Today is my lovely wife Alicia’s birthday and so yesterday my side of the family decided to take her out for a pre-birthday dinner. Her pick was “anything Peruvian” so my sister recommended that we try out La Perla, which is known for its Peruvian seafood and assorted cuisines. We feasted on [literally] a boatload of assorted seafood, some very tasty papa a la huancaina and finally some seco de carne, which happens to be Ali’s favorite.

As always, food and family meshed together to form a great time so we had a blast.

Below is a picture of today’s recipe which I have personalized and perfected over the years. It’s not exactly a “classic” recipe but that’s because I have improvised using more common ingredients. Enjoy and comments/criticisms are always welcome!

Pictured here is some anticuchos (don’t ask what it really is) and our papa a la huancaina.

Ingredients:

• Potatoes
• Eggs
• 1 bag (they come 3 in a box) Original Club Crackers
• 1 large can of Carnation evaporized milk
• 1 box of Philadelphia cream cheese
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp of Aji amarillo
• Bijol, for color
• Salt to taste

Preparation:

1. Boil potatoes and eggs. Peel and slice.
2. In a blender mix milk, cream cheese, hot peppers, diced garlic and bijol.
3. Add crackers until sauce reaches desired thickness/consistency. I find that 1 bag is just the right amount.
4. Salt to taste.

Arrange potatoes and egg slices over a bed of lettuce and drench generously with huancaina sauce.

After a few weeks of scrambling, we were able to successfully launch phase one of the U.S. Rayito De Sol website. Here’s a little info on them and their product (translated and edited by my lovely wife, Alicia).

Rayito de Sol, purveyor of the finest products in sun protection and tanning lotions in Argentina, has now expanded its borders to offer its sunscreen, bronzer, and instant color collections in the United States.

Rayito de Sol caters to meet the needs of diversely varying skin types and individual product preference. Browse our site to become familiar with Rayito de Sol SPF 18 sunscreen, Rayito de Sol Bronzage Instant Color sunless tanner, and Rayito de Sol Bronzer tanning cream.

Website was developed in WordPress and includes customized template and standard CMS integration.

Today we launched YadiRoseEvents.com; home of local Miami wedding planner YadiRose.

YadiRose has catered to hundreds of beautiful brides and coordinated countless weddings at the most prestigious venues throughout South Florida, from the Sheraton Bal Harbour Beach Resort, to the art inspired Rubell Beach House, to the Grande Biltmore Hotel.

Website was developed in WordPress and includes standard CMS integration, photo slideshows and customized audio player.

I’m currently working on two big projects that are keeping me quite busy on top of my usual workload.

• Black Tie Miami – A local, recently opened, high-end tuxedo rental company.
• UF Goods – A company created for students, business owners and homeowners looking for quality cost effective pre-owned furniture in Gainesville.

These sites are still very early in their development and are likely to undergo some slight/major overhauls before they are officially “live.” I’ll probably post more about them when they’re closer to that stage.

If you have any questions or want to make an offer feel free to contact me.

Line 6 Spider III Guitar Amplifier Half Stack with SPIII75HD Head and 412 Cabinet

75 Watt head with 4×12 cabinet with Custom Celesion speakers.

Manufacturer’s Description for Line 6 Spider III Guitar Amplifier Half Stack with SPIII75HD Head and 412 Cabinet
The Line 6 Spider III Half Stack gives you many of the features of the larger Line 6 models at a great price. The Spider III HD75 delivers 4 remarkable amp channel models with Clean, Crunch, Metal, and Insane all dialed in by an amazing team of artists. Six Smart Control FX (two simultaneous) including, Phaser, Chorus/Flanger, Tremolo, Sweep Echo, Tape Echo, and Reverb are all dialed in and ready to go. Features also include a CD/MP3 input jack and a headphone/recording output. Spider III HD75 also includes a footswitch jack that’s compatible with the FBV2, FBV Express, and FBV Shortboard foot controllers.

The Line 6 Spider III 4×12 Cabinet is a slanted cab with four 12-inch Custom Celestion Speakers.

Line 6 Spider III HD75 Features:

• 75 Watts
• 4 remarkable amp channel models
• 6 Smart Control FX
• Headphone/Direct out
• Footswitch jack
• CD/MP3 input jack

Asking Price: $400 OBO

I’ve honestly lost track of the number of times I’ve made and remade this website. It started as a poor man’s online web comic back in… December 1999? Since then it’s slowly evolved and devolved from additional failed attempts at comic strips to half-assed attempts at comedy blogging to its current state: an established web presence for my freelancing gig. I’ve said this before but I’m really happy with the way this one turned out. I hope it sticks and I don’t end up hating the design in two weeks. Time will tell.

Enjoy! Tell your friends!

Got my new business cards this week. I’ve got to say I’m pretty excited to have them. Hopefully it means that I’ll be able to start networking and establishing myself as a full-on freelancer. Also, this may be the start of my long overdue journey towards self-employment and freedom from the rat race I call my [professional] life… but let’s not start counting our chickens and so on just yet.

This also means I’m going to have to rework my website to match my new branding. I may also have to stop centering my blog/website around fart jokes and extravagant cheeses. So please don’t be scared away if I start sounding a little more professional around here. This is still my website and if I can’t have it be a balanced and accurate representation of myself then there’s no point to having it up, amiright?

Well, Happy Friday to everyone. Enjoy that first drink to the fullest, but be careful with the last one.

Picked up my highly anticipated copy of Dead Rising 2 today. And while I was at Best Buy, I couldn’t help but to surrender to some other impulse buys: Iron Man 2 (which Ali hasn’t seen) and Superman/Batman APOCALYPSE. I’m giddy like a school girl.

Oh, and the APOCALYPSE movie came with another Supes figurine (first pic) to add to my collection of desk ornaments. BAM!

For your viewing and mocking pleasure:

And, yes, I have more at home.

It’s no surprise to anyone that Ali and I are major foodies. In fact, for those who don’t know the story, our first “date” was an impromptu night of preparing ceviche and papa a la huancaina together, drinking wine and playing Rock Band. Cooking has always been an important contributor in bringing friends and families together. From family breakfast before school to Thanksgiving to holiday BBQs and cookouts, everybody loves an invitation with the promise of [free] food.

For me cooking is an escape. A way to wind down after a day of… unpleasantries. It relaxes me and helps me center myself. In short, I just dig it.

Every once in a while I feel like experimenting with a new dish to add to the Espinoza menu so I pick up the phone and call upon the infinite knowledge of culinary wizardry that is my mom. This week I thought I would try my hand at a classic Peruvian dish simply known as tallarines verdes (pesto spaghetti). So I got mom’s recipe, bought the ingredients and promised Ali a dish to knock her socks off. The picture above was the DELECTABLE result.

So here’s a quick walkthrough of how I accomplished it. I’m not really one to be too careful about measurements so these numbers may vary.

Ingredients:

• 2 bunches of Basil leaves
• 2 bunches of Spinach leaves
• 1 box of Philadelphia cream cheese (250g)
• 2-3 cloves of garlic (or 3-4 if you’re a garlic fiend like us)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Spaghetti noodles

Instructions:

1. Boil your noodles until tender.
2. In a blender or food processor puree the basil, spinach, cream cheese and garlic.
3. Add olive oil until the puree is saucey and not too thick.
4. Salt and pepper to taste.
5. Drain noodles and mix in a pot with the puree
6. DEVOUR.

It was actually much simpler than I thought it would be. I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Peruvian food. It doesn’t get much easier than spaghetti!

As for the steak, it’s up to your personal preference. We made ours cuban-style. Marinated it overnight in mojo and then fried it on the pan with all-seasoning and yellow onions. Enjoy!