What We Ate - Hawaiian Style

If you follow me on Twitter, or are friends with me in any capacity (which I'm pretty sure almost everyone who reads this blog is... hello friends!) you know that I recently returned from a trip to Kauai with my three younger sisters.

Was it everything we hoped it would be and more? Yes. Was it a trip we'll talk about for the rest of our lives? Yes. Did we sing along to Lady Gaga and Mariah Carey at the top of our lungs? Obviously. As fun as all of those things are, however, that is not what this blog is about. It's about all the FOOD we consumed while living the island life. And, let me tell you, we consumed a lot of it.

*Side note* I recently decided to learn Photoshop so I can be the best bliggity blogger ever... but those skills have not transferred from brain to hand yet, so we're keeping it real with pictures straight out of the camera...for now!*End of side note*

We start the trip off with a drive to LAX at 4:00am, and a breakfast at Denny's when we got up there. I don't remember the last time I ate at Denny's. I am pretty sure it was sometime in undergrad when my roommate and I decided it would be a good idea to get Moons Over My Hammy and a large order of fries at 1am. It was not. This experience was much better. Did you know they have a $4 breakfast!! Hello awesome!

First day at the beach - we must celebrate with virgin Pina Coladas!

We hit up Puka Dog - the best hot dog on Kauai. Seriously this place is awesome. We wound up going there twice this trip. They throw a polish sausage or veggie dog in a sweet Hawaiian roll and have about 20 different sauces you can add to your dog, including coconut and starfruit. Yum.

Who needs dinner when you can have dessert? Knowing we couldn't afford a full-fledged meal at the Hyatt (must. stay. there.) we decided to do dessert. It was so good! I barely snapped this picture before Katherine devoured the entire plate.

Starbucks right across from our resort made for some awesome mid-afternoon pick me ups.

We decided to be cheesy tourists and attend the "free mai tai" hour our resort offered. At first we made fun of ourselves and then decided we kind of liked it. They danced the hula! And there were mai tais!

Massive chocolate chip pancakes. MASSIVE.

I think we had Hula Pie 3 times. It's basically mud pie, but with a name like Hula how can you say no?

This has nothing to do with food but is a fun shot of all four of us. L to R: Corrie (2nd born), Me (firstborn - if that wasn't clear from my personality), Katherine (baby), Kimberly (3rd born). The attire and dirty faces can be explained by what we were doing: ATV-ing for Katherine's 18th birthday!

Last day on the island was celebrated with a big outdoor breakfast and cappucino-staches.

We went all out for Katherine's birthday dinner and ate a multi-course meal at the Beach House. Perfect views and awesome food. And a reason to dress up, which we love.

Home at last. Landed at 10:45pm, got to our car around 11:30pm, hit up In-N-Out on the drive home (once we safely made it into the suburbia that is Orange County) around 1:15am. Why is In-N-Out the best thing ever?

I think I love Arizona after all...

May and June included several trips to Arizona to see the hubs. July will include 3 more trips there. And I'm pretty excited. Besides the slow drivers (yes, Arizonans do drive just as slow when in their home state as they do when on the California freeways!), overly short shorts, making me fat, oh, and this weird belly-dancer store at the mall Glenn's store is in... I like what Arizona is all about.

Things are a little slower paced in Arizona. People eat dinner late at night (to beat the heat) in Arizona. I get to lounge by the pool from 8am-9am in Arizona. Glenn has cable in Arizona, which means I get to watch all things Kardashian in Arizona. Most items are a little bit cheaper in Arizona. John McCain is the Senator in Arizona. And, most importantly, they make a mean cappuccino in Arizona.

Introducing #3 to Cucina Urbana

As you well know from this post, my new favorite food hang out is Cucina Urbana, where I hug Gabriel hello (best. server. ever.) and then have fun eating delicious foods or introducing people I love to the delicious foods. When my sisters came to town (because we went on a sisters trip to Hawaii! 3 years in the making! It actually happened! More on that later!) and Kimberly (#3) and I realized we needed to find something to occupy our Saturday evening, I instantly knew we would be going to that sweet spot on 5th and Laurel.

Our courses, in order of appearance:

Perfect summer chardonnay. Medium bodied with just enough crispness to make you go "oh yea, it is summer!" and smile as you see 150 Critical Mass bicyclists (most of them wearing little to no clothing) riding by, despite how disturbing this sight may be.

The nightly Bruschetta platter. Here we have house-cured duck prosciutto with lingonberry preserves and goat cheese, roasted tomato and home-made ricotta with basil and balsamic reduction, and French brie with house-cured coppa (I think... could be mistake on the meat) and arugula.

The burger. She prepares for her first bite.

She digs in.

She realizes it's delicious and makes this "mmm, that's good" face.

She can't stop smiling.

Moral of the story: eat at Cucina Urbana! I do have a friend who happens to also be a fabulous photographer with a big curly blonde afro who didn't love it as much as I do... he says my taste is too sophisticated for him... but I'm telling you it's DE-LISH.

BLT's

Being on my own for a little while, I've had to figure out things that are fairly simple to cook, and also cost-effective. There's nothing worse than whipping up a huge meal, slaving for hours over it, and realizing you have to then eat it and clean up the whole mess all by yourself. Enter the BLT. My Mom used to make us BLT's every once in a while, and I always loved them. Crunchy bacon, toast, fresh lettuce, and a little bit of tomato? It's even almost healthy!

Start with bacon. Good bacon. I use Boar's Head but other great brands are Farmer John and Niman Ranch. VERY IMPORTANT: do not heat up the pan before putting the bacon on it!! Lay the bacon down on a COLD pan or griddle, and then turn the heat on. This will allow the bacon to stay as close to its original form as possible, and not crinkle up into little rounds that do not work well for sandwich-making.

See how straight these bacon strips are? That's what you want.


While the bacon is cooking, place 2 piece of your favorite bread into the toaster. We want a nice crunch, but not so much that grandma loses her dentures when taking a bite.

Mayonaise is a standard on BLT's. I happen to hate plain mayo, so I chose a thin spread of ranch dressing instead. You are welcome to use any type of sauce, or omit the sauce if you are a sauce-o-phobe like my husband.

Next up, tomatoes. I like to use yellow or heirloom tomatoes to give it a little more flavor, but any good fresh tomato will do. Sprinkle it lightly with sea or kosher salt.

By now you should have been able to flip the bacon (I recommend cooking it for approximately 3 minutes on the first side, and then about 2 minute on the second. I like my bacon very crunchy because I don't like actually feeling like I'm gnawing on fat.)

Add a thin slice of crisp lettuce (I use Romaine) to the sandwich, layer on the bacon, and voila! Dinner (for one) is served.

My Friend Who...

I have friend at work. Her name is Erin. She's a fairly new friend but we've hit it off pretty well. Our boss calls us the dynamic duo, which I pretended to think was lame but actually think is pretty cool. Erin took this picture. It's awful. But she took it, and posts are always more fun with pictures, so I'm posting it.

My friend Erin loves food. She loves food almost as much as I do. She also loves ME, so, really, this friendship offers me only good things. Does that make me selfish? Maybe. We live in a selfish society. I can blame society for my issues like all of Reality TV does, right? The one sad part of my being friends with Erin is that she is only working with us temporarily... and that temporary is coming to an end very soon. Like any sane and encouraging friend/co-worker would do, I have convinced Erin that we need to eat lunch out every day until she leaves. Who am I kidding, it didn't take very much convincing. Unless you consider my convincing the scale to not go up every day... but that's when we start pointing the finger at Arizona.

So my food and Kristin-loving friend Erin and I have been eating lunch together for the past few weeks and it's been fun. With a capital F. Fun. I typically allow myself one or two lunches out every week. Eating lunch out every day has its challenges. Where to go every day, for example. Should we do an old stand-by like Nordstrom Cafe (which I introduced Erin to, thankyouverymuch) or Urbane down the street? Do we try something new like Z Pizza or Noodles & Company? Do we eat on campus? No, we don't eat on campus. Who wants to eat on campus when the world of San Diego lunch places is at your finger tips? I digress.

Anyway, I think I'm digressing even more than originally intended because now I'm forgetting why I'm even writing this post... except to say that food is awesome, friends are awesome, and friends who love food are hands down the best kind to have around. Wouldn't you agree, Erin?

Look What I Found

So when your husband leaves town, and leaves you in charge of the home and all things home-related, here is what happens.

I was calmly walking to the laundry room (by which I mean junk-filled garage, naturally) to be responsible and do the laundry (typically the husband's responsibility, duh) and found this horrifying creature. DEAD. Bugs crawling out of its eyes.

Naturally, I had to take a picture and then avoid its general vicinity for several hours until I got over it and just ignored the thing while I finished what I started - the white load. The creepiest part of this whole situation wasn't just that I found it, but that the next day, it was gone. Kind of makes me sick to my stomach, actually. Gross. Sorry.

Arizona Makes You Fat

Arizona's been getting a lot of flack lately, and I'm jumping right on that bandwagon and telling them they are the reason for my jiggly middle. Consider this my very own public service announcement and warning against Arizona.

I'm a fairly health conscious California girl. I eat vegetables. I run. I partake in the group torture called CrossFit. Then my husband up and moved to Arizona.

Ok I guess I'm being a little dramatic. He didn't exactly up and move to Arizona. He has been working really hard so that I can continue pursuing my dreams which, believe it or not, probably won't wind up making me any money... I digress. Anyway, he was offered a great *temporary* opportunity in Arizona and I was completely supportive but like pretending to throw him under the bus because, well, that's what I do. All this to say, Arizona is going to be getting a lot of the Murdock dollars because this wife enjoys actually spending time with her husband.

As I was saying, here in California I am pretty healthy. I enjoy being active and treat myself to frozen yogurt instead of brownie sundaes on most weekends. In Arizona, even in May, it's too flipping hot to do anything but find the closest Anthropologie, watch TV on the couch in an air conditioned apartment, and go out to dinner after dark. Just walking through the Costco parking lot I broke a sweat! I tried to be healthy last weekend when I visited the hubs and his new digs, but look what happened. I consider myself a victim here, and refuse any personal responsibilities you may think I have.

Friday night: I fly in. I get picked up in a gas-guzzling Dodge that kind of looks like a superhero car and has awesome air conditioning. We get lost. For 2 hours. [This explains the next day's Costco trip to get a GPS.] We are so hungry we could eat anything. But you know when you're THAT hungry, everything and nothing sound good? We drive around for at least 30 minutes looking at place after place, strip mall after strip mall. We settle on Texas Roadhouse. ?!?!?!?. I order a beer. ??!?!?!?!?!. We consume at least 3 times more calories than normal Californians should consume.

Saturday: I put on my running clothes, figuring I will at least get a power walk in. I drop G off at work. I attempt to find the Costco that was down the street. It takes 25 minutes. I break a sweat walking into Costco. "Did you know wine is less expensive in Arizona? I love Arizona!" I find the GPS, a bottle of Conundrum, a Pinot Grigio, string cheese, a massive pink towel for the pool, and granola. I break a sweat walking out of Costco. I still haven't eaten breakfast.

Insert another story here -- Glenn offered to get me breakfast near his work, but I decided I needed to be healthy after Friday's Texas sweet roll and rib attack. I stopped by a Starbucks to get a low-fat breakfast sandwich with egg whites only and they were out. Convinced I would find another healthy option between where I was and home, I kept driving. There were NO options that were not fast food. My choices at this point are to starve and then be in a food mood, or to choose between Burger King, Wendy's and Chick-fil-A. Back to the timeline.

I choose Chick-fil-A. I order a biscuit with egg and cheese. I plan to only eat half of the biscuit and get my protein fix in a non-fried form to at least be *moderately* nutritious. I take my order back to the apartment to eat in the air conditioning. They gave me a CHICKEN biscuit with egg and cheese! I ate almost all of it. Sabotage. Arizona hates me.