I've been attacked by a beast

This is just a repeat of a post i had before but removed, this needs to be here as i recover:

When I started this blog I had every intention of posting something new once a month, I realize it's been 3 months since my last post. The point for this blog was for me to have a creative outlet outside of my day to day work life; never did I imagine I would end up in a cube farm at my age, in my mind, by now I should have been in People magazine at least once, I was going to be a movie star or at least popular I would have done something "cool" that would have warranted me a page in this magazine I've been buying every week for the last 10 years or so if not more. But alas, it didn't work that way, I find myself in a call center like millions of other Americans across the country.

Which brings me to my beast, it's a very large one and not a pretty one, it’s not exactly a pet, it definitely is a beast and showed up absolutely uninvited and I wasn't ready for it. It kind of crept up on me, at first I thought it was just poking me a little to jolt me out of my boredom, and it may have been, but I didn't really listen I figured it would go away, kind of like an annoying little brother or sister that if you keep pushing back enough will eventually go away, so I assume anyway, my sister would know the answer to that better then me.

This beast does have a name and the name alone will give you the eeby jeebies, its name is Anxiety, yep! It took over my body, my mind and now my soul, I am at its mercy, but unlike when I was little and my brother would twist my arm and ask me to beg for mercy this is just not giving in, and god knows I have begged for mercy. I have fought it over and over but it seems to be winning and I have to now surrender to it and accept it is visiting for a while, now I just need to find a way to live with it, which is hard because it doesn't like anything I like. For example I love going outside and hanging out with friends, but the beast really doesn't and it sure lets me know of it. It also doesn't like going to baseball games, but it waited until I was all the way inside and in my seat to really let me know of that, to which I had to leave and walk all the way back to my car by myself against hundreds of fans.

I found out the hard way that it wasn't going to leave when I called in an exterminator and took some little white pills for it, it really didn't like that, it felt like I was trying to kick the devil out of me in some voodoo-like ritual! So I stopped that, but now not only do I have the beast residing in me I also have the remnants of the chemicals, not a very good combination.

So this is where I’ve been and I now need to make room for this thing, find out what it likes and befriend it and then maybe it will leave because I really don't think it wants to be my friend!

I will be back soon hopefully with a lighter funnier post!

Take care!

The proof is in the pie

A couple weeks ago I decided to make Lemon Meringue pie! Now most of you would probably think "big deal", as much as I talk about food chances are I probably bake a pie every now and then. The truth is, I had not baked a Lemon Meringue Pie in 13 years! That’s right! I love pie, it's my favorite dessert I prefer fruit pies, none of those Bostoncream pies or Oreo cookie pies but fresh, home made berry and fruit pies!

They are reminiscent of my childhood, growing up my mom made everything from scratch and in the summer it was all about berries and pies growing up in Quebec. We even picked our own berries, we would make it a big family outing, and we didn’t go to those farms on the site of the road with signed “Pick your Own”, no, we’d go to the woods and find berry patches, do you realize how dreadful it is to pick blueberries in the heat of August when you're 5??? Pretty darn dreadful, but the rewards are so sweet! There's nothing like a fresh warm piece of blueberry pie eaten after a good swim on a warm summer night and even more satisfying when you picked your own berries. My siblings and I swore at times we recognized the berries we had picked and would have fights over the very big ones, we just "knew" we picked the biggest raspberry or blueberry! Sometimes people try to feed me store bought crust and call it home made, but I always know the first bite I take. People have tried to fool me before and then they'd say something like "oh well I rolled it myself and dropped in the filling!!! THAT's not home made my friend, sorry!

Back to the Lemon Meringue pie, I used to make pies with my mom, I didn't even have to look at recipes anymore, I could just make dough, roll dough, drop whatever in the middle throw it in the oven and I’d have a pie so it was quite surprising one day when I made my Lemon Meringue pie and the meringue wouldn't work, so I tried and tried, I am not a quitter normally but after trying several times I just gave up and never made it again, so what I’m a tad bit stubborn! But with summer coming around the corner and I had these large lemons and it was just calling my name, I had to make it! And it was a success, well the meringue was, I was so focused on my meringue that I didn't quite perfect the filling, but that's something I can easily fix and definitely won’t wait 13 years!

That same week end I was talking with my son about my friends, how each one of them is so different, I have about 4 girlfriends that I am very close to and have known for some time now and each one of them is completely different from the other. I was out and about with one of them later that day and it struck me how she can be kind of like a lemon meringue pie, a little finicky and needy and everything has to be just so for it to be just right, yet so sweet and giving and fresh. You have to treat the lemon pie differently then the other ones because it's a bit more fragile but then so rewarding when you get to enjoy it!!! So all this comparison with this friend made me think about how each friend is just like a different pie, for example I have this life long friend, she can be best described as an apple pie, reliable and always exactly what you need when you reach for it. Warm and inviting, you just can't say no to a piece of apple pie. Then there's strawberry rhubarb pie, rhubarb makes no excuses for what it is, it just is, it knows where it stands and what it wants, but then you mix it up with a little strawberry, which is what happened to one of my friends a few years ago when she got a child and it softened some of those hard characteristic, but you can always count on the rhubarb to come through and tell you just how it is! Can't argue with that, rhubarb will get you to settle down and not be so aloof. And last but not least there's the blueberry pie, sweet and a little emotional, I mean blueberry pie is very nostalgic, but there's something about it that's so comforting and when you eat it it's like coming home, it knows your secrets and you know they’re safe right where they are. Blueberry pie is a bit darker and juicier then the others, a good mix of the good and the bad together, where you can just be yourself and surrender to it a little!

So maybe you know just what kind of pie you are or maybe you are still working on perfecting yourself, that’s the beauty of pie, it’s a little different every time!

Love you friends!

I should have taken a picture of my own pie but i ate it too quickly so here is an image from The Spill blog

Gasp!!!

This morning I woke up to both a very startling thought and a quite surprising one!

Even I was a bit shock at the audacity of my food obsessed mind to have gone where it did! Everyone can control their thoughts right? It's really not about the thoughts that come through your mind but what you do about them, is what they say! Some thoughts will shock you, others will just sort of pass by and wish to be caught and other ones just kind of jump in and make themselves right at home. This thought was one of those latter ones. It's just that I am one of those people whose lives revolve around the food I eat, not just "I need to have my three meals a day" or "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" kind of food obsession but the kind where my facebook status always involves food! What I ate how I ate it, when and with whom (or is it with whome?) and how it smelled, yes I am also one of those people who smell my food before I eat it.

The other day I actually found myself having a conversation with a co-worker about why it was so wrong that why the night before my burger had come with a whole wheat bun. No, no, I wasn't eating a cheeseburger and yet being health conscientious and having it with a wheat roll, it was a complete mistake where my friend ordered hers with the wheat bun and so mine came that way too. The thing is that wheat flour doesn't have as much gluten and therefore the bread comes apart more and doesn't hold the juices (read blood) as well as a good ol'white roll! As I was explaining this is when it really hit me how insane I am about my food, to go as far as understanding the chemistry of gluten in the bread and why you need white bread with a cheeseburger is a little insane isn't it? I just shrugged it off to low blood sugar talking!

Anyway, back to that thought I had this morning, I decided I would try out a raw food diet, this goes completely against all my food principals! This is coming from someone who once said, after finding a post on chowhound.com about vegetarian food in Italy "what is the point of going to Italy if you're vegetarian???" and having absolutely no shame to the words that had just come out of my mouth! I mean this was almost as bad as saying boys shouldn't be allowed to play with Barbies! I've always considered myself fairly open minded but quickly realized that day that in fact, I am not as liberal as I thought I was! I had to double check and make sure my registration card still showed that I was a democrat!

The whole idea is that I feel like I was very lazy over the winter and need to shed those 5 pesky pounds that have found their ways in all of my pants! How did they get there? Seriously? Although I think I might know the culprit, Darn Call of Duty: Modern warfare! I've played about 3 hours a day for the past 4 months. We have had a harsh winter in Florida, ok ok so it is Florida, harsh is a matter of perception, I mean we got stuck at 55 degrees for 4 months, no way I was going out there in the cold running. I was very thankful for my heated seats in my little Volvo, which I thought were absolutely ridiculous at the time of purchase but was so grateful for on those cold mornings. Anyway, so the 5 pounds have to go and I thought, what better way to expand my food horizons, experience new recipes and loose weight! Plus I can still have wine right? The grapes are raw? It's just stomped and fermented! I think cured meats are ok right? We are talking about raw not vegetarian right! ok I think I am sensing panic set in....I’ll get back with my experiences with the raw world, I may just have to come up with my own rules!

Santé everyone! Goodbye vodka sauce with sausage!

From a Source

I think it was the day when I posted on Facebook; where I post everything little possible detail of my life to the point that people in the cafeteria line at work know that my boyfriend is picking up rolls to go with his roast beef, that just "smelled so good around the house" the day before; that I was just relaxing reading magazines, to which my brother commented, "things don't change, my little sister surrounded with her magazine", that I realized that I may have a magazine obsession my whole life. While my brother's statement might be a little strong, he isn't too far off.

There were signs all along, like the time about 10 years ago when a boyfriend of mine moved in and he thought we should move my bed to a different corner of the room. We moved the bed only to find out, with complete embarrassment on my part that the floor under my bed was covered with about 50 magazines, anything from Maxim to Food & Wine.

There was also the time when I was moving from a small house and it was time to clear out the shed and I had about 5 pods filled with magazines and I was asked if it was really necessary to move these pods and I practically had a heart attack! What kind of question was that? I mean they all had little sticky notes and folded corners for future reference and I just wasn’t ready to give that up, even though they had been in there for months.

And then there is me trying to budget and/or justify a subscription to Architectural Digest, I mean it is $70 a year, that's pretty steep, so it is going to be a treat one day! Well at least that's what I vowed to myself after asking my dentist if I could have their copy of a 3 month old Architectural digest and he said no, no one ever turned me down before for a magazine and I decided I would show him and get my own someday.

My boyfriend keeps telling me that I really should subscribe to all these magazines but he just doesn't get it, the thing about magazines is not just about reading them and getting them in the mail as a matter of fact, I much prefer purchasing them at the counter, there is something about walking up to the register and seeing all your options, all the pictures, the most shocking stories. I'm like a little kid in a candy store, wondering who is going to be on the cover of people magazine (and even wishing a little that someday I could be on the cover of people, a secret wish of mine). I couldn't tell you what draws me to a particular magazine,

I remember when I was little and my step dad had boxes and boxes of National Geographic, I could sit there for hours reading those magazines and then recording "news reports" based on the stories I would read, I wish I still had those tapes, but I think my brother probably tapes some Sunday top 20 or maybe some Iron Maiden over them.

I am sure all of you have seen Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase, one of my favorite scene is the one of him in bed reading his magazine and then comes across a sticky page and fights with it for about 3 minutes, this brings me to tears every time!

Of course there are some things I don't like about magazines, the biggest one is probably when you read a story and then you need to go to the back to finish the story, why do they do that? I am going to have to research this, for some reason it just really chaps my hide, I wish I would just read the whole story and not have to worry about going back to that page and reading the next story.

And why is it that whenever you read an article and people are quoted it's always "a source" don't movie stars have friends and family members? Even when talking about something as mundane as nursery decoration or a meal that was served at a birthday party it will always be listed as "There was a chocolate cake with blue ribbon" stated a source of the family, I mean why couldn't it be "stated a cousin" or some other family member. Wouldn't be strange to have source speaking for you? Maybe when I’m in the people magazine I will be so lucky!

Happy reading!

Since everyone enjoys a photo, here is a photo from the National Geographic site;

Celebratory Day

When I started this blog my intent was to post at least once a week but life takes over sometimes and there is no room for the fun stuff like blogging.

Today we're celebrating my birthday early, and then I get to celebrate again on the day of my birthday and then again Friday with friends.

I am not one of those people who need to have a big party for my birthday, I’m just not one of those people in general but this year is a bit different. This year I made it a point that I wanted to be celebrated for my birthday!

Every year my brother, who's birthday is 7 days after my birthday, calls me about 2 weeks prior to remind me that our birthday is coming up and to make sure we cal each other. Now, while I say I have never really celebrated my birthday, I am also not very good at remembering other people's, but I always find it very cute that my brother makes a point of calling me every year to remind me. What I think is ever cuter is that he always calls it "our birthday" not birthdays or yours and my birthday but "our". It was always a big deal when we were little for my parents to celebrate us together so it became this event!

Maybe it's just with me getting older and being more appreciative of my family and the events in my life but this year more then any other year it struck me as very special that my brother makes this point every year. I was sharing this with my mom and she laughed and started to share things about us kids. There is me and then I have my brother who is 2 years older and my sister who is one year older then my brother and then we have an oldest brother who is a couple of years older then my sister. We are all so different, and all have very different food taste, and our lives have always revolved around food, so imagine my mom trying to make a meal that would please all of us, but that can be a different post in itself!

Back to the birthday, my mom did make sure to reiterate that, while we always celebrated "our birthday" we each had our own cake. So I asked her to tell me about those cakes and she said my brother always wanted chocolate and for me, it really didn't matter on the flavor, what was important was the picture on the cake. Now this struck me as very strange because today I absolutely love cake more then anything, but it has to be chocolate.

I love chocolate cake so much that when I asked my team at work to share with me their favorite cake they all replied with different flavors and I told them all that it was great but regardless of what, we were going to be having chocolate cakes on birthdays and none of that marble stuff!

So back to my birthday, this is now passed; as i mentioned before life took over and i started this post a week ago.

My brother and I did connect on my birthday, we played xbox live and killed a lot of people on team deathmatch, which is a long way from the Coleco Vision we used to play as kids.

My birthday was great, I treated myself to a pedicure and manicure, which ended up involving food, well not really food you eat but I went a step up from the regular pedicure and the girl used fresh grapefruit on my legs!! It was very cool, but between having shaved my legs that morning (should have thought that one out me) and the sugar scrub she gave me right before it might not have been the best idea!!

The celebrations ended with a food orgy at the Chinese restaurant on Friday, why is it that we feel that we have to order so much food every time I really don't know! We all want a little bit of something and then end up with way too much.

So now back to our regular programming that is the Winter Olympics! Love that!

I'll be back shortly this time!

"Some girls save for shoes, I save for food"

Such was my answer to the deli girl this morning, when she tells me the salami i am about to purchase is actually $59.95 a pound. Now let me explain something to you, I love Salami and cured ham, I mean I love it in a way that I could cover my body with it in all kinds of varieties, take pictures of myself and rub it all over, love it!! But that belongs in a different blog that I'm just not about to write!!


I was in Norcia, Italy a couple years ago and I have to say that's where Heaven is at least where I want to go when I go to heaven! Everything is about pork and salami, i treated myself to this baby:

a delicious variety of hams and salamis, which is all in the same category as far as I'm concerned.

So that's what I spend my money on, so when she told me the price of my Iberico Ham I didn't even flinch, though my heart did jump a tiny bit bit until I realized my boyfriend had walked away for just a moment and had not heard her so then I could relax again. I was as giddy as a 3 year old in front of a cupcake! I pretty much salivated all the way home and still am actually!

You would think I would have ravaged through the package before I even got home, maybe even before I got to the car!

But the truth is, I haven't even opened the package yet, deli girl wrapped in nicely in a brown paper, unlike my other salamis which ended up in a regular plastic wrap!

So then my thought was I'll just spread my three salamis on a plate and eat them slowly taking little bites of each and just lovin' it. I got some Finnochiono and a toscan salami, I forget the name.

So back to my Iberco, now that I have it, I can't find the best way to eat it, do I casually rip it off the plastic and drop it in my mouth? Should I pour a nice glass of wine plug in a foreign movie and savor it slowly for the duration of the movie? Even more important, do I share this moment with anyone else? Should it be a big production where I make the most of it? I do have obsessive compulsive tendencies, well they may be a bit more then tendencies but that's neither here nor there is it? that's not the point but i still feel like I might miss out if I don't make the most of that moment, like it won't taste the same.

I don't know the answers to these questions but I am sure I will think of a way to eat it.......that will probably result in me ravaging through it when I come back home tonight after a yummy meal at my friend's house still feeling a little empty inside like something is still missing.

Thunder Crashing

Maybe it's because I am having a bad day today and I am just bitter or maybe i am finally feeling a little creative, but I thought it was time to finally write in this blog I created a couple of months ago but left empty! Who does that? Start a blog and leaves it empty? No one! Everyone has something clever to say right? This is our new world, blogging, chatting, facebooking?? (is that a new word maybe) Then why was I not more eager to put all my thoughts on here for everyone to see and read.

Well I woke up grouchy this morning and kind of irritated with everything, including this article I am reading in Vanity Fair called "Addicted to cute" it seems like everyone thinks they are original, have the best ideas and are most creative. It's become a competition of who is wittier, cutier, funnier or more original.

Take me for instance, about 6 months ago I was so tired of my hair, it was long and hippyish and never styled and I needed to get it out of the way so I put it in a side pony tail and it looked pretty darn good and guess what I was different! No one wore their hair in a side pony tail, not since 1988! But to my dismay I started seeing all kinds of people doing it! Were they copying me? Did I start up a new trend? Or maybe it was just that I subconsciously did something everyone else was already doing. So I missed my chance at being clever and different.

Then this morning I am reading my culinaria Spain cookbook. I discovered this cookboook series last year in the bargain bin and Barnes and Nobles, and being the foodie that I am just hadtohaveit. I thought again I was so original, no one else would be bothered to buy these, right? So this morning my thunder came crashing again when I did a search for other books in the series and came across a blog based on this series and a bunch of people were posting and knew about them, someone beat me to it! and there went my clever blog!