I have a new favorite restaurant in Memphis. I’ve eaten there off and on for a couple years now but recently I’ve tried some new things and I’m telling you, this place is fantastic.

I know ya’ll midtowners think there’s nothing good outside the 240 loop, and I’m pretty sure if you saw this obscure little storefront in a Germantown strip mall with the nondescript “Mexican Deli” above the door, you would never, ever stop there. Your loss. Because what’s behind that suburban door is something you won’t get anywhere else for miles around - authentic Mexican food.

“We don’t serve cheese dip” is the unofficial slogan of Las Tortugas Deli Mexicana. Owner Pepe Magallanes from Mexico City said he waited 24 years for someone to open an authentic Mexican restaurant in Memphis before finally doing it himself. “Texas ruined Mexican food for the United States,” he laughs. “We don’t eat rice and beans out of a can at every meal. There are actually some very upscale restaurants in Mexico.” Read the rest of this entry »

In celebration of its 30th birthday, today is FREE CONE DAY at Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shops (or as I like to call them, Crack Dens) so plan accordingly. Memphis-area stores that are participating include:

• Downtown at Peabody Place and Third
• East Memphis behind Houston’s on Popular
• Germantown at the Village Shops of Forest Hill

I ate so much Cherry Garcia when I was pregnant I’m surprised Elijah wasn’t born with a stem growing out of the top of his head. Or a scruffy grey beard. But I can also HIGHLY recommend the One Cheesecake Brownie because OMG are you kidding me? Eat ice cream AND help fight world AIDS? Oh, I am SO there. But I’m thinking just to be adventurous, I might actually try Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream.

Click here to find the shops in your area that are participating.

*We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.*

I’m not much of a cook, but I do love to bake. And I have made some kick-ass chocolate cakes in my time, but nothing - and I mean NOTHING - has earned the raves of my family like the carrot cake I made them. Seriously. I don’t get it either. I said to My Kid, “You know there’s vegetables in that.” He didn’t care. He ate two more pieces.

The lovely thing about this recipe - which I horked somewhere off the internet and do not claim to take credit for having created - is that it’s from scratch but it’s SO EASY. I tend to go for those “Start with a box of yellow cake mix…” recipes. Because, you know, why gather a lot of loose ingredients when Betty Crocker was kind enough to do it for me and package it all up in a nice little box?

And this carrot cake doesn’t require a lot of grating and soaking and preparing of raw vegetables. No, it has a SECRET INGREDIENT that makes preparation a snap. Cake recipe after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

So I’m wearing one of my favorite dresses today, from one of my favorite catalogs — Boden, out of the UK. They’re big on patterns and dots, especially, and my dress today is polka dots … white ones on red and brown. Totally cute and fun.

Except that when I was waiting for the elevator this morning, one of the guys in my building told me he thought my dress looked like a tablecloth!

It’s also empire-waisted, which I love because, well, you know why. Covers a multitude of sins. But some of my girlfriends in the office tell me that they’ve had people ask if they’re pregnant when they wear an empire waist.

So here’s my question: On what planet do you say stuff like this to someone? Isn’t saying, “I like your dress” good enough? Or, God forbid, keeping your mouth shut?

What should I have said to Tablecloth Man?

Because I don’t already have enough to worry about, I’ve decided to read Dr. Oz’s latest, YOU: Staying Young, his anti-aging book, and see if I can slow down what he says doesn’t have to be an inevitable decline. Actually, there’s all kinds of fascinating stuff here, even for those of us who keep up with health and nutrition news and try to take care of ourselves. I’ll be writing about my adventures in staying young, and Dr. Oz’s 14-Day Plan, in the coming weeks. (You’ll also want to look at RealAge.com, a companion site to the book with all sorts of cool quizzes, blogs, and info on everything from better sex to flossing the right way. More on my RealAge discoveries later.)

But today, I’m thinking about green tea. As you probably already know, green tea has powerful anti-oxidants, which help fight bad cell growth and can keep LDL (that’s the bad kind) of cholesterol down. Dr. Oz recommends drinking as much as you want. So I’m trying, but here’s the problem: To me, most green teas I try don’t really taste like much (except bitter). I’ve tried Lipton and Constant Comment. Like the Tazo version they serve at Starbucks, but I’d really like to brew this at home.

What green tea do you like, and how do you drink it?