November 2009 Archives

And I loved it. They did a wonderful job of adapting the story from the book and I have to say you can really tell the studio invested more money in New Moon than they did in Twilight. About a million other people have already reviewed it, so I won't bother to repeat what I'm sure has been said before. Just that I liked it.

We had visitors this weekend -- family in town for Thanksgiving. It was good, because it forced me to deal with some of the little jobs around the house that I'd been avoiding. I love it when the house is this tidy and well put together. Plus it was a lot of fun to show them the place for the first time, and on top of that we had a nice visit. The one part that amazed me was just how much noise a six year old, four year old and two year can produce simply by existing. Wow. I swear I never got that loud as a child, but maybe I just can't remember. They are sweet and well behaved kids, but they generate an incredible amount of noise.

Speaking of me as a child, my mom has brought up one of the most annoying of her arguments back up again. Thanksgiving is coming, and she's mad that I'm a vegetarian. I should eat turkey for the holidays. Apparently my "personal beliefs" are just pesky phase that get in the way of her cooking a nice big turkey for Thanksgiving. How is it that our parents know exactly which buttons to push to turn us back into eyerolling teenagers? One of life's grand mysteries, I guess.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be a morning person. I hate them. This morning I woke up extra tired and out of sorts, so I'm warning the world: You probably don't want to talk to me until at least noon today.

My weekend, while productive, was over too quickly.
I do not want to go to work today.
I do not feel like dealing with the traffic on 270.
I am not in the mood for any bullshit, of which there will surely be some.
My stupid neighbors who I see every morning while walking Seamus -- a man and his daughter waiting for the school bus -- flat out refuse to acknowldge our presence. It's like we're not even walking directly in front of them and saying good morning. Annoying, but whatever. This morning it practically irritated me to the point of violence. Or at least to the point of letting Seamus poop on their lawn. I totally should have. Jerks.
I came back from our walk promising myself a nice cup of chai to try and make the morning better. But I forgot I used up all the milk last night making a potato and leek gratin. Now I'm mad at myself. Fucking self. Cooking with the milk and using it all up so inconsiderately.

Well, I'm off to share the little ray of sunshine that is me with the rest of the world. If you see me while it is still morning you may want to back away slowly.

Baking and cooking are two of the most relaxing acitivities in the world for me. They just plain make me happy. Messing around in the kitchen, whether I'm trying new recipes or making old favorites is practically therapy for me. I'm sure that's part of why the weekend we just had was such a wonderful one for me. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen.

This house came with a garden that they clearly neglected this spring, I guess because they were hoping to move. I still haven't identified most of the plants out there. However, I did figure out that part of it is an herb garden. I've got Basil and Thyme and Rosemary, and what I'm pretty sure is Sage. Pioneer Woman recently posted a recipe for Rosemary Rolls that looked so delicious I knew I had to make them. I've got a deep and abiding love for bread with rosemary. Her recipe used frozen dinner rolls, but in it she mentioned you could use the dough from her Cinnamon rolls recipe. I've been on a big no processed foods kick (or at least,an as few processed foods as possible kick) lately, so I decided to make the dough. I made a half batch, then split that in half and made 1/4 rosemary rolls and 1/4 cinnamon rolls. Both were absolutely delicious. I cheated on the cinnamon rolls and made my own frosting because I didn't have all the ingredients for PW's frosting. You can make a really simple frosting by mixing confectioners sugar with heavy cream. Or in my case, half and half, because we didn't have any heavy cream.

A couple of weeks ago we were watching something, probably Top Chef, and someone made a Tarte Tatin. I keep intending to make a Tarte Tatin, but then I never get around to it. Well, this weekend I got around to it! I made a modified version of Martha Stewart's Tarte Tatin, with help from Smitten Kitchen when I was worried my carmelized sugar didn't look right. Those photographs really do come in handy sometimes!

Tarte Tatin is like upside down cake, except it is an upside down pie. It is super apple-y and very delicious.

Start with a 1/2 batch of Martha's Pate Brisee (I've done the halving here):
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 pound (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup ice water

Cut the flour, salt and sugar into the butter, either in a food processor or with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal. I went with the pastry blender because I just didn't feel like hauling out the Cuisinart or cleaning it after.

Add ice water bit by bit either with the machine running or mixing it in by hand, just until the dough holds together. You want it to not be crumbly anymore, but you also want to avoid it getting too wet or sticky.

Turn the dough out onto a large piece of plastic wrap. Press into a flattish circle and chill for a least an hour.

Apple part
3/4 of a cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons sugar
3 Tablespoons water
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
8 medium sized apples (Martha recommends Cortland, I used 4 Granny Smith and 4 Fuji), peeled, cored and quartered

In an 8 or 9 inch cast iron skillet (mine is 10 inches, it was fine) or other oven proof saute pan, combine the 3/4 cup sugar and the water. Bring the mixture to a boil, lower the heat and cook until it begins to thicken and turn amber colored. (Roughly 10 to 12 minutes for me, but I think I might have slightly undercooked it). Remove from the heat and stir in the butter.

Arrange your quartered apple slices in the sugar, cut side facing up, layering them until you have filled the pan. Sprinkle with the 2 tablespoons of sugar. Return the skillet to the stove and cook over low heat for about 20 minutes. Keep a close eye on it and do not let the syrup burn. Remove from the heat and cool for a few minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll the pate brisee to a thickness of 1/8 of an inch, and place it over the apples in the skillet. Trim the edges to the outer rim of the skillet.

Bake the tart for about 20 minutes (took me 27) until the pastry is golden brown. Let it cool on a rack for 15 to 20 minutes, then run a sharp knife around the edge of the pan to loosen the tart. Place your serving plate over the top of the skillet, and then flip the whole thing over so the tart is inverted on to the plate, apple side up.

It is best served warm.

I had a lovely weekend. The weather was gorgeous, I got about a million things crossed off my to-do list, I spent a nice chunk of time baking, and I am generally pleased with the world. The parts I did not enjoy? The purchasing of curtains and the installation of a carpet runner.

First of all, the curtains. Have you bought curtains recently? I had no idea they were so expensive. And I'm talking about the cheapo curtains you'll find at say, Target or Bed Bath & Beyond, not fancy pants decorator curtains. I found one style I really liked for our living room, then did the math (six panels at $x each would be...) and about fell over. I did not buy those particular curtains. No, I went for all unlined, hey, do they have anything I like in the clearance bin curtains. I'm not finished, but there are now curtains up in the living room and dining room, and balloon shades waiting to be hung in the spare bedroom. It's a start.

Living room:

Dining room:

Notice that they are not tied back, because curtains do not come with ties. No, you have to buy those separately, or install permanent metal ones on your wall. I'll deal with that later, I think. Some days it seems like it would be really, really useful if I knew how to sew.

That brings us to the carpet runner. One of the things we noticed first off when we moved in was that Seamus has a hard time on the wood stairs. Then Becky told me a story about how her someone she knows took a really bad tumble on hardwood stairs, and we knew we had to get a runner. I fall down the stairs regularly enough that it just seemed prudent. For people who don't know me, yes, really, I fall down that much. I just do.

It is probably too sweeping to say I hate all DIY, but man, there is some stuff I just do not want to do myself. There was the whole caulking debacle, plus a painting related one I didn't even talk about here, and a couple of other projects that have cropped up recently. Now we can add "installing stair rods" to that list. The carpet itself has been up for a while. To be honest, I can't really complain about that part, because I didn't do all that much. Although I did manage to step on a tack strip while wrestling the carpet into place and puncture my toe through my shoe, leading to anxious googling of "tetanus." But no, it was the stair rods that gave us the most trouble. We didn't have enough room to operate on the bannister side of the stairs, and the wall side wasn't much better, and it was one long, miserable process. At least now it is done, and it looks nice.

Behold the fruit of our labor:

I got a flu shot for the first time ever in my life this year. Naturally, since I took measures to avoid getting sick, I've been felled by some sort of sinus crud. Yesterday, with the whole right side of my face throbbing, my ear hurting, and suffering from dizziness and an overwhelming urge to lie down, I gave up and left work at lunchtime. I arrived home, dosed myself with cold medicine, and took to the couch.

I was so hot on the drive home that I had the air conditioning on in the car. An hour later I was huddled under a blanket, shivering. And so it went for the rest of the day. At about 9:30 last night I finally hit on the right combination of advil, sudafed and benadryl to help clear up whatever this is. I still feel crappy, but while I'd like to go lie down, it no longer has that imperative "lie down or fall down" feel to it. Now I'm trying to decide whether or not to go to work today. I think I probably will.

Yesterday's illness adventure has exposed one glaring weakness with my new house. It has lots and lots of windows and is filled with natural light. Normally this is a plus, but when all you want to do is hide in a cave until your head stops hurting, it is a real drawback. Unfortunately, the previous owners took all the curtains with them. Actually, they took everything they could possibly get away with taking, including the mirrors, towel racks and toilet paper holders from the bathrooms. And then claimed that their mirrors were art and they didn't use towel racks or toilet paper holders. Really? Because I can see the marks on the walls where something was attached.

I didn't really care about the curtains though. The house is private, and their window treatments were too fussy for my tastes anyway. But now I see the error of my ways. I guess it is time to go curtain shopping.

A little over a month ago, my mom and I were in a rental car with satellite radio and we stumbled across the all Bruce Springsteen channel. We were stuck in a traffic jam at the time, and my mom turned to me and said "I've always wanted to go see Bruce Springsteen play."

Just a couple of days after that conversation, they announced that Bruce was playing a show here in DC, so I got tickets. And last night, we took my mom to her very first rock concert.

Everyone always says that Bruce puts on a killer live show, and I'm here to tell you that everyone is not lying. No one could ever accuse him of phoning it in. They played the entire Born to Run album, which is my personal favorite. He went out into the audience and crowd surfed back up on to the stage during Hungry Heart. He pulled a little boy up on to the stage and let him sing, then prompted him to say "take it away, big man." Clarence, by the way, really is a big guy. And he has a lovely gold manicure to match his saxophone.

The whole band sounded great. Bruce said something about it being toward the end of the tour, but instead of seeming tired or sloppy, they were totally on every note of the music. Even better, they played the songs as they were originally recorded (Sting, I'm looking in your general direction here).

The contrast between this and the last show I went to -- U2 and Muse -- was fascinating. U2 puts on a fantastic show and I had a fabulous time at that concert. I'm probably a bigger U2 fan than I am a Bruce Springsteen fan! But U2 is polished and fancy where Bruce and the E Street band are just stripped and basic and about nothing more than the music and the connection with the audience.

I think as rock concerts go, this is the best one I could have taken my mom to for her first (and most likely only) concert experience. She got to feel the thrill of the house lights going down, the roar of the crowd, and the magic of that first chord on the guitar. She sang the lyrics along with the rest of the crowd. She clapped and danced and cheered and ran into friends in the crowd, just like you're supposed to at shows. And I had a pretty darn good time too.

Now I'm curious. What was your first show?