Vaggazler?

I've long been a fan of the bedazzler. One of my life dreams is to create a line of bedazzled track suits for jazzy seniors. Imagine my shock and, indeed, awe when I learned yesterday that Jennifer Love Hewitt had taken it to a whole new level.



I love accessorizing, but I can honestly say I've never looked at a Swarovski crystal and thought, "That would look good on the area of my body near where I pee." I'm bizzarely hung up on the logistics of this. What type of glue is she using? What part of her lady bits are the crystals attached to? Does one have to "prep the surface" before application? Will Michael's start offering workshops? Will she appear on Martha Stewart for a sexy crafting segment?

I fear I may have to read her book.

You are what you eat

Despite my anti-resolution stance, the "theme" I'm trying to live by for 2010 (and beyond!) is to be better to my body (interpret liberally).

The most obvious component of this is food. The cheese guy was right, you're are what you eat (from your head down to your feet). I've been trying to be more conscious of what I eat. This has taken a specific two-prong approach: a) more vegetables, b) less meat.

Friday night I went to a dinner party, and the lovely hostess Katie has recently gone vegan. Now don't think this is where I'm going - mamma loves cheeseburgers and Bugles and Taco Bell all sorts of other processed sh*t that may or may not contain animal products but is certainly not on ANYONE'S healthy/sustainable/remotely good for any person, place, or thing in any way list. It's about moderation, peeps.

Katie cooked an amazing meal from the Candle Cafe cookbook, and I don't think anyone of us missed the meat. It also inspired a conversation about food and food politics. One couple had recently seen Food, Inc., and this sparked a conversation about the difference between local, organic, and sustainable foods. The only consensus we reached was a) Monsanto is evil, and b) if you liked that film, you should see Flow (okay, that wasn't really a consensus, that's just my opinion).

Several of us are trying to cook more, and I was campaigning for soup. Last week I made a delicious carrot-ginger soup, which, incidentally, is totally vegan (but if you want to stick up your middle finger to that ideology go ahead, use beef stock just because you can). Spark recipes has a free app for Droid, and I would imagine they have it for other smart phones as well.

**Note: If you've never made soup before, when you finish cooking it and put it in the blender to puree, do so in SMALL batches. The steam builds up quickly and will blow the top off the blender, even if you're holding it on, spewing molten hot vegetable matter everywhere. Hot mess - literally.

On the menu this week? Lentils, sweet potatoes, and spinach in the crockpot. What're your New Year's goals and/or favorite healthy recipes?

Now if that last box of Girl Scout cookies would just disappear...

see below

Finally, a long over-due Christmas post.