A Contoured Face = A Whiter Woman.

WOMANIST

If you're anything like me, or other females, you probably have a few group chats on your phone, separating your friendships by how you know each other "sorority sisters" "friends from home""turn up crew" and whatever else may apply to your life. In my "friends from home" chat we have been talking about make-up recently. Well myself, I've been more so listening (reading) the dialogue because I don't know specifics, I just do what works for me, and change it if I end up looking like a ghost. The topic of contouring the face had been broached and carried on for about 1-2 weeks and it really had me thinking. If you're unfamiliar with the process, contouring the face is a method by which you highlight what you want to stand out and/or draw attention away from bigger features. Myself, I usually highlight my nose if I'm wearing a full face, but don't do the entire highlight/contour process on it. This method is actually used by transgendered men/drag queens so they can look more like women.

Some women contour their entire face, meaning highlighting the forehead, drawing the dark lines down the cheekbone and then highlighting above/below, and so on and so forth. As I was reading the dialogue in the group chat, I began to realize that highlighting and contouring makes women look more ethnically diverse, or White. By contouring the nose, you look more like a White woman because it elongates the nose so it appears more pointy. By highlighting the cheekbones and doing the contour in that area you look more "modelesque" therefore more ethnically ambiguous. I began to realize that by highlighting my nose, I had been playing into the ideal of needing to look like a White woman. As a woman with natural hair who only straightens her hair twice/year, this can be direct opposites. I never want to look in the mirror and realize that I'm trying to look like another race because I'm not proud or happy with the Black features God gave me. My lips are pretty full and I love them, I don't try to hide them, my hair is big and I feel like that means I'm closer to God. I haven't always felt this way about my hair seeing as how I had been getting relaxers for over 10 years, but I grew to love what I had and not dwell on the wet and wavy Mixed Chics type of hair. I didn't need to be like them because I'm Black and I don't give a Sugar Honey Iced Tea who doesn't like my hair. 

Teacher: "Ashley" (Black girl w/ natural thick hair) take that hat off your head. Are you having a bad hair day or something? (in front of class)

Student: shakes head yes

My client: (predominantly White with straight hair) When I have a bad hair day, I just wash my hair that morning.

Me: Black girls can't do that. It takes us hours to wash our hair.

This teacher upset me because she said it so loud in class, it could have embarrassed her and it really wasn't culturally appropriate in my head.

I also had a conversation with my line sister recently, Sheena, about dating and how it's difficult for her to find quality Black men, which I believe is the case for a lot of Black women. In her words, "they want women who look ethnically diverse, they don't don't want regular Black women any more". It kind of broke my heart, to hear that come from her but I couldn't agree more. Every time I'm on Instagram there's a big booty, big tit, female who doesn't look Black, or she's a light bright with soft wash and go, loose wave hair. 

Will I continue to highlight my nose? Quite possibly, but I'll always have those tape recorded feelings of cognitive dissonance playing in my head "are you trying to look more White" "your nose isn't pointy enough".

I went out with a friend over the weekend for her birthday, she rarely ever wears makeup and someone did her makeup for her. Her words, "I look different. I don't like it. I don't look like myself when I look in the mirror". It was funny at that moment when she said it, but now I understand what she means.

Driving While Black (Friday Shopping)

Domesticated

Thanksgiving, I ate until I was going to pop. The day before Thanksgiving everyone on Instagram and Twitter kept lamenting "don't post your food pics people, we'll all be eating the same thing" "no one wants to see your paper plates" "some of ya'll food looks nasty" and so on and so forth; therefore, I decided not to post my food not to anger the Twitter audience because 1) my food is on paper plates, cuz we aint washing all those dishes and 2) everyone does pretty much eat the same thing. But not at my aunt's house for Thanksgiving, we have fried oysters, crab cakes, and chitlins to go along with all of the usuals. I didn't even have turkey on Thanksgiving, actually. The only time I get chitlins is during the holidays because they stink and they take too much work to clean and prepare. Thanks to my mom, I have a whole HEAP of chitlins and greens at my house. Does your family make anything that's not the norm for Thanksgiving? 

All the greens my mom gave me. Talk about a mother's love!!!

That weekend, since I had a ton of mac and cheese left I switched the breakfast game up. I made an omelette stuffed with spinach and macaroni and cheese with yams and turkey bacon on the side. JESUS! It was absolutely amazing. I made two kinds of macaroni and cheese, but I used the pepper jack mac for this omelette. Hallelujah! What did you do with all your leftovers?

Pepper jack mac with honey wheat pretzel crust & mixed cheese mac with italian bread crumb crust

Mac and cheese & spinach stuffed omelette with yams and turkey bacon

Womanist

I drove back home after Thanksgiving and decided to take a last minute trip to the mall to do some Black Friday Christmas shopping. I picked up a couple of steals from my favorite store and some Christmas gifts for Justyn. I am now driving at close to midnight and about 0.5 miles from my house when I see a cop car on my left, in the middle lane. I had a sneaky suspicion (intuition) I was going to be pulled over on this night, but I had no clue what for, so I made sure to drive the speed limit since the cops were out everywhere. This cop then proceeds to get behind my car, ride me for about 5 seconds, then turns on his lights. I giggle out of amazement, then continue to drive and pull into a well lit shopping center around the corner from my house. The first thing I do as a young Black woman is think "I need a witness, just in case something happens, cops are killing Black people left and right, and I don't want to be a Trayvon, dead without proof" so I pull out my phone, call my mom, and have her sitting on the line the entire time. Can you imagine being pulled over by a cop and the first thing that goes through your mind is "if I die, I need someone to hear to me die"? What a horrible way to survive as a people. So I do just that, the cop claims he pulls me over because the tint on my car is too dark as he asks for my license, address, and where I am headed. He then wrote me a ticket for a tint violation after measuring my tint with a tint-o-meter. (I had no clue my tint was illegal, I just bought the car October 2012, but this young White cop likely trying to move up the ladder, didn't care.) My gut tells me he was looking for DUIs out on the road, so he was hoping I was intoxicated and hoping to score big off of me. Luckily, I don't drink and drive, so he can catch fire in that regard. I plan on going to court for this stupid ticket and fighting it, we'll see how that turns out.

Black people (and Asians) love chicken.

Where does the stereotype that Black people love chicken come from? I must say that when I used to work in a predominantly White environment I would never pack my baked chicken wings like I wanted to. LOL! Nevertheless, thanks to Yelp I found an amazing Chicken spot that I used to live right around the corner from. I always though Bon Chon was just a semi-fancy Chinese food place. Well one, it aint Chinese it's Korean and 2 they have the most amazing chicken. I mean, I even questioned if my fried chicken lived up to this succulent meaty goodness. Yelp has a section on there where you can see the top rated restaurants in your area, so that's how I found Bon Chon, the majority of the reviews were positive. I learned from there that Bon Chon double fries their chicken, so it takes 30 minutes to cook, so I should call and order ahead if I want to eat in, so I want be seen gnawing on a thumb. They have 2 flavors, one soy garlic, the other soy garlic HOT, and amazing seasoned fries sprinkled with mozzarella cheese. I tasted garlic and seasoning salt on the fries. Justyn and I ordered 20 wings half and half and a small order of fries for $27. AMAZING! We had plenty of leftovers. The hot sauce was Asian sriracha.

I got this groupon deal for this place called Chasin Cajun in Arlington $10 for $20 worth of food. When Justyn and I went to Houston January 2012 we ate like 2 fat cows. While there, we went to a Cajun restaurant and everyone, I MEAN EVERYONE, had on a bib and a table covered in crawfish. Being the Hampton/Newport News, Virginia bred folks we are, we didn't know how to eat them. Le sigh, so we sat at the uncool table and ordered other seafood.

Fried goodness: Fish, frog legs, crab cakes, shrimp, and oysters.

Fried gator. I wonder if I gotta pimple after all of this fried food. Most likely.

This is where they chowed down on the crawfish I believe.

This time I am determined to eat crawfish. I've been studying the art of crawfish eating from true Naw'lins (correct?) people on Youtube. Yes, it's that serious.

Soup and a Real G in the Kitchen.

Yesterday, I skipped the gym and decided to throw down in the kitchen. It was a Scandal late night and I was still sore from my workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday. I got the inspiration from this blogger I follow on Twitter, she posts recipes for GREAT hearty food all the time and I copy what I can. The other day she posted broccoli and cheddar soup w/ homemade croutons and bacons. Drool worthy, right? So that's what I made last night. It's actually pretty easy it just requires a lot of pots and pans which makes for an awful clean-up.

Soup 
So you just cook the broccoli in a fair amount of water, chopping off all the stems, then add the spinach in last because we all know it takes two seconds for spinach to cook. Add a little chicken bouillon seasoning, then put everything in a food processor or blender. I used my food processor because I'm less likely to accidentally shank myself during the clean up phase and I can get all the food out of the processor better than the blender because it's shorter and wider. Anyways, pulse it until everything is chopped up nicely then transfer back to pot with the remaining broccoli juice water. From there, you add your cheese, I did extra sharp cheddar and a cheddar jack mix. I didn't over do it on the cheese because I still wanted it to be somewhat healthy. Then I seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and parsley, and onion powder.
Croutons
Next up take you some thick cut bread hit up some olive oil in a pan until it's fry temperature hot. I would have used wheat bread if I had to buy some, but I didn't, this bread was free. I broke the bread up into about 1.5" pieces and threw it in the pan. The bread I had was already seasoned so I didn't need to do anything special. If it needed to be seasoned, I would use garlic and onion powder. I swished the pan around to make sure it got nice and crispy.
Bacon
Cut up 3 slices of bacon into tiny pieces and throw it in a warm skillet and cook it up until it's nice and crisp.
Final product

I made brussel sprouts and oven baked yams as well. I've never had them before, but I figured what the heck.

If you know me, you know that I L-O-V-E Groupon and Livingsocial. While browsing I found a Cajun place I'm going to try next week. So I decided I should probably prepare myself by looking at Youtube "How to eat crawfish" and I stumble upon this thuggish ruggish bone young fella: Black Cooking Swagg. He is hilarious to watch and he keeps it real, nothing fancy. This dag on boil he did looked drool worthy. I subscribed because he seems like he really loves food and we all know I love me some food. 

This post is dedicated to my Uncle, Chef Leon who passed away this week. 

A laughable $560 later...

This past weekend I had a friend coming into town and we were going to attend For Sisters Only in the city along with Jamie, you know from the Taste of DC post. Well anyways, let me tell you this story...

We were going to leave for the metro at 10:30 am to catch August Alsina perform at 12:00 pm, we would have arrived just in time to sing along, wave our phones in the air like lighters, and stand among other cooing women. My friend gets to Fairfax and her car began to have major issues as soon as she pulled in, like violently shaking, so we're trying to figure it out. I call my dad and we explain to him the symptoms and etc. So we're all outside, myself, friend, Justyn, and his friend and his friend is like "Tiffany is that your Chevy Malibu" I'm like yea, he says "I think you have a flat". I'm thinking "naw I def don't, it's just the angle by which we're looking at it and the curb that makes it appear that way". Well low and behold I had a daggone flat. I mean the tire was DEAD TO THE BED, completely flat. LOL! So I'm laughing, like literally laughing at this weird coincidence. I could have been angry or upset but I wasn't because I feel like everything happens for a reason, maybe it helped me avoid a very bad accident or something, I don't know. So we call a tow truck, so my car can be taken to a shop. We finally get to the event at about 12: 45 pm and we missed August perform, I mean like he wasn't even in the building any more. I was completely heartbroken. So then I get a phone call from the shop I take my car to and they say "all your tires need to be replace, they're dry rotted, you need an oil change, and new wiper blades that will be $590 with our VIP program". My jaw drops and I'm over it at this point. Like I literally wasn't even in my right mind, they say all my tires are at risk for a blow out and that's what happened to the flat tire. So I go ahead and get the new tires, blades, and they do my oil change for free.

I still ended up having a great weekend. The thing is I've spent a couple thousand dollars on car needs since July. I've learned to glean whatever message is being sent to me and not become upset. I have 2 cars, so I can't complain about expenses because some people don't have cars or heat in their home during these colder months and I have both. Granted, I'm much broker and can't buy this $200 watch I want and I've been thinking of anybody who owes me money, no one, but I'm still blessed.

Sidebar: So the event For Sisters Only is a female only empowering type of event. They have panels, vendors, and music artists who perform. The event is geared towards black women all for the low price of $12. How about the main food serving stations had fried food besides the Jamaican station?! If this event is supposed to empower women, then you need to empower them to eat healthy as well. Shameful. I didn't realize this until yesterday when I was snacking on my last bit of seaweed and almonds before the gym. Also, I would like to share this gem with everyone, this woman named Germaine owns Red Bloom spa in Bethesda, MD and she was like a skin genius. She could tell the source of someone's skin issues by simply looking at them. She looked at my face and told me the location of my acne was due to the endocrine system and she checked my knees, chest, and legs for pain to rule out any other type of reasoning. The most awesome thing I've ever seen. She works with clients on their skin from an inside-out standpoint. She has them complete food diaries and all that. I would definitely like to go some day.

"That looks crazy...diarrhea" French Toast Sandwich

This weekend while watching Food Network, I discovered a new (to me) show called The Sandwich King or something of that sort. It's a chef who only makes sandwiches. Normally I'm not into the cooking shows that show the step by step process with recipes and all that, I just like to see them eat the food (Guy Fieri) , whip something up out of nothing (Chopped, Top Chef, Guy's Grocery Games), and try new foods in different cities (Andrew Zimmern on Travel channel). I watched this show mainly because Justyn loves sandwiches and because of the 300 Sandwich girl trying to get an engagement ring. She makes good looking sandwiches too, her background story is just a little odd: She's making 300 sandwiches for her boyfriend with the hope that he'll propose to her after the 300th. He gives me Michael Jackson, closeted gay, vibes though shrug. To each their own.

Anyways, so the sandwich guy made a "Razzle dazzle french toast sandwich" which was French toast as the bread, raspberries, and some type of cream sauce he made and bacon. So I stole the idea and put my own spin on it, I made a french toast sandwich stuffed with cream cheese, strawberries, blackberries, and bacon.

Instructions:
French toast mix: 2 whole eggs beaten to death, with some milk until it turns a lighter shade of yellow, you don't need a lot of milk, I actually had heavy whipping cream and some organic milk so I used both. Then I added brown sugar, cinnamon, and flax seed. I throw flax seed into just about anything that can be mixed up. Then I took my whole wheat light (some new 40 calorie/slice bread I bought thanks to coupons) bread and dipped into the mixture, let the excess mixture drip off, then placed it onto my butter greased breakfast griddle. I had enough batter for 6 slices of bread. I added cinnamon after about the 3rd slice, because that's the first to go in the french toast batter.

Cream cheese filling: I just spooned out some 1/3 less fat cream cheese that I had in the fridge added a little butter because it wasn't the softened kind, threw it in the microwave for about 20 seconds and let it melt a little. Then I mixed it up really good. It probably would've melted without butter, or you could just buy softened cream cheese, but I used what I had in my fridge already. I spread the cream cheese onto only one side of the French toast bread mainly for caloric reasons and because I don't like too much softened textures in my food.

Fruit: I cut the strawberries into quarters and the blackberries into half sizes so they would be big enough yet still small enough for a good bite. After that, just layer on your bacon and add the other slice of french toast. When plated, I still put syrup on it and it was delicious. Afterwards, I slept for 5 hours. Itis.

I was told my sandwich looked "crazy" and also that it looked like it would give one "diarrhea" how so? Idk. But I used cream cheese because that's what they use to make stuffed french toast, so that's how I got that idea. I thought about using Greek yogurt, but Justyn said cream cheese sounded better, which I gladly obliged.

What I cooked this past week & ingredients...

I like to cook something I've never made before every week. I get ideas from Food Network, restaurants' menus, other people's cooking, and simply mixing whatever I have in my house at the time.

So last week I made grilled chicken breasts stuffed with pepper jack cheese, spinach, and pesto, covered in pesto as well. These are the things that went through my brain when I put this meal idea together. First, "I want to make some stuffed chicken, I haven't done that in a while". Second, "stuffed chicken needs cheese, I have pepper jack, I'm not spending any more money on food this week and I don't feel like going to the grocery store". Third, "I have this spinach I need to use before it goes bad, I let it go bad all the time and end up wasting my money, I'm not doing that this time". Fourth, "Stuffed chicken can get dry pretty quickly, lemme add some pesto in this. I need to use this pesto I made because I don't know if/when it goes bad." Fifth, "I should addd some pesto on top to cover it, so it looks pretty and to make sure it isn't dry again".

So over the weekend, I made my usual breakfast: scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, and pancakes. I bought these cranberries from the grocery store the week before that I needed to use. I've never had fresh cranberries before, so I bit into one and it was completely sour, I was over it. So I remembered a technique I saw on food network and I threw some cranberries in a warm skillet, added a little warm and some sugar and made a cranberry compote. I added that on top of the pancakes and they were mm mm good! I originally bought the cranberries because I wanted to make cranberry orange pancakes, I've been addicted to these cranberry orange nut muffins from Target and I want to use that combination for something else. I didn't make a whole lot of the compote as you can see below, because I got nervous when I tasted the sourness of the cranberry. I would like to add that Hormel makes the absolute best pork bacon there is, next up is Smithfield. Debate me on this if you want to, but nothing beats the sweet and salty aroma of that Hormel Black Label Maple bacon in my kitchen. YES GAWD!

For dinner that same night, I made some pizza fries that I saw floating around Instagram a few weeks back. Justyn and I had been saying that we wanted some and I had been saying I was going to make them, but I never did, probably because we mainly eat healthy and he's on some fat loss Atkins Southbeach Herbalife diet BS with his friends. (Clearly I'm over it) Never the less, I finally made some. I used regular ol' Ore Ida zesty curly fries cooked them for a bit on 400, then covered them in mozzarella (don't be cheap with the cheese) and turkey pepperoni. I made turkey burgers seasoned with Indian seasonings  (cumin, garam masala, salt, pepper, fresh cut yellow sweet onions, and probably something else I can't remember) and sauteed broccoli for our veggie. I bought some famous Dave's pickles from the grocery store and they are absolutely delicious. I love pickles because I love vinegar, so I just had to share that.

I eat the same thing basically...

Some of the things I eat every week:

1. Salad: romaine lettuce, spinach, and arugala

2. Tuna on my salad

3. Salmon

4. Asparagus

5. Broccoli

6. Yogurt

7. Wild Rice

8. Almonds

9. Quinoa

10. Bananas

I have gotten in the habit of looking up the health benefits of the foods I eat often, I like to know what I'm putting in my body if I'm putting the same thing in quite often. I WAS going to post the health benefits of these foods, but I'm not trying to make this a healthy eating blog or portray myself as a nutritionist, motivational health coach, or any other thing that most people act like they are because they read a couple articles. Read. Because you know shade came from reading. 

How I pack in all these foods throughout the day

Breakfast & Snacks:

I eat two, one while I drive to work, the granola or a fruit smoothie with carrots, at about 7:30, then the other when I get to work at about 9am, then the banana at about 10:30am, then almonds around 11:30am.

Banana, granola bar, warm item (egg white sandwich usually)

Lunch:

Salad with tuna  some type of nuts, almonds/walnuts, craisins, and mozz at times because I love cheese

OR

salmon/baked chicken, with a whole grain/quinoa, and a green veggie

Snack:

Greek yogurt with fruit and granola

Dinner: 

Is the the "OR" item from lunch. If I had salad for lunch, then dinner is the warm item and vice versa.

By the time I walk in the door of my house at 4:30 pm, from being awake since about 6:00 am, I'm running for the toilet. Fiber. 

Weekends:

Because I'm a realist, pancakes for breakfast, turkey/pork bacon, and whole eggs with cheese and sometimes spinach, or an omelette, whichever I feel like making. I always indulge in some type of fried food on the weekend too, live a little. Oh! And wine, because we all know that's a food group.

"Jesus turned water into wine, he knew how to get the party started".  -Ranita, another tryflin line sister

iCoupon.

The cost of living where I am is absolutely absurd, but I am beginning to grow accustom to the mayhem on the highways from 6am-10am and 3pm-7pm, the HOV lanes that require 3 passengers, the red lanes, which are strictly only to be used for rush hour, the people who ride my bumper when I'm already going 15 over the speed limit, 'tis the life of living in the DMV. Along with the hustle and bustle comes people who make good money, which thereby leaves them feeling privileged and entitled. When I first moved to this area at 17 after graduating high school, it was astonishing that people didn't hold the door open for you when you were clearly walking directly behind them. At the middle school I work at, a couple of the boys have stepped aside and held the door open for me on occasion, I almost broke down in tears because I was so happy to see them acting as young men should.

Seeing as how I just graduated from my Masters program, I make good money, but it aint good enough, so coupons are necessary. LOL! Meaning, I can't shop as much as I would like to. While in grad school, I watched a lot of Extreme Couponing, so that got me into couponing heavily. Although at the time, I used coupons for other things. I found grocery coupons on the internet (coupons.com, couponsuzy.com, googling the brand and searching coupons), but my system just wasn't good enough. That is until one beautiful Christmas day, my mom got me a real deal coupon binder. I'm talking side pockets, printed out labels for each section, my name on the top, baseball card holders (what you use to put your coupons in), 3 zip pouches, calculator, grocery list, and scissors. At the moment, it was solidified why God placed me on this Earth...TO SHOP with coupons! I began to buy 2 Sunday papers, which have all the coupons in them. My grocery store, Giant, and Safeway does this as well, sell the paper in a bundle of 2 where you can save a dollar (2 papers for $4 instead of 1 paper for $2.50). The newspaper shows at the top right hand corner on the front page how much the coupon values are inside "$210 of savings inside". When the value is in the $100s or below it's a pretty trash Sunday for me, but when it's $250+ I smize. That is when I know whether I should buy 2 papers or 1. Usually when it's $100 or below you can find a bunch of household product coupons. There are other ways to get newspapers, but I can't say that on these internet streets. The feds may be watching.

<---Yesterday's trip

From there, it takes about 2-3 hours to clip and organize the coupons I want, I don't throw away the ones I don't want, I hold on to it, sometimes I change my mind and will buy a product or I'll keep it and send the coupons to my mom that she wants. Most of the time, I'll go to the grocery store that week and match the store sales ads with the coupons I have. They ALWAYS overlap. I will not buy a product unless it's on sale, it will always go on sale and then I will stock up on the item. I haven't purchased laundry detergent, dish soap, dishwasher soap, body wash, or cleaning products in months.

People are constantly asking me to teach them to coupon, but I honestly don't believe most will actually implement the techniques so I just say "buy the Sunday paper" because I don't want to waste my time. But I've given you some of the things I do, you can find more information here ---> The Krazy Coupon Lady.

A little bit of store insight:

Target

You save $0.05 for each reusable bag you bring in

Open up a Target DEBIT card, not credit, you save 5% on all of your purchases. It's a card linked directly to your checking account, just go in with a blank check for your banking info. You'll also get extra days to return items and free shipping.

They often have sales where you buy 2-3 of something and you'll get a $5 Target gift card, break your transaction up into 2 or more and you can use the gift card right at that moment for optimum savings

You can use manufacturers + their store coupons on the same item

They do NOT double coupons

Giant

They double coupons valued at $0.99 and below. Meaning I enjoy my $0.75 coupons more than my $1.00 coupons because they turn into $1.50

$0.05 per reusable bag

They often have coupons in their sales add, where when you buy $50 of groceries you get 300 gas points at Shell ($0.30 off of gas/gallon)

These are the only stores I coupon for groceries at really, WalMart does not double and they act incompetent when it comes to coupons and I aint got time for dat.  Look online to see what your store's coupon policy says and also make sure you read the print on the coupon.

Last tip:

Go to the young cashiers, they always process a coupon through, the old people always read the fine print and take their job way too seriously :)

Happy couponing.

Taste of DC...or better yet, everything I laid eyes on

Over the weekend I went to Taste of DC and ate my entire heart out alongside the BF and bestfriend.
We started out with a shrimp po' boy as Justyn and I waited for Jamie to arrive, that was meal #1, just the beginning. We then went to get Indian curry chicken, so we could have something to snack on while we waited in line at another restaurant. The next spot was Wicked Waffle where I had a waffle with cheddar cheese and bacon on the inside and ALSO a waffle with peking duck on top cue the drool. Next, we saw a Morningstar brand veggie food giveaway, so we tried that as well. LOL! The Mediterranean veggie patty was pretty darn good, I can't lie. Next we wanted dessert, Justyn was hell bent on getting a funnel cake, we waited in line, then when he seen they didn't have toppings he was completely over it, so we got out of line. I must admit, a funnel cake with strawberries would have been amazing cue drool #2. We then had "chicken on a stick" as we referred to it that day, terriyaki chicken from Chef Hogate '85. It was so good and moist. So we find doughnuts, and my God those doughnuts were good. I realized they were pretty overpriced after I indulged, but they were amazing. I mean $2 for a doughnut hole is absurd, but I grew up on Krispy Kreme and wanted to see what the hype was about, plus the dude working the counter was a good salesman. Next, back to Wicked Waffle we went. Le sigh. greedy. I ordered another grilled cheese w/ bacon waffle and THEN I was stuffed. OH! While we were leaving we saw that La Tasca was giving away their food, because everything was closing. I told the guy I heard of the place before and had never been, he said "of course you've heard of us. who hasn't?!" all snooty like. So I'm thinking the food is about to be thebomb.com...NOT, we got lots of paella, which needed salt and more paella stuff like seafood eye roll.  I mean hell, I've never had paella before, but I definitely see it enough on Food Network to know that it's supposed to have some dang seafood in it. Not this place. But I did however, have some bacon wrapped dates, you would have thought I was a professional food critic the way I described the sweet and savory mix.

Please excuse the quality of the shrimp po' boy photo, I was too hungry to stand still and take the pic evidently. 

Apparently, it's not cool for men to carry/utilize umbrellas, we had a pretty extensive convo about this while there, but I really needed Justyn to hold my umbrella while I ate (gorged down) my 2nd grilled cheese w/ bacon waffle.

While there, we indulged some of us more so than others eh hem myself, in wine. My word! That wine was just great, Jesus! I had Madria Sangria, which was soooooo good, but the rude heffas working the counter gave us the worse attitudes. For what reason? I don't know. I don't drink and drive, like AT ALL. So when I know I'm going to be partaking in the devil's juice I accommodate by taking the train or remaining sober, so on this day, we all took the train. I was ready to indulge, with class of course. We had drink tickets, which were being sold for everyone to use, and these females working the counter refused to give us more than one tasting at a time, mind u a tasting was about 3/4th the size of a shot glass, which clearly couldn't do anything for you. When we asked about multiple tastings she said "we're only doing one. We have to limit our inventory and you all need to drive safely" with a smirk on her face, I bluntly said "we didn't drive" and flipped my hair as we walked away. By this time, we're still sober, so I was way pissed. IDK who she thought she was, but clearly she got to me yall. All in all, I had an amazing time, I enjoy anything with lots of food, so it was bound to be a blessed (yes, blessed) experience with food AND wine in the same atmosphere.

May I have the chicken biscuit please with a side of Internalized Racism?

How do I know Jesus loves the absolute crap outta me? THIS BLESSING BESTOWED UPON MY MAILBOX THIS EVENING!!! 

When I was young and tubby, my dad, before taking me to my babysitter's house before school, would take me to Burger King and let me get a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant meal with tots, orange juice, and...an extra croissant sandwich on the side which I ate all in one setting. Those were some of the happiest mornings of my life. LOL! But please know that I will be getting the HEFTIEST Chic-fil-A sandwich on the menu with this thing...I'm thinking the multigrain bagel with egg, cheese, and bacon...hell! maybe chicken! It's free!

WOMANIST

Monday, I was leaving work and in the car preparing for my 1.5 hour commute home. There's an intersection that involves crossing a median and oncoming traffic on both ends, so I'm driving as I usually do and I don't see this Black Mercedes and the driver honks at me. A fault of my own. I apologize in my car to the woman (as if she can hear me) and keep driving. Next, I get to the line of a traffic light, mind you it's raining outside. As I'm waiting at the light, a White woman walks up to my car, I pause for 3 seconds, look at her and think "maybe she needs directions, I hope not because I probably won't know what to tell her" but I proceed to roll down my window anyway. She looks at me and says "you need to drive more careful, you almost hit me and my two kids back there". Every curse word in my brain came to mind, but I said "I SAID I WAS SORRY. BYE!" and rolled up my window. 

I don't know what made this woman believe it was okay to walk up to a stranger's car in the rain and give them a piece of her mind, but she had to be the stupidest (expletive) I've ever seen in my life. One may attribute this to privilege, but then I have to question myself. What made me believe it was safe to roll down my window for her? In those short 3 seconds I also told myself "she's a White woman, she won't be robbing me or anything" and in that short amount of time, my own internal racism crept up on me like a thief robbing me of my own internal cues. I am left wondering, if while she was standing in the rain examining who was in the car and she seen a White male/female, would she have done the same?

To the woman who walked up on me while in my car, I thank you for reminding me that no one is to be trusted, especially White women approaching your car slowly in the rain. 

R.I.P. Trayvon Martin

Sometimes it's the other who reminds you of who you are.

I Have a Fear of Being Hungry

I always keep snacks in my purse, car, and office desk for these very reasons. My rationale, you never know when you're going to be stuck on an elevator and I lie to you not I think I would just cry in the corner if I got hungry while stuck on the elevator. Okay, but for real, I think I kinda sorta keep food because when I was younger we (my dad & I) didn't have a lot of money. I knew it was a struggle some times for him to feed me, so now it's ingrained in me that food shouldn't go to waste and I appreciate everything I have. Okay, enough of the emo stuff...

I have this mantra I've been repeating to myself recently, "Eat White, Live Right".

Background:

Life expectancy broken down by race

(Women tend to outlive men)

Asian-American 86.9 

Latino 82.8 

Whites 78.9 

Native Americans 76.9 

Blacks 74.6

Whites living in the rural South tend to have similar life expectancy rates as the Blacks in that same area.

The only reason I say "eat White" is because they tend to have the resources to buy healthier foods/be more educated on what's healthy and what's not. I recently saw this article about the worlds oldest people, who was on the list you ask? Asians in various countries, Whites, and 2 Black people out of a list of 10. As a kid I remember eating corn and broccoli WITH cheese, I hated string beans and anything else, now as an adult I still see Blacks my age eating this same way. We have to do better. So I've been incorporating other foods into my lifestyle when I noticed other longer living races ate it: greek yogurt (my White grad school classmates always ate this stuff), raw veggies as snacks (cut up peppers), and etc. Recently I have been tearing up, do you hear me, TEARING UP, roasted seasoned seaweed. SEAWEED??? Yes seaweed, it honestly tastes like pork rinds to me, try not to judge my entire life off of that, but it really does. It's loaded in vitamins A, K, and low in calories. I also heard on Dr. Oz that it's good for memory, which is why I initially purchased some. Next up, green tea sans the sugar. I'll make a nice (free) cup of green tea every morning when I get to work. So many health benefits and it seems to curve my appetite as well, apparently there's some inconclusive data on weight loss related to green tea.

So basically, this is just a reminder to try foods from different cultures, eat more than what you're used to, train your palette to like things with less sugar and you'll be surprised by what you end up enjoying.

A little bit about me...

I used to be chubby when I was younger. 

LOL! But seriously, I have a little cousin who used to call me "tubby" all the time. It used to hurt my feelings, but now it's hilarious because I am okay with my addiction (non-clinical. I'm a mental health counselor, so excuse me) to food. I eat one meal, then contemplate what I'll make for the next. It's quite sick if you really stop and take the time to think about it, but instead of sweet and spicy Doritos I now enjoy whole wheat pita chips w/ red onion and flax seed. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a sucker for a tasty greasy snack, but I realize I can't indulge as I used to when I was young...and tubby. 

DOMESTICATED

So the title of this blog pretty much sums me up, my friends always refer to me as "domesticated". When something spills on the carpet, they look to me for the best solutions of how to remove the stain...Long story short: This one time I was at a potluck with my sisters and fraternity brothers and my sister, Sheena, spilled a red drink. Her ploy to remove the stain, hide it. She's trifling as you can see, so I decided to help. I took a couple cups of water, poured it on the stain to dilute it, then proceeded to form my hands into a cup/scooper and scooped up the diluted red drink. I have no idea, where I got that idea from, but it totally worked. Then of course product was sprayed on the stain. From that moment on, everyone turned immediately to me when something needed to be cleaned. Annoying, but definitely more funny than anything else.

WOMANIST

Now, womanist, pertaining to a type of feminism that acknowledges the abilities and contributions of black women, I consider myself to be a womanist, I reject anything heterosexist, chauvinistic, or related to privilege. Once upon a time, during the feminist movement, Black women were still searching for their place in society, we were not allowed to be a strong force in the civil rights movement and we weren't accepted by the White women of the feminist movement. So when you don't fit in, you gotta make mofos know you're present, thereby the creation of Womanism.

How did it become the title of my blog? Well if you think about it, these two identities, superficially, do not match at all. A domesticated woman who is empowered? Often times, when I refer to myself as domesticated or hear someone else referring to a woman as domesticated, I think "B-WORD, I'm no damn cat! I'M NOT AN ANIMAL YOU TRAIN TO BE ACCEPTABLE FOR THE HOUSE!" <---See that womanism spewing out. But it's okay, because I accept who I am although I have qualms about it, if it's positive to most, then I will gladly accept it...sometimes.

I'll be posting various things related to food e.g. things I find in the grocery store, great restaurants, and my kitchen creations.