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Month of fun: Days 18-20

September 20, 2011

Day 18

I made one of my favorite snacks: Yummy eggplant chips.

Eggplant chips are a healthy way for me to achieve what I want (DIP!) while keeping fat, preservatives and all kinds of nastiness to a minimum. Think of them as corn chips, but without the regret.

They are also far more delicious than they sound. The eggplant loses any kind of bitterness, soaks up the salt and condenses into a mild, but tasty, background for my favorite salsas. They never achieve the same kind of crunch as potato or tortilla chips, but they’re another entity entirely.

Want to try them yourself? Good. They’re incredibly easy. Just slice an eggplant into thin rounds. Sprinkle with a little salt (or seasoning of choice), then dehydrate for a few hours — just until the chips lose their chewiness.

Here’s what they look like in the beginning:

And here’s the final product.

No dehydrator? No problem. Set your oven to the lowest temperature and keep the oven door cracked while the chips are drying. They will still take several hours to dehydrate completely.

Day 19

Fun manicure!

This was my first time making dots on my own nails. Some were look great, but a lot of them look smudgy and warpy, like bubblegum crying. I think I’ll keep trying.

Day 20

Goofing around with the Photo Booth on my MacBook.

Month of fun: Day 4

September 4, 2011

Where’s the very best place to spend Labor Day Weekend? Plopped down on a beach chair at Manhattan Beach, surrounded by your best friends, with a can of champagne in hand.

The perfect summer day was capped off with a visit to Cupcakes Couture, a fancy, pretty-in-pink bakery that recently won “Cupcake Wars.”

Here’s the gorgeous Lime in the Coconut, one of the winning flavors from the show.

And it’s hard to tell from this photo, but this Sunday Mimosa cupcake was such a piece of art. It’s champagne cake filled with blood orange curd topped with a mascarpone citrus frosting, garnished with blood orange pearls. It was approximately the size of someone’s hand, with towers of sparkly icing.

BONUS FUN! My friend Maria recently moved from the desert to the beach, because she has more surf in her blood than sand. This was our first chance to really catch up since I returned from my trip, so we hugged, dished, ate pizza, took a nighttime walk on the pier. It was fantastic.

EXTRA BONUS FUN! Seeing Maria’s gorgeous children!

A month of fun: Day one

September 1, 2011

When I was on the road, each day was an adventure. I was meeting new people, sampling new foods, seeing new sights and opening my arms to every new experience that came my way. In short, I was having a blast.

It’s no surprise then that coming home has been a little bit of a bummer. It feels like the same boring, old thing because it IS the same boring, old thing. I haven’t done anything new or different or exciting in a month.

This morning, however, I woke up to an apartment full of love notes from The Husband. It started with a Post-It on the coffeemaker, which led to a note on my computer, on a book, on the front door and so on.

And no, it’s not our anniversary. He just did it for no reason at all.

It was so sweet it practically made my teeth ache, but it was also downright fun to make beautiful discoveries in what would have been a normal routine. That’s when I got to thinking: I bet there are fun things all over my daily life. I just haven’t been open enough to explore them.

There’s only one thing that controls how vibrant my life is. ME. It’s not about where I am. It’s more about who I am.

And that brings me to my new project for September: Do something fun every day.

I’m borrowing the idea from a couple other bloggers who did it first, documenting their months of fun in July and August. (So I’m a little late to the party … what’s new?) Every day, or as often as I can, I’ll report back and tell you how the project is going. Hopefully you’ll tell me about the fun you’re finding too.

I’m head over heels for this idea already. It’s about making the deliberate choice to embrace adventure. It’s taking a hammer to the old routine and smashing it into bits. It’s about being inspired.

Today’s fun thing: I visited The Husband at work and brought him lunch.

This won’t be a regular thing, unfortunately. It won’t be long before his days will be filled with students, parent-teacher conferences and paperwork, and he’ll be squeezing peanut butter and jelly in between his other obligations.

But today none of that was a concern, as it’s still early in the year. He’s still sticking posters to the wall, organizing books, setting up computers. So I surprised him in the middle of the day, we pulled a couple of school desks together in his classroom and enjoyed a meal together.

Hot potato

June 5, 2011

There are five things you need to know about Potato Spicky.

1. Spicky is a potato tube. It springs forth from a potato head.

: Mr. Potato’s final gift to the world.

2. Spicky is fun to eat while sitting at a computer, buying a dress and driving a car/piloting a biplane.

: Whee! Spicky-tastic!

3. Spicky is non fried.

: Fried? Non!

4. Spicky appears to be vegan.

: I don’t see any pork here.

5. Spicky is my favorite Thai snack food.

Vietnamese home cooking

May 9, 2011

Here’s the great thing about Vietnam.

You walk into a cafe. And I use the term “cafe” loosely, because it’s actually just the home of a random person with enough initiative to make a sign and write a menu.

Note granny on the couch watching Asian game shows. You might also be able to make out the kid on Facebook behind the beaded curtain. The motorbikes in the living room are kinda standard around here.

: It’s a family affair.

At this “cafe,” you skeptically order a bowl of tofu pho. And when it arrives, all peppery and slurpy and delicious, it’s one of the best meals of your life.