Carson from Mix 107.3 is a Grashoff chocolate spread fan!

Studio Eingana: Where Sailormoon art comes to life

When I was a little girl, I never really had a heroine that I wanted to emulate.  I enjoyed watching the mundane Disney cartoons available on TV but they really didn’t have a purpose other than to keep young children entertained.  Even as a young girl, I was always frustrated by the fact that Disney Princesses needed a man to get them out of a situation.  I was a serious feminist in training.  My Mother taught me well

Then, one day, I turned on the TV to watch Dragon Ball Z on Toonami and was introduced to Sailor Moon!  It has been a wonderful relationship throughout my life.  I was immediately hooked. 

Sailor Moon redefined the magical girl genre, as previous magical girls did not use their powers to fight evil at that magnitude, but this has become one of the standard archetypes of the genre.

  I loved how Sailor Moon would transform into a heroine, even though she was a natural klutz and sometimes picked on, and always help everyone no matter what.  At the end of each episode, there was always a nice message about how to take care of others or to not let people bully you.  I used to always be uplifted after I watched Sailor Moon.    

I have been an artist ever since I was little.  I got my artistic nature from my Mother.  Creating works of art dedicated to the things I love gives me a sense of peace.  I have recently gone back to working with Perler Beads and have been working on some pieces dedicated to Sailor Moon. 

 The image you see on the right is Sailor Moon’s Brooch that she would use to transform into a Sailor Senshi.  I am hoping to make every version of her Brooch in various sizes for Hair Clips and jewelry.       

     I am also working on many different pieces from classic magical girl shows.  The image on the left of the Sailormoon pendant is of Pinkie Pie from the hit show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  I am working on some other Anime and video game related pieces as well which can all be seen on my website.

You can visit my website at: http://studioeingana.com/.  Also, please feel free to email me at StudioEingana@yahoo.com if you wish to ask me anything. 

By Guest Blogger

 Liz Gmaz

Easter egg hunt 2012: The Hunger Games edition

Our jaunt down Georgetown concluded well. After getting lost for 45 minutes, we finally arrived back at Dennis’s house. At this point, no one was capricious over my master plan. In fact, there was even tacit agreement that I had carte blanche with the rest of the evenings activities! Hurrah!

  A normal Easter egg hunt is usually held during the day and  there are often kids dressed in their Sunday best. Quite often, delicious candy is filled to the brim in each egg.

While this may be true, we decided to reverse the rules and make the game more intense. For starters, not all of the eggs are filled with candy.

 Half the eggs are filled with snickers, sweet-tarts and twix while the rest are filled with the following questionable items: fake bloody tampons, magnum condoms with dollar store lubricant, fat burners, laxatives, and  colon cleansers.

 Doesn’t that sound appetizing?

I hope it doesn’t, because it means you are truly sick in the head. Concurrently, as players are searching for eggs ( they are not allowed to open them up), they have permission to shoot silly string at each other as a way to immobilize their opponent for 15 seconds and hopefully steal their eggs. 

 Anything can go with this game and whomever has the best strategy and further utilizes Dennis’s playground to their advantage would most likely win the game.Theft is allowed since this is a free for all. As was previously aforementioned, I had carte blanche over everyone.

Meaning, as host, I can shoot anyone I wanted with silly string and not get paralyzed–since I hid all the eggs and invented this evil yet genuis plan. First come, first serve is key in this game. Anyone could grab whatever silly string can, easter basket and even food ( for survival).

 There were three prizes awarded for the night.

 First place recieved $20 worth of gourmet treats from Trader Joes including mango black tea, toffee, belgian chocolate crisps and cookies. Second place recieves a paltry amount of snickers from a red beer cup. Third place gets two douches.

 Unsure if that’s really a prize since it just means third places becomes a douche for the night.

Anyways,  if it weren’t for “The Hunger Games”, I never would’ve came up with this idea. Hopefully you’ve seen this awesome movie in theaters. If not, read the bio in this link.

Fifteen minutes, literally, passed by. Youseff from the get-go got the most eggs and even listened to my hints. Jason was super fast and Dennis outmanuevered many with his silly string attacks.

Whenever I noticed player’s hopes were up, I would spray them with silly string as a reminder that this game is not as easy as it seems.

In fact, if I caught any of the players breaking any of the eggs open than I would’ve reprimanded them to put that egg back. There was a reason why I didnt want anyone to do that.

The second part of the Easter egg hunt is “Evaluation” time. During this time, everyone opens up their eggs in search for questionable items. In order for the questionable items to count, players needed to open up each egg and tell me what they see.

My favorite part, as evaluator, was seeing players sick expressions over the fake bloody tampons and over the laxatives curdling up with the warming jelly. Haha!

When the game concluded, I had to reprimand Jason for cheating. He stole the super soaker and tried to get poor Yousseff. Because of that, I made him give away two of his eggs. Shame on you Jason!

Yousseff collected the most questionable eggs so he won the first portion of the game.

 Dennis was second and seemed content with the snack sized Snickers bars.  Jason seemed happy too, he never saw a douche before. I guess everyone was a winner?

Jason had a chance to redeem himself. The second portion of this game is called the “Death round”.

I, the host, teams up with whomever is second place, Dennis, to bring down the loser. Dennis and I had full arsenal of all of the water guns, and water balloons to take down Jason–once and for all.

 For the latter duration of our version of “The Hunger Games”, Dennis and I had a rude awakening. 

Jason out ran us, stole our super soaker and stole our water balloons from right under us.  He planted his t-shirt as a decoy on the far edges of the playground, which I naively took.

 He used that distraction to trick us and he overtook us both instantly. Since I am a foot shorter than Jason, he simply tilted his super soaker down and I was whiplashed. I was wailing, crying and screaming in a corner.

Dennis got bored and started to join him. So, both Jason and him decided to corner me.  I was scared for a second and ran inside.

Jason got his revenge!  Touche’

 

Easter 2012:Our jaunt around Georgetown

After having a fabulous brunch by Adams Morgan, Dennis, Youssef, and I met up with Jason around the Georgetown waterfront. It was a warm, sunny day full of families and bougie couples. Restaurants and shops were packed, nature was at its best and Georgetown was at its quintessential best.

  Besides the waterfront, we all trekked around the shopping districts and took as many snapshots of our day as possible. When we caught sight of ‘Georgetown Cupcakes’, we all were struck in abeyance and just gazed at the long cue lined up around the store.

I’ve been to the store located in Bethesda a few weeks ago and I did not witness a line this long.  I’ve had their cupcakes before too and they are just o-kay.  Sights like this corroborate my theory that hype can pull someone into anything.

 Like, maybe even spending  $6 on something they can make better at their own homes for less than  the asking price.

Eventually we sauntered around the boating area and talked about future plans for the night. I had this mastermind plan to play this Easter Egg hunt likened to the movies “The Hunger Games”.  As I talked about it, I noticed a few askance glances, since it seems like such an odd thing to plan. Easter egg hunts are normally catered to little kids–never to grown-Ass-men.

After further explanation of my “grand scheme”, I noticed more accepting glances and smiles heading towards the thoughts of a mastermind competition.

Subsequently, we found this ‘hole in the wall’ hookah shop ensconced between two high-end clothing stores.

As we ambled in and deeply pondered why exactly all of these contraptions are in this store ( strange pipes, knives, and other arcane items); we were all dumbfounded by this particular hookah.

If  the movie “Alice in Wonderland” was based on real life, I could see the caterpillar smoking this king-sized hookah. It had like gazillian pipes, tubes and blah-blah-blahs.

 Whomever created this baroque pipe must have previously made it for a Sultan in some oil- rich- nation since they paid keen detail to design, arrangement and structure. Sorry we couldn’t provide you with a clean picture since the owner of the store blighted us with threats if we did take a picture.                                           

 Also,  I want to give mad props to Jason. He took incredible pictures last weekend and was able to get enough light to illuminate scenic pictures, like the first picture you see in this entry.

After we left Aladdin’s hookah palace ( I say this in jest); we headed to “Dean and Deluca” so I could satiate my gourmet food curiosity. As you know, I am a gourmet food junkie and love to stop by shops that sell haute cuisine.

At first glance, we were all in awe with the size of the place. It’s huge.  Pastries, cheeses, entrees and even chocolate had it’s own corner. As a self-professed choc-a-holic, I moseyed on to the chocolate section and had a nice confab with the chocolatier.

Each pieces of chocolate I saw was designed by some expert in I think New York City. The prices ranged from $1.50- $10.00 per pieces of chocolate.

 I was especially amused by these frog-shaped-pieces due to the ample use of color used to highlight the chocolate’s contour, shape and smoothness.

The chocolatier said this european chocolate artist named all of his chocolate pieces after his ex-girlfriends. Exotic names like Tanya and Everly reminded me of that song by Lou Bega from the 1990′s, you know that song, “Mambo number 5″.

Some of the guys made a joke about the women’s personalities based on their chocolate description. One chocolate piece said it was nutty yet creamy, so the guys deduced she must have been bipolar.

Another chocolate piece was described as having a surprise center, so, ofcourse, she was either the one that got away or was a mysterious woman. We could go on and on about this, but I am sure you get the point. After leaving Dean and Deluca we walked back to our car.  Everyone was getting hyped about The Hunger Games version of a “traditional” Easter Egg Hunt.

Open City Coffeehouse: Great Easter Brunch Spot in D.C

When get into your twentys, Easter tends to fade away in the back of your mind as child-oriented holiday. It’s hard for many young adults to find the alacrity for Easter since many of us feel too old to hunt for eggs and even to go back to church to pay respects.

Nonetheless, many of us found time last weekend to enjoy each other’s fellowship by partaking in an Easter brunch. I was overjoyed to see Dennis, Youssef, Andrew and Dan around 3 p.m. None of us ever ventured around the Woodley Park area for brunch before but decided upon ourselves to try something new.

Open City Coffeehouse, located on 2331 Calvert St. NorthWest D.C, had a bevy of yuppies, upper class D.C families and professionals like ourselves. The overall ambience was warm and was apposite to the light french and breakfast cuisine served at this establishment. A slew of open windows also imbued a gentle hustle-and-bustle that added further layers into our brunch reverie.

Youssef and Dennis had a hearty breakfast, while Andrew had a meditteranean brunch composed of tomatoes, chicken and basil leaves. Dan ventured into a bloody mary than ordered an omelet. Unanimously, we acceded this was an amazing spot for brunch. Who knew?

Oh yeah! I got the brioche french toast ( as you see above) and am quite rueful that I didnt take a group picture of my friends at brunch; Considering, Dan and Andrew took off.

Conversely, though Dan and Andrew left, that didn’t mean our Easter adventure ended. Oh yes, www.sherryndaniel.com has an Easter trilogy arc and this is only part one. Stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

Faso Foods: Grashoff Chocolate Spread+ Wine= A Happy Marriage

Have you ever went to a wine tasting and felt like something was missing.

Albeit, you have the finely aged cheeses, breads and maybe some caviar but there was just something else you needed to add a delish’ conclusion to your wine tasting excursion.

If you guessed chocolate, then you are close. If you confidently stated Grashoff’s chocolate spreads than you are one smart cookie.

Wine and Grashoff’s chocolate spreads are two lovers that could never be parted. They go hand-in-hand like Peanut butter and jelly.

Any wine tasting that lacks Grashoff’s chocolate spreads is a cruel sight, indeed.  If you visit Nibbles website here. You will get a comprehensive list of every possible chocolate and wine pairing available.

 Lucky for you, Grashoff’s has mint, dark, white, fruit, and spicy chocolate that match well with many chardonnays, ports and red wines. 

Unlike competitors, the chocolate spreads offered by Grashoff’s is finely made in Germany and we use the best Belgian chocolate to concoct addictive blends like Sicilian Blood orange or even ginger.

If you have ever had a Grashoff Chocolate Spread and wine pairing party, please comment below. We’d love to know how the chocolate spreads and wine espoused such a scintillating sensation.

Rest in Peace Chi Chis: The U.S.A will miss your celebration of food!

  For my birthday this year, I wanted to eat at Chi- Chis Mexican restaurant—for the first time ever. I wanted to be a part of the “Celebration of Food”. Since I never got that invite all my life.

Alas, this didn’t happen since I learned this year that all of the Chi-Chis restaurants in the United States closed down.  I was distraught and inconsolable on the day of my birthday party.

It would’ve been mature of me to have a stolid face but a part of me hoped this nugget of information was simply a canard.  A lie, a baseless falsehood. 

Nevertheless, my two sources of information couldn’t be false since it came from both my awesome boyfriend and my great friend Fahad ( who I silly stringed into a cacoon awhile back).

Several years back in 2003,  Chi-Chis was hit with the largest Hepatitus A outbreak in U.S history, with around 4 fatalities and 660 other victims who contracted the illness in the Pittsburgh area. If it weren’t for those green onions laced with hepatitus, maybe just maybe, Chi-Chis would still be around.

On the other hand, Chi-Chi’s was fighting bankruptcy for the last part of it’s fragile life.  Nevertheless, I wanted to eat there since I was 7-years-old. I would see the Chi-Chi’s sign highlight amidst the night sky, everytime my parents drove by it on the weekends.  I relished the day when I was big enough to eat ChiChi’s chimichangas, nachos, empanadas and tacos.

When that supposed day came,  in February 2012, little 7-year-old Sherryn was going to have her dream come true. She was finally going to be able to eat a whole meal at the one restaurant she wanted to be at.  The one place that she knew that accepted her as an adult, big enough to eat an entire entree by herself.

A few hours into the night, her moment of: “salsafication”; of having her life ” needing that extra salsa”; and of possibly being invited to that supposed “celebration of life”; dashed into irrevocable pieces.

It was that night in February where I finally matured into a full-fledged adult. I learned that sometimes the Rolling Stones are right, you can’t always get what you want. So you just have to bide the time and cogitate about what’s really important in life.

 I know that Hormel bought out ChiChis and sells their products online and I could always make it at home, but it’s really not the same. It never will be.

If  I ever want to eat at ChiChi’s, I would need to travel to Belguim or countries in the Middle East, Asia,  North Africa or Europe. I would have to shell out thousands of dollars of cash just to accomplish this feat and frankly, that’s too much for me to do.

  Moreover, I am not even sure if ChiChis would even taste good in a different country—the way I dreamed it would taste.

Comment below if you ever ate at Chi-Chis and miss it still. Maybe your comments will attenuate the pain inside of never knowing the real celebration of food.

Nada Surf at 9:30 Club: Decent concert, sparse crowd

Last night, Nada Surf rocked the 9:30 club to a commodious yet some-what packed audience of hipsters, awkward tweens, and Gen-Xers. Normally, the frosting to any concert experience for me is to max-out my people watching skills. I couldn’t help myself yesterday as I watched a coterie of frazzled hair girls squeel when Nada Surf’s lead singer Mathew Caws sung one of his newest singles.

As i’ve previously said before, it bites being short at concerts. I’m, like, always the shortest one there. And to top it all off, I abhor wearing heels so that didn’t  help the situation either. I conceded to my physical defeats and comported myself behind these two sheltered tweens.

   Throughout the night, these three meat-head types with large ears deemed themselves to have carte blanche over the rest of the audience.

 Each one, unknowingly, obfuscated my only clear view of the concert.  I was sure I wasn’t the only short person fraught with rage over their brusque behaviour.

In the meantime, Nada Surf played with bouyancy. Each song was sung harmoniously, and unlike the uncreative duo behind Sleighbells, each of their songs were singular, fresh, and different. Too bad for me, I wasn’t too aware of the band’s fan favorite hits.

All I really wanted Nada Surf to do was play my favorite songs.Conversely, they seemed bridled by the tweets of hipsters, home-schoolers, meat-heads and slightly graying couples in their 40′s.

Ughh!  Nada Surf just played what the majority wanted! Besides being a minority – and I don’t mean being the only Indian American at the show– I was probably one of a handful who only wanted to hear their popular singles, from this homogenuous group of Nada Surf Fans. I was captious to find foibles with the show.

When I realized all of this was occurring, I later quelled my emotions and swirling thoughts by just mentally replaying my own favorite Nada Surf songs.

 Subsequently, after I was attenuated by Nada Surf playing ‘fan favorites’, they started to play all of my favorite songs in a row.

• Best Nada Surf Songs at 9:30 Club   

*Blond on blond * See these bones * Inside of love * Always love

 I instantly forgave Nada Surf for being a people pleaser to D.C’s hipsters that night. I forgive you Nada Surf! You actually played the popular stuff.  On the contrary, though Nada Surf played their popular hits, they did not play “Popular”.

 Thank goodness! Though that hit is what they were most famous for, it’s the one song that grated my nerves the most.

Consequently, I did have a great time. Nada Surf played enough mellow tunes to lull a picky indie listener like me for awhile. Mathew Caws has an angelic voice, and his band produced wonderful refrains, choruses and beats to magically entrance any Nada Surf fan.

Even though I didn’t know alot of the songs the band played, I was still thoroughly impressed by their craftmanship. It was also cute that Caws parents were at the balcony, directly to his right. Both his mom and Dad had large grins that didn’t diminish throughout the night but only grew as each song played.

Nada surf was a decent concert overall and I hope they come back again to the D.C area.

Girls night out feat. Grashoff’s caramel spread

Last night, me, Kamilla and Sara had a girl’s- night- out in Rockville. Kamilla was the hostess and had a wonderful caserol, soft chocolate cake, fresh red wine and olive platter set out for us. The dress theme for the night was fun and flirty and i’m sure we all got that covered.

Kamilla wore a white and black dress that slightly ruffles in the front, Sara wore a leopard print dress hung well with sparkly black straps and I wore a bold orange dress ( since I never wear bold colors and liked Target’s wide selection on dresses).

  Sara and I wanted to be respectful guests so we also brought tasty treats. Sarah brought this intoxatingly rich chocolate shot from Amsterdam ( where she was last month) and I brought a wide selection of Grashoff’s chocolate spreads, including the caramel spread.

Grashoff’s caramel spread is a hot commodity and tends to be a rarity to find in most stores. These ladies were in luck since I saved this last jar for them.

After gabbing about our lives blossoming for the better, future travels and especially about what makes wine good to women: we digged into dinner.

As I predicted, each bite was purely addictive.  I think I need Kamilla’s casseroll recipe since I want to eat that tasty morsal again.  For dessert, Kamilla had these light, flaky chocolate bars filled with fruit and topped with almond slivers.

Her mom was kind enough to make us dinner tonight. Kamilla said that she’s known for inventing dishes off-the-cuff. The casserol we had tonight was an innovative creation of cheese, noodles, onions, chicken and a medly of unknown spices.

The chocolate bars paired well with  Rusiko wine ( best wine ever, Kamilla says that it’s sold in any wine store and it’s priced at the super affordable price of $18 bucks).

But what pairs best with the chocolate bars, wine and by itself is  Grashoff chocolate spreads. It makes any meal feel gourmet in nano seconds.

 Sara was super curious about my Belgian chocolate spreads so I decided to do a mini chocolate demo for the ladies.

Kamilla and Sara were huge fans of the white chocolate spread with strawberry pieces and also like the Capuccino, and various other dark chocolate spreads.

Both ladies digged into the caramel spread and tried it on their desserts. Magnifico! It was a popular hit!

It’s common sense  that you can’t have a ladies night out without chocolate. But if you want a classy, Euro-style ladies night out complete with fine wines, decadent olives and a rich meal, than you need Grashoff’s chocolate spreads.

 It’s not only women’s best friend friend but it’s also wine’s, dessert’s and even gourmet cupcake’s one true love. We concluded the night by sharing humerous stories about Europe and with a toast to a successful evening.

Oh what a night!

Dublin Roasters: Aromatic, fresh and robust coffee blends

Frederick tends to be like an hour and a half drive from where I live. Inspite of the long drive, it does merit the exorbitant mileage due to the following..

 For starters,  it’s well known for its “clustered spires”  skyline  leaving an indelible print on its historic downtown churches; its  also known for its fiberglass keys, and growing alternative rock scene.

Nevertheless, what’s missing from this list is, by far,  the best organic, Fair Trade coffee shop in the D.C/Maryland and Virginia area. Dublin Roasters.