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soupapalooza!

the stories
the kitchen
the market
the proof (party pics!)
the food porn
the recipes
the about
the drop me a line part
the resources
the full list
jewelry alchemy
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the latest break in programming brought to you by Guerrilla Atelier

Not that you asked or anything, but you may have noticed a slight blip in the normal schedule of revealing my neuroses and recipe offerings. Well, I have been working. As in a j-o-b, as much as I've been avoiding that three letter word for at least a decade or more. 

I suppose it's not really a job because I'm helping out an old friend who opened a beautiful luxury goods emporium in downtown LA and I have fun every single day. But technically, it's a place of business and I go there for many, many many hours a week and it has greatly cut into the time I devote to grousing. Maybe everyone actually wins in this situation...

Sooooo, I'm getting back on track with the cooking and I have a serious backlog of delicious things I've made over the last couple of months. I'm hoping that if I construct some serious system of rewards and punishments I'll be back on the regular as fast as you can say, "Baby needs new shoes and will get a pair if she gets her shit together". Things to look forward to: huevos sort-of rancheros with chorizo, the perfect Caesar salad (I don't lie), salad lyonnaise, breakfast bacon fregola and some food porn from a beautiful Sunday supper at Magical Merlin's hideaway.

Until then, here are some preview pictures of the latest kitchen triumphs and disappointments, or as I like to call them, my children. I hope you check back for their companion recipes in the coming days and weeks. Until then... 

Soup on! 

 

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PostedJune 25, 2013
Authormelissa mcclure
Categoriesbreakfast, quick pics!, salad
Tagsquick pics!, chorizo, eggcellent, eggscellent, pasta, mushroom, mexican, Magical Kim Merlin, hail caesar salad, salad, huevos sort of rancheros, salad lyonnaise
2 CommentsPost a comment

arugula, roasted portabella and aged gouda salad with port vinaigrette: you can lead a lemming to the cliff but you can't make her jump

I love crazy people. Love love love them. Across all areas of my life-- be it romantic, interpersonal, professional, you name it-- there are at least one or two crazy people in each part that inspire me daily. Please understand that I mean crazy in the best possible way, that I say the word with great reverence, because lemmings like me can only exist because they have pied piper counterparts that lead them to the edges of cliffs.

There. I've said it. I'm a lemming.

I live to be lead. To be inspired. I need my muses because I find it hard to feel things deep within myself without some sort of outside stimuli. That's not to say that I'm not crazy, too, oh no. But I'm situationally crazy, not endemically crazy, and there's a huge, gaping hole of a difference. 

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PostedOctober 6, 2012
Authormelissa mcclure
Categoriessalad, vegetarian
Tagssalad, mushroom, recipe, you put the fun in fungi, gouda, arugula, lemming, soupapalooza!, Menil Collection, so easy my kid could do it, crazy=cool, on the edge, Rothko, sides
2 CommentsPost a comment
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wild mushroom with toasted hazelnut gremolata: I've fallen and I can't get up

I fall. A lot.

Figuratively, literally; both my head and my behind seem to need constant, unexpected contact with terra firma. It would seem that the universe (if I believed in such a thing) was dead on when it had me born as a Capricorn, the ultimate earth sign. It was also playing a big joke when it had me born to a woman who wanted me to be dancer-- I spent much of the fourteen years of weekly ballet classes in a heap on the floor instead of gracefully in the air, but whatever. I’m also the girl who spent eight weeks in a cast on my leg from walking across the driveway. Yes, walking across the driveway. It’s not even a good story.

Over Labor Day weekend I had the honor of playing “The World’s Oldest Bridesmaid Barbie (tm)” for a beautiful and lovely friend. Now I’m going to level with you here: there is something truly pathetic and sad and totally like a Lifetime movie starring Jennifer Love Hewitt about this situation. See, I’m about to turn 40. Yes 40. And yes, even though I know that in Kabbalah 40 is some kind of enlightened number, blah blah blah, and that it’s just another day, and that Kabbalah is a total load of Ashton Kutcher crap, I’m perilously close to jumping to the next box in questionnaires. And I really don’t like it. Not to mention I’m about to be relegated to a totally new dating pool in my online quest for love (more on that later-- can’t wait to meet you, Wyldmustang, 65 in Canyon Country). So at this incredible three day wedding extravaganza that united two wholly young, gorgeous and abundant people I felt a little (OK, A LOT) sorry for myself. Which is both annoying and expected. But really. Who wants to be the broke, in-a-rut bridesmaid that has almost a decade on the next oldest bridal party member? It was totally Bridesmaids minus any humor on my part at all.

Read more …
PostedOctober 20, 2011
Authormelissa mcclure
Categoriesvegetarian, soup
Tagsmushroom, soupapalooza!, Elvis pie, hazelnut gremolata, world's oldest bridesmaid, splat!, chili corn cake, hazelnut, zucchini puff pastry, spiced pumpkin salad
1 CommentPost a comment
 
 
goldsmith, sometime costume designer and badass cat owner. 

goldsmith, sometime costume designer and badass cat owner. 

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Why? Because soup is cheap, delicious and easy. Kind of like me.

a weekly attempt to eat well and to savor life. or to see how much food I can get on my clothes.

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