Category: Music

Playlists for cooking, getting ready for a girl’s night, and settling down for the evening

Are you someone who likes to have music playing in the background while you’re going about your day? I am! These are the ones I have on repeat. Maybe I’m the only one using Pandora these days, but I love my Pandora stations!

What I listen to while I’m cooking

I have a Pandora station called “That’s Amore.” I don’t know why listening to Dean Martin reminds me of making pasta? I don’t like cooking, but this station gets me in the mood. I feel like I’m rolling pasta and vacationing on the set of the movie Under the Tuscan Sun.

What I listen to while I’m getting ready for a girl’s night

This station just screams 80’s girl punk, and it makes me feel like I’m in a high school movie dancing on my best friend’s bed with my hair in a side ponytail before we cut to a slow-mo entourage entrance of us all dressed to the nines walking towards a house party. 🤣

What I listen to while I’m settling down for the evening and just put the boys down.

Maybe it’s just me being a teen from the 90’s but there’s something comforting after a long day just listening to Lisa Loeb sing me lullabies in her tiny, angelic voice. And bonus points that it’s something soothing so if the boys happen to hear it, they can just be lulled to sleep.

If I need something even more soothing, I’ll listen to my Emile Pandolfi radio station.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

The perfect vegetable side dish in an Asian rice bowl, Billy Joel in concert, and the most comfortable summer shorts EVER.

The perfect vegetable side dish in an Asian rice bowl

Call me the queen of lazy cooking, aka the lazy foodie. One of my favorite meals is a hearty Asian rice bowl. It could be chicken, tofu, salmon etc…, some kimchi, (my brother Allan made this, and it’s BOMB), some grilled veggies, some pickled veggies and rice of course, maybe topped with a fried egg for good measure. I just discovered my favorite vegetable side and it’s super duper easy to make- lightly sautéed salted cucumber. I had never cooked my cucumber before. Now I’m a believer! Here’s the recipe. If you’re not a lazy foodie and just want to make a big bowl of bibimbap, this is the recipe to use. I made all these sides for my brother one Sunday and it took a long time. I told him to enjoy the meal because it would be the last time I made it. 😂

Billy Joel in Concert

Billy Joel is my husband’s favorite artist. It was our first ever concert, me at 42 years old and him at 43! I have a newfound appreciation for him as an artist having seen him live. I think that’s what live shows do. He was really funny and self-depreciating. “My piano can move right and my piano can move left. That’s all the theatrics you’re getting tonight,” or something like that. I might be paraphrasing. Before another song, he admitted that the song made him nervous because of the high notes. I can’t imagine if I was Billy Joel’s grandkid. At 75 or 76? years old, he’s still a rock star! I can’t imagine just sticking to one field of work for so long and being so good at it and having so many fans. My favorite song was “New York State of Mind.” I don’t know how he does it, but it just sounds like New York.

The Most Comfortable Summer Shorts Ever

These short are soooo comfy. They have this wide stretchy garter band of a waist. They are the perfect short especially if you are an apple shape because horizontal lines in the hip area give the illusion of wider hips, which give the illusion of a smaller waist, and I don’t know why, maybe it’s all the layers of fabric, but they don’t shimmy up the center of my legs like most shorts do. I’m in LOVE.