Gabrielle Anwar

I like her a lot. I think she's great. "Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken" is just the kind of movie I was into as a kid, so I was obsessed with it. Now she rocks big time on "Burn Notice", and makes rompers, wedges, and fanny-packs look cooler than they would ever look on anyone else.

My only concern?
She's looking a bit damn skinny.

Gabrielle, in the interest of keeping your fabulous cheekbones from cutting right through your skin, I recommend the book "The Perfect Scoop". Start with the Ice Cream chapter. Work your way through. Repeat.

Reverie Interruptus

So I AM in the midst of making my own ice cream today, being at the crucial "letting the base chill completely" phase right now. I'm not posting my account of the actual process yet, because it ain't done. But I will tell you this...

After I had finished the custard and was letting it chill in an ice bath before transferring it to the fridge, I was cleaning up after myself in kind of a daze. I tasted the base of my ice cream, and it was so resplendently tasty that it sent me into a "what if ice cream changes my life" kind of cloud. I began envisioning starting from the ground up, making crazy-fantastic ice creams and selling it small-scale locally. I began envisioning opening a cafe that specialized in custard-based ice creams, also selling coffee, eventually expanding to be a full-fledged cafe. And in the midst of this...



I broke a glass in the sink. Luckily, it broke into big pieces and wasn't one that I particularly cared about (hooray for POM Wonderful and their juices/teas that come in reusable glasses!). Funny thing is that Matt recently broke one of 'em too. Luckily, there are 2 brand new glasses Matt got from McDonald's waiting and ready to go.



What are the odds?
Call it the Conservation of Glassware Law.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of the hamburgers/french fries/ice cream I'll be consuming tonight, I'm being all healthy and chowing on a quinoa dish I made a couple days ago with garbanzo beans, basil, sun-dried tomatoes, and some olive oil. Yum.

CRLLL - Impending knowledge, impending doom, impending increased LDL cholesterol level...

I just ordered an ice cream mixer attachment for my KitchenAid mixer.

Along with this book.

I'm in soooooo much trouble.

However, I feel like I'm more likely to feel like making ice cream than pies. Especially now that it's July, when the regular temperature in the Valley hovers pretty steadily between 90 - 105 mid-day, and the temperature in my apartment can range from "comfortable" to "surface of Mars on a particularly hot, red day".

But please. This book has recipes for things like Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream, Saffron Ice Cream, Tiramisu Ice Cream and Roquefort-Honey Ice Cream.

THAT'S ICE CREAM WITH BLUE CHEESE, FOOL.

When my heart just stops beating, know that I died happy.

Unexpected, but unavoidable.

This Saturday resulted in a few unexpected acquisitions for me.

First off, I swung by Nic a.k.a. Normandie Wilson's yard sale, because she has impeccable taste and I was looking to pick up some of her stuff on the cheap and do my part to chip in towards her upcoming tour. (Whooo! Music For Smart People!) I got a bunch of eyeshadows and a bottle of nailpolish (awesome, because Nic buys the good stuff), a picnic basket (which I plan to pack with goodies and take with me to see my pal JR's production of The Tempest with ISC this Friday), a mic stand with a nice pop screen for Matt, and a few other things. Fun times. Then I hit up the Santa Monica Farmers Market, which I'm trying to do more often (just going to farmers markets in general) so that I get less intimidated by them and it becomes part of my weekend routine. Then I went to Trader Joe's for a few things I couldn't get at the market... and that's when I saw it.

I was driving past, I saw it, and I went back around the block after thinking about it because I knew that I would regret letting it go if I didn't at least check it out.



As you can deduce by this picture, a) it was a couch, b) it was adorable, and c) I bought it.

I regret nothing!

Recently learned... and NOT learned...

I tried to teach myself to knit. After about 4 hours, I had this...



... which was looking worse and getting wider with every line. I decided to hold off and wait to actually find someone who can teach me to knit properly.



I also glued some pom-pom trim onto an old bookshelf, which I think looks pretty snazzy.



After Matt's birthday party, he got a cold, so I made him my fail-safe cold busting soup. Guess what the secret ingredient is...




And then last weekend, I made a pie.

I called it Fail Pie. It was actually strawberry rhubarb with a lattice top, but as you can see...



... it was also Fail Pie. Here is a picture of Fail Pie sitting on the windowsill to cool.



However, as you can see, the fact that I put WAY too much filling inside the pie causing it too ooze out like it was trying to escape (due to my refusal to listen to the recommended filling amount) had absolutely no bearing on how it tasted (i.e. delicious).




What did we learn, Dana? If you overload your fruit pie, much of that excess filling will run out, drip onto the bottom of your oven, and burn.

Ahhh, learning.

A photographic recap of Matt's 30th birthday.

What have I been up to?

Not learning Spanish, that's for damn sure.

*sigh*

I was busy!

First, there was Matt's birthday.

We started out celebrating at the stroke of midnight. So, after Matt's folks dropped us off at home we ran out and got supplies.



Yeah. Champagne and toilet paper. Champagne for celebrating and toilet paper because, well, we were out.

The next day, Matt was definitely looking older.



*shudder* Anyhow, the impending party entailed a lot of prep work. The theme of the evening was "Matt's Too Old For This Shit", in a nod to the line made famous by Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon. So, we got a keg...



... which was rather adorable. And then I made a crap-ton of cupcakes and Jell-O shots.



The cupcakes had a rather obscene amount of food coloring in them. Far too much for anyone over the age of 12 to need. Yes, the batter was JUST that orange.



And you might be able to see them on the bottom shelf in the picture of my fridge, but they were topped with blue-dyed "frosting". They were pina colada cupcakes (as found in Hungry Girl 200 Under 200!) with some minor edits. I did put rum into the cupcake batter, as a nod to my days putting rum into my roommate's pancakes.

Now, during parties, I'm notorious for taking pictures very sporadically. So it's never a really good representation of the event. Never have me try to capture the essence of some special party for you, because you will be sorely disappointed. Anyhow, here are a few snaps. (Oh snap!)







Taken through the ceiling fan. Fail.






Mark, Jonica, and Dylan are all wondering if it's gonna work this time.




Me and Teresa Kryzwyzwyzw Kryzwkicki.









Teresa trying to give Matt a backrub. It looks worse than it is. I swear she wasn't feeling him up.






Orion, just before leaving, stone-cold sober yet for some reason looking drunker than anyone else present.





Me and Teresa and her girls Krystyna (sp?) and Laura, who were my homies by the end of the night.





Our note-board was full of doodles and birthday wishes by the end of the night...






Aaaaaand then I ate Matt's brains.

CRLLL - It's a step!

For those of you with poor short-term memory, CRLLL = Caring, Responsible Life-Long Learner.

Guess who's learning Spanish?



Damn right, it's me!