DO THIS – GO HERE. DO THIS. EAT THAT.

40 Days and 40 Nights

April 24, 2014April 24, 2014 gisela1 Comment

This entry falls into the DO THIS category, and you can DO THIS from the comfort of your own home. I’m talking about “Cooking With Family”–especially if you have a big, noisy, hungry, chaotic family like mine.

I’m going to take you through what it’s like to cook with my BIG TURKISH FAMILY. There is never enough time and never enough food. If you keep those two things in mind and you’ll be far more at peace with the whole process.

For the first installation of “Cooking With Family” I’m going to discuss Easter Weekend. Or more specifically, LENT. Catholics think they’re all hard-core because they have to give up one thing (of their choosing!) for 40 days. I mean, sure, it’s hard to give up chocolate or beer or whatever it is you think you can’t live without for 40 whole days, but Catholics ain’t got nothing on the insanity of a Turkish Lent.

For Turkish Lent you have to give up MEAT AND DAIRY AND BOOZE for 40 days! MEAT AND DAIRY AND BOOZE!!! Can you imagine?!? No, no you cannot. No chocolate, no beer, no wine, no cheese and no steak. Fish are okay, because in the immortal words of Kurt Cobain, “they don’t have any feelings.”

Now, it’s been many many many years since I’ve participated in this self-inflicted torture, but at least half of my family still partakes in this exercise in self control. I’m sure there are many good reasons why this tradition developed…like cleansing the body and the soul and preparing your taste buds for the inevitable feast to beat all feasts on Easter Sunday making Easter Sunday taste, ironically enough, like heaven.

So for 4o days you’ve deprived yourself of all things delicious and on that last night you really think you can’t take it anymore. You’re totally hangry and craving something, anything with flavor.

Most people on this last night of fasting sit down to a boring dinner of sadness and leftover fasting food. My family, however, can’t do anything the way they’re supposed to. My family has to do everything at DEFCON LEVEL 10.

And thus…Homemade Sushi Night was born.

This is no cucumber-rolls-with-a-side-salad-and-store-bought-ginger-dressing…oh no, my friends, my crazy Turkish family doesn’t do “mediocre” or “store bought”. Not when it comes to food. (Jiro would be proud.)

First you have to perfect the rice. Which took several attempts over the last few years but now…perfect. Yes, that is a bucket of rice you see there, because, like my grandmother always said, “GO BIG OR GO HOME.” Except in Turkish. Obviously.

Make sure you gather all of the ~~minions~~ little ones in the family and get them to work. Because there is a lot of work to do. Like spreading the rice onto the nori, which is much harder than you think it is.

And roll roll roll your heart out.

Side dishes of shrimp summer rolls and edamame? Oh yeah. We’ve got that covered.

Home made carrot-ginger dressing…obviously.

Fancy sushi rolls of roses and dragons, check.

And then…set the table. In your incredibly over-decorated dining room reserved for special occasions.

And DO NOT forget the saki.

And begin the feast. Super fancy Turkish shot glasses required.

I suggest doubling the Saki for this recipe for maximum enjoyment. Nay, go ahead and triple it. You’re with family.

Feeling Fishy about The Goldfinch

April 18, 2014April 18, 2014 gisela3 Comments

Can we, for just a minute, talk about this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Or as the Columbia Journalism School twitter feed called it, “The Goldfish”. Which begs another deeper, darker question about the value of an obscenely overpriced ivy league education.

So The Goldfinch won, and I for one call bullshit. I mean, did those judges actually read that book? All 800 pages? Were there absolutely no other books published this year that fit the guidelines of “distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life”? And who are these judges and by what standards do they judge?

I will concede that there were beautiful, wonderful, magical moments in this book that I absolutely loved. Many of the characters are loveable and real and stay with you long after you’ve finished the book…but unfortunately 65% of the 800 pages are filled with horseshit filler descriptions about every single little detail that good writers bravely leave out because they know that you totally get it already.

You do not need to be told how the paint is drying on the antique chair, and which type of paint that antique chair is best coupled with because this is not a “How To” book about painting antique chairs.

Every time I was pulled into the journey of our hero, Theo, Donna Tarrt would knock on the door of my consciousness and say, “oh, hey, I know you’re in the middle of this really great part, but let me tell you the history of this wallpaper real quick…for like, 25 pages. But don’t get too comfortable because I will be interrupting this story about 200 more times with inane things that are utterly unimportant to the story line. You’re welcome.”

And the end–oh god, the end! 50 pages of bizarre preachy rambling weirdness full of cliches observations on life. It kind of made me feel like I was reading the inner monologue of an amateur cult leader.

That said, I do think this book could have been one of the best books written in the last five years had there been a far braver editor involved in the making of this book. The book needed a good 200 page trim. Okay, I was being nice, it needed a good 400 page trim. It’s kind of like that girl with really long hair down to the floor who refuses to cut her hair because she’s been growing it out her whole life and she thinks that if you cut her hair now she’ll lose her magical powers but really she just looks like a frumpy creepy hippie resembling that girl from The Ring and all you can think about is how much that hair must just shed all over the place and that if that girl would just spend a couple bucks on a new haircut she’d look, like, totally amazing. No? Just me? It’s just me who thinks that? Well…okay.

Honestly, I don’t know why I have so many mixed emotions about this book.

Maybe it’s because I can see the potential for what this book could have been?

Or maybe I’m just jealous.

Yeah…I’m probably just pretty jealous.

The Time I Met Kato Kaelin At the “Pretty Woman” Hotel

March 25, 2014March 26, 2014 giselaLeave a comment

Would you recognize Kato Kaelin if he walked into a bar? Well, I certainly didn’t.

The last I had seen of Kato Kaelin he was helping OJ Simpson get away with murder and had terrible foofy 90’s hair.

So I should not be judged for being caught unaware when this strange man came up to my coworker and me and said, “Hi, I’m Kato. Kato Kaelin. This is my friend, Bob, from Texas.”

But let’s rewind just a bit. My coworker and I were out in LA working an event which ended around 10pm, so we headed back to our hotel hoping to grab a quick dinner at the bar. We were staying at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel, otherwise known as, “the Pretty Woman” hotel.

The Beverly Wilshire is leaps and bounds above most of the cheesy trendy hotels in LA because it’s true lux and not some weird modern faux-lux that falls apart after a few years. (I’m talking to you W Hotel In Hollywood.) And if you’re a city person, the Bev Wilshire is located in pretty much the only place in LA that is conducive to walking.

However, the hotel is “conducive” to some other things as well. It is a not-so-well-kept secret that on any given night you can walk into the very fine, very expensive hotel bar and find several attractive single ladies drinking alone. Who happen to charge by the hour.

So there we are, two lovely ladies, all dressed up because we had just come from our event, sitting at the bar eating a dinner of wine, appetizers and desserts. (Who needs a main course when you have cheese plates and ice cream?)

We were sipping our wine and indulging in our delicious cheese plate and in walks Kato Kaelin and a very tall, very drunk older man and they immediately zero in us.

As Kato introduced himself, Bob, his very tall, very drunk friend put his hands into my hair—a grown man who is an absolute stranger to me put both of his hands into my hair!!—and screamed, “No extensions!! No extensions!! Your hair is so soft!”

I had to pick my jaw up off the floor and say to my new friend Kato, “your friend needs to remove his hands from my hair.” Kato laughed it off and said, “Oh, Bob is harmless.”

Drunk Bob then teeters away, distracted by the scantily clad woman sitting at a table in the corner of the room and starts to chat her up/drool on her chest.

Meanwhile, Kato is trying to chat us up, but my friend and I just could not take him seriously. I tried to be nice, I really did. But then he leaned over me and said, “Oh, what kind of cheese is this?” and started eating from our cheese plate! I mean, I know times are rough, but, come on.

Still, I felt bad, I thought maybe the guy was hungry, because, really, what does he do for a living? So I told him to try the Blue Cheese because it was delicious and he said, “Oh no, I don’t want to have bad breath, do you think that will give me bad breath?”

Click, click, boom.

This is when I realized what Kato does for a living.

Kato (probably) entertains rich men from out of town and ends the night at the Beverly Wilshire hotel bar to pick up some very expensive late night entertainment. I also realized he thought that my friend and I might be a part of that “late night entertainment”.

Yes, that’s right.

And I’m not quite sure how to take that because these girls were actually quite attractive and well dressed and really way more put together than I will ever be. But then…yeah, also not a fan of being confused for a call girl, regardless of how expensive they may be. So I quickly made it very clear that my friend and I were in LA for legitimate work that had nothing to do with selling our bodies for money. (Just our souls, but that’s another story.)

Kato got the hint and slowly (and rather gracefully) made his way over to his very tall, very drunk friend Bob and found himself a woman who was more than happy to take Bob’s money.

So do go to LA, definitely stay at the gorgeous Beverly Wilshire, and absolutely positively go hang out at the bar when the dinner rush has subsided…you will not regret it.

The Time I Met Ron Jeremy, Bill Plympton, and The Hulk at Comic Con.

March 13, 2014March 13, 2014 giselaLeave a comment

Sometimes my job sends me to really random places, and one of those places for four years in a row was Comic Con in San Diego.

When I was assigned the project, I was all this on the outside:

But on the inside, I was all:

Let’s be honest, it’s a total nerd fest, but I’m a total nerd so I felt right at home. I mean, I wasn’t playing “Magic the Gathering” in the corner or taking Klingon-as-a-second-language classes or anything, but I was as dazzled as anyone else entering the entirely overwhelming 615,700 sq. ft. of pure advertising. No longer a convention of comics, this convention had now become Hollywood’s launching pad. Premiere something at Comic Con and the message goes flying to the four corners of the earth as quickly as you can say something in 140 characters.

The first year I went I was pretty impressed with the costumes. I mean…these guys, amiright?

Or this curious looking group:

Or my new friend:

However, what I will never understand is this whole bizarre world of Anime. I’m not judging it, but seriously, I really don’t understand it. It this a cat? A person? A caperson? And does it have a super power?

So whenever I have a few minutes of downtime I roam around the exhibition floor and one time I just sort of stumbled upon the Bill Plympton booth–Bill is a cartoonist who I happened to think is pretty awesome. I chatted with him for a little while, he seemed to like me, and then he drew this for me! I think he captured me pretty well here, right?

As I was about to leave RON JEREMY!! just sort of sidles up and totally crashes my conversation with Bill! Not only did he crash the conversation, but he completely took control of the conversation. And quickly organized an impromptu photo session. He grabbed my phone right out of my hand and had his friend take a photo of he and I together (which I will not be posting because I look pretty horrible in it…and terrified). Then he gave me my phone back and posed with Bill and I snatched this photo.

And then we all chatted for a while like we’d known each other for years. There was talk of drinks and “where’s the party at” which I just kind of stayed out of. More because I couldn’t quite grasp what was happening than anything else. I mean, it was all seriously very bizarre. However, throughout that conversation I learned that Ron Jeremy is actually a pretty nice guy. Maybe he’s not very nice looking, but he’s a nice guy. And Bill Plympton, well, Bill is just all kinds of awesome.

So the moral of the story here is…everyone should go to Comic Con at least once. Because you might run into Ron Jeremy. Or Lou Ferrigno. Who is pretty much the coolest guy in the world. Hulk, indeed, although I think I can take him in an arm wrestling match pretty easy. Probably.

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