Money Can Buy You Photoshop

I'm sure you've all seen this video by now...it was recently leaked.

The good: Her skin looks great. I seriously would like to know how they did that? Like, how do you photoshop a video? She seriously looks nothing like herself here. Though, according to Gawker, some dude is claiming that it's all just make up and lighting. You're about as in denial about that as Luann is about her actual singing abilities. But, ok, if you say so dude. Moving on.

The bad: She's so ridiculously stiff in this video. I do not like the outfits she's wearing (I do not find them particularly flattering). She's not singing. Seriously, they've just autotuned her talking and put it over a techno-esque beat (how European, just like the "countess"). The lyrics, my god, the lyrics (you know the ones she is pretty much talking that have been autotuned and put over a beat) are really unimaginative!

The consensus: I'd call her a drag queen, except drag queens are a lot more self-aware than this woman. However, the camp-level entertainment is all there!

Anyway, I offered to cook dinner for my mother tonight, but she had already promised my sister we'd order in. So no cooking tonight. Come back tomorrow for my thoughts on the New York finale (the last episode for Bethenny?), and again on Saturday when I cook some Skinny Italian!

Go Green

I probably should have made tonight's dish last week considering the namesake of the dish was introduced to Real Housewife viewers last week. That's right, I made Audriana's Pesto. The recipe was pretty straightforward and easy to make. This is actually the first time I've attempted to make pesto and I think the end results were really great (I wish I had photos, but my phone's bluetooth and email aren't working oddly. Side note, I hate my phone and cannot wait to get the iPhone 4). So I'm just putting in pictures from other places of pesto.



Pesto is a powerful dish, and this one had a lot of bite. Basil and garlic and pine nuts and everything else! It really packs a punch, but taste great. I've actually been a fan of pesto for about as long as I can recall (though at one point i didn't eat it for a year or two because I happened to eat it before a strain of stomach flu set in-though the pesto didn't make me sick, I just sadly happened to eat my mom's home made before the virus attacked!).

Teresa gives two way of preparing the pesto- mortar and pestle or food processor. I thought about the mortar and then I realized wait I just got back from work after being the from 8:20am to 6:00pm (our managing editor from the London office- who actually happens to be Italian! flew in today, so I got there early to make sure I was ready), and today was the first day back in the office after a three-day weekend at the beach that involved lots of drinking and a horrible sun burn. Needless to say I went with my better judgment and used the food processor.

I thought the process was going to be arduous. My mother told me it would be. Actually, the dish was easy to make! I think my mother just didn't want me using her beloved Cuisinart! But it was easy and so worth it! I will definitely make this dish again. I think that because it is so easy to make that this will be a fun dish to experiment with the proportions of the ingredients- you know, a little more basil, less garlic etc etc!



Anyway, next meal to be made either Thursday or Friday! Make sure to check back then!

Episode V

Tonight's episode was crazy and upsetting. This poor family has a child sick with cancer and in comes a crazy woman with an entourage of felons, cons and hell's angels. She turns the whole of the event into something about herself. How crazy. She's not well. I've already expressed my belief that she has a personality disorder (and I am not the only one that thinks that). Her narcissism is insane. It's off the charts. And she's so vindictive and I generally think apathetic to the condition of others. Did anyone else notice that that fellow in her posse, Danny, totally said the word "faggot" more than once, and we did not see Danielle say boo about it-much different that her reaction last year to the use of "gay" by Joe (obviously neither is acceptable in any society, polite or otherwise)? Like, she was so caught up in the moment, the manipulation, in herself, self-obsessing, that she could have cared less.

Further, she's like shit talking a 20 year old kid, trying to emotionally psych him out! You're like 50 years old! What is up with that? Also, the woman you're with is the mother whose child is best friends with the kid you're trying to psychologically intimidate?

I am trying to figure out this Kim "G" (have we noticed how they are called "G" even though their last name was said twice in this episode) woman. Is she just desperate to get on tv? Is Andy Cohen going to bring her onto the show, and is this their way of introducing her to the world a la the introduction of the new New York housewives? Either way, she and Danielle are good for one another because they're both more or less using one another it seems like. A symbiotic parasitic relationship!

As for that crazy birthday party thrown for Gia. It looked fun, but who the hell thinks it's a good idea for someone that young to ride around (helmetless) with their younger sister on the back (also helmetless). Gia's little red headed friend dressed in black was visible in the back ground with this really skeptical look on her face.


Anyway, return tomorrow for an update complete with dinner.

Dining Out

So I know I had intended to cook a delicious home made dinner, but rather I treated my mother to a (very belated) mother's day dinner. But! We kept it Italian.

We went to La Lanterna Cafe & Grill. It's this great little Tuscan restaurant in Ridgewood, NJ. First of all, we ate outside. They have this great little semi-enclosed eating area outside. Wrought iron furniture, exposed brick walls, an all around nice ambiance. It was nice sitting outside, but staying dry thanks to the above head enclosure. Secondly, the restaurant is family owned and operated. The wife and husband that own the restaurant both work there, he is the chef and she manages the floor. She was very friendly and his food was delicious!

So the important thing: what did we eat? Well this place is BYOB, so I stopped at a liquor store and picked up some Hoegaarden while walking over from the Ridgewood train station to this restaurant (another nice thing, this restaurant is a five minute walk from the train! So convenient). We shared an appetizer of calamari, and for entrees, my mother had a crab dish with broccoli rabe and I had pesto with penne. The calamari was really light and refreshing. Not overly fried or battered like a lot of places like to do. It was cooked really well. My mom felt the pesto was on the creamier side, but I didn't really think that so much. I thought it was good. The basil was very fresh! My mom liked the soft shell crab and the broccoli rabe, she had fewer leftovers than I!

I think my mom and I are going to go back over the summer, on a warmer, less rainy day! This place is definitely enjoyable for many reasons and if you live in the Northern New Jersey I would recommend you go!

Anyway, I am in the middle of packing. I am going away for the long weekend (No, not the shore. We're not all stereotypes here in Jersey). No cooking or updating for a few days! But check back in June (a new month-time flies)!

It's Bacon!

First, have you guys seen this Twitter account? It's something!

I was looking forward to tonight's dinner. Teresa described it as a traditional dish, hugely popular in Italy, and as "peasant food." One of my favorite Northern Italian dishes of all time is peasant food (see ribollita, which literally means "reboiled," I had it in Tuscany and it was hands down one of the best things I ate while there). Needless to say expectations were high. Were they met? Yes! Tonight's dinner was up there on the list in terms of tastiness. Bucatini All'Amatriciana is great!

This dish had pancetta, which is kind of like Italian bacon, so obviously totally delicious! Actually, while it was cooking it kind of reminded my of a Jersey classic, Taylor Ham (confession before this I had never actually cooked pancetta at home, only had it eating out at Italian restaurants).



This dish took about 40 minutes total time to make, there was a fair amount of prep, chopping you know? But it was really delicious. There was this great flavor, a little bit of spice, a really decent amount of salt (pancetta is cured pork), and some acidity. It all worked well together.


It was a hit with the family, too. There's none left. Even my (super slender) mother, who is under the weather with an upper respiratory infection and claimed to have "little appetite" because of this, had two servings! Just saying.
I would make this again in a heartbeat. Though next time I would make it with guanciale instead of pancetta. Teresa said in the book either could be used, but I kind of had the feeling that she was subtlety hinting to go with guanciale instead of pancetta. Sadly, the Italian deli up the street had just run out of guanciale a few days ago and didn't have any on hand. Next time though, I will plan ahead and use it instead!

Next meal will probably be blogged on Thursday as I am going away with some friends for the long weekend!

Episode IV

Well congrats to Teresa for giving birth this episode. Also, for terrifying me about having babies. However, it's very cute to watch parents bond with new babies. I don't have to worry now, I am not having kids for a very long while!

Less cute, the creepy guys at Scores that were totally ok with showing their faces on national television while receiving lap dances. Your buddies will think you're cool for about five minutes, but you're going to regret that at some point!

But this episode was filled with juxtaposition (babies being born, babies falling seriously ill- and all the best to that family, I hope the baby is doing better), stereotypes (guns, felons, Italians, threats, Jersey. Not that I mentioned the "M" word), ambition (the face of strip gentlemen's club car washes) and in the thicket of it all the storm was building to the craziness that will come to a head at the Brownstone. The episode is had two storylines: the joys of cute new life and all the sweetness associated there, and the callousness that comes with age, that somehow people can potentially turn a benefit for a sickly little girl into a rumble.

I have a feeling that most things in Danielle's life are transient in every sense of the word. So she's putting together a gang of her own, a new group for the time being, but will we see them again after next episode? She's recruiting people to go against the Manzo clan for this upcoming rumble at the Brownstone, only adding kerosene to smoldering embers of disdain these people hold for one another. Caroline is no better in this episode though, particularly in those last five minutes of the show! Her rhetoric was near-Jihadist: "don't call them your friends if they're not having me or Dina present the check" kind of sounded like "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" in some sort of way. And it seems like whatever small dissent from the family there might have been in this episode, the family is going to ban together for next week.

All said, next week is going to bring the crazy.

And tomorrow I'm going to update with a delicious new dish. Make sure to check it out!

Welcome Back Dinner

So I didn't actually make a meal today. I made it last night. For several reasons, actually. Today I have a birthday celebration to go to, my nieces are turning 4 and 1 years old respectively and I am opening up my Roth IRA today (yeah- ways to tell your parents work/worked in finance, you receive money for a retirement plan as your college graduation-though I'm already thinking about investments). Plus! My mother returned from Boston, where she's been the last few days, Friday evening, so I thought it might be nice of me to make her a lovely, homemade welcome back dinner!

I made to date what I consider simultaneously the easiest and most delicious recipe! Gorgeous Garlic Shrimp. This dish was so light and refreshing, and so so simple. It was really the perfect meal for last night. It was 75 degrees out at 8:30pm, so this summery dish with a glass of crisp, dry white wine was just necessary.

And how was the cooking? Well, of course cooking sea food always runs the risk of creating an overwhelmingly low tide scent. I just turned the fan on in the kitchen, and really the smell was nothing. Further, between prep work and cooking this dish probably took no more than 15 minutes to make.
Those pictures were literally taken within four minutes of one another. It cooks so quickly!

I mean, can it get any better than lite, refreshing, simple to make and fast to cook?! I STRONGLY recommend this dish to anyone that's looking for a great dish to serve on a summer afternoon/evening.
It did turn out lovely!

Next meal will be next week. Maybe Monday or Tuesday!