Beers, Brats and Bicycles! Oh, my!

Being an ASU girl, I love Mill Avenue. It’s an ever-revolving door of food, bars, clubs, shops and people. After my brother moved out here when I was young, I’d come spend the summer with him and he’d take me out to walk around Mill, have ice cream and people watch.

As I got older, it became the party spot, easy bars to get into on a fake ID and again, lots of people. Now, I’m too old to go party down there, it’s FAR from my “scene” anymore, but I still love the ever changing face of Mill.

My favorite new addition would have to be the The Handlebar. They’re an adorable little spot with a GREAT patio that I absolutely love, but haven’t taken pictures of yet, so mosey on over to their website for that! They offer a little bit Hipster vibe with a industrial décor and vintage feel over-all. The patio is full of big shady trees and big wooden tables, perfect to get a bunch of friends together on a gorgeous day. The staff is always beyond friendly, it’s one of my favorite things about the place. Every time we’re in, they let us sample beers, answer questions and offer up little interesting tid-bits about your

Whenever we get the chance, we take a little putt on over there!

My favorite thing to get there is the grilled cheese. It’s cheddar on Ciabatta that’s been brushed with a sundried tomato pesto. It’s delish. Wash it down with a tall Yella Pils and you’re set!

BON APPETIT!

P.S.,

Aren’t we an adorable couple of biker babes?

H2Ocean, FINALLY!

 

Back in 2009, I did a corset piercing for Dan Brailey at the Body Art Expo, in Pomona, California. I slapped an H2Ocean sticker on my shirt to keep it pulled down and away from my corset and a promotional partnership was born without even trying.

I walked by the booth and the guys they had working for H2Ocean, asked me to pass out fliers. I did. A few years later, I got a dermal anchor piercing by Sean Dowdell at Club Tattoo in Tempe, Arizona. He put 12 anchors in my chest and I had NO idea I was pregnant…

I bombed his shoot he set up for me, because I was sick, fat and didn’t know why and to make matters worse, by the end of my pregnancy, my dermals had completely rejected and some had even fallen out! I couldn’t get anybody to cut them out, because I was pregnant and only a handful of shops in that area had just STARTED to give dermals.

I kept them in, while I had my son, even having to sign a waver because the uneducated nurses at the hospital didn’t know what they were and caused a scene, trying to say they might not be able to admit me with out my signature. They were afraid that if I needed a c-section, that when they cauterized, the metal would burn my chest. I’m not sure how that all works, but I can’t think I’m the first girl to pop out a child, with an anchor in her somewhere.

So I signed my life away, had my son and quickly after headed to American Made Tattoo (Now closed) and had them cut out by Angela. She did an amazing job, there’s no way to tell I even HAD 12 dermals in the chest, ever, let alone, had them cut out!

And the entire time, I was draining cans of H2Ocean Salt Spray like it was going out of style. I tried everything before. Salt soaks, rubbing alcohol, like you aren’t suppose to, anti-bacterial soap, ew, everything. It was a disgusting mess. H2Ocean was the only thing that kept my chest from getting infected. Sexy, right?

NOW, I use Aquatat on my new ink to keep it right in this crazy desert weather. Especially when I’ve got to go sling dranks with new ink and can’t reapply or fuss with it often.

After I got back into modeling, I had issues with photographers letting me use their photos for H2Ocean, although I’m not sure why somebody would turn down exposure, it’s not up to me to decide, so I had to keep shooting and talking to photographers to find somebody willing to let me share their work! Finally, FINALLY, I was able to get a few photographers on board.

Find me here!

“Don’t be aftercareless!”

Find H2Ocean Models on:
Twitter: twitter.com/H2Ocean
Instagram: @H2OceanModels
Facebook: Facebook.com/H2OceanModels

New Ink!

I started a new sleeve with the incredibly talented Manny Lopez in Phoenix, AZ and I have literally never been so happy with ink in my life!

To tell you the truth, when I got my first sleeve, I wanted to sand it off my arm. I spent a lot of time crying about how it turned out. I had a drawing I emailed my artist, I know tattooists aren’t apt to copying and pasting someone elses work, but I figured he’d keep it the sameish and we’d all be happy. I mean, I drew it myself. It was going on MY body. I couldn’t get my hands on the original drawing my dad did of my mom, with peacock feathers for hair, it was beautiful. I started pulling pictures off the internet and drew one myself. It took a lot of time and I loved it.

The tattoo I ended up with looks nothing like what I wanted. I’ve had it fixed and worked on, but it’s just, NOT something I’m happy with. I’m almost embarrassed. I know that sounds horrible, but it was something that meant a lot to me and it doesn’t make me 100% happy.

I had asked previous artists about getting a bird cage tattoo. Not just any cage, but a Tunisian cage my grandmother brought back from Africa. It hung in our house while I grew up and it hangs in mine now and my son is obsessed with it, just like I was when I was a kid. Both artists I spoke with said it couldn’t be done. There was too much detail, it’s a white cage, so coloring and highlighting would be difficult, blah, blah, blah…

Then, then there was Manny.

He likes a challenge and when I told him what the other artists said, he told me he’d do it. He’d get the whole sleeve I wanted, exactly how I wanted it. So we began…

I made a collage of the inspiration I sent him:

 

The cage is the bottom right picture, the rest are details, birds, feathers, crucifix, that are going to be incorporated into it.

Here’s what I ended up with:

 

 

This was the stencil he used.

 

He used a single needle, which was amazingly painful. I can’t WAIT to finish the rest of the sleeve with that bad bitch… Yeezus.

 

It’s going to be full color and a 3/4 sleeve, when it’s finished.

Red, swollen and bloody, here’s the first photos of it. I know it settles over time, so I’ll post some more when it’s changed and healed.

I loooooove it. I just want to finish it, but I looooooove it.

Go check out Manny’s page Art by Manny 2.0 and like it. Your feed will be more beautifully inked, because of it.

He also decked me out with some tee’s for Inkorporated, his new line he started up. Best believe I’ll be blowing up #inkorporated, on a social network, near you.

Stay tuned for more ink coming mid November and find Manny on IG @tattoomanny and #tattoomanny

MUAH!

Beer Bread Wonderland

Never have I ever met a bread with such versatility as I did when I made this little gem. Literally, so many different things you can do with it and this will NOT be the last post on this delicious concoction.

I have no idea how to make bread. I’m intimidated by it, I’m not a 40’s housewife and it’s just too big of an endeavor for me to embark on. Sorry.

So, I found a recipe for this stuff and went for it. The recipes for this stuff are pretty universal. There’s no big differences in them besides the additions, flair and of course, beer. Some vary on amounts of sugar, which makes sense.

So let’s cook some bread.

Start with a six pack of your favorite craft beer. You only need one for the bread, but you’ll need something to do while it bakes, right?

This beer, is not my favorite craft beer. It’s a beer that a friend of ours left behind from a party we had. It’s disgusting. No offence to Sam Adams, the man knows what he’s doing, usually, but this hoppy brew was just not for me. At all.

However, it made some delicious bread. I figured by the taste of it, how much sugar to use, so I’d suggest drinking at least a bottle before you start, so you can make a fair judgment of the other ingredients. It’s only fair.

SO, follow this general recipe and twerk, I mean tweak, it to fit your taste and burr.

From the windows, to the walls, let’s make some drunk bread.

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups of flour
1/3 cup of sugar
1tbsp of baking powder
1/2tsp of salt
1 12oz bottle of beer
3tbsp of butter, melted

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350, my oven sucks, hence the slightly charred bread. Don’t judge, it was tasty!

Mix dry ingredients, add beer, throw into a greased loaf pan and cover with the butter and bake for about 60 minutes!

I read you can use soda in place of beer, but, pardon my French, but fucking ew. You wanna shovel that crap into your poor kids, that’s on you, but you won’t even catch me cooking with that crap. /endrant

You can freeze the cooked loaf, I’m sure it’ll stay good for a while!

Onion Rings 101

How good are YOUR onion rings?

I ask because, I never knew how to make them. I use to be at the mercy of whatever fast food joint served em up the best.

Not anymore.

You can even freeze these. No joke. Straight from the freezer to the deep fryer, or so I hear… My freezer is too jam packed #apartmentproblems to handle any more goodness.

But, I’ll be experimenting soon and, of course, report my findings. Maybe.

Anyhoo, let’s get to those delicious, crunchy, crispy, hot and sexy onion rings, shall we?

 

 

INGREDIENTS:

1 onion, sliced
1 1/4 cups of flour
1 tsp of each salt and baking powder
1 egg
About a cup of milk
About 3/4 cup of panko bread crumbs. I mix regular and panko, half and half. Just for shits and giggles.
Oil, whatever you want to fry these bad boys in… I use veggie oil.
Seasonings… I use garlic powder, salt, pepper and arbol chile powder, because it takes VERY little to get a lot of heat as opposed to an ass load of black pepper or using red pepper flakes, which would be clinging and killing the sexy look of these precious rings.

DIRECTIONS:

Get your oil heating in a large pot, I use a sauce pan, because I’m ghetto and don’t have a deep fryer, yet. It’s on my Christmas list, don’t you worry. You want about an inch or two of oil in the bottom of the pan.

In a small bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. Toss the onion rings around in the flour mixture until well coated. Set them aside.

Mix the egg and milk into flour mixture to make a batter, adding the seasonings, too. Also, in another bowl mix your bread crumbs and get it close by your oil to make transitioning quick and as mess free as possible. The first time I made these, I was like a new born fawn. Fucking bull in a China shop status. I made a mess, burned them, cried and by the end, had a seamless process that worked like butter. Or clock work. Or buttered clock work…

See the above picture for my layout.

Anyhoo, I used a fork and dropped the floured onion rings into the batter, coated them on both sides, shook off the excess and tossed them into a bowl with the bread crumbs. I shook the bowl and grabbed some tongs to get the little devils from there to the oil.

The oil is ready when a drop of batter sizzles like crazy and floats to the top, immediately. Fry a few at a time, so they don’t stick together, you’ll have to flip them to ensure they fry evenly on both sides. It takes about 90 seconds per ring. I keep a pie plate with a paper towel on the back of the stove, obvi not on a hot burner, duh, and when I get a pile of rings in the plate, I dump them onto a cookie sheet, in the oven, which I’ve pre-heated to about 200. Just to keep everything warm and crispy until you’re ready to eat.

That’s it!

Now, you can stop at the bread crumb part, lay the onion rings on parchment paper in your freezer, and when they’re good and solid, chuck em in a bag.

Enjoy this recipe while it’s up. If my venture on Kickstarter.com is successful, a lot of these will be coming down as I’ll be the proud owner of my own food truck. Boom.