a thank you

After training for four months, I ran my first half marathon on Sunday.

Like a champ:

Race Results - Pasadena Marathon

Bib Numer: 3193

Among the hardest parts of my training was figuring out what to eat to maximize performance efficiency. And while I normally object to food in bar form, I must give credit where it's due (and where it's doo doo). So, to Tiger's Milk bars: even as your high fructose corn syrup settled in my digestive system, you sustained me, and kept me from pooping my pants. Thanks.

The Gold Standard

LA Weekly's Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic, Jonathan Gold hand selected 30 restaurants to participate in the paper's first annual food and wine event, the Gold Standard. Here's the list of restaurants:

Alcazar

Angeli

Animal

Anisette

Babita Mexicusine

Beacon

Chili My Soul

Ciudad Border Grill

Clementine

Drago

Hungry Cat

Jltlada

KyoChon

La Casita Mexicana

La Mill

Loteria Grill

Lou

Meals by Genet

Mr. Baguette

Natrallart

Osteria Mozza & Pizzeria Mozza

Palate Food and Wine

Providence

Renu Nakorn

Sona

Tiara Cafe

Upstairs 2

Urth Caffe

Wurstkuche

I will be in attendance, working the ol' Mozza booth. I imagine the event will be something like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but I could be wrong.

I'm so excited I feel vomity.

Conversation between Arielle and Joshua, as told to me by Arielle. 

Joshua is 6 and it's cookie sale day at school. 

Josh: Ma, can I get a cookie?

Arielle: No Joshua. We have cookies at home. Famous Amos. 

Josh: [after a long, thoughtful pause] That's a weird name for a cookie.

Arielle: What...Famous Amos? Why?

Josh: [innocently, just above a whisper] Isn't that another word for butt hole?

Oat Lemon Bars

With a boy-free apartment and a couple bottles of 2 buck, Meg and Becca unleashed their inner domestic and created a tasty variation on lemon bars. In this recipe, the flour used to make the classic lemon bar's shortbread crust is replaced by oats. Its texture has SO much more personality than the original and an added crust on the top facilitates sticky finger evasion. Also, condensed milk replaces granulated sugar for the filling, giving the filling a nice caramely undertone.

OAT LEMON BARS

1 can condensed milk

2 tsp. lemon zest

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 cup oats

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix milk, lemon zest, and juice in a medium bowl. Mix remaining ingredients in a separate bowl. Press half of the dough into the bottom of a 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 glass baking pan. Bake for ten minutes. Spread lemon mix over the baked crust. Sprinkle remaining dough on top and bake for approximately 20 minutes.

NOTES: When the girls finished making the crust mixture, they noticed that it was a bit dry. It seemed there wasn't enough butter to really bind the oats together. The bottom crust fared much better than the top, but initially it was a tad too crumbly to hold up as a bar. After cooling and sitting though, the bottom crust solidified nicely. Also, Meg felt they needed longer than 20 minutes to bake.