Food-centric blanks and weekend plans!

Because I like to keep with themes and today's Fill-in-the-Blank from Lauren is about all things yummy, let's tell the weekend plans by way of...food!  Saturday I think I may try to hit up the Fanfest for the San Diego Chargers, which inevitably means stadium/game food! Fries, a hot dog, possibly a frozen lemonade (odd how I don't like lemonade, but love frozen lemonade...). No beer for me though!  Sunday I am hoping to head down to Imperial Beach to see the Sandcastle Competition.  Because it's the beach, in San Diego that means one thing: mexican food! You can't say no to a good California burrito or carne asada fries or street tacos after a fun day ocean-side.  At night I'm planning to see Toy Story 3 with my mom, and since we don't eat theatre popcorn, we tend to sneak in our own snacks of crackers and M&Ms.

Oh dear...after all this food talk, I'm hungry now! Thank goodness I've got several days of tennis-playing and walking/running planned to offset it all.  Happy weekend, everyone!

1.  Today for breakfast I ate cocoa krispies cereal. Normally it's Honey Bunches of Oats (the Honey Roasted kind), but I ran out yesterday and forgot to pick up more. And I also ran out of raspberry vanilla granola to mix with my yogurt, so I had to resort to the backup of the backup breakfast haha.

2.  My go to/never fail recipe is a simple pasta with a simple red sauce. You can't go wrong.

3.  Something I eat that other people think is weird is frozen mocha drinks with brown (honey) boba. (For those who don't know, boba are little tapioca balls that typically go in milk-based tea drinks. There can be different flavors, but I think the most common is brown.)  People get grossed out at the idea of coffee+boba, but...I dunno, I like it.

4.  My worst cooking disaster ever was...actually, I don't think I've had one. I sadly don't cook too often, so disasters have been kept to a minimum. Unless you count that time my roommate dropped a part of her napkin down into the burner and neglected to remove it or tell me. That was a terrifying surprise when it caught on fire while I was boiling a pot of water--and of course, I was turned away so I didn't even notice it until the flames had reached all the way up to the microwave above it.

5.  If I could only eat one flavor of ice cream the rest of my life it would be coconut macadamia nut (from Lappert's).  It's yummy and gorgeous and unique and so sweet that I wouldn't have it all too often and it would remain a fancy treat.

6.  One food I hate and avoid at all costs is pickles and mushrooms. I don't eat a lot of foods (really, I don't), but mushrooms and pickles are the worst. I literally want to vomit every time I smell a pickle, and the sight of mushrooms makes me gag.

7.  What is your favorite meal?  Breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Proooobably dinner. Well...I probably love breakfast foods the most, but I enjoy dinner time since it's so variable. It can be early, normal, late; be a business dinner, family dinner, catching up with friends and it lasts for hours dinner; super quick bite to eat while sitting in the living room, at the table after we're all home from work, super fancy, black tie...it's just so versatile!

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A Perfect Wednesday

via weheartit

Last Wednesday was a wonderful, wonderful day and I thought I'd share a bit of the happy.

First, I went to the library.  And saw the hot manfellow I saw at a different library earlier in the week, which leads me to one conclusion: we're destined to be.  I mean, two libraries, two separate days, exact same time?  And we drive the same car?  Tell me that's not cosmic!

Unless he's way younger than he looks.  Then I'll just make friends and advise him which YA books to read, because I'm kind of an expert on it.

Anyway.

So after, I met up with Sarah, who is so amazing beyond words.  I beg you to click to her page and look at what a talented artiste she is.  We headed on over to Encinitas, perhaps one of the most typical beach towns in California.  Palm trees?  Check.  Ocean?  Check. Beautiful, toned people carrying surf boards to the water, hair sunbleached and skin suntanned?  Check.  Cute downtown with eclectic mix of boutique and second-hand stores?  Check.  Street lined with pubs and bars and varying international-cuisine restaurants?  Check.

God I love San Diego.

The goal of the trip was to visit Book Tales, an adorably quaint second-hand bookstore.  We know by now that I have a thing for books; and second-hand ones are absolutely lovely.  There's already an entire world within pages, and second-hand gets to encompass an entire other life, a history as to someone else owning it.

photos from Book Tales website!

And you can't beat the weird titles you will inevitably stumble across.  (Hey Sarah!  We Need to Talk About Kevin.)

After spending quite the amount of time in there (in which I acquired Charlotte Bronte's Wuthering Heights, since I've never read it and figure I should one day), we walked up and down the main street, popping into the random shops.  At Sarah's suggestion, we headed down to the beach!  Which, I mean, really...why would we go two streets from the beach and then not go?  Plus, it was a beautiful day.  Sun shining, not sweat-inducing heat but a nice warmth...perfect.

And yeah, I'm definitely wearing jeans and a jacket while at the beach.

Finished off with a ridiculously amazing and ultra-cool two-woman a capella concert in the car--with a few dance moves--of the discography of *NSYNC, and it was safe to say that that day was pretty much the highlight of the year thus far.

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Best of '09 Blog Challenge: The Best Place

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, Day 11: The Best Place

Admittedly, this is a hard choice for me. There are a select few places where I am a regular (Target, for one...hi Mr. Security Guard who recognises me!), and even fewer where I go when I need to find that Zen state. But I don't necessarily have a spot that's "best" for me.

Having split this year between Orange County and San Diego, there are a few choices in both cities that I loved. In San Diego, I have to be all unoriginal and say the beach. But not any ol' beach...I mean Coronado and Hotel Del Coronado and the entire island itself.

(+)

And in Orange County, I have to say that I freakin' love Downtown Disney. But again, not just for any old reason--it's because I love to people watch there and do homework. Yeah, that's right, "homework" and "Disney." Everyone thinks I'm weird for going there to study (finals week!) and get some research done, but it's seriously one of the most relaxing places I can go. I love noise and music, and where else can you get a plethora of it? People are there from literally all around the world, and it's packed every single day. The parking is free for the first 3 hours (plus 2 more if you eat at one of the food places and get it validated), which was a perfect time for me to set a goal to get a book done or research. I can grab a beignet, park it at a table outside the Jazz kitchen, and watch people spill out of House of Blues or run towards Mickey or hike it over to the ESPN zone or rush to make a movie at the theatre. Love it.

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