the bowl...

so, here's a pic of the hollywood bowl... we had fireworks at the end to the music from the lion king... they had little animals made out of fireworks and ... okay, my camera phone doesn't exactly do it justice...

at any rate, steve took me to the bowl on saturday night... john mauceri was the conductor... the evening's event was 75 years of disney music. they did a lot of the classics in a medley and dick van dyke came out and did some songs from mary poppins. he's aging really well... he's all doing high kicks and running around all over the stage. maybe he does yoga or something... heh.

mary costa, the original voice of sleeping beauty in the movie in 1959, narrated a 10-minute story of bambi as the orchestra played the musical themes from the movie. according to imdb, she was born in 1930! she looked really good. botox is effin' amazing!

alan menken was there... he did a medley of some of his songs... and then the original voice of ariel (jodi benson), belle (paige o'hara), and pocahontas (judy kuhn). (or as steve so lovingly calls her: poke-a-hot-ass.)

before the concert, we had a picnic and some good-ass wine... i finally decided to make use of my food & wine subscription and made some food out of the mag.

tomato salad. the recipe is for tomatillos and sun-dried tomatoes. i made it with tomatillos and different colored tomatoes - orange, yellow, and red... the red ones came from our own garden :) the dressing is basically just olive oil and lemon juice.

pasta with asparagus and corn (it actually calls for fresh pasta, but i was already short on time and i wasn't about to make my own pasta... also, i'm not certain we own a rolling pin). i used fresh cut corn from the cob... but i think it would be okay to use the frozen ones. it's sauteed in red onion and olive oil.

chicken coated in a mayo mixture with herbs and chili powder and breaded with potato chips and fried in butter. (i hate mayo, but you can't taste it at all... thank god...) it's a heart attack just waiting to happen. make sure you have lots of alcohol to cut through the grease :P

the food came out okay... the wine was better, though :P

i typically don't cook gross food like this, but i was just 'sperimenting. it was fun... but, i think i may never make that chicken again. heh.

things i learned...
1. never, ever follow the recipe exactly the way they have it in the magazine. since this was the first time i was making these things, i put in the amount of oil and butter they told me to use.
2. just try one new thing at a time. trying 3 new things is very time-consuming.
3. i like cooking more than i thought i did... i can't wait for my holiday cooking class now :)

my friend from NY says: people out in california do fun stuff! i answered: that's cuz the weater's just so FUCKING fabulous out here. :P