Ridiculous seems to be the theme of the century. With folks like LMFAO, Katy Perry and Johnny Weir constantly making statements, there was no surprise of these costumes on the MTV Movie Awards this year. It's no longer about what looks good or bad but what wows the crowd. It takes a certain person to wear crap like this. I don't think Ms. Perry tried on a blue wig and said, "Dam I look hot and stylish and should probably win awards for this outfit!" As silly as it is, why not do it?! I give em all props! 
Twilight stole the awards all night long. No surprise. I am NOT on the Twilight bandwagon but pretty much every girl age 12 - 60 is. So when it came time for the final award, Best Movie, I wanted it to be Hangover because it was clearly the best movie but was not so much surprised but disappointed in Twilight winning.
Why though? It's MTV! Think about it. Their average age viewer is what, 12-18? Twilight is the nobrainer here! Half the actual audience of MTV probably doesn't even understand most of the Hangover jokes and they certainly can't relate to them. The last thing on a 15 year olds mind is getting married and having a bachelor party.
BUT...
So many of us elders are still watching these ridiculous award shows, so its just bound to be disappointing to us. It really isn't that big of a deal but at the same time I feel like even though the network isn't necessarily aimed at our demographic, the award shows are.
Side Note on Twilight/Kristen Stewart: The girl is painful to watch! She needs to get over the awkward, anxiety, stage freight thing ASAP. It was cute at first or whatever but like, Twilight gave you your life dude! Don't look so freakin uncomfortable when someone is talking about you or your movie. Don't look like and act like its torture to walk up and receive yet ANOTHER award. Don't refuse to do interviews on the red carpet of the award show from the people who literally fill your pockets with your paychecks. Take some drugs or something, perk up, grow some balls and ROCK IT! At least as her publicist, that is what I would suggest!
That's just my piece of mind. That said, I thought the awards show in general was great this year. Aziz Ansari, who I was skeptical about, rocked. No surprise either that the bleeping was way off. So many F-Bombs! Also, I adore Sandra Bullock. She was given the Generation Award and gracefully accepted by saying, "Can we all just go back to normal now and continue to make fun of me? Say a prayer for the people in the Gulf." She really is a humble human being AND looked HOT. I loved her dress and Louboutins. My question here though is if she was getting the award because of the current circumstances? Like I just said, I think she's a great person but no one gave this much of a sympathy vote to Jennifer Aniston or anyone else I can think of in the cheating marriage situation. I don't argue the award wasn't deserved and don't wanna be a hater. I'm just curious.
Fashion to come...
Masada is supposed to have the greatest sunrises in the world but unfortunately, due to the sand storm the day before combined with the morning "fog", it was nothing like it should have been.
Then we took a short drive over to the Dead Sea. I love seeing everyone experience this for the first time!
After a fun day at the beach, we drove back up north to our final destination for the next 5 nights, Jerusalem. We went to a bar b q at Divon's house. Divon is the CEO of Sachlav, the program we were on. He invites 2 groups (over 80 people) into his home every week so they can see what true Israeli hospitality is. His whole family (9 kids) helps prepare the dinner and they are wonderful hosts. Divon and his family are one of the main reasons I love the Sachlav company. This is a photo of his backyard view. Can you imagine?!
I was looking at Cleveland Food Blogs today and came across this one in particular and can't seem to get the image out of my head! It was on Ruhlman.com (photo by Donna Ruhlman) and if you are interested in the egg yolk ravioli:"Summer is flying by too quickly and I’ve been buried in all the good things–work and family and friends and food. Ma was here and I showed her the Iron Chef show with Symon v. Bloomfield and she was so enamoured of Symon’s idea of putting a yolk inside pasta, I made some for her (above, on a bed of sheep’s milk ricotta I got from Paul Minnillo at Baricelli Inn, seasoned with citrus and espelette), served with a simple brown butter sauce. Sooo. Good . Yolk spills out into the butter. Then off to NYC to judge an Iron Chef competition, then back home on the 4th for Old Chicago’s on the grill at my Dad’s and fireworks viewed from the first fairway of a local course, then Pardus, my chef was here, for reasons I won’t reveal now, but we cooked a meal that is worth a blog post on it’s own. His visit of course required a two day restoration of the body and soul before work began again. Yesterday I was with Symon as he was making some of his own egg-yolk-only pasta dough and he said something interesting that I’d never thought about. He made it very dry and scarcely kneaded it. I believe in kneading for at least ten minutes till it’s satiny smooth, but Symon believes that the key to great texture is in not creating too much of a gluten network (which happens by kneading) so he treated it practically like a pie dough. It makes sense. I don’t know if I’m willing to give up that satiny pasta dough, but it’s an interesting idea, and his ravioli were very tender. Is this a common thing? Not kneading? [I've since tested this and find that the all-yolk pasta does not need the kneading, whereas pasta dough with whole egg does require thorough kneading, which is part of the fun!]
For those of you wanting to try an egg yolk ravioli, they’re very easy. Marcella Hazan recommends a cup of flour and two eggs to make a pasta dough, mixed and kneaded till it’s satiny, about ten minutes. And of course there’s a Ratio for it! Three parts flour, 2 parts egg by weight; if you have the Ratio iPhone app, weigh your eggs, plug the weight into the ratio calculator to calculate the exact weight of flour you need, add it right on top of the eggs! (I love the Ratio app!) While it’s resting in plastic wrap in the fridge, mix into a cup of ricotta, citrus zest (any kind you like, lemon and orange are great, maybe a little juice), black pepper, espelette if you have it, some chives or minced shallot if you have it, kosher salt (and taste it for to make sure it’s delicious). Make a pillow on the pasta for the yolk, put a little cheese on top to protect the yolk, and fold the pasta over it, using water or egg wash to seal the pasta. Boil gently for a few minutes and serve with a brown butter and some julienned parsley. The yellow ooze is worth the effort."
