swine flu’d
Accidentally got swine flu and had serious malaise (an actual symptom, promise!) for a few days there. So my plans to actually make food that wasn’t pasta and sauce from a jar were somewhat foiled. However: I do have a few new things.
1. We got a tiny tiny kitten! Her name is Morris and she looks like this:
mo' money mo' problems
2. I made snickerdoodles from a Nigella Lawson recipe. I wanted them to be big and chewy but they were small and more like tea-cakes. Still tasty though:
snickerdoodles, sort of
3. The latest in the series of dinners-that-are-easy-for-a-poor-college-student-to-make: Dijon chicken. I’ve been buying these 4-lb. bags of frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts at HEB. I just take one out in the morning, put it in a plastic bag in the fridge to defrost, and by night it’s thawed and can be cooked pretty much any way. Chicken breasts are nice because they taste like something other than pasta sauce. Plus, Joy of Cooking has a bunch of simple, reliable chicken recipes.
Anyway, tonight I just smeared the defrosted chicken all over with Dijon honey mustard and then coated it in a mixture of a handful of bread crumbs, about 1 1/2 tbsp. melted butter, half a clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Then I baked it for 45 minutes at 350F. It was actually pretty delicious. I probably should have flipped it over halfway through so the coating would stick on both sides, but I was fine with it not looking perfect:
Dijon mustard chicken bite
4. Busybusy finishing my costume for Layne’s Marie Antoinette-themed birthday party on Saturday. I hope it will feel like this.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
my friends are famous!
My old computer is officially dead, but that means I had an excuse to get the new 13-inch MBP and it’s lovely. This means I will soon be able to upload pictures again, which is awesome because these posts look so sad without them.
My friend Ceci G released an EP, “The Sleep,” earlier this month, which was just reviewed at PrettyMuchAmazing (!!!), an excellent music blog. They are hosting a couple of free tracks and the rest of the album can be downloaded at iTunes, Amazon, and Lala. I am super excited for her and if you live in New York and get the chance to see her perform, you definitely should.
(P.S. If you recognize the photo in the review, it’s because I took it!)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
last breath of summer
Spent yesterday evening making an apple pie with Isabella. I’d never made an apple pie before and it felt like a very end-of-summer kind of thing to do. I modified a basic recipe I found online and ended up with this, which was simple and tasty and looked exactly like I wanted it to:
apple pie pre-assembly
1. Core, peel, and slice 6 apples (I used 4 Granny Smiths and 2 honeycrisps, which helped offset the mushiness of Granny Smiths alone).
2. Make a caramel-y syrup for the apples by melting one stick of butter in a saucepan and stirring in 3 tbsp. flour to thicken. Then add 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of white sugar, and 1/4 cup of water and blend (For the future, I would reduce the amount of sugar – I found myself wanting a tarter pie in the end). Add spices: 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1 tbsp. vanilla (i would probably reduce these the next time as well). Bring to a boil and then simmer for 5 minutes to reduce.
3. Mix the apples with the syrup to coat. I squeezed in half a lemon at this point to cut the sweetness a little.
4. Put the bottom pie crust (I cheated and used pre-made since we don’t have a food processor) in a round pie dish and brush with milk to keep it from getting soggy. Dump the apples in and slice the other pie crust up to make a lattice on top. Isabella had to help me with this. I didn’t realize you actually had to weave it. It was definitely worth how pretty it looked, though. I forgot to do this, but you should also brush the lattice with a little milk or egg white to make it brown faster.
raw apple pie
5. Bake for 15 minutes at 425F and then 40-50 minutes at 350F, or until the filling is bubbly and the top crust looks nice and golden brown. Wait for it to cool a little before eating. We had it with vanilla bean ice cream on top and it was exactly what I wanted from an apple pie.
bubbly and delicious
I took some before-and-after pictures, but unfortunately my computer has killed itself and I’ll have to wait to upload them.
//EDIT: new computer, pictures now working!//
We also spent some time exploring the backyard and ended up making a fire pit with some cinderblocks stolen from the neighbors’ yard. Fall is coming. I can’t wait to fix up the backyard more. It will be a great place to hang out.
For the upcoming week, I want to make:
1. Gazpacho, before it’s truly fall
2. Yellow curry – send me a good recipe if you have one!
3. This canvas thing with some Christmas lights I bought last week
In lieu of my own pictures, for now, I’ll forward you to Layne’s tumblr, which is filled with adorable and wonderful things.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
food therapy
Layne’s creation of a tumblr reminded me that I hadn’t updated this in months. In that time I have become busy, stressed, unproductive, unfocused, and generally overwhelmed by the number of things to do to the point where I can hardly do anything.
general house-vibe
However: I have moved into a new and adorable house, and I am trying to learn how to cook, for real, an endeavor certainly worth documenting if only so I can remember what worked and what didn’t. Instead of being impressed with myself for “cooking” pasta with tomato sauce from a jar, I want to be able to throw together cohesive meals for myself. I want to have fancy dinner parties. I want to bake tiny cute hors d’oevres.
So far, I have been mildly successful. The recipes I have tried and succeeded in making since moving in, with links and pictures where available:
1. Baked Orange Juice Chicken (from The Joy of Cooking, which everyone should have – it’s indispensible for basic, relatively foolproof recipes) with braised lemon-garlic spinach, one of my favorite easy vegetable sides (which is just minced garlic cooked in olive oil until it’s translucent, then spinach dumped in and tossed constantly til it’s wilted, and squeezed lemon juice, fresh black pepper, and salt on top)
2. Chicken Pot Pie, which I liked a lot as it is – the gravy is delicious – but would have been even better with cubed potatoes, many more vegetables and a lot less chicken. The “pi” was Dylan’s touch, of course.
3. Tuxedo Brownie Cups, a Pampered Chef recipe that I’ve made many times and always with great response – basically brownies from a mix (I always use Ghiradelli Double Chocolate) with a white chocolate cream cheese filling and strawberries to garnish – tedious but not difficult. I made these for our housewarming cocktail party. Use mini-muffin liners or else these are nearly impossible to get out of the pan intact
4. Lemon-Almond Tuiles from The Modern Baker, another tiny dessert from the cocktail party
5. To end on a classy note, because I know I’ve made more than this but I can’t think of anything: tiny pizzas, a staple of my and Layne’s diets, consisting of basically heated-up pizza lunchables 
Hopefully there will be more and better things to come.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
everything disappears
1. Family vacations are always weird. Combine that with the kind of people who go on Carnival Fun Ship Cruises (everything is fun – even the cash registers read “FUN TRANSACTIONS” at the top) and I had a very strange week, involving many outspoken Republicans, depressed piano players, and magic-performing Indians. As well as a good amount of time spent underwater:
underwater in Grand Cayman
The surprising thing, to me, is that the water is really the color it looks in pictures. Even while scuba diving.
my favorite fish in the Caribbean
a pair of starfishes
Using my dad’s underwater camera was really fun, plus now I have some really HAWT pictures of me in a wetsuit. Soon to be available online. Pictures from above water will be tomorrow’s feature.
2. I found this blog post from another former Angelika Film Center employee that I thought was sort of hilarious – maybe just because I, too, remember the sneaky single-serving nacho.
3. Interesting article on the science behind swearing – it actually reduces pain to swear after hurting yourself.
4. Really cool street art in Buenos Aires, especially this “evolution” graffiti.
5. I really like the new video for “See Fernando,” still don’t care much for the song, though. Acid Tongue (the album, not the song) is pretty bad compared to everything else Jenny Lewis has put out.
Jenny Lewis “See Fernando” from Team G on Vimeo.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments
i know a place
1. Fourth of July is always a strange holiday. What I would like to do, every time: get a red and white checkered blanket and have a picnic on a hill. Somebody should be grilling cheeseburgers. There are fireflies everywhere as the sun goes down, and then we watch the big fireworks show and ooh and aah. What I did: stand on my balcony seeing only smoke through the trees. Watch my sister go swimming. Eat pavlova.
Marina, or a shark
2. Tomorrow I leave for the high seas for a week. I return Sunday, at which time I should have a million pictures of stingrays and sharks and dolphins and sundry creatures of the ocean — not to mention the many friends I will make while playing shuffleboard and drinking things out of coconuts. This cruise promises to be absurd. I hope it is exactly like an Agatha Christie novel, minus the murder.
3. As a (temporary) parting gift, I give you Dean Martin in one of my favorite musical performances, singing Blue Moon. You almost can’t tell how drunk he is.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
on the road
1. I took 290 home this time. There was a “scenic farm” and a ghost town right out of an old West movie and a peach stand on the side of the road. For comparison’s sake, if you are like me and have to speed or you feel like you’re going too slowly, stick to I-10/71 for the Austin-Houston commute. 290 is prettier and gets you there in the same amount of time but there is hardly anything more frustrating than passing a pick-up truck going 60 in the right lane only to find yourself behind a pick-up truck going 63 in the left lane, thinking that is okay.
this is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about
I feel like I am living out of suitcases.
2. If you haven’t been to Kaboom Books yet, check it out and be sure to talk to the folks working there. I was reading Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski (it is brutal and unfiltered and honest and I’m really enjoying it) at Antidote and decided to stop by the Studewood store asking for more recommendations like it. The guy working there talked to me for twenty minutes about the movements Bukowski influenced and admired and not only recommended authors to me, but prevented me from buying one book by Celine because he said it would be better to start with a different title, not in stock, which he would get for me tomorrow. This is what a used bookstore should be like.
3. My car is totaled due to somebody being wasted at 11 p.m. on a Wednesday and deciding it was a great idea to drive. Anyone selling a car with working A/C and stereo for two thousand bucks? FML.
4. Had a dream that I was swimming in the ocean playing with jellyfish. It was dark. I wanted to touch one that had a big squishy top and long white tentacles. It looked lazy and I pressed my hand into the top. It started to wrap its tentacles around my arm and I moved away but it just grabbed on tighter and pulled me underwater and I woke up terrified.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
your bones are a little machine
1. I’ve been driving between Houston and Austin all the time lately – car wreck, funeral, family vacation. It’s giving me a strange feeling of being temporary. How long does it take to find home again after you leave?
On the bright side, I am getting to know I-10 and 71 pretty well. I am going to make a point of stopping at one of those landmarks, the Brahman cows, the Czech bakery, the PECANS – CHOCOLATE PIE – STRAWBERRIES store, every time I make the drive. Two drives ago, I got out at a “scenic overlook” I’d always wondered about, an hour outside of Austin on 71, where I met two women on a “girls’ trip” to Brenham to see the ice cream factory. I took their picture. They took mine.
I’m glad I stopped. It’s easy to become mindless in a routine but I’m getting better.
2. In case anybody is wondering why we’re in an economic recession, your answer has arrived: debauchery. Oklahoma’s legislature is considering a resolution to that effect, which is worth reading if only for the shock value: Obama’s recognition of Gay Pride Month led directly to the economic crisis that started, hmm, a year ago? It’s very bizarre that we pay people to spend their time on things like this.
3. Meanwhile the Texas legislature considered a law this session to force women to have a sonogram taken and shown to them before having an abortion (it’s okay, though – acccording to an amendment the woman may avert her eyes.) The article is from 2007, the previous session, though a similar bill was brought up in March 2009.
4. Texas Senator Kirk Watson spoke at a lawyers’ lunch I went to last week, talking about Governor Perry vetoing such unconscionable legislation as extending CHIP (children’s healthcare) – we need to save all our money for more toll roads for Perry’s friends. The more I learn about Texas government, the more discouraged I get. I either want to do something to fix it, or get the hell out before we secede. More on Watson’s blog.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
consumption
1. I have been on a fairly steady diet of AFI movies, the latest of which are:
- The Maltese Falcon, featuring an incredible Humphrey Bogart and a large variety of hats
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, because I was on a Bogart kick or something
- 12 Angry Men, one of the few plays-to-films that I thought was actually worth making the transition
- The Apartment, which I would have enjoyed more had the last 20 minutes not been unwatchably scratched, given that it’s Ricky Gervais’ favorite rom-com
Maybe soon I will move on to color!
2. There is a listening party this Friday, June 19 at 5 pm for the debut album from God Help The Girl, Stuart Murdoch’s side project, at End of an Ear on South First. The album has new versions of Funny Little Frog and Act of the Apostle, along with a host of new songs, one of which is streaming on the website – basically B&S with more strings, less horn, a different vocalist.
3. I’m going to Houston tomorrow afternoon if anybody wants to keep me company on the drive, or make me three hours of playlist to substitute for your presence.
4. Too lazy to take new pictures, apparently. This is what everything looks like at the Parlor.
5. Some striking photos of the Iranian election and following scandal.
6. Dear Texas, it is not okay to taser an old lady just because she won’t sign the speeding ticket. Sincerely, everybody
(Grits for Breakfast is a great blog to read if you want to get really depressed about criminal justice in Texas – as though I don’t get enough of that at work every day.)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
1. I’ve listened to Going to Georgia about six times today.
2. Major Major Major (a band without a Myspace? What? Come on, Seth, Adrian, et al) played at the Parlor last night and I attempted to take concert pix, for the first time ever:
check out that 1/10 exposure
3. Okayokayokay, so I bought a $30 record player off Craigslist and I know it seems pretentious but I just listened to In The Aeroplane Over The Sea on vinyl and it ruled. Maybe just for the aesthetic, but whatever. I don’t have a CD player and there’s something about actually buying an album that is much more personal and attention-requiring than torrenting it. I have Veckatimest (which I have not yet listened to, despite the hype) and Around the Well, the new Iron & Wine b-sides collection, on the way from Amazon as I write. (Though I don’t give much credit to the review, on Spin you can download Trapeze Swinger, a gorgeous track I have only heard through live recordings up until now.
4. Free Press Summer Fest looks awesome, for everyone who lives in / can easily get to Houston to see Broken Social Scene and Of Montreal headline for $12.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Recent Entries
Categories
- beginnings (1)
- photos (1)
- Uncategorized (27)
