eats - paulette (macarons)

headed to a friend's birthday later, and instead of bringing over the usual cupcakes or whatnot, i was inspired to find something else. remembering a tasty treat i wolfed down in siem reap, today's revelation was the macaron - the festive parisian almond cookie characterized by its smooth, dome top and ganache filling.

my search lasted all of 12 seconds - the overwhelming favorite in los angeles appeared to be paulette in beverly hills, so i jumped in my ride and made a beeline over. it's a cute and appropriately white shop, to better enhance the kaleidoscope of colors and flavors. today they had 14 selections to choose from - 12 everyday classics and 2 of seasonal variety (raspberry & passionfruit). all are made fresh by hand, so you really can't go wrong in choosing.

since my primary purpose was gift-giving, i picked up a box of 24 - which came in at a hefty $36 - along with 3 individuals (milk chocolate hazelnut, salted caramel, and violet cassis) for myself. once you bite into these delectable treats, all remnants of the price fade away and instead one focuses on the incredible texture of these macarons. the outer cookie is both crispy and chewy, and the filling is amazingly firm yet gooey and bursting with flavor. the delicate balance is quite simply, striking.



i'm kicking myself now for only picking up 3, but maybe everybody will be too full after dinner and i'll be able to sample the other 9, haha. one can always dream, no?

paulette
9466 charleville blvd.
beverly hills, CA 90212
www.paulettemacarons.com

warrior dash - the results are in

amazingly, i placed #551 out of 5361 warriors-for-the-day on saturday (landing 40th in my age group) and #935 out of nearly 8000 for the weekend in total.

not too shabby - being the first race i've ever entered and that i've never ran or even trained for distance - but i still feel like i left a minute or two up on the board. nevertheless, i'm glad that i finished, for one, and that cold beer was awaiting my arrival at the finish line. i mean, first things first...

warrior dash 2010 - socal

just got back from a fantastic day courtesy of warrior dash - a hellish 3.08 mile race combined with 12 'obstacles from hell.' my training partner vim and i decided to sign up a few months back on a whim, since neither of us had heard of it or knew much about it. all i knew was that it was a race, it had obstacles (perfect w/my parkour background!), and it had beer. sold.




we arrived in lake elsinore (about 80 miles SE of los angeles) a shade early of our 1:30pm start time to scope out the festivities and to get in a 3/4 mile jog to get warmed up. since we didn't want to get trapped, we got in line around 1:05pm so that we could stay near the front of the pack. the race started with about a one-mile sprint before coming upon the first obstacle - a increasingly high stack of hay bales that you had to scale and then jump down from.

believe it or not, 11 more obstacles were to follow, with such names as 'junker jump' (climbing over strewn wreckage), 'tunnels of terror' (scampering thru black tunnels), 'cargo climb' (making your way up/down cargo nets), 'breathless bog' (trudging thru waist-deep water and over huge logs), 'warrior roast' (jumping over fire) and 'muddy mayhem' (scrambling under barbed wire thru a ginormous mud pit).




3.08 miles isn't too bad on its own, nor are the 12 obstacles when broken down one-by-one. but combined, it makes for an arduous journey, so i was proud to finish and to place in the upper tier of our wave. when you consider the fact that i've never ran distance in my life, it makes it extra sweet to accomplish something in a short amount of prep time. next stop, half marathon? results haven't been tabulated yet, but i'll post a follow up as soon as i find out...




afterwards, each competitor gets rewarded with a t-shirt, a viking helmet, a sweet medallion commemorating the occasion, and free beer - sponsored by pyramid brewery! my friend hillary actually volunteered to help out today, so she was one of the select few beer wenches on the premises. both vim and i were also able to recycle our crusty shoes to green sneakers, so all in all it was a glorious day. now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to soak myself in hot water in hopes of cleaning up all the mud...

this... is american idol

forgot to mention that my cousin finally landed a full-time job last week (yay line!), so a few of us went out to celebrate with dinner at park's BBQ in k-town followed by karaoke at rosen. it should be mentioned that rosen now has wireless mics, so one can be totally inhibited in owning his or her performance, with no risk of upending a stray sake bomb on the table.

since my fellow boy band member joseph wasn't in the house, i had to save the NKOTB and *nsync performances for another day. but here are some of the select tunes that i was able to belt out for the evening:

the backstreet boys - show me the meaning of being lonely
the killers - mr. brightside
pearl jam - jeremy
the beatles - all you need is love
USA for africa - we are the world (the only performance to garner a perfect score, btw)
justin timberlake - cry me a river
starship - we built the city
bon jovi - livin' on a prayer