Best of 2010: A mixtape exchange.

Dear 27,
The long awaited interactive blog post. See the rules below.

Here are the rules (in list form of course):

1- Email me at xo.lp.blog@gmail.com your address by January 8th if you'd like to participate.

2- Put together your favorite tracks of 2010 (don't worry, not everyone needs to spend as much time as this guy did on it, but you should feel lucky to receive his master mix.)

    2a- One song per artist please (I know you loooooove Train but pick your favorite track, then follow the New Pornographers, then Katy Perry...you get what I mean.)

    2b- Shoot for at least 60 minutes of best-of-2010 tunes. 

3- Burn your mixtape on a CD. While cassettes are cooler, who still has a stereo that plays tapes?

4- I will match you up with a mixtape buddy. You'll get an email from me (xo.lp.blog@gmail.com) with the name and address of this buddy.

5- Send out your (carefully packaged) best-of-2010 mixtape to your super pumped buddy by January 27th.

Bonus: Send me the list of your playlist's tracks. I will post them, with your creative 2010 mixtape exchange title, here!

xo-LP

Twas the days after Christmas.

Dear 27,
Drank in the holidays. Family time. Peking. Santa. It was bigtime fun.

Back to the list.
Hope your holidays were filled with merriment.
xo- LP

With boughs of holly.

Dear 27,
It's been a crazed race to the finish of 2010. A night with the Glee kids (thanks for teaching me my new and valuable skill, Josh) and Grandpa Kenneth, then there was the big news, and a few last minute work meetings. I can't say I'm in the full holiday spirit, but at least I decked the halls.

I am pretty sure all the holiday cards will be out by tomorrow, hand carved snowflakes stamped onto over 100 cards. Two-tone card stock. (It's ok to be impressed by the paper quality.)

Wishing you, my blog readers, a spectacular holiday season and a 2011 that dazzles you.
Bags packed. Can't wait to get home to the fam.
xo- LP

#15.

Dear 27,
It might be time to cross #15 off the list. Thank you AAA.

xo-LP

A 60 degree difference.

Dear 27,
As usual, CA was good to me. 

Had a sushi dinner unlike I'd ever seen, a piece of pizza as big as my torso, found a handmade store that had me slamming the brakes to check it out, swooned over Richard Avedon and found a Katherine Hepburn-looks-like-David Bowie photo, doodled new ideas on the plane, and a shared a crispy duck dinner with friends. Oh. And it was about 60 degrees warmer than DSM.
xo-LP

Trust Me.

Dear 27,
Here near LA, sushi places are everywhere. In strip malls along Ventura Boulevard there are supposedly (in Iowa I would probably not trust a strip mall sushi joint, no offense to you Des Moines) the best sushi places you can find. So with the help of Gwyneth Paltrow (I realize how this sounds) and a nudge from Gary Caplan, I veered off my usual path to the Galleria and hit up Sushi Nozawa for an early dinner and what was to be the strangest, most delicious sushi dining experience I've had to date.

I walked in to a completely empty restaurant, no music, but a stern looking sushi chef behind the counter. I went straight for the sushi bar and was told I have "no choice" if I sit there. Once I realized the Chef and his assistant, Antonio, weren't going to laugh at any of my jokes, I stuck to enjoying the non-stop stream of no-frills sushi. Chef Nozawa has another spot called Sugarfish that told me this "Trust Me-style of Sushi" is his "interpretation of the centuries-old Japanese tradition called omakase, where the master chef determines the menu."

 

While he wasn't a chatty man, Chef Nozawa shared that this restaurant had be open for 23 years and that since coming to America in 1977, he has stuck to his traditional Japanese way of sushi making. He reminded me, "Sushi. One bite. No sauce." Here's what the chef determined would be my abundant menu:

-Tuna (I think it was baby tuna, which is weird, but was utterly delicious)
-Toro (did you know that's the belly of a Tuna?)
-Yellowtail
-Albacore
-Crab hand roll
-Cod. (Yes Cod. I thought cod was used in fish sticks, but it was buttery and delightful.)
The Trust-me sushi method left me with a hefty check, but was well worth it. Even Nicole Richie thinks so.

xo-LP

George is here to talk about what?

Dear 27,
So you might have heard of Templeton Rye. You know that highly sought after, impossible to find rye whiskey made right here in Iowa? Well Centro (said Ch-en-t-ro according to the experts) hosted a special Templeton Rye dinner and while tickets were snatched up quickly, a few friends and I managed to be seated at table 3 to enjoy the festivities.

Upon arrival, we were given a Templeton poker chip (which I promptly lost in my bag) to enjoy a pre-dinner cocktail of the "good stuff." Once Al Capone's whiskey of choice, Templeton Rye is surely hard to find after the release of their fourth batch. Even Muscatine has a waiting list and our hosts noted it was difficult to find enough bottles to put together the dinner that evening. Once seated dinner service began. Each course was paired with a special Templeton cocktail created special for the evening. 

 Overall the meal, and the company I shared it with, was terrific. The drinks were quite tasty, particularly the cider-like "Rye-Orchard" (I was informed by my friends that the drink was poured over a lit match into the bitty glass it was served in. That's cool.) and the cherry-sage reduction made the third drink feel a little like an herbal Manhattan. The scallop dish was incredible. I'm telling you Templeton squash puree might be one of the greatest things I've ever tasted.

Once the meal had ended we freestyle walked our way to a night cap at the Cosmo Lounge where we finished the evening with geometry puns, editable content and plans for Scotch Club round two. Four courses. Five drinks. New friends. Old jokes.
Thanks for a super evening Centro and Templeton.
xo-LP

**Bonus. Heard this song while driving today in CA. Hooray for Rye Whiskey.**

No Bah-hummer-Bugs.

Dear 27,
Saturday the holiday season officially commenced with my first trip through the Jolly Holiday Lights. We oooh-ed and ahhh-ed over the dragons, snowmen and frogs made of lights, discussed Walt Disney World being the ultimate dream land, and the merits of having a haunted hayrack ride.

The weekend was primarily devoted to birthday celebrations (Kate-- your 21 was a rowdy night of awesome, Jo- Happy birthday! And B + Dan Maw- I celebrated your birthdays without you, don't worry.) I did make time to craft a whole bunch of options for the happy holiday cards.

Can't wait to stamp the final cards and get them in the mail. 

xo- LP

From Yesvember to December.

Dear 27,
I've been quite the delinquent blogger as of late. I'd like to attribute this lack of posting to my active quest to knock off every item on the Yesvember list. I did get to see the Princemen rock All in the Family on Saturday night-- Go Kathy!
But truthfully, other than the dance party on Fleur to the tunes of 60s and 70s rock n roll, November ended with a weekend of Veronica Mars, severe sinus congestion medications, a whole bunch of sleeping and an overdose of orange pineapple juice. So the finale weekend of my mid-year challenge was less-than-productive, but I still managed to axe many items off my ambitious list of 27.

1-  Send 27 postcards.
2-  Create my font.

3-  Bake a cake from scratch to celebrate 27.5.

4-  Vote.

5-  Enjoy Mary Poppins.

6-  Celebrate Homemade Bread Day on November 17th (or sometime this month-- make bread).

7-  Rock out to live music.

8-  Read DRIVE.

9-  Take my picture with a mountain.

10- Finally see that movie alone.
11- Peek inside the Basilica of St. John.

12- Host a themed dinner party.

13- Try Indian Food.

14- Walk across the Center Street Bridge.

15- Visit Topped Doughnuts.

16- Participate in a human pyramid.

17- Go to a Bucs game.

18- Make a dazzling dish for Family Thanksgiving.

19- Find Templeton Rye. Order a manhattan.

20- Hike.

21- Read another book.

22- See Da Vinci @ SCI.

23- World Run Day.

24- Gray's Lake.

25- Eat at the Flying Mango.

26- Try a day of plan-free rest.

27- Annual LP handmade holiday cards.

December, even without a list, will be one busy month. More blogging. More items checked off the big list. More reading. And, more funny*.  One more thing-- saw Daniel Pink speak at Des Moines' hometown University tonight and he knocked my socks off. I even came home and celebrated the success of the evening.

While his book was good, it was his lecture, his candor and his uncommon use of the word "exquisite" that made motivation come to life.
Hope you had much to be thankful for this November. I know I did.
xo-LP

*For those of you who don't think anything has been that funny so far at least the bar has been set low. I hope to impress you with my wit. Stay tuned for funny. I have 5.6 months left to cause lol. (That's lots of laughs.)