Wednesday, January 12, 2011

The Fighter

This past weekend, I got the chance to meet up with a friend in CityPlace. We had lunch at BB King's and then saw The Fighter. I ordered a salad without feta cheese for lunch. I know, why would I pick a place with essentially no good vegan food? I had a gift certificate that I won at the company holiday party.

Anyways, we saw the movie and were discussing how Mark Wahlberg has aged gracefully. Case in point:


Mark Wahlberg in his modeling days:
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Mark Wahlberg on set for the movie:
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He is still in ridiculously good shape! There were a few scenes that were shot from behind him as he was training. You could see his back muslces moving as he was doing boxing drills. Crazy! I would definitely recommend the movie though, because it's really interesting to see how the older brother's crack addiction affects their family, but there are some funny moments too.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Great quote

"I'm vegan because I care deeply about the suffering in the world; not because I want to be righteous, smug, arrogant, holier than thou, preachy, a know it all, confrontational or an asshole. I'm vegan because values of mercy, kindness, compassion and justice are my every day values that extend to my food choices."


This was on the facebook page for Portland's Food Fight! vegan grocery store.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Very Short Entry

I have only bit my nails a couple times this week! Weeee! I have been chewing a lot of gum though. It's a trade-off for now. Hopefully one day I won't need to use gum as a distraction. :)

This week, I didn't get any food photos. Boo. I made baked falafel from ChowVegan. Instead of using hummus in the pita, I made a dip using white beans, roasted red peppers, and Tofutti cream cheese. I put some diced tomatoes, cucumber, and lettuce in the pita pocket. Tonight, I went to a friend's house and made tempeh meatloaves. Instead of the bourbon sauce, my friend made his mom's ketchup, brown sugar, and powdered mustard meatloaf sauce. He also cooked some kale with white beans, garlic, and some beer. Tasty. I should work more kale into my diet since it's a "super food." Our little dinner party was a success with 6 friends joining us. (No, this was NOT a date. Just friends.)

I bought Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World because it has a recipe for margarita cupcakes. Jess has been unsure of what to make me for my birthday dessert. I want margarita cupcakes! Nom nom nom. Plans will be fleshed out over the next several weeks, but it looks like drinks on the Friday or Saturday before my birthday and then lots of Mexican food on my birthday. Mexican food + margarita cupcakes = 25th birthday celebration. :)

Also, as a note, here are the Canadian dietary guidelines discussed on vegandad. I have to look at stuff like this periodically to remind myself about why it's worth taking the time to plan meals. I want to make sure I'm eating healthy.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Secret Love of Pyrex

If I could get some Pyrex Gooseberry for my birthday, I'd be ecstatic. Unfortunately, it's so expensive because these patterns aren't produced anymore. :(


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I also found this pattern that is super cute - the Blue Horizon.


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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Welcoming in the New Year

I've enjoyed the last couple days. I am still toiling away in lab, but I've enjoyed my bicycle rides to work. Balances out the annoying stress of failed experiments. I am excited to cook tempeh meatloaves with the guys and Cristin this weekend! It should be entertaining to say the least. Jeff is getting a sauce recipe from his mom, plus he'll be making beer beans and kale for the side dishes. Cristin is in charge of dessert.

Tonight's dinner included a curry known as rajmah from the famous Smitten Kitchen. I ended up not having enough kidney beans, so I added a yellow bell pepper to provide more chunks to chew on. Delicious curry. I've never used tomato sauce in a curry before, but it gave it a nice touch. Different texture than my usual tomato chunks or coconut milk curries.


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I forgot to mention that I saw The Dead Kennedys in Melbourne recently. I went up to see Ryan and Marigny again. They move to DC in mid-February, so hopefully I can see them one last time before the big move. If not, the show provided a last chance to see them.

I also finished reading Dave Cullen's Columbine last night. It is a very thorough look at the Columbine tragedy. Definitely would recommend it to anyone with a morbid curiosity about the shooting. A lot of stories reported in the news after the tragedy were lies and the police department even had a cover up! I don't think Adie approved. I snapped this photo on my iPhone to text it to Cristin, since I borrowed the book from her.


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Looks like Chic-fil-a is making its way onto my boycott list. Chic-fil-a is sponsoring a conference for a publicly anti-gay organization. Boo.

Friday, December 31, 2010

Lessons Learned & Resolutions

I just want to keep this post organized, so I’ll be using a “top 3” list. It should help me sort out my thoughts into distinct points, instead of a run-on sentence.

Top 3 Lessons Learned:

(1) Just because you care for someone doesn’t mean that person feels that to the same degree.

(2) The level of loyalty that I expect in my friends is (apparently) uncommonly high. I never realized how lucky I was to have friends as wonderful as those in Baton Rouge. Our loyalty ran deep, like that of family. I feel like the level of honesty and loyalty that I want in a friend is uncommon in South Florida. It’s disturbing that people can be so inconsiderate of the feelings of people that are supposed to be their friends. A lot of bullshit has gone on behind my back this year in Jupiter, which I believe could have been prevented if people would have just considered the feelings of the other people involved in the situation. I would think that anyone around me could guess how I would react (uh badly, duh), plus I know that other people tried to drop hints about the inappropriate nature of the shit going on behind my back. There are certain things you just shouldn’t do. If you consider the feelings of others, you should be able to sort out what’s the best decision to make. Too bad I had no idea what was going on for months and that the people that knew didn’t tell me until I started asking very specific questions.

(3) My intuition is always right. I have second guessed my intuition. I was absolutely right, so I don’t understand why I felt like I had to dismiss my intuition with some lame excuse. I could have saved a couple critical experiments if I hadn’t dismissed my intuition! It's nice to see that my scientific intuition has developed so much this year. :)


Top 3 Resolutions:

(1) Save money. I would love to have money set aside at graduation time, because I don’t know if I’ll immediately have another source of income. I already have my bank account to automatically transfer money into my savings when I get paid, so that keeps me from spending my raise. I'd like to save more than just my raise this year though. We'll see if I can reach my goal.

(2) Control my temper. I’ve worked really hard to control my temper ever since my cussing out my labmate and making her cry last year. I’m known for picking out a person’s insecurities and turning screws into people over those insecurities during arguments. I usually don’t mean what I’m saying; but if I’m in a heated argument, I have a tendency to want to emotionally crush the person I’m arguing with. The combination of vicious insults and hardcore belittling will usually cause the other person to fuck off (… and cry). It’s not something that many people have witnessed, but I’ve been told it’s scary. In my attempts to control my temper this year, I’ve let things slide until they reach a tipping point. At that time, I try to peacefully talk through the situations instead of yelling and wanting to spit on the other person. (I consider spitting on someone to be the worst insult ever.) Given some of the unpleasant situations of the year, I really tried to handle them without snapping at people. Both of my closest friends (Heather and Jenn) were shocked to hear that I didn’t cuss anyone out or flip a table on anyone. Haha.

(3) Work on professional style, including not biting my nails! I make this resolution every year, but it’s time to really try to stop biting my nails. I went three weeks without biting them this year (a record!). That didn’t last when the worst of the drama was bubbling up. So here’s to trying again since the new year should be more peaceful!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Cooking at My Mom's

While I was home for the holiday, I made two new dishes. One was an Italian tofu from VwaV and the other was falafel. These photos aren't the best due to poor lighting in my mom's kitchen and the fact that I took them on my iPhone.


Italian Tofu
I didn't use the white cooking wine called for in the recipe, because this review said it was overpowering. I also didn't measure anything, but it was still tasty. I pan-fried the tofu instead of baking it, because I cut it in chunks to marinate overnight.

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Falafel
Sadly, the fried falafel doesn't store well in the fridge, so I didn't get tasty leftovers. I served the falafel in a wheat pita with lettuce, cucumbers, and Atheno's roasted red pepper hummus. (Recipe)

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