treefroggirl

posted by Thomas on Nov 14

I am LONG overdue for this Meme…

RULES:

* Post at least five current addictions (with some details, please).
* Mention the person who started this meme (Being Brazen) and also the person who just tagged you – The Noble Savage.
* Type your post with the heading “Current addictions”.
* Tag at least two people and pass on the above rules.

1. Coffee

It’s a problem. Although today I am doing green tea but that is because we are out of milk and I am too lazy to go buy some. Started doing coffee at Uni. At first it was a necessary evil in order to stay awake when I was cramming- I had tried caffeine pills but had managed to give myself caffeine poisoning a couple of times. Not pleasant. Then I started to like the taste of coffee. If I let myself, I can have a pot or more a day.

2. Red Wine

When I was young, my parents would sometimes give us little glasses of wine on Christmas or Thanksgiving. I always gave mine to my sisters who happily gulped it down. (Portends of things to come.) It was vile. I used to think I didn’t like alcohol. Now I know that my parents just had really terrible taste. Luckily in the intervening years I have worked on my madre’s palate.

My problem with red wine is it is so easy to polish a bottle off in a night.

It’s a problem.

3. Ale

God bless the Sumerians.

Those of you that read this or my twitter feed or have been on the piss with me know that I can drink quite a few pints.

It’s a problem.

4. Sushi

I could eat sushi everyday. There is a restaurant in Old Town Pasadena (A’Float Sushi- is fantastic. Cheap yet still amazing) I would go to at least once a week when I worked there. When I walked in the door, one of the waiters always said “Hello, Miss Nicole.” The act of writing this is making me want to go get some sushi.

It’s a problem.

5. Torturing myself by looking at 1950’s inspired clothing I want to buy.

What Katie Did I could easily spend £500 right now there. I’ve wanted to go shopping for ages, but I have held myself back because I don’t want to drop the cash on a corset when I am the size I am at now. They also have a shop here in London, but I have controlled myself from visiting.

Candy Anthony Eveningwear and Bridal It’s probably a good thing I did not know about them when I was planning my wedding. What annoys me is this is exactly what I was looking for in the US and I couldn’t find anything. I have told myself when I turn 40 (years from now. well. two years. well year and eight months) that I am throwing myself a big stupid party and buying a bright scarlet dress from her and painting the town red.

ReVamp VintageBased in LA, they make designs for men and women based on styles from 1910-1950. I’ve never ordered from them, but they are on my clothing porn list.

Red Dress Shoppe When she had her brick and mortar shop in Pasadena and I was 30 pounds thinner, I spent a LOT of money here. Now she is only online.

Daddy-O’s See above about the money and weight. I have 20 dresses from there in my closet that I can’t fit in at the moment. Most of their stuff is from Stop Staring.

So. It’s clear I need to lay off the coffee, wine, beer and sushi so I can fit in the dresses I own and buy some new ones…

If you would like to do this meme, consider yourself tagged!

posted by Thomas on Aug 16

Stuart takes a bottle of bud light out of the mini fridge in the TV room.

It’s 10:30 AM. I just woke up but he has been up since 7AM and slept 13 hours.

“Wanna know what I had for breakfast?” He popped the top off of the beer.

“Hum?”

“Two bud lights–”

“Stuart. For breakfast?”

“I had other things. Besides it was noon at home. I’m legal.”

“It’s always 5 PM somewhere.”

“Two bowls of cornflakes–”

“With the beer?”

“Not WITH the beer. Two cans of diet coke, some cookies, that nice processed cheese–”

“That’s a two word stupid. Nice processed–”

“It is nice cheese! And a bowl of cookie dough ice cream.”

I raised my eyebrow. It isn’t often that Stuart does bulemia without the vomiting eating. That is usually my MO.

“Then I watched a documentary on Elvis. About his excesses before he died. . . ”

I snorted.

Stuart swigged his beer, “Why are you laughing?”

posted by Thomas on Aug 13

Soon I will be floating in my parent’s pool or in the ocean.

Stuart and I leave tomorrow to visit my folks in Charleston, where I will be doing very little other than cause myself serious skin damage.

I’m all packed. I am now a master packer. When I go on business trips I even just take a carry on. I still take a ton of stuff, but instead of five pairs of shoes I take two.

The last two years at this time we have gone on a road trip. Last year was Spain and the year before was France. Both years we had an amazing time but it was go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go and this year I really just needed to have some sun to help get me through the approaching darkness.

When I lived in California, I had no idea. I mean I knew the weather was good. I lived in Seattle for two years before LA, but after a year you forget. You think it’s normal to wear a short sleeve dress in April and to crank up the AC.

Not to say the weather is that bad here. It really isn’t. It’s not Russia or Chicago. It just isn’t Maui, but then again few places are.

So we’re off. Off for some sun and cervaza and food and hanging out with the parentals.

Then we have to come back and get cracking. Lots of things to get done. Work is going to heat up plus finishing the play plus exercising.

Winter is coming grasshopper. . .

posted by Thomas on May 28

I was asked (by it appears someone who de-lurked- hello!) to post the recipe for my Monday roast. . . so here it is! There is a bit of a bite to it. So if you don’t do spicy. You won’t like it.

It was an organic top round roast. Rubbed salt and pepper on it then a mixture of ground cumin, chilli powder, cayenne pepper and minced garlic (fresh only please none of that jar abomination).

Let it sit in the fridge all day.

Pre-heat the oven to 150 C. I roasted until the meat thermometer said rare- Think it’s broken though as it wasn’t as pink as I would prefer. Think next time I would drop the temp slightly to do a slower roast. It took a couple of hours.

Set the meat aside with foil over it for 15, 20 minutes. Deglaze the pan with red wine and reduce. Add any juices from the meat.

Slice the meat as thinly as you can and serve with the red wine gravy.

Artichokes steam with minced garlic and olive oil drizzled over. If you bother to cut the tops off, squeeze lemon over so the don’t discolour.

Asparagus lightly steam then sauté (briefly!!) in a bit of olive oil with salt and fresh pepper.

Green salad

Easy breezy Cover-Girl.

posted by Thomas on Apr 6

I’m in New York City for the Performance Improvement Conference- and god knows that I need to improve. Should be good stuff- although the classes that I have picked for myself are rather telling. They include:

Storytelling Impacts Performance
Have a Nice Conflict
The Narrative Spark: Leveraging the Instructional Power of Story
Training to Image: Improvisational Tools for Enhancing Performance

Even though my flight arrived at 11:40, I wasn’t sitting in my hotel until a little after 3PM for reasons too tedious to report in their minutia, so I have seen nothing of New York other than the view of Times Square from my window.

Last night there was a little opening session and reception at 5:30- but given that I had gotten up at 5:00 GMT I wasn’t up to having conversations where I would have to pretend to be an intelligent, thoughtful, funny and interesting person and all I had in me was, “Guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Which way did he go George?” I decided it would be best to not attend. So I called Janelle and we made plans for me to walk to her apartment and hang out for a couple of hours.

At 4:45 I knew that wasn’t going to happen so I cancelled, ordered a very tasty but ridiculously overpriced hamburger from room service and was in bed by 6:45 PM.

Of course I then got up at 4AM. The plan was to wait for the sun to rise and then go for a walk. Then I got hungry around 5:30 so at 6 I ordered a very tasty but ridiculously overpriced Denver omelette and trolled around online.

Today, when I’m done at 5, after many classes on how to enhance knowledge, know-how and results, my plan is to put on my walking shoes, walk to central park, walk back, get ready for dinner and then go have a very large, ridiculously overpriced and hopefully very tasty steak.

posted by Thomas on Mar 24

STUART: What are you doing for dinner?

NICOLE: Might run to the store. I fancy lamb. You?

STUART: Going to make my salad. Would you like some?

NICOLE: Um. I don’t know. What is your salad?

STUART: Beetroot, hard-boiled eggs, grated cheese. Mild cheddar. Cheaper the better, salad cream and crisps. Using frazzles tonight. . . Why are you looking at me like that?

NICOLE: How did you learn to make this meal? Was it passed down in your family for generations or is it something you came up on your own?

STUART: My salad is nice. Don’t knock it. What are you doing?

NICOLE: Texting Al your ‘salad’ recipe and that I think it is a good cause to divorce you.

STUART: Giving away my salad secrets!

NICOLE: Yes Stuart. I am. In fact Gordon Ramsey may very well steal it and put it on the menu at Claridges.

STUART: Where?

NICOLE: Never mind.

STUART: You know I can cook. I know you say I can’t but I can. I got an A in Home Economics I’ll have you know. I know how to make fish fingers and chips. . .What are you doing? You’re writing this down???

NICOLE: What else can you make Stuart?

STUART: I’m not going to tell you. You’ll just go around telling everybody.

NICOLE: What else can you make?

STUART: My casserole is really nice.

PAUSE

STUART: You take a dish and you cook some chicken.

NICOLE: You can cook chicken?

STUART: Yes, I can cook chicken!

NICOLE: How do you cook the chicken?

STUART: I don’t know! So you put the chicken in the bottom of the dish, add a bit of gravy, layer some chunky chips on top, squirt brown sauce all over the whole thing then mix it up with a wooden spoon.

NICOLE: Do you bake it all?

STUART: No. It’s already hot.

NICOLE: What else can you make?

STUART: Spaghetti.

NICOLE: And how do you—

STUART: Basically you just microwave it. What???

NICOLE: I’m intrigued. What else is in your repertoire?

STUART: Glazed chicken.

NICOLE: How did you glaze the chicken?

STUART: I. . . I glazed it with a sauce that I like.

NICOLE: Brown sauce.

STUART: I burned brown sauce on it, yes!

NICOLE: Burned?

STUART: That’s what glazed chicken is isn’t it? Listen, this is food that I like. I know it isn’t what you would do. You should try my potatoes with breadcrumbs.

NICOLE: Potatoes with—

STUART: You take potatoes and—

NICOLE: –cover them in breadcrumbs. Yeah. I got it.

STUART: You can cover chicken or fish in breadcrumbs. Why not potatoes?

NICOLE: You should go on masterchief.

STUART: My favorite thing I ever made was a candle burger.

NICOLE: I’m sorry. A. . . what?

STUART: Candle burger.

NICOLE: I don’t get it.

STUART: You make a burger. Then take a candle and put it in the bun.

PAUSE

NICOLE: Like a birthday cake?

STUART: No, not like a birthday cake! It’s a hamburger.

NICOLE: Sorry. How silly of me.

posted by Thomas on Mar 19

“Stuart? What time do we get back Sunday?”

We are going to Rome this weekend. I’d planned on staying in London for the long four-day Easter weekend, but a few weeks ago I came home to find that Stuart had done a drunken Expedia purchase.

“Five.”

“So I won’t have time to make Easter dinner then. Okay. Maybe I’ll do it Monday.”

“Easter dinner?”

“Easter dinner.”

“What do you mean Easter dinner?”

“You know. A meal. On Easter. Where Christians and those that are no longer Christian but still carry on the trappings of Christian celebration get together and eat some form of roast beast.”

“What do you have?”

“I usually make lamb.”

“I’ve never heard of this.”

“You’re kidding. You must be.”

“No.”

“This is a fairly common thing Stuart. A lot of people go home to spend time being tortured by their families.”

“Yeah. No. Never heard of it. Is Al going home?”

“Trying to get out of it. He’s debating between telling them he stepped on a land mine and blew off his leg or food poisoning. I pointed out that the land mine route might not be the best as it would require cutting off his leg at least by Christmas, but he said it was worth it. . . How can you have never heard of Easter dinner? Did you never go home for it?”

“Well, yeah. But just to get my Easter candy.”

* Kinder Surprise is like Cracker Jack. Except different.

posted by Thomas on Mar 13

My boss is visiting from the US and we went to dinner tonight at The Lowlander, a Belgian café that has as any good Belgian café would, excellent Moules Frites and an extensive beer selection.

I always order Westmalle Dubbel because I like the taste. The fact that it is 7% alcohol content is a pleasant side effect.

Our waiter was Japanese and kept saying cheers in that knee jerk way that all expats including myself do.

When we were leaving, after I had consumed my Moules Fritte and three Westmalle Dubbels, he suggested that I be sure to drink some water so that I wouldn’t be dehydrated.

I controlled myself from patting his cheek and saying, “Oh sweetie. You have NO idea. . .”

posted by Thomas on Mar 8

Stuart is in China for work. Got the following text this morning:

These guys don’t mess about. Finally found a place to eat, or so I thought. Ordered chicken soup. It turned out to be a huge bowl with a dead baby chicken complete with head. 2pm here and I’m starving.

Poor thing. . .I gave him a call.

“I was in a Wal-Mart, and some crabs escaped and people were just walking around them. They’re nuts here. “

“Crabs, like little pet crabs?”

“No crabs like big fuck off eat them with cocktail sauce. They have a huge fish section. You’d love it here. Other than being in the Wal-Mart.”

(I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart because of their poor labor practices.)

“Have you eaten yet?”

“Umm. Not really.”

“I was worried about this. Maybe ask at the hotel to send you to a place that will help you pick something.”

“Yeah. Did you read my text about the chicken?”

“Yeah. Did you eat any of the soup?

“I tried, but the baby chicken was bobbing under the surface and it kept looking at me. Slightly put me off.”

“Maybe you should have eaten it.”

“Yeah. That will teach it to watch me while I’m eating dinner.”

posted by Thomas on Mar 6

We have been having a rash of robberies in the office recently. Software people order doesn’t arrive. Small items left on their desks go missing. This week Ross had a box of muesli nicked.

They may be thieves, but I suppose it’s good to know that they have a balanced diet of whole grains.