The Perfect Date

So on Sunday Brent and I went to the LA Zoo to savor our last day together before I went to my sister's in Seattle for ten days. It was the perfect way to spend our last day, laughing together at the animals and practicing our photography skills.

This duck got really angry when a foreign duck jumped into the pond from outside the fence guarding it. As soon as the foreign duck entered the water, this guy shot toward him, yelling at him to get out. The foreign duck was duly intimidated and flew outside the fence right away, but snuck into the bushes right next to the fence so that he could maybe sneak back into the pond when the Alpha Duck wasn't looking. The whole scene made us laugh really hard, but if I had been the foreign duck I think I would have screamed and cried. The Alpha Duck was really scary.

This swan was in the same pond during the entire scene, but he didn't care or bat one eye. He just went on looking as serene and beautiful as a swan can look when it has a bulbus growth on its nose.

The alligator just laid there. His back leg makes me laugh. It reminds be of the leg of a pudgy baby. :)

We met this little guy.

And we were surprised and amazed at the bright, vibrant colors of this bird's feathers.

The toucan looked really funny gnawing on a stick.

The snow leopards were so active. They were our favorites of the day. Two of them were playing with a pine cone like a house kitty plays with a wadded up piece of paper. They were even wrestling each other for it and pouncing on each other!

The tortoise just sat there looking patient and slow.

The jaguar paced. Paced and paced and paced. Poor thing.

I admired the beauty of the trees, so Brent attempted to capture them.

But he got distracted and started taking pictures of me.

More snow leopard. This picture is out of order, and I'm not going to fix it.

The regal tiger.

The friendly monkey.

There was plexi-glass separating me from the monkey on a branch about four feet away. I crouched down low to the level of the branch, and the monkey jumped to the ledge of the window RIGHT in front of me, so if the plexi-glass hadn't been there I could have grabbed him and cuddled him. He was so cute.

More regal tiger. Again, out of order. Sorry. I'm in too much of a rush to fix it. :)

Another glamor shot.

Why do I feel guilty that so many of the animals' evade me? And I JUST went to the zoo on Sunday. Pathetic.

This is an ape. That's all I know.

This is a fat hippo. He ate and ate and ate. That's all he did, the whole time we observed him.

This is the next animals' baby. Sorry I don't remember what it's called. Haha. This is bad.

I do remember that this is related to GIRAFFES, not deer (as its head would indicate) or zebras (as its back side would indicate). There are two types of giraffes in the world, savannah giraffes and forest giraffes. You're looking at a forest giraffe.

Now you're looking at an ostrich. I was really confused as to why the zookeepers would keep the poor ostrich's food bowl outside of his gate. He didn't seem to mind, though.

Proud little birdie.

Humans. Mates.

NOW you're looking at a savannah giraffe. (He's sayin, "WHAT? Huh?")

No idea what these are.

Some sort of a horned animal. With really cool horns.

I enjoy the zoo. I really do. I promise. I love to watch animals. I just don't like to spend time in front of the information describing each animal. I'll do that when I have kids and need to teach them. For now, I'm just enjoying myself when I go to the zoo. :)

These were kinda cute.

Brent and the gorilla. (Brent's the one on the left.) (So I learned that joke from Return to Me. Won't take credit. :)

I thought these trees were really pretty. I'm all about the pretty trees.

The orangatan was fun. There were two orangatan exhibits that were separated from each other by net, but there was passage between the two of them via a circular hole WAY up high in the sloping part of the net. This orangatan took his sweet time showing off his strength as he mosied up the net toward the circle, and when he got through the circle he threw his hands over his head and slid all the way down the net. Made all the observers laugh. :)

Yet another picture out of order.

A cute little fox type guy. He didn't really feel like showing me his face, but the back of his ears were pretty cute.

Zebra. I know that one.

A little marsupial of some sort. Not quite a kangaroo, if I remember correctly.

Mister Koala Bear.

Pudgy looking bird.

Meerkat. Always at attention.

The koala bear was really photogenic.

So cute. I want to hug him and let him wrap his arms and legs around me.

This pelican thought it was very important to get as flat as possible.

At the end of our day, we went to the gift shop to find a stuffed animal for my niece, Georgie. We got her a snow leopard because that was the favorite of our day. I also found a journal that was probably intended for very small girls, but I fell in love with it for myself.

So I got it.

After the zoo, we went to the evening service of church, and that made for a completely perfect last day together. :)

Asian Beef Lettuce Wraps

This was last week's "New Meal of the Week." They were really good. My whole family was in on the taste-testing this week, so I got a lot more feedback than usual.

I'm accustomed to lettuce wraps that use iceberg lettuce, but these used boston lettuce. I ended up liking the boston lettuce better, because iceberg lettuce can be quite overwhelming in its watery tastelessness. I liked how the boston lettuce complemented the tasty beef and let your mouth experience the complete flavor of the wrap's contents. (Brent really didn't like the boston lettuce for some reason...never really got a clear explanation of WHY from him, but I just thought I would let ya know just to be fair.)

The beef was flank steak. Flank steak seasoned with salt and pepper, and broiled four inches from the heat for 10-12 minutes. Then it was sliced against the grain. Thankfully, I had Brent standing over my shoulder when I sliced the meat because he warned me that flank steak is usually tough and so it should be sliced REALLY thin, like an eighth of an inch thick. I taste-tested a piece after I cut it, and my knees practically buckled. SO GOOD. I let Harrison and Vika taste-test some as well, and then I had to stop them from fighting over the rest. :)

Mango pieces were also called for in the lettuce wraps. Brent was too weirded out to put any in his wraps, but everyone else who did thought that it was just great.

Scallions as well. You can never go wrong with scallions.

And then there was the special sauce that you drizzled over the lettuce wraps just before digging in. Olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and cilantro. So simple, so perfect.

The lettuce wraps were served with asian bean thread noodles with olive oil and scallions and salt. Until I looked at the ingredients of the bean thread noodles after I had already cooked them, I was under the assumption that they were rice noodles. No. Not rice noodles. Bean thread noodles are noodles made out of mung bean starch and potato starch. Uh oh. When I let my family in on what the noodles were made of, we all remembered this scene from the Conflict Resolution episode of The Office:

Michael Scott: Ok, Ryan, you told Toby that Creed has a distinct old man smell.

[Cut to interview]

Creed: I know exactly what he's talking about. I sprout mung beans on a damp paper towel in my desk drawer. Very nutritious, but they smell like death.

Haha. Thankfully the mung bean noodles didn't taste like death. They were actually pretty good. They had a weird texture, too weird for Brent to like, but everyone else enjoyed them. My dad LOVED them, and had more than one helping! (He's usually a really picky eater.)

So all in all, the asian beef lettuce wraps were "GREAT!" as announced by my brother Hunter, who ravishly gobbled them down because of how famished he was after his track meet earlier in the day.

The sad thing is, despite how good they were, I won't be serving them again in my home. :( Brent just didn't like them. And that's what's important to me. :) However, I will be making that flank steak again. It would be delicious in tacos, which are right up Brent's alley!

Oh, and I can't record the recipe here because as I sit writing this I'm enjoying breakfast with my sister and two nieces in Seattle, while the recipe sits on my counter back at home. :) If you want the recipe, ask me and I'll give it to you when I get home. That being said, look forward to pictures and stories from my adventures up here!

The Interview

Thank you all so much for your prayers and encouragement! The interview went really well. As I waited for the phone call, I was a little (WAY) nervous that I wasn't going to meet up to QAI's expectations because some of the job description sounds a bit foreign to me and some of the qualifications I simply don't own. But the guy from QAI called, and according to the questions that he asked me about my experience and his own testimony of what the job would entail, it sounds like I am well-qualified. God blessed me with quick, detailed answers to every one of his questions, and he really sounded impressed with me. He said I'll probably get an email in the next couple of weeks to set up a time for me to go out to their location for another interview. They still have several other candidates that they need to consider, but he said I sound really enthusiastic and great on the phone. :)

I'm just praising God. It's totally because of Him that the interview went so well. If any of you have ever spoken with me on the phone, you know I can be quite awkward (seriously, it was even awkward to talk to Brent on the phone up until we were married). So He totally blessed me with "phone-savvy" for that interview. :)

Thanks again for your support! Brent and I are continuing to pray about the job, and we're excited to see where God takes it from here!

How Rude

Prince Winston has not been thinking of others lately.

Last night, Brent and I bowed our heads to pray before we dished up our dinner. No sooner had we opened our eyes, than P-Dub leaped onto Brent, his back two paws on Brent's lap and his front two paws smack dab in the center of Brent's clean dinner plate. Brent stared down at him in surprise, and P-Dub sniffed Brent's face.

"Dude, not cool," said Brent.

"Very rude, P-Dub," I offered as I got Brent a new dinner plate. Prince Winston was, of course, banished from the dining table.

Then, P-Dub had the NERVE to sleep ON MY TUMMY all night last night. He actually does this quite often, but last night it was particularly unbearable. I turn from side to side, over and over and over again at night, but with P-Dub ON MY TUMMY like a rock, it takes quite the effort to turn over, meaning that every time I turn over, I must wake up. Not fun to wake up a dozen times in a night because of a rock cat. It didn't matter how many times I shooed him off. As soon as I was settled and comfy again, he would curl right back up on my tummy.

Lately, when P-Dub chooses NOT to sleep at night, the situation actually gets worse for both Brent and me, because P-Dub decides to bring his favorite toy to our bed and bat it and scramble after it at the foot of our bed ALL NIGHT. Our feet get trampled upon and sometimes bitten. Not cool.

I think last night was PW's last night in our bedroom. He needs to learn a lesson. The world doesn't revolve around him.

An Opportunity

If you read this post, you might remember me mentioning that I'm still in the running for a job at the Quality Auditing Institute in Rancho Cucamonga. If I got the job, I would be doing crazy fun things like setting fire to construction materials to test their resilience and testing the efficiency of plumbing products, in addition to commuting about an hour each way every day. Yeah, yikes. Yikes about the commute. The job description sounds like a blast to me, especially if it's fast paced.

I applied for the job earlier this year, and when I hadn't heard anything from the company after several weeks I gave them a call. I got to speak with the guy who was weeding through resumes and found out from him that I had made the first cut! (The job had been posted on Monster.com, and they had "an overwhelming response" to the announcement and had received many resumes that just weren't even applicable, so they had to be sifted through.)

A month or so later, I received an email from the hiring guy who asked if I was interested in applying for the second round screening for the position. All I had to do was write a half-page letter describing why I was the ideal candidate. So I did.

That was about a month ago. Last week I called the hiring guy again to see if they had chosen someone for the job. He said they hadn't yet, but that I was one of the final nine candidates and that within a week or so they would be narrowing the list even further.

Today I got an email from him asking if I'm available on Friday to speak with him on the telephone about my application. :)

:):):)

Please pray with me. :)

Forgot to Mention Earlier...

38 Minutes

The above figure does not include the previous night's showering and blow-drying. Still, a huge improvement.

If you're confused, please see this post.

Chicken Tostadas: A Flop. Or a Dud. Whichever.

It may look irresistibly tasty, but it was actually just so-so. Actually, not even that, because the avocado wasn't ripe and it added a bitter taste to the tostadas.

But the unripe avocado wasn't what made them so-so. They lacked the rich, salty flavor that beef brings to tostadas. I should have known. Chicken? Tostadas? A no go. But I was intrigued by the unique meat selection, so we tried it.

And we will never try it again.

A flop. Well, a flop tastes bad, and apart from the avocado these didn't taste bad. So I guess this was just a dud, because duds are simply disappointing, like Chicken Tostadas.

Before I give you the recipe that I don't think you'll want, a few comments about what you can see in the pictures.

Parking violation. Probably our fifth since we've been married, because one of our cars must stay parked outside our complex on the street where it gets a ticket if it is found still parked there on Fridays between noon and 2 pm. Five times we have remembered to move the car too late. The City of Los Angeles must love us for all the money we've had to pay up. (There is now an alarm on my phone that tells me to move the car every Friday.)

Coca-Cola. Neither of us has had a Coke in four months, so to celebrate, Brent got a 12 pack. I think we downed four this weekend.

Anyways, the recipe.

Chicken Tostadas with Green Salsa & Chipotle

Taken from Perfect Mexican: A collection of over 100 essential recipes

Ingredients

6 soft corn tortillas

vegetable oil, for frying

1 lb skinned, boned chicken breast, cut into strips or small pieces

1 cup chicken stock

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

14 oz canned refried beans

large pinch of ground cumin

2 cups grated cheese

1 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

2 ripe tomatoes, diced

handful of crisp lettuce leaves, such as romaine, shredded

4-6 radishes, thinly sliced (We DID NOT use these. We don't like radishes.)

3 scallions, thinly sliced

1 ripe avocado, pitted, peeled, diced or sliced, and tossed with lime juice

sour cream

1-2 canned chipotle chilies in adobo marinade (We DID NOT use these either.)

Method

To make the tostadas, fry the tortillas in a small amount of oil in a nonstick skillet until crisp. Set aside.

NOTE: I didn't fry my tortillas, I brushed them with olive oil and set them in a 325 degree oven until they were crisp. A healthier option.

Place the chicken in a pan with the stock and garlic. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and cook for 1-2 minutes, or until the chicken begins to turn opaque.

Remove the chicken from the heat and let stand in its hot liquid to cook through.

Heat the beans in a separate pan with enough water to form a smooth puree. Add the cumin and keep warm.

Reheat the tostadas under a preheated medium broiler, if necessary. Spread the hot beans on the tostadas, then sprinkle with the cheese. Lift the cooked chicken from the liquid and divide between the tostadas. Top with the cilantro, tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, scallions, avocado, sour cream, and a few strips of chipotle. Serve immediately.

She Wasn't Lying.

A couple of days ago The Pioneer Woman blogged about making and trying this cake with a surprising ingredient for the first time. She liked it, she said it was really good. I was intrigued and couldn't wait for the chance to make it and try it myself.

The opportunity came upon me on Wednesday when my sister-in-law, Vika, and one of our mutual friends came over to my place for lunch. I made the cake (the easiest non-mix cake I've ever made) for them and waited until after they had tasted it to let them in on what was in the cake.

It was only after we were all groaning over how delicious the cake was that I let them know what the surprising main ingredient was.

Tomato soup. That's right. Two 10.75 oz cans of Campbell's Tomato Soup. The cake was delicious and didn't taste tomato soupy at all, just rich and full of spices complemented so well by the cream cheese frosting.

If you choose to make it yourself, I would recommend following The Pioneer Woman's advice and using scant measurements of the spices rather than the full measurements listed in the recipe. I skimped a little on the spices and the flavor was perfect.

Here's the recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen-blog/2010/04/a-tasty-recipe-tomato-soup-cake/