Thursday, April 21, 2011

When I'm trying to use up food...

I end up making things like this:


Yum.  Pre-roasted fennel.  Know why there aren't any pictures of post-roasted fennel?  I may have eaten it all.  Me = Happy.

Also I had the opportunity to hear The Mayhem Poets tonight.  Check them out, because they rock.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Also...

How cute is this?

too close for comfort

I can hear my next door neighbors microwaving something through our shared wall.  There are so many things wrong with that.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Day 3/4

1) Stopping my tendency to swear at random things is a lot harder than I expected.  Funniest part is that halfway through saying something I shouldn't, I realize that I shouldn't, and I try to backtrack, which usually ends in me sounding like I am choking on something.
2) I am complaining less.  I actually do feel better, in general I think, as a result.
3) I drove one of my students and her friend to dinner yesterday, even though I knew I shouldn't have because I was already late leaving to pick up my brother from the airport.  But I did because they were waiting in the cold for a shuttle that I'm sure would have taken an hour to arrive.
3a) Today I drove Tom all the way to my parents' house, only to turn around a drive all the way back for a program on campus that in the end, I didn't even really need to be at.  BUT it meant that sort of by accident I was on campus to go to two other events run by my staff that I would have otherwise missed.  They were happy I came, I was happy I went.  Win win.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Day 2

I think someone is testing me.  24 hours of pouring rain, a work day that crawled like SLUDGE and getting drenched twice while walking to and from the office and NO ability to moan and groan about it.  Torture.

But apart from that, things aren't going too shabbily.

1) Only swore a few times today and I'm catching myself earlier, it's hard.  Who knew dropping words you never really thought you used all that much would be that difficult?
2) Well since I didn't really complain above I suppose that counts right?  Actually Jackie and I complained briefly to one another tonight over dinner about how much we hate students, and since each of us have elected to complain less during Lent we figured that complaining to each other somehow canceled out any potential negative karma that may or may not be headed our way.  So yes, I'm ahead on this one.
3) I wrote two recommendations today.  Those people I wrote them for might not ever know something nice was done for them, but I can tell you, I absolutely did NOT want to write them this afternoon.  So yes, I was suffering for the good of someone else.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

40 days of temptation

So I'm not the most religious person, but I do like the season of Lent.  I even went to church tonight, Ash Wednesday service.  Which, really, did nothing but remind me how unreligious I am.  That I'm totally not pious or virtuous or any of that nonsense that apparently, if you go to church regularly, you're supposed to be.  I did nothing during the service but listen to the guy behind me who had an incredibly distracting baritone singing voice.  He was good by the way.

Anyway, during Lent you're supposed to give something up, back in the day when I used to attend services most Sundays, often strong-armed by my mother, I used to think it was just a device to punish me and keep things I loved far from me, like a distant memory...all those teenage Lenten seasons spent without chocolate.  So depressing.  Now, older, and perhaps a bit wiser, I see it as an opportunity to spend time reflecting about things I do regularly that perhaps aren't the most useful ways to spend my time.  Case in point, the things this year I've decided to refrain from:

1) Swearing.  Really, not a great habit and something that I just need to stop doing.
2) Complaining.  I do way too much of it.  So I want to do less.  I fully expect to have to do this in stages...a girl's not perfect you know.
3) I am planning to try and do one nice thing for someone else every day.  This is to get me out of my comfort zone, being reserved is my strong suit.

So how'd today go?

1) Some slippage, but minor, when I ran my foot into the wall earlier I managed to keep my mouth shut and just growl angrily at the baseboard.
2) Success...so far.
3) Coffee for a needy friend, she was happy, and in turn, so was I.

Day 1 - success, 39 to go.

Friday, March 4, 2011

The verdict?

It looks a lot better than it tastes...which is a disappointment.  It would be so much cooler if cake in a mug was actually delicious.


two things

One:

I'm pretty sure this is 100% true, and

Two:

This is what I wanted to do ALL day at work today.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

small changes yield big results

So yesterday one of my students was discussing how small changes in a usual food choice can create magical results. My friends, let me share my small change and my most magical result.



The magical change? Oh, I don't know, I cooked. Legitimate cooking, not just throwing-stuff-together-out-of-a-bag nonsense. The magical result? Really delicious tasting food. And yes, I am patting myself on the back.

Thank you very much.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Hi, my name is Imelda Marcos

Purty things make me happy. Tell me why I walked in to buy black dress flats and walked out with high heeled cream peep toes. Oh what a world. But a well dressed one.


Sunday, February 27, 2011

Thank you Lena Horne

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."

the little things

Sometimes it's the little things that just make the day that much better.


Busy nothings are made that much sweeter by delicious tasties.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

haha! success!

I was searching for this earlier and couldn't find it anywhere and then like magic, it appeared. Miss Moss's color comparisons are just SO AWESOME I am reposting. Thanks to Jackie for originally showing them to me, because they rock.

Over here, click me!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

signs I'm aging

I know I'm getting older the more annoyed I get at students.

Today, I was super annoyed.

So in turn, I felt super old.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

gotta have it.

I don't even wear hair clips and I want some of these.

to store:


to wear:


to covet:

Saturday, February 19, 2011

scrumdiddlyumptious

There is a certain beauty to a really good Friday.

Things that make a good Friday better?
1) 68 degree weather
2) driving with all the windows down
2a) in February
3) singing to awesome music in the car
3a) while [see #2]
3b) see #2a
4) seeing Heather Strube
5) drinking a delicious cappuccino from Atwaters
5a) eating lime and lemon bites while [see #5] and [see #4]
6) sitting on my couch after a long day and watching nonsense TV
7) finishing a book I've been reading for way too long
8) typing a blog entry while lounging in bed
9) the promise of EVERY Roald Dahl audiobook delivered to me within the next week, care of my awesome brother

combine numbers 1 through 9. Perfect day attained.

[annnd one late edition:
10) a facebook status war with my brother that went 62 posts long across two different profiles.]

Thursday, February 17, 2011

dreaming...

about this:


and this:

Sunday, February 13, 2011

You know how much I like to follow trends.

So, I was listening to a report on TV the other day about the evolution of cookies.  I know, I clearly had a lot of time on my hands.  Anyway, the reporter was talking about baking "fads" and how cookie pressing is a relatively new obsession people are getting into.  I think these people need to do better research.  Cookies "pressing" in one form or another has been around forever.  Case in point, and if I do say so myself, a delightful segway to my first real attempt at Arabic baking completely by myself.  I mentioned awhile back how I had made ma'moul.  Well I did, I was just incredibly lazy and never got around to posting photos.  I should mention that I had a great deal of phone input from my dad, but really, I kind of needed it to get the proportions right.  I mean, how exactly do you follow directions that have the specificity of "some four, a couple of spoonfuls of a few spices, crush the nuts, etc.?"  All without any amounts!  Those Arab women, they are protective of their recipes.  Well, actually, to be entirely truthful they're not, my aunts and my dad love to share how to make things, but they want you standing next to them while you learn, showing you what "some flour" and "add al'tahi to taste" mean.  Ha.  How my father learned how to cook anything is amazing, his attention span is not that long.

Anyway, cookie pressing.  Ma'moul is delicious, it's a semolina-based filled cookie. You fill the cookie with one of three fillings: walnut, pistachio or date, along with sugar and spices.  We go with walnut or pistachio whenever we make it as dates are not always well received by our American friends.  Ma'moul is really tasty and, I've discovered, equally fun to make.  You squish out some of the semolina dough, fit it into the mold, add a spoonful of filling, and press the dough over the top.  Hit the mold hard and the cookie pops out.  You look like a master and really it's the press that's done all the work.  Over the years I've taken out various levels of frustration by beating the crap out of the wooden molds you use to form the dough.  So yeah, that reporter who said cookie pressing is a new fad.  You're an idiot.




Wednesday, February 9, 2011

worthy of a share

In Vietnam, World's Largest Cave Passage - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine

Click and be amazed.

with open ears and shut mouth...oh the things I hear.

So, I'm a blue.

What the hell does that mean right?  During staff training this year I presented a session on "finding your color," basically a lot of hoopla on how to identify your personality and work habits based around four colors.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am the type of person who generally finds crap such as this completely ridiculous.  I go off, laugh, chucking at the shumks [oh man, chuckling at the shmucks, exhaustion doesn't suit my typing skills] who put stock in the self congratulatory language of the handouts telling them how different, special and unique they all are.  However, I have found myself referring to the information I gleaned from this session on more than one occasion in the past couple of weeks, and every time I do it makes me almost cringe inwardly.  1) because I find people who quote frequently from emotionally stunting information like this annoying (i.e. my astrologer says I'm an Aquarius with a receding moon and star pattern, [wtf?] that's why I'm having difficulty with the chi you are sending across the room at me today) really?  Please.  And 2) I don't like trying to explain the intricacies of life with information that has been boiled down onto four sheets of paper.  It seems a bit...impersonal.

Anyway, there is a point to this explanation.  I have been having difficulty (being a blue, I know bear with me) recently dealing with the overwhelming desire to want to smack a few people I know in the face.  Being blue means I apparently feel for others.  I'm a caretaker, I like listening and supporting those around me.  I hate conflict and thrive on making other people feel special.  My god, I sound like a freaking martyr don't I?  It feels that way sometimes, believe me.  However, because I also have a lot of green tendencies (and yes, you can laugh at me for continuing in this vein of color spectrum worship) I sometimes get annoyed as shit at myself for totally lying on the tracks and letting people steamroll right over me.  Being a good listener and such is fine, but sometimes I just want to tell people to shut the hell up and get over themselves.  Is that so wrong?  No, no it's not.

We had some hard decisions to make at work yesterday, but we made them, and, I thought, all felt pretty good about it.  Well, turns out some of those tough choices we made are being turned on their head.  I do actually agree with one of the reversals made, however, I don't with another.  I personally feel like my coworker is pulling in a little too much care for others - which, to be frank, is not really in his nature.  Not to say he doesn't give a crap about other people, because he does, a great deal, but it's not generally his style.  Anyway, the green part of me want to smack him upside the head and tell him to stick with his gut and cut the proverbial fat.  Some people just shouldn't be working for us anymore.  The other part - the one that cares about others and wants everyone to leave with a delightful feeling of joy surrounding them (yup, that cheesy), is silently congratulating him for standing up for his students and making the unpopular decision.  I'm totally bipolar today, it's awful.

In related news, work is sucking lately, I'm so busy I almost don't have time to think.  Case in point, I discovered, quite by accident that I had left something rather important in my office over the weekend.  What might you ask, did I leave behind?  About a half pound of seafood that somehow got lost in a bag of crafts that I had sitting outside my door.  Yup, came in on Monday after a day of it sitting there and was greeted with the most delightful smell.  Sometimes, you just can't get over how dumb you are.  Monday was one of those days.  It also proved to me how easy it is to get stuck doing way to much and forgetting even the most basic of tasks...like unpacking your purchases to make sure you didn't leave anything important in them (like, say, an aforementioned bag of food, or, I don't know, your keys and cell phone which apparently you also left behind and didn't notice until you found them two days later amongst containers of glitter and cardstock), yup, that moron is me.

Tomorrow is another day...a busy one.  But I am bent and determined to finally try my last batch of melting cakes.  I want to try another one dammit, one that is cooked properly and actually sticky to the degree I want in the center.  I swear, it's the small things in life that matter...like undercooked cake middles.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Really world? Do we need more of this drivel?

So it's late.  Really late anyway, for me.  Being almost that unmentionable age where you suddenly notice you're "old," and still being awake at almost two-in-the-morning nearly makes my stomach turn.  But also, in a weird way, makes me feel like I'm hanging on to my youth.  Oh the irony.  Actually it's probably not irony, but it sounds a whole lot better saying things like "oh the irony" as opposed to something lame like, "how bizarre is that?"

Currently I'm sitting on my couch watching "White Collar," which, I must say, is an excellent cable show.  The need to mention this particular series is to offset it against the drivel that I just saw a commercial for: Face Off: where up and coming makeup artists compete to create "the next great face," with challenges like making an elephant man and the how-to of creating burns...really?  What is the TV world coming to?  Oh, I know, a place where they have shows like The Unpoppables.  What, might you ask does that deep, meaningful television masterpiece cover?  BALLOON ARTISTS.  Yup, the same guys that twist inappropriately long balloons into misshapen dogs.  I rest my case.  We're getting dumber and more accepting of trash TV by the minute.  I truly miss being young and only having Nickelodeon Kids and PBS to choose from.

Recently I have been dreaming of places like this:




And this:




Where I see things like this:






Winter in Baltimore is brutal.  February especially makes me wish I could defect to somewhere that's warm all year round.  It's like a cloud of depression just hangs over the city.  We're supposed to hit 57 next week and I'm almost salivating at the idea of temperatures over freezing.  I don't think my extremities can take any more subzero weather.

I'm going tangential here which means I'm really tired.  So while I'm dreaming of beautifully warm beaches and European trees older than our own country I am going to share my desire to retest my melting chocolate cake recipe again.  I'm so close to perfection, I just need to get the baking time down...hopefully tomorrow I can succeed on that task, because I'm pretty sure everything work related is going to get pushed to the side.  Oh yeah...older doesn't necessarily mean wiser, OR better with time management.

Monday, January 3, 2011

20WHAT?

2011, you came far too quickly.  Though in all honesty I can't say I'm UPSET that you've arrived.  2010 kind of blew.  So, what lies ahead in this fabulous new year, where I've already been able to date a card 1.1.11 (hee, sometimes it's the small things).  I'm waiting patiently for 1.11.11 and 11.11.11 (I feel like luck will be dripping off me that day).

So for this year I have two real goals:
1) to run the Baltimore 1/2 marathon (the full would just be a ridiculous clusterfuck, I don't even want to entertain the idea).
2) to decide what to do next year.  I have many ideas, and no way of choosing.  Got to get on top of that.

In between all the madness that will be these two illusive goals I will be cooking, lots and lots of cooking.  I have successfully made three Arabic cookie recipes over break, and I will take photos as soon as I unearth my camera from multiple packed bags and dirty laundry.  Needless to say I have a lot to catch up on.

Best of all, I have a brand new (full-size!!) stove that was installed while I was gone.  How, HOW did I cook for four years on something that only just approximated an easy-bake oven?  Those of you with 32-inch cooktops don't know how good you have it!  Self-cleaning oven, where have you been all my life!?  I was closely acquainted with Easy-off for the majority of my 20s.  I should have bought stock if they were a publicly traded company...