Sunday, September 21, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Starting Over
These past few years have been about re-starting my life personally, professionally and scholastically. Now I've decided to do the same with this blog. No longer just a food blog, this will be the place where I chronicle my adventures studying abroad in Thailand for the next few months. After that who knows what this will evolve into.
As a part of my starting over I did the "big chop" on my hair just prior to departing for Thailand. It wasn't at all hard to do. Even though I've been blessed with a ton of hair I am not a "hair person" so to speak. I couldn't do a thing with it on my own and paying to get it done was expensive. Besides, the last thing I wanted to worry about in Thailand was a head full of hair. So off it went! I have to say though, after a couple of weeks I started missing the hair, but not too much...
Before After
So check in with me every week or so and I'll let you know what I'm up to in Hua Hin, Thailand AND how my hair is growing! Sawadee Ka! ~Beat
As a part of my starting over I did the "big chop" on my hair just prior to departing for Thailand. It wasn't at all hard to do. Even though I've been blessed with a ton of hair I am not a "hair person" so to speak. I couldn't do a thing with it on my own and paying to get it done was expensive. Besides, the last thing I wanted to worry about in Thailand was a head full of hair. So off it went! I have to say though, after a couple of weeks I started missing the hair, but not too much...
Before After
So check in with me every week or so and I'll let you know what I'm up to in Hua Hin, Thailand AND how my hair is growing! Sawadee Ka! ~Beat
Saturday, December 31, 2005
My Birthday and Christmas Meals: The Good, The Bad and The Nasty.
12/16
December 16th was my 38th birthday. Yay me! My friend, Basmin, took me out on what turned out to be a "girl date." Eww! But I had the best meal that I have had all year on that "date"-ewww. We had dinner at Riddles Penultimate restuarant in the University City Loop area. She even brought me flowers and champagne. Wow, I really scored on my first ever girl-date! Here's the menu:
APPETIZER: Mushroom caps stuffed with crawfish.
SOUP: New England Clam Chowder. Made with huge chunks of carrots, potatoes and lump crab meat.
SALAD: Romaine and Arugala lettuce with walnuts, blu cheese and a vinagrette.
VEGETABLE: Mashed Sweet Potatoes (Basmin) Pan Seared Spinach (Basmin) Brussel Sprouts roasted with Pine Nuts (Me)
ENTREE: I had the 12 oz. Fillet Mignon (Medium Rare) with grilled Vandalia Onions and Portabella Mushrooms.
Basmin enjoyed the Shrimp Sara, a seafood pasta with Tiger Prawns and fresh vegetables in a creamy white sauce.
DESSERT: Coffee with Kaluha and a scoop Kaluha Ice Cream (All for Basmin. I can't drink either coffee or Kaluha.)
Homemade Birthday Cake- A white cake with Vanilla Frosting decorated with a big ol "T" -Mine All Mine
Everything was prepared to perfection. The mushrooms were spicy and packed full with crawfish. It was baked with a light cheese topping, but I'm not sure what type of cheese was used. We ate those so fast. The soup and salad were served immediately after. ***Our busbaoy was THE BEST BUSSER ALIVE! I mean he was ON IT.*** Our meal was served in wonderful time. There was just enough "rest time" between the salad and the entree. I'm not much of a beef eater anymore, but I really wanted fillet mignon for my birthday. I was so happy with my selection. The meat was grilled PERFECTLY. The onions and mushrooms just melted in my mouth! OMG. I didn't want the meal to end. I savored every last forkful. When I FINALLY rested my fork on the plate and sighed with satisfaction our busboy was right there to clear the area. What a wonderful experience to share with a wonderful friend. Thanks Basmin!
When I got home I popped my bubbly, had a slice of cake and rested well!
12/25
My daughter Jasmine is home from college for the holidays. I knew that we were spending the afternoon and evening at my mother's house for Christamas, as we do every year. My mom usually prepares a huge Christmas dinner with both a traditinal roasted turke and a smoked one, a ham and ALL the trimmings. Since this year was to be no different 9or so we thought) and we still needed to eat before arriving at my mom's, I decided to make a simple Christmas breakfast.
My Christmas Breakfast Menu:
Baked Turkey Ham with Pineapple-Orange Glaze
Potatoes and Broccoli with peppers and onions in a cheddar cheese sauce
Eggs (made to order)
Cinnamon Rolls
Mango
Oranges
OJ, Hot Chocolate or Egg Nog
Our breakfast was very tasty and filling as well. I was a little worried that we might be a bit too full to enjoy the nights dinner. Thanfully we were.
This years Christmas Dinner was a disaster! For some reason known only to God and my Grandmother it was decided that this year's breakfast should come from a box! That's right, they bought one of those meals in a box, a complete pre-cooked holiday meal in a goddamn box! Why???? Not only was it a meal-in-a-box, but it wasn't even from a nice store. This fiasco came from Shop-n-Save. Anytime a store has an "-n-" in it's name you know it ain't so fancy. And to add insult to injury a family member decided to supplement our pre-cooked meal with some homemade side dishes. Apparently crap goes with boxed meals. Here's the menu of shame and horror:
A Roasted, Baked, or possibly Shellacked Turkey: I swear that turkey was stolen from a food magazine shoot. That's not to say that it was a picture-perfect bird, it just looked grotesquely unreal. Apparently you can't buy flavor in a box, because that bird tasted like the box. The cold, lumpy gravy didn't do much to conceal the lack of flavor either.
Mashed Potatoes: It seems that Shop-n-Save likes to take artifical potatoe flakes out of one box, mix them with some water, and then repackage them in other boxes. Tasted pretty much like soggy cardboard with butter.
SomekindofCranberryandOrangeJellywithchunksofunidentifiablefoodproducts: Uneaten.
Not in a box, but might as well have been:
Baked Beans: Why?? Why the hell were there baked beans on our Christmas dinner table?
Green Beans: By the time I got around to these, all appetite had vanished. I remember the feel of the beans and the bite of black pepper. That's all.
Macaroni and Cheese: This was truly the one dish I was looking forward to. I knew I could rely on some homemade Macaroni and Cheese to salvage my taste buds from that unholy meal. There's not too much a normal person with even very little cooking experience can do to mess up Mac'n' Cheese, right? And the family member that prepared this dish had been making it (and USUALLY [see below]very well, I might add) for years. So I was mortified to find out that she (obviously under some Satanic influence ) decided to add GREEN ONIONS and NACHO CHEESE SAUCE to MACARONI and CHEESE!!!!!!! WTF???WHo does that??? OK. I must admit that this years mac n'cheese, as GROSS as it was, was still better than the mac she prepared a few years back. At that time the devil convinced her to put HORSERADISH in it!! That's no way to celebrate the birth of Christ!I have to start a petition. She must never be allowed to bring the mac'n'cheese ever again.
Honey Baked Ham: I don't really know if it was honey baked or not. And since I don't eat ham i dind't taste it. I did hear that this was the best part of the meal. It figures!
December 16th was my 38th birthday. Yay me! My friend, Basmin, took me out on what turned out to be a "girl date." Eww! But I had the best meal that I have had all year on that "date"-ewww. We had dinner at Riddles Penultimate restuarant in the University City Loop area. She even brought me flowers and champagne. Wow, I really scored on my first ever girl-date! Here's the menu:
APPETIZER: Mushroom caps stuffed with crawfish.
SOUP: New England Clam Chowder. Made with huge chunks of carrots, potatoes and lump crab meat.
SALAD: Romaine and Arugala lettuce with walnuts, blu cheese and a vinagrette.
VEGETABLE: Mashed Sweet Potatoes (Basmin) Pan Seared Spinach (Basmin) Brussel Sprouts roasted with Pine Nuts (Me)
ENTREE: I had the 12 oz. Fillet Mignon (Medium Rare) with grilled Vandalia Onions and Portabella Mushrooms.
Basmin enjoyed the Shrimp Sara, a seafood pasta with Tiger Prawns and fresh vegetables in a creamy white sauce.
DESSERT: Coffee with Kaluha and a scoop Kaluha Ice Cream (All for Basmin. I can't drink either coffee or Kaluha.)
Homemade Birthday Cake- A white cake with Vanilla Frosting decorated with a big ol "T" -Mine All Mine
Everything was prepared to perfection. The mushrooms were spicy and packed full with crawfish. It was baked with a light cheese topping, but I'm not sure what type of cheese was used. We ate those so fast. The soup and salad were served immediately after. ***Our busbaoy was THE BEST BUSSER ALIVE! I mean he was ON IT.*** Our meal was served in wonderful time. There was just enough "rest time" between the salad and the entree. I'm not much of a beef eater anymore, but I really wanted fillet mignon for my birthday. I was so happy with my selection. The meat was grilled PERFECTLY. The onions and mushrooms just melted in my mouth! OMG. I didn't want the meal to end. I savored every last forkful. When I FINALLY rested my fork on the plate and sighed with satisfaction our busboy was right there to clear the area. What a wonderful experience to share with a wonderful friend. Thanks Basmin!
When I got home I popped my bubbly, had a slice of cake and rested well!
12/25
My daughter Jasmine is home from college for the holidays. I knew that we were spending the afternoon and evening at my mother's house for Christamas, as we do every year. My mom usually prepares a huge Christmas dinner with both a traditinal roasted turke and a smoked one, a ham and ALL the trimmings. Since this year was to be no different 9or so we thought) and we still needed to eat before arriving at my mom's, I decided to make a simple Christmas breakfast.
My Christmas Breakfast Menu:
Baked Turkey Ham with Pineapple-Orange Glaze
Potatoes and Broccoli with peppers and onions in a cheddar cheese sauce
Eggs (made to order)
Cinnamon Rolls
Mango
Oranges
OJ, Hot Chocolate or Egg Nog
Our breakfast was very tasty and filling as well. I was a little worried that we might be a bit too full to enjoy the nights dinner. Thanfully we were.
This years Christmas Dinner was a disaster! For some reason known only to God and my Grandmother it was decided that this year's breakfast should come from a box! That's right, they bought one of those meals in a box, a complete pre-cooked holiday meal in a goddamn box! Why???? Not only was it a meal-in-a-box, but it wasn't even from a nice store. This fiasco came from Shop-n-Save. Anytime a store has an "-n-" in it's name you know it ain't so fancy. And to add insult to injury a family member decided to supplement our pre-cooked meal with some homemade side dishes. Apparently crap goes with boxed meals. Here's the menu of shame and horror:
A Roasted, Baked, or possibly Shellacked Turkey: I swear that turkey was stolen from a food magazine shoot. That's not to say that it was a picture-perfect bird, it just looked grotesquely unreal. Apparently you can't buy flavor in a box, because that bird tasted like the box. The cold, lumpy gravy didn't do much to conceal the lack of flavor either.
Mashed Potatoes: It seems that Shop-n-Save likes to take artifical potatoe flakes out of one box, mix them with some water, and then repackage them in other boxes. Tasted pretty much like soggy cardboard with butter.
SomekindofCranberryandOrangeJellywithchunksofunidentifiablefoodproducts: Uneaten.
Not in a box, but might as well have been:
Baked Beans: Why?? Why the hell were there baked beans on our Christmas dinner table?
Green Beans: By the time I got around to these, all appetite had vanished. I remember the feel of the beans and the bite of black pepper. That's all.
Macaroni and Cheese: This was truly the one dish I was looking forward to. I knew I could rely on some homemade Macaroni and Cheese to salvage my taste buds from that unholy meal. There's not too much a normal person with even very little cooking experience can do to mess up Mac'n' Cheese, right? And the family member that prepared this dish had been making it (and USUALLY [see below]very well, I might add) for years. So I was mortified to find out that she (obviously under some Satanic influence ) decided to add GREEN ONIONS and NACHO CHEESE SAUCE to MACARONI and CHEESE!!!!!!! WTF???WHo does that??? OK. I must admit that this years mac n'cheese, as GROSS as it was, was still better than the mac she prepared a few years back. At that time the devil convinced her to put HORSERADISH in it!! That's no way to celebrate the birth of Christ!I have to start a petition. She must never be allowed to bring the mac'n'cheese ever again.
Honey Baked Ham: I don't really know if it was honey baked or not. And since I don't eat ham i dind't taste it. I did hear that this was the best part of the meal. It figures!
Sunday, November 06, 2005
My last non-food related posting. Maybe.
THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FOOD
This is from my former site at Diaryland. I think I will start a new blog next week for stuff like this. I vow to leave Beatloaf a (mostly) food oriented blog.
!!!!!UUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Listen kiddies, don't be fooled into believing that when you are older you will miraculously have life all figured out. It's not necessarily true that you will age gracefully into this calm and wise man or woman. If you are LUCKY you will not lose the ability to feel the butterflies in your stomach when you see a new or familiar love; you will continue to learn something new everyday or at least once a week; you will honor your inner child with play days; you will remember to smell the flowers, feel the grass (maybe smoke it if you are so inclined) and stand in the middle of a thunderstorm, quiet and wet.
You will also still be very confused by the opposite sex! I love men and I make no excuses for it, but I DON'T UNDERSTAND THEM AND HOW THEY THINK OR IF THEY THINK! When I was younger I thought that surely by now, at my age, these matters of the heart would not confound me so. If anything, I am more confused than ever. Yes, I have learned a few things in my years but the rules of love seem to change with every man I meet. And somehow the more things change the more they stay the same.
WHY is it so hard to have the simplest of conversations with your love when it relates to your relationship? I am so tired of men telling me what they think I want to hear. WHAT I WANT IS THE TRUTH. Now I am not one of those women/girls who SAY they want the truth and then the truth only makes them upset or mad-well maybe I am, but here's MY truth: Yes, I may get mad at hearing the truth, but I still deserve to hear it and eventually I WILL find out the truth anyway and then I'll be a hell of a lot angrier than I was in the first place. Also, it's a control issue when someone with holds something from you because they may be fearful of your reaction.This is a sure fire way to lose my love, trust and respect. Once that is lost, heaven help you because the wrath of my anger without the balance of my love is awe-inspiring in its ferocity and its veracity.
And that boys, is THE TRUTH!
Go visit Tom Green. He's NOT that much of a moron.
This is from my former site at Diaryland. I think I will start a new blog next week for stuff like this. I vow to leave Beatloaf a (mostly) food oriented blog.
!!!!!UUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Listen kiddies, don't be fooled into believing that when you are older you will miraculously have life all figured out. It's not necessarily true that you will age gracefully into this calm and wise man or woman. If you are LUCKY you will not lose the ability to feel the butterflies in your stomach when you see a new or familiar love; you will continue to learn something new everyday or at least once a week; you will honor your inner child with play days; you will remember to smell the flowers, feel the grass (maybe smoke it if you are so inclined) and stand in the middle of a thunderstorm, quiet and wet.
You will also still be very confused by the opposite sex! I love men and I make no excuses for it, but I DON'T UNDERSTAND THEM AND HOW THEY THINK OR IF THEY THINK! When I was younger I thought that surely by now, at my age, these matters of the heart would not confound me so. If anything, I am more confused than ever. Yes, I have learned a few things in my years but the rules of love seem to change with every man I meet. And somehow the more things change the more they stay the same.
WHY is it so hard to have the simplest of conversations with your love when it relates to your relationship? I am so tired of men telling me what they think I want to hear. WHAT I WANT IS THE TRUTH. Now I am not one of those women/girls who SAY they want the truth and then the truth only makes them upset or mad-well maybe I am, but here's MY truth: Yes, I may get mad at hearing the truth, but I still deserve to hear it and eventually I WILL find out the truth anyway and then I'll be a hell of a lot angrier than I was in the first place. Also, it's a control issue when someone with holds something from you because they may be fearful of your reaction.This is a sure fire way to lose my love, trust and respect. Once that is lost, heaven help you because the wrath of my anger without the balance of my love is awe-inspiring in its ferocity and its veracity.
And that boys, is THE TRUTH!
Go visit Tom Green. He's NOT that much of a moron.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Testing 1...2...3
JASMINE upside down.Is there a picture here?
Holy Shiznit! It actually worked. Hell yeah!
I'm still on a blogging break. I'll be back next week.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Life Gets in the Way of Blogging
I don't update this blog as often as I'd like to. Now I will be updating even less often for awhile. I have to attend to a few non-food related issues(well, maybe it could be considered food related if I were in Mexico). I have to nurse a baby iguana back to health! Oh, there is much to be said about this situation, but I am far too tired to write about it at this time. There is medicine to be administered and baths to be given-yes, I have to BATHE my iguana-and general TLC to be delivered.
You can check out this site for some tasty Indian food recipes:hookedonheat.blogspot.com
So, Nurse Beatloaf will return asap. Please eat well people and enjoy your lives.
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY COLOR CHOICES??? I wanted to add color to this entry and my color choices have vanished! Well, I can't deal with this now. The iguana NEEDS me...
You can check out this site for some tasty Indian food recipes:hookedonheat.blogspot.com
So, Nurse Beatloaf will return asap. Please eat well people and enjoy your lives.
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY COLOR CHOICES??? I wanted to add color to this entry and my color choices have vanished! Well, I can't deal with this now. The iguana NEEDS me...
Sunday, September 18, 2005
What up my people?!?!?
More shout out's:
Hey, what's up Magz!
Magz has a beautiful lil' piece of land in southwest America. She is a great writer with a wonderful sense of humor. You just gotta check out her pictures too. Plus, she loves food!
also check out www.shavar.com he is a well-known actor (formerly "Dudley" on Different Strokes and numerous other roles.) He is now working at becoming a director. His site is full of great photos that he's taken. Pretty awesome!
and I can't forget about chicken little- I just love strong, opionated women!
I don't know if all of these sites will be for everyone, but these people have caught my eye and maybe you'll like them too!
I'm hungry now...
Hey, what's up Magz!
Magz has a beautiful lil' piece of land in southwest America. She is a great writer with a wonderful sense of humor. You just gotta check out her pictures too. Plus, she loves food!
also check out www.shavar.com he is a well-known actor (formerly "Dudley" on Different Strokes and numerous other roles.) He is now working at becoming a director. His site is full of great photos that he's taken. Pretty awesome!
and I can't forget about chicken little- I just love strong, opionated women!
I don't know if all of these sites will be for everyone, but these people have caught my eye and maybe you'll like them too!
I'm hungry now...
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