good housekeeping

This (little gem of a guide) is also printed (almost word for word) in an encyclopedia style cookbook my mom has (which has some really good, but really time consuming recipes). It was her mom's.

My favorite line is "he is master of the house...you have no right to quesiton him". Did women of the 50's really not cringe at that?

google reader

If google ever crashes, I might cry. Scratch that. Will cry.

Between gmail, gchat, picasa, google docs, and now google reader....A lot of my life is on their server, somewhere in the wild internet (where exactly DOES internet mail get hosted anyway? Do I WANT to look this up?). Google reader is amazing though. One glance, and I can see what new news there is, read about Katy's latest adventure, see new recipes. Amazing.

Are you kidding me?

Do people really base their dinner choices on their conception of what their date will think?

"red meat on a date has become such an effective statement of self-acceptance"

"Hamburgers, she added, say you are down-to-earth"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/fashion/09STEAK.html?em&ex=1186804800&en=f269f7a170e39f66&ei=5087%0A

I have never given my order thought beyond a) what do i want and b) will this make a mess and on occassion, c) will this reheat well...

how can you not love this?

I don't know how Katy found this, but I LOVE it (how can I not? cookies!)

On Traffic.

I've gotten spoiled having moved out of the NY Metro area. I don't content with serious traffic on a daily basis anymore. But yesterday...karma, or something like it, bit me. After an 18 hr flight (plus 2 hours check in/exit customs and and hour luggage collection/entrance customs), I got to chill outside JFK with my bags and about 20 people waiting to pick up their relatives from some (presumably Caribbean) location while my parents meandered for two hours through early morning rush hour (why they didn't leave prior to 7:30 am, when I called to tell them I was through customs, I have no idea). Then we took a two hour ride for the 18 miles home. I bummed around for a while, had lunch and a pedicure, and saw my grandmother, who gave me six bags of Chips Ahoy. I managed talk her out of the Ensure. (I'm not sure if just doesn't like it much, and has it because the doctor recommended it for her to put some weight back on, or if she really thinks I could possibly have a need for it, in which case she needs some glasses.) And I got on the road to PA at 2:50 pm, thinking I'd miss the traffic and slide into Philly well before 5...

Not so much. The day turned into a even crueler joke of the roads, beginning with a ten mile backup from an overturned dump trunk on the turnpike. 3.5 hours later, I made it to my new apt to sign the lease, and then sat in construction for another 90 min to go to my till-next-Monday-abode. Sweet.

But this time in traffic did have some positive yields:

1) Apparently there's fake cows out there somewhere. The Cream-O-Land truck's graphic (sadly somewhat hard to view on their website) clearly says their product is made from "real cows," leading to me question where the rest of our milk is coming from. Perhaps I should be buying organic, or I'm risking milk from...fake cows??

2) I saw a billboard for 1060AM. So, it turns out, there IS a Philadelphia equivalent of 1010WINS, one of the few NY things I miss. It even has a "give us 22 minutes we'll give you the world" thing going on (Both are CBS radio stations though, so I guess its not slogan-theft). While I am very pleased with this find, they need to recruit less grating announcers.

good and bad ideas

Across the weekend

Friday
good idea:
making cupcakes
bad idea:
making cupcakes on an empty stomach

Saturday
good idea:
going to the most productive (yet still enjoyable) practice you've attended in years
bad idea:
having a small breakfast and not bringing a post-practice snack, so that by the time you've arrived home to work on school stuff, despite the fact its Saturday afternoon (sigh), you are literally nauseous from hunger.

Sunday
good idea:
doing your long run in the evening so you can be productive (eg. read for class x2, draft a paper, and attend a comps meeting, and go grocery shopping and make dinner for mon/tues) during the day
bad idea:
eating a cupcake and cookie during the meeting which is conveniently scheduled over dinnertime, then running 10 miles on a 1 pm lunch and said dessert items. (lack of nutrients + high fat content = unhappy tummy)

oh wow

how I want a cupcake

I also have this urge to make cupcakes and send them to Katy and see if I can beat the cupcake shop. Considering I've never made a cupcake (well, I probably helped my mom when I was a kid, but I don't really recall it and they probably came from mix), I might need to do a few practice runs first. Shame. teehee. Maybe this will replace cookies for my Friday-or-Sunday afternoon baking project.

I made another pie

Its also pretty. Lattice work. Though not as pretty as the one I made for Clifton Christmas a couple of weeks ago. I cheated this time and made the lattice strips fat...mostly because I was starving and needed to get it into the oven (what a lame excuse). But its for work people tonight anyway, so I guess as long as it tastes good, noone will mind. Here's my best-pie-to-date (from the CC event):

Amazing and captivating, I know.

Maybe despite my recent success in graduate school I should consider opening a bakery.

Or not. I can't see myself getting up at 4 am for work, at least not on a regular basis.

Almost the holidays

But alas, sure doesn't feel like it.

a) I'm sick. Its been coming and going for the past 4 or 5 days, and I think has firmly settled itself in my head. And neck. Basically I feel like my sinus cavities are going to explode. It's not too bad when I'm up and about, but when I go to bed (and I'm extra tired!) I can't breathe and it makes sleeping awkward. Major, major dry mouth. Yuck.

b) Its rather warm out. Like Christmas-in-Texas kind of warm. And its supposed to rain on Saturday and be around 50 all through Christmas (which stretches, sans gifts because I've gotten to old for the relatives, from Sat till Monday)...Weather.com insists north jersey has a 38% chance of a white Christmas, but I only have one in my memory of 25 years, so I think they're full of crap (unless a random flurry or snow on the ground counts).

c) I'm not done for the semester yet. This school has finals/class-&-papers-for-grad-students through Dec. 20. WHO PLANNED THAT?!? And we go back on Jan. 8!!

d) I haven't done any baking really. I'm hoping to reinstate my old tradition of cookie-trays for holiday functions this year (which means 4 trays, so around 6 batches of cookies)...Thurs and Friday I'll be in the kitchen. In the meanwhile, I'm going to remind myself what an awesome job I did on my first ever double-crust apple pie at Thanksgiving...

the kitchen

I got here yesterday right as my parents returned from the grocery store with enough supplies to make dinner for a small town. And I know everyone will come bearing a veggie and possibly a dessert. I'm kind of excited about this, as it means leftovers!!!! I did my part yesterday afternoon with crab stuffed mushrooms and a homemade apple pie. This is way no easy feat, as my mom has a small kitchen, and was also trying to cook. It was fairly major chaos, especially as the puppies wanted to help. So three hours, 4 pints of mushrooms and 7 peeled-by-hand apples later, I finished. And I went to see a couple of friends of high school....right before I was about to come home with a splitting headache, my mom called to tell me I needed to buy a new pie. Let's make something clear here before I go on: I don't buy pie. I don't buy cookies. I don't buy baked goods!!! I don't even buy pie crust (its really not hard to make!) I take some pride in my baking skills! How, why, you ask, did she tell me to buy a pie?

Because I left my pans on top of the stove to cool, and somehow, in a sequence of events that's not totally clear and I don't care to try to repeat, in the trip from stove top to refrigerator, mushrooms were spilled, filling side down, into my pie.

She apologized at some length. I think she thought I was going to be really pissed. I was sort of flabbergastered instead. How does that happen? And did she SERIOUSLY think I would buy a grocery store pie??

I'm making a new one today, with apples peeled by mom, after the turkey gets out of the oven.

full

Recently there was a story in the news about the link between sleep deprivation and obesity. Appearently people who sleep less than 4 hours a night at 73 percent more likely to be fat. Now there's two points to make here: 4 hours a night is basically a long nap, and 73% is a HUGE jump. I generally sleep 6-8 hours a night, and prefer more like 9. However, last night I got a whopping 2.5 hours of sleep due to some poor planning on my behalf (::cough:: writing a paper ::cough::). Between last "night" and this morning (milk and cookies, a lot of them, at 2:30 am, and a full fat & sugar Starbucks Caramel Macchiato and pumpkin muffin en route to work, and four fun sized Smores candy bars) I have consumed about a full day's calories. Let's point out that it is 9:13 am. I have every intention of having lunch, and dinner. While I will not necessarily be eating (particularly at lunch) out of hunger, I will be eating in an effort to keep enough caffiene and sugar in my system to keep me alert, or at least reasonably functioning, through work, class and practice. Then I will go home and go to bed. Immediately.

I am aware that today basically be a huge binge. I'm not about to fight it, as I'm way too tired and too concerned with not falling asleep at my keyboard, not to mention managing to not only finish my work but also edit my paper prior to 1 pm (note to self: is this an appropiate time to blog?). However, I also realize our bodies are pretty self regulating and I'm not going to wake up having gained back the 20 lbs I've lost this past year (though the water retention will indicite otherwise I am sure). And I can eat like a normal person again tomorrow. But what about those people that don't sleep? If they are regularly self medicating as I am today, no wonder they are obese.

Also, what the hell are they doing only sleeping 4 hours a night? Go to bed!!

the muffin

I've developed a dangerous affinity for muffins. I've always liked them. When I was in HS I regularly made batches of blueberry muffins (ala Betty Crocker) for breakfast. But its gotten worse. At my last job, the one thing the cafe did right was muffins -- specifically cranberry walnut. They were amazing. And huge. And I hold them responsible for keeping at least some of the post-college-misery pounds on my extremities. I'm two days out of that job, and will no longer be headed to the cafe for a monster muffin at 9 am 3 days a week. I thought about this this morning when I got up, and proceeded to go to the Stop and Shop and buy myself a (n equally fabulous and huge) banana nut muffin for breakfast. This could be a problem.