Tag Archives: Food

Dreu Murin, Wake Up Tahoe, Hard Rock Cafe Tahoe, Hard Rock Cafe Burger Challenge, Tahoe South, Reno Tahoe Event Photography, Reno Tahoe Event Photographers

Hard Rock Cafe Burger Challenge

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Last week I was asked to assist my buddy Dreu Murin with a local event.

I whipped up a flyer really fast and was promised free wine for showing up and helping.  You know I don’t have to be asked twice when there is wine involved.

There wasn’t much required of me at the event itself other than drinking wine with the rest of the Girls Drinking Club so I snapped a few photos.  There was a super talented balloon artist on site, as evidenced below.  The winning burger was created by Tahoe local Brian Jefferies.  The always lovely and impeccably put together Adra Fenstermaker took 2nd.

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Summer Grill Time

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It’s been one of the warmer, drier springs that I’ve ever experienced in Tahoe and as a result, it already feels like summer is in full swing here.  To maximize the great weather, we’ve been grilling a ton to really enjoy the late warm nights.  I just ordered a big picnic table on Amazon so we can eat dinner in the backyard because there is nothing better than a bottle of wine in the backyard after work as the sun goes down, all while dinner is on the grill, especially if I spent the entire sun filled day inside a retail store.   I need to get down to Holly’s Hill one of these days soon and buy a case of their Grenache Rosé, which accompanies BBQs and summer so perfectly you’ll think you’re on vacation, for at least as long as the bottle lasts you, which in my case is not very long.

What have we been grilling?  Awesomeness.  That’s what.

Our New Obsessions

Grilled Romaine, Reno Tahoe Food Photography

Grilled Romaine

1.  You might think that a head of romaine is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard of putting on a grill, but I dare you to accuse it of ridiculousness after you’ve tried it yourself.   Recently, my friend Haley found an awesome website with a recipe for grilled romaine and it took me back to Nonna’s in Dallas, where we had a grilled romaine salad the night before the Dallas Marathon that knocked our socks off.  2 minutes on the grill and romaine is taken to a whole new level: warm, charred and unbelievably delicious.  It may be the easiest salad you’ve ever made.  Recipe via Thug Kitchen.

Grilled bread, grilled flatbread, reno tahoe food photography

Grilled whole wheat flatbread.

2.  Grilled flatbread: possibly better than grilled romaine.  We are constantly making homemade bread but rarely want to turn our oven on in Tahoe in the summer.  My new solution to this conundrum is to roll it out and grill it up.  The other night we grilled lemon and dill marinated chicken, a homemade tzatziki sauce, Greek salad and grilled bread.  You should be jealous.  Also, if you don’t already own this book, you should probably go ahead and get it.

Weeknight Dinners

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Spring Pasta with Blistered Cherry Tomatoes

It’s been awhile since I talked about food.

Whenever I’m in charge of a weeknight dinner, 9/10 times I gravitate towards noodles of some sort.  They are, most importantly, my favorite form of gluten, in addition to being generally fast, easy and fresh.  Thankfully Food and Wine recently had an entire issue devoted to Mario Batali recipes.  Heaven!

The recipe actually called for an amazing looking noodle called malfaldine, which is a thin lasagna.  I couldn’t find any at our local grocery store so I opted for fusilli lunghi.  I think the malfaldine would have been better but these were still fun and a great texture combined with the long strips of broccolini.  I also tripled the garlic.  I firmly believe that no matter who wrote the recipe, they were wrong.  Even Mario Batali.  There should always be more garlic.

Recipe via Food & Wine.

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LA Rendezvous

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Every few years, my best mate Haley and I start missing each other and plan a little weekend get away to travel together and catch up.  We call them our “Rendezvous’”.  It just so happens that this year, Haley is marrying a wonderful man and she asked me to travel down to LA for a little rendezvous to celebrate her birthday and take engagement photos of them.

I hadn’t been to LA in years and had a blast drinking “rosé all day” with Haley, her fiance, and Anne, whose been staying in So Cal these past few weeks.  We had our toes done, drank wine while watching the sun go down at a gorgeous house in Palos Verdes, caught up with other old friends, and did a lot of daytime drinking, my favorite vacation activity.

My photos of Haley and Dave’s engagement session are still to come, but in the meantime, you can check out their sneak peak.  You can check out all the photos from my weekend in LA via this link.

Standard Hotel, Daytime drinking, Los Angeles Activities, Travel Photography

Dancing on the rooftop at the Standard Hotel.

If you want to visit Los Angeles, here are my recommendations.  In general, I like to stay away from LA and Hollywood and hide out in the coastal towns of Venice and Santa Monica, where you can totally do without a car. 

STAY:  This studio rental on Airbnb for two exudes beachy-ness from it’s pores: clean, comforting, and colorful!  Better yet, the stay includes the use of two cruisers, perfect for avoiding the LA traffic and cruising around Venice, Santa Monica, and the Malibu boardwalk.

EAT:

  • Gjelina is the type of place I could eat at three times in one day and not be tired of spending time there.  It’s overwhelmingly comfortable, yet sophisticated and the food is amazing.  The pizzas all sound so delicious it’s hard to choose and the salads are inventive.  It’s best to go as a group and order plates to share.  Word of warning: trust the chef because there is a very strict no substitutions or changes policy and they mean it, even if you’re a celebrity.
Gjelina, Venice Beach Restaraunts, Food Photoraphy, Travel Photoraphy, Visit Los Angeles, Visit LA

Gjelina’s food is to die for. Just don’t ask to be treated special because you aren’t.

  • Intelligentsia may take their coffee a bit too seriously: the employees are pretentious and over-the-top hipsters but damn, that is a serious latte.  Don’t tell them I said that though, it might go to their heads.

DRINK:

  • It’s a shame that The Tasting Kitchen seems unable to bring the wow factor to their dishes in the same way that their atmosphere and bar does.  Reviews on Yelp for their food are hit and miss, which is exactly how my friends described their menu.  Regardless, skip the overpriced food fare and cozy up to the bar for some killer cocktails or our favorite, a bottle of rosé.
Engagement Sessions, Reno Tahoe Engagement Photographer, Tahoe Portrait Photographer, Tasting Kitchen, Venice Beach,

The Tasting Kitchen’s ambiance is personal, rich in texture, with clean lines with an interesting twist that brings outside, inside.

  • Oscar’s in Venice has a killer happy hour and amazing food and apps to boot.  Sit outside on the deck to take in the SoCal sunshine.
  • Act like you’re richer and cooler than you are and take the rail line to downtown LA and drink on the rooftop by the pool at The Standard Hotel.  There are often DJ’s on the decks on weekends.  With panaramic views of Los Angeles and the mountains beyond, there’s no better way to spend a sunny afternoon than here.  Also, don’t forget your swimsuit: the pool is heated.
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Champagne on the rooftop of The Standard, downtown LA.

  • Areal may not have the most amazing food around but it does have a gorgeous outdoor patio and more importantly, bottomless mimosas with the purchase of a brunch entree on weekends.  Don’t get me wrong: our food was solid and tasty, just not overwhelmingly memorable.  The experience however, was.
bottomless mimosas, brunch at Areal, Areal Restarant, Areal Venice, Los Angeles Travel, Reno Tahoe Photographer

The over-the-top Belgian Waffles at Areal in Venice.

PLAY:

  • The beach and boardwalk shouldn’t even have to be mentioned!
  • Get a glimpse of Hollywood without having to deal with Hollywood and tour Sony Studios in Culver City.  Afterwards, head over to downtown to wander and eat.  Culver City is so quaint and adorable it almost feels like you’re not in Los Angeles.

GET CULTURED:

  • Bergamot Station in Santa Monica was originally a trolley stop, built in 1875 for the Red Line Trolley, which ran from LA to the Santa Monica Pier.  Today, it features art galleries, museums and cafes.

Whipped delight

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Woah.

Now, I’ve made some delicious cakes in my day, but to be punny, this one takes the cake.

It’s called the “Versatile Vanilla Cake” (recipe via Martha Stewart) and the icing was egg whites and sugar, brought to temperature over the stove and then whipped into a amazing meringue-like fury.

This is most definitely one recipe I’m saving to use again!

Superbowl Sunday

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I’m not sure if you were on Twitter during the Superbowl blackout, but it was hysterical.

Way more hysterical and entertaining than the game itself.

Superbowl Sunday Taco Feast.

I’m not really a fan of pro football, but I am a fan of good food, friends and get-togethers.

We ate amazing fish tacos and things wrapped in bacon and decorated our faces and yelled a lot.

It was good times.

M took my camera hostage (she loves it) so we have a ton of photos from the festivities.  If so inclined, you can check them out here.

WOR: the experience

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In addition to running around the expo for three days straight which was nothing short of exhausting, I was lucky enough to hang out at Snowbird with my friend Bill, spend a few days at the house of some rad friends of Megs and Jules, eat some bomb Indian food at the Himalayan House and lust over gorgeous French pastries at Gourmandise. I also learned to pogo stick with no hands at the SheJumps Happy Hour, saw my friend Laura who I used to work with at REI (and now works for Patagonia), and bought multiple amazing steel beer cups, none of which managed to make it home with me.

I also feel fortunate to have spoken briefly with Jay Beyer, who agreed to do so after I sent him an email that basically said, “I am an aspiring photographer and the photographer I aspire to be is you. Please don’t think that’s weird.”

His path into photography was fairly similar to mine and in short, I sometimes feel like I am putting too much pressure on myself to get better, faster.  I wanted to know 1) a realistic timeline of how he got to the point he is now and 2) where I should be focusing my energy regarding turning photography into a career rather than a hobby.  While I have a very clear idea of what it will take for me to become more proficient at the craft, I wasn’t sure what the best approach was regarding breaking into the outdoor retail industry.

Jay was full of information and provided some clear guidance.  In short: don’t mess around with magazines (they don’t pay and you don’t need tear sheets),  build your portfolio, don’t rely on friends as athletes, get up earlier, find a small company to partner with that you can grow together, don’t give away your photos for free.   Plan of attack: spend the next year working on my portfolio and return to outdoor retailer to talk with the marketing managers at each booth.

I took a ton of product photos at the event, most of which you can check out in my posts for Tahoe South.  Here’s the rest of them.

Want to go to Winter Outdoor Retailer?

Good luck getting in.  You either need to be employed by an Outdoor Retail Manufacturer or an Outdoor Retail Store that’s willing to send you, a member of the press, a brand sponsored pro athlete, or good enough friends with someone important that will provide you with a guest pass to get in.  If you do secure that pass and get to schmooze, drink and drool over the new gear coming out, here are my recommendations:

STAY: Airbmb has a ton of amazing options in Salt Lake, but I’m totally enamored with this historic mother-in-law unit that used to be a tailor shop.

EAT:

  • Gourmandise.  Seriously.  Every day.  For lunch also.  And desert.  Anytime, really.
  • Zest was a little hit or miss for us, but I think if you order right you’ll really enjoy it.  The cocktails (beet sangria!) totally stood out as clear winners here as well as the sliced cucumber w/ cashew chive cheese, the spinach salad and the pasta w/tomato sauce, spinach & kalamata olives.
  • Himalayan House is amazing Indian food.  Don’t skip the paneer chili or the momos.

SKI:

  • Snowbird Ski Resort has become one of my favorite mountains.  It has great steeps, gorgeous bowls and an amazing atmosphere.
  • Brighton and Solitude are great options for a smaller resort.  I loved Brighton’s hike-able in-bounds terrain when I was there.

A Few of my Favorite Things

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I’m working on my Outdoor Retailer/Utah post, I promise.

In the meantime, there’s a lot of things I’m totally obsessed with right now and most of them involve food:

  • Steel Cut Oats and Quinoa breakfast cereal: I’ve been making a big batch of this at the beginning of the week and then reheating it when I get to the store. Add in some fresh fruit and a little bit of honey and it’s the best part of waking up other than coffee. Recipe via Bon Appetit.
  • Curried Chicken Salad Sandwiches for lunch every day. I bought a chicken to roast last weekend at Whole Foods and used the leftovers to make us a ton of chicken salad for our lunches. Buying lunch meet is ridiculous and expensive. This stuff just gets tastier every day! I think you could probably use greek yogurt in place of the mayo. Recipe via Cooking Light.
  • My crockpot. I am SO productive in the morning. At night? Not so much. Especially in the winter. In the last month I’ve used my crockpot at least once or twice a week, making stand out dinners like Shredded Pulled Sandwiches, Pork Ragu, and Beef Burgundy with Egg Noodles. The best part is how amazing your house smells when you come home from work or the mountain.
  • Listening to NPR while I run on the treadmill. Something about Terry Gross’ voice during her in depth and often funny interviews, the stories on This American Life, and the hijinks of Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me totally draw me in and make me forget I’m on the treadmill. Otherwise I get super sadistic and end up running quarter mile or hill repeats almost every day.  I’m sure I’m giving the gym quite a show because most of the time I’m on the treadmill, grinning ear to ear and laughing out loud.
  • Dreaming of traveling. January, otherwise known as Junuary in Tahoe, totally brings me down: it never snows and it’s always warm and sunny during the day and freezing at night. I either want powder or I want to ride my bike. None of this in between crap. I start to get claustrophobic, especially since it’s one of the slowest months at my store. I get bored, restless, and start fantasizing about places to go.
  • Dreaming of a new wardrobe. I haven’t bought a new skirt in years. I’m tired of the ones hanging in my closet. I feel a shopping spree coming on. Also, most of the skirts I have are flirty, summery and totally inappropriate for the Tahoe winter. First purchase in the closet update: this super cute chunky denim A-line from Boden. Also on the agenda: cute, fun, functional dress-up-or-down classic dresses, including a little black dress, and some tops that I can wear with all the amazing wide leg pants from Anthropologie that I have nothing to wear with.

Things I’m looking forward to:

  • Heading to Austin at the end of February to see James Zabiela play, who I haven’t seen since before I moved to California, and spend the evening with Lance, Toddy, Jamie and my old crew whom I get to see briefly and infrequently these days.
  • Photographing SXSW in Austin in March.
  • Mountain biking Moab in May with Torril, Marion, Bill and the rest of their crew.
  • My birthday party. That’s right. It’s never too early to start planning your next birthday party. FIVE MONTHS til we Rock the Casbah!

RocktheCasbah copy

Dallas Marathon

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So I ran a marathon on Sunday without training.

Things that I would not recommend doing include running a marathon without training.

That being said, the patented Lauren-Lindley-All-Season-Taper-Plan worked out alright because I finished. I did not get a stress fracture this year (I did last year) but I can’t really walk and I feel like a truck ran over me.

The weather was DREADFUL: humid and almost 70 degrees at the start. The first two hours I felt like I was swimming. The Dallas Marathon is a really wonderful event: tons of runners (comradery! misery in numbers!), well organized, water/gatorade stations at every mile, really gorgeous and flat flat flat. You run from downtown, across the bridges into West Dallas, back into downtown and through the Design District to Turtle Rock, through Highland Park, across Lower Greenville, out and around White Rock Lake and then back to downtown.

Strangely enough, despite this marathon being far more physically brutal than CIM was for me last year, it was mentally exceptionally easy. You would think those two situations wouldn’t go hand in hand and I have no way to explain it but despite my physical agony during the run, mentally it was cake. The miles seemed to tick by SO fast right up until the last one!

It was so humid that I got blisters on two of my toes at mile 14 and then at mile 16 my right leg started to cramp. By the end of the race, both of my legs were cramping so severely it was comical and there was no point in the last ten miles when I had any relief from that situation. But, you know, the faster you run, the faster you’re done so I just kept trucking.

The humidity really took it out of me early on and I walked through every water stop in the last half of the course. My time ended up being about 15 minutes slower than my first marathon (4:37 vs 4:23) but considering that I ran a total of 30 miles in the last 6 weeks, that’s pretty damn good!

I got to see one of my bestest friends while I was in Dallas and we went to a fantastic little tapas joint called Sangria on Friday night. In true marathon-prep fashion, M and I decided to treat ourselves to an amazing dinner on Saturday night at Nonna, a Highland Park restaurant dedicated to regional Italian cuisine made from locally sourced ingredients. My pappardelle was to die for but the real stand out was my mother’s Maine Lobster Ravioli.

Overall, it was a really fantastic event and just as fun and well organized as California International Marathon. Both would make wonderful first time marathons due to the crowd support, the sheer number of runners (it makes it better somehow), the entertainment along the way, and the course itself. We already have our sights set on next year’s event: The Marine Corps Marathon.

But for now, I’m taking a break from running and it’s into the pool I go.

Cambodian Lemongrass Pineapple Stir Fry Sauce

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We are coming to the end of our gift of World Foods sauces, which is a little bitter sweet. For one, it means that I can rotate my last-minute-everything-left-in-the-crisper-drawer-diners to include Italian mash-ups with olive oil, whole wheat pasta and plenty of romano cheese, which is always in my fridge but on the other hand, they were a really fantastic way to throw together a delicious, healthy and fast meal at night.

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For our last main dish, I did what I’ve been doing all along: pick a protein, add some veggies, toss with sauce and serve over rice and noodles. It may not be glamorous or “cooking” per say, but it’s a quick and satisfying meal that literally anyone can handle. For those of you who prefer sweeter tastes to spicy, the Cambodian Pineapple Lemon Grass Stir Fry Sauce will be a perfect pairing for you.  It was a bit on the sweet side for both Boyfriend and I, who prefer things with a kick.  I put in half a jalapeno, but it wasn’t enough to temper the overbearing sweetness.  A large douse of soy sauce fixed that though!  We served it over left over jasmine rice and although it wasn’t our favorite sauce of the bunch, our plates were still cleared through in minutes!

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Our stir fry was chock full of veggies that needed to be used: zucchini and yellow squash, yellow bell pepper, a jalapeno and two large handfuls of spinach. I topped each serving with some diced basil to finish it off.

Read about my experiences with all the World Foods Sauces here:
Jungle Curry with Tofu
Galangal Lemon Grass Stir Fry Sauce
Rendang Curry Sauce
Pad Thai Noodle Sauce
Xin Zhou Noodle Sauce
Green Curry Sauce

Check out what my other California Fusion Taste Team Members are up to:

Darlene at My Burning Kitchen
Alex at Ma, What’s for Dinner
Mary at This Tasty Life

Follow the World Fusion Taste Team updates on Twitter @fusiontasteteam.
Follow on Pinterest at WorldFoods.
Follow on Facebook at WorldFoods Fusion of Flavours.

We have one sauce left, a World Foods Dipping Sauce that I have visions of accompanying a plate of coconut fried shrimp or marinated and fried tofu sticks. This is one we may reserve for a party appetizer or event at the house. I’d like to thank World Foods for generously providing me with a hamper full of products to sample. It was an exercise in both creative writing and cooking for me and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Unfortunately, I don’t think their products are available anywhere in Tahoe but I’m crossing my fingers I can find them in the Whole Foods in Reno. Check here to find them at a location near you.