And the Oscar goes to...

I set my cell phone alarm to go off at 9:40 cause I had so many things I wanted to get done before Joe's Oscar party. We go to his party every year and I had already e-mailed in my ballot with my predictions and choices yesterday but I really wanted to go see Hurt Locker before the party and I also needed to make my dish. It's a vegetarian party so no meat is allowed, and I have fun coming up with a recipe that is exciting without any meat in it. The theme of the party was "Ghetto Realness" inspired by the film "Precious" which I also regrettably hadn't seen yet. So, I found a recipe called Jamaican Red Bean Stew but I renamed it "Mrs. Weiss's Precious Bean Stew" after Mariah Carey's character in the movie (Dylan imdb'ed it get her character's name).
I got up and took a shower, removing the tape from the walls - I forgot to mention yesterday that I had painted the walls above the tile in the shower area. I wanted to make sure that it was the color I wanted; it's kind of a deep brick red. I ended up loving it! It's very different and dramatic. I had painted the bathroom a light blue color when we first moved in, but I've never been thrilled with it as it was not the color I was intending. Later, I had bought some cheesy cartoon undersea wallpaper border at the Dollar Tree which was fun for awhile but looked like a little kid's bedroom and I quickly got tired of it. So, I'm very excited about this red color and can't wait to do the whole bathroom; I'm also going to paint the cabinets chocolate and get new rugs and knobs and towels.
Grocery shopping at Ralph's to get the ingredients for my dish, then back home to quickly prepare it and throw everything into the slow cooker. Then, I made brunch for Dylan and I. I had stumbled across an artichoke website that had a recipe for "Artichokes Benedict" that looked amazing so I had been wanting to try it for awhile. First, you steam the artichokes with some lemon. While they are steaming, I poached two eggs - making this the first time I've ever cooked with a whole, raw artichoke and the first time I've poached eggs. After the eggs were poached, I set them aside and made Hollandaise sauce from scratch. Then I browned some ham in a skillet and set that aside. By this time, I was ready to eat and in a hurry so I pulled the artichokes out of the steamer. The fun part was opening up the artichoke. I folded the leaves down and scooped out the choke, and then put the ham and egg in the middle and drizzled sauce over top. Unfortunately, it turned out that I didn't steam the artichokes nearly long enough so it was pretty impossible to eat them. Everything else tasted great though, and since it was my first time working with artichokes and poached eggs, I could only chalk it up to a learning experience.
I realized I didn't have time to see the Hurt Locker, actually I pretty much only had time to get ready, clean some dishes, and go to the party which started at 4.
It was at an apartment on Doheny where this guy Jordan lives who was really nice. He's Jeremy's brother, who was Joe's roommate and the party used to always be at Joe and Jeremy's place... but Jordan's apartment was amazing!!! It was one of the coolest apartments I've seen in LA. You walked in through double doors into a foyer (!) with parquet wooden floors. On the left is a HUGE kitchen with two sinks, side by side fridge and freezer that looked like wooden cabinets... it was huge! There was a dining room next to the kitchen, and then on the other side of the foyer was the big living room with a fireplace, balcony, vaulted ceilings, and a bar! The bar was obviously my favorite part. The bathroom on the mainfloor had wallpaper with shiny trees (love shiny wallpaper in bathrooms!) and carpet. Also, in the foyer there was an L shaped staircase that went downstairs to a laundry room, bathroom (also carpeted) and two bedrooms; I think both of the bedrooms had balconies facing Doheny too.
The party was VERY fun! They had a huge punch bowl of Sweet Tea (the alcoholic variety) so there was a lot of drinking going on, and of course tons of food. Once the show started, everyone got their places in the living room in front of the big screened and everyone cheered for their favorites. After each category, anyone who had predicted the winner correctly was entered into a drawing where you had to pull a poker chip out of a cup. Whoever drew the blue poker chip (the rest were red) would win that category, so they would get a dollar (we all put in $10 in ones at the beginning) and then write their name and the year on the back of the envelope. Last year, I had won for some category I forgot; this year I won "Makeup".
I ended up getting at least 13 of my predictions right but that only got me tied for 3rd place. I was really bummed cause I really wanted to win and had done a lot of research on my choices, although I hadn't actually seen a lot of the movies. Out of the best picture nominees and the main films nominated in the other categories like Best Actor etc, I had only seen: "The Blindside," "Avatar," "Up in the Air,""Julie & Julia," and "District 9" which was my personal favorite.
After the party ended, we stopped by O Bar for Ginny's birthday party. They had a piano player there so you could sing, like an old fashioned piano party. Unfortunately, even if I had not been completely wasted by this point (don't worry, Dylan was driving) I don't think I could have remembered all the words to any standard if I even knew one when I was sober. I wish I could have though, it looked like so much fun. We hung out there for awhile and I talked a lot to Christopher, who I hadn't seen for awhile, and Matt, a friend of AJ's brother as they are in town visiting.
I wanted to keep the party going on even longer but luckily Dylan took me home around 11:30 and we went to bed after listening to showtunes on the record player.

Hello 2010, goodbye junk!
NEW YEARS RESOLUTION LOG ENTRY 65
I lost $9 on the Oscar pool, does that count? J/k... I parted with a Spice Girls Crazy Dip, Strawberry Flavored, featuring Ginger Spice on the packaging. A friend of mine gave this to me a long time ago, but I found it on top of my bookshelf collecting dusk and I just figured it was time to let go. I still have all my Spice Girl dolls...

Comments

Scarlet said…
Fun party...I admire you trying to serve artichoke, I have never even considered it. But you will conquer them next time1

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