My Anonymous Blog

The Nate Update

I'm writing a column called The Nate Update for the French Culinary Institute's blog during my time there.  On top of reports on in-class progress, I'll be covering events and interviewing some fun people in the coming months. Check it out HERE.

micro-blogging ate my blog

I just can't let February go without posting a single thing.  I partially blame Twitter and its 140 character max text bites for my lack of more wordy posts.  And the fact that it's been a wild year so far ... I'm starting the pastry course at FCI in two short weeks for one.  And I'm vowing to post my experience on here in long-form journal entries - i.e. NOT just Twitterred blurbs!  I'm also beginning this year's Idol review at the Top 12...but not before.  I got sick of writing about primarily terrible singers, which wasted far too much time (not that Tatiana wasn't worth a sentence or two)!

25 THINGS YOU MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT ME

I never, ever do these surveys, but since a friend demanded it, here you go!

25 THINGS YOU MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT ME!

1. I'm a germaphobe and I carry hand sanitizer with me everywhere I go. Hypochondria is also an unfortunate personality trait that has annoyed untold numbers of medical personnel with a continual barrage of paper cuts.

2. My attention span is shorter than my dog's.

3. I collect rare and unusual pop-up books.

4. Car and motion sickness has plagued me throughout my life and I've always been the first to puke on road trips and at amusement parks.

5. Kids are entertaining and I love picking out things for friend's urchins, but I never, ever want my own.

6. Patience is something I struggle with.

7. I have an unhealthy, almost obsessive fear of death.

8. I hate telephones and prefer email or text where I can say what is needed without all the extra polite crap.

9. Small talk gets old quickly. Give me some dirt, titillating tidbits or just be real ... but I can't suffer through conversations about the weather and traffic conditions without fallin ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...

10. I don't understand people who think their chosen belief system is the one and only way to think about life as we know it and I try to operate on a "nobody's right, nobody's wrong" principle - does anyone really have the answers?! We can believe or not believe all we want, but for all we know, God is a giant labrador retriever and the world is her chew toy. I kind of hope that's the case, actually.

11. I love pushing buttons, whether they be literal buttons on a keyboard or moral and political buttons of friends, I just love poking them.

12. I once ate 40 Sprinkles cupcakes on a 10-day trip to L.A.

13. Theatre and music performance was a big part of my life until my mid-twenties, when I became more interested in writing & food.

14. While I know a fair number of people, close friendships are hard for me to come by for one reason or another and I have a small core group of friends.

15. Once you're my friend, there's no getting rid of me and I'd do anything for you.

16. Animals and nature are an important part of my life and I spend as much time hiking as possible. The Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica is one of my favorite escapes in the world.

17. I never outgrew my boyhood obsession with creepy crawlies and think that insects, snakes, spiders and anything else that makes most other people squirm are some of the coolest, most fascinating things ever.

18. A recluse spider once bit me on my left foot while I was in the south of France, creating a quarter-size necrotic wound that didn't close up for over two months.

19. I still love spiders and hate it when people smash them.

20. Flying is not one of my favorite things, but since I'd rather die living than caving into fear on a couch somewhere, I get on the plane.

21. I have a compulsive personality and if I lived in Vegas, I'd sell my soul for another round of Blackjack.

22. I possess a sharp and naughty sense of humor and I have a knack for getting others to laugh at the most inappropriate things imaginable.

23. I survived a crazy, fucked up childhood that has left me with all sorts of unique personality ticks that I'm only recently settling into and accepting.

24. A performer at heart, I'm frequently caught singing show tunes and bubble gum pop songs at the top of my lungs in the shower.

25. I can be the world's biggest Drama Queen.

Happy New Year!

I rang in the evening with friends at kind of a dud of a masked party where the theme was Eyes Wide Shut.  We all ended up having fun despite the less than pretty crowd & I was happy to have rang 2009 in with good friends.  I'll be updating more in the new year, on top of the usual Twitters!

Ho ho ho!

Holy crap, it's the Christmas season.  I don't know where the fucking time has gone to, honestly.  It's almost obscene the amount of things that have happened since I've last written.  I'm in Paris currently, for one, researching pastry shops while Matthew is shooting his brains out ... with his camera!  He's finishing up a major Paris shoot for a show coming up next year both in NYC and here in Paris. Yippy!

And I've had an end-of-youth crisis, of sorts, that has shaken me to the core and pushed me into focusing on finally, finally, fucking FINALLY starting on the path to opening up my long talked and dreamed about bakery in NYC.  I've hired a wicked (I love Boston words) designer from a hip L.A. firm and cannot wait to see what she has in store for a logo.  But sadly, once I choose it, it's all staying under wraps for a while anyway.  I have all of these crazy ideas that I, for the first time in my life, just know will work.  I hope.  And I hope that you'll be just as excited about them as I am once they are realized. As much as it is a hectic time of change and adjustment, it's also one of the most thrilling times of my life, as I can almost feel that something big is about to happen. Even if it doesn't, just feeling like I'm doing something I love and going somewhere I feel passionate about is more than worth the price of admission to this next chapter.

And I haven't given up regular blogging ... I've just been majorly, majorly, MAJORLY distracted with life's ups, downs and general bullshit. Forgive me, and in the meantime, I'm still a total Twitter Freak, and you can always see what I'm up to and thinking about on a sometimes hourly basis on there (see the NATE UPDATE column to the right of this post).

More soon, and thanks for checking in.

Nate

Strawberry Jam

One of the most random things has happened to my video on how to make homemade strawberry jam - it's been remade scene for scene by a British punk band called The Strawberry Jam!  No, really!

Here's my video:

And here's the two-part video by the group named Strawberry Jam:

Athens Greek Restaurant - Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

Following the advice of two friendly employees at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller who lead us around during Matthew's shoot there, we decided to try Athens, a Greek restaurant located just before the bridge into the main part of town.  We were a little apprehensive eating Greek in the middle of nowhere, and became even more nervous when we walked in the place and discovered a mishmash of knickknacks thrown seemingly willy-nilly all over walls and every inch of available surface space. Fake flowers, pots, pans, candles, tacky vases ... it looked as if an old lady's attic blew up and all of the contents somehow landed in the restaurant.  It was a bit much, as were the scary looking, scantily dressed female patrons with enormous bellies hanging out.

After sitting for several minutes with no sign of water or menus, we briefly debated leaving before a slighty nutty (but friendly) waitress appeared and informed us of the day's special - freshly made moussaka, which we happily ordered along with a hummus appetizer and lamb kabobs.  While waiting, we chatted with a local couple who had never been to a Greek restaurant and were quizzing us on what to order. They ended up copying our order exactly.  It was rather amusing chatting with them through a thick jumble of silk flowers.

After what seemed like an eternity, our food finally arrived.  First the hummus, and then moments later our two entrees, which were served with salad and generous amount of both pita and garlic bread (a Canadian midwestern addition, I gather).  We were both happily surprised by how delicious everything was. The moussaka was prepared beautifully, a time consuming dish that kind of looks like lasagna.  The lamb was equally as delicious, tender and flavorful.  The one thing that kind of suffered, but was still good, was the hummus.  I'm a huge fan of freshly made hummus, and order vast amounts of it in New York from the incomparable Hummus Place.  They set such a high bar that when I'm served cold hummus that has been sitting in the fridge for any length of time, I'm a little disappointed.  But, as I said, it was still decent.

Overall, I give Athens Greek Restaurant a B+ for their surprisingly good Greek food.  Even if you're not a fan of Greek fare, it's almost worth the stop here just to peek in at the jumble of crap all over the walls.

ATHENS GREEK RESTAURANT
71 Bridge St
Drumheller, Alberta, Canada
T0J 0Y0

Phone: 403-823-3225
Hours: Open 4PM - 10PM Daily

Royal Tyrrell Museum - Drumheller, Alberta

After landing in Calgary late, we raced two hours through monotonous oil and wheat field lined roads that suddenly gave way to hilly terrain dotted with ... dinosaurs!  Not real ones, unfortunately, but life-sized, brightly painted dinosaur models placed all around the town of Drumheller - their main claim to fame and a healthy amount of tourists is the dinosaur-centric Royal Tyrrell Museum. 

Matthew photographed a slew of toothy specimens while being escorted by a pair of locals that happily detailed factoids about various fossils, the surrounding landscape and even provided us with restaurant recommendations.  The museum had some interesting installations that were beautifully lit.  It's well worth a drive out there if you find yourself in Calgary for any length of time. 

The town of Drumheller alone is a destination in itself and is good for a meal and a walkabout to see the various dinosaur specimens installed at street corners, in front of shops, and there is even the so-called "biggest dinosaur in the world," which visitors can actually walk into and view the town from inside his open mouth.

Calgary: Dallas on Ice

This is what surrounds the oil town of Calgary - mile upon mile of wheat and oil fields. It's amazing Matthew didn't fall asleep at the wheel as we drove for several hundred kilometers across vast nothingness.  Unfortunately, the city of Calgary isn't much more exciting than these flat stretches of grass.

We arrived in Calgary after a canceled flight and a few hours waiting around in Vancouver.  I was pleasantly surprised to see our luggage kept up with us on the other end, however! 

Vancouver

We left Vancouver feeling pretty lucky that we only faced one day of rain out of eight, with the rest of the time being spent in almost full sunshine.  It's a beautiful city when the weather behaves and has so much in common with Seattle, my childhood home.  The mountains, water and greenery are beautiful to look at and play an integral part of the cityscape and the air is fresh and clean.  Unfortunately, with all the pretty surroundings and crisp air comes over nine months of pure drizzly, gloomy, cloudy, seemingly forever wintry hell.  It's no wonder there are thousands of heroin addicted homeless people wandering Vancouver ... I know what drove them to it!  Vancouver might be pretty, but like Seattle, I wouldn't want to live there.