Mad Men Craze

So, I don't watch the television show Mad Men. I know that someone in the cast is named January Jones only because that is the best name ever. But, even though I don't own a television, I still find myself getting caught up in the new season hoopla. And it's my pleasure to get you caught up in it as well. So, please oblige me as I take a trip down memory lane. It will be a short trip, as the story begins in June.

I met this super sweet girl at my Cal student orientation (aka Calso) named Audrey. She was the only one in our group who brought her mother along to the all day event, and her mother was also pretty rad, and quickly stepped up to the role of 'group mom,' snapping pictures and making us exchange emails, even though some of our group was closer in age to mother than daughter. Didn't stop her. And Audrey, for her part, wasn't embarrassed and clearly loved her mom and it was touching. Really. I'm not being sarcastic here. Anything negative you might sense is jealousy because I want that kind of mom! Oh, well. It gives me hope for when I'm a parent.

Ok, no more time for waxing nostalgic over here. Moral of the Audrey story is that she is running for a walk-on role in Mad Men in that Banana Republic contest, and she's doing quite well. Or, she has been. Recently, we (yes, we - I vote for her every day) slipped drastically in the rankings and SHE NEEDS YOUR HELP! Come on, look how dang cute she is:

All you have to do is click here to vote for her. And then come back and do it again tomorrow. You can consider it a personal favor to me. Plus, it will help me be popular in my new school, and you don't want to be responsible for me being a loner, do you. Do you?!?

Don't be a jerk. Vote for Audrey.

Meat Superstar

Seriously, what was I thinking when I was a vegetarian? I've only been a bonafide omnivore for a little over a month, and already my love of meat products has gotten me some prestige in the SF foodie community.

Mission Mission recently hosted a competition to see who had the best meat story. Everyone's favorite indie rock butcher, Ryan Farr, was the judge. And I won that shit. My prize is a 4505 Meats shirt, but I hope Ryan will consider sending me a poster instead because classic American Apparel tees make me look like I should be shopping at Home Depot with my wife and our adopted Vietnamese baby, if you catch my drift.

Anyway, here's my story! And I recommend you get off your ass and try some of these Chicarrones!!! Also, those shirts are mega cute if you don't have a waist and boobs. And also, the girl in that pic on Mission Mission is not me. Not even a little bit me.

Easy. I’ve been a vegetarian for fourteen years, but every time my friend Alli and I get drunk at Elixir (which is less and less now, thank you douchebags) she tries to shove chicharrones down my throat. She has actually held them to my lips, gently applying pressure, while simultaneously carrying on a conversation with a group of new friends, because, as far as her logic goes, I will have to open my mouth sometimes.

Yes, we turn into eight-year-olds when we drink.

Anyway, I recently decided to give in and eat the meat, although slowly so I don’t puke and poop at the same time. I have had a few bites of prosciutto here and there, and the other night I stepped into Elixir (filled with d-bags, to the brim), and Alli was there. She looked H-A-P-P-Y-D-R-U-N-K and exclaimed, “Close your eyes and open your mouth!”

Under normal circumstances, I would have given her a dead leg, but I knew where we were and what was coming. I obliged, and had my third intentional experience with meat to-date. Although I’m not sure if chicarrones are meat. I mean, I know they are meat-based, but do they qualify as meat? I don’t know.

Granola Winner

Ok, so that whole granola giveaway didn't work as well as the coffee one. Hmmmm. Only one entry. It sure is a good thing that it was an awesome entry!

Congratulations to Sharon! You are hilarious! Part of me really wants to go camping with you, and the other part of me just kicked that part in the knee really hard. Email me at melanie.duve@gmail.com with your address so I can send you some amazing granola!

Here is her story, in case you missed it!

My ex-husband (patience, clues to follow) was a camping nut. Needless to say, being interested in other of his stuff, I decided I could learn and like this camping thing. He planned this elaborate honeymoon ... freeze dried food (food? in packets?? - this was back in the 80's, so you can imagine the quality of said food.) He used words like "base camp" and "100 pound pack, max" and "bears" and "mountain lions".

I was game, I swear I was.

I think things really started falling apart on the ten mile hike back down to the "base camp". Or, it may have been the adolescent black bear that I came face to face with as I rounded the corner of our "trail tent" clinging to my sparse roll of toilet paper in the middle of the night. One of us had more fear than the other and I'm not sure it wasn't the bear.

Did I forget to mention that I bought new hiking shoes for this "adventure"?

Well, the blisters won one day right in the middle of this godforsaken trail and something snapped ....I threw off my pack and lay down in the middle of the trail in the dirt, imitated an old mule and said "Enough! I quit." Nothing he could say could convince me to do anything more than carry anything more than my tired old carcass down the trail, with him carrying my pack and his.

I have had moments in thinking back where I've felt like a total shit for doing that, and I have had few moments of such stubbornness in my life since.

Yes, the marriage failed. Writ large that day? Probably so ...

A Very Crunchy Giveaway

H-O-L-Y-S-H-I-T

I am a girl who makes no secret of, well, anything, but specifically I do not hide my love for granola. Mama always said no relationship is worthwhile if you have to keep it a secret. Plus, granola is a very tasty treat and a great addition to the first meal of the day. I love some seasonal fruit in a bowl, with a little yogurt, topped with some granola. But you can make it any way you want and still have wonderful success. The sweetness and crunch are so satisfying and the meal is still healthy. Well, it CAN be unhealthy if you eat too much, but you knew that. And if you are reading my blog for health tips, I fear you might die young.

But...I just had the BEST GRANOLA EVER CREATED. This is the Usain Bolt of granola. Rodney's Homemade Granola from Bi-Rite Creamery. It tastes so good that I cried when I ate it. Twice. Imagine eating a diamond encrusted slice of David Bowie's - nevermind. Just trust me that it is SO GOOD. I would tell you what the ingredients are, but I was so excited when I opened the package that I accidentally ripped that part off. But there might just be some crack in here.

So, like any good crack dealer, I want to share it with you! That's right! It's time for another 'Broke-Ass College Kid's Kinda Cheap Giveaway!' The winner, no matter where they are located in the world, will be shipped a bag of this delightful crunchity goodness. And all you have to do to win is tell me a story about camping - best one wins. For some reason, granola makes me think of camping, which I am afraid of, so help me conquer my fear. Or just make me laugh. The winner I've selected (and their story) will be posted on TUESDAY! Post your tale in the comments section below.

Can't wait to read your stories!!!

Coffee Winner!

Well, it was a long, hard road to determining a winner of this coffee contest, what-with there being seven contestants and all, but after hours of toiling during the commercial breaks of an episode of Law & Order: SVU that I may have already seen once today, I have come to a winner.

Here's a hint as to who it is:



No, it's not a fuzzy, wuzzy reincarnation of the 9 Lives kitty...it's my friend David Morris! I won't post a picture of him here because I haven't asked him about it, but I am personally under the assumption that he is the human version of Morris the Cat. Oh man. The urge to post a picture of David here is really strong. Like...Nutella and banana crepe strong.

Sorry I left. I had to troll David's Facebook page for a picture where he REALLY embodies Morris. The cat. Not the man. Who is David. Wait. I've even confused myself.

The moral of this story is that David won the coffee. Even though he doesn't really drink coffee. Isn't it ironic? Don't ya think?

One day I will write a detective novel about a main character based on David that is a badass detective like Dale Cooper, but instead of real coffee and pie, the David detective will drink decaf and sugar-free muffins. But still solve crimes and rescue Audrey from One Eyed Jack's.

Here is the story, in case you missed it! David, I'll bring you the coffee next time we hang out. Thanks for saving me the shipping charges!

I don't have a very loving relationship with coffee. If anything, I prefer a cuppa Joe at a diner, black. But even this can get to be too much, due to my extreme sensitivity to caffeine (symptoms include inventing things and hearing voices). So often times I'll just order a decaf (taken black, of course. Publicly I drink my coffee black because the bitterness reminds me of the bitter tears shed during the exodus, but privately it's because I hate trying to maintain the proper proportion of cream and sugar as the mug is refilled throughout the meal).

Anyway. I only have a couple of incidents that could remotely qualify as any kind of coffee story. There was the time I tried making coffee at the office and things went so badly I ended up having to run away. Or the time in college, after having studied the strange power of the placebo effect, that I secretly substituted my girlfriend's sister's coffee with decaf on the night before her final, but then didn't say anything when she kept frowning at the coffee and saying, "I think they accidentally put in decaf".

But I think the one I'll go with isn't so much a story, as it is a visual. Basically, one day on my bike commute to work, I got the idea in my head that it would be great to grab a cup of coffee from Philz on the way to the office. I figured: hey, I'm a good biker, I can hold a cup of coffee steady. It went pretty well, until I got to my shortcut behind the Best Buy.

The path that runs behind the Best Buy is, like, beyond bumpy. I think it was paved when asphalt was first invented and pretty much left untouched since. Through internet magic, you can actually see precisely what I'm talking about.

As I turned onto the road, a little voice somewhere in my head coughed politely and mentioned something about maybe this not being a good idea. But this voice was drowned by another, stupider voice, who was all like, "Hey don't listen to him! Woo, pina coladas!" (Lesson: never heed the advice of the voices in your head who are lounging around drinking pina coladas all day and making rude remarks to the waitresses. Those are LOSER voices.)

Well. So. If you were a passerby that morning, you would have seen a nerdy white guy slowly riding a bike while spilling scolding hot coffee all over his arm, screaming. Curious as to why he didn't stop or anything, but continued to keep spilling the coffee on himself the whole length of the street, you might have asked him why he did that. To which he probably would have said something like, "For some reason, I felt I had to just push through it, you know?"

Oh and it was awesome to read everyone's stories and I will maybe do another giveaway soon. That is, as soon as my unemployment check clears. Yeah. That's why I'm giving away cheap shit.

Oh and, also, David went to Berkeley, which is where I want to go, so now, David, you have to call them and tell them that I scratched your back, so now they should scratch mine. But only on the bottom half because the rest is really sun burnt.

Finally, second place was Owen (at the last minute), but all the stories were really fun to read. And Owen doesn't get a prize for second place, just cool kid points on my blog, which will translate to street cred after I publish my first novel.

Win Delicious Coffee!

I like coffee. I like to drink it at least once a day, although sometimes I will skip, but not usually. And I don't care if you think it's a drug and I'm addicted to it because I think that's a fine amount of coffee to drink every day and I'm tired of pleasing you anyway.

Living in San Francisco has really introduced me to some fine, fine coffee. Long behind me are the days of waiting in the cold New York winter to purchase a cup of lukewarm battery acid from one of those silver cart things, along with fifteen other people dressed almost exactly like me in black and gray. Gone!

Now coffee has flavors! And I don't mean Dunkin' Donuts French Vanilla, I mean flavors like 'vibrant' and 'sultry.' Just like me. Does it work if I say this around mixed company: 'I like my coffee like I like myself, vibrant and sultry?' I will attempt this/embarrass myself in a very public situation soon and get back to you.

My favorite coffee of the moment comes from Barefoot Coffee Works in San Jose, CA (but I can get it a Birite, near my house). I am in love with the Reserva Del Diablo. One day I was poking around the market, taking my sweet time picking out a coffee because I love shopping no matter what it's for, and I read every single description on all the coffee they had for sale. I knew I wanted a light roast, and I wanted to stray from the typical SF faves (Ritual and Four Barrel) to try something new. When I read this description, I was in love:

Vibrant and sultry. Surprisingly crisp and sweet acidity with tangerine and clover honey highlights. Fresh red currants and lemony floral zestiness.

It is SO GOOD. I am currently drinking a cup, black, which isn't necessarily how I like my men, but it could be because I think Jose Reyes is a babe. I love this coffee so much that I want to give some away...to you!

If you love coffee as much as I do, leave a comment telling me a story revolving around coffee. It could be about your favorite barista, counting quarters to pay for your machiattto, or just sipping a cup on the couch with your new puppy. Or old puppy. I'm not picky when it comes to puppies.

I will pick my favorite story on Monday, and I will send the winner a 12 oz. bag of Barefoot Coffee's Reserva Del Diablo. The winner will be posted on this here site on Monday evening. See what I did there? Not only do you have to read this, but then you have to think about something meaningful and write it down. And THEN you have to come back to my blog on Monday. Boo yah. I'm smart. Or maybe I've just had too much coffee.

Can't wait to read your comments!