madeofglass

as promised, my picture with perez from saturday – it was trapped on a non-cell camera for quality purposes.

i like his funny, blue-steel-esque look.

Popularity: 1% [?]

It’s officially been a record-breaking weekend here in Portland, as far as temperature is concerned. Yesterday, we hit 105, or something thereabouts, and in a string of decisions that make me question my own judgement, I decided it’d be a great day to do a lot of cooking. So I did. Strawberry gin coolers, oregano cannellini dip, watermelon feta salad, panzanella–they all turned out well. But the winner, by far, was buttermilk pecan fried chicken. Yes, pecan!

Here’s what you do: slice some boneless skinless chicken breasts into strips (roughly into thirds), then submerge them in buttermilk. Let that soak for about 20 minutes. Mix together 1½ cups of flour, 2½ cups of chopped pecans, and salt and pepper to taste. Dredge the chicken in the flour-pecan mixture, then refrigerate for about 30 minutes. When that’s done chilling, cover the bottom of a cast iron skillet with about 1 centimeter of olive oil. Fry the chicken over medium high heat until it’s golden brown (2-3 minutes per side). Drain it on paper towels and enjoy. It’s effing fantastic.

The other big hit were the strawberry gin coolers. Here’s what you do: put 4 frozen strawberries in a shaker with 2 shots of gin. Shake it up. Divide the strawberries and gin between two glasses, and top them off with some chilled soda water. It’s delightful. The strawberries keep the drink cool, and by the time you’re done, they’ve thawed, and you can eat them. Good times!

Now I’m off to make blueberry-cranberry pie and strawberry cupcakes in preparation for a mini-vacation. Wish me luck, kids!

Popularity: 1% [?]

writing from the charlotte, NC airport on a sunday morning, post 10.25pm flight from SF, pre-last-leg mini-flight back to charlottesville. the red-eye was pretty brutal and right now i want little more than to be sleeping in my own bed – or really, comfortable just about anywhere. this airport is nice for its free wi-fi (it was pay only at SFO, which surprised me). the charlotte airport also gets props for its randomly scattered lanes of southern living-loving rocking chairs lining the terminals.

a bit odd, but kind of nice.

the trip out for my orientation, overall, was really good, but i am incredibly overwhelmed in the amount of work i need to get done before i go back out in a month for my week of production. 23 complete, camera-ready lessons with supplemental handouts , bonus materials, and ideas for on location shots in 4 weeks – eeeeeek. i’m hoping that right now is the hardest part, and once i get started nailing everything down i’ll get in the / a zone. we shall see, as my father says.

san francisco, which i oddly have zero memory of visiting on my cross-country trip with matt and tripp many lifetimes ago, was pretty cool. well, actually, it was pretty fucking cold – a 30 degree difference from summer in VA that left me realizing my knowledge of california climate was seriously flawed. in my pretty little head, california = warm. now i know - notsomuch. palm trees and heavy hoodies don’t really mesh in my mind.

i had a phenomenal, rock star level room in the grand hyatt. it had a tv in the bathroom, which i couldn’t resist turning on just because it was there. the hotel is in union square, which is quite different from nyc’s union square, but lovely in general:

we didn’t have too much free time, but i did managed to swing by chinatown, in my winter-worthy knit cap (purchased on market street):

i found SF’s chinatown to be architecturally superior but otherwise secondary to the nyc-version, home of my beloved high-quality designer knockoff purses. i also felt a dearth of manhattan’s abundant dumpling shacks, but maybe -likely- i just didn’t really know where to look. i did manage to find a slice of veggie heaven at herbivore, which had the tastiest grilled seitan. mmm.

seeing trolleys tickled me for some reason – maybe just because of the reinforcement of my rice-a-roni, full house, tourist notions of the city.

it’s nice that i apparently looked like an alien, or perhaps at hobbit, at this point, too.

a true highlight of my trip and my silly pop culture devotion was when I trekked to a downtown mall for a meet-and-greet with the queen of all media himself, one mr perez hilton. the gossip gangstar was at a hot topic promoting his merch line, and was kind enough to obligingly pimp my educational video – picture to come.

he even paid me an appropriately fabulous compliment:

while in line i chatted for awhile with a chick who turned out to be a cast member from a new CW show stylista, which seems like a rather heavy-handed attempt at a reality-tv attempt to replicate the movie version of the devil wears prada, inbred with the standard trappings of a reality tv competition. needless to say, i’ll be an avid viewer.

this particular young starlet

entertained/overshared a tale from taping in which somehow her breast implant shifted within her chest and created an air pocket she could feel. in order to fix the issue, she had to lay on the floor, sliding her hand between the floor and her chest to leverage the silicon back into place. i was repulsed and fascinated and wordlessly wondered if shifting boobies are commonplace occurrences in the land of the artificially-supplemented – ie, california.

Popularity: 1% [?]