Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Sunday, Jul. 31, 2005 - 2:23 a.m.

Hey there; hope everyone's weekend is going well. It's still hot as hades here in sunny SoCal. I've actually been down by the beaches several times this week, and what I don't get is that there's been almost no one on the sand except right around the Santa Monica pier last weekend, when I met KJ for beads. The beaches closer to Malibu have been practically empty. It's bizarre. I was wondering if it has anything to do with the Great Jellyfish Invasion of '05, but I don't think the jellies have made it this far up the coast, so it's pretty odd to see the beach empty at the height of the summer season. Especially when the temps down there have been ideal. I'm just saying.

So let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? I present for your inspection this week, a motley selection of links, to things both odd and (hopefully) useful.

I'm starting off with gauze masks of the kind once ubiquitously worn by Michael Jackson. But not just any plain old surgical masks, oh no. These are animal surgical masks. And no, I'm not kidding. I spent 30+ days in Japan, once. The Japanese are kooky when it comes to this sort of thing, so I've no doubt these are getting a lot of air play. I think they'd raise a few eyebrows here, though. Still, if the photos are anything to go by, the gorilla and monkey masks certainly blend well...

If you live in the LA area and are a DWP customer, you can sign up for and receive free trees to plant on your property...or elsewhere, I suppose. Actually, a lot of cities and states have programs like this, and the National Arbor Day Foundation also offers 10 free trees to new members, shipped free of charge. You can also buy trees from the NADF, and shipping is only $5. Not sure what kind of trees will grow in your area? Use the NADF Tree Wizard to find out. Trees truly are our friends. They filter particulate matter (dust & pollution) out of the air, convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, cool the earth and lower your energy bills by providing shade, block wind, and lower noise pollution when planted between your house and yard and a highway or other source of noise. They also serve as a privacy screen between you and the neighbors. Trees are awesome. That's why governments and organizations like the NADF offer free trees to the public. So check out where you can get your free trees today. :)

In addition to free trees, you can also get free plants. :) As a landscape designer, I can tell you that if you're looking into landscaping, free plants are definitely the way to go: properly landscaping your house costs from 10-25% of the value of your house. If your house is worth $100,000, that means it will cost you from $10 - 25,000 to properly landscape it, so cutting cost corners where you can is a good idea, and Free Trees and Plants.com makes it easy. Based in Nebraska, Free Trees salvages high-quality unsold nursery plants, shrubs, and bulbs that would otherwise be destroyed at the end of each season and sells them in pairs (by the half dozen, for bulbs) online or by phone for $6.95 to cover the cost of handling (digging the plant, preparing them for safe shipment, packaging, etc.) and shipping. Believe me, when the retail cost on a sapling starts around $25 and most 3-gallon plants go for $10 - 15 or more, that's a very good deal. They've got some really great plants on the site at the moment, too. I'm talking stuff that would cost you a LOT of money at a nursery or garden center. And Free Trees employs disabled workers, so as their site says, "You get free plants, help stop a huge waste, and deserving workers with disabilities get jobs. Everyone wins!"

If you live in the Dallas area and have always wanted to learn how to sew, but just didn't have the patience back in 9th grade home ec, try Make, the DIY Studio and Lounge, on Thomas Street, in the Fashionable State-Thomas District of Uptown. (::sigh:: I so miss my cute little apartment on McKinney, near uptown.) Make takes DIY to the next level with classes and a studio where you can work on your projects away from home. Get in a little me time and make a cute skirt, sun dress, or tote bag this summer. It's your own little sewing room away from home.

Does your dog eat his weight in shoes? I once had a german shepherd who never met a shoe he didn't like to eat, and while the plush toys at Haute Diggity Dog might not have dissuaded him either, they're still totally cute...and shoelike. :)

And that's all for me today, peeps. I just had yummy yummy sauteed spinach salad, from a recipe my old MacGrill GM used to make up for the closing staff after a particularly rough weekend night, and it was as good as ever. :) In fact, in honor of Michelle Crespin, I present to you the recipe for Michelle's Killer Salad, as I like to call it. (it's a warm salad, so it's great for winter dinners)

You will need a LOT of spinach. If your supermarket sells spinach in big bundles, you will need two big bundles. If you buy your spinach in little salad mix kits/bags, you will need 4 of those, maybe 5. Yes, I realize this is a lot of spinach. It will not all fit in the pan when you first put it in. That's sort of the point. I said a LOT. It should be enough spinach leaves to make a cold salad big enough for 6 to 8 people to munch comfortably on and maybe have extra left over. This is because you are going to saute the spinach, and it will shrink. A LOT.

You will also need julienned sundried or tiny little sugar or cherry tomatoes, cut into halves, your call; about 1/4 c. chopped red or green onion; 1/4 lb. diced pancetta, the smaller the pieces, the better; a handful plus a little extra of pinenuts (you can throw in more, if you're a big fan of the pinenut; a handful of shrimp (I guess about 1/3 lb.), either those little ones you use for shrimp creole, or big ones, but if you use the big ones, cut 'em into little pieces about 1/2" thick; 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, minced; olive oil, salt and pepper, oregano, feta, and grated parmesan or pecorino romano cheese. Most of the ingredients are fairly optional and may be left out, if you don't like them, but they will affect the flavor. This is a very flavorful salad.

First off, toast the pinenuts. That just means toss 'em into a small saute pan and heat them up over medium high heat until they start to sweat (get all shiny). At that point, turn the heat down to medium and stir them until they get all nice and brown on both sides. Then remove them from the pan, coz once they start toasting in earnest, they'll keep at it in a hot pan, even though you turned the fire off. Set them aside.

Hit the bottom of a large frying pan or one of those big two-handled sauce/soup pans with enough olive oil to coat the bottom, about 2 Tbs. (None of this is going to be precise, so if you need precision in a recipe, you might wanna give up now. Michelle is not a measurer. She's more of a method girl.) On medium high, heat the oil and then saute the onions, garlic, and pancetta for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onions are soft and the pancetta starts to look kinda done. I don't know how to explain what I mean. You should know the change when you see it, coz it turns a different shade of brown and sort of looks softer, kinda. If you left any fat attached, the fat is rather translucent, instead of white and thick. Add the pinenuts, shrimp and sundried tomatoes, if you went for the sundrieds, which I prefer. Throw in however much oregano you want. Probably 1/4 - 1/2 tsp. dried is fine. Go another 2 - 3 minutes, stirring often till the shrimp is orange and cooked thru, but not hard. If you chose to use fresh tomatoes, add those and then the spinach at this time.

Now, if you're using enough spinach, it won't all fit yet. If it does all fit, you don't have enough spinach and are going to be disappointed in the outcome. Add more. This is why I use one of those big two handled pans with the high sides, because even with one of those, I can't fit all the spinach in unless I really pack it down. So do that, and stick the lid on the pan. The spinach will start to wilt and sink after about a minute. At that time, you can stir it up and add more. Or just stir it up, if you packed it in. Saute/wilt the spinach for 2 to 3 minutes, and then serve it. You'll know when, because that huge mountain of spinach will have dwindled down to a shockingly small amount. You'll be like, where the hell did all the spinach go? Plus, it will be all clumpy. Just toss it or nudge it apart with a spoon, and you'll be okay. Divide the spinach mix up into dishes and crumble feta cheese and sprinke the parmesan or pecorino over it. Salt and pepper at will, though bear in mind you don't need much salt because pancetta is a salt-cured bacon. Manger. :)

This recipe will make either 4 pre-dinner salads or 2, maybe 3, big salads to eat as a meal. Feel free to scale back some on the pancetta and shrimp, if you want a smaller salad. If you only use enough spinach to make one big tossed cold salad for 3 or 4 people, you really won't have much spinach at all, and this will be a really tiny pre-dinner salad with a lot of meat in it. In fact, it will be meat garnished with spinach. I can not stress enough that you really need a lot of spinach. Add it until you think there's no way you need more, and then throw in at least half that much more. Trust me. It really wilts.

I think this would probably also make a good pasta topping, but I've never tried it that way. Lemme know if you enjoy it, and think good things about Michelle. :)

Peace out,
Katie

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In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
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