pomegranate

my blood is the color of pomegranate, 
clichéd jewel of my homeland.
i peel it. 
i dismember it.
i eat it.
blood stain hands
blood red lips
this is what history tastes like
sunlit veiled vampire girl
like rumi, you never age.

foreign film feast

now that the summer big budget blockbuster movie season is over (phew!), here are the three soon to be released must see foreign films on my radar in the comings weeks:
from brazil - neighboring sounds

from france - chicken with plums

and from iran - the green wave.

4 more years

i've read that you should never blog about your political or religious views (unless you are a political or religious blogger). it's the taboo of blogging - just as it is at a formal dinner party - lest you alienate your host.. 
well, my black sheep tendencies just have to raise a flag and burn a bridge on this one. there are less than 90 days before we (here in the united states) vote for the man (we'll no doubt add a "wo" in front of that word in the coming years) that will guide and lead and negotiate and represent on our behalf for the next 4 years. there is a huge ideological and social chasm between our two choices and if the current polls are right, a very small margin of victory separating the two. the reality, simply presented daily until election day by an initiative called 90 days, 90 reasons, sees it like this: "if this doesn’t become an all-hands-on-deck movement to re-elect president obama, he will lose. and mitt romney, who has campaigned as the most conservative republican candidate in history, will become president." 
i don't need 90 reasons to get to my polling place on november 6th- but for those of you who may need just a bit more audacity and hope, there will soon be 90 voices to help dust off the apathy and nudge you awake.

pie me

the la weekly came out with their list of los angeles's 10 best pies last month and a few friend's and i have been (of course) taste testing. so far, the cherry pie from marcie's pies at various local farmers markets has taken the cake! sweet, tart with a perfect light and crumbly crust! 
one of the secret's to yummy pie is it's serving temperature (it should be warm/room temperature and never just out of the fridge). marcie's pies are baked fresh and sold daily, not refrigerated (unless you're going to keep it for more than a day or 2, in which case, yes, refrigerate, but leave out before serving) and the little 'individual' sized ones are a perfect reason to sit yourself down on the curb with a friend and indulge after some market fruit and veggie picking. 

music monday - andrew bird

i must have been busy living under a music rock, because only now have i been introduced (thanks to like minded music friends) to the music of andrew bird, my new jeff buckley. this song easily falls into the where have you been all my life (and why can't i write lyrics like this) category and it's a perfect sleepy monday morning kick starter. 

best gazpacho

it's been far too hot to turn on the oven or stove the past couple of weeks,  so i've been gleefully slurping on the most amazingly delicious home made gazpacho now that the tomatoes at the farmers markets are perfectly in season. i had a one on one, step by step cooking demonstration from an expert spaniard who's recipe is a secret that falls in the i can tell you but then will have to kill you category. i will say that with a couple of pounds of perfect tomatoes, a cucumber and a green bell pepper you are as close as you are going to get to the perfect summer lunch - just add day old bread, olive oil, sherry vinegar, and some muscle power to crank the food mill.
have a delicious weekend and buen provecho!

best chocolate

who knew iceland produced perfect chocolate? vodka, wool sweaters and bjork, yes, but delicious dark chocolate? well, my new dark chocolate obsession this year is from all places, iceland! a creamy, not too bitter afternoon indulgence which i think has caught on with the masses, because they've been sold out at whole foods the past couple of weeks. i'll need to start hoarding for the winter when they are back in stock. 

best new restaurants

bon appetit magazine just published their 2012 list of america's 10 best new restaurants. the picks all sound and look deliciously amazing and since #9 on the list, baco mercat, is just a few miles east, it has now been moved to the top of my must eat at list. it's not surprising that there are two new york mentions, but i'm thrilled to see washington dc finally represented on a top 10 list - a must sample on my next visit back east!

best eggs

in the search for the perfect fresh, just off the farm, free-range egg, i've started to sample the varieties sold at my local farmers markets. I used los angeles magazine as a guide and first up were the just off the farm eggs sold by gama farms at the melrose place sunday market. the eggs are beautiful, big and buttery and i've been happily eating my half a dozen poached, scrambled and boiled (with lentils below) all week!

music monday - chavela vargas

one of the greatest (and my favorite) mexican singers died last sunday at the age of 93. throughout her career, she refused to live by mexico's roman catholic preconceptions of what it meant to be a female or singer: singing lusty "ranchera" songs while wearing men's clothes, carrying a pistol, drinking and smoking cigars.  she recorded 80 albums, and was a close friend of frida kahlo, diego rivera and spanish writer federico garcia lorca, whose work she paid homage to on an album released several months ago .
at a mexico city tribute concert last summer, she thanked the audience and said "i was never afraid of anything because i never hurt anyone." gracias por todo chavela vargas!

soft shell

step one: wait for wednesday to come around (the seafood market gets their soft shell shipments only on wednesday mornings).
step two: get yourself to santa monica seafood on said wednesday morning (during summer soft shell season months).
step three: invite yourself to soft shell master chef friend's house for dinner and offer to bring a half a dozen soft shell presents if she kindly cooks them for you.
step four: sip on white wine, perfect leftover gazpacho (more on that to come in coming weeks), bite into fresh charred farmers market padron peppers and await the first life changing bite of perfectly prepared crabs w/farro and tomato green bean salad.
step five: bite into said sweet and crispy soft shell deliciousness and kick yourself for refusing to sample the fresh soft shells your mother made twenty five years ago because the crabs looks "creepy"!
step six: follow your perfect meal with delicious fresh passion fruits and blood orange sorbet.
step seven: repeat all above steps as often as possible before the end of summer rolls around.
have a delicious, delicacy filled weekend!

egg carton 2.0

the egg carton is due for a re-design and this new packaging designed  by hungarian graphic designer otilia andrea erdelyi is a beautiful new possible option for the (not so distant) future. 

*photos via fastcodesign.com

storycorp

storycorps is a great, nonprofit that travels around the united states in their recognizable aluminum trailers, recording and sharing the stories of whomever wants to share. since 2003 they have recorded and archived over 40,000 interviews. they broadcast some of their stories weekly on npr and recently re-broadcast this beautiful 27 year love story as told by brooklyn residence danny and his wife annie. I was listening and crying like a baby in my car when it aired.

gone bananas

my sweet tooth obsession this month - frozen pieces of not too ripe bananas covered with delicious dark chocolate. i'll need to invest in a lock for my freezer if this continues...

music monday - modest mouse

my dreams the past few nights look exactly like this video - cut out, random, strange and silly.  i wish i could get a couple of hours of more sleep and get to the bottom of my cut out shape walking on a beach with plastic palm trees and a cellophane ocean...

summer sombrillas

forget ugly beach umbrellas that shade only a couple of people (at most) and always blow away at the first gust of wind. a couple of australian friends have founded hollie and harrie, a small melbourne based company that designs beautiful sombrilla canopies. they are perfect for the beach, for camping, or just in the back yard. most designs ship worldwide. but i'm waiting for the moroccan blue beauty, which currently only ships within australia. lovely! 
have a sea and sun filled weekend!

*photos via hollieandharrie.com.au

jeni's ice cream

i think i've mentioned how in the past few months, i've been craving ice cream all the time. well, a couple of weeks ago, friends came over for dinner and brought a little pint of perfection for dessert. jeni's ice cream is hand made in ohio with locally sourced and seasonal ingredients. their cows are grass fed, their fruits organic and their packaging clean & simply designed. at about $11 a pint, it is the most expensive ice cream at the super market, but the salted caramel we had was well worth every spoonful - it was the creamiest and richest i've ever had and it took a great deal of discipline for the three of us not to finish the whole pint!  

fitzgerald found

this week, the new yorker published a story by f.scott fitzgerald that it rejected for publication in 1936. 'thanks for the light' was re-discovered by his grandchildren as they were going through his papers, and seems more hemingway than fitzgerald - but nevertheless a timeless vignette 76 years overdue for publication.