30 and counting……the dog days of summer.

Disclaimer:  I am well aware that it is not attractive to a.) complain and b.) use profanity.

Sorry, Mom and Dad.

But, it is f@%&-ing hot in here.  I’m cranky, sweaty, stir-crazy, and frankly, sick of EVERYTHING.  Just now, I was parking my car and for some reason this creepy old guy…..grrrr….get it together…..this older gentleman decides it's his job to watch me.  I was nowhere near hitting him (even though he was moving incredibly slowly across an active driveway).   I was in my non-threatening, if incredibly dirty, family-friendly Corolla.  I was not even playing loud music.  In fact, I was quietly listening to All Things Considered on NPR, i.e., the old people station!  Still, this guy is giving me the stink-eye like I’m some kind of menace to society!  

“What are you looking at, grandpa? Take a picture, it’ll last longer!” 

Ok, so I didn’t go so far as to actually stick my head out the window and yell this, but I did mouth it under my breath behind the safety of my windshield.  God forgive me.

This heat and smoke and sudden lack of employment laughingly called a ‘vacation’, has gotten the best of me.  I have been reduced to a pouty teenager.  Worse!  A pouty, single, 30-something who sweats profusely and can’t sit still.  I’m like a toddler.  A toddler with heartburn and a ticking biological clock.  How’s that for poetry?  And, WE TURNED OFF OUR CABLE.  WILLINGLY!  WHAT WERE WE THINKING?! 

I’m going to lay flat on my back on the living room floor with a cold compress and pray for sanity.  If that doesn’t work, mama’s gonna hit the sauce.  I’m just sayin’.

30 and Counting....lentil burgers.

Last night, our dear friends Erica and Seth (yes, we all have blogs), came over for dinner.  We live on opposite sides of the Burbank/Glendale border.  That means 'The Valley', for those of you who do not live in these parts.  The Valley is generally a good 10 degrees hotter than the rest of the city.  You can literally watch the temperature guage in your car rise as you cross over the hill.  Last night, on my way home from parts west, I watched mine:  79, 82, 97,.....104!  104 degrees at 6:30pm.  Good lord.  Anyway, dinner and friends.  I have spent several lovely evenings seated at the bar in E & S's kitchen, eating black bean burgers and shooting the breeze, so I wanted to return the favor.  On the hottest night of the year.  Here's what we ate:

Lentil Burgers with Tomato Salad and Basil Mayo (french fries, too, but they were frozen and from a bag.  shhhh!)

I found the basic recipe for these burgers online, but it's been ages ago, so I don't know where.  I would give credit where credit was due if I could!  I've tweeked it a bit to my liking.  (and last night I doubled this and it worked great)

Lentil Burgers: 

1 cup dry lentils, rinsed
2 1/2 cups water or veg stock (my favorite is IMAGINE Brand No-Chicken Broth)
pinch of salt
1/2 of a medium onion, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
3/4 cup rolled oats, finely ground
1 tsp soy sauce (I didn't have any soy sauce last night and they were fine w/o it.)
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Place the lentils, water, and salt in saucepan, bring to a boil, lower heat, cover, and simmer for about 45 minutes, until liquid is nearly gone and lentils are soft but not mushy.  While the lentils cook, sauté the onion and carrot in oil until soft, about 5 minutes and set aside.  Give the rolled oats a quick spin in the food processor until they reach a fine meal. 

Mix the lentils, onions, carrots, salt and pepper, and optional soy sauce in a large bowl, then mix in the ground oats.

While still warm, form the lentil mixture into patties.  You can either pan fry the burgers with a little oil, bake them in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes until they brown, or leave them sitting on the counter in my stupidly hot kitchen and they will cook in no time.  (I kid, I kid)  Once the patties are made, apparently, you can also freeze them for up to a week.  I usually just cook off any extra and we eat Lentil Burgers for lunch the next day or two. 

Tomato Salad:

I just took a bunch of red and orange grape tomatoes, halved them longways, and tossed them with flat-leaf parsley, a little lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. 

Basil Mayo:

Mayonnaise (or Veganaise) and Basil in the food processor, eyeball the quantities.  You kind of can't mess it up. 

I put the burgers down on a big lettuce leaf, slapped on some basil mayo and tomato salad.  Fries on the side. By the time it was done, I looked like I had either run a marathon or just gotten out of a swimming pool.  I sweat.  I just do, it's a fact of life.  But, the food was good, the company was great.  We had instant banana pudding for dessert.  I even sprang for Jell-O brand instead of generic.  Nothing is too good for my friends. 

30 and Counting....dinner for two.

Dinner for two (or maybe 4 if you eat civilized portions, unlike us):

Salad greens and alfalfa sprouts - toss them in olive oil, lemon juice, and salt.

Chop an onion up, it may look too big, but use the whole thing.  Put olive oil in your favorite pan, the one you use to make everything, and let it heat up.  In goes the onion.  Next, take the cilantro that's on the verge of going bad in your fridge, pick out the wilted parts and put it in your tiny food processor, let's call him 'Oscar'. Then throw in 5 cloves of garlic because you like it and it may help mask your questionable cilantro.  Let Oscar chop these guys up, just lightly till they're manageable.  Then, add some grape tomatoes, the ones you usually use in your lunch salads, and some of the cute orange-colored grape tomatoes that you got at the Grove today because you spent an hour at the Farmer's Market this afternoon with your sister while the rest of the world was working because that's what people do in LA.  Blend these with the cilantro and garlic, but keep a close eye:  it's pretty if you can see all the colors.  Don't get too carried away and make soup of it all.  It needs a dash of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper.  Let Oscar give it one final spin.  Polenta should be in the cabinet, bought by the roll for $1.99.  You like things that are $1.99.  Unleash it from its plastic roll and plop it in the pan on top of the onion that's soft and clear from cooking this whole time.  Mush it with a fork.  It feels kind of good to mush something at the end of a long day.  Once it's warmed through and married to the onions, add your tomato-garlic-cilantro mixture.  Gently combine it so that it's all one dish, but you can still see all its parts.  It will need a little more salt and a little more pepper.  Plate with salad on one side and polenta on the other.  Wish there was beer in the fridge, settle for water with ice or flat lime-flavored Perrier.  Get comfy on the couch because the dining table is still on the patio from the dinner party 3 weeks ago.   Bon apetit!

Goat Cheese with Honey Walnuts and Figs

Here's the recipe for the lovely goat cheese log dish that I made for Laura's brunch:

1 med. log of goat cheese (I believe mine was 6 oz)
1 cup walnut pieces or chopped walnuts
6 whole dried figs
1/8 cup canola oil

1/8 cup honey

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  In a small bowl, whisk together oil, honey, and cinnamon and salt.  Next stir in walnuts until they are fully coated in the mixture.  Spread coated walnuts on a non-stick cookie sheet and bake until they become fragrant and start to brown, stirring occasionally.  (about 10 minutes)  While the walnuts are in the oven, chop the figs into tiny bite-sized pieces.  Once the walnuts are out of the oven, return them to the bowl and mix in figs.  It is important to do this while the walnuts are still hot and sticky so the figs get coated, too.  (Already dried fruit in the oven tends to harden up and get too tart for my taste.)  Transfer the walnut-fig mixture to parchment paper (or your cutting board) to cool.  Once cooled, coat the goat cheese log with the nuts and figs. Chill for 30min (this is optional, but makes the whole thing stay together better.)  If you're making this ahead of time, wrap it in plastic wrap and let it sit in the refrigerator till you need it.  Serve with crackers! 

30 and Counting....Suck it, LA?

A few weeks ago, I received an invite to a brunch:

You have been invited by Laura Simms to

Suck it, LA!

My friend Laura, whom I met during my short-lived foray into performance art (you don't want to know), was throwing a brunch on her new patio.  The idea was to get a bunch of girls together who had never met, but should have, i.e. "Suck it, LA! We managed to beat traffic, your sprawling landscape, and the urge to flake, so here we are!"  

All us invitees have Laura in common and none of us are native Californians.  I arrived, newly invented goat cheese-walnut-fig log (still working on a name for it) in hand, ready to make new friends.  Laura's patio is perfect.  There's a big wooden table, umbrella, little lights strung overhead.  We all brought cheese:  my goat cheese, some soft cheese and star-shaped crackers, and a blueberry-cheese-coffee cake straight out of Southern Living. 

Conversation was easy and good.  We're mostly actors.  Actors with other jobs.  Three of them married, one with a live-in boyfriend, and one singleton (three guesses who).  Eventually, as with any gathering of East Coasters, talk turned to Los Angeles versus anywhere else in the world.   Yards, stuff we have in storage back east, family, New York, college, crazy neighbors, how we'd all be better off living in the South (four of us hail from below the Mason Dixon Line).  Don't get me wrong, I loved it.  These are great girls and I was thrilled to be a part of the group.  But it got me wondering if I could ever proudly stand up and say,

"I love LA." 

I mean, it's great here.  I have the best friends of my life.  It's sunny all the time and we hike and eat avocados and mangos year round.  I'm in a book club.  I have a nice tan.  Every once in a while we even see a movie star at Starbucks.  Even so, how can I look my family in the eye and tell them that I choose fake boobs and endless summer over their birthdays and graduations?  What is it that keeps us all here in spite of wildfires and impending earthquakes?  Let's face it, I am no millionaire movie star.  In some ways, I'm a 'those who can't do, teach.'  And that's ok with me.  But why here?  Is it hope? Is it the fantasy that at any moment someone could spot you on the street and make your wildest dreams come true?  After all, how can they find you if you're living in rural Virginia instead of fabulous downtown Burbank? 

I like...am warming to....don't hate LA?  Something tells me that's not good enough.