just waitin' for the juice to flow

2009-08-24T19:26:00.002-04:00

Happy Birthday Rob!
I'm celebrating with homemade pork fried rice, ODD NOTION summer 09, and a Judas Priest soundtrack. Life is good.
Rebby is home for the time being...well, she's not HOME right now, she's working a late shift, but she is not out of town. In fact, we actually got to spend the ENTIRE DAY TOGETHER yesterday! We celebrated that fact by driving out Rt 51 and buying a new mattress. Yes indeedy. I would like to send a special shout out to Dan at Mattress World for being so delightfully nonplussed about it. He was a little bit nervous, like brand new sales guy nervous, but the fact that we were two ladies buying a mattress didn't seem to phase him at all. In fact, he really seemed to like us and got a little excited to show us features of a lot of different mattresses. He invited us to lie on all of them if we wanted to. Hee hee! We settled on a Sealy Courtland Square Firm mattress. We did lay on a bunch of them...including a Tempur-pedic which freaked me out completely. Those things feel like they are ALIVE. I felt a little bit like I was being swallowed. Not cool. Our Sealy is nice and firm but with a pillow top. I am hoping they'll deliver it tomorrow, but I might have to leave work early some day this week. I also need to do some important rearranging of some items in the bedroom before I invite strangers in. :)
Besides the mattress shopping, we stopped at the Goodwill where I got 5 alcohol themed teeshirts for work. I actually found a Magic Hat shirt, a Guinness shirt, a shirt for Barefoot Wines, and one that simply says KEG KILLER. That I find Hi-la-rious. Oh, the fifth one isn't actually alcohol themed...it just says Hawaii. Also got a really large stoneware bowl for bread dough, a pile of butterknives for the restaurant, and some presents for rebby: a coffee thermos and a little ipod carrying case with built in speakers. All in all a very good trip to the goodwill.
Oh yeah, we also stopped at Best Buy for Mighty Boosh. Unfortunately they didn't have season #2 but I got season one and three. Oh yeah, and we stopped at the Dormont Record Exchange where I found season 3 of Aqua Teens. I've got a lot of comedy to watch.
We were out Dormont way to have breakfast with Dad and the siblings and nephews and Aunt Sandy who was in town for Shannon's baby shower. The breakfast was a little out of control: biscuits with eggs, sausage, sausage gravy, chocolate gravy (yes, you read that right---tasted like pudding) blackberry gravy (delicious!) wild honey, apple butter, blueberry jam, and lots and lots of coffee. Unfortunately the biscuits came out of a can---if I had known that was happening I definitely would have offered to bake them. But there was such an array of stuff to put on top that it didn't really matter. We hung out with them for a while and then headed out on our adventures.
Tomorrow I have the day off, besides having to go to the strip and maybe meeting Alan for coffee. I'll try to get a little review of our dinner at the casino together....

2009-08-18T19:23:00.003-04:00

Wow, I totally dropped the ball there. Can't believe I didn't manage to throw up an Alice review. Oh well....at this point it seems a little ridiculous, but I also feel like I should do it for my own sense of completion and so I can look back on it later. Maybe tomorrow.
What I am DEFINITELY doing tomorrow, though, is going to an introductory lecture on Zazen and THEN going to see How to Cook Your Life and afterwards to a reception where the subject of that film will be present. This is one of those "most thrilling/most terrifying" moments of your life kind of things. Edward Espe Brown made me into the cook I am today, which if you know me or have been following this blog at all, you know is pretty much how I define myself. I'm really not much of a rock star anymore. I'm certainly not much of a writer. But I am a fierce cook and a fierce gardener and I am extremely PASSIONATE about food, and the first spark of this passion was ignited by Tassajara Cooking. This edition came out in 1986 and I am pretty sure I got it then, at the hippie co-op grocery store under my hippie co-op dorm. Here is my favorite passage from the book:
"Whatever is done will not make a cucumber more of a cucumber or a radish more of a radish. Cucumber is cucumber, radish is radish. What is done may make a vegetable more suitable to some particular taste--that's the usual way, to see what taste we want. But why not ask the cucumber, why not ask the radish? What is the taste it would like to express?"
Seriously hippie talk, but I have tried to keep it in the back of my mind in all my cooking. I think the simplest recipes are usually the best. I think molecular gastronomy and all that ilk is interesting, but I don't really think it is about nourishing. What I want to do is definitely nourish, and I first learned about the difference in reading through Edward's cookbooks.
So tomorrow I will go to a reception where he will be, and I will have the chance to meet him, and what will that be like? Is there something to say? Is it weird to ask a Zen priest to autograph your mildewy, broken spined, tomato splashed cookbook?

2009-08-04T22:11:00.002-04:00

Blue Oyster Cult/Alice Cooper August 1st 2009
Ohio State Fair Celeste Center

Wow, I started this blog years ago as a concert review blog! And here I am reviewing a concert again. It's been a long time Pittsburgh.
So anyway, as soon as this show was announced like four months ago I ordered tickets. Still managed to get somewhat crappy seats over to the extreme right side of the stage. When ordering I kept trying to maybe get second tier seats in the middle but the bot wouldn't allow it. :( In any case, it was nice to have a great view of the SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETER. Oh yes---she comes with every show at the Celeste Center.
Rebby and I hit the road at about noon and made it into Columbus at about 3:30pm (after a few construction delays.) It was a nice road trip, and we got to yell "Hare Krishna" into the canyon as we passed Moundsville WVA. Our Holiday Inn Express was just off the highway and we arrived without incident. Got to the room, unpacked the snack bag into the mini fridge, and immediately jumped in the jacuzzi. Ah.
Unfortunately this hotel did not carry VH1 Classic so we had to settle for some dance off show featuring troupes dancing to the works of Michael Jackson. Ho hum.
The jacuzzi was nice and we wilted ourselves for over an hour. Then got dressed and headed out for the fair.
The fair was right around the corner on the other side of the highway. By the time we actually got to our parking spot, though, we were practically back at the hotel. (I don't think it would have been possible to walk there, though, as it is a divided highway.) We parked and hiked across the muddy parking area to the fair entrance.
By this time we were both starving. Oh, and I realized I had forgotten my fair program back at the hotel. I had a map, but it proved useless. The upshot being the only agricultural displays we found were the sheep. We also didn't read the map carefully and ended up settling for some half decent cheesesteaks when we could have gone a few more feet and gotten some fantastic barbecue, or amish food, or something from the Taste of Ohio Cafe. Sigh. It's not that the cheesesteaks were BAD by any means. They just were not as good as something else might have been had we understood what all the fair had to offer. Sometimes being TOO HUNGRY clouds your judgement.
So after finishing our passable fair food we continued on to the MUTTON BUSTIN arena. I am not going to go into great detail about the MUTTON BUSTIN because the more I think about it the more it creeps me the hell out. Go and watch a youtube video about it. The youngest participant we saw was THREE YEARS OLD. I just think it's wrong.
From the Mutton Bustin we walked around the sheep show a bit, then checked out more of the food vendors, looking in vain for a bona fide apple fritter. No luck. Maybe it's just a northern Ohio thing. In the end I settled for an elephant ear but there was so much cinnamon sugar on it I could only manage half. So much for going buck wild on the fair food! rebby had a chocolate covered frozen banana and seemed to really enjoy it. We walked past the venue and saw lots of people already queued up, and the very cool LED marquee they had scrolling Alice's spider face and ALICE COOPER in big red letters. I started to get really excited--too excited to eat my elephant ear.
We finished up our treats and headed into the venue. Surprisingly, the venue itself was DRY as well as the fair. I think many people in the audience were surprised at that. I was more thrilled than anything at the thought of not having people getting up out of their seats every 20 minutes for beer, and no stupid drunk person behaviors. It was a nice change.
We walked all the way around the perimeter of the theater looking for the merch, and finally had to ask a security guard. Again surprisingly, they had the merch table set up INSIDE the concert hall! Never seen that before. We got in the very long line in front of a little girl in a top hat and big spider necklace with her parents. Saw several other folks with Alice eyes, but only one dude in ill fitting vinyl pants. A new record :) We finally got to the front of the line and the possibilities were endless. There were at least 5 different Alice t shirt designs, a couple of BOC shirts, stickers, bandanas, keychains, buttons, CDs....rebby and I each picked one of the Theatre of Death T Shirt designs, she got a bandana, I got a keychain, and we got a sticker set to share. There were a couple of other tshirt designs I really liked and if I end up getting to the Erie show I am definitely getting another one. Probably the trashes the world version.
So we gathered our merch and went back to our seats (luckily at the end of a row) to get ready for BOC. The stage was set with Alice's backdrop already, so we got a good look at the eyes. It looked a lot like the Eyes from the "Eyes" tour, only they didn't flash any lights. That's alright, there was plenty else to make up for it.
People watching at an Alice Cooper show is a lot of fun. I spotted a t shirt from the Elyria Harley Davidson store, several vintage Alice shirts, some BOC shirts, and the usual inexplicable ones like Paul McCartney and Heart. Huh? I saw one fellow wearing the Will Ferrel "more cowbell" t-shirt. Ha. One guy a couple rows up had a shirt proclaiming him to be a member of some hardcore BOC fan club. I wonder what he thought of the show....
Finally the lights went down and the BOC opening music montage started. It included, I kid you not, a clip from the "more cowbell" sketch. I found this very troublesome and immediately drifted into a consideration of the possibility that there could be folks in the audience who ONLY KNEW BOC FROM THIS SKETCH. Shudder. That can't be possible, right? Even if you didn't KNOW BOC, you at least have heard "Don't Fear the Reaper" on the radio before seeing this comedy sketch, right? Luckily, they came out on stage and launched into "The Red and the Black" and took my mind off of the philosophical problem.
Only, they played a sort of funk/blues version of the song, and Eric Bloom was being a real dorkwad. He wore a t shirt with a demonic poodle on it, and a leather vest over that. He was really, really trying too hard. Thankfully, Buck Dharma is awesome in direct proportion to Eric Bloom's doucheyness. Buck wore a white button down shirt, a black vest, his shades, and a guitar that appeared to be made out of swiss cheese. The other guys in the band are all hired guns (as I suppose most of BOC has been over the past 20 years judging from their website) including Rudy Sarzo on bass who seems to have played at least once in every band in existance since 1976. They played Before The Kiss (A Redcap)another weirdly bluesy version, and then Buck sang
Burnin' for You and I relaxed. Buck is just so cool. And his guitar is one of those standout guitar sounds no one else can do. Love it.
Next up was Cities on Flame, which was spectacularly sign language interpreted. If I see you in person, please ask me to demonstrate the sign language interpretation of this song. It got the crowd all pumped up and even I let my cynicism drop and danced around. Next up was a mind blower: Shooting Shark. Buck introduced it as "a patti smith song" which made it even more awesome. I had not thought of that song since the late 80s and wow, it's beautiful. Definitely my favorite moment of the BOC show.
Godzilla was next, and I was SO BORED that I left to get a sprite. Seriously, I have to say that BOC suffers for lack of beer. When I got back everyone was doing tedious instrumental solos. I started to get a headache, but I sucked down my sprite and got through it. Really? solos in a 45 minute set? Waste of my time. They finished with
(Don't Fear) The Reaper, of course, complete with some joker stationed behind the speaker stack wailing on the cowbell. It made me pretty sad to think that BOC is not just a nostalgia act, but a self consciously jokey nostalgia act. It was way better seeing them at the Mansfield rib fest.
(back with Alice in a moment...)

2009-07-20T06:54:00.002-04:00

FINALLY got confirmation that rebby can go to see Alice Cooper and BOC with me on August 1st at the Ohio State Fair. Before she could say another word I booked a king sized deluxe jacuzzi suite. I have my priorities.
This summer has been all about the out of town gigs for her...she's gone at least Mon-Fri, and occasionally over the weekend as well. This past weekend she was home but I had to work all day Saturday and Sunday, and it's gonna be like that next weekend too. So by the time August 1st rolls around, we will have gone three solid weeks without spending any time together at all (aside from the Dormont steak party, a few hours yesterday morning, and sleeping.)
I am determined that we will do NO CHORES that weekend and instead will hop in the truck super early Saturday morning, have a nice road trip to Columbus, poke around the city a little bit, check into our hotel, enjoy all it has to offer, spend a few hours wandering the Ohio State Fair eating fair food and looking at giant prizewinning zucchini and pigs, then settle in for a restorative rock show.
Back to the jacuzzi, sleepin, and then a leisurely breakfast somewhere and back on the road. I might even turn my cellphone off for the whole weekend. That is how serious I am about this.
So the next hurdle we are still trying to jump is the September vacation hurdle. She still has not gotten a confirmation that she can come for the whole vacation, and I am running out of patience with her superiors. If I don't hear anything in the next day I am just going to book my plane ticket and hope I can get her on the same flight later if it turns out she can go. Can't wait around forever when I have GREEN CHILE in my future!

2009-07-19T21:30:00.002-04:00

Law and Order, Toddler Division

Last night rebby and I went to Dormont for steaks after I worked all day at the Pittsburgh Small Press Festival. It turned out that dad was having a giant steak party, with not only my bro and sisters and the nephews, but also bro-in-law (who happened to be having a birthday) and his parents, sister and her kid, and their grandmother. Whew! Oh and plus Kirby the dog. It was quite a party, and the combined racket of a 2.5, 3 and 6 year old is deafening. The moms managed to get the boys to eat a few bites of dinner before running off into the house in search of mischeif.
The adults were able to eat most of our dinner in peace with only the occasional shriek until Brady (the 2.5 year old) came out on the porch with a cheeseball in his mouth. How did he get a cheesball, when the cheesballs were located on the mantel?
Bro-in-law Ron went inside to investigate. After surveying the scene he determined that someone must have climed up onto the arm of the overstuffed leather chair, stood on tippytoes, knocked over the stuffed willie nelson, reached past the pretzel rods, and grabbed the giant jar of cheeseballs. The boys were not talking. No one fessed up to the crime, and they were all enjoying the spoils. Hardened criminals, all looking out for each other's back.
UNTIL......about twenty minutes later tyler(the three year old) come out of the house shrieking that Brady (the 2.5 year old) took his popsicle right out of his hand. Tyler's mom got him calmed down just as it was starting to rain and the adults decided to go inside. As we are moving inside, Brady's mom asks Brady if he did indeed steal Tyler's popsicle. Brady shook his head no. Brady's mom then asked him where the popsicle was, and he pointed to the chair. So the adults start lifting the cusions on the chair, looking for melted popsicle. No evidence. Then, Kyle (my bro) finds a popsicle stick on the floor, next to the chair. Was this Tyler's popsicle? Did Tyler actually eat the popsicle, and then try to get another one by libeling Brady? Did Brady actually steal the popsicle and eat it? Again Brady was questioned, and again he claimed his innocence and pointed to the chair. At this point both the accuser and the accused ran out of the room, so we turned to the witness--Tristan, 6.
Tristan immediately claims "I didn't see it!" and tries to run out of the room as well. He is detained by Aunt Stacy, who asks again what happened. Breaking under the pressure, Tristan exclaims "Tyler tripped and fell and the popsicle went under the chair!!!!" and runs out of the room. So the adults once again set about locating the missing popsicle. Kyle looks and doesn't see it. Stacy looks and doesn't see it. The chair is moved slightly, but there isn't much room to pull it out from the wall. So the flashlight is called in, and I go to retrieve it from its secret location (the flashlights have to be hidden or else they are turned into light sabers. This is how we roll at the Johnston house) Stacy shines the flashlight under the chair and there, all the way at the back, is the missing purple popsicle, half melted and completely covered in dog hair.
Mystery solved, all parties are acquitted, everyone gets a new popsicle, and the night goes on.
And in just a few short months, two new babies are going to be added to the equation. Wow.

2009-06-25T21:10:00.002-04:00

Sorry to end my blogging silence on a sad note, but I am feeling weirdly affected by the death of Michael Jackson and I just want to talk about it a little bit. Share some of my Michael Jackson memories. I'm in the middle of downloading a bunch of MJ and J5 songs to put together a mix for the Quiet Storm tomorrow. I wasn't even paying attention to how many or how much they are going to cost. (yes, I pay for my downloaded music. Amazon mostly) Oh well, I have hardly spent any money in the past two weeks.

Anyway, memory one is sitting in my kitchen in my Greenfield apartment. This is probably 1987 or 88. I've got the radion on...hard to say what station it might have been. I usually listened to WXXP but it most likely was a more pop oriented station. They played some Michael Jackson song---I think it was "Rock With You" but it might have been something (not Thriller) from Thriller. My apartment mate came in the kitchen and sat down at the table with me. There was an uncomfortable silence for about half the song, and finally one of us (I can't say for sure which) blurted out "I love this song!" and the other one immediately said "Oh me TOO!" this was a major bonding moment for us. We never mentioned it again.

Memory #2 is really a series of memories, for it seems like this happened at every dance party I either had or attended througout the end of the 90s until now. What this is, is, dirty dancing to something off of Thriller (PYT most of the time) with Jim Mueller. I remember one party in particular (at Julie Chill's Regent Square place) where the dancing got really dirty. In general, I don't think I've ever had or attended a dance party where some MJ jam didn't bring everyone to the dance floor.

Memory #3 goes all the way back to childhood. My sister and I had the J5 album above (Lookin Through the Windows) and we listened to it almost as much as the Donny and Marie album. I am listening to some of those songs right now and they are the ones that are really making me tear up. I'm pretty sure that record got cracked...but I replaced it at a yard sale recently.

I don't have a memory of watching the iconic "Billie Jean" performance (in 1983 I was begining my new wave odyssey and I probably wouldn't be caught dead watching Michael Jackson with anything but disdain.) I was definitely in the camp of being totally pissed off at Eddie Van Halen for performing with him on "Beat It." It took me quite a while to get over the hipster snobbishness to realize that dance music is IMPORTANT. Getting people to move their bodies and have a good time is important. No body did it like Michael.

I'm not going to say anything about the weirdness. Except the Lisa Marie Presley thing. That was weirdness that kind of affected me. The rest of it...I don't look forward to the merciless dissection of his personal life that is inevitable in our celebrity obsessed culture. I kind of want to hide under a rock till it blows over.

But mostly, I want to dance around my kitchen to "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough."
That's what I'll be doing tomorrow.

2009-06-12T09:38:00.003-04:00

Oh goodness. Just got a call from rebby that she is going to Atlanta on Sunday for TWO WEEKS. At which point she will return and DRIVE TO CHICAGO for another couple weeks. Cripes. I guess I need to get used to being a single girl. I guess I need to get a basket for my bicycle so I can haul some groceries around. I guess I should really get a cat so I don't talk to myself.
So, last night we went downtown to see Meshell Ndegeocello. It was a really wonderful show--I only really knew a couple of the songs she did, but her performance was so full of life and joy and yep, sex, that I couldn't stop moving the whole time. Her band is super tight and jazzy, and for the most part she didn't play the bass. Every once in a while though she would get really excited and pick it up and just wail. It was really awesome and I'm so glad we went.
It was also the premier event at the August Wilson Center, which is looking really good. They still have a lot of work to do on the building but the theater is amazing. There was a little reception before the concert and I discovered a new favorite thing that I never would have expected: Barefoot Wines Muscato. I'm not usually one to pick up a glass of white wine on purpose, but for some reason I reached for this (maybe because I was hot and it looked refreshing) and man, is it good! It is really sweet, so I wouldn't want it with a heavy meal, but with a nice crisp salad I think it would be perfect. I'm gonna go look for it at the Wine Store for sure.
Before the little wine reception, rebby and I stopped in to what now seems to be called the 941 Saloon(formerly Liberty Ave Saloon) for a beer. For some reason which I can't begin to explain, we NEVER go to gay bars in Pittsburgh, even though we like to check them out when travelling. The Saloon did not disappoint..they played MIA and JT and there were lots of flirty boys there. It made us both wish we could go to a dance party.
Even before the gay bar, we went down to check out the installation of our friend Colin which is part of the Three Rivers Arts Festival. He made some amazing post apocalyptic mermaids out of barbies, and really gorgeous prints and mirror pieces and altar pieces. Apparently, a performance artist from San Fracisco wants to bring his work out there--awesome! I'll just be glad to have him back in Pittsburgh soon.
Today is still technically staycation, but I actually need to go in to work to do some stuff for the Mattress Factory tonight and brunch on Sunday. I am hoping I can get in there and do my stuff without having to deal with what is going on in the kitchen--wish me luck.

2009-06-11T14:50:00.002-04:00

Today has been a very productive day so far. I've got most of the playlist together for Pride Brunch! and I've spent several more hours digging through stuff in my room. One more big leaf bag of old papers. Almost an entire file box full of empty file folders now! Also, an entire file box full of camera related stuff. Probably 10 old rolls of film I never got developed, my old joycam (sniff!) my old 3-D camera (sniff!) two broken film cameras, four or five disposable cameras(I think they're all exposed, so I need to get those developed too) video camera tapes, accessories for my old digital camera. I think I'm just going to start getting two rolls developed a week to see what's on these old rolls and cameras. I have no idea! One of them is from Provincetown, I think. It'll be fun!
So the gay playlist has been really fun to create. I have a stack of CDs I still need to rip for a couple more songs--this CD burner, just like my old one, gets tired after about 5 CDs and I have to give it a rest. I downloaded a ton of stuff from emusic and itunes this morning--the classics, you know. Village People, Gloria Gaynor, Diana Ross, Sister Sledge, Melissa Ferrick (the dirtiest song I've ever heard, I think!) Right Said Fred. Ha! Also I ended up downloading the entire Pink Steel album, Out at the Devil. HA! It's so great. I've got to retrieve my Cher, Erasure, and Barry Manilow Cds from the Quizzle before I can finalize it, but I've got almost three hours worth ready.
Oh dear....that Melissa Ferrick song just came up in random rotation. It's even the album version which less dirty than the live one. Yikes.
I've got another couple hours before I head out for downtown to try to catch some arts festival action before Meshell Ndegeocello. Yikes again. It's gonna be one of those nights, I think.

2009-06-10T10:23:00.002-04:00

Well now, it's the halfway point in my staycation today. So far, so good. Today is serious smackdown on the office day---I've got the corner cleared out to move my shelving unit, after which time I will move the desk to the middle of the wall, hook up the new lamp from the media room, and start putting things back together. I have taken out two bags of trash so far, filled a big box with goodwill/yardsale/free stuff, and another big box with magazines to take downstairs and probably eventually recycle. A couple months ago I started a project of tearing pages out of magazines with recipes I liked, so I could recycle the rest of the magazine....didn't get too far with it, but it's a noble idea. It's incredibly hard for me to recycle the cooking magazines. But do I ever flip through them and cook anything out of them? No.
Harrumph.
Another project on the agenda for today (and I have a fighting chance--it's only 10:30!) is doing some major harvesting in the garden. Last night while I was gathering leaves for a salad I pulled up a few root veggies to see what I have to work with for the kimchee I want to get started today. Answer: nothin. The root veggies I pulled (carrots, beet, daikon) were so pathetically small I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture. Really, it's sad. I am a total failure at root crops. Well, maybe the potatoes did alright--one of the plants is completely yellow so I'm gonna dig that one up today. I think next year we'll have to mix some sand into the soil so it doesn't compact so much--the dirt gets rock solid between watering/rains and the poor root veggies just don't have a chance. We're good with leaves, and seem to do okay with fruits (tomatoes, peppers, peas, squashes) but the roots are just gonna be a no go this year, I think. I did pull a couple of decent sized radishes earlier, so maybe I can have some more success with them. Plus, I can try again in the fall. It's just a little disheartening to wait SO LONG for something and watch it grow massive leaves and then find only a tiny little root underneath. Bummer.
Still, turnip leaves will be nice in the kimchee even if I don't get any turnips to speak of. I've got some carrots in the fridge so those can go in the kimchee, and maybe I can find a radish that's ready. I've really got to get the three sisters in the ground soon--corn, pattypan squash, and black beans. Maybe tomorrow. The weather has still been a little spotty even though it's been 80+degrees in the afternoons...but I don't want to wait too much longer.
I've been staying in all week so far, but this afternoon I'll be venturing out at least to pick up Donovan from daycare with Jennie. Tomorrow I plan to go to the strip, check out some arts festival stuff, and then go see Meshell Ndegeocello in the evening. It's the official grand opening of the August Wilson Center. I'm really excited to check it out.
Ok! back to the grind. Oh! yesterday morning I spent a couple hours on the ole computerbox doing research for our vacation in the Land of Enchantment. Check out the del. icio. us links under newmex for some of my must sees.

2009-06-02T12:04:00.002-04:00

What I've Learned

When you are melting marshmallows in the microwave to put on top of your girlfriend's birthday cupcakes, do not step away to check facebook. Not even for one second.
This was a mistake, clearly. I ended up melting them on the stove with hershey bars and some whipping cream. It was sticky but turned out really good! I put it on top of some very simple devil's food cupcakes I made from a cupcake bakeshop recipe. They turned out really good.
So I made the cupcakes Sunday night, while listening to my new favorite DeeGay Classic Internet Radio. It's a station from Italy that plays "the songs who gay people loves." So cute! There's a lot of international dance music mixed with stuff you might expect (Erasure) and stuff that's a big surprise (Phil Collins?) Anyway, the cupcake project was painless. I even managed to finish the laundry and dishes while they were baking.
Monday was a pretty chill day at work. It was my first Monday of exclusive prep, with Steve opening the line. I spent most of the morning walking him through how to make a good prep list very, very patiently, so hopefully I won't have any more of those Thursday mornings where I just want to kill everybody. The plan was after work I would stop at the farmer's market, then head home to top the cupcakes and wait for my birthdaygirl's return. At which point we would get gussied up and go somewhere nice for dinner and beers.
Unfortunately, as I was getting ready to head out to the farmer's market, I got a text from her that she was delayed in york and probably wouldn't be home till almost 10pm. Bummer! I felt really bad for her, as the delay was due to someone else's techincal oopsies and she had to spend an extra 4 hours working it out.
Our dinner plans squashed, I started walking toward the farmer's market and realized "hey! I haven't eaten since that rye toast at 8am!" And plus, "I had chips and salsa for dinner last night at 9pm!" Clearly, something had to happen. So I changed my course and went to the Sharp Edge. It was the kind of hungry that called out for Guiness and Hop Devil Cheese Soup in a breadbowl. So I shelled out the insane $7 for it, but I gotta say it was super good. I missed it. The Salmon BLT was not as good, and $11. Sharp Edge really is overpriced! I mean, if everything on the menu was locally sourced/organic/sustainable, I would have no problem paying those prices. But for Sysco stuff? Nah. So it has become a really infrequent stop. Anyway, I took a chance and contacted Jennie to see if she had filled her Monday night babyfree dance card yet, and she had not. So I packed up a 6 pack of expensive beer for rebby's later return, and hoofed it over to Kelly's to meet Jen. Bar hopper! That's me! I had two East End Monkey Boys and by the time we left, I was LOOPED! We had a really nice talk though. It felt like summer to me. For some reason going out for drinks is so much more of a summer social activity for me. I guess going out at all is more of a summer activity. As I stumbled to the bus stop, I passed by the progress on what is possibly the most exciting thing happening in walking distance to my home: Paris 66 Bistro. It's gonna be a crepes place/coffee place and they are really putting a lot of love into making it gorgeous. I kinda want to work there. Really, maybe part time evenings? Or maybe it will be enough just to hang out. In any case, they've got spices and plates in there so I am guessing as soon as the last of the fascade work is done it will be good to go. I can't wait!
I finally got home and got the beers in the fridge and got my stinky work/drinking clothes off, and set to work frosting the cupcakes. Which is when the marshmallow explosion happened. I was still drunk enough to nearly pee my panties laughing at myself. I got them done and frosted, though, then settled in to some internet to wait for rebby. She got home around 9:30pm, with pizza. I beered her up and she told me she was only home for one night---had a surprise drive to Washington DC this morning! Poor thing. I gave her a DVD of avant garde films from the 20s and 30s but of course that won't do her any good till she has an evening at home. And here I am alone again, with a bunch of beer and cupcakes. Sigh.
Today's big projects are all cerebral--I have to finalize menus for the mattress factory garden party, the pride brunch, and the father's day prix fixe dinner. Yikes! I just spent an hour and a half going through wikipedia's list of famous GLBT people. I think I've settled on the kitchy punny naming random things after celebrities method of menu creation. Like the Harvey Milkshake, The William S Burrito, and the couldn't be more perfect Genesis P-Orridge. Ha! I've got a huge list to mine for comedy gold. Did you know Johnny Mathis is gay? I didn't.
For father's day dinner, we're going to vegetarian and vegan versions of the "men's favorites" recipes from old betty crocker cookbooks. It should be really fun! But believe it or not, all this creativity is HARD WORK. Better get going.

2009-05-31T17:56:00.002-04:00

Holy Heck!
I almost put in a literal 9-5 gardening today. (I started closer to 10, and I took about an hour for lunch) Despite that marathon, I didn't accomplish everything on my gardening list. But I put a huge dent in it. Today I:
-planted more carrots, daikon, onions, scallions,and spinach
-transplanted 5 more brussels sprout plants
-put in my new tomato, basils, cilantro, dill, chamomile, and lemon balm from this past week's Trax farm visit with dad. While there I saw a sign about giving hothouse plants the porch treatment to get them used to the sun before planting them, so that's what I did. I think it might have done the trick! (fingers crossed)
-hand weeded the entirety of the bed along the side of the house. this took most of the day and was a giant pain in the ass, but oh so satisfying to see nice clean soil with only the things I planted in it. In the process I found several volunteer tomato plants, the largest of which I tried to replant in the tomato bed. I'm kinda excited to see if they make it!
-moved the exotic mints all to the back wall, and planted the two boxes closest to the house with lettuces, fennel, and rainbow chard. If they are successful, I'll switch their spots in the raised bed planter for summer veggies (cukes, eggplants, beans)
-pulled up a turnip! it is nothing to write home about--huge massive leaves and puny little root. I think if we are going to be successful with root crops we're going to have to mix some sand into the soil. I think it compacts too much and therefore it's hard for the plants to form nice big roots. I was really tempted to pull my one beet that made it from the first planting, but I'm gonna hold off. Anyway, tonight I'll be eating some turnip greens!
-pulled up a bunch of giant chard (which wasn't so giant--that's the name) to make room for more brussles sprouts. I don't know if I've mentioned it here before or not, but rebby and I have contrasting gardening styles and it's driving me a little batty. She plants in old skool long rows with spaces in between, whereas I am a fan of the "square foot" method of packing stuff into a square. With my method, it's easy for me to kneel down, out of the box if you will, to weed or thin or pick or plant. I did the majority of the new raised bed, and it's been easy for me to keep up with it. She planted these fordhook chard in there though, and it just threw me off with it's tightly packed row. Also, it was blocking the sun of a couple of brussels sprouts guys I had planted at the ends of the "row" (back when it was a square) Anyhow, I have a bunch more chard seeds and I think I'll plant some more in the side plot now that it's all weeded. I did not do the thinning and weeding in the greens plot that I wanted to, primarily because I just can't figure out how to get in there without crushing anything! So I'm gonna have to make tiny foot rebby take care of it. ;)
I *think* that's it. I seem to have done a good job with the sunblock which is a relief, because even though it has been extremely mild and pleasant all day, the sun was shining down right on me. Dried some sheets on the line for extra springy goodness.
Now it's time for a shower and then on to the kitchen cleaning and cupcake baking portion of the day. Hope yours has been as lovely!

2009-05-31T12:57:00.002-04:00

Taking a little break after three solid hours of gardening!
I'm doing all kinds of rethinking, and it feels good.
Put in my new tomato and basil and cilantro. Planted some bunching onions and shallots near to the onions I rescued from the back 40. Did a LOT of weeding, and I'm not done yet. I planted a few new carrots and daikons, but when I turned over the ground to plant more thousands of ants came pouring out. I am consulting the internet for advice. Last year I had the thousand ant problem in the compost and the internet suggested watering it....let's see what the internet says about ants in the garden....

2009-05-31T10:18:00.002-04:00

Happy Breakfast

I cannot believe how gorgeous this morning is. It's like the spring we didn't get at the begining of May. I've got lots of gardening to do, and then cleaning the kitchen and baking a birthday cake for my gal. Life is sweet!

2009-05-30T06:55:00.002-04:00

Whoa, it's been some rough weeks for blogging!
Sorry again about that. I honestly spend at least an hour on the computer EVERY DAY and I don't know why I can't bring myself to just type a few sentences about what I'm doing for my legions of fans (Smirk) and posterity. I blame Facebook, I guess.
Anyhoo, it's Saturday morning and I am going in to work the breakfast shift, and then when I emerge this afternoon I will be off until 8am Monday. I am tempted to make a list so as to make the most of my glorious unfettered Sunday, but I think instead I'll just roll with it, baby. Rebby is out of town until Tuesday in York, PA, so I'm on my own. I am hoping that the weather is pleasant enough that I can spend all day gardening and get the rest of the veggies settled. The couple days of rains this week have been so transformative and things are growing like MAD! I think it's finally warm enough consistently (even on the rainy days) that I can put in the summer veggies: cucumbers, beans, eggplant....which means I need to deal with the back 40. Which means I need to get some more dirt to throw on top of it. Can't carry much dirt home on my own, though...it's always somethin when it comes to gardening.
I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow of my enormous cabbages and all the greens that are blowing up. It's very inspiring.
Aside from the garden, there was the rebbyq Memorial Day weekend for her birthday (which is actually Monday--she has to spend it in a Motel 6 in York, PA. Poor Rebby!)
She grilled pork ribs, jerk chicken, some venison loin, and then Adam showed up with a ton of sausages. Lots of people were out of town so we thought we had way too much food, but it ended up being a nice sized party. I had my camera sitting on the table out back all day but didn't take one single picture(actually, before anyone got here I took a picture of the dandelion wine jug, but that's it) Silly. I had people drinking mojitos and mint juleps to try to put a dent in the mint which is spiraling out of control. We did put a nice dent in it, but of course with all the rain it's back to where it was. I am determined to spend the summer drinking mint tea.
The party was fun and didn't result in a ton of clean up, for which I was thankful. Also, I didn't get too drunk so I didn't feel awful the next day. I did however, smoke more than a few party cigarettes, so there was that. But for the most part it was all good, except for that I am still trying to deal with the leftovers. Help! My fridge is full of pork!
I've been spending a lot of time lately reading through concert riders to figure out what to make for the Mattress Factory Garden Party. The theme this year is Backstage Pass, and since I am really into themes, I'm trying to come up with some things from rock star catering riders that can be a)vegetarian and b) bite sized. So far I think I'm going to make tiny vegan manwhiches a la Marilyn Manson. That just cracks me up. Van Halen apparently liked three bean salad, apart from the famous M&Ms. I am assuming that the Mattress Factory is going to take care of the M&Ms and if they don't I am going to lodge a formal complaint. You can't have a backstage pass party without M&Ms. I'm sorry.
I am sad to report I STILL have not gotten on my bicycle! Between long hours and bad weather there just hasn't been a good time. Also, I have that stupid thing where I feel like I have to be GOING SOMEWHERE on my bike. That's just dumb. I need to just ride it around a little bit to get a feel for it, and then think about going somewhere. Hopefully this afternoon will be bike ride time.
I think that's about it for the scatterbrain report. As you can see, my world is pretty small these days. I like it that way.

2009-05-09T08:07:00.002-04:00

Jeez Louise, I'm a sucky blogger these days. Didn't even manage to finish writing about my awesome weekend and here it is the next weekend already!
I've been BUSY. You know, the usual. This week was extra busy because I had Cinco de Mayo dinner on Tuesday and we've got our first wedding of the season today. So this week has been a lot of long days at the restaurant, and when I get home from the restaurant I'm all about laying around on the couch watching TV. So there you have it.
Anyhow, a quick finish about last weekend: after all the good times in the morning, rebby got back from hunting and we decided to do some thrifting and then go to the dreaded South Side Works for Wolverine. The thrifting was very low-key good--we got a couple fancy bottles with stoppers for dandelion wine, and Kizmet, and a rotating spice rack, and some great cookbooks, and a couple new linen dresses and some fake chuck high tops(for me), and a new desk chair(rebby). I think that's it. So after all the thrifting we headed to the dreaded South Side Works and decided to check out the new Hofbrau Haus. Which was OK. Really more of a fantasy German experience for mall goers than anything authentic. The beer was OK, the food was OK....the main characteristic of the place seems to be lots and lots and lots of loud drunk people in one room. We opted to sit out on the patio, which was significantly less crowded with loud drunk people, and kind of plesant. They actually employ security guards to make sure drunk people don't do anything stupid out in the beer garden, to give you some idea of the character of the place. Like I said, it was OK, but definitely not something I will have to experience again. It's Max's Allegheny for me all the way (at least until I finally get to the Kleiner Deutschmann)
We had about an hour to kill till the movie so we got our tickets and then wandered through Sur le Table (soooooo pricey!), sat around the fountain listening to white people play innocuous jazz, and then to Caribou Coffee for a pick me up. Where I was convinced the gothlet cashier was trying to put a spell on me, especially when she said I had to give her my name in order to get an iced coffee. Huh? Anyway, I survived.
The movie was very good. It was thrilling, but mostly it was a tender romance and personal history kind of thing which went to great lengths to show a)why Logan is so full of rage all the time and b)what an incredible body Hugh Jackman has. Seriously, I didn't noticed if the DP was male or female, but he or she was obviously popping huge boners (literal or figurative) the whole time. I was introduced to the mutant Gambit for the first time and he became my new favorite (though I'm sure if I were to rewatch X-Men II right now Magneto would go back to being #1. He's just that awesome) After the movie, we came home and crashed.
Exhausted.
Sitting here right now I cannot remember Sunday for the life of me. Rest assured it was a great day as well. I seem to remember planting my morning glories and moonflowers, and rebby mowed. That's all I'm getting right now.
The rest of the week was busy! Cinco de Mayo dinner turned out to be a great success--24 people came and folks loved it. I'm really excited to do special dinners every month.
Then there's been wedding prep, regular kitchen stuff, and yesterday morning I arrived at work to the unmistakable hissing of water shooting out of the back of a broken toilet. It felt a little Candid Camera-esque, especially the part where I was feeling around underneath the tank where the water was shooting out and suddenly it appeared that the toilet was BLEEDING and I was all "OMG the toilet is possessed by Satan!" but really I had cut open my finger on the broken piece. Ha. I managed to get the water to stop shooting out by wedging a ruler under the plunger arm so the toilet couldn't fill. I was pretty proud of my McGyvering under pressure and extremely relieved to be able to go back to making breakfasts without having to stop and mop every 10 minutes. The day got much better, believe me, and ended with Jamaican food from the ladies across the street, two big glasses of 9% Trippelicious, two episodes of South Park on tape, and a very early bed. Hoorah!
Now I gotta go cut the cheese (ha!) and find my catering pants and get showered and on the go.
I'll try to be better, she said resignedly.

2009-05-04T06:54:00.002-04:00

Quick Update on a Wonderful Weekend

Sorry I haven't been around much lately....I have been trying to keep the computering to a minimum and concentrate on the OUTSIDE.
This weekend was the first and last two days off in a row with rebby for quite some time, and we wanted to make the most of it.
Saturday she went turkey hunting (unsuccessful :() in the morning, and I got up and went to the East Liberty Cooperative Market for "eggs." I put eggs in quotes because I came back with a pound of breakfast link sausage, mesclun, baby spinach, a garlic, and 9 herb plants. Oh, and eggs. Oh! And also some really good tabouli made with quinoa and flatbread, which I had for my breakfast. The fellow who sold me the tabouli and flatbread looked like a just out of college duder, and I wanted to support his start up. The tabouli was pretty good...I think mine is better, but I definitely pride myself on tabouli, and the flatbread was REALLY good. He had sprinkled some Mediterranean spice on there (sumac, maybe?) and it was addictive.
So I sat at the back table drinking coffee and eating my tabouli breakfast and planning my herb garden.
I got lemon thyme, which went in next to the English thyme, and pineapple sage which went in next to the regular sage, and tarragon and marjoram which went in next to the oregano. I also got a cinnamon basil plant which I put in the new kitchen herb garden next to the back door (the spot that used to be dark all the time, but since the tree exorcism gets plenty of sun!) and also put four exotic mints back there: orange mint, candy mint, chocolate mint and apple mint. It's getting exciting back there!
The sun was shining down on me and I was ready for labor, so I grabbed the cultivator and started ripping out weeds along the back fence for a wildflower bed. In the process I stumbled across a small patch of bunching onions that the previous Italians must have left. I dug them up carefully and transplanted them over in the garden...hope it works! After a lot of weeding and scraping I wound up with a nice spot for echinaceas, columbines, poppies, daisies and blackeyed susans. I hope some of them come up at least! There's about another two feet to weed for my butterfly and hummingbird wildflower mix, but I ran out of steam for that kind of heavy labor. Maybe tomorrow.
So next up was the vegetable transplanting---I put in my third of four kobucha squash plant, six brussels sprouts, and I thinned and moved my cabbage starts. Huzzah! Oh, I also transplanted my herb starts too--sweet and thai basil, dill, cilantro and parsley. I think that was all I did on Saturday morning outside. While all that was going on I baked some bread too. I think I've mentioned the 5 Minutes a Day thing before---perhaps the best part about it for our household is that I am baking tiny little loaves that we actually can finish off in a day or two. There is nothing quite so demoralizing as having to pitch the end of a beautiful loaf of homemade bread because it went moldy. With these little loaves there isn't any waste, and now that summer is here if there are unused bread ends they will become delightful crutons. Because we are gonna be eating MAD SALAD around here, I can tell you that.
Wow, there's lots more weekend to tell but I have to go to work. I will really try to finish later today!

2009-04-22T09:48:00.002-04:00

Hey peoples!
So, it turns out that I don't really have a day off this week until Sunday, so I'm not going to be able to do the massive breakdown of the rock star weekend that I planned. In the meantime, here is a link to some pics taken by lolirock entertainment, an erie collective who do show reviews.
Hopefully you can see the pics even if you don't have a myspace. The pics are great....the review is a little weird. But then again, so was the show.
I'm hoping somebody will post some pics from the friday show too and I'll pass that along. And eventually I'll get around to recording my memories and uploading my pics as well. I got some great T Glitter shots---as J* always says, he's about the best photo subject there is.
In other news, rebby just met a man about chopping down some trees. On earth day. I know, that seems wrong, but really the trees are all either dead or dangerous, and we want to replace them with some vibrant happy fruit trees. I should really take some pictures before they come down though so I can remember the before and after. The giant maple in the front is definitely coming down...it will be nice to a)not have to clean up after it in the fall and b)not have to worry about limbs breaking off and coming through my office window and c)be able to fix the foundation of the house where it's giant roots are poking through. Also, my potential gardening space will be tripled! It's really exciting.
This is the first huge outlay of cash all at one time on the home for us, and it's slightly nerve racking. I know this is what happens when you are a home owner, but writing those big checks is never easy. Hopefully we'll have a friend who is a general contractor over for some pizza and beer on Sunday to get some other projects going too. Rebby is in TCB mode bigtime! Time to make lists. Prioritize.
Finally, emailed with my sister yesterday about a possible joint trip to the southwest in September. It's green chile season, donchaknow! Ta for now....

2009-04-20T07:15:00.002-04:00

This is just a teaser....something is wrong with my flickr uploader and I don't have time to fix it this morning, so I'll try to upload the pics tomorrow.

We all survived the Dead at 24 reunion tour weekend, albeit Al completely shredded his vocal cords and we had a really scary moment where it appeared that a suitcase full of extremely expensive equipment that doesn't belong to us got lost in the shuffle. (turns out our friends from Erie grabbed it by mistake)

Friday night was a great, I would even say TRIUMPHANT show. Saturday night was a trainwreck, which is I suppose more true to form when it comes to D@24. Several people who saw both (and remembered D@24 from the old days) liked Erie more. They're gluttons for punishment.

I'll post more later.

2009-04-14T14:34:00.002-04:00

hi ho!
I'm having a day off! and I'm not illin! huzzah! actually, to be completely honest I'm having a little work meeting/luncheon in an hour, so it's not entirely a day off. and, I had to do a bunch of work related emailing earlier. still, I am not going in to the restaurant nor am I having to think about the various personality profiles interacting in the kitchen. and that is quite a relief, lemmetellya.
so yeah, our STAFFING situation is pretty much resolved, but there are still personality/workstyle issues to work out. it's always a struggle, isn't it?
anyhow, today it is not my problem. today I have thusfar:
did the aforementioned work emailing
did some D@24 PR
baked a cute little whole wheat bread, and put up enough dough for 3 more loaves in the fridge (seriously, this has changed my life. all hail once again mother earth news!)
made dough for four pizzas, one of which is going to be today's tomato-bacon-red onion-goat cheese working lunch
bleached the bejeezes out of the kitchen towels
cleaned the downstairs bathroom
cleaned out the fridge
PUT AWAY THE CHRISTMAS TREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hell yes, my friends. today has been a super productive day. almost makes up for last week's zero productivity.
so yeah, meeting in an hour, then some more cleanin, then perhaps rebby and I will pay a visit to the beerman this evening.
she gave up beer for jesus and it was a looooooooooong forty days and forty nights (with just one slip up when she went to visit her cousin who was home on leave from Iraq) We haven't been to see Scott in about two months! Sad.
OH and also, my friend Pete might be stopping over to regard my bicycle. He is going to be my BICYCLE REPAIR MAN
I can't wait to get my purple beauty out on the road!
Oh, speaking of getting her out on the road.....just learned that Point Brugge cafe is opening a satellite location on Bryant Street in Highland Park....so bike rideable. Life is good.
More tomorrow, hopefully.

It's Donny's Birthday

2009-04-03T07:09:00.001-04:00

tinyd, originally uploaded by alienspice.

It's Donny's birthday
It'sDonny's birthday
And we would like to wish him all the very best
It's Donny'sbirthday
It's Donny's birthday
And it's so nice to have you back to be our guest

At Donny's birthday
At Donny's birthday
We'd like to wish you all what you would wish yourself
On Donny's birthday
It's Donny's birthday
And it's so good to have you back from off the shelf
And it's so good to have...
You back from off the shelf...

Does it work? Maybe not. His mom and pop will get it though. ;)
Happy birthday little guy! Aunt Shirley is very happy to have you around.
xoxo

2009-03-31T21:39:00.002-04:00

What a lovely day!
Today was day one of my "weekend" for this week. I took half advantage of the nice weather, but also spent half the time sitting in front of the computer. Tomorrow is supposed to rain, so I'm glad I did what I did today and that I can spend day two of the weekend in the kitchen--cleaning, baking bread, and replenishing the pizza crust coffers. I do need to get to the store at some point though because I am simultaneously out of garlic and salad greens. One of my body's reactions to spring weather is wanting SALAD ALL THE TIME. I got myself a bottle of some pretty kick ass organic red wine vinegar at Whole Foods last week (it was on discontinued sale--too bad as it's delish!) and have been faithfully making my own oil and vinegar dressings, or lemon and olive oil. There's still a bottle of ranch in the fridge if I feel like I really need to go there, but the fresh light oil and vin dressing has been doing me right. Tonight tho---no salad. I'm a little freaked out about it.
So, this morning, I got up around 8am and played on the computer a little bit, then had some puffed wheat and coffee. After breakfast I came back to the computer and got to work doing some press for the D@24 show. I wrote a press release and sent it to the local papers--nothing yet, but hopefully somebody will want to write a little something about the show/record. I don't think I mentioned here that I cancelled our trip to Boston for Easter Weekend---there was no possibility of a Saturday show, and I just didn't feel good about driving all that way to play 25 minutes or so at a punk rock showcase. So our actual debut will be at the pub on April 17th. Though apparently Alan and Ernie have decided to go to Boston and play the showcase show as an accoustic duo. That's funny. It's a lot easier for them to get to Boston from NYC/Philly than it is for us to get there from Pgh. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the Pittsburgh show, and then we got to Erie and play on Saturday at the Beer Mug. Just like the old days.
After doing the press, I threw some laundry in, and then I got myself showered and ready to greet the out of doors. I took a nice walk to Home Depot for some organic potting mix for seedling starts. Was hoping to find a nice strawberry pot, but the only ones they have come with a "kit" and I don't need all that business. Apparently Big Lots has them for cheap. Hopefully we can check that out sometime this weekend.
I got the newest issue of Natural Home because I am magazine fetishist, and then I picked up some moonflower seeds. My plan is to plant morning glories and moonflowers in the planter along the front of the porch and let them twine up through the rails. That should be nice. I really hope the moonflowers will grow--I think they are so lovely but I'm worried that it might get too cold? They're basically a tropical, right? Well, we'll see what happens.
Walked home and had some curry for lunch and then I got started with the seed starting project. At some point yesterday I had the BRILLIANT realization that our attic has enormous south facing windows with big wide ledges. Why it took a year and a half for me to realize this I can't tell you, but rest assured it was a big deal when I did. I moved a short shelving unit in front of one of the windows and now it is a little greenhouse, overseen by my light up alien. It's great. I cut up all the egg cartons we've been saving and filled them with potting soil, and then filled up all the little pots I saved from last year. I started a whole bunch of seeds I saved from last year---mostly peppers of various kinds, some seeds from our yellow doll watermelon from last year, and some pumpkin and squash. Then I broke into the packets I ordered from Territorial--a couple kinds of basil, brussels sprouts, kobocha squash, and then some really old cherry tomato seeds that I don't have much hope for but who knows, right? No harm in trying. I also started some celery and scallion seeds I got from Lotus Foods in the Strip. It was a total weird impulse purchase, but I thought I might as well give it a whirl. Everything I've read suggests that trying to grow celery in Pittsburgh is a losing battle. My motto for the garden is to try everything and not get too disappointed. I'm getting started about three months earlier than last year, and last year was far from a total bust, so I'm confident it will be a beautiful and bountiful garden.
The little babies are safely installed in their upstairs greenhouse. It reminds me of VC Andrews a little bit. Ha.
I planted some culinary herbs (chives, parsley, dill, cilantro) in little pots for the south facing kitchen window, and I have a nice sized rosemary plant growing there too. I think I want to put it in the garden SOMEWHERE so it can become a giant woody perennial bush, but I'm not sure where just yet. Rebby is talking seriously about getting the nuisance trees removed this year before they get too many leaves, and that's going to totally change the whole landscape. We could even plant fruit trees! Home Depot has some black cherry and dwarf peach and plum trees that call my name every time I walk by. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Right now I am going to keep my rosemary in the kitchen. And hold off on trying to establish an asparagus patch from seeds I got at Lotus. That seems to me just like laughing in the face of God, but again....why not? The seed pack was only a dollar. I want to find a nice permanant spot for them though just in case they do actually grow and then I can be a SPARGEL FARMER! hee hee hee.
It was about 5pm by the time I finishd the seedling project, and still plenty light for getting some things in the ground outside. I went out and gathered some sticks to make garden markers, which I did while listening to John Cougar Mellencamp on Fresh Air. His voice has gotten super gravelly to the point where he sounds almost Kris Kristoffersonish. He's apparently got a new album all about spiritual enlightenment that I want to check out. I finished my markers and drank a beer and then got out there in the garden in my overalls and green crocs. The raised bed is just the right height for me to kneel beside it and reach all the way to the middle--cool! The soil was all light and airy and super easy to dig with just my fingers. It was awesome. I put in beets, arugula, carrots, radishes, chard, cabbage, drunken woman frizzy headed leaf lettuce (just for the name, right?) a mesclun mix, daikon radish, spinach, and snap peas. I think that's it! In May we get to plant kale, collards, broccoli, cucumbers, CORN! beans, patty pan squash, mustard, shallots, onions, bok choy, turnips, and some herbs. And then at the end of may, the seedlings! We're going to just get some tomato plants from the nice lesbians at Garden Dreams rather than try to start our own---theirs are so nice and they have tons of heirloom varieties. I am hoping to get some more interesting mints too.
I'm so excited about growing our own food.
We've got some potatoes sprouting under the cabinet that I think I will just cut up and throw in the middle of the raised bed---I sort of inadvertently created a little hill in the middle and it would be a perfect place to grow potatoes, I think. Sweet potatoes too.
I've got some flowers on the horizon too---sunflowers, of course, and hopefully some echinacea, marigolds, the morning glories and moonflowers and nasturtiums, and some bergamot. I also have a packet of honeybee attracting mix that's left from last year that I'd like to scatter somewhere. My ultimate fantasy is to dig out the ugly shrubbery in the planter at the very front of the house (next to the sidewalk) and replace it with some nice sweetheart rose bushes. That's a far off project though.
Once the trees come out we'll have to rethink everything. And I've got a handmade garden bench coming sometime this summer too I need to plan for! I wish I had more time.
Speaking of time, it's about time I got to bed. And for the record, I wrote this entry while voluntarily listening to John Coltrane--Soultrane, specifically. I went on a radical departure downloading spree on emusic this morning and ended up with John Coltrane, Gregory Isaacs, and Horace Andy. I'm diggin it.

2009-03-29T20:46:00.000-04:00

2009-03-28T22:52:00.000-04:00

YAAAAAAY!

2009-03-28T16:27:00.002-04:00

From yoko ono's flickr:
PART 3 THE LOST WEEKEND

In 1972 ,the night McGovern lost the election, John and I were invited
to a party at Jerry Rubin's apartment in the Village. It was a gathering
of New York liberal intellectuals, some artists, musicians and many
journalists. John became totally drunk and pulled a woman into the next
room and started to make love. Nobody could leave the party because all
the coats were in that room. We were all sitting there trying to ignore
what was happening. The wall was paper thin and you could hear the
noise, which was incredibly loud. A considerate musician put a Dylan
record on to offset the sound. But that did not drown out the sound
coming from "the room." In the middle of all this, a New York celeb
woman chose to make conversation with me. "I don't know how you feel
about him... but we love him. He and his friends... what they did...
but especially John... we all respect him tremendously. He's a great
man... he is a wonderful man..." It was something like that she kept
repeating to me, with an angry look as if to blame me for not rejoicing
for what was happening in that room. Then there was a long silence.
Some woman quietly went into the room to retrieve her coat. Others
followed. When John finally came out of the room, he said, later, that
he had never seen me looking so pale. "I could never forget that face,"
he used to say for a long while.

Something was lost that night for me. Living with John was a very trying
situation. But I thought I would endure all that for our love. I used to
think that our love was a secret thing between us, so it didn't matter
what people said... let them. Our love was higher than the highest sky,
and deeper than the deepest water. But was it? Now it seemed that there
were some clouds I hand 't noticed and the water looked murky after the
splash. Jerry thought it was terrible that I couldn't "forgive" John.
McGovern lost. All of us were totally devastated. You can imagine how
John felt about it. It was a real blow to us. So he was drunk, for
heaven's sake!" "It's not a matter of forgiving him or not forgiving him.
I would not use that word. It's more like I can't 'forget' what happened.
Call me a prude, but it just hit me in the wrong way." Inside, I felt
like a shattered raggedy doll.

Man, that hit a little close to home. I have been feeling sort of "down" for a few days...probably a combination of the weather, impending hormonal storms, rough times at work, my girlfriend going away for a week, feeling a cold coming on. But when I read that a couple days ago it stopped me in my tracks and I don't think I've really recovered.
Anyhoo....today rebby unloaded a truckful of dirt into our raised beds. She also scooped a bunch of sweet, delicious compost out of our compost machine to mix in. We were so very excited by the miracle of compost! Intellectually I knew what was supposed to be happening but seeing the thick black lovely stuff coming out from where we throw our lettuce stems and coffee grounds was like a little blessing.
I wasn't much help because I am feeling extremely weak and feeble from this illness. I'm slamming the kombucha and ginger tea because I gotta brunch tomorrow and I don't have time for this shit. So. Hopefully I can raise a little energy to plant some seeds either later today or tomorrow. Wish me luck.
In other news, I had my first Korean BBQ experience last night, at Sushi Kim. It was a nice time and everything was delicious but I think I ended up eating just as much rice, kimchee and lettuce as meat. It just seemed like too much to me. While there is absolutely no danger of me reverting back to vegetarianism, I am definitely moving towards the whole using meat for flavor instead of main philosophy. That being said, I read an amazing article in Mother Earth News this month about grass fed meat and how reverting back to a pasture based farming system could literally save the planet. The older I get, the more I trust my gut about stuff, and my gut tells me that farms with a mix of vegetables and animals are the best kind of farms to have.
Also, I think I'm gonna have chickens by the end of the year. Every month Mother Earth News tells me how easy it is and I am getting more and more convinced.

2009-03-23T21:59:00.003-04:00

Oh what a beautiful world!
It's 10pm on Monday night, and I'm listening back through some podcasts of Gavin Newsom's radio show. Right now I'm listening to the episode where he talks to the Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights about the gay marriage ruling. Previously I listened to his interview with with Michael Pollan (awesome!) and Rachel Maddow (sexy!) I am all aflutter in love with this mayor, despite the fact that he has done some silly stuff. In general, he seems to really have his heart in the right place and follows through with actions, despite the possibility that they are political suicide. Bless him.
I've also been listening to Stephen Fry podcasts which are just all lovely language. It's a good time to have a computer. I've recently become a fan of podcasts and am actively searching for other good ones. Please clue me in to your favorites!
This evening I made a super good pizza---fresh mozz with basil, tomato, red onion, sweet peppers, mushrooms. I totally forgot to put garlic in, but it was still good.
Somehow the crust was even crisper than last time--yummy! And Wednesday is my day off, so it will be time to refill the freezer with pizza crusts. I feel like a whole new person now that I've adopted the pizza dough in the freezer lifestyle. I was able to put dinner together in like 20 minutes. Yum.
I also really, really wanted beer even though rebby has given it up for Jesus, so we stopped and I took a thousand hours to decide on a Great Lakes variety sampler. I came very close to just getting a case of Sierra Nevada but in the last minute I realized that I like variety. Of course, I ended up sucking down a Burning River (pale ale) and it was exactly what I wanted. Delicious.
After pizza and beer we watched two episodes of How I Met Your Mother--one new, and one old one that was funny enough for me to want to watch again, and then I went through my box of seeds that came today from Territorial. I organized them into seeds that need to be started indoors, seeds that can thrive in partial shade, and seeds that go right into the garden in direct sun. Rebby is going to get a bunch of organic dirt this weekend and then we can dig in--literally! I'm really excited to grow a bountiful delicious garden. We're talking about doing some really serious tree removal that will make more of the yard useful for gardening...even if we don't get to that, we've got the bed we did last year and a new raised bed frame rebby built last weekend. So the garden will be at least twice as big as last year.
On a whim I bought some asparagus seeds at Lotus last week. I have no idea if that will really work but it's worth a try, right? I've just got to find a good spot where they can be left alone for a year. I also want to get some horseradish roots to grow somewhere too, so I don't have to do the dance of guilt with the guy from Goose Creek Gardens again this year. And garlic! I can't forget the garlic. I didn't manage to save any from Blackberry Meadows like I planned so I'll have to wait till they show up at the farmer's market again. It won't be long now!
Speaking of farmer's markets, on Saturday we went to pick up some sweet delicious meats. We got some ground lamb, some ground beef and stew meat, and pork chops and bacon. It was really wonderful to see our pig farmer again, and he was excited to tell us about the new litter he has and was even going to show us a picture on his cell phone but then the line got too overwhelming. I always feel bad for him because he really would like to just have a real conversation with everyone, I think, but his pork is just so damn popular that he has to turn it into a business transaction.
I guess that's a good problem to have. We had amazing bacon and then pork chops for dinner on the grill, and then the next night rebby made me some bacon cheeseburgers and it was warm enough to sit outside.
So yeah, I'm kinda loving life right now. I'm not going to write about any downer things. I'm really looking forward to my day off to do some spring cleaning and mail some packages! And hopefully write some more too.

beautiful and deadly

2009-03-18T13:22:00.001-04:00

beautiful and deadly, originally uploaded by alienspice.

had a lovely time in the strip this morning! It wasn't nearly as rife with vomit, empty beer cans, and green beads as I expected. In fact, it was positively CLEAN! those strip merchants get up early.
I got some nice handmade locally soaps, restocked my corn and flour tortilla supplies, a huge blob of fresh mozzarella for further pizza making experiments, and some surprises for a few friends far away.
I also got this bottle of Cheerwine, my absolute favorite sparkling beverage (besides straight soda water) It's made in North Carolina and normally only available in the South, so when I saw it in the Penn Mac cooler I snatched it right up. It's a nice heavy glass bottle with that gorgeous logo and NO HFCS. It does have "artificial wild cherry flavoring" but other than that it's all natural.
Unfortunately, I got so excited that I sucked it down super fast and now I'm a little light headed and nauseous. I ate a big piece of bread though and it seems to be helping.
I might have a little lie down, and then it's dishes, laundry, and perhaps a little yard work! Hope you are able to enjoy the weather wherever you are!

2009-03-16T22:17:00.002-04:00

Good evening.
I find myself right now trapped in the solipsism of temporary agony. By which I mean, my back hurts. I stole that gorgeous phrase from Russell Brand's interview on NPR. He put on a nice show of vocabulary for the intellectuals, and was hardly cheeky at all (but of course he couldn't help it a bit)
I have spent most of the past couple of days, when not breaking my back in the kitchen, either reading Russell's book or watching/listening to interviews from his sort of awe inspiring American press junket. He did seemingly hundreds. New ones are popping up every day. And while I'm glad to have 'em, it makes me feel a little sorry for him. Especially the last couple where he just looks so tired. I'm glad it's not my job to be witty and charming for hours on end every day.
What is my job, on the other hand, is making food for people for hours on end every day. We've been going through some more staff turmoil and it makes for long days and extra doses of advil liquigels. And my new nighttime friend, Advil PM. Gosh golly gee, that stuff is a miracle worker. Rebby is currently in Ohio to hang out with her cousin who is back from the war temporarily, and I have to say I am kind of glad she's not around because it gives me the freedom to do very little when I get home other than sit in my chair and play bubblespinner or watch youtube videos till it's time to go to bed. I know I SHOULD wash some dishes and I SHOULD do some laundry and kee-rist, I SHOULD take down the christmas decorations(don't be shocked!) but I'm really feeling exhausted right now and after dumping all my energy into work I really can't get it up for taking care of the house. I'm looking at this as a sort of crisis management scenario, a solipsism of temporary agony if you will ;), and I know that very soon it will all be better. We've already got two new trainees going and might soon have a third. I'm feeling positive about the light at the end of the tunnel but right now, at this very painful minute, the light seems pretty far away.
Spring like weather is helping. I am getting excited about planting stuff! I just placed some orders for the laptop butchershop pickup next weekend...it's a sort of pre-order farmer's market where we will be able to pick up some organic grass fed ground beef and lamb, as well as eggs and delicious bacon. Yum yum yum. I think my energy will really improve after seeing my favorite pig farmers again. That means winter is over for reals.
So, depsite all this hobbling around like an old woman, I did manage to prep up some pizza dough on Saturday. I did another caramelized onion, apple and fennel with goat cheese and ate almost all of it up for dinner! Sunday after brunch I went to Whole Foods and dropped a nice chunk of change on vegetables, sausages and dairy products.
Oh, and sweet, delicious coffee. Anyway, I got home and popped a ball of dough out of the freezer, thawed it, and threw down one of the best pizzas yet: caramelized onion, garlic, arugula, grape tomatoes, merguez sausage, and goat feta. I timed it just right so that it was hot and fresh out of the oven to eat while watching Alice Waters on 60 Minutes. She's great, but I think she would drive me crazy in about twenty minutes. She sounds like she lives on a cloud somewhere far, far away. I love her ideas, and I don't disrespect her idealism, but her actual voice is pretty loopy. Anyhoo, part of the story involved interviewing hottie mcmayor Gavin Newsom about the victory garden he let Alice plant in front of city hall. He loves the gays AND the foodies?!?!? He is totally my mayor boyfriend now. I hope he can become governor, though I am pretty doubtful. Bless'im.
So, almost by accident I realized that yesterday was the 10th anniversary of my divorce decree. Now, my marriage had been over for almost a year previous to that, but it seems like some kind of significant milestone to have been un-married for 10 years. It's longer than I was married, for a start. It makes me a little sad that I have a hard time conjuring up memories of being married. Unfortunately, with the exception of my travel journal I kept while we moved across the country, the only time I ever really wrote in a journal was when I was pissed off about something, so the only memories I can access on paper are difficult ones. I know there were a lot of good times, but when I think back it's really hard for me to isolate us as a couple from all the other people who were constantly swirling around. Which ended up being a big factor in the dissolution, I think. Amazing to think about how different I am from how I was then. The future was so abstract and I really didn't think much about it. I certainly would not have predicted I'd be where I am now... I think I've grown into a better person. I've had some very trying times in the past ten years, but also some very good ones. And I'm happier on a cellular level than I ever thought I could be.
Everything works if you let it, as a wise person once said.

2009-03-09T19:45:00.003-04:00

Oh, friends. What a week it's been.
I'm on day 5 of my current 6 day week, and I am definitely feeling it in my old lady bones. Well, more in my old lady lower back muscles. Yowza.
The recent weather developments have helped a lot though---I've been soldiering on quite happily instead of spiraling into despair which would be more likely if it was still all grey and snowy. Today was colder, but still some sunshine. The last few days have been glorious sunny warm and I have spent them in the kitchen. I'm afraid to look to see what the forecast is for Wednesday.....if it's anything but freezing I'm gonna be out in it, somehow.
So, let me work backwards. Right now I have my first ice cream of the new year going...Chocolate Chip Baileys. Yum. I'll let you know how that turns out. This evening I made a really stellar chicken stir fry for dinner over buckwheat noodles...I gotta tell ya, it rarely occurs to me to do a stir fry and then when it does I am all "why don't I do this ALL THE TIME!?!?!" and then months go by and the cycle repeats. In any case, this stir fry had gorgeous broccoli and carrots and red onions and ginger and little yellow and orange peppers and some chili garlic sauce and soy sauce and sesame oil and a little hoisin for good measure. Boy was that good. Before the stir fry I did some Whole Foods shopping (I seriously need to stop going to Whole Foods every other day. Mostly this week it's been work related but of course I can't help getting stuff for home too and really---we've got plenty of food. Argh.) and also I restocked my wine rack. I've been trying to become a wine snob(wait, no. wine connoisseur) just by randomly picking bottles under $20 to take home. For the most part, I only do red, but this week I got a bottle of white to try. I'll report back on that as well. I am always happy with a dark sludgy Malbec or Syrah, but my new favorite is Tempranillo from Spain. It's really pretty and both light and heavy at the same time. Just trust me, I know that doesn't really make sense.
So anyhoo, life in the kitchen this week has been pretty nice. The weekend, though BUSY, was not crushing like some recent weekends have been. Our International Women's Day Brunch celebrating Women Chefs was fantastic! We made a Red Onion and Mozzarella Frittata with Marinated Mushroom Salad from Anna Thomas' Vegetarian Epicure (book II) Anna Thomas is sort of the godmother of gourmet vegetarian, and also a very successful filmmaker. She wrote and produced El Norte and My Family, Ma famiglia, as well as cowriting the screenplay to Frida by Julie Taymor.
Next up was the Revolutionary Spanish Omelet with Garlicky Kale and Tahini Dressing from Vegan With a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I was REALLY skeptical about that thing but it turned out fantastic. Her tahini dressing recipe is also really good, and tahini on top of roasted garlic kale=genius. Then Sarah Kramer (How It All Vegan)'s Apple Cinnamon Cornmeal Hotcakes....excellent. I am almost always skeptical of Sarah's recipes because they seem TOO simple, but these hotcakes (once I adjusted up the griddle to the correct temperature) were fantastic. There are oats in the recipe in addition to cornmeal and wheat flour and the oats just kind of melted into the batter and gave a nice chewiness without being really oaty. yum.
I really wanted to represent Yamuna Devi, because her enormous 700+page Lord Krishna's Cuisine is one of my favorite ever cookbooks. I made Pounded Rice Uppma with Potatoes and Peas, and we served it with a Minted Strawberry Cucumber Salad. I really thought folks would be scared of such a weird combo, but it was a popular seller. And SO GOOD! I'm definitely thinking about bringing back the Indian night at least once a month. There are still hundreds of recipes in that book I have yet to make!
Ok...the last entree plate we did was from Judy Wicks' White Dog Cafe Cookbook--Provencal Egg Salad with Spiced Lentil Tomato Soup. Oh my goodness. This egg salad has basil, red onion, capers, nicoise olives and AIOLI. It's over the top! So good.
The soup is lightly Indian spiced with cumin and fennel and mustard and then has little french lentils and tomatoes and spinach. I did the egg salad on toast points which look very chichi and made for a beautiful plate.
We also did up some desserts: Vegan Gingerbread from Louise Hagler, the soy expert from The Farm in Tennessee (again...reading the recipe we were all like "huh?" but it turned out fantastic! especially with a little Soy Whip on top ;) and Nigella's Ginger Bread and Butter Pudding with dark rum and sultanas and all that English excess; and my favorite, Gabrielle Hamilton(from Prune restaurant NYC)'s Cornmeal Poundcake with Candied Rosemary. Amazing. We didn't sell a whole lot of desserts but luckily the cakes freeze well so we can sell them by the slice in the pastry case. The ladies out front had an all female soundtrack going and we handed out Women Chef Trading Cards (which some people, unfortunately, thought were coasters....;(
and had a good time. I have tons of trading cards left, though,,,if you want some, just let me know!
I don't think I ever mentioned how we had a big two page story in the Edible Allegheny Magazine, did I?
They haven't updated the website for this issue yet, but I'll let you know if the story goes online. There is a picture of me and Leslie and a few pics of Jilly and one of Hayden at the pass, and in the story I am referred to as "hardcore locavore." Ha! I love it. Anyway, I think we've been getting some attention from the story and lots of new people are coming in to the restaurant. It really makes me want to ramp up my local sourcing and recycling/composting projects for the new year, in addition to special dinners and more baking and maybe getting some grab and go stuff together so that we are not completely overwhelmed when the hospital opens. In May. Yikes!
Lots of projects, both at work and at home. Currently I am dealing with just keeping the back up fridges stocked. We've got some new folks coming in, though, so once we get them trained up hopefully I can move out of constant prep and back into planning and organizing. Wish me luck.
What else? Oh, D@24 practice day two was better because Steve was there, but also kind of lackluster because the rest of us were all hung over. Next time we will keep the vodka to a minimum. ;) It was really fun though, and I think the best way to get over the nerves of getting together again after ten years. Now that we've got that out of the way, the next practice weekend should be more relaxed. I think we've got the songs down for the most part. Apparently we have to learn "Whipping Post" by the Allman Bros now. Ha.
So around the homestead rebby built a nice big raised bed frame. I am having a hard time trusting that we're all done with snow and frost, but it does seem to have shifted into mighty temperate weather. I haven't really gotten out there at all myself to see what's going on....I hope my lavender, mint, oregano, marjoram and thyme survived. They were all super mulched with a lot of dead leaves, just like in the forest. I'm curious to see if we get any volunteers in last year's garden patch. I know a lot of cilantro seeds dropped and I was sort of tamping them down and letting them be. I've got my Territorial Seed Catalog all marked up...it's time to get that order in! I'm psyched to grow some corn. Just a little bit. And this year I think I'm gonna put morning glories in the front planter along the porch. It should keep them contained and I think they'll look nice vining around the porch rails.
I'm also thinking of ways that we can employ our friends doing some work around the house. I'm always on the verge of giving to charity, but recently I've realized that a lot of people I personally know need some help and if I can bring it home and keep it local....hardcore locavore that I am, I want to do it. So hopefully we can get on the painting soon and get my bike fixed up and get some garden furniture made and help our friends through tough spots at the same time. Mother Earth News would approve, I think.
It's a different day now (Wednesday, the coveted DAY OFF!) and last night rebby and I went to The Fajita Grill for dinner. I have heard all sorts of lackluster reviews of the place, but our meals were pretty good. I had chicken mole enchiladas and she had chipotle chicken burrito. The really awesome thing about the place though is that a)they have pictures of Frida Kahlo and Diego everywhere and b)they had walls painted in the same colors I want for my kitchen, so I got to see what it looks like in action, so to speak. I'm even more excited to do it now. That's a LOT of color, but my kitchen is big enough to take it. I can't wait.
OK, time to get my day going. PS...the Bailey's ice cream is off the chain good!
PPS I'm on the twitter now! look for me at alienspice. I joined it exclusively because Russell Brand asked me to. :)

2009-03-01T09:27:00.002-05:00

Practice Weekend, day two.
It's 9:30am on Sunday morning and I have no idea when the phone is going to ring announcing the arrival of my bandmates. It could be any minute, it could be several hours. That's the way it goes in rock'n'roll. I suppose I should have tried to form some sort of vague plan, but I was in no shape at the end of the day for that. Sigh.
So yesterday morning I got up and worked myself into some excitement. Rebby and I cleaned the house a little bit and then I set to work on pizzas. I'm working my way through all the pizza dough recipes I have in all the cookbooks on all my shelves. The first one I did was from The Greens Cookbook and while it was OK, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. This batch I used Sheila Lukins recipe from The New Basics Cookbook, except I added some sugar and more salt. It seemed REALLY soft when I was working with it, but after adding a little more flour in the shaping stage, it turned out great! I made one with tomato, basil, and mozz and one with caramelized red onions, fennel, apple and goat cheese. Since rebby gave up beer for lent, we were rockin bloody marys. We were all set.
The boys arrived at about 12:30, so close to on schedule I was amazed! Steve couldn't make it for day one because of his class and radio show, so it was just Ernie, Alan and me. We had pizza and made drinks and they got their gear set up in the basement. After about an hour we all headed down and got down to business. I was so apprehensive, but once we got started it became absolute second nature. Just about every song came flooding back effortlessly. A few of them we had some trouble with....a couple cases where we couldn't remember all the words, or one of us just couldn't quite put our finger on what we used to play. For the most part, though, the body memory took over and it just flowed. The old familiar tuning problems reemerged, and I really remembered why I used to smoke so many cigarettes. There was just nothing else to do behind the drum kit while they tuned between every song. But I managed to hang out and keep myself amused with a constant infusion of bloody marys. Courtesy of our roadie/sound tech rebby. She was running wires and recording and taking pictures and filling drinks all day. Bless her.
We practied solid for three hours, and then we took a break. Only to discover than we had consumed all the vodka in the house. Which meant we had to take a field trip to the vodka store, of course. By this point I felt a lot like I was tripping, and the world outside of the basement felt very surreal. We made it through, though...got a new giant bottle of rain vodka and headed back for more bloody marys.
Round two in the basement was just as good as round one...we hit our stride and even though I am often loathe to "jam" in practice, it really felt right. I have always been more able to just close my eyes and go with it in Dead at 24 than any other band I've been in. I just really groove on the guitar sounds, I guess.
Anyhow, we did another solid two hours and then we had pretty much gone through all the songs. We emerged again at about 6 and had more drinks and then sat around talking for a while. During this sitting around talking period, I started to realize just how strung out I was. I was really, really, really tired, and really, really, really wired, and even though I had switched to water I felt a little like I was swimming in some sticky goo. The conversation had turned to drugs and as it's not a subject I like talking about, I was pretty much sitting in the corner zoning out.
For some reason we decided to go back to the basement, and I realize now that was the big mistake. I should have insisted on a nap.
This third go round was just too much, and it really didn't go well at all. We couldn't really get our groove back, and after a few songs we gave up.
I had been looking forward to a night at Gooskis for a couple of weeks...the new metal band featuring my friends Ben, Matt and Eric were having their premier show. I wasn't so jazzed on the other band, but I was really looking forward to a night out. When we got out of the basement the third time, rebby said that leah had requested we all stop over there before the show, so I got changed and ready. It was 8 o'clock.
I really, really should have relaxed a little bit. We could have stayed here for another hour and things might have been very different. But I ushered us all out, and by the time we got to Leah's I was starving. She was hungry too, so we ordered pizza. More pizza! Woo. As the minutes ticked by I became more and more and more squirrelly...I was starting to understand exactly how a baby feels when it wants nothing more than to go to sleep except that there are so many things happening around it that it's impossible. I couldn't really focus on anything, so I just let the conversations swirl around me. I really belonged in bed, but I was still holding out the hope that I'd make it to the show. Once the other folks showed up at the house and the general volume got louder, I realized that was probably not going to happen. By the time 10pm rolled around I was a basket case, and when Rebby asked if i was ready to go to the show I couldn't really answer her. I just had to get. out. of. there. We walked onto the porch and I told her I didn't really think I could be around any more humans that night. So we came home and went to bed.
I'm really sorry that I missed the show, but I'm not sorry that I chose to take care of myself instead of putting myself in an uncomfortable position for rock n roll.
That's what being a grown up means to me.
Today I feel really great and I am definitely going to lay off the booze. I've got an arsenal of soda water in the frige. It's coffee and water all day for me today, boy.

2009-02-25T11:27:00.001-05:00

Happy Birthday, George!
miss you.

2009-02-24T08:49:00.002-05:00

Good morning!
It's a beautiful sunny freakin COLD morning....I love it! This is what winter is all about for me. I'm enojying some hot milschkaffe and some pumpernickel with cream cheese and lingonberry jam. And some Blixa. The only thing that could make it better is if my toes weren't freezing. It's times like these when those radiant floor ads in This Old House really speak to me. There are many, many, many home improvements on the list before something like that, though.
So today is going to be a serious TCB day. I am going to mail my sister's Christmas presents, for example. I was all set to do it on Saturday and then I realized that I was out of packing tape. It's always something. Today though, I've got all the parts and a box that fits and goshdarnit, I'm DOING IT! If it warms up a little I might also visit the office supply store for some printer paper and file folders. I am really so close to getting my office in a fully functional state...but I just never take those few hours to finish up. Perhaps today. I also need to figure out my menu for March 8th, take care of some catering things, and the ole laundry/dishes. But I am happy to report that there really are only a few pots to wash, and maybe two loads of laundry. Lots to put away, though. I feel good about my chances of accomplishing what I set out to do today.
Mentally, I'm rather fraught. I may have mentioned casually that some friends from Boston are putting out a real vinyl record album by my old band, Dead at 24. The record part is done...it sounds incredible. They remastered the cassette tape that we recorded back in the day and added some live tracks and studio outtakes cobbled together from various cassette tapes that we all had been stashing over the years. The artwork is being worked out now, and I sent a huge packet of pictures and clippings and press stuff in for a lyric zine to be included in the package. I think it's going to be great, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Of course, this means that we are "reuniting" for some record release shows. We'll be traveling up to Boston on easter weekend, and we'll play here in Pittsburgh the weekend after. We're going to try to do some shows in NYC and Erie and Philly too.
It's all coming together, and there is even a very very very slim chance that I can convince my favorite ever Pittsburgh band to reunite for the show too. Back in the day we had a pact that if one of our bands reunited the other would too. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm not ruling it out either. I sent them all an email last night employing the slightest of feminine whiles. Heh.
Hopefully we will be getting together this weekend for a practice. I am nervous as hell about this, and this is where I have to face the fact that nostalgia is a dangerous game. My history with these people is so convoluted. I have become a COMPLETELY different person in the past 10 or so years....a person I like a whole lot better. I have had new, better, separate relationships with all the involved parties over the years...relationships which are a good deal healthier and less fraught with anxiety and bitterness. The whole raison d'etre of Dead at 24 was this complicated stew of desire, jealousy, rage, denial, blindness, codependency....it makes me a little dizzy just thinking about it. Reading Slash's autobiography isn't really helping, either. It just brings into sharper focus the fact that I am intentionally putting myself into a situation where I have to revisit a whole lot of stuff that I have only recently really gotten over. It may very well make for some great music (it probably will) but it will also probably bring up a whole unhealthy set of behaviors and patterns of interaction that I would just as soon leave in the past. Already, in email exchanges between the members of the band, the old patterns are surfacing and having the same old effect on me. Argh.
So, I'm hoping that I can do part of what I used to do (bang it all out with unfettered abandon) and avoid other parts (smoking 2 packs a day and drinking half a bottle of gin a night and snorting pharmaceutical cocktails) in my effort to cope. I don't think there is much chance that we can just avoid it all and act like the adults we've become. That's probably asking too much.
So, wish me luck. I'm equal parts apprehensive and excited. Hopeful that I can just lay it on the line and let them know what I will and will not put up with. I am definitely a lot more self confident than I was back then, and less likely to take bullshit. SO there's that.

2009-02-23T00:09:00.002-05:00

Admission: the only nominated movie I saw was Milk. I plan to see Frost/Nixon and the Wrestler, and the more I see clips of it, the Reader. Kate's acceptance speeches get on my last nerve, however. I kinda wanted to see Slumdog Millionaire, but the more I see clips from that (and the more I see 40 children gathered on the stage) the less I am really interested.
Anyhow, I am SO GLAD that Sean Penn won! He did an amazing job in Milk. And I'm glad he made political statements. F the haterz. I thought the show was beautiful and I really loved the way they had the old winners come out to introduce the nominees. Hugh Jackman was amazing. I am totally in love with him, not just because he is Wolverine.
Well done, Academy. Way to show up the Grammys bigtime.
In other news, I've been working alot of long days and my brain tends to be frizzled when I get home. I've got to switch it into overdrive this week though because I have to get some catering stuff underway and I have to plan the menu for the March 8theme brunch celebrating women chefs and cookbook authors. I'm very excited for it, but I need to start the process of narrowing it down. There are a hella lot of women cookbook authors these days, and I don't want to take the easy celebrity chef route. I want to dig up some of the more hidden gems. Of course, the celebrity chefs in the vegan and vegetarian world are different from the Food Network celebrities. But I still might put a Nigella recipe in there, just cuz she's hot.
Today we had a very busy successful brunch where all my specials sold out by 2pm. Yowza! It's a good feeling, and especially good when people go out of their way to tell me how much they liked what I made. Makes all the lower back pain worth it.
I managed to maintain a good mood today with the help of my new Slash t shirt I got at Hot Topic at the Mall. Yep, that's me, going to the Guitar Hero wall of Hot Topic to pick out a Slash T shirt to wear to work. It is a wicked cool tshirt though. They only had super lame guns and roses tshirts, so I think I'll just order one online. Heehee.
I have lots to write about concerning nostalgia but it's late and I need to get some sleep. Hopefully I can tackle it tomorrow.

2009-02-18T14:55:00.002-05:00

Hey there--
Sorry. I've been very lax.
Some pictures from the Cleveland trip are available at Flickr. We had such a good time! It was hard to leave, but there was that Superbowl.
We had such a good time watching that Superbowl too, and running out into the street afterward. And then I had such a good time at that Superbowl parade, where I actually got a pretty good picture of Troy Polamalu's face (and a really good one of the back of his head.) These are on Flickr too. I also got myself a Luv Ya Black and Gold giant button because it's the most yinzer thing ever, and I got some turrible tahls for rebby and jilly. I still am not really able to make the leap to tahl waving. I respect the institution, but it's not my style. I'm more of a knuckle biting football watcher.
So besides the Cleveland and the football, it's been work work work. Business has been booming in vegetarian land, strangely enough. I've settled into a three-four ten hour day week, and it suits me just fine. It leaves me two days in the middle of the week to have lunch with Jennie at Uncle Sams and buy some new haircolor and Slash's autobiography. Dude---I'm like three pages in and I am so in love with Slash right now. One of the first things he mentions is how Sylvester game him a pet rat when he was a little kid. Coupled with the fact that last night I was trolling youtube for Slash stuff and came across the PSA he and his wife Perla did against Prop 8----Slash is all down with the gays! And for being a (now ex) drunken heroin addict, he is super well spoken. Plus----the ultimate poufy hair tophat leather pants man. Good lord. All of G'n'R were SO PRETTY back in the day---even Axl in his special way. After I finish writing this I am going to go put color on my hair and read the Slash book and have a "spa day". It's the best thing to do in this miserable rainy weather.
Later on I need to whip up a nice dinner and also spend a little more time on getting the office together. It's SO CLOSE, really....but there's just so much paper. Everywhere. Sigh.
I'm gonna try to get back in a regular writing habit. I make no promises, but I vow to give it my best effort. That's all you can ask really.

2009-01-28T22:41:00.002-05:00

Dudes!
Have I mentioned that Rebby and I are having a Cleveland getaway weekend this weekend? I don't think I have. I am super excited about it....bed and breakfast with a jacuzzi tub, pillowtop 500 thread count king sized bed, champagne and chocolates, 3 course gourmet breakfast...plus Saturday at the West Side Market, dinner at The Flying Fig, cocktails at the Velvet Tango Room.....maybe some Rock and Roll Museum, maybe some Modern Art or Ancient Art, maybe some thrift store scores....Ethiopian? Puerto Rican? TEA CURED BACON!?!?!? Dang.
I just added a bunch of Cleveland links to my del. icio. us so you can see what all I'm talking about. I am seriously thinking maybe we should also go to a drag show, since it's in the neighborhood and I haven't seen a good drag show since P-Town.
Mostly we're just getting away and treating ourselves to a little luxury.
I'll take lots of pictures!

2009-01-25T12:08:00.000-05:00

Hee hee.
I made that.

2009-01-23T03:13:00.000-05:00

Statement of President Obama on the 36th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.

While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue, no matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make. To accomplish these goals, we must work to find common ground to expand access to affordable contraception, accurate health information, and preventative services.

On this anniversary, we must also recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons: the chance to attain a world-class education; to have fulfilling careers in any industry; to be treated fairly and paid equally for their work; and to have no limits on their dreams. That is what I want for women everywhere.

2009-01-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

President At Work.

2009-01-21T09:31:00.002-05:00

This is cool. Wordcloud from the inaugural address.

I am already enjoying my new birthday president immensely. Thank you, United States of America, for the great gift! I've wanted one for the past 8 years and I finally got one. Apparently he is already doing stuff that he said he would do. Already! Like day #1! Also, check out www.whitehouse.gov if you haven't already. The civil rights portion is particularly awesome.

In other birthday news, I am spending the day preparing for a glamorous birthday cocktail party this evening. I spent a lot more money than I expected to last night at the grocery store getting snacks and mixers. Lordy, soda pop is expensive, even store brands! I thought all that HFCS was supposed to be cheap. Of course, I also got a lot of fancy foods to go with the cocktails. Since my visit to the Baltic region this summer I am all about cocktail seafood. It's gonna be a nice spread. I am also making sure there is vegan stuff because at least one vegan is supposedly coming!
I had been lamenting the lack of cocktail swords in this post 9/11 world, but then this morning at about 5am I remembered that last Christmas my siblings gave me a pirate themed gift basket which was lined with literally HUNDREDS of cocktail swords! And luckily I saved em. So the olives and onions and cherries and citrus peels will have a safe perch after all.
Speaking of pirates, J* sent me the COOLEST pirate birthday card! Thanks so much! I am totally putting it on the wall in the pirate bathroom. And oh yes, I'll be taking lots of glamourshots tonight! xoxo
OK, time to get going on the last minute party clean up and citrus wedging. Hope you all are enjoying my new birthday president as much as I am!

2009-01-20T18:00:00.001-05:00

BYE BYE!!!!!!!!
Is George W Bush Still President?

2009-01-20T06:59:00.002-05:00

Last night I had a dream that I was kinda buds with Troy Polamalu. The setup of the dream was that I was at his place to interview him for something, but we were already acquaintances because he really liked eating at the Quiet Storm. There was some kind of thing going on where he was trying to get a bunch of special commemorative Sports Illustrated magazines for me to give out to the staff, and when he was making the call he launched into this flowery speech about the fundamental decency of my character. Awww.
So here's the thing: he has never actually been to the Quiet Storm. We have to fix this in the off season, somehow. Wish me luck.

2009-01-19T07:03:00.001-05:00

What a beautiful man.

"Football, in general, has it backwards. They think this inner anger, this hatred, is what drives football and becomes the physical aspect of the game. But love overcomes all things. My love to glorify God through my playing will far outweigh anybody's hate for me." -- Troy Polamalu

2009-01-17T19:38:00.002-05:00

Good News!
Rebby fixed the pipe problem! (with a little help from some friends.)
I had a fun day at work today!
And:

Hee hee hee.

2009-01-17T09:05:00.002-05:00

The only thing sadder than having to call the plumber because your upstairs bathroom pipes are frozen (on a Saturday) is finding out that your awesome Australian plumber has moved out of state.
Aroo, aroo.

BlixaKuchen!

2009-01-14T22:07:00.001-05:00

BlixaKuchen!, originally uploaded by alienspice.

I made a cake for Blixa, only a couple days late.
this is a very blurry cameraphone photo of it.
It is a delicious German Chocolate Bundt Cake with streusel in the middle and coconut and chocolate chips all over it's glaze.
Yummy.
Yes, I realize that German chocolate has nothing to do with Germany, but I would hope that Blixa would like it anyway.

2009-01-14T12:44:00.003-05:00

Hee hee hee.

Football fever is upon us, my friends.

2009-01-12T06:56:00.002-05:00

Happy Birthday Blixa!!!!

He's 50 today.

Also, yay Steelers.
Also, Golden Globes.....wow. Whoever told all those normally beautiful ladies that asymetrical was the way to go should be fired from their jobs. Tina Fey, Susan Sarandon and Selma Hayek were all fabulous in dresses with TWO sleeves. And Sting....what happened? He appears to have fallen into a vat of grecian formula.

2009-01-06T22:01:00.002-05:00

Hi. Let's talk about music.
I've been sort of voraciously consuming new music lately since getting my new computer, since downloading/burning/transferring is once again simple and quick rather than a cause for fasting and prayer. I've recently discovered or rediscovered some amazing things that I want to share. I'm sure there's something here for everyone to enjoy.
First off, Blixa. The Nick Cave video collection really threw me into a bout of Blixalove, and I've spent the past few days listening to his gutteral german growl and shriek. And then sometimes he sings in English. I downloaded the last couple of EN albums which are stylistically very different---right now I'm listening to Jewels which is more like the early very industrial stuff than anything they've done recently. I was just saying that I prefer the more recent ambient stuff but now that I'm listening to crashing I can't back that up. I love them both, differently. I guess the best way to put it is that the ambient stuff (like Tabula Rasa and Alles Wieder Offen) soothe me and make me feel calm, while the industrial crashing stuff makes me want to MAKE MUSIC. Seriously, right now I want to go into the basement and start banging on stuff. Can't wait for the Dead at 24 reunion tour, baby!
So besides Blixa, the other big discovery I've made recently, thanks to emusic, is The Fireman. This is Paul McCartney's electronica side project (please meditate on that sentence for a moment) which he does with the bass player of Killing Joke. Yes, you read that right. And, it's been going on since 1993. WTF?!? How do I not know this? I'm really indignant about it. Someone should have told me. And also? It's GOOD. I didn't download the whole album yet, (the newest one is called Electronic Arguments, named after a line in a Ginsberg poem. Again, WTF?!?! McCartney reads Ginsberg?)but the first song and the last two are really rockin my world. I am going back for more as soon as my credits reset.
And then, there's this fabled Dreamland album by Robert Plant. Jennie told me about this at the Robyn Hitchcock concert, and I didn't believe her because how could it be that Robert Plant put out a covers record and I didn't hear about it? So I went searching on the internet and I swear to god, neither the emusic site nor wikipedia mentioned it. So i was thinking she was really crazy. But then she got it for me for Christmas, so now I have it to hold in my hands. Robert's version of "Morning Dew" is almost as creepy as Blixa's (see how I tie it all together? supergenius, I tell ya) but I am still undecided about his version of "One More Cup of Coffee." I hated it the first go round, but liked it more the second and third times I listened to it. I think it's a grower, not a shower. ;) I am also undecided on his version of "Song to the Siren" because he says "unfold" instead of "enfold." This is obviously a stylistic choice, and if we ever have tea I am going to ask him about it. But it kinda pisses me off, because it sounds stupid to me and ruins an otherwise very gothic mood. The rest of the record is full of winners, especially "Darkness Darkness" and "Red Dress" which appears to be an original. And also---his guitar player used to be in The Cure. WTF?!?! I am excited to spend more and more time with this record.
A couple more recent faves courtesy of emusic: She Keeps Bees, Noze, and Gudrun Gut.
Tell em I sent ya.

2009-01-03T07:42:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year!
I am so excited about this year! Even though things are off to a rocky start in the middle east (I have to say that I can't help blaming Joe Biden just a little bit) I know that this year is going to put the world on the right track, finally, after a long time. That feels good.
Personally, the holidays have been a whirlwind. Work has been off the chain busy, and I have been in the thick if it all but two days since Christmas. Tuesday I took the morning off so I could go in the evening to do cooking for the New Year's Eve special dinner, and Thursday I was off so I could spend the day cooking at home for friends. It's been wonderful and thoroughly exhausting. I cannot wait for my actual day off tomorrow!
So let's go back to Christmas for a little recap. I finally gave up waiting out the rain and headed to Dormont in the wet, trying to juggle an umbrella, a backpack, and two big Whole Foods bags full of presents (wrapped in garbage bags) It was akward, but thankfully I didn't have to wait long at all for the bus and then I was dry all the way to Dormont. When I got to Dormont I was super bummed to find that it was several degrees colder and several knots windier, and also that they had the toll booth open, which meant that I had to walk basically an extra block in the rain after paying the toll outside. (normally when I get off at Dormont I pay in the train and then walk right over to my dad's street. not this time)
Bro was wrapping presents, dad was playing computer solitaire and watching the news, and I dropped everything and poured myself a large glass of wine. (Dad likes to buy big bottles of yellowtail reds, and I am the only person in his life who drinks them. So there is almost always a half full bottle on the counter when I arrive) We chatted a bit and I put my gifts under the fiber optic christmas tree and then pretty soon after Kyle left to go do multiple family Christmases, and it was just me and dad. I will admit that I was a little nervous about this, but it was nice. We talked and watched some FoodTV and then dad made dinner(pork chops! remember this and bagged salad. Dad told me that FarmAid keeps sending him emails and he feels bad about buying bagged salad but "you can't get fuel perks at the farmer's market." ouch) and then we drank some more drinks and drunkenly filled stockings and watched Leatherheads. Which was a good movie. Of course, we had to call Kyle to figure out how to work the DVD player. Somehow, despite all the multitudes of remotes in that house, it is necessary to physically change the channel on the television from 179 to 3 in order to play a DVD. This was not intuitive. But we got it going and watched the movie (it was nice) and then watched part of Willie Wonka (on AMC, with commercials, lame) before I was too sleepy. Which had something to do with it being one million degrees on Christmas Eve, I think. I slept with the overhead fan on all night.
But the Christmas miracle is that I slept in until like 9am! woo. And even then I was only awoken by the sounds of pigeons roosting in the closet. (they weren't actually in the closet, it just sounded like that) I got up and let the dog out and made some sweet, delicious coffee and set out the Christmas cookie trays. And tried to find some good Christmas morning TV, but it was rough. I ended up settling on TVLand which was having a cool Christmas themed show marathon. I got to see All in the Family, a couple episodes of the Jeffersons, some Sanford and Son, and Green Acres. Now there's a show! I wonder if I can get it on DVD? I vaguely remember it from youth as being about the tension between the country husband and the city wife, but I didn't remember that there was also the subtension about the rest of the community trying to be more citified while the citified man tries to be more country. It was fascinating.
Also, dad and I played scrabble. I won. I did not cheat.
Soon enough it was time to start cooking the dinner, and that turned into a production. We put out veggie trays and cheese and crackers, and then we did a chicken, a pork roast, taters, three kinds of veg, stuffing, and rolls. I think that's it. Kyle and the girls and the nephews and Ron all came and we went right to the table, and then after dinner it was present time. I was really happy that most of the present time for the kids happened elsewhere, so I didn't have to think about the mountains of toys. The mountains of toys always depress me a little. This time I only got to see a minute portion of the mountain, and it was extra nice because Tristan is old enough now to really show appreciation for gifts. Brady on the other hand was way more interested in doing interpretive dance with the broccoli florets. Priceless. I got lots of new glassware, including some actual martini glasses which have served to bring martini drinking back into my life. (vodka only--gin has still not come back into my life. But maybe now it will!) Also got some really nice bowls for soup parties, and some beautiful wrought iron candle holders for the wall, and a rolling stone calendar and a Macy's gift card. Huzzah! A great haul. Both of the boys got really into the finger lazers that rebby and I found at the Shadyside toy store. Tristan put on his superhero cape for a minute, but Ron seemed to like wearing it more. Hee hee. We got lots of family pictures and managed to all squeeze under the tree and use the timer on Stacy's camera to get a group shot. Yay! Then Stacy and Brady brought me home (with a stop to feed the kitty.) Hooray for Christmas!
Christmas was followed by a weekend of working really hard for 10+hours a day, then falling on the couch in exhaustion. I think I might have played a few games of Mah jong Solitaire, but I can't be sure. I was in bed before 9pm. It was rough, but so exciting to see people loving our food and visiting from afar.
Sunday night rebby came home from Ohio with her haul--a new stockpot! a dehydrator! two new sheet sets! We totally felt like we are an old married couple with all these house presents. But seriously, they are the best kind. Monday it was back to work.
Tuesday was shopping, and then in to work to prep for the NYE dinner. It had been an off the chain day and I was so thankful that I missed it because really, I had just been through four of them in a row. So I settled into the chill evening kitchen and made little individual pineapple upside down cakes in muffin cups, and a butternut squash, sundried tomato, and sage bisque, and savory roasted mushrooms to mix with seitan and place in puff pastry shells for seitan wellingtons, and sliced the potatoes for vegan scalloped potatoes. Oh, I also candied my walnuts for the pear, cranberry and walnut salad. I worked from about 4 to about 9 when rebby finally got home from her job and came to pick me up.
Wednesday (new year's eve) was snowy and wild. I got a lot of stuff done for the line all day, and then about 2pm I switched back to dinner prep. Everything turned out fab, despite the last minute push and craziness that always accompanies a special dinner. I think I finally got out of there about 5:30pm, right before Jilly started serving the dinner. The place looked lovely and I heard later that the dinner was a huge success! Yay.
Meanwhile, rebby and I cancelled our plans to go to Mallorca for new year's eve/anniversary dinner because we didn't want to chance driving to the south side in the snow. So rebby got a nice skirt steak and made dinner for me! With broccoli and roasted taters. So good. We had some cocktails and almost, but not quite, stayed up to midnight. Hee hee. It's been a couple years since we've seen the new year ring in.
Then it was New Year's Day, and we had all kinds of cleaning and cooking to do! Rebby mostly handled the cleaning part, and I got busy in the kitchen. Posole, Italian Sausage and Lentils, Hoppin John and Collard Greens, and rebby did the Pork Roast and saurkraut(homemade!) and mashed potatoes. I also put out a really nice Scandinavian Fish Smorgaasbord with mustard and dill pickled herrings, shrimp spread, tuna in olive oil with lemon and capers, and lingonberry jam and cream cheese and pickles and olives and carrots and celery. With dark pumpernickel and rye krisp. I have to say that might have been my favorite part of the whole spread! I could eat tuna and cream cheese on pumpernickel for days. In fact, I still have another can. It might be my new thing.
So everything got done and then it was time to wait. Right around 5:30 guests started to arrive, including some folks I had never met and some I had not seen in a while. People tore into the food and made lots of yummy sounds and it was just great. We ended up having around 10 people and lots of good conversations and laughs and fun. The night ended with everyone crowded around the laptop watching the videos "shreds" series of videos, where some guy gets concert footage of guitar gods and plays his own soundtrack to them. Pretty humorous. So most of the guests left in a big heap, and then merely minutes later a friend who has been in Chicago all year showed up, and then rebby and I had an hour or so alone with her. That was nice, though I felt bad that she missed everybody else!
So that was New Year's Day. I spent it in the way I love to spend my days...cooking for people. Yesterday was back to the busy kitchen, and Jilly made a staff change that while difficult, was all for the best. The atmosphere is going to be so much more positive now, and everyone seems to be on board for a really stellar year! We've got lots of exciting plans and lots of catering gigs and lots of energy, even though we've all been working like dogs for the past week. Hooray! Today I get back in it for one more day, and then tomorrow rebby and I have the day together before she heads to Chicago for a week for work. During which time I hope to get our AMAZING PLAN FOR THE NEW YEAR in motion. It involves charts and grids and Paul Stanley motivational posters. I can say no more.
Hope your new year looks full of excitment too!

2008-12-24T12:19:00.003-05:00

well, merry christmas people!
I've got so much to tell! It's been a flurry of activity, most of it holiday related, around these parts. I got my xmas letters all mailed away. I baked hella cookies.
I shopped and wrapped( at least for the the family I'll be seeing tomorrow--there's more shopping and wrapping to do after I get Friday's paycheck) Rebby and I had our early christmas dinner of lamb chops and scalloped potatoes and broccoli and cauliflower in cheese sauce. We decorated the silver tinsel tree. (there are pictures of it at flickr, but honestly it looks the same every year.) And then we opened presents! I got her season 3 of the Muppet Show, with Alice Cooper. And Radio Ethiopia and a book of Patti's poems. She got me a DVD of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds videos(featuring lots of delightful footage of my beloved Blixa, and lots of smart ass and self deprecating commentary from Nick and Mick) and....a new laptop! No joke. It's an Acer with a big ole enormous fancy screen and super fast processor and.....mah johngg titans installed in the game menu. I am completely addicted to it and have masted all the formations at least once. Anyway, the reason she got it for me is not for the mah johngg, but for the fast processor speed and more memory space. The ole Dell was just constantly freezing up and taking literally 8 minutes to start up and shut down every time. So it needs to be put out of it's misery, or at the least given a much diminished role of being the QS music and email computer. I am just starting to realize how crippled I was by my old old laptop. This one is tons lighter, and super duper fast! Whee.
Speaking of the QS, me and Pete held it down in the kitchen all day yesterday, and we listened to Shawn Watson's A Minute Pause on WRCT, like we do every Tuesday. It's our tradition. Anyhoo, Shawn ended his show yesterday with his Three Worst Christmas Songs of All Time. The #1 worst song is actually not a "holiday" song, but a conceptual art project to create the least wanted song of all time. If you are brave, and have 25 minutes of your life you don't mind losing, take a listen. It made the already surreal experience of being practically alone in the restaurant on a Tuesday afternoon even more surreal.
Shawn's penultimate bad Christmas song, Spike Jones' Nutcracker Suite, was really fantastic too. Even though the day thoroughly wore me out, it was a lovely time listening to this weird shit and eating cookies and ice cream.
Then I went to borders for some last minute presents, then out to Silky's for Christmas burgers and beers. Woo! Then last night I wrapped the presents while watching Nick Cave and friends. Lovely!
This morning I went to hang out with Jilly's cat and caught an episode of Top Chef. Once again I am so thankful NOT to have cable, as I would waste even more time than I do now zombie-ing out in front of the TV watching cooking shows. I'm sure this evening and tomorrow will hold plenty of that for me in Dormont.
OH snap! I forgot to mention the bike! We went to McKnight Road on Sunday for some shopping, and one of the stops was at the Goodwill to look for mason jars for Rebby's Rubs. (she makes bbq spice rubs for xmas presents every year. lucky folks!) We found some jars, and also THIS! I am so excited to finally have the bike I want. It's just my size, though the seat needs to be adjusted and the tires need air and probably some other basic brushing up too. But, $30! and, PURPLE! It was meant to be. Come on spring.
OK, I think that's about a recap. Hope you and yours have a warm and safe and happy and healthy holiday! I'll try to be more on top of the posting in 2009. Now that I have this zippy new machine it just might happen!

2008-12-13T08:36:00.002-05:00

Some Product Reviews, Some Uncharacteristic Football Musings, Some Stream of Consciousness Updates.

Normally I just spew stuff at you with uncensored abandon but today I feel like I want to catergorize a bit. You know, just to make things seem structured and predetermined. As if.
Anyhow, first the product reviews:

1)Instead Menstrual Cups.
I found myself "going on" while out and about one day, and not at all sure what my menstrual supply cupboard held back home. So I stopped in the drugstore to examine my options. Normally I just head straight for the OB, but this time the Instead caught my eye. I was feeling pretty experimental so I thought I'd give it a shot. Besides, I'd recently been thinking about how tampons are all kinds of carbon-footprinty, so maybe this rubber cup thingy would be a less resource intensive option? It seemed to make sense.
I didn't take a good look at the box till I got home, where I found that the manufacturers consider each cup to be a one time only item. You are supposed to be able to wear one for 12 hours, so a box of 14 is a one week supply. I sat there on the toilet trying to puzzle this out, and eventually just called bullshit on it. I can only assume that the manufacturers of the Instead are trying to avoid a lawsuit by telling you not to rinse and reinsert these puppies, because I suppose if someone got dirty fingers all over it and did not clean it off thoroughly and put it back in and got an infection, they could somehow be liable. In our litigious society, anyways. So I tore open the first purple package and popped the first one in. Calling on my long ago experience with the diaphragm, it was super easy for me to get it in the right spot. That first day was kind of amazing, because I felt all regular "down there" instead of the vaguely "stuffed up" feeling a tampon sometimes can give. Plus (and this is a huge, grossout preventing plus) no soggy string hanging around down there. At the risk of sharing a bit too much (stick with me ladies!) I really hate it when I've just changed the tampon and all of a sudden I have to pee, and then I have to make the decision to either go for a few hours with a pee sodden string hanging out of my hooha, or change the tampon again. Agony, I tells ya. So that was a definite bonus--being able to pee without considering the feminine hygiene consequences. Since it was the first light day, I went the whole twelve hours without having to think about the cup, and then when the 12th hour came, I just gave it a good rinse and popped it back in. My fingers did get bloody. I did watch my blood swish down the sink. I did have crazy hippie fantasies of collecting it and using it for plant food, but I'm not quite in that place right now (especially not in the winter time.) I felt super good about the whole thing, and overnight was also a pleasant, leak free time.
The next day (my heaviest) I had to go to work, where the sinks are outside of the toilet rooms. Uh oh. This proved a little tricky, and I did end up having to toss the second one in the trash after a couple hours since I didn't want to accidentally subject any customers to the sight of me rinsing my bloody cup in the sink. I did however have to wash my bloody hands, and luckily no one was around when I did that.
So the second heavy day I did experience some leakage, so I had to double up with a pad, and I ended up going through three cups in that twelve hours. So I'm no longer saving any resources and also, it's kind of a pain in the ass. I was reminded of my olden hippie days when I actually used the menstrual sponge for a while. Luckily I was working at the hippie co-op at the time, where you could reach the sink from the toilet and it was all good. But when I was out in public somewhere in a regular toilet stall kind of a place, things could get really dicey. I think I gave up on the sponge when I stopped working at the co-op for just that reason.
So anyhow, as the days went on it became a habit, and I think I ended up using 10 of the 14 cups in the box. I also ended up thinking a lot about getting one of those Diva things that are meant to be reused for years, but that would definitely necessitate public rinsing. Or maybe I could use the Diva thing at home and Insteads for at work? From a carbon footprint point of view, are the Insteads really better than tampons? I definitely feel much better about the Instead than a tampon from a personal health point of view. But I don't like the idea of throwing all that plastic in the trash. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the Insteads can't be recycled. I'll do some more research and get back to ya.

2)Buffy (the Backside Slayer)
I've been having some bad dry skin problems this cold season. Perhaps the thing that skeeves me out more even than the damp tampon string is when my dry skin sticks to socks or tights. Horrible it is. So I went on a mission. First I tried Caress Exotic Cream Oil Infused Body Wash in Moroccan. It smells good, and it's got a very sexy purple bottle, and it's oh so creamy in the shower, but pretty much the minute you get out of the shower you can forget it. Also, laden with chemicals. Avoid.
Fortunately, LUSH had opened a tiny little storelet in the downtown Macy's, and Jennie and I had a patty melt date at the Tic Toc restaurant. So I went in there and had the most unpleasant shopping experience I've ever had in a LUSH, for these reasons: a)it was really warm in there, and I was shopping in my outside gear; b)it's reeeeaaaaallllyyy small, and there were several people trying to move around; c)the ladies who were working are new (obivously) and so don't have the unbridled enthusiasm of your usual LUSH salesperson; d)there was some kind of register/credit card malfunction in the line ahead of me, which meant that I had to stand in line for about 10 minutes with my body bar literally melting in my hands. (I hadn't put it in a little bag because I thought it was going to be an in and out scenario. Eventually the other person working in the storelet brought a bag for me.)
Ok, so the store portion of my Buffy experience was pretty lame by LUSH standards, but once I got that puppy in the shower it all just "melted" (ha! ha!) away. I felt a little weird about roughly scrubbing my poor dry skin with what felt like grains of sand, but when I got out of the shower I was SMOOTH AS SILK. And still am, 24 or so hours later. I love it. I should warn you that it will make your bath mat slippy, so be careful (and rinse it off when you are done showering) But overall, this is a hearty endorsement. Huzzah for Buffy (the Backside Slayer.)!

Now for the uncharacteristic football content:
1)Jerome Bettis. I just happened to click on the TV this morning to the Bettis Playbook, which is where the sports reporter dude from channel 11 interviews Jerome about some Steelers thing that happened that week. This week he was asked about Willie Parker's blabbing to the media about how he doesn't think the offensive game is effective these days, what with the long throws down the field instead of the short yardage grabs of old. (watch me write like I know shit about football! woo!)
So anyhow, Jerome basically said that while he agrees with Willie's assessment of the lack of effectiveness of the new offensive plan, he believes Willie should have discussed his concerns with the offensive coach and head coach to try to make changes, rather than bring it to the media forcing coach Tomlin to make strong statements to back up his decisions, and pretty much making Parker out to look like a complainer. This is the second time I've seen the Bettis Playbook by accident, and the first time was when Hines Ward was getting all kinds of fined for "excessive celebrating" or whatever it was they called it. At that point Bettis made the same kind of well reasoned, diplomatic statements that made me think oh wouldn't he make a great secretary of state or something. Or even just a systems consultant. Wouldn't it be great if Jerome Bettis came to the Quiet Storm to talk to all the staff members about how their actions affect other people? Maybe they would listen to Jerome Bettis.
Ok, that's maybe getting a little too personal. Let's just say that I continue to love Jerome Bettis.
On a related football note, I have developed something of a low level crush on wacky place kicker, #3 Jeff Reed. I developed this crush just before Thanksgiving when I saw a little fluff piece on the news asking all the Steelers what their favorite Thanksgiving side dish was. I can't remember what he said (I *think* it was candied sweet potatoes, but I'm absolutely not sure. I know Hines Ward said green bean casserole) but what got me was the fact that his hair was all sticking out and he looked like Wolverine. Hee hee. So I was doing a little internet research and when his hair is not sticking out, he looks like a lughead, so try to ignore those pictures. Look at the ones where he looks like Wolverine. Also, he really is a weirdo, apparently, and ya gotta love that. He knows all the words to Fergie's "Glamorous." And plus, he's a solid bet because he is pretty much always going to be responsible for a few points per game. You can't say that about any other players, not even Big "Drink Like A Champion" Ben.

Ok, I think I'll save the general update for later. Time to get out there to the farmer's market and get some eggs before they're all gone.

2008-12-11T08:53:00.002-05:00

Ok, let's do this before my feeble brain loses all recollection. I did manage to keep the wine to a minimum this year so I think I can remember pretty much the whole thing.
It was really nice to have rebby at home this year for the first time in a long time. As I may have mentioned, she bagged herself a turkey this year, and determined that she would wrap it in bacon and smoke it in the smoker outside. I also got a heritage turkey, just in case 1)we had a bunch of people, or 2)the wild turkey was just too weird. Neither of those two things ended up happening, but I was still plenty glad to have lots of turkey to go around.
So anyway, we got up and had breakfast (I think---gah, I guess I am getting fuzzy already!) and then started in on the prep. I had done a bunch of pre cooking the day/night before, so there was mostly a bunch of clean up and putting things together to be done. I was in the kitchen, and rebby was given the task of tidying up the rest of the house before the guests started arriving at about 1pm. But, time inched closer and I couldn't find her. What was she doing? Turns out she was proudly/adorably mounting her turkey feathers on a board to hang up on the trophy wall above the bar. She finally got them hung the way she liked, with plenty of time to get all the chores done. Of course.
Jeff and Lisa, my favorite Thanksgiving pals, came over around 2pm. They brought some seriously boozy pennsylvania dutch eggnog, a case of saranac beer, and some pumpkin pasta. Oh, and extra silverware, and Stan. Yay! Oh! And also, Forbidden Zone, which we never did get around to watching, unfortunately. We all milled around and ate snacks---cheeseball, roasted pumpkin seeds, french onion dip with carrots, black bean dip, shrimp cocktail. Took a lot of pictures and drank a bunch of wine and beers. Rebby started up the smoker and got the party started in the back yard. Not long after that, the family arrived: Shannon and Tristan, Kyle and Brady and Stacy and then Dad. The kids immediately ran to the back yard and rebby got a fire started in the chiminea. They were fascinated. Dad mostly hung out in the kitchen with me and watched me cook. It was fun! My turkey had gone in the oven at around noon---rebby put hers on the grill at around 3pm. It was a smoky business!
I'm just gonna spill out the rest of the menu stream of consciousness style, as I remember it: horseradish-buttermilk mashed potatoes; turkey gravy; roasted sweet potatoes with apples and maple syrup; brussels sprouts with apples, onions, and cider-mustard glaze; alton brown's green bean casserole (with cheater fried onions from TJs on top!); cornbread stuffing; chestnut stuffing; the ubiquitous crescent rolls (done in the adult style of actual crescent roll shape); smoky greens with turnips; spicy black eyed peas; vegan cornbread; bourbon pumpkin pie; apple cinnamon cake; cranberry apple cobbler; two kinds of turkey; and lots and lots of beer and wine and coffee and eggnog and cider and I think more than one shot of whiskey. By the time the dinner was on the table, we had me, rebby, jeff, lisa, colin and his friend (can't remember her name! ack), tait, dad, and leslie. It was lovely and we all found spots in the front room and ate two and three plates full. Yay! Lots of fun conversation and then so quiet you could hear a pin drop as we all fell into the traditional food coma. After a while some of us adjourned into the tv room where Urgh a Music War started, and then some other folks stopped over to bring their holiday greetings. I made it all the way through Urgh, but boy was I whooped by the time it was done! Everyone shuffled off by about 10:30pm, and we did the barest of clean ups and then went snuggly to bed. Nice holiday memories!

2008-12-03T16:53:00.002-05:00

Dammit.
I was all set to write an upbeat post getting all up to date on the past week, and then I read this. Now all I want to do is put on her records and curl up in a ball with a bottle of wine. RIP.
At least I got to see her perform live a few years ago at the 3 Rivers Arts Festival. That is still one of my most memorable concerts ever.

2008-11-24T10:48:00.002-05:00

Ok. I have been busy, but I haven't really been THAT busy. I mean, so busy that I haven't sat down at the computer for a week and a half. That's obviously not true.
But I have done a lot of stuff, and some of it is very interesting. Like for example, I RENDERED LARD.
You are all aware that I am pretty much on the traditional foods bandwagon, and recently I had some pie with the most sensational crust I've had in a long time. I asked the piemaker for her secret, and she revealed it was half butter and half lard. Woah. Until that moment I hadn't really evaluated my relationship with lard, but I immediately realized that my pigman has been offering fat for rendering for a very reasonable price. So I determined that I would get some.
Turns out he had no idea about the process, but I looked on the ole internets and found some very simple instructions. (I'm not going to link to them, because I am pretty sure that none of my blogfriends are actually going to attempt this. If I'm wrong, you can find it by googling how to render lard. The blog I found was called Homesick Texan, I think.)
ANYHOO, Sunday was the day. I was a little concerned about the house getting all stinky, but it really just got a bacon/porkchoppy smell. And who can argue with that? I did 4 pounds of fat and it took a few hours and some creative problem sovling when it came to the straining (I really need to invest in a small sized colander. We do enough straining these days that it's reasonable.) I put it all into a pretty blue crock and closed the lid and stuck it in the fridge. In the morning--snow white lard! It still has a very faint piggy smell, which I think means it was back fat rather than "leaf lard" which comes from the belly. I fried some potatoes last night for our lamb burgers and they did not come out piggy at all, so I think it's all good. The coolest thing though: this morning when I woke up and came downstairs, the kitchen had a distinct aroma that brought back to mind my granny's biscuits. A-HA! I am so making buttermilk biscuits with lard today. And, I am so making a piecrust for my bourbon pumpkin pie.
Speaking of which, I am also so making a bunch of other stuff for Orphan's Thanksgiving 2008. I am not at all sure how many people are actually going to come for dinner, but I do not mind at all the prospect of tons of leftovers. We are going to have TWO TURKEYS--one heritage turkey roasted in the traditional manner (although I think I am going to do what Alice Waters says and flip the turkey over in the middle. It's radical, I know, but I did it with the chicken I roasted last week and it was amazing) and one wild turkey that rebby shot herself which she is going to smoke. Woah indeed. I seriously pity the fool who doesn't lie to their parents and sneak off to my house for dinner. Ha! Hopefully folks who are doing parental dinner will be able to sneak over afterwards for the traditional Urgh a Music War and copious amounts of wine and pie. Or maybe we'll just have to have a two days after leftovers party too. We'll see. In any case, it's still my favorite holiday, leftover from when I was a bookstore manager and it was the ONLY time I was able to take three days off in a row. I would start drinking the moment I got home on Wednesday and not stop till Sunday afternoon. This year I'll be a lot more conservative (I am opening the restaurant on Friday) but it will still be a long afternoon of wine and cooking and good times. I can't wait!
It's a good feeling to make a harvest feast using all local ingredients. (well, almost all. The cranberry relish will be the least local thing I think, given the ginger and tangerines that are going into it. The cranberries themselves, though, are local. woo!) In fact, I actually touched the hands of the farmers who grew almost everything we will be eating. That is something to be very thankful for.

2008-11-13T09:51:00.002-05:00

BISY! Bisy Backson.

Today I have a lot to cram in: lunch with Jennie at Fuel and Fuddle, baking bread, marinating, skewering and roasting 20 pounds of chicken for a catering gig, blanching and freezing brussels sprouts, broccoli, and beet greens, more dishes, more laundry, making dinner, putting away the laundry we did over the weekend, and maybe, just maybe.....actually written correspondence. I'm gonna try.

I better get moving....maybe more later. For now, I want to share with you:

the greatest thing to happen to me since swedish military surplus long underwear.

2008-11-10T18:20:00.002-05:00

50 things you might not know about our new president: (and my comments)

• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics

• He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball

• His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili

• His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini (woo!)

• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father

• He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed (double woo!)

• He has read every Harry Potter book

• He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali

• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream

• His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars

• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia

• He can speak Spanish (nice!)

• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead

• His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea

• He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president – he didn't

• He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia

• He can bench press an impressive 200lbs (sweet!)

• He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by his full name

• His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

• He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister's fiancé, but left when a stripper arrived

• His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy (appropriate)

• He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books

• His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

• He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck (he also carries a statue of Hanuman, the ultimate servant. I love this fact!)

• He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.

• His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees

• He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing on their first date

• He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker

• He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol

• He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician

• As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine

• His daughters' ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)

• He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside (yeah!)

• He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal

• His house in Chicago has four fire places

• Daughter Malia's godmother is Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita

• He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry

• He uses an Apple Mac laptop

• He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300

• He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits

• He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes

• He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)

• His favourite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire

• He was given the code name "Renegade" by his Secret Service handlers

• He was nicknamed "Bear" by his late grandmother

• He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds (awesome!)

• His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso

• His speciality as a cook is chilli (I want to sample presidential chili!)

• He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were "street urchins"

• He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life

• His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government

Plus, he is only 5 years older than me. We could totally hang out! Chili and scrabble night, maybe?

2008-11-10T06:52:00.001-05:00

RIP, Mama Africa.

butternut squash chili

2008-11-09T18:41:00.001-05:00

butternut squash chili, originally uploaded by alienspice.

from Women's Day Special Interest Publications: SlowCooking

1T veg oil (I used bacon grease cuz I had it handy)
1 lb ground beef (I think my package was closer to two pounds. I like it beefy, but you could totally just leave it out and make it vegan too!)
2 onions finely chopped
4 cloves garlic minced
1 T cumin seeds, toasted and ground (totally do this! if you have a cast iron skillet, just put the seeds in and heat them for a few minutes till they smell good. then you can crush in a mortar and pestle or coffee grinder(cleaned!) or even use a glass on a cutting board. it's so worth it to toast and grind the seeds.)
2t dried oregano leaves (I used 1T fresh leaves chopped up cuz I have them in the garden still)
1t salt
1/2t freshly ground pepper
1 cinnamon stick about 2 inches long(this recipe is totally worth investing in cinnamon sticks if you don't already have them around. you'll probably make this again, or else you can mull some cider with them!)
1 can diced tomatoes with juice (28oz, the bigger one)
3 cups cubed butternut squash (I think I had way more than 3 cups of squash by the time I chopped up the guy I had. for the record, this batch of chili bubbled over onto the counter a few times. make sure you have some headroom in your crockpot!)
2 cups rinsed and drained kidney beans (1 small can. I made it with white beans once too and I think I liked it even better)
2 dried new mexico ancho, or juajillo chiles (here I just used some ground new mexico chile (NOT CHILI!) powder reconstituted in boiling water)
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantro (you could leave this out, but don't try to serve it to me!)
In a large(seriously large) skillet, heat oil over medium high heat. Add beef and oinos and cook,sitrring, until beef is no longer pink. Add garlic, cumin, oregano, salt, pepper and cinnamon stick and cook stirring for 1 minute. Add diced tomatoes with juice and bring to a boil.
Place squash and bean in a 5 qt or larger crock pot and cover with meat/tomato mixture. Cover and cook in high 3 hours until squash is tender.
When squash is just tender, soak dried chile peppers in a heatproof bowl in boiling water for 30 minutes. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the liquid.
Remove stem and seeds and puree chiles in blender or food processor with cilantro and reserved liquid. Add to cooker and stir well. Cover and cook on high 30 minutes until hot and bubbly.

2008-11-08T13:29:00.002-05:00

It's a happy Saturday!
This morning I got up super early and headed to the strip district. It was really great to be down there before a lot of places had opened, sitting outside Fortune's sipping on a blissful cafe mocha as the commerce slowly started up. I liked watching people stop and look at the colorful handmade sweaters and ponchos of the Indian vendors. I liked watching the Italian ladies setting up their cookie tables outside Penn Mac. What I didn't like at all, though, was watching the guys to my right unload box after box of Steelers merchandise....all made in China. And that was only one stand of SteelersmerchandisemadeinChina---there must be at least 7 of them down there on any given Saturday. I even chased a couple of empty made in China boxes down the street that blew out of the back of their van. They didn't notice, or didn't care.
Now, I don't begrudge Pittsburghers their Steelers merchandise. But wouldn't it be great if some of the out of work people who LIVE HERE could make a living making Steelers merchandise for their neighbors? It just made me think a little too much about local economies.
So, I had my mocha and I got my pound of Guatamalan Antigua coffee, and I went down the street to get the couple of serving ware items I still needed for the roller derby banquet we're catering tonight. I tried not to think about the fact that most if not all of the plastic there in Schorins is probably made in China too. Ugh. I walked down the street to Stamoolis where I got some good cheese and some kalamata olive bread (so not made in China!) and then to Reynas where I got two big cans of Hatch Mild Green Chiles. Even though Reynas doesn't carry the frozen Bueno anymore, I have been pretty lucky with alternatives. The jarred green chiles I bought a couple weeks ago made a great stew, even though the medium was definitely not medium (at least not in my estimation!) So I got mild this time. It was super yummy with my breakfast eggs.
From there I headed down to the Firehouse market, where the bell was yet to be rung. I was second in line for turkey! I got a big ole 16 pounder. Woo! Between this guy and the wild turkey rebby got last weekend, we are going to be all set for a big feast! I stood around and waited for my friends the Camerons to meet me, wishing I had worn my all the way cotton tights instead of my cotton leggings. It got COLD this morning! Finally I saw them arrive, and I Juliet, Lydon, Amelia and I went to talk to the chicken farmers while Dave parked. Nate and Kristin were so welcoming and friendly and shared alot of information with Juliet about their farm and their personal transition from vegetarians to poultry farmers. Lydon liked looking at the pictures of the chickens. Amelia liked her bagel. It was chilly, but we had a great time hanging out and talking with them, and then visiting some of the other tables for produce. Juliet got some of the tiny turnips I've been curious about, and I got some broccoli rabe, cilantro, and a giant squash. It was a nice, though hurried visit. Hopefully next weekend will be less chilly and we can linger a little longer!
I headed home and made myself a yummy bacon-egg-green chile-tortilla breakfast and some coffee, and listened to Barney Frank on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! It was awesome. I was especially happy to hear about how President Elect Obama said on MTV "brothers should pull up their pants." After breakfast, I cut the cheese. Ha. Now I'm caught in that limbo of can't really do anything because I have to go soon, but I don't have to go for another couple of hours. So it's internet-a-rama for me.
I don't know if I really mentioned it on here or not, but Russell Brand quit his radio show over a crazy kertuffel. You can read all about it in the internets, if you care to. Basically, he allowed himself to be a distraction for the British media, I think. He probably was only too happy to have a reason to quit the radio show so he can concentrate on his movie career, but I for one am sad because I really loved being able to listen to his wit and wisdom (and yes, stupid childish behaviors even) on a weekly basis. Here's Mr Gee's take on it (the poet lauriate of the Russell Brand Radio Show):

2008-11-06T08:26:00.002-05:00

je suis heureuse.

Yep, I am feeling a very simple, complete kind of happiness today that I haven't felt in a long, long time. I have found ways to wrench the joy out of little moments and even whole days and weeks at a time over the past 8 years, but I feel like today instead of the low level backdrop of dread, I feel a low level backdrop of potential and ease. Imagine that! It feels foreign, which is I guess why I chose to express it en francais.
Still and all, it's not all roses. California fucked up big time. Well, they fucked up about 50%. Hooray for farm animals, hooray for teens who need abortions, hooray for veterans buying farms and children's hospitals. Too bad for married gay folks, renewable energy, and nonviolent drug offenders. I gotta say I am REALLY happy not to live in California today. The presidential victory would be so tainted.
Luckily I live here in PA, where we did the right thing (of course we didn't have those kinds of decisions to make) My sissy is happy to live in MA where they still get to pay income taxes, and don't have to go to jail for rolling a joint. Also, dog racing banned. Even Ohio knocked it out of the park! Thank you for redeeming yourself, land of my youth!
So yeah, it's a new era. I am mildly concerned about what kind of damage Bush and Cheney will try to wrack up in the next two months. I kinda wish there was some sort of "can we just kick them out NOW!?!" provision. I mean, Barack and co need some time off, surely, but I wish there was a way to just get the bad men out of the big chairs now so they can't do any more harm. I'm trying not to focus on that though.
Instead I'll focus on good stuff! Like, this is going to be the most Thanksgivingest Thanksgiving in a long time. Rebby is going to be here for T-day for the first time in many years. I am so excited to make a big feast for friends. Rebby went turkey hunting last weekend and got her first, which she is going to smoke. Yum. We'll do a more regular roasted turkey too, and all kinds of traditional side dishes. Which reminds me....I need horseradish. The horseradish mashed taters were one of my favorite parts of last year's dinner and I definitely want to replicate. Hopefully I can get a horseradish at the farmer's market on Saturday. And cranberries. I've got sweet potatoes and regular potatoes and onions and garlic stockpiled in storage. I got a couple of pumpkins on Monday for pie. I need, seriously, to get some lard.
Ok, enough food talk. Hope you are all feeling happy today. It feels good, doesn't it?

2008-11-04T22:07:00.000-05:00

I keep looking back at this and it's helping.

2008-11-04T06:41:00.000-05:00

happy monsters!

2008-11-01T10:12:00.001-04:00

happy monsters!, originally uploaded by alienspice.

jeff and lisa got married last night! we had such a good time, and I am so so so so happy for my friend jeffy and his beautiful bride.
they're headed to niagra falls for their honeymoon this weekend. bon voyage!

2008-10-29T15:40:00.002-04:00

Still sick. Ugh.
I went in to work Monday and got through about 4 hours before I was sent home. Got some medicines and juice and gingerale and went right into bed. Jilly volunteered to cover my Tuesday night shift, so I just slept through almost the whole day yesterday. I did wake up long enough to watch the very end of an episode of Marcus Welby, MD with Sonny Bono as a guest star. And then later the tail end of an episode of The Incredible Hulk. RTN is the best thing that could ever happen to staying home sick. The two extra PBS stations help too...there is always some Rick Sebak documentary to be had now adays. It's pretty cool.
So, I went in this morning thinking I would just get the ball rolling and then take off, but I ended up staying until 2pm. That's the way it goes. I mostly did dishes to avoid coughing into people's food too much. By the time I left, ACTUAL SNOW was falling from the sky! Not little wet flurries, but big puffy flakes. It was kind of awesome, despite the fact that I was feeling all sickly. It's pretty much done for now, but it was nice to be out in the snowfall for a few minutes.
I can almost taste my coffee now....a marked improvement. Wish me luck that I can be fully recovered by Friday night for my friend's HALLOWEEN WEDDING!

2008-10-26T19:52:00.002-04:00

I've got a nasty headcold. I am really pissed off about it. My whole Sunday was wasted laying in bed sniffling and feeling like shit. Boo.
However, the most wonderful thing just happened: we got our digital tuner box for the TV on Thursday, and one of the extra special channels we get now is RTN
In just a few minutes, The Hardy Boys are going to be on. It's like highschool all over again! I can't wait.

2008-10-21T13:53:00.002-04:00

currently listening: http://nonserviamradio.podbean.com/2008/10/05/nsr-podcast-2/

just this side of too survivalist for my taste. some interesting information, and cool background music too.

currently eating: the most bizarre/awesome salad ever. Becky C brought it to the soup party and I fell totally in love with it. There are tons of variations on the recipe on the internets(most of them have bacon, which this one doesn't) and I think if you have the basic broccoli/raisins/sweet'n'sour mayo it would be good. Mine has tons of fresh raw broccoli, slivered almonds, red onion, raisins, cheddar cheese, salt and pepper, mayonaise, sugar and apple cider vinegar. It feels very virtuous to eat it.

currently thinking about: gothic bellydancing(as in I need to get back into it); vegan cookie bars; friends who are dealing with family crises. I'm sending out lots of love.

2008-10-16T10:13:00.002-04:00

Man I just get sucked into the internets like a black hole. Not really even doing anything, just aimlessly wandering from page to page. It's a sickness.
What I need to do is get off my ass and take care of the enormous cauliflowers that are staring me down from the kitchen counter. They're huge! Before I do that, though, I need to finish the dishes from the soup party, which means I need to unload the dishwasher and drainer rack, and reload and wash and etc etc etc. Same thing, different day.
Anyhoo, so yeah, we had a soup party. I made pork and green chile stew, which I barely got a taste of. That one went lickity split. I'm always so conscious of the vegans and then when it comes right down to it most people are rampant carnivores. Oh well, there were some vegetarians too, and even a couple vegans late in the evening. So the Potato Leek and Roasted Butternut Squash were not total losses. People loved them. I loved the Beer Cheese Soup, which was almost exactly like the stuff that the Sharp Edge charges me $8 a bowl for. Now I can make it at home for much less and and also ORGANIC. Take that, overpriced beer pub. Seriously, I am in the restaurant biz so I know how things are but I feel like the Sharp Edge has really gone overboard with the price increases. The Hop Devil Soup was the last thing tying me to the place. And now I am free!
Ok, back to the partay. We cleaned the hell out of the (first floor of) the house. In addition to the soups I made some vegan bread sticks, which was fun but unnecessary. People brought hella bread which I am trying to eat up before it all goes moldy. Also: desserts. Coconut Marshmellow bars, Apple Shortbread with Caramel and Whipped Cream, Blueberry Apple Cobbler, Apple Cranberry Pie, Peach and Blackberry Cheesecake......Gawd. I busted out the Apple Cinnamon Ice Cream late in the night and it was a big hit too. Everything was so good! There was much beer, wine and cider consumed. Tons of friends came and my whole family came and no body but my nephew spent any time at all in the superclean house! The party was all outside. Cool. At night rebby lit a fire and we talked about movies and had a nice mellow time. I broke out the limoncello after ben noticed the recipe on the fridge. It was convivial. Late late Becky C showed up with a broccoli salad which was at that moment the most amazing thing a person could do after all the sugar. I ate a giant bowl ful. Yum.
Several folks tagged themselves for the next soup party...I hope it can become a regular thing. Sharing good food is the most important thing people can do to take care of each other, I think. Especially in the coming hard times.
So since the soup party I've been working long hours at the restaurant, and it feels good. I actually enjoy my time there more with less personalities around in my space, you know? Even if it means I have to wash a lot of dishes and make hummus on the fly. I like the quiet and the feeling that everyone there is concentrated on a task. I also got to spend some time with one of my favorite mommas and her two gorgeous kids. She is such a great mom and very respectful of her children's individuality without taking it to the extreme of letting the kids put themselves into dangerous situations, like the woman I had to yell at on Monday night. She was letting her kid open and close the door to the basement of the restaurant. Seriously? I mean, I know the QS is a comfortable homey environment, and I know she and her kid and her man spend a lot of time there, but how did she get the idea that it was okay for her to let her baby hang out at the top of the stairs to the baesment? Do I really have to put an employees only sign on the basement door? That's not freedom, that's poor judgement. End of story.
Otherwise, I am listening to the newest Nine Inch Nails album called "The Slip." I like it a lot so far. It's a nice cross between With Teeth style rockers and super ambient stuff like The Fraggle. Also, I got my personally signed by the Metal God copy of the Rock In Rio Halford DVD. I haven't watched it all the way through yet, but I have held it and petted it a bunch. I'm a huge dork.
And finally...debates. Huh. I am so looking forward to having a president who is smarter than me again. That will be nice. I think Bob Scheffer did a great job with the hardass questions and I think Barack did a great job being clear and not stooping to McCain's level. I think McCain did a great job showing that he is a rather desperate and slightly confused old man who is honestly intimidated by his opponent and knows in his heart of hearts that his opponent is better equipped for the job of running the country. As do most clear thinking Americans by this point, it seems. Yay us. Now we just gotta show it on Nov 4th.

my mind is well and truly blown!

2008-10-09T13:36:00.001-04:00

Fold A Fitted Sheet With Perfectly Squared Corners - The most amazing home videos are here

2008-10-09T11:39:00.003-04:00

OOOOFF! My head.
Having a little hormonal nightmare here this morning. I'm gonna put it down largely to all the sugar I've been eating lately, but I'm not going to stop baking. Perhaps I'll try to get on the agave bandwagon instead.
I'm seriously all about baking these days. At work I've perfected the Deep Chocolate Pound Cake from Bon Appetit. It's seriously good, although the recipe is a little precious with having to mix things in four different bowls. I don't usually give in to that jazz, but I want to make sure I understand what all is going on with it before I try to cut out some steps. I'm still sorting through vegan pumpkin loaf recipes....this one from the PPK is my current favorite. And this week I also made a batch of my favorite banana carob chip monster muffins, which sold out in less than a day! woo. And some lemon bars. There's not much you can say about lemon bars, besides "delicious" and "sugar coma." I think perhaps if I eat up all the arugula in my fridge I can balance out the two lemon bars I sampled yesterday.
So yeah, I've been on the baking bandwagon for a while. It's kind of new--I'm usually more of a stovetop gal but once in a while the flour/sugar bug hits. I think it's the fall weather that makes me want to indulge and have the oven on for long periods of time.
Speaking of the fall weather, we are FINALLY going to have our inaugural Mayflower Manse Soup Party this Sunday. I've been looking forward to it for, well, about a year, and now the weekend is finally here. I think it took getting the media room into a shape we were both happy with to finally make the decision. Hopefully it can become a semi-regular thing. And hopefully it can lead to more and different dinner parties and maybe even my dream of a floating supper club. I think we have enough friends into cooking and sharing food that it could become a reality. I am determined to build community, dammit! Mark my words.
It's almost noon and I haven't been off the couch yet today. I better go make an effort. Happy Thursday to you!

hanging with Mr D

2008-10-07T09:44:00.001-04:00

hanging with Mr D, originally uploaded by alienspice.

you talkin to me? cuz I don't see anybody else here....

I love how he looks like a super tough guy here. really he was just annoyed that I was trying to remove the binkston for a picture.

We had a mostly great time hanging out on Thursday. The only less great points were 1)when we were happily walking through East Liberty on the way to Whole Foods and Donny sneezed two enormous globes of snot. Since I am not an actual mom, I do not have kleenex grafted on to any of my appendages. Luckily a nice lady happened by who had just picked up some food for take out--she offered her napkin. Bless her.
The second dip in the funtime quotient was when we got to Whole Foods and saw Dad. At that point Aunt Shirley was NO LONGER GOOD ENOUGH. Not even cake would shift his attention away from the all attractive DAD. Finally I managed to carry him out of view and we settled down in the cafe and climbed the table for about 25 minutes. All in all, a good time.

2008-10-02T08:57:00.002-04:00

A super happy good morning to you!
I am in the absolute best of moods this morning, because of the simple fact that I wore socks to bed. That means that it is no longer hot summer and is instead chilly fall, and we all know that fall is best, don't we? Sweaters! Pumpkins! Swirling leaves! Oh---the swirling leaves are actually a little bit of a downer at my house. The enormous maple that threatens our very existence has spent all summer producing thousands of leaf bombs that it will now drop in unwieldy piles all over the street. And even though the maple is not ACTUALLY on our property, as we are closest we are defacto in charge of the leaf mess. The Jamaicans are only too happy to help, of course. The Jamaicans are absolutely awesome.
So today is my day off, and as usual I have a ton of things to do. I've got brussels sprouts, collards, butternut squash, broccoli, onions, and peppers to blanch and freeze. I've got laundry. I've got dishes. I've got to switch the closet over to fall. I've got grape leaves to roll and samosas to fry for catering. I've got to shop for cheese. I've got to pick up my pal Donovan from daycare and take him to Whole Foods. Before that, I've got to shower. AND, at the end of it all, I've got to watch the VP debates. I still can't get over the fact that this is ACTUALLY HAPPENING. What do you think my VP debate drinking game word should be? Maverick? Pakistan? I've got at least a 6 pack in the fridge....
OK, better go get some things happening. Enjoy the FALL WEATHER!

2008-09-27T19:21:00.002-04:00

.This could be the night I've waited for all my frumpy little life.
Or at least since 1985.
Seriously. We'll be front row center. I should probably learn CPR for Jennie for when he does "Flavour of Night." She should learn it for when he does "I Often Dream of Trains."

I'm already feeling a little intimidated just thinking about being that close to him singing one of the most important songs in my personal development. It's gonna be intense.

2008-09-25T10:13:00.002-04:00

help for hard times.

Today I am going to clean up my office, bake a caramel apple cake, freeze some hot peppers and onions, stop by the Obama office for a stack of voter registration forms, take myself out for lunch, and get a radical haircut.
Hopefully these small acts will help combat the despair.

2008-09-23T15:40:00.002-04:00

Happy Celebrate Bisexuality Day, everybody!
I'm celebrating by not having sex with anybody. My girlfriend's out of town and frankly, boys seem like too much trouble these days. Maybe I'll watch some gay porn later just for the sake of bisexuality day.
Right now I am trying to decide if I should go to either one of the two community involvement meetings going on tonight in which I am interested. One is a Larimer specific planning meeting with some folks from the Urban Lab center at CMU's architecture school, but the flyer I saw on my street the other day has since been torn down and I'm not sure what time. It's at the Kingsley Center though, and this might be just the opportunity I've been looking for to get in there and see what all is going on.
The other thing is a meeting of people who want to volunteer for the gay and lesbian film festival. Again, I am having a devil of a time finding confirmation of the details--I read about it on someone's weblong and now I can't find it again. That one is in Squirrel Hill though, and I don't think I'm really up for making that trek. I might just email the volunteer coordinator later to let them know I'm interested. I have a very evil genius attitude toward the film festival....today I'll take tickets, tomorrow I'll RULE THE WORLD!!!!! Or at least make some good programming decisions. We'll see. I definitely plan to volunteer this year, even if it does mean hauling ass to the southside works every night.
So, you want to know what else I've been up to? Here's some stuff:
1)putting food by: yesterday I went to the farmer's market and got a mess of celery and carrots and peppers and onions and potatoes and garlic and apples and nectarines. Oh, and broccoli. Last night I spent a few hours chopping and blanching and freezing, and now I have celery and carrots for stews and soups and thanksgiving, and peppers I can just pop out of the freezer bag and saute. The Blackberry Meadows farmer (Dave, who used to be a computer programmer!) now recognizes me as the garlic hoarder. I got five heads this week, and I'll probably get more on Saturday at the Firehouse market. They just do the garlic extra good there. Anyway, this weekend I started some red saurkraut with apples and caraway too. And soon I'll start some watermelon pickles. Just watch me.
2)improving media storage: we got a couple of really nice CD cabinets from a couple of really nice liberals on craigslist. the cabinets are gorgeous and make me feel like I live in the record exchange. (please see flickr for photo evidence) then this weekend we got an EXPEDIT! for the records, and now I feel like I also live in the back room at Jerry's. But the media is looking so much better. Rebby got a really nice cabinet (possibly ash? it's all hard wood) at construction junction for $20 and now our stereo components and VHS and DVDs live in there. We just need to find a solution for the cassettes. We have, probably literally, thousands.
3)baking bread. I did a molasses barley bread that turned out pretty good, and before that an oatmeal honey bread that was the bomb. I've taken to using whey from old raw milk as the liquid in my breads and although that means they're NOT VEGAN, I think they keep better. I'm glad to be back on the bread baking wagon.
4)working a lot. including a wedding this weekend that I thought I wasn't working, but ended up doing at the last minute. It was all good though--super easy, nice folks and a good ole doctor daddy tip. Huzzah!
5)contemplating radical hair maneuvers: so I got this goth juice from LUSH and I want to put it to good use. I am thinking of getting a freaky do. Something that can be serviceable right out of the shower or after a long day with a scarf on my head, but can also achieve great heights and volume if I lather on the product. Oh, and maybe color too, though since I've been using the BIG from LUSH I am liking the way my natural+gray is looking. We'll see. Thursday might be the day.
6)trying not to freak out about the country. what else can I say really? shit is whack.

2008-09-22T06:20:00.003-04:00

I know making fun of IKEA's names for things is so 1990s, but I was there yesterday and I got some coffee(fifth one over) and I just can't stop cracking up about it.
I haven't tried it yet, so I can't tell you if it really is THAT good.

A more substantial update (hopefully with pictures!) should arrive later today.

2008-09-19T18:29:00.007-04:00

AVAST! Today be talk like a pirate day!
Here be today's weblog entries, translated:
jus' waitin' fer th' juice t' flow
very picturesque. very cold.

Fridee, Septembree 19, 2008
These be so great.
I wonder if ye can guess which ones I jus' ordered?

Also, I sent Barak some treasure this evenin'. If ye send th' lad's some treasure this evenin' too, 't be matched 100%. But ye be havin' t' do 't before low tide.

Now I gotta get off th' dang internet an' into th' dang galley t' fry some dang corn fritters.
Dang 't.
posted by alienspice at 6:29 PM 0 comments

I dasn't think I've yet talked about me new boyfriend th' ice cream maker.
We've had some really good times together so far, an' I think th' relationship be headin' in th' starboard direction.
So far, we've made:
basic vanilla--this be our first date. 't turned ou' nearly perfect an' I be raptureous. all I had t' do be mix grog, cream, sugar, an' vanilla. that's 't. he did th' rest. 't be creamy an' set up wondefully. I fell in instant love.

balsamic strawberry--our second date be a wee rocky, but me takes full responsibility. I marinated th' strawberries in brown sugar an' balsamic vinegar, an' then added them in wi' th' grog an' cream. I didna adjust th' liquid amounts fer th' strawberry juice, an' consequently th' volume be too great an' me boyfriend made a big mess all o'er th' counter. also, th' texture be kind o' weird. again, I blame myself. he made th' best o' a bad situation.

ginger peach--by our third date we had a better idee o' what t' expect from each other an' all be golden again. this time I marinated th' peaches an' ginger in sugar, but made a basic vanilla recipe an' then added in th' fruit after th' churnin' be done. th' ice cream got a wee softer than i wanted when I added th' fruit in, but once 't set up 't be all good. this ice cream made me bawl a wee bit 't be so yummy.

Unfortunately, we still had a bunch o' strawberry an' some peach ice cream in th' freezer when th' power sailed' ou'. I tookst th' ice cream in t' work an' let me co workers at 't---'t be funny on accoun' o' one o' me other co workers brought in porto'er weddin' cake th' same tide. 't be a cake an' ice cream party at work! woo!

Last night we had another date---cinnamon banana pecan. I thought I ballsed 't up wi' too much alcohol (banana liquor an' captain morgan) but after a night in th' fridge 't seems arrr. Me boyfriend definitely prefers nay t' deal wi' th' fruit or nuts. I'll let yer mind take that wherereyou like. 'tis better if I mix them in afterwards.

So now I be obsessed wi' makin' freaky ice creams. I be goin' t' do th' salty liquorice, an' now I canna avast thinkin' about tomato ice cream. I be havin' this Sheila Lukins recipe fer tomato marmalade that be jus' tomatoes an' sugar cooked down slowly---I think addin' that t' some cinnamon ice cream might make me head explode. In a good way. Also, swabbies make avocado ice cream, I think? An' me lassie texted me from Maine last high tide' 'ere she be havin' blueberry basil sorbet. Th' possibilities be endless. I'll let me new boyfriend take me anywhere!
posted by alienspice at 6:29 PM 0 comments

2008-09-19T18:29:00.005-04:00

These are so great.
I wonder if you can guess which ones I just ordered?

Also, I sent Barak some money this evening. If you send him some money this evening too, it will be matched 100%. But you have to do it before midnight.

Now I gotta get off the dang internet and into the dang kitchen to fry some dang corn fritters.
Dang it.

2008-09-19T18:29:00.002-04:00

I don't think I've yet talked about my new boyfriend the ice cream maker.
We've had some really good times together so far, and I think the relationship is heading in the right direction.
So far, we've made:
basic vanilla--this was our first date. It turned out nearly perfect and I was raptureous. all I had to do was mix milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla. that's it. he did the rest. it was creamy and set up wondefully. I fell in instant love.

balsamic strawberry--our second date was a little rocky, but I take full responsibility. I marinated the strawberries in brown sugar and balsamic vinegar, and then added them in with the milk and cream. I didn't adjust the liquid amounts for the strawberry juice, and consequently the volume was too great and my boyfriend made a big mess all over the counter. also, the texture was kind of weird. again, I blame myself. he made the best of a bad situation.

ginger peach--by our third date we had a better idea of what to expect from each other and all was golden again. this time I marinated the peaches and ginger in sugar, but made a basic vanilla recipe and then added in the fruit after the churning was done. the ice cream got a little softer than i wanted when I added the fruit in, but once it set up it was all good. this ice cream made me cry a little bit it was so yummy.

Unfortunately, we still had a bunch of strawberry and some peach ice cream in the freezer when the power went out. I took the ice cream in to work and let my co workers at it---it was funny because one of my other co workers brought in leftover wedding cake the same day. It was a cake and ice cream party at work! woo!

Last night we had another date---cinnamon banana pecan. I thought I ballsed it up with too much alcohol (banana liquor and captain morgan) but after a night in the fridge it seems okay. My boyfriend definitely prefers not to deal with the fruit or nuts. I'll let your mind take that wherever you like. It's better if I mix them in afterwards.

So now I am obsessed with making freaky ice creams. I am going to do the salty liquorice, and now I can't stop thinking about tomato ice cream. I have this Sheila Lukins recipe for tomato marmalade that is just tomatoes and sugar cooked down slowly---I think adding that to some cinnamon ice cream might make my head explode. In a good way. Also, people make avocado ice cream, I think? And my sister texted me from Maine yesterday where she was having blueberry basil sorbet. The possibilities are endless. I'll let my new boyfriend take my anywhere!

2008-09-17T22:45:00.005-04:00

Oh My Goodness.

Jilly gifted me with this yesterday after cleaning out her bathroom.
On Tuesday, my LUSH box arrived from Boston, featuring a giant piece of rock star soap.
I am going to smell like a juicy vanilla berry all winter long. Delicious.

2008-09-17T22:45:00.004-04:00

Dammit, I just lost a lengthy post because I tried to search for a recipe for red sauerkraut and one of the recipe websites tried to install something on my computer.
Grrr.
Anyway, the short form is it's my day off and I am all about accomplishing lots of things. Perhaps the better way to handle it is to list what I actually DO accomplish later tonight than what I plan to accomplish, anyway? That way I don't have to feel bad about what I don't get done.
Wish me luck.

2008-09-17T22:45:00.003-04:00

The power is back!
It actually came back sometime yesterday. I worked a long shift and then decided, what the hey, I'll just hang out at the QS and work on our environmental position statement (oh yes) instead of going home to a dark house. So I ended up staying there for 13 hours, and then I got on the 86B and came home. As I was rounding the corner from Paulson to Mayflower, I saw a Duquesne Light truck headed down my way. I actually called out loud to it "hope you're going to fix my power!" but as I got closer, I could see that my porch light was already on. Huzzah!
Now we just have to retrieve the stuff from the Quizzle. By the time rebby got home tonight and we had dinner we didn't much feel like dealing with it, so it will have to be tomorrow.
On a completely unrelated note, why is Brad Pitt trying so hard to win my love? First, the thing in New Orleans. Then, he and Ange donated 2 mil to fight HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia. And now this. What's up Brad? I think maybe Ange wants to double date or something.

2008-09-16T08:51:00.002-04:00

Hey guys!
I'm writing to you from the Quiet Storm. My computer has always been super fussy about connecting to the Verizon wireless here, but today I messed around until I figured out how to do it.
BECAUSE......our power is still out. Since 8:30pm Sunday night. Everywhere around our block, even the other end of the street, has power. I can't see any downed lines in our immediate vacinity, and yet....we're last on the list for some reason. Could it be that we live in a very poor area? Hmm.
Anyway, so all the stocking up I did last week...a big pot of brown rice, ratattouille, black beans, for lunches and dinners.....it's vectoring slowly downwards toward spoilage. As of last night stuff in the fridge was still pretty chilly, but I think the beans at least are going to have to go. And all the accumulated dairy products in there (except the yogurt by golly!) I'm (trying) not (to) freak(ing) out about our freezer full of meat...especially the lamb chops and roasts we got on Saturday. Sources say that the chest freezer will hold temp for at least 48 hours. We're just now going on 36. Gulp.
I mostly feel like a spoiled asshole for even making a deal out of this when there are people all over the country losing their homes and everything as a result of these storms. So yeah, I'm mildly inconvenienced. And we'll just have to rebuild our stores once things get back to normal. I do feel justified, though, in being pissed off that power in the wealthier areas of town was restored almost immediately, whereas we and our neighbors (some of whom have medical conditions) are still waiting. Yeah, capitalism.

2008-09-03T21:18:00.002-04:00

It's vacation time, brothers....

Tomorrow morning REALLY REALLY early we will get up and drive to the airport and get on a plane to Boston! We're going for a long weekend to attend Queen For A Day, eat at Dali, go to the beach, eat at Kowloon, and hang out with the sisters and bunnies. (there is a new bunny---don't know if I mentioned her. Can't wait to meet Lilly!)
Hopefully we'll also get to hang out with Neil a little bit. Hopefully also go to one of my many favorite breakfast spots in Boston. It will be nice to unwind for a few days, that's for sure.
In a fit of weird compulsive mania, I decided that I would have to clean the bathrooms, stove and kitchen sink before we go. Who knows. All I know is it is now 9:30pm and I still have to wait for the dryer to finish so I can finish packing so I can get some sleep so I can wake up at 3:30am to get to the airport by 4:30am. Woah.
It will all be worth it no doubt.
As the sisters' household is extremely plugged in, I might check in during the trip.
I'll definitely try to take some good pictures this time! I've never been very good at bringing out the camera, but Europe helped.
See yunz guys on Sunday!
xoxo

2008-08-30T07:49:00.002-04:00

Recappin

It's been a fun week! Rebby has been home all week, so I have been hanging out with her in the evenings instead of tapping on the computer so much (except when we are nerdin out sitting side by side on the sofa with our laptops. barf.) I don't think I mentioned how we went shopping last saturday, did I? Well, we started the shopping at the farmer's market/strip district, where we picked up our lamb order and some of THE BEST BACON IN THE WORLD. The lamb lady wasn't able to fill our whole order, but we did get a bunch of ground lamb. Yum. Also got some gorgeous light purple eggplants, some lesbian tomatoes, a little watermelon, and some super purple potatoes. We haven't gotten into them yet. Furter down the strip I stocked up on guatamalan coffee and new mexican chile powder, and then we headed home. First stopping at Dozen for The City's Best Cinnamon Roll, which I have to admit I didn't absolutely love but the vibe in the place is so great and I love to give my heterosexual weddingcatering money to the gays as much as possible. It's my personal economic strategy. So we stopped at home to drop off the perishables and then headed out to JERRY'S!!! Where Rebby was so hoping to find some choice Judas Priest on vinyl. That didn't happen, but I found THE BUBBLEMEN RECORD!!! and DISCOVER by Gene Loves Jezebel with the live bonus disc!!! And a NIN remix 12 inch of The Hand That Feeds. Woo. Rebby ended up getting a vast assortment of things, including a couple Queen records missing from our collection. We're gearing up for a visit to Boston for Queen for a Day so we need to catch up. I sat in front of the stereo and sang "Play The Game" at the top of my lungs along with Freddie the other night. I LOVE that song. I am so going to do it at the next kareoke opportunity. Anyhow, Rebby also got the first Mott the Hoople record and some Suzi Quatro. She was seriously jonesin for vinyl.
I, on the other hand, was seriously jonesin for more Priest on CD that I could take to work with me. So we stopped at The Exchange where I got (deep breath) Defenders of the Faith, Screaming for Vengeance, Angels of Retribution(with the DVD, because our copy has gone missing) and Painkiller. I looked at Live Vengeance '82 and put it back, not wanting to go too crazy, but then Rebby insisted. Wee. So I carry my giant stack of Priest to the counter and duder working there goes "So, did you go to the concert last week?" Ha. I really wanted to say "What concert?" but I was too giddy with that huge stack of Priest so I was nice to him instead. Sigh.
Ok, so the other shopping we did was at the WATERFRONT. We got an ice cream making machine!!! And a new hose. It was time. I will tell you more about the ice cream making machine later.
Came home and made lamb burgers wrapped in bacon with eggplant relish. These were just insanely good. You have no idea. Oh! We also stopped at McBrooms and got a case of Warsteiner. Dunkel of course. I'm all about the Dunkel since my two weeks on the continent. Ha.
Later we draped ourselves over the sofa and watched the priest video. It's so much better than the ridiculous concert from the Turbo era that is on Electric Eye. That one is just an embarassment, really. This one is phenomenal. At the end, Rob knocks his bike over and whips it with a fury. Wow.
Sunday I worked brunch and although it was hella buzy, between the Priest and having Pete as my beta it was pretty mellow for us. People were digging my Jamaican Banana Ginger Pancakes. And rightfully so, I might add. They were pretty darn good.
The rest of the week is a blur now, I have to say. I worked extra long days all week, which actually felt good and although I was tired at the end of them, I was mostly able to rally when I got home. Tuesday I think it was I put some pinto beans and a smoked ham shank and some onions and peppers in the crock pot before I went to work, and when I got home it was dinner. The beans became so creamy and amazing and soaked up the chlie flavor and oh! So good. Wednesday I picked up Donovan from daycare because his mom is archivin it up in San Francisco, and we had a really nice walk through East Liberty and then hung out in a booth at Whole Foods waiting for his dad to get off of work. He amused himself for the most part by stepping from the bench to the window sill and back. He's a good kid. I tried to get him interested in a photo shoot but he really wasn't having it. I took a few snaps though.
After babytime Rebby met me at Sharp Edge for beers and food. I got the ole hop devil soup in a bread bowl. Love. Also a serviceable steak salad and a delicious German expensive dunkel. Yum. Thursday, I switched with Jilly and worked breakfast and then at the end of another long ass day, we had BLTs for supper! With the first big tomatoes from our garden. So yummy.
So then Friday was my day "off", except I had a catering meeting and I had to get the cheese for the catering too. I did dishes and laundry and computering in the morning, and then headed to the storm to gather catering stuff and have the meeting. It was a doozy. The client was totally off the wall (not in a bad way, just in a way too many things on her plate way) and I kept having to drag her back to earth. But we worked it all out, and it's going to be a good job. Rebby came to get me for cheese shopping, and then she suggested that we have sushi for supper. Woo! I cut up the cheese while she went to get the sushi and then I made my first batch of ICE CREAM in the ice cream making machine. We figured I should go vanilla for my first time (ha!) and let me tell you, it turned out super good. I used organic, grass fed buttermilk and heavy cream, organic vanilla, and organic demararra sugar. That. Is. It. It comes out of the machine sort of soft-servy, so we put it in the freezer for a while and then a couple hours later it had firmed up quite a bit. I made us each sundaes (hers with bananas and peanut butter cups, mine with butterscotch syrup and candied pecans) and then we went to bed. I really should stop eating ice cream right before bed because I never feel very good when I wake up. But I can't help it.
I can tell that me and the ice cream making machine are going to be best friends. It was so easy! I'll be attempting some salty licorice ice cream soon.
Oh! On Thursday I also watched the DNC. My love and devotion for Obama fluctuated quite a bit over the course of the nasty primary season, but I feel better after that speech. My favorite thing about him is that he talks about stuff that politicians don't usually talk about. I don't even need him to keep all his promises...just the fact that he is willing to say "gay and lesbian brothers and sisters" in front of 38 million or whatever people, is enough. I gotta send that man some money.

2008-08-28T22:52:00.002-04:00

"we might not agree on same sex marriage, but we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to be able to visit those they love in the hospital, and live lives free of discrimination and hatred."

MY president just said that.

2008-08-25T17:27:00.002-04:00

Happy Birthday, Metal God!
He turns 57 today.
There was some metal controversy over the weekend when he was quoted by a Dallas reporter as saying that "no straight man" could do his job in Judas Priest. Ha!
I thought the same thing that Ripper Owens thought, which was that it must have been quoted out of context because that's not the kind of thing that Rob would just come out with unprovoked, and also---Ha! So funny. Ripper thought it was funny too.

2008-08-21T22:32:00.002-04:00

Epoisses--- a stinky, runny cheese(haven't had it, probably wouldn't)

Clotted Cream Tea---I think this is having tea and scones with clotted cream?(yes, I would like this)

Phaal---spiciest curry ever(no, I'm not into painfully hot foods)

Fugu---poisonous pufferfish(dumb)

Kaolin---it’s mud, yeah?(dumb)

Baijiu---like everclear, only Chinese and made from rice(probably not)

Criollo Chocolate---rare and expensive south American single origin chocolates(I gotta say I don't seem to have the palate for expensive chocolates. I like chocolate just fine, but I don't love expensive ones enough to warrant the expense.

Rose Harrissa---harissa with rose petals. Ooh!(yes! gimme some now!)

success!

2008-08-21T21:22:00.001-04:00

success!, originally uploaded by alienspice.

Here's my beauty.
I was going to follow her up with a Lemon Blueberry Tea Bread from the ole Shelia Lukins omnibus, but then I discovered that I was completely out of all purpose flour. Dang! Nothing deflates a baking boner like running out of flour.

failure!

2008-08-21T21:19:00.001-04:00

failure!, originally uploaded by alienspice.

so, my chocolate chile (I added chile to make it more southwestern) zucchini cake flopped. It is DELICIOUS, but I halved the recipe and forgot to halve the buttermilk. So it's super moist and crumbly and not really sliceable. But still you can sort of smear cream cheese on a chunk of it and it's all good.
On the other hand, my brandied peach and blackberry pie is a fabulous success! My lattice sucks, but I was working with very fragile cream cheese pastry and also---I tried. That's more than I can say for some people when it comes to lattice.
This morning I was looking at ice cream machines on amazon and I think tomorrow might be the day I have to indulge. I keep thinking of new and exicting ice cream flavors. I gotta do it. The one I was looking at is 1 1/2 quarts, which seems just perfect for a tiny batch of ridiculous ice cream. I can't wait.

2008-08-21T19:29:00.003-04:00

How the Omnivore's 100 works:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (I'm gonna italicize em since it's easier on blogger ;)

4) Optional: Post a comment at Very Good Taste, linking to your results.

MY OMNIVORE'S 100 (75 76 out of 100):

1. Venison(not a huge fan, but I do live with a huntress!)

2. Nettle tea (good for something---cramps, maybe?)

3. Huevos rancheros (heart!)

4. Steak tartare(I haven't ever had the traditional preparation, but I have, you know, eaten raw steak....)

5. Crocodile

6. Black pudding(same as haggis basically, right? no thanks)

7. Cheese fondue(I've made cheese fondue! with the kirsch and everything!)

8. Carp (eh)

9. Borscht(love it, but not something I'd eat every day)

10. Baba ghanoush(yum!)

11. Calamari(had it and HATED IT!!! tentacles, ick)

12. Pho(probably, but I can't swear)

13. PB&J sandwich(prefer PB and honey on whole wheat)

14. Aloo gobi (my Krishna jam)

15. Hot dog from a street cart(french style! in sweden!)

16. Epoisses(I dunno...)

17. Black truffle(not yet)

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (plum, elderberry)

19. Steamed pork buns(love)

20. Pistachio ice cream(it's in spumoni, right?)

21. Heirloom tomatoes Z(with a vengeance)

22. Fresh wild berries

23. Foie gras(nope, and I don't know if I would or not. well wait...I'd taste it and then make an ethical decision)

24. Rice and beans(vegetarian days!)

25. Brawn or head cheese(maybe I have, but I wouldn't ever again)

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper(can I count habanero?)

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters(not raw)

29. Baklava(yum)

30. Bagna cauda (at the stinking rose in san francisco. I didn't know there were anchovies until way later)

31. Wasabi peas(yum, but I prefer wasabi rice crackers)

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (I've had clam chowder, and I've had stuff in a sourdough bowl, but not at the same time I don't think.)

33. Salted lassi(I am very controversial in this regard, says mike bonello.)

34. Sauerkraut (I make my own with juniper berries! love)

35. Root beer float(olden times)

36. Cognac with a fat cigar(I will save this one for when I'm hanging out with Rob Halford)

37. Clotted Cream Tea(I don't like the sound of it, but I guess I'd try it)

38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O (Ummm...I don't think so? probably wouldn't remember if I did)

39. Gumbo(made it for the LUPEC ladies!)

40. Oxtail(thanks to madorange!!!)

41. Curried goat (I probably should do it, but I don't know if I could)

42. Whole insects (not on purpose!)

43. Phaal(not sure what it is)

44. Goat's milk (I'm learning to love it)

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more(not that I know of, but someday....)

46. Fugu(that's blowfish, right? dumb)

47. Chicken tikka masala(love)

48. Eel(HATED IT!)

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut(I may have had enough for my lifetime already)

50. Sea urchin(ick! I guess I'm pretty squeamish when it comes to the sea)

51. Prickly pear(grew up in arizona, man!)

52. Umeboshi(superlove! I used to take umeboshi vinegar for headaches, and it works)

53. Abalone(nope)

54. Paneer(love!)

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (I'm done)

56. Spaetzle(love!)

57. Dirty gin martini(that's all I did for about four months. now I prefer vodka)

58. Beer above 8% ABV (Piraat baby!)

59. Poutine (thanks jilly!)

60. Carob chips (love em in banana muffins)

61. S’mores(not a fan---three great tastes that don't belong together in my mind)

62. Sweetbreads(I tried it---not again)

63. kaolin (don't know what it is!)

64. Currywurst (super berlin love!!)

65. Durian (not worth it. I think I *might* have had something durian flavored once, which is a cop-out I know)

66. Frogs’ legs (ick. no.)

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake(three of four!)

68. Haggis(I am not that strongly identified with my scottish heritage)

69. Fried plantain(ripe and green!)

70. Chitterlings or andouillette(nope)

71. Gazpacho(LOVE!)

72. Caviar and blini(I've had crap caviar. I'm not really interested)

73. Louche absinthe (I've had crap absinthe. I am interested in good stuff tho!)

74. Gjetost or brunost(SKI QUEEN! I Love You!)

75. Roadkill(not unless I was starving)

76. Baijiu(don't know what it is)

77. Hostess Fruit Pie(loved the lemon. a sad HFCS casualty)

78. Snail(tried it. not a fan)

79. Lapsang Souchong(good stuff! haven't had it in years though)

80. Bellini(eh)

81. Tom Yum (probably, but not sure: see Pho. I usually go for rice in the thai places)

82. Eggs Benedict(damn yes!)

83. Pocky(even mens pocky!)

84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu (someday)

85. Kobe beef( I think I've had fake kobe beef. I'll hold out for the real thing)

86. Hare(sssshhhhh!)

87. Goulash(yum! can't get people to eat it at the restaurant, though)

88. Flowers(I grew nasturtiums for the purpose of putting them in salads this year, but I have yet to eat a one. maybe tonight!)

89. Horse (why?)

90. Criollo chocolate(what is?)

91. Spam(grew up in Elyria! trailer park, no less)

92. Soft shell crab(probably, but not sure)

93. Rose harissa (not sure)

94. Catfish(not a fan)

95. Mole poblano(love!)

96. Bagel and lox(yum!)

97. Lobster Thermidor (not sure? I would though.)

98. Polenta(yum)

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee(bliss)

100. Snake(yeah, I would)

Whew! how about you?

2008-08-21T16:32:00.003-04:00

Man am I having a great day off today! I've been little suzi homemaker all day and it's pretty freakin sweet. Of course, I've been little Suzi Homemaker who listens to thrash metal, but still. And actually, Pantera-comparisions notwithstanding, this isn't really super thrashy. I really like this album, whereas I am not too keen on Fight's first one. This one is very lyrical and actually closer to the whole industrial 2wo thing than to Painkiller. <<<-----Metal God digression.
So yeah, I did some dishes, tons of laundry, cleaning, made pesto, took care of emails, vanquished the recycling beast (well, strapped the recycling beast into it's container anyhow) and now I'm taking a little break before diving into the baking and bathroom cleaning portions of the day off. I've got towels hanging on the line and I'm starting to get worried by the impending gray even though there's no sign of rain in the weather report. I happen to know that it's rained mightly every Thursday for a month---can't imagine it will stop now just because of my towels. But maybe I'll get lucky.
I'm gearing up to bake some chocolate zucchini cake. It's from a southwestern cooking book I got recently, though I don't think it's a terribly southwestern recipe. I guess it's got chocolate and cinnamon so that counts. If it goes well maybe I'll embark on some kind of pie too. I've got blueberries and blackberries and peaches that I promised myself I would not let go bad this time.....

2008-08-20T20:52:00.002-04:00

I hate to say it, especially after just getting this from my sisters, but I think it is officially over between me and Jimmy Page. I just can't believe what a manwhore he is lately. I mean, I got over the P Diddy thing. It was hard, but I did it. This is just too, too wrong.
I understand that he has a lot of starving children in Brazil to take care of, but still. He can't need money that badly.

And with Russell Brand alternately dating the lady from The Grudge 2, and all but proposing to Britney Spears, I guess I'll just have to settle on being Rob Halford's boot slave. Or something.

2008-08-18T06:57:00.002-04:00

Edit: Madorange gave me a tutorial. Thanks J! xoxo

2008-08-18T06:43:00.003-04:00

I'm still not recovered from being in the presence of the METAL GOD. I screamed my throat RAW and woke up yesterday with no voice. I don't know how he does it every night.
It was incredible and I think I need another day to process it, so hopefully I'll give you a real review later. For now you can look at my flickr pics and imagine me bouncing up and down and screaming ROB I LOVE YOU over and over. I really do fiercely love that man. And KK I love too. I screamed at him every time he came on the screen. And I screamed along with every lyric that I knew (which was most of them, but not all.)
So here's one little tidbit to mull over....I'm having a really hard time with it. Before PRIEST took the stage, this yinzer guy to my left said to his drunken buddies "It really BROKE MY HEART when I found out he was gay." As he said this, his super drunken girlfriend was grinding all over one of his buddies. (there was no music playing at this point besides what was in her head) I just couldn't let it go.
BROKE YOUR HEART? Really? I mean, I could see it breaking your heart if you were a girl and realized you would never have a chance with him. I could see it making you feel uncomfortable and causing you to question your own sexuality if you were accidentally aroused by all the shrieking and metal and hot leather. I could even see it enraging you if you were a filthy homophobic idiot. But breaking your heart? I don't get it.
Speaking of Rob Halford being gay and wearing a lot of hot leather, they performed Eat Me Alive I chose to take that as a personal gift for me. And "Angel" from Angel of Retribution which is one of the most lovely songs ever, metal or no. Sigh.

2008-08-15T17:44:00.001-04:00

Ah-ha!
That explains a few things.

(more or less confidential to Jennie, though other readers who know us might just pick up on it. ;)

2008-08-15T16:33:00.003-04:00

It's a lovely Friday afternoon. All the paella is ready. All that's left for me to do is cut the cheese(literally!) I've got to get myself motivated to do it, but I just can't stop watching russell brand coming down out of a headstand. Crikey x 12. (it's at the very end---but the whole clip is great!)

2008-08-14T14:10:00.002-04:00

Mother Nature Loves Me Pt2

Again today......not even 5 minutes after I walked in the door with two giant sacks of cheese and a giant sack of chorizo.....massive downpour. I am really happy about it as the garden will love it and it's cool and breezy. So long as the power doesn't go out.
Now on to the cooking portion of the day!

2008-08-14T11:02:00.002-04:00

OK, where was I? oh yeah...Sunday. So we did the recycling and the co-op and then came home for a little downtime. Also, we had a fantastic grilled out dinner of smoked beef roast, potatoes with rosemary and garlic and balsamic, grilled yellow squash, and a few exquisite scallops brought to us from Cape May by Kate and Buck. Oh my goodness were they good. There is very little that rebby loves as much as a grilled scallop FROM THE SEA, so it was nice that she could have a little bit of that joy. You can see pics of the whole thing on the ole flickr.
Sunday night we ate our ginger snap peach& blueberry cobbler with organic vanilla ice cream in bed while watching The Princess Bride. It was a lovely end to a lovely weekend.
This week has been all about the caterin, and trying to keep up with an absurdly busy middle of August at the restaurant. What is with 40 person breakfasts, 70 person lunches, and 40 person dinners during the DOG DAYS?!?! I don't get it. Of course, it's great from a business standpoint, but from an Ive got 30 pounds of red beans and rice to make and I'm short a dishwasher standpoint, it's frustrating.
Consequently, I had my first official nervous breakdown in the kitchen, at least for a very long while. I am pretty sure there are some hormonal factors involved as well, but a lot of it was exhaustion and feelings of hopelessness. There I was, weeping hysterically over 12 quarts of white rice. It's funny now (and honestly, it was a little funny then too, though I couldn't stop sobbing) but after everyone was shocked (I'm not typically one to display dramatic emotion at work, you know) and tried to think of ways to help, and after I got a ride home and decided that I wasn't going to clean the kitchen or make the chutney or go out to the rockshow at all, but instead was going to eat roast pork and potato tacos and ice cream with chocolate chips and watch Russell Brand show clips and new wave videos on the couch all night---I felt much better. Today I feel capable again. Huzzah. I slept in until almost 9am and got up and had toast and coffee and ran the dishwasher and collected the laundry. In a few minutes I'll take a trip to TJs for cheese and chorizo and then I'll get crackin on the non-vegetable portions of my paella. It's all gonna be alright. And soon enough, it's all gonna be OVER, and I'll be laying on the grass with Rob Halford towering over me on the video screen. I can't wait.

2008-08-13T06:38:00.001-04:00

Howdy campers!
It's almost 11pm, and I smell like frying and am covered in batter. But, the 200 or so jalapeno corn fritters are done! As are the 160 or so spinach salmon cakes. I feel a great sense of accomplishment and victory. Russell Brand helped with his hilarious podcast---for some reason I always choose the podcast when I have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Sometimes I try to get something highbrow like NPR but that only works for so long. Then it's back to the crass humor and shouting and victorian nonsense I love so well.
So, still remaining on my list for Saturday's wedding from h e double hockeysticks is a whole heap of paella, a whole heap of red beans and rice, a whole heap of fruit and cheese, and mango papaya chutney. The thing that all of these things have in common is A WHOLE HEAP OF CHOPPING. It's times like this that I really wish I had "prep" people in the true sense of the word....like come in at 5am and chop 20 onions style prep people. Instead I will be doing most if not all of the chopping myself. And then, the wedding. And then, the Judas Priest concert. And then, I collapse. It will all be worth it in the end, of course...but the build up is always just so stressful!
But let's not dwell on that. Let's dwell on the great weekend! Friday night rebby came home and after being told by all pizza delivery people that my neighborhood is too dangerous, we went and got slices at Sola. They were playing Motorhead, so we decided it was definitely the right thing to have done. I had some catering stuff to do Friday night as well, and then we went to bed and slept until 8:30! I didn't set the alarm for the farmer's market as I had already gotten an email that the people with the delicious bacon wouldn't be there, and really we needed sleep. So we slept, then got up and had coffee and migas and homemade sausage. I finished up the last bits of catering and then took off for the QS where I met Jilly and we went to the Night In the Tropics at the Aviary. This event was so well organized and smoothly run that it was an absolute dream! We had what we thought might have been a crap location but turned out to be an awesome location (and right next to the veterinary room as well!) and people loved loved loved our food. The thing that we do that really sets us apart---besides being vegan and vegetarian, and trying as best we can to echo the theme of whatever party we are catering---is provide an assortment of things. All the other tables had two items at the most...sure some of them were great, but we pride ourselves on having a whole bunch of little bites to try. People really dug it. We got rid of all our catering brochures and all our business cards, and I even ended up giving one of the labels to an Indian woman who said she really wanted to come to the restaurant but was afraid she would forget the name. Her husband gave me the compliment of the night when he asked me if my mango and papaya chutney was imported. Hee.
We had a couple extra tickets, so Jill and I each invited a friend to come and "help" (mostly eating free food and drinking free drinks and checking out the birds and people watching) Our friends hit it off so well that we barely saw them once they met! It was nice, though a bit funny. In any case, we all had a great time and the event was a rousing success! (even if Jennie didn't get a photo op with the penguin)
Sunday rebby and I slept in till almost 9:30am! Unheardof. We debated what to do about breakfast until she uttered the magic words: pancake house. My eyes apparently lit up like firecrackers in the early morning light. We got dressed and threw our bag of Cds to trade in in the truck and headed out to McKnight Rd. Pancake house was hoppin, but we only had to wait about 20 minutes. Rebby had the pigs in blanket and I had the 49er flapjacks with a side of canadian bacon. The flapjacks were TOO big, but delicious. Then we headed to Gabes so she could look for sweatbands and I could investigate the world of TOPS. I have such a hard time buying TOPS. Skirts, pants, shorts, overalls....no problem. I'm also pretty good at tank tops and sweaters. But something lightweight to wear on the weekend that doesn't have stains or holes or show a little too much in the area of "cleve-land"---not so much. So I set myself the task of finding some nice ish tops, or at the very least a lightweight longsleeved shirt to wear over the skimpy tank tops. I ended up getting 6 total tops--all for under $24. I heart Gabes a lot. Hopefully I can get myself in the habit of wearing them now. A couple of them are very simple and nice.
After Gabes we dropped some things off at the Goodwill, resisting the urge to enter. Huzzah! We did enter the Record Exchange, though...and got only $13 store credit for our big bag of Cds. So we decided to save it till there's something we really want. We keep our store credit slips in the glove compartment for the next time we're out there, along with our east end brewing beer card.
So, back to the home, then out again to recycle and hit the co-op.

(this post was interrupted by my connection going out. luckily I was able to save it to notepad. unluckily I don't have time this morning to finish it, but I will when I get home!)
Have a great Wednesday!

2008-08-07T16:33:00.003-04:00

Mother Nature Loves Me

I walked in the front door not 10 minutes ago.
Just two minutes ago the sky opened up and now delightful rainy breezes are blowing in my window! Thank you for not pouring down on me while I walked around in the strip district in my dress and sandals without an umbrella.

Had a lovely day! First stop was Bradley's Books to get something to read while I had lunch. This has been my day off in the strip tradition for years. This time I got a pretty comprehensive southwestern cooking cookbook, and a book called Hidden Kitchens about the Kitchen Sisters' NPR show. Both for $12! Can't be beat.
I went to Chicken Latino for lunch and made a pig of myself. It was all so good though! I got a grilled chicken platter with fries, coleslaw, rice, beans, and tortillas. Also an Inka golden cola, which is really not that good. It was fizzy though, so there's that. Next I made my way down to Fortunes for my Guatamalan Coffee fix. Having that delicious aroma wafting up at me the rest of the way around the strip was intoxicating. From there I headed to Lotus to see what I could see. I had a request for sushi ginger, and "something fun". So I got the sushi ginger and some really gorgeous vegetable noodles in spinach and tomato varieties. Nothing else was really jumping out at me though. I went in to the In The Kitchen shop to see if they had one of those new fangled safety edge can openers but you know what? those women were SO RUDE that after walking around the whole store while all four of them had a conversation amongst themselves, I just walked out. And no one said hello or goodbye to me either. I really miss the nice folks who worked there when I was Balcolny Cookware.
So then I hit Penn Mac for the goods: papaya spears and spices. I got whole cloves and nutmegs and cardamom and ground coriander. I also got some plugra butter for baking as it is more than a dollar cheaper there than at TJs. What? It's true. I didn't believe it either.
At that point I was having a bathroom issue, so I decided to stop in Leaf and Bean. On the weekends the place has a pretty Parrothead vibe to it, but during the week it is full of tatooed cigar smoking heavies. I liked it. I got a double cappucino and (shhh) a box of nat shermans naturals. I smoked one fine brown cigarette while sipping my cappucino and felt very continental and cool. Then I headed to the bus stop and hardly had to wait! It was a long and crowded ride, but I got home just in time to avoid the raindrops. Now it's dishes, baking, cooking, and putting away the laundry. Happy days!

2008-08-07T10:08:00.002-04:00

Hello and welcome to a glorious day off!
I am really excited about this day off, I have to tell you. So far I've slept in until EIGHT AM!!!!! made myself some delicious coffee with cream, some migas and toast, and sat out in the sun to enjoy my breakfast with my copy of Mother Earth News which I had to literally scrape off the floor of the den after I spilled an iced coffee on it yesterday. Some of it stuck but I got most of the magazine off.
So anyhow, for some reason I was drawn to looking over the ads where I found this. I've been looking all over for one of these things and no one sells them anymore. Seriously, when you ask at Lowes or Home Depot they look at you like you are from Mars. So thank you Mother Earth News! I am placing my order first thing Saturday morning after my paycheck gets in there.
Meanwhile, I'm doing laundry the new fashioned way---using the dryer. Our utility bills really haven't been that enormous over the course of the year we've been here, and of course the fact that we curb scouted the washer and the dryer in the first place means that they've already paid for themselves. Still, I can't wait to have that sundried fresh clean smell, especially on the sheets. What a happy night that will be!
Also on the agenda for today is a trip to the strip district, ostensibly to get dried papaya for catering but really so I can just walk around and look at and smell a bunch of stuff. And of course I'll stock up on the ole guatamalan coffee. Alexandria said it was going to be cloudy and stormy today but so far she's been dead wrong. I hope it continues that way.
I've got a bunch of plums and peaches that want to be turned into baked goods today as well. AND, I do have to make black bean cakes and jamaican sweet potato patties for the Aviary party on Saturday. And, I should really clean the bathrooms and put away the last loads of laundry that are all sitting on my office chair waiting to fall over. But for the most part, today is about being a first world hedonist. Ha.
Hope you have a good day with whatever you are doing.