Xmas in July? Wha??

When I came home, it felt like Xmas.  Mostly a bunch of stuff I ordered online regardless of when I ordered it came today.  Even though I paid for it all, it still felt like Xmas.  And since there was so much, it really did because my birthday is just around that time as well.  And it was uber fun to open it all.

So, what came today?  The largest package was from Costco — my new knife set.  Because of a very nice little birdie, I was able to snag the set for the low low price of $199.99 before tax. The Saber knives are of top quality without the insane price that usually comes along with it.  I had toyed about the other set that is normally $199, but decided that I had no use for 8 steak knives.  My favorite part of the new set that wasn’t in the other one?  Shears!  I actually have a couple shears so I’ll be testing each one out.  What I wish were in this set but was in the other set?  I like the sharpening tool of the other set — the kind that you set down and pull the knife against.  Instead, this set has a sharpening steel.  I’m sure once I learn how to use it properly it won’t be as much of a problem but it seemed the other sharpener was far more idiot proof.  Idiot proofing that I adore: labeling the knives for what it is (chef or santoku or boning or paring etc)  I’d like to put a review down when I have time to test it all out, but in the meantime, you can go to Cooking For Engineers‘s excellent review of the knives.  I won’t go into nearly as much detail as them but scientists have just as valid opinion as engineers!  🙂  The new block swivels which I like but I think I may just buy a magnetic strip and place the knives there instead.  The block really could be better and it takes a huge amount of room up.  I like the more counter space I can manage AND a sexy place for my sexy tools.  (Are you listening, Rich?  🙂 )

I also got some multivitamins from Centrum, specifically the Centrum Performance Line.  This purchase was actually important in many ways: 1) I bought it through Drugstore.com through the United Mall so I will be able to keep my expiring miles from…expiring.  2)  I have not had multivitamin support in over a month at this point as I ran out and haven’t gotten around to finding a suitable replacement (on sale!).  3) This will be third “performance” vitamin I have tried: GNC, One-a-Day, and now Centrum.  My hope is after a month to give a detailed account of the pros and cons of each of these multivitamins.  Remember, its very important not to go cheap on vitamins and often how much you pay correlates to the quality, so don’t go too bargain on these purchases.  Groups like Centrum and GNC spend a fair bit of money for the quality control — as does Kirkland so it doesn’t mean you have to pay out the nose either.  Just keep on eye on the baddies.

The last package was my first purchase from 6pm.  I got some Taryn Rose heels for an upcoming wedding.  At first, I wasn’t impressed with them and was questioning whether it was worth the high price tag (a huge percentage off of a high price is still a high price — but at least I got it during a day sale where there was more of a price cut).  But I have to say the shoe is comfortable.  Still not sure on the price…it’s a very plain shoe but a comfortable heel.  I also finally got some jeans!  In petites as well (I’m super short).  I was a bit saddened when I put them on.  They fit, but they were very tight.  My size 8 clothing have been pretty comfortable on my lately, but it is my first DKNY jeans so maybe their sizes run small.  The big winner?  These $10 shoes I saw and said, why the hell not?  Not super gorgeous, but a good professional shoe that also was pretty comfy!

I would have gotten something else but it was insured and required a signature so the post office left the slip for redelivery.  I can’t wait to get some more Youngblood, my latest obsession…

A nice way to start the weekend!  Coupled with the fact that today was National Cheesecake Day, so my husband and I stopped by the Cheesecake factory for dinner and some half off slices of cheesecake.  (But don’t worry, we brought something back from the Three Dog Bakery for my poochie.)

There should be more Xmases in July!

STS: Week 8 Complete!

Ugh, this week was hard.  It didn’t start out hard, but it seems that I have one week of PMSing followed by one week of TOM.  By midweek, I was bloated and depressed and going into a place I didn’t care for.  It seemed so NOT what I wanted!  I even asked one of my online exercise check in buddies if it was her TOM because we tend to be TOM buddies (thankfully, she confirmed).  But I did eventually get all my workouts done this week and most of them on schedule.

Review: Enter the Youngblood…

For those of you who have known me in real life, you would know I’ve been pushing Jane Iredale for years.   And this was before the mineral makeup craze of Bare Escentuals and Sephora-gaga fans were buying everything in sight.  Why did I love mineral makeup?  It was the first time I felt there was makeup that worked for my ethnic skin.  Over the year, it seems that the big counters in the beauty department of Macys or Nordstorm only tailored to white people, some other white people, OMG, there’s a whole MAC counter now for black women, more white people, super fair Asians that wish their skin was whiter than white people, and old white people.  I’m Indian so my brown (GORGEOUS!) tanned skin has golden undertones.  You go too neutral, I wash out.  You go to yellow, I look like those fake baked tan people.  And god forbid natural coverage.  I’d wear makeup in college and my gosh people were just mean to me when I wore makeup that I just stopped dressing up completely and accepted myself as someone who could never be or feel beautiful and just rely on my smarts.  A couple years later, I was a med spa where I bemoaned the lack of makeup for people of my skin-tone where this wonderful esthetician introduced me to Jane Iredale.  Now, not all mineral makeup is the same. Jane Iredale, at the time, not only made high quality mineral makeup but she made it for so many different kinds of global shades.  You go back a few years into the Sephora in Hollywood, I’d still come out with empty bags despite the mineral makeup craze.  Jane Iredale was almost like a goddess to me — presenting me with fun and play and piece of mind.  But times have changed.

Top Chef: lamest. cold. war. ever.

I actually got pretty upset this week with Top Chef.  It started out simple enough, where the chefs were given exotic food items from emu eggs to duck liver which turned out to be duck testicles and everyone had a giggle at Angelo’s expense who chose the offending item.  Halfway through the quickfire challenge, Padma comes in and tells all the chefs to take the station to the right of them so now Kevin gets stuck with the duck testicles and Kelly has the emu egg.  I thought it was sort of a lame twist.  I actually wanted to see what the hell they could do with their dish.  Kelly ended up winning immunity by having an omelet with emu egg.  I love omelets so I was happy for her win.

The side drama: the guest judge is a competitor of Andreas.  Not cool.  Out of all the judges they could have gotten, they pluck one out with a conflict of interest with one of the chefs?  I understand that in the past sometimes people had previously worked under guest judges, but that relationship had ended by the time of the competition.  It wouldn’t be nice to have a chef with a current positive relationship and same goes with the negative.  What, nobody wants to play with Padma?

Then the elimination dish: to prepare a meal best served cold, hence cold wars.  They were in two different teams, Group A with Kenny, Kevin, Ed, Amanda, and Alex and Group B with Angelo, Tamesha, Tiffany, Andrea, and Stephen.  Each group would get to nominate someone for the win and someone for the loss.  Hmm…I wonder if there is going to be some strategy in play here?

We watch them cook and plan and be pissy and then the judging happens.  How long did it take Angelo to start attacking Kenny’s dish?  (Kenny’s not even that awesome anym0re!  I mean, he has the inflated of Angelo but sent to the bottom wayyyy too many times to justify it.  At least Angelo has only been there when HE HAD IMMUNITY.)  Angelo needs to think of a better enemy.  The group mostly votes against Kenny except for Andrea who points out that she got cartilage stuck in Amanda’s dish (which Alex had noticed and not bothered to mention).  Majority rules so Kenny is at the bottom.  Kevin is placed at the top despite being accused that it lacked acidity (though Tom was quick to point out that Kevin had indeed taken that into account when preparing the dish with lemons and tomatoes).

The second group comes in.  Everybody loves Tiffany’s dish – ahi tuna in gazpacho sauce – and she comes out on top.  Everyone else except for Andrea sorta sucked it seemed.  But they singled out Tamesha which made me smile because her attitude had been grating on me lately.  Her being sent to the bottom also makes the audience wonder if Angelo sabotaged her.  It doesn’t seem that he would do that to her this early in the game, but he was acting LIKE the executive chef and he made some bad calls about her dish.

So, Kenny whines and moans about how he’s only sent to the bottom because people are afraid of him.  Really?  How many times have you been sent here?  The guest judge ripped a new one for him.  Tamesha got ripped as well and for someone so young to be such an uppity little bitch on screen to get ripped like that was pleasurable.  I mean, seriously, at first she seemed like she was classy but then she just seemed to be a quieter, egomaniac with no record to prove it.  I’m the first person to say it could be editing by the TV people to have transformed her this way but in the end, you know you’re on camera, don’t talk about you’d kill another chef so easily WHEN YOU SUCK.  And part of becoming better is to admit when you make mistakes.  I don’t recall her doing that at all this season.  So Angelo’s little buddy got sent home.  Come back when you grow up.

But what really pissed me off?  No one, not even I’m-so-Asian-despite-not-being-sexy-Asian Angelo, tried sushi or sashimi.  I understand its actually very difficult to be trained in this arts but why is it on this show when I see a challenge best suited for Asian cooking, the best I see are Asian “influences?”  But seriously, when I think I want a cold dinner, I think I’m going to eat some sushi tonight.  (Actually, I really want to have sushi tonight!)  Can the judges shake things up and give them an Asian challenge?

STS: Week 7 done!

I am THRILLING to this Mesocycle.  This week was my favorite so far!!

Top Chef Double Recap: Chefs collide

I actually thought I had posted last week, but it seems to have gotten eaten in the ether. Both of the last episodes showed the chefs getting contentious with each other. I know its reality television and all but am I the only to miss the camaraderie that existed in the last season?  I know there were definitely egos bashing but the Voltaggio brothers, Kevin, Jennifer, and Eli really made it seem near the end that there were chefs making good food as opposed to Survivor like flanks.  I miss that a lot.

STS: Week 6 Complete!

Wow, this week sort of flew by.  But I stuck to STS almost perfectly and I’m glad I did.

My Final Fantasy Project

In the beginning there was the Crystal…

Well for me, the beginning was borrowing a dorm-mate’s PlayStation so I could play hours of FFIX.  I finished the game in under 30 hours.  And I loved it.  And I wanted more.

Over the years, I’ve put a bunch of video games under my belt.  Sadly, the Final Fantasy series isn’t at the top anymore (ones that are include Fire Emblem, Legend of Zelda, Tales of, and Disgaea).  Nevertheless, it has a special place in my heart.  As I finished the latest installment in the series the other day, I couldn’t help but wondering, “Weren’t these games better before?”

And then I had my idea:

Why not play every single game in the series in a row?

I realize I still have some virgin games on my shelf (but not many for the bigger consoles at this point), but I thought this would be a really fun project to do for a couple months.  I have most of the games that can be played on PS2.  Any of them that I don’t, I’m sure I can find the ROMS somewhere for the ZSNES emulator.  And because I’m all about social gaming, I want as many of my friends to join me on this, in my physical den and in the virtual world.

Here are some of the rules:

1. We start from the original Final Fantasy and go through Final Fantasy XIII.  No spin offs. I love a lot of the spin offs (Tactics being the best), but I just want to go through the “canon” series, if you will.  If we did every one in the series and their spin offs, I would never get to play new games for a long time.  The only one I *may* consider is FFX-2 but even I’m disinclined to do that one.
2. No cheat codes, but walkthroughs are allowed. I don’t want to play the game on super max buffness.  I want to PLAY THE GAME.  I like to play under-leveled but I can easily be persuaded to level up.  Walkthroughs can be used to enhance game play.  Walkthroughs are allowed only when we don’t know what to do or if its some stupid arcane system that would take me another 30 hours to figure out (especially if it means I get some Ultima weapon).
3. Announcements on progress and updates for the project will be through my Twitter list. I will definitely update the twitter feed, and I’ll hopefully put our best moments on the list for posterity as well. Let me know if you want to play through the list as well — we can all eat and cook together too!  It’ll be fun.  Share it with your friends as well — the more the merrier!
4. In my house, Final Fantasy play will be scheduled at least 24 hours in advance so that anyone who wants to join in the social fun knows ahead of time. I ask that virtual gamers doing the project with me at least start each new game with me. This way we don’t have my husband playing the game for 8 hours through the night when he has insomnia, and people in the project don’t feel like we’re rushing through without them.  For anyone who lives far away from me and wants to be part of it, I doubt you’ll really go that much faster than us, but it would be nice that we at least start each game in the series together.
5. In my house, don’t be a douche about social gaming.  I love the fact that I can play games with my friends.  My husband and I make a great team for gaming because he loves to level up (which I hate) and I love to have tough quick thinking strategic boss battles (which he does not quite care for).  But mostly, we can share.  Please share in my house.  In fact, please share in your house.  Sharing is nice.

So, who’s in?

STS: Week 5 complete!

Last week was my “active recovery” week. I ended up getting bogged down by life…mostly my husband getting the flu…but I got some pretty kick ass cardio in.  I started out the week with my favorite cardio workout of all time: Imax2.  I ended the workout with a nice relaxing walk with my dog.  The next day I did 4DS: Kickbox first thing in the morning.  I absolutely adore that workout.  Its a perfect <40min workout to me for the early morning.  It has a great gradual warmup and then just kicks it up so beautifully that the sweat is cleansing.  I tried out my new Exhale DVDs as well which has been turning out great as well.  Tuesday got a bit screwed up because my husband called me from work asking me to pick him up because he was so sick.  I did, and had intended it to just be a yoga day by doing Ellen Barret’s Skinny Sculpt int he morning, but ended up doing 4DS:HIS, another goodie for a short workout.  Wednesday rocked the casbah when I took on Athletic Step plus 30 minutes of Exhale’s Pure Abs and Arms.  I love Athletic Step, and I do it a lot, but it still continues to kick my arse!  Thursday, despite feeling like utter crap when I woke up and eventually not going into work, I did Cardio Core Circuit.  Call me a masochist, but there is something about conquering hard workouts that makes me feel soooo good.  I still have problems with the lateral hops of the fourth circuit and I cannot do the last core exercise (even Cathe’s modification) but I’m getting better.  Friday ended up being my rest day since I still felt like crap, but I finished the week strong on Saturday with BM2 Timesaver Cardio on EIGHT INCHES and the finished combo of Athletic Step.  I really put in a ton of step since I felt that was deficient in the last month.  The current month’s rotation looks a little better mixed.

I unfortunately didn’t lose any weight on the recovery week, but I attribute that to my eating crap.  I’m starting the new month right, drinking lots of water, eating healthy and fiber rich foods, and trying to sleep enough.  I’m not doing well on the last one of those…but I’m super hopeful for the results!

Top Chef: summer treats and picnics

A belated recap, but belated is better than nothing.  (As you may have heard, I lost some depth perception recently.)  I’ll keep it short.

I didn’t actually care for this episode at all.  The quickfire was a dessert challenge which really seemed to be a front to show the Top Chef audience, look we have a new show!  DVR that show please too!  I get it — unless you’re a pastry chef you’re probably going to suck at desserts.  The whole quickfire were the contestants pissing over themselves.  Though some moments an average cook could have avoided.  Tracy has literally screwed herself public image wise in her short stint at Top Chef.  That mish mosh pie almost made me gag.  Angelo’s brain trick, “it’s a curry challenge” made me want to question his intelligence.  There was also a fancy pie put out by Alex (who’s restaurant I’ve gone to previously) that seemed like he was picking random ingredients in the dark.  The winners?  Big surprise, the simple chocolate ganache and a new spin on a banana fosters pie.  Kenny’s banana fosters pie won finally giving him the victory he needed and deserved.  Onto the elimination challenge…

The elimination challenge was a summer picnic…mostly BBQ… for the interns of DC.  Everybody tried something and most everyone was happy with what they made…each saying they were sure they were going to be on the top with the exception of Tracy who tried to make lemonade out of lemons.  The most memorable line went to Alex, who I’m convinced was pushed to say it by the producers, fr saying his pork butt was something he’d, “eat the ass out of this pig all day.” Amanda surprised her fellow chefs by coming out with the best ribs (wtg girl for showing we can do a man’s job better then men!), and though Angelo had a magazine cover dish, it was Arnold who won the day with his lamb meatballs.  No, I’m not going to make a ball joke.  And I was happy he won.

The loser?  Tracy.  But the way the episode was made, did we not think Tracy was going to tank it?  She just screwed up everything from top to bottom.  “If that’s what you call Italian food, then it’s almost insulting to Italians, including me.”  Ouch.  And frankly, why did the producers decide to show the part where Tracy says she’s clairvoyant?  To make her look more crazy?  That just isn’t nice.  What was surprising was to see Kevin at the bottom.  I did not expect to see him produce “safe Puerto Rican” food.  But the exchange the judges had, where they explained how chefs take normal food up a notch, was really important to hear.  That was probably the best part of the entire episode.

Honestly, I hope there will be better episodes to come.  There’s some kinda reunion coming up?  I’ll be looking forward to it…