I wouldn't call myself well traveled, but I've had the good fortune to take trips to some really cool places with some great people. I'll pick a weekend exploring a new city over a day at an amusement park or a shopping excursion any day of the week. The one thing that I think I've gotten down is planning.
When I'm planning, I'm conscientious of the people I'm traveling with. If someone isn't a walker, I set them up with a nice gelateria close to where we're exploring or set up a meeting time, if someone wants to stick their toes in the Mediterranean, I find us a route or have a guide find us a route with a pasteleria along the way. If I'm with Pengs, we'll enjoy a winery or three that gives us carte blanche in the tasting room and follow it up with a gastronomic tasting. I'd rather be known to travel well than thought of as well traveled.
There are hiccups, of course: occasionally we get lost-I'll readily admit that my sense of direction was lost in the packaging process, but we have an objective and we aren't squandering precious time. I get the expressions, "be here now" and "enjoy the journey", but depending on the here or the path I'll honestly reply, "no thanks"... Site seeing on Rue Saint Denis isn't a good idea when people are assessing your market value-- sometimes its smarter to plan on how you're going to get out and what you're never going to do again than take in the ambience.
As irritating as the expression "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail" is, when you're a type A personality and you are being dragged around through indecision and poor communication in 90+ degree weather, you can't help but realizing that planning more than patience really is a virtue.
Yes, we all need to be resilient when things don't go according to plan, something I'm well aware that I need to work on... but I've never believed in bending to the weak or wasteful and I never believed that patience was a substitute for planning.
Moral of the story:
Free plane tickets aren't really "free". Everyone in this world has an ulterior motive.
I am planning where I'm going to be living after grad school and following through with my benchmarks to get done.
I will no longer settle.
I am not willing people to be what they aren't. I accept it and respect them and myself enough not to waste any more time on "trying"-- tenacity without reflection is no better than stubbornness.
I am over it.
I enjoy the great stuff-- I know what I want and I'm not wasting anymore of my time or energy on anything else.
So, yes, I'll attempt to enjoy more of the ride, but I have no qualms with bailing when the ride is absolutely pointless.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Week 18, July 25, 2011: Cheesecake and bread
For the love of God, someone shake some baking sense into me.
I said that last week's cheesecake recipe was "ehh". So instead of tweaking it, I went out and found a new recipe.
Allow me to vetch and explain to you my utter lack of insight on doing what I did this week.
I googled "cheesecake recipes" and one of the first few was this one:
Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, and let cake cool in oven with the door closed for 5-6 hours. Chill in refrigerator until serving.
I said that last week's cheesecake recipe was "ehh". So instead of tweaking it, I went out and found a new recipe.
Allow me to vetch and explain to you my utter lack of insight on doing what I did this week.
I googled "cheesecake recipes" and one of the first few was this one:
It had all five star reviews and I read a few of them to see about modifications. Here's what kills me: people will give it a five star review and then detail what they did, which was completely change the effing recipe! I get so irritated with that, but I took a deep breath, typed into a word doc some of the more sensible modifications and tried to ignore the comments that said "if you screw this one up, it's your fault, not the recipe's".
You all know that normally I blame myself, but this time, it's all on the recipe.
Here's the recipe, then I'll explain what I'm going to do next time:
Cheesecake
A variation on Chantal’s New York Cheesecake
Crust
1 ½ c graham cracker crumbs
¼ c sugar
¼ c melted butter
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
Filling (BE SURE ALL INGREDIENTS ARE ROOM TEMP!)
4 8oz packages of cream cheese
1 ½ c white sugar
¾ c milk (or creamy booze
4 eggs
1 c sour cream
1 Tbs vanilla extract
¼ c all-purpose flour (if too cakey/ dry, decrease to 2 Tbs)- I did 2 Tbs
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Grease a nine inch spring form pan
Wrap the bottom in foil 3X
Heat water for water bath
In a medium bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs, sugar, spices and butter. Press onto bottom of springform pan.
In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Blend in milk and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Pour filling into prepared crust.
Ok- after 1 hour of cooking, it looked absolutely raw. Like if I didn't know the farmer, I'd be afraid of salmonella raw. Like slimy raw. I was skeeved and baked it until it was cooked- like another 45 minutes. Left it in the oven only for an hour or so--the point of leaving it in the oven is so it doesn't crack, but it was a 90 degree day and leaving anything out in that weather creeps me. So, into the fridge. I cut into it this morning to try (approx. 15 hours in the fridge). It was eggy and the texture was off. Not a fan.
The crust however was ridiculously amazing. The lady who posted the mod about the nutmeg was right on.
What did I learn? Don't try and reinvent the wheel. Modify what's got the texture but not the taste so that it's got the taste- so, for next week, Toffee Crunch Caramel Cheesecake reloaded.
I won't even get into the bread. I was doing paperwork this afternoon and neglected to set the timer- the neighbor said it was perfectly crusty. I gave her the loaf and told her to feed the birds when she got sick of it.
Good news, there's always next week.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Week 17, July 18th: Toffee Crunch Caramel Cheesecake
Oh Caramel, how I've missed you old foe turned friend...
I'm still not sure if we're on good terms, but more on that in a bit.
This week, I was craving toffee and cheesecake, so I did a little googling and came across a Toffee Crunch Caramel Cheesecake.
Recipe from: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Toffee-Crunch-Caramel-Cheesecake-231417
This guy is a two day process.
Day one is cheesecake followed by chilling.
Day two is caramel, toffee, more chilling and eating.
The weekend was crazy busy: three grad parties in two towns on Saturday, followed by a 2nd birthday party for Lily-bean an hour away and running concurrently with another grad party. Good news is I only have one party next weekend and then one sometime in August. It was just a little crunch trying to get in my baking with sleeping in and an afternoon of driving and party hopping.
Lily did not want to share her cupcake with me.
The recipe was really straight forward, nothing too fancy, a lot of doing and then waiting. I thought that the gingersnap crust was a bad idea with the caramel theme going on. I'm going to have to research that for the next pass at this guy. I had two screw ups: 1, I removed the sides of the springform while the cake was still hot- directions had said put hot cake uncovered in fridge, but it meant with sides intact. You can see how it sort of splatted.
2, I think I overcooked (ie burnt) the caramel. It seemed to be going too well. I was jamming out to some tunes and making another batch of caponata, grilling some chicken and letting bread rise. I thought I was in the kitchen zone- I burnt the caramel, overcooked the caponata (it's this watery mess), burnt the daylights out of the chicken... the bread was decent though. My parents thought that the caramel wasn't actually burnt, that it might be the kick of the gingersnaps... I love it when they lie to save my feelings : )
After pouring on the caramel, you crumble toffee candy bars and edge the cake with it. I was being lazy and instead of going after them with a mallet or a glass, I just crushed them in their packaging with my hands. Bad idea.
I'm still not sure if we're on good terms, but more on that in a bit.
This week, I was craving toffee and cheesecake, so I did a little googling and came across a Toffee Crunch Caramel Cheesecake.
Recipe from: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Toffee-Crunch-Caramel-Cheesecake-231417
This guy is a two day process.
Day one is cheesecake followed by chilling.
Day two is caramel, toffee, more chilling and eating.
The weekend was crazy busy: three grad parties in two towns on Saturday, followed by a 2nd birthday party for Lily-bean an hour away and running concurrently with another grad party. Good news is I only have one party next weekend and then one sometime in August. It was just a little crunch trying to get in my baking with sleeping in and an afternoon of driving and party hopping.
Lily did not want to share her cupcake with me.
I gave some to my neighbor, who txted me and said it was delicious. Mom, dad and gram seemed to enjoy. Mom said it could have been sweeter- the cheese cake itself. Dad liked it, but said that there was a bite of an aftertaste- either from the crust or the burnt caramel.
I'm not giving myself a pass on this one- besides the Christmas cheesecakes and the pumpkin cheesecake, none of them has come out well. It's time for me to find and execute a good plain cheesecake that I can jazz up when desired.
So, goals for the upcoming weeks: more quiet, more cheesecakes, more bread, more caramel, more sneaker mileage, and more skyping with the princesita
more smiling, more things crossed off the to-do lists, no whining, no excuses.
Have a great week!
Saturday, July 16, 2011
the sensation of silence
My world revolves around sound... or should I say that sound powers my world and it's been that way for as long as I can remember.
There a hundreds of ways we connect with the world, but of our senses, we all have one or a combination that dominates. Some people have smells- with a single whiff they can tell that a perfume is wrong for you or what you've been cooking. Some have colors that they need to be surrounded by or are floored by sensational beauty. Some have textures, their finger tips and tongues guide them through a life filled with velvety, grainy, etc goodness... I have sounds.
I can tell whether or not I'll like a person by the quality of his or her voice. I reach out for station changes the minute something I'm not interested comes on the radio and if there is nothing decent, I'll simply turn it off. My neighbor's tuneless whistling causes me physical pain and like my mother, I have no qualms with waging war on wind chimes.
Words come into this kingdom. And should there be a territory devoted to nicknames, my father would be the duke. I had to introduce myself at a grad school function when I was working on my MS and had the distinction of having the most names of anyone in the room and we lost count around 30. My full first name is a rarity unless someone is irked with me or the extended family is around. If I hear Twink, Marble Ann, or Darts, I know I'm being summoned. I have no clue as to how my parents' cat knows when she's being called, she seems to have a new and evolving moniker every few days.
We had the great pleasure of being read to as children. The Shire and Mordor and Narnia were places tucked into my father's intonation, excited and fading to exhausted as he fell asleep before we did some nights. I maintain that it was his 'habit' of skipping pages that spurred us to learn how to read that much faster. The descriptions of these far off fantastical lands fueled my desire to see everything and a fascination with the written word that still delights and plagues me.
Dad also played the piano and I still remember listening to "Don't Cry Out Loud"on the steps past my bedtime. Him playing and mom singing or humming along.
My mother has perfect pitch, complementing both my father and brother's ability to recall even the most obscure lyrics, but inability to carry a tune in a bucket. It makes for delightful renditions of happy birthday... and now with Em sharing the family's love of music, we've been running the gamut from Beatles to Irish ballads and baby jams... Wheels on the bus has never sounded so good or had so many invented lyrics.
Resonation fascinates me... cave drawings were placed according to it and anyone who's been in a room with perfect acoustics knows that feeling- when pitches intertwine and reverberate in vestigial places within you. It's otherworldly and like so many ephemeral things, you wish it would never end.
I think that songs and sounds become woven in the tapestry of our being... or maybe we're mosaics and the sounds are those bright golden tiles that catch the sunlight and glitter. We remember the horrible and the wonderful things that people say and how they make us feel. We have songs that remind us of the best and worst people and things that have happened in our lives. "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" will always bring back senior year in high school. "The Way You Look Tonight" makes me laugh about the choreographed first dance at my brother and sister in law's reception, complete with dips. "I'll Be Seeing You" is my cards song with Nan. "These are the Days", "Shades" and "The General" bring me back to college and 80's and 90's rock is Nels tending at the Hoot. "I'd Like to Visit the Moon" is now Em's song.
While the songs key into some larger emotion, the sounds are much more visceral (i.e. my neighbor's painful whistling). I can pick out my grandmother's laugh in a crowd and I automatically have to smile. Something within me lightens, even when I have no idea what the laughter is about or what I'm getting myself into approaching them. My doorbell- the obnoxious circa 1930 creation that I had to have fixed and scares the bejesus out of my company, makes my heart flutter in delight- I have guests and I'm about to welcome them into my home. Running water for dishes calms me. Reminds me of a hundred Sunday afternoons either washing or drying at Nan's with my cousin and aunt, talking about everything and nothing languidly through dozens of interruptions. Someone humming winds around my spine and I stand taller, pulled into the melody and wondering what they're thinking.
I've been realizing through all that's going on right now that I'm talking far too much... feeling as though everyone needs to understand me, my frustrations, my anxieties; that I need to get out all of the stress and fears. I'm a nervous talker who comes home and hits her head on the door frame wondering what she just said and why. I need to stop. I need to find some quiet, to get comfortable with silence, to find the strength in trusting myself to deal with the "everything" and spend some time listening and understanding the nuances of the tones that build my life.
There a hundreds of ways we connect with the world, but of our senses, we all have one or a combination that dominates. Some people have smells- with a single whiff they can tell that a perfume is wrong for you or what you've been cooking. Some have colors that they need to be surrounded by or are floored by sensational beauty. Some have textures, their finger tips and tongues guide them through a life filled with velvety, grainy, etc goodness... I have sounds.
I can tell whether or not I'll like a person by the quality of his or her voice. I reach out for station changes the minute something I'm not interested comes on the radio and if there is nothing decent, I'll simply turn it off. My neighbor's tuneless whistling causes me physical pain and like my mother, I have no qualms with waging war on wind chimes.
Words come into this kingdom. And should there be a territory devoted to nicknames, my father would be the duke. I had to introduce myself at a grad school function when I was working on my MS and had the distinction of having the most names of anyone in the room and we lost count around 30. My full first name is a rarity unless someone is irked with me or the extended family is around. If I hear Twink, Marble Ann, or Darts, I know I'm being summoned. I have no clue as to how my parents' cat knows when she's being called, she seems to have a new and evolving moniker every few days.
We had the great pleasure of being read to as children. The Shire and Mordor and Narnia were places tucked into my father's intonation, excited and fading to exhausted as he fell asleep before we did some nights. I maintain that it was his 'habit' of skipping pages that spurred us to learn how to read that much faster. The descriptions of these far off fantastical lands fueled my desire to see everything and a fascination with the written word that still delights and plagues me.
Dad also played the piano and I still remember listening to "Don't Cry Out Loud"on the steps past my bedtime. Him playing and mom singing or humming along.
My mother has perfect pitch, complementing both my father and brother's ability to recall even the most obscure lyrics, but inability to carry a tune in a bucket. It makes for delightful renditions of happy birthday... and now with Em sharing the family's love of music, we've been running the gamut from Beatles to Irish ballads and baby jams... Wheels on the bus has never sounded so good or had so many invented lyrics.
Resonation fascinates me... cave drawings were placed according to it and anyone who's been in a room with perfect acoustics knows that feeling- when pitches intertwine and reverberate in vestigial places within you. It's otherworldly and like so many ephemeral things, you wish it would never end.
I think that songs and sounds become woven in the tapestry of our being... or maybe we're mosaics and the sounds are those bright golden tiles that catch the sunlight and glitter. We remember the horrible and the wonderful things that people say and how they make us feel. We have songs that remind us of the best and worst people and things that have happened in our lives. "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" will always bring back senior year in high school. "The Way You Look Tonight" makes me laugh about the choreographed first dance at my brother and sister in law's reception, complete with dips. "I'll Be Seeing You" is my cards song with Nan. "These are the Days", "Shades" and "The General" bring me back to college and 80's and 90's rock is Nels tending at the Hoot. "I'd Like to Visit the Moon" is now Em's song.
While the songs key into some larger emotion, the sounds are much more visceral (i.e. my neighbor's painful whistling). I can pick out my grandmother's laugh in a crowd and I automatically have to smile. Something within me lightens, even when I have no idea what the laughter is about or what I'm getting myself into approaching them. My doorbell- the obnoxious circa 1930 creation that I had to have fixed and scares the bejesus out of my company, makes my heart flutter in delight- I have guests and I'm about to welcome them into my home. Running water for dishes calms me. Reminds me of a hundred Sunday afternoons either washing or drying at Nan's with my cousin and aunt, talking about everything and nothing languidly through dozens of interruptions. Someone humming winds around my spine and I stand taller, pulled into the melody and wondering what they're thinking.
I've been realizing through all that's going on right now that I'm talking far too much... feeling as though everyone needs to understand me, my frustrations, my anxieties; that I need to get out all of the stress and fears. I'm a nervous talker who comes home and hits her head on the door frame wondering what she just said and why. I need to stop. I need to find some quiet, to get comfortable with silence, to find the strength in trusting myself to deal with the "everything" and spend some time listening and understanding the nuances of the tones that build my life.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Week 15 & 16, July 4-11th
Good Morning!
Like niece like aunt today- I'm in my sweats, but instead of being cozy on the chaise, I'm in the president's reading room at school, plugging away on my portfolio.
I had a major break through this morning- a paper that has been eluding edit completions for months now was finished in exactly 56 minutes. Seema's with me working on her proposal, she must be good luck.
I'm in sort of an exciting hold pattern. I have a bunch of things I have to do, but at the same time, there are all of these changes and rearranges going on about me. It's refreshing and terrifying all at once. I'm trying not to be my usual wussy nervous self, but the brave face needs work. It's very bouncing at the top of the teeter totter... it almost reminds me of when "sister" Jimmy would get us stuck at the top and start bouncing us, laughing at the shouts of "Oh MY GOD, Jimmy!"
Regardless of the outcome, it's fun and exciting.
I've been up to a lot the past couple of weeks:
I've made:
a peach tart
a few batches of caponata- Sicilian Ratatouille
blueberry pie-- did not travel well... I spent a good 20 minutes with stain remover and a hairbrush in the backseat of the car trying to clean it up last night.
The world's best chocolate cake cupcakes-- the recipe was from family circus, the rest have been all mine/ modifications on family recipes! Sorry that I didn't get a picture of the cupcakes but they were such a hit that I'll be making them again and fill you in when I do.
And finally
Lots of bread... I maintain that I have the best fed birds in the valley... I've done a couple of loaves every week and pitched all but one to the birds... I will get this.
I was gifted some furniture- and mom and dad were over to rearrange- I'm sitting in the best chair on earth taking the pick... I think it's settling in nicely.
I visited a farm- and will have some pics of me attempting to milk at some point.
The last bit of excitement- someone finally has enough hair to wear a barrette!
Back to work. Enjoy the sunshine!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
A foot forward
A time to wonder what on earth is going on.
And through it all, you need to be grateful for the little things:
laughter and the people who make you smile
Sunglasses and gorgeous days
the random fun stuff you can draw out of even the most mundane situations
family and other life preservers
Celebrations and party dresses
And a comfy place to rest.
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