Category Archives: Tortilla

An L.A. Kind of Day

     Happy Tuesday everyone!!!

     To me, Tuesdays say:

MONSTERS (of course every day says monster for the past 3 weeks)! For some reason the GMs I’ve been making have been getting really, really thick recently. I think my blender is on its last legs: two of the five motor-prong-thingies have broken off. I may have to empty my entire savings account to get a Vitamix blender!!! IN MY DREAMS!
     Tuesday ALSO means a day off from work! I made a lovely mini-breakfast – an omelette with one egg, a teaspoon of goat cheese, 2 teaspoons of chopped sun-dried tomatoes and a handful of wilted spinach.
 
     Unfortunately, a day off from work doesn’t mean an actual “day off”. It means fighting the freeways so I can make it to my acting class in Los Angeles by noon.

     Holy crap. Here’s the thing – I don’t live IN Los Angeles. I live a short distance away on the outskirts, but add rush hour traffic into that and it equals HELL. LA freeways and I have had a very strained relationship. We were on good terms when I lived in the center of it – WeHo (West Hollywood) area, but now that I’ve cheated with one of its close relatives, it makes me pay dearly.

     Once I finally pass the traffic, I receive a lovely LA welcome.

I love overhead wires!
I love anti-landslide plastic!
Hollywood!
Aaah, the beautiful panorama of white skies, smog and palm trees!
     Honestly, I don’t have any real issues with LA. The thing is, I’m a small-town girl! I love the blue skies, clean air, traffic-free side streets, bike paths, clean rivers and FREE PARKING that small towns have! The crazy part is that to have the career I really want, I need to be in close range to this town. Until I’m working here on a consistent basis, I’ll live in my clean-aired, small-ish town paradise and make the painful commute. Then I will proceed to whine about it to you :).
     I didn’t have time to pack a lunch, so instead I had some super-healthy chocolate tortilla chips in my car.
On Tuesdays, I’ll accept calories from any source because I don’t have enough time between class and work to stop for a real meal! Pitiful :(. What “on-the-go” meals do you make for days when you have no time to stop and eat?
     Class was the usual – we get a scene, go outside with our partner to rehearse for 30 minutes, then head in and perform in front of the class and get critiqued. All the lines are memorized by performance time, but we keep our sides at hand just in case we need them. 
     This class is more of a business class than an acting class – we focus on the networking aspect, and learn how to sell the product that we’re offering (ourselves, in a non-hooker way). In the real world, it’s not about the art anymore: It’s about business – making connections and making producers/directors realize that they would enjoy spending two or three months (or more for TV shows) on set with you.
One scene of the day. 
Faces are blurred out of respect for our famous actors :). (We actually do have a few that have starred in some network shows. The Old Spice commercial guy, the “Swagger Waggon” Toyota girl and one of the leads from “Arli$$” may or may not also be three of them 😉 ).
Today was “easy day” in class. Last week was “casting director workshop” day which makes everyone incredibly nervous and awkward unless they’ve had a lot of experience in the audition room, so this week helps everyone realize that even though they may have bombed last week, acting is still fun!
     I had a scene with the lovely Rosanna which involved lots of ghetto head-bobbing and girl-fighting – FUN! Note on that: there are NEVER good fighting scenes out there for actors unless they are the stars of the show. I got some good screaming scenes in Lonelygirl15 though, so I’m one of the lucky ones!

     After class I worked at the talent manager’s office for a few hours. I called some actors that received auditions for tomorrow, sent some e-mails, submit many, many actors for different roles on the many feature films that are casting right now, and got to eat a banana!!!

(Picture omitted because I was so hungry I inhaled it)
     When I FINALLY got home at 8pm after fighting yet another rush hour, my wonderful roommate had made me a gigantic KSS!
AND a Fat Tire! She is honestly the BEST roommate ever! This KSS had about 4 cups of chopped lettuce, 1/2 a cup of warmed lentils, 1/2 a cup of egg white salad, 1/2 a cup of chopped bell pepper, a teaspoon of goat cheese, and homemade dressing made with 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon of whole grain mustard, and 1 teaspoon of olive oil.
     Now I am completely stuffed, completely exhausted, and completely ready to fall into bed and crash – and yes, I realize it’s only 10:30pm Pacific Time, but I’m an old soul and exhausted and not ashamed to admit it. 
I’m off to sleep before yet another full shift at work!

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Filed under Acting, banana, Chocolate, Class, green monster, kitchen sink salad, Los Angeles, SUCKS, Tortilla, traffic, Vitamix

Chocolate Tortillas and Zucchini Mush

     I’m currently sitting in a cloud of dust, staring far, far ahead at the wagon that I fell off of this weekend. It was a long, hard fall. Today I started to climb back on, but lost my footing and got some more gravel in my knees.

     The day started off well enough.

I had a big Purple Monsta with 2 cups of spinach, 1/4 a cup of frozen cherries, 3/4 a cup of soymilk, 1/3 of a banana, a tablespoon of flaxmeal and some lemon juice.
     I hopped back on the trails for a hot hike wearing my new WHITE Nike Dri-Fit shirt (my black one has been absorbing the sun and killing me in the summer heat). It was nice and quiet, with very few people, and no breeze at all! The air was completely still and quite torturous. 
     All I could think about on the hike was the coconut cream cake that I ate last night after we got back from Ventura, so I caved and had a teeny-tiny piece from the freezer.
No guilt. If you truly take the time to taste, enjoy and appreciate something and don’t just mindlessly stuff your face, then guilt should never factor in.
     Those chocolate tortilla chips I got for my dad were crying out to be tried, so I took a nibble of one.
Yes, they’re tortilla chips, and yes, they’re chocolate. YES, they’re incredible! Sweet and salty is one of the best combinations ever.
     Lunch was very simple – baked ziti.
This was 1/4 a cup of whole wheat pasta, turkey meatballs, diced orange and red bell peppers, onions, chopped tomatoes and a teaspoon of goat cheese.
     I ran out to Costco to get some more spinach and came back to attempt making zucchini birdnests that caught my eye from my library book, Cooking from the Farmers’ Market. I started by shredding 4 green zucchini (zucchinis?) and 3 yellow squash (squashes?) – Let’s just call them by their New Zealand/British English name: Courgettes. After adding a pinch of salt and letting them sweat for five minutes, I wrung them out to get rid of all the liquid – courgettes have LOTS of water in them! Next, I shredded a small yellow onion, minced 2 cloves of garlic and broke an egg.
     I’m not a fan of having a lot to clean, so I broke the egg in the center of my mixture, and then lightly beat it in the bowl so I wouldn’t have another dish to wash.
     After mixing it all together and stirring in a tablespoon of whole wheat flour, I plopped them into a frying pan that was sprayed with a thin coat of canola oil and heated over medium-high.
Lookin’ good so far!
Hmmm, maybe not…
     I think these still had too much moisture in them, even though I wrung them out over a strainer multiple times. They totally fell apart, then burned on one side and stayed raw in the middle, so I threw them in the oven with convection to try and dry them/cook them.
They do not look pretty :(.
     This is what they’re supposed to look like:
And here’s mine:
Yeah, so it completely fell apart and became a zucchini scramble. It was edible…ish. I tried to make the recipe healthier by using whole wheat flour instead of white flour, and using spray oil instead of the recommended 2 tablespoons to fry them in. Sometimes healthy just isn’t worth it!
     …And sometimes it is. For dinner I had my good old standby – a wonderful KSS.
2 cups of chopped baby greens, 1/2 of a diced bell pepper, 1/2 a cup of warmed lentils, 1/2 a cup of egg white salad and dressing made with 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon of whole grain mustard and 1 teaspoon of blood orange olive oil.
     I had the closing shift at work so I headed off with my beer book to study… I mean work… yes, work.
I just got to the “Beer Appreciation” chapter – tasting! So cool!
     Looking back over this post, I’m realizing I wasn’t THAT bad in the eating area. That all changes now. I went to Paciugo and got a child size of their soy chocolate. Hint: at most places you can request a child size and it will still fill you up! No more American-size portions!
So creamy and delicious! Can’t believe it’s soy – a lot of soy ice cream is grainy and gross, but this is heaven in a dainty cup!
     One of my coworkers went to Godiva and decided to share – darn you, Kyle! I was very happy, but very upset at the same time. My happiness definitely overwhelmed the upset :).
That’s half of a chocolate-covered strawberry and banana stick, plus one of my dad’s chocolate tortilla chips. I shared the other half of the stick with my roommate. Everyone wins when you share!
     Tomorrow will be a little difficult in the eating area again. I have my acting class in LA, followed by running a talent manager’s office completely by myself all afternoon into the evening, so I won’t be able to sit down and have a nice, well thought-out meal. Hopefully I’ll have time to grab a big salad to-go from Trader Joe’s or something.
I shall go sleep now and hope for an early waking to squeeze in a hike before I head to LALA Land. Ciao = CHOW!

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Filed under Godiva, kitchen sink salad, sharing, Tortilla, work, zucchini