exPUREience Foods

Gaining 5lbs. overnight, thanks THANKSGIVING!

2008-11-27T20:36:00.000-08:00

So Thanksgiving was pretty NICE.

No work, little cousin came over, obnoxiously oversized dinner, good laughs, and all the other fantastic bullshit that comes with celebrating Thanksgiving.

I spent a good week or two sprouting, dehydrating and experimenting with different mediums and marinades that could make for a proper turkey substitute. Last year's Thanksgiving was kind of lame food wise, so I wanted to really step it up this year. Mostly in part to wanting to show my extended family that a raw Thanksgiving won't be solely about a carrot carved into a drumstick.

Those assholes wanted to put me in charge of basting the turkey as well. What the fuck is that shit?!! Obviously, they must know how much I love slathering butter on dead animals.

Anywho, tomorrow is black friday (yay) and yes, I intend on being one of those people who wake up at the ass crack of dawn to celebrate Christmas materialism early. Hate me for it, I really don't give a shit, I'm a holiday whore and I have NO shame in admitting that!

I'm also bracing myself for the cookies that will soon follow as soon as mid-december hits.

THAT is going to be some crazy shit!

Here's my Thanksgiving dinner...I didn't really bother to take pictures of the family, since I spent most of my time in the kitchen (I get lazy with recording this shit sometimes).

Pumpkin Pie, Cranberry-Cherry Compote, and some marinated Butternut Squash

"Turkey", Mashed "Potatoes" with a Portobello Gravy, and Stuffing

The Cranberry Compote here with Rosemary

Pumpkin Pie via the DEHYDRATOR!

The most exciting part about experimenting with different mediums is finding new ways to do things to better suit those modifications. For example, I know many raw pie recipes call for refrigeration. BUT, what if you're craving a slice of WARMMM pumpkin pie? Stick it in the dehydrator, and that pie is shit outta luck, gettin all melty and nasty like. And granted that a LOT of entrees can be done in dehydrator, getting the right consistency without being overly reliant on fats to solidify it can prove difficult.

I'm happy to report that I used literally no more then 1/4c. of nuts in ALL of this (mostly because nut heavy dishes can turn expensive really quick).

Enjoy the pictures and look forward to more since finals week is coming up, and after that i'm on BREAK!!! (which means yes, more food making) :]

vegan cakes, not RAW RAW RAW, for once

2008-11-10T09:14:00.000-08:00

"Nobody seems more obsessed by diet than our anti-materialistic, otherworldly, New Age spiritual types. But if the material world is merely illusion, an honest guru should be as content with Budweiser and bratwurst as with raw carrot juice, tofu and seaweed slime." ~Edward Abbey

So saturday was my manger's birthday at our store, and since everybody decided to more or less do their own thing for her, I picked something that I'm at least half way decent at. BAKING, chyaa. I was actually specifically instructed to "not make any healthy shit"...and that being a direct quote from at least 3 people I work with...fair enough I suppose, since making a cake of this proportion raw would cost me, um...a LOT. I love my manger, but really, not enough to blow over $50 for ONE cake. For serious.

The cake is vegan however, and shit, I haven't worked with any of the baking mediums for quite some time. I mean, now and AGAIN, i'll pull something out of my ass for my mom or whomever (both literally and figuratively, thank you), but it's really not something that I strive to perfect on a daily or ever weekly basis.

Inside of the vegan fondant, which let me just say, turned out surprisingly well, was a honey "buttermilk" cake with a strawberry rhubarb custard. Before I went vegan however long ago, I used to make my own fondant (way cheaper) for cakes, and it always came out tasting like..hm...playdough. This fondant however, courtesy of my cousin's taste tester skills, came out as he describes "TASTES LIKE YUMMMY!" I hope I wasn't wrong in assuming that this was a good thing, since he has a tendency to pick and eat his boogers when he's bored.

The top of the cake, the "whipped cream", was a vegan vanilla bean icing, finished off with some vegan sprinkles I found at the vitamin shoppe across the street from my work. The cake was modeled after our new holiday cups that were released on the 4th of this month. Starbuck's trying to get ahead of the game? A lot much, for real.

The logo with the siren was somehow smashed by my non-existent boobs, err.. chest plate, while attempting to create a brown "filling" that resembled coffee. It was promptly fixed once I uploaded these pictures and realized the sirens face was melting into her body

All in all, the cake took about 13 hours to finish... roughly the same amount of time a raw version would've taken me. Actually, I lied. A raw version would've been at LEAST a week with sprouting and all that other bullshit..so yeah..

Cute though, yes?? I think it came out pretty good anyways...and my manager loved it, so that was pretty bomb. (her actual response was "holy shit april, what the hell! this is fucking amazing!") yes yes, thank you!!!

On a much sadder note, my best friend is leaving the state to move in with her boyfriend of 6 years. I'm not going to talk about it too much because you know, it's more personal, but yeah.

Also, I've signed up for a scholorship that requires me to maintain straight A's on the Dean's list for the Natural Sciences Dept. That being the main reason why I been like a ghost on blogger, GI2MR, etc etc.

Forgive me!?

Thanksgivings gonna be the shizznit. I'm already planning out a whole menu of raw goodness. Both non-dessert and dessert (obviously) related.

Good stuff.

A Daring "Bakers" Challenge...

2008-10-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

You know, I really miss making these dishes and the whole blogging thing every week. I'm trying to get back into the habit of "unbaking", but yeah..it just hasn't been working out. Ever since I switched my major to a double major (ND and French), and elected myself for a fin. aid that requires my GPA is stay above a 3.5, yeah...not happening. In between classes, work, homework and sleep..well, there just hasn't been much time for elaborate foods to be made. Such a shame.

Anywho, excuse my bitching, but I did find the time to make this pizza for October's Daring Bakers challenge. I DO bake, just not the food that I eat (as you know), so with their permission I created a raw pizza (despite it being spread out over a good week or so, with sprouting and whatnot). The pizza recipe supplied for the challenge was Peter Reinhart's "Pizza Napoletana" from his book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Lovely book, I must say, as it covers quite a bit of ground on deconstructing bread, from the raw grain to whichever way you choose to nuke the grain.

Back on to the pizza.
It turned out PRETTTTY bomb, but idk, I haven't tried too many GOOD raw pizzas, so yeah, aside from my own and the few available out yonder, i'm just going to assume that mine is the best.

Expensive as SHIIIT to make though, i'm not gonna lie..

The Daring Bakers blog that i'm on now (check it out, seriously, they've got some pretty talented people up on that business) asked for shots of "tossing" the dough...but..yeah...tried it, and for some reason raw pizza dough NOT made from flour just doesn't seem to want to be flipped...hence it exploding in my face after the first attempt, and then exploding everywhere else on the second. I should've taken a novelty shot, but I didn't really think to do it until literally just now.

Here are some other shots of the pizza

The pizza has a garlic and tarragon infused crust, which might I add, the son of a bitch took fucking 6 days to make. The sauce is an heirloom and plum tomato concoction, and the cheese is a combination of roughly 3 different types of nuts to play up the flavor a bit. I started off with maybe running with the idea of a margarita pizza, but then that morphed into a margarita/sun-dried tomato and chive type thing. Either way, it owned, and that's really all that matters.

Life has been interesting to say at the least. I haven't really been the happiest camper in the tent if you get my drift, and for some reason my ass has doubled in size over the last week. I don't mind it so much though, because booty is a good thing. Now just need to redistribute some of that goodness to the tah tahs and i'll be set.

Hope everyone is well.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and it's going to fucking OWNNN.
I'm making a massive raw feast, so look forward to that bitches.

also, I may or may not be making something in the spirit of halloweenie...so keep an eye out ;)

An Ode to Figs, a Newer Space, and Bomb Ass Lemon Ice Cream

2008-09-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

It's always a pleasant surprise to come home and find either:

A. a coconut somebody bought for me, waiting to be mauled on the kitchen sink

B. a naked hot guy waiting for me on my bed smeared with raw whipped cream and bing cherries

C. a new issue of bon appetit magazine shoved into the mailbox

since nobody aside from myself really bothers to buy coconuts, 'a' doesn't really happen too often, and the last time a hot naked dude was sprawled out on my bed covered in raw goodness was about 16 hours ago when I was asleep. (actually, I didn't sleep very much last night, since booty popping to FAT techno beats replaced the ZZZZ's, so being able to recall ANY type of dream is beyond miraculous.)

So, yes, that would leave C.

Despite this magazine being hardly anywhere NEAR raw, the monthly food porn, I must admit, has me addicted.

It's also what lead me into finding (and becoming slightly obsessive over) Herme's stuff.

If I'm not mistaken, I'm thinking it was the March? issue that had a special on his Litchi and Rose Petal Ispahan inspired Frozen Yogurt.

How anyone could NOT love Pierre's stuff is beyond me.

I'd molest that man in his sleep if I could.

I'd blow every staff member in his kitchen if it meant being able to have a chance to be trained by him (okay, I may be exaggerating slightly there.)

That's pure love baby. PURE love. Minus the, oh, thousand PLUS price tag for these babies.

The dessert front over here hasn't really been poppin off lately.

Mostly because I'm wrapped up in work and trying to get my shit together for school (which reminds me, I should probably be buying my books and parking ticket, oh, um..NOW?)

The Fig and Lemon Anglaise Tartlet

Whenever fig season ends, it always depresses me. Seriously.

Fresh Kimi or Turkey Figs straight off the tree. Hot damn. Nothing quite hits the spot like them babies.

Lemoncello Ice Cream

Taking pictures of ice cream blows also.

I'll never be taking pictures of it again, but you know, I didn't have any ice cream pics up, and EVERYONE and their mom has at least one posted...so I needed to get me suma THAT!

The next dessert is going to be fucking crazy.

for real.

Chocolate Ganache Cake

2008-09-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

I forgot to post this up.

smoothie addict: coke in a blender

2008-08-21T18:27:00.000-07:00

Before you get pissed that i'm posting something without pictures of desserts that i've been lagging on making, let me JUST say this..

I just finished 5 days on smoothies and juices only, and shit, it really only made me realize how much I missed that sort of thing. The extra energy you save from not having to digest anything has really been coming in handy (leaving work at 1 am. has no longer become exhausting, though, I can't say it's solved anything in terms of my anger towards starbuck's underpaid slave labor). So the day I ended my non-solid business, I had the worst feeling in my stomach after eating a papaya salad for lunch... SHITTYYYY let me tell you. I was so fucking tired, that I considered sleeping off the food as gross as that sounds (I haven't done that shit since my teenage alcohol induced days).

I really REALLY want to go back on a smoothie fast again. Probably tomorrow?

This time, I'd like to go for 2 weeks.

Keep in mind, I'm sort of a fat ass with my smoothies... so my smoothies (though mostly green....okay...maybe at least 1/3 green) usually end up being at LEAST 48 oz. per smoothie..unless i'm making something more elaborate in terms of drinks... like maybe a chocolate lavender mint smoothie, or a cloverfield honey pina colada. MMM.

I'd like to go longer then 2 weeks, but one of two things is going to happen if I even TRY to do that:

1) my parents will think I have an eating disorder, and am thus trying to lose weight by doing this.

2) I'll go ape shit afterwards and nut binge (no pun intended...well, maybe just a little) and then get sick, swear off of nuts, and then go back into the fridge 2 hours later looking for brazils, get sick again, and then have my mom hovering over me "well, THIS is what you get! you screw your body up with this raw shit! you need meat on you! eat carnitas!"

SO..to avoid to the inevitably, I'm going to only mention that i'll be juicing it up again, leaving out the small 2 week detail.

SHIT. I just remembered, i'm going to san diego at the end of this month..

hm...

i'll have to make a few exceptions for some raw goodies if I run across them..but other then THAT, i'll try to keep my meals as "mono-meal" friendly as possible, so I, again, don't get sick and end up in the bathroom for..erm..hours on end..

not that you really needed to know that, but the same shit happens to you, i'm sure, whenever you eat something that's not agreeable with your stomach. (or maybe not, maybe it's just me)

ALSO.

best ever

http://www.earthsave.org/

I subscribed to their quarterly enews, and apparently i'll be getting a vegetarian times subscription out of it as well?

fuckin sweet!

I'm supposed to go wig shopping with my cousin in about 30 minutes... waiting on her lagging ass to call

wig shopping is uberly fun. everyone should do it at least once a month.

very therapeutic.

PS- after my smoothie kick, the desserts will be back. I PROMISE. I know you don't give a shit about the random shit that

goes down in my life sans raw.

PSS- jk. I hope not..that shit would suck... I'm more then desserts damn it!

PSSS- actually, my brother called me a nut magician for being able to do the things that I do with nuts

(not like that you perverts...he wouldn't know about those sorts of things..)

PSSSS- WIGGSSSSSSS!

Instant Gratification..

2008-08-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

I love fat..

A LOT

In fact, to gain and now maintain my weight, I'll eat anywhere from 1/4c. nuts - 1c. of nuts a day, along with coconut, avocados, etc etc.

but, with that being said..I'm getting REALLY burned out on them. Time for a break?

AH..I think so

After work, I made a fresh green juice.. celery, parsley, cucumber, spinach, chard, wheatgrass.

YUUMM

Sometimes I get so caught up making desserts that I forget about how awesome a cold, fresh 16oz. glass of green can taste.

So, tomorrow I'm going to do juicing and smoothies only, and then see how long I can ride it out after the day's over..

That being said, here's what i've been up to..

Went to Palm Dessert..AGAIN... to go swimming and walk around downtown and whatnot..

My brother went out of his way to buy me a kookie karma, which I felt bad for since I really do NOT like their stuff. Cashews gross me out. They always taste rancid to me for some reason.

Not only that, but the 'lemon fig' cookie (or, kookie) tasted nothing like lemon OR figs. It was almost like a slap in the face to the taste of a fresh fig or lemon to even compare the cookie to such a thing.

Actually, I wanted to talk about this.

I don't EVER really buy other raw snacks/prepared foods partially because I always find them very disappointing and more often WAY overpriced. ($8 for a brownie? really? REALLY?) Come on now, I make this shit all the time, I'm well aware of how much it costs to make these things, and it does NOT cost that much..

greedy bastards!

And then I stop and think to myself that I need to get my ass in gear and start getting my stuff into the mainstream..

Only because it genuinely bothers me that people out there are settling for shit. Sorry if that sounds mean, but it's true.

OH OH.

So I finally tried the chocolate fudge cake from Cru, since they now sell it in the market near my house..

BLLLLALAHDKAJHDDA!

I love chocolate. really.

But when I can't get my fucking fork through the "cake"... yeah... it's no longer a "cake".

more like a massive chocolate bar.

The first bite was good, the second, alright, and after that I threw it away since it was making me nauseous.

So far, the only prepared raw foods that I can say something nice about, would be Leaf's stuff. Not too expensive, not too nut heavy, and still pretty good. Actually, I bought their brownie last week on sale for $3 since I get too lazy to make my own stuff sometimes..

ALSO, got this baby for $2. SCOOOORE!

It tasted better then it looks.

Man, nothing beats fresh dragonfruit... except for maybe fresh celeste and king figs, and then maybe rambutan and mangosteen.. but yeah... after all those, dragon fruit OOOOOWNS.

Anywho, after my juicing/smoothie fling, I plan on making an opera amaretto cake..

so I guess doing greens for awhile will be another plus, since this'll give me time to draw out the design and structure of the cake.. get things 'ready' if you know what I mean ;]

well, iron chef is on, and I need to call work to make sure nobody hustled my ipod that I accidently left behind this morning. (I'm fully convinced that half the people I work with do NOT like me since i've openly stated that I am not a christian or catholic) Seriously, some of those bitches (yes, I can and WILL call them bitches) have hidden my shit way too many times

"oops! sorry april! I thought you'd be able to find it!"

... underneath an espresso machine?

why the FUCK would I think look for my cell phone underneath an espresso machine when my stuff is in the complete opposite end of the building?!!

gah. enough complaining. I don't want to sound whiney.

I LOVE WHEATGRASS AND AMERICAN GINSENG. WOOO!

Making a name for yourself, a wedding like coconut cake, and chillin with Juliano

2008-08-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

all up on the Dean's list at school. FUCK YEEEAH!

WHEW.

This week has been beyond bombay. Starbucks screwed me in hours "sorry April, you're only working 20 hours this week, and have 3 days off"

oh NO, whatever will I do?!! I can't survive outside of Starbucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

not.. assholes

so anyways, I've had a bunch of time to do the things that I like to do in my spare time, i.e. making food, taking random trips, spending money on knick knacks, etc etc.

Last weekend I made a coconut cake that turned out like... a wedding cake?

Very confusing, but very very good.

See, when I was frosting it with dehydrated coconut flakes it just looked so... sad and plain.. so I gave it a facelift with some lavender and baby's breathe. AHH, so much better. Purple and white always compliment each other so nicely.

I wish I hadn't been so fucking lazy and bothered to take a picture of a slice so you could see the inside of it. Not that it was really anything incredibly special, just two layers with a coconut cream separating them, but you know... yeah

The last of the cake is being burned alive by the stomach acids of my mom and dad as I type this. Poor cake, oh well... C'EST LA VIE!

I think next week i'm going to make a strawberry shortcake... only because strawberries are ass-diculously cheap right now, and I try to go with seasonal things, instead of going out of my way to pay more for something that isn't even at the peak of it's season.

I've also been trying to do juice days. And by trying, I mean having juice for breakfast, and then eating nachos (raw, of course) for lunch, completely forgetting about the juicing until after the meal is being mauled inside my stomach. EHH, shit happens.

So, onto business more exciting then food digesting inside of me and my family, I had a consultation with a small business advisor today. He's a friend of my mom's who's originally from Trinidad, moved to washington and opened two nightclubs, then moved over here with his now wife. Very nice man. I think I shall make him some cookies.

Before any financing was discussed, he was telling me about how he grew up on mangoes and coconuts fresh off of the trees from his backyard. LUUUCKY. I love coconuts now, but I can't even begin to fathom how much MORE i'd love them fresh. Same goes for the mangoes.

At the end of our meeting, we've decided that before we do any outlines, I'm going to show him where I'm at right now with presentation, copyrights, labeling, packaging, etc etc. Also, cost of the product itself. That actually has been bothering me the most. I despise using cashews, and try to avoid eating them as much as possible. Same goes for peanuts and sprouted grains, since grains are too hard for me to digest. I'd actually rather just eat steamed quinoa with some olive oil and rosemary, with some flax crackers and lemon on the side... that was actually my dinner last saturday.

Onto Harvest Health.

http://www.harvesthealthfood.com/deli.htm

I hate to say this about any place, but if you're EVER in the Palm Desert area and you're looking for good raw food, you're shit

out of luck if you intend on eating from their food counter. You'd be better off just getting some overpriced raw

snacks from the store portion of the building.

I was talking with the cashier behind the food counter about their raw selections, and he assured me, "oh, our chef

is very talented with raw foods, especially the new pizza we have on the menu."

LIES!

I ordered the raw pizza and the raw nori rolls.

pizza- looked like somebody got lazy 20 seconds after starting it, so they decided to spread 1/2 T. of marinara

onto the dry, crusty ass buckwheat pizza crust, replace the cheese with two olives and a teaspoon of avocado,

and then pulled together enough energy to wipe it with their ass (hence the bland 'pesto')

nori rolls- actually pretty good... not very creative, but simple and tasty.

but please tell me why the pate reminded me of menudo? AWKWARD

I wish I had taken my camera with me so you could see the madness I speak of here, but we were going to

sneak into the hotel to go swimming, and I didn't want any water to wreck it.

NOW JULIANOS!

Let me just say, I love Julianos. I love the obscene flamboyance of the food, and the picture of him and his sister

in bikinis at the beach next to the cash register.

That being said, my friend and I went there for lunch today... and here's what happened

(warning, it's pretty magical, so brace yourself)

(like, UNICORN magical)

(okay, maybe not THAT magical, but you know, still pretty rad)

Juliano's innards.

     The Spring Rolls
  The pizza that looked like somebody took a shit on my plate?
   The savory puff and pasta samples he brought me because, you know, I'm awesome.

The seaweed sample...

The coffee cheesecake

Raspberry and Ginger juice sample?

Key Lime Pie sample

And lastly, his goji berry smoothie

The first time I ate at Juliano's Raw, I was only one month into raw. The second time was about 3 months into raw. And finally, today was the third time...an obviously much longer time on raw. Everything tastes MUCH saltier then it did when I first ate there, along with the second time. I asked him about it, and he said that he intentionally makes his food saltier since the majority of his restaurant's cliental are NOT raw, and would complain of the food tasting blander then the shit, salty SAD they're accustomed to. That being said...

Here's my review of his food.

It's going to be a little biased, since he kept feeding me free samples of all his new stuff... and you know, anytime Juliano comes up to you with free food, you're going to eat that shit regardless of how full you already might be.

For an appetizer, we started off with the Spring Rolls shown above.

VERY sour and salty... the wrap itself anyways. The thai sauce was pretty good, but after the second spring roll, the tartness of the flax wrap started to bother me. I have a good hunch that there was a shit load of ACV in there..

Next, I had the Pesto Pizza.

Really disappointing. The pizza I had at Cru owns this one.

It was too salty (again) for me to eat. The veggies were doused in nama shoyu, and the crust was too hard. The cheese was meshed in with the marinara and melody of diced tomatoes and olives. I had about two bites, and then set it aside for the waitress to take away. To make matters worse, the slice was nearly $13, and literally the size the my palm. And FYI, I do not have man palms.

That's when Juliano came over and started talking to me and then showered me with awesome samples of his newer stuff.

While waiting for the coffee cheesecake, he brought out the pasta sample and 'savory cream puff' (as he called it). The pasta was REALLY fucking good. He affirmed my guess that it was mostly composed of carrageenan, parsley and garlic. The savory puff tasted like clam chowder, minus the clams, and erm.. chunks of

chowder. Very rich, but good as well. I'm glad he left it as a dipping sauce instead of a soup, since eating too much

of that could possible get really sickening.

After I finished off those two, he brought out his seaweed soup, which was a simple lemon miso based broth with

kombu, wakame, dulse and avocado (along with a chunk of heirloom tomato) soaking in it. I believe there were scallions

in there as well..

THEN the coffee cheesecake came out. After the first bite, I was having visions of being at work. Strong as shit

espresso taste. So strong that I felt like I was drinking coffee (it was literally that creamy in texture) rather then eating

something coffee flavored.

To cleanse my palate, he brought me out a ginger and raspberry juice. So good, and I'm not really that big a fan of

ginger.

Finally, he brought out a key lime pie slice and goji smoothie. The key lime was really good, but could've used more of

a concentrated KEY lime taste, and maybe some honey to compliment the tartness. Other then those two things, it was

excellent.

The smoothie was delicious, but gave me the shits 20 minutes after drinking it... or maybe it was

all the poor food combining I was doing. :(

All in all, it was a very good day, even though still to this moment, I can't breathe from eating too much.

To touch back on the business/restaurant front, my advisor (his name is Val) said minus the time for confidentiality and

copyrighting, I'll have things out in main steam markets across southern california in as little as two months. But that's only

if we decide to do marketing before investing in a location for a restaurant.

I'm so excited about the prospect of having my own place!

I figure, if I go bankrupt in the process, at least I would've tried right?

I can always do some hooking on the side too... you know, to raise funds for dehydrators and such.

vajayjay for a few excaliburs? Seems like a fair trade to me!

SHHEEEEEIIIT

I also seem to attract old man attention (charles, if you're reading this, this does not pertain to you. By old man, I mean

exceeded the age of 45)

way creepy.

I can dig it though.

craving...SOY?!

2008-07-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

It's the oddest thing.

I've been craving soy of all kinds lately... soy milk, soy cheese, soy soy soy. I'll usually try to fill the void with nut or coconut milks, seed cheeses, blaaaah blah blah. It's just not the same though. Soy has such a distinctive flavor to it, that I really can't see duplicating it with OUT using the soy beans.

Vegan junk food too, like the cheese pizza and burritos from this place I used to go to in Upland. SOOO GOOD. I guess those things couldn't really be classified as junk, since everything was organic and from their garden, along with them only using cold pressed oils (olive, palm, avocado, etc etc) in their cooking. My brother told me to just go out there and eat it just to get it over with... get it out of my system.. I would just be so disappointed in myself if I went out and did that sort of thing... I'm also not too sure if my stomach would be able to handle that sort of thing. I mean, in small amounts yes, but a whole meal? I'm very tempted to go and find out for myself.

And then what if I DO go out and have a cooked lunch? That may very well lead to many, MANY more cooked meals, since I tend to be an extremist in the respect to thinking either black or white on most things..

c'est la vie.

I'm trying to constantly remind myself that I'm probably only feeling this way since NOBODY I'm around on a day to day basis is raw, let alone vegan. The people at my work seem to think that THAT in itself is extreme enough. "April, the blended lemonade is vegan!" "um, it has cane juice, brown rice syrup, fructose, glucose, aspartame, red dye 1,2 and blue 3."

"huh?"

SIGH.

Give me some input if you're reading this right now.

Should I just go out and get it out of my system, or just keep it buried and let it eat away at me until I have enough cash money to blow on a 10 tray excalibur?

I also must confess, that i've been oogling 'what the hell does a vegan eat anyways' 's blog. Damn it, so not helping.

Maybe the raw coconut cake i'm working on, and cookie trio will help me get over all this.

2 years

2008-07-25T14:20:00.000-07:00

Short post today before I head out to work.

Just thought i'd share one of my future "plans".

I'm giving myself TWO years to move out to the east coast and open a raw restaurant. If I fail and end up with massive debt, then at least I would've tried, right?

I figure two years will give me just enough time to get an edge on perfecting every dish I've made (both dessert, and non-dessert) so that when the time comes to organizing a menu plan, it'll be a no brainer, because everything will have been worked out, leaving me with surplus time to concoct more unorthodox and creative food with no real concept minus artistic expression.

I'm not sure what type of restaurant it'll be, or even what it'll be named (i'm thinking the green:underground, partly named after one of my favorite bands...input?) I want my food to be, besides obviously delicious, more importantly nostalgic and barrier crossing. I want it to take you back to when you were a kid licking the cookie dough out of the bowl (if you grew up in that sort of food environment, as I did), I want EVERYONE to be able to eat there, and agree upon it's taste. SAD eaters, raw foodies, high raw foodies, fruitarians, etc etc. I want there to be something agreeable for everybody, so that nobody is excluded, and everyone is able to eat and enjoy healthful food.

Tomorrow I'm making lunch for my mom and myself. Nachos! I've been dehydrating lime zest tortilla chips all day, and keep checking up on them until the zest of the lime really comes through without overpowering the corn. I'm pretty stoked she agreed to let me make her lunch, even if she'll go outside and pop open a corona in an hour. That's not the point. It means a lot to me to be able to share SOMETHING in common with my mom, especially something that I'm really passionate about.

Anyways, time for work until midnight.

TAH TAH.

Problem 1, Solution 0

2008-07-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

Three of my close friends birthdays are this month, and all three of them only want ONE thing... for the 'good old days' to make a comeback, and for me to get hammered through combination of jagermeister and straight vodka with them...more likely then not, resulting in obscene dancing and ludicrous sexual innuendos. Not that there's anything wrong with those two, it's just that when alcohol is involved, it tends to get more..erm..x-rated with strangers , if you catch my drift. Best to keep the nungas safely strapped into my shirt.

The Raspberry Buttermilk Layer Cake

All nunga business aside, I don't drink anymore..and they KNOW this. I know that they know this...so why do I feel like such a complete douchbag macfaggins when I turn down the invite?

I was talking to my cousin about this, and she could only suggest making new friends.

New friends?

That's fine, but what about the old ones?

What about the times that Aubri and I were plastered and almost had a threesome with our two guy friends at our p.e. substitute teacher's house?

What about the time Laura and I went to incahoots completely wasted off of vodka that we had downed in the parking lot, and booty popped for 3 hours straight in heels?

Even though most of those memories seem completely fucked (yet, still hilarious), they're really special to me. So when they invite me to smoke out or drink at a party or a club, I can't. I can go, sure, but it's not the same. The awesomeness that would've been is replaced by silent awkwardness, filled with slurps of water on my part, and rum on theirs.

It's just so lonely, that sometimes I question whether or not a shot or two would REALLY make that big of a difference. Maybe not, but then it would become an expected behavior.. "well, you drank at my birthday, so come on pussy!"

LAMESAUCE.

I've also been having really demented nightmares lately, which i've decided to just let go, since dream interpretation is lost and pointless art.

One, involving the bananas in pajamas being eaten alive...internal organs spewing out and blood squirting every which way.

Two, involving ballroom dancing with a corpse in a large red room.

ODD.

Starbucks can suck a nut also.

Not really, the people that work there (for the most part) are actually genuinely nice.

I'm also SUPPPER stoked about the fact that I can now successfully imitate CAKE texture and taste.

awesomeness.

alone in a room full of people?

2008-07-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

Things have been weird for me lately. It's hard to explain without sounding like the cheese has fallen completely off my cracker, if you know what I mean...which is more or less why I haven't been posting much lately. Just been feeling, alone. THAT, and because Starbucks has decided that i'm the best choice for the closing shift (i.e. leaving work past midnight). Compliment or insult? who knows, who cares. I'll probably fall asleep next to the pasty case sooner or later. OH. Saw HellBoy 2 today, not that i'd ever doubt Guillermo del Torro, and MAAAAN, that movie owned. I love selma blair. In fact, I think it's safe to say that i'd probably consider full on lesbianism if dating her were ever a possibility. Maybe natalie portman and nora jones too.

Got some bomb ass cacao butter from Navitas FINNNNALLY, and ended up devirginizing the chunk of chocolate by making a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, which I didn't bother to take a picture of since, well, it was just a cheesecake...not all that exciting. At least not compared to some other things that require more time and effort.

Here are some of the things i've been making lately, and just haven't bothered posting.

layered spice cake

layered spice cake sliceeee

the dutch apple pie with coconut ice cream

The apple pie was made for my neighbor's diabetic sister. Apparently, this is the new favorite of everyone.

a few slices of the lemon were saved after our neighborhood has a fucking huge ass power outage. Needless to say, I was VERY pissed to come home to a half destroyed pie...but, it would've been worse had NOTHING been salvageable.. Pretty bombay, if I do say so myself.

you know what? I'm really not in the mood to write right now, so i'll just hook it up with a picture of my iguana on his little red leash before our walk around the park.

enjoy.

typing in the nuddypants and eating some bomb ass cake

2008-06-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

Let's go straight to the point here. Nothing turns me on more then a good challenge... which is exactly why I'm trying to get away from making "cheesecakes" for awhile, and heading towards cakes... well, okay...I lied.. there's an exception to the turn ons, like maybe the idea of owning my own exotic fruit orchid being maintained by nearly naked clones of Christian Bale walking around in golden speedos... mmm, yes. Nothing sexier then a good looking man pruning a fig and rambutan tree. ANYWAYS, I've been researched food alchemy and whatnot, in my relentless effort to try to perfectly mimic a "sponginess" and "fluffiness" of an actual, baked, cake, but you know... obviously, using raw and vegan ingredients. I was watching the Paula's Party (as I usually do, since Paula Deen is, ironically, one of my favorite TV chefs... BUT to my defense, my liking for her is mostly due in part to her feeling compelled to molest every man that makes a guest appearance on her show.. ahh.. good times) and right before she started to lick a stick of butter off of a fireman's stomach, she had the most ridiculous looking red velvet cake on there. I mean, this thing made MY mouth water... and this was after seeing all the butter, white flour, shit, shit shit, etc. go into the recipe. But man, it was just beautiful. The episode sort of set off a lightbulb and then out of nowhere (seriously) a cascade of ideas of how I could duplicate a southern red velvet just came to me. LIKE THAT! Simultaneous mental orgasms, would be the best way to describe it!

After about a week (no exaggeration here, it took me a WEEK to prepare all of the ingredients and steps that went into this cake) this was the finished result.

Raw Vegan Southern Red Velvet Cake

Now I KNOW red velvet, traditionally anyways, don't look anything like this from any exterior perspective.. but you know, sometimes I just can't help myself and tend to get a little carried away with making it look nice. PLUS, it gives me an excuse to make an excess of frosting to eat in the process for you know, erm.. "decorating" purposes...or so I tell myself so I don't feel like such a lard ass after eating a cup of icing that was meant for the cake! ;D

THE MONEY SHOT. I actually screamed when I cut out a slice, just because it came out so nice...AND the icing in the middle didn't fuck up and settled right, so THAT was a big plus. WHOOOP FOR ME!

the final result. and yes, the orchid flower was eaten. are orchids edible? hell if I know, but I haven't gotten the shits yet, so I'm just going to assume that either it was, or I have enough stomach acid to blast through it without having any problems.

The cake was finished, on um..sunday? yeah, so yesterday morning.

This is the sad corpse that remains in the fridge as of an hour ago...

.. such a lonely sight.

OH OH OH. cody tried it, said it tasted like shit, walked away, and an hour later I snuck up on him cutting a slice to take to his room. I knew his grease and butter loving self couldn't resist the sexiest thing i've made thus far.

onto some un-cake related news, Starbucks has recruited me as their newest Barista...and after the training that I had today, I have 5 things I'd like to say:

1. There is WAY too much information you need to know ABOUT coffee. Honestly, I don't think the majority of people who order a regular house coffee care to know whether or not the coffee originated from latin america or south africa, and how heavy the "aroma" is or not.

2. They need to set up a recycling system. BADLY.

3. If my snakebites close because I have to take out my piercing for work, somebody is getting SOMETHING broken in exchange.

4. Why is it considered a safety hazard if your short, fitted polo isn't tucked in? Is it going to leap out and attack somebody?

5. If you want to wear nail polish, you have to give them a week's notice in advance. seriously.

All in all though, it's a pretty good company those things aside. I asked what they did with all of their food that wasn't used for the day (since they don't store anything past a week for optimal quality) and they donate all of their food to nearby shelters that need it. Plus, they compost their coffee grounds! I know these things are done for advertising purposes, but hey, as long as it's being DONE, then it's all fine by me.

also, I had to buy the most ungodly, atrocious, burn the rim of my cornea because they are so ugly, work shoes.

Okay, so now that I'm looking at them on the computer, they sort of look like Filas. BUT IF YOU SAW THEM IN PERSON, you'd completely agree with me on the nastiness factor. And I don't give a shit if that makes me sound materialistic, I'm entitled to like things that appeal to me visually.

I wish I hadn't eaten all of the apricots and figs my neighbor brought over for me from her tree. Damn it.

Time to go tend to my herb garden!

PS. If you look closely in the herb picture above, you can see my chocolate mint plant trying to get freaky with the lavender flowers. Pervert plants.

PPS. I forgot to mention this above in my cake post, and am far too lazy to scroll ALL THE WAY BACK UP, so here it is...there are NO beets in my red velvet cake. NONE. ZIP. NADA. The taste of beets is WAY too overpowering for such a light dessert, and would destroy the subtle chocolate taste found in red velvets.

PPPS. I'm really craving some of Juliano's kale chips right about now..mm..

PPPPS. I know why, it's because all i've had today was fruit and fats.

PPPPPS. mmm, fat.

PPPPPPS. OKAY, I'm done.

TOO damn hot

2008-06-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

I hate this weather. 100+ degrees is NOT flattering whatsoever, at least not on me anyways... makeup all melting down my face causing temporary blindness, hair all jerry curled and shit, clothing sticking to my body every which way. And WHERE am I writing this blog from? PALM SPRINGS! Whatever possessed my parents into believing that the desert is the place to be for summer is incredibly disturbed. All the people here look like lizards...skin all sucked up and either red from the sun or orange from overindulging in store bought self tanner lotion. RANK. ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY since that meant missing out on the big Au Lac trip all the oc/la raw foodies took. gaaaaay. I'm going down there next month FOR SURE. I don't give a damn if that means eating alone! It will be done!

all unbearable heat aside, this week/weekend has actually been varrrrrry good. mhm. STRAIGHT A'S SUCKKKAS! Busted my ass all quarter so in case I fucked up during finals, i'd be covered 100%. Next quarter doesn't start until Sept., so expect more blog updates and food and such...unless of course I get lazy (which wouldn't be much of a surprise with this disgusting heat wave) and completely forget about it until I see somebody else's blog updated. Saturday we went out to LA with some familia and cruised around town before hittin palm springs. Stopped by the observatory (gay. boring. all around lamesauce) and then chinatown and olvera st. (woop! $3 purse and some possibly infected $5 shiitakes..I guess i'll find out whether they're rotten or not when I eat them and possibly get the shits) then I convinced everyone to try out Cru since i've been dying to eat there...well, everyone except for my brother who walked across the street to some gay (literally) chicken hut/breakfast place who's specialty (brace yourself) was..yes... sausage...WHICH was eaten inside Cru, so the smell of fried chicken and corn bread filled the restaurant and, i'm sure, spoiled the taste of the food for some people. Surprisingly, they didn't ask him to leave or even eat outside, they just sort of glared at him, probably visualizing him with a machete in his head or something.

SO. onto the Cru, and my review of it.

The restaurant should be bigger. MUCH bigger. It's cute, don't get me wrong, but seriously, there were people who were either getting turned away, or told they'd have to wait for a minimum of 30 minutes just for a table. Which wasn't cool, because I know if that had been me, I would've been pissed. The service? Shit. Sorry if that sounds mean and all, but I'm just being honest. They have ONE server. ONE. I know that may seem adequate considering that the restaurant itself only has about 10 tables, but it wasn't. We waited for 30 minutes just to get water, and some freakishly large, very bland, flax chips.

The Chorizo Wraps (BOMBAY. A little dry, but really good shit)

Pizza Duo (also, pretty good. The nut pestos both retained distinct sweet & savory qualities)
The brownie w/vanilla ice cream (major disappointment. MAJOR)

No complaints about the quality of taste on both entrees. Was the pizza worth $15 and the brownie $8? FUCK NO. I'd pay the $8 for the chorizo again, since that was reasonably priced... but seriously, not to sound like a glutinous lard ass or anything, but the 4 slices combined were literally the size of my hand. And that side salad was plain. No elaborate sauce, nope. Not even some freaking olive oil! Which would've perfectly complimented the pizza. NOPE. Just good ol' plain greens. The brownie was the biggest disappointment, seriously. I'm (obviously) really into raw dessert preparation, so when I'm paying (okay, I didn't pay for lunch, but that's completely besides the point) $8 for a brownie and a scoop of ice cream, I'm expecting it to be pretty damn good.

The brownie was OKAY, the aesthetic of the brownie itself reminded me of a rye flatbread, the recipe could've called for a sweeter nut, and maybe less dates and more cacao. The ice cream was shit. Sorry. It didn't even taste like vanilla. It tasted like, hm.. mildly flavored ice. Yes, that would be the best description. Though, the presentation was nice, and the chocolate sauce was pretty okay, so i'll give them that.

Next order of business. EREWHON. Yes, I finally went, and yes, I came 48190481024029321317 times each second I was in that beautiful, beautiful store. I had to contain myself, otherwise i would've ended up blowing $200 easy on ingredients. Their smoothies are overpriced. Just thought i'd throw that in. Finally bought some irish moss (woooo!) which will be put to very good use in the upcoming weeks. AAAND, they give you a free reusable bag! very cool.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

In happier dessert news, I've completed phase 1 of my cookie project. Your ass heard (or read, rather) right. Cookie project. I'm on a mission to create the perfect raw chocolate chip cookie. These ones came out reallllllly good, though, next time I'm going to use a darker agave to compliment the chocolate better. Oh man. I had like, 6 today already. I can't breathe, or walk, and my stomach is probably going to explode causing violent throw up to spew out of my mouth, BUT...it was so worth it.

I just uploaded amilli and day 'n' night onto my phone's ringtones and now i'm extremely happy, with the exception of my ass numbing because somebody switched out the comfy seat for the hard ass steel one. Ah lil' wayne, why are you so DOPE?!

And then it feel off in my hands

2008-06-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

A hoy hoy!

So I finally got off my ass and decided to update my blogger since it's been only about, erm..a month since i've been on. (actually, i'm not really "off" my ass, since i'm using my school's research terminals to update this whilist standing since the cold metal proves to be extremely uncomfortable in the ass-al region) Many vair vair interesting things have been going on over here in april-a-go-go land (i.e. san bernardino, aka san bernarghetto) School is finally out (yipee and three times yay!) . Actually, i'm in the last week of my finals..but I only have two tests left, both in fairly easy classes that I'm doing well in, so if I fuck up..it's all good, because I insured my ass all the way through the quarter by being a slave to homework and studying and such. I'm really looking forward to next quarter (which isn't until the fall, or more specifically early september) since i'll be taking classes (against my advisior's request..who INSISTED i take 4 math classes to get ahead...yeah...I don't think so..) that I have a legitimate interest in. Let's see here...ANTHRO141 - world cultures and religious impact, PHIL308-alternative logics, KINE323-sociology of physical activity, and HUM344-ideas in american culture. OHH YES. It's gonna be muy amazingo. Minus the horrendous amounts of money i'm expectating to spend on books and such...I intend on using my irresistable charm in an attempt at getting my dad to buy me a new laptop, *cough* macbook air *cough* perferably in black *cough* with at least 3GB of memory storage *cough*. We'll see how that goes over though, since the fucking IRS is stiffing me in terms of my stimulus check. YEAH, QUICK TO COLLECT YOUR $32.50 THAT I OWED ON STATE INCOME TAX, BUT TAKE ALLL THE TIME YOU NEED SENDING OUT MY $600. Assmonkies. Oh, and I made a new pie. *points to picture* Strawberry bottom, Coconut cream center, blueberry top layer, and a blackberry glass coulis (or however the shit you spell that word). It was amazingly refreshing in this digusting heat global warming has been subjecting me to. I'd also like to take this time to point out that my car has NO air conditioning, so while it's 90 something outside, my car is an unbearable 100+ degrees. I've been going to class drenched in sweat, walking in lookin like I just entered a wet tee shirt contest or something. Not cool. Literally.

I just now realized that the school's library has a massive portrait of some old man hovering above the computer stations that i'm at. Hm..I can't make out the name from here, but he looks like somebody who gets a kick out of wearing women's lingerie while rubbing bologna on himself..which is making me a little uneasy. OH SHIT. So off topic (not that any of my blog's really have one to begin with..), but I was at the store the other day, and you know what I saw? HEAD CHEESE. Nastiest looking thing on the planet.

<--- SEE WHAT I MEAN?! NASSSSTY!

And it looked even worse in the store, since the one I saw had fragments of yellow and orange chunky shit embedded into it. After getting home from stater's, I went online to find out exactly what the fuck head cheese actually contains. First, apparently it is NOT a cheese (so why was it in the "cheese" section? I suppose for the same reasoning that special K cereals and snickers marathon bars are placed under the nutritional aisle) it's a jellied sausage that includes pieces of the feet, heart, tongue, and of course you can't forget the head! I guess what makes it so "jello-y" is that when the head is simmered, the oils and fats form a gooey substance that sort of 'molds' all of the meat together. super digusting, but just thought i'd share that little tid bit of information with you, my favorite chummy chum chums.

All head cheese aside, the 5000 calorie project that i'd been working on for my HSCI class was a complete success..not so much NOW since i've become ridiculously out of shape from having no time for the gym or working out without having to sacrifice studying time or sleep. I managed to maintain my weight for the most part, and actually dropped 1 1/2% body fat. My professor was shocked and at first thought I had rigged it and was putting false information, but eventually caved in to the fact that she was wrong and I was right. After admitting her defeat, I celebrated doing my "haha-in-your-face-I-was-right-and-you-weren't" super disco inferno dance outside of the classroom. OF COURSE, the hot dude that sits in the back walked out right as I was in the heat of dance (story of my life) but he just sort of smiled and nodded polietly as he shuffled past me at what seemed like a small sprint.

When I first came here (to my school that is, not blogger, because then what I'm about to say wouldn't really make much sense..well, it WOULD, but not as much sense as what I'm about to say) seeing pretty much nobody of the opposite sex who was vair vair "easy on the eyes" so to speak, I made peace with the fact that san bernardino is NOT the place to find a really sexy and super gorgey dude. I WAS WRONG! They are everywhere...see! One just passed by right now. Of course he's wearing a pink holister shirt with yellow flip flops, but that's completely besides the point. Though, this discovery hasn't really done much for me in the oven of love department. Why is that you ask? Because for some reason or another, I seem to only attract people who I am not attracted to. A good example of this, would be 3 hours ago on the freeway. I was minding my own business, dancing and driving (along with poor/ear shattering singing) to kayne's graduation. What happens next? Two old mexican guys who look like my DAD whistle at me and try to wave me over.

"what? you want me to drive into your car or something?"

"AYEE, WHATCHU DOIN MAMIS WHERE YOU GOING?!!"

"nowhere fast, obviously."

My friend said the best place to meet hot dudes is clubbing. Which, I can not lie, is vair true. HOWEVER, most of these guys couldn't locate america on map if they had a teacher's aid helping them. So, Hot? Beyond reason/blindingly so/so goodlooking it's unlawful. More then a few boxes short in the mental attic? You bet your ass. And that just will not do.

Last time I tried entrancers a guy at a club my false eyelashes, that my mom convinced me into wearing for the night, got stuck together while dancing. So instead of looking sexy/alluring/mysterious, I probably looked blind/confused/all out mad. I've given up on flirting, i'm no good at it. It's all "hey ya, wink wink, you know?" and they're like, "no, I DON'T know wink wink, coffee sometime?" Too much work. I went on a "blind date" last week and he was like, "coffee?" to which I ALMOST replied "are you crazy? don't you know what that does to your adrenals?!!" but instead opted for "I won't do coffee. But i'm down for tea." Which seemed like a much more sane of a response. If only I could find somebody who looked like some cross between Johnny Iuzzini, Orlando Bloom (shut up), and Christian Bale with maybe the body of Michael Phelps..that's not asking too much is it? I should think not.

Good lord i'm hot, very literally. The ac is on in here and I can feel the sweat glands getting ready to kick into gear. If I start having hot and cold flashes that'll be the end of it. This is what I get for trying to get all fancy and look good with these damned hair extensions. ALAS! They look so groovey, but insulate my head far too much for this summer weather. My brother said they were probably shaved off some 3rd world country child's head, but you know what? Hair grows back. Who ever died of a bald head, you tell me?! Point proven, my inner conscientious is cleared!

Hm. The lady at the desk keeps smiling at me. I think she may have a bit of the lezzie going on......oh, nevermind, i'm standing in the way of the terminal numbers. Not even the old lezzie librarian is interested in me. Fallen back into the bed of pain and the oven of love.

You know, when I write these things, I often wonder, "who really takes the time to read this crap?!" look at this nonsense, i've gone from school, to my pie, to head cheese, to hot guys (or lack thereof), to becoming blind at the mercy of false eyelashes. Good lord and Blimey O'Reilly's pants.

I want to move to england. Or froggy land, aka france. I bet il y aura les hommes chauds en abondance AKA hot men galore. Hot FOREIGN men, at that. Brings me back to the time I went to disneyland and made out with an italian exchange student visiting for the summer who didn't speak a word of english...ahh...good times..

I really miss the gym

2008-05-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

My muscles have atrophied. seriously...everything that I worked so hard for over the winter break has just gone to shit and turned all jiggly since I can only get to the gym 1-2 days a week due to the shit school schedule I have this quarter. I'm not down with the jiggle...not uh...just doesn't fly with me. I've concluded that regaining my once rock hard abs (okay..maybe a SLIGHT exaggeration there...) is going to be top priority..which means that a full 8 hours of sleep is going to take the back burner.. eh...it'll be worth it in the end..I'd rather be a little tired with a six pack, then fully rested with a jiggly ass.

Speaking of jiggly asses, i'm doing a self-guinea pig project for my health science lab. My professor and everyone in that class clings to the whole calorie in vs. calorie out idea..."count your calories! even if they come from spinach or sea greens! every calorie counts!" GAAAY.

to prove them all WRONG, because i'm cool like that, i'm going to attempt to consume between 5,000 and 6,000 calories a day and MAINTAIN my weight. i'm all about the QUALITY of the calorie..because really, that's ultimately what it comes down to. Don't get me wrong, exercise and caloric expenditure DO have a place...they just aren't the entire picture...so it pisses me off when people get caught up in the 'starvation' hype. eat less, move more. If only it were that simple. PLAAAAHEZZZ. The human body is FAR more complex then this, being as highly adaptive as it is...give it some credit. SO yeah, we'll see how that goes.

ALSSSOOOO made a ridiculously good german chocolate cake.

seriously, this thing was damn good.

it took forever to make, but it was so worth it.

The german chocolate cake in all it's glory

The German chocolate cake in all its glory...in the freezer..also..ignore the salmon..that'd be my parents.

mmm...NUTS...

Also, my brother STILL refuses to try my desserts over his usual daily intake of hot cheeto puffs and 2 minute microwave burritos, but he wanted to be included and make an appearance in my blog, so I gave him the okay..so long as he made the cake look good, and sexy most importantly...

here's the outcome pictures from our mini kitchen photo shoot.

wtf is he looking at?

YEEEEAAAAUHH!

So that's all the goodness that went down in my house today.

Right now i'm gettin ready to watch Juno, and then go clean up the kitchen...AGAIN...since it seems impossible for anyone to keep ANYTHING clean in this house without my assistance.

Mom's asleep from too much Budweiser (did they REALLY have to come out with a lime flavored beer? great...now she has TWO favorite beers..sorry Corona light, you're no longer #1 in her heart).

Dad's watching man vs. wild...damn Bear Grillis (sp?) is eating some snake's head and drinking his own piss...now he's making a smoke signal for the helicopter to find him.

I really want to learn how to rock climb.

Little cousin is spending the night again, which means no sleep for anyone until after his sugar high has him crashing.

Cody (my brother) just got grand theft auto 4, so I plan on having a love affair with the 360 until I beat the shit outta that game. (the graphics are insanely DOPE).

Might go play some DDR later on if I don't get the lazies.

I really miss a certain guy who's name starts with an "S"...I hate you for playing phone tag with me and then disappearing off the face of the earth..damn you...we need to make babies already and get past this bullshit. yeah, you know who you are.

Time for Juno.

hedonistic cooter snooging and looping cumbias

2008-04-28T16:13:00.000-07:00

This weekend was lots of good, interesting fun. Made this dope ass raspberry (or as Charles calls it, FUCKTASTIC...which is very appropriately named if I do say so myself) chocolate pie, took some to the neighbors..the rest was finished off between the family and I. With the exception of my brother. He refuses to try ANYTHING that can and would be even remotely healthy for you. He swears he'd rather eat solidified bacon fat then try one of my desserts. I told him, "well, fine then! die from having a fat ass and clogged arteries!" and then he shouted back, "I WILL!"...and then there was a brief silence, followed by an unspoken apology session of guitar hero and halo 3.

Went to gameworks to play DDR (i'm hooked), and made all the little asian kids look lame in the light of my apparent awesomeness at the game.

I've got crazy legs.

Legs crazy for DDR.

Yessss.

You know? When people say i'm funny, usually my initial reaction is.."oh gee thanks..I know i'm not the greatest looking person, but you really didn't have to go THAT far.." and then they clarify and say NO NO! your sense of humor silly! silly? please, don't ever use that word again.

I'm not that funny. If I were, i'd be be filthy rich from a self-made comedy routine that would be being enjoying by millions of people with good taste in comedy, and I would be staring in movies with people like Amy Poeler and Tina Fey and Will Ferrell, etc etc..and would be canoodling with sexy sex god male models every waking second of the day, swapping saliva and bodily fluids every which way.

OK.

Maybe not.

But close.

Pretty DAMN close.

We went to go play pool at this uberly ghetto place about 20-25 minutes from my house that we've all grown quite fond of. It's way cheap, which is probably the reason for the aforementioned liking. Ten bucks for two hours of pool.

Actually it's more, but my friends force me to flirt with the nasty old chunti dude that runs the place, so we don't have to play full price.

ah..the things i'm willing to do to save ten dollars.

but, that ten dollars will be paying for more coconut oil...so I suppose it justifies itself in some way or another.

OH OH.

I want this. BAAAD.

I told my mom I was going to start riding my bike everywhere to conserve on gas.

But I refuse to wear a helmet.

Helmets are for losers who give a damn about what happens to their skull in the event they fall off their bicycle.

Helmet hair = big no no on me....so i'm willing to take that risk...FOR THE SAKE OF MY HAIR...PLUS...helmets makes my head look all lopsided and lumpy and ewok like...which doesn't exactly make it easy in the event that i'd just so happen to run into a good looking dude.

I mean, it's hard ENOUGH, trying to come off rico suave-ish without the corney factor coming into play.

"Is that a pen in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

wait..not a pen...I mean a flashlight...yes...a flashlight....if it were a pen, that'd mean you'd have a small weenier...which is most definetely NOT what i'm trying to say....I mean...if you DO, then that's cool, since you can't really help it..but then again, they have those pumps that suck all the blood into it to make it bigger...but does it REALLY make it bigger? I mean, it'll just be like a balloon animal....a balloon animal filled with blood....that just so happens to not be an animal..but a penis....

i'm shutting up now."

this is probably WHY i've been single for so long.

most of my relationships don't seem to last anyways...the guy always seems to think i'm going to cheat...and I never do! because that's just jacked up. ya mean?

THEY always cheat!

eeerghlack.

Time to get ready for school.

I'm glad i'm not taking math this quarter.

I'm going to try to avoid taking it for as long as humanely possible....math just makes my brain all jangley like...and then it sort of just goes numb.

I tried explaining this to my last math professor...explaining that beyond basic arithmetic, unless you're going into a math related field..there's really NO need for all this damn formulas to be memorized.

"well april, what if your toilet leaks..and you need to figure out how to fix it and install parts?"

"that's gay. I'd just call a plumber or something."

"what if you didn't have access to one."

"then i'd buy a new toilet. because i'm a baller like that."

"sigh."

He gave up on me. I don't blame him. I spent half that class trying to figure out sneaky ways to subconsciously force my unnaturally sexy philosophy professor into leaving his wife and becoming my sex slave. It didn't work. But it will. Someday.

Class calls.

Tah tah for now mon amies.

The Passion of...Justin Fatica

2008-04-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

AHAHAHA.

My brother found him featured in some ridiculous article in a magazine at his school...being as considerate as he is, he brought the article home for me (awe, destroyed school property? for me? how sweet :] ) and I managed to find a video of it on youtube to share with everyone. heh.

and then I envisioned him being shot in the face

2008-04-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

Double Chocolate Hazelnut Tart

Chocolate and Coconut Cream Tartlet

"...and I'm gonna call this my 'I wish I had never met you so my life would still be intact' pie".

my mom bought the movie waitress, and though not really a keri russell fan, I decided it give it a shot. pretty funny stuff. though, maybe I only found it so comical because I was able to eerily relate to her fu*ked up relationship in the movie, and the awkwardness of carrying on another one on the down low....not so much the baby part though. hah.

speaking of awkward, I ran into an ex of mine at the gas station...

now, there's a lot about me you guys don't know (not that i'd expect you to all know the dark underbelly of my life happenings...and if you DID..well, you either know me personally, or you're stalking me.) but in a nutshell, this relationship was one of those 'dramatic, extremely volatile, sex crazed, alcoholism inducing' relationships. Now when I say volatile... volatile = shit being thrown, including (but not limited to) fists, lamps, needles, bottles, shoes and at some point or another, I believe a cast iron pan.

Anyways, at some point or another, things ended because, like EVERY guy I date, he found something better (obviously, right?) and decided he'd have his cake and eat it to (literally). I found out, got pissed, more shit was thrown, he apologized, and I spent my days boozing it up and jumping from person to person in different club scenes to distract myself.

I'm really very good at that.

well, I always told him karma would catch up with him...that you can't just go around screwing (again, literally) people, and just live out your life. SOMETHING bad would happen sooner or later...and though I cared deeply, not NEARLY as deeply as my constant wishing that he'd come down with some form of testicular cancer...hell, i'd even settle for him gaining 60lbs or so and getting type 2 diabetes. hehe...that'd teach him. He stills has both balls, and he's still skinny as shit and unfortunately, diabetes free. BUT..and this is a big BUT...he's got 2 kids, with, I swear to you, the nastiest, white trash, trailer park piece of shit you've ever seen. Girl looks like a cross mutation of a donkey and an emu. sort of a long, beak"ish" face. (just so I don't seem like a total bitch writing this, i have met her on a previous occasion, and she's rude as hell...so no, I do NOT feel badly about calling her these very appropriately given nicknames)

what goes around comes around I guess.

which makes me think....I've done some pretty horrible things in my life...mostly to myself...which still bad, if not worse.

so what's in store for me?

who knows.

maybe my boobs will get even SMALLER then they already are.

or maybe my ass will double in size, while the rest of my body remains the same...rendering me some unproportional freak of nature.

ehhh, i'll probably die alone with my 450852855 cats and my raw desserts.

HAH.

you love my optimism. :D

So then I danced in front of 200 people

2008-04-18T07:38:00.000-07:00

strawberry "short"cake

So there I was in my COMM 120 lecture class in a group I was assigned to randomly by number by the prof. 20 minutes to write out a demo speech to present to the class. Each of us in the group were frantically trying to figure out what the hell to write in those few fleeting minutes...

one of the guys in our group (who i've come to call vader flytrap because of this annoying habit he has of BREATHING WITH HIS MOUTH WIDE OPEN)

"uhhmm...we could teach them to..uh....tie their shoes?"

YES. WHAT A FANTASTIC IDEA!

because OBVIOUSLY, if you're attending university, you've yet to figure out how to do that...and would thus be something that people would be able to realistically apply to their own lives and have genuine interest in..

another guy suggested guitar hero.

I blow at that game, and we're only allowed 5-7 minutes to explain the necessary "steps". Not enough time.

how to use an iPOD?

hm...that might actually work...considering half of the free world OWNS an iPOD, but with apple fucking up all the time, only a good 1/3 of those people know how to properly operate one.

we need a good opening catch.

hmm.

HM..

"I'LL DANCE LIKE THE 2 DIMENSIONAL GUY ON THE IPOD COMMERCIALS !" I announced loudly enough to cause a small echo in the room.

...what?

....WHAT?

you're going to dance in front of 200 people...?

sure. why the hell not? I don't give a shit about these people, and besides..everyone in here is ugly, so I have no one I need to impress. HAH.

we got our speech ready, and I put my ipod on, strolling down the stairs towards the stage portion of the room.

busted out the Britany spears "it's britney bitch". haha

nothing quite soothes your nerves like britney spear's new song. seriously. the song is ridiculous, but also extremely catchy, so it's pretty hard to dislike.

And then I danced.

for a good, solid minute or so.

took off my ipod, and explained to the crowd that no, I was NOT having an epileptic seizure (though, that's probably more of what it resembled rather then any sort of 'dancing' I was attempting) but was impersonating the ipod commercial guy.

the speech was given.

we got good marks from the prof...

who called me ballsy and mad on my comment card sheet.

mad?

maybe just slightly...

All dancing aside, there's this really hot dude that takes the class now...but he's kind of fat...not that I have anything against people who are a little heavier....being slender is just a personal preference that I look for in the opposite sex...he has an insanely good looking face though. man.

the whole time I was just sitting there thinking, "man..I bet he'd be hotter then Sergei if he went raw...mmm....Sergei....."

and then I zoned off into my usual fantasy of Sergei Boutenko walking around naked fanning me with large banana leaves as I lay sprawled out in the sun, eating my raw desserts and drinking coconut water..

ah...one day...

you watch..

On the business side of things, next month I plan on taking out a small business loan to get "april's uncooked" up and off the ground.

I never realized how much REALLY went into doing all this...all the licensing and permiting needed....

who knew that it's illegal to sell food you made out of your home?

....oops!

whatever. stupid ass california and our stupid laws.

if this were mexico, and i could have human fingers and toes floating around in there, and the health dept. wouldn't say shit.

eeeeehh.

oh oh oh!

I checked Goodwin's to see how my dessert sales were doing, today being day 8 they've been on sale.

27 slices sold so far.

earth cafe is still completely in stock...and there's only 2 slices left of my dessert.

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAH

SUUUUCK IT!!!

you don't fuck with me.

imma bring you dowwwwwwn.

tapeworms snuck into my green drink..

2008-04-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

Feel free to donate to the "April Needs New Piping Bags Fund" which will prevent me

from having to rely on toothpicks to decorate my desserts, such as this carrot cake.

(they work just as well..just not so much on 'time' efficency front...haha...

stupid toothpicks.."

Yes, TAPEWORMS.
That's the only logical reasoning I can come to with my most recent "eating" frenzies...

actually, the word frenzy may very well be a BIG BIG BIG understatement..haha..more like human vacuum cleaner.

I've started lifting heavier weights when I work out, so i'm thinking that's the culprit..

otherwise i'm falling back on the parasite theory.

Here an example of a normal day for me:

7:00 am - green smoothie, complete with kale, mango, kiwi, and an apple. (also, a premixed 'super blend' with maca, bee pollen, etc)

9:30 am- a few fresh figs

12:30 pm - large salad with some avacado, and then a slice of one of my desserts

3:00 pm - an apple

5:30 pm - another large salad...or nori rolls if i'm not up to eathing

Now here's an example of what I like to refer to as "FAT ASS" days: (i.e. the past week or so)

7:00 am - green smoothie as listed above

9:30 am - figgggssss

12:30 pm - Now...here's where it gets messy, i STILL have my salad...but....shit...

the desserts usually include more then a slice...more like 2-3..HAH

3:00 pm - fig pecan cookies

5:30 pm - DESSSERRRRTSSSSSSSSSS

i'm not fat by any means...in fact, i've experimented enough with my diet intake to know exactly what will, and what will NOT = weight gain.

nuts? honestly..not so much

avacado? naw

coconut? nooope

tahini and sesame seeds? YEEEES

olive oil? YESSSSS

I can literally eat tons of fruit/nuts/veggies and stay the same...but you know, it's kind of annoying to be constantly hungry..and it's not that I CRAVE certain things...I just eat and eat and eat and eaaaat! hahaha

oh well. whatever...my ass needs to get bigger anyways, same on the boob front.

i'm like, negative zero in that department......concave boobage.

oh, on a positive note..I got 100% on my psych. exam...that I did NOT study for (woo).

so of course, I had to celebrate with dessert (because i'm a fat ass.)

haha

Also, if ANYONE knows ANYTHING about licensing and selling products to larger retail grocery stores (i.e. whole foods), hit me up. seriously. i'm already doing the Goodwin's thing...but I need to get into an area where people don't get scared off by the idea of eating something "vegan"...

"GASP, healthy?!! what is this foreign concept?!! wait...I think I MAY have seen it on a billboard on my way to Wendy's this afternoon.."

i'm getting impatient...and the longer this takes, the more appealing the moonlight bunny ranch is starting to look.

"hello, i'm april..and i'll be your escort for the evening.."

"excuse me?"

"...i'm going to ride you like a horse"

"oh, okay then!"

If they don't care, why do I give a shit?

2008-04-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry for laggin on the blog posting lately...i've never been so ridiculously busy in my life.. (okay, I might be exaggerating a BIT..but i'm trying to make a point here) All week, I've been running around like a chicken without a fucking head. Back and forth, up and down, here and there, blah and blaaaah.

Going to sleep at 5 o'clock in the morning, waking up at 7 (because by no choice of my own, i'm one of those weirdos who can't sleep in past 7:30am) and then rushing in between class and Goodwin's Organics, then coming home around 10 and doing some half assed attempt at starting homework for the next class (which usually isn't for another 2 days..but if I don't start on this start ahead of time, I'll forget.) and then back to making desserts..I honestly just wish I could cut out the homework (who REALLY needs to know what a dendrite is? Because you know how imperative this information is in your day to day life....damn neuroscience bullshit..) and jump straight into the desserts. Time seriously flies when I'm in the "dessert mode" state of mind. Everything becomes nothing, and I care to hear is the lovely sound of the vitamix crushing my nuts into an oblivion (while simultaneously praying that the damn thing doesn't overheat..as it has a tendancy to do so).

So onto the good stuff.

There's plenty of it...so brace yourself......

...

are you ready?

...

no?

...

too fucking bad, i'm telling you anyways.

So here's a little background information on the store featured here in the picture on your left...or right i guess, depending on where you're positioned on your computer.

Here's something I stole from their site which goes over the company's "goal" ...

"About Goodwin's Organic Foods & Drinks"

"Martin Goodwin, a third generation grocery retailer, saw a real need to help people improve the quality and length of their lives by providing the most whole and pure Organic foods and drinks available.

There were some challenges to overcome, including sorting out the clutter of terms surrounding foods: Antibiotic free. Organic. All natural. No hormones. Locally grown.

All of them have their benefits. Unfortunately, when most people hear or see “natural” or any number of the other terms, they assume “Organic” as well. Not so.

After months of visiting a number of “health food” stores and “natural markets” Martin thought, “It would be great to walk into a market with the assurance that everything in the store is certified Organic. No checking labels. No concerns that part of what you’re enjoying on a break between classes or bringing home to your family that evening is going to be laden with contaminants.”

Goodwin’s Organic Foods & Drinks was born. More than a store, Goodwin’s is committed to creating a community dedicated to enjoying life – at the market and online – and we invite you to be a part of it. There’s more information in the Community and Membership sections, so take a look at each of them. You’ll see that what we’re ultimately committed to is your health and wellbeing; helping you to vitalize your living. We’re glad you’re here, and look forward to visiting with you in person at the lounge in the market."

You know what I love about this store? The people that work here (well, MOST of them) and the owners, are actually genuinely NICE people and who actually give a shit about their customer's. This leads me into my next point.

I've been trying to break "into" selling my desserts in stores (mostly due in part to a personal vendetta I have with earth cafe) and making it affordable to people. Personally, when I'm out and see some raw dessert that looks interesting...i'll usually pick it up and (obviously) check the price. Most of the time it's going to be well over $5.00, and it's going to be some dinky ass, piece of shit, my rabbit makes turds bigger then that, portion. I've been pedaling my raw desserts to pretty everyone that works at this store, just because I figured..if I was going to start somewhere...why not here? I'm totally down with supporting family run businesses.

Blah blah blah..one thing lead to another, and the next thing I know, i'm walking around with the owner's wife who's asking me if i'd be interested in selling my raw desserts there.

...

um...NO FUCKING SHIT I AM!!! HOLY HELL YES!!! JESUS TITTY FUCKING CHRIST I LOVEEE YOU FOR ASKING ME!!! I didn't actually say that....but I imagine it would've been pretty hysterical if I had (the owner's are like, hardcore religious) haha...

So today was the official "first" day of my products being on the shelf for sale. PRETTTTYYYY EXCITTINGGG!

I'm trying not to get TOO excited though, since the demographics are way more different out here in san bernardino...you ask people if they'd like to sample something vegan and THAT'S extreme for them...let alone RAW vegan...

I was out putting samples next to my desserts (intentionally RIGHT NEXT to earth cafe's sample sized $7 cheesecakes, MWAHAHA) and some lady grabbed one and said, "how many CALORIES are in this?"

I then proceeded to explain the concepts of raw vegan foods, and how your body utilizes whole, organic raw food, much differently then processed, packaged food...needless to say (her cart was filling with 100 calorie cheese snack packs and gummi fruit snacks.) she wasn't very convinced..and walked away, disappointed by the fact that these desserts weren't blasted enough to a point where they'd be less then 50 calories each.

If you look closely, you'll notice a few things. 1. my raw brownies are being sold $4.00 a pop...the pies (I did the pumpkin pecan) are going for $4.50 2. earth cafe's dinky sized cheesecakes cowering underneath mine 3. my sad attempt at packaging and labeling, since I had literally NO time to get proper tags made in time.

At first they wanted to sell my pies for $6.75 a piece. Nope, won't do it. "But you'll make more money." Don't care...I'll worry about making more money when i'm actually in DIRE need of it...which i'm not at the moment..also...it's a new product, and I don't want to scare people off by trying to market something they're ALREADY if-y about at a higher price...not higher then earth cafe..but still high compared to what they can get a junk cheesecake for. It's just not fair. I want people to be able to taste and SEE that raw vegan food isn't "weird" or just all about salads and fruit (even though, let's face it, it probably SHOULD BE, haha) I guess it just boils down to caring about people, and their health.

There's enough people giving bad vibes and being pissed off at everyone and everything....

"cold pressed espresso pie...organic coffee +dessert=magic"

This is going to sound REALLY weird...but, okay...so I was out running around trying to get desserts stocked, and this little kid was crying hysterically...like, you would've SWORN her mom smacked the shit out of her when no one was looking, because seriously..her face was BEET red.

So while i'm running back and forth, I eat shit and trip over some stupid extension cord left out on the floor...SHIT HURT SOOO BAD! And what happens? Well, aside from a pathetic attempt at trying to look "suave" while falling, and saying as I got up "yeah, I totally meant to do that..now don't go and try to jock my moves you boo boo motherf'ers."...the little kid starts laughing SO LOUD!

I get up, brush myself off, and she starts looking sad again.

Response?

BAAANGGGG. RIGHT INTO THE FUCKING WALL.

only this time, completely intentional....she starts laughing again. Ah, music to my ears (well, opposed to her screaming bloody hell anyways).....i'm not quite sure WHY most children find violence, or self-inflicted harm humorous (okay..probably for the same reasons WE do..but come on, they're kids! that type of humor shouldn't develop until at LEAST 10 years old) but because I give a shit about people more then I do about myself, I happily threw myself into the wall, and other various hard surfaces, a few more times for her amusement. "look at the crazy girl mommy, she's funnnnny!"

yeah, funny looking! ohh, self-burn.

Well, it's time for me to relax (i.e. strip down and watch the food network with some blueberry coconut ice cream) Cross your fingers for me that my desserts do well! I know i'd have no problem selling them in LA, or Orange County...but you know...you have to start somewhere right?

ALSO...don't eat more then 5 figs in a sitting. Seriously. I had to leave lecture twice because I got the mean shits from eating so many of them. AHAHA. not that you needed to know that, but now you do...so deal with it. :]

trick daddy and blowin' bills

2008-04-02T15:05:00.000-07:00

Does anybody remember him?

He had like, ONE hit song...and then disappeared off the face of the earth.

"cause baby imma thug...all day everyday...baby imma thug...wouldn't change for the world..uh huh cause imma thug.."

pretty catchy song.

damn thing's been stuck in my head all day.

you know, I added up all the money I spend weekly on making raw desserts..and yeah...haha....wow...funny stuff..

if you saw my atm receipts that come in the mail..you'd probably just gawk in complete awe and, possibley, confusion.

I know I did at first.

HM..that much money goes into food weekly? interesting.

just interesting.

it doesn't bother me (maybe it should though, since, let's face it...i'm no Bill Gates in the financial dept.) though, because I love every minute of it. And what the hell's the point of even HAVING money, if ALL of it is going into things that either piss you off, or you'd just overall rather not be spending money on.

Like my grandpa used to say, "ayeee...you're always going to have bills! live it up while you can."

true that.

after watching iron chef america, and morimoto using matcha for everything and anything he could get his hands on, I picked up some Rishi matcha from the store.

PFFT. not cheap.

I didn't expect it to be...but I also didn't expect to pay $20 for 8 dinky ass little 1/4oz. packets!

it's all good though...the cheesecake I made with it turned out beyond delicious.

bomby matcha cheesecake

even MORE bomby Blackforest Cherry Cake that

was made when I got home from my evening classes.

Oh what, what, what to make next...?

I wanna get my hands on some Paula Deen recipes and make em raw.

mmm...

damn her...and her butter...

wasting money and a false sense of happiness

2008-03-31T20:47:00.001-07:00

"Destiny is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, at some point in their life, knows what their destiny is. At that moment, everything is clear, and anything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But for most, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to live out that destiny."

-Paulo Coelho

Time for a serious post.

Well, this part anyways...

I'm dreading school tomorrow.

Not because i'm lazy, not because I have better things to do with my time...because going...and taking these mandatory, mainstreamed "health science" courses, only isolates me from what I REALLY want to do.

If I could own my own restaurant one day...help people through my food somehow...that's all I want.

I wouldn't care if I had to put in 20 hour days, and live broke, surviving off of other restaurant's veggie throw aways (which, in all honesty, i've seen..and actually look really good...damn wasteful bastards). I know a lot of people into raw foods talk about wanting to become a raw food chef...which I guess is only a natural response in wanting to spread the joy that raw foods has broughten them....

...but there's something deeper here... (no pun intended)

I can feel it (again, no pun intended)

I woke up this morning laying in bed, just staring at the ceiling (after only getting about an hour of sleep, because i'm a wigger and was trying to 'perfect' the apple pie cheesecake I made until around 4 in the morning)...trying to sort out what bullshit i'm going to have to say..and do...just to pass through these courses.. (they insist that meat is a valuable source of nutrition...OF COURSE! CARCINOGENICS ALWAYS ARE! that coconut oil is fattening, and that food has just as much "life" despite whether or not it's been blasted to death in a microwave or oven ) Not that this will be hard. I'm really good at breezing my way through things, even if they couldn't be further away from my actual ideals...I just prefer to not feel like a complete fake JUST so I can pass the stupid class.

The only reason I'm in school, taking these courses, is because my parents will kick my ass out if I try to become a chef.

"come on april, you're good...but this isn't going anywhere..choose a profession with a future.."

So I put a smile on, and pretend to care, pretend to WANT this "future".

"yeah dad, i'm excited! i'm gonna bag me a future doctor!"

that's the spirit april. keep it up, so everyone will believe you, and nobody will doubt your intentions.

assholes.

Sorry for the rant, I just needed to get that out there...in the infinite world of useless and random cybershit.

ONTO SOME FUN STUFF NOW! WEEEE!

Saturday: nada, kicked it with the fam. and tried to get the smell of chorizo out of the kitchen, since somebody decided to let the meat ferment in the garbage disposal. yummmmmmmy.

Sunday: raw basics class. didn't learn anything new really, as expected, but I met a lot of genuinely nice people interested in what raw foods could do for them healthwise. Met some lady named "T" who was hilarrrrrious. You have NO idea what a relief it is to find somebody who shares a similar sense of humor as you...especially when your 'humor' tends to be more on the tasteless/awkward/sarcastic side...

If you're reading this (which I doubt, unless by some freak of nature accident you discovered my blog), you are awesome, and I sincerely hope your friend is able to continue on to better, and ultimately optimum, health.

Oh man...there was the hottest dude in the class too...sheeeit, he was lookin all types of good....but (surprise, surprise) he was taken.

damn it.

i'm destined to die alone.

with 50 cats.

and probably some birds.

oh, and my plants...

I took some pictures of the happenings...not TOO many, since I didn't remember that I had my camera with me until the last 20 minutes of class..and even then, then consumption of food proved far more important then picture taking.

My coconut, notes, and the twice refilled cup of chocolate

I'm terrible with names.

Good with faces.

But for some reason or another..names just don't stick well with me.

I met this lovely lady: http://rediscoverrawfood.blogspot.com/ at the class...always cool to meet people that you've spoken to via the internet...unless those

people happen to turn out to be sexual offenders (like me, haha...jk...maybe), pedofiles, dumbasses, or you know...just really OUT THERE, fuglies who need

to be beaten with a stick.

Came home.

Decided it was time to make more desserts.

Ran to Clark's Nutrition (imagine if I really DID run? how awkward would THAT look...running on the side of the freeway?)

"to the organic grocery store...AWAAAAY!"

i'd do it.

naw. i'd probably get short winded a 1/4 of the way through, and hitch hike my way home with some horney old trucker named rusty.

The marble mudslide and apple pie cheesecake before being dissected with my handy cusineart knife

New favorite? So far, it's looking pretty good.

I found these berries on a bush in my backyard...I was tempted to eat them..but then had flashbacks to a bad wild berry experiance a few years ago...I'm currently on a mission to try and get my brother to "test" them for $10. His asking price is $20. Greedy bastard.

If I can't be a raw chef, I'm giving legal prostitution a serious consideration.

"take off my pants for HOW MUCH YOU SAY??"

I hear the Moonlight Bunny Ranch Farm is hiring..

that way people who ask me where I work, will just assume I plow corn or something.

"i'll plow your corn baby."

haha

"My God...this tastes so good..it's like..the shit of Jesus.."

2008-03-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

I love making raw desserts, seriously. It's unnatural how much enjoyment I get from creating these things. My brother calls me a lard ass all the time, and rightfully so, might I add..since I do eat an obscene amount of dessert, it's just, you know, raw.

My goal is to be able to get him to eat something an enjoy it.

Mom, check.

Dad, check.

Him? Not yet.

His idea of trying something new is dipping flamming hot cheetos into Ben and Jerry's 50th ann. Cake Batter ice cream mix. Which, i'll admit, is pretty ballsy considering what doing that does to your insides. To each his own I guess.

My dad's birthday is tomorrow (he'll be turning 51) so I went out and bought all the ingredients to make him a raw tiramisu.

Ever since he gave up dairy and meat (he still eats salmon and tuna on occassion) he's had to give up his favorite dessert...UNTIL NOW! mwahaha.

I must say though, this is the only time i'll be making this out of the kindness of my heart. A damn good birthday present, I think, since it cost me about $40 to make. Also, I don't know if you've ever tried cold pressing organic espresso...yeah...not as easy as I thought it was going to be..especially since you need to add JUST the right amount of water, so the flavor still really comes through.

The tiramisu turned out bettter then I thought it would, taste wise...even after making some "modifications"...I ran out of nuts last minute, and had to substitute an avacado for a small part of the recipe..which oddly enough, made it turn out even better...much less dense.

After I took this picture, I ran out to the other fridge in the garage to hide it from him until tomorrow. I put it behind all of my brother's hot pockets and bagel bits...so I know it'll be safe from his prying eyes...

I was thinking about putting 51 candles in it for him tomorrow night, but I don't want the thing to melt, or the smoke alarms to go off...so maybe just a tombstone candle...or a grim reaper candle...i've seen them sold during halloween...hm...I wonder if Hallmark would sell them in the birthday aisle?

I need to get him a good card too.

Probably go out and do that in a little bit.

SHIT! He's home!

Better minimize this screen before he has a chance to see it.

...

Much better.

School's starting on Tuesday. End of the nice little vacation i've been on. Ehhh, about time I get my ass out of the house and meet new people and such. I need a new laptop speaking of which.

SO. This either means, less blogging and unbaking because of class hecticness.

OR MORE blogging and unbaking, due to extreme lazyness and lack of interest in my classes...so it can really go either way.

If I get my new Macbook Pro by the time school starts..i'm thinking it's going to be the latter.

OH OH! I finally found organic matcha powder! I was so excited, I nearly peed on myself. Swear to God.

I'm going to make a green matcha and vanilla bean cheesecake for my friend's engagement party this weekend...i'm pretty excited to see how it's going to turn out, since i've yet to attempt using a tea powder as a flavor base in anything really. Matcha really is pretty wonderful though. So wonderful in fact, that the stores and every OTHER distributor apparently has the right to charge you $20 for a measly 4 oz. of the stuff, organic of course. The assholes.

The flavor is pretty outstanding though. And there's so many cute things you can make using matcha as a base.

Like these Totoro cupcake I found on someone else's blogger

I actually have the Tortoro DVD in my room somewhere. I'm a sucker for nearly anything Japanese.

Japanese art, food, men, you name it, i'm all over it.

I found the cutest sushi game online the other day too...well...not so much CUTE, since the customers in the game get pissed off if they're not drunken off your sake, but you know cute in a "awe, look at the little drunk cartoons eating the sushi I made" way.

Off to buy my dad's birthday card before I forget to do it today.

tah tah.

COST OF LIVING IS A BITCCCCH

2008-03-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

I made a banana cream pie today for my mom in some pathetic attempt at getting her to eat a LITTLE better, you know, to sort of compensate for all the drinking she does. (how fucked is it that I just turned 21 and she could, without a doubt, drink me under the table?) She won't touch any of my entrees....YET...but, she's always been a dessert fan...so I try to get her to eat well through that area.

I know i've done something right when she enjoys the dessert i've made.

I know i've done something amazing when she asks for a second piece.

And I know i've done a work of God when she tells me she'd rather have the dessert instead of a corona light...(even after some hesitation)

I've never really been a fan of banana cream pies...or really bananas in general..don't get me wrong, they're good. They just don't agree with my insides all the time.

Bananas = constipation and bloating no matter HOW ripe they are

too much information?

Too bad. You're reading MY blog damn it, so you're going to hear about shit not being able to pass through my ass when it needs to.

Speaking of which, digestive enzymes? I highly recommend Brenda Watson's enzymes. They're the best, seriously. You take one of those, and your stomach will be able to shred through metal. As it should be, since her enzymes are like, $5 for small pack of ten pills.

Damn you Brenda Watson and your stupid ass fiber 35 diet and amazing enzymes.

I'm spending way too much money also.

More money then a student without a job should be.

But not on clothes, or makeup...nope..on food, flowers for my mom (they seem able to put her in better mood ever since she's gone menopausal), teas, gas, and supplements.

stupid cost of living.

I need to start dating another drug dealer...

Eggs, Corona and Seasonal Crap

2008-03-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was an "easter bunny", who somehow has the miraculous capability to fill little boys and little girls baskets with cute little pieces of chocolate and "hide" a ridiculous amount of obscenely colored eggs in bushes and shit.

...

It's safe to conclude that this seems more like an acid and shroom induced hallucination then anything even SLIGHTY related to Jesus.

Damn Hallmark holidays trying to brainwash consumers into buying MORE shit we don't need, rather then spend money based on need.

Complete fuckery I tell you. Fuck.

Anyways, I hope everyone's Easter Sunday was as eventful as my own.

While my family relaxed out in our backyard, soaking themselves in the terribley lovely aroma of slaughtered cow and corona (which they used my organic $4.99 key limes in, DAMN IT!) I was in the house filling plastic eggs with butterfingers and sprees. All of my little cousins were begging me for one before the "easter egg hunt" started. Well, most of them (in my experiance of being around them AFTER them having consumed milk and such) 1. you can’t eat dairy and those sad-excuse-for-chocolate eggs only have one ingredient derived from nature and that is dried cow lactation and B. if you still want the egg THAT bad, even after knowing what that milk chocolate is going to do to your ass, you're going to have to wait an hour for the egg hunt like everybody else.

After filling the neon plastic eggs (which probably have traces of lead..so CNN reported anyways..) with annoying sparkly green imitation grass and candy, the kids ran around like crackheads frantically pushing each other into trees and chairs in an attempt to "win" the egg hunt. the prize? You get a pat on the back from your drunken mother, who's sitting next to my drunken mother...with MY key lime in HER corona...ahem..okay, i'm over the key lime thing. Just needed to vent.

My cousin payed me to construct her an Easter Cake to take to her work's Easter party. (the county finds any reason to celebrate and not work, so it seems..) She didn't want anything raw (damn it), or even VEGAN (damn it again)..just a regular ol' "make your ass bigger before you can try to suck in and make your jeans fit right" cake.

Cake of choice?

Southern Red Velvet

Now, i'm a bit of a tweeker when it comes to decorating things, anything at all. Seriously.

So this is how I broke down how the cake was to be constructed.

a. make fondant, since paying $15 a lb. for pre-made shit is outrageous. ESPECIALLY since, if you know how to do it, you can make your own fondant for about $5.

b. make and bake cake

c. frost cake, layer with rolled fondant

d. decorate fondant with easter shit

Here are a few pictures of the cake making:

And then the finished cake with fondant and such...

The cake lasted about 20 minutes at her job. I got a call later on from a woman who works with her (apparently she got my number from my cousin) asking me if I could do a baby shoe for her son's baptismal. Sure, why not?

We'll see how it all pans out...

(ps. I realize that the middle portion of this post's text is all fucked up. Stupid blogger won't let me fix it, so after 2 minutes of trying, I gave up.)

Tuxedos and Cream

2008-03-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

I've created a monster.

Seriously.

This has to be, by far, the most delicious/succulent/yummy/mouthwatering/divine/heavenly (and just about every OTHER synonym you can think of that correlates with the word tasty) i've ever made.

Time consuming?

You bet your sweet ass it was.

Expensive?

You can also bet your sweet ass it was.

Worth it?

Look at it. Enough said.

I made really cute butterfly chocolates to put on top, but I ate them before they ever got a chance to make an appearence in the picture, so now while I sit here and post this, they're busy being burned alive by my stomach acid, and will shortly be making their way into my small intestine, haha. it's their fault for being so tasty, not mine.

So anyways. My inspiration from this came from (where else) a trip to the mall, where a friend and I (at my request) went inside the cheesecake factory to take a look at their cheesecakes. Oh man, a real treat for the eyes. Sometimes, even though I don't eat that shit, I want to WORK there...just to be able to plate and decorate the cheesecakes. I'm actually going to be taking an advanced cake decorating class at Micheal's in early April. The instructor said to bring my appetite, and when I told her I was a raw vegan, she looked puzzled and asked why I was going to this class.

"To learn, oh and to feed my eyes"

"okay then.."

The Tuxedo Cheesecake in it's whole form (which will probably only last a few days)

Yes, my slices are huge. I'm a fat ass when it comes to this shit, so sue me.

Alas! She doesn't understand it! Oh well.

My mom will ask the same thing sometimes..."April, WHY do you spend so much time making it look nice when you're just going to eat it?"

"BECAUSE I CAN DAMN IT!"

Easter's coming up, and there's going to be an easter egg hunt at my house. I've been recruited to make the (non-raw vegan) cupcakes. Or as my brother calls them, "the real shit". Fair enough.

I'm going to make little fondant bunnies and chicks for the cupcakes, so they'll be really cute for the kids. (not that they actually TRUELY appreciate it, but whatever..it's the thought that counts I guess) I adore working with fondant. I only tasted it once before, and from what I rememberd the taste wasn't all that great (think of a bland marshmellow), but man..you have to love how pliable and versitile that shit is.

Actually, making fondant is pretty easy to do, and way cheaper then buying it from the store...which normally runs about $15 for a little dinky ass pack. It's really just marshmellows, shortening and powdered sugar. All really bad for you. But again, you HAVE to appreciate the artistry that goes behind some of the creations. I actually just like MAKING things out of it, and then afterwards, advise people to "look and not touch" and to come and touch my nuts instead...nut based desserts that is.

The necessary "evils" of fondant

Tag, i'm it?

2008-03-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Alright, i've finally been e-tagged by someone! I've seen people postings these "tagged" things for awhile now, and watched it spread across blogger like the herpes. Disa (sorry Disa, i'd link your page...but i'm blogger retarded when it comes to linking shit in posts!) tagged me (woohoo) so now I get to post some (probably not too interesting, but midly entertaining) things about myself. 5 right? Well, Disa did 25, and i've seen some blogs with as many as 50. I honestly think people stop giving a shit about your random information bits after maybe 30, 35 tops...unless the shit you're posting is WAY out there...haha

So here it goes..i'll post as many as come to mind..

Things you DIDN'T know about me:

1. I refuse to talk in the morning UNTIL i've brushed my teeth. I know, it sounds really weird...but honestly, morning breath is NOT cool, and I refuse to have to force anyone who encounters me first thing in the morning to have to withstand mine, which probably smells like a mixture of garlic, chocolate, greens, berries, and coconut. delicious right?

2. I know more drug dealers then one probably should, and have dated at least 3. (I tried to convince him to replace his dime bags with hello kitty snack pack bags, but that didn't go over so well with him, haha)

3. I used to be hardcore into raving. That's right. I was a candy kid. Go ahead and laugh, haha.

4. I've woken up at LEAST 5 times in places and with people I didn't know, such as in lancaster in a tent, diamond in a bathtub half filled with vodka, and highland underneath some guys bed with a bottle of Jack somewhere nearby.

5. I watch the food network everyday. EVERYDAY. Paula Deen is one of my favorites. I love that she uses butter to fix virtually everything. "Oh honey, you got a cut on yo knee? USE SOME BUTTA." ahaha. I plan on seeing her live tapping as soon as she does one in the area. I'm also an avid reader of Woman's Day magazine.

6. I'm a wigger when it comes to cleaning. I despise dirty dishes and smudged windows, and will literally spend hours of my week on hand and knees to rid my house of these things (it's probably stems from the mexican in me, haha).

7. I've almost had a 4-some with my best friend in High School because we thought the scenerio would be a funny story to tell people when we got older..the 4-some would've included the school's tennis instructor, who ended up buying us veggie burritos and beer instead, haha..

8. Every morning during breakfast I sit with The Sun newspaper and do the crossword (along with reading my horoscope), I plan to actually be able to FINISH a crossword sometime soon, as being able to only do half is getting kind of discouraging. haha

9. I'm scared to death of needles. Yes, I have tattoos. Yes, I have piercings...but I was clinging for dear life onto the chair each time one was done.

10. I've made out with 2 transvestites at the same time before (they were both guys dressed up as britney spears pre-mental breakdown days). Yes, I was very drunk (don't try to drink more then TWO "Adios Motherfucker"'s, those drinks have that name for a reason...I had to find this out the hard way, since I severely UNDERESTIMATED exactly HOW MUCH liquor is in it..i'll post the recipe for it below)

Well...that's all I can or care to think of for now. I'm probably the last person on the face of blogger to be "tagged", so i'm not going to bother tagging anyone. haha. If you have actually yet to be tagged (like me before this post) then I tag you (insert name here) to list some things about yourself that no one knows. Try to top my list. Go ahead. I dare you.

The Adios Motherfucker Basic Cocktail

1 oz. Gin

1 oz. Light Rum

5 oz. Vodka

1 oz. White Tequila

1 1/2 oz. Blue Curacao Liqueur

1 oz. Sweet and Sour Mix

1 oz. Sprite Soda

Do what you love. (hopefully that's me, haha)

2008-03-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

I was sorting through some papers yesterday, trying to clean out the clutter of paper that has accumulated underneath my desk over this past week, and found a slip of paper with my old photobucket user ID and password! I was pretty excited, since I thought this was the account i'd been looking for with my pictures from my trip to hawaii last year (I have around 6 accounts AT LEAST on photobucket..why? I have no idea..haha). It wasn't the same account, but something better!

Not too long ago, my car got broken into and most of the shit was either stolen or scattered in the street, or ripped to shreds (jesus christ, people are ghetto). Anywho. Among the things destroyed in my car was an art portfolio of mine that had virtually EVERY piece i've ever done. Sketches, charcoal, pastel, you name it. Well, I forgot that I had scanned everything (thank god!) into a photobucket account for safe keeping, in case anything ever happened to the originals (which did, since misfortune enjoys frequenting the spot above my head on most occassions). None of the paintings are in there (you know how hard it is to scan acrylic without it coming out looking like smeared shit on the computer?!) but a lot of my sketches were. Check them out, and enjoy art. :]

Word.

I only wish I would've saved more of my stuff onto photobucket. :[

Do you like pina colada's?

2008-03-14T14:49:00.000-07:00

why yes, yes I do.

I've had that, and miley cyrus's new song stuck in my head all day...and it's starting to annoy the hell out of me.

In fact, I was on the elliptical at the gym and caught myself mid-song singing the pina colada song...OUT LOUD...haha..it would've been embarressing had I given a damn what anybody in that godforsaken gym thought about me. Thankfully, that is most certainly NOT the case.

To solve this "pina colada" crisis of mine (since there was really nothing I could do about the miley cyrus half of it) I decided to make a pina colada pie.

Yes, I know.

"April, do you make anything OTHER then pies or cheesecakes?"

Yes. I do. I swear. Maybe.

I just love my desserts okay? I'll start taking pictures of the entrees that I do...promise! The desserts look prettier anyhow, and everyone loves dessert! Speaking of dessert (not that this really has anything to do with dessert) i'm on a mission to find a good durian. I've been meaning to try one of those out, but everytime I SMELL them, ugggh..yeah..reminds me of when my dad eats way too much garlic. Not something I correlate with FRUITY.

I keep seeing posts on goneraw.com about durian too. Really delicious sounding things (minus some of the "durian pudding" pictures i've seen that look like toddler barf..no offense to anyone who took those pictures, but yeah..not too delicious looking).

How do you go about picking out a good one?

You know..i've barely figured out how to pick out a GOOD thai coconut?! My god, I hated always having to eeny meeni minny moe my way through the lot.

The top of the husk should be hard, and no cracks in the bottom, with a firm outer body.

Bruises apparently have nothing to do with the quality of the meat on the inside...unless the bruises are purple..avoid those like the plague.

But just in case, always buy two. So you spend an extra $2 (or however much you pay). If you get a shit one, at least you'll have a fall back coconut so you don't have to haul your ass to the store AGAIN just to buy one coconut. (this has happened to me multiple times, so I just gave up and started buying them in doubles).

You know, a few weeks ago I bought one, opened it, and HOLY SHIT THERE WAS NOTHING INSIDE!

I was shocked, angry, sad, and confused all at the same time. Quite overwhelming.

Not really. But you know. It was pretty confusing to say at the very least.

I considering taking a picture of it to post on here, and express my outrage and confusion in a separate post completely dedicated to coconuts and "coconut ghosts", but it really just looked like I had already scraped the meat out and ate it..so yeah..it didn't really look too impressive in the pictures. Oh well. Another one bites the dust.

Damn it. There's that miley cyrus song again.

"I got this crazy feeling deep inside..."

hehe..that sounds pretty dirty doesn't it? And that girl's only like, 15...! All things aside, she actually has a pretty decent voice. Back onto the desserts. So aside from the pina colada pie I made, I made mini-strawberry shortcakes since I had made WAY too much pie base for the pina colada pie. They came out really cute looking since I ended up using cupcake holders instead of my tart dishes, which have mysteriously gone missing from my cabinet.

Mini-Strawberry Shortcakes

So my next dessert, I think, will either be something chocolatey or a key lime pie. Quite possibley both. Who knows? My wallet and stomach are the limit. Also, my dad's birthday is coming up. He's not a raw vegan (more or less a macrobiotic veggie/vegan "on occassion fish" person now), but he enjoys my raw desserts as much as I do. Since he hasn't had a birthday cake since he cut real sugar out of his diet, I plan on making him a raw german chocolate layered birthday cake...we'll see how that pans out...

it's not peach season, BUT...

2008-03-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

So I was flipping through a Woman's Day (don't laugh) that was laying on the kitchen counter the other when I saw one of the prettiest looking peach pies i've ever seen. Nice right? HMM! Well, I figured since I damn well near polished off what was left of the blueberry pie that I had last made, I figured why not put a spin on this and try to make my own verison. $30, three trips to the store, and 3 hours later (i'm a bit of a perfectionist, so sue me) I finally made what was to be my OWN peach raspberry pie. I'm not sure why, but i've been having this odd obsession with marbling EVERYTHING. I just think it makes things look so nice, don't you? Well, even if you don't, I don't give a damn...because I KNOW IT DOES. haha. Anyways, after letting this baby set in the freezer for an hour, it was carefully transported to the fridge to set up overnight.Now i'm not sure if this is just me (probably not) but everytime I make something, I always end up thinking..."this could be better. It's good. Oh yes, it's really good. But I KNOW I can make it better.." I guess it goes without saying, that old cliche about an artist's work never really being finished.

The sweet ass marbling that went on in my kitchen before going into the freezer

Ta DAH! The finished product!

Damn grocery stores need to start giving me discounts or some shit...I want irish moss and cacao butter, but it's going to cost me $50 for those two things alone. I can get drugs for cheaper then that! What on earth is this world coming to?!!

blueberry hill

2008-03-08T21:27:00.000-08:00

My mom came home with the most amazing surprise ever.

Well, not EVER..but still pretty cool...

fresh organic blueberries from her friend's backyard! A whole damn crate of them! (this thing seriously had to weigh at least 5-7lbs.)

After sitting with the box, eating them one by one, for about an hour...I figured I'd use the rest to make a blueberry cheesecake.

It didn't turn out as dense as I would've liked it to have (I adore heavy, sweet desserts) but it was still a nice, light treat that went really well with a last minute blackberry fruit spread I made.

Aside from that, nothing too interesting here today.

IRS spent $42 million on letters to inform people of how tax rebates WORK.

Some lady squirted her 4 year old with a gas station hose.

A body was found on ice somewhere.

And people look at ME weird when I tell them the world is headed towards an apocolypse.

sundaes on fridays

2008-03-07T19:16:00.000-08:00

Aah, yes. Today was a LONG ass day indeed. Didn't get to go to the gym (oh well) since I figured it was about time that yes. Today was a LONG ass day indeed. Didn't get to go to the gym (oh well) since I figured it was about time that I got off my lazy ass and finally got my taxes done before it's too late. Had breakfast (asst. fruit bowl with coconut cream sauce), took

a shower, nearly died IN the shower because the water came out FREEZING COLD and I had to quickly navagate my way around it

all wet and naked...anyways, got dressed and hauled myself over to the credit union where they're (thank GOD!) doing tax

returns for free. YAY. Less work I have to do.

So I get there and, of course, there is a line of 390410485110509273 people waiting to get their taxes done as well.

I half expected it to be like this, so I wasn't really too bothered by it (don't people work friday mornings?). After waiting for

what seemed like an eternity (around 2 1/2 hours) I was finally called up by some older southern black lady who shuffled at

a pace that would make an east african three-toed sloth laugh. After tediously gliding over to her desk, we finally got down

to the dirty work...which ended up taking ANOTHER 2 1/2 hours! good lord. Thank God I didn't have any plans for the day.

So after finally getting my taxes done a year and a half later, I run across the street to a liqour store to go pee (stupid credit union's

bathrooms were out of order) and some old hippie mumbles something to me. It sounded like a cross between coochie and cookie, so i'm

not too sure about that...maybe coochie cookies? cookie coochies?

coochie cookie eaters?

who knows?

the world is a mystery.

a mystery that is going straight to hell!

GOOD LORD! I was watching CNN and they were saying that 42,000 people have been layed off in the past two months (retail wise) because

damn economy is headed into a recession and people can't afford to buy shit, since they're too busy spending $4 a gallon on gas. (i'm telling you, i'm investing in riding my bike everywhere!)

But, back to my pee story.

So yes, I went pee (RELIEF!) and ran back across the street to my car.

Got home after being stuck in rush hour traffic for foreeeeever, and made myself the beauty featured above..and yes..it DID taste better then it looks...which, now that i'm looking at the picture...seems pretty impossible. mmm...cacaaaaaaoooooo...

I've also made a decision.

I'm going to become a raw vegan chef. It's been decided.

I've been raw vegan for over a year, and all day everyday all I ever think about is FOOD.. how to make something taste better, look better, etc etc. Well past the honeymoon phase and STILL obsessed with the creations of gourmet raw food dishes. I probably sound like the world's biggest fat ass, but I can't help it damn it. Tis' what I love.

Now, I just need to get the funds to get proper schooling for this dream of mine....hm.....do I really even NEED school for this? I mean, I've been to a few raw restaurants that seemed as though thier chef's had zero to none experiance in gourmet raw foods...hmmmmmmm..

Well...if I can't do that, I always have my fall back plan.

Writing comics for cyanide and happiness. haha.

all sweaty and shit.

2008-03-05T16:03:00.000-08:00

It's hot.

It's TOO damn hot.

Raining like crazy last

week (after I washed my fucking car too!) and now it's like, 80 something degrees outside. It's times like these that I wish I could just walk around

naked without getting arrested or something. I mean, not too sound self-absorbed or anything, but I don't have any problems with the way that I look in the nude..and I don't think too many people (well, men) would have a problem with it either. I work out everyday for a reason damn it! Need to show off these abs of STEEL. haha. Okay, maybe not steel YET, but they're getting there...mmm yes...

New vogue came today, and let me tell you, they re-touched the SHIT out of Drew Barrymore. If you look closely at the picture here (as seen underneath the oatmeal raisin cookies I made, which i'll get to in a second) it, quite obviously, looks nothing like her. She's a good looking woman. I don't see why they insist on changing her to look like some waxy mannequin. Well, I lied, I KNOW why...but I mean come on, just fix the people that actually need work done on them.

Onto other things.

My friend's sister bought her oatmeal raisin girl scout cookies.

She's a high risk diabetic, so i'm thinking her sister is plotting to kill her...anyways, her sister, being as jacked up as she told her, "OHH, I bought you these girl scout cookies! I know how you LOVE these!" (what a bitch right?)

So my friend called me and apparently had been pacing back and forth between her room and the kitchen, trying to ignore the cookie voices lingering inside her head. My solution for her?

"well, I do just so happen to have some oats sprouting...so let me fix something up for you.."

"okay april, but remember..I like the real shit..so you know..if it tastes weird...don't get mad.."

Why do people ALWAYS say that?

"real shit"

OATS ARE REAL. NUTS ARE REAL. ETC ETC.

IF IT WASN'T, IT OBVIOUSLY WOULD NOT EXIST!

ah. felt good to get that out...now back to the cookies..

So, I made a pit stop at Clark's (yeah, I practically live there..pretty sad that they all know me by name) and picked up some organic walnuts and raisins and cashews and etc etc..

Came home, pulled out the sprouts and BAM! there you have it. Freshly made oatmeal raisin cookies.

I'm pleased to announce that she was quite happy with them, and could not tell the difference between "the real shit" and "the fake shit" thank you very much.

bicycles, brownies and...the flu?

2008-03-04T14:22:00.000-08:00

Everybody in my house is sick.

My mom has a cold.

My dad has the flu.

And my brother has some weird combination of the two, with constipation to boot. (in all fairness to that, I offered to get him some *get regular* yogi tea, but he said he'd rather be plugged up with shit then drink that, as he calls it, natural shit) So what I am to do? I feel kind of bad, what with NOT being sick and all...so I've been dotting on everybody's whim and need. Prepare you something delicious to eat? Sure, even though it's probably going to get thrown up, along with all that nasty bacteria, in a matter of minutes. But it's the thought that counts right? My dad's a fiend for chocolate...so I made him some cacao hemp brownies, as featured here. They turned out amazingly better then I expected them to...especially since I ran out of cacao butter last night. (hello late night snacking) I really need to stop doing that...it's just that..late at night, I have this itch to eat fatty things...imparticularly CHOCOLATE and COCONUT. I try to ignore these, since I hate eating late at night, but my body tends to over ride any rationality I have against it, and before I know it, i'm holding an empty jar. *sigh*

I need to go to Target to buy a bike chain.

I've decided that i'm going to help out the environment (but mostly my wallet) and start to bike everywhere (except the gym, since I don't think biking on a freeway is legal yet). I live in a kind of suburb area though..not that i'm making excuses, or wanting to come off as lazy..because i most certainly am not, it's just that everything is placed so far away from my house (damn marketing chain stores, they need to be closer!). I wish I lived in New York, so I could just walk everywhere...if I walk over here, i'd be walking for quite some time until I hit anything. Anyways, I told my mom that I plan on biking everywhere from now on, yada yada, and she just called me weird. Yes. Weird. Weird for wanting to BIKE somewhere instead of DRIVE. Wow. No wonder there's an obesity epidemic in this country, haha. Though, I didn't tell her that...because she'd just get mad and say something like, "what? are you calling me OBESE now?! you're going to give me body issues!" haha.

Hm...I wonder how much bike chains cost...certainly no more then what I've been spending weekly on gas....also, I'm going to need a basket to put on the front of my bike, you know..for when I bicycle to the store and need to put shit someplace.

My dad just told me I'm required to wear a helmet even though i'm not under 21. When did this happen?!

Damn laws don't even let me choose whether or not I WANT to be safe.

What if I WANT to crack my head open in some freak bicycle accident?! What if I don't WANT to live a long life?!

I do...but that's completely besides the point.

Great. I'm going to look like a complete douche bag.

A douche bag with helmet hair.

Way sexy.