Anyway, I just wanted to do a quick post before tomorrow since I don’t know how busy I’ll be from then on because I’m going to New York tomorrow! Basically, after leaving Los Angeles, I flew back to Texas with my family. A couple days later my sister swung by and I went with her and her friends, Sean and Ivan, to Houston. We all stayed with her and her roommate in their apartment. We all slept in her room, but Sean got the bed because no one wanted to sleep with him. Ha ha.

The day before they left we went downtown to a club at night and accidentally parked in some office building because their gate stayed open too long and we thought it was paid parking. It was a fiasco. The club was interesting — it was all Asians and they had a live band playing, like, 80′s and 90′s music, but then all the Asians looked confused and were just standing around with these “Where’s the techno?” looks on their faces.

Iris and I watched Borat, which has been long overdue, especially because my Communication Law professor this semester, Joe Beck, actually represents Borat. It was funny. We made smoothies from scratch and lemon muffins from a Williams Sonoma mix. Delish. If you like smoothies, here’s a tried and true smoothie recipe I’ve used tons of times that has never let me down:

Ingredients

• One and a half (1 1/2) cups, or eight ounces, of blueberries
• One (1) cup of orange juice
• Half (1/2) cup of plain, low-fat yogurt
• Half (1/2) cup of ice

Instructions

Put in blender. Mix. Drink. (It’s a little thick, so, add more water or OJ as needed.)

I’m somewhat apprehensive about New York just because I feel so all over the place and unsettled right now. Hopefully the three days before the internship starts will be enough time to get my mind focused (and perhaps to pick up a new pair of shoes? Maybe?) so I can concentrate. Wish me luck!

The main thing was that we wanted to get dressed up and go out to a nice place to eat. We decided to hit up ONE.midtown kitchen which seemed like a chic enough restaurant to fit the bill. They had complementary valet, and when we got out they opened the doors for us, which took us to a tiny, dark atrium lined with small lights on the walls. We pulled back the black velvet curtain to enter the restaurant. (I’ve included shots of the outside and one of the inside. My apologies for the blurry pictures, as I am still learning to use this camera.)
    

When we got in, they were really friendly though, which is great. The decor was quite nice and the bread! I usually don’t get excited about the free bread, but damn — you can kind of see the bread basket in the picture above – basically they had a wooden box with three types of bread. One type was the generic French bread, another was some sort of flat crispy bread, and the last was long stick-like bread. Anyway, A+ for presentation. Plus, the hummus, yum.

The food was good too. We ordered quite a bit since there were five of us (us three plus the two boys) and we each got a dessert. The entres were really good except everything had a hint of sweetness to it, which perhaps was a bit much for every single dish. However, I love that everything was a little surprising. My pork dumplings are pictured there. I assure you, I have had many a dumpling in my day, but never like that.

One of the dishes that was especially surprising was Dan’s dessert – he ordered the kit kat bar which was a chocolate confection of some sort with two ice creams on either end. The first was a peanut butter ice cream and the other was a curry ice cream. I guess I really hadn’t considered the many possible variations or uses of curry before. However, I remembered that I once had gone with a friend of mine and ordered a popcorn dish that was surprisingly good. Long story short, I decided to try combining the two and ended up with pretty yummy results. Hence, my very own Curried Popcorn recipe!

• One bag, white popcorn (e.g. little/no butter)
• Curry Powder
• Chili Powder
• Cinnamon
• Garlic Powder
• Black Pepper
• Nutmeg
• Marjoram

Instructions

Basically, just pop the popcorn and add whatever spices and seasonings you’d like. I’ve listed the ingredients in terms of what I think is the most crucial to the recipe. My recommendation would be to add the most curry and a good amount of chili powder, garlic powder, cinnamon, and black pepper. Then, add a hint of nutmeg and marjoram. Enjoy! Here’s what mine looked like if you want to get an idea of how heavily I seasoned mine.

Anyway, first day of classes were today, but I’m a bit too wiped to write about it. I think I’ll just crash for tonight, despite having a million things to do. Gute nacht.

Anyway, I watched The Prestige and the The Illusionist at the dollar theater recently. (Oh! The dollar theater, better known as Movies 10, is no longer the dollar theater but rather the dollar-fifty theater. I’m distraught, but that’s another subject for later.) The Illusionist is a movie about magicians and the art of creating an illusion. The Prestige is what The Illusionist would have been if it were a good movie. The Prestige, great. The Illusionist, not so much. It was disappointing because I really like Ed Norton (The Illusionist, American History X). But The Prestige was clearly conceived, had solid acting throughout, had character development, and all that other good stuff (plus Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman). The Illusionist was badly edited, executed its ending poorly, and the production quality was just worse overall. My point is, if you’re trying to choose between the two, go with The Prestige. It’s much better.

But I mentioned something about grapes. So here goes, two more recipes for the cookbook. The first is for a full on Waldorf salad (which is basically an enhanced fruit salad), which my sister and I made while I was in Austin. The second is just a snack, Spiced Grapes, which is like a watered down version of the first item.

• Two (2) cups of apples, diced (roughly 3 or 4 apples, Gala or Fuji apples are best so skip those standard “Red Delicious” apples)
• One (1) cup of seedless grapes, halved
• Half (1/2) cup of celery, chopped
• Quarter (1/4) cup of walnuts or pecans
• Quarter (1/4) cup of raisins or dried cranberries
• Quarter (1/4) cup of mayonnaise
• 8 oz. of low-fat vanilla yogurt
• One (1) tablespoon of fresh-squeezed lemon juice
• Half (1/2) tablespoon of ground cinnamon

Instructions

Most of these items, you can add or subtract as you see fit. Basically, just combine the mayonnaise and yogurt in a bowl. Bake the walnuts/pecans until golden brown (usually 5-10 minutes, just put them on some foil on a baking pan) in the oven. After that, just combine and fold the ingredients in. Voila!

The Waldorf makes for a very easy, but still delicious and relatively healthy side dish. However, if that’s still too complicated for you, Spiced Grapes are a good alternative (assuming you don’t have some intense hatred of grapes). Just wash some grapes, plop on some vanilla yogurt, add a dash of cinnamon and enjoy.