Hasta La Gadget!

TK Intro

When we at HuffPost Taste fall hard for a food, we want to know everything there is to know about it. Inspired by a love affair with pho, the iconic Vietnamese noodle soup, we learned the proper way to enunciate the controversially pronounced dish (it’s pronounced “fuh,” for the record). As serious chocolate fans, we’ve dug deep to find out what cocoa butter really is, and after an afternoon of nostalgic munching on Goldfish, one our favorite childhood snacks, we discovered they were labeled “soup crackers” and immediately got to the bottom of this surprising designation. (Were Goldfish meant to be “swimming” in soup all along?!) Thanks to Empellón Al Pastor, a new restaurant catching everyone’s attention in New York City, we’ve recently rediscovered the glory of tacos Al Pastor. You know what happened next. We started reading up on this Mexican pork dish, and we were surprised and delighted by the origins of Al Pastor.

Tacos Al Pastor come from Mexico, right? Yes, but that’s not the whole story. The method of cooking al pastor actually comes from Lebanon. It’s inspired by shawarma! Lebanese immigrants went to Mexico in the early 1900s and brought their famous technique of spit-roasting lamb with them.

The English translation of al pastor is “in the style of the shepherd.” Mexican shepherds adapted the Lebanese style of spit-roasting lamb to using pork, and al pastor tacos became a beloved Mexican food around the world. DESCRIBE WHAT IT IS.

The origin of putting a pineapple on top of the spit isn’t as clear as the shawarma-al pastor connection. According to Empellón Al Pastor, “where the addition of pineapple came from remains one of history’s most delicious mysteries.”

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Wake up, smell the coffee, and get right to work. That should be your new mantra to start the day, according to Dan Ariely, a Duke University professor of psychology and behavioral economics.

This week, Ariely conducted an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit where he revealed that generally people are most productive during the first two hours after becoming fully awake.

Unfortunately, most people’s morning routines and work schedules are not designed to maximize this bright-and-early potential. The first things we cross off our list in the mornings are the mindless tasks to prepare for the day ahead.

“One of the saddest mistakes in time management is the propensity of people to spend the two most productive hours of their day on things that don’t require high cognitive capacity (like social media),” Ariely writes. “If we could salvage those precious hours, most of us would be much more successful in accomplishing what we truly want.”

Following Ariely’s suggestion means that you shouldn’t waste the first two hours of the day reading the newspaper, checking Twitter, waiting in line for coffee, or driving into the office.

Instead, at the end of the day create a task list for the following morning so you can get to it and tackle it as soon as the coffee kicks in. If you drive to work, see if you can spend the first two hours working from home. You will not only beat the morning rush hour traffic, but will also get the chance to get the most urgent tasks done before even stepping into the office.

“People are not innately wired to take on and follow through with habits because ‘tomorrow is that magical day when everything can get done’ and habits are most likely to be pushed off,” Ariely wrote on the Reddit AMA. “If we are suggesting and putting habits in the environment of the person, we can help them keep good habit behaviors.”

It’s no wonder then that Ariely has an app to help people do exactly that. Timeful, his time management app, launched in July.

I first learned about L.A.-based photographer Nick Holmes when I saw, and was mesmerized by, the portraits he took of a friend. I loved the visceral, velvety feeling of his work and I initially contacted him to see if he would like to be profiled on my blog. That led to my own photo shoot with him, the result of which you see here.

My previous two boudoir shoots were with a female photographer, so I was curious what it would be like to pose for a man. I was excited going into the shoot because Nick intuitively knew the feeling I hoped to achieve.

Unlike my previous boudoir shoots, which had featured my lingerie and outfits, I wanted this shoot to focus on my sexual essence, with the lingerie being almost irrelevant. Our goal was to tell a story, to grab the middle of a scene, to capture moments that enable the viewer to project his or her own thoughts and fantasies onto the photos.

I didn’t buy anything new for the shoot. I showed up at Nick’s doorstep with a hot pink Victoria’s Secret bag stuffed with old lingerie and two pairs of $20 Frederick’s of Hollywood come-f**k-me shoes.

I had seen Nick’s self-portraits so I knew he was beautiful. Still, I teetered a bit when he opened the door and his dreamy good looks smacked me in the face like a blast of warm, balmy air.

I started chattering to offset my nerves. He could not have been more gracious. He set his Spotify station to indie rock, and poured me a whiskey and ginger ale strong enough to relax me, yet weak enough to keep me from getting hammered, while I changed into my black top and pencil skirt.

I’d told Nick beforehand that I wanted him to shoot me actually shimmying out of my outfits. But when he said to me, after maybe 15 minutes of snapping my picture, “it’s time to get out of those clothes,” I felt suddenly vulnerable, despite being the shameless exhibitionist that I am.

Getting naked in front of a female photographer is a little like walking around in a ladies locker room. Getting naked in front of a male photographer — and one with a palpable sexual presence — is another experience altogether.

Nick’s gaze was penetrating, but professional. So in one swift hold-my-nose-and-jump move, I pulled my top over my head and spent the next few hours running my hands over my progressively less-clothed body.

Some photographers take on the role of observer, but Nick was right in there with me, a part of the scene. It was impossible not to be aware of the fact that we were a man and a semi-nude, slightly liquored-up woman, alone in a room. What unfolded was a creative collaboration that evoked the qualities of great sex: desire, fantasy, spontaneity, playfulness, and seduction.

My hands naturally found their way to my hips, and inside the elastic of my underwear. Nick liked what he saw in the camera, so he told me to do anything that involved sticking my hands down my polka-dot panties.

After awhile, he told me to turn around. There was no implied “if you want to” in his directive. It was a command, the same command I hear in my most cherished erotic experiences. I’d felt more comfortable than I’d imagined standing topless in front of him. But turning to face the wall, and to step into a submissive position, required a kind of trust that I’d only reserved for lovers.

I don’t remember how long the shoot lasted. It was over when I essentially collapsed on the floor. We hung out and talked for awhile. I may, or may not, have had a little more liquor. Then I put on my clothes, kissed him on the cheek, and walked out the door.

It was a surreal experience, sharing such an intimate, charged few hours with a man who was essentially a stranger. But hundreds of photos later, it was clear that he captured the core of my sexuality, and the woman that I have grown to be.

Photography by Nick Holmes

Earlier on Huff/Post50:

Human beings have always had a hard time finding the “right” person. Back in prehistory, a lot of potential relationships were ruined by the untimely demise of a prospective mate, due to being eaten by large, out-of-control mammals. The unsuspecting (and single) ones who survived were often hunted down and captured by singles on the prowl.

After people reached a point in which they were able to live away from hungry mammals and therefore survive a bit longer, arranged marriages were invented. These arranged marriages assured that everyone would have a mate. They worked, as long as one didn’t care what the mate looked like or what kind of personality they had or if they had any strange habits.

The next leap forward occurred when people decided they wanted to choose their own mates. This was the first time in history when people were heard to say, “There is nobody interesting to meet in this town.” Worse, if the town were really small, the comment would be, “There is nobody I’m not already related to in this town.”

Sometimes, friends would know someone perfect. Sometimes an aunt would have a friend who had a child who would be a great fit. Sometimes, someone at church would turn out to be The One. Eventually, one way or another, people would get paired off and would spend the next 20 or 30 years not having to bathe or wear clean clothes in order to attract a mate.

The advent of technology suddenly allowed people to meet and form relationships, without being at the mercy of someone who knew a nice single person. Better yet, it meant that one didn’t even have to be nice oneself, in order to make someone want to fix them up. Like our ancestors of prehistory, one was set free in cyberspace to hunt down and capture any unsuspecting and unprotected single person who came within range.

But meeting someone and forming a relationship with them was a joy that, in many cases, had a relatively short shelf-life. Once the relationship really got going, the next hurdle was how to end it. Again, technology has come to the rescue.

People used to have to do something definite to end a relationship. Many people preferred to do this in person. In prehistory, one could throw one’s mate onto the path of a charging mammoth. After the advent of writing, one could write a break-up letter. After phones were invented, one could make a break-up phone call. There was always the option of joining the army, or the hope that the other person would do so.

Technology has created what relationship researcher Scott Stanley dubs the “soft breakup.” This is a breakup that is known to only one member of the two-person relationship. The other member is left in a quasi-state of communication, something like a flawed Skype connection, in which one party sees the other, who only sees a black box. They are still in contact, but not in the same way.

Compared with being thrown onto the path of a large mammal or enduring a wall of silence, a friendly text message here and an email there can take the edge off a breakup. “The soft breakup gives us a new way of saying ‘I don’t want to date you, but let’s try to be friends,'” says Galena Rhoades, a clinical psychologist who frequently collaborates with Stanley on research. “Having the option to do a soft breakup might motivate people to get out of a relationship they know is a dead-end.”

The following are some ways to use technology to achieve a successful soft breakup:

1. Make the shift from person-to-person email to including the soon-to-be ex only in group emails. The best emails for this purpose are massive forwards with jokes and/or warnings about toxic chemicals contained in popular food products.

2. Send the soon-to-be ex a notice that you are having problems with your email and ask them to communicate with you only through Facebook.

3. Submit a Facebook photo update that includes yourself with another person who is the same sex as your soon-to-be-ex. Include a caption that says “My new friend.”

4. Wish the soon-to-be ex happy birthday only on Facebook. Write something like “Hoping you have the best birthday celebration ever!”

5. Start tweeting about relationship. Examples: “The only relationship that matters is the one we have with ourselves.” “We grow by being alone.” “Every relationship contains the seeds of its end”

The bottom line is that there is no way to execute the perfect dump, whether hard or soft. Just ask anyone who threw their mate onto the path of a charging mammoth and was then consumed himself.

Earlier on Huff/Post50: