I’m a sucker for lists and well, frankly, I’m so happy in my new relationship that I sometimes I want to burst into tears. Now is the time to fill this badboy out. Here’s my love list:

THINGS YOU LOVE

1. Song you love
2. Book you love
3. Type of cuisine you love
4. Beverage you love
5. Cookie you love
6. Ice cream flavour you love
7. Place you love to go
8. Thing you love to drive
9. Place you love to live
10. Movie you love
11. Time in your life you loved
12. Person you love
13. Cute picture of a baby animal you love (provide link)
14. Item of clothing you love most (that you own)
15. Way of relaxing you love best

THINGS I LOVE

1. Only you- Joshua Radin with Imogen Heap
2. Book you love- Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
3. Type of cuisine you love- Thai (especially summer rolls and tofu pad thai)
4. Beverage you love- Unsweetened Mango Iced Tea
5. Cookie you love- Oatmeal Chocolate chip cranberry ones from Bakery Bar
6. Ice cream flavour you love- Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby
7. Place you love to go- The beach.
8. Thing you love to drive- Convertibles, especially in the summertime.
9. Place you love to live- New York City
10. Movie you love- Love Actually
11. Time in your life you loved- college. I know it’s a cliche, but its true. Sue me.
12. Person you love- Dad. He is my hero.
13. Cute picture of a baby animal you love: I love beagles
14. Item of clothing you love most (that you own): my black Grecian satin gown that I don’t get to wear often enough.
15. Way of relaxing you love best: laying in the sunshine.

To do before turning 28:

Camp overnight: Yes, I know it is shocking that this Jersey Jew, whose parents left the “annoyance of the country” (read: suburbs of NYC) for an Upper East Side Co-op, has never spent the night asleep in a tent in the middle of the woods. I’ve lived in the land of hipsters and granola for almost two years and before leaving this haven for coffee and microbrews, I want to have a one-night stand with nature. Who knows, I might even text the next day.

Change a diaper: Let me explain. I’m the baby of the family and my wise older brother with his even wiser wife have decided to leave the breeding to those who enjoy vomit, public temper tantrums, and poop stains. I only babysat children whom were already potty trained. My close friends are mostly still unmarried (although this is starting to change very quickly…) and those that have jumped ship, with the exception of two that I can think of off the top of my head, have decided to wait to procreate. I’ve never in my life changed a dirty diaper. It’s almost embarrassing.

Play in at least one more national park

Alter my body in some sort of fashion as a symbol of my independence: Nothing too crazy… sometime benign pierced or a little tattoo…

Sell/Donate all clothing, shoes, etc that haven’t been worn in the last year

Throw out all things without deep significance  and begin to live a clutter free existence: I inherited the packrat gene from mom and need to just purge all of the nonsense from my life, literally and figuratively.

Motorcycle ride at dusk or dawn: I’m told my grandfather had one. My dad and his three brothers had at least one each. My brother has one. I love them. I’ve ridden on my fair share of them in my life, but never as the sun was setting or rising. Seems really cool, right?

Throw a big fat Greek Dinner party where the only things not made from scratch are the feta and the phyllo:

Eat at a restaurant and see a movie alone: I have issues being alone in public places. I have no idea why. I need to kick this.

Finish my Rosetta Stone in Greek, because literacy is important.

Learn to play pool.

Live for a week as a Vegan.

See Coney Island

Knit a pair of socks

This is a work in progress and will be added accordingly. I’m excited.

I started a tumblr page.  While I’m not entirely ditching my infrequently updated blog, you’ll get much much more Greeky via tumblr… and everything I post here gets automatically forwarded there.

So,  my beloved readers, update your bookmarks, google readers and RSS feeds:  http://supergreek.tumblr.com/

:)

NEED:

11oz can of corn

10oz can of tomatoes & green chilies

14.5 oz of GF chicken broth (I used bouillon cubes and boiling water)

1 tsp of ground cumin

1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes

45 oz of canned black beans

4 minced garlic cloves (mine came from a jar. I hate mincing anything)

1 medium onion, chopped up

Cooking spray

Ready? OK:

Cover bottom of a large pot with cooking spray. Add onion and garlic and cook, stir stir stir stir, until onions are soft but not brown, about  3 min or so.

Place one can of beans in blender;  Liquefy the bejesus out of it, then add sautéed onion mix, red pepper flakes and cumin. Cover and blend on high until smooooooooth. Pour mixture back into da pot.

Place second can of beans and broth in blender and puree,  then add to pot.
Stir third can of beans (do not blend first), tomatoes & green chilies, and corn into stockpot. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. Yields about 1 1/2 cups of soup per serving.  Serves six or one 6’5 hungry tenor.

Enjoy. 

Hugs and kisses,

Greeky.

NEED:

1lb bag of Riso Carnaroli

1 onion, chopped

2 bouillon cubes (we used Gluten-free chicken)

1lb of fresh asparagus, chopped

olive oil for browning veggies

1/2 cup or so dry white wine

Shredded Parmesan to be added when served.

Boil about 10 cups of water + bouillon. Keep it gently boiling.  The water must be boiling when added to the risotto.

Chop onions and asparagus and saute until golden brown in a another big pot . (This pot will be used to cook the risotto.)

When golden, add dry rice. Stir until golden, making sure not to burn the rice.

Slowly add boiling bouillon water to risotto. I did 1 cup at a time. Stir stir stir stir stir stir stir stir stir.

As the risotto eats the water and expands, add more. Repeat. It’ll take about 20 minutes to cook. Keep stirring.

In the last five minutes, add the wine.

stir stir stir stir stir stir stir stir stir stir stir stir stir.

Serve when cooked to desired texture. Add Parmesan cheese while still hot. You can also add garlic, too.

Super tasty. The boys and my roommate went back for seconds.

Happy cooking!

7 random things about me.

1. I’m missing a bunch of teeth. I was born with neither wisdom teeth nor my last set of molars, and had a pair of baby teeth extracted when I was a kid, because they had no adult counter parts and were sinking into my jaw. They’re on the bottom, so when I smile everything looks very normal.  Sometimes peanuts get stuck in the spaces.

2. I talk in my sleep and don’t remember any of it. I’ve had entire phone conversations that I couldn’t recall. It’s also not only in English. I once woke the only Jewish guy I ever dated by speaking German loudly. Needless to say, he was a little freaked out.

3. I was a New Jersey State representative in the national geography bee when I was 12. I lost.

4.  I really really really want to get my nose pierced but am afraid that I’m too old/what my parents will say/that I’m not cool enough.

5. I hate to be cold. It makes me miserable, crabby, grumpy… I morph into a total super bitch. I would much prefer to burn to a crisp at the Equator than to spend one minute freezing my ass off waiting for a bus in sub 50 degree temperatures.  Strangely, I’ve never lived anywhere it was warm year round.

6. I despise the color orange. I think its an absolutely heinous hue and should be reserved solely for traffic related objects. There was a kid in college who only wore orange, his entire dorm room was orange (my friend lived down the hall) and he had died his hair orange. I would get violent every time I laid eyes on him.

7. I have my dream house totally designed in my head. Maroon, two stories, vegetable and flower garden in the back, antique baby grand piano, wrap around porch with a swing. My perfect wedding however involves sand and  no shoes.

Now, in accordance with the 7-Random-and-Weird-Things-About-Me meme, I must tag 7 more people to participate in the next round.

I’m tagging:

Katy

Dave M

Tara

Josh

Leslie

Damon

Here are the rules I followed as established by Shannon:

Here are the rules for my fellow bloggers:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Not a bad way to get back into the swing of blogging, right?

HAPPY NEW YEAR, ALL! xoxo

I’m back in New York City where it is so cold that I keep expecting a polar bear to push his way into the packed 4 train heading downtown to Union Square. Ok, maybe not, but at least some disgruntled penguins returning from work. It’s a solid 15-20 degrees warmer in Oregon, as my adorable roommate exclaimed over gchat today “It’s even SUNNY! Weee!” This angers me greatly. I am the decedent of tan island people. I wasn’t built for cold. I’m pale and my skin is dry.

Anyway, the two weeks before and after thanksgiving in the opera world, for the one reader I have that isn’t in the industry, is *drumroll* audition season. Almost every single American regional company packs up their artistic and/or general director, flies to the ice-cube-tray formally known as Manhattan and sets up camp in one of the many large rehearsal spaces, churches, or ballrooms throughout the city. I am incredibly and amazingly fortunate in that my parents (read: father) got sick of residing in “the country” (read: Northern New Jersey) and moved into an apartment on the East side. For audition season, I pack up audition clothes, sweats, a few party duds, and my laptop and turn in to a 17 year old again for six weeks. I’ll work for dad once the avalanche of auditions are done and stick some money into my pocket, or more accurately to my jet blue card.

With the influx of all of the opera companies, comes the inevitable arrival of every single budding opera singer with a dream and enough credit to buy them a plane ticket. Everyone with whom you ever went to school, summer program, or apprenticeship turns up with tiny wheelie suitcase in hand and is “gonna make it big.” I hear tales of singers who survived an entire season without ever setting foot in the big apple. 1. I don’t believe it. 2. They clearly did fewer auditions than the rest of us and 3. How LAME.

For the three years I lived in New York as a grad student and then as an unemployed opera singer pushing antique textiles to afford the posh abode far out of my price-range, my apartment would turn into a refugee camp. My roommate would pack up her stuff and stay with her boyfriend for a chunk of time and our living room would turn into a sea of air mattresses, coverlets, aria anthologies, and subway maps. I very happily gave couch or floor space to any and all who needed it as long as they didn’t get all clingy or high maintenance. I’m not your tour guide or mother, just your concierge. The doormen at said super-swank apartment must have thought I was running some sort of long term brothel by the different men (and women!) I would have stay with me for a week at a time, and to avoid harassment by the door Gestapo, would have to sign in.

My first audition is tomorrow. My personal goal is to look cute, be early, and sing well, all of which I am fully capable. Screw them if they’re not into it.

Look forward to far more blog posts in the future about my hilarious exploits around the big city. Funny shit happens here. This is gunna be fun, I can feel it.

Dear Red States:

If you manage to steal this election too we’ve decided we’re leaving.
We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue
States with us. In case you aren’t aware, that includes California,
Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois
and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the
nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New
California.

To sum up briefly:

You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.

We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get the Statue of Liberty.

You get Dollywood.

We get Intel and Microsoft.

You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard.

You get Ole’ Miss.

We get 85% of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs.

You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states
pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian
Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families.

You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war,
and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If
you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids
they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and
they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets
coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs
turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s
Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the
country’s fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92%
of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95% of America’s quality wines, 90% of
all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, 95% of the corn and
soybeans (thanks Iowa!), most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living
redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools
plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88%
of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of
all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the
hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all
televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the
University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was
actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we’re
discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that
evolution is only a theory, 53% believe that Saddam was involved in
9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher
morals then we lefties.

Finally, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed
they grow in Mexico

Peace out,

Blue States

For some reason (maybe since it’s 1am and I’m really tiiired,) I couldn’t get the embedded link to work. Que sera sera.

I think that this is amazing, really. People like this still exist.