Developing Tradition

This was a Thanksgiving of development. 

It started with a Long Beach flea market find I took upon myself to hang the day before Thanksgiving.

The unknown West displayed. 

We're both still developing.

My idea of development was trying something new and maximizing resources. 

So basically trying to find a couple dishes using similar ingredients. 

Otherwise my development would end along with my sanity at the checkout line in Vons on Thanksgiving eve. 

The only problem...

how does one make three different dishes using repeated ingredients 

...and get away with it? 

1. Make each dish for a different course (app, salad, side)

2. Pretend like someone else made one of them...

3. bring a bottle of wine to confuse and distract

App: Pumpkin dip

Salad: Quinoa spinach 

Side: Whipped sweet potatoes

See those pumpkin seeds? They get used later in the salad.

See the stale bread? It also becomes croutons.

But seriously. Did anyone know that this is what the inside of a nutMeg looked like?

Serious developments. 

A little sprinkle in the pumpkin dip. A little sprinkle in the sweet potato puree. 

Brown Sugar caramelized pecans...

Some to top the whipped sweet potatoes,

Some to add to the quinoa concoction.

Some dried cranberries go to the quinoa;

some to the pumpkin dip.

You've got to use what you've got. 

Trays made out of aluminum foil is what I was working with.

But I was working with some good timing. I planned that one well. 

...What I lack in materials I make up for in good times. 

What a development. We ate outside on Thanksgiving. A first for this midwest girl. 

You know those pottery barn catalogs you look at and go "Oh c'mon! Seriously? Who actually has pillows and decorations outside?"

LA does. All. Year. Round.

Brady made the shot.

This is Lil Kim getting in on some free smells. 

This is Lisa and Sondra surveying the yield. Getting some fixins. 

This is me trying to develop. 

Some experiences. 

Some friendships.

On the radio we heard November rain...

A blink and October is over. I used to try and write once weekly. Once weekly became twice monthly. Twice monthly became once monthly. And then there was the day that October was over. Flew by. 

The month began in St. Louis, visiting and celebrating. 

Wineries, brewpubs, being a wimpy Angelino and complaining of the cold. Pathetic.

Then the arrival of a new roommate. 

Acclimation is key.

And what better way to acclimate and celebrate her birthday than a trip to Malibu wineries?

Then the arrival of a best friend for a visit. 

All the food, fun, music, flea market and whisky one can get their hands on.

Then every pumpkin flavored anything I could get my hands on. 

Beer. Pancake batter. Ice cream. Dip. Frozen yogurt. 

The list probably goes on but for self preservation, I'm stopping there.

Then came the flu after a conscientious employee got her vaccine. 

Word to the wise, skip the vaccine this year. And for that matter skip the flu. It's particularly nasty. 4 pounds down with zero appetite. Guess what, it all comes back.

Then Halloween. 

I never realized how offensive the smell of beer on someones breath was until I went out for Halloween with the flu. 

Then the anticipation of pops for a weekend. 

Was really wonderful to see pops.

And here we are. Mid way through November. With my favorite holiday round the corner. Can't believe it. It was 57 degrees tonight. I thought I was freezing to death and also loved it. Two sides of me fighting. I'll be staying in SoCal for Thanksgiving. Maybe up to Santa Barbara for some wine tasting the days following. 

And then it'll be the holidays. 

I'm going to have to stop blinking altogether. 

I'm barely keeping up.  

Outpouring Hydration

I've lost track of the months. No one told me this would happen moving to LA. I have no perception of time passing. Gone with the desert wind. And with it, my memory.

How long have I been here? When did that happen? Is there a holiday coming up?

Every day is the same day in La La Land.

Forecast says “dry. sunny. traffic.”

The first two months out here I woke up every morning thinking I had hit the bar too hard the night before. The dehydration headaches despite the 9-5 responsibility. No fun at all.

But time continued. And my dear friend Anna's wedding was underway.

I bought my bridesmaid's dress in anticipation of alterations. Hoping to fit it perfectly.

Notice the use of "me fitting it"...not hoping to have "it fit me" perfectly...?

I stood in front of the Asian man like a mannequin.

Arms out. Diaphragm elevated. Sucked in to avoid pin pricks.

I learned a lesson here. 

When I went to pick it up, it fit alright. But the air inside of me didn't.

I began what a dietitian will refer to as a “Cardiac, NCS FLD.” Translation: low fat, low sodium, sugar free, full liquid diet.” But it was no use. The ribcage was the culprit.

Does alcohol fit into a FLD?

Chinatown summer nights was upon La La Land as well. With one week and a couple of deep breaths to spare until the midwest wedding, the crew headed to the lantern lined streets for DJ dance parties and Tsingtao.
...The Asians population is small so I tried to learn another lesson involving them. In hopes to fit into their alterations. Was that tailor trying to tell me something?

I skipped the sodium laden food and stuck to liquids (okay, minus that one piece of food truck fried chicken). Liquids that would dehydrate me. And hopefully shrink my ribcage. Oh wishful thinking. 

I danced. Confetti popped. Lights flashed. Turn tables, well, turned. It was all very La La Land and so was I.

Needless to say the next day my dehydration headache was warranted. 

So I traveled east. With a 13 year old rocking out, hard, in the seat to my north and a baby kicking my seat, hard, to the south. When I went to ask the flight attendant how much wine was, the father sitting next to this baby held out his credit card.

Again, elevation, wine, headaches. When will I learn?

So I made it home. And to celebrate father and I took a trip to World of Beers. Only after my run in 90 degree, 12pm heat accompanying 95% humidity. Obviously still on my liquid diet. It felt good to be home. It felt a bit humid. But good.

So then there was the rehearsal and to follow the classy rehearsal dinner.

And a 6am run to be had the morning of the wedding before submitting to breathlessness-and not because of the beautiful bride, although that exacerbated things. 

I hardly made it through. Minimal sitting. Minimal eating. Plenty of dancing. Some strobe lights. Professional dancers. Was I still in La La?
What time period was I in anyways. Past and present all sorts of mixed up.

Once the dress came off, so did my discipline. 2 pints of Goose Island beer and 2 slices of pizza (the most glorious pizza I dare say I have ever had only due to circumstances) and I was happy. A little too happy. Two pints atop 4 cocktails atop minimal eating atop running necessitates a gas station trip across the street to stock pile on electrolyte beverages. And by stock pile, I mean, all the lemon flavored zero calorie vitamin and mineral water I could hold onto. With some help of course.

And I'll have you know that those drinks really do the trick. I actually felt pretty darn good the next day. Tired as ever from no sleep, 2 weeks of minimal eating, and a lot of traveling but no headache. I remained a bit breathless that next day despite peeling off the dress. Some things just take the air out of you. And sometimes being home makes emotions come out of you too. Fully hydrated on electrolytes and a bit dehydrated from tears. It felt good to see everyone. And when I graced the streets on Sunday, the weather felt the same way. The rain fell. It felt like la la land to me. I hadn't seen rain, rain for days and days. It was a wonderful display of the outpouring of my emotions. I wanted to go stand in it, badly. But that can be pretty rude when you must rely on others to drive you from place to place.

So I walked through the United O'hare terminal en route to my LA gate. Through tripped out, psychedelic passage ways that brought me back to the direction I was headed. West.

I grabbed a lemon flavored vitamin mineral water before boarding the plane. In anticipation of no crying babies or Megs for that matter. And I sat. Ready to return. To a normal diet. From a bit of closure.

And don't you know it but the next day it rained in La La Land. And I took a good, deep breath.
Here I go. Dancing in the sun. Until I trip while time traveling. And fall. Into autumn. In two weeks. In St. Louis.

Supplementation

So I don't know if it's my awareness or what but you start to notice things in LA that look familiar. 

Like, isn't this the shiny tunnel that every car commercial ever is shot in? Cadillac with that chick from Greys Anatomy pops into mind. In particular. 

I think her name was Adison?

Or isn't this the pacific coast highway in that commercial where that that chick from the OC gets out of her car and jumps on other cars to get to that ice cream truck. And then awkwardly eats ice cream?

I think her name is Rachel?

Or, how about we go to that bar that's in the movie Swingers tonight? Or the one in 500 Days of Summer?

Or even seeing the Hollywood Production Company intro before Beasts of the Southern Wild last night really does pan out to show the lay of the land. And it really does look like the scene out my window...

So I'm watching Bones while working out. I never watch this show. But it seemed like something that may help pass the time since I really wasn't all in the mood for working out today.  

And wouldn't you guess it but the premise of the show was that a production company decided to shoot a movie in a studio in LA about a "bones" case. A mock movie inside a show. Oh! And of course the predictable, the "fake" body that the "fake" actors were dissecting was really a "real" body for the Bones actors. It all has a bit more of a facade to me now but so it goes.

Anyways, all I really wanted to say was that when the show went to a commercial break, the advertisement was for Caltrate plus D, a calcium citrate supplement with vitamin D3 that I currently recommend to my particular patients. This commercial showed a skeleton to demonstrate the power of supplementation. 

The animated skeleton looked a lot better than the decomposing mess on the show. 

I guess that's the point.

Oh the power of advertising. 

Now how do I get on that...

I'll supplement this city alright.

Get ready LA

...

Plans Are Drafted

Launch Date 11.19.Twenty12

Even Artichokes Have Hearts

Regina's in town tonight.

I saw my main man Andrew Bird kick at at the Greek Theater Sunday night. Lake Forest grad, Northwestern trained talent straight from the burbs of Chicago. Felt like home. Especially because I brought my cousin.

The man is wicked talented. His whistle is unreal. And the audience... well was so appreciative and taken by him that you could actually hear crickets during the breaks in his songs. Real crickets not like awkward silence crickets. Keep in mind the Greek is an outdoor theater.

Now it's Regina Spektor's turn. I saw her once. She is a beautiful soul. Honest as they come. Her lyrics and her love.

I didn't get tickets for this one. I wish I had. I was going to walk up the hill and have a listen in on it...

Maybe if I leave now I can still have my cake and eat it too...?

In honor of her and not going to see her, I threw on her “Live in London” album today. The songs are so bittersweet. The whole lineup brought me back to exactly a year ago when this album played on repeat in my car. Actually right back to a farm in southern Illinois. I believe I blogged about that event before. But then again I've blogged about Regina before too.

I can't believe that was a year ago. Am I the same person?

I feel enlightened and hollow. A little more homeless a little less homeless. 

A walking vegetable.

Her song starts...

The food that I'm eating, is suddenly tasteless. I know I'm alone now. I know what it tastes like.

What a soulful line of emptiness. Beautiful.

I know music is good for my soul. It's like food. It can just taste a bit bitter and a bit sweet at times. Things will start tasting good.

Even artichokes have hearts.

Appropriately Honest

I have, probably for the last...well 8 years, been doing this up and down thing.

With the exception of the 4 months I lived at my parents house before moving to Los Angeles and slightly turned into a hermit. But even still at that time I was up and down about job searching and I was going to Milwaukee and San Diego and New Orleans and St. Louis. I was not on any particular schedule at all. I was up and down in ending and starting relationships and friendships and school and work and sisters with the same last name and, well, about everything.

I was leaving and reentering. I was excited and then recovering.

I was searching for stability but afraid to find it.

The ups and downs come about after high school of course when the doors for ups and their consequences are wide open. And at that time the downs are easier to deal with for the most part because everyone is just trying to figure it out too. And everything seems very far off in the future. And the safety net knowing that your next four years are mapped out means that everything you do in the present is what you need and can be doing at that time.

And because people are pretty darn resilient right of high school. Physically and mentally.

But somewhere along the way your body starts to get wicked bad hangovers and your relationships stop being so surface level and all the sudden you start to have some stability. And then people try to keep that stability. They feel healthier. More well rounded. Safe.

Safe is not synonymous with boring or bad but sometimes I'm afraid it is. To me? Because when I find stability I want it to stay good and strong and I want to be in it for real. And happy in it. And not feel trapped in it.

But stability is like a unicorn anyways.

And I want my cake and I want to eat it too! And I suppose I was afraid I couldn't have both. But that's just a really silly thought, really.

I always see it like blood glucose. Regulating blood sugars makes you feel good. You operate well. You pick good foods and you eat enough of them and in return you feel good. You try to avoid having your sugars peak and bottom out.

People have asked me how I like LA. I'd like to think that when I talk to someone, even someone I don't particularly know well, I'm pretty honest. I mean, there is what I like to say “appropriately honest.” I believe that people, for the most part, like positive people and responses. And I think for the most part, people who are answering questions about “how's married life, how's your new job, how's your move far from everything you've known....?” would like to give people an answer that makes them sound positive and put together. Advertise what they want people to think of them, so to speak.

Or rather just not make someone feel uncomfortable.

I like when its a little real. That does not mean that it's not positive. You can be positive and real. Real is not synonymous with negative. Real may seem more noticeable during the reentry and recovery. Like when you're Really trying desperately to find a nice balance between up and down or just avoiding coming down so hard. But real can be “pinch my cheek” I can't believe this is real, good.

The comedown is usually necessary to keep people on some sort of healthy path. If we could all do what we wanted all day it may lead to bankruptcy or liver disease or separation anxiety. But if bankruptcy or liver disease or separation anxiety didn't exist …? Well then would the up be so uplifting?

It's like trust fund babies ODing on heroine..

There is something very unsatisfying with the present when the present is on the comedown side of life. Maybe it's that dissatisfaction that keeps people pushing for new things. Better things.

It's that necessary evil. We can't cook life-changing, magical meals all the time because we can't afford the ingredients and the time. And we don't want to clean it all up afterward. That's why they're so magical. Because they're special.

Responding to “how do I like LA...” may be answered like “The highs are really fun and amazing and the lows are kind of lonely.” I don't regret moving here. I was not ready to “settle down” in my past life. I don't think LA is for me permanently but it's an experience. And I'm sure when I leave here, I will reminisce about it fondly and come to miss it as we are all a bit unsatisfied in the present and a little bittersweet about the past.

This age I'm at. This phase I'm at. It's all up and down. It feels like every move dictates everything. It feels like some clock is ticking and you have to scramble and get all the answers and obtain all the uncontrollables by a certain time. Or else...life won't turn out like you thought? Or what you think. Because the present is always rather unsettling. And I have to stop and realize that life doesn't “turn out” anyways. It just is.

Sometimes I'm not quite sure about my real appropriate answers. But then I ask myself a new set of questions. “Do you wish you had stayed where you were?” No. “Are the ups worth the downs?” Yes.

And then all my concerns kind of melt away. Because it's easy to answer one question when you have other opposing questions that are really easy to answer.

Whether we move physically, or move onto a new phase in our life, we're always moving. Even if I stayed in one place, I'd be moving. And those around me would be moving. And no one can compare either. But when everyone is moving in a certain common direction it can leave you uncertain about yourself and your direction. Then I ask the questions again, am I ready for that direction? No. Then why am I spending time worrying about it? I think people naturally do what feels best for them anyways. When you fight it, those disconnects cause some serious anxiety. The only anxiety I'm getting from it is that I feel as though my friends are aware that I'm in the ups and downs and could sit me down and say “ohhh Meg” and give me that pitiful look. The one you get when you've been there and gotten past there and are so glad not to be there. But what if you are not ready to move beyond there?

When I woke up today I was certain about a handful of things.

I was certain that I love the Olympics.

I was certain that I have a west coast bucket list that I intend to fulfill before moving.

I was certain that I would love to move to Brooklyn in one year and teach nutrition classes at a culinary school and take cooking classes.

I was certain that I love my family and my friends.

I was certain that if I stayed in LA, I would miss the seasons too much....The Stable Season Itch.

I was certain that I missed a certain someone and I was not ready to see that end.

And I was certain that wherever you go, there you are.

K Town

I have ventured into Koreatown. Known to locals as “K-town.” And now that I'm living local, I get to pretend I am a local. Although, when one goes to “K-town” one feels like they are no longer living local at all.

The densely populated streets are littered with stores only displaying characters. You need a tour guide to get you to your destination and one to show you how to order and eat. It is a different world.

I've learned one major thing about eating in Koreatown, to eat the food, you must do some of the work.

I was lucky enough to have two tour guides. Especailly necessary when preparing.

The first experience in “K-town” was at a place called the Boiling Crab.

Butter soaked bags of shrimp, crab and lobster are dispensed with the intention of diners to “have at” the food.

De-veining, cracking open, peeling, de-shelling. All of it. A total mess.

Never have I been this messy at dinner.

Not a good blind date location. Maybe only if the date was blind.

A mess in which you line the table with white paper just to contain it. A mess in which I counted 1, 2, 3 to my group of 8 other diners to to flip and display their grungy hands-a competition I think I won.

My second experience was at an authentic Korean barbaque.

My tour guides were amazing people. The only thing that separated our love form the food was the grill grate in the middle of the table. And of course my knowledge of kimche.

The lovely Vivian handled the grilling. Slab after slab of meat appeared. Grate after grate of grills replaced.

Never have I been this full of protein after a meal. A fullness which was a total new experience for me. Full of protein and full of a mixed meal are very different feelings. And never have I smelled so much of grill.

This was not for the lazy diner. 

Nor for the vegetarian. 

And certainly not for any local afraid of the mess.