Lunch at Lotería!

On Thursday, Sean introduced me to the taco sampler at Lotería at Farmers Market LA. 12 tiny tacos. My faves are in bold!

Nopalitos: Fresh cactus salad served with salsa verde and queso fresco

Calabacitas: zucchini and roasted corn succotash served with salsa verde, finely chopped onion and cilantro, and queso fresco

Chaminones con epazote: Mushrooms with epazote served with finely chopped onion and cilantro, queso fresco, and salsa verde

Papa con rajas: potatoes with roasted poblano peppers, served with finely chopped onion and cilantro, queso fresco, and salsa verde

Carne deshebrada: shredded beef served with fresh guacamole, salsa chipole, and finely chopped onion and cilantro

Albondigas en chipotle: meatballs in a tomato and chipotle sauce served with finely chopped onion and cilantro

Mole poblano con pollo: chicken in mole poblano served with sesame seeds, finely chopped onion, and queso fresco

Tinga de pollo: chicken, stewed with chipotle peppers and home-made chorizo served with salsa roja de chipotle

Pollo en pipian rojo: chicken in a spicy pumpkin seed and peanut sauce served with finely chopped onion

Cochinita pibil: pork, slowly roasted in banana leaf served with citrus-pickled red onion and chile habanero

Chicharron en salsa verde: pork rinds in a spicy tomatillo sauce served with finely chopped onions and cilantro and queso fresco

Carnitas en salsa morita: pork in a spicy and smoky chile morita sauce served with slices of fresh avocado and finely chopped onion and cilantro

Adventures in LA Public Transportation

I timed a trip from South Pasadena to Miracle Mile using LA public transportation. Two trains and a bus.

This is how it went...



I've done this trip a bunch of times. It can take as little as an hour, if connections are right. Driving, it could take 20-25 minutes with no traffic. Or much, much longer with traffic!

Lake Placid Biathlon Training

Hilary
Originally uploaded by Miguel Ariel Contreras Drake-McLaughlin

:D Miguel took this photo of me at the shooting range! For more on this trip, read my blog post here!

Joshua Tree: Waking up Sunday morning

I've done a lot of camping and can usually sleep pretty well in a tent.

But Saturday night at Joshua Tree was rough! I started off with a long sleeved shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, a jacket, sweatpants, socks, slippers, and a sleeping bag. It was still cooooooold! In the middle of the night I got out of my sleeping bag for a couple minutes to add long johns and a pair of ski socks. Then right back in.

This is what Rick and I looked like in the morning. :)





I'd certainly do it again, but with an extra blanket or two and a thermos of hot beverage!

Joshua Tree: Starry Desert Night

The sun went down.



We started a fire.



We roasted marshmallows and made s'mores.



We snuggled under Venus.



We star-gazed.



We froze our asses off.

Blast from the past...Hedy Burress!

(Note: She may have shown up later - I only worked part of the day! But she wasn't there at her originally scheduled time...)

Joshua Tree: Arrival and the Cholla Cactus Garden

I've wanted to see Joshua Tree for years... This weekend, Rick and I drove there and camped over night. Such a beautiful place! I'd never seen any place like it.

Upon entering Joshua Tree National Park on Saturday morning, Rick and I drove straight to White Tank, the camping area of our choice. We went there because we were told it was quieter and more remote - one of the last places to fill up.

We set up our tent and had a quick bite to eat while deciding on our next destination.

This was the first time I tried the time lapse option on my little Canon Elph! Fun.



I was super-keen on checking out the Cholla Cactus Garden, so we started with that. What an amazing place! If that was all I saw while there, it would have been worth the trip!

Luckily, I read the sign before the little walk, which warned that touching these cacti is a super-bad idea!



They look fuzzy from afar, but they are NOT. They are called the "jumping cholla" because of how they tend to grab onto anything and everything. I took a gazillion photos. Here are a few...







I got a few needles in me from the ground when I got down to take some photos! Doesn't look like much, but it hurt for a while...



I bet tons of people miss this sight, as it is a bit out of the way. But I highly recommend checking it out, if you have time!

I want to go back when the cacti are in bloom - I think they get magenta-ish flowers. Purdy!

Cabazon, CA

On Saturday, Rick and I drove to Joshua Tree. Before we stopped off in Cabazon, CA to get a date shake at Hadley Fruit Orchards. It was yum!



They also sell various wines with Elvis on the labels. And things like these:











So...that's awesome.

Then, naturally, we had to go see Dinny the Dinosaur. You may remember him from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Yup.









Fun for the whole family!! ;)

Baker's Drive-Thru

On the way home from Joshua Tree today (will blog about Joshua Tree later), Rick and I stopped at Baker's. It's a fast food chain that was started by Rick's great-uncle.

While sampling the menu, I interviewed Rick about it!

If you Won't...

If You Won't by Jesse Harris

It was a rainy day in SoCal. Rick was driving and I was riding.

I love this song by Jesse Harris. If you don't know him, check him out... He is the one who wrote Norah Jones' Don't Know Why. He got a Grammy. I went to see him at the (old) Living Room the night after he won the award. The Living Room re-opened in a new locaion, but the original was a tiny little place. I had a table with my friends, but not everyone could get in. There was a line outside - people peering through the wondow to get a glimpse.

I first met Jesse when he opened for Peter Salett, a singer/songwriter who I worked for for many years. Jesse gave me the CD with this song on it for doing him a favor and selling his stuff at the merch table that night. Super nice guy. And amazing to see/hear live.

He is on tour - playing in NYC tonight. Luckily he'll also be coming to LA (Henry Fonda Theatre) on February 21st. He is touring with Joshua Radin and Dar Williams.

Today I made a sandwich. It was awesome.

Lately I've been eating a lot of these sandwiches, which always include pita, Marie's Creamy Italian Garlic dressing, lettuce, and cheese and often include tomato, green peppers, sprouts, avocado, and or cucumber. It's the dressing that's key.

My mom used to pack these for my lunches when I was a kid. Back then they were always lettuce, tomato, and cheese. And the tomato always made the sandwiches soggy by the time I ate them. But they were still yummy.



So, that's Day #3 of my 365 Video project. I'm having a lot of fun so far!

JPL Tweetup

Several months ago I started following MarsPhoenix on Twitter, which is how I came to find out about the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Tweetup on Wednesday night!

I'm BrooklynHilary on Twitter, if you wanna follow me.


Rick came too! Here we are in a Voyager Golden Record...


We got to meet members of the JPL mission teams...


Saw the Spacecraft Assembly Facility and the Space Flight Operations Facility...


Saw a full-size model of Phoenix...


We were given a swag bag with lots of neat postcards, stickers, a pin, 3D glasses and a 3D image.




And everyone was free to ask as many questions as they liked.

I even got run over by a rover!


You can see more of my photos here. (And more to come.)

It was so generous of them to open their doors to us and so much fun! If you are in the area in May, keep your eye out for their yearly open house/tour. You'll be glad you did!

A day alone with a car!

Before today, the only time I drove alone was when I went to the grocery store this weekend to buy a few things.

This morning, Rick let me drop him off at work and take the car. Woohoo!

I took the long way home.

First, I thought I'd just get some errands done during the day. But then I realized there are many things that I've never done that most people have been doing since they were 16. Like...pumping gas and going through a drive-thru. I set off to do both of those things.



Stuff I learned today:
- You don't always swipe your card AT the pump. At the station I went to, I felt a little dumb when I looked all over the machine and saw nowhere to swipe my card. There was a separate place to pay, in the middle of the island. I figured that out pretty quickly.

- I don't know if it's a California thing or a general thing (remember I've lived in NYC for 17 years), but when I went to get gas, I thought it would say super unleaded on the machine. Instead there were numbers, like 87 and 91. I looked at the sign to see what was most expensive and got that.

- People really do get distracted by cell phones. A guy went through a stop sign while talking on his phone and nearly turned into me.

- It can rain unexpectedly in SoCal.

- There are specific entrances to go into when you want to end up in the drive-thru at a fast food restaurant. And it's easy to end up driving the wrong direction in the parking lot. I went to two Jack in the Boxes before ending up at McDonald's. At the first, I was allowed to go in the entrance I tried, but the line curved around in a way that would have made it very difficult to take my place in line. I gave up at the second one pretty quickly too. At McDonald's, I was driving the wrong direction, had to cut across the lot, exit and enter again. But I DID it. So there.

- There are a lot of places where you can't turn left.

- There are a lot of police.

- I have a decent sense of direction - went a lot of places I'd never been, but knew which direction home was.

- The first time I parked in our spot at the house was beginner's luck. (It's a funny turn and a narrow spot.)

- I need to get my hair cut. Or at LEAST brush it.

365 Videos

A while back, I participated in a project on Flickr called 365 Days, in which I took a self-portrait every day for a year.

Now my friend Kat (who also did that and who I met on Flickr) has introduced me to 365 Video - a group where you take a video every day for a year! This will be more challenging, but fun too, I think!

I've been gearing up to start and decided that a good official first day would be Inauguration Day. (Hooray for President Obama!)

I won't always post my videos on my blog, but you can keep up with them by going here.

This was my first video...

Doo Dah Parade

On Sunday, Rick and I joined some of his friends for the Doo Dah Parade in Pasadena.

It was super-silly! As Rick pointed out, if you have a bike and a silly hat, you may as well join in...

People throw tortillas. And then kids run out to the street, gather them up, and throw them again.

There were crazies & eccentrics, dancers, bands, musicians, singers, floats, animals, and more.

Here is a little taste.

Thank you, Sara!

For the past four nights I stayed with my good friend Sara in Brooklyn.

She was a sweetheart of a host! Made me lots of tea and oatmeal with blueberries... :) Hopefully she'll come stay with me sometime too!

Yesterday morning, it was snowing as we headed to work (I was doing some work with her too)... So I took a couple pics and a little video.







As fun as it was to experience a little snow, I am happy to be back in the SoCal weather! (It got hot in the week while I was away...)

Fun with the new point and shoot

When I went to Lake Placid, I was sad that I didn't have a camera that could fit in my pocket. So I went to B&H and bought a little Canon Elph.

Last night I brought it with me when I went out for drinks and dinner with Brent (my friend since college - 17 years) and Eric (my friend since kindergarten - 30 years)!

It was fun. I felt like their personal paparazzi.

Rubik's Cube

Matt has learned to solve the Rubik's cube. Last night he taught me.

I have some things to memorize and need lots of practice, but I've got nothin' but time! (Just kidding. But I probably WILL obsess over it for a bit.)

4th Avenue Bar

A great group of people hung out tonight in Brooklyn. It was great seeing 'em all! This is what I miss most about living in NY. Hopefully soon I will meet more people in LA!

Biathlon Training at Lake Placid

On Saturday, Miguel and I went to Lake Placid.



When we woke up, it was about -15 degrees there, but by the time we got there and on our skis, it had warmed up considerably.

I've been to Lake Placid before - including 1980 for the winter Olympics! I still remember watching some speed skating and ski jumping there. This time we went to do a little biathlon training, which includes freestyle skiing and rifle marksmanship.

Miguel has his own skis and hit the trails. I rented some skis (freestyle/skate) and took a lesson. I was the only one who had signed up for a lesson, so it was one on one. I'm really a terrible skier! But I had a blast. And I DID learn a lot from the instructor. I'd just need a lot more than an hour of practice to get used to it!



Skiing is hard work, especially when you're not doing it correctly! By the end of my lesson, I had removed my hat and unzipped two layers. I get super-red when I exercise!



When we finished, the instructor brought me over to the range, where I met up with Miguel again. We were taught a little bit about the history of the biathlon, how people train, and what it consists of.

Then we each got to shoot a couple rounds. We used the blue rifle that you can see in front here:


Here's Miguel in position:


In a real biathlon, you'd have to ski a penalty lap for every shot you missed. Luckily, they weren't that hard on us! ;) In my first round, I only hit 2 of the 5 targets. In the second round, I remembered more of that the instructors had told us and hit all 5! The main differences were that a) I relaxed, aimed, and held my breath when I shot to keep from having the rifle move up and down as I breathed and b) I moved my body rather than my gun when positioning for the next target. When you move just the gun, it's less stable and tries to go back to it's original position when you shoot.

I wish I could have shot a couple more rounds, but it was still very fun. Also, by that time it was getting chillier out again and the fact that we weren't moving as much made us even colder.

Before we left, I laid down with my camera as if it was the gun and had Miguel take a picture of me with his camera. Here is what he looked like!


It was a fun day in Lake Placid. I'd like to go back and do the bobsled or the luge and maybe some skating. There's so much to do up there - I highly recommend checking it out!

Practical joke...on me!

This morning, my dad printed an article from the Times about a woman in NJ who didn't get her license until she was 45.

I flipped to the end of the article and saw an Editor's Note - a follow-up that mentioned that I'd gotten my driver's license.

I didn't read the whole thing right away and I had let the reporter know that I'd gotten my license. So it seemed possible.

So I went to my computer to look up the article. I didn't see an Editor's Note.

Then I read the whole thing and knew it was a joke on me. My dad is funny! Here is what he wrote...

"Editor's Note: Hilary McHone, recently interviewed by Alex Williams..."

(note: that is where I stopped reading the first time)

"...for his article New Year, New You? Nice Try, which appeared on December 31, 2008, was unavailable for comment..."

(note: that is where I got totally suspicious)

"Ms. McHone, 35, received her first driver's license just last week after several botched attempts dating to her teenage years."

(note: he used some of the same wording as the original article, like "botched"...tricky!)

"Ms. Mroz and Mr. Williams plan to follow Hilary's driving experiences throughout 2009 as she ventures forth on highways in a new blog called So Now You Think You Can Drive? Don't THINK So!."

(note: now I knew it was a total joke. Funny, though, he even thought to make the Blog title blue and underlined in the printout, so it looked like a link.)

So, anyway. Hilarious. ;)

Drinking the coffee!

The coffee is yum! This bean is fairly mild, but it has a nice flavor and aroma.

Here I am drinking it from the OMG mug that I got for Matt & Miguel at the 99 cent store.

Roasting coffee...at home!

For Christmas, Matt got Miguel a popcorn popper. Not for making popcorn, but for roasting coffee!

This morning, Miguel showed me how it was done. And I took photos!

First of all, you get an air popper, like this West Bend Poppery II. (After a little more research, I see that not all poppers are good - some become fire hazards. This one can be used as-is. For more ifo, check out Engadget.com.)


Then you get some beans. We tried Sweet Maria's Espresso Monkey Blend. (You can get them online at sweetmarias.com. On the package, it suggests a Vienna roast, which is between a Medium roast and a French roast. When roasted, it should be more brown than black - like a dark chocolate.


Put the coffee in the popcorn popper!


Turn it on. Generally, it will take at least 3.5 minutes. Miguel roasted a little longer for the darker roast - closer to 5 minutes. Here it is spinning, at the beginning:


Make sure you put a bowl where the popcorn would usually come out. The beans themselves don't pop out, but this stuff does!


When it's done, pour the beans into a colander (wow - I just had to look up how to spell that) to cool.


You should stir them to help them cool.


When they're no longer hot, but just slightly warm to the touch, you can put them in a jar, but don't close right away.


The best time to use the beans is 4-12 hours after roasting. After 12 hours, you can seal the jar. It's suggested that you use them within a few days.

And there ya have it!

We have to wait a while longer to try it, but I'll let you know how it goes!