by Rachael on August 26, 2010

I wish I knew more about this house. All I got was the title of the blog post. I’m assuming it’s in Spain from the name, but I could be wrong. Alls I know is, I wish I knew where this house was so I could go knock on the door and pretend that I totally used to live where when I was a little kid, and gosh, could I just peek in and see what it looks like now? Then I would walk around and cry because I never actually lived there.
I love the wood floors and the weird basement-y cave-like warmth of the kitchen. I could imagine sitting around that dining room table with the late-night stragglers from a dinner party, drinking red wine and talking until the wee hours of the morning. See more pictures of the awesome kitchen after the jump.
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by Rachael on August 24, 2010

Yeah, that was lame. WHATEVER. I’m too excited about this amazing Youtube find to sound smart or mature or whathaveyou. Did anyone spend their childhood sick days and Saturday mornings watching cooking shows on PBS and TLC during the day? No? No one else? Oh. Well, that’s what I did. I used to watch many shows, such as Yan Can Cook, that show with the drunk Cajun dude, and this one show that followed fancy chefs in their own restaurant kitchens as they cooked dishes from their menus.
That show was called “Great Chefs. Great Cities,” and as I was putzing around trying to find videos to inspire my new (secret) project, I happened across ENTIRE EPISODES on Youtube today. I don’t remotely recall the jaunty Radisson-piano-bar-jazz song over the opening credits, but the shots of all of the dishes, with all of the brightly colored sauces swirled on the plates, rockets me back to being home sick when I was 8 years old, laying on the couch, stricken with the flu, so excited about that daytime 2-hour block of great chefs preparing the kinds of beautiful food that I one day hoped to make. My dad is a chef, so as a kid, I always had a vague idea of what went on in commercial kitchens, but this show provided me with an insider’s glimpse of a “real” kitchen, and, I felt at the time, brought me just a little bit closer to my dad and what he did all day.
After watching a few episodes of this, all I’m left wondering is why this still isn’t on the air. Seriously, it’s awesome. One of the best parts is watching chefs, such as Daniel Bouloud and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, now super-famous because of the foodie craze, cook these entire dishes from scratch when, in real life, they probably didn’t even think about touching 95% of that prep. Watching Jean-Georges Vongerichten fight with the teensy Cuisinart (that eternal sponsor of PBS cooking shows) to chop a carrot and some leek is quite magical.
Youtube disabled embedding on the videos, so watch them here.
by Rachael on August 18, 2010

I ran across this post on Haute Macabre featuring pictures of wan models with food all over their faces. I was immediately intrigued by the grotesque beauty of the pictures, so I followed the link and fell down the rabbit hole of Dutch (from what I can tell) photographer Marcel van der Vlugt’s site. He appears to be a marvelous photographer who has multiple sets of pictures of women hanging out with crap on their faces. The set that these photos came from was called “I Like…” which appears to be a documentation of food he enjoys splashed across the face of lovely ladies. Which, I guess, is one way to showcase your tastes without a “Like” button. The images are way haunting, and if I ever started a food magazine, I would totally put this kind of shit in it. Hit the jump for more crazy/beautiful pictures.
(yeah, that was a reference to a Kirsten Dunst movie. Suck it)
I apologize in advance for the obnoxious formatting. Wordpress hates me.
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by Rachael on August 2, 2010

For those of you who have been following my exploits on Twitter (if you’re not, you should!), I’ve been tweeting about this mysterious diet I’m on. Now I know that the words “I’m on a diet” strike fear and incredulity in the hearts of most friends and family, but I’m trying not to be too obnoxious. It really sucks though when it gets in the way of your life, like when friends want to go grab beers and pizzas with buffalo chicken wings on top. But it’s fairly temporary, in the grand scheme of things, so I’m trying not to bring everyone who knows me down too much. Sry guys.
I’m not one for diets. In fact, I’ve never been on a diet until this week. Most of my life, I’ve been lucky enough to eat whatever I wanted and not get too chunky. After I started taking medication for my lazy thyroid, I hovered around 125 pounds and a size 4 for a number of years. But after my first year of college, when I was too stressed out to eat and dipped down to 110 pounds, my metabolism was completely shot, and I’ve suffered from a steady weight gain ever since. I don’t think it helped that the office job I held for nearly a year after graduation called for sitting on my ass for 8 hours a day, save for lunch breaks where I ate with a bunch of guys at taquerias and pizza places and Southern food joints and stuffed my face so they wouldn’t make fun of me for not being able to finish my fries.
Well! That’s all about to change. And I’m about to get about 750% more annoying. I’m on a diet, y’all. I’m trying my hand at this Eat To Live diet that my foodie friend Gabrielle told me about, and it’s going pretty well. You basically eat as many veggies and fruits as possible, then throw some beans and a bit of grains and starchy veggies (like potatoes and carrots) in for good measure. I’ll try to post some delicious bean recipes in the coming weeks. They exist, I swear! Maybe. Though I might just be delirious from all the romaine. Also, hummus is awesome. But only if you make it yourself, apparently.
My goal is to get down to about 110-115 pounds without the shock to my system of a 4-month-long panic-induced starvation. Secondary goal: by next summer, I’d like to be able to wear a maxi dress without looking like a 2-foot-tall bag of bologna. I would post my actual weight here, but I don’t want to humiliate myself any more than I already do on the internet. Suffice it to say, I’ve lost 6 pounds, but my pants are still a size 12. Skinny jeans here I cooooooome!
Also: bye bye boobs. Your time on this earth was short, but your presence was much enjoyed. If only by me. :(