I'm Thankful for Food..

Probably one of my top five favorite things about the holidays is the food. Trying new things, preparing new things, tasting the old traditional ones. It's just lovely. There are a number of foods that are a must during the holiday's. Shrimp cocktail, always makes an appearance. My mom's ROLLS. She doesn't seem to take as much credit as she should for them. Fernwood's mint sandwiches.. divinity. This year I woke up and decided that these muffins* will be Thanksgiving morning's tradition. They are so easy to make, fast, and melt in your mouth.

Truly, I will make these a lot. Which may deter from the "specialness" of it. But I don't care. Thanksgiving morning, the parade, muffin's, it all works together to make for a wonderful tradition.

A new staple to my list of what to make when people ask me to to bring an hors devours, is this amazing sesame bake. It doesn't look like much, but once cracked open I constantly have people asking me where I got this "rare and delectable cheese." It is a block of philadelphia soaked in soy sauce, rolled in toasted sesame seeds and baked. Incredible.

This dip, which sports the magical colors of Christmas, came to me via a dear friend that more and more we find we are much more domestic than we believed. It is pretty delicious. The tart sweetness that comes from the pomegranate soothes the quiet flavor of the avocado. And the cayenne pepper and corriander gives it a nice kick.

Dinner was spectacular- don't get me wrong. I love my potatoes and gravy. But I sure do love finding new things to bring to the table.

*These recipes are becoming my most favorite to add to my collection. This blogger has the same delightful taste in food as I do, and I am always excited to see what she posts next. Her link is to the left, "Baked Deliciousness"

Cell Phone Etiquette 101

I'm all for cell phones. I've had one since I was 17. It comes in very handy. I honestly don't know how we picked people up from the airport before cellphones. However, with these technological blessings have come many, many pains. Although cell phones went from an adult to a teenage necessity, I think we need to start at the other end and hold classes in school about the proper way to own, and use a cell phone.

1. Places that a cell phone should be neither seen nor heard: Church, school classrooms, movie theater's, on date's, and the dinner table. It is just unacceptable, rude and completely unnecessary.

2. While driving, keep cell phone conversations under a minute. Not only is it unsafe, and becoming against the law in more and more states, but it's annoying to the other people in the car, and frankly I hate driving by people going 75 mph to see that they aren't 100% focused on their driving.

3. When in public places in close confinement, (ie: grocery lines, bathrooms, airport terminals etc.) keep your voice down. No one likes a loud, obnoxious talker gabbing away while we are all stuck in the same place and can't walk away from you.

4. Remember there is always someone listening. Keep private issues for private conversations. Everyone else doesn't need to hear you chew out your significant other, or how bloated you felt this morning, or how much you hate your co-worker.

5. Again, do not answer your phone on a date. It just shows that you aren't interested and they'll pick up on that quickly. Your attention should be on them, and not what ELSE is going on.

6. Do not text unless it is something that can be exchanged in 4 texts. Example:

"Hey, sorry I'm late. I'll be there in 5 minutes."

"No problem, where are you?"

"Just getting off the freeway."

"K, see you soon."

NOT:

"Hey how are you?"

"Good how are you?"

"I'm alright, just hangin."

"Cool."

"Yeah."

"Wanna do something?"

"Sure. Like what?"

"Dunno."

"Me neither."

(this continues on for another five bucks...)

That is why you bought a cell phone in the first place. To be able to talk to people from anywhere at anytime. It's really irritating to see people clicking away on their phones forever. Especially at meals, during conversations, or in any of the places mentioned in #1.

7. Don't play games on your phone in social settings. It just tells everyone around you that they are boring you and you'd rather be somewhere else.

8. Always hang up on conversations when approaching or speaking to someone that is helping/serving you, ie: waitresses, bankers, grocery store clerks. You need to be available to them for the service you came to THEM to provide.

I'm sure there is more that I am forgetting. But I feel like cell phone's are rapidly decreasing the quality of human interaction. I hear about break-ups over texts, and people getting in car accidents due to people on cellphones, so much more texting rather than actual conversing, and it makes me sad. We DID manage... before cell phones.

Anyway. Again, I am a fan, but let's do it right.

Can someone explain this to me?

I seriously hate having to sit at a stoplight, and stare at this.

Not only is it completely humiliating for whoever is driving the car, but it is totally unsafe. I couldn't even decipher between human driver head and stuffed animal. My eyes were having difficulty absorbing the amount of polyester fur and glass eyes staring lifelessly at me.

It's not like there is a surplus of these "collectors" out there. I only see one of these vehicles per week or maybe per month. But each time I see it I sit and think to myself, "did they put them all in at once? Or was it a gradual pyramid.. do they each represent something? Do they ALL belong to the driver? Or the driver's child? If they are the child's, then wouldn't they rather play with them than have them paraded around like trophies in their parents' car?"

It's absolutely insane that I've spent this much thought on this stupid phenomenon. Let alone taken the time to write a post about it.

I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this is weird..

The Big Gig

I had the opportunity to photograph a wedding for a very fun, very cool couple. I can only hope that the 2,164 pictures I got can live up to how great the day was. I don't want to give away a whole lot, considering the happy couple is on their honeymoon, and won't see their pictures for a week- but here is a sneak peak.

Thank you so much Shaw/Hopkin families for letting us be a part of your day....

Happy Halloween

Another Farmer's Market...

They are all so pretty. This one was in San Clemente, off Del Mar. It's so nice to see such beautiful bright colors in October. However, I didn't buy any fruit. I ended up buying cakes at the baker's stand. Carrot Cake. Yum.

Getting the Getty

Jack and I visited the Getty today. I LOVED it and decided that if I had to move here I'd spend most of my time there. And I'm going to keep this short, because I took a TON of pictures. So the Getty was awesome. Here you go.

Exhibited

Here's, me standing in front of my photo in the Rio Gallery.

..And Jack, being a pirate.

I didn't win. But had no expectations of doing so- it really was just an honor to have it be chosen out of the 300+ that were submitted. For those of you wanting a better view, the picture is displayed on the homepage of this website: www.lmtphotography.weebly.com

So, yay for that recognition. On to the next!

Happy Homemakers

Yesterday I had the opportunity to spend half my day with my dearest friend, Lyndsey. More than often I will come to her house to spend an hour, and end up spending five. Today was planned, however. Lyndsey came upon a grapevine in her yard and took it upon herself to start juicing. I come from a childhood of home-grown grape juice and it just so happened that this year my dad wasn't juicing his. So I raided his vine and gathered myself a decent bowl of concord grapes. From there, I went to my aunts house and then raided hers as well, walking away with a hefty garbage bag that felt like it weighed 75 lbs.

Lyndsey and I spent the afternoon rinsing grapes, stuffing the juicer, smashing them down, filling up jars and before I knew it, I had a bakers dozen. Although, due to the multiplicity of vines, my grape juice starts at a very deep concord purple, and gradually grew to a light cherry-purple. So no two jars are the same. It will make for some true variety.

As it turns out, Lyndsey also canned peaches and apple sauce. We both felt this strange sense of productivity that we were creating our own stock of food from something we found outside. It's quite exhilarating. So thanks must go out to Tom, for chopping his vine so thin that the few grapes that made it weren't worth juicing to him. And to Suzi, who let me come over and pillage her crop. And to Lyndsey, who let my kid run around her house while I stocked up some antioxidants for my family.

Jackson and Jack

Last week we spent 4 days in Jackson Hole with my very cool, very knowledgeable Grandfather. Jack calls him, multiple times an hour, "Grandpa-Paul." We got there right after the snow hit, so not only was it a whole new, cold Jackson, but Grandpa got to relive everything he had done a few days earlier, WINTER style.

Grandpa didn't mind that though he had just spend an entire day in Yellowstone with the previous visitors, he'd spend another day there with us. But this time, due to snow, many parts of the park were closed and our day was planned by nature. We hit Jackson Lake and Old Faithful. It was around 35 degrees each day, Jack was a champ about wearing his new jacket and hat, and did a great job keeping his hands in his pockets to stay warm. It was a very surreal experience to see Jack amongst the snow without turning blue. Everything seems to only get better. We were at some pretty high elevations and he'd insist on walking, but every now and then he'd reach up to one of us to carry him. Whether that's his heart condition, or laziness...I haven't figured it out yet.

Old Faithful was on time as always and Jack thought it was

pretty cool to see it "explode" right in front of him. This was the only place in the park that we really ran into other people. We were hoping to see some wildlife, maybe some of the "hundreds of elk" Grandpa had seen a couple of days earlier, but the snow seemed to have driven everyone elsewhere. Most likely to the closed portions of the park.

After Old Faithful we drove back to "Jackson's" (Jack couldn't really grasp the concept of Jackson being a place, and not a person.) Grandpa told us lots of interesting stories, like how Grandma hid money for months and on Christmas presented Grandpa with $7300 to purchase their lot in Olympus Cove. And how his first born was conceived out of necessity to prevent Grandpa from being drafted to the Korean war. And how there isn't anyone that he "dislikes" that he can think of...

Truly a fascinating drive home.

The last day of Adventure included a drive through Teton National Park. Again, kind of quiet, due to the snow. But we stopped at Jenny Lodge and Jenny Lake. We did a lot of rock throwing. It's a boy thing, I think. Throwing rocks into a body of water. Lots of that.

We packed sandwiches and had some lunch at an abandoned visitors center that was closed for the season. That's where I learned about all of Grandpa's piano and organ teachers.

On our way back, we came across a bear hanging in a tree. He was searching for food and had cubs sleeping a ways in from the road. But he was just 20ft from us and went about his business climbing a very small tree. He was adorable. After that we saw a mama moose and her calf feeding in some marsh. Good wildlife.

Jack was the star of every show. Each time we went out to eat there were people staring and giggling at his cute behavior that I was constantly trying to minimize- because he thrives on playing class clown and can get quite riled up. But he sure was a good boy for all the driving we did. He had a great time and enjoyed spending time with Grandpa-Paul. As did we.