If I were a vegetable...

this is what I'd be:



It's romanesco broccoli.
I vegetable I had never seen nor heard of before.

What fun! It's so cool looking I didn't want to eat it. Here's a close-up:


After a week of gazing at it in my refrigerator, I finally had the guts to cut it up and eat it.



It tastes like a cross between cauliflower and broccoli, with a nutty taste and a smooth texture.

Another new orchid!

Another orchid joined the family.



Gorgeous color, and lots of new blooms.

But the roots are just as cool:

one potato, two potato

Oh how my potato plant has grown!

Lupicia Tea

I'm addicted to tea.

I like it iced. I like it hot.

I like it at least twice a day, preferably more.

I've been buying tea from Lupicia Tea. They have tons to choose from, either loose or in these cute little silky pyramid tea bags.


They make great gifts, but I usually keep them and drink them myself.

My favorite is genmaicha, which is green tea with roasted brown rice. I recently tried "azumino soba cha" at Lupicia--it's green tea with buckwheat.

Delicious.

Art Review: Chiho Aoshima

So I made it to the Takashi Murakami exhibit at the LA MOCA. It was one of the best art exhibits I've ever seen. I walked away feeling exuberantly happy and very pink.

Kaikai Kiki is the name of Murakami's art production company in Japan. Chiho Aoshima is one of the artists featured there. Check out her work:






LOVE it!

dryer balls

I used to love the smell of dryer sheets when doing laundry.

Then I learned that dryer sheets are full of toxic crap.

So I threw out the dryer sheets and got dryer balls. These fun guys are non-toxic, hypoallergenic, and are reusable for 2 years.

Oh, and they fluff up my laundry good.


My dryer balls agreed to pose for a photo shoot:

Organic Mint

Mmmmmmm.

Bunches of mint have randomly started growing in my backyard.

And it's organic!

So much fun to pick it and put it in my iced tea. I feel like I'm living on a farm.

(I hope Billy, the neighbor's cat, didn't pee on it though. Is cat pee organic?)

And this reminds me, I really need to blog about iced tea.

find the nest in the tree

This tree is in my backyard. Yesterday there was a lot of squawking, rustling and rummaging around going on in the branches.

A bird kept flying in and out with twigs.

So there must be a nest in there somewhere.

Do you see it?

Here?




Or in there?


I love the shenanigans that go on in my backyard...

Review: Dexter

My blog wouldn't be complete without a review of Showtime's Dexter.

It is quite simply the best show on TV right now.

Dexter works for the police department as a blood splatter specialist by day...and by night, he's a serial killer. And the twist is that he only kills the bad guys. So that makes him a good guy, right?

And that's the paradox with Dexter. He is at once likable, lovable, and funny. We're often in his head listening to his monotone and sarcastically witty comments. He knows he's a monster, but we also catch glimpses of his human side. Dexter is also smoking hot, and spends every episode in season 2 shirtless at some point. However, the killing he does is graphically violent and incredibly disturbing. As much as you like him, you're repulsed by him.

The writing is top notch, and the acting by Michael C. Hall as Dexter is flawless. I originally wasn't interested in this show based on the violence, but I was totally sucked in after watching the first episode.

Dexter is currently in season 2 and has been renewed for a 3rd season. The show is based on books by Jeff Lindsay. I read the first few books---they are good, but the show is actually better. Every episode has me on the edge of the couch laughing and/or screeching in fear. As much as I want Dexter to be all good, it's the dichotomy of good/evil that keeps me coming back for more.

Check it out!