: "Why would a guy be running around in his...."
Slapping sound rushes by once more.
N: "Oh, my gosh, that guy was in his underwear! Weird!"
Art: "What is he doing?"
N: "I think he's just hanging out in his underwear."

The man was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a green and yellow motif with grey/blue bikini underwear. That seemed a little too big for him. He was running because a group of waiters from different restaurants were chasing him around so as to stop him from disturbing patrons, since there is a lot of outside eating in Little Italy. Whatever his reason for being in his underwear, it did not disturb Underwear Man half as much as the wedgie that he seemed to be concentrating on.

N: "Let's get out of here, I don't necessarily want to see how this turns out."
Amanda: "Yeah, let's go"

Just our luck, Underwear Man was going the same way we were going only across the street. And he was looking behind him to see if the waiters we still chasing him. I'd like to point out that the real victims here were the people eating their dinner because seated, they were at eye-level to the worse part of this adventure. And he was walking by unabashedly proudly strutting.

Art: "Geez, he's really going to town on that wedgie."
B: "Yeah, no kidding."
Art: " He's like Ren and Stimpying it."

It's true, the man was trying to undo his wedgie from the inside out. I could go into more detail but it would be cruel.

Eventually he took a turn and we lost Underwear Man. So that was it. An equally eventful and disturbing Saturday. Oh, and I forgot to mention that on our way to gelato Brandon went the wrong way on a one-way street and we almost hit an oncoming car.

Great Expectations

Great expectations indeed.

This is it - after 3 check-outs, 2 renewals, and 1 failed start, I have resolved to read the great work by Charles Dickens. I'll let you know how it goes.

Love and Donuts in Cardiff

This is something that happened a few Saturdays ago.

Brandon was coming home on the train from Balboa Island (Newport Beach) where he spent his Saturday because I needed to work. That day after I picked him up from the train station we went to eat an early dinner of fish 'n' chips and then went to VG's with Maggie. I was really tired ad decided to stay in the car with Maggie while Brandon went in to get the donuts.
"I want the fluffy kind with chocolate glaze," I said, "or yellow cake with with chocolate glaze. No chocolate on chocolate."
"Ok," he replied as he was stepping out of the car.
"And a little thing of milk!" I called after him.
Five minutes later Brandon came back with a box of three donuts. One old-fashioned with regular glaze, one yellow-cake with chocolate and rainbow sprinkles, and one old-fashioned with chocolate glaze - no sprinkles.
"But I don't want sprinkles," I whined.
"The old fashioned is a version of yellow-cake, has chocolate but isn't chocolate on chocolate and it has no sprinkles," he replied.
"Ok," I said, placated.
We were sitting in the parking lot of VG's. The crashing of the waves across the street, in the not too distant distance. Maggie was in the back. Relaxing into the back seat, fighting the urge to shut her eyes and sink into the seat. We sat in silence methodically eating our donuts, drinking our milk, trying not to spill crumbs. The sound of people laughing twinkled behind us. I turned to look at Brandon chugging his tiny carton of 2% and then as I turned to look out towards the Toyota Tacoma parked in front of us, I smiled.
"Whatcha thinking?" he asked. Our favorite question to ask each other.
"Not much," I shrugged, "Just that this moment right here is perfect."
He leaned back contentedly and said, "Yeah, it is."

A to Z

So I would say I hate tags but I really don't. I love talking about myself and these are the kinds of things I think about when I don't have anything to think about.

Attached or Single? Attached. With a dog. So now we'll have to split custody if anything were to happen.
Best Friend? Ever, Citlalli. We've been friends since we were nine. And Brandon of course.
Cake or Pie? Pie all the way, with lots of whipped cream. And a great crust, no graham cracker crap (but I'll eat those too).
Day of Choice? Friday, it just has so much promise.
Essential item? Scrunchy. Or hair band. I always have 3 around my wrist.
Favorite Color? Gray. Is that weird?
Gummy Bears of worms? THE Bears.
Home-town? Hacienda Heights. Party in the Heights!
Ideal vacation? Right now there's talk of Costa Rica and it sounds real nice.
January or July? January in California any day.
Kids? Dog.
Life isn't complete without: Brandon, good food, Maggie.
Marriage date? 06-02-06. 4 more days and we'd be destined for hell.
Number of siblings? 0. And I'd appreciate it if people stopped feeling sorry for me, cuz I like it.
Oranges or apples? Oranges, blood or valencia.
Phobias? Arachnophobia.
Quote? "My gut is telling me no, but gut my gut is also very hungry."
Reasons to smile? Remembering how blessed my life is.
Season of choice? I actually like all the seasons in California. In Utah I liked Fall.
Tag 3 people: Anne, Heidi, Joselyn
Unknow fact about me: There isn't a whole lot I keep to myself... I used to folk dance and I'm thinking about getting back into it.
Vegetable? Onion.
Worst habit? ripping my nails and popping my joints.
X-ray or Ultrasounds? Ultrasound (no I'm not pregnant), radiation makes me think of Mr. Burns.
Your favorite food? The best thing ever is Carne en su jugo. I made it a couple of weeks ago and had five servings. And then I had left-overs for lunch.
Zodiac Sign? Gemini

Amen.

Creepy? I choose not to think so

I like that saying things in a song makes it so that inappropriate things are ok. Maybe I'll become a songwriter.

Mawige.

Today commemorates our two years of marriage. Everyone always says how the first year is so hard and blah, blah, blah, but I'd like to think we came out of it fairly unscathed. Then our second year wasn't any different... so there you go.
Looking back at it I see that it was a good day. The kind of wedding you can hope for. Everything went smoothly, there was no stress (at least for me), and I even got to take a cat-nap in between the Temple and the Reception.
I don't really remember much, come to think of it. I do remember having a terrible breakfast at Whole Foods, before I got my hair done. I was really pissed, we totally should have gone to McDonald's. I also remember that I forgot shoes so I had to show up to the Temple in flip-flops and I forgot my Temple slippers so I had to rent them, which luckily was the exact amount of money I had floating in my purse. Then I remember feeling very good about the whole thing until the sealer said something about man and wife and that's when I started to panic.

All I could think was," Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap.... I'm actually getting married...just breathe, just breathe...wait when is it my turn to say something? La, la, la, I'm totally ok with this...why is Craig laughing? Ok, ok, here it is my turn...ha-ha! I didn't ruin anything! I think it's official now...I'm going to puke."

Thankfully I held in my breakfast. Now that the worst part was over I could relax and look pretty and have fun. Brandon looked really calm and collected about the whole thing. My only regret is that I didn't dance with Brandon enough.

Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!

As most of you know, our well publicized trip to England is over and yes, we had a blast. At first I didn't know how to approach this post, but this is after all a blog about food, and food we did eat.

Our trip began in the Cotswolds. A gorgeous part of England that takes your breath away. We loved it. I totally forgot to take pictures of our English breakfasts, but every day at our B&B's we would get a fabulous breakfast of fried egg, sauteed mushrooms, tomato, bacon (which looks like ham and it's so yummy), and a banger (sausage). And for some reason that wasn't enough for me so I also ate yogurt, fruit, cereal and tea. Hmm... tea.

This is Brandon in Bourton-on-the-Water (name of the city) among the Cotswolds. We did not need a coat after this day. Which you would think is a good thing but it wasn't. More than a few people decided to skip the deodorant.


Bacon Butties! This is a sandwich consisting of bread, bacon and sauce. You can have red or brown and if you ask me they're both good. We found a little gourmet shop that sold all sorts of fun things. We also bought olives to eat with lunch and Italian Lemon Soda. The Cotswolds had the best food. The freshest and least pretentious.


While in the country we went to Oxfordshire to Blenheim Palace. This is incidentally where Winston Churchill was born. Blenheim was constructed for the 1st Duke of Marlborough, England is on its 9th and the family still lives there. Churchill was the current Duke's god-father. And we saw some jousting so that was fun.


Lunch at Blenheim. Pea soup, mineral water from the Blenheim springs, and bread. And really great cake.


This place is huge. Probably the size of Versailles but it actually looks like someone can live there. Not so much gold all over the place.


On to Bath! It was about 2 hours from Chipping Campden to Bath. We of course got lost a ton (here we are in Chippenham), but that was really half the fun because we made discoveries like this one! Lidl was the store Brandon did his shopping at during his mission and was so stoked to find it. So we stopped and grabbed lunch here. Groceries are very inexpensive in England, which was really surprising.


These are Mexicanos. We have yet to find out what they are. I suspect they are chicken tenders and they came with dipping sauce. I asked a lady what they were but she didn't know either. "We're going to risk it and see," she said. People in England were really really sweet.


Roman baths! Which is where Bath got its name. This is such a beautiful city. It looks like the same architect designed it all and it's all built with a stone native to the Cotswolds. It makes brick look really ugly.


Best fish and chips ever. I mean ever. The fish was fresh and flaky, the chips were crisp. It was so good. We got the tip from a kid in Starbucks.


Our B&B told us to try this one pub down the lane, which ended up being more hazardous than we had anticipated because it was pitch black when we were walking home we realized this town didn't believe in street lamps. Anyway, the food had a lot of promise but it didn't deliver. Sad. However, what you are seeing is called Eaton's Mess. It's strawberries, meringue, and whipped cream. It was so good. Light and sweet and fluffy.

On to London!


On our way to London we decided to stop at Stonehenge. At first I was skeptical, but I'm really glad we went, it was totally worth it. The audio guide was great and I loved every minute of it. This is one of many pictures I took. It's just so amazing.


Our second stop in London was Harrod's (our first was the Victoria & Albert Museum). Harrod's was... extreme. I felt guilty just being there, but I bore it well. Harrod's had an annex across the street that served food and this is where Yo Sushi! was. It's a conveyor belt sushi place which was fun. The food wasn't very good, but it was fun. I felt chic.

While in London we did a ton of stuff. Museums included: Victoria and Albert, British Museum, National Gallery, Museum of Natural History, Tate Modern. Then: Tower of London, Westminster Abbey (we actually went for a type of choir service and it was amazing), Parliament, Buckingham, Speaker's Corner (where Pres. Hinckley would preach as a missionary), St. Paul's (where Diana was married). Hype Park, Kensington Gardens, West End and other stuff I can't remember. For full picture details we'll email you an Ofoto thing. We also happened on a few political demonstrations and a PG Wodehouse picnic on our way to the British Museum, which is lucky because I LOVE PG Wodehouse. Love him. Everyone was dressed in period costume.


This was one of my favorite afternoons. To the left there is live 1930's music and everything. There were even newt drawings.


Spam is food, right? Sort of? Anyway, this was great. It was so hot in that theater, it made me think of Phoenix, it was still a really funny show. The real comedy however, was when we were buying the tickets and Brandon, without knowing it, slipped into an English accent. When he saw I was looking at him with a, "What the crap?" kind of look, he goes, "What?" It was embarrassing.


I don't often order salads because I don't get full on them, but enough was enough. I had had so much grease that by this day I just wanted some grass. So we went to a nice-ish place and I got a Ceasar and it was quite good and welcome. Brandon got ham that came with super spicy mustard, it was almost like wasabi. All in all a good meal. And later...


Cheese platter!!! Brandon and I can't ever resist the cheese plate on a menu. These were quite nice, the stars were: English cheddar (why can't all cheddar be this good?_ Stilton (i think my new favorite blue), and something like Brie but a little stiffer, native to England, whose name I can't remember, curses! Life was so good right then.


I had one purpose and one purpose only for going to the Tower of London. The crown jewels. They were amazing, we saw a diamond the size of a golf ball. There is even a royal salt shaker that is insane. I thought this one big tub was the coronation bath, but it turned out to be the royal punch bowl.


To me there are three levels of restaurants. From top to bottom they are: 1. Amazing 2. Alright, I'll eat there again. 3. "I want to burn this place." This was an "I want to burn this place," type of place. Just thinking about it makes me angry. Everything was awful. When we were done we walked across the street and had dinner again.


Thankfully our last meal in London was a good one. For breakfast we had ham (with mini gherkins!) great sourdough, fruit, and I had a soft-boiled egg (my favorite kind). Then we went to the Tate Modern.

All in all, England was amazing. At first glance it seems stuffy and boring, but you cannot meet nicer people surrounded by such amazing history. On the way to the V&A Museum we saw holes on the wall and then read a plaque that informed us that those were from German airplanes during WWII. Then while we were lost looking for the British Museum, we happened upon one of Charles Dickens' homes, we got lost amongst the most beautiful villages. Everywhere you turned was a more interesting surprise. Yes, the food wasn't mind-blowing, but the country and its people more than made up for it.