20111117

What´s for dinner? Awesomeness

Aka scampi with cashewnut cream and pasta. Want to know how to make it? Of course you do. If you still read this blog that I´m neglecting even more than my evening prayers.


Chop up some garlic, chili, ginger and red pepper. And something resembling onion, but with a milder taste and a long green stalk that´s always full of mud when you buy it. It´s called purre in Norwegian and puerro in Spanish. I can´t seem to remember the English name at the moment. The cashew cream here to the left, sorry right, is simply made by throwing a bunch of cashews into a blender, squeezing a lemon in there, and adding water that almost covers the nuts. Blend. Add salt and pepper. Even idiots can do this. And measuring is for sissies. Boil spaghetti. Again, idiots can do this too. By this, I´m not saying you´re all idiots, I´m just trying to tell you it´s really really simple.


Here´s the scampi, and everything else. Besides the pasta and cashews, obviously. It´s in a wok. On a gas stove. You don´t need a gas stove to do this however, you can just do it on a normal stove. Ok. So I probably fried this for around two minutes (timing is for sissies), that´s enough. Otherwise you´ll get rubber scampi, not very tasty. Your pasta should be done by now. It really should. So mix everything together in a bowl, add some parsley and sea salt, and voila, this is what you get.


Bit of an anti-climax? You were expecting something a lot fancier-looking? Well, this is what you get. I´m not a food blogger. Now eat!


20111114

Viva España!


I haven´t been around for a while because I´ve been busy fighting off computer viruses, hiding behind pillows while watching American Horror Story (do not watch that show if you want to stay sane, and never ever say the words "Piggy, piggy" in front of a mirror), trying to learn how to drive a car again, returning to bikram yoga hell after a very long break, and that´s pretty much it. Most importantly though, I spent Saturday morning looking at this delicious plate of Spanish yumminess. Madre mía. Speaking of jamón, Almodovar was screening his new movie at USC Friday evening, but we didn´t risk standing in line without getting in. Maybe we should have.

20111108

Coconut oil as conditioner


I know, I'm addicted to coconuts. As we speak, I'm eating an amazingly good mix of basically everything you can squeeze out of a coconut, plus some cocoa powder. And it tastes like chocolate. More about that another time.


If you want thick, shiny, lustrous, awesomely smelling hair you should also crack open a coconut. I've started using virgin coco oil instead of conditioner, mostly because I couldn't find an affordable, non-toxic, good alternative. I use the oil the same way I would use a "normal" conditioner; after shampooing, I take a grape-sized piece of the oil (it's usually solid, in my experience it melts if the room temperature is somewhere around 25-30 degrees), warm it in my hands, and massage it into the hair. Leave it there for as long as you can, it's even great to use as a mask, or for a real treat leave it in over night. It does take some extra time to rinse, but we're talking minutes here, so it's no big deal. The hair does NOT become greasy as many people seem to think; the oil leaves it feeling really silky and smooth. Try! Maybe you'll end up getting hair like this:


<3

20111107

Sunset from the inside



For when watching the sun set in the Pacific gets boring. Watch it on your wall instead.

20111106

Palm sugar, sugar


Hello!
I just wanted to pop by and tell you a bit about palm sugar, or coconut sugar.
First of all, it's bloody delicious. It tastes like brown sugar, but better. Sort of caramelized.
Second of all, it has a GI of 35, which means it doesn't make your blood sugar go all hoolabalooza, whatever that means (sugar has a GI of around 70, honey around 60, and agave somewhere around 40).
And it's all natural, made from sap from the flowers of the coconut palm.

Here's a man climbing a palm tree to get us some sap:


And here he is on his way home, biking as fast as he can,
with the sap in little plastic cans:


...and somehow it ends up here:


... and I can use a ton of it on my buckwheat porridge on a Sunday afternoon, to the point where I get nauseous and promise myself I will never eat too much palm sugar again. Which we all know is a lie.
That was my weekend, how was yours?

20111103

Something's wrong...


... if you're feeling too shitty to even drag yourself down to the beach. Cure:


Green juice and catching up with Revenge. I didn't use to like greenies, but I've learned to like them. This one is seriously fresh: two cucumbers, a lemon, a handfull of kale, half a bag of spinach, an apple, 2-3 stalks of celery, a carrot, and a piece of ginger. Does it really cure colds? Probably not. Prevent them? Maybe. Yet here I am:)

20111102

Sloth


Today I have been:


Lying perfectly still while letting others do the running.
Excuse me, I have a cold.

Beautiful day!



Hurry down to the beach!

20111101

Even surfers celebrate Halloween



From a Halloween surf contest in Santa Monica on Saturday. Pics by Nanette Gonzalez for LA Weekly.