November 2007 Archives

This summer, in order to get John out of doing some unreasonable thing or other that someone wanted him to do, I lied and said that he had broken a tooth. It seemed harmless enough, and he really did need a break at that time. I can’t even remember what it was they were trying to get him to do. It was at the height of all of the stressful family goings-on, and it was something inconsequential that some family member was trying to get him to do that they could easily do on their own.

Anyway… since then, he’s had nothing but tooth trouble. First he had a tooth get infected and need a root canal and a crown, which a) hurt and b) was expensive and c) required a ridiculous number of trips to the dentist. Tonight he bit into a piece of bread and heard a crunch. Alas, it was not the crunch of the tasty and delicious Tuscan bread crust, but instead, the crunch of one of his canines suffering some sort of tooth disaster.

Ladies and gentlemen, I appear to have spread the curse of my lousy teeth to my poor husband, all with one well-intentioned lie. Does the law of three apply, meaning he will have to suffer through three bad tooth episodes to balance it out? Do you think my insanely expensive and horrifically painful tooth surgery/bridge experience from this summer will help at all? Got any curse removing advice?

So last night I was all “Whee! Relaxed! Blissful!” Today I returned to reality. Traffic was pretty light this morning, which made for a nice drive in to work, but then the fun really started. My work computer just up and died. You know you’re screwed when IT tells you they have no idea what the problem is with your machine. It’s one thing when I can’t figure out what is going on with my computers. It’s something completely different when the smart guys don’t know what the deal is.

So my computer was out of commission for most of the day. They gave me a loaner, but it didn’t have my stuff installed which was kind of a hassle. And I had meetings. Lots of meetings. Perhaps it was just the usual back to work after four days off ennui, but man, I could not seem to get anything accomplished the way I wanted to today. And they had to reformat my computer to get it working again, so I lost all these graphics I had saved on the hard drive, and all my saved passwords and login info, and I had to go re-download a bunch of crap.

Then I got to thinking about how all I wanted to do was get a pizza and fries and come home and sit on the couch eating cupcakes. But I can’t do that because I have stupid diabetes and I don’t get to eat junk food anymore. Also, we don’t have any pizza, cupcakes or French fries. So instead I sat in traffic (because it was raining), and came home and worked out and then had a baked potato for dinner, which should have made me feel virtuous, but really just made me even more cranky.

Stupid Monday.

Thanksgiving itself and the run up to it were frenzied and exhausting as usual, what with trying to squeeze a whole week’s worth of work in to three days, and cramming in baking a pie and making vegetarian dishes, but the last three days have been wonderful.

For three glorious days I went almost nowhere and did almost nothing. I had some plans for Friday that fell through, and while I was bummed about that at first, it turned out to be for the best. In fact, it was great to be completely obligation-free. I hung out with John and Seamus. We took Seamus for a nice hike in the woods. We tried a new Chinese restaurant and flipped through guidebooks and made plans for our trip to Europe. I read a couple of books. I slept in and took naps. I watched a little TV. I had plenty of spare time to fit in my workouts. I’m very pleased to say that after the last few days I’m feeling more relaxed and refreshed than I’ve felt in months.

Of course, tomorrow morning it is back to work and the usual grind. But hey, I had three great days. And actually Thanksgiving, while long and tiring, was pretty nice too, so let’s make it four great days. Even better, I have a bunch of vacation days I have to use up by the end of the year, so December is going to be chock full of opportunities for me to relax. I’d say the last few days are proof that I’m more than ready for some time off.

But enough about me. How was your Thanksgiving weekend?

You may not know this, but most stuffing mixes are not vegetarian. Which I wish Whole Foods had taken in to consideration when they ordered their stuffing cubes this year, but no, instead of getting the brand that I really liked that made really tasty stuffing, they switched to mixes, all helpfully labeled “made with real chicken broth.” Hey Whole Foods, you know all those vegetarian products you sell? That a large segment of your customer base buys? The people who buy them don’t want a mix made with real chicken broth.

Anyway, I love stuffing. Even back when I ate meat, stuffing was my favorite part of Thanksgiving. Of course as a diabetic, I really can’t justify eating something so carb heavy very often, so my stuffing enjoyment opportunities have been severely curtailed. But for Thanksgiving, I go all out. This year John was bugging me to try a stuffing with vegetarian sausage, so that’s what I am doing.

Vegetarian Stuffing with Sausage

4 Italian “sausages” I used Boca Italian Sausage, defrosted, cut in half length wise and then cut in to bite sized pieces
4 Tablespoons butter
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 pound stuffing cubes
2 eggs
3 ½ cups vegetable broth

Brown the sausage in a little bit of olive oil. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a stock pot. Add in the onion, celery and garlic and sauté over medium heat until soft – about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally to be sure the butter isn’t getting too brown and that nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan. While that is cooking, heat up 2 ½ cups of the broth.

Add the stuffing cubes, stirring to coat with the butter and to mix in the celery, onions and garlic. Pour in a little of the heated broth to help prevent sticking. If you’ve bought stuffing that doesn’t have a lot of herbs, this is a good point to add in herbs. Sage, rosemary, parsley, thyme are good in stuffing. Marjoram and Savory can be good too, but you don't want to use too many herbs. If you’re using fresh herbs, you’ll throw in about a tablespoon of each one that you’re using. If you’re using dried herbs, cut that down to a teaspoon each.

Add the eggs and the rest of the heated broth, stirring to mix in. As the stuffing cooks you will need to keep adding the remaining cup of broth, until you get the consistency that you prefer. Add in the browned sausage and cook for a little while longer, stirring almost constantly to prevent sticking.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spoon the stuffing in a shallow baking pan (if you want drier stuffing) or casserole dish (if you prefer more moist stuffing) and bake for 20 minutes. You can skip this step if you want to, but I am paranoid about making sure the egg is really cooked.

To make this vegan stuffing (also delicious) replace the butter with 3 tablepoons of olive oil, and omit the eggs. You’ll probably need a little extra broth without the eggs. I’m also not sure if the Boca sausage is vegan or not, but I think it is.

A while back I wrote a somewhat cranky post about the problems I was encountering while interviewing people for a job opening we had on my team. Now I’m hiring again, and I’m seeing a whole new set of problems. First, we’ve had multiple candidates send us resumes, and then just never return our call when we contacted them to set up an interview. Is the job market that great that when someone wants to interview you, you can’t be bothered? It’s not like we’re waiting three weeks to call them.

Then there are the people who clearly haven’t read the job description or our requirements. If you want $120,000, you really shouldn’t be applying for jobs that have Assistant in the title, unless that job is something like Assistant US Attorney. Although I think we’ve decided to start looking at slightly higher level candidates, so we may change Assistant to Manager. Even so, we’re not going to pay $120,000.

And most of all, if I actually make you an offer and you tell me that you’ll call me with an answer on Monday, well then, call me with an answer on Monday. It’s ok to turn me down, or even to try to negotiate with me. I generally don’t go in for a lot of game playing bullshit though, and not calling me is not going to make me desperate to throw more money at you. In fact, it’s going to make me want to withdraw my offer to you altogether, which is probably not the response you had in mind. You may think you’re playing hardball, but you’re making me think you don’t take deadlines seriously.

I sure hope I find someone good soon. This is getting old.

I had a bunch of mushrooms left over from the stuffed onion recipe that did not go very well last weekend, so I decided to try making a creamy mushroom soup. I'm pleased to say it was a success! Even my skeptical, soup-hating husband was won over by this soup. It is really rich, and delicious served with a nice crusty bread. This is based on a recipe I found in Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's kitchen, although I changed it a little bit.

Creamy Mushroom Soup
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped shallots or onions (shallots are a little richer tasting)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley (I used italian parsley)
1 pound mushrooms, rinsed and chopped -- I had a mixture of cremini, shitake and baby bella mushrooms
sea salt and fresh ground pepper
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon dried rosemary (actually, I might bump this up to 2 teaspoons next time)
1 cup bread crumbs
1 quart mushroom broth/stock
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup cream

Melt the two tablespoons butter in a wide soup pot over medium high heat. When it is frothy, add the shallots and the parsley. Cook for several minutes, then add the mushrooms, garlic and rosemary. Stir to coat the mushrooms with the butter. Season with 1/2 teaspoon sea salt. Cook over medium heat until the mushrooms' liquid is released. That will take several minutes. Then add the bread crumbs and the stock. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.

Once the soup is finished cooking, puree it in a blender for about a minute. You want to leave some flecks of mushroom for texture. Return the soup to the pan, and taste to see if it needs any more salt. Swirl in the cream -- I used 1/2 a cup, but it was VERY creamy. I may only use a 1/4 cup next time. Season with pepper to taste, and then serve. I served it hot, but Deborah Madison's recipe says it is good chilled too.

Edited to add -- I just had some leftover soup, and this stuff is even better the second day after the flavors have had a chance to set in. Yummy!

Uh-oh. I think I’m getting old. Not only did I catch myself making a face the other day that looked like a face I’ve seen my mom make…not only did I recently realize that my friends who had kids right after college now have children who are teenagers… today I actually saw a generational difference in action. I shouldn’t be old enough to have generational differences with adults who are younger than me, damn it! We took one of my team members out to lunch for her birthday today. She’s ten years younger than I am, making me Generation X, and her, Generation Y, I guess. When the bill came, the three old fogey over 30 year-olds pulled out cash – and the rest of the group, all firmly in their 20’s still, each pulled out their debit cards and wanted to split the bill up among the five different cards. They all knew we were going out to lunch. It wasn’t a surprise. None of them ever carry cash.

Now, I don’t carry cash much either. As far as I’m concerned, the Visa ATM card is the most convenient invention ever. However, if I know I’m going out for a group meal, I always stop and get cash. It wouldn’t have occurred to me that they could split the check up on to so many cards. Back in my day, people in restaurants either couldn’t or wouldn’t do that. Probably because we were all too busy walking barefoot uphill both ways in the snow and wearing onions on our belts (which was the fashion at the time) or something.

What’s next? An inability to adapt to new technologies? Turning the heat up to 78 degrees? Driving slow in the fast lane? Hopefully I still have a few good years left in me!

Recently a friend of mine went out to lunch with one of her male co-workers, and they saw a woman in the parking lot wearing sweatpants. “Oh, that’s sad,” said the co-worker. “She’s in sweats. She’s given up.” To which my friend replied, “Hey, what do you mean? I wear sweats out on the weekend.” And her other female co-worker chimed in agreeing with her. This apparently completely shocked their male co-worker, who was just appalled by all this sweats wearing. Now, he is a gay guy, so I’m not sure if his opinion of what women are wearing will really matter to sweat-pants-wearing-women, since he’s not really their target market if they’re looking to attract a guy. On the other hand, plenty of gay men are considered fashion experts, so perhaps this is valuable insight.

When she was telling me the story, my friend said, “You wear sweats out in public, don’t you?” and I had to confess that in fact, I do not. I own a couple of sweatshirts, which I wear to walk Seamus sometimes, but that’s it. I’ve only ever even owned one pair of sweatpants, which I think had to have for PE in middle school (what is with me and the middle school PE tie-ins this week?) Of course, as soon as I admitted that casual wear for me means jeans, she immediately said, “Oh, right, because of your mom.” Everyone reading that who has ever met my mom just nodded and muttered “yep, because of her mom.” My mom is very proper. She never goes out of the house looking less than perfect. She never, ever, wears sweat pants. It is only recently that she’s bought a pair of jeans, and those are a wild departure for her. She is St. John knits and cashmere, not sweatpants. I spent years rebelling against whatever she wanted me to wear, but it was more that I didn’t want anything peach colored or floral, not that I wanted to dress down. Perhaps sweatpants weren’t goth enough. Whatever the reason, I never wore them, and I’m not in the habit now.

That does not mean I think there’s anything wrong with people wearing sweatpants out to do stuff other than exercise. I’m sure they are comfortable, and probably the right weight to wear in the fall. I say if people want to wear them to run errands or whatever, they should. I don’t think it means they’ve given up. It just means they don’t spend every second of their life focused on looking perfect and trying to attract members of the opposite sex. Help us settle this one, Internet. What do you think? Are sweats just comfy clothes, or a sign of defeat? Oh, and to throw you a little curve ball, what about those fancy velour-type sweat suits. They’re fancier…but are they fancy enough?

I don’t have this week’s vegetarian Thanksgiving recipe ready yet. I tried a new recipe for baked stuffed onions this weekend that I thought might be suitable, but in the end, it wasn’t all that good. Particularly when you consider that it took something like two and a half hours to make. Not worth it.

But that’s ok, because I have to take a moment to address the lies being spread by my very own brother in the comments on my last post. No, I did NOT break someone’s leg while playing field hockey. I admit that I am somewhat spectacularly uncoordinated, however, I’ve never actually brought physical harm to another person. I believe the story my brother is misremembering is actually one in which I was the victim. It goes like this:

At my school, there was no signing up for teams. In sixth, seventh and eighth grade, if you were a girl, you played on the field hockey team in the fall and the lacrosse team in the spring. For boys it was soccer in the fall and lacrosse in the spring. I was neither particularly good nor particularly bad at field hockey. They’d put me in, I’d play, and then it would be someone else’s turn to go on the field. Anyway, this one time there was a group of us fighting for the field hockey uh, ball. Ball, right? It’s been a long time. Anyway, we were all clumped up, whacking away at the ball and trying to get control of it when my middle school arch-nemesis got hit with a stick and decided I had hit her. She was sure that I had hit her on purpose (I hadn’t – in fact I'm not sure it was me, but either way I wasn’t evil like she was) so she raised her stick up over her shoulder and slammed it in to my shin as hard as she could. Our own coach pulled her off the field for that one. I wasn’t wearing shin guards for some reason and to this day, there is a dent in my left shin. Nothing was broken, although I think I had a fairly impressive bruise.

So there. See? I did not go around maiming people in middle school. Or ever, but most particularly not in a field hockey game.

Well, I may have lost my mind, but after spending the weekend thinking about it, I have decided to run the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler with my friend Becky in April. Our goal is to run 10 miles in less than one hour and 50 minutes. I think it is just the thing I need to motivate me and make me push myself again. I’ve just been coasting along, not getting to the next level of fitness, and I’m getting tired of it. If I’m going to do this though, I want to do it right, and not humiliate myself. So, the training begins. I’ve got to build stamina and get faster before I can even start to tackle long runs. And then there’s the matter of hills. I really struggle on hills, and the only way to not struggle is to keep running them until they aren’t so hard any more. Good times.

The race is at the beginning of April, so I’ve got roughly four and a half months. I think that’s enough time. I’m not a great runner, but I’m not a complete disaster. And running 10 miles is something I can be really proud of, as well. If I can run the race I want to run – hell, being able to run 10 miles at all – but really, more running 10 miles the way I want to run 10 miles will mean I’ve finally hit the level of fitness that I want to have.

I’m sure a real serious runner, the kind who covers more ground in one training session than I do in a week, might snicker a bit at that, but I don’t care. This is what I want to achieve. I have friends who have run marathons, and I was proud of them and impressed by them. I don’t really have any interest in doing it myself though. Maybe a half marathon, if I survive the 10 miler, but maybe not. A year and a half ago, I hadn’t run since middle school, and I only ran then because they made me, either through PE or when we were playing field hockey or lacrosse and I had to run up and down the field. By the way, if I sound like a lousy runner, you should have seen me play lacrosse. Wow, did I suck at that.

But I digress. 10 miles. April. Stamina, speed and hills. I can do this. I will do this.

I’m kind of sleepy so I’m taking the easy way out with a collection of stray thoughts in bullet form as opposed to a coherent, organized post.

• I’m finally figuring out the right way to drive my Honda Civic Hybrid. I’ve been averaging one extra mile per gallon for the last couple of days. Go me.

• I had the distinction of having an employee who just started on October 15th quit yesterday. I don’t think it had anything to do with me, (she got offered what she described as her dream job) but it was still a little disconcerting. And so now I’m hiring again. Great.

• Our trip to Europe is back on for spring. Paris, Amsterdam and London, here we come, baby. I’m excited, but also feeling a little anxious about leaving Seamus behind. I know people go on vacation without their dogs all the time, but I just have this feeling of dread about getting someone to watch him. Also, the airfares are more expensive than I thought they would be. Ok, I might need to work on my enthusiasm.

• My friend Becky has challenged me to run a 10 miler with her in April. I’m a little intimidated by the notion, but I also kind of like the idea of going for it. Running 10 miles would be a pretty big deal for me, though. I’d really have to get to be a faster runner, because the notion of running for two hours straight doesn’t really do anything for me. Still, it is good to have a goal. I might go for it.

Ok, I’m now so tired that I’m struggling with the bullet format. I’d say that’s a clear sign it is time to go to bed. Bonne nuit. Bonne nuit to you all. (Insert gargoyle here)

It occurred to me that it might be useful for my November recipes to be dishes you can make for a vegetarian Thanksgiving. Whether you have a vegetarian coming for Thanksgiving dinner, or you just want to try something new, I’ll suggest a few of my favorite Thanksgiving-appropriate dishes over the next few weeks. Please feel free to make requests, too. I love the challenge of tracking down and trying out new recipes.

This week’s recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It is for Walnut and Potato Croquettes. You can also make this dish without the walnuts, and it is equally delicious.

1 ½ tablespoons butter
½ cup grated onion
1 cup finely chopped walnuts
1 cup mashed potatoes (I prefer mashed potatoes made with Yukon Gold potatoes for this dish)
2 cups bread crumbs
1 egg
Salt and freshly milled pepper to taste
1 tablespoon chopped sage, rosemary or parsley (I think sage is best, particularly for Thanksgiving)
Vegetable oil (I use olive or canola, actually) and/or clarified butter for frying

Melt the butter in a small skillet, add the onion, and cook over medium heat until browned, stirring frequently. In a bowl, mix the onion, walnuts, mashed potatoes, half the bread crumbs and the egg. Season with 1 teaspoon salt, a little pepper and the sage. Scoop up 2 heaping tablespoons of the mixture at a time and shape into an oval. Spread the remaining bread crumbs on a plate and roll the oval croquettes in them to coat evenly.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F. Heat 1/8 an inch of oil in a wide skillet and place over high heat. Add as many of the croquettes as will fit comfortably, reduce the heat to medium, and cook on both sides until golden, about 10 minutes in all. Remove them to paper towels and place in the oven while you finish frying the rest of the croquettes.

They are tasty plain or topped with gravy.

John and I saw American Gangster this weekend, and I have to say, I really don’t think it lived up to the hype. It wasn’t a bad movie. Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe were both great, in fact, but I felt like it never quite paid off. I guess I could see the potential in the story and in the performances, but it didn’t come together for me. A movie that is two and a half hours long shouldn’t feel like it has gaps in the story for one thing. The reviewer in the Washington Post said that the movie felt like it was 40 minutes long to him. Not me. I was practically falling asleep at the very end. I realize it was a true story, so they couldn’t take too many liberties with the facts, but it seems to me that there was a natural tension between the two stories they were telling – Denzel’s character’s rise to heroin kingpin in Harlem paralleling Russell’s cop character’s journey to become the head of a drug unit and eventually a prosecutor – that should have put more suspense in the story. All of the elements of a great story were there. It should have been a great movie, but I was disappointed.

If you’re looking for a really good gangster movie, I found Eastern Promises much more satisfying. It hasn’t gotten nearly the same attention or ad campaign as American Gangster, but I thought it was an excellent movie. It a narrowly focused story about the Russian Mafia set in London. Viggo Mortensen is terrific as Nikolai, a Russian gangster who turns out to not be all that bad after all. Naomi Watts plays a midwife trying to figure out what happened to the Russian teenager who turned up at her hospital and died while giving birth, and who suddenly finds herself in way over her head. Now, this was a movie where you really got a feel for the characters and what drove them. Even though it probably had as much violence as American Gangster, it felt like a quieter, more introspective movie. John and I both really enjoyed it.

I also finally finished reading William Gibson’s Spook Country, which I’ve been picking up and putting down for a couple of weeks now. I kept getting distracted, which is in no way a reflection on the quality of the book. I’ve just been ridiculously busy. It’s funny, because when I’m not reading William Gibson, I always forget just how much I enjoy his writing. And then I pick up one of his books, and I’m reminded that I don’t just like his work. I really, really like it. He’s got such a spare, yet incredibly descriptive style. You feel like you know his characters and can see the world they inhabit even though he doesn’t have any extraneous words floating around in his books. Spook Country is, much like most of his stories, kind of hard to explain. There’s an ex-lead singer of a band with a cult following trying to build a career as a journalist. There’s an illegal Cuban immigrant clan with ties to Russia and to the CIA. There’s a former intelligence officer playing his own games in the post 9-11 era, and there’s a current spy type using a junkie to help him track what the Cubans are up to with the former intelligence officer. Oh, and a very rich magazine publisher/ad man/cultural trend developer guy. Each thread of the story starts out separately, but they all converge in the end, with a payoff that was, at least for me, completely unexpected. I think I even liked it better than his last book, Pattern Recognition, and I really liked Pattern Recognition.

So to recap, American Gangster = good, but not as wonderful as everyone says, Eastern Promises = excellent and should be getting more attention than it is, and Spook Country = one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. And I read a lot, so that’s saying something.

Now, I’m looking for something new to read. I’ve got a stack of books under the coffee table, but I’m also always interested in other people’s suggestions. What have you read lately that you liked? Got any movies you want to review? Have at it in the comments.