Easy Fun Dinner Recipes

Hi readers,

After drinking 2 bottles of wine last night careful thought, I made a pledge this morning: Start cooking healthy, interesting dinners.  I love like know how to cook, but I have fallen into a boring routine.  On Sunday night I cook a big pot of pasta, throw in a bunch of vegetables, and make 3-4 portions to eat during the week.  Reasonably healthy but totally un-fabulous.  It's time to shake things up.  In my quest for easy, fun dinner recipes, I came up the with following guidelines:

Interesting Dinner Recipes Pledge 

1) Make a sauce.  Sauce sounds interesting! I am going to start with this list from Cooking Light 

2) Marinate.  After some preliminary internet research it seems as long as you have one acidic or enzymatic liquid (lemon juice, vinegar, wine, etc) you can get creative with your other ingredients.  I want to try hot honey orange BBQ

3) Love Your Grocery Store.  In writing this post I realized my grocery store is merely functional.  I love the nice Chinese family and they sell cereal.  Not fabulous.  I want to find a grocery store I love!   There's a market near me with fresh produce stands, butcher counters, cheese stands...I am going to make the time to go and (hopefully) get inspired.

4) Mix and Match.  Last week, I made pasta.  Next week, I'm going to make quinoa.  Or farrow.  Or barley.  Or a different shape of pasta.  It's time to get creative.

5) Know Your Pantry.  I personally don't believe in keeping too much food in the pantry.  It seems that those "won't-it-be-nice-to-have-cookies-when-I-have-company" cookies turn into "won't-it-be-nice-to-sit-on-the-couch-and-get-fat" cookies every time.  So this list is short but sweet and full of things it is difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to binge-eat on a random Tuesday night.

I always have:
Olive oil
Tomato paste
Cinnamon
Chile powder
Herbs de provence
Eggs
Frozen spinach


How do you deal with weeknight cooking?  Post a comment and let me know--I need all the help I can get!

   

Sources for Creativity

Hi readers,
A creative life is important to me.  Every day I try to find time to write or draw or walk or learn something new.  It helps break up the time between episodes of Top Chef Junior and bottles of Ribera del Duero.

With writing, my best words come early in the morning.  But I have fallen into a writing trap.  I affectionately call it the "I-like-to-write-about-my-morning-anxiety" trap.  When I review my sunrise thoughts, they seem to circle around themes like "drowning" and "burning".  Rather decidedly un-fabulous.  So in the interest of changing my mental bandwidths (and my newfound thoughts about publicly posting more vacation photos) between coffee/tooth-brushing/frantic e-mailing this morning, I decided on a new AM writing exercise.  I can feel your anticipation!

Source for Morning Writing Creativity: Find an old picture.  Write 10 words (or write 100 words, if you have some magical fairy godmother that brushes your teeth, pours your coffee and writes your morning e-mails).

Find some inspiration below.

New beginnings thrusting dreams into clouds and concrete foundations 

(view of NYC from Hoboken, 2014)

Pink breath ignites the water.  Reality stops for the instant of birth.

(Jackson Hole Sunset, 2014)

The lighting of perfection hit the ground and wept over its fire 

(Mt. Shasta, 2014)

Present Tense

Hi readers,

In my constant quest for my most fabulous life, I realized something important today:  I often talk in past tense.  For example:

"Last night's episode of Keeping up the Kardashians PBS Nature was amazing!"
"My girlfriends and I took a trip to Woodbury Commons Vegas Napa Valley last year  "
"I read in the news about Bruce Jenner Dancing the Stars the upcoming presidential election"

As a result of all this talk in the past, I do not feel very present.  Not a big surprise.  I've been puzzling all year over how to "live closer to the moment" and feel more involved in my everyday life.  I believe shifting to the present tense, literally, in my conversations, just might make a difference.   Let's observe:

Option 1: I went to dinner this weekend at a fabulous new restaurant.
Option 2: Right now, I am starving.  Would you like to come to lunch with me so we can catch up?

Option 1: I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed, then I read her Dear Sugar advice column as well.
Option 2: Right now, I'm reading "The Enchantress of Florence".  Salman Rushdie is such a beautiful writer, I think he is one of my favorites.

Option 1: Work yesterday made me want to drop kick a puppy.
Option 2.  Today at work we are going to dissect squid, my students are so excited.

Speaking in the present tense feels alive.  The words dance and fly instead of drooping and dragging like yesterdays Botox.  The present tense is exciting! I want to start right now.  Wish me luck : )

Pictures of Italy

Hi readers,
As promised, some vacation photos from Rome and Florence below.

                             

Benefits and Drawbacks of Facebook

Hi readers,

I don't go on Facebook much. After a rather messy breakup several years ago that involved some "extracurricular" Facebook-inspired sex (not on my part, mind you, all my sex is inspired by cheap porn and dungeons and dragons fantasies) I sort of lost faith in the institutions of mainstream social media. Because hey, it turns out a lot of people use Facebook for bad sex, and ex-stalking, and a myriad of other non-fabulous activities that I generally do not have time for.

The upside: I miss all the BIG news about what cartoon character best represents who, the mommy advice debates about the BEST daycare groups in the SUBURBS and the variety of complaints about work/politics/neighbors/family members/restaurants/vacations/Mondays/traffic.

The continued upside: I have more time to do activities outdoors, read books, have conversations with people and plan vacations.

The downside: Readers I must confess...I struggle with where to post my vacation photos! They just sit on my computer, sad and alone, with no "likes" or witty comments to keep them company.
I need an Internet soap box, accessible to my friends and family, with the capacity upload pictures....how many blondes does it take to figure this one out?

Watch this space for some awesome vacation pictures, coming soon! 

Stay fabulous 

Summer Fashion 2015

Hi reader,
Is it just me or did Laura Ashley throw up all over the spring runways H&M collections?  Over here in Spain we are deeply rooted in some late 1990's, flowers and floppy hats, Blossom-type fashion statements.  (What up Mayim Bialik!)  Not that I am complaining!  I, for one, did not look nearly as adorable in flower prints when I was nine as I (think I) do now.

In the interest of trying to stay fashionable moderately fashionable fully clothed in the coming months, I am having these deep thoughts as I caffeinate myself for some spring shopping (the fabulous, drunk sister of spring cleaning).  In my 9 AM, 5-dollar-latte infused haze, I'm hoping this will be the year my "sense of style" will extend beyond solid color cotton t-shirts and cheap flats. A girl can dream, right?   Some looks from vogue.com, youfashion.info and H&M below.

Wish me luck!

 

Morning Sunshine!

Hi reader,

In my modern working girl life fantasies, I spring out of bed in the morning fashionable and fabulous, efficiently iMessaging about important appointments and ready to change the world every day. Like this:

                                          


In reality, this morning when my alarm clock went off I stretched, blinked half heartedly and spent 5 minutes trying to think of something exciting enough about my looming day to get me out of bed. Like this:

                                          

               

If you ever feel the same way, here is a list of things to do to help you get out of bed in the morning.

Morning List of Fabulous

1) Lay out your outfit the night before. Wake up excited about how adorable you are going to look all day.
2) Find an Op-Ed column (Maureen Dowd is better than a cup of coffee any day) or blog (AHEM) that you like to read for 5 minutes in the morning. Religious texts work too--namaste, amen, etc, etc
3) Buy an AWESOME coffee machine.
4) Wake up with time to sit down and have breakfast.  Make something good, preferably the night before--see Shape Magazine's recs here
5) Put a piece of candy next to sink in the bathroom. Whatever, you're about to brush your teeth anyway.  On a diet?  Totally, me too.  Put a sticky note with an awesome song lyric, self-congratulatory note or a gentle, loving reminder not to be such a fat-ass on the mirror

Good luck! Almost Friday...

Wait Time

Hi reader,

I want to engage in a little warm up activity:

Step 1: Close your mouth and breathe in through your nose

Step 2: Silently, slowly count to 5

Congratulations! You have just practiced the art of "how to shut the f#ck up for 5 seconds".  It's something I've realized recently I need more of in my life.  As a teacher, a female and a general eager-to-please type of person, I am not a huge fan of gaps in conversation.  It makes me uncomfortable-in that itchy, social-hives, am-I-boring kind of way.  However, while googling ways to have better conversations with my boyfriends students and professional colleagues, I came across lots of interesting tips about the importance of "wait time", the art of pausing to allow for better flow and deeper dialogue during conversation.  For example, did you know:

1) "Wait time" is a cultural phenomena--different lengths of time are observed in different areas and social situations.  You should pay attention to social cues in your environment to figure out appropriate wait time

2) "Wait time" can be interpreted as a sign of intelligence--it shows you are deeply considering and processing the question or information presented.  Always take a deep breath before you answer in important situations like big meetings, job interviews and "would you rather" at Sunday brunch.  

3) "Wait time" should be a few seconds longer in a dialogue between only two people-when your friend asks, "How are you?" over a coffee, take a few seconds to consider your answer.  It will lead to more interesting conversation. 

When will YOU "shut the f#ck up for 5 seconds"?  You'll be amazed how drastically it changes the pace, depth and direction of your conversations throughout the day. 

Happy Spring

Hi Readers,

I'm back! It's been a long winter with lots of work stress, dry skin and writing about the general and consuming frustrations of life in my paper journals.  Then I thought, "Self...this is the year 2015.  Take this self-involved diatribe back to the interwebs!" So here I sit, clicking away self-consciously, trying to find a way to reconcile all of my innermost thoughts and problems to this very public forum.

The first thing it makes me realize about my problems...they're stupid.

I'm not very good at my job.  Who cares?  My clothes don't fit very well over my newly-acquired Spanish "ham butt".  Go shopping! I don't have enough time to meditate.  Grasshopper needs to get her spanish ham butt off Instagram and MAKE time.

It's all about keeping a positive attitude, right?  This spring I want to stay positive and mindful and it's HARD and that in itself is sort of stupid.  Why is it hard to simply be present in a moment?  Here are some practices I want to try:

4 Beginner Level, Totally Made-Up Mindfulness Practices:

1) Smile.  At a stranger (or just someone I don't know very well, so I don't start getting stalked by creepy strangers).  At least once a day.
2) Make small talk (and listen).  As a New Yorker, I'm genetically engineered to tune out when people start blathering on at me if I'm busy.  Recently (I think it has something to do with hanging around Europeans) I am realizing the art of "chit-chat".  It's cute.  I think it's how people that don't drink alcohol make friends?
3) Flowers. Look at them, grow them, buy them, whatever.  I want flowers (see photo). It's spring.
4) Passion projects.  Hence the blogging.  Passion provides roots in the world, gives me something to light up about.  If it was important enough for Google employees, that's good enough for me.

Do you have any mindfulness practices you like to use to stay positive and in the moment?  And hey, what the hell have you been up to for the past 3 months?! Comment below and let me know.  Happy Spring!