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Posts from the ‘Muffins’ Category

May 20

Muffin Monday: Let’s Make a Date


I know so many young adult men who are single and I keep wondering why.  Before you start whistling the kettle that my pot is calling black, I’m not going to yenta any of these friends unless they ask for it.  As president of the “single and happy about it” club I fully respect those loud and proud in their relationship status…but I know not all of them are happy about it.  Yet despite being able to say they want something more, they don’t seem to know how to go about doing it.    Guys don’t think it’s just you either.  It’s 2013 and plenty of ladies can be the ones to initiate a date—and we know it.  So ladies get to share in the horror of the asking too and it’s no less terrifying to be a girl in that situation I promise you.

The process of initiating a first date can be intimidating.  Does the mere thought of asking a girl out give you sweaty palms and heart palpitations?  Are you struggling with just the right, witty first line to impress her?  Are you reading every body signal and analyzing if her thanks for picking up the pencil she dropped is a sign that she’s ready to have babies with you?  Well STOP IT.  STOP IT RIGHT NOW.

It’s not that complicated.  Trust me.  You aren’t going to find some magical pick up line that makes her love you forever and ever and ever…. Sure there are those amazing stories from romantic comedies that make the story of “how I met your mother” seem legend….  But they aren’t real and they aren’t realistic either.  I promise you that no girl (I can’t speak on behalf of guys but I imagine this hold true with them) will think any less of this opening line:

“Hi, I’m ____.  I’ve seen you around work/the building/wherever and wanted to finally introduce myself.”

Now what?  Now you let her introduce herself.  If she doesn’t walk away, you move on to the second part of the process.

“It’s nice to meet you her name.  I was wondering if you were available at all for coffee or maybe even dinner sometime?”

That’s it.  That’s all it will take if the object of your affection, hereto known as the OoA, is at all interested in going out with you.  You don’t need to offer any sort of compliment—you can but it’s not needed and things like “you have the most beautiful eyes” can sound cheesy depending on the girl or the delivery.  I promise you, you don’t need it.  Save the compliments for the date if it’s received.  That’s when you want to use them.   Trust me you aren’t going to change her mind for a date by telling her she looks pretty; the mere fact that you are asking her out pretty much set the expectation that you find her attractive.  Now there are some girls who will love a huge romantic gesture, this is true, but to others it can scare them off.  If you keep it simple, stupid, you don’t run into any risk of seeming too…well too anything.  Too interested, too apathetic, too boring.  Simple is good.  Save the complexity for the date.

Which brings me to the most crucial part of the asking out: setting the date.  Don’t leave it up in the air.   Be prepared with a date, a place and a time.  Offer these up but be flexible for her schedule or dietary preferences.  “I know a great place for coffee.  How about Tuesday at 6?” and then let her respond and beyond all be flexible if she suggests some-when or somewhere else.  Unless it’s a local skinhead bar.  Then run away.

But Olivia what about if they say no?  How do I handle that kind of rejection?  *Sigh*  Okay I’m going to try to explain this without going past a second page.

“We make time for the things that are important to us.”

There’s so much truth in such a simple little statement like that.  Right now my life priorities are still: Family, Work, Health, Passions and Friends…followed by everything else.  Notice what’s not on there?  Funny business aka romantic interludes.  The fact that I’m not willing to make time is a good indicator of how serious I am about it—and that’s not at all.  So guys and gals, if the object of your affections can’t be tied down to a time and a place…well then this person just isn’t that invested and you shouldn’t waste too much time on it either.  But don’t take it personally and don’t think it means there’s something wrong with you.  Just let it be.  Make a second attempt to connect if she doesn’t respond to your initial text or phone call about the date–she may have accepted tenuously but just has been too busy to follow up.  That being said if she just can’t commit to it on a third try just let it go because as the book title says “He/She’s just not that into you” and it probably has absolutely nothing to do with you.  The worst thing is to send a barrage of messages, to get too personal, to get rambly….  Do NOT send a message about your past relationships or how eager you are.  Just be simple, flexible and reserved.  When you throw too much emotion at someone whose middle name you don’t even know…they’re gonna bolt.  You might ask out 100 people and get 1 positive response back and that’s okay because I’m telling you that of those 99 rejections, 99% of them have nothing to do with you.  One might.  Maybe she saw you picking your nose or getting into a parking lot fight, I don’t know, I’m just playing the odds here.

I mean I’m not dismissing offers for any reason to do with the date-asker-outer.  It has nothing to do with appearances, personality or any aspect of their physical presence.  I just can’t even fathom making the time to emotionally invest in something that intense and I have so many things to juggle…I can’t have the responsibility of handling someone else’s emotions on that level.   Your OoA (Object of Affection) might have too much on their plate for romance.  Or you might a gross slob.  Look in the mirror and get real and we’ll talk about what to do if you ARE in fact kind of a slob on another day.

In the meantime here’s a surefire way to get some dates into your day honey-muffin.  Bwahahaha segue?  CHECK!

Honey Date Muffins

An Olivia Original Read more

May 6

Muffin Mondays: Money, Religion and Politics – The three Tablueberries

Question from reading facebook last night: Are we, that great high school essay “we” meaning “society”, getting smarter or just louder about politics?

I know many of us grew up with the phrase “You don’t discuss money, religion or politics” thrown about in reference to topics of polite conversation.  I tend to follow this rule as best as I can since it has some validity—especially in the workplace or a dinner party.  I find it’s usually good not to engage in a conversation on these topics with that dirty man wearing the tinfoil hat on my street corner.  Doesn’t he know it’s rude to shout at strangers about government?  Where are your societal standards of dignity man!

On the internet though…man have we ever abandoned this axiom of polite conversation.  As we should—after all these things DO need to be discussed…somewhere.  You don’t get political action if everyone is too polite to talk about it.  The internet, outlets like facebook especially, provides us with a chance to discuss these things but also turn it off and walk away.  You can close a forum with a particularly nasty character in it.  You can’t move offices everytime you get into it with a coworker.  Yet the internet, facebook especially, is littered with misinformation.  I get frustrated when memes proliferate on newsfeeds that are invalid—misattributed quotes, ignorant assumptions or loud proclamations based upon faulty information.

Sometimes I really wonder if this magical interwebs is making us better voters or just louder whiners.  No one on either side of the aisle denies that our political system currently is a mess.  We’ve got a gaggle of elected officials who don’t seem to be worth a damn and they are running us into the ground.  You might disagree about which side they are on but republicans and democrats all in general seem to be pretty dissatisfied with something.  United we stand…in our disgust.  But why? I mean we elect these officials—the power is theoretically in our hands.  Why is this happening?

On my more cynical nights, of which there are many, I come circling back to one thought: People don’t actually know a damn thing about their government anymore.  Healthcare, Guns, Taxes, Marriage…we all have our emotional responses to these issues and most of the posts I see on facebook are precisely that: emotion based declarations.  No one actually examines the issue through the scope of how our government works.  Take the very powerfully, emotionally charged issue of gun control—most reactions and demands for legislation are based entirely off the result of tragedies or regional upbringing.

There’s another phrase that I think of on the topic of politics.  Lesser known and often misattributed (thanks facebook) to President Lincoln: “Every country has the government it deserves.”  Lincoln didn’t say that—in fact it came from a French lawyer by the name of Joseph de Maistre—who supported monarchy over democracy by the way.  Still the quote often times seems valid.  Ultimately we seem to be getting what we ask for.  How many of our politicians have actually read the constitution?  Great question.  Here’s another one: how many voters have actually read the constitution?

I am not trying to belittle anyone when I ask that.  I just think it’s a valid question.  We want our politicians to be smarter, to be more responsible and to actually act in line with how our government is supposed to work.  I ask you how do we get better politicians?  By becoming better voters.  We won’t get the government we want if we don’t inform ourselves.  I know some highly opinionated people who engage in political discourse quite frequently who never seem to know their 4th amendment from their 5th; who don’t know that the issue of a federal bank was largely debated from the founding of the government; who don’t know the origins of the income tax.  Understanding the basis of our government, why it operates the way it does, dramatically alters the scope of how we should legislate.  If we want our politicians to know what they are talking about, we need to know what they are talking about not take them on their word.

It seems that most Americans born in this country would fail the civics test that foreigners have to pass to be naturalized, voting citizens.  I don’t think that being born in this country makes you inherently wiser about its political system.  Let me ask you these five questions–can you honestly answer them?  Answers can be found if highlight the hidden text except for the 1st question as that’s state specific….

  1. Name your State US Representative
  2. How many amendments are there currently to the US Constitution?  Answer: 27
  3. How many justices are on the US Supreme Court? Answer: 9
  4. When was the US Constitution written? Answer: 1787 –
  5. How long do we elect a US Senator for? Answer: 6 years

Why do these kinds of questions matter?  Well take number 4 as an example.  The revolution was fought and won between 1774-1776.  Knowing when the constitution was written and/or ratified (hint: not immediately after) would raise other questions that make you an informed voter.  How did we govern ourselves between those years?  What prompted the content of our constitution–what was the intent of the framers?  Knowing this helps to guide us in drafting new legislation and understanding how it should be written in order to work within the specific architecture of our political system.

The only way to make our politicians begin to legislate with more wisdom and less rhetoric is if we as voters become more demanding and more educated.  So sometimes on my more cynical days I wonder what would happen if the first 10 boxes you had to check on a ballot were actually a mini-civics test.  Fail the test and your vote doesn’t count.  Interestingly enough there isn’t anything in the constitution that says we can’t do this…I’m not saying we should and I’m aware how problematic this would be.  We would wind up creating a class structure since lower classes are more likely to be less educated yadda yadda yadda.  I’m only positing this as a thought born out of frustration.  And now I can never run for office because the media will take this musing thought experiment and turn it into a headline reading “Congressional candidate thinks only the rich should vote.”  I should probably make political discussion entirely taboo on this blog and not drive you all away with these kinds of radical thoughts.

How about something radical in the kitchen instead?  I wanted to reinvent the blueberry muffin recently and man oh man did this recipe turn out amazing.  The muffins are a deep, mahogany color thanks to my inspiration to use date syrup as a sweetener.  I also wanted to find a new, unusual but complimentary flavor for the blueberries.  I was running a mental run-through of all the spices I know and one screamed out at me: anise.  The vaguely licorice flavor is really nice with blueberries and can stand up to the stronger flavor of the date syrup.  I was quite pleased.  Finally the use of sour cream in the batter makes these really moist, springy and tender to eat.  I might not be able to get a better brand of politician but I definitely got a better blueberry muffin.

Anise Blueberry Muffins

An Olivia Original – makes 18 muffins Read more

Apr 29

2 Comments

Muffin Monday: Attracting seedy attention

I just got back from a work trip to exotic Fresno where I was harassed so severely by two men at my hotel that I actually complained and got them kicked out of their rooms.  Their behavior, which included asking to take my picture and following me in a parking lot, was beyond the level of good taste.  While what happened was unquestionably inappropriate, got me to thinking about times where this kind of behavior is tempered and the disconnect between what men think is okay and what women do not want to experience.  So menfolk we need to have a little chat.

This doesn’t pertain to all of you, or even most of you, directly but I think you all need to be made aware of this so you can understand women and stop this behavior when you see it.  Now I will make small talk when I’m in a good mood with my cashier or the cab driver.  I know that it breaks up the monotony of the day in the service industry to have someone friendly engage you for even a few minutes.  I’ve been there.  I had my high school stint as a worker bee at Mervyn’s.  But if there is a woman you are ringing up, or helping, or in a car with who is clearly having a bad day–leave her the frak alone.  Seriously.  Don’t make it your job to cheer her up because if she’s anything like me she really, really doesn’t want you to.  In fact having a strange male approach me when I’m in that mood doesn’t help me feel better–it puts me on edge.

Often I will be walking down the street after having a bad day, and I wear my heart on my sleeve I admit it, and a man will tell me to smile.  “Smile!  You’ll be so much prettier if you smile.”  – “Would you smile for me?” — “Cheer up!  Smile!”  This does not make me feel good.  This does not make me feel safe.  What’s more you don’t have any right to demand that I be “prettier” or happy all the time.  I do not know of a single woman who has ever done this to a complete strange man as he passes her by on the street.  You know why?  It’s not our place to tell you how to feel or express those feelings.  It is also not my job or duty to be pretty for you.

You have no right to demand that the women all around you in the world always be happy and smiling.  Even if your intention is to cheer us up, a great intention I’ll admit, you have no right.  I get to be upset or tired or sad or angry if I want to.  I’m human damn it and I have a right to the range of emotions that don’t make me some shiny, plastic flower in your garden.  So let me be.  Especially if you are someone I don’t know stopping me on the street.  If I’m having a bad day and I’m feeling out of sorts, I’m going to engage in a fight or flight panic when you do this.  I’m going to immediately have to question your intentions and get ready to protect myself.  So even if you aren’t in any way threatening, you are eliciting the exact opposite response from me that you intend to.  Because sometimes I do have to get ready to protect myself like last night.

I pulled into the hotel and it was late.  I was tired.  I don’t particularly enjoy driving for more than an hour at a time.  I get antsy.  I like to move.  I don’t like being cramped in a car having to worry about drivers cutting across 4 lines sending me swerving to avoid both them and the wall–yes this happened too.  It was dark and I was in a strange place.  I just wanted to get into bed and sleep.  Two men on a golf cart start in on me.  “Aww honey smile!”  I ignore them and continue to get my bags out of the car.  They stop.  “Hey can you do us a favor?”  Exasperated I say “No.”  The men turn to each other and roll their eyes.  “Come on you’ll be so much prettier if you smile.  Smile.  Let me take your picture, it’ll cheer you up.  Don’t worry it will be tasteful.”  I am inflamed.  This is beyond just “cheering” me up.  Maybe they were drunk.  Maybe they were professional photographers for Vogue.  It doesn’t matter.  It was uncalled for.  I shuffled away, satisfied they weren’t following me and went directly to my room, to my phone and called the front desk.  I was called back 15 minutes later and told these guests had been removed from the property and that I didn’t need to worry about the duration of my stay.

Even ignoring this situation guys, please try to remember that women are not under an obligation to be pretty or happy for you.  No one demands that men always be happy, smiling and walking around with muscles and perfect hair.  You do not have the right to demand this of me or to try to impose it upon me.  When you try it does not make me feel special or happy.  It makes me angrier and makes my day worse.  Not all women are sure to feel this way.  I can’t speak for all of womankind but I’d wager that there are more of us than not.  It just comes across as seedy.

And speaking of seeds how about some gluten free sesame seed muffins?  I’ve broken out of my vegan week–huzzah!  It was an interesting experiment but definitely not the way I think I’ll be living my life 24/7.  Worthwhile to make the effort though and so you might see some “Meatless Mondays” breaking up the muffin monotony.  Not today though.  Today I have this recipe which I was inspired to make during my vegan stint.  It seems that gluten free baking became much easier for me to fathom when I was cutting out eggs and buttermilk as well.  These muffins are very strange at first but I was inspired to make them after craving some chocolate covered sunflower seeds.  Savory and sweet.  These seem to improve the next day if you keep them airtight. I might cut back on the mini-chocolate chips though.  I think a third of a cup would suffice.

Gluten Free Sunflower Seed Muffins

an Olivia Original Read more

Apr 22

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Muffin Monday: Going All Ameri-vegan

I don’t necessarily believe in veganism as a sustainable whole-lifestyle choice.  At least not for me.  I certainly think it has applications; it’s a good diet model for people with serious obesity health concerns.  With respect to animal welfare it is possible to find animal products from humanely raised animals so I don’t think someone has to cut all cheese out of their diets for this reason.  As for killing animals for food…well I don’t have a problem with that aspect of it but I’m not going to judge anyone who does.  Still that only means that people really need to go vegetarian if they are controlling where all the animal byproducts they consume come from.  But again that would be at home.  I really doubt Denny’s is getting their half & half from free-range, grass grazing cows

Yet still it has happened.  I’m a social vegan.  Oh you’ve never heard that term?  Well basically when I eat out I stay on a vegan diet but at home I’m happy to go about my omnivore ways.  Strange isn’t it?  Typically you’ll hear about people doing the opposite—eating vegan at home but relaxing out in company because eating vegan socially is fucking hard.  But my reasons make sense I swear…  See here’s the thing I don’t have a problem with eating meat or byproducts from livestock.  I do have serious problems with how the majority of livestock in this country is raised.  I object to it on a number of levels and decided that if I’m going to be morally consistent at all then I need to start really watching what I eat when I’m eating out because that is where I have no control over where my food came from.  Thus when I’m at home and I’ve bought the food myself, I’ll grill up a steak and slather it with blue cheese and runny quail egg.  But if I’m out grabbing a bite at some corner diner?  Odds are I’m asking for salad and a fruit cup.  So what prompted this?

Aside from some of the more well-known humane issues with modern animal husbandry, there are political ramifications that break my libertarian heart from the terrifying corn industry we’ve concocted to feed these animals.  The biologist in me abhors the antibiotic abuse and the nutritionist in me objects to the idea of eating such unhealthy meat when better options exist.  The environmentalist in me, who is a very small me all things considered, hates the waste and destruction the factory farms cause.  The agriculturalist and botanist in me hates the way monoculture is destroying our farmlands and finally the foodie in me bemoans the loss of variety of food monoculture causes.

 

Confused?  Don’t worry this week I’m going to take some pulpit time from my blog to break down some of my concerns to explain why these issues matter to me, why they might matter to you and try out some vegan recipes in honor of the Oakland Veg week happening here in Oakland.  http://oaklandveg.com/ It’s a pretty cool initiative sponsored in part by whole foods and a slew of local, organic, vegetarian companies. 

Hold on now Olivia.  If you’re eating vegan out, but omnivore when you stay in, then why bother with the vegan recipes? 

Well it’s a theme remember?  Plus I will admit that eating meat and dairy products that are only sourced from my hippie farms gets expensive.  I’m sure I’ll be eating more meals without them to save money so it’ll be good to have a few tricks up my sleeve for months when I just can’t afford free-range chicken every night of the week.  Plus it’s useful to know a good baking recipe for those days when you wanna make muffins but don’t have any eggs or butter on hand.  Like this classic recipe with a not-so classic vegan twist:

All Ameri-Vegan Apple Pie Muffins

Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance Read more

Apr 15

Muffin Monday: Out and Ab-oatmeal Bread

Every once in a while I remember that I’m a 24 year old single, attractive female and that I should try to enjoy that while I can because it’s not going to last forever.  It can be hard to break out of my cranky old British man persona but last Saturday night I did and oh it felt so nice to be young and dancing again.  I actually had a drink or two, went out, met new boys, met new girls, spent a little cash and most importantly I went dancing.  Oh how I’ve missed dancing.  I haven’t really been properly out dancing since Comic Con last year and I wasn’t even properly single then.  There’s something very wrong with that.  So since I wasn’t going to make another engagement on time and was looking at a night in doing nothing, once again, I hesitated for a beat when a friend from yoga let me know she was going out that evening.  Then I said “What the hell is wrong with you.  Act your age already!” and asked if there was room for one more.  So so glad.

What makes dancing so cathartic, so therapeutic and just so damn much fun?  It’s the release I think.  It’s physical, if not always sexual, and requires that you trust in your body rather than letting your mind do all the work.  Overthinking means you lose the beat.  If you have a partner you need to be able to really let your body win out and react to theirs.  If you let your brain worry about where his or her foot is going next, by the time you figure it out they are already two more steps ahead.  That’s not to say it involves totally turning off your mind because I certainly feel like mine is still racing but it’s in a reactive mode rather than predictive.  That’s a rare thing for me to be able to do and enjoy.  As such a Type-A(sshole) I find myself craving the ability to plan and control the majority of the time so finding a situation where I can be comfortable not doing that is rare and worth relishing.  In retrospect I wish I had taken ballet lessons when they had been offered as a child.

Now I don’t know as much about it as I do food but I do know that the concept of “Dance Therapy” is something that’s been around since the 60’s.  It’s distinguishable from just general physical activity but I will admit that even just getting your body moving whether it’s dancing or chopping wood is going to cause an endorphin release and improve mood.  How effective is it?  Well it can depend on what you’re treating.  I’m not sure that there’s as much of a verifiable success record that dance therapy can cure severe mental disorders like schizophrenia but it has shown significant impacts in the lives of the elderly, those recovering from brain injuries and in autistic children.  There aren’t any recorded negative effects (except maybe a sprained ankle or two) from what I’ve read on the topic.

Going on Saturday didn’t cure all my problems.  It didn’t end my celibate streak.  The fact that I haven’t even so much as kissed someone since July rather horrified one of my friends.  But it did reconnect me a little with the girl I’m supposed to be acting the age of.  Plus the nice part about being on the dance floor is that no one is talking.  No one is asking me what I do for a living and being impressed, or intimidated or suffering inferiority complex.  Instead it’s pretty simple: can you keep up?  For some reason people seem to be more up to that challenge on the dance floor than anywhere else with me.  Of course that might just be because I’m not a very good dancer….  White girl dancing isn’t exactly that poetic or challenging is it?  But I do it with gleeful abandon regardless of how good I am.

I remember being little at a dance party at my karate studio.  I chose the karate over the ballet lessons.  I don’t really regret that as much but I do wish I’d found a way to do ballet too.  Anyway I just remember that I was there with my first grade “boyfriend” who got tired and went home after only a short time.  I spent the entire party hopping around, throwing punches and dancing.  I remember hearing my Mom say to someone “Men are always going to struggle to keep up with her on the dance floor.”  Little did I know at that age that what she wasn’t just talking about the dancing.  Either way I need to get out a little more and act my age.  Even if I’m just dancing on my own—no wild oats need to be sown for me to enjoy myself.

For the mornings after this is a fantastic quick bread that comes together using the time trusted muffin method.  This means it’s simple and can be done even if that night before involved enough liquid courage for the dancefloor to leave you suffering some of the afterness of badness.  You can use the recipe to make muffins or a loaf for easy slicing.  It’s filling and delicious—yes even to someone like me who doesn’t really like oatmeal.

Dorie’s Oatmeal Loaf

From Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking from my home to yours”

Read more

Apr 8

Muffin Monday: Bran-ding Mango Fett

I missed my scifriday post last week.  I just got too busy and didn’t manage to get it together but I do have some geeky thoughts on my mind and they are invading my muffin zone!

Once again I find myself at a crossroads where I am both always staunchly defending geek culture to outsiders (the “normies”) and yet also often highly dissatisfied and critical of those within my adopted realm.  It is a strange experience to both be loudly defending and critiquing the world I’m a part of.  It is also strange that I feel totally locked into my role as a geek by non-geeks and yet constantly feel pressure to defend/demonstrate my worthiness of the moniker to my peers.  It’s a not easy to navigate this contradiction of my very existence.

The internal struggle within geek culture to demonstrate how geeky you really are….  Well it’s been on my mind a lot lately for so many reasons.  I was deciding how to decorate my bathroom and trying desperately to find some way to reconcile my desire for a “girly” space with my geekier interests.  I was spending way too much energy obsessing over which shower curtain to buy based on how it could accessorize with geekier objects in the room.  Eventually I sat back and asked myself what the hell I was doing.  I really didn’t want to spend more than $15 dollars on a shower curtain—I’m not actually decorating a home where I plan on living for the next ten years and my lease is month to month.  I could be gone at any moment.  It’s not a situation where I’m looking to nail art to the walls.  I don’t need to spend 75 dollars buying this one shower curtain because it manages to both fit into the more “feminine” styling I want but color coordinates well with lab equipment.  Why do I feel like I have to put my geek on display in a room which is really only used to “shit, shower and shave”?

Then I was spending International Table Top day with my family.  Mom busted out her Star Trek Monopoly game she got for Christmas and had been desperate to play.  Monopoly is a painful exercise to begin with—let’s be real.  It’s wheeling and dealing and any family that doesn’t end the game with someone upturning the board is ahead in my book.  We actually haven’t done that to date but you get the idea.  Anyway add in the Star Trek element and there were moments were I was literally grinding my teeth.  Mom picking on Dad for not getting references proclaiming “see he’s not really a geek” only a few minutes later to turn around and discover that there were cards she didn’t recognize either.  AHA!  See you don’t really know anything either.

When did Star Trek monopoly become about proving who knows more about phaser settings and Theremins?  Shouldn’t we be fighting over the gold pressed latinum and whether or not it’s ego-centric that the Federation be equivalent to Park Place.  We all were whining that the creators of “Continuum edition” were so lazy they couldn’t even rename the Jail to be the Brig.  Seriously guys the Contiuum edition of Star Trek Monopoly blows.  Don’t buy it.  Worst. Monopoly Adaptation. Ever.

But back to my point.  IT was painful at times to have this feeling of “one-uping” over geek cred.  I’ve bemoaned this problem largely as a female in a world predominantly male but it occurs even when you remove the gender part of the equation.  Not as much and not as nastily, but it’s there nonetheless.  Why is this?  Well the pop-culture nerd-splosion in the hipster community is largely to blame I guess.  Lots of 20-somethings walking around sporting Han Solo back packs with absolutely no understanding what the phrase “Han Shot First” actually means. The problem is that now if you don’t know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING in geek culture you are immediately suspected of being a phony.

Which leads back to my bathroom conundrum and my realization that lately I’ve been on a quest to absorb literally everything geeky to avoid this.  Frankly it’s exhausting.  Look I admit it; I didn’t know that Boba Fett was such an icon until late in High School when someone I knew started rambling on about the character.  And Jango Fett?  I didn’t know bantha shit about this character until the abomination of the new films.  I was more into Star Trek and while I’d read a number of Star Trek books, I’d never touched one for the Star Wars universe.  I’d seen, loved and worshipped the films but my fandom ended there.  Why?  There’s just not enough time to do it all.  It’s not fair to expect any of us to.  It’s also not fair to limit ourselves to only engaging in geeky pursuits out of a pressure to constantly demonstrate our involvement in the culture.

If I want a Barbie Bathroom then by Joss, I should be allowed to have a Barbie Bathroom and not have my passion for space aliens called into question.  Actually it’s got more of a floral vibe right now than anything else but you get my point.  It’s just exhausting otherwise and all we do is wind up alienating one another—and that’s not the kind of alien-nation we like.

Mango Bran Muffins

An Olivia Original Read more

Mar 25

L’Chaim Muffin Monday: I’ll bake to that!

Passover begins tonight.  For the goyim readers out there Passover is a Jewish Holiday, one of the more important ones really, but it’s relatively glossed over during Easter time in the stores.  Don’t worry I’m not about to rant about how most Americans only know Hanukah (a far less important holiday) or how a very Catholic girl I knew once said “Yeah they always show the Moses story for Easter but I don’t know why.”

Oy.

You might have noticed this holiday in the past though.  Maybe a Jewish friend starts whining about not being able to eat pizza or shows up to work hungover after something called “First Say-dur?” and you’re a little curious just what this Passover thing is all about.  Okay so let me explain.  No wait, there is too much, let me sum up.  This is how I explain the point of most Jewish holidays to my coworkers or semi-interested friends: someone tried to kill us, we survived, and now we celebrate surviving yet another attempted genocide by eating weird foods and getting drunk.  Sound about right?

Okay so that’s something of an oversimplified explanation but Passover can be a little hard to explain in detail to the totally unaware.  And again I’m not going to whine about how no one knows anything about Jewish holidays or how far too many people who claim to be Christian and know their bibles have no clue about a key part of the Old Testament.  I’m not.  Really.  Because you know what?  I don’t know shit really about Islamic or Hindu holidays.  I know more than the average Uh-MARE-ican.  Enough that I know what the point of Ramadan is and not to eat in front of my Islamic friends those long days.  I know that I would love to someday see and participating in celebrating Diwali and Holi because from what little I know, these Hindu holy days that utilize light and color sound beautiful.  I’m actually really intrigued by Hinduism.  There’s a lot to it from what little I’ve researched (or in other words spent hours on Wikipedia procrastinating) that appeals to me.

I guess my point is I’m at least aware of the existence of some non-mainstream Christian holidays which is all I ask of most people for Passover too.  I try not to be haughty when people don’t know the deal with that weird flat bread (Matzo) or get annoyed when people reduce it to a week of the Atkins diet.  I’ll be patient when I explain why I’m cooking up a storm for Seder dinner aka the Jewish Thanksgiving (except not really because we have a lot of those, it’s called Shabbat or every Friday night.)  ?  Oh wait, what’s a seder?  The first night, and second, nights of Passover (which lasts for 8 days) feature a large feast with prayers, songs, wine and a lavish ritual meal.  This is called a “seder” and is a very big deal for the holiday.  The point of the meal is also to teach the youngest members of the family about the meaning of the holiday through a series of questions asked every year designed to retell the story.  There’s also the “Seder Plate” which contains 7 foods present at every Seder to help with the telling of the story.  Thus I had a thought: I’m not going to get to have a proper Seder with my friends this year.  Most of them are scattered across the land anyway in faraway places like LA, New York and I shudder to think of it—Montana.  How about a virtual seder through my blog?  You’re all invited to attend.  Starting tomorrow for each day of Passover I want to feature a food inspired by one of the Seder plate offerings and give you a little insight into the holiday.

In the meantime I’m getting in my last bit of chametz (bread) with these Masala Chai Tea Muffins.  Wait—Chai?  Olivia you’re mixing up your cultures!  Chai, pronounced with a soft ch like chimichanga, is a term for flavored black tea from India.  Chai, with a hard chhhhh phlegmy sound, is the symbol for life in Judaism.  You’d be most likely familiar with the term as a toast offered by Jewish friends with wine— “L’Chaim!” which means “To Life!”  These muffins are tasty enough that you might get a little culturally flustered too.  I prefer to think of it as a melding of worlds in tasty, pastry form.  Just sit back, enjoy the ride and take your last few bites of bread until April 3 rolls around.  I promise they are a tasty way to toast to the holiday.

Masala L’Chaim Muffins!

An Olivia Original Read more

Feb 25

Muffin Monday: Strawberry Blonde Ambition

I have a lot of interests.  Too many in fact.  I suffer from “I-want-to-do-it-all-and-I-want-it-right-now”-itis.  As a result I have this horrifying habit of overloading myself and piling way too much on my plate—sort of like taking what Jewish mothers do at the dinner table.  I want to volunteer, I want to cook, I want to keep up on my blog, I want to get my advance certification in clinical trials, I want to go to grad school, I want to go to yoga teacher training…I want.  I want.  I want.  God how annoying.  Anyway one of the things I also love to do is act but I have the hardest time ever admitting that to people.  For one thing I worry that it seems like I cheapen my day job, which I love, as something I’m not passionate about.  I would hate for employers or anyone else to think that I treat my role in curing cancer as something to “pass the time” until I get discovered.  I love science and I love what I do so I hate to mention this other passion of mine because people then assume that I must not actually want to work in clinical trials.

Also I’m blonde.  A tiny, little blonde girl who looks like every other tiny little blonde girl to ever move to Los Angeles.  I can just hear the cliché clicking into place whenever I admit to someone that I have a passion for acting.  Though in my defense my hair is strawberry blonde so I’m not quite the bleached out bimbo that personifies the ultimate Hollywood Wannabe…right?  The worst part is that wanting to do any sort of acting at all gets you lumped in with the celebrity grabbers and the money grabbers and this idea that you have daddy issues and didn’t get enough love in your childhood.  I love them for loving me and they love me for loving them…and that’s cuz we didn’t get enough love in our childhoods.

The thing is my desire to act stems from the earlier problem I mentioned.  I really want to experience everything this life has to offer and unfortunately that’s almost impossible.  Almost.  I say almost because that’s the big allure acting has always offered in my mind.  You get to be anyone and who you get to be changes from one day or week to the next.  You might spend a few weeks on broadway playing an orphan girl and then switch to the most villainous woman in the land poisoning her step-daughter.  You might get to play an astronaut in one film and go to NASA space camp to train for the role.  The next you could be hacking away trees in the Amazon for a eco-thriller.  The range of experiences that actors get to have, all while exploring the multifaceted human psyche is something I have always coveted.  It’s why I would, given the change, want to pursue a career doing exactly what I want to do: everything.

As a child playing imagination games wasn’t something I did just because my family was too poor for video game systems. It wasn’t something I did just because there was nothing else to do.  It wasn’t even something I did because televisions shows told me to—which ha, that always made me laugh.  I did it because it was acting even if there was no audience to see it.  And as for my passion in science?  Well one of my favorite little stories to play out with my cousin was this:

I was a mutant, like on the x-men, with a brilliant scientific mind and powers over plants and the weather but ONLY in the rainforest.  I lived my days in my treehouse cultivating plants to develop cures for diseases all the while battling forces of evil trying to destroy the fragile ecosystem of Brazil.  (I really had a thing for Brazil when I was little…and the rainforest)  I could summon rainstorms and grow exotic plants which produced rare chemicals all while I raced to find the cure for the mysterious illness killing off my mutant brethren.  An illness that may have been genetically engineered by those in the government trying to remove us from the planet….

Then at some point I felt like my little fantasy was too “girly” because having an interest in mutant powers wasn’t for girls unless it was “feminized” and I felt like making my powers based in plant life did just that.  Defiant to the end to be a girl-empowered kickass I soon became enamored instead with astronomy and spent most of my years thinking I wanted to be a space station engineer.  I still kind of wish I had pursued that but my natural talents fell more toward microbiology so one day I said “fuck it I love biology and it’s insulting to insinuate it’s a feminine science.”  Thttp://rollingsreliable.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3403&action=edithen I discovered biotech which let me merge both sides of the science together in that much love/hate field of genetic engineering.  Wow this tangentalized pretty quickly.

Anyway my point is: I love acting because I love getting to explore all my interests which are varied and exponential.  Give me a week and I’ll have another handful of things I’ve discovered/read/found that I want to learn about.  My brain and my heart are greedy things looking to get a grasp on any human experience possible.  Acting is the vehicle to do this.  But that’s not what people hear when I say “Oh well I’m also an actress.”

Then of course there’s the modeling.  That really is just about getting to wear the clothes.  What?  I’m not allowed to have a superficial side too?  Kind of like these muffins.  They aren’t particularly healthy or good for you but they taste delightful.  They are somewhat lower in cholesterol since the recipe doesn’t utilize eggs but it does have a fair amount of butter.  You could easily veganize it if you liked by replacing the butter with a non-hydrogenated butter substitute.  It’s also very stiff, dry dough so don’t be alarmed when mixing if it seems too thick.  This is likely (I didn’t write this recipe so I’m only guessing here) because the strawberries you add to the batter have a high water content.  It’s why strawberries are very rarely used in recipes because that can be quite difficult to work with.  In this case they hydrate the dough during baking so you end up with some very tender, moist muffins in the end. These are proof that you can marry something as basic as a muffin recipe, with something as sublime as a strawberry and get a perfect union as a result.  I only hope that my passion for something as cliché as acting and my passion for science and using my brain can someday do the same thing and shock the world in a way that these will shock your tastebuds: delicious, sweet goodness.

Strawberry Blonde Muffins Read more

Feb 11

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Muffin Monday: Just an orangery old coot….

Deep down inside I think I’m really just an 80 year old man.  With man boobs.  Aw man. **anyone know what I’m quoting?**  I seem to be a cranky old sailor (despite my penchant for sundresses and floppy hats), ready to complain about kids hover-boarding on my lawn and I’m not even 25 yet.  People love to say I have an old soul but sometimes I wonder if that means I’m all withered up like a prune in the “fun” centers of my brain.  Then again I know of other 20 somethings who feel like they had more in common with Mr. Wilson than Dennis so maybe this isn’t so rare after all?  My friend Brian likes to poke fun at my willingness to “rage” on the internet but couldn’t that be simultaneously a symptom of immaturity as well as a lack of youthful spirit?  I prefer to think of it as righteous indignation—because that has the word right in it so clearly I must be correct yes?  Maybe righteous indignation coupled with wisdom, passion and a flawed but ultimately belligerently adorable ornery Olivia state of mind?

Ornery Olivia–she comes out when I’m tired or cranky—not that unusual I think for someone to be a little bit on edge and snappish when stressed.  The bigger issue then maybe is that I’m stressed too often and need to learn to “let it go” as it were.  “Raging” or ranting can release the frustration I feel but sometimes it just leaves me feeling worse off than before—agitated primarily at myself for getting so, well, agitated.  I just don’t know how to not be a smart ass sometimes.  I was contemplating this the other day after leaving my yoga studio.  I just got out of a particularly challenging Bikram session that left me physically drained but very happy with my practice when a young white bald man approaches me.

“Hare Krishna” he says.  I smile and nod as the social expectations dictate even though I didn’t ASK to be approached on the street by a stranger with a greeting.  My phone is in my hands and I’m trying to make sure that I don’t have any missed important messages regarding a brunch I was planning the next day.

“Can you say Hare Krishna?” the man is speaking to me like a child who doesn’t know her words.  Apparently my normally socially acceptable smile and nod was insufficient for this individual who wishes to engage me in his practice.  Ornery Olivia is tired and rears her head, which ironically provides me with a surge of energy.

“Do I have the powers of speech?  Yes I do.”

“Well are you going to say it?”  I roll my eyes.

“Thank you goodbye” my attention turned back to my phone and I shift my bag ready to walk away.

“Do you know what Hare Krishna means?” I am asked.

“Yes thank you goodbye”

“Well then what does it mean?”

“It means I’m about to punch you in the throat if you don’t leave me alone.”  Okay I admit this last bit was a thought bubble and not what came out.  I’m ornery but not generally violent, at least not toward total strangers even if they are being obnoxious.

“I don’t speak on command like a pet.  Now thank you and GOODBYE.”

“Well maybe you’ll do better tomorrow.”

“Not if I see you first.” and then I turned and walked away.

I know I didn’t need to engage but sometimes my mouth just gets away from me.  Still I just HATE being stopped on the street by total strangers.  Pan-handlers are bad enough but at least I understand the begging.  I get far more annoyed by petitioners, especially ones who dress themselves up to look like city officials, who do their best to make you feel guilty for having places to go.  What’s more I don’t find it particularly safe to just stop on the street whenever any person wants to ask you something.  It’s a city mentality I suppose, a crotchety one, but I didn’t grow up in Mayberry and I don’t think it’s wise to assume that people have benign intentions.

Then there is the other side of me.  The shiny, Kaylee, bubbly sundress wearing, parasol twirling little girl who sees the world with Vanellope Sweet-candy eyes.

I guess I confuse even myself.

Anyway after a day of being the old lady version of myself I decided to embrace some sunshiney weather with equally sunshiney orange muffins.  I turned Ornery Olivia into Orangey Olivia.

See, see what I did there?

I loved the flavor in these but not so much the texture.  I tried out a recipe from a cookbook I rarely use (because I own too many cookbooks and am trying to branch out from Dorie) and was immediately suspicious of this being too cake like.  Sure enough they were very cakey and as a result they really were only good day of baking.  I put them out for a brunch on Sunday (made them Saturday) and found that the muffins were probably the least popular thing on the table…but they sure brightened it up with their chipper appearance.  Also don’t tell anyone but they actually got a nutrition boost from my own addition to the recipe: flax meal.

Ornery Orange Muffins

Modified from “The Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook” Read more

Jan 28

Muffin Monday: She who brings destruction…

In school from elementary through college, I always enjoyed any unit or course which touched upon Greek mythology—or honestly, any sort of mythology and folklore in general.  It’s why I took an entire course on fairy tales which I could have aced in my sleep as an undergrad and enjoyed more than probably any other class I took…save my graphic novels course.  Clearly I needed to major in non-traditional literature.  One of the greek myths that always stuck with me over the years is that of the Abduction (i.e. Rape) of Persephone.  Are you familiar with this story?

Demeter is one of the less popularly known, but still major, Greek Gods.  She is the “Mother Earth” figure; the Goddess of Harvest and abundance as well as the keeper of the Eleusinian Mysteries—a series of ceremonies we still don’t know much about save they were related to the concept of immortality in the afterlife and aided by some psychotropic drugs.  Persephone is/was the “virgin” daughter of Demeter—an interesting contrast to a Goddess of harvest which would symbolize fertility.  The story of the abduction of Persephone always stuck with me I think because of the power of Demeter to bring the world to its knees all for the sake of her daughter.  You know the saying about a woman scorned?  I think that pales in comparison to the wrath of a mother protecting her child. Here’s how the story plays out:

Persephone is the beautiful, virginal daughter of Demeter with untold beauty.  One day Hades spies her and, being the god of the Underworld and death, covets her and wishes to take her down to the underworld to be his bride.  In the past Persephone had already been wooed by Gods far more beautiful and charming than Hades—notably Apollo the sun god—and she had rejected them all.  Demeter would do her best to keep her daughter hidden away from their lustful invitations and her daughter remained a pure Goddess of nature; she would assist her mother in spreading seeds that fed the world.

Hades confers with Zeus who advises him to steal the girl away.  Zeus was such a cad wasn’t he?  The man could not stay faithful and he had no qualms about just absconding with women as he or his brothers desired.  Anyway Hades decides to listen to his philandering, venereal disease collection plate known as God of the Gods, and one day as Persephone wanders alone in a field of wild flowers, Hades abducts and makes off with the poor girl.  How awful would that be?  To be in a field of sunshine and flowers one moment and the next crowned the queen of a land of the dead and decrepit?

Demeter, upon finding out her daughter’s fate, dooms the earth to drought and death.  She refuses to let anything grow unless Persephone is freed from Hades’s grasp and brought back to the light of the world.  As the planet withers and dies, Zeus eventually responds by pleading with his brother to let the girl go however it turns out that it is too late to free Persephone from the grasp of the netherworld completely.  A rule of visiting Hades’ realm is that no one who eats there may ever leave.  Persephone had during her captivity consumed only a few seeds from the fruit of a pomegranate—in some stories she is tricked, in others driven by hunger and attempts to conceal her act.  Regardless those 4 seeds bind Persephone to the realm.  Consumed with rage Demeter continues to starve the earth to death until Hades develops and alternative plan: Persephone is bound only for as many months as seeds she consumed.  While Demeter relents from her destruction when Persephone returns, she still continued to refuse to bless the earth or harvest during the time her daughter is taken from her each year.  A constant reminder to Zeus and any other man precisely of what a mother’s wrath can bring.   Thus the name Persephone became known as “she who brings destruction and death”   This story was also meant to account for the concept of the seasons as most Greek myths are stories to explain something that we now have science for.

I guess this story has been on my mind because we are breaching the final weeks of the worst of winter and I am longing for summer sun to return.  I also just spent a fantastic weekend doing a photo shoot with my mom and am planning on spending valentine’s day with her so maybe the mother-daughter thing is on my head as well.  Regardless it inspired today’s muffin recipe.  The pomegranates were an experiment of mine and I wasn’t sure how they would turn out.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  See pomegranate seeds are both juicy and crunchy so it was like having blueberries and walnuts rolled into one tiny gem.  I quite enjoyed the texture interplay.

 

Whole Wheat Pomegranate Muffins

An Olivia Original Read more

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