Earthquake surprise 🥳 & foods I’m “meh” about

Hello my darlings!

How are you?? I’m doing well! It’s that time of year where everyone tells me that summer is winding down, but I don’t feel it here in Los Angeles, where our warm weather lasts well into October. Kids are going back to school in some parts of the country, which is always wild to me because where I grew up in New Jersey, we never went back before Labor Day. My beloved Olympics are over, and my husband Ross has become so enamored of Australian breakdancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn that I’m honestly starting to get a little jealous. “I like that unlike the other breakdancers, I can actually do a lot of her moves,” he said, then proceeded to kangaroo hop around the living room. I’m not threatened by women who are more attractive than me (I live in L.A., I would be dead if I were), but if you make my husband laugh a lot, I start to narrow my eyes. That’s MY niche! Back off, bitch!

Do you ever have a moment in dealing with bureaucracy where you're just like, "thank god I'm smart, because I don't know how a stupid person could handle this?" We are suing our old landlords in small claims court for the $900+ chunk of our security deposit they took out for “damages” (lol, like we’re Van Halen trashing a hotel room over here, instead of a quiet married couple in their 30s with an eight pound cat). It has been so much more work than I imagined! I spent two hours downtown at the courthouse on Friday dealing with paperwork and bouncing between offices. It makes me angry that it’s so much work on our end because THEY’RE the ones in the wrong!

I love going to government offices because truly, you’ve never seen people who loathe their jobs more, and they don’t even try to hide it. As someone born and raised in the area around New York City, surliness makes me feel cozy. I always challenge myself to get government workers to be nice to me by the end of the interaction by being unflappably cheerful and polite. I would say I have a less than 50% success rate. They are so used to dealing with assholes who are rude to them that they have a defensive wall up that even my brightest smiles rarely crack. Try making a game out of it next time you’re, say, at the DMV!

So, what else is new with me? I have some stuff a-brewin’ that I can’t really talk about in my newsletter yet. I think I may have written about this before, but sometimes I’ll see a friend I haven’t seen in a while and they’ll go, “Well, I know everything that’s been going on with you because I read your newsletter.” First of all, thank you for reading, but people, that’s just patently false. That’s like thinking you know everything that’s going on with someone because you watch their Instagram stories. I’m a pretty open book, but even I have some boundaries when it comes to what I write or post about publicly.

Ross was out of town last week, and as much as I enjoyed having the apartment to myself, man, I missed that guy! He makes everything more fun, and sometimes he takes his shirt off. wiggles eyebrows lasciviously through the Botox (Ross: “Please stop.”) I had a dream last week that I was dating some random imaginary man, and then Ross walked by, and I chased after him, all, “Hey Ross! What’s going on? Whatcha doing?” Full golden retriever girlfriend, oh boy, it’s Ross! I freakin’ love that guy!

(Sorry to make you barf all over your phones or laptops or wherever you’re reading this!)

I randomly got really into Michael Douglas movies last week. It started before Ross left when we watched Wall Street together, and then I proceeded to watch Basic Instinct, The Game, and Disclosure while he was gone. There’s something comforting about a Michael Douglas movie marathon, because he always plays kind of a schmuck who you somehow root for, usually a rich businessman in either San Francisco or Seattle. (What is with ‘90s movies always being set in SF or Seattle?) I suppose Michael Douglas in the ‘90s was good-looking, but I’m not really attracted to so-called “alpha male” types. Is it even possible to have an equitable, feminist relationship with an alpha male? I always feel like eventually they would call you a bitch during an argument or something.

Speaking of peak alpha male behavior, a dude friend and I went to see the Cat Video Fest at Vidiots last weekend, which was exactly what it sounds like: 73 blissful, uninterrupted minutes of cat videos from the internet, curated and edited by Will Braden, creator of Henri, le Chat Noir. I thought it was going to play in their main theater, which seats 271, but APPARENTLY there was less demand than I thought, because it played in their “microcinema,” a small room with 35 removable chairs. “This crowd is exactly who I thought would come to a cat video fest,” my friend said; it was a mix of children and cat people who desperately needed either a hairbrush or a lint roller, or both. Look, I’m not trying to be rude, I love cat people, but I put on makeup and earrings for that, and I felt way overdressed. When I went to CatCon last year, everyone dressed up in their feline finery and looked real cute. I was kind of expecting the same vibe.

Let’s get into a few things:

- Cooking & baking. Would it surprise you to hear that in the nine days Ross was gone, I actually only ordered takeout twice? I actually love to cook for myself, 

HOLY SHIT y’all, in the middle of writing that sentence an earthquake hit! The USGS is currently rating it at a 4.4 and the epicenter was less than five miles from my neighborhood, so we FELT THAT! I screamed and got under my desk, which I almost never manage to do. Usually I sit there like an idiot and then just as I’m about to act, it’s over. Earthquakes usually only last a few seconds, but sometimes it takes my brain that long to even realize what’s happening.

I grew up in an area where we would occasionally get blizzards and hurricanes, but usually, you have several days’ notice of those kinds of things coming. Earthquakes happen out of nowhere. This one was a big SLAM, like someone drove a car into the building, followed by some shaking. I did NOT enjoy that style!! Go back to the drawing board, Earth, your taste level is off!

Of course, our cat slept blissfully through it. We actually had ANOTHER earthquake about a week prior which was less intense. That one hit while I was in bed reading with the cat by my feet, and the bed started rocking back and forth. Zadie was fine until I yelped, “Zadie! Earthquake! Zadie, we have to–earthquake!” and then she jumped off the bed, meow-yelled, and ran away. In hindsight, I guess I should have let her be. One of my fears is that the Big One will hit and I won’t have time to grab her and bring her to safety with me. Getting her all wound up is probably not the best way to handle that, though. Oop.

Alright, let’s try this one more time:

- Cooking & baking! Here are a few things I cooked and baked while Ross was away. I will star* the one that I’ve never mentioned before in this newsletter:

• Honey garlic pork chops. Don’t you love a good pan sauce? I served these with little multicolored baby potatoes boiled and tossed with butter, salt, garlic, and fresh dill.
  
  

• Rigatoni alla vodka. So easy, and yet it tastes gourmet.
  
  

• Hot dogs with Kraft mac and cheese. A total dirtbag meal, and I loved every second of it.
  
  

• *Zucchini biscuits with cheese and herbs. I had some leftover buttermilk, and Sally’s Baking Addiction just happened to post this biscuit recipe which calls for some. I used gruyere instead of parmesan. Parmigiana? Parmigiano? Whatever. These smelled INCREDIBLE in the oven, and were fabulous heated up with some butter for breakfast or as a quick snack throughout the week. I thought they were a pretty inventive way to use up zucchini, too.

• An epic steak salad. I pan seared a ribeye and sliced it on top of a bed of arugula, red onion, candied walnuts, avocado, and blue cheese tossed in that creamy balsamic vinaigrette from Brianna’s I told you about in my last newsletter. I’d intended to include more fruits and vegetables, but alas, they had gone bad in my fridge. After that I needed a long break from red meat.

- Food dislikes! Since I gave up being vegetarian and then pescatarian to be a full-fledged omnivore, I am a very unpicky eater. My mom always talks about how when we went out to eat as a kid, I always wanted to order off the adults’ menu instead of the kids’ menu. What can I say? I have sophisticated tastes. (Though I suppose my Pizza Hut Rewards balance would beg to differ.)

I thought it might interest you to know the very few foods and beverages that I DON’T like. If you enjoy consuming these things, great! More for you! But they just don’t agree with my palate.

• Canned tuna fish or tuna salad. You should see the face I’m making even THINKING about this disgusting “food.” It makes me feel physically ill to be around. I am so NOT a tinned fish girlie, sorry! And don’t even get me started on combining tuna and cheese, as in a melt or a casserole. Barf!!! (On the other hand, I LOVE ahi tuna, the rarer, the better.)
  

• Capers. I don’t mind capers if they are finely chopped in an olive tapenade or something, but I don’t like when they are the star of the show. I would never get them on a bagel. They just taste too mineral-y to me, like pennies or something.
  

• Caraway seeds. Okay, contradiction incoming: I hate the taste of caraway seeds, but I love rye bread. I just don’t like caraway seeds when they’re in a sauce or something. I’ve even had bagels from shops that put them in their “everything” mix, and that was NOT my jam. I’m not one of those people who loves the liquorice/anise flavor.
  

• Most rum cocktails. I had a very bad night with rum once while I was in college, and ever since then, I’ve tried to steer clear of it. Look, I’m not a monster, I’ll have a rum drink if it’s the local specialty. I drank mai tais and piña coladas on my honeymoon in Hawaii, and I’ll occasionally get something with rum if I’m at a tiki bar, although I usually opt for the one drink on the menu that doesn’t have it. Rum would simply never be my first choice.
  

• Most brown liquor. Again, I’m not a monster, I had a whiskey sour when I was in Japan because, hello, when was I ever going to get a chance to drink Japanese whiskey in Kyoto again? But you will never catch me cool girling it up with a bourbon on the rocks or even an old fashioned. Sometimes I wish I was that chick. I’m more of a wine person instead. Except for…

• Most chardonnays. I don’t want my wine to be oaky and buttery. Gross. Now, I’ve had a couple decent chardonnays before that weren’t like that, usually when I’ve gone to tastings at wineries. But at this point, I’ll pretty much only drink chard if I’m at a wedding and there’s no other white wine. (I don’t drink red wine at weddings–what if I spill and ruin my outfit?)

Here are some foods that I’ll eat without complaint, but am “meh” on:

• Green beans. This is such a common side vegetable, but I just find them incredibly boring. I love Chinese-style green beans that have been blistered over high heat and tossed with lots of garlic and a soy-based sauce. I love green bean casserole at Thanksgiving, where they’re drowned in cream of mushroom soup and topped with crunchy fried onions. That’s about it, though. Let me know if you have a life-changing green bean recipe, maybe I’ll try it!
  
  

• Corn. I grew up with a lot of farms nearby where we would buy fresh corn in the summer, and my job as a kid would be to shuck it in our backyard, sitting on the wooden stairs of our deck. Get that corn at the right time, and eat it on the cob with butter? So sweet and flavorful, nothing like it. Get it at the wrong time, and it was bland and watery. A big part of barbecues growing up was everyone commenting on whether it was a good batch of corn or not. Alas, I do not live near farms anymore, so even with California produce, 99% of the corn I eat now is just okay. I got spoiled, I guess.
  
  

• Grapes. I recently learned that grapes are one of the top five most popular fruits in the U.S. (#4, actually), but I never keep them in the house. Unless they’re on a cheeseboard, I just have no interest. If I want to eat 10 little fruity spheres, I opt for berries instead.

That’s it! Like I said, I’m really not too picky. What are your food and beverage dislikes and mehs? Do you share any of mine?

That brings us to the end of this week’s very odd, earthquake-interrupted newsletter!

If you have a second, I’d love it if you’d like or comment on this post–just click this link to go to the post page. This post is public, so feel free to share it on social media, or forward it to a friend.

Until next time—drop, cover, and hold on!

Love,

Liz

XOXO