After discovering this delicious melding of flavours after months of experimentation, I was rudely informed that it is actually a “classic” sandwich. I was the first person to come up with it’s fetching name.

You need:

and some sauce.

1. Slice up your brie. Brie is pretty hard to slice, especially the good stuff, so you’ll probably just have to squish it into little bits with your knife
2. Slice up your (braeburn) apple. Slice it as thinly as you can. the thinner the slices, the more delicious your sandwich.
3. Cover your bread in cranberry sauce, layer in some apple and brie.

Some people think that this sandwich sounds weird and not very appitizing, some would even say that apples have no business being in sandwiches. Sandwichesareneat is an equal opportunities employer and respectfully disagrees with their imbecilic views.

Slicethepie

dot com.

Everyone likes pie, if someone says they dont like pie they are definately a liar and you should instantly de-friend them!

Enough about pie, I recently stumbled upon (in a non google pie searching related incident)  a new up and coming web page called slicethepie.com

Slicethepie is a website where members either upload music or rate the music (or both if im being honest).

However the boon for the user i.e. you and me is that you can actually earn money for rating this crap!

and it is crap and a big waste of time.

Turns out you dont even start earning money untill you have a 3 star scout rating, thats what they call you “Scout” pah!

and to reach the magical 3 star rating? Well who knows I spent a good 2 days getting to grips with the site in which time I rated about 80 songs and never got past 1 measley star, all whilst having my ears punished by “the next big thing” oh god…………….

Anyway I am passing this knowledge on so that you can find out for yourself or just take my word for it, rant over………………

until next time!

 

IMG_7447, originally uploaded by bren1011.

The verdict is in. That loaf is bangin. A lil hagendaz and some all natural maple syrup strait from vermont.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

My new favourite picture of all time.

This is our mother. This is our father.
This is our sibling.
Swarmed by technicolor. Bathed in filth. Transferred through fog.
This was our natural disaster.

They understand me.
They need me. They need me more than I need them.
Without they just collapse. Fall apart. Go brown.

Triangles.
Squares.
Our ancestors would be proud.
Always growing. Always moving.

nigel evan dennis is an artist from chicago creating some simple yet striking illustrations. the little poems accompany as descriptions for his work. something resides after looking at his work, a weird nostaligic hopeful feeling, odd.

http://www.nigelevandennis.com/

So there’s this rapper Big Pooh, and he’s great because not only does his name make me laugh, but his upcoming LP Delightful Bars has four album covers, two of which look like this:

“The Delightful Bars” North American pie version

Belgian Chocolate version

Delicious!

The album features guest apperarances by Jay Rock, Justus League and Production From Khrysis, Jake One, Illmind, 9th Wonder, Young RJ and OhNo.

Also, this gives me the opportunity to tell one of my favorite jokes.

Ahem

Q: Why did Tigger look in the toilet?

A: Because he was looking for Pooh!

Come on, somebody had to laugh at that.

It’s Friday y’all.

Fantabuloso

I only just saw this today even after all the kerfuffle on the net…

I just got back from the gym, and I totally just spent an hour on the elliptical watching Iron Chef. Did not intend on doing an hour and shall most likely regret it tomorrow. BUT today they seemed to be particularly into cooking things that disgusted my anatomy-perverted mind.

The battle was garlic, which seems pretty reasonable– I usually turn Iron Chef right off when it’s some kind of fish or whole animal or something. But garlic’s a plant. How bad could it be? Pretty bad I found. Apparently, the goal was to use garlic as a spice or garnish (duh) on the most weird meats prepared in the weirdest ways possible.

So first, we have this langostine thingee… which, I learned from Alton Brown, was a cross between a shrimp and a lobster. I’d like to insert here that I would certainly be more fit for my other dream job as a food critic if I liked seafood or fish or shellfish in the slightest way. NOT ONLY did they use this langostine, but they wrapped it in what Mr. Brown described as the “fatty outer covering of a cow or pig intestine” to keep it moist during cooking. Now, this technique has a really fancy name. But I really think that wrapping an elongated crustacean in pig mesentery is… gross. Especially when I spent a good few weeks of medical school picking the stuff out of a human being…

Secondly, the challenger made a dish with something called tripe. Which I originally thought was a fish. It would have been gross enough. But this is BEEF tripe… honeycomb tripe to be exact, which is basically pieces of the second stomach of a cow. And Alton said it would have to be cooked for hours to become “palatable.” Strange.

Last, the guy deep fried an entire squab (pigeon). Now, coming from New York, I really can NOT imagine eating anything even resembling a pigeon… those things are dirty and go everywhere and have poor judgement and eat crap and who knows what is in their internal organs? Well, in this menu he used the wings, the head, brain and livers (where all the toxins go…) Gosh, being in medical school kind of sucks all the fun out of eating functional parts of animals.

I feel kinda weird picking on the one guy, but I really have never seen that many things that grossed me out that much in one episode. To be fair, Mario Batalli cut up a gigantic cod from whole that was pretty vile for me as well… but it probably isn’t for most people. He cut up the meat into pretty cubes then, so it wasn’t so bad:) Not like eating squab head and brain.

I wonder if this is the reason that people don’t like eating really really expensive food. I’d certainly be turned off by this menu. Only, the chefs make really fancy pretty names for everything. Squab is a really pretty name for pigeon. And honeycomb tripe doesn’t sound that bad at all. It’s similar to when I figured out that skate wing was just a euphemism for a piece of sting ray. Wow, I would really be an awful food critic.

I don’t understand what’s wrong with just making a REALLY REALLY flavorful, melt in your mouth chicken breast. I guess it doesn’t win you points for originality, but I bet you’d get a lot more people enjoying fine dining places. Although maybe that is the point. Maybe it’s only fine dining if just a few people can stomach it. Seems a little oxymoronic to me.

Anyway, so I’ve been walking around trying to conceptualize a remake of the Sex Type Thing Video that is based on the beginning. With people like hanging/fighting/making out all at the same time. I think it would be fun. Or a brachial plexus injury waiting to happen. Either way is fine. I’d take the injury if Scott was in the video:-D

And the famous Scott Weiland gets pissed off video…

“Sorry to ruin the Zen-like moment for everybody.”

But I still love him, even though he has a slight (manic-depressive) temper. He’s really talented.

And really hot. Goodnight.

I was walking around the city yesterday and basically realized that my life is full of guilty pleasures. Thinking about my mention of Genesis (the guilty pleasurest of bands) in my last post. It got me started, wondering what I do that ISN’T a pleasure (guilty or otherwise).

Yeah, I know I’m a med student. I work hard. They test us all the time and it is stressful at times. But, man, my life is sweet. I love what I’m studying and find it incredibly interesting. The music I listen to, the books I read, the gym I go to and creating the food I eat. Even this blog, telling myself that my life is interesting enough to shove it in everyone’s facesw:). It’s all fantastic.

Maybe I’m just feeling this way today because it is gorgeous outside. Or because, having paid not much for college, I mostly rely on my parents for all of my finances. Or maybe I’m just an optimist. I think it will probably be fleeting:) But I can enjoy it while it lasts.

Speaking of pleasures, this is what originally got me to write this post, I was shocked to go to Flurt yesterday (my weekly treat after preceptorship on Wednesdays) to find that there are no more pomegranate seeds to put on my fantastic frozen Greek fat free yumminess. Sad as this is (I love pomegranate but hate actually opening the fruit and eating it)… I had a really fantastic yogurt with raspberries, mango and kiwi yesterday. AND it was so pretty. Usually that is my #1 concern w/ yogurt. With flurt, I like the taste of the yogurt itself soooo much that I don’t give a crap what’s on top of it. BUT the deep red and orangey yellow and green looked so gorgeous yesterday I didn’t want to eat it.

This I thought the whole way from the flurt store up to the gym to sign up for spinning. Laugh all you want. My feet were hurting and I needed something to avoid thinking about the blisters forming on them.

Note to self: must try to find summer clinic near frozen yogurt shop. Makes life 10X better.

I should be busy right now. Either studying or sleeping. Probably sleeping. Whatever.

I spent a good part of my evening reading my current book infatuation. I’m reading Anna Quindlen for the first time, and she’s kind of amazing. Totally meeting my expectations. I’m about halfway through “Rise and Shine” and it’s totally sucked me in after a slow start. It’s actually probably one of the more trashy books I’ve read in the recent past, or it reads like one, but it definitely manages to have a pretty huge point. Which may get even stronger as I continue to read.

The book talks about the illusion of perfection. As it takes place in NYC, I can sooooo easily relate to a lot of what goes on: running in Central Park, the familiar strangers whose haunts you share, and many, many people who look like they have, or have the means to have, everything and anything they want. But really things are falling apart for many of them.

The protagonist is the sister of a huuuuuuge anchorwoman for a morning show “Rise and Shine” (awwww how cute, that’s the title). Who’s got the perfect husband, son, huge salary and gigantic NYC apartment, not to mention a devoted sister. But then she utters an obscenity on the air while interviewing quite a bastard and her life basically falls entirely to pieces among other life traumas. I’ll spare you the rant on censorship and how calling someone an ass probably shouldn’t have caused this downward spiral. But whatever. Jane Fonda said “cunt” on national morning TV; we should be okay with this eventually. No rant, no rant.

But yeah, the book’s about how everyone’s life looks perfect on the outside, while it is usually hanging by a thread or nowhere near as perfect as it seems. There is a major divide between the image we project and the real version of ourselves. It takes a lot of trust to allow someone to see that real side of you, the one without the shiny makeup and perfectness, but everyone does have one. I guess that’s what makes it so hard for me to open up, or allow someone to see my vulnerable side by, umm, smiling…. sometimes?:-D

It also makes jealousy and insecurity seem kind of futile. Everyone’s screwed up in some way, but pretty much no one has it out there in the open. And when it peaks out from time to time, as it always does, who judges? No one, really, unless the error is super egregious. The judgement is insane, but stupid. Not to say I’m immune from insecurity. Far from it. That’s why I think about this stuff all the time. Maybe some day it might sink in.

My love of Genesis has been rekindled (yes, such a guilty pleasure band). It’s in full force. So I tend to belt out “In Too Deep” or “Throwing it All Away.” I really do think the band is good… Phil Collins is kind of a fantastic percussionist.

I also downloaded some bassoon concertos… since I’m pretty sure I’m going to try to play in an orchestra or something next year.

Yes, bassoon.
I could work on it for the summer so I’m capable of actually sight reading again and having semi-decent tone. I’m excited:) Maybe I’ll play Mozart for the Coffeehouse or something. May be a little boring for people though…

I think this is probably the coolest idea ever. I think that once I actually get an apartment that I can entertain in, I will certainly be doing that for almost all my parties… instead of greasy heavy appetizer things. Then people may actually eat dinner… and my personal best course, dessert. *sigh* entertaining… having a party in my “apartment.” Dare to dream. I’d totally throw a Sex and the City Party for the move. That would be amazing. Dirty martinis all around.

Hmmm… music video (I like it a lot, clearly):

Now maybe I should sleep. Goodnight.

 So for those of you I haven’t told yet, I took a class at the Frick Collection this week.  Probably the reason for my lack of posting, among other things.  I was skeptical at first, I had (have) a lot of studying to do and so I kind of didn’t want to go.  But, as I’m sure you have realized since I’m writing this post, I am insanely glad that I did.  I’ve never had that much appreciation for art.  Mostly, I think, because I’ve been exposed to modern art, which is probably too abstract for me to really understand.  

It’s funny how I have such a strong preference for modern classical music, but with art, I seem completely opposite.   The Frick Collection, though, is housed in a beautiful mansion that was the home to the collector for only five years.  The most intriguing thing I thought about this museum was that the entire architecture, design and decoration of the place were as much a part of the experience as the actual works of art. But those things are hard to describe unless you were there:)  
So I will give you this one…
I loooooved this picture and was magically assigned to it.  A bunch of people in the class thought it was the exact opposite of what I did, but so what.  I’m an optimist.  I feel like the happiness of the girl in the portrait is almost contagious… the instant I looked at her face I wanted to smile, and I believed the captain was engaging her the same way (in my flower, rainbow, unicorn brain…)  But I’m not even sure it’s the people in the picture that are the main focus (although reading people was the focus of our class).  The way the light is presented in this portrait is unbelievable to me because it is so fleeting.  It is light from the sun and it’s lined up perfectly with this window, illuminating this scene for just a brief few minutes until it moves and is no longer highlighting the characters in the same way.  A picture like this makes me feel happy that I got the chance to catch a glimpse of this interaction.  Or maybe I’m just a little art-crazy at the moment. 

Anyway, I really want to go back.  Soooo I probably will… some day when I don’t feel as stressed as I do right now.   It would be awesome on the first really springy weekend day.  The Frick Collection and Central Park.. and… dun dun dun…. WHOLE FOODS.

Speaking of Whole Foods…. TOP CHEF!  Last night!  I have to say, it’s comforting for it to be back.  I also am incredibly excited for this season– they are making unbelievable food when they are allowed to be creative– peach flavored pizza anyone???  I seriously doubted, but it looked delicious and I kinda wish someone would make it for me…It irks me, though, that for the first real (non-quickfire) challenge that the contestants weren’t able to be SUPER creative.  They were updating standard dishes:  eggs benedict, chicken piccatta, souffle, lasagna, etc.  And… they pitted the contestants head to head.  Way to stir up competition TV producer people.  Gah.  From the first episode?  Anyway, what saddened me more than the forced super-competitiveness was that it seemed like the most traditional preparations of the dishes won out on the deconstructed or modernized versions of the dish.  Now, I understand that there was one contestant who didn’t even know what chicken piccatta was… kind of a cardinal sin for a chef.  I’ve always watched Top Chef because creativity was rewarded— like Marcel’s take on Thanksgiving Dinner or Dave’s Truffle Macaroni and Cheese… all COMPLETELY classic, but the reason I remember them (without even tasting them, mind you) was the new and different twist on the classic dishes!

Granted, I know Top Chef is judged by taste at the foremost as it should be.  I don’t necessarily think the creative dishes should have WON, as that wasn’t the goal of the challenge (as I think it was in the pizza challenge maybe).  But, probably because I’m not tasting the food, I have a hard time believing that following the classic mold is going to get them very far in the show… Ah well… just my opinion:) 

Also, I’m really kind of happy Nimma got sent home.  She did screw up on both challenges, which is probably why she went home, but she mirrors a lot of things I didn’t like about my personality earlier on.  I hated the idea that she couldn’t relax and back off on the cooking.  She wouldn’t socialize with everyone else in the first couple of days… she just went to bed, “focusing” on the competition.  She seems very insecure, and her nerves ultimately got the best of her.  She admits her mistakes in  her exit video here.

My blog is now a walking (or cyber….walking…) advertisement for Bravo and Top Chef. I’m the walking advertisement:)  You should watch!!!  Oh yeah, and having Chef Rocco and Anthony Bordain on the same show was amazing.  I just miss Gail. *sigh* 

Lastly, my trip downtown to the village showed me that there are actual salons looking for hair models who don’t need to be runway models.  This is an interesting possibility to try to actually make some kind of money.  I wish they had them closer to here:)  But alas, we live in the world of Fredrick Fekkai and such, hair models need to be runway models.  And I don’t have the time nor the energy to work/starve like that… BUT if anyone knows a stylist needing a hair model (for like a class or something…) let me know (as if I get any comments on this blog).

“That dress looks great on you” he slurred from across the circle we had formed.  And then… “What’re you drinking, a shirley temple?”  Must we joke about the taste sensation of a malibu and cranberry?  At least he said it was actually pretty good after putting my glass to his lips.  Yes, I know my food and drink.  This I know:)Except for fish, olives and beer.  Bleh.  Foods I don’t like.  Anyway, one of my friends who just finished a restaurant management program has finally moved to NYC to work at the Momofuko Noodle Bar.  YAY!  She is the only one I know who loves food as much as I do, but has a competely broader range.  Except for her dislike of chocolate… the chocolate in our lives is ALL mine:)Even though I would really love to go get BBQ pork/chicken buns or a ramen dish at her restaurant, there is one thing I’m even more excited about doing with her… Yes Yes Yes, it returns a week from tonight!  I cannot wait for take-out and food commentary and throwing things at Padma and daydreaming about having Gail’s job… *sigh.*  I can just see the fantasies beginning.  Although… Top Chef fantasies cannot be complete without this guy…There are no guys like Sam on this season’s Top Chef… but maybe they will be more gorgeous in person.  Maybe.  If not, we could always just talk about the food.  Or make up the list of places we want to go when we have the time.  Which we never do.  There are special dishes at special places.  The Chicken Cobb Salad at Uptown (with two mimosas) at brunch, the Hummus and Avocado sandwich at Penelope, the Rice Eggs Benedict at Rice.  Roasted Garlic Hummus, Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper or Sweet Potato Bisque Soup from Trader Joe’s.   Frozen Yogurt from Flurt… with coconut and pomegranate seeds and blackberries.  Pad See Yu from Lemon Grass and the enchiladas from Baby Bo’s.  Even something as commonplace as my very own special Amanda-salad from I <3 Bagels or the super spicy popcorn from Waterfront Alehouse.  These are a few of my favorite things (yes, I’m now a car commercial… and Kate Walsh.  Ha.) I need to bake.  I have no ingredients.  And no one to bake for.  I NEED to make oatmeal raisin cookies. I wonder if people really just become too drunk to remember what they’re doing.  Or if they regret what they’ve said/done after it happens.  I hope not.  I don’t know why I can’t stop thinking about this.  ”We’re all 17 years old.  This is high school with scalpels, Finn…” 

mnmmmmm

Damn- it may not be a food but it is an essential part of a well unbalanced meal with my Snickers for breakfast!

Came across this post this morning from The Rambling Housewife and it just sums up my relationship with coffee so well!!   

So between this and Coffee Helps there are another two addictions to add to the list.

Will cut and paste for the lazy fingers:

It’s me. Do you miss me?

I’ve been dying to talk to you, since I up and quit you two weeks ago.  I didn’t mean for end to end like that but it was bound to happen. 

I found myself sucking down an entire pot of you every day.  It was all too much really.

The more I drank you, the more I wanted, until I was so hyped up and jittery that could barely sleep at night.

Nothing personal. I promise.

Oh and believe me!

I was just as shocked as you when I found out that you weren’t an actual food group. 

Who knew?

I am so sorry Coffee. . . .

I would love to tell you more. . ..

but I can barely keep my eyes open . . .. . .

Goodnight!

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

**This post was part of the Monday Mission at the Painted Maypole

So, last night I saw Charlie Wilson’s War, which I’ve wanted to see for quite some time now.  It as really well done (when have I not adored Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts in a movie?), although they (at least Tom Hanks) do not usually play characters like these, they both did a really good job.  I don’t have much else to say about it except that it does explain things about our current war… but throws a lot of sex and relationship and religion and crap in it to make it entertaining for a non-history person like me. On to something more like what I usually am interested in– body image, health and the media.  Yaaaay…  so lifetime has this show called “How to Look Good Naked” which I thought was just going to be some stupid diet and exercise show a la “The Biggest Loser.”  Alas it is not, and I am quite happy about it.  It has Carson Kressley in it (from Queer Eye), but it seems that his overly flamboyant personality does not annoy me as much when it exists for a cause that I believe in, which, in this case, is making women feel good about their bodies. Each episode, Carson basically takes a woman who is completely unhappy with how they look and (magically, in five days) changes their outlook on themselves and finally gets them to pose in a nude photo shoot, projects the photos onto a building in LA and makes them ask other people how the woman looks naked.  Although this seems highly unrealistic to me, it makes for interesting statistics, tricks to try on myself and overall the feeling that I can be okay with myself if these women are.BUT, as in all things, there is another side that nags at me.  Even though I love the idea of the show,  it bothers me to some extent in that, at least for the first two episodes, it seems to be condoning being overweight.  Being skinny at some level is just a superficial craze for already thin girls to be a size 0, but at another it is a serious health problem that more and more Americans are suffering from.  As if we didn’t know this already.   My question is:  how do we balance the health benefits these women gain from feeling great about their bodies (increased self confidence is a lot of increased psychological health) with the physical harm that being overweigh does to a body?  Often, the two combine together.  The first girl on the show, after her confidence boosting week, lost 20 pounds just because she felt so good about herself.  She said… she realized that she was too great to be overweight anymore.  Although I see the logic, I’m pretty sure that doesn’t happen to everyone.  And although body acceptance is all well and good, being okay with being severely overweight or obese is harmful.  Which is the more important health benefit? On that note… the yummiest drink ever, and it is pretty fattening for no apparent reason… the Peanut Butter Chai Latte:)  

BACON

submitted by: dasher