Booze and Bumper Cars

I am still in the midst of training for work. It is sucking my will to liiiiivvveeee!!!.

Actually, its very informative and I've met some great people there.

But it is very time consuming. So in about two weeks I will be finished for now with the classes and its back to work and a regular, more leisurely schedule.

As a well needed distraction for one night, Jesse took me to hangout with friends at a place in Central London called Trocadero.

Oh my goodness it puts our Californian Dave & Busters to shame. It's FIVE stories of arcade games, bumper cards, lazer tag, bowling, mini golf, and booze and junk food and MORE!!!

It's kind of a hedonistic Pinocchio funland.

And I have discovered that the lone guy playing dance dance revolution is universal.

Love and Whack-o-Gator,

~Valiant V

Look What I Made!

So there was this place in Oakland I mentioned before, Farley's, that has amazing things called egg baskets. It's basically bread and egg (and prosciutto if you're feeling randy). But so yummy. And they bake them inside a muffin tin in the oven. So I thought hey, I could do that too. And I did, kind of.

TA DA!

So I basically sprayed a muffin tin with oil and put in a piece of toast, kind of smashed and crusts cut off, into one of the holes.

Then I added some prosciutto and the egg.

Things I learned or am still working on:

*make sure your muffin tin is deep enough to hold all of it, mine can't really hold all the whites from one egg

* the temperature was at about 350〫F and I didn't actually pay attention to the time. I was looking to see that the egg was at least white. I actually over cooked them a bit.

But hey it was easy and looks super fancy and next time I'll add the potatoes underneath them.

Yum!

Love and a lil bit o home,

~Valiant V

Boring Life Update: Do NOT Read.

If something is not stated to me in a serious manner then I do not take that task so seriously.

For instance, I am about to start my Montessori training soon but apparently have not officially been accepted yet!? Turns out they are very strict with deadlines there and if I do not turn in my physical portion of the application (which i should have tried to turn in ages ago) they will not even consider interviewing me for the spot in the class. But people in my own company have expressed in the past and up to now that even they haven't turned in all of their application parts, so I was in no way stressed about it. And only until I was actually able to speak with someone at the institute about the situation did I understand their seriousness on that policy. yikes! BUT I got a lot done today to relieve that stress. I registered with a UK doctor and my physical is scheduled for tomorrow, and I have an interview scheduled for the next day with the training institute who will hopefully accept me before the course starts on Monday. Phew! Check and checkity check. I am very excited to start the new chapter of my career life. A new job and training to become a certified Montessori teacher! It will be hard work, or at least strenuous for the next month, so my posting might be a little slow.

Or I might use this blog as a way of decompressing after a day full of lecturing and shtuff.

On a more girly note I also touched up my hair today, and trimmed my bangs.

This home beauty stuff is super easy and so much cheaper.

At least, it will be cheaper once I learn to use a mirror for doing the back of my head so I don't miss a huge spot of roots and have to buy more products to do it all again...come on Ashley!

Love and Life Lessons (dumbass),

~Valiant V

ps.- to all my pen pals I say take heart, I will start writing of my adventures via snail mail soon!

Summer Roll Update and New Kitchen Tool

So yeah I tried to make the summer rolls with my friends. Brian and I had gathered everything from the store. Everything except the actual rice paper you need to roll the innards up with. But luckily Jason was at the OTHER local store getting random house hold things and could grab it there. BUT they didn't have any at that store either.... guh, after all that running around the store finding everything, I felt defeated. We were trying to think of other plans for dinner and I was so frustrated I didn't want to make anything else or even go out somewhere to eat.

Then Brian suggested pizza,

oh god that is the best/worst thing for situations like this.

So we tried again the two nights later. This time with all the ingredients needed. And it actually was really easy!

I especially loved using my new kitchen tool. A julienne peeler.

It basically looks like a potato peeler but it has these teeth to shredded things into little strips! Like a dumb ass I peeled the carrot and cucumber in my hand instead of holding one end on a cutting board, so there was a lot of left over vegetable because i didn't want to slice my hand.

I even tried to make the peanut sauce the recipe called for.

But the peanut butter I had was salted instead of plain, so adding the fish sauce to it made it super salty and brought out the sweetness of the peanut butter too much. We tweaked it a bit, adding rice wine vinegar or more cock sauce to individual tastes (thanks for the suggestion Gina!). But next time I will try the recipe to the letter with plain pb and we'll see how it goes.

They were so tasty that there was no time to take pictures of the end results. Yummy!

I must now think of other things I can make with my new shredder. hmmmm.

Love and Summer Rolls

~Valiant V