Some road trip pictures...UPDATE!!!

From Crackle: quick sand hunt

I plan to answer all your comments tomorrow and wanted to post a few pictures of my road trip with my parents!

Being half Naked on TV...and loving it!

I just posted an entry on Bold and Beautiful expressing how interesting it is that whenever my parents come to town I am some how half naked on national TV...??? but I know, I know what you are going to say.

You'll say that I am half naked most of the time on Bold and Beautiful and so it's only a question of playing the odds.

Fair enough, but when I am sitting right next to my parents somehow all that rationale goes right out the window!

But, I'll admit, I would take a racy Donna over a modest one any day of the week!

On the B&B blog, I mentioned this really interesting thing that happens to my mom...whenever she watches the show she starts to think that I really am Donna? Now I of course know she is half playing with me, but it is kinda funny! Even after the scene she kept asking "you weren't really naked were you?"....Now, I wont answer that!

So, I am with my parents in California this week and traveling with them to Palm Springs and in and around LA. They love coffee, so we have been to a few coffee shops! And early in the morning too!

We are on the road right now and I am making my sister type this!

I'll send her pictures along the way, and ask her to post them. Most of the pictures are coming from my blackberry so they might not be great but hopefully you will get the idea and feel like you are with us!

And if you have any fun road trip stories - TELL ME! I'd love to hear them!

And if you want to see the Bold and Beautiful entries...go to my Official Bold and Beautiful Blog!

Singing in the New Year..updated with singing video!!!!

I just arrived back to Los Angeles after a full week on the East Coast. It was loads of fun! I traveled around to every one's houses to hang out and eat!

Yesterday my aunt Margie and uncle Gino hosted the Gareis family at their lake house where we broke out the x-box and played rock star for hours! I've decided this is my favorite new toy...I'll be sure to post a video soon of our singing, which..ahem..wasn't stellar but really really fun. Here are a few pictures of this amazing party!!! And the video is below...!!!!

Happy Holidays and I strongly suggest singing in the new year, I know that's what I plan to do!

Feeding fellow cast mates a Holiday Short Rib Stew

I think you know I love to feed people.

I do.

It’s the Sicilian genes (remember we come from Militello in Val di Catania), I suppose. So this year I decided I would share a wonderfully delicious Holiday Short Rib Stew with my cast mates. It’s super easy to prepare but does take a really long time. I got the recipe from my friend Amy, who you might remember likes to throw dinner parties all the time (remember the pool party where people went in with their clothing- yeah, that Amy). Anyway, according to her, the key is to cook this slowly. It allows the meat to absorb the tomato juice and become super tender. If you decide to make this, I’d love to hear what you think of the recipe, and if you have modifications or suggestions! Let me know. From what I could tell the Bold and Beautiful Cast masts loved it...so, hopefully that will inspire you to give it a try!

Holiday Short Rib Stew

1 tablespoon olive oil
4 heaping tablespoons of crushed garlic
10 pieces of short ribs or 1¾ pounds of chuck beef roast
1 head of garlic, cloves peeled and outer skin discarded, and cloves cut in half
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried oregano
½ tablespoon table Salt, plus more to taste at the end
3 turns of a pepper mill
1 cup of red wine
2 32-ounce cans crushed tomatoes
3 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cups of sliced mushrooms
1 handful of finely chopped fresh basil leaves
1 handful of finely chopped fresh oregano leaves
Your favorite bread

Preheat the oven to 325F, with the oven rack set in the middle.

In a heavy ceramic Dutch oven, drizzle olive oil on the bottom of the pan. Spread bottom of pan with the crushed garlic.

On a clean surface, pierce the meat with a sharp knife and stuff the half garlic cloves into it. Place the meat into the Dutch oven and cover it with the dried basil, dried oregano, salt, and pepper. Pour 1/2 of the wine and half of the tomatoes over beef and then top it with the chopped onions.

Place the lid on the Dutch oven and place it in the oven to cook for 4 to 5 hours.

At this point, the meat should fall off the bone and be super tender. Remove the meat from the Dutch oven and de-fat and de-bone it. As you are doing this, make sure to keep it covered and warm. Foil works really well. Place the meat back into the Dutch oven and add in the mushrooms, the remaining wine and tomatoes. Stir everything together and cook the meat for another 30 minutes at 375F (note the oven temperature needs to be raised).

When the stew is done cooking, place it on the stove top and add in the fresh basil and oregano. Taste and season with salt if necessary. Serve immediately with bread!

And if you want to see the Bold and Beautiful holiday gingerbread house...go to my Official Bold and Beautiful Blog!

A Dressing Room and A ruthless holiday gift tradition

Ok, first the dressing room...I love my dressing room at the Bold and Beautiful set…It’s cozy and full of really neat things. Recently I received some pretty cool holiday gifts that you can see in this photo. I spend a lot of time in my dressing room while I am at the studio and I take that time to read, relax, and get ready for the next scene. As much as I would like, I usually don’t have family visit me when I am on the set. It makes me a little nervous and so that makes it harder to concentrate! Do you ever have that problem when you are doing something and it makes a difference who is watching you from the sidelines? Or is it just me??

Ok, now the ruthless holiday gift tradition...

As the holidays draw near, I am thinking about what I can get for this neat family game we play. Our entire family usually does a holiday gift game which has caused fights and all kinds of drama! Just up my alley! It goes like this. To participate, you put in a wrapped gift worth about $20-$30. You than select a number from a hat. Your number tells you what order you get to pick a gift from the pile. The first person picks a gift and unwraps it for everyone to see. The second person gets to take that gift and send the person they took the gift from back to the gift pile to pick another gift. And so on and so on. So having a higher number is the best because you can have a pick from all the opened presents, sending that person back to the pile.

It can get very dicey when there is one thing that everyone wants. And when family heirlooms of no real retail value but sentimental value work their selves into the pile! And if we are very lucky, in the end, when everyone has their gift—for better or worse and all the drama in the world—it’s usually smiles all around!

Tell me about your family traditions and what you think of our game?!!

How many types of kisses are there?

On my Bold and Beautiful Blog I just wrote about the different types of kisses that Donna has had (it should be up some time today)...

For Donna, so far, I have this list:

Revenge Kiss
Love Kiss
Guilty Kiss
Desperate Kiss
Friendly Kiss
Fake Kiss
Grateful Kiss
Motherly Kiss

Surely there must be more...can you help me figure this out...

And some have asked, "what's the real difference between when this happens in real life and when you are acting?" For me, when I act them out, the emotions have to be the same as in real life. I guess what I have learned is that to make these kisses convincing, I really have to be in that state of mind...Speaking of which, how many of you saw what happened yesterday to poor Donna? Eric KISSED Stephanie!

Wasn't that beyond shocking that poor Donna is OUT! Listen, even my own parents called me totally shocked saying (and they know the show isn't real, but still...) "What the heck is Donna doing letting Eric slip away and kiss someone else?!"

Now based on last week's voting, 40% of you are cheering that Eric dumped Donna...

Poor Donna, will she ever get a break? And who else will she be kissing? Or maybe for now, she'll be licking her wounds and watching others kiss from the sidelines...

Where in the World...

For fun this week, I thought it might be neat to post some pictures and to have you guess who these people are in some cases and where they are or what they are doing. I don't want to give anything away, so let's see if the pictures speak for themselves...(and yes, if you read my blog and know a little about me...you'll be able to figure this out...) Good luck!