Allora…

Yesterday, my book club friends and I went to a taping of the Rachael Ray show. It was really cool to see her and how the show works. She was definitely calling the shots – rewriting scripts/directing people on the set/etc. She made no mistakes while filming and there was no need to do multiple takes. Sally field was the guest and she looked incredible for her age and seemed pretty down to earth.

RR has a career that has everything I’m interested in….food, media, and magazines/publishing. It got me thinking about gearing myself more towards the food world – professionally. I’ve done some food styling at some photo shoots because of our low budgets and small staff – but I need to learn some tricks/take classes/shadow a professional.

I found this blog that talks about photography & food styling

Since I’ll be working at night for most of the summer (unless something happens) – i may have time to do an internship, apprentice, or take a class. I emailed a couple contacts today to see if anybody had any direction for me – so we’ll see where it takes me.

Meagan came from Boston to hang out this past weekend with Rachel and I. It was so awesome to have her in town and to hang out like “the old days”. I hadn’t seen her in over a year and a half (i think). Our fourth roomie, Kristin, wasn’t able to make it and we missed her. But as always, the show must go on, and I think we did a pretty good job of blowing out the weekend! We got the best of both worlds: NYC and Tarrytown. Some bar hopping, pizza, brunch, and Central Park in Manhattan, and then porch sitting, porch drinking, river side sitting and riverside drinking, and SATC the movie and chinese. What more can you ask for? Hehe

Check out the evidence:

Everyone was at my parents house this weekend and it was a great time. Check out photos below:

My friend Lauren and I met up on the Upper West Side on Tuesday night to get some good eats and to catch up. Also because I asked her to make a little cake topper for Sophie’s 1st birthday. Photos of that to come (or TK, a we say in the biz).

We met at Kefi, a Greek restaurant I had good things about, with a pretty high profile restaurateur at the helm, Donatella Arpaia. Lauren and I sat at the bar and had some good greek wine, and a few appetizer plates: greek salad, a selection of spreads, and grilled octopus and white bean salad. I sometimes have a problem w/ octopus because of the texture, but this was one of the best things I’ve eaten….ever. I’m glad we ordered it. It was smokey, with a soft, not rubbery texture. We both loved it! The prices were also very reasonable!

To my horror, the website uses the typeface Papyrus. Which is bad and almost as widely used by amateurs as Comic Sans.

There were two lovely, older, greek gentlemen sitting next to us, and they asked us our nationalities, and even tho we aren’t greek, they were so kind as to send us over two desserts that we had to try! Hahah, we couldn’t refuse, and even tho I have no idea what either of them were…we enjoyed them both. Things always taste better when theyre free anyway.

Uncle Charlie emailed me about redoing their logo for their company, MMCIS, Inc. and I’m excited about it, this could be cool! So I started sketching/brainstorming today. He gave me a couple guidelines:

• use the name MMCIS
• able to be rendered with small number of colors (so no gradients, bevels, etc.)
• still look good printed with 2 color process (on stationery, for example)
• steer away from the black/red/gray combo

So basically the man wants a simple, easy to read logo, that works big and small. One readable at every size, in any environment.

Some key words from their site to help w/ the brainstorming: functional, solutions, web, design, develop, program, host, administer.

To start, I’m trying to figure out what could be improved about their current logo, which currently is something like this:

• The type doesn’t line up. The IS (stands for Internet Services) are raised and smaller, and if that is to suggest a lesser importance to the MMC (multi media communications), then it isn’t obvious enough. It looks like a mistake.
• Also looks a little bit like roman numerals, either bc of the all caps, or the typeface, or both
• Tells me nothing about the company if the tagline wasn’t included. The logo should at least point you in the direction of an web solutions business

Goals for logo:
be readable. incorporate it into the website, ads, stationery, etc. hint at their niche, without having to rely on the “web sites that work”.

To the drawing board!

Took a couple snaps of my apartment

Trust me, this is a looooong climb after a couple beers:

Can’t you just picture a little grill in the corner and an adirondack chairs?

My living room, and my pride and joy, the TV:

My bare and yet still messy bedroom:

Thank you tax return and a failing economy! I went to a going out of business sale at a department store on saturday looking for bedding, when i saw a camera that i was pricing out. I just needed a point and shoot camera that’ll take good clean photos until i can get myself a big ol’ canon/nikon one day. I got a GREAT deal on the camera. Did not get any bedding – who cares!??! I’ve got easter next weekend with a ton of family, a san diego trip to document, and of course, have more facebook albums! hah AND now I can do step by step recipes! wahooo!

Went over to Grove St tonight for some din din with the Arduinos….yum:

Thanks Mariel!

Here’s the recipe for about a 1lb of boneless chicken breasts. Amounts are estimated and can obviously just be scaled up for a larger portions.

1lb boneless chicken breasts, trimmed
2cups flour
2cups italian seasoned breadcrumbs
2 eggs whisked with milk
salt
pepper
olive oil
1/2 cup white wine

Trim the chicken cutlets of any fatty, or less than appealing parts. Setup stations: first should be flour, then eggs/milk, and finally breadcrumbs. I will usually season the flour with some salt and pepper and sometimes add a small amount of garlic salt or powder to the breadcrumbs. Heat up olive oil in pan at medium heat and add the chicken breasts. Cook ~5 minutes, or until a nice golden brown crunch appears on one side and the breast is cooked about halfway through. Turn and cook other side, may need to add more oil. When that side is nice and crunchy I add the white wine and cover for about 2-3 minutes. This helps avoid burning the outside and undercooking the inside, or just ending up with dry chicken.

If you want to spice up the dish a bit you can always add garlic,onions, or mushrooms to the pan prior to adding the chicken. Let them brown and remove for pan. Return to pan when adding wine. If you want to do chicken tenders instead of whole breasts, I usually put the flour and breadcrumbs in separate ziploc bags and just cover a bunch of chicken pieces at once.

I made a recipe of Giada’s this past weekend for a party, but I think I may have one upped the Italian Principessa of the Food Network, Giada of the Low-Cut-Shirt. Here is her base recipe for Balsamic Chicken Drumettes:

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
5 sprigs of rosemary
5 garlic cloves, halved
10 to 12 chicken drumsticks
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Combine the balsamic, honey, brown sugar, soy sauce, rosemary sprigs, and garlic cloves, in a large, re-sealable plastic bag. Shake and squeeze the contents of the bag to dissolve the honey and the brown sugar. Add the chicken drumsticks to the bag and seal with as little air as possible in the bag. Place in the refrigerator and marinate for 2 hours. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Place the chicken drumsticks on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake until the skin is caramelized and very dark in spots, about 30 to 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the marinade in a small saucepan. Bring the marinade to a boil (in order to kill bacteria). Reduce the heat to simmer and cook over low heat until thick, about 15 minutes. Reserve.

Use a pastry brush to brush some of the cooked marinade on the cooked chicken. Place the chicken on a serving platter. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds and the chopped parsley.
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Now, I, being broke, thrifty, and determined to make good food, did not add sesame seeds, rosemary, or parsley. I’m sure they’d make this even better. I added a little something extra to the marinade for heat….. 1 big tablespoon of sriracha, and 1 tbsp of course grain mustard/dijon mustard. If you like it really hot, then double up on the sriracha