Roasted Veggies - Tuesday 3/3/2009

This one's for Kitty!

The very loose recipe for the roasted veggie mix I've been raving about. It's an adaptation of one from The South Beach Diet. It called for more asparagus and no mushrooms or oregano. The way I made it, it smelled like pizza!

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Cut up the following, or something like it:

1 pound of asparagus, cut to bite size
2-3 yellow crook-neck or zucchini squash, cut to bite size
10-12 ounces sliced or quartered crimini mushrooms (buttons are also fine)
2-3 onions, cut to bite size
2 bell peppers, cut to bite size

Toss the veggies in olive oil, garlic powder, and oregano in a big roasting pan. Salt and pepper if you like.

Roast for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so. You want the onions to be translucent.

In this case, I topped them with chunks of grilled chicken left over from last night's carry out salad. Mmmm!

My Lunch - Wednesday 12/5/2007

Truth be told, it also involves a piece of pain rustique (bread), a small amount of Asiago cheese and a toaster oven.

Avocados are only a buck at the grocery store right now!

Buddha Steps In? - Thursday, May 26, 2007

OneL, Weens, Mamalisa and I went down to Chinatown for a dim sum lunch on Thursday. We've been trying to find a day when we weren't all too busy for almost two years. It takes about 15 minutes to get downtown from Toluca Lake if the traffic's good, but one can never really count on that. Finally made it back to the Golden Dragon.

On our way out, some one suggested that I take a photo of the 4 1/2 foot tall happy Buddha in the lobby. (He looks a lot like the white porcelain one in my yard at home.) Later, Weens pointed out that the minute or so we spent doing that put us in exactly the right place at the right time a few seconds later.

We walked from the dim restaurant onto the bright street. I paused to snap another photo, thinking that this guy, who sits atop the Phoenix Bakery--reminded me of a Chinese Big Boy.


We started moving toward the parking lot when a woman in her sixties cried out for help, "Catch her!" An elderly woman, presumably her mother, was collapsing right there on the street. Mamalisa was quick and caught her under the arms. All of us were trying to support the tiny woman, but even her slight 90 or so pounds was difficult as she was completely slack.

The daughter asked for a chair, so I ran back into the restaurant, grabbed a chair, and said to the hostess, "I'm taking this outside. Someone's in trouble." She followed me out and offered to call 911. The daughter explained that they'd just come from the doctor, and her mother just needed a few minutes.

If I were a better photographer--but maybe less of a person--I would have snapped a shot of the woman sitting in the ornate chair on the sidewalk.

Weens suggested that the moment we spent with the Buddha changed our timing in a positive way.

Oh... Yo Yo Doh. - Monday 4/23/2007

It was a blue sky day in the world and in my tiny tiny mind.

I went to lunch with people I work with on CSI: Miami (clearance co-ordinator, script co-ordinator and CBS lawyer). This tradtion was started when the previous clearance co-ordinator and I decided to get together for lunch and even though she's gone now, we've kept it up. It's fun because we all talk or email just about daily but otherwise never see each other.

This kind of tradition is rare, because most shows don't last long enough for them to get started. Sometimes I get to meet my contacts at Christmas or wrap parties, which is fun but also more stressful. [There's a whole long post in me about dressing for this sort of thing...but later.]

We went to La Piazza at The Grove. You'll just have to imagine what a perfectly lovely day it was. I arrived a little early, poked around at Crate & Barrel (where I refrained from buying the dozen or so gadgets and little bowls I fondled), and didn't take a photograph.

We had a two hour lunch during which we talked about the show, censorship, the CSI franchise, Paris, and my novel. I didn't feel like a complete fraud talking about my unsold first novel and the second one that I set aside after about 150 pages to do NaNoWriMo, and my progress on the NaNoWriMo novel. Last week I was so frustrated that I would have. This week, I found I actually had some helpful things to say to the script coordinator when he asked if he could pick my brain for info about novel writing, after lunch.

I had my camera with me and OneL had asked me to get a picture of my co-lunchers since she covers the show when I'm out and the CBS lawyer also handles CSI: New York, which she works on (and CSI Classic as we call it around the office--Weens does that one), but-- Yeah, you got it. I forgot to take a photograph.

So, here's your consolation prize. A shot of the clear blue sky above my driveway. [shrugs] You take what you can get some days.