Top 10 Things I Have An Irrational Fear Of

This post is inspired by my hesitation to get into the shower last night since the drain strainer thingie is broken. That will make more sense in a moment I hope. In the meantime, here is my list of the top 10 things I have an irrational fear of in no particular order.

10- Blatantly open drains with no drain strainer thingie on them (I don't even like to reach down into the garbage disposal area if something gets stuck): This may seem silly, unless you have seen the movie Stephen King's It and then it should be understandable. Which leads me to my next one. . .

9- Clowns: Seriously, what the hell is up with these guys? Ugh!

8- Dolls: They remind me of clowns in a way and there is nothing worse than a doll dressed as a clown with the creepy make-up and the blank stare. If you wonder about how someone develops pediophobia (which sounds more like "fear of pedophiles" than "fear of dolls") then I would encourage you to watch the first Child's Play movie.

7- Heights: I get woozy and feel like vomiting just standing on a ladder so that was great when I played Emily in "Our Town" my senior year of high school and had to stay on a 12 foot ladder that was intended to mime my upstairs bedroom for a significant period of time.

6- Being trapped: Which easily ties in with my dislike for elevators and bathroom stalls with tricky latches. I was watching the "Buried Alive" segment on the show Mythbusters the other night and thought I was going to have to turn it off because I couldn't stand seeing the guy getting buried in the coffin while still alive. Which also ties in to my issue with. . .

5- The Dark: This one is pretty typical of small children but embarrassingly enough and much to my mother's chagrin, I had a nightlight until I was 12 and used to fall asleep with a light on all the time back when I lived by myself. Go ahead and laugh. I still do until that shadow starts to take on the shape of the latest escapee from prison.

4- People Sneaking Up On Me From Behind: Don't do it. Not even as a joke. Just trust me and the boys who have shin scars from my kicking them.

3- Social Events: I am a seemingly very extroverted person with extensive public speaking and performance experience and even I still dread the mingling with strangers and mindless small talk. I want to become a hermit just thinking about it and thanks to the current weather situation in Seattle, I may actually achieve that status (I haven't left my house since Tuesday and it is now Friday just to give you an idea).

2- Childbirth: The thought of birthing another human that will inevitably look like an old man or an alien or both from my loins not only petrifies me but disgusts me. Hopefully adoption laws lighten up in the near future because I don't think I can mentally handle feeling something moving inside of me and kicking my bladder for an extended period of time. Plus there's the whole ickiness of water breaking, and blood, and stitches, and something called afterbirth (whatever that is) to contend with. Surely some nice 17 year old out there wants to be adopted into a "good" home?

1- Creatures with more than 4 legs or less than 2: I especially take issue with spiders, bees/wasps/anything that stings, the family of pedes, and those ugly bastards that can survive a nuclear holocaust, cockroaches. Snakes would fall into this category but I am less bothered by them than those listed in the previous sentence. I am cringing and shaking my head just thinking about it. I am grateful to have cats that point out when something invades our sanctuary so that I can get rid of it prior to it defiling our living space. Apparently they are also good for keeping scorpions away, which was an added bonus during our stint in Arizona. Amputees are exempt from this category as they cannot help their situation and pose less of a threat than that hobo in the corner (meaning spider, not homeless train-hopping person).

The Particular Sadness of This Book

I will just cut to the chase here: I did not enjoy Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. What began as something I perceived to be a touching story of family trials and triumphs ended in a "what the hell?" moment that resulted in my questioning the decision to finish this book. That being said, I will give the author props for a unique concept and style. The book was definitely interesting, but tedious.

What probably contributed to the tediousness factor is the fact that dialogue throughout the novel is not separated by traditional quotation marks that we as readers are accustomed to seeing in order to process conversation within a story. Also, I kept waiting for a climatic moment and what could possibly be considered that intended moment ended up being too inconceivable to appreciate. I should have known better considering that the story is based on a young girl's ability to taste the feelings of the people who cook the food she eats. I am likely too much of a realist to appreciate the potentially haunting beauty behind this story. Unfortunately for me, I didn't take this into account and now that ends up being several hours of my life I can never reclaim invested in a piece of literature I did not care for with characters I could not connect to for whatever reason.

I Heart You, Laurie Notaro!

Let me preface this post by saying that I have read every Laurie Notaro book published up to this point and have found each one able to be related to and delightful. The publishers who initially turned her down thus forcing her to publish her first book herself should be ashamed as she is a fantastic writer who puts the awkwardness of being a woman out there for all to enjoy. Her latest book, It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy was probably my favorite out of all of them. I found myself laughing out loud to the point of scaring my cats (and probably my boyfriend, come to think of it).

For those of you not familiar with this glorious gem of a writer, Notaro is mostly known for her collections of humorous essays on the everyday events of her life that tend to take not so everyday twists, typically ending in some sort of self-deprecation or embarrassment. She does have a couple of fiction novels that are also funny, but it is her autobiographical collections that keep me coming back for more. Perhaps I take sick pleasure in the misery of others and their misfortune. Most likely though, it is because I believe we all have a bit of Laurie lurking inside us. All those insecurities, moments of realizing clothing doesn't fit the way we planned, interactions with crazy neighbors, being the crazy neighbor. . . The only difference is so many of us women try to hide our idiosyncrasies and eccentricities while Notaro shares hers repeatedly and reminds us that we needn't take life so seriously.

I not only applaud you for your awesomeness, Laurie, but I look forward to continuing to read your creations for years to come.

Barbara O'Neal's "The Lost Recipe for Happiness" Equates the Lost Recipe for a Good One Day Read

Recently I stumbled upon The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O'Neal by randomly roaming the shelves at the library looking for something with an interesting cover/title to read. I didn't realize at the time that I had already read one of the author's other books, How to Bake a Perfect Life, which I would also recommend. The title alone drew me in and someone who loves to cook and who perpetually searches for happiness. I enjoyed this book enough to read the entire thing in one sitting, and while I don't recommend doing that necessarily, I do recommend adding this to your womanly reading repertoire.

The story revolves around chef Elena Alvarez, who got fired from her sous chef position at a restaurant by her former mate and executive chef after she was the primary focus of an article that was supposed to be about the restaurant. As she is leaving, she is approached by the owner of the restaurant who also happens to be a Hollywood director. He remembers her from when she started out at one of his other restaurants and wants her to come be the executive chef at a new place he is opening in Aspen. This is her dream of course, so Elena packs up her dog and heads off to embark on the challenges of moving to a new place, starting a restaurant, and fighting the ghosts of her past so that she can open her mind, heart, and soul to what lies ahead.

The story is engaging with its mysterious references to the main character's teenage tragedy, allusions to possible romance, and realistic depiction of the process of opening a restaurant. Since I am a foodie whose family has worked in that industry, I can appreciate how demanding the career is depicted because I have witnessed it first hand. Between trying to prove she can be a success in the kitchen and ensuring she remains physically able to do so as she contends with pain from the life-changing accident, the reader is left to wonder if Elena will in fact be able to find the happiness she seeks. Something I also thought cool about the story was the incorporation of how growing up half-Mexican in New Mexico impacted the main character. There is an emergence of Latino presence in modern literature, but sometimes the emphasis on what sets the characters apart culturally ends up detracting from the story line. In this case, the cultural influences are balanced and tied into the plot very well.

I look forward to reading this author's other two books soon!

Shocker: I Still Suck at Blogging

New year, new opportunity to suck less perhaps? We shall see. For now though, I am going to give this another start and share what I've been up to lately. After only a year and a half in the blazes of hell level heat in Arizona, I managed to rererelocate back to the Pacific Northwest. Before you think I write out how I stutter or didn't notice my spelling error, the 3 "re"s are intentional as this is my THIRD time moving back to the Seattle area. Um, third time is a charm I guess? At any rate, I am super fantastically happy to be back to my beloved grunge originating area and am thoroughly enjoying the experience with my domestic partner, Jacob. So far, I have enjoyed numerous walks, lots of great restaurants, and some of the most beautiful scenery in the United States. I have also been getting well acquainted with the library down the street, which you will be seeing the fruits of that labor shortly as I embark on reviewing my 2012 reads thus far in an attempt to get back into the blogging swing of things. On a crazy note, I have also taken up hot yoga since moving here which is ridiculous since I hate heat (I thought I was going to perish this past summer in Phoenix but somehow survived by the grace of God and the invention of coconut water with electrolytes). All in all, life is damn good right now and I just want to share that with whoever may be reading this. Namaste!

Oopsie in the Kitchen Turns Into Yummy!

Earlier this past week I tackled a dish similar to a veal piccata I once partook of in a restaurant here (I swear I will eventually get caught up on my restaurant reviews) only it's made with chicken and sadly involves no wine. I made the unfortunate mistake of misreading the recipe since it talked about the fresh lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of zest up front. Apparently that was supposed to be set aside to use later for the sauce but blonde me misunderstood and cooked the chicken in it instead. That being said, the chicken was moist and action-packed with flavor. Also the "sauce" with capers turned out tasty. It even maintained its flavor the next day when reheated as leftovers. Phew, because that would have been sad if I had completely messed up a fairly simple dish like that just because of something silly. My kitchen Tourette's definitely kicked in when i discovered the mistake.

Later in the week though I found an actual mistake in the recipe I was using and was able to thankfully adjust accordingly in time since it was Blondies I was trying to bake to take as dessert to dinner at a friend's homestead across the valley. What sold me on this particular recipe is the integration of butterscotch chips. So delicious! Needless to say they didn't last long.

This coming week I have a couple of things pending, one simple and one more complex, neither of which are desserts surprisingly. Knowing me though, I may just throw in a dessert for good measure.

Italian Theme Night. . .

In this week's culinary adventure, I decided to go back to my trusty Williams-Sonoma international cookbook to give the Italian section a whirl. The whole idea is to challenge myself during this quest to become a stellar cook so I made a rule for myself that I wouldn't try anything typical or with red/marinara sauce. I needed to step it up a bit for this section because I have already altered my mom's spaghetti sauce "recipe" to the point that it's going to be hard to duplicate and/or top since it's progressively gotten better each time I make it and try something a little different to add flavor. I knew I definitely wanted a dessert, but I couldn't just do dessert and not a main dish because really anything with sugar is good. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I have a sweet tooth so doing just a dessert seemed like kind of a cop out.

I found a dish to try that was similar to something my boyfriend had ordered at a well-renowned restaurant in the area a few weeks back. The dish of choice: Orecchiette with Sausage. Didn't look too hard at first, but then again i have never cooked using sweet Italian sausage or broccoli rabe. I actually had to ask the produce guy which vegetable the broccoli rabe was because I forgot to look up a picture of it online prior to going and making an ass of myself by asking such a question at a store known specifically for their produce. Luckily produce guy was very helpful and even offered tips for sautéing that perhaps I can try another time. The dish involved a lot of multitasking, but realistically you cannot go wrong with something that has melted cheese and olive oil toasted bread crumbs so it was well worth it. So well worth it in fact that the significant other declared it better than the similar dish he had at renowned restaurant, which is why I intentionally left out the name of the place because it has an actual chef on staff that puts a lot of thought into designing seasonal menus using local produce when possible. I liked it okay. It grew on me throughout the meal because it had my favorite spice, red pepper in flake form. I definitely plan to make this dish again, or at least incorporate more dishes with the not-so-mysterious-as-I-initially-thought broccoli rabe.

Even better in my book was my first attempt at making Panna Cotta, garnished with blackberries. This dessert is so easy I wonder why more people don't opt for this over making cheesecake or pies. Seriously, the hardest part was scraping out the vanilla bean pod (resulting in suspicious cut on finger tip that not only did I not feel, but also did not notice until well after the fact). Heavy cream, sugar, milk, vanilla. . . So tasty I opted not to share the extra with the neighbor, giving him some cookies to top off the orecchiette leftovers instead. If i could sustain life off of the panna cotta (and coffee!) I totally would. Deliciousness!

Yeah, so this week I was not as humble about the level of goodness my kitchen experimentations resulted in but sometimes you've got to know when to own your awesomeness and this is one of those times. Alrighty, it's late and I am borderline cocky now, so till next week. . .