I've started a little online business. It's something I've been working on for the past couple week and finally I'm ready to go live. It's a little virtual bakeshop (with very real, non-virtual cakes) on Etsy.com.

Labels: Administrative, career, cooking, food, life decisions, Nerdiness, New York

I came across this story earlier today and it made me laugh. I realize that it's a serious and expensive problem, but the way the entire city is so completely bewildered by the "blob" is just fantastic.

The best part is the handy little map they've created to pinpoint the exact location of the blob.

I'm not sure how this thing could have just been discovered now. 90-foot blobs don't appear overnight. The story reports that the blob is made mostly out of flour and grease. Basically, it's a giant blob of dough. I guarantee you that somewhere in Lewiston, there is an Italian guy scrambling to hide the evidence of his foiled plan to make the world's largest pizza.

Labels: food, giant blobs, Japanese monsters, news

Those who know me will agree that this is long overdue. Those who don't, will soon understand why.

My new blog:

Always Order Dessert
Devoted to all things edible...

(Don't worry! I'm not shutting down sent from--Now you just get twice the Alejandra fun!)

Labels: blogging, cooking, food, Writing

So I didn't get a bottle of Bertolli olive oil, but I did get him to sign this book (Ahem...please note the XO...yeah, you know what that means...):



The man is, in the words of a friend of mine, a good-looking guy. A VERY good-looking guy. Much better in person than I could have ever imagined. So much so that when I got back to my office I forced the other women who had decided to skip it to go down and see him in real life.

"I don't care if you don't know who he is. You know what sexy is and it is downstairs signing autographs right now!"

So they went. And they swooned.

The best part? He's sweet, too! The line to meet him was long, but he patiently shook hands and chatted with everyone that came by. While he signed and chatted, a group of assistants handed out free samples of Bertolli pasta (surprisingly tasty). When my turn came, I shook his hand and told him what a fan I was. I asked him to sign the book and spelled my name out for him. "It's a tricky one, I know," I said somewhat apologetically. "Nah," he replied. "Rocco isn't so easy either." In my head I thought "Actually Rocco is five letters and fairly simple," but what came out of my mouth was a lot closer to: "ha ha mmmmm ha..." Eloquence at her best...

At least it wasn't a recap of the Tucker Carlson freakout of 2001.

And as a special (and equally exciting note): Welcome Gawker readers!

It has been quite the lunch hour...

Labels: Celeb Encounters, food

Back in the spring, I took an incredible writing workshop that helped me figure out a few things about what I wanted (and needed) to be doing. I ended up taking some pretty bold steps soon after and I know that much of the clarity that I needed to do so came from the conversations and realizations that I made that day.

Classes are really only as good as the students in them make them out to be, and this class was no different. There were six of us, all women at different stages of our life, but with one very important thing in common--we all wanted to write.

One of the girls that I met that day is Paula. A brilliant writer and raw food chef, Paula has started a blog chronicling her research, experiences, books, and other things having to do with the intersection of food and culture--specifically the culture of France and America. I particularly love her reminisces about her time spent living at the bookstore Shakespeare & Co. in Paris. Woven throughout all these experiences is her interaction with the other key figure in her life--her omnivorous French husband.

You can read her artfully crafted words at: http://alucidspoonful.blogspot.com/

Labels: blogging, food, friends, New York, Writing

Saturday night turned out to be one of those unexpectedly wonderful nights. I hadn’t been planning on going out. In fact, all I was trying to do was get back home. I’d crashed at a friend’s place the night before and had that stale feeling you get when you sleep in your clothes and have to borrow other people’s toiletries. But Sara had called and said that she and our friend Lou were in town. They had driven up from DC to take a few salsa classes in the city, and wanted to hang out. Their class was scheduled to get out at 5 and I half-heartedly agreed to meet them.

We walked around the corner to 6th where we entered the first bar we saw—Rogue, a large, elegant sports bar with polished mahogany tables and HD plasma screens covering the walls. The Colts/Ravens game was on and the bar was filled—and I mean filled—with men. The three of us looked around appreciatively as we took note of the fact that we were pretty much the only females in the room.

Food was our priority, and we proceeded to order platters of wings, calamari, and something incredible called “Irish Nachos”—thin slices of fried potatoes covered in sour cream, cheese sauce, chives, and bacon. Sara got a bucket of Bud Lights for the table, and Ilana and Vanessa soon showed up from other parts of the city to join us. Within the hour, we were eating, drinking, and shouting at the TV like we knew what was going on (we clearly didn’t). Our waiter, Alex, took a quick liking to us. “You guys are going too slow,” he said with a wink as he brought us yet another bucket that we hadn’t ordered.

“You, sir,” I giggled while waving my beer in the air, “are a very good waiter.” He smiled and a few minutes later came back with a tray of tequila shots and a handful of limes.

A little while later, another group of women showed up. They were older—probably early to mid 40s—and decked out to the nines. I’m talking tight bedazzled jeans, leopard print halter tops with little velvet jackets, heels, and hairstyles that are best described as “coifs.” Their faces were caked with make-up and a cloud of perfume followed them wherever they walked.

They were clearly cougars on the prowl.

The girls and I watched them as they were shown to a table across from ours.

“Betcha they order Cosmos,” I said under my breath.

Within minutes, a round of pink drinks in martini glasses was brought to their table.

“Oh god,” Sara moaned.

We watched them for a little while the way one normally watches the Discovery Channel. There was something about their dress and movements that seemed so calculated, so desperate… Their eyes constantly searched about the room and they each took turns taking the looong way to the bathroom, prancing around the room in their stilettos and cackling loudly to each other. The majority of the men ignored them, keeping their eyes glued to the screen. After a while the women seemed to lose interest and left just as loudly as they walked in. The whole spectacle barely lasted 40 minutes, but we couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“It’s like they purposely came here because they knew it was game night. There can be no other explanation,” I said.

“It’s a little sad,” said Lou. We nodded in agreement and looked at each other silently, each of us thinking but not willing to say the same thing. Finally, Alex showed up with another bucket of beers. We each grabbed one and I raised mine up. “To not ending up like that,” I said. We laughed and clinked our beers, and joined the crowd in a cheer as the Saints scored.


*********

“You guys are like the Latina Fox Force Five,” said a friend when I recounted the story later.

“Yeah…except that Ilana is Jewish…” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but that’s her thing,” he explained. “You have knives, Vanessa has guns, and Ilana isn’t actually Latina. It’s kitschy…”

Obviously he was just kidding, but it felt like there was a little bit of truth to it. Together we were like a powerful little team. It’s really rare that I get to go out with a group of girls. It’s usually just Vanessa and me, rolling around my bed watching movies and drinking ginger tea. Occasionally we’ll venture out for a night of salsa dancing (OK so we’ve only done it once since I’ve moved back, but that counts!) or a “books and booze” night in the East Village, but most of the time we’re total homebodies who giggle and daydream and act the exact same way that we did when we first met ten years ago.

As much as I love our quiet nights, it felt good to be out for a change. We were totally relaxed—Sara and Lou were in sweats, Vanessa hadn’t washed her hair, I was all kinds of dirty, and Ilana—well, ok, Ilana looked pretty freaking amazing, but still… Unlike the other group of women, we weren’t there to meet guys or flirt. There was no pressure. We were just a group of girls, having fun and catching up. The irony is that even though we weren’t the least bit interested, suddenly all these boys were paying attention to us—several guys spent the night staring at our table and smiling at us, the waiter continuously lavished free drinks on us, and by the end of the night a whole table full of guys had sidled up near us and kept finding excuses to join in on our conversation.

Near the end, one of the guys asked what we were doing next. “Going home,” I said as I signaled Alex to bring me the check.

“Really?” He asked. “No party?”

“No party,” I replied. “We just want bed.”

We bundled back into our coats and walked out to Vanessa’s car. On the drive back to NJ I turned around and realized that Sara and Lou had fallen asleep in the backseat.

“They’re kind of like puppies, aren’t they?” I asked Vane softly. We giggled to ourselves and turned down the radio.

“Hey,” Vane asked. “Can we make ginger tea when we get home?”

“Of course,” I replied.

Labels: food, friends, New York

My friend Moe once remarked that she thought it was pretty cool that unlike just about every other woman she knows, I never complain about my weight.

"I've never heard you say 'Does this make me look fat?' or 'I need to go on a diet' or anything like that. You just always seem so comfortable with yourself."

"It's intentional," I replied.

I made a conscious decision a long time ago that I would never be one of "those girls." The girls who constantly count calories and base their self-esteem on the size of their jeans. I've never wanted to be consumed by that.

A couple years ago, a friend asked me to join her and her roommate at a Weight Watchers meeting. I was bored and curious so I went along. It was spring and Easter and Passover were approaching. The moderator started talking about the difficulties of sticking to a dieting regiment over the holidays. She mentioned something about how much she loved jelly beans. The statement sent a murmur around the room. One by one, the women started shouting out the things they were going to miss most....Cadbury Cream Eggs, coconut macaroons, marshmallow Peeps, chocolate bunnies...

It was insane. They were practically salivating as they went into explicit detail about the things they wouldn't be able to eat. It was like listening to food porn and I'm pretty certain that at least 50 percent of those women headed straight for the candy aisle at CVS the second the meeting ended. I, on the other hand, left with the intention of writing a one-act play about the experience.

I don't diet. I love food far too much to force myself into some kind of suffocating dining regiment. I eat when I'm hungry and I don't when I'm not. It's as simple as that. I don't deny myself the things that I really want and I won't settle for bland low-whatever substitutes. I love bread and real sugar and creamy, garlicky things. I dip my french fries in mayonnaise and put cream in my coffee. I love dark chocolate and cheese, and I enthusiastically nod yes when offered a dessert menu.

I try to go to the gym as regularly I can, but not because I want to look good; I go because it makes me feel good. I love Pilates and yoga, and the occasional spinning class. It's how I kill my stress and the bucket load of neuroses I carry around. I may have grown up in New Jersey and come of age in DC, but as far as my anxieties are concerned, I'm like a Woody Allen film on continuous loop. I guess I just realized that with as many things as there are to worry about, the difference between being a size 8 or 10 or 12 is the least of them.

I realize that a lot of this is really a reaction to my mother's attitude towards food. Chubby when young, she was teased mercilessly by her cousins and brothers. In an effort to squelch their teasing she started dieting and has never stopped since. My whole life I've had to listen to the "oh I can't eat that" or "I just need to lose 10 more pounds by Christmas." This morning, as I rifled through the fridge in search of something to drink with breakfast I wondered out loud why there is never any juice in our house. "Juice is all sugar. Sugar makes you fat. Drink something else," my mom matter-of-factly replied as she grabbed a bottle of water. I was tempted to pour myself a glass of wine in protest, but resisted and made some tea instead.

She needled me all throughout high school. Expressing concern about my weight and making comments about the things I ate. A consummate baker, there was usually a tray of something that I'd made sitting in the kitchen. My dad and brother loved it, but she would come in and pick up the cookie or brownie the way one might pick up a dead mouse and shake her head disapprovingly. The comments lessened once I left for college. The first couple years she tried to monitor my weight and gym attendance until she realized that she really couldn't control much from afar.

I'd all but forgotten about it until last month when she came down to DC to help me pack up my apartment. After a day of working, we took a break to eat dinner. She had a cup of coffee. I had buffalo wings and a Greek salad. She watched me as I ate the wings, pulling the meat off with my teeth and licking my fingers.

"I always feel so carnal when I eat these," I told her with a laugh. Her all too familiar look sliced into my mirth like a knife.

"What?" I asked, barely able to mask the irritation in my voice. She hesitated for a moment and then said, "Do you ever think about what a bombshell you would be if you were to lose 20 pounds? You would be beautiful..."

"I'm already beautiful," I replied, cutting her off. "And I hope you don't think that just because I'm moving home you can start that again." I turned away from her and towards my laptop where I rather serendipitously found an e-mail from someone who clearly agreed with me.

This is not what I'd been planning on writing about today. [And no, it's not what I did last Wednesday.] But it's what came to my mind after stumbling across this incredible post on another blog. In poetic language, the writer tells the story of a girl she grew up with who died from anorexia. She I found this passage particularly moving:

I try not to comment on the way my friends look, their weight or their appearance. Not when they look good, not when they look thin. I try to tell them how happy I am to see them. I try to get them away, from the clubs and the gym and the pressured existence of Manhattan ambition. I try to laugh at their jokes, tell them how funny they are, engage their souls, connect. I don’t allow the gym clothes to hide the reality that my friend is becoming too thin. So thin that I need to reinforce through my actions that boys, and party dresses and the pursuit of glamour, adoration and the thinnes[s] reserved for the naturally petite is not what will make us feel full. I try not to read those magazines. I try not to stand in front of the mirror too long.

I know that I'm lucky because I was blessed with a proportionate figure and attractive features, but I know plenty of girls who have similar or better figures than mine and yet have twice the insecurities. I'm not going to lie and say that there are never days when I feel unsure or doubt myself. Days when I don't feel that attractive or can't seem to find something to wear, but fortunately, they are few and far between. Most of the time I'm very happy with myself and know that while I may not fit the "ideal" magazine cover image, the whole package is pretty darn spectacular.

And so I try to surround myself with the friends who also believe this. The ones who know that, as cliche as it may sound, it really is what's inside that counts. The ones who think of a decadent brunch as an experience to share with friends and not as something they're going to have to make up for with extra time at the gym. The ones who don't spend all their time scrutinizing themselves in the mirror or discussing diets. The ones who always order dessert...

Labels: food, friends