So apparently not only have I not been posting, I haven’t even been on my wordpress dashboard in quite some time because when I opened it up this evening I was greeted with 247 spam comments. My favorite spammers are the ones who try and place negative comments on your site when spamming … do they really think anyone is going to approve a comment saying the blog owner whines too much about nothing? Hey, it’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to! (For the record most spammers don’t actually visit the sites they post on.)

Anyways, while lately I feel like I’ve been living anything but a charmed life, I stumbled across a link to matchbook magazine, (http://matchbookmag.com/) a crazy cool “monthly digital lifestyle publication” which is a fancy title for online magazine. The magazine says they seek “to inspire women around the globe to design a life they adore”. I love the concept and love the magazine. One of my favorite articles “10 Things You Never Knew About Princess Margaret” … I also loved the piece they did on Peru, so on my “to do” list!

Plus ……… it’s a free publication!

Check out the magazine … what inspires you?

~bobocela

I’ve gone back to my modified Atkins diet, it’s the only thing that works. For those who love to lecture for the sake of lecturing (I know many), I don’t load up on tons of fatty foods without carbs. Instead I do meats, low sugar veggies and such. I learned my lesson. I first did straight Atkins when there was nothing with sugar alcohols on the market and the only choice was to do straight Atkins. The summer before I went to college, I did it and I looked FABULOUS. However, everything in life comes with a cost, that was the summer I had to have my gallbladder taken out, or rather in the fall my freshman year. Maybe it wasn’t related to the Atkins, apparently there is some sort of bad gallbladder gene in me (yes, true), but I don’t need to risk anything for the sake of dieting. My new favorite find … almond milk! I absolutely love it, it’s low-carb and good for you too! I also crave the the cilantro, cumin (or some other random spice), pepper tofu at whole foods (don’t knock it before you try it). And the best low-carb bars out there are the chocolate chip oatmeal fiber granola bars from the Atkins line.

I also make this incredible sandwich with a low-carb pita, onion & chive cream cheese, smoked turkey and a spring herb mix, yummy!

What are some of your diet secrets?

Also, for my fellow Grey’s fans, my favorite quote from this weeks episode:

“Biology says that we are who we are from birth. That our DNA is set in stone. Unchangeable. Our DNA doesn’t account for all of us though, we’re human. Life changes us. We develop new traits. Become less territorial. We start competing. We learn from our mistakes. We face our greatest fears. For better or worse, we find ways to become more than our biology. The risk of course is that we can change too much to the point where we don’t recognize ourselves. Finding our way back can be difficult. There’s no compass, no map. We just have to close our eyes, take a step, and hope to God we get there.”

I hope and pray everyday! oooh, that rhymes

~bobocela

So, all these years I have been paying megabucks to watch television.  I couldn’t imagine life without my DVR … how else could I watch Grey’s Anatomy and The Office at the same time?  Now that I’ve moved cable TV is included in the rent.  However, I still haven’t figured out how to make use of this deal, I plugged the TV into the cable jack and only get a few of the channels I should be getting.

Enter, the future of television! Not really television at all! Since I’ve stopped shelling out tons of money to the cable company each month I have discovered Netflix and Hulu.

Netflix is awesome … I have it streaming through my wii and I can get tons of television shows, movies, documentaries, etc. anytime I want. Yes, I do pay $9.71 to Netflix every month, but this is nothing compared to the $100 plus I was paying out to DISH each month. I still will never understand some Netflix movies and TV shows you can get streaming and others you have to order through the mail, makes no sense.

Now, Netflix doesn’t have access for users to watch any new television shows. Enter Hulu. This awesome little website allows me to watch any show I’d like the day after airing. Some might say they have to watch their new show as soon as it comes on, but I do have a life doing all the wonderful things I do. I was letting my DVR do the work before, but now I have Hulu.

What more could a girl ask for? What are some of the little known places you get your TV fix from?

~bobocela

Well, most of the time anyway! bobocela is a sucker for “old” things, things just aren’t made like they used to be. Geez, I sound like I’m 100 instead of 30, LOL. It is so true though. I’ve always loved older things, but my real passion started a number of years ago when I walked into Target to buy a Scrabble game, I LOVE Scrabble. When I got the game home, I opened the box and all I could think was “what the heck is this junk?????” It was horrible, a cheesy piece of flimsy board with crummy plastic letters and a paper score pad … a PAPER SCORE PAD. Thus began my search for a Scrabble game made in the 1970’s, deluxe version, nice box, and little plastic pieces you stick metal pegs in to keep score (pegs are the only way to keep score … paper, scoff). I found it on eBay and have been unstoppable ever since. My treasures include the 1970’s Scrabble Deluxe game, a 1980 Trivial Pursuit game still in the original plastic wrap, a 1940’s glass baster in the original perfectly kept box, a 1940’s medicine ice bag used once and again still in the original perfect box, a 1970’s hardly used hand mixer, the list goes on and on and on.

Throughout my years of collecting “old stuff” it has come to my attention very few people know the difference between an antique and not … they throw terms out there, antique, vintage, classic, collectible, retro, estate. The madness has got to come to an end, so we will clarify here. Keep in mind we will go very basic here people, there are too many different things out there that have different classifications. That said, I’m always up for a fab discussion so let me know if you want more or have questions. We will learn together!

Antiques: An antique is an item equal to or greater than 100 years in age. The reason being … the U.S. Customs Office enacted the Tariff Act of 1930 which states 100 years plus defines an antique. Why did they choose this time period, you ask? Well, back in 1830 we began mass producing items and the difference between 1930 and 1830 is 100 years! Makes sense. Now, the biggest argument I get when I tell men this (they always love to TRY and prove me wrong) is when they refer to an antique car show and this amazing 1950’s car considered to be an antique. Well, it is, I told you this can get confusing. See, there are different rules for different items and cars have a 50 year rule for being an antique. Think about it, rules are based on production types.

Vintage: Technically, the term vintage applies to wine, specifically wines made from grapes that were all (or almost all) grown and harvested in the same year. So the wine snobs can say “This 1999 vintage Cabernet is the best I have ever tasted.” However, as in the case of all hijacked terms, we can apply the term “vintage” to the wonderful world of shopping. The most common age of “vintage items” is 25 years or greater up to 99 years, remember, at 100 years it becomes an antique. Again, you will find many who argue with this.

One other thing we must remember, and this is where the shopping term “vintage” or “antique” ties back to our wine definition, a vintage or antique item is one of very high quality/craftsmanship/etc. almost a treasure.  Can you just imagine, 100 years from now, having to call a cheap product from Walmart “antique”?  LOL

And this concludes our lesson for today. As I stated above there are many more misused terms out there when referring to old things, but these two are the most important. Really, any item not falling into one of the two categories is either on it’s way to becoming vintage/antique or is just plain JUNK. If it matters to you and you like it, who cares what it’s called, right?

oooh … I’m 30 years old, I must fall into the “vintage” category … and don’t anyone dispute that!!

What are some of your fab finds? Also, let me know if you want to discuss any more related terms and, as always, please share some of your own thoughts/experiences in the comments section below.

~bobocela

Well lovelies, I’m back, like the seventh season of Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve been pretty much all over the place, I won’t talk about where I’ve disappeared to, but I will be writing about all the wonderful things I’ve been experiencing over the past three months. A lot can happen in this amount of time. Your favorite darling has learned how to make some wonderful pieces of jewelry, explored little known parts of Dallas, eaten all sorts of crazy international cuisine (no it doesn’t fit into the diet), created some fab websites for some great clients, and much more! I don’t think I wasn’t in the mood for writing, I’ve just been doing so many different, wonderful things, I haven’t had time to devote to my blog and it wouldn’t be right to post and not give it everything I had. See, as my honey says, I am slower than a month of Sundays. This is true folks, but while you’re waiting for me, I am doing a thousand other fab things and as they say, good things come to those who wait! Anyways, I’m going to start writing again now, and for those who hate coming back to the site to check and see if I’ve written something, I’ve added this great little feature on the right hand side of the screen. You can now subscribe to my blog and find out when I post something new.

For my “welcome back” post I’m going to post my favorite quote from the first episode of the seventh season of Grey’s. It’s all about change, I absolutely LOVE the piece, sans the part where Meredith pronounces “literally” exactly like Rachel Zoe. Let me know what you think.

When we say things like “people don’t change” it drives scientists crazy.
Because change is literally the only constant in all of science.
Energy. Matter. It’s always changing. Morphing. Merging. Growing. Dying.
It’s the way people try not to change that’s unnatural.
The way we cling to what things were instead of letting them be what they are.
The way we cling to old memories instead of forming new ones.
The way we insist on believing, despite every scientific indication, that anything in this lifetime is permanent.
Change is constant. How we experience change, that’s up to us.
It can feel like death, or it can feel like a second chance at life.
If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline.
Like at any moment, we can have another chance at life.
Like at any moment, we can be born all over again.

~bobocela

Not to sound egotistical or anything, but this chick has many talents! Now I might be able to add one more to the list … pastry chef! LOL … A few weeks ago I was perusing through one of the blogs I love to read, Ramblings of a Fab Brunette, and found she had created a monthly Pastry Challenge. The idea sounded awesome, I love blogging, baking, and challenges, so I decided to go for it, and I am so glad I did. Basically, to enter the challenge you take the basic recipe given for the month and create it with your own twist, then blog about it! This month’s challenge was a tart using an interesting recipe found here. Now I get to blog about my experience, so here goes …

First I had to decide what I was going to put into the tart. I didn’t want anything too rich and creamy, chocolate sounded good just not in the summer time. So I decided upon berries, raspberries and blackberries … my only problem was what to put the berries with. So after much debate I decided to use lemon curd, absolutely awesome stuff. So I could have used store bought lemon curd, but no, I never make anything easy, I decided to make my own and I was so glad I did!

After deciding what I was going to make I had to go grab some necessary kitchen tools. The tart pan with removable bottom was first on my list and was almost impossible to find; Who would have thought??? If there were any around they were the wrong size, finally, when I was about to give up my search I found a 10″ tart pan at Marshalls (the LAST one), bigger than the required 9″, but close enough. I simply modified the tart shell recipe to get a little more dough and cover the extra inch. After finding the tart mold, the rest was easy, a pyrex bowl, pastry brush, citrus juicer, and an impulse buy of an expandable berry colander, I was good to go!

I was a little nervous about the tart shell at first, but just went for it and, guess what, it worked just like they said it would!! I was so absolutely proud of myself. I did it pretty much by the recipe, adding just a bit more to cover the extra inch in the pan.

After the tart shell, I had to make the lemon curd filling, I had so eyed the jars of lemon curd at the store, but I wasn’t about to cave, I was going to make this stuff. I had researched tons of recipes and pulled something together based on my research. Everyone was saying to use a double boiler to make it (so it wouldn’t burn), but the way I did it, you so didn’t have to. What I did was whisk together 3 whole eggs, 3/4 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of lemon juice. I poured it into a sauce pan, put it on medium-low heat and never stopped stirring it for about 10-15 minutes. After it had stiffened a bit I put the mixture through a handheld strainer into a bowl (to remove any lumps). I then quickly whisked 4 tbsp. of cubed unsalted butter into the mixture along with 1 tbsp. of freshly grated lemon zest. The lemon curd tasted AMAZING.

Next, after the tart shell and curd had cooled a bit, I heated a cup of some apricot preserves with 2 tbsp. of water to make a glaze. I suppose I could have used any type of preserves but so many people had used apricot for the glaze, I didn’t want to chance it on my first shot. When the glaze was ready I used a pastry brush to coat the entire tart shell. Coating the tart shell helped prevent anything leaking though, sorta sealed it in. I poured and spread the lemon curd into the glazed tart shell and then plunked my raspberries and blackberries on top of the curd in a random pattern kinda way. Then I took some more apricot glaze and, using my pastry brush, glazed the top of the tart.

Finished! I so wanted to eat it right away, but I refrigerated for the day and allowed it to set. I was so excited to get home and try some. Before I had my first piece, I whipped up a batch of fresh made whipped cream … no pun intended, LOL. I blended 1 cup of heavy whipped cream along with 1/2 cup of confectioners powdered sugar and a little bit of vanilla, there is so nothing better than fresh made whipped cream. I cut myself a slice of the tart, added a bit of whipped cream and enjoyed every bit of the fruits of my labor … again, no pun intended (ok, ok, maybe it was intentional).

What do you think?

~bobocela

For everyone who doesn’t know where I have been, I’ve been on vacation in my home state of Connecticut.  The weather has been wonderful up here compared to the heat of Dallas! Lots of trees and green have been good for me.  I’ve celebrated my 30th birthday in Atlantic City (princess style), helped my mother clean out various parts of the house, had some great sushi, and went on a couple of successful shopping trips.  Overall, it’s been rather chill … just the way I like it.

I had a fabulous Father’s Day post, but with everything going on, I never had time to post it. So, I’m posting it now. My father, is by far the most intelligent man I know and I’m not just saying that because he’s my father! Like many others he does things in a silent, manly kind of way. Many fathers do things we may or may not understand, but there is always some deeper meaning behind it, no explanation given either way. We trust them, but every now and then we forget they always have a meaning behind their actions.

With that said, I’d like to share one of the sweetest videos, it was sent to me by a dear friend and also a fabulous father himself. It says a lot and reminds us as “children” to accept and understand a father’s love with or without explanation. Let me know what you think … there are sub titles but turn up the sound to get the full effect.

Happy Father’s Day … Love you, Dad!

~bobocela

… “Blues Brothers” with Dan Aykroyd & John Belushi premiers.
… Mrs. Shakuntala Devi mentally multiplies 2 13-digit #s in 28 seconds.
… Funkytown by Lipps, Inc. was the #1 song on the Billboard charts.

Interesting, huh? Probably not so much. What I think by far was the most interesting, 30 years ago today, a little girl was born … this “little girl” now goes by the pen name, nom de plume, and literary double, bobocela.

So yes, my dear readers, your little gemini/monkey, bobocela, turns 30 today. I’ve had this little voice in my head for the past two weeks repeating “you’re turning 30″ over and over again in a quite evil manner. My mother told me this voice will go away as soon as the big day arrives. She was right, however, the voice has now been replaced with an equally evil voice saying “you’re 30″ over and over again!

I’ve decided to begin this momentous day “bloggy style” … LOL. Actually, I don’t turn 30 for almost another 6 hours. Yes folks, bobocela, was born in the 6th month of the year at 6 minutes to 6. No, I promise that doesn’t say anything about me, although I’m sure you’ll find MANY people who beg to differ, let’s not go there.

Yesterday, I made the long trek from Texas to Connecticut and today I will travel from Connecticut to New Jersey to celebrate the big day 1980 disco style in no place other than Atlantic City! Decked out in vintage garb, me and my closest will dance the night away in a disco. Yes, I’m crazy like that.

Thoughts on turning 30, you ask? I don’t know … part of me thinks it is like the prom, you prepare and prepare for weeks on end, then you get there and in your head you’re thinking “this is it???”. My mother compares life to a play. From 1-9 you are learning how to act, 10-29 you’re in dress rehearsal, 30-49 all the world is a stage and you are on it, 50+ is the after party. I guess one might say I’m now on stage. It’s scary, we spend all this time learning and going through the moves and now I have to put it into action.

1 year ago today I thought I had my life completely figured out. Shortly thereafter, it all fell completely apart into what I thought was one HUGE mess. I can now reflect back and say, in the past year, I have learned more than I ever thought I would. All those “messes” brought about something beautiful. At 30 I can now start a new chapter in my life and honestly say, I’m a new person, the world might have other ideas, but I will start this new decade and face life in a totally new way.

Bring it on …

~bobocela

Wassabe? ha, ha … like the play on words considering I’m going to be talking about making sushi today? Oh, well, I thought it was funny! Before I get into the wonderful land of sushi making you’ve probably all been wondering where I’ve been (or maybe not!). Honestly, I took a break made out of 1/3 being busy, 1/3 freaking out about turning 30 next week (my mother tells me the little voice in my head that just keeps repeating “you’re turning 30″ over and over again, will go away the day of my birthday), and 1/3 this AWFUL Texas heat … it is just terrible as it sucks the life out of you (you would think indoor blogging in the cool AC would be OK, trust me though, it’s not, this heat is THAT bad).

Well anyway, I’m ready to get back in the swing of things. One of the things I did on “bobocela’s break” was make sushi! As many of you read a few weeks ago, I learned how to make sushi rolls during a girl’s weekend. Armed with this wonderful information, I decided to try making it without my friend’s help (although I did have her on my cell phone during 75% of the time I spent in the Asian Market shopping for supplies!). Guess what, the rolls and meal turned out AMAZING! If bobocela can make sushi, so can you …

OK, here’s a list of the things you’ll need: 2 cups of short grain rice, a mesh sieve, 2 quart pot with lid, 1 quart pot with lid , large bowl, flat wooden spoon with a square head, large sharp knife, 1 package of extra large nori, some defrosted imitation crab sticks, a couple of avocados, a long cucumber, wooden sushi mat(s), lower sodium soy sauce, sushi vinegar, and wasabi paste (optional).

The first thing you’ll need to do is cook the rice. Now, my friend, the one who taught me how to make these rolls, is from Hawaii and has this fancy rice cooker which is awesome. However, I really didn’t want to go out and buy a rice cooker, even though I was terrified of burning the sushi rice by cooking it in a pot. Let me tell you, I did some internet research on cooking sushi rice, made a few changes of my own and had NO problems whatsoever. Basically I watched the little video tutorial you can find at the bottom of the page when you click here. If you don’t want to watch the video, here is what you do.

1. Place two cups of short grain rice (will make about 4 or 5 long rolls) in your mesh sieve and rinse with cold water, pick out any funky looking grains or pebbles.
2. Take the rinsed rice and place it in the two quart pot, then pour cold water in to about 1 inch above the top of the rice. Let this sit and soak for 30 minutes.
3. Pour the pot of rice back into the mesh sieve and rinse rice again until the water runs clear.
4. Place fully rinsed rice back in the two quart pot along with 2 1/4 c. of cold water. Cover with the lid.
5. Bring rice to a boil. Once the water begins to bubble at the lid, turn the heat down to the lowest possible setting. Let this sit and cook for 20 min. Do NOT remove the lid.
6. After 20 min, make sure all the water has been absorbed. If not, cook for a few more minutes until no water remains. When no water remains remove from all heat and let the pot of cooked rice sit (WITH lid on) for 15 min.
7. Your perfect Sushi rice is done! Place the rice in a large bowl as a large bowl will allow you to take your wooden spoon and spread the rice around so it will cool. Once the rice has begun to cool down, pour your vinegar mixture over the rice by holding the flat wooden spoon over the bowl and pouring the liquid on the spoon on to the rice. Mix it all together being careful not to squish the rice grains.

If you watch the video you will also see them make a mixture of rice vinegar, sugar, and salt, cooked with konbu seaweed. While I’m sure this would be a lovely thing to try, I found something called “sushi vinegar” at the Asian Market which already has the sugar, salt, and konbu seaweed taste dissolved in it. All I did was warm half a cup of the sushi vinegar, right from the bottle, and pour this over my sushi rice, then mix it all together.

Are you wishing you had just watched the video? LOL

Now your rice is done and you are ready to make your rolls. Lay your wooden sushi mat on a flat counter with the wood/bamboo held horizontal. Place a sheet of nori (rough side up) on the wooden mat and the lines in the nori again running horizontal. Take a big clump of rice and spread it out with your fingers or with a small wooden paddle spoon, cover about 3/4 of the nori. Place a stick of cucumber, crab meat and two slices of avocado about 1 1/2 inches from the bottom of the nori. It should look like this:

Once everything is in place you can begin to roll your sushi. So pick up the bottom of your wooden mat and begin rolling, being careful to pull up the edge of the mat so you don’t roll it into the roll (yes I started doing this the first time … LOL). While rolling, keep pressing firmly on what you’ve already rolled in order to neatly pack it in together. Once you have finished rolling everything should look like this:

Now you are ready to slice! Make sure you have a very sharp knife. Wet the knife with cold water and begin cutting. I like mine in smaller rounds but it is up to you how big to make the pieces. Arrange nicely on a plate, mix some wasabi paste with your soy sauce (to taste), refrigerate if you desire, and enjoy! Here is the finished product:

Phew … it might be a bit of effort but honestly, it is the best sushi roll I have ever tasted. Maybe everything just tastes better when you make it yourself, I dunno? Anyhoo … here are some tips to help you along.

1. When choosing your rice make sure to use a short grain rice, preferably labeled as used for sushi. American long grain rice will NOT work!
2. If you choose to buy sushi vinegar rather than make your own mixture with rice vinegar, sugar, and salt, make sure to check the ingredient list on the back to make sure it contains all of the correct ingredients.
3. When cutting your roll, I just used a serrated steak nice and it worked perfectly.
4. When choosing soy sauce it is better to choose a lower sodium to serve with sushi as it is so salty already the lower sodium will taste much better.
5. What we know was wasabi is most of the time a mixture of horseradish and a spicy mustard and actually contains little to no wasabi root as it is so expensive.
6. There are so many things you can serve with your sushi rolls. I chose to serve mine with pork shumai dumplings, pickled radish, tamago (sweet egg omelette pieces) and some tuna sashimi.

And of course no bobocela blog post is complete without a life lesson … As I was walking through the aisles of the market trying to choose my sushi making tools I was helped by one of the workers there. While difficult to communicate due to language constraints he actually was very helpful. I kept asking him if the tools I was choosing were OK and he actually told me, “It doesn’t matter the quality of tools one uses to make sushi. All that matters is the work that comes from his fingers.” This is oh-so-true in life, it doesn’t matter what tools we use to get the task done or how “high quality” some material thing is, it just matters that you practice your craft and good work will just flow from you the more you master the task.

Thoughts?

~bobocela

So before I get into today’s post I must say I have had some issues and bugs where I host my website files. The bobocela site went down briefly yesterday and I am getting random error messages I can now work around, but are a bit of a pain to deal with. If you receive any error messages, please let me know! Also, I have added my “East meets West – Gemini/Monkey” horoscope in the dropdown menu under the “About” tab and some of my Favorite Quotations in the dropdown menu under the “Raves” tab, so check it out. With that said, let’s talk about cars …

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Go talk to my father and he will for sure raise his eyebrows in absolute, complete shock when you tell him I am blogging about car maintenance. Yea, many long stories, but, hey, I try. My general advice for fixing your car is to leave it alone and bring it to a professional. Now, coming from a girl who has had many fights with the men at a certain car dealership I will NOT mention (Yes, many male dominated dealerships still do this with women), I know I have a hard time trusting anyone to fix my car. Check out this site here to get a TON of information for women and their cars (If you are a guy and you click on this site I promise not to tell). Now that I have my Highlander I think I am pretty comfortable bringing it in to the Texas Toyota of Grapevine dealership (I’ll let you know how that goes next week).

A little background, this blog post was brought about by a friend of mine who had smoke coming out of his tailpipe after a recent oil change. He was a bit freaked out. When I asked another friend of mine what it could be (he works on cars and was able to answer the question before I had finished it) he said it was most likely caused by oil overfill or sometimes cheap oil. Results came back today and apparently it was oil overfill and the extra oil was burning off. So my next piece of advice, while you should really bring in your car to a professional mechanic, make sure to talk to your friends and family first, the ones who have some idea of what the issue could be, thus greatly reducing your chances of getting taken by a shady mechanic. Please try and choose someone reputable though, a few extra dollars now will guarantee saving you many more dollars in the future.

I did some quick internet research and came back with a CNN article about the top five car ailments you shouldn’t ignore. Click here for the full article. It is quite entertaining and covers information regarding:

1. Engine oil level ignored
2. Filled tank with wrong gas
3. Ignored a fuel line leak
4. Ignored a water pump leak
5. Failed to change timing belts

Now, my BEST piece of advice, came from my father, many years ago. If you have an issue with your car, a strange clunk, some smoke, random things I can not even fathom … do NOT attempt to tell the mechanic what the issue is. (e.g. Don’t walk into the dealership and say “such and such” is broken and is broken right here.) What you do is tell them there is a strange noise or smoke or whatever it is and let them find and diagnose the issue, being as VAGUE as possible. This way the mechanic does a full analysis of the car and doesn’t concentrate solely on what you telling him/her it is and thus costing you many more $$$.

Don’t know how much all this helps … does anyone have some interesting stories to add? Additional tips to share? I would love to hear them as I can definitely use them! 

~bobocela