My Summer Vacation

Well this is a bit overdue.

Hola Mehico!

A few weeks ago me familia went for a week-long trip to Cozumel, and I am currently working on a word that means both "frekkin sweeet" and "don't make me leave."

I didn’t want to come home at all. In fact, I can't believe I showed enough sense of responsibility that I came back to reality instead of storing myself away in a coconut in order to live on the island (no not that one) a few extra days. I not only gave myself a pat on the back for being such an adult, but I also gave myself a slap on the ass. I deserved it.

Here’s a summary, in picture form, of an average day in Cozumel

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My day would start with a little of this (the coffee was frekking delish)

I would then take said coffee and go to my balcony and look at this while waiting for eek (younger sister) to get ready:

Breakfast time! (eek)

What i got to look at while eating breakfast:

It was exactly like being in Cleveland.

After breakfast it was time to slow things down for about 8 hours so we could lay on the beach.

"Beeches on the Beach"

(l to r) eek and kathy (older sister)

(l to r - Daddy-O kicking back and mom in the H2O)

When we would cramp up from laying around so much, we'd do a whole bunch of this:

(l to r - me and eek)

Saw a lot of these:

We never got bored but if we had gotten bored, Eek and I agreed we'd pass the time by bench pressing Kathy.

We made time to go to the other side of the island for some exploring and more picture taking.

Here’s (t to r) eek, dad, and I on the beach.

Here’s our family portrait (l to r - kathy, mom, dad, eek, me)

Everything was going great until eek was attacked by something

And my hair started looking like Nick Nolte's:

Then we’d head back to our room to shower before dinner.

Holy hell! It’s an elephant made of towels! Thank you housekeeping.

After dinner it was sunset time:

And drinky time:

What can I say except Mehico, I salute you.

Horned Potatoes

Well hey dair! I was totally missing you.

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Thanksgiving is in t-minus two days, and since I’m a veggie my focus tends to lean towards the side dishes. And since I’ve set more than one kitchen aflame, I tend to look for side dishes that are easy, tasty, and for the most part hard to leave a house in a charcoaled state of mind.

So in preparation for Thanksgiving I’ve been looking for the BEST MASHED POTATOES EVAAAR recipe.

Listen, I love mashed potatoes. They make me salivate to the point of needing to put on my bright orange floaties, slap some zinc on my nose, and jump in the deep end. They’re just good. This is a fact.

After sifting through thousands of recipes (actually, none) I decided to go with Giada De Laurentiis’s Baked Mashed Potatoes with Parmesan Cheese and Bread Crumbs. Her recipe won not only because I happened to catch an episode of Everyday Italian where she showcased her skills on the potato, but mainly because it consists of two different kinds of cheese - I would eat my dog’s poo if someone sprinkled two kinds of cheese on it. I’m nothing if not refined.

On a side note: My dad once found a bag of potatoes in our pantry that had sprouted horns. He apparently found them right as I was walking in the kitchen, which prompted him to greet me with “WATCH OUT! HORNED POTATOES!” and proceeded to throw a potato at my face (which in all fairness it did have horns, so I basically had it coming).

For months after this I would get in my car and find horned potatoes. Except at this point the horned potatoes had evolved to have toothpick legs and arms. There’s no point to this story except that if you think about it, that’s sorta weird. I mean this went on for mooooonths. You had to admire his dedication.

So anywho - the mashed potatoes. I meant to test my recipe before the big day but that of course didn’t happen. So if you have any cooking tips regarding potatoes or any other ideas on how to ramp up the awesomeness of these already awesome potatoes, feel free to leave me a comment. (ahem).

I’ll go ahead and notify blogspot so they know why their server crashed. I’ll now just sit back and wait for the avalanche of comments.

Here’s to mashed potatoes, horned potatoes, and zinc on my nose.

Happy Thanksgiving you cute little turkeys.