Liqueured Lemon Bars

So I was shopping in a market they have in Atlanta with exceptionally fresh, and exceptionally expensive produce, and they had a basket of beautiful lemons - ON SALE! So at 98 cents/lb., I couldn't resist.

A great way to showcase beautiful lemons is with lemon bars. I'm not going to lie and tell you that lemon bars can only be made with really fresh, beautiful lemons such as those pictured left. But if you can, look for thin-skinned lemons that are round and clean looking. A lot of standard grocery store lemons have a really thick skin and pith, and will probably be more sour. It might have something to do with the variety that is available but that extends beyond my lemon knowledge. You should be able to find these types of lemons at a specialty food store, like Whole Foods or something similar. Or maybe your regular grocery store. I don't know.

The following is a recipe I developed to help cut down on the acidic taste a lot of lemon bars have. I thought if I added a bit of orange liqueur, the lemon flavor wouldn't be so potent and acidic. I may or may not have succeeded, but they came out pretty good anyway so whatever. If you really don't have orange liqueur and don't want to buy any, just add more lemon juice. It doesn't really matter (especially if you have good lemons!). But really, though, these lemon bars are rich. Small portions are completely sufficient.


Lemon Bars with Orange Liqueur

For the crust:
1.5 sticks butter (chilled)
2 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg yolk

For the filling:
3/4 c. fresh lemon juice (about 4 good lemons)
3 tbsp orange liqueur
2 tbsp lemon zest (from 4 lemons)
1 3/4 c. sugar
4 eggs
1/4 c. flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. Cut the butter into cubes and mix with dry ingredients to form moist crumbs. Mix in the egg yolk to form dough. (Can use stand mixer, egg beater, or hands. Whatever works for you.)

2. Press the dough into the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 casserole dish, and bake about 25-30 mins, or until the edges begin to brown. Let cool about 30 mins. Leave the oven on.

3. Whisk together the lemon juice, liqueur, zest, sugar, eggs, and flour. Pour onto the cooled crust, and bake about 25 mins or until the filling looks set and a light "crust" has formed.

4. Let cool, then place in refrigerator. Dust with powdered sugar when bars have cooled completely. Store in the refrigerator, sealed, for no more than one week.

Yields: about 15 bars, depending on how big you cut them.

Okay, so it's a little late.

But doesn't every good blogger have to write something pertaining to the new year? I'm only 10 days late. Well, 9, if you count my true time zone. I feel like no matter where I go, no matter where I live, I'll always go by Pacific Time. It's just my standard I guess.

Well. What did I accomplish in 2009? I graduated college with my bachelor of arts in communicative disorders. I moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I got my dream job and quit after a week (seriously, my boss was out of her mind and I refused to put up with it, no matter what kind of opportunity it may have been... a girl has to stand up for herself). I got a work from home job, as a transcriptionist, through a company in Los Angeles. I continued to date my boyfriend from 2008. Together, we moved out of Los Angeles, and drove 2500 miles to spend another Christmas in Atlanta with his family. Approximately 250 miles of that was spent driving through Louisiana and Alabama, in the aggressively and relentlessly pouring rain, for six hours straight, on Christmas Eve. Easily one of the worst experiences of my life, and it turned an otherwise harmless (albeit boring) cross-country trip into a very miserable one. Oh, and, I got my first dog. It's a boy!

What's to come in 2010: Staying in Atlanta through January, and then moving to New Orleans beginning in February (so it seems). Living in New Orleans through the summer, until early August. Expecting to take advantage of the return trip back to California, and turn it into a proper cross-country road trip - complete with destinations, tourism, extended stays, and most importantly? Not driving 500 miles per day, only to wake up the next morning and do it again. And finally, hopefully... moving to Seattle at the very end of 2010, but possibly in the very beginning of 2011.

Now what have we in terms of resolutions, for this upcoming year? I have to say, I'm really not a believer in making stupid resolutions that I have no intention of keeping. I think if it's worth considering as a resolution, it should be something I can, and will, actually do. So, having said so, I think I have come up with a good one. That is good for me, too.

I need to be more adventurous. Moving to New Orleans on something of a whim is a good start, and it was a tough decision. BUT! I cannot let anything get in my way when I get there. I cannot spend most of my week in the house, too lazy to go do anything worthwhile. I cannot make excuses about why it's a better idea to just stay home and watch a movie. I need to go out, spend money, and be a normal 23-year-old. I think spending at least two nights per week out of the house, doing something fun, is reasonable. That is my resolution and we will see how it goes. Only time will tell!

Operation: Jambalaya.

That is the code name for the latest unexpected (sorta) turn in my life. Michael is working on a big budget Warner Bros. movie, called The Green Lantern... which really doesn't interest me at all, except for the fact that it has Ryan Reynolds starring in it. And who doesn't like Ryan Reynolds? He's a hunky piece of dream cake. But anyway, since the film industry is gradually abandoning Los Angeles for tax credits in other film locations, they are shooting the movie in New Orleans. And, since the director wants him and his colleagues to continue their work near/on set... well, we're going to New Orleans!

First it was for four months, then it was for eight months. Then it was for a minimum of three months, but as many as nine months. We're settling on six months, and planning to be there longer.

When are we going, you ask? Well first it was November 30th, then it was January 4th. Then it was November 30th again, but now it's January 4th "probably." Considering it's the 6th of November with no clear answers... some of his colleagues put their foot down, and basically said "you know what? I'll be there on the 4th. See you then." But, that's the movie industry for you. Everything has to be last minute, apparently.

So! The unofficial but official enough plan: Go to New Orleans on January 4th, and plan to be there well into the following summer.

And why would *I* go you ask? A few reasons.

For starters, I don't enjoy L.A. It's not a particularly interesting, or fun city to be in. I also don't have a job and can't seem to find a job here with good steady income. Combined with the high cost of living, it's really just a recipe for accumulating debt. I also hate the weather here. It's 80+ degrees most of the year during the day, and freezing at night (it is a desert, after all). And don't even get me STARTED on the traffic... so. What's there to miss, honestly?

New Orleans is a more interesting, entertaining, and fun city to be in. It has a lower cost of living and a much lower unemployment rate, partly because the city's population is still recovering from Katrina. So I will be more entertained, more comfortable, with actual money in my pocket! Makes sense, right?



And best of all: the movie pays for living expenses (housing and food). So what we're left with is a free, extended vacation to New Orleans where we have a front row seat to Mardi Gras and we can take frequent weekend trips up to Atlanta. Why wouldn't I go??


GOODBYE LOS ANGELES! Goodbye to your smog, terrible neighborhoods, heaven-help-us-all traffic jams, and high cost of living with a complete lack of a job market.


So the past week I have been artfully seeking housing options... and I think I've found one. Walking distance to a free ferry that crosses the Mississippi River and drops you off right in the heart of the French Quarter. And best of all? PET FRIENDLY! NO CANINE WEIGHT LIMITS! We're meeting with the owner next week, who coincidentally and conveniently lives in L.A....and we're going to go from there.

So what it comes down to is, my quality of life - and my blog - will be much better, soon.

(And yes, I will come up with a recipe for jambalaya.)

Blueberry Tart

I got called a tart yesterday (by a friend), which reminded me to make one of my favorite desserts. I don't know what season blueberries are in, because they never seem to be in season here in California. I don't know where they grow these things, but they sure as hell don't grow them here because they're always like $10.00/lb year round. Every so often they go on sale, and you think to yourself, "oh blueberries must be in season." But then you pick up a box, look a little closer, and realize that the only reason they're so cheap is because half of them are rotting and the grocery store is just trying to get rid of them.

So when it comes to any recipes that use a lot of blueberries, I always opt for frozen. If you're just going to cook them down anyway, why does it matter if they're fresh or frozen? You're just going to assault the poor things with heat and sugar so much that they'll hardly resemble their original form, so I don't think it matters at all. And besides - blueberries are always in season in the freezer section. Especially if you shop at Costco, like me.

So I made a tart because I wanted to, but you could easily take the same filling and put it in a pie. Use 6 cups of blueberries, and double the amounts of everything else.


Blueberry Tart

Single pie crust (http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/pate-brisee-pie-dough)

3.5 c. frozen blueberries
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 cinnamon stick (if you don't have one add 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp cornstarch


1. Put the blueberries, sugar, cinnamon stick, vanilla and water in a saucepan. Heat over medium until the blueberries begin to sweat. Reduce to a simmer, and cook for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Meanwhile, make a single pie crust and fit it to a tart pan. I didn't grease mine, but I guess you could if you really wanted to.

3. Mix the cornstarch in a tiny bit of cold water just to dissolve it. Add it to the blueberries, and stir it well. Remove from heat.

4. Pour the blueberries into the tart pan fitted with the pastry, and bake for approximately 30 minutes in a 375 degree oven.

I actually wasn't paying attention to how long it took so I'm just guessing on the time... so, remember people: if the edges of the crust are browning, it should be done.

Cat Torture Exercise

They told me two things: my dog probably won't get used to cats, and even so, my cat probably won't get used to dogs.

"Oh, it'll be fine..." I said.

And here we are, five or so months later:

Oh snap.

I follow Weird Al's Twitter... naturally... and he sometimes posts videos of random things he does. One happens to be of him in a grocery store.

Long story short? I shop at the same Ralph's as Weird Al Yankovic. Do I feel that my life now has new meaning?

I think I do.

It has been... approximately 3 months and 26 days since I first arrived in Los Angeles. Battered and torn from my university days, I was welcomed into the uncomfortably hot arms of this mostly unforgiving city. Given that I have been to L.A. many many times since my youth, I had an idea of what to expect from living here. And truth be told, I wasn't expecting much.

You see, I come from a city of culture. Los Angeles has it's own, strange culture... but it doesn't really embrace other cultures. Not the way San Francisco does. And I MISS that. I thought, "why is there never anything to do here? What did I USED to do?" And I realized that L.A. is missing two big parts of San Francisco culture/nightlife: cafes with amazing live music ANY night of the week, and pubs. I mean REAL pubs. Not an "Irish pub" which is really just a sports bar covered in green lights. And it's a damn shame!

Michael and I were driving around the other day, marveling at how ugly Los Angeles is... and we had to think about why it's so ugly. I mean really. Why is it so ugly? And we came up with three big reasons. One is the architecture... there is a lot of cheap, decaying apartment or strip mall buildings that are just fugly. Seriously. The second is all the ads. There are signs and billboards and ads all over the place. They even have these ads on wheels that they put on the side of the road everywhere. The third and final reason we came up with was the lack of trees and green stuff in general. Los Angeles is like that nasty girl you see in public without any regard for what she looks like. Lipstick smeared, mascara running, hair tangled, and her thong hanging out of her sweat pants with the word "princess" stamped across her big, misshapen ass.

But people visit, and they think L.A. is nice. So why is that? It's because people go to the nice parts of L.A... Beverly Hills, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, maybe Orange County. Universal City. They don't realize that a good 80% of the city is not a pleasant place to live or even briefly visit.

Lucky for us, Michael and I live in a nicer neighborhood. We pay more for this privilege, and unfortunately it still means that we're surrounded by shitty neighborhoods (Van Nuys and North Hollywood, namely).

It hasn't rained since we moved in mid-June. Most days, it was well above 85 degrees F. The past week, finally, it has been considerably cooler. Maybe in the high 60s to low 70s. Thank Christ. We're all hoping it stays this way. Occasionally, the temperature would cool, and we would mistakenly assume that the weather was changing... only to wake up to another 80 degree morning. But I have a good feeling about this one. So, since the weather has improved, it means Darwin gets longer, more frequent walks. Yesterday, I decided to take my camera with me when I walked Darwin, just to see if I'd find anything photo-worthy on the way.

Dog is photo-worthy.


Dog is still photo-worthy.

Aside from the weather turning, this is really
the only evidence of autumn that I have seen down here.


I love magnolia trees. Mostly because they're beautiful,
but partly because I live off Magnolia Street.

And after such beauty, I came across this little
strange display. I think Darwin found it just as
peculiar as I did. Why is it broken? More importantly,
why is it outside on the front lawn?

As if that wasn't weird enough, I soon found
this. As amused as I was... really, though.
It's not nice to steal someone's scarecrow.

So this is my street, which isn't usually that
exciting. However...

The sky was really vibrant that day.