This Life

Introducing the Dirty Barn Girls

No, it's not a team of strippers or an all-girl band. The Dirty Barn Girls (DBGs to those in the know) is a group of seven women who met at a barn in the early 1990s and have been friends ever since. Here's a scrapbook layout that celebrates our friendship:

Journaling reads "The name started at a horse show, of course. The husband of Heidi, one of our old friends, remarked on how filthy we seemed to be most of the time. “Dirty Barn Girls” is how he described us, and the name stuck.

The group started at the Traditional Equitation Center at LAEC in Burbank in the early 1990s. We rode together, joined by our love of three-day eventing, and all things equine.

Since then, we’ve been at many different barns and at too many horse shows to count. We’ve shared tiny motel rooms and palatial homes. We’ve supported each other through marriages and divorces, and we’ve watched our children be born and grow. Even though we don’t all ride together anymore, we’re united by our love of our horses and each other.

No matter where I am or what happens, I know I can count on these women to help and support me. Because they’re... MY FRIENDS."

Why am I bringing this up now? Because yesterday was my birthday and the four DBGs who still live in Los Angeles came over for dinner. I'll write more about that in the next post because frankly, I still haven't recovered enough to string a coherent post together. It turns out that five middle-aged ladies can drink a surprising amount of wine.

In the meantime, I leave you with these photos from last night. Since we all have our clothes on and no one's dancing on the table, they must have been taken at the beginning of the evening.

What Happens In Vegas...

...gets shared with the world on this blog. Not that there's anything too scandalous likely to happen on a trip involving two middle-aged women, horses and a blender.

Wait...back up a second...a blender?

There was a time when preparations for a road trip with my friend Suzanne would have involved packing my fanciest clothes and stopping at the grocery store to stock up on candy bars, Mint Milano cookies and bottles of water to gorge ourselves on during the drive. We never worried about what we'd eat once we arrived at our hotel. That's what room service is for, right?

Fast forward 15 years and it's a WHOLE different story. We're health-conscious, weight-conscious, cash-conscious, and too many other kinds of conscious to list. By the time we'd finished packing the car for the drive to Vegas, we were stocked up with:

• 12 bottles of water
• 5 containers of greek yogurt
• 3 packs of fresh blueberries
• 1 pack of frozen blueberries
• 1 bunch of bananas 
• 1 pack of fresh strawberries
• 2 tins of sugar-free peaches
• 2 bars of sugar-free dark chocolate 
• 2 organic chocolate bunnies (a girl's gotta live a little)
• Red pepper hummus
• Gluten-free crackers
• Low-fat mozzarella sticks
• 1 package of baked tofu 
• Cherry tomatoes
• Organic tomatoes
• 2 packs of organic salad greens
• Fresh basil
• Ground flax seed
• Brewers yeast 
• Protein powder
• Slivered almonds
• Sugar-free maple syrup
• Agave nectar
• Soy-ginger vinaigrette

Yes, I know they have grocery stores in Las Vegas. But how could we be sure they'd have exactly the right brand of greek yogurt? How could I start my morning without my fruit & yogurt parfait flavored with just the right blend of agave nectar and sugar-free maple syrup? I mean, an army marches on its stomach, people! And what's good for an army has to be good for a couple of aging gals with a horse obsession, right?

The drive took a reasonably fast 4 hours and 15 minutes, largely because we fussed and fidgeted and left Suzanne's house late by our usual hour or so. We told ourselves we were making a smart decision to avoid the evening rush-hour, but the truth is we've never managed to leave on time for a road trip together EVER. We know this about each other and we're OK with it. It's yet another reason why we're friends.

We stayed at the Hilton, which had an amazing $59 deal going on. More importantly, they had a new spa and very, very comfy beds. Let me emphasize the extreme comfort of these beds. So comfy, in fact, that they caused both Suzanne and I to sleep in every morning and miss our usual strenuous 6am yoga workout. Which we each do at home every day. Without fail. Honest.

As I mentioned before, we were in Las Vegas to watch the 2009 Dressage World Cup. Of course, along with the "watching" comes the "shopping." Every major show has a big trade fair filled with rows upon rows of horsey temptation. We planned to be good and just window-shop, but the nasty salespeople kept trapping us in booths filled with new breeches and cute jackets and we kept having to force our way out by waving burning credit cards in their faces.

It turns out that shopping for new breeches was a smart idea, since the four-day trip somehow caused all the breeches in my closet at home to shrink.

Apparently, packing a car-load of healthy food doesn't help if you visit places like this:

Yes, that's chocolate flowing in them thar fountains. And no, they wouldn't let me behind the glass to do a quality-control check. They would, however, let me jam as many of these into my mouth as was humanly possible:

It turns out I can jam quite a lot of delicate french pastries into my mouth. What can I say? It's a gift.

But what about that blender? Well, we did eat a very healthy breakfast each day. Because everyone knows that if you eat yogurt and fruit for breakfast, it cancels out the pastries you eat for lunch, right? And if you make a smoothie for breakfast and drink it rather than eating anything, you haven't actually eaten anything. See? It's all a matter of perspective.

What else did we do in Vegas? Well, we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to see Cirque Du Soleil's "O" which was fantastic. Suzanne made some new friends:

 

But mostly, we watched some amazing horses and riders, ate, drank, got together with old friends, shopped......

...and had a wonderful, fabulous time.

The Most Perfect Dessert

Behold, in all it's spicy, chocolatey glory, the iced chai with dark chocolate. Isn't it tempting, sitting there with its milky top and syrupy bottom, nestled up against the dark chocolate squares? You vixen...you shameless hussy of a dessert. What is this power you have over me?

Ahem. Can you guess I have a slight addiction going here? 

I started getting these from Starbucks, but even though the addiction is strong, the tightwadiness is stronger. So although I occasionally stop and get one at Starbucks if I'm out, most of the time I settle for making them myself at home after lunch each day.

I start with Tazo Iced Chai concentrate. It has to be Tazo; none of your Republic of Tea or Oregon Chai imposters here. I use about one-third concentrate to two-thirds reduced-fat milk. Then I add two ice cubes. Not three or one. Two. I'm nothing if not consistent.

Finally, I break off two squares of Trader Joe's Carb Safe sugar-free dark chocolate (located at the checkout). Despite being low in calories and fat and completely without sugar or artificial sweeteners, it has a deep, rich chocolate taste that's the perfect complement to the slightly spicy iced chai.

Say it with me: Mmmmmmm

Valentine's Day

So how was your Valentine's Day? Did you do the flowers and chocolates thing, or are you more of a "hide in a cave until the whole thing's over" type? Me, I'm an unabashed romantic. And since Valentine's Day is also our anniversary, we tend to do gifts, dinner and all the mushy stuff. For the last few years, we've been pretty practical with our gifts, with each of us picking out something that we'll actually use. We tend to do that for birthdays and Christmas, too. Most of the time, I'm fine with that. But occasionally, my inner girly-girl pounds on the door and demands to be let out for a while. That means jewelry instead of computer equipment, watching movies instead of working, and dressing up for dinner in a nice restaurant.

This was one of those years.

It started out with the delivery of a lovely flower arrangement from the Empty Vase, the only flower place we've found who consistently delivers fabulous arrangements on time. I'm serious--we've tried tons of other places only to find ourselves still waiting for the flowers to arrive at 6pm. When we call to ask why they're late, some idiot manager usually says, incredulously, "Well, it's Valentine's Day." Right. I know it's Valentine's Day. That's why we ordered flowers. I mean, if you can't deliver flowers on time on that one day of the year, you really should pack up shop and go into another line of work, right?

I love flowers. I could photograph them all day long.

My hard drive is full of photos of flowers, all from slightly different angles.

Since my guy is sweet enough to send me flowers for every birthday and Valentine's Day, that adds up to a LOT of photos. And I always pick one flower from every arrangement and press it to keep in my "treasures" box. Awwww. Try not to throw up, please. It's hard to remove from a keyboard.

Anyway, after the flowers came the exchange of gifts. I'd dropped little hints about jewelry for a while. Stuff like "I'd sure like some romantic jewelry." That's me: subtle to a fault. Still, it worked. I got a lovely pair of dangly earrings from the 1930s, which just happened to match the first necklace he ever bought me. Pretty, aren't they? They're exactly the right length to dangle nicely without actually getting tangled in clothing. I love them.

I couldn't think what to buy for the guy who has everything he wants. The only thing I was sure of was that it wasn't going to be another Guitar Center gift card. Not that I've got anything against Guitar Center, but they're starting to greet me by name when I go in there so I think I need to change up the gift ideas a bit.

This year, I went for a more spiritual theme. I got him a statue of Quan Yin, the female aspect of Buddha. She's the Goddess of Love, Compassion and Mercy, and she's one of the most beloved of all the Buddhist deities. She's supposed to embody maternal love for all living beings, and I thought she'd be a good balance to the various Buddhas we have around the house.

The vase she's holding carries the Water of Life, which brings physical and spiritual peace. And she's sitting on a lotus flower, which represents beauty even in the midst of the mud in which it grows. That's me: beauty amidst the mud. Well, maybe not so much the "beauty" part, but the mud's definitely right on. Don't you love the serene expression on her face? I don't think I look that peaceful even when I'm asleep.

It's all about me. :)

This statue is made of solid teak, and I love its rich, dark color. Apparently, you're supposed to oil the bottom of a teak statue occasionally and the oil will be absorbed into the wood and prevent it from cracking. Who knew?

We spent the rest of the day reading and hanging out, then had a scrummy dinner at La Loggia, the restaurant where we had our first date. We still go there for Valentine's Day every year. The food is wonderful, it's never too loud and the staff are always so friendly. If you find yourself in Studio City, CA, definitely give it a try. You won't regret it.

Get Rid of Those Water Bottles!

(standing on soapbox)

Everyone knows we're supposed to drink tons of water, right? Eight glasses a day or something? Fine. Not a problem for me--I've always loved water. In fact, when I was a kid, I hated all forms of soda and drank nothing but water. I hated french fries, too. And condiments. And tomatoes. And cartoons. I guess I was just weird.

Anyway, back to the water. Now, when I was a kid, all that water came straight out of the tap and into a glass. For my UK friends, it mostly still does, but here in the US, many people don't like the strange, fluorid-ey taste of tap water. Here, bottled water rules.

I used to get through several six packs of water each week. The passenger side of my car was always filled with empties rolling around on the floor. I always recycled the empty bottles, so I figured I wasn't doing any harm, right? Wrong!

Did you know that for every liter of water, it takes 5 liters just to produce the bottle? And despite the fact that the bottles are recyclable, we still pitch 38 billion of them into landfills each years (that's more than $1b worth of plastic).

Here are some more scary facts:

• Fiji water comes from a plant that runs 24 hours a day. The local utility company can't supply that much electricity, so the plant uses 3 big diesel generators to make its own. The Fiji label says the water comes from "one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth" but they don't mention that the bottling plant leaves the local area coated in a diesel haze. 

• San Pellegrino bottles are washed and rinsed with mineral water before being filled. This uses up 2 liters of water. And although the water comes from the ground, it's not naturally sparkling. It comes out as still water, and the San Pellegrino company trucks in CO_{2 ^{from volcanic springs in Tuscany and adds it to the water.}}

• Aquafina (owned by Pepsi) and Dasani (owned by Coke) are simply purified municipal water. Basically the same stuff you can get by running tap water through a Brita filter.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Say hello to my little friend. (Perfunctory Scarface reference designed to give this post some cool street cred.)

I'm not saying I never buy bottled water. But I figured that since the two places I spend most of my time are my desk and my car, I could at least cut down the number of bottles I use. So I bought two of these babies. The stainless steel one matches my computer, and the green one matches my car. Environment or no environment, a girl's gotta match.

Anyway, these bottles hold 18oz of water and I fill them from my Brita filter each day. I use them for a few days then throw them in the dishwasher. You can also get them in cool patterns and with sports tops.

One handy side-effect is that since the bottles are stainless steel, they keep the water cooler than a plastic bottle does. When I get into my car in sunny Los Angeles, my old plastic water bottle would often be warm and squishy and the water tasted like a hot bath. Now the water is cool and refreshing and I don't feel like I'm in the desert drinking from a camel bladder.

If plain steel isn't your thing and you want something a little more decorative, check out these cool designs from Sigg. ReusableBags.com also has a ton of water bottles, bags, etc. Definitely worth a visit.

Anyway, it's not a big thing. It's not like I'm single-handedly saving the planet or anything. But it's surprising how these little things add up when they're done by enough people.

<end of soapbox rant>

Here are some articles worth reading if you want more info:

Fast Company, 09/11/08, "Message in a Bottle"

TriplePundit, 02/05/07, "Exotic Bottled Water"

Treehugger, 01/26/09, "Is Bottled Water Really So Bad?"

Happy Thanksgiving!

At least, it was for us. How about you?

We had a quiet Thanksgiving this year. Since the friends whose house we usually go to were away, it was just the two of us for dinner. We ate ourselves into the usual coma, then watched a movie. No stress, no pressure.

First (and most importantly), the food. We're both vegetarian so we don't do the usual turkey and trimmings. A couple of years ago, we found a really great alternative at our local Whole Foods Market. It's called a Celebration Roast and it's made by a company called the Field Roast Grain Meat Co. Sounds very vegetarian, right? Well, if the name seems carnivorous, the roast itself is even more so. It's a vegetarian "meat" with a very dense, meaty texture and it's stuffed with a sausage-style stuffing made from butternut squash, apples, mushrooms and spices. Yum!

According to their website, each one is made by hand, wrapped in cotton netting and simmered.I usually just put the whole thing on a baking tray, brush it with olive oil and roast it for 15 minutes. You can also microwave it, but I like the texture better when it's roasted. It's really pretty amazing how much like meat the texture is. I've taken this with me to Thanksgiving celebrations at other people's houses and it's always a hit, even with non-veggies.

Since there were just the two of us and I didn't feel like eating leftovers for the next week, I went light on the side dishes. We had a simple selection of roasted baby sweet potatoes:

and some roasted green beans with slivered almonds, diced onions and garlic:

 

This was supposed to be Garlic-Roasted Green Beans with Shallots and Almonds from Kalyn's Kitchen but I didn't have any shallots so I used onions instead. I also didn't have any parsley or lemon zest (preparation's my middle name) but the beans were still very tasty.

Generally, when I cook I like to be prepared and do things exactly according to the recipe. Well, the first time, at least. But recently, I've been adopting a more lackadaisical approach. Lazy, even. This has mostly been necessitated by the amount I'm working at the moment. I don't have time to cook very often so when the urge strikes, I have to make do with whatever I have in the fridge at the time. It actually hasn't worked out too badly. The other day, for example, I made tofu-stuffed eggplant roulettes in marinara sauce. When the recipe called for lemon juice and I didn't have any, I used a little ponzu sauce instead. It's citrus-y, right? It actually tasted pretty good. Well, the stuffing did, anyway. The roulettes themselves were completely inedible due to one missing instruction in the recipe. Who knew that once you've salted eggplants to remove bitterness, you actually have to rinse the salt off before cooking them.

But I digress.

This Thanksgiving, I was most proud of my pumpkin pie. I started with the Great Pumpkin Pumpkin Pie recipe from AllRecipes.com. We're doing our best to eat healthily and avoid sugar, so I replaced the Splenda with xylitol, the brown sugar with Splenda brown sugar mix, and the half-and-half with fat-free evaporated milk. I also used a whole-wheat ready-made crust from Whole Foods (which I managed to partially destroy while taking it out of the oven: see photo below). The result was wonderful! It tasted exactly like a regular pumpkin pie, but with a fraction of the sugar, fat and calories.

 

I leave you with a shot of the flowers from our Thanksgiving table. $6.99 from Trader Joe's. Man, I love that place!

I'm in Love...

...with this:

It's a Crock-Pot 4-qt. Slow Cooker by Rival. It's easy, it goes in the dishwasher, it doesn't require skill. IT'S A MIRACLE!

Now, I know some of you are probably wondering what far away, non-crockpot-using planet I'm from. Apparently, these things have been around for years, decades even. Well, that may be true but I've never had one. And as anyone who's ever visited my house will tell you, I have pretty much every kitchen gadget known to man. Strawberry topper? Check. Cherry pitter? Check. Lemon wedge squeezer? Six of 'em. But a crock pot? Nada. Zip. Zilch.

I've been curious about them for a while, after discovering a recipe using one on Kalyn's Kitchen. I like the idea of being able to throw assorted veggies and meat substitutes (I'm a vegetarian) into a container, flip a switch and go away for 8 hours. I did just that this morning before going to the barn. I threw in a red pepper, some snow peas, a can of kidney beans, some chunks of firm tofu, and a small jar of Trader Joe's Peanut Satay Sauce. When I got back, I had a fabulous stew all ready to go, with enough left over for dinner tomorrow and the next night.

I try to eat healthily. And I really do like to cook; just not on a daily basis. So this wonderful little toy allows me to eat well AND do more interesting things with my time. Like get drenched in a spray of saliva and apple-flavored water. But that's a story for another time. (Hint: it's horse-related.)