Planet Green

On June 4th a new channel from Discovery, Planet Green, becomes the first-ever 24-hour television network dedicated solely to green issues, lifestyle and entertainment programming. General Motors is a sponsor of the new network and since GM is a client from our Detroit office they were my ticket into the channel's premiere out here in L.A. I was also asked to cover the event and speak with some GM and Discovery executives for their GM Next blog--the resulting piece should appear next week, I'll post a link once it does.

Anyway, the premiere party was held at The Greek Theatre, way up in the Hollywood hills. A green carpet made of AGL artificial grass from recycled polyethylene (saves water and it looked real), was laid out for the celeb guest arrivals, which included Tom Green (he made the joke that he was born "green," lol), Keenen Ivory Wayans, Entourage's Adrian Grenier and a few others from High School Musical and actors I didn't really recognize--too new.

Being filmed that night was the channel’s finale of Battleground Earth Ludacris VS Tommy Lee with a concert by the two musicians who competed against each other over the last 40 days in green challenges. Other special guest performances included Train, Switchfoot, members of Velvet Revolver, Ziggy Marley, Bowling for Soup ("1985"), Too Short, Blue Man Group (I'm so not into it, I think it's more of a guy thing), Robbie Krieger from the Doors (cool to see a legend like that perform), Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and the energetic Dee Snider from Twisted Sister. Songs like Train's "Calling All Angels" and Snider's "We're Not Going to Take It" tied in nicely with the green theme as did most of the songs actually. Proceeds benefited the fund created to restore areas destroyed by recent wildfires in and around Griffith Park, which is right next to the theater. We also got to see clips of the show Battleground Earth, which looked really entertaining. I actually think I'll DVR it when it premiers in August, after all Desperate Housewives is over now.

Considering this was a benefit for going green, I only spotted one hybrid in the vast parking lot, not that I could talk pulling up with Raphael's V8 engine. However, on display at the end of the green carpet was a Chevy Equinox Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle, where a lot of onlookers peeked under the hood and took pictures in front of the spiffy car.

I had the chance to sit in the driver’s seat of the Chevy Equinox and conduct a brief interview with the vice president of GM North America. (The car meanwhile had very comfy seats and of course had that new car smell).

Here are some photos:

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Cupcake interviews

Because of my LA Cupcakes MeetUp group and recent cupcake judging, I've become sort of a local expert on the tiny cakes, although it's like that old Apple Jacks cereal commercial used to say, "I eat what I like," not much more to it than that, outside of my obssession that is.

As a result, Rachel over at the awesome blog Cupcakes Take The Cake (she was on Martha Stewart!) asked me a bunch of questions about the cupcake scene out here in LA compared to when I lived in NY, plus my earliest cupcake memory, and more. If you have time, do go check out the resulting interview on her blog. Rachel will actually be joining this Sunday's meetup at Lark Cake Shop.

Also, Nancy Luna, the food reporter at The OC Register recently picked my brain on Cupcake wars ignite in Orange County over at her paper's popular blog Fast Food Maven where she writes about fast food eats, culture and trends. The comments over there are getting heated!

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I drove all night

to get to El Paso, is that all right? I drove all night! (Sorry, I was singing the Cyndi Lauper song "Drove all night," but adlibbed the El Paso part.) Anyway, yeah this holiday weekend we did a 12 hour drive to El Paso, Texas from Los Angeles so that we could do some further wedding planning in EP (It's the new OC ;).

The way there ended up being a bit over 12 hours though and we didn't arrive until 8 in the morning, but we kept taking three hour shifts where one of us would sleep and the other would drive and drink RedBull. I also had my portable DVD player and between there and back I was able to watch the complete second season of Taxi.

Once there though we got a lot done: picked a florist, hired a DJ (this was the hardest part), received information regarding the rehearsal dinner and a guitarist to play during that time, chose the main course and appetizers, created some favors, decided on room decorations, commissioned mariachis and laid the groundwork for hair and makeup plus got the contact information for a four string quartet for the church. Thankfully Raphael's family helped with recommendations for the above vendors, but man it all adds up, we're still within budget but not by as much as we would have liked. However, I feel very accomplished and glad to have so much done and out of the way. I just need to sign the contracts and send some checks and we should be all set.

Oh and I forgot to mention that we were driving the TaraMetBlog-Mobile for the trip. Figuring that 1,600 miles of road round trip meant for the possibility of quite a bit of free advertising, so I put a decal on my rearview window with my blog URL (Yes, I'm an obsessed dork). Not sure if anyone will actually come to my blog from being stuck behind me on the drive, but you never know and it made me smile seeing it in my rearview mirror, lol.
Gas meanwhile was the highest at $4.25 a gallon in Arizona when we stopped off the 10 to refill. For all you other road trippers, enter your zip code in the site below, and it will tell you which gas stations have the cheapest gas prices (and the highest) in your area. It's updated every evening. Safe driving. http://autos.msn.com/everyday/gasstations.aspx?zip=&src=Netx

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One tequila, two tequila, three tequila floor

Despite liking the Pee Wee Herman song and dance to this song, I've never been a big fan of Tequila outside of drinking it in Margaritas. Sure I've done the occasional shot, but it never increased my appreciation of the fiery drink, until now. After attending another one of CitySearch's Eat Drink Learn events, this time on the art of Tequila at Malo with tequila expert Guillermo Erickson Sauza.

Guillermo's great grandfather created the original Sauza Tequila brand, but sold that back in the 70s and now they no longer have any part of that company. However, they recently restarted their distillery, Los Abuelos (the grandfathers) and are making La Fortaleza (which means fortitude) tequila. They continue to use their Abuelos' centuries old traditional methods like using stone ovens to roast the agave, a large stone wheel to crush the roasted plant and actual wood fermentation barrels (very very rare in tequila making these days), all of which he says is labor extensive but gives unequaled taste and smoothness. I'm not sure if it was the methods used to make the tequila or what, but it did taste smooth.

Anyway, we tried three different kinds of their tequila's at room temperature and in wine glasses, very similar to the vodka tasting that I did last year. We started with the Fortaleza Blanco, which was very clear like vodka and distilled and stored in stainless steel tanks. This was my favorite, it went down smoothly and smelt good but not too strong. Yet it was strong at 80 proof alcohol. Then we sipped the Fortaleza Reposado, which had a bit more color since it is aged in wood oak barrels for 6-9 months, this was also smooth but a bit strong. The strongest and smokiest for me was the last shot of Fortaleza Anejo, which is more top shelf and aged for 2-3 years. It made my eyes tear. I never thought that I could drink tequila straight before, but I could have sipped on the first two kinds for awhile and enjoyed it immensely. I was driving home that night though and I could already feel the buzz starting.

Right now La Fortaleza is only available at a few restaurants in L.A., OC, Northern California and San Diego.

Things I learned about tequila:

• Tequila is an actual town in Mexico. Like how Bordeaux wines are from Bordeaux France, tequila comes from Tequila, Mexico.


• Similar to Whiskey, the color of tequila gets darker the longer it’s aged in barrels.


• Tequila comes from the Agave plant which takes about seven years to grow before it can be farmed for Tequila.

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Judging the Cupcake Challenge

Yesterday, I got to be a "celebrity judge" in a cupcake challenge put together by Drink Eat Play. So between judging cupcakes and eating at the Taste of LA the day before that, I pretty much spent the whole weekend eating and gaining weight I guess.

The cupcake challenge consisted of a selection of cupcakes from over 10 Los Angeles cupcake shops and bakeries showing up to three different cupcake flavors each. A percentage of the ticket proceeds went to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS foundation.

I was super excited to be one of the official judges and prepared by not having breakfast that morning, however nothing could have prepared me for tasting 30 different cupcakes in one afternoon!!

I was one of nine celeb judges that included Sam Rubin, a host from KTLA, Los Angeles Magazine, Caroline on Crack, Eating L.A. and LAist among others. We were judging in three categories: Best Traditional Cupcake, Most Original Cupcake (most unique) and Best Overall Cupcake and picking 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each category. After the first few we started cutting them in half and sharing with the judge next to us and by the end I was even spitting them out after I put them in my mouth, like it was a wine tasting or something. It was harder than I thought, but heck if someone has to do this dirty job, I'll gladly do it ;) One of the judges likened the cupcake judging to a "competitive sport" as we trudged along. I thought that was funny so I wrote the comment down. Besides us judges everyone there could vote too and sample just as many cupcakes if they chose to.

My favorites were Vanilla Bake Shop's red velvet, the zesty lemon from BabyCakes Baking Company and Sweet Sugar Jones' Paradise cupcake (pineapple & coconut with a cherry on top), which tasted like a fruity drink.

For best overall cupcake though, I really adored the pretty strawberrilicious cupcakes form Leyna's Kitchen (online orders only), which almost looked like a cartoon drawing and tasted very moist and sweet.

And for the most original cupcake I loved the Blood Orange Fudge cupcake from Essential Chocolate Desserts in Culver City.

The official winners were:

Best Traditional

1st place: Vanilla Bake Shop Red Velvet (judges' choice)

2nd place: Yummy Cupcakes Red Velvet

3rd place: Hotcakes Red Velvet (public's choice)

Best Original:

1st place: Sugar Jones "Paradise" (judges' choice)

2nd place: The Oinkster Peanut Butter and Jelly

3rd place: Essential Chocolate Desserts "Blood Orange Fudge"

**Public's choice was Leyna's Strawberrilicious

Best Overall:

1st place: Leyna's Kitchen "Strawberrilicious"(public's choice) (picture attached)

2nd place: Sugar Jones "Paradise" (judges' choice)

3rd place: The Oinkster Peanut Butter and Jelly

And as if you weren't hungry enough, here are some photos of Vanilla's Meyer Lemon Raspberry cupcakes and the resulting cupcake debris:

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A taste of L.A.

Last night I attended the 3rd annual A Taste of Los Angeles, a grand food and wine festival celebrating L.A.'s hottest restaurants and noted chefs. More than 20 restaurants and vendors representing the city's diverse culinary foods, wineries and breweries were there to provide food samples to the hungry attendees, including me. The event benefited the AIDS Research Alliance and featured ArtSeen 3 - highlighting celebrity, contemporary and emerging art for viewing and purchase.

Since the money goes to charity and the event includes expensive food from exclusive eateries, general admission costs a whopping $100 a ticket and more for VIP. Luckily, we knew someone who knew someone, you know how it works, and got in for free. Some day when I'm making the big bucks I can buy a ticket though.

Food highlights for me included Ketchup's mac and cheese with crab (although this wasn't ready until almost closing), beef brisket from Spring Street Smoke House, Cake and Art's mini cupcakes and Full of Life Flatbread pizzas, which sell at Whole Foods. Oh and I also liked the Mochi truffles from Moonpillows, see below:

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Bridesmaid dresses, showers and the like

Still no luck finding shoes for my wedding dress, but I did pick out the bridesmaid dresses at The Knot's bridal sample sale in downtown L.A. Here's my bridesmaid Nicki with the dress.

I'm sooo just kidding!! lol. This dress was even brighter in person, so I made her pose with it. Actually I'm not picking out dresses for my bridal court at all. Instead, I gave them a red color swatch and told them to try and match it as best as possible but that they could go and pick their own dress. It could be long, it could be short, it could be whatever. I've been a bridesmaid before and know that not everyone can look good in the same dress and since everyone has a different body type and financial position, I'm letting them pick the style that best fits them and in the price range their comfortable with and hopefully it's something they could indeed where again. I can't wait to see what everyone picks out. I'm having seven bridesmaids and one maid of honor for a grand total of eight! It's going to be big, but I've heard of worse.

Meanwhile I just heard and ultimate bridezilla story. Apparently this one bride gave all her bridesmaids a year membership to Bally Total Fitness! Could you imagine? What nerve.

So here's a big coincidence, a friend of mine went to an advanced screening of the Sex and the City movie (she loved it) and get this, Carrie's wedding date in the film is the same as mine, the wedding is on September 20th! I love it! I had just picked a weekend in September because of my last name meaning September in Italian--Settembre, and because it was the last day of summer. The reason why it's a coincidence though is because my upcoming bridal shower on 4th of July weekend has a Sex and the City theme. I'll of course go into more detail with photos of that after the shower.

Speaking of the shower, I received my first two shower gifts this week. My Aunt sent us a beautiful red Kitchen Aid mixer, which I had on our wedding registry. It's something I've always coveted but would never buy for myself since it's a bit extravagant. It matches perfectly with my red kitchen theme too. I'm still in shock that I own one of these bad boys that I keep petting it as I walk by, much to Raphael's eye rolling, lol.

Nicki (mentioned above) also gave me a basket full of red kitchen goodies this weekend. She wrapped another gift in red dish towels, how clever is that?!

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A Richard Simmons sighting

Only in Manhattan can you be running late for dinner with your girls and then run into Richard Simmons while hailing a cab. As I hurriedly exited my hotel and hung off the sidewalk to signal a cab, a black car pulled up and out walked Richard Simmons. Being the quick trigger that I am, I hastily snapped the following photo with my cell phone in one hand and opening the door to my taxi with the other. He was of course in a pair of his signature little shorts.


He must stay at the hotel often because he excitedly greeted the doorman and other staff members. His energy was palpable and in just the few seconds that I saw him he was all fluttery movements and enthusiastic words. His face looked older, but his afro like hair and well toned legs looked the same as it did in the 80s when he was first Sweatin' to the Oldies. Hmm the disco edition looks interesting...

Like everyone else I used to make fun of him while watching Hollywood Squares, but then I saw a TV special years and years ago and saw all the good he's done. I remember seeing him at a hospital crying sympathetically with a mother of an obese son who was in critical danger and I of course started crying and also admiring the crazy Richard Simmons for his work too.

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A slice of history

Despite all the years I that lived in the City, tonight was the first time I dined at the famous Lombardi's Pizzeria, the world's first pizza place! Being a pizza snob, having grown up in my dad's pizza shop (that story is here), I actually hardly eat pizza since its not often that a slice can compare to his, especially none outside of New York. However, I must admit this comes very close and was really great, thus my eating four slices and our group ordering four pizzas (spinach and ricotta; sausage and mushroom; pepperoni and olives; and meatball). Their crust is a bit on the thin side though, but the sauce was delicious as was the fresh mozzarella and basil on top. It's not too surprising that I liked their pizza though since the recipe is Napoletan and my dad is also from Naples, so that's the kind of Italian food that I typically prefer. Also, Caffe Napoli in Little Italy is amazing too, went there just yesterday evening.

Staying in a hotel and visiting the tourist spots like Lombardi's, I feel like a visitor in my own city. I feel like it's no longer my time, but instead it's now someone else's adventure that I'm just guest starring in. Hell, it was a good run while it lasted. The city's subway gave me my future husband after all and a lot of great memories. Plus, I'll always have New York even if it now belongs to someone else. (Too sentimental? Well, the city does that to me, so please forgive me).

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Just when I thought I was out

NY pulls me back in. Within a week of returning to L.A., I'm once again back in the Big Apple (I.E. home) for work.

The bad thing about traveling within a week on the same air carrier is that you have to sleep through the same movies and TV shows. On a positive note, I never really adjusted to the time change so I can just keep on keeping on.

I paid the extra airfare changing fee and arrived a day earlier so I could suprise my mother for mother's day. Her birthday was the day before, so it was perfect timing all around. It also gave us the chance for her to model the dress she'll be wearing at my wedding and we went looking for some white wedding shoes for me. My dress fitting is next month and I have to come with the shoes I'll be wearing so the hem can be measured properly, etc. I thought finding my wedding gown would be the hard part, yet I ended up buying the first dress that I tried on, the shoes however...

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LA Cupcakes: Famous Cupcakes

For this weekend's LA Cupcakes MeetUp the gang and I went back up to Studio City, well North Hollywood according to their website for some Famous Cupcakes, literally that's their name.

Made with organic and all natural ingredients their cupcakes are $3.25 each and come in eight different flavors. Their Hot Chocolate Cupcake (chocolate bottom, vanilla icing) was quite moist and my favorite pick for this shop with their gooey Red Velvet in a close second, the other girls also liked their Peanut Butter Chip and Cookies N Cream cupcakes. Their Va-Va-Va-Nilla though wasn't sweet enough for me, maybe because it's organic and not full of the bad but yummy stuff I guess; it also had a hint of cinnamon and was more like a muffin than a cupcake.

The store was very minimalist with funky Pinkberry-like lights. The highlight for this shop though is that they make adorable but expensive famous cupcake bouquets that mix in decorations and flowers along with arranged cupcakes. They deliver to all 50 states and you can also order online. Since Famous Cupcakes is a franchise, you'll probably start seeing them pop up all over, they are currently in OC, Chicago and San Diego and coming soon to Houston.
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Before having cupcakes this little piggy had a lovely brunch at Cravings in West Hollywood with celeb bloggers PopBytes, CandyKirby and NinjaDude.

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Are blogs self-serving?

My blog is very important to me, I've had it for over three and a half years after all, it's chronicled my life during grad school and dating in New York City to being engaged in Los Angeles. Blogging is a source of refuge for me. So, I guess in that way it is self-serving.

Also, it keeps me creative and up on the whole Web 2.o buzzword and that's advantageous for my job in public relations and my past career in journalism.

Plus, I earn a few extra bucks from it via the ads on the left of the page. Emphasis though on the few--I'm not quitting my job anytime soon, it just supports my eBay habit really.

So yes, it hurt when a friend told me she thought my blog was very self-promoting. Well, I don't mean it to be. I just try to share my adventures. My family and some of my friends especially like my blog because they can keep tabs on me and see what I'm up to. For others I think they like getting ideas for places to go and things to see, some free giveaways and a quick distraction.

In the past I've received emails from strangers who said they like what I have to say or how I say it at least. I get a good amount of visitors and a few flattering email stalkers. So, in that regards my blog isn't completely self-serving, right? Hell, there have been plenty of times when I've wanted to just let it die away, but after this many years of documenting everything, I'm just too used to looking at things in two ways, stuff I can blog about and stuff I can't. As a result, my camera phone is never too far from reach, ready to capture just the right photo to go with the moment and to help illustrate my post so it's not just words like this one is. The fact that I'm blogging about a stupid comment that was made to hurt me, shows how addicted I am. I can't stop...don't want to. Thanks for reading.

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Family Guy Giveaway

So all this week, May 5-9, KTLA (the local Los Angeles TV station) is giving away a Wii every day. Just watch between 6 and 7 p.m. during reruns of Family Guy on KTLA for a codeword that can win you a Wii! For more info, go to www.ktla.com/wii

KTLA meanwhile is letting me giveaway our own Family Guy prize pack which consists of a t-shirt, Stewie football (his head already looks like one tho), a Stewie Wacky Wobbler bobble-head (shown) and a Family Guy whoopee cushion. To win just post a comment here and as usual I'll randomly select a winner on Sunday night, just be sure that I have some way of contacting you. Good luck!

On a side note, I really do love Family Guy since it hits on so much pop-culture stuff. For awhile there I would play the clip of the dog Brian doing the Peanut Butter Jelly Time dance every day at work.

PS: Judith Light a.k.a Angela from Who's The Boss was in my offices today. She was doing some sort of photo shoot in the conference room, probably for her Ugly Betty role. She looked tall and thin, her hair was nice and curly, basically not much has changed since her 80s show except for the lack of shoulder pads and big rimmed glasses.

Update: Alberto Bryant "this is my journal" from Michigan, won the Family Guy prize pack giveaway. Congrats!

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Tribeca: War, Inc after party

Thanks to IGotShotGun.com, I was able to attend the Cadillac Lounge after party at Tenjune on Little West 12th Street (a block away from where I used to live) for the satire film War, Inc., which premeired at Tribeca. It stars John Cusack (who also wrote the screenplay), Hillary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Sir Ben Kingsley and Joan Cusack. However, the only cast members to appear at the 11 p.m. Tribeca party was Hilary Duff with her sister Hailey, plus the director Joshua Seftel and producer. Everyone was asking “Where’s John?” even celeb guest Chazz Palmanteri asked a PR person if he was there too. Apparently he had a filming conflict or something.

Luckily, I was the only one to interview Hilary Duff at the after party, beating out several broadcast reporters that were there. I made sure I was on the other side of the barricade and the first in line after the still photos. My other "in" was that I was wearing her perfume With Love. She was very cute and pretty in her black strapless dress with a bow on top and in her black pumps. She was about my height (5’2) too. I couldn’t help but notice that War, Inc seemed very different than the other films that she’s been in, IE she went from Disney and Cheaper by the Dozen to this political satire where she plays an oversexed pop star, Yonica Babyyeah, so I had to ask her about that too.

I went on to speak with the director Joshua Seftel who said the film was shot in Bulgaria and made to look like Turaqistan, which is the fictional war town where the film is set, however he was a bit abrasive in his responses.

The producer was there too, but yeah whatever, I didn’t bother. It was rainy and late, so I can’t really blame the rest of the cast for not being there especially since they just did the red carpet screening hours before. Too bad about Tomei though, I was going to do my best My Cousin Vinny impression of “I bet the Chinese food here is terrible!”

Walking in with Chazz was Robert Davi, one of the bad guys in the movie The Goonies. I told him "I loved you in Goonies," and he smiled and said "you've seen that?" I responded, "of course!"

Below is the resulting video with Hilary. I had a professional cameraman for this and the IGotShotGun team did the editing, I’m sure you’ll notice the difference:


For a review of the film itself check out my write up at Film School Rejects. Also, more Tribeca interviews can be found on IGotShotGun.com with different interviewers.

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Tribeca Closing Night: Speed Racer

Closing the Tribeca Film Festival this year was the anime cartoon inspired action film, Speed Racer from the Wachowski brothers, who created The Matrix trilogy. The film hits theaters on May 9th and stars Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon and Matthew Fox. The premiere’s red carpet was one of the busiest I’ve been to and this time I was definitely way at the end of the press line, however John Goodman was kind enough to speak with me though, as was the young actor Paulie Litt from Hope & Faith and actor Kick Gurry. I also saw and snapped photos/video of Christina Ricci (she’s so tiny), Susan Sarandon, Vincent D'Onofrio and Limp Bizket’s Fred Durst. Stephen Colbert also attended the premier with his family, but he passed by while I was on the phone.

I stayed late again on purpose hoping that Robert DeNiro would once again make an appearance and this time I was ready and grabbed a video of him as he entered the screening. Yay! Below is the final cut, as you can see I got a little fancy by adding in a remixed version of the Speed Racer theme song, which also helped reduce the background noise throughout the clips:

The film meanwhile is supposedly more based on the video game and geared towards gamers than it is based on the original cartoon.

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Gypsy

Besides Curtains, I bought some scalped tickets on the street to the musical production of Gypsy starring Broadway diva Patti LuPone famous from her Tony winning performance in Evita and her special guest appearance on Will & Grace. My seat, however, was literally the last seat in the house on the second balcony, I had to lean forward to see everything and for the second act I sat on the top of my seat.

Set during the vaudeville era, Gypsy is about the ultimate pushy stage mom, Rose, traveling the country with her two daughters, June and Louise, and their manager, Herbie. While June and Louise wish their mother would settle down and marry , Rose continues to pursue dreams of stardom for her girls...and for the dreams she never got to pursue. When June deserts the act, Rose turns her attention to the shy Louise, whom she hopes to fashion into a star. When the act is booked into a burlesque house by mistake, Louise is forced on the stage to strip and dancer Gypsy Rose Lee is born. Famous songs include "Let Me Entertain You," and "Everything's Turning Up Roses." The songs are catchy and I've been singing "So let me entertain you, let me make you smile, And we'll have a real good time..." since I left the theater. One year shy of its 50th anniversary, I think Gypsy is more for female audiences though.

I had always regretted not seeing Gypsy back when Bernadette Peters was in the starring role of Mama Rose, which is considered one of the greatest and most difficult roles for a musical theater actress. As a result, I couldn't help picturing throughout the show how Peters would do each scene. However, that's not to say LuPone wasn't good as the leading lady, she just wasn't as cute, lol. The famous final scene where she sings "Rose's Turn" she more than wowed me with her strong and emotional singing. In fact, I got teary. For a video of this scene check out the clip on YouTube.

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