Milestones

Yesterday was a milestone.

I signed my new contract with The Young and The Restless on their 40th anniversary!

After 20 years at #1 and a new contract in hand, all I can think of is how grateful I am for all the milestones I have been able to share with the Young & The Restless family.

Special thanks to Bill and Lee Bell and the Bell family, Jill Faren Phelps and the entire producing team, Josh Griffith and the rest of the amazing writing team, not to mention the most and talented cast and crew anyone could ever hope for!

You all make going to work so much fun and so fulfilling!

                                

 Enjoy these behind the scenes pics from our celebration yesterday and happy anniversary Y&R!

 

 

The First Salad

When I announced at age 8 that I was going to be a vegetarian, you could hear a pin drop. You see, I was growing up in London, England, home of the meat pot-pie. Vegetables cooked beyond recognition, which is why peas are called, mushy peas there..Yuck! My mom was amazing about my announcement, she never made me feel like I was a burden at all. She gave me my vegetables raw, my favorite and the way her mom, my grandmother, had given her. She made me rice and a salad to go with all my dinners, as well. SALAD! We are all so used to salad now but when I was growing up, unless you were French, no one served it.

My mom became a Rock Star! No one else’s mom served salad at dinner but if you had dinner at my house after a playdate, you got it. All my friends wanted to come to dinner at my house! Pretty soon, all my friend’s moms were calling, saying, “How did you get my child to eat vegetables??” See? My mom the Rock Star! Mom used to put Good Seasons Italian dressing on our salad, the powdered kind in a packet that needed the accompanying cruet to make it.

Lunches at school were another adventure. Being vegetarian at home was ok but at school, it was quite another. Kids thought being vegetarian meant I only liked plain cheeseburgers at Mc D’s. Hmmm, that’s a big NO. I would come to school with whole wheat bread and cucumber sandwiches’ and everyone thought I was from Mars. I remember having lunch with this boy one day and he was eating a white bread, butter and chocolate sprinkle sandwich?!

Salad is still my favorite dinner. My boyfriend, Aaron makes amazing salads. Everyone always comments on how good they are. Most of our produce is delivered to my front door from FarmboxLA.

Because I need protein, he will put nuts in mine, usually walnuts or sliced almonds. He usually uses our mixed lettuces, avocados, mint leaves, heirloom tomatoes and some kind of fruit, like sliced apples or pears.

His dressing is truly a favorite of everyone who has had it. It may sound simple but it’s fantastic. He uses Olive oil, Himalayan salt and lemon juice. So light, so delicious!

We also roast vegetables for dinner almost every night. Here is a little trick I learned the hard way. I use different size cookie sheets and I cover them with aluminum foil, if you don't you will need to take a sledge hammer to the cookie sheet to clean it! I separate the broccoli ( cook 20 min. ), kale ( cook 20 min ), carrots ( cook a little longer - 25 min. ), then brussel sprouts and potatoes, which I cook together for almost an hour - 420 degrees for all. Add a little olive oil and Maldon Sea Salt flakes. You won't believe how good they taste.

My parents were always into health. They followed Pritikin and food combining while I was growing up. I believe good eating habits start young but it’s never too late!!

Happy and healthy eating!!!

Hemp Protein Shake

It is rare that a day goes by that Aaron, my boyfriend, doesn't whip up a batch of this delicious whey protein shake made with homemade hemp milk.

Hemp Protein Shake

Ingredients

Hemp milk:

Hemp seeds
4 cups of water
vanilla extract

Aaron starts by whipping up a batch of hemp milk. This will make approximately 4 cups of milk so have a container ready to store what have left over after making your shake.

Start by pouring 4 cups water into your blender. I have a Vitamix. It's heavy duty and great for everyday use.

Add one cup of hemp seeds...

One teaspoon vanilla.

Blend it all together.

If you like your milk sweetened, add on date before you blend.

Have a taste of the freshly blended hemp milk. It's tastes just like regular milk - only much better for you! 

Now for the shake.

Ingerdients ( makes one large shake or two small ones )

Hemp milk

Whey Protein - we like Jay Robb's. It is truly the best tasting - just like it says on the bag! 

1-2 scoops depending on the amount of protein you need.

3/4 cups frozen strawberries

1/2 cup frozen blueberries and a couple of dates

1 tsp Spirulina

Rinse the blender and add 1 1/2 cups of hemp milk

The batch we made here is more than two shakes. Use the directions above for a smaller amount. 

Add the protein powder.

Add the berries.

Add one teaspoon of Spirulina.

Blend until smooth and enjoy!

Wow! Fantastic right?!

Coffee Snob

Yes, that’s right, I’m a coffee snob. My snobbery goes back to every morning of my childhood waking up to my dad grinding the coffee beans at 6 a.m. I truly believe I wake up naturally now every morning at that exact time because of my coffee grinding alarm clock as a child. My father loved to go to the coffee store and pick out his perfect blend.

Every morning, he would grind the beans, boil the water and get his Melita filter out and hand pour the hot water to the top of the white paper filter, wait for it to drain and pour again until the glass coffee pot was full.

I think I started drinking coffee way before any of my friends. I remember when I would sleep over at my friend’s houses, they would sleep in and I would be up with their parents having breakfast and talking over coffee. I loved the smell of it and the taste. Back then I loved it black. I loved coffee so much that when I started working at Young and the Restless, they had what tasted like day old coffee that had been re-heated. I got my own coffee maker for my dressing room. When I started working with Doug Davidson (Paul) another coffee connoisseur, we decided we would put the coffee maker in his dressing room and put a lock on the drawer we kept it in so no one would take our beloved coffee maker or the dark French roast coffee I ground for us every day we worked. One of the funniest stories Doug just told me and he tells me many, is that the drawer we thought was so safe, was not. Years later when he was working with Lauralee Bell (Christine) they put a valuable camera in the drawer, only to find it stolen! How could that be?! There is a lock on the drawer! Well, we are all such genius', that we never realized that to have a secure drawer you need a secure bottom to the drawer above it, so no one can just take out the drawer above and reach in and grab whatever is in the locked drawer?! Doug told me this story recently and we must have laughed for 10 minutes straight. It never occurred to me that that could ever happen.

Ok, back to my snobbery. I started to have break outs on my cheeks and for the life of me couldn’t figure out why. I went to my homeopathic doctor who told me it was coffee. I told him he didn’t know what he was talking about. He said, “You are allergic to coffee! Try something for me, don’t drink it for 30 days and see what you think.” I couldn’t think of anything worse than giving up my companion… coffee. Reluctantly, I did and within 24 hours, I had my answer, clear skin, crap! How am I going to get through the next 29 days. He only said 30 days, right? I barely made it and on day 30, I was in line at my favorite coffee shop, ready for a fix. I had my latte and was sooo happy. I was cured! Until the next morning, OH NO!! Red spots all over my cheeks! I was allergic! So I had to give it up... but then found tea! I grew up in London. I drank tea all the time. I tried not to feel left out when everyone was having cappuccinos after dinner and tried to be fine while everyone sipped their coffees every morning. I tried desperately not to get sucked in by that full-bodied aroma. Well, if I couldn’t drink coffee then I was going to do tea like nobody’s business. I started collecting teapots, which I still do to this day.

I had enough tea paraphernalia to open my own teashop! Of course, I had to have black tea with strawberries flown in by my favorite store, Fortnum and Mason in England. I had to do it BIG! I grew to love my tea. I love Jasmine pearl tea too, which costs almost as much as dinner at Spago!

Another is fresh mint leaves in a pot of hot water and for extra zest, you can add fresh ginger slices too. Incredible smell and incredible taste!

So, it had been years since I had had coffee. My son, Austin was going to turn 21 and we had this grand idea that on his 21st birthday, we should be sipping champagne in Paris! So off we went with my boyfriend, Aaron, whose birthday is the day after Austin’s.

We rented a flat in the 7th arrondissement, close to the Eiffel tower. The flat we rented came with an espresso machine called Nespresso. Well, there went everything! I decided to try the espresso. Guess what? No breakouts! I drank latte’s in Versailles, drank them on the Champs de Elysees …everywhere! Oh, coffee, how I missed you!! Now I still drink tea but need my latte’s! Now, here’s the catch. I’m now the biggest coffee snob ever.

I love my Nespresso machine so much that I looked into buying a carrying case so I could travel with it, some people take their dogs on the plane, me; my espresso machine.

Love the organic coffee house out here in Malibu, not far from my house, Cafecito Organico.

I also love the little coffee joint in the Farmer’s market called SO- Single Origin.

I have drawn Hunter Haley King (Summer on Y and R) into my coffee web. She is now my coffee buddy and we make coffee runs at work. I’m the one wait staff at restaurants hates because if the latte’s aren’t good, I will send them back…terrible, I know. I can’t quite do the big coffee chains either. The taste has to be just…PERFECT - like my morning coffee made with love ( Aaron makes a foamy sign of devotion for me in my morning coffee ).