Tonight I met up with friends for happy hour at The York. Dinner was:
Truffle Grilled Cheese with
Obviously it was a dirty Hendricks martini with extra olives. It was good although there was a small amount of ice in it.
Truffle grilled cheese with a gin martini, clearly the dinner of champions.
So unless you live in the fly over states and don’t follow basketball you know that the Lakers and Celtics had a massive showdown last night for the NBA championship. By now we know that the Lakers won. I haven’t been following basketball this season but I have lived in Boston and I do live in LA now, so I had a decision to make. I was leaning Celtics but honestly, its so awesome for the team that lives in your city to win, I had to cheer for the Lakers. Also, I’ve lived in three major cities and all the NBA teams have won championship while I’ve lived there! Clearly, I am the lucky charm.
I met up with some friends at Q’s Billiard Club in Brentwood. I’d been there before for “bar review”. We waited on line for the first half but it was fun once we got in.
I had garlic fries and artichoke dip with a side of this (underneath the foam its a Blue Moon):
Every question I had about how 20 somethings gain weight has been answered. No nutritional value in this meal. Although, I suppose I was ok with the artichoke dip.
Now that I have been eating healthy for a while I have cravings for greens. Today was Farmers Market Friday so the law clerks hit the farmers market. I got Hawaiian grilled chicken and I substituted white rice for salad. Excellent choice! The chicken was super flavorful and thus, the salad didn’t even need dressing.
I also had a small side of macaroni salad..
Much better, although still not an ideal level of health but eh, can’t win them all.
Now I am chilling on the couch with Isala watching “An Affair to Remember”. I love this movie. Carey Grant and Deborah Kerr have great chemistry and Carey Grant is a fox. More to come later!
Happy Tuesday!
I am so full right now! I met up with my uncle Joe and my uncle Danny for dinner in Silver Lake after work. Silver lake is the silver lining of my job location. I work only 15 mins away! Tonight went to Kitchen and had an amazing dinner.
Cool wall, huh? The inside of the restaurant is very minimal and they have this awesome round red booth that we got to sit in. There is a great menu featuring a mixture of appies, entrees (lots of delicious fish! I had to say no to salmon, I’ve been a bit of a salmon monster recently with the smoked salmon sandwich’s and stuffed salmon) and sandwiches.
So cool. This turned out to be a truly epic meal. We started with calamari. The calamari was chewy and just crispy enough.
For my entree I ordered a favorite of mine: Mussels with garlic, roasted red pepper and basil.
Holy moley do I love my mussels! I had no problem polishing these babies off. They were light, summery, garlicy and delightful! I also had a treat off of Joe’s plate, goat cheese latkes!!
and here is the money shot…
I mean, do I need to use words to describe this? Goat cheese, check! Potato, check! Fried, check! I love it.
And just when you think the meal is over…
flourless chocolate cake. and if that was not enough…
strawberry. shortcake. I mean… do I even need to leave a comment here? So delish. I love an extravagant meal. And I haven’t worked out today so this is just a calorie wash which is completely fine with me. Today I weighed myself and realized that I have lost 15 lbs since the beginning of the year. I can’t complain. I have races and healthy eats in my future… its all good. Oh, and btw- The Kitchen comes highly recommended from me!
Holy Delicious! I went to the Santa Monica Saturday farmers market on Arizona. What a great farmers market!! The market itself is about two blocks long and they have everything from produce, to meats, to cheese and oysters. Next week I will have to be more creative and get some meats. I got a ton of stuff for around $25 which is awesome. Later I went to Trader Joe’s and got the rest of my food for the week. Overall, I spent less money on food than usual which is pretty awesome. Plus its so colorful!
mmm taste the rainbow! I also bought some Kale Chips, which I’ve never had and would, in theory, be easy to cook but I thought I’d buy them first.
I enjoyed the Kale Chips! They were seasoned with cayanne which was gave them a lot of heat. Izzy apparently liked them too.
I cannot wait to cook with my new food!
Happy weekend everyone!
Every Friday there is a small farmer’s market near my office. Yesterday some friends and I met up for lunch.
Please not the “certified organic here” sign. Welcome to LA, where we love our organic produce. I was planning on buying all of my fruits and veggies for the week Saturday so I bypassed the food stands and got a treat.
Roasted almonds were a sweet treat.
I haven’t a treat like this in a while. I mostly eat raw almonds which are so healthy and wonderful, but my sweet tooth definitely liked these better. And then I had this forgettable burrito:
The burrito was ok. I think when I consume this many calories in one sitting I want them to be epic and totally worth it. Was this worth it? Eh. Not really. I didn’t finish it.
Last night I went to the Magic Castle with Danielle and Josh Y. to see my friend Mack’s dad, Doc Eason (an award winning magician) perform. I had no idea the Magic Castle was so fancy and exclusive. You actually need an invitation to get in, like at Bungalow 8 in NYC where you need a key! I wore my Barristers Ball dress which still fit, thank god. Most of the dresses I own are size 10, because this time last year (ie graduation, commencement ball) I was wearing a size 10 dress. Now I wear a 6 and so my beautiful commencement ball dress needs to be seriously taken in. I was glad to have something to wear that fit me. The good news? Before I wore my Barrister’s dress in February I fasted from soda for over a week before wearing it. Yesterday I wore it with a burrito food baby and it fit well.
Plus, we saw Ryan Gosling by the valet stand as we were leaving. He is very hot in person. It made me feel 16 again.
swoon.
(Source)
Katherine FTW!
So the Magic Castle was magical (sorry I couldn’t help myself). I had a Hendricks Dirty Gin Martini with extra olives plus Danielle and I split a lobster mac and cheese. It was tasty. No pics though, the Castle has a strict no camera policy. But I will say that its an awesome way to spend a night and a very cool LA thing to do.
Happy weekend everyone!
Every Friday there is a small farmer’s market near my office. Yesterday some friends and I met up for lunch.
Please not the “certified organic here” sign. Welcome to LA, where we love our organic produce. I was planning on buying all of my fruits and veggies for the week Saturday so I bypassed the food stands and got a treat.
Roasted almonds were a sweet treat.
I haven’t a treat like this in a while. I mostly eat raw almonds which are so healthy and wonderful, but my sweet tooth definitely liked these better. And then I had this forgettable burrito:
The burrito was ok. I think when I consume this many calories in one sitting I want them to be epic and totally worth it. Was this worth it? Eh. Not really. I didn’t finish it.
Last night I went to the Magic Castle with Danielle and Josh Y. to see my friend Mack’s dad, Doc Eason (an award winning magician) perform. I had no idea the Magic Castle was so fancy and exclusive. You actually need an invitation to get in, like at Bungalow 8 in NYC where you need a key! I wore my Barristers Ball dress which still fit, thank god. Most of the dresses I own are size 10, because this time last year (ie graduation, commencement ball) I was wearing a size 10 dress. Now I wear a 6 and so my beautiful commencement ball dress needs to be seriously taken in. I was glad to have something to wear that fit me. The good news? Before I wore my Barrister’s dress in February I fasted from soda for over a week before wearing it. Yesterday I wore it with a burrito food baby and it fit well.
Plus, we saw Ryan Gosling by the valet stand as we were leaving. He is very hot in person. It made me feel 16 again.
swoon.
(Source)
Katherine FTW!
So the Magic Castle was magical (sorry I couldn’t help myself). I had a Hendricks Dirty Gin Martini with extra olives plus Danielle and I split a lobster mac and cheese. It was tasty. No pics though, the Castle has a strict no camera policy. But I will say that its an awesome way to spend a night and a very cool LA thing to do.
Greeting from my iPhone! Since it’s hump day I decided to treat myself to a sugar free non fat vanilla latte for the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Tastes like 5 pm already!
Last weekend I went with Mack and Danielle to the Getty museum. I live fairly close to the Getty and I hadn’t been since right after I moved to LA. We went to see the DaVinci but my favorite part of the Getty are the gardens.
And my favorite art is impressionist art. The Getty has an OK collection. I feel like once you’ve been to the Musee d’Orsay nothing else really can compare. But I loved these paintings:
I also love this Singer Sargent:
Sign. Sometimes I wish I lived in the time of ballgowns. So glam.
See ya later, Getty!
Today I did my first Power Yoga class. Holy yoga! I left a pool of sweat on my mat. I know, gross but in an awesome way. The class was really intense and fast moving. Towards the end it slowed down and we did inversions. We even did pranayama breathing in the chair position. I’ve never done that breathing in a class that wasn’t Bikram. It was pretty interesting. I got a decent stretch from yoga including a long time in pigeon which I hope makes a difference in my running. I noticed my ankles were very stiff which made child’s pose a bit uncomfortable which is depressing since child’s pose is my favorite recovery poses. Anyways before yoga I went to Clementine and had lunch. Much to my delight I was greeted by this wonderful sign…
Yes! A whole new menu with all types of new options!!! Some items are still the same, like the rare roast beef sandwich. I was momentarily upset because I couldn’t get my favorite egg plant sandwich but I soldiered on and ordered the local mozzarella sandwich. It had mozzarella, greens, and artichoke on whole grain bread.
And of course being at Clementine I had to treat myself to a cookie! I tried peanut butter sandwich cookie and it was delicious of course! I enjoyed it while driving to power yoga (where I promptly burned it off).
So delicious.
And now I have an announcement: I am going to run my first race! I have been playing with the idea of running a race for a while. I have been asked if I would like to run a half marathon and Carolyn just ran one recently so I got her input on it. I’ve decided to hold off on the half for now. However, thinking about running a half has made me consider racing seriously for the first time. So I have decided to start racing. I will start with a 5k, then do a 10k, then a 15k and then reassess the half marathon. I want to start with a 5k because right now I am running 4.1 miles a couple times a week. I would like my first run to be a confidence booster and also not too intimidating. So my first race will be on July 11th. Of course, my training plan will be documented here!
Do any racers have any words of wisdom for me?
Today, David and I went to Disneyland. I went to Disneyland on my birthday last August (because I was able to get in for free) and I had been to Disneyland and Disney World on several occasions. David hadn’t been to Disneyland since 1995!
After a long trip on the freeway we arrived!!! Monday at Disneyland + it was overcast. There was almost no one there. Literally we walked right onto Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion with no wait. We also went to the pirate island (which was Swiss Family Robinson at one time- sadly no more). We only had to wait for 10 mins to get on the runaway train, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, It’s a Small World, and we waited 20 for the Matterhorn and Space Mountain. After a few rides we got lunch. We ate at the Orleans Cafe, a lovely recommendation from Ms. Catie Shea who is a Disneyland aficionado.
My goal for this trip was to be healthy. There was a ton of walking all day which was good. I had ratatouille for lunch:
I could have made a worse choice. Disneyland has HUGE portions, but this was corn, tomato, asparagus and a mixture or zucchini, squash, eggplant and onion. There was a bit of cheese on top, and of course, whatever they cook this in adds calories. Overall, it was pretty good. David had a three cheese Monti Cristo, which is where healthy eating kinda died. I had a solid portion of his which was more desserty than anything. Luckily, I let it go and enjoyed the park. Sometimes, you eat unhealthy things. Crap happens. We enjoyed the park:
And then I snacked on pineapple “whip” from the tiki room fruit stand, which was the only snack I had in park!
Tomorrow David goes home to Chicago, and I will go to yoga. I ran on Saturday (2.5 ish miles with stair running). I’ve had two full days off minus some serious walking. Every day for the past three my feet have killed me after walking. I am excited to go to yoga and then Boston on Wednesday, which we all know will include some serious walking and health, right Carolyn?
Left Coast Contessa 
