Tag Archives: travel

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..

 

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. ♥

confession

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…

 

caribbean lolo

The best part of Saint Martin was seriously the food.. caribbean creole food all day? Yes!! We went a little crazy and ate at lolo’s twice a day sometimes. Lolo’s are the local barbecue food stands with amazing homemade sides (johnny cakes! Fried dough?! Thank you!). Funny thing too was I thought it was homemade bbq and dressing but turns out it was just Kraft. Still delicious – who doesn’t like Kraft?!

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Some freshhh carpaccio right on the beach

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How cute are these? Yeah I’m gonna try my hand at caribbean cooking

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That’s me getting back onto the boat gracefully

IMG-20130307-01597Bye bye Caribbeans!

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Um.. I cannot absorb all this goodness all at once. Got here several days ago and we still have til the end of this week til we go home. YAY! A whole week of St Martin! Anguilla too! (staying at L’Esplanade hotel right now — it’s hidden away in the hilly part right above the beach and I highly recommend it!! Especially the Loft rooms — soo fawncy, I’ve been spinning and hopping up and down on the bed for hours!)

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The people are so nice and I’ve been glutton-ing away… I’ve been trying to remember to take pics of our food. How do people remember to do that??

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Ceviche trio: thai, peruvian, creole — what a splendid idea indeed!

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A free bottle of gift-wrapped passion fruit rum (with seeds floating all around). I like free. And I like rum

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ojai california

One of my favorite places in the country is definitely Ojai. The energy is just different. The air is so crisp and clear, you feel like you can run and skip all over. And it’s only a short car ride away :)

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The book here I’m reading is “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss. I’m halfway through and obsessed. It is so beautifully written. Amazing story…

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question

If you’re telling your friend something that makes you happy and you get the feeling that they’re not happy for you and attempts to analyze or be critical, what do you do? Cut ties? Or realize that it could be from jealousy/insecurity and find some compassion somewhere deep inside?

I’m finding the compassion thing very hard  because it feels like instead I am stuffing my own emotions inside.

But then, I ask myself “Why does this bother me; what is it touching…” It can really never end :)

On to good news.. St Martin, Caribbeans in less than one month. A much needed vacation. Maybe we will find that little hammock above the sea?

And others news.. I am obsessed with Scrabble.

scrabble(Currently in the lead for the championship, btw. :) )

 

the perfect place

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Where in the world would a place like this be? I especially love the hammock.