go KINGS go!

major CONGRATULATIONS to the L.A. Kings!! Such a great achievement for the organization and the win was a long time coming. if anyone ever says hard work and perseverance is overrated, then do show them this picture of dustin brown hoisting up the stanley cup!

#8 seed knocking off #1,2,3 and then winning it all at home....the word PROUD hardly describes the feelings welling up inside me. thank you l.a. kings for an epic season! AND thank you for making my huge kings fan hubby so darn happy.... we're already looking forward to the next season boys as DEFENDING CHAMPS! :P

a beagle birthday: happy birthday charlie brown!

totally dressed to party with his homemade party hat, minus the fallen bow tie.

my little beagle turned 3 today. in dog years, he can legally drink and find himself a whore, but in my household, he just gets a little doggy berfday cake...a carrot/apple sauce birthday cake with cream cheese/apple sauce frosting to be exact. sounds yum enough right?

it was an easy batter and didn't take much effort, especially with my handy dandy kitchenaid mixer. 1/2 hour later, it was out of the oven and onto a rack to be cooled off while charlie and my other two dogs circled around me like vultures in the kitchen.

once frosted, i decorated the cake with a simple number 3 in carrot slivers for charlie's new age. i would have been more creative with my cake decorations if time permitted, but i had humans to feed as well. since the dogs get homemade cake, the humans got prime rib, cheesy smashed potatoes, garlic spinach, and tomato pine nuts salad with a balsamic vinaigrette for dinner. crazy yummy if i must say so myself. it IS a party after all.

after the humans ate and our bellies bulged unattractively with the grub, it was time to slice into the cake! the anticipation must have slayed my furry buddies...one by one. *wimper* charlie was so excited, he started shmeeing (this noise he makes through his nose. rather annoying actually...thank god he's cute!).

"drop it momma...please?"


he was smacking his beagle lips as i took my pics. give me a sec charlie! sheesh!

but his excitement built into an unbearable surge of energy (and defiance) because he sprung up to snatch the piece of cake out of my hands and gobbled it as quickly as he could, smacking his lips furiously as i watched in surprise. then i remembered it was his berfday after all so all was forgiven...dang dog.

of course lucy and bronx got to share in the cake eating as well and they LOVED it. ok, so i know dogs will eat anything, but i really think they were particularly excited about this cake based on their frenzied behavior after their first bites...it must be good right?! right.

it was good times and i look forward to baking many, many more berfday cakes for my sweet pups. happy birthday charlie brown!

let your dogs, eat my blog

the 4th installment of eat my blog will be taking place this saturday at pita jungle in pasadena. i'm super excited to be a part of the eat my blog planning committee for a second year in the row and will be baking as well...though you will have to be a four-legged pooch to actually appreciate what i'm making.

i got this idea from tien who baked dog biscuits for emb last year. genius. seriously, we should allow our dogs to stuff face too!! and for a good cause to boot! since i have 3 furry doggies of my own, i really wanted to honor all the four legged friends out there with these pumkin peanut butter dog biscuits.

not trying to sell them too hard *ahem,* but let's just say that after giving my three dogs a taste of the test biscuits i baked, my biggest/tallest dog promptly climbed the counter the following day to steal the rest. a$$hole.

"let me just have a bite of the leg...."

"please?"

i think your dogs will like them too! hope to see you there!!

UPDATE: eat my blog raised $4,323.86!

hitched

dudes, i got married :0

on august 27, 2011 as a matter of fact. here's the top layer of my then day old wedding cake. the flowers were freakin' awwwwwesome on top don't you think? thanks to fleuretica for the beautiful burst of blooms...i wish they can fill my world with flowers EVERY DAY.

i also went on a horrible diet. i mean, it kinda worked and all...but a diet for a food blogger! that's like fucked up! but it was worth it not to souffle from the back of my white dress even though i still rippled in all the wrong places.

immediately afterwards, i went on an edible rampage...trying to fetch back the coat i was determined to shed for my wedding and what better way to do so than en route to vegas for our mini-moon (more posts to come on that one).

aria treated us well. we were upgraded to a mini-suite when they learned *cough* when i told them we were newlyweds. SCORE!

we were even greeted with a bit of sweetness. "yumz!" said my sugar depraved body as i INHALED and i mean INHALED most of it. no joke.

the mini-suite was spacious and awesome and let's not forget, an upgrade. wheeee!

the night view was uh-mazing.

so what does it feel like to be married? well, it feels just like living together except now everybody wants to know when i'm gonna get pregnant.

the belly family expands

i need another dog like i need another hole in my head...but i couldn't help myself and i think charlie needs a sibling so he won't always feel alone. when the opportunity arose to give this little pup a home, i cautiously volunteered my own wee house even though i was rather nervous about the whole thing. come on now, having another dog means 2x the food and 2x the doo. ack. i just hope she grows up to love charlie as much as we do and that in itself will make this cute responsibility worth it.

her name is lucy. she is a labrador retriever mix...a gorgeous little mutt if you will.

she is extremely adorable and smells rather good after a sudsy bath...though her breath smells like hell regardless of what you do to her mouth.

she also likes to snack like her momma. i think she will have a happy life with us. man, dogs x 2...what am i in for?!

by the way, doesn't the marking on her face look like an outstretched bird in flight? cute!

r.i.p. pioneer chicken

memorial day.

another one has fallen.

r.i.p. pioneer chicken. although you weren't as tasty as i remembered you from my childhood, i still felt sad when i saw the fence come up a few months ago. after all, even though my palate has changed, we were still old friends afterall. perhaps i can find your cousin up north when i want to reminisce.

Pioneer Chicken
4376 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90029
323) 663-2441

strawberry clusterfuck

my penchant for clusterfuck events brought me to the oxnard strawberry festival this past saturday. what isn't there to like about crowded spaces, long ass lines, and disorderliness? to top that all off, you get oodles and oodles of strawberries to do as you please....mmmm, delicious. i think i will stick them in my pie hole, thank you.

we started off our day with a brisk stroll through the arts and crafts portion of the festival which housed endless knick knacks that will one day make it to a garage sale near you. check this crap out, the "savings socks." really?! they're literally socks decorated with puffy paint willed into creation by a first grade artist...the funny thing was that it actually had a lot of business! again, i'm convinced that the average american will buy anything.

music box bags. why? you can't even open the bag to store things in! double why?!

marshmellow blowguns made out of plastic tubing. crapola.

circling around all these knick knacks getting squished by people wearing fanny packs drove me to drink...yes please :) i had to try the strawberry wine so i did. um...four words: boone's farm wine cooler. the alcohol content was non existent but it was refreshing nevertheless.

then it was time to get our grease on which meant consuming all manners of fried evils. the food lines are usually pretty daunting at clusterfuck events like these, but the drive to eat badly prevails so you just wait. i especially admire the folks that just plop their booties down right in the middle of traffic to start eating. excuse me sir, but i might step on your hand cuz you're SITTING RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF FOOT TRAFFIC.

garlic fries. OOOOF COURSE. a festival never seems quite complete without a tray of greasy garlic fries. i love them thin and crispy and piled high with garlic bits, enough garlic to leave a heavy presence of stank in your mouth. this tray was particularly delicious....mmmm....

fried zucchini, so heavily breaded that a cop adorned with this batter can withstand 20 bullet shots. man it was yuck.

fried artichoke hearts has got to be my new favorite greasy eats. i loved the tartness of the canned artichoke hearts with its greasy shell.

then it was time to buy a crazy amount of fresh strawberries to pass out to our families and of course for me to consume until i lay down on my kitchen floor convulsing from a strawberry overdose, complete with foaming red bile and spit. oh how i love strawberries and lots of it!

as we headed out of the clusterfuck ready to hop on the freeway to go home, a sign at one of the farms offered folks a novel opportunity to pick our own strawberries. whoo hoo! we made a sharp right and found ourselves in the middle of strawberry fields forever.

i recognized the snooty privilege i had harvesting strawberries for fun when other folks did it as their full time job (and believe you me, it was somewhat difficult). that's why i cringed at the utter waste i saw as i stomped about wondering why people left perfectly fine strawberries to be trampled on or to rot. ugh.

because if left alone, those poor premature strawberries would eventually ripen into beautiful red gems, gems in which a whole weekend of festivities were created in order to celebrate its existence. ahhh strawberries...how i love thee.

California Strawberry Festival

http://www.strawberry-fest.org/

l.a. kings and tenderless chicken tenders

very rarely do i witness dreams getting crushed, but yesterday i did. although my grown man friend has a cool exterior and a placid face, somewhere inside, his inner child cried because the L.A. Kings lost to the Vancouver Canucks. BAM, POW, out of the playoffs they went, just like that. it was so sad.

the sad story began with the kings herd making its way towards the staples center. the kings pride was pretty palatable and everybody donned their kings gear ready for a victory riot if it were to happen....but of course it wouldn't *tears.* i also saw a lot of hoochies and after a second of reflection decided that OF COURSE there would be because it's a testosterone laden event which means it's the perfect venue to have many men google at perky boobs and big hair. no seriously, how come you ladies ain't cold? i literally covered myself like i was going to the antartic.

(even magic johnson donned his kings outfit in support)

as i beeped through the security line with a security wand at my crotch, there was no denying the hunger pangs that i felt. after all, it was dinner time so i beelined for the nearest eatery that served anything remotely fried cuz we all know that sporting event + hunger = a fistful of obligatory fried eats. skyline grill was such the place for greasy eating.

i got myself some chicken tenders with fries. the chicken was so heavily breaded that it did not retain even a semblance of chicken or tenderness. and the ranch dressing that i use to dip everything including my fingers had a sweetness to it which i found completely strange and unappealing. peoples, what is up with putting sugar in everything?!?!

my friend, who was obviously unaware of the greasy sporting eats formula, went the sophisticated route and got a pastrami sammich at cooke's corner. i did not see a deep fryer anywhere.

(carving some pastrami for his sammich)

although pretty to look at, it was none too tasty either. if your tongue has been spoiled by langer's pastrami sammich or anything similar to that caliber, then you would be better off saving a few dollars and eating a few dried up chicken tenders with yours truly.

we settled down and the L.A. Kings scored the first goal of the night. i got so excited that i almost catapulted my chicken tender through the air.

but the momentum did not last. the score eventually tied at kings: 2, canucks: 2.

at this point, i definitely needed a sweet pick me up. i recalled the last caramel apple i had here was delicious, but this apple really sucked....just like the canucks. the caramel was one degree shy of tasting burnt. i should have returned the darn thing, but i didn't.

well, just like the chicken tenders and the caramel apple, the game was a total loss. although i enjoyed rooting for the kings, i did not enjoy hearing the collective groan expelled from the spectators at the staples center when the canucks won 4 to 2. although my friend would not admit it, i'm sure his inner child along with countless others cried a little that night.

oh well boys, there's always next season. the end.