Category Archives: Stripped

Life, personal growth, love, questions

london eats

Landed in London a few days ago. It’s been about 9 months since the last time so we made sure to go back to all our favorite food spots. Food food food. That’s all that matters. Duh. (when did “duh” start? The english language…absolutely riveting.)

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Wahaca. THE best mexican food here. The dishes are so creative (plaintain tacos, new potato & feta taquitos, shrimp scallop ceviche mini tostadas!), the place is super sharp and hip, it’s just cool (another enthralling word from our english language). They’re popping up in London all over the place. I’m starting a petition to open one in LA asap…

Next.. COTE! It’s like a modern french bistro. Sooo good. We love it so much we created a mantra for it last year. It goes like this: “COTE COTE COTE.” And we grab our forks with angry fists and bang them on the table.

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This is my most favorite tuna carpaccio in all the land. I get cravings for it all hours of the day.

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Bacon wrapped fish with pea puree — oh.my.goodness.

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Nobu, will you marry me?

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Now this has nothing to do with food but it was equally as exciting. Lana Del Rey! She was great and I love singing along to her songs.

On to middle-of-nowhere Peterborough today for commercial shoot all week. Food-wise, this will be a challenge, I’m sure..

 

Nutribullet show

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Pure gold! Just wrapped a shoot last Friday and it is in edits now — looks amazing! Both hosts, David Wolfe and Lucy Piper, were just great. And the Nutribullet? IT’LL CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Seriously, I love it.

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For this shoot, I did makeup, styling, catering, art direction, production coordinator…

I have the perfect picture to go after that sentence.

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I ‘m a wearer of many hats. Get it? haw haw haw.

home pen sketch

I’ve been doodling this week and decided to create a vision board. Last year I found a piece of paper of a list (from the year before) in an old purse of things I wanted in my life and they were all true. So yes I believe in externalizing your desires and what you believe you deserve for yourself, in a sense.

So, this is my Dream Home in 3 years :)
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Love spanish style homes! A big kitchen (and NO those are not kids; they’re friends… lol), cozy library, lots of woodsy interior. I used pen and watercolors.

This is what I call home now. I decided to draw this and mark it with the date so one day I can look back and see the “progress.” I think when we feel stuck, we forget that where we are now was once where we hoped we’d be. So, I feel grateful :)
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This one looks a little cleaner and neater because I used a ruler. Not sure if I’m going to put watercolor on it. For some reason I like it black & white.

It feels good getting back into sketching. I’m feeling crappy today so I’m just going to zone out, put some music on and sketch til my fingers get calloused.

 

letting go + palm springs

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One year older. I realized some things this past weekend… one thing was my mother (I haven’t seen/spoken to her for almost a year; my choice). There are still many times I get angry and upset and many of my reactions stem from the past with her. But a lot of why I get angry is my mind not understanding why. Why she did this, that, why she can’t understand me, why both our souls were put together in this life, why she is the way she is.

But a thought popped into my head and told me, I’m just going to let go… I don’t need to understand why because it is what it is. She is emotionally stunted along with many other mental problems and irrational fears (that’s putting it nicely; I think she is a monster) so why even try to piece all that together.. it’s like trying to understand an unsolved mystery. Sometimes things don’t have explanations (like life, I suppose). The same goes for people too. I spend wasted energy trying to figure people out but… unsolved mysteries.

It doesn’t mean I’m “healed” or forgive her (I wish forgiveness was as easy as some people make it sound–even if you forgive it takes a long time for that energy to transform into complete peace. Or perhaps I have challenges with forgiveness which is why this is my situation in this lifetime to learn how to do so..)

I may have a lot of things to work through but one thing I’m not going to be held back by is fear. I’m not afraid if it takes me til the moment before I die or when I’m in the darkest place of shadows. At least the dark place is real.

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But anyways, Paris has been pushed back til the end of May (YAY) and Palm Springs was…. duh, hot. We judge cities by their food and this place has a bunch of glorified IHOPS. Food snobs, perhaps?

But I’ll give credit to Purple Palms. It was pretty nice and anytime you get a whole fish head stuffed with surprises is a good sign.

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Currently reading Taco USA. Does anyone else besides me get cravings for a taco so HARD? Like, every hour of the day?  If you want good mexican food… go to a shop with a B rating. Trust me (& not the roaches on the floor).  And if this doesn’t cancel out the food snob in me, I don’t know what will.

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(I love this shirt. It’s from my friend’s clothing line Hardcouture. And the gold shark tooth necklace is from her store too :) )

breaking apart your patterns

Reminiscing and found my old journals from 2011. That was a crazy year. I guess it was one of those years where you would look back when you’re 75 and say “That was a crazy year”

I was living in Hollywood for 5 or 6 years already (this is starting to sound like a sad biography..), going out all the time, partying, meeting interesting characters, shopping, you know, being a Hollywood rat. There are a looot of rats out here.

81510aHere’s one rat.

Anyways, a lot of things happened (a devastating break up, liars, not knowing who to trust, basically that hole you get into where you’re like What the fuck am I doing with my life?) and that’s when I made a conscious decision to cut certain people out of my life, stop going out, stop hanging out with losers, stop caring about unimportant crap. I started reading more, writing again, spending a LOT of time alone, donating and selling more than 75% of everything I owned, meditation retreat, started this blog, went on a solo 4-month trip to South America. I made a pact with myself: If who I’m hanging out with or what I’m doing isn’t a soul-enriching experience for myself or the other person then I’m not doing it. And I still live by that. There’s too many other things I could be doing. I’d rather be reading a book by myself than hanging out with a bunch of people pretending to talk about something. (It’s so true what they say–Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.)

One thing I’ve learned is if someone is scared of your direction of growth, they will say anything to discourage it. Most likely because they discourage themselves…

So I went to South America by myself with a decent amount of savings (and I don’t care what anybody says; If you’re young and traveling is what you want to do, what do you keep saving money for? Take your savings immediately, go somewhere and come back with zero), little to no knowledge of spanish, one duffel bag, volunteered for half and travelled for the other half. It was the best thing I ever did and I met so many great people with curious, optimistic mindsets.

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That was almost 2 years ago (and after South America, I kept traveling – Costa Rica, Europe) and now I still live in Los Angeles but I have the life I envisioned–well I wouldn’t even say envisioned, it’s more like a feeling you know in your gut–for myself from my true core, but I had all those layers before blocking it away–and I’m still working on removing more layers. I’m truly a believer of dreaming big and if you’re dissatisfied with your self/life (which I’m sure happens many times in one lifetime), it’s because there’s something bigger and better waiting for you; waiting for you to break apart the old patterns and layers that don’t serve you anymore. ♥

lasagna soup

OMG this is my most favorite thing I’ve made all month. I got the recipe from Joanne Eats Well With Others

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Make it for those fake-meat-haters, watch them eat half the bowl whilst exclaiming how awesome it tastes and yell SURPRISE!! IT’S VEGAN MEAT CRUMBLES!

And then later apologize and make this:

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And this:

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I love skewing!

skirt steak

If you ask me, dinners at home > dinners out. There’s something about being at home (or someone else’s home) and cooking and sharing that you can feel the love all around. And that’s just what we did. I’ve been wanting to make a big juicy slightly sweet grilled flank steak and now it’s one of my favorite things to make!

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This was before we cut it into thin slices. I threw together some things (like garlic, brown sugar, vinegar, peppercorns — I don’t think any combo can go wrong!) and  drowned the crap out of it and let it marinate for hours.

IMG-20130413-01937By the way people, these glasses are EVIL. They’re too delicate to wash. Maybe I have big bear claws or something but we started out with 12 about two months ago and now there are like 7.

Ooo, I wish I had a better picture of the drinks. Muddled blackberries, mint, lime, sparkling soda and vodka YUM!! I was drunk by glass #2.

bruschettaA really good option for dinner parties. Roast garlic with olive oil and mix in bowl with cherry tomatoes, fresh basil & balsamic vinegar. Always delicious.

Also on the table were lamb chops, bucatini pasta, brussell sprouts and spinach. But like I said, drunk by glass #2.

dinnerp dinnerppAhh, what is it about polaroids that make you feel like you’re 85 looking at photos of your earlier life? So sweet.

bye bye carbs

I’ve slowly been eating less and less carbs the past few weeks and I like it (that’s just my mind tricking itself so I don’t cry). I used to eat some form of a carb 2x a day but now– all I have to say is, thank god for TACOS. Mexican food is a vegetarian’s dream. There’s always lots of veggies, flavors and tortillas don’t have too many carbs right?

(Almost) every morning I make sure to drink my Glowing Green Smoothie. Some mornings I just say fuck it and eat bacon.

it looks like Gak. remember gak?

it looks like Gak. remember gak?

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I make some creative variation of the taco (shrimp or fish or beans or corn) but the constant components are crispy shells and luscious overflowing lettuce.

sad attempt at culinary photography

sad attempt at culinary photography

mexican veggie soup (diced tomato base with vegetable stock and onions, carrots, green beans, zucchini, chickpeas, corn, chipotles) with lots of avocados

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frying your own tortillas ALWAYS taste better

chickencacciatoreIsn’t this beeeautiful? I love cooking meat even if I don’t eat it. Plus, the boy would probably leave me for a barbecue-grilling-bone-pulling-carnivore if I didn’t. See, meat is the glue that holds us together.

Last week as I was saying goodbye to a friend I said, “Have a good night.” And she responds, “You too!” And then I responded, “You too!” And yes, that bothered me for hoursss. Maybe a couple days. The cringe-worthy self conscious 20′s… can they be over soon? But it’s kind of too much fun making fun of myself. Does anyone else get that way? I want stories.

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Almost three years ago I cut out meat (except for the 4.5 months I was traveling through South America) but the past three weeks I’ve developed the most terrible (or is it the most wonderful?) habit of eating bacon. It started with a bite here and there.. little bits in a cobb salad.. adding just a slice to a lettuce wrap.. and now a package or two of Trader Joe’s apple smoked bacon in the fridge is a must.

bacon1Oh yes that pita bread is deliciously fried in bacon grease

It’s my dirty little secret. But now I’m OUT AND PROUD. Can I even call myself a vegetarian? Do I start eating meat again? Do I even care? I’m blinded by the bacon grease.

Anyways, enough of that… my european travelling house-guests left last night after staying for several fun, girly, gloriously-cooked-meal days. It’s soo quiet here now..

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Just had to throw in a kodak-worthy moment of me and the baby from the other day.

april 2nd

It’s been a busy week. Brunches, lunches and fun dinners with fam and friends. The mom in law has been here the past couple weeks so it’s nice having fam time and cooking for one extra person :)

This came out so delicious. Balsamic chicken with roasted parmesan cauliflower

This came out so delicious. Balsamic chicken with roasted parmesan cauliflower

I feel like the past few months my social anxiety is slowly melting away but it is hard sometimes. When I was 18-20, I couldn’t go to the grocery store without getting sweaty palms and irritable anxiety. I still get that occasionally in huuuge crowds — I’ll get a headache and become out of breath and irritable. Reading other people’s experiences are nice because I know I’m not alone..

I have a friend staying over this week who I met in Peru in 2011, met again in London in 2012 and now California in 2013! I wonder where 2014 will be?? Speaking of travels, I think I am going to Paris this month for my birthday — I have purposely avoided it when I’ve travelled because I’ve always wanted to save it for a special time with a special person and now I can :)

Meditation Mount in Ojai

Meditation Mount in Ojai

found these pretty pieces at an outdoor furniture sale - love them!

found these pretty pieces at an outdoor furniture sale – love them!

Yesterday we got brand new (cream color) carpeting in the bedroom so now I can do a full make over. Thinking of themes and ideas, hmm…