MotoX Training Day

Last week I was producing an online video with mixed martial arts fighters in Sacramento, this week, I was in Charlotte, working with Asylum.com and No Fear Energy on a MotoX video at the Joe Gibbs Racing Training Facility. While there we met the NFL coach’s (Joe Gibbs) son Coy Gibbs along with Supercross and MotoX athletes Josh Grant and Cody Cooper.

Out on an impressive dirt track hidden in the farm lands, laid several dirt ramps and hills allowing the racers to go upwards of 30 feet in the air. One particular hill was so steep that they had to pull me up as I reached the tip of it so I wouldn’t start sliding down it in my Coach sneakers. As we stood on top of this particular jump, Cody Cooper flew right over us on his 220 pound motorcycle as if we were merely little ants on the ground below him. It was pretty intense, loud and dirty. I kept thinking of the Top Gun quote, “I feel the need, the need to speed.”

Asylum.com is putting together a really humorous and better quality video, but in the meantime here’s what I grabbed while sitting on the sidelines, but it should give you a good idea of what these racers can do when their just playing around:

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Saying goodbye

On Friday, I had to do something that I've been dreading since I was a little girl. I had to say goodbye to my Nanny. I used to cry when leaving her house as a kid, always dreading losing her. Two months shy of her 90th birthday my Nanny fell down the stairs and into a coma for the last two weeks. She stayed on long enough to lock eyes on my mother and I for a good 20 minutes. Through tears and sobs I rushed out to say everything she already knew, but that I needed to say again just in case. I was told that after we left, she didn't open her eyes again. A day and a half later she passed away. I'd like to think she was waiting to say goodbye to me too, although she couldn't talk, her blue eyes said it all as they fixated on us as we moved about her and rambled on and stroked her hair.

To me, my nanny was everything that was good in this world or as she would say, sugar and spice and everything nice. She helped take care of me since I was a few weeks old and we've been inseparable ever since. A part of me is her thanks to her influence growing up. But after seeing her in the condition that I last saw her in, I'm not crying that God took her, I'm crying for myself. For the friend I lost and now being in a world where my Nanny isn't there to love me. I can only be thankful that she was in my life to begin with, that I got to say goodbye and that she was able to attend my wedding and meet my husband.

I'm still in shock though right now, but I'm no stranger to grief and know that although I'm crying now, it will really hurt later down the road when I see something that reminds me of my Nanny and will feel that pain come to life again. God bless you Nanny, I'll love you forever.

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Restaurant Review #2: One Sunset

Another week, another smorgasbord. Along with some of the food bloggers from last week and some new bloggers too, we happily sampled 10 small plates at The One Group's One Sunset. Apparently, every Tuesday for $45 you can sample 10 plates too and for just $1 more you also get a bottle of wine (Beringer). I asked our waitress if anyone ever not chose to spend the extra buck for the bottle and she said never, lol.

Our meal started off with a mini pancake as the chef de cuisine Chef Jason Ryczek explained that he wanted to take us through an entire day of eating. My favorites were the turkey meatballs marinara, which was very juicy and I was surprised it was turkey actually. I also found the Burrata and Strawberries salad refreshing and a nice salty sweet comparison. I'm not a fan of onion rings normally, but the seasoning on these crunchy onion strings almost tasted like calamari. The BBQ sliders were sweet but HC and I liked them. Surprisingly, I did not like the red velvet cupcake dessert, but I did enjoy their Vegan Godiva Chocolate sorbet with a shot of Disarona amaretto splashed on top, yummy!

Pablo Moix the mixologist for all of The One Group's restaurants was there again and shook up "The Master Cleanse" cocktail which is very much like the lemon and maple syrup diet drink but instead of water it's mixed with vodka, which was dangerous as I didn't taste the alcohol. My favorite though was the LUSHious Raspberry, which consisted of champagne, lime juice and raspberries, so yummy, refreshing and tart.

What I especially liked about One Sunset was that it had more of a lounge atmosphere and was less of a scene than STK. What I didn't like was the $9 valet charge, I mean seriously.

New bloggers I talked with this time included: Seeking Food, Food Destination, Right Way to Eat!, Food, she thought, kevineats.com and Teenage Gluster.

On the celeb front, Jennifer Aniston has been spotted at One Sunset several times, check out this People.com post with Demi Moore.

PS: Unfortunately, I did not win the Glam.com Lifestyle Award, however, I was the judge's finalist for Most Humorous blog. Wocka Wocka.

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Meeting Ultimate Fighter Urijah Faber

Today, I headed to Sacramento, Calif. just for the day (90 min flight each way) to help produce an online video for No Fear Energy TV with Ultimate Fighting Champion and mixed martial arts fighter Urijah Faber, The California Kid.

What do I know about Ultimate Fighting? Nothing. The first time I even heard about it was on that episode of Friends when Monica's boyfriend played by Jon Faverau gave up his millions to become an ultimate fighting champion. I soon found out though that Urijah is really popular and kind of hot.

At his gym, I watched many other fighters training, grappling and I couldn't help but keep humming Eye of the Tiger in my head as we received an exclusive tour of the gym Faber built with his dad. We also spoke with up and coming new fighters and learned that many of them have wrestling backgrounds and practice jui jitsu. I also got to climb up into the ring for a bit, which was pretty cool. The staff writer at MMAJunkie.com, John Morgan and our cameraman kept teasing me though for continually saying "game" instead of "match" or "fight." My bad. Luckily, John was the one on camera this time as he knows what he's talking about at least.

Below is the resulting video. You can actually see me in the background at minute 2:41-52 :)

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Guilty Pleasure: Body-swap flicks, 17 Again

I confess that I love the tired but true plot lines that feature body-swapping or some age metamorphosis. Sure they can be corny and rely on the audience accepting the unbelievable and wishing that it was true. I just love seeing adults make a fool of themselves and feeling all uncomfortable for the awkward situations that they are put in. Sure, we’ve all seen it before, but it’s always a safe bet for some fun silliness, which is why I really enjoyed 17 Again and it’s magical spell. The best of these body-swap flicks are the ones where both counterparts in the switch are strong and fully immerse themselves in not being themselves. This got me thinking about other similar films and how I’ve pretty much enjoyed all of them, despite being the same idea repeated over and over again:

• Like Father Like Son –I miss Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron for that matter although only the former is dead. This is the film that came to my mind first when building this list, as I think they both did a really great job in this switch.
  
• Vice Versa – Fred Savage being serious is a little corny but Judd Reinhold being super enthusiastic and child-like works


• Big – An obvious classic, but only one switch goes on here, but I love Tom Hanks’ comedy days.
  
• 13 Going on 30 - I thought Jennifer Garner was super charming in this updated/female version of Big. Thank you Pretty, but Shallow for the reminder on this film.
  
• Dream A Little Dream – The Corey’s and Jason Robards 80s it up in this freaky swap, but I love the soundtrack and them singing Dream A Little Dream at the end.


• Wish Upon A Star – A TV special like film about sisters changing places and features Grey’s Anatomy’s Katherine Heigl before she went all bitchy.


• The Hot Chick -- Not only is this a body switch, it's a gender switch comedy and Rob Schneider nails it. I also like the side kick comedy element provided by Anna Farris


• Switch – Another gender switch, where I almost believe that Ellen Barkin is a frustrated guy walking around in a rockin body and heels. This one though is part comedy and part drama


• 18 Again! – Classic George Burns


• Freaky Friday (1976, 2003) – The new version is not one of my favs and although I like Lohan, I’m not sure Jamie Lee did a great job, came off kind of annoying.

Am I missing any? I feel like I am.

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Restaurant review: STK in 14 dishes

Yesterday, I joined a group of 19 food bloggers for a complimentary 14 plate meal and cocktails at the celebrity infested hotspot--STK in West Hollywood courtesy of The One Group. I've only been to STK once before for the DVD premier of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (post here).

I quickly learned three things:
1. I cannot eat that much.
2. I need a better camera or eye to photograph food.
3. I'm not a food critique.

Sure, I've written about food before, especially cupcakes, but I'm not critical enough or maybe I simply do not have a refined enough pallet to properly articulate what I like or do not like about my meal. For instance, one food blogger commented that the chicken was dry, but I really liked it and didn't even notice that. Another said truffle oil is so last year, but I was licking it up. I was reminded of that old Apple Jacks cereal commercial with the slogan "We eat what we like," and apparently I liked it all at STK. Granted, I'm sure we were being served the best of the best and were also being overly attended to, which could of course be impairing my judgment. Overall I enjoyed my meal, especially the presentation, drinks and atmosphere. My favorites on the food front were the sweet corn pudding, which I didn't think I'd like but yum, the macaroni and cheese, jumbo lump crab meat salad, red snapper and their lil'big macs. The only two items that I didn't like were the Tuna Tartar, which was too spicy for me and the roasted beets with yogurt but I'm not a beet lover in general.


I might not be able to ascertain food that well, but drinks, now that's another story. Made by the handsome mixologist Pablo Moix we sipped around seven of his powerful cocktails. The most creative and wowing to my taste buds was the "Green Intensity," a spicy martini made with gin, lime juice, with a floating Serrano chili slice and basil leaves. A food stylist named Adam who was in attendance accurately described it by saying "it tastes like Thailand in my mouth." We then tried the Capsicum Mojito, which easily won best presentation, with a bell pepper rung around the top and mint leaves springing out of it. I made the joke that this one tasted like Vietnam and surprisingly people agreed, lol. My favorite cocktail though was the STK's delicious, which had xo and raspberry puree to make it like an alcoholic smoothie. The expert on all this though would be Natalie at TheLiquidMuse.com who was also there.



Other bloggers I talked with included: Pleasure Palate, foodbuzz.com, Gourmet Pigs, Matt Bites, mattatouille, Kung Food Panda, gastronomy and Adventures in Eating. Next week, we're all headed to The One Group's One Sunset.

My goodbye party in New York was held at One Little West 12th near my apartment, so I'm eager to try the West Coast edition.

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Thai New Year Festival

Saturday afternoon Raphael and I headed to North Hollywood to celebrate Songkran (the Thai New Year). We were literally among the handful of non-Thai people there and only a handful of the signs for their yummy food were in English, although the Lobster Roll skewer was written as Robster Roll. Thankfully we were with a Thai friend of ours who helped us, but on our own we managed to order and consume some duck noodle soup, sticky banana rice, chicken skewers and BBQ pork, which we washed down with some sweet Logan juice and Thai iced tea with boba.

We even lit some incense at a Buddha shrine, heard traditional Thai songs preformed and watched a popularity contest, which is like a beauty contest but the audience chooses the winner based on the number of balloons that are purchased for that particular woman. So, if you think one of the girls is the prettiest you can buy a $10 blue balloon, a $20 white balloon or even a $100 red balloon and give it to her. Only two of the girls were really in competition with each other as they had four red balloons each. Although the girl I thought was the prettiest wasn't winning, I guess she wasn't popular enough though or had enough friends in the crowd.

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Buon Compleanno!

The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.

Accept the fluster of lost door keys,

the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel.

None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look!

my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones.

And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love)

I shan't have lied.

It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. -- Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

Happy 55th Birthday Benny!


Today, my father would have turned 55-years-old. Instead he died when he was only 45. So young. As was I at the time. Thinking back at me then, I wish I could hug that sad little teen. Especially when I re-read this poem that I wrote that year. Breaks my heart all over again

In the years since his passing there was an empty seat at three of my graduations, a missing parent at my wedding and so many ups and downs that I wasn't able to share with him. I know he would have especially enjoyed seeing my byline in the paper and hanging it up in his restaurant, knowing what college I went to and that I got my masters degree, scaring my boyfriends, hearing about my different raises, seeing my little apartment in Manhattan ... heck, I can go on and on why it sucks that he passed away, but more than anything else, I just miss my friend.

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Bottlenotes guide to wine

Last week, I attended another CitySearch Eat Drink Learn event, this time with Bottlenotes.com for a wine tasting at SHIN Korean BBQ. It was my first time at this restaurant and I was captivated by their jellyfish filled fish tank behind the bar, way moe interesting than a standard aquarium. Meanwhile, Bottlenotes author Alyssa Rapp spoke about the four wines that we tried (I liked the Cabarnet from Napa's Cannonball for $14.99) and about her new book "Around The World in 80 Sips." Below are some interesting wine facts that I learned:

• If you like key lime pie, you'll probably like Sauvignon Blanc.
• If your champagne goes flat, you can put a raisin in the bottle.
• The number of taste buds on your tongue impacts you ability to taste wine.
• The way you take your coffee can hep you determine which wines you'll like.

Oh and while there I was talking with food bloggers HC of LA & OC Foodventures and Abby at Pleasure Palate.

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