Category Archives: Food

Having Something To Celebrate (or Another Bodega Happy Hour)

Posted on February 21, 2013 | Comments Off

Yesterday, my friend Rayshell and I had a happy hour hangout. We hadn’t seen each other in forever (I’m pretty sure the last time was at her New Year’s party). And since it was my early day at work, a happy hour adventure fit in perfectly with our schedules.

We met at Bodega, which is right down the street from my work and one of my favorite happy hour spots.

And it worked out perfectly to meet up today, because I had something to celebrate.

After all the craziness at my work with not shutting down like we thought we would, it was finally decided that we were going to have a temporary shut down in March. So as of right now (and this will probably change 100 times), next Thursday is my last day at my current day job until possibly sometime in April.

I’m so beyond excited for this! I will be filing for unemployment benefits so I will have a little money to get me through this time, and I’m hoping to get some substitute teaching jobs next month as well.

So after I told Rayshell my fun news, we got down to ordering some great happy hour foods!

We had the bruschetta (which is one of my favorite things at Bodega).

And we also split the grilled cheese and bbq sliders based on the recommendation of our server, Wade. He was totally right on the recommendations (and decided to be in this picture of our food).

Overall, it was another wonderful happy hour adventure with a wonderful friend.

Now I get to spend the next week preparing for my unemployment. This includes getting my paperwork filed for my benefits, trying to see if there are any substitute teaching jobs at my old job for me, and cleaning out my desk at work (I am a post-it fiend and need to start tossing some out).

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged happy hour, job, unemployment, work

Blogger Brunch (or My Adventure at Bottega Louie)

Posted on February 5, 2013 | 1 comment

This past Sunday, I had a brunch with a bunch of fellow bloggers. This was the same group of ladies who did the Blognic and the cookie exchange.

This time, we met at Bottega Louie in downtown LA. I had never been there before, but from the reviews I read online and got from my friends, I was excited.

My original plan was to take the lightrail there. The last lightrail stop is a few blocks from my house and it ends a few blocks from the restaurant. But I was still feeling a bit sore from the 5K and didn’t want to risk getting lost and having to walk around a lot.

I managed to find free parking a block away (yay for not having to pay for meters on Sundays!), and went inside to meet the girls.

As I was checking out the menu, I was trying to find something that wouldn’t be too unhealthy to eat, so I went with the mushroom and pancetta scramble.

While we waited for our food, I was checking out the restaurant. It’s really nice and open, and even though it was crowded, it didn’t feel packed.

One of the girls ordered beignets for the table. I tried a half of one, and it was really good!

Finally my food came, and it was good, but nothing special.

About half of our table ordered Eggs Benedict and loved them, so maybe I’ll try that next time.

I loved that I got to enjoy some good food and good company. And two of the other bloggers were also at the Color Run so we exchanged stories and advice on how to get clean.

Besides having a fun brunch, the point of this gathering was to plan out some fun workshops and classes that we could do as a group over the next year. We all want to advance our blogs to be the best that they can be (I have a way to go to catch up to their blogs), and we came up with some really fun ideas for 2013. If you blog in LA and want to join us, let me know.

1 Comment

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged blogging, brunch, food

Doing As Much As I Can In One Day (or How I Spent My Day Off This Week)

Posted on January 23, 2013 | 2 comments

When you only have one day off a week, you really have to maximize that time!

So this week, for my one day off, I started out with going to another spin class at SoulCycle. I had Sal again as the instructor, and I really like his classes. He gives a lot of motivation throughout the class, and he has a way of correcting you without singling you out. The class was pretty packed this time. I had forgotten that Monday was a holiday for many people. I just thought of it as my one day off.

Class was good and tough. I’m thinking of getting some cycling shoes soon so I don’t have to pay the $3 rental every time I go. Maybe I can go shopping for them on my next day off in a week.

I left class nice and sweaty.

At home, I got some errands done and did some cleaning at my house (boring, I know, but it’s the only time I have to get it done).

And on Monday evening, a friend and I went to Luna Park to enjoy Restaurant Week!

I love Restaurant Week! It’s a great time to go try some wonderful restaurants without spending a ton of money. The 3 course dinner at Luna Park was only $25!

I’ve been to Luna Park a couple of times, so I do have some favorites on their menu.

I started with the goat cheese fondue (which I absolutely love). The fondue comes with bread and apple slices, but I prefer the apples.

For my dessert (which I did share), I tried the peanut butter mousse. I normally get the make-your-own-smores, but my friend got that and I decided to try something new.

Thank goodness I spent my morning burning off a ton of calories so I could enjoy this meal!

I also got some prosecco since they served these cute tiny bottles!

All in all, it was a very fun and busy day off. I’m looking forward to my next day off (not exactly sure when it is though), but for now, I’m back to working hard!

2 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Saving

Tagged day off, SoulCycle, Spinning

Bar Chloe (or How Being A Blogger Got Me A Free Drink)

Posted on January 16, 2013 | Comments Off

Since Monday was my one real day off this week, after I recovered from spinning class, I went out for happy hour.

A friend of mine had suggested Bar Chloe. She had been there before and liked it, although she had mentioned that it wasn’t the cheapest happy hour in town. We decided to carpool since the parking structures in Santa Monica are only free for 90 minutes now.

As I got to my friend’s house to pick her up at 5:30, I looked at the website for the bar and realized that it didn’t open until 6pm. We took our time getting to the bar (and the fact that many lights were out at intersections helped kill some time), and ended up getting to the bar just a few minutes after 6pm.

When we got there, the place was totally empty. But it allowed us to chat with the bartender a lot (I never got his name). The bartender mentioned that he had dreamed up a drink the night before. He wanted to make a Hot Toddy with cherries and brandy and asked us if we’d like to try one. We both agreed.

While we were waiting for the drinks to be mixed up, I took a look around and got a couple of pictures of the place (sorry I only had my iPhone with me).

The bartender was looking at me strangely as I took the pictures, so I explained that I was a blogger and wanted to write a post about my happy hour adventure there. He asked me about the blog a bit, and then my friend and I decided to check out the food options with happy hour prices.

$5 bites! Not too bad. I had a grilled cheese (I earned it from burning so many calories at Soul Cycle), and my friend had calamari. And just before we ordered, the bartender brought over our specialty drinks.

It was pretty yummy and reminded me of a cherry Lifesaver. I had never had brandy before, and it turns out I don’t totally love it, so I only had about 1/5 of that glass (but it was sure nice to have something to warm me up!).

When the bartender handed us our drinks, he looked at me and said that mine was on the house since I was going to blog about them (I feel like I need to disclose that fact).

That was totally unexpected but appreciated.

Overall, I have to say that Bar Chloe was a pretty fun night out. I think the next time I go I’ll order a drink that I know I’ll like (like a Dirty Shirley), and maybe try some food off of the regular menu.

But I will totally be back, but not before 6pm for happy hour!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged drinks, food, happy hour, Santa Monica

Brick + Mortar (or Another Happy Hour Adventure!)

Posted on January 8, 2013 | Comments Off

With Mondays now being my early days, my happy hour adventures with my friend have been moved to Mondays as well.

I let her know the switch of date over the weekend, and she sent me a list of happy hours near Santa Monica that she wanted to check out. I think we should try them all, but yesterday we decided to check out Brick + Mortar. When we got to the location, we realized that it was where Salute used to be. We went to Salute a few years back with a few other people before my friend moved to the LA area. But I guess that place shut down (I liked the wine machines so I’m sad about that).

Brick + Mortar was pretty fun! They had the BSC game on in the background so we kind of paid attention to it (I had a ton of people rooting for Alabama, so I wanted them to win). The happy hour menu had a bunch of cheap but yummy options.

We decided to split the truffle fries and the short rib pizza. I also ordered my traditional Dirty Shirley.

I will say that the bartender at Brick + Mortar pours strong drinks! I took a sip of my drink when they set it down, and it tasted like straight vodka. I waited for some of the ice to melt to make the drink a little weaker.

Our food was delicious.

And once we were done eating, we both ended up opening our My Fitness Pal apps on our iPhones to track our food for the day. I get a kick out of that. I also finally friended my friend on the app (if you use My Fitness Pal and want to be friends, leave a comment with your user name and I’ll add you!).

I’m still adjusting my internal clock to my new schedule, but a fun and delicious happy hour is totally making the transition a bit easier!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged drinks, happy hour, my fitness pal, Santa Monica

Scheduling Life (or Trying To Remember What Day Of The Week It Is)

Posted on January 3, 2013 | Comments Off

I’m pretty used to my schedule at my day job. I know what days are early days, what days are late days, and when I’ll actually get home with time to do something. But the past few weeks have been off due to the holidays.

I’ve had additional days off (which I’ve loved), early days are late days sometimes, and half days are full days. Starting today, the schedule is supposed to be back to normal, but since we were supposed to be shutting down in a week, I wonder if that is going to change.

I liked the regularity of my schedule. I was able to plan out trips to the grocery store so I’d have food to take to work for my lunch. I was able to figure out when I could workout before work (because after work when you get home at 9pm doesn’t work for me).

I’m at the tail end of the screwy schedule and I’m feeling it. My sleep is off, which could have something to do with staying out super late on New Years Eve. My eating schedule is funny too. I’m not hungry when I know that I should be eating, and when I am hungry, it’s when I’m in the middle of my shift and it’s too hard to eat and make phone calls at the same time. Because my days are not the usual schedule, I’m very confused on what the next day in the week is and have a hard time preparing for it.

I’m hoping that I can get back to usual quickly. I really want to get back on track with everything that I want to accomplish this year. I’m trying not to think about the unknown of what will be happening at work during the time that it was scheduled to be down. If I think about it, I start to stress out and wonder if we are going to show up one day and they just decide that keeping us open year round isn’t worth it.

I’m going forward now as if I am going to work 6 days a week year round. I know what days to shop for food and what days I need to have a plan for dinner before I leave for work. I also know when I can workout (but I’m hoping to find more time in my schedule for that).

Hopefully this will help me get where I need to go and allow me to again find time between everything else to have a life and focus on my real career.

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Posted in Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Weight Loss, Work

Tagged scheduling, time management, work, workout

My 2013 Goals (or I’m Not Calling Them Resolutions This Time)

Posted on January 1, 2013 | 4 comments

Welcome 2013!

I’m excited to see what I can get done this year! In the past, I’ve always made resolutions, but for this year, I’ve decided to call them goals. Somehow they don’t seem as scary that way.

Here are my goals for 2013:

Continue on my weight loss journey. I didn’t lose as much in 2012 as I would have liked, but I did lose. And I’ve got my brother’s wedding in September and you know that those pictures are going to be around forever. I want to look back and not be embarrassed.

Continue paying down my credit card debt. Again, I didn’t do as much as I would have liked in 2012, but I’m working on it. I may not reach my goal of being debt free by my 30th birthday, but that’s ok.

Do at least 5 5Ks. I do enjoy walking various 5K events. In 2012, I did 3. This year, I’d like to see if I can do 5. I have my first one planned for February (unless I decide to do another one sooner).

Do my first 10K. There’s going to be one at Disneyland 6 days before I leave for my brother’s wedding. Unfortunately, due to that timing, my parents won’t be able to come and see me do that, so I’m looking at maybe finding one another time so they can come see me accomplish this.

Find alternative income. I love my day job, and I don’t plan on leaving it anytime soon. But I also need to find a way to make more money to help me work on my debt. And if I can find a way to support myself without having to go to a job 6 days a week, that would be great for my future.

Take an improv class that counts. I’ve taken improv classes in the past. I did a few years at LA Connection Comedy and also studied weekly with Kip King for almost 8 years. But in the commercial world, they want you to have classes from one of the main schools. So I’m looking at maybe taking classes at UCB this year so I’ll have that competitive edge on my acting resume.

Keep blogging. I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.

Any of you have some goals for this year that you are really excited about?

4 Comments

Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Family, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Saving, Weight Loss, Work

Tagged 2013, 5K, debt, goals, improv, job, resolutions, weight loss

Christmas Hangout With My Birthday Twin (or Witnessing A Real-Life Romantic Comedy)

Posted on December 26, 2012 | 1 comment

Right before Christmas, my birthday twin Joanna and I had a hangout. We hadn’t seen each other in a while and knew that we had to fix that. We didn’t exactly know what we were going to do, but we knew that we’d hangout on the 23rd.

On the 23rd, we decided that we were going to have dessert and drinks at the Cheesecake Factory at The Grove shopping center.

It wasn’t too bad parking there (which surprised me), and while it took us a while to get a seat at the bar, we are awesome table stalkers. While we were waiting for a spot at the bar or a table to open up, this random girl came up to us. She had a pager for a seat in the restaurant, but since she found a seat in the bar section, she was gifting us the pager. She said that someone had gifted it to her, and if we happened to get a bar spot first to share the love. That was awesome! We ended up finding two seats and the end of the bar before the pager went off, so we passed it on to another group waiting (the original reservation was under the name Adam, so whoever Adam is, thank you for sharing the holiday giving spirit with us all).

As soon as Joanna and I sat down, we got our drinks.

I had a Dirty Shirley and Joanna had some sort of tropical martini which was yummy! And yes, I know that I have almost the same pose with my drink as I do in my other post.

We both ordered cheesecake. Joanna had chocolate coconut and I had red velvet. Red velvet was clearly the winner.

After enjoying our desserts and chatting for a long time (we both have brothers who are getting married and are planning on having destination weddings), we decided to walk around and enjoy all the pretty holiday lights.

We were taking funny pictures in front of the giant tree…

When Joanna got a text from the guy she had just started seeing saying something like: “Have you ever been to The Grove? The lights are cool.”.

All of the sudden we both started looking around for the guy (I don’t know why I was, I had never met him). We didn’t know if he was at The Grove and had just spotted us and was trying to be cute or if it was a random question. Joanna tried calling him, but there was no answer. We walked around looking for him, hoping for another text. It was seriously like a romantic comedy.

Finally, the guy texted and we met him for a moment at the Veggie Grill. And I felt like I had just seen the happy ending in the real life movie.

Between the yummy food, being gifted the pager and then passing it on, and then randomly running into Joanna’s new guy; it was the perfect amount of pre-Christmas magic!

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged cheesecake

Merry Christmas! (or Happy Movies and Chinese Food Day!)

Posted on December 25, 2012 | Comments Off

Just a quick post to say that I hope you are spending today with those you love and doing whatever happens to be your tradition.

I’m not spending time with my family today, but that’s the norm for me. My brother is with his fiancé, my parents are driving home from Tahoe, and I’ll be hanging out with friends.

I’m planning on having a day filled with going to movies (including a free screening of “Lincoln”) and ordering Chinese food from my favorite place. That’s exactly how I want to spend my day!

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged christmas, family, food, movies

Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies (or Cookies That My Mom Approved Of!)

Posted on December 19, 2012 | Comments Off

The cookies that I made for the blogger cookie exchange were a big hit! After I had made them, I shared the recipe with my mom, and she liked them too! So here is the recipe for you all to enjoy some red velvet white chocolate chip cookies (made with boxed cake mix!)!

You’ll need:

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 box red velvet cake mix (I used Duncan Hines)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 egg

2 cups mini white chocolate chips (I did 1 cup of regular ones)

What to do:

Preheat oven to 350

In a mixing bowl, add butter and mix until soft and fluffy

Slowly add in cake mix and flour

Once combined, add egg and mix completely

Add white chocolate chips and mix until well combined

Form dough into 1 inch balls and bake for 8-10 minutes (highly recommend baking on a Silpat or similar silicone baking mat)

Let cool for a few minutes before transferring to cooling racks

(I know that they aren’t super gorgeous, but I made the cookies too big and didn’t know to let them cool more before transferring them to the cooling rack)

This recipe says that it will make 4 1/2 dozen cookies, but since mine were so big, I got about 3 dozen.

I also highly recommend baking these in advance and storing in a zip bag in the freezer. When you want to serve, leave out at room temperature for at least 10 minutes (I do it an hour in advance). For some reason, I think that frozen and then defrosted cookies taste better! I think it makes them less crumbly but more moist.

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Uncategorized

Tagged baking, cookies

Category Archives: Food

Having Something To Celebrate (or Another Bodega Happy Hour)

Like this:

Blogger Brunch (or My Adventure at Bottega Louie)

Like this:

Doing As Much As I Can In One Day (or How I Spent My Day Off This Week)

Like this:

Bar Chloe (or How Being A Blogger Got Me A Free Drink)

Like this:

Brick + Mortar (or Another Happy Hour Adventure!)

Like this:

Scheduling Life (or Trying To Remember What Day Of The Week It Is)

Like this:

My 2013 Goals (or I’m Not Calling Them Resolutions This Time)

Like this:

Christmas Hangout With My Birthday Twin (or Witnessing A Real-Life Romantic Comedy)

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Merry Christmas! (or Happy Movies and Chinese Food Day!)

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Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies (or Cookies That My Mom Approved Of!)

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