Regional Differences

It's always neat to me when there are different names for the same items simply based on where you are in the country. So, please humor me-what do you call the following items? Please also tell me where you live (or where you grew up).



A sandwich on a long roll

You use this for groceries or while you are at stores like Target

Thirsty? Take a drink out of one of these things

Grandparents-Tell me what you call each of them separately

Round breakfast food that typically has maple syrup drizzled over them

Carbonated Beverages such as cola
Does anyone need an explination? (Thanks for the reminder, Danielle

If you can think of some other items that people use different words for, please leave them in comments. :)

In The Shadow

I know the recently I've been talking about how much I miss being in culinary school and truth be told, if I could afford it, I'd be going to another one right now. I think that a lot of people think I'm nuts because they saw first hand how tired and strung out I was during that time in my life and they can't imagine why I'd want to put myself through that again. But it made me feel alive and it gave me hope. And I felt like I had a purpose.

And of course, there were my chef's.

I'm not going to post about how awesome they were because I did that just a few weeks ago. But what I am going to tell you is that of all the chef instructors I had, there were 3 that I will always love and who will always remain in my brain. Certain words or phrases will always remind me of them, and the character they had will come through in my memories.

And I will always, without a doubt, see people who remind me of them.

For instance, here at work there are 2 men who resemble Chef C and Chef V. Both chefs are little men (in stature). One speaks with a thick Boston accent and the other a Latin one. The two men that roam the hallways at work could easily be their brothers. The first one could very well be Chef C's cousin-that's how much they look alike. Their mannerisms are quite alike as well as their accent. And being that Chef C is from this area, it wouldn't be impossible. He makes me smile whenever I see him because I remember how much Chef C loved us and how we made him cry at the end of our tenure there.

I have not ever heard the other man speak, but only have seen him walking by my office or passing him in the hallway. It's strange because his face looks exactly like Chef V's-even in his eyes which is the best part of Chef V. They always seemed to be dancing and there was always a joke behind them. The man who looks like him has the same expression. It freaked me out a bit this morning when I saw him because he looked directly at me as he was walking by-almost as if it was Chef V but in disguise.

That's silly, I know, but that's how I felt.

One of these days I'm going to go visit the school to see them again. It's going to be hard considering I work when they are there and I live in Boston and they are in CT. But I'll find a way and when I do, they might have a hard time getting me to leave.

Who knew that I would get so attached to them? It amazes me on a daily basis.

Gooey Gobs-Redux

The following was originally posted on 7/13/05...



You know when you see someone with something gooey or crusty stuck in the corner of their eye or their mouth? And you don't want to look, but you have to? I was that girl today! The one with something in the corner of my mouth! EEWWWWW! Luckily, I noticed it right away, in the beginning of my day, but it still mortified me.


And also, it was only lipstick.


The lipstick was brown though. Imagine what people were thinking.


There I was standing in line at Duncan Donuts smiling at people as they walked by me. "Wow", I thought, "That hot guy just totally checked me out!" Little did I know he was smiling because he thought perhaps I had eaten shit for breakfast!


Thinking back, the scary "I wear glasses too big for my face" lady behind the counter looked at my mouth when I ordered. At the time, I thought that maybe she was just so blind that she couldn't tell where my eyes were. It was that kind of head tilted back I'm looking through the bottoms of my glasses look. You know it? But no-quite the opposite. Her gargantuan glasses were probably making the tiny dark glob in the left corner of my mouth look like the black hole. No wonder why she got my coffee for me so fast.


Here's my thing: Whyyyyy would you not say, "You have something on your lip"? I mean, it's obviously there-and it obviously makes you uncomfortable, so don't you think I'D want to know? I can understand the hot guy not saying something to me-but the big glasses lady?! I mean, c'mon! SHE must understand what it's like to feel alienated! Wouldn't she want to stop someone else from feeling that way?!?! Or maybe she was oddly comforted knowing someone else was going to get weird glances...


In any case, I think that the rule should be: No matter how uncomfortable you feel or how inappropriate you may think it is, you MUST tell someone if they have:


1. Something in their teeth
2. A booger-anywhere
3. Eye snot
4. A big glob of anything on their mouth or face
5. Toilet paper stuck-anywhere
6. Their underwear showing by accident.


By the way, you've got a little suttun suttun goin on over there...

I Feel...Pretty?

The last few weeks I've been feeling really great about myself. I managed to lose a little bit of weight with little effort and have just felt like I was really successful in life. The last few days, however, I have not. I've fallen off of the diet wagon (Saturday) and it just continued from there. I know that this isn't the end of the world, but I was doing so well.

Then on Sunday night I didn't sleep but 2 hours due to a horrible sore throat. I went into work for a few hours and came home and slept for 13 hours. Tuesday was pretty much the same and today I stayed out completely and just rested. Needless to say, the diet wasn't followed at all.

After I showered tonight and started feeling a tad bit better, I found myself wanting to feel pretty again. So I game myself a pedicure and painted my nails, groomed my eyebrows and deep cleaned my face.

By the way-am I the only person who is addicted to Biore pore strips? I know it's fairly gross, but I LOVE seeing little dirty spikes on that strip when I pull it off. I almost want to do it twice, but I don't. Incidentally, they have new improved strips with tea tree oil in them. Very cool...

I've also been bored with my jewelry recently. I love rings and haven't gotten a new one in about 3 years. That's a LONG time. My friend Paige has a jewelry website and I immediately fell in love with this: It's simply, and that's why I like it. It should be arriving very soon, and I can't wait!

I'm having trouble writing lately. There's a lot going on with work and baking and it's just taking up my energy. So, bare with me while I work that out.

Randomivity

Isn't it weird how one minute you can feel pretty and feminine and the next you can feel invisible...

Overall, people don't like the mini-burger. And a lot more people are pissed that White Castle's name (Slyders) has been ripped off. Not surprising though-women think they're cute.

It's a fact that I've seen with my own eyes-Haitian women have very large heals.

Sometimes I'm disappointed by the things I know. (This has nothing to do with Haitian women's feet).

It's scary to meet new people. Especially when they are most certainly younger and cooler than you are.

A 17 year old boy who loves my baking has won my heart. (It smell aMAZing in here-like always.)

Crack is whack.

I hate it when I can't do anything to protect the feelings of the people I care about. That, and I can't beat up the shitheads who make them sad.

Sometimes all you need is a night with good friends. And meatballs. (and 2 bottles of wine)

You've officially been accepted into the family when: 1. The pugs don't bark at you anymore 2. Katie brings you a sock. Both of these things happen.

Being sick sucks the big bologna pony. Especially when you are at work.

Kryptonite exists.

I would like to end this session with something that made me laugh out loud yesterday even though I felt like death eating a cracker:

(A survey I sent to some friends about their opinions on mini-burgers, and one funny guy's response)

Do you like them?
I suppose. I mean, it's a burger right? I think this is very similar to asking if if like Hershey's kisses. Sure I do, because I like Hershey's bars. The converse is true also: if you gave me a small tomato, I would hate it just as much as I loathe the larger ones.

Would you rather 1 large burger instead of 3 tiny ones?
I would rather just eat a burger. The problem with the sliders is that the meat is always paper thin, and doesn't really cook right, and the ratio of bread to meet seems skewed, so I always feel like I ate some meaty toast instead of an actual burger.

Are you more apt to "play" with toppings b/c they are smaller? (This one's my favorite answer)
One time, when I was five or six years old, I pretended that my peas were little army men (presumably because they are green), and I was a huge monster. I crushed them while roaring loudly. My mother slapped me. I don't play with my food anymore. That said, not really. I like sauces though. A1 on a burger is good, barbecue is awesome. Ketchup is weak - you can do better than that. Seriously.

What's your favorite kind of slider?
Uh.. there are different kinds of sliders? Oh, for crying out loud - isn't "inky dinky burger" a specific enough food category, now we have subcommittees of sliders? This offends my sense of well-being. It's a little hamburger, or if you put cheese on it, it's a little cheeseburger, so I guess I prefer the ones with cheese.

Thank you Steve for making my day!

Toosdae ?'s

Good Toosdae to you my friends! I hope that you are having a wonderful day so far.

1. What band or artist do you think you sound good to when you sing their songs?


2. When you were little did you have a special stuffed animal or doll that you loved more than the others? Do you still have it?


3. If you had a parrot and could teach it to say any word or phrase what would it be?


1. I think I sound the best when I'm singing to the Indigo Girls or Sarah McLaughlin. I have the same tone to my voice as they all do and it's easy to sing for me.


2. I did-she was a doll named Baby Beth and she went everywhere with me. I still have her and she's still special to me, even though she's pretty beat up.

3. I would pick "You smell like cheese" or something to that effect because I think it would be hilarious when new people came over. I would have to resist the urge to take the bird to public places with me because I would probably enjoy seeing the reactions of others too much!

Manic Monday: Want

Monday's are MoMoLicious

I daydream. A lot.

Sometimes I'll "wake up" from a day dream only to find that I've arrived at a destination that took me two hours-and I don't even remember the trip. And sometimes, the dream will be so real that I feel the same emotions in real life that I did in the dream.

I've won $10 million and paid off all of my bills completely. I've put money away for my niece to go to college and bought my sister a house. I've sent another sister to art school and given her money to travel. Friends have gotten new cars or vacations and I have traveled the world. The people I love did not want for anything.

Once I met Ben Affleck at a night club for $50. Not many people showed up so I was able to talk with him one on one. Though I wasn't as smitten with him as I thought I would be, I was still excited to have spoken with him and asked if I could take a picture with him. He obliged but when it was time, my camera wouldn't work. Seeing how upset I was, Ben took his high tech camera phone out and told them to "use this". When we had the photo, he asked for my phone number and sent me the picture from his phone. Years later when It was time to renew my cell contract, I didn't want to give up my phone, because it had Ben's number on it.

Did you know I catered back stage at a concert for John Mayer? I did, and after it was over he came over to thank me for the wonderful food. I asked him what his favorite thing was that I made and he told me he liked it all. Then he asked what song of his was my favorite and I told him that I like most of them but one in particular always makes me choke up when I sing it. For some reason that really touched him, and he asked me out for a drink. After hours of talking and laughing, we decided to keep in touch and eventually we fell in love. It was hard to have a normal life because of his schedule, but we made it work and had 2 children and a dog. When he told the story of how we met, he never failed to tell them that he liked everything of mine, but I only liked "most" of his. We smile at each other and he kisses my forehead and continues to mingle. We're very happy and I don't want him to leave again.

It's not that I want any of these things to happen-though I don't think I would turn them down. I just have an overactive imagination and when something realistic pops into my head (playing the lottery, attending a political rally hosted by Ben or thinking about which of his songs John Mayer likes the best) I expand them into stories without even trying.

...And Waking Up Is The Hardest Part