If I Were A Rich Girl

While driving to work I started to wonder what I would do if my income doubled, you know, making enough where I could have a lot of fun but not so much that I could spend it on things like alpacas or a jumbo loan.

Maxing out my retirement and super sizing my saving's a given but what else...?

Food. If my disposable income were to double I would spend a bulk of my fun money on food. I wouldn't have to limit myself to just checking out the $ and (maybe) the $$ restaurants in the dining out guide, I would buy lobster tails and scallops from Wegmens, and I would sprinkle saffron on everything.

I would also eat out, a lot, at the kind of places where the utensils are laid out for you instead of rolled up in napkins, places like Palios in Leesburg.


This Saturday Michael's dad celebrated his 50th birthday at Palios.


Michael's dad is very into his Italian heritage and often travel to visit family and friends in Italy so I knew this place would be good. Michael thinks it's racist for me to assume his parents would know the best Italian places but I say it's not. Want to know all the good Korean restaurants in the area? Just ask my parents.

The bread was served with some roasted red peppers,


and pesto.


Oh my goodness, the pesto... You hear chefs talk about how quality ingredients can make all the difference in the world and after this pesto I wholeheartedly believe it. I don't know what Italy tastes like but I'm hoping it tastes nothing like Macaroni Grill and everything like this pesto.

For an appetizer I wanted to try something different, like the Fiore di Zucca or the Salsiccia e Polenta (I've never had polenta) but Michael really wanted to to try the Fritto Misto, insisting that it must be the best calamari, like ever.


No, no it wasn't. And yes, that is a giant shrimp, with legs, staring at you with its tempura fried eyeballs!!!

I love anything piccata so I wanted to try the Scallopini Piccata but since I was being treated I went with the cheapest thing on the menu, which was the lasagna.


I didn't think it was possible for lasagna to be light, but it was, for a lasagna. Not like Jenny Craig light but more like not stuffed with gross ricotta cheese and not sitting heavy in my stomach light. The marinara had a very bright taste and I thought I would miss the thick layer of mozz cheese but I didn't.

Dessert was exciting. A few days ago I found a recipe for Panna Cotta in one of the House Beautiful magazine Jamie gave me. Normally I don't bother with any desserts that do not involve chocolate but it looked so good I tore it out with the intention of making it one day. So, I was very excited when I saw Panna Cotta on the menu!


I loved it enough that I definitely want to try it but now I worry whatever I make would not be as good as the one I tried.

USA Today did a piece on the CEO of our company and it turns out she's quite the foodie. She loves to cook, loves to dine out at fine restaurants. She regularly eats at the Chef's table and knows famous chefs she can call for dining recommendations when she travels other countries. If there was ever a reason to be a CEO of a company, that would be it.

Something Wicked Did Not Come

Michael's been talking about going to this carnival ever since he found out it was coming to town.


I was... less than excited. It's summer! It's hot! Carnival rides are gross! The heat! The people! But, you know, I do recall some fond memories of a carnival that used to set up shop in the parking lot of our local strip mall when I was a kid so... why not. We went on the first night. Unlimited rides were $20 (we had a coupon) and there were very few people there so no wait time, at all. It was awesome.

Michael likes the rides that drop, like roller coasters, I like the rides that spin, like this thing:


It was a lot of fun, definitely my favorite ride. We definitely made full use of our $20 unlimited ride pass. Michael probably got in about $50 worth of rides.

Now, I don't even like touching door handles with my bare hands and I always wash my hands after tying my shoelaces, yeah, I'm one of those people. Carnival rides are probably unimaginably gross. All those portta pottied hands grabbing the bars, people barfing, kids peeing... no doubt all the rides are just covered in fecal matter and worse. Surprisingly though, it didn't bother me, not at all! I was actually normal that night, it felt good.

We had the obligatory funnel cake.


Very pricey at $6 and most definitely not worth that price except for the fact that we're at a carnival and that's kind of what you do when you're at a carnival. Jamie mentioned something about a fried Oreos and I thought she was kidding but no, they really have those!

Look, a handicap portta potty! I've never seen one of those before.


I made sure to use the facilities at the mall before coming so the use of a porta potty was not needed.

We ended the day with the cliched ride on the ferris wheel.


Oooh, you can see the Blue Ridge Mountain from here!

After the carnival we were still hungry so we stopped by Vapiano and had a salad (we wanted something light after eating that funnel cake and going on some spinny, spinny rides).


$2.50 extra for chicken and that's all the chicken I get? Rip off!

Best BBQ Ever!

I had some awesome pig yesterday.



I live in Ashburn and it's about as suburban as Suburbia can possibly get. We're talking like rows of tightly packed identical houses and an HOA that rules with an iron fist. But, nestled in a small portion of Ashburn is "Old Ashburn".


It's about a couple of block of mostly industrial buildings located right by a trail.


There's really nothing interesting about the place other then that it just looks really weird and out of place in Ashburn. However, there is one little gem located right by the trail, Partlow's.


Michael warned me that it's a ghetto little convenience store, not worth checking out at all. I read that it's a deli/butcher and I was intrigued. "That place is so gross, who would ever want to buy their meat there?" Michael asked. Well, after five plus years of living in Ashburn, I decided to check it out for myself. Michael came along, screaming and kicking. As soon as we got out of the car we were overwhelmed by the sweet, sweet, amazing smell of BBQ and I knew this place was going to be awesome.


It wasn't a deli, or a butcher, and it certainly wasn't some ghetto little convenience store. "Well, the last time I went was like ten years ago, I guess they changed," said Michael. Yeah, I guess they did.



It turned out to be a BBQ joint that also sells drinks and snacks for all the joggers and cyclists on the trail.


The food was absolutely amazing, probably the best BBQ I've ever had.


The ribs were moist and tender and just barely, barely hanging on the bones. It was also the priciest ribs I've ever had, $11 for half a rack and the sides were extra. I payed the extra for some coleslaw because, well, you can't have BBQ without coleslaw.


The ribs were fantastic but the coleslaw was kind of bland. Oh, but the ribs, the ribs were very good. Sooooo good!



Sucking everything off the bones kind of good.

Cheap and Easy Dinner

I made bibimbap recently. It's a Korean dish that consists of rice, whatever you happen to have in the fridge, and some hot pepper paste. Oh, and an egg fried sunny side up, don't forget the egg!


I made mine with the more traditional ingredients: carrot, been sprout, spinach, beef, zucchini, shitake mushrooms, and eggplant. If you want to make it really easy and quick you can stir fry it all together but it's traditionally served with all the ingredients arranged neatly over the rice, like this:


According to Demi Moore's personal chef, this is one of her favorite meals since she's on a raw food diet. I thought that was odd since the vegetables are definitely cooked but Daria explained that a raw food diet isn't restricted to just raw foods. The food just has to be cooked below a certain temperature and cooking is actually advised since the body does not digest raw foods very well.

If you're interested in the recipe, check out Closet Cooking. I love his blog. I don't always love his recipes since he likes weird combination but he has some interesting recipes.

Art Investment

$60 is too much to spend on art, right? Especially a really awesome piece, like this:


Hmmm... I do have a birthday coming up...

This one is also very cute.

And, it's limited edition (just 100!) so it will surely appreciate in price, right?

Both found here.

They're Supposed to Accentuate Brown Eyes

Look what I found buried deep below my make up bag!


Yeah...

A few yeas back I went through a make up phase and that phase included making some poor color choices.


These weren't cheap mistakes either. Urban Decay eyeshadow are like $17 bucks a pop or something. I think one of them might have been a gift... No... I'm pretty sure Jamie only got me normal shades (that I still use). Even if she did get me the green one I can't fault her; It was what I was into at the time. I don't know if I should be relieved or sad that they are barely used. On one hand, at least I didn't walk around wearing "fun" colored eyeshadow. On the other hand, all that money spent on something I barely used and would probably never use up? Hmmm... tough one.

Oh, and nothing against those who can totally pull of funky shadows. I once had a boss who only wore shades like orange, yellow blue, green, pink, etc. and she pulled it off very well and made it look completely normal. She had so many MAC eyeshadow she needed a spreadsheet to keep track. I, however, am not Amy and I definitely can't pull of blue eyeshadow.

You Make Me Sick

Recently, Michael and I were making pizza and he had a guest over. She was a very nice girl, probably in her mid to late twenties, this was the first time I met her. Since she insisted on helping out in the kitchen, Michael asked her to slice the sausages.

Mind you, it was raw sausage, keep that in mind, raw, uncooked sausage.

She never washed her hands. She didn't wash her hands before she started touching all of our ingredients. She didn't wash her hands while she was touching all of our ingredients. And, she didn't wash her hands after she was done touching all of our ingredients. I found it disturbing but I didn't say anything because it's not my house and she's not my guest and even if she was my guest what's a polite way of saying, "Please stop being gross and please stop cross-contaminating my food,"?

I just told myself that it's okay because it's a pizza and it's going to go into a very hot oven and all the germs will be killed, right? My extreme annoyance came from the fact that she tore apart the mozzarella ball with her hands, her unwashed hands, after slicing the sausage and she sliced the gouda with the same unwashed knife that she used to slice the sausage. No cheese platter for me, I guess. Poo, I really like cheese, like really really like cheese... Just not enough to risk food poisoning.

You know, I'm not a food hygiene Nazi, I admit, I keep my chicken on the top shelf of my refrigerator. I don't color code my cutting boards (green for veggies, red for meat). Sometimes I let frozen meat defrost on the kitchen counter. I wouldn't want someone to think I was disgusting. Hey there buddy! I haven't gotten food poisoning yet so back off! But, you know, I don't think I'm overreacting on this one. I think most people do wash their hands before touching food, especially food that others will eat, and most people wash their hands, and their utensils, after touching raw meat. I think that's just common sense (and 6th grade Home Ec).

May Credit Card Bill

I was expecting SUPER scary. It ended up being just mildly scary.

5.7: Shell Oil- $23.08
5.8: Tara Thai- $18.65
5.10: Shell Oil- $28.74
5.12: Bertuccis- $29.62
5.13: Sonoco Station- $21.51
5.18: Wells Fargo- $423
5.18: Banjara Indian Cuisine- $26.93
5.19: 7-Eleven- $27.92
5.24: Safeway Fuel- $24.74
5.27: Chin Chin Cafe- $18.32
5.30: Shell Oil- $23.27
6.1: Akira Sushi Bistro- $31.09
6.5: Shell Oil- $11.71

Total: $708.58!

Over half of that was from Wells Fargo who charged me in advance for a home inspection that may, or may not, happen. It's cool, I get reimbursed if it doesn't happen.

Future home inspection aside, I spent $136.05 on gas!

I'm scared to see how much I spent on eating out. Nope, don't want to know, would rather live in ignorance, la la la la la! All the meals, except for Tara Thai, were dinner for two. I have to stop being so generous. Well, it wasn't really generosity. I mean, when you're about to entangle your finance with someone, all of sudden, it doesn't really matter if I pay or he pays or we go dutch. We did eat out more often than usual. I kind of recall having this, "Well, got to eat out now while we can because, once we buy a house, we'll have to be super conservative with our money!" mentality. I know it's a very flawed logic but it seemed to kind of make sense at the time... kind of.

Okay, so I had one bad month. I can still pay it off and, on the plus side, I saved over $400 on new brake pads!

Tuesday Night With Conan

At first, Michael was the one who insisted against cable after we buy the house.

But... but... What about my NCIS marathons? My House marathons? How will I watch Law and Order? On NBC?! They don't have Law and Order: SVU marathons! What about Burn Notice?!?!

Still, I couldn't exactly argue for cable. It's not a necessity and we need to save money to rebuild our savings and emergency funds. Oh, and furniture. Yeah, we're definitely going to need money for some furniture.

So, I started to wean myself off of cable, became BFFs with Hulu and whatnot. Then, Conan O'Brien announced his show will be on TBS. All of sudden Michael is the one arguing for cable. Really Michael, really? Is Conan really worth $800 a year?

"Umm... Yes?"

This Tuesday we drove into DC to watch Conan O'Brien.


The plan was to get there a few hours early and spend a nice afternoon in the city. Unfortunately, the DAR Constitution Hall is located in a very, very boring part of DC. After spending $20 on parking (WTF?!?) neither of us felt like shilling out any more money to take the Metro to the "cool" part of DC. We couldn't even find a fun place to eat because most of the eateries close after lunch hour, even The Corner Bakery! Well, thankfully, Pot Belly was open, saving us from having to eat street dogs.

Hey look, it's Obama at Pot Belly!


It was cool. We met lots of fellow Conan fans inside. Plus, I was glad to eat cheap, especially after paying $20 for parking (WTF?!?!)

Dessert? Well, it wouldn't be a trip to DC without a Sponge Bob-sicle!


He looks so happy to be eaten.

This is the DAR Constitution Hall.


DAR stands for Daughters of the American Revolution. The fact that I can never, ever, be a part of their little group makes me a little jealous. Pfft! Whatever. All I ever see them do is attend Naturalization ceremonies and hand out little plastic flags to the newly minted citizens anyway.

Our seats weren't the best, but they weren't the worst!


Considering how quickly the show sold out, we were lucky to get any seats at all.

The show was like watching The Late Night Show (or, The Tonight Show) minus the celebrity interviews (which were the most boring part of the show anyway). It was a lot of monologues, some skits, some music, and lots of random weird things, like the giant blow up bat from Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell Tour.


That's Conan, with a beard, on the lower left corner.

After the show we parted ways to use the restroom and I guess someone (I say him, he says me) showed up at the wrong meet up spot. I waited, and waited and waited. The place was closing up, security guards were looking at me funny, and I was thisclose to grabbing the closest dude and asking him to check the men's room to see if Michael was still in there.

"What's taking him so long?... Oh ewe, I bet he's in there pooping. Ugh. Seriously, what's up with guys that they think it's okay to poop in a public restrooms?... I wonder if he's sick... Maybe he's in there throwing up?... Oh man, I hope he's okay... Oh no! What if he passed out?! Oh my goodness!"

Well, anyway, I'm glad we got out late because we got out just in time to see...


Andy Richter!

I got his autograph, Michael got an epic picture taken with one very sweaty sidekick.

By that point it was close to midnight and we were quite hungry. I took Michael to Amphora, an art deco 24 hour diner in Herndon with some impressive looking cakes.


"Does this place remind you of Rapture?" I asked.


"Oh yeah! It does!" he replied.

It was a fun night!

Tilapia, I Love Ya

I have a favorite fish. It is tilapia.


Wegman's were selling a bag of 8 fillets for $6.99 so I picked it up on a whim. It turns out that it's like the greatest fish ever for several reasons:

1) It's like impossible to over cook it. I'm kind of scared to cook seafood so I usually end up over cooking it (better safe than sorry, right?). Have you ever had over cooked, dry salmon? Yeah, not that yummy. Overcooked tilapia still tasted flaky and light.

2) It's practically tasteless, like chicken! Maybe that's not a good thing but replace "tasteless" with "versatile" and you'll see why it's awesome.

3) It's easy. Tilapia + spice of choice + a few minutes in the toaster oven= Yum! Seriously, it doesn't matter. Oregeno? Thyme? Paprika? Lemon slices? Pepper? It's all good. I like it battered in some spicy concoction and fried but it tastes just as good with just some paprika, salt, and pepper.


4) Oh, and did I mention it's cheap?

To the Market We Will Go!

The Cascades Farmers Market has been going on for, hmmm... probably over a decade, but this Sunday was the first time I visited the market.


When I was a kid my mom once came home with the biggest, greenest, tastiest green beans from a farmers market. I told myself that when I became a grown up, I would shop at a farmer's market all the time. Needless to say that didn't happen. Awesome green beans are, well, awesome, but sleeping in is even more awesome.

Well, farmer's market is Michael's new thing and I promised him I'd go so, this Sunday, I woke up at the crack of dawn (8am! On a Sunday when I don't have to work!) and went to the market.

Recently, the food blogs have been full of delicious looking asparagus recipes so I figured they were in season. Alas, no asparagus were to be found. I did, however, find some great looking green beans!


When I was a kid I remember helping my mom in the kitchen by snapping off the ends of the green beans. I haven't had to snap any in a long time. This is going to be fun! They are going to taste so good with some bacon!


I also got some local sugar!


It was pricey at $7.99 for 12oz but it is so good. I didn't think there would be much difference between this and grocery store honey but I was wrong, so very wrong. I hope I'm not hooked on expensive honey; I need to bring my grocery bill down!

The best purchase of the day was the apple turnover.


It's hard to tell by the picture but it was huge. And, at just $1.99, it was quite the bargain.

How good can a giant, cheap turnover taste?


Incredible~
Unbelievable~
Oh my goodness, what did I just put in my mouth because it taste like heaven! Like heaven covered in apple-y deliciousness!


We were eating it as we drove off and I almost made Michael turn around so I could buy out the entire stock. It was tempting, and we probably would have turned around, but both of us were too entranced to do anything other than exclaim, "This is so good!" after every bite.

A Break on Brakes

I need new brakes and they will cost around $600.

I have front and rear disk brakes which, at the time of the purchase, I thought was very cool. After all, the reason I even had to buy a new car was because a Nazi-mobile


did this to my car.


Side impact air bags? Something something something frame? Front impact whachamacallit? Four wheel disk brakes? Oh hell yeah, pile it on, I couldn't get enough safety features. And now, several years later, I have to pay for 4 brakes instead of 2 because I wanted to minimize my chance of plowing down innocent drivers.

I don't regret the decision to go with the safer model. I just hate paying for car maintenance so I thought I'd take the time to whine about it for awhile.

Well, yesterday, I was about thisclose to paying someone $600 to replace my brakes when I decided to talk to my dad first. Good thing I did because he was totally like, "Yeah I can replace your brakes. I replaced my brakes, your mom's brakes, your brother's brakes. I'll probably have to replace your sister's brakes soon." Sweet~! I don't know how much brake pads cost but I'm pretty sure I can buy 4 brake pads for way under $600.

So, here's the take away lesson from all this; talking to people can save you money.

Now, excuse me but I have to get dressed and buy some brakes. You can expect a follow up post where I bitch about how much brake pads costs. Any money spent on car repair is just money spent on making me angry and stressed. I hate dealing with car maintenance!