The Passionate Plate

Liquid Heaven . . . Or Is It Hell?

Anita — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:51:57 +0000

For those following in RSS feed, this post is better viewed at it’s original location at The Passionate Plate.

I woke up this morning with a need to confess, to rid myself of a secret shame I’ve been carrying for far too long. They say we’re only as sick as our secrets and so today is the day I begin to get well. I only hope you don’t love and/or worship me less once you’ve been exposed to my deep, dark secret.

I love Starbucks. No. It’s worse than that. I ❤ Starbucks.

6 Signs I ❤ Starbucks.
.

1. I have a personalized gold Starbucks card.

.2. I track my gold card star credits regularly on my Starbucks iPhone app.

.3. I collect Starbucks cards. 374 cards at last tally.

4. I spend time posing and stacking my Starbucks cards. Just for the fun of it.

.5. When I see a Starbucks on every corner I get just a little teary.

6. I’m blogging this post from one of three Starbucks where they welcome me by name and know my standing order.

Wow. It’s true. Confession is better for the soul. I do feel better. I’m just so glad the brutal ugliness of my revelation didn’t send you running…..

Hey! Wait! Come back!!!

I wasn’t always like this you know. There was a time in my life when I didn’t ❤ Starbucks. There was a time when I turned my nose up at the idea of drinking caffeinated swill from an automated push button espresso machine. There was a day when the only places worthy of feeding my espresso thirst were eclectic, hip slick and cool places like

and

Where you stand among the huddled, yearning masses in a dimly lit cave and wait . . .

. . . for guys sporting tattooed arms, nose piercings and wool caps in summer (don’t so much as think of calling them baristas) . . .

. . . to make you a real espresso in a real cup and saucer in a way that elevates a simple beverage into art.

Oh yes. There was a day when that was how I rolled, but that was before the international incident that took place in the summer of 2008 that changed my life forever. It happened in Greece.

Greece. The country of milky iced frappes served in chilled glasses at a sidewalk cafe.

Greece. The country where a mid-afternoon espresso is savored overlooking a valley of olive trees.

Greece. The country where the espresso is so thick and so strong it would best served with a knife and a fork rather than a spoon and a biscuit.

Greece. The country where in record-breaking heatwaves offers only one smoke-free, air-conditioned, and WIFI-accessible oasis in which the sweaty traveler can flee to escape temperatures of 115.

Greece led to my ruin. This is the tormented tale that led to my downfall, that brought me to where I am today. Yes, it’s true. I ❤ Starbucks and that my friends, is the greatest Greek tragedy of all.

I Am My Beloveds and She is Mine

Anita — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 04:30:31 +0000

This is from our Christian wedding on April 6, 2002. Six years later we were granted a legal marriage license by the State of California. Today Judge Vaughn Walker affirmed our relationship under the law, not as a same-sex marriage but as nothing more and nothing less than a marriage. Plain and simple.

The beautiful woman on the right is my wife.
We are what some people fear.
We are what some people hate.
Wife and wife, united and bound in love for life.

She’s a gift of God to my life for which I will ever be grateful.
I love you my dear, my sweetheart, my wife.

To the moon and back again, to infinity and beyond, forever and ever.

Vegetarians, You Have Been Warned

Anita — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:45:51 +0000

This post better viewed at it’s original location at The Passionate Plate.

This is the little piggy that went to market…and then was devoured by a hungry horde in the shadowy depths of a forest of redwoods. The plot for a blood and guts slasher movie? Perhaps. Or a Slow Travelers picnic in the Oakland hills? All the better.

But first, let’s go back to a time before the little piggy. . .

Last Saturday a number of us who’ve met online in the Slow Talk Community gathered together for their annual picnic. Now, I’m not sure how many years they’ve been meeting without me but now that I know all about their clandestine pork-fueled, wine-drenched summertime soirees just try to keep me and mine away. Seriously. Just try. Dare you!

L’amore della mia vita and I had a wonderful time meeting and greeting with folks who love traveling, food, photography, and iCrap as much as we do, and who apparently love all things fermented, bottled, and corked even more. I’m estimating the ratio of wine bottles to attendees was approximately 1:1, excluding small children and people like myself for whom all wine, whether domestic or foreign, poured from a tinted bottle or tipped from cardboard box tastes like red wine vinegar. Cheap red wine vinegar. And here we are, planning to spend two weeks on a vineyard in Tuscany. Go figga.

But let’s return to our shared appreciation for the culinary arts. Blest be the tie that binds. Amen. Just how much do I love a cheese platter with name tags? “Hola! I’m Buenalba from España.” “Well Hola yourself Buenalba! I’m Camellia from America!” Happy cheese. Happy me.

And don’t even get me started on Mark’s World Famous Zucchini and Cheese Red Peppers, which I’m reasonably certain were never considered a finger food until I was set loose on them. Heaven calling, God wants his vegetables back.

But who are we kidding? Let’s get back to the real heaven….hog heaven that is, where pig is king and Eden (the pig bearer) is the saint who crowned him! Indulge me while I recount King Pig’s entrance. There we were, gathered in the dewy shade of a grove of redwood trees when a uniformed park ranger comes driving up in a golf cart with the pig laying in the back of the open bed, the sun breaking through the trees casting a brilliant glimmering light on his crispy-skinned goodness. I weep at the remembrance. Give me a moment to collect myself.

I now have an admission to make. More than eating the pig and a tasty little swine he was, I loved tearing that bad boy apart. I don’t know. Maybe it’s one too many viewings of “Chainsaw Massacre” but I had a blast! It was like carving the Thanksgiving turkey only bigger and porkier.

And no sooner did I finish up and wander away than a gaggle of people even more disturbed than I swarmed in and picked Porky clean. How clean you ask?

Just try to find a morsel of meat on those rib bones. Dare you. Double dare you.

What can I say other than these are my kind of people. Each and every one. Thank you Judy for organizing a fantastic event. Thank you Chris for the most divinely-inspired salted chocolate chip cookies known to exist on this earth (I’ll share her recipe in the next week when I bake them for church). And thank you Susie for sharing your gadget geek husband with me.

A wonderful report and more photos of the day and the pig can be found over at Eden’s Wanderings and Wonderings. Eden. The Pig Provider. The Saint of Pork. The Lady of the Lechon.

There I go. Getting all teary-eyed again.

Pianto Per l’Italia

Anita — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:42:58 +0000

Sit down.
I have something to tell you.

We’ve officially canceled our long anticipated trip to Italy this fall. That’s right. Our frequent flyer miles have been plunked back into our mileage plus account, the rental apartments have been rented to someone else, the reservation fee for the Florence Market day with Divina Cucina (sad face) has been refunded, and the wall map of Italy and accompanying countdown calendar hanging on our living room wall now reside in a tear-stained cardboard box in our garage.

I know. It’s okay to cry. Don’t hold it in. I’ll give you as much time as you need to collect yourself before I continue.

There. Do you feel better now? If it’s okay with you I’ll continue but please, if it becomes too much, stop me at any point because I want to be sensitive to your needs.

All humor aside, the reason we canceled our trip was that my spouse’s mom was recently diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and so making the decision to not go to Italy was both a great disappointment and a very easy decision. It simply boiled down to this; Italy will always be there but D’s mom won’t always be here and so here is the only place we want to be. Disappointed but with no regrets.

I initially purchased travel insurance because I have this recurring travel phobia of getting up in the morning to catch our international flight and having that instant awful realization that I’m in the first throws of the stomach flu. Maybe it’s just me but when I’m vomiting I want the toilet seat I’m hugging to be securely fastened to the ground rather than hurling through space. So sure, while I winced at the 800 dollar price tag for travel insurance, I never hesitated and whew….am I glad because while the airlines, independent tour operators, and travel company were all incredibly gracious and sympathetic toward our situation there were still service charges, handling fees, and other minimal costs up front that were non-refundable and added up together they made one hefty pile of cash. So follow my advice and get travel insurance because despite our best plans we just never know what life is going to toss our way.

And despite the bad news I just dropped on you (sorry about that), on the bright side we’re planning to re-schedule our month stay in Italy for September-October 2011 which gives me even more time to obsess, plan, and obsess some more. And yes, I’ll be following my own advice and purchasing travel insurance once again with the hope that we don’t have to use it.

Planting Without A Green Thumb

Anita — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:01:23 +0000

When I recently saw these lavender-lemon flower cookies presented in plant-able pots at the Half-Moon Bay farmer’s market I knew it was an idea worthy of stealing and making my own so that my friends, having seen my version on someone else’s uniquely original idea would be immediately awed by my ingenuity and creativity.

“How do you come up with such incredibly creative ideas, Anita?”

“Oh, I don’t know. They just come to me.”

Yes. I’m just needy enough that I’m willing to deceive those I love for the attention. I’m the baby of the family. What can I say?

There’s a skill in plagiarizing someone else’s idea, that being the ability to change the idea just enough that should one of your friends, having previously stumbled upon the original say to you, “Hey, I saw something just like that a couple months ago at a farmer’s market on the coast!” you will be able to simply cock your head slightly to one side and with a puzzled look on your face reply, “Oh really?! Gosh, I guess it’s true what they say that there’s really nothing new under the sun. Cookies you say? Uh. I would have never thought of that.”

So with that in mind, I now present my uniquely original creation, Anita’s FlowerPot Nibblers.

I know. Cute, huh? I tell you, I just don’t know how I come up with these ideas! Anyway, here’s all you need to make some Flowerpot Nibblers of your own. Just don’t forget to tell people where you got the idea because that would simply be rude to not give me credit!

Any kind of flower-shaped cracker, celery, garden vegetable cream cheese, cheddar cheese slices, salami rounds and plantable pots which you should be able to pick up at any nursery.

Begin by lining the inside of the pot with plastic wrap or wax paper. I would have preferred using brown parchment paper but since I used the last of the row last night for roasting vegetables, plastic wrap served the purpose howbeit less organic in appearance.

Add two or three rounds of salami.

Now put a small spoon full of the garden vegetable cream cheese in the bottom of the pot.

Toss a couple rounds of cheese into the bottom of the pot…

and place the another round into the center of the cracker, gluing it with a smidge of the cream cheese (a smidge being like a dollop only slightly smaller).

Slice up a five or seven celery sticks for each pot (it’s a number thing…I can’t do even numbers with food items).

And that’s all there is to it. Each pot makes a substantial portable snack for a picnic or backyard party that includes five or six bites of meat, three bites of cheese, a cracker, and a little cream cheese for dipping the celery in. Arrange a number of these mini snack pots on your serving table around a pot filled with real flowers, and once the snack pots are empty provide the children at your big social event with potting soil, seeds, and plastic spoons for planting.

And that is my idea!

Libri, Libri, Ovunque!

Anita — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 03:37:05 +0000

My house is littered with books about Italy.

There’s the stacked pile on my nightstand. At the moment I’m three-quarters of the way through “The Wisdom of Tuscany“, beginning chapter two of “Four Seasons in Rome,” and nibbling random little bits and pieces from my newest acquisition, “Italy, Speak the Culture: Be Fluent in Italian Life and Culture.”

There are all the lavatory library books, composed primarily of travel guides and books with really short chapters.

There are stacks of Italy-themed books spread through the rest of our house; the coffee table books on ancient Rome and the towns and villages of Tuscany; the book shelf dedicated to cookbooks highlighting the various regions of Italy along with leaning stack of La Cucina Italiana. And then there’s Strega Nona!, a children’s pop-up book illustrated by Tomie dePaola, my all-time favorite illustrator. Each vibrantly colored page is dedicated to one of the six ingredients that make life magical to the wise Strega Nona, including famiglia (family), mangia (eating), pazienza (patience), celebrazione (celebration), amore (love), and….

…amici (friends).

I heart Italy.

Preparing for Pasta

Anita — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 02:51:04 +0000

104 days until Italy. 104 days until lemon gelato. 104 days until carciofi alla guidia (fried artichokes). 104 days until melon gelato. 104 days until pasta alla carbonara. 104 days until pistachio gelato. 104 days until a steamy mound of pasta topped with shaved white truffles. 104 days until chocolate gelato. 104 days until fresh pecorino cheese. 104 days until chilled little glasses of homemade lemoncello.

And did I mention 104 days until gelato?

That means I have 104 days to trim the little bit of soft and squishy around my waist that arrived in winter and made itself at home on my fleshy frame through spring. My goal in losing weight before Italy isn’t so I can eat until I pop, though I’m not saying that’s not possible given the newspaper headlines I read a few years ago that announced “Woman Eats 20 Pizzas and Explodes!!!” If the National Inquirer is to be believed it could happen.

But popping open like an overstuffed ravioli isn’t what I’m trying to avoid. Instead I want to get trimmed and toned so a) I’m in the best physical condition to enjoy walking through Rome, biking around Tuscany, and hiking the mountains edging along the Amalfi Coast; and b) the travel clothes I’ve already bought will be loose comfortable instead of snug sorta-comfortable when I disembark at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport.

And really, despite my enthusiasm for getting to know the flavors of Italy on an intimate first-name basis, my expectation is to come home without gaining more than a couple pounds, if that. Wishful thinking, you say? A naive dreamer, you call me? Not so! I counter. Well, that is if historical evidence counts for anything since two summers ago I managed to eat my way through Greece and come home the same weight as when I left despite consuming vats of whole milk yogurt drowning in honey and walnuts, sweet coffee drinks, slabs of grilled cheese, bowls of tzatziki swimming in olive oil, souvlaki sandwiches (skewers of lamb wrapped in warm pita and stuffed with a fistful of greasy french fries)…and then on my second day in Greece….

But for the next two months gelato and pasta will be reserved for my dreams while lighter fare will be on my plate, primarily focusing on non-processed whole foods high in vegetables, fruits and lean protein. That’s typically how we eat in our home anyway but the difference is getting myself back into the habit of eating moderate portions as opposed to my mile high heap on a plate default and writing down what I eat each day in a food journal, and I can’t say this enough but keeping a food journal is a tried and true key to successful weight loss and long-term maintenance! These days I’m using NetDiary for the iPad to record my food and exercise and I’m loving it. (Click on the image to the left to see a larger image of my exciting menu for the day). Speaking of which, after a season of cold weather hibernation I’m not only cleaning up my food plan but ramping back up to my usual exercise routine; core strength training three times a week, high intensity workouts (spinning, stair-stepping) three times a week, and plenty of walking, hiking, and biking for the pure enjoyment of being alive!

Like A Moth To the Flame…

Anita — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:58:28 +0000

…like a hoarder to a junk yard…like Pooh to a honey pot….is Anita to Apps.

But I’m not an app addict. I don’t have a problem. I could stop anytime I want. It just happens that I don’t want to stop right now.

Just another reason I’m looking forward to the app folders feature in the upcoming software upgrade! Hurry Steve “I own your soul” Jobs. I need folders. I really really do.

Click on images below to see my obsession, up close and personal. And be afraid. Be very very afraid.

iPad iGadgets

Anita — Tue, 18 May 2010 03:31:09 +0000

We’re a two iPad family and if the cats had opposing digits instead of paws we’d probably need to double that number. As it stands I’m sharing my 3G Bright and Shiny Object with the puddy cats who have conversations with Cat Commander and play bug tag with Apps for Cats. Seriously. Apps for cats. Next thing you know they’re going to want their own email accounts.

So here’s my iPad booty all packed up and ready for the weekly pilgrimage to Starbucks. The solid-sided case is by Cocoon Innovations and was originally designed for a netbook and while they have a thinner model specifically for the iPad I like the extra space this one provides for my bluetooth keyboard and Griffin iPad A-Frame Stand. The case also comes with a center grid flap where I store a cloth for cleaning the touch screen, power adapter and cord, earbuds, extra batteries for the keyboard, stylus pen, my iPhone and a red movie peg just in case I want to watch a movie on my iPhone. Who am I kidding?! As if I’m ever going to watch a movie on that little weeny screen again. Yeh. Right.

I had both the Wifi (hers) and the 3G (mine) shipped on the first day each was released which has meant up to now I’ve more or less been an unpaid Apple iPad Representative in their Starbucks Division every time I pull out my iPad at one of their dinky Frisbee tables, the truth is I actually enjoy answering the same questions over and over or providing yet another spontaneous demo of Photo Album and Newsy. I’m just that crazy in love with my iPad, while never forgetting the profound wisdom imparted by Janeane Garofalo in The Truth about Cats and Dogs, which if I may now take the liberty to rephrase, “You can love your iPad, you just can’t love your iPad.”

Oh, and are you completely loving on the il Tricolore decal skin? I know. Awesome.

Half Moon Bay for the Day

Anita — Mon, 17 May 2010 22:47:10 +0000

The plan all week was to head over to John Muir National Forest for a hike through the woods on Saturday morning, but when Saturday morning arrived, a lazy car trip and lunch at a small coastal town sounded even better. And it was.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer