Finished Product

2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups almond milk
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 tablespoon agave nectar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of cinnamon (or more – to taste)
1/2 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Toppings
Fresh Strawberries
Candied Pecans

I like mine topped with strawberries, 2 eggs over-easy, green tabasco and real maple syrup. Sounds terrible, tastes amazing.

Directions*

Preheat waffle iron. Beat eggs in large bowl with hand beater until fluffy. Beat in flour, almond milk, applesauce, agave nectar, baking powder, salt, vanilla, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice just until smooth.
Spray preheated waffle iron with non-stick cooking spray. Pour mix onto hot waffle iron. Cook until golden brown. Serve hot.

*adapted from AllRecipes.com

Some highlights – April 1 to March 31.

April 2011: Interviewed for a million jobs, then found the perfect one.

Aloneinaforest for WDCW

May 2011: Moved to Los Angeles and realized it is where I was always meant to be.

Us.

June 2011: Reunited with two of my best friends.

Friends since age 4.

July 2011: Discovered I do, indeed, have urban farmer aspirations.

Our little garden

August 2011: Tumbled into love with the beach. Made living near it a goal.

Husband chasing seaguls

September 2011: Spent a weekend in Montana, and realized that LA had (happily) become home.

In Montana - Feeling LA

October 2011: Eloped in broad daylight with my favorite person in the whole universe.

Mr. and Mrs. Modine - October 31, 2011

November 2011:  Celebrated Husby’s 32 in a vortex in Sedona, AZ with champagne and good friends.

Vortex Seekers

December 2011: Had a beach picnic on Christmas Eve.

Truffle honey, wine, meat, cheese, and sunshine

January 2012: Hiked in Malibu on New Year’s Day and sent our intentions to the Mountain God in Kyoto, Japan.

We wanted the Mountain God in Kyoto to hear our intentions.

February 2012:  Successfully completed a cleanse during the week of Valentine’s.

Lighter and brighter!

March 2012: Found that dream beach bungalow in Santa Monica – 6 blocks from the beach. With a chicken coup.

Our new little pretty

Tipping my pink bubbles for 32. Happy Birthday and happy life, to me.

It’s life’s uncertainties that have pushed me to cook. A lot. There is something about getting an idea for a recipe, doing a test cook, tweaking it, and ultimately creating something that is at once delicious and lovely. Like a well-written story, there is a satisfaction of a beginning (ingredient prep), middle (bake time), and end (lift your fork) that brings me equal parts calmness, coolness, and semi-collectedness.

With that, I bring you Logan’s Soufflé, named after Husby because it’s filled with his favorite ingredients. Enjoy.

This is what you have to look forward to.

1 wheel goat milk brie (we like the one from Trader Joe’s)

7 large eggs, lightly beaten 

6 oz plain fat free Greek yogurt

1 bundle of asparagus, chopped

2 cups fresh raw spinach

1 medium red onion, chopped

1 cup (or more) grated goat gouda cheese (again TJ’s has a good, cheap version)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Optional: 5 slices of turkey bacon, cut into little pieces

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cut of the rind of the brie and cut the brie into small chunks, then set aside.

Goat Brie is my homeboy.

In a large skillet over medium heat, saute onions and asparagus until lightly brown. Continue stirring. Add bacon and brown. Then add spinach and stir until spinach has wilted. Add brie cheese and stir until it has melted.

This is the good stuff

In a large bowl, combine Greek yogurt and eggs. Add salt and pepper. Incorporate spinach/bacon/asparagus brie mixture to bowl and pour into a large baking dish.

Top the soufflé with goat gouda.

Drink a glass of wine and let your masterpiece bake for about 35-40 minutes. Be sure to let it cool before devouring.

This is major.

PS: Logan says it’s awesome reheated the next day.

PSS: Yes, most soufflés are sweet, not savory – BUT – this isn’t a quiche because it does not have a crust. It’s also not a frittata because it isn’t cooked in the skillet. By process of elimination, it’s a savory soufflé.

To Donate and / or learn more, CLICK HERE.

I like this description.

Moreover, I love Ms. Shaw’s art. I would like to hang one of these neon mountain-scapes on the white wall of the sunroom / plant room in my future (re: dream)  house.

Neon Peaks

There Were No Survivors, 2008.

Welcome To Hollywood, Everyone's Gotta Dream. Some Come True, Some Don't. 2009.

None Found Alive, 2009.

The Reasons Remain Somewhat Mysterious (Blue Wildebeests), 2008.

You Can Kill A Dead Horse #2, 2009.

You Can Kill A Dead Horse, 2009.

The Reasons Remain Somewhat Mysterious (Pink Wildebeests), 2008.

There Were No Survivors, #2, 2009.

The Passenger Pigeon Was Less Fortunate #2, 2009.

To check out (invest in) more of her work – CLICK HERE.

1. THERE WILL NEVER BE A GOOD TIME TO CLEANSE. I opted to start mine the Sunday before Valentine’s Day. That meant Valentine’s dinner with Husband consisted of a reddish (at least it matched the color scheme of the day), semi-sweet juice. He had a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich. Mid-week there was a party at Viceroy. As much as I heart swanky boozing, I survived on club soda and lime. I kept thinking, “This is the WORST time to be cleansing.” Paleeese. Next week would suck too. There is always something better to be doing than not eating.

Club Soda + Lime - The Cocktail for Cleansers

2. YOU WILL BE VERY, VERY HUNGRY. And there are sooo many temptations. But cleansing is different than a diet – it’s a short-term commitment. You just have to stick to it for a few, manageable days. For whatever reason, that was much easier for me to reconcile, than a life sentence to all salads, all the time. Although now that I’ve cleansed, salads sound delicious (but girlfriend missed her vino).

Work Temptations

3. A CLEANSE MAY NOT “DETOX” YOUR LIVER, BUT IT WILL CERTAINLY GIVE IT A VACATION.  Recently, NPR published a report that cleanses are not effective in detoxing the body. Okay, fine. I don’t believe that a cleanse will flush the toxins out of my liver. However, going eleven (or three, or 21, or ten) days without eating high-salt, high-fat, high-crap food meals and not soaking my liver in alcohol, coffee, soda and garbage certainly doesn’t hurt.

Your Liver Likes Most of This Stuff

4. CLEANSING IS AN EXERCISE IN DISCIPLINE.  There are always temptations. In the last eleven days, I faced a Valentine’s Day Bake Off at work, a dinner and wine invitation at a friend’s house, a swanky party, and red velvet squares and peanut M & M’s on a Tuesday after a holiday weekend. Also, during said holiday weekend, all I wanted to do was pop open champagne and deep-clean-my-house-while-buzzed (which, if you haven’t tried, makes cleaning GOOD TIMEZZZZ). But, all week, I stuck to my guns. Seltzer water with bubbles when I wanted wine. Some kind of beet carrot red juice when I wanted cheese.

5. BEING IN CONTROL WILL MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD.  The only fun thing about not eating what I wanted for eleven days, was consciously toying with my brain and stomach. Eleven days of total self-control. More than the inches in water weight I lost, I now have mental clarity about what I’m putting in my body. And … full disclosure … it brought me joy each night at bedtime, to know that I was one day closer to finishing the cleanse.

6. YOU WILL WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.  I’m not sure why all I want to talk about is this cleanse, but it is. Perhaps it’s because it feels like one big scientific experiment with my body. And because while it was happening I had no idea what the outcome would be, and whether or not I could actually do finish it.

7. FOOD WILL STOP SMELLING SO GOOD — AND IT WILL STOP BEING SO IMPORTANT.  The first day of my cleanse, I was just plain hungry. By day three, I was salivating as I fantasized about what I would eat when the cleanse was over. By day six, food just didn’t matter so much – I really only ate my salad at lunch because I knew I had to. What a difference a few days made. When my colleagues ordered Thai food, I didn’t really care. Who doesn’t care about Thai food? Blondie on a cleanse, that’s who.

Just one of many, many missed meals.

8. YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT AND IT WILL BE AWESOME.  I didn’t have high hopes for weight loss on this cleanse. I knew that it would mostly be water weight. But who cares, it feels amazing to see the number I want to see on the scale.

9. YOU WILL BE READY FOR IT TO BE OVER. Cleansing goes in waves. First you’re proud you made it through one day. By day three you’re just wishing it was over. By day six, you feel powerful and invincible.  By day nine … you just want the whole thing to be over. By day eleven, you can’t wait to pop the champagne the next day, and raise a glass to your success. Which, of course, completely obliterates the goodness you’ve done for your body over the last eleven days … sigh.

10. PEOPLE WILL WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR CLEANSE. It’s like hiking Mount Everest. Well, that may be an overstatement, but,  not everyone can do it.  I can say I feel powerful for having the self control to do this. I can say that people said it sounded terrible – it was. But some of those same people have since asked me for specifics about the cleanse.

11. YOU WILL BE MORE TEMPTED THAN EVER TO “CHEAT” ON THE LAST NIGHT OF YOUR CLEANSE.  The logic is, you’re pretty much done, right? Time to celebrate! But you can’t. You have to wake up the next day and then you know you’re done. You will feel amazing. Seriously. I have never, ever felt better.

Last Juice of the Cleanse. Life is good.

Cheers.

PS: If you’d like to learn more about other cleanses (and other people’s cleanse experience) here’s a great article.

Car Horn Concert (via www.zefrey.com)

Enter artist Zefrey Throwell,  known for his birthday suit antics on Wall Street. Part migraine inducing noise, part whimsical fun, “Entropy Symphony: Movement III” interjected a music of sorts to Los Angeles last Wednesday, performed by a most apropos instrument, our car horns. All told, the symphony in five parts featured 1,000 car horns, honking in time from freeways to hillsides during the 6pm commute.

But how can you not obsess about this craftsmanship by artist Lisa Nilsson? Her work puts my piss poor giftwrapping non skills in the corner … for life. Enjoy.

Profile (detail) 2011

Abdomen 2011

Thorax 2011

Abdomen (detail)

Female Torso 2010

Male Torso 2010

Directed by AB/CD/CD

First we went to Spice Station, an aromatic subterranean respite from oh-so-hot sidewalk jungle.

Rainbow Jars

Overhead Spices

Spices - big jars.

Outside the Spice Station

Bar Keeper Droppers

We closed out the day at Café Stella – a shady (as in, protected from the sun) little sweetheart of a restaurant. It’s worth mentioning that the service here is terrible, but the atmosphere makes up for it.

Rosé Reflection - Stellas

Pretty Plant - Outside Intelligentsia

 

 

Being on Pinterest has really opened my eyes for art … partially because I “follow” really cool, artsy people, like Courtney Blazon, who post really cool images by illustratresses like Angie Wang, for whom I am going bananas ATM. Here are some of my favorites:

Angie Wang, Secret Jungle. 2011

Angie Wang, The Story of Beauty. 2011

Angie Wang, Cassowary Jones Versus The Frivolous Wolves. 2011

Angie Wang, Lotus Attack. 2011

Angie Wang, Annie Duels The Sun. 2010

Angie Wang, Nightmare. 2009

Angie Wang, Fursuit Triptych. 2009

Angie Wang, Young Monsters. 2009

PS: If you are not on Pinterest, but you want to be, message me, and I’ll send you an invite. I’m a really nice person.