They’re hee-ere….not the extraterrestrials, the fava beans.  They are just vegetables after all so don’t worry about them tying you up and holding you hostage or overthrowing the government or anything like that.  Just don’t look them straight in the eyes or they might hypno-bamboozle you flat in your tracks. If they do manage to outsmart you while your cooking, then you had it coming, dummy.  The weirdest part I admit is the googly eyes, I don’t remember that from last year — maybe they’re evolving, rapidly. Scary!

{Just look at them trying to intimidate me on my own porch!  Cigarette butts everywhere — such the riff raff.}

When I lived on the east coast we got Gypsy Moths this time of year. Out here in California we get fava beans (pretty sweet I know).  This recipe would be all wrong with caterpillars though, so for all you New Englanders, nice try but no substitutions.

{I’m so sorry to tempt you with this perfect bite, talk about rude!}

I poached this recipe from my Australian friend Haalo’s blog Cook Almost Anything at Least Once.  Her recipes and photos are always stunning and full of inspiration.  I kept the the ingredient proportions the same only I substituted fava beans, feta, and basil for the original pea, Haloumi, and mint:

Once you have corralled and shucked the wild favas, saute them until they are just tender along with the corn, let cool.  Puree half the veggies until smooth.  Mix together the milk, eggs, flours, baking powder, then fold in the remaining fava beans and corn, feta, basil, salt and pepper.

Heat olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat.  Add heaping tablespoons of the mixture to the pan in batches, pressing down to flatten slightly.  Flip them once when nice and golden and set on paper towels to drain.

{Salty, crunchy, summer-time little cakes…}

The feta is soft and melty and the basil adds a sweet light flavor to the rest of the ingredients.  I loved these crispy little cakes so much I ate them cold at dawn the next day, with my bare hands standing up in the dim glow of the refrigerator’s interior light.

{Eat them on a plate with a fork if you’re the civilized sort.}

{tags fava beans fava bean cakes recipe}

{tags malibu canyon ghost picture}

Overdoses usually only occur in the presence of a multipak which are found in the most extreme of grocer’s freezers, mind you. Since I’m currently under the influence and cannot be trusted, the only advice I can offer is to avoid said multipak. Don’t even go there, talk to the hand!

After a particularly extreme onset last weekend and requisite consultation with my doctor, and by that I mean my cat, I bought Klondike bars which are allegedly the Methadone equivalent for Drumsticks.

It is distressing for me to announce, however, that we are now suffering from a new ailment called Acute Klondike Poisoning. Max is so fired as family doctor.

{tags drumstick poisoning klondike elixer}

Pretty much since my alarm failed to peep this morning, and I discovered a terrifying spider in the bathtub, then went ahead and flossed my tooth into oblivion – I’ve been getting pulled deeper and deeper into a perilous vortex. How is it even possible to break a tooth with dental floss? Thats like getting a flat tire on a chicken bone, then again I know first hand how THAT can totally happen. In fact, it’s entirely possible that I cracked my tooth with my MIND this morning because I’m just SO UPTIGHT.

That’s what I told Dr. Chen, to which he replied ‘Okay, but you wearing you nigh-guar* riiighhh?!’ To which I promptly lied ‘Of COURSE I am!’ Anyway, it’s hot and crowded outside and my bad attitude really gets a chance to thrive under these conditions. LA’s like a huge petri dish; hot, damp, oxygenated. Perfect evironment for cultivating all sorts of strange and hostile organisms. You should see them multiply, like Mogwai but not one bit cute. Then there was the spider, which is a bad omen. Not good at all, but somehow pales in comparison to my boss telling me amidst a meeting that my chipped tooth** looks like, and I quote, “an upside-down Bart Simpson head”.

*Thats chinese for Night Guard.

**Picture taken post repairs.

{tags the magnificent dr. chen omens}

• I am reaching critical mass in the the eyebrow department. They are joining forces much faster these days to form what I believe to be a united front against my forehead. The current ambiguous separation that’s happening is affecting my brain in the most subversive of ways. For example, I can’t help but wonder, what if foresake the salon forever? Secretly, I dare myself to do nothing about the situation at hand. What would become of me? This *is* LA afterall, would they pass an emergency city ordinance stating it’s okay to shoot if I’m seen within 100 feet of your place of business? As it stands, an exciting new life as a wookie continues to encroach upon my fading human status at alarming rates. Don’t be afraid, I’m just like you.

• What the holy hell is going on in my chatroom? Right now we have Sharon stone trying to get you to look downtown if you get my drift, perscription drugs for sale, milf’s for hire, online casinos, airline tickets, medical malpractice assistance, and home mortgage loans all conveniently holding court in right here in my sidebar. I know what your thinking, how do *I* get in on this hot moneymaking action? Just slide on in and start pimpin’ your products playa, it’s cool. I’ll be watching you though. So, please be aware that I’m aware. And I’ll be aware that you’re aware that I’m aware you’re aware I’m aware.

/crickets…

{tags pretty pretty flowers sidebar sales opportunities }

Thats why antihistamines to me are like the nectar of the gods. In all their glorious colorful shiny pill effervescent inhalant RX delivery forms, just knowing my happy place is never further away than the local corner store helps me sleep better at night. It just does. It seems though, that my faithful omnipresent light at the end of the tunnel is slowly being snuffed out.

Yes, and by non-other than our presumptuous asshole government. Pseudoephedrine, which is common in over the counter medicines is also popular with the methamphetamine cooking crowd. So now you can only buy one pack at a time and I’m pretty sure the cashiers get paid extra each time they sneer at you, the drug fiend, and say ‘It’s illegal to buy more than one of these.’

Correct me if I’m wrong here but don’t meth labs blow up all the time? I say let them spin the roulette chamber – if they blow up, they blow up. Its called Natural Selection. Yes Intelligent Design, you heard me right.

I know, things could be worse. And I’m more than thankful to live in a democratic free world where oppression is, for the most part, limited to individual prejudice and stupidity that will probably never go away. But COME ON, the drug war? Don’t we have better things to clog up the house and senate with? Like oh I don’t know, who we’re going to liberate next?

{tags sudafed claritin Pseudoephedrine}

**Update: Among the many ways to help out, Etsy is selling donated items and sending all proceeds to the Red Cross Hurricane Relief Fund. I just bought this cool Tokyo print.

{tags hurricane aftermath}

{tags salt malibu no pants}

• 7:30am, I-10 E
  Ryan Seacrest, Beyonce, 50Cent, Snoop, defy death creepily unaffected, spill coffee, Ryan Seacrest, cell phone, slam breaks, Shakira, 50Cent, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Seacrest, Britney, Beyonce, sneeze 586 times, 50Cent, Beyonce, 50Cent, Beyonce, Britney. And so it goes as I swerve my way through downtown traffic – screeching into the parking garage at work with the other sardines. Wait untill this morning’s crazy motherfucker is at a safe distance. Today a barefoot businessman slash bushman with really nice rollywheel luggage is yelling into a cellphone. He looks curiously like the Quentin Tarentino I saw driving maniacly down Beverly in his big yellow Pussy Wagon screaming at his cellphone. No joke. I Stomp inside.

  Get to my desk and grep kill grep kill grep kill kill kill. Escalator, elevator, escalator, elevator, escalator, elevator, escalator, elevator, grep kill grep kill grep kill kill kill. And thats me for the next 6 – 10 hrs.

  6:30pm, I-10 W
  Opressive heat; I have to pee. Traffic. I join EVERYONE IN SANTA MONICA at the supermarket for food. The lady in front of me pays with a check. A fucking check! I have to pee so bad. I finally get home and I’m locked out. Oh. My. God. Blanca, our housekeeper, has hermetically sealed the place up tighter than a fallout shelter. Shit Shit Shit. I can’t help wondering if the end of the world is near and I feel like I’m in that Day After Tomorrow movie. I consider peeing under the tree out back like my cat does; instead I sit in the car and cry, blasting 50Cent untill Chris saves me from myself.

  {tags santa monica grep 50 cent beyonce}