Lauralicious in DC

Goodbye DC

2011-08-17T23:11:00.001-04:00

So long DC. We've had a good run during the past four years. For those of you who may not know, I've recently moved to North Carolina to start graduate school. It seems appropriate to me at this point to end the "Lauralicious in DC" blog. To all my readers, thank you for all of your wonderful comments over the past four years.

Follow me on Pinterest

2011-08-01T23:37:00.000-04:00

Recently joined a visual bookmarking site called Pinterest. I've found this to be a really fun and useful tool for making notes of images and ideas that I like. I'm quite taken by it!

If you're interested, follow my pins at http://pinterest.com/laurakwagner/

You can catalog or "like" pictures and webpages, and categorize them into "boards" which are visual bookmarks of those things. So far I've started some boards for crafts, home decor, and recipes. I wish this had been around ages ago when I first started following craft and food blogs.

This is a much easier alternative to my previous system of starring things in google reader (which was unorganized and hard to search), bookmarking in my browser (which was forgettable, unorganized, and not portable), and saving jpg's on my desktop (not portable, and I'd lose the original links). I don't like to inundate my Facebook and Twitter friends with shared links or links, so this is a great outlet for that!

Another great aspect of this site is that it's portable. I've already used the iPhone app a couple of times when I'm at the store and want to look up something I've "pinned." They didn't pay me to say this - I've just been super impressed at how useful this tool has been and how seamlessly I've been able to integrate this into my existing projects.

Do any of you use Pinterest also? Please leave your comments and feedback on this post.

How-to: Mixed-media art using maps

2011-07-30T14:19:00.001-04:00

Painting - "Traveling nature"

Recently I finished this painting, entitled "Traveling Nature." I painted it on canvas with acrylic paint and made the leaves using maps of places I've been to. For me, it's a combination of a meaningful reminder of my travels as well as a fun artistic accent for my home.

Places featured: North Carolina (Chapel Hill, Great Smoky Mountains), Maryland (Ocean City, Baltimore), Hawaii (Oahu, the Big Island), Arizona (Phoenix, Sedona, Grand Canyon), Florida (Miami), The Bahamas, Pennsylvania, Washington DC area, Mexico, New York (NYC), California (San Francisco), and Massachusetts (Boston).

I get inspiration from the various crafts and art blogs that I read, as well as from items I see in stores. (Note: I'm not affiliated with these blogs or stores at all, these are just items I happen to like.) I first got the idea for the color block background from this rug from West Elm:

http://www.westelm.com/products/tribal-leaf-rug-r890/

For awhile the painting was just the orange and brown background. I was going to paint a big leaf on top, like the West Elm rug, but it didn't feel right to me to just copy something I'd seen in a store.

Then I saw these cute collages with maps. I really liked the idea of repurposing maps into wall art.

http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/bombus/product/bespoke_map_heart

Looking for an interesting way to arrange the maps, I found this arrangement of leaves via Pinterest:

http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/05/flower-girl-leaves-from-janae-and-kendra.html

Here's a how-to for making mixed-media art with maps:

Materials and cost:

Canvas: $20
Brushes (small to medium flat and angled brushes for the leaves, larger paint brushes for the background): $5
Acrylic paint or flat wall paint: 75 cents to 8 bucks each, depending on size
Outdoor Mod Podge: $6
Plain scrap paper, pencil, painters tape, ruler for measuring and tracing
Maps : free online
Color ink for printing: $25 for 1 cartridge

Time: Allow about 1-2 hours for each step, spread out over about 6-7 days

When buying materials like canvas or paint, my tip is to wait until your local art supply store has a sale or offers a good coupon. I found this canvas for something like 60% off in January. These are items which are perpetually available, so it just makes sense to wait for a good deal.

1. Paint the background of the canvas. I used painters' tape and a rule to get a straight line. I first painted one side with the brown paint and then the other side with orange paint. To get this orange color, I had the smallest size of paint can (half-pint?) mixed at a paint store. For the color to be consistent, I recommend getting the paint pre-mixed to the color you want, instead of buying tubes of paint and mixing yourself. This step takes about 30 minutes for each color block, spread out over 1-2 days.

2. Find and print the maps. I searched for maps (e.g., "Grand Canyon map") with google image search and filtered for only Large images which would print best. Most of my maps I printed out to fill 1 entire sheet of paper. Using saved maps from travels is another option too. This took me a few hours on 1 day.

3. Cut out the designs you want for your collage from plain or scrap paper, sketching them out with a pencil first. I used leaves, but you could design and cut out whatever shape you want (hearts, circles, etc.). I think this step is really important for testing out the shapes before you cut out the maps.

4. Test out your arrangement of leaves on the canvas until you get something you like. If you want, you can use tape or temporary glue to hold the pieces in place, especially if it is a very exact arrangement. Steps 3-4 take about an hour (depending on how long it takes you to get the result you want)

5. Then, using the "test" pieces as a template, trace out the leaves on the maps and cut them out. Note: If you wanted an even more precise shape, you could design a template using graphics software like photoshop and edit the maps before printing them out. This you can do in about 15-30 minutes.

6. For the solid-colored leaves, I painted the plain pieces with acrylic paint (and then making sure they were dry before gluing to the canvas). I chose to do this rather than painting directly on the background, which would not have been as solid. This takes another 15 minutes or so.

7. Now position the leaves on the collage. Brush the mod podge on the pieces, stick them down, and then brush on a layer of mod podge over the pieces. This step is actually pretty quick if you do it all at once - maybe an hour, but if you spend additional time adjusting anything or repainting, that adds to the time for painting and drying.

8. When it's dry, brush at least 1 layer of mod podge over the entire canvas to seal it. At this point you could build up the layers using different stroke patterns if you wanted more texture. This is a very quick step and only takes about 10 minutes.

A word about the mod podge. I used Outdoor mod podge. I had looked at the bottle of "regular" mod podge glue which said I would have to use an additional sealer on top of it, whereas the outdoor mod podge glue did not require that step. It has a glossy finish that isn't tacky. My paper did wrinkle a little bit (which may have happened with regular version too), but the outdoor version does *not* seem to have reacted negatively to the canvas so far. I also hope that this will make the painting more durable than if I had just used the regular kind.

Cost: Depending on materials you have on hand, this project can be free to about $75 dollars to complete. For example, I had to buy more color ink for my printer, which added $25 to my costs. I mention this because craft projects can often get deceptively expensive, so do them because you want to express yourself and have fun, not because you think it will be cheap. It can be less expensive, but not always. I probably could have bought a manufactured print for $75, which would have looked more professional, but would not have been as unique or meaningful.

So, there you have it. Feel free to share - what creative purposes do you have for travel mementos? Please leave your comments and questions for me on this post.

Exploring the North Shore of Oahu

2011-07-15T09:00:00.002-04:00

Day 5:
On our last day on the Big Island, we did a little biking before our flight. But we didn't get so far on our bike ride. The beach trail was too rocky and the only other place to ride was on the highway, so we returned the bikes and hit the beach.

After landing back in Oahu, we went down the Waikiki beach strip to a beach bar overlooking huge crashing waves and surfers. That was awesome. Then we walked out on a bridge going out over the water where we got up close to the big breakers. Nothing like experiencing the big waves (without having to take surf lessons).

Day 6:
Finally, we ventured out to the North Shore of Oahu, which feels less like a shopping mall like Waikiki did, and more like a laidback beach town. We stopped in the town of Haleiwa for lunch, rented ourselves some snorkel gear, and headed for the beach. First we went to Waimea Bay:

Then, we went snorkeling in Sharks' Cove, which has no sharks, but PLENTY of colorful schools of tropical fish. Wish I had an underwater camera so that I could share it with you all. It was breathtaking. I was in the water for an hour gawking at the fish, and it felt like only five minutes had gone by.

Sandy as ever, we dried off and went back to the airport to catch a flight home.

This will be my last adventure for awhile, but I hope that you enjoyed the pictures!

Driving around the Big Island

2011-07-14T09:00:00.002-04:00

Day 4:
This was one of my favorite days of our trip. We rented a convertible and drove around the entire island, seeing volcanoes, incredible ocean views, and lush green forests:

We stopped in Hilo, Hawaii's second largest town, to have a picnic at Leleiwa Beach:

On our way out of town, some big truck cut us off. A local noticed and shouted to us, "Welcome to Hilo!"

All of this led up to arriving at our destination, Volcanoes National Park, where we saw the still-active Kilaeua caldera:


Steam rising from the caldera

Even though it looks like a warm sunny day, it's actually quite windy around the volcanos. And the sulfur steam smells like burning matches. It comes out of the ground in steam vents that are all around the park:

Sulfur steam rising from vents in the Earth

We drove around the caldera, then we took a short hike on the Devastation trail. Reportedly this was formed by lava flowing through the forest.

Devastation trail

On our drive back, we drove past the southernmost point of the US, SURPRISE, it is called "south point." It really feels like the edge of the world, with nothing but fog and black rock looking out over the endless ocean:

South Point

Landing on the Big Island

2011-07-13T09:00:00.001-04:00

Day 3:
We hit the beach in Oahu in the morning to try some stand-up paddleboarding. Wow, that is harder than it looks. I fell over 3 times trying to balance on the board. But it was fun! I got the hang of it towards the end.

Then we headed to the airport for a quick flight over to the Big Island. Got an awesome view of the other Hawaiian islands. The airport in Kona, HI is now officially my favorite airport. It's all outside. The check-in counters and gates are in a series of open-air hut-type structures. As soon as we landed, we were enjoying the island air.

On our way from the airport, I noticed graffiti in the black volcanic rock. But it's not painted graffiti. It's messages that people have left with white rocks. Here's one of my favorites:


BACON!

We spent the rest of the day enjoying the lagoon, pool, and ocean around the hotel:

Return tomorrow for a recap of one of my favorite parts of our trip, a trip around the Big Island and to Volcanoes National Park.

Relaxing on the beach in Oahu

2011-07-12T09:00:00.002-04:00

Day 1 -
10 hour plus layover flight from DC to Honolulu. We arrived mid-afternoon in time to enjoy some drinks by the beach and this sunset:

Sunset on Waikiki Beach

Day 2:

Jet lag hit me pretty hard. I fell asleep early and woke up at 3am, so I took these pictures of Honolulu at night and at sunrise:

Nighttime in Honolulu

Sunrise in Honolulu

Most of the day was spent enjoying the beach:

Sea canoes in Hawaii

Come back tomorrow to read about our trip to the Big Island.

Moving along

2011-07-02T09:50:00.000-04:00

Big changes in my life are occurring this summer. I've titled this post "moving along" instead of "moving on" since "moving along" fits what I'm feeling best: I'm progressing to the next step of life, not forgetting where I've come from, but rather I feel as though I am just further downstream in the natural course of things.

Saying goodbye to the place where my boyfriend and I first lived together. Moving together to a new but temporary place for the summer. Leaving my job of almost three years in order to attend grad school this fall. All of these things have happened in just the past week. Although we had a feeling the move from our apartment was coming, much of it was last-minute. The move from work, I've been planning and preparing for over a year now, but could hardly believe it was actually happening. I don't think it hit me until people started to come say goodbye, and I could barely say words that would do justice to how I felt.

I will keep updating to this blog through this month, and then in August I will start a new one when I move to North Carolina to start grad school.

An element of surprise

2011-04-29T14:48:00.000-04:00

People can surprise you. I've found myself wrapped up in notions of what I thought a person would be like, only to find myself pleasantly disproven.

I've been traveling a little bit recently, to make trips to visit grad school open houses and another trip for work. One of my favorite experiences while traveling is meeting unusual people or overhearing unusual conversations.

Recently, I was in North Carolina, and a colleague and I were talking to a bus driver, a real southern good ol' boy type who hated the big city. At one point, he saw a Muslim woman crossing the road, and he remarked, "She's wearing one of them things, what do you call 'em, them veils they wear on their heads? I heard those things got banned somewhere!" I began to suspect that this conversation was not going to go anywhere good or to say the least, not anywhere politically correct. But then, you know what he said?

"Well, I think that's ridiculous! They been wearing them their whole lives! They should wear whatever they want!"

This just made my day - I'd honestly been expecting this guy to say something offensive, just because I'd assumed he might be "socially conservative" (or whatever the current euphemism is), but I was completely proven wrong.

This idea of confronting assumptions and first impressions has been on my mind a fair amount lately. I've dealt with more new situations and new people lately, it seems, with traveling and some other things going on in my life. It can be difficult to be open-minded; the idea of coming to a conclusion about someone or something is seductive. What I mean is that I find myself wanting to make sense of things; deciding that something is or isn't a certain way makes it easy to file it away in my brain and focus on the next thing. But, I'm thinking there's no sense in assuming that I've got it all figured out, otherwise I'm never going to learn anything new.

I'm trying now to push myself out of my comfort zone of things and people I know, and into situations I don't know. This fall, I'm moving out of DC and starting a graduate program in North Carolina. That's the big "comfort zone" change in my life lately, but there have been other smaller ones, like joining a recreational sports team.

So, anyone else have any good stories about people that have surprised you lately? And what are your thoughts on getting out of your comfort zone and keeping an open mind?

Low-carb series: The Low-Carb Cookbook Review

2011-03-11T09:00:00.002-05:00

Today I'm reviewing the Low-Carb Cookbook by Fran McCullough. I'm planning to make this part of a series on low-carb cookbooks.

I'm looking at cutting down on sugars as an interesting health and culinary challenge. I love to try new ways of cooking food or planning meals. What is living a life without carbs all about? It's not all burgers all the time. In fact, I feel that low-carb recipes make me think more about eating vegetables and using seasoning and flavor to make up for sugar and starch.

I would definitely recommend this book as a beginner's guide to low-carb eating. The author clearly walks us through low-carb food groups and how they can be prepared. For example, there's a section on vegetables that gives about 3-4 different ways to cook each vegetable. I like that the book did not rely on weird substitutes for high-carb foods, but instead capitalized on existing, familiar foods like eggs, cheese, vegetables, and seasonings to make satisfying meals. Along with the recipes, this book lists menu ideas, like the South American Menu, the Italian Menu, and the Simple Dinner menu, which saved me time in planning.

I also appreciate a good index, which this book has. I tell you, I get pretty annoyed with a book with an index that has enough cross-references to make me feel like I'm reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

What I've tested: I've made a variety of beef and pork dishes, 3 different ways of cooking zucchini, a cauliflower side dish, some spicy shrimp, a greek salad, and some fun things like chimichurri sauce, spicy mayo, and corn chips. I'll post some of these up eventually. These all turned out incredibly well, with simple, successful flavors, with the exception of the corn chips. I did not have a good baking sheet, so my chips did not brown evenly and got burnt on the edges.

However: I would not recommend this book to those who are focused on 30 minute-or-less meals, or for those who like to make one dish that can be the entire meal. What I found in this book were recipes that required a fair amount of marinating, cutting, boiling, steaming, baking, and pureeing before they were ready to be eaten.

For example: I made steak with chimichurri sauce with baked zucchini for dinner one evening, and it took me two hours. Cooking is a hobby for me, but even I was frustrated with how long it took. True, I could have done a little bit more on the preparation side, but the book didn't provide any estimates of how long the meals would take to prepare, either. Many of the dishes I made had a long cooking time, taking at least 30 minutes or more to bake. I learned my lesson and ended up making many of the recipes on a weekend when I had some down time.

The beginning of the book discusses the health benefits of low-carb. However, it's geared towards dieters and ignores people who might be interested in low-carb for other reasons. So, for a book whose "target" audience is presumably calorie- or carb-conscious, the book surprised me when it didn't list calorie or carb counts for any recipes. The author throws out descriptions like "low on carbs!" but she doesn't give any numbers to back it up. If you crave the numbers, you're not going to find that in this book.

Lastly, the author's writing style grated on my nerves. "Nothing's stopping you from serving these potato skins with sour cream." Sure it is. I don't have sour cream in my house!

In conclusion, this book gets 3.75 stars out of 5 for me. Great recipes, poor delivery.

geometric paintings

2011-03-09T23:18:00.001-05:00

My apartment is nice, but sometimes it feels a bit blank on the walls.

So for the past few weeks, I've been working on some painting projects on the weekends. They had this awesome 70% off sale at the art shop around the corner, giving me the impetus I needed to try some ideas on a few canvases.

One of my projects: I painted some pictures to go in the bedroom. Before, there was empty space above the TV that felt utterly renter-ly:

Here are the new pictures that I painted. I decided on something that would brighten up the wall in contrast to the neutral paint. The paintings give this part of the room a more lively look, and it adds a punch of pear-green color without being overwhelming.

I was inspired to do geometric designs by an amazing book, Knitting Nature, which has clothing patterns all based on geometric patterns found in nature. I love the designs and photography (so lush and simple!) and will make something from this book one day. For instant gratification in the meantime though, painting will do.

Book Review: The Time Traveler's Wife

2011-02-06T09:00:00.227-05:00

Today I'm reviewing the Time Traveler's Wife. Similar to the book I reviewed yesterday, this book is told in a non-linear style and jumps from character to character.

How did I come to read this book? It was not quite as romantic as fate bringing to my hands in a burst of inspiration at a used book store. Actually, I asked for some reading recommendations back in June, and my friend Amber recommended this book as "a terrific love story that made [her] bawl [her] eyes out." Then, the movie version of this book came on, and my boyfriend wanted to watch it, but I protested that we not watch it until I could finish the book. I ordered it from PaperBackSwap, and I read it as fast as I could so my boyfriend would not have to wait too long for me :) Hopefully we'll be watching the film soon enough. If you want to read it, I will be posting it back up soon on my bookshelf.

This book is about a man, Henry, who time-travels inadvertently, and his wife, Clare, who has known him her entire life, and their love story. It pays homage to the science fiction concepts of super-evolved humans with special talents, similar to books like Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress. At the same time, it's firmly grounded in chick-lit territory, so it only focuses on science-fiction genetics when absolutely necessary, and instead spends more of its time giving us an understanding of the character's feelings and troubled relationship. One of the things I admired about this book is that it actually had a realistic understanding of genetics; concepts like genome sequencing and gene therapy are treated unpretentiously.

I would recommend this book to people who want a Romance Plus, the kind of book that won't make you feel like you read 500 pages of pure fluff but soothes you with its mildly philosophical yet not head-splitting trip through time travel mechanics and the power of free will. I think of it as a step up from the Twilight series.

However, people who are a) sticklers for well-developed or original characters or b) looking for a storyline outside of traditional white Catholic values probably won't enjoy this book as much.

The story builds a lot of suspense from the alternating storyline, but I had a hard time sympathizing with either character. It was just the structure of the story that kept me afloat. Clare epitomizes the life of privilege as a rich, beautiful, smart girl; she's supposed to be the heroine, but she came off to me as too precious. She even has a trust fund which allows her to fritter her time away making annoying paper sculptures of birds, which are described in superbly irritating detail. Henry is slightly less annoying, because he's had to go through a lot (his mother's death, his father's alcoholism, and dealing with his time-travel "condition"). Even then, sometimes his character is brutal--a violent drug addict and womanizer in his early life. It's poorly explained, and instead it seems like he was written conveniently "bad," so that the romance with Clare is even more dramatic.

One part of the story involves the characters wanting to have a baby together but encountering many difficulties due to the Time Traveler's genetic makeup. I had a serious problem with this part of the book. The Time Traveler suggests to his wife that they adopt. Her response: adopting a baby would be "pretending." She proceeds to selfishly insist on dragging her husband through seven gory miscarriages and years of marital turmoil. I was really disgusted with the book at this point. I sincerely hope that no one who is adopted feels that their parents were "pretending." I know that some people reading this book will unfortunately look up to the title character, so I feel sad that a topic like adoption was treated so negatively.

The main characters Henry and Clare barely make it past stereotypes despite 500 pages spent developing them, and the other supporting characters don't stand a chance. There's the Alcoholic Dad, the Bi-Polar Mother, the Jerk Brother, the Mean Ex-Girlfriend, the Rich Yet Absent Lawyer Father, the Best Friend With The Crush On the Girl, the Flighty Female Friends, and the Clueless Coworkers. All of these characters are just props to the main love story. Good thing they are not all that fascinating, otherwise I would have wanted to know more about them. There's also some troublingly one-dimensional stereotypes of household servants and people of other cultures and races, who were written with an exoticism I found unsettling.

It was an entertaining read in parts, whizzing through creative time-travel trips and even having some funny one-liners, so I wouldn't discourage reading it. Just don't expect to come away enlightened or uplifted.

Book Review: The Known World

2011-02-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

Today I'm reviewing The Known World, by Edward P. Jones. I find this a perfect choice for my first book review as this feature on my site is somewhat "unknown" to me.

I found this book at the used book section of the library in my hometown. I was home on vacation when my dad suggested that I check out their recent haul of books going for 50 cents apiece. I might have put this one down except that I noticed a little gold badge on the cover that said "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize." OK, I figured, I guess it might not be all that bad. It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary books I have read in years.

In short, this book is about the moral consequences and complexities of slavery. Despite the heavy topic and frequent sense of tragedy, the story was told in a masterful, precise style that actually left me feeling uplifted.

This book is for literature carnivores who love to rip apart the meat of characters and plots. I would not recommend this book to literature vegetarians who want leafy descriptions of places, clothes, and appearances and to only digest one or two main characters at a time.

I would recommend this book to anyone who appreciates stories full of mythology, well-developed characters, and intertwining plots. Each character had a story and motivation for his or her actions, down to minor characters that I only met for one paragraph or one sentence. Events that happened earlier in the book had consequences for later events, but in indirect ways that gave me an appreciative "Aha!" moment instead of a brick over the head. In one case, one character does something dishonest early on. It's set aside until hundreds of pages later, when his moral unreliability limits his ability to vouch for someone else who's in trouble, thus affecting the other character's fate and setting another course of events into action.

The book was told in a non-linear fashion, and what was special about this book was that there was plenty of foreshadowing and suspense, but it was executed precisely enough to give me a sense of longing, but not enough to completely ruin the surprise. The author gave enough information for me to understand what was going on until when he described it more later. For example, in the very beginning, he goes through a few pages of describing a major character before even saying his name or saying what year it is. By that time, I was hooked and I wanted to know more about who the characters were and when the events were taking place.

At times, the book is biblical and allegorical in nature, and at those times, I did feel that I was missing out on some allusion or metaphor. There were also times when I lost track of some of the characters, but a "who's who" guide in the back of the book was a handy reference. On further re-reading, I want to take more notes about each of the characters so I can remember them better. Despite this, for most parts of the book, there is something to meet the reader at her own level.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

To New Books

2011-02-04T10:55:00.000-05:00

I am going to add something new to my blog - book reviews.

One of my book sources? I recently joined a site called PaperBackSwap, a site where I swap books for free with other people. Because I've been ordering some books lately that have been on my reading list for ages, I've been reading more lately and catching up on that list.

My other book source is fate. Blind luck. Every now and then, I hit up a used book sale, or book swap, or the used books section of a library or thrift store, and I take home a pile of strange books that I've never heard of before or never bothered to think about before that day. To me, these are my most cherished books, because they are book I would have never found under any other circumstances: they are not recommended to me by a friend, they are not sold with glossy covers at Borders. They are just stories that have crossed my path. And after I have read them, it is like my life depended on it.

In my book reviews, I'll tell how I found a book. It is important to me that my belongings carry a story, and books are no different. Like most book reviewers, I will also tell you a little bit about the book and offer up some praise or criticism. I hope that you will enjoy this new running feature on my blog, and that perhaps I will introduce you, too, to new books.

Brunch in DC: Crab Benedict

2011-01-24T09:00:00.008-05:00

Barracks Row in DC is one of my favorite places to go for brunch. Historic charm, close to Eastern Market, plenty of walking-around-sights, cozy places to go, great people watching, and so on. I recently went to one of the restaurants down there, Cava, and had some awesome Eggs and Crab Benedict.

I think you've probably already guessed what I did the following Sunday. Yup, I tried to replicate this on my own at home. Let me say...I surprise myself sometimes. This was awesome.

Essentials:
-1 english muffin, halved, toasted
-2 poached eggs
-1/3 to 1/2 cup of warm hollandaise sauce
-1 slice cooked bacon
-1/2 small can crab meat, briefly cooked in some butter

Try a recipe here for more info (not the exact one I used but close): Hollandaise sauce with Eggs Benedict

I tried a couple of things I'd never tried before, poaching an egg and making hollandaise sauce.

First of all, eggs benedict is apparently supposed to be with canadian bacon. If you ask me, I think canadian bacon is dumb, because not only does it look like ham and taste nothing like bacon, it couldn't even think of an original name for itself, and it is tough and rubbery. Nobody wants to have to saw through a sandwich at 1pm in the brunch-morning. That is why I used real bacon and crab meat, the way nature intended.

Secondly, big ups to Em, who had a post awhile back on poaching an egg. Stirring is so essential. My cookbook said "make a whirlpool." On the first try, boyfriend and I went whirlpool-overboard, and my egg almost whirled out of control. The egg somehow stayed together though. On the next 3 tries, I slowed my whirl and stirred it constantly to keep it moving and non-sticking.

Finally, hollandaise sauce was fun. The recipe link glosses over this, so I will mention that my cookbook beat it in to me that the water has to simmer, not boil. The sauce is basically egg yolks, so I had to cook it really slowly so it wouldn't turn into scrambled eggs.

Now get on with your weekend.

Shrimp with Orange-Avocado Salad

2011-01-23T09:00:00.002-05:00

Recipe for grilled shrimp with avocado and orange salad:

This meal was super fast to make. Even though there were a lot of preparation steps with the oranges and shrimp, once that was all done, the cooking took less than 5 minutes. Those red things are cherry tomatoes in case it's hard to tell.

Leftover cherry tomatoes in the orange dressing make an awesome topping for mashed potatoes. Frozen potato balls from Trader Joe's, to be specific, because those are surprisingly delightful.

Pasta e fagioli

2011-01-22T09:00:00.002-05:00

If you woke up today and thought that you wanted nothing more than a bowl of soup with a big ol' stick of cinnamon in it, today is your lucky day:

This one's called Pasta e fagioli, or Pasta and Beans. I get the feeling this is like the Italian version of chili, because there are just that many ways to make it.

This isn't the exact recipe that I used, but I love the picture (it looks way better than how mine turned out): Pasta e fagioli on Food52

The essentials:
-small pasta (like tiny shells)
-beans
-broth
-bacon, ham or pancetta
-vegetables (carrots, onions, celery, tomatoes)
-spices (bay, garlic, rosemary, thyme, and/or cinnamon)

I found a few different recipes for this soup, and one of them called for cinnamon, so I tried it. It was weird. Not unpleasant, but weird.

There were a few action moments and a lot of simmering. I heated the vegetables, added the broth and beans, thickened the soup with blended beans, and stirred in the pasta. The cinnamon only went in for a few minutes because that's really all it took to get a big pot of cinnamon and pasta and bean soup.

This soup was also like an amazing chia pet. After I left it in the fridge for a couple of days, the pasta expanded to ginormous proportions! Abracadabra, I've got soup.

After: My new office/guest room!

2011-01-21T09:00:00.012-05:00

As promised, here are the "after" pictures of my redecorated office/guest-room!

The new bookcase and organized desk, with the re-upholstered chair and fabric corkboard:

The desk now can be used for both writing and craft projects. Instead of keeping my sewing machine out all the time, I discovered that it actually fit perfectly under my desk (yeah, that was a revelation), and I organized my supplies in little black boxes. It's much easier to find and reach things now. And why yes, there is a box devoted entirely to scissors.

One of the new items I bought was a teal and silver lamp from Home Goods, and it ended up being one of my favorite things in the room.

And here's the guest bed with the new pillows (I described how I made the pillows in an earlier post) and new framed fabric art.

Here are pictures of the room before I redecorated.

I'm happy with what I've done so far. I've of course got a few more projects on my mind, at the same time. I'm thinking about making a teal or gray tufted headboard for the guest bed. What do you all think?

I'm also thinking about doing some kind of nice white with teal trim duvet cover (possibly by re-purposing one that I already own), and hanging up some more artwork to try to get away from that white-walls rental look.

I'd love to hear any other ideas or suggestions. What do you think makes an office a peaceful place to work?

Bookshelf organization project

2011-01-20T09:00:00.003-05:00

The most recent project with my office/guest room was organizing everything and getting a bookshelf.

I picked up an Ikea Expedit bookcase from Craigslist, along with some coordinating boxes from Ikea. While putting random stuff into boxes may not sound like much, it did take some advance planning to figure out how to most usefully divide everything, where it should go, and what kind/size of boxes I would need.

After spending more time than I am willing to say looking for the right clock, I found the teal clock, which perfectly matched the accent color I was looking for, on the Crate&Barrel website. Even better, it was on sale and arrived at my house in no time.

The vase was the finishing touch (only $2 at the local Goodwill). I filled it with some seashells I gathered on my vacation to Florida last year. Sure, I could have easily bought some random trinket decoration vase thingy instead, but that seemed artificial and impersonal to me.

I like the sleek black look for now. Eventually, I plan to layer it a bit more, whether it's with some art on the wall over the bookshelf, putting some pretty paper on the boxes, or adding a paint trim to the bookcase (possibly teal or dark gray). What do you guys think?

Here's what it looked like before. See all that stuff in the corner and on the bed? Most of that is now stored neatly in my new bookcase or in my desk.

Pillows project

2011-01-16T09:00:00.005-05:00

Today's project is on making new pillowcases for my office/guest room. How about I just call it the offuest room? No?

If you've been following my redecorations, you'll know that my last three projects have turned me into the Sheriff of the Staple Gun. Pillowcases, however, as I will reassure anyone who will stay the night in my home, do not involve any staples.

Before: These are the pillowcases I'd made a few years ago for my old apartment:

After: These are the new pillowcases in black, white, and gray fabric.

Another thing I did, which actually isn't pictured, is to make the pillows on the end two-sided. That is, I used the ring dot fabric on one side, and the reeds fabric on the other. That way, I can flip the pillows so I have two of one pattern, or one of each pattern, facing out for some variety.

Materials:
-Fabric to fit pillows, plus a few extra inches to line up the pattern and for seam allowances
-Sewing machine, needle, thread, etc.

This is one of the most basic sewing projects I can think of (Can you draw a square? Yes? You can make a pillow.). I cut out the squares, lined them up right sides together, and sewed them up on three sides. Then I flipped them right side out, stuffed the pillow in, and stitched them shut. Someday I may put in zippers, but I didn't find it necessary at the moment.

I was left with one red squishy "moshi" pillow. I think it may have resembled something round back in college, but in the present day, it was literally an amorphous blob. This too, I measured, and I made a cylindrical roll pillow to fit. Here are some pictures during the "in progress" phase:

Making this pillow was the opposite of the square pillows; while the square ones I could have made in my sleep, the roll pillow fought against me with every inch of its shapeless being. It's a rectangle sewn into a cylinder (easy) with circles on the ends (surprisingly tricky). I must have resewn and repositioned the circles on the ends at least 3-4 times. I was just glad I kept it simple and didn't use any fancy trim or different fabrics this time. Then I flipped it inside out and poured in the filling, which is made of impossibly tiny white balls, from the other pillow. I'm expecting I will still find tiny styrofoam balls stuck to my belongings 5 years from now.

Desk chair project

2011-01-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

The next small project I did while redecorating my office/guest room was to reupholster a chair.

In the "before" phase of this project, I had a standard desk chair on wheels, but it didn't fit neatly under my desk. As the goal was to make things organized and sleek, it had to go, so I sold it on craigslist.

I needed a chair without arms, and while I did look around on craigslist for a nice parsons chair or something of that nature, I discovered that the best option was right under my nose. Right under my dining table, in fact.

My desk chair came into my life a couple of years ago as free chairs that someone else was throwing out. I painted and reupholstered them with fabric to match my living/dining room, which I discussed a couple years ago in this post.

Here's what they looked like as my dinette chairs:

They looked OK, but I admit they were on the old-fashioned side. You can't see the fabric too well, but it was this velvet with a cut-out swirl which I really liked, but the color was boring. I had plans to get rid of the chairs, but I realized that I could keep one for my office. Total cost: $0 instead of $$ to buy a new chair.

After:

Doesn't it look much better with the black and white fabric? I wasn't sure if I would like it, but the black fabric definitely makes the ironwork "pop." Just having one chair with the fancy pattern is much less overwhelming than three of them.

Materials:
-Fabric
-Staples and staple gun
-Screws and screwdriver

It was simple: I removed the seat from the chair, lined up the fabric, and stapled it on. The trickiest part is to pleat the fabric around the rounded edges so it sits smoothly on the corners. Then I screwed the newly covered seat back into the chair.

Because of all the time I have been spending with my staple gun lately, I thought I should come up with some kind of title for myself. The first thing that came to mind was "Queen of the Staple Gun" but that sounded too staid, and "Princess Staple Gun" too precious. Then I thought perhaps "President of the Staple Gun," but no one elected me to that position and the staples were not adequately represented in this matter. So I have come up with "Sheriff of the Staple Gun," a title to connote the rugged nature of stapling, as I brandish my (staple) gun to round up those lawless fugitive staples.

Framed fabric project

2011-01-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

Here's another simple project I did as part of re-decorating my office/guest room. These are pieces of fabric stretched over wood frames. You might recognize them from before when I had some different fabric hung up. I changed the fabric to fit my new color scheme.

Materials:
-Fabric hanging kit from IKEA for about $5 each
-Fabric
-Staples and staple gun

The hardest part of this project? Picking out the fabric. I looked at so many different types of fabrics before I found some that were the appropriate scale for a wall hanging. It's easy to find great fabric--not so easy to find great fabric that is a large-scale print. The prints I saw were either too small to make good wall art or very expensive upholstery fabrics. I finally found some upholstery fabric that was about $11 a yard from an online store called Contemporary Cloth.

Once I had the fabric, all I had to do was rip off the old fabric, line up the new fabric, and staple it on. The IKEA kit came with nails (a thoughtful idea for those who don't have a staple gun), but it is much easier to staple.

Later on, I'll post some pictures of how they looked in the room overall.

Corkboard project

2011-01-13T09:00:00.000-05:00

Let's start with some of the simple projects. I recovered a plain corkboard to fit my black and white color scheme for the office/guest-room:

Before: Your standard-issue corkboard:

After: Fancy new fabric corkboard:

Materials:
-Fabric to fit the board
-Staples
-Staple gun
-Picture hanging kit (or adhesive foam tape)

It takes a few minutes to make sure it's lined up on all sides. After that, it's just some stapling. To hang it up later, I used a picture hanging kit, although I could have also used some adhesives. The great part is, I can always take the fabric off if I get tired of the look later, or replace it with a different fabric later down the road.

Before: Office/guest room

2011-01-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

I've recently been working on revamping my office/guest room area. It was the least decorated area of my apartment and definitely needed some sprucing up.

The challenge: I use the room for not just writing and blogging, but also working on sewing and knitting projects. We also keep our office supplies and keyboard up here. And of course, since it's a guest room, we have a futon up here too. It's a lot of stuff for one tiny space!

Before: Graveyard of random furniture and craft supplies. I wasn't using the room much because it wasn't as comfy or organized as our living room.

After: ~~Fortress~~ Loft of solitude. After putting some thought and work into redecorating and organizing, I now find it calming, and I actually enjoy spending a lot of time up there. It's been a great place to work on school applications and other projects.

It's a work in progress, so I'll share some mini-projects in my next few posts and then finally the "after" photos. Without further ado, here are some "before" shots:

Before: Every inch of wall was taken up with furniture:

Before: The desk got a little crazy:

Before/in progress: Even before I got to work on the various small projects that went into organizing and redecorating, I had to reorganize the furniture. I moved the futon and decided to keep it primarily as a bed. The decorations are from my old apartment and weren't part of the new redecorating. Other items, such as the wooden desk, I eventually got rid of, and others, like the white cube shelves, I moved to another place in the apartment.

Before: This is while I was in the progress of taking everything out of storage boxes and off the desk so I could later organize it all:

Before: This is once I had sorted everything into different bags and boxes so I knew where it was for later:

Before I jump into the projects in my next few posts, I'll also share some restrictions on what I could/was willing to do. We rent our place, so we of course can only do so much.

1) No major construction (obviously) - so no replacing carpet for fancy hardwood, etc.
2) No shelving or anything screwed into the wall. Other than hanging pictures, our landlord prefers that we not mount anything in the wall.
3) Lastly, I decided not to paint any walls, because we may not be here that much longer. I don't want to spend money on anything that I can't take with me or can't enjoy for a long time.

With that being said, now I'll move on to some things I did want to do. As I'm into crafts projects and re-purposing things I already have, I definitely wanted to make the most of what I already owned. Instead of buying brand new accessories and art, I decided, when possible, to use fabric and paint to make my existing stuff fit into my new decorating scheme.

Since my futon and desk were black, I decided on a neutral black, gray, and white color scheme, with teal/blues as an accent color. Here are the fabrics I picked out:

Earl Grey Oven-Fried Chicken

2011-01-11T09:00:00.004-05:00

Anyone else love Earl Grey tea? Those fragrant leaves have got me hooked.

I don't have to just drink it-- you can make chicken with tea, and here's one recipe that does just that. Instead of sweet tea, I just used Earl Grey.

This is the last post from the "lost posts" archives of recipe photos I'd taken. But if you like this stuff, don't worry. I've got some wintery dishes from recently that I'll be posting soon.

Shrimp Linguine in White Wine

2011-01-10T09:00:00.001-05:00

Today's recipe for Linguine and Shrimp comes out of the "Muscle Chow" cookbook from Men's Health. Yeah I know, the herbs on top of the pasta make it look pretty manly.

My boyfriend brought this cookbook home, and I was actually a bit surprised at how useful it was. It's supposedly geared towards guys who want to be healthy but don't really know how to cook. But I suspect, maybe it's for their girlfriends after all? (Is it that hunky guy on the cover that does it?) The recipes tend to be based on a few simple ingredients that can be assembled quickly without a lot of extra sauces. It doesn't stoop to "here's how to boil an egg" for dummies, though. I've tried some other good recipes for roasted sweet potatoes and steak and carrots from this book.

This particular recipe is OK, although not spectacular. Most of the flavor relies on white wine and tomatoes, and it's ultimately not terribly satisfying. The recipe claims that this is a great way "to show friends that eating healthy isn't that difficult," which I definitely disagree with. First of all, it's pasta, which is arguably not all that healthy. Secondly, I don't think this dish would impress anyone with its bland flavor, so I will not be making it for my friends. I will, however, be posting it on my blog, so if you are interested in making a mediocre shrimp and pasta dish, you will be well equipped to do so.

The essentials for Linguine and Shrimp:

1) Sauteeing a base of onion/garlic/red pepper

2) Adding in white wine

3) Cooking seafood (shrimp or clams) and tomatoes in the "sauce"

4) Tossing that with linguine

Scrambled Eggs Florentine

2011-01-09T09:00:00.003-05:00

What's for breakfast from the recipe archives? Today's recipe is Scrambled Eggs Florentine.There's no recipe, just some common sense ingredients cooked together.

The essentials:
1) Chop up some spinach.
2) Mix the spinach with scrambled eggs before cooking them.

Meatball Sandwich with Provolone

2011-01-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Our next contestant on What's In Lauralicious's Recipe Archive is...
A Meatball Sandwich with Provolone Cheese:

And yes, thanks for asking, it is from my favorite issue of a certain cooking magazine. How did you know?

Hail to the Redskin...Potatoes

2011-01-07T09:00:00.005-05:00

This wouldn't be a DC-area blog if I didn't at least once mention the Redskins. Today's recipe that I've pulled up for you all is Redskin Potatoes, along with some steak and roasted carrots. A real manly, football watching kind of meal. A meal that requires some grunts just to fully enjoy it.

Normally I would say something along the lines of "boy, I wish I could remember where I got this recipe from," but I am not going to say that, because this recipe bombed. Too much potato, not enough flavor. But hey, at least it didn't miss any field goals.

Spice-Roasted Shrimp with Cilantro Pesto Quinoa

2011-01-06T09:00:00.003-05:00

Next up from the recipe & photo archive is Spice-Roasted Shrimp and Quinoa. This is another one from my favorite issue of Food & Wine. I told you, I was well past mildly obsessed with that issue.

While the recipe called for a homemade pistou, me growing, cutting, and processing all manner of herbs was not going to happen. A container of fresh cilantro pesto from the local co-op did the trick. The basil plant on my balcony lived to see another day.

Here comes the Red Snapper...Tacos

2011-01-05T09:00:00.003-05:00

Today's recipe from ye olde photo archive is a recipe for Grilled Red Snapper Tacos from Grilling: Where There's Smoke There's Flavor by Eric Truille and Birgit Erath.

The Essentials:

1) Marinate the fish with garlic, cumin, chili, oregano, lime juice, oil.

2) Grill up that fish.

3) Taco it with mayo and avocado. That's right, taco is a verb.

A couple of things went through my mind when I saw the title of this recipe. Most importantly: Red Snapper sounds like "Hot Stepper." Today's recipe, brought to you by Ini Kamoze:

Spinach Salad with Cornbread Croutons

2011-01-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I waxed poetic about Peppered Cornbread. Today's bonus recipe is Spinach Salad with, yep, you guessed it, Cornbread Croutons, made from the leftover cornbread. The recipe is here at Food & Wine.

It's nothing special, but it takes the cornbread withdrawal shakes away.

Peppered Cornbread

2011-01-03T09:00:00.011-05:00

Today's recipe from the archive is Peppered Cornbread from Food and Wine magazine. Holy moly, this stuff was a winner. Fluffy, flaky cornbread with spikes of fresh pepper was just unbelievable. The picture is not great, but if any good has come out of the US producing massive quantities of corn, it is this cornbread.

I am not afraid to admit that I had an unhealthy obsession with the September issue of Food and Wine magazine. I think I made at least a third of the recipes just from that one issue. I tried to move on and make some recipes from the November issue, but it just wasn't the same.

But I digress. Freshly ground pepper has got to be one of the most miraculous spices out there. I would eat fresh ground pepper-flavored ice cream if they made it. Why not put it in a cornbread? It makes so much sense!

Wait, wait! There's more cornbread coming your way. Just hang on until tomorrow's bonus recipe!

Goat Cheese Medallions

2011-01-02T09:00:00.002-05:00

Today's recipe from the archive is a recipe for Goat Cheese Medallions from BigOven.

If you have ever thought that your life did not have enough medallions in it--perhaps you were looked over for that Olympic Gold Medal--fear not, because now there is Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Goat Cheese. Hang that around your neck and eat it. Don't forget the spinach and ratatouille. But seriously, this is pretty good.

The Lost Posts

2011-01-01T09:00:00.009-05:00

I glanced at my Blogger Dashboard today and noticed I had a ton of recipe posts that had been floating around in Draft Purgatory---for weeks. There's no sense in letting a good post go to waste, so I'll post one a day until I run out. These posts are around the time that I got my new camera, and I was (and still am) pretty excited about learning how to use it and mastering some photography skills.

The first recipe is Curry Fried Noodles, from The Pasta Cookbook by Jeni Wright.
While some of my shots are hit or miss, I really love this photograph of the curry noodles. It makes them look way better than they actually tasted. It was crazy spicy! The recipe either massively overstated how much curry paste was really necessary (2-3 tbsp? Is that a lot?) or the chicken that I used didn't soak up the paste in the same way as tofu would.

The essentials:

1) Meat or tofu heated in a wok with curry paste

2) Green beans and peppers stir-fried

3) Rice vermicelli soaked in hot water

4) All of it mixed together in the wok with soy sauce

And the runners-up are...

2010-12-31T09:00:00.005-05:00

The second runner-up in my Holiday Dessert Line-Up was Cheddar Cookies, which came in a very close second indeed.

The texture of the cookies resembled a shortbread cookie, but instead of a wallop of sugar, they were a punch of cheese and red pepper. They were another hit with everyone.

The only thing “wrong” with these cookies, is that by looking at them, you would have no idea that they are not sugary cookies. They are great unless you have absolutely no idea that you are eating cheddar cookies, in which case, you are just in for a big surprise. It's the perfect recipe for a practical joker.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have no affiliation with the Pee-Can or the Pe-Cahn Party.

The third place in my Holiday Dessert Line-Up goes to the “Chewy” Chocolate Cherry Cookie. I had high hopes for this recipe, but it fell flat, and by flat, I mean not chewy at all. The cherries were made a valiant effort to win me over, but the texture of these was so disappointing that I cannot recommend this recipe. Whomp-whomp.

That's it for my holiday baking this year. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Happy New Year!

And the winner is...

2010-12-30T09:00:00.004-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned a few of the desserts that I was thinking about making during the holidays.

I narrowed it down to three items that I ended up making for my Holiday Dessert Line-Up: Chocolate Truffles, Cheddar Cookies, and Chocolate-Cherry Cookies. Which item was the best? The winner is...

Chocolate truffles!

Chocolate truffles were fun to make, and they were a hit with my friends and coworkers.

I decided I wanted to make dark chocolate inside, and a combination of milk chocolate and white chocolate coating on the outside. I also used some herbs and other seasonings, such as cinnamon, homemade orange zest, mint and peppermint, and cocoa powder, to top the truffles.

The recipe suggested to chop up the chocolate as small as I could before melting it, so I decided to pound the chocolate into little tiny pieces by whacking it with a wooden spoon. Is there special equipment needed for this recipe? Heck yeah - earmuffs!

I was often asked if these are easy to make. To that I would say...yes and no. They take awhile to make, because you have to wait for the chocolate to cool, but each step only takes a few minutes. The hardest part was rolling the dark chocolate ganache balls (the filling) into melted chocolate because the melted chocolate didn't coat them as smoothly as I would have liked. The easiest part was making the ganache balls - rolling the pasty chocolate into balls is just as simple as it is to make cookies.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Holiday Dessert Line-Up which will feature Cheddar Cookies and Chocolate-Cherry Cookies!

Holiday Sweets

2010-12-13T19:33:00.000-05:00

While looking for a fantastic cookie recipe to make during the holidays this year, I came across so many tempting recipes that I'm still mulling over which one(s) to make for parties and gifts. I'm going to narrow it down to about 2-4 that I'll use for different purposes. I thought I'd share a few with you folks, in no particular order.

Poll: What are your favorite holiday cookies/sweets? You can mention ones from this list, or share some others that I haven't included here.

1. Truffles: Truffles are classy and sumptuous. I've also never made them before, so what excites me the most about this recipe is trying something new. Some examples are this Chocolate Truffles recipe, one for Variations on Truffles, and Nutella Truffles.

2. Fruit Jellies: these remind me of candied fruit slices, and while they're not a traditional holiday candy, they look so tangy and sweet that I'd love to give them a try.

3. Cheddar Cookies: this, too, could be perfect. When I saw this, I thought, yesssss! It combines both the awesomeness of cheese and sugar! I've got less of a sweet tooth and more of a savory tooth, and this is just different enough to be memorable and fun. I love that pecan in the middle, too.

4. Pistachio Pastry Twists: These would be great for some holiday baskets. They might be a bit too big as pictured to do as an hors d'oeuvre for a party, but if they could be made smaller, they might work. I like that they can be made with different fillings. And who doesn't love puff pastry?

5. Biscotti: This would be another cookie that'd be great as a gift. It'd also work well to send in the mail, since they look pretty sturdy. Here's one for Cookie Biscotti and one for Dark Chocolate-Dipped Anise Biscotti.

6. Fudge Sauce: It's a huge jar of chocolate, enough said.

7. Chewy Chocolate-Cherry Cookies: this one looks like a "safe" yet still delicious choice. It's just different enough from the standard chocolate chip cookie but not as risky as the cheddar cookie or the anise biscotti. What am I saying, risky? It's a cookie, for crying out loud!

8. Chocolate Icebox Cookies: This looks simple, and I like that it can be made ahead of time.

Poster Day

2010-11-16T23:15:00.001-05:00

I generally don't talk about work on here, but I will make an exception to share some highlights from today! This week we had our annual conference at work--an event where 500+ people from all over the organization come together to present their research.

Here I am with my poster! I presented some findings from my research on genetics blogs, credibility, and influence. These pictures were actually taken by someone who came by the poster and wanted to share it with his friends on Twitter:

For my non-scientist readers, let me introduce you to the "poster session." Do you remember the middle school science fair? This is like that, but with more graphs and fewer baking soda volcanos. The "poster" is also like hazing for early-career scientists. You spend weeks working on a poster--which your colleagues re-arrange and re-word within an inch of its (and your) life. Then, during the poster session, people walk by and talk to you about your poster, and you hope that they don't ask you inane questions such as: "Yes, but can you please calculate off the top of your head p-values of a multivariate equation involving things that only marginally relate to your research?"

Well, hopefully I have not discouraged anyone from pursuing a career in the sciences, as poster sessions are not all bad. The helpful and insightful questions generally outnumber the bizarre ones, and it actually can turn out to be a fun and low-pressure way to talk about your work.

Today was particularly exciting for me as this project has been my "baby" since early 2009. It's the first time I've gotten to present the results to a group other than my direct colleagues. The response was so overwhelmingly positive, and I was even a bit surprised at just how excited people were about the topic. A couple of people were even interested in collaborating on future projects, which I definitely was not expecting to come out of the poster session. There have been so many times over the past two years that people have doubted this project, have asked me "why" I am doing it or what the significance of it is, or just not really "gotten" it. Today, it was a bit of a "so there!" feeling with all of the positive feedback.

It's been easy to doubt myself over this project. I've had to teach myself a lot of the topic and techniques, and it's so different from anything my colleagues were doing. I definitely was afraid at some points that I wouldn't be able to find a relevant angle for it, and sometimes I feared it wasn't worthwhile after all. After my talks with people today, I was able to gain back some confidence in the work...which I will definitely need for the next step: publishing a paper about it!

Movin' up

2010-10-15T03:11:00.000-04:00

This week, I got moved from a cubicle to my own office at work. Sweet! I'm moving up in the world, and I'll be at that corner office with a view in no time.

Technically speaking, it is an office with two desks in it, but no one else is in the office at the moment. That makes it my own office for the time being. Having a door is as wonderful as I imagined, yes. It has windows, too, but they are with a lovely view of the trucks at the loading dock, so I wouldn't get too excited about that if I were you.

I've been working on grad school applications lately. Unfortunately, that means less time to upload pretty pictures of desserts to my blog, but I think it will work out for the best in the end :) I think it's fun to think about the future and the possibilities. I like talking to people about different ideas for what I could do or what there is to learn. People have been giving me lots of encouragement on all aspects of the application process, which I definitely appreciate. It's satisfying, also, when I can find a program (there are a few) that will fit both my location and program requirements. Now, I just have to get accepted. Reading the bios of some of the students at these places is a humbling experience!

There are so many considerations around money, location, program concentration, and deadlines. It can be overwhelming, although I'm trying to keep calm about it. I'm looking for something in an urban area, but also something that fits my specific interests in health behavior, health communication, and new media. It's heart-breaking to look at a school that would be in my dream location, and then realize they either just don't have the program I want, and vice versa. Well, as they say when apartment hunting in DC, "cheap, near a metro, or clean, pick one." Like it or not, I will have to face some tough choices in the next few months; one of which might be to either stay in DC or to move next year.

Every day I wake up and have a different opinion about where I want to be in a year and what I want my program to look like. For example, do I want to try to work and go to school part-time, or do I want to go full time? That's a tough one for me right now.

At least the one thing that is stable right now are my program interests. It's taken me a long time to get to that point. I explored many different fields--and many of them weren't right for me and gave me the uneasy feeling that it wasn't what I was meant to do. Now, I feel like I am doing something that works for me and my skills, and not just what seems "cool" or "somewhat interesting."

Well, if anyone has any advice to share, I could use it! Honest thoughts and comments are welcome.

Silk Pajamas and Football

2010-10-04T22:57:00.000-04:00

Those would be the two things to best describe my past two weekends. The other weekend, I went to the Virgin Mobile Fest (boy, they couldn't have come up with a better name?) and saw MIA. Her show was entertaining—lots of visual effects, backup dancers, and odd verbal interludes, such as "DC! Are you ready?! Do you remember how it used to be? Before you were confused?!" At one point she had about 50 people from the audience up on stage moshing. After she came back on for the encore, she showed up wearing silk glittery pajamas and holding a bottle of tequila:
"Now, I've just gone and put on my pajamas...I was all ready for bed!"

Of course, I always go to bed after donning my glitter jammies and moshing. Nothing like a concert to help me wind down.

Then this past weekend, I went down to Charlottesville for the UVA vs. Florida State game. The first half was embarrassing. Of course, I didn't see much, I had my hands covering my face every time they had the ball. The second half was OK. I'm convinced they brought out a different team from the locker room. Most entertaining sports fan: This crazy woman in our section who kept yelling "Touchdown" (In a very Southern accent that sounded more like "Touch- Day-un!!" Yep, three syllables.), not only at appropriate moments, but before the start of each and every play. Hey, whatever works.

I watch ESPN sometimes with my boyfriend. He's a big sports fan. Have you ever noticed how football coaches like to say, "We just gotta take care of the ball! We have to work on taking care of the ball!" We gotta take care of the ball? What, is it sick?

Stuffed Poblano Peppers

2010-09-21T09:00:00.004-04:00

After I went to Oyamel for Restaurant Week this summer, the delicious chiles featured on the menu inspired me to try making a chile pepper recipe at home. I came home with poblano peppers that week from the farmers' market. Today's recipe is for Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Beef, based on this recipe (FineCooking). Let me just sing the praises of poblanos here for a moment. Poblanos are the best peppers in the world, because they are slightly spicy, but not obnoxiously so, smell fantastic, and let's face it, they are the cooler cousin to the more pedestrian bell pepper.

While the original recipe uses chicken, fajita beef is what I had in my freezer, so obviously I made a substitution. Obviously, it still tastes good that way.

Step One: Make the tomato puree:

Step two: Char, slice, and clean the peppers. An odd process, as I couldn't help but feeling I was doing something really unsavory to these poor peppers. (The yellow one is just a regular pepper, not a poblano).

Step three:

Put the puree in the rice.

step 4: Stuff the peppers and blah blah blah.

Stuff your face with this stuff.

Grilled Salmon with Black Beans

2010-09-20T09:00:00.009-04:00

From the recipe files of summer, here's one for Grilled Salmon with Black Beans.

It falls firmly in the "weekday night" category - not amazing enough that I'd make it for people visiting for dinner, but fairly healthy and different enough from starch/meat standbys. I would make the black bean mix just on its own as a side, actually. I have a love/hate relationship with Trader Joe's (based around a story about a used band-aid and a pack of tortillas...), but their Cuban Black Beans are awesome and I wholly recommend them for this dish.

Pork with Cranberry & Raisin Compote

2010-09-19T12:36:00.002-04:00

I am obsessed with this month's issue of Food and Wine magazine. It was love at first sight at the newspaper kiosk. The magazine features "New Southern" recipes this month.

In the past week, I have made at least 4 recipes from the pages of the magazine....

Today's recipe is Pork Chops with Cranberry Compote:

One thing I find important in making recipes from magazines is to know exactly what I have on hand. That way I am not tempted by glossy pictures to buy crazy ingredients I will never use again. I have been there before, and it involved me buying a $10 jar of chestnuts that I never used again for a recipe that wasn't all that great. Now I consider much more frugally what I cook from magazines . The second thing to know is that most ingredients in magazines are unusual for their "wow" factor, which means they will either be hard to find or really expensive (or both). In that case, I think it's easy to substitute some other ingredient, and the dish will taste just as delicious. I used to insist on sticking exactly to the recipe, but now that I have some more confidence in my cooking skills, I am not afraid to substitute.

That brings me to this recipe. The original recipe calls for "barberries." If you are a normal person like me, you probably will have no idea what that is. The recipe acknowledges this and suggests using cranberries. I still didn't have a huge bag of cranberries just floating around my house, so I used a combination of cranberries (picked out from a trail mix on the shelf) and golden raisins (which I did have). The recipe also called for spices which probably not found on everyone's spice rack. Instead of all of those separate ingredients, I used chinese five-spice powder, which contains a lot of the anise and allspice already.

Anyway, I would give this recipe a B+. I LOVE the topping - the spice mixture is interesting, and it is definitely hearty (it's thicker because you puree half of the raisins). I think the pork cooking instructions take way too long and the meat was tough. Cook it for less time and substitute cheaper ingredients. That's my take.

At the top of the Red Rocks (Day 5)

2010-09-19T09:00:00.005-04:00

Today will be my last post about my trip to Arizona. I do wish I could post pictures and stories about this amazing landscape every day, but my trip was only 5 days long.

Before we left Sedona, I wanted to explore the rocks further on foot. At the ranger station, one of the park rangers pointed us to a short hike that would give us lots of panoramic views - the Airport Mesa trail loop.

When we first got to the trail, we hiked up to the overlook and felt like we were on top of the world:

Then we headed back to Phoenix for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Our hotel had a great pool with waterfalls, hot tub, and poolside service, so we were there until they had to almost drag us out at sunset. Later that evening, we went to old town Scottsdale. When someone says "old town," I usually think of something colonial like old town Alexandria or downtown Charlottesville. Because we were out west however, this Old Town was in the "Wild West" style--with lots of silver jewelry shops, leather shops, and even a used bookshop dedicated to Wild West history books. We also walked down an artists' row, which is lined with nothing but art galleries.

I had to say goodbye to Arizona early the next day, so I'll leave you all with a picture of this beautiful sunset:

Grand Canyon (Day 4)

2010-09-18T09:00:00.004-04:00

On the fourth day of my trip to Arizona, I went to the Grand Canyon. Finally, the reason we were there! Some of you might remember that earlier this year, I saw the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. Now, I bring you - The Grand Canyon of Arizona!

We drove up to the South Rim, which is the usual spot for tourists to take pictures and walk along the rim. After we got our fill of the view from here, we got on the Grand Canyon Visitor Shuttle. Someone familiar with DC might ask me, why would I willingly take public transportation on vacation? (Sidebar: check out "Metro Rap" to understand my plight.)

I had put my Grand Canyon trip into the trusty hands of Mr. Moon Guidebook, which had told me, for example: "Don't bother with driving, take the shuttle, which is GREAT!" and "The lines at the entrance are SO LONG!"

The shuttle? Now I know where fired Metrobus drivers go to get a job. Our driver was completely out of it, prompting one person in the back to shout, "Snap out of it, Jerry!" which garnered chuckles from everyone else on the bus.

Luckily, even though the guidebook I had was filled with dumb advice about how to avoid long lines of 2-3 cars, the park ranger gave us a free guide which told me everything I wanted to know about the park, such as how to identify plants and wildlife in the park. Thumbs up!

Views at Grand Canyon of PA: One gorge covered in trees.

Views at Grand Canyon of AZ:

We went to the Bright Angel trailhead where we did some hiking into the canyon.

Hike in Grand Canyon of PA: Moderate to Strenous - lots of stairs on the path and a steep climb back up

Hike in Grand Canyon of AZ: Moderate - but with more inclines than stairs, it made it fairly easy to return back to the top

On our way home after our excursion, we stopped in the town of Flagstaff, AZ, which is halfway between Sedona and Grand Canyon. Cool town, with a main street-meets-hippie vibe. We ate sushi for dinner at Karma Sushi, because no road trip is complete without me indulging my love for tuna and salmon rolls. I may travel, but I take no vacation from eating sushi.

Awesome Red Rocks of Sedona (Day 3)

2010-09-17T09:00:00.004-04:00

Today's post is about Day 3 of my trip to Arizona. We spent most of Day 3 (Sunday) driving from Phoenix to Sedona. We made a short (2 hours) but scenic drive between the two. I took a lot of pictures on our drive from inside the car. Outside of Phoenix are big rocky hills covered in saguaro cacti, and as you get closer to Sedona are forest and mountains which eventually cede to the Red Rocks that Sedona is known for. The rocks are staggeringly beautiful.

I have to say that I enjoyed the scenery here even more than the Grand Canyon. I know the Grand Canyon is one of the 7 wonders of the world, and maybe it is blasphemy against nature to say something looks better than the Grand Canyon. But I have to admit that the Red Rocks are just as striking and even more fun to explore because you can see different rocks as you drive down the highway (instead of having to hike or drive long distances to see a different point of view of the Canyon). There's not as much instant gratification with the Grand Canyon.

I will never forget the hotel either. The pool and hot tub were surrounded by the red rocks - this was one pimp hotel. Sometimes with all the stress of life I forget that there are simple pleasures in life, like the feeling of warm bubbles and wind in my hair.

Floating the day away in Phoenix (Day 2)

2010-09-16T09:00:00.002-04:00

Today I will tell you about Day 2 of my recent trip to Arizona. On Saturday morning, the first thing we did in Phoenix was to follow the advice of our guidebook and eat brunch at a place called America's Taco Shop where we ate huge bowls of shrimp ceviche. That is the way to start the day off. Tortilla chips and seafood.

For most of the afternoon, we enjoyed life and the heat at the water park at our hotel. Yes, you heard me right. There was a lazy river, a "sports pool," lots of waterfalls, and another big pool at the hotel. We swam around in the lazy river for awhile, and then we played a game of water volleyball with some kids that were in the pool. We sat in lounge chairs that had little flags to flip up whenever we wanted refreshments. Whenever I am stressed out in life, I will think of this perfect moment of floating around in the pool in the sunshine on a hot, hot day.

In the later part of the day, we drove around Tempe, where my boyfriend used to live for awhile and also where the ASU campus is located. The Phoenix area itself is in a valley surrounded by desert mountains, and at Papago Park in Tempe there are some large rock formations. We climbed to the top of a rock called Hole-in-the-Wall and watched the sun set over the city. The city lights were beautiful.

Phoenix, the "Dry Heat" (Day 1)

2010-09-15T09:00:00.004-04:00

Someone mentioned to me the other day that I haven't posted in awhile, and I tend not to post when I get busy or when I've just returned from vacation. It always takes me about a week just to catch up on everything in my life after my travels! Luckily that is the case this week. In the next few days I will be sharing stories and pictures from my recent trip to Arizona.

A lot of times I hear, "Boy, you sure do travel a lot!" Yes, I love seeing new places, taking pictures, trying new cuisine, walking around, and hiking around in nature. I hate booking hotels and flights though. Whenever I log onto priceline.com, I feel like my soul has been crushed. Luckily for me, my boyfriend is a hotel and flight booking wizard. To paint a picture for you, he looks up hotels in his spare time for fun. He also has some pretty awesome travel benefits through work, which has afforded us an incredibly valuable opportunity to travel as often as we do. That being the case, we're a little "biased" in the hotels that we stay at, so I won't mention those by name.We want to take advantage of the opportunity while we have it, because you never know when things might change.

We left on a Friday evening after work and got into Phoenix, AZ late at night. Just about the only place open to eat was a 24-hour-diner, 5 & Diner, so we went there after a local recommended the chicken pot pie to us. I have never seen this before, but in Arizona, because of the dry heat, all the outdoor patios have misters (Not like Mr.'s, but you know, misters). Coming from DC, I had a hard time believing anyone would want to actually add humidity to the air:

I also spotted this kooky van outside the restaurant - with a wizard riding a horse, chasing a flying dragon, flying towards a tiger, outside a castle. Drug reference or mythical fairy tale?

The Fruit Snob Cooks Apples

2010-09-02T23:01:00.001-04:00

As some of you might know, I am a fruit snob. And I had an apple dilemma the other day. I had these green apples from the supermarket that my mom gave me. I have been a fruit snob ever since college when I had "organic" apples for the first time. I realized that apples actually taste good if you don't buy them from a crappy grocery store that ships, over thousands of miles, apples that are genetically engineered to survive Armageddon (also known as "last winter's snowstorm"). Ever since then, I can't stand conventionally grown apples because they taste like sour cardboard in comparison to normal apples. Actually, I think that makes me less of a fruit snob and more of a "person who doesn't eat things that don't taste like food."

But what does that have to do with this delicious recipe?

I knew there must be some way to salvage these apples. As wretched as they were, I didn't have the heart to just throw them out. Since my main beef with these apples was that they were stiff and juice-less, my idea was that cooking them over the stove would bring out their hidden juicy attributes.

APPLE MAKEOVER TIME!

I only had 1 apple left, so making some sort of dessert or apple pie was out of the question. I also needed to eat dinner.

I am always rather thrilled when I can make dinner out of random ingredients in my fridge and rehabilitate some produce along the way.

Enough of the small talk, here it is: Penne with Pancetta and Green Apples in Bleu Butter Sauce

For this one, I took some pancetta, maybe some onions and/or garlic, green apples, and some light food spraying. Not much though since there is more butter later on.

Anyway, I sauteed that. Meanwhile I cooked some penne pasta.

Then, I melted some Bleu Butter into the pancetta/apple sautee. Bleu butter is a kind of flavored butter that I made awhile back that is just butter, bleu cheese, and pepper, processed together and then frozen into a roll. When it's re-melted, it works well on vegetables or pasta because it gives that bleu cheese tang without the overwhelming crumbly- or saltiness. Then, I blended the sautee mixture into the pasta. How do you like them apples?

Dirty in Jersey

2010-08-31T21:29:00.000-04:00

This week on Lauralicious.... an episode of Jersey Shore with no Snooki!

Last weekend I went to Atlantic City with two of my favorite ladies, Whit and Lizz, who have been my friends since college. The weather was perfect, and we had a fabulous time! No, none of us really gamble, but there is plenty of other stuff to do there. Such as, you ask? We went out to some clubs, spent an afternoon at the beach, walked around the boardwalk, saw a guy ride a motorcycle in a cage, and swam at the hotel pool. Here we are before we totally had an "Incident" at a hotel buffet:

And here's a picture of the beach:

We also were the recipients of some pretty lame pickup lines. I have heard some bad ones before, but never so many in one weekend. I will share some of these for your enjoyment:

"Excuse me miss, you dropped something...My phone number!'

"Did you have a good time this weekend? ...Couldn't have been that good, you weren't with me!"

DC-Inspired recipes: Got corn coming out of your ears?

2010-08-25T22:38:00.000-04:00

This week on DC-Inspired Recipes on PoP, I discuss multiple ways of cooking sweet corn, including these Corn Cheddar Fritters. Gotta tell ya, these were fluffy, savory, and delicious.

Waffles with Blackberries and Mascarpone

2010-08-16T21:41:00.000-04:00

Last week on PoP, I discussed a recipe for Waffles with Blackberries and Mascarpone. Check it out if you like blackberries and the Superior Breakfast Food (as opposed to the Inferior Flat Breakfast Food That Shall Go Unnamed).

How to Make CVM: Crazy Vegetable Madness!

2010-08-12T09:00:00.116-04:00

You know when you're camping and you get tired of burnt grilled hot dogs and hamburgers? That's when you know it is time for Crazy Vegetable Madness.

OK, but with more oomph this time. That first time was pathetic.

CRAZY VEGETABLE MADNESS!!!!!!!1

Ah, much better.

Crazy Vegetable Madness I: Madness in Your Buns

Ingredients

Peppers

Onions

Eggplants

Portobellos

Food lubricant (cooking spray)

Shredded cheddar cheese

Barbecue sauce

Sandwich Buns (we used Arnold's Sandwich Thins)

It's so easy I really shouldn't have to tell you how to make it, but I will tell you anyway because I like to be consistent on my blog and describe everything. I sliced the vegetables into 1/4" slices crosswise. I applied cooking spray. By apply, I mean, I sprayed it right onto the fire as the vegetables were on it, like I had a blow torch. But this is NOT me recommending that you do that. REPEAT, KIDS, DO NOT PRETEND TO HAVE A BLOW TORCH WITH YOUR COOKING SPRAY. Grill the vegetables until they are done. I am sure you know what a grilled vegetable looks like. Put the Madness on your buns, top with sauce and cheese. Then take pictures of it before it gets cold.

Crazy Vegetable Madness II: Just Stew Me Good

Ingredients

Canned kidney beans

Canned zucchini with tomato sauce

Possibly more tomato sauce or tomatoes

Eggplants

Onions

Zucchinis

Peppers

Hot peppers

Water

Shredded cheddar cheese

Pepper and other dried spices

We chopped the vegetables into stew-size chunks. We de-seeded the hot peppers so the stew would not be overwhelmingly spicy. Then we poured everything in a deep aluminum pan. We also poured in some cans of water to give our stew enough cooking juice. (It wouldn't be a stew if it was dry, then that would just be dry disgusting Madness.) We covered this all with foil and cooked it over a portable electric grill for about an hour at the max temperature. I guess if you are a stickler, you can cook it over a fire, but you will be a hungry stickler and who wants that? We stirred the stew impatiently every so often. When the stew was hot, we ate it with cheese and spices on top.

We did not eat the whole pan that night. Obviously, we did not feed it to the bears either because we had sent all the black bears to the moon to cover it up so it would not be quite so blinding bright anymore. So we managed to take the stew home with us. Sorry, hungry bears. The stew held up well and I enjoyed it a couple of days later. Good thing I am not a bear.

Yes, of course we got bored waiting for the stew to cook. Here's a video of our stupid rock throwing game.

Camping Trip, Day 3

2010-08-11T09:00:00.003-04:00

On our way in, we had passed signs for the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. By the third day of our trip, we had to see what this was all about.

We typed in "PA Grand Canyon" in my GPS. My GPS is Australian and her name is Karen. Karen instructed us to go down a hilly gravel road which was most certainly not the tourism-approved route. I bet the locals there on that road really hate Garmin for messing up their peace and quiet just because their road is technically faster. We did eventually get to the Canyon, which is in Leonard Harrison State Park. The official name of it is "Pine Creek Gorge," but I have a feeling the marketing folks did not like that so much.

Did the PA Grand Canyon live up to my expectations? Well, no. It is a gorge covered in trees. It is not an epic 7th Wonder of the World. I don't know who Pennsylvania is kidding. I suggest "PA Minor Canyon" or "Junior Canyon" or "Canyon in Training." That being said, it is a scenic view that you can get at least 20 minutes "Look, things that are far away" viewing out of, and the hikes around the canyon are worth doing.

Views from the top:

From the top, the trailhead for the Turkey Path begins. Spoiler alert: We saw no turkeys. That would have been a trip. Grand Canyon WITH TURKEYS!

The Turkey Path goes right down the gorge, passing by a series of waterfalls along the way. I bet if water knew how amused people were by it falling down rocks, it would start charging, but luckily water is pretty clueless.

Pine Creek up close:

Later in the evening, we went to a dark sky (astronomy) park called Cherry Springs. It is at the top of a mountain far from any city and promises spectacular views of the night sky.

Except for that pesky full moon, they might have been right.

The lunar timing being not so great, the full moon light up the entire sky and drowned out a lot of the stars we might have seen. Granted, we did get some pretty good looks at the craters and valleys on the moon. I was amazed by just how bright the darned thing is. I really have not seen anything that compares to this view of the moon. It was as though someone had stuck a street lamp in the middle of the woods. I could see my shadow in the middle of the night.

These photos by Chelsea give you an idea of how bright the moon was out here:

If it happens again when we want to see the stars, we will go up into space and cover the moon with thick black fur. Problem solved.

That sums up our camping trip - I hope you enjoyed the recap and the pictures. Stay tuned for tomorrow's bonus camping recipe: Crazy Vegetable Madness!

Camping Trip, Day 2

2010-08-10T09:00:00.009-04:00

The rains continued. The power was out. You would think this would not have affected us...

But this campground had "environmentally friendly" power-operated sensor faucets and composting toilets. And when the compost ventilation is out...well, the environment is not so friendly.

Cooking being out of the question in this storm, we frantically ran to get in my car so we could go to downtown Galeton. The main event there is a gas station with pet ducks. I took this picture so you could benefit from seeing how cute they are.

It was in Galeton that we discovered what is our opinion, the best chain-restaurant pizza on the East Coast: Pudgie's Pizza! The sauce, the dough, the cheese, the toppings - there was nothing that we didn't like about this pie. So hats of to you, Mr. Pudgie, you sure do know how to make a pizza that we are not ashamed to eat even though Not Grilling is Against the Rules of Camping According to Somebody.

Later that day, after the rain decided it had had enough, we took a hike around the campground down to the lake. We stopped once we got to the dock at the lake. We looked at birds through the binoculars and watched the clouds go by. It was just what I needed.

Amazing shots by Chelsea:

Camping Trip, Day 1

2010-08-09T09:00:00.007-04:00

I recently went camping in Pennsylvania with some friends, Chelsea and Josh. Did you know there is a Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania? Neither did I until this trip.

Josh and I had driven up from DC to Chelsea's apartment near Philly the night before. With all of our gear packed up - an impressive feat for my little car - we set out on a camping adventure.

A few hours and only a few wrong turns later, we arrived at Lyman Run State Park in Galeton, PA.

No sooner had we set up our tent when the rains came rolling in. We zipped ourselves in for a crazy game of Scrabble, with some punch and individually wrapped cheese product slices.

It's the milk chocolate...or is it?

2010-07-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

The highlight of this past weekend was visiting Hershey Park with my boyfriend. We usually make a trip about once or twice a summer to a local amusement park. If you're not familiar with Hershey Park, it is 2-3 hours north of the DC area. They have a few wooden roller coasters, some modern "why am I getting on this"-scary coasters, and a water park. They also have Chocolate World, home of some unnervingly sassy animatronic cows.

Likes:
My favorite ride there is the Storm Runner. This roller coaster starts off with a burst of speed into a 90 degree drop instead of a painstaking climb. The effect is quite thrilling when it's dark and you can't see. It is so good it will make your head hurt afterwards.

Dislikes:
The water park is not worth going to. The storage lockers are an exorbitant $10, the rides are not that entertaining, and the lines are stab-me-in-the-eye-with-a-rusty-spoon long. By the time we got on one ride, our teeth were chattering, and I was no longer amused.

Blueberry Syrup

2010-07-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

My local grocery had 2-for-1 blueberries for sale the other day, so guess what today's recipe is going to be about?

I had about half a pint of blueberries, and a magazine recipe I'd been wanting to try for awhile. Originally, this syrup was part of a drink recipe called "Colorful Cows," which ended up tasting just as stupid as that name sounds. Instead, the syrup itself is good enough to stand alone as a topping for ice cream (or pancakes/waffles).

Blueberry Syrup Recipe
1. I heated 2 cups of blueberries and 1/4 cup of sugar over medium heat.

2. I cooked for about 10-12 minutes until the juice was fully released from the blueberries. I love that dark shade of purple that it turns into.

3. I strained the blueberries into a container. Voila.

Sesame and Bacon-Wrapped Turnips

2010-07-21T09:00:00.005-04:00

If ya like it than ya shoulda put some bacon on it. But, I made turnips, so I just put bacon on those instead.

Warning: If you are bacon-averse, gird your (pork) loins, because this recipe is not for the deep-fryer-fearful.

Today's recipe is for Sesame and Bacon-Wrapped Turnips. I thought this was one of the more unusual turnip recipes that Epicurious had to offer. By the way, turnip greens are great too, but not very exciting to cook (hint: you boil/steam them). I will not bore people with a blog post about them. Instead, marvel at bacon on a stick:

1. I started off with turnips (I only needed 2 after all):

which I chopped into slices:

2. I wrapped these suckers in bacon (I used at least half a package) and skewered them together. Then I dipped the bacon-turnips in a beaten egg and dipped them in sesame seeds.
3. Then (gird yourself), I deep fried these for a couple of minutes in my boyfriend's deep fryer.

4. Then, I put them on a baking sheet and baked them for about 7 minutes until they were crispy and golden all over.

Full disclosure: my apartment smelled less like bacon and more like an Asian takeout place afterwards.

The latest on DC-Inspired Recipes: Cantaloupe-Mint Granitas

2010-07-20T20:07:00.000-04:00

This week on DC-Inspired Recipes, I suggest cooling off in the hot weather with cool Cantaloupe-Mint Granitas. They're so refreshing and easy! Check it out here:

http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2010/07/dc-inspired-recipes-cool-cantaloupe-mint-granitas-for-hot-weather-by-laura

Vegetable Salad with Eggplant, Green Beans, and Tomatoes

2010-07-20T09:00:00.000-04:00

I had more vegetables than usual last week from the farmers' market, so I was getting pretty desperate for ways to use them all up before they went bad. Not a bad problem to have, I suppose. I came across a recipe for a tangy vegetable and peanut salad that I liked. It worked out well for bringing it along with me for lunch when I didn't have access to a microwave.

Tangy Eggplant, Bean, and Tomato Salad

The salad:

Eggplants (I used a mix of long skinny ones and short round ones)

Green beans

Tomatoes (I used red and yellow ones)

Peanuts

The dressing (I changed the proportions from the original recipe - less salt):

5 teaspoons sugar

4 teaspoons lime juice

2 teaspoons fish sauce

1. Slice the eggplant and broil for 8 minutes. Snap the beans into bite-size pieces. Boil for less than 5 minutes (depending on how firm or soft you like them) Chop the tomatoes. Mix all vegetables and the peanuts together.

2. Mix the ingredients for the dressing together. Toss with the salad. The dressing is enough for about 3-4 servings of salad.

Reflection: If you see something, say something?

2010-07-20T02:39:00.001-04:00

Recently, I was at an event where heard more judgmental, disrespectful, and prejudiced comments than I have heard in a long time. Where was I? No, I wasn't on the street, wasn't at a school, I wasn't at a political or religious event, wasn't anywhere that you'd be prepared to come across blatantly judgmental attitudes.

I was at a professional meeting of highly educated individuals, some of who publicly made what I found to be grossly intolerant remarks - all justified in the name of "science" and "research."

I won't talk here about what the comments themselves were, because I think it's more productive to talk about this in a way that could apply to anyone. I imagine everyone reading this has, at some point, heard something that struck them as intolerant, even though they might have felt like they were in the minority for feeling that way.

As I have mentioned before, I love my work and have nothing but good things to say about my direct colleagues, who are mostly open-minded folks. However, I can't always expect everyone in my field outside my office to have the same open-mindedness. That's just part of life, and I accept that.

At the same time, when I hear experts in my field making what I find to be prejudiced assumptions, it makes my blood boil. More importantly, what makes me angry is when I hear disrespectful comments being made to an audience and from people in trusted positions.

The question is, when you see or hear something that you find to intolerant or prejudiced, do you say something?

One option is to not say anything. If you're not in a position of authority, saying something might backfire on you. It might be considered just as disrespectful to disagree with someone who's considered an expert. If he or she is established in his or her career, they may not really listen to what you have to say or be unwilling to change his or her mind. (BUT why should we assume that?)

What recourse you have instead, perhaps, is not to confront anyone in front of an audience - since they will probably feel attacked, but to mention your feelings to friends and other trusted individuals, or to that person alone, and slowly foster tolerance instead of intolerance.

At the same time, I can think of more than a few examples where people's unwillingness to speak up to a person of authority has actually caused serious damage. Think about all the stories in the news about how workers come out after a disaster saying, "I knew it was wrong, but my boss told me to comply and to do it anyway, or I'd be fired."

That's the principle here. We KNOW that not speaking up can cause harm to a lot of people, and that our "that's NOT ok" senses are pricked off for a reason. And it just takes one person speaking up to let other people know that it's also OK to speak up. So, there is the option to speak up and say something, and hope that this person will never dare again to say such cruel remarks, and also let other people know that there are other points of view.

The other question is, if you are bothered by the attitude of the "field," is it worthwhile to stay in that field?

On one hand, yes, you could go somewhere else, to be among like-minded people, who mostly accept and agree with your beliefs and values. That would certainly be less stressful, and you might get more done working together. Conversely, though, you might end up preaching to the choir, deepening the differences between the two groups, and not getting your message across to anyone else in the meantime.

On the other hand, you could stay where you are, and contend with the reality that you're going to face people who are intolerant of your views. You know that you will face times when you might be better off not saying anything, and times when you will be better off speaking up. You have to pick your battles, but you also have a better chance of influencing people with different points of view.

Of course, I don't have the answers to this, and these are just a few ideas I have for these situations. In the spirit of opening a dialogue, what are some of your thoughts and ways that you face situations like this?

The latest on DC-Inspired Recipes: Herb Zucchini Quiche

2010-07-16T09:00:00.001-04:00

This week's installment of "DC-Inspired Recipes" is up on PoP. This time I discuss how to cook a zucchini quiche. I love this dish! Check it out here:

http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2010/07/dc-inspired-recipes-herb-zucchini-quiche-by-laura/

Summertime parties, and a cookout recipe!

2010-07-15T23:25:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, I didn't go anywhere quite as exciting at NYC, but I still had fun!

I went to my friend/former roommate's bridal shower (Congrats LM!). I was impressed at all the decorations and activities LM's family put together for her. Also, her family should get a prize for having a basement dedicated entirely to the Washington Redskins.

I also went to a friend's housewarming/cookout. Nanda made some great grilled chicken and carrots, and I met some friendly folks. I asked her for the recipe, and she writes:

This is from Bon Appetite May 2010.

Grilled Chicken Breasts and Chipotle-Cilantro Carrots

Ingredients:

1.25 lb boneless breast halves (they say skin on which we've done, it makes it juicier, but we prefer skin off b/c we pull it off anyway due to the fat, and having it off means more flavor on meat and none thrown away with skin)

6tbs olive oil

2.5 tsp fresh oregano

3 tsp lemon peel finely grated

2 garlic cloves

freshly ground black pepper

1.5 lbs large carrots peeled cut on deep diagonal into quarter inch to half inch slices

3/4 tsp minced canned chipotle chilies (we used chipotle in adobo which the magazine said was fine)

2 tbs fresh lemon juice, divided

1.5 tsp honey

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

crumbled feta if you want

Place chicken between two sheets plastic wrap and pound with mallet to 1/2 - 3/4 inch thickness.

Place chicken in 11 x 7 glass baking dish. Drizzle with 4 tbs olive oil, sprinkle oregano, 2 tsp lemon peel, garlic and pepper. Turn to coat. Cover and let stand for 1 hour at room temp.

Fill large bowl halfway with ice cubes and water. Cook carrots in boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Drain. Immediately place carrots in bowl of ice water to cool. Drain carrots; pat dry.

Prepare barbecue (medium high heat). Toss carrots, 1tbs oil, and chipotle chilies in large bowl; sprinkle lightly w/ course salt. Place chicken, skin side down, on grill, along with carrots. Grill chicken until cooked through, about 5 to 6 min per side. Grill carrots until tender and grill marks appear, about 3 min per side. Transfer chicken to cutting board. Transfer carrots to large bowl. Drizzle carrots w/ remaining 1 tbs oil, 1 tbs lemon juice, and honey. Add cilantro and remaining 1 tsp lemon peel.. toss to coat. Season with course salt and freshly ground black pepper. Slice chicken on diagonal. Arrange on platter, surround with grilled carrots, and sprinkle w/ crumbled feta (we left this out at the party, but it's good too). Drizzle remaining 1 tbs lemon juice over and serve.

We also doubled this recipe.

Enjoy!

The Eat-Cute: School Spirit Barbecue Sauce

2010-07-12T21:34:00.000-04:00

Just when you thought you had enough school spirit, and had seen enough school-themed paraphernalia in your campus bookstore...along comes School Spirit Barbecue Sauce!

Oh dear. As you might imagine, I received this jar of UVA-Sanctioned Barbecue Sauce from my parents, the loving folks behind the Mystery Gift Alien Bacteriophage. (The barbecue sauce also came with UVA Salsa and UVA Hot Sauce.)

Well, when life gives you University of Virginia Cavaliers Barbecue Sauce, make Barbecued Pork Chops. It is very easy, just like my 1st year "History of Jazz" final, which somehow fulfilled about 3 different College requirements.

1. Brown the pork.

2. Cover the pork with the barbecue sauce.

3. Bake it at 350 until it is done (the recipe book said 1 hour, but this was unfortunately Past the Point of Well Done).

4. Sing the Good Ol' Song. Wahoo-Wa!

New York City Trip - Day 3 and 4

2010-07-09T01:16:00.001-04:00

Finally, today's post will recount the last days of my trip to NYC, days 3 and 4.

From our hotel in Soho, my boyfriend and I walked down through Chinatown down to Brooklyn Bridge station. Upon the advice of a local NYC friend, we didn't walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn, though ("you just get a view of Brooklyn, which is stupid! Stop, turn around, take a picture, stop, turn around, take a picture! No! Take the subway to Brooklyn, then walk back to Manhattan! You get to see the skyline the whole time!").

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and took in the Manhattan skyline and the Manhattan bridge. It takes at least half an hour. The pedestrian walkway is divided into a lane of bumbling pedestrians, and a lane of pissed-off cyclists who are annoyed with the bumbling pedestrians that keep creeping into their lane. Here I am on the bridge. In the background is the spot where the World Trade Center would have been, right to the left of that tallest building.

After resting our feet, we took the train to Times Square in order to buy tickets for a Broadway show. The crowds of people are maddening but it's sobering when you realize you are one of those maddening people now. At least we were not as maddening as all the girls getting their pictures taken with the Naked Cowboy. The TKTS booth line is not as bad as it looks, though. We were in and out, "Memphis" tickets in hand, in less than 20 minutes.

For lunch, we killed time until the show by getting sushi around the corner at Aoki. They had a $11 3-roll lunch special. Awesome!!

Later, we saw "Memphis." This review, from the NYTimes, summarizes well the highs and lows of the show. I loved the set design, with its impressive scene changes and multidimensional elements, the dancing, and some of the less formulaic parts of the script. The music didn't terribly impress me, though, as I have yet to be won over on 1960s revival numbers.

Even though it was the 4th, we passed on the fireworks show this year, so I can't recount that for you all. After resting up at the hotel, we went out later to enjoy a dinner at a French bistro, Bistro Les Amis. I had some roasted duck with cranberries and wild rice, which I liked, but boyfriend did not like his Lamb Shank because "it was too much work to eat." I can see that. The thing practically had antlers.

We sat outside on the patio. We were also sitting next to an older guy who sounded exactly like Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. At one point after he had paid his check, he said to his rather reticent date, "These lights! I can't stand these lights! It's so hot out here! I feel like I'm roasting like a chicken under these lights!" I think he must have been very angry about this, because what happened next was that his date's wine glass broke when he slammed his fist on the table. They got up quietly and left.

We left early the next day to take the bus back to Washington. By the time we got back, I had finished the first two novels of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, a series which I am quite enthusiastically devouring. I had a great trip; at the same time, I was glad to be back in DC. Going to NYC makes me appreciate the comparative cleanliness of the DC metro. (If you've missed the ads that take a jab at the NYC metro, well, they mention that the DC metro doesn't have housecat-sized rats unlike "some other cities.") Until next time, New York, I'm still a DC girl.

New York City Trip - Day 2

2010-07-08T00:35:00.112-04:00

Today's post is about the 2nd day of my trip to NYC.

My boyfriend and I took the 1 Train out of Manhattan and into the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx. It was my first visit to an outer borough. We met up with a friend of mine from college, who among other things, is a wonderful encyclopedia of knowledge about NY parks, buildings, and calling 311 to complain about trash maintenance. We all walked from the 242nd Street Station (the end of the line), past Van Corlandt park (which is bigger than Central Park), up to Wave Hill. Wave Hill is a small botanical garden that offers free admission on Saturday mornings. At the garden, we saw a man that I can only describe as the Pickle Man, and I would love to know his life story.

Imaginary Re-enactment:
"I went to the park today to have my daily pickle. I was hungry. This is what I order for lunch every day. I like to cut my dill pickle into three meticulous vertical slices. They have to be sliced at exactly 1/3 the volume of the pickle. I do this with a plastic knife. Slowly, I cut my dill pickle into slices. I enjoyed my vertically sliced pickle very much today."

I was amazed at Wave Hill beautiful indoor cactus and succulent garden.

They also have a lily pond that is a favorite of my friend's. I enjoyed it, too. Lily ponds remind me of those 500 piece puzzles that are tricky because they have about 1001 not-quite-the-same instances of lily pads. This one was not like that though.

We probably walked about 4 miles from the subway, to the garden, and back to my friend's apartment. We ate lunch at a deli in the Bronx called Cold Cut City. I think the name comes from the fact that they put enough cured meat on my sub to feed a small city. Or at least one of the boroughs.

After our morning excursion, boyfriend and I were glad to rest up when we got back to the hotel. We had been exhausted. Later for that evening's entertainment, we found a wine bar called Cavatappo. If you say this very quickly, your friends might think you are saying "tapas," but you are not. So say it loudly. Cavatappo had cheese plates, wine, and thin-crust pizza. I ordered scamorzo cheese (if I remember the spelling correctly), and pear-and-gorgonzola pizza. I would make that again at home, I think. I particularly liked the chalk art on the walls.

After dinner, we went to a comedy club, New York Comedy Club. For $15, we saw 6 different comics, most of whom were hilarious. The uncensored jokes cracked me up. There were some good jokes, although I keep this blog rated PG... so unfortunately I won't share them :) There were a lot of people of different ethnicities there, and boy did some of them get heckled. There was the big table of Asians ("hey, the karate kid over there"), and the big black guy sitting next to me ("Oh, and we got Kenan over here"). Point being, if you don't want to get heckled at a comedy club, just sit next to someone who is a more interesting race than you are, or for bonus points, an interracial couple, and the comic is sure to heckle them and not you.

Lastly, here's the Overheard in New York moment of the trip:

Gay man on the street: "I would SO be a lesbian for Queen Latifah!"

Stay tuned for tomorrow and my last post on my NYC trip (day 3 and 4).

New York City Trip - Day 1

2010-07-07T00:34:00.002-04:00

I took a trip with my boyfriend to New York over the 4th of July weekend. It was also our celebration of our "meeting each other" anniversary, so the timing was just right for a weekend trip. Today I will tell you about day 1 of our trip.

Before the trip, I spent a few hours at my favorite salon in DC, getting all sorts of spiffed up, with a new haircut and a pedicure. I'm not normally the type of girl who goes and gets "mani-pedis" (can you see me making a disgusted face as I say this?), so I enjoyed a chance to get pampered at the salon.

To get to NYC, we took a ride aboard the Washington Deluxe (which is not deluxe, but certainly is freezing cold) and exited at Penn Station in the mid-evening.

We stayed at a hotel in Soho. I thought it was a great location, probably the best location that we've stayed at during our past 3 trips to New York. I liked that we were in walking distance of lots of restaurants, bars, and other sights. (The hotel also had a smartly-designed glassed-in porch, on which I enjoyed my free breakfasts of cheese omelets every morning.)

Shortly after we got settled in the hotel, we searched for a place to eat dinner. I like using apps like Time Out New York, Yelp, or Urbanspoon. Searching for restaurants only when necessary makes going on vacation so much more spontaneous. We usually don't make a lot of plans in advance, because we like to just relax on vacation and not feel rushed like we're on a middle school field trip.

That evening, we ate at a Latin American restaurant, Ideya. What is the number one sign of authentic Latin food? Goya products. Latin people love their Goya. If Goya sold Adobo-scented deodorant, it would probably sell like nobody's business (except that it would be Goya's business, and they would have a lot of it). To put the Goya-love in perspective for you, this restaurant had a display case full of Goya juice, right in the front of the bar. For dinner, I had pico de gallo with plaintain chips, bacalaitos (fried salt cod, a Puerto Rican favorite), pork with rice, flan, and a coconut mojito on the side. While I can't scientifically put Ideya's claims of "the best mojito in the City" to the test, I can anecdotally agree to this, based on my sample size of n=1. Call it a case study in rum drinks, if you will.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post on Day 2 of my trip.

The Eat-Cute: So this eggplant walks into a restaurant...

2010-07-02T09:00:00.044-04:00

I have had vegetables coming out of my ears for weeks!!

What an image. "Coming out of my ears" is such a strange idiom of the English language.

Anyway, what's cooking this week? Sandwiches, eggplant, and some green beans.

DC-Inspired Recipes: Grilled turkey, swiss, and sun-dried tomato sandwich:
This week on Prince of Petworth I discuss grilled sandwiches and wine.

More from the kitchen:
I enjoyed this recipe for Eggplant Au Gratin from Taste of Home, which was mentioned in my local farmer's market newsletter. I think "au gratin" is misleading, though, as the term implies something redolent of herbs and fine French cheeses. For this particular recipe though, which consists of eggplant topped with the comfort-food standbys of tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, I might have been tempted to call it, "An Eggplant Walks Into A Vaguely Italian-Themed Eatery." (He walks out feeling a little baked.)

And lastly,
I made some Green beans with mustard sauce, from the Doubleday Cookbook. I've been working my way through this 700+ page tome, one vegetable at a time. This recipe is nothing unusual - just beans with a basic sauce, fancied up with some mustard. You will probably see mustard as a re-occurring theme on here on my blog. Please direct yourself to the nearest "unsubscribe" button if this does not amuse you. For my fellow cooking enthusiasts, I have posted the recipe.

Ingredients:
Green or yellow string beans
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1/4 cup of green bean boiling water
1/2 cup of milk
1/4 cup of yellow mustard (like the Corona Lime Mustard I made awhile back)
1 tbsp Worchestershire sauce

Directions:
Clean and trim the beans. Boil the beans for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan.
4. Stir in the flour into the butter. Stir in the water and the milk into the butter-flour paste, stirring "constantly" until it's thickened. Stir the mustard and W. sauce into the sauce. Eat the beans with the sauce.

Reflection: What's a great job?

2010-07-01T09:00:00.002-04:00

Finding a great job. That's what everyone wants, right? A great job could mean high pay, reasonable hours, a nice boss, a short commute, or interesting work. Personally, I think DC is a wonderful place to find lots of those checkboxes, but I might be a little bit biased. I feel lucky that I have always had jobs that I enjoy doing. What is it about great jobs that make them so great? Here's a few that I thought of - mostly inspired by my current job, but drawn upon some great experiences I've had in the past as well.

1. Learning about the field: My workplace hosts MANY seminars, meetings, and courses, in which people both inside and outside of our office speak about their work. I chose this current job over another one partially because of opportunities like this - and I'm really glad I did.

2. Accepting attitudes towards other coworkers: Different backgrounds and perspectives are really welcomed. I think it goes beyond a hackneyed "diversity mission statement" in that there really IS an effort to understand where other people are coming from. I don't feel an attitude that someone "doesn't fit" because of a particular background or career goal. Also, most people are really nice. There's not a lot of negative office gossip.

3. Reasonable hours: While I sometimes work weekends, I always know ahead of time when it's going to be, and it's usually a reasonable number of weekends per month. The key is, I'm never pressured into working long or odd hours at the last minute. I am very glad that my time is respected, since it helps my sanity. I am better able to plan for my personal life and non-work interests, both of which are very important to me to maintain.

4. Getting to work with people in the community. I work in research, and I love working with the people who volunteer for studies. I recruit them to come in, stay in contact with them throughout the recruitment process, and interact with them when they come in for the studies. This is interesting because I have first-hand experience with the participants' experiences in the study. I've learned a LOT this way, and I've gotten a perspective that people further removed from the day-to-day operations don't get.

Other positive aspects which I will mention briefly:
-getting to work on different projects
-decent commute to where I live
-getting to have input on or greater responsibility in new projects
-getting respectable pay for work done

I am thinking about these things because one of my goals lately is to pay more attention to the positive parts of my daily life, and to give more acknowledgment to those things. I think talking about the job I do for most of my day is a natural place to start.

What are some of your thoughts on what makes a great job great? Any positive experiences that you've had that you'd like to share?

Volunteer experiences in DC

2010-06-28T22:44:00.000-04:00

Over the past few months, I have signed up with Greater DC Cares to volunteer with a few local organizations. For those unfamiliar with this organization, GDCC serves as a middleman to sign up volunteers with non-profits across the area. The best parts about signing up with GDCC are that you can help out with different non-profits while only signing up with one organization, and that there are no long-term commitments (you sign up for 1 project at a time, and each project is only about 2-3 hours). It also means, though, that you're not guaranteed a spot on the project each week and you won't necessarily get to work with the same people consistently. Their system works for me though - I like variety. I thought I would use this post to recount some of my experiences with GDCC, for the information of anyone who's interested in volunteering with them, or for anyone else who just wants to hear about it.

One project that I helped with this weekend, that I have mentioned before on this blog, is a community garden group at the Parkview Rec Center in DC. Mostly the work has involved pulling up weeds. I have to admit it is disheartening to spend an hour pulling up weeds one week, only to come back another time to see that they have multiplied. But that aside, I am really impressed so far at how well the garden is growing there. The people that work on the project are also pretty cool and enthusiastic about urban gardening. My favorite part is when the kids at the rec center come by to help us plant.

Earlier this week, I also helped out with Books For Prisons, which sends books to prisoners who have written in to request books. Some people ask for any kind of book, fiction or non-fiction, others have a particular book in mind which they ask for. Many of the letters I opened were from people who said they had no money or no one to send them anything, and the project staff told us that they especially try to fulfill book requests from under-served areas. For two hours, I opened letters from prisoners, looked through stacks of donated books for books that at least came close to their requests, and wrapped the books up in brown paper to send. The man who worked there said, "If there was ever any lesson that might teach someone to stay out of prison, this would be it." I can believe it. Prisoners are only allowed to request 2-3 books every few months. Often the letters I opened were weeks or months old, which shows how long it takes for requests to go through "the system." Some of the requests for specific authors or types of books I was unable to fulfill simply because those kinds of books hadn't been donated. I normally don't stop to think about how life would be if I had all the time in the world but I could only receive two books, picked somewhat at random from a donations bin, every six months. But what would it be like?

Through GDCC, I've also worked on a soup kitchen project (Loaves and Fishes) which is based at a church in DC, and a furniture donations non-profit (A Wider Circle) based in Silver Spring. If anyone reading this would like to hear more about those projects, feel free to leave me a comment and I can tell you about it here or in a future post.

Balcony garden

2010-06-21T22:49:00.001-04:00

Today's bonus post: pictures from my balcony garden, or "Proof that You Can Blog even if you don't have anything to talk about." Enjoy!

These are the herbs that I'm growing: mint (the huge one on the table), basil, savory, oregano, dill, and thyme.

Pink, orange, and fuchsia flowers from Roozen's on Georgia Ave.

This is my shelf where I grow marigolds and herb seedlings.

The Eat-Cute: The latest from the kitchen

2010-06-21T22:37:00.005-04:00

This week's roundup of recipes:

Zucchini pancakes with basil-dill cream

These pancakes are easy to make (as long as you don't drop half your zucchini in the sink! oops!) and a wonderful way to use up zucchinis. I used both yellow and green ones. I also added in spinach, because I love spinach. The chive I substituted for dill, because I grow that in my garden.

Lemony potato salad

I found this potato salad delicious, and not overwhelmingly acidic. The celery is not essential. Seasoned with basil and dill. Strong mayo taste though.

Roasted beets and saffron quinoa

I have a tough time with eating beets, because the smell repulses me, but this recipe makes them manageable. Saffron looks like the sprinkles in rainbow cake when you boil it in quinoa.

Black bean hummus

Cuban black beans and tahini. Forget you, chickpeas.

And the latest on DC-Inspired Recipes (my weekly feature on Prince of Petworth):
Stuffed Patty Pan Squash

La Fete de la Musique

2010-06-21T22:27:00.004-04:00

This weekend, I went to La Fete de la Musique (The Festival of Music) that was hosted at the French Embassy in DC. The Embassy is an enormous concrete compound, taking up more space than I even thought there was in the whole District. Having come here once some years ago to pick up my student visa, I'd never have imagined that outside its staid, bureaucratic walls could be a carefree summer festival. So I was stunned, and I was happy. Bands were set up all around the hills, and as we walked by we heard a band playing world music, a DJ spinning funk, a cover band singing american songs in a french accent, and people singing along and dancing. Inside the embassy there was more music: an old-time jazz orchestra, people swing dancing, an a cappella singing group, and a jazz trio with bass, piano, and fiddle (my personal favorite of the evening). I was amazed by those guys. Aside from the jazz trio, the other best part of the evening were the flamethrowers. They fought with flaming swords. I was again, of course, blown away.

The DJ in the courtyard:

A video of the flaming sword fight:

From Fete de la Musique

We survived!

2010-06-13T21:12:00.002-04:00

This weekend, I went down to Scottsville, VA (an hour and a half from Richmond, VA) to go on a James River tubing trip in celebration of a friend's birthday.

Normally, I might have come back saying it was fun, we had some laughs, floated down the river, end of story.

Well, I CAN say we had some laughs and floated down the river, but the story doesn't end there. We survived a freak thunderstorm on our way! We were about 2/3 of the way down the river and the sun was shining. Moments later, it was pouring rain and booming thunder. Trying not to get struck by lightning, we paddled furiously to a little island in the river and waited in the mud until rescue came. Then we saw someone waving to us from the other side of the river. It was the driver of our rescue bus. We waddled all the way across the river with our tubes, against the current, in the mud, just to escape the thunder and lightning. Despite how muddy and drenched we were when we got to shore...all 15 of us survived!

I would definitely recommend tubing in the James to anyone looking for a summer adventure. And if it rains, that's just more adventure.

DC-Inspired recipes: Week 5

2010-06-13T20:56:00.001-04:00

On my latest edition of DC-inspired Recipes (hosted by Prince of Petworth): local produce goodies, including Garlic-Sauteed Swiss Chard, Pork and Vegetable Curry, and Black Bean Salad.

Dan is always so nice to post my weekly feature, and I love reading all the comments. If you are visiting from PoP, thanks for dropping by!

Summer reading recommendations?

2010-06-11T01:24:00.001-04:00

Anyone have any good fiction recommendations for summer reading? I'm wanting to read more fiction these days. I've just finished reading Emma by Jane Austen (loved it!), and I have a gift card to Barnes and Noble that's a-burnin' in my wallet. Got any suggestions for me?

Eat Local: Community Supported Agriculture

2010-06-10T19:37:00.001-04:00

I just joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) for the first time this spring. For those of you wondering, a CSA is a farm that you can buy a share in, in exchange for locally-grown produce once a week. You sign up and pay before the season starts, so they have the money ahead of time to invest in growing wonderful produce at their farm.

The one that I joined, Norman's Farm Market, allows me to pick up the produce from their local roadside stand. Other CSAs sometimes deliver, whereas some ask for volunteer work at their farm. Some CSAs offer "half shares" for 1-2 people and others only offer "whole shares" for a family. Some offer flowers or meat/dairy products, and some just offer fruits or vegetables. The point is, you can find what you want, when you want it, how you want it, where you want it! As for me, I am super excited about this because each week will be a surprise (as I don't know in advance what produce I will get)! It is like Christmas each week.

Sunday was the first pick-up week, and I was thrilled to take home a HUGE box of fruits and vegetables. Part of the fun was just in going to the different tables at the stand and deciding what I would fill my box with. I got a basket of potatoes, 3 pounds of vegetables including squash, peas, and tomatoes, a bunch of swiss chard and a bunch of beets, and a pint of strawberries. It was awesome taking home all this plunder. It's fresh stuff, too - as a friend of mine put it, "wow, these are actual strawberries, not fake strawberries!"

So is it worth it?
Cost for CSA per week: $15
Cost at nearby chain supermarket (Giant) for comparable items: $27

Wow! Can you believe it would have been almost twice as much? The calculation for Giant was with conventional produce too - it wasn't considering what probably would have been higher prices there for "organic" or "local" produce. Since one of my goals right now is to spend less on my groceries, this helping me save a lot of money while also allowing me to try new foods, eat healthy, and help the local economy.

Well, I'm excited to see what I'll get for the rest of the season. If you are interested in finding a CSA near where you live, check out Local Harvest. Do any of you have any other tips on getting local produce?

An evening at Volt

2010-06-05T21:42:00.000-04:00

Partially because of my man's birthday request and partially because of a lost poker game, I took my boyfriend out to dinner at Volt, a local "fancy rest-o-rahnt." Volt, or more correctly, VOLT, is about an hour north, in Frederick, MD, along a strip of quaint buildings (not unlike Old Town Alexandria, VA). I think VOLT can most accurately be described as fine ironic dining for former hipsters. The restaurant is located in a renovated Victorian brownstone and serves gourmet food on white tablecloths, but dresses its waiters in converse sneakers and plays Franz Ferdinand from the loudspeakers. To give you an idea of how popular this restaurant is, we could not get reservations until about 3 weeks after my boyfriend's birthday. VOLT is not to be bothered by such things as when his mother decided to birth him.

Among the items we enjoyed were tuna tartare, beef tenderloin over risotto, and what I could barely order with a straight face, the "textures of chocolate." The waiter even sent us home with cellophane-wrapped lemon-poppy muffins. Until the next birthday-slash-lost bet, I think my culinary demons have been quite satisfied!

Reflection: Learning to Cook

2010-06-04T19:08:00.003-04:00

Week 4 of DC-Inspired Recipes is up, and this time it's an Eastern Market recipe: http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2010/06/dc-inspired-recipes-cornish-game-hen-from-eastern-market-by-laura/

I've gotten asked before, "How did you learn how to cook? How do you find the time and energy to cook and blog about it?" Here's some of my reflections on the matter:

When I first took an active interest in cooking, I started from my mom's cookbooks and cooking occasionally for my family. I just had to think about what we had on hand, and what I could do with that. Since my family were creatures of habit and didn't buy a massive variety of foods, I had to look through a lot of recipes to find one that we had most of the ingredients for and that everyone would eat.

Now that I'm out on my own and am free to make whatever I want, I often think of things I enjoy in restaurants, and then I try to make them at home. If I really liked the breakfast burrito I had for brunch at a restaurant, I'll remember that it had eggs, tortilla, peppers, beans, and cheese, and make it at home one day. Restaurants are a great source of inspiration. I find it's fairly simple to find a comparable recipe online, and most dishes are not as complicated as they seem. The magic is mostly in the flourishes like that fresh sprig of parsley or leaf of basil. If something does sound complicated, I look around for easier-to-make version of that same item. Ultimately, if I make a dish and determine it's not worth committing that much time to cooking it, I feel better about buying it at a restaurant. Sushi, for example, CAN be fun to make at home, but it's labor- and time-intensive and requires ingredients I don't normally buy. Even though it costs more at a restaurant, the time and work savings cancel out for me. Sushi's a fun "project" food, but not something I want to make regularly.

I constantly refer to cookbooks and/or online recipes. If you follow the ingredients list and cooking instructions, it's hard to go terribly wrong. What I like about online recipes are that I can see other people's reviews and suggestions on how to alter a recipe. Reading the feedback helps me know how hard or costly the recipe was for other people to make.

Related to that, if I want to learn a new cooking technique, I use YouTube videos as my 'cooking school.' Cookbooks sometimes assume you already know how to, say, roll a gnocchi. If you don't know how, I can guarantee that someone on the web has already posted a video to teach you. I don't know what these random chefs' motivation is, but kudos to them.

Once I learn how to make something, I think of recipes as "equations." Take the omelette for example. You start with a "base" of egg and you can fill it with anything. Most recipes boil down to equations like that. 1 egg base, 1 type of cheese, 1 type of vegetable, 1 type of meat, and some seasoning. Ingredients are just variables. I hardly EVER make the same recipe twice. I like to vary my options. I do make similar recipes very often, though. When you invest time in learning how to make a dish, you learn even more if you can figure out what foods can be substituted next time.

When I'm selecting items to go in recipes, I try to purchase raw, versatile ingredients. For example, if I buy mushrooms, I can use them in multiple ways such as salads, pasta, omelettes, stir fry, and so on. Purchasing raw ingredients (as opposed to ready-made frozen stuff) allows me to be more flexible. If I have an ingredient leftover, I don't have to make the same dish again. I look up something new I can make with that!

Where do I get the motivation to do this after a long day of work? I've always had an interest in making recipes, which I think I picked up from my mom. She also liked to make meals from scratch when I was a kid. We only went out to eat a few times a month! The rest of the time we had food from scratch, or at least from a kit or mix. I think one way she made this go efficiently was that she had special "nights" of the week for certain foods. I can still tell you what we ate when I was 6 years old because it hasn't changed much over the years. Sunday night used to be chicken, vegetables, and mashed potatoes (although now it is soup and sandwiches), Monday night is spaghetti with mushrooms and meatballs, Friday night used to be hot dogs, baked beans, and macaroni when I was a kid (but now it's seafood from the local shop), and Saturday is steak or hamburgers with baked potatoes and salad (always grilled during the summer). What about Tuesday through Thursday? Well, that was the mystery meat :) Anyway, it always makes me smile that whenever I go home, I can count on Friday Night Seafood.

Aside from that, I don't write about every dish I make. I think that would be boring! Not everything turns out great, but more often than not, I'm pleased with the results. If I think there is an unusual aspect to write about for something I've created, I snap a quick picture on my phone before I gobble it up. Then I try to write it up after dinner before I forget.

That's most of what there is to it. Nothing too radical - just a love of variety, learning new skills, and good food.

Mango lime soda

2010-05-19T15:24:00.001-04:00

The latest edition of DC-inspired Recipes on Prince of Petworth:

http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2010/05/dc-inspired-recipes-soda-taxes-or-homemade-mango-lime-soda-by-laura

Reflection: Reducing Stress

2010-05-17T22:47:00.002-04:00

I recently went to a wonderful talk on mindfulness and stress reduction that was hosted at my workplace. The speaker, Rezvan Ameli, gave us some simple, useful strategies for becoming mindful and aware of our own thoughts and actions.

Afterwards, I started thinking about the ways in which I try to reduce stress in my own life. I do not pretend to be an expert on dealing with stress, and in fact, there are many times still in my life when I feel overwhelmed with stress. It is odd to think sometimes that my life could be stressful - I have a great job now, wonderful friends and family, and a lot of other positive things to be thankful for. Yet, it is important to realize that stress comes to everyone, no matter their situation in life. No one is more "worthy" of stress than others.

I think in recent years, I have become much better at managing daily stress. In the past, I was much less adept at dealing with stress. I might have become very upset at something almost daily, whereas now it is limited to once or twice a month. I wondered, what are some of the ways I have now for dealing with stress?

1) Having a regular sleep-wake schedule. I have an 8-hour a day, Monday-Friday job, and for me, this is pretty much the best schedule that I could have. I am no longer staying up extremely late night after night. Having the motivation to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time has really evened out my stress levels. It has also significantly decreased the amount of napping that I do. I used to fall asleep during class consistently (I suspect this was a conditioned response after awhile). While it still happens from time to time, it has decreased from every single time to once every now and then.

2) Reducing being around people who stressed me out. In the past, I spent a lot of time around people that made me feel stressed out. It wasn't their "fault," but the situation would stress ME out. Now that I am more independent in the world, I can choose better who I wish to spend time with and who I don't. Instead I put my energy towards the relationships that matter. I also don't try to have social activities going on ALL the time anymore - it is OK if I see a good friend just every once in awhile. I don't think that "avoiding" a situation is necessarily helpful, though. I think there is a big difference between pro-actively choosing not to be in a bad situation that cannot be improved, and passively just trying to avoid a situation that could be improved or learned better.

3) Listening to/reading something before I go to sleep. A lot of times it is really hard for me to go to sleep. Something that actually helps a lot is to listen to a not-terribly-engaging podcast. I often listen to NPR's "Car Talk" because it is mildly amusing and each segment is only about 3 minutes long. This means that I can't get too involved in it. I usually am out within about 10 minutes. (Don't worry...I don't listen to it in my car!)

4) Writing out to-do lists on paper. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed from the idea that there are multiple priorities in my head. Writing them down lessens the cognitive burden. If it still seems too much, I break it down into smaller tasks.

5) Taking a moment to be "mindful". This was talked about in the lecture, and it's something I do from time to time as well. If something happens, I can either "react" or I can "pause and respond." That is, I can either do something automatically, or I can stop and think, "is this really how I want to deal with this situation?" Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes the answer is yes. But either way, by observing my own reactions, I know that I have thought about it.

6) Making things. This is anything from making a nice dinner, refinishing a bookcase, making a sweater, sewing a skirt, etc. I just like to have projects to keep busy, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of creating beautiful things from ordinary supplies.

7) Biking. It does not require a lot of hand-eye coordination, keeping score, or special equipment (other than a bike and a helmet). I like to challenge myself to go further or steeper than I have before. The other day, I biked up 2 hills that previously were too steep for me. What a great feeling it was to conquer those hills.

8) Mindful breathing and listening. Again, this is something discussed in the lecture that I wanted to share. All it takes is taking a moment out of the day to close your eyes, breathe in deeply and breathe out deeply. I think mindfulness can be applied to other activities as well. It is too easy to just go about life on autopilot or to multitask. It can be done with things as simple as eating dinner. I like to just turn off the TV or laptop and just really pay attention to what I am eating.

9) Keeping my house clean. I noticed the other week that I was feeling stressed out immediately upon entering my apartment. Laundry was still hanging up to dry everywhere, my bike wasn't put away, and dishes were still on the counter. I figured I just needed to put stuff away. I actually felt a lot calmer when I was done, and also the next day when I got home.

10) Thinking about the big picture. Being stressed out happens easily if I'm worried about the future and what "might" happen. However, all that stuff is just imaginary and hypothetical. I try to think about how it's going to work out just fine. I know that in a month, week, or year, it will be worked out, and I might even laugh about it.

I'll stop there at 10, even though it's a bit formulaic.

What are some ways that you guys find effective for dealing with stress? What has or hasn't worked for you?

Projects Update: Staining a Bookshelf

2010-05-17T22:18:00.001-04:00

With the warm weather upon us, I have been given a new impetus to finish painting projects that languished over the winter. My biggest (i.e., messiest project) was to stain an unfinished pine bookshelf to a nice espresso finish, which would match the rest of my furniture. I don't have any before pics, but it was from Ikea, similar to the Ivar shelf they have now. I started the staining project during the fall, but then it was moved inside for the winter and put on hold. This week, I resolved to finish that pesky bookshelf. Once I finished sealing it with gloss, I affixed a little accent light to the display shelf.

Looks nice, doesn't it?

Lessons learned:

1) I will never again underestimate the time it takes to stain a bookshelf. With multiple surfaces to each piece, and multiple coats on each surface, I just calculated that there were 180 separate coats on this project! Add an additional step of waiting 20 minutes to wipe off the excess, and 2-3 hours drying time in between coats to that, and I should have realized how long this would take. Doing pieces in groups only cuts down on the work so much. So the first lesson is to realize that more surfaces = much more work.

2) The second lesson was that it is much better to paint the piece assembled than disassembled, even if that means it's less thorough. Early on in the project, since the shelf is adjustable, I wanted to paint the legs without having uncovered spots, which meant I disassembled the shelf to paint it. This made it harder and messier since it took up more space to paint. Later on, I realized it was going to be much more achievable to finish if I just put the shelf together. While it is no longer adjustable (without uncovered spots, anyway), at least it is finished, and a finished non-adjustable shelf is much more useful than an unfinished adjustable shelf.

This being said, will it be crazy if I begin another wood staining project in the near future?

Adams Morgan, or Brunch with Oompa Loompas

2010-05-17T21:46:00.003-04:00

I love brunch in Adams Morgan/Dupont. Variations on the Scrambled Egg are enough to get me out of bed.

Since I've been apartment hunting for new digs in the District, I've been down in the area a little bit more recently. And yes! That means more brunch!

Saturday's stop was at Lauriol Plaza. I've been there before for their crazy crowds, enchiladas mariscos, and swirled margaritas, but never for brunch. The best bet is to show up early before the noon rush. We got in around 11:45 am - the place was empty. About 10 minutes later, the whole patio was buzzing.

Turns out that Lauriol was the best place to be at noon on this particular Saturday, since as we soon witnessed, all kinds of contestants for something called the "Great Urban Race" came running by. Is anyone familiar with this? From my observation this must be some sort of race-slash-costume contest-slash-scavenger hunt. Or as my boyfriend put it, "Do these people really have nothing else to do?" We witnessed a couple of Oompa-Loompas, Super Heros, and People Dressed in Lots of Pink run by and take pictures at the intersection.

People watching, check. Breakfast burrito, check.

Sunday's stop was at Slaviya, the restaurant that replaced my old favorite, Left Bank. I'm not quite sure what the story is on the renovation, but basically what they did was swap out Left Bank's breezy yellow walls with black, brown, and red night-time decor. It would be like if you gave techno music and rail drinks a visual. I don't know if that paints a picture for you, but just think that this doesn't really bode well for the brunch atmosphere. They have exactly the same brunch menu as before, though. I was hoping the quality of the food would have been the same as before, but unfortunately it was poorly made this time. I'm assuming they just hired a new chef who doesn't know how to cook the old specials the same way. Slow service, too. I will have to find a new place for brunch.

Eggs with salmon and cream cheese, check.

New apartment? Still searching for that one.

The Eat-Cute: Beer and Mustard

2010-05-10T23:21:00.003-04:00

In honor of the great month of May, which brings us wonderful things such as warm weather, more baseball, graduations, and three-day weekends, there are two foods which are necessary to discuss. Beer and mustard.

Beer, obviously, because it is the outdoor beverage par excellence in May. Nothing quite says May like finally being able to sit on your patio and busting out your bottle opener. And mustard, because it tops foods we might enjoy in May such as enormous salty pretzels and hot dogs.

I have created an original recipe for May that involves both of these: Corona and Lime Mustard. (Or should we call it...wait for it...Cinco de Mustard?) Corona beer, mustard, and of course, a little bit of lime on the side.

Corona and Lime Mustard

3 tbsp ground mustard
3 tbsp beer (Corona)
1 egg, beaten
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp lime juice

Blend it all together in a double boiler over boiling water until it's mixed well. Sorry about the poorly lit iphone photo, though. The final product really does resemble mustard and not hummus, I promise.

I am also experimenting with making other kinds of mustard. I am trying this recipe for homemade mustard that involves soaking whole grains of mustard in vinegar. I feel like I am doing a science experiment because I have to let it sit for a few days. Not one to stick plainly to the recipe though, I am soaking this in an old liquor bottle, which still has a thick aroma of bourbon left in it. I am hoping it transfers over to the mustard. If it does, it would be like my very own bottle of Terrific Broth, and I would call it Terrific Mustard (it will make my hot dogs terrific). If it doesn't, I will just call it mustard.

The Eat-Cute: Cuckoo for Cocoa...Smoothies

2010-05-08T10:58:00.002-04:00

My friend Emily brought me a present of Cocoa mix from her trip to the Biltmore in Asheville, NC. Thanks are in order. I don't have a huge sweet tooth, but I do recognize the value of a good hot chocolate mix. The best mix is a subject of great debate within the Hot Chocolate Community. Certain people swear by Swiss Miss, others go for Land of Lakes or a gourmet brand of their choosing (to say nothing of the Water vs. Milk schools of thought, of which I am a strict Milk adherent).

Dear readers, I can settle this debate over the best hot chocolate mix. You need none other than (let me look at this label): The Famous Pacific Dessert Company's Gourmet Hot Cocoa (subtitle: America's Irresistible Indulgence!).

This stuff is creamy, full of chocolate flavor, and not a hint of grainy thinness. I am sure you are wondering, and I must admit I was, too, upon receiving this gift, "now what am I going to do with HOT cocoa in May?" Wait. Not only are there directions on the box for how to make their hot cocoa, but the fine folks at TFPDC were thoughtful enough to include a recipe for chocolate smoothies on the side of the box. Maybe I am late to the Chocolate Smoothies party (fashionably late, I hope), but it really never occurred to me before to put hot cocoa mix in cold icy smoothies. I had a smoothie phase around 2006, when I put just about everything sold in the produce, dairy, and frozen aisle into some sort of smoothie. This had something to do with me being a college student and never having time for breakfast. Now, though, I have been off the Blender for some time and thought that there was no better re-entry to cold breakfast drinks than chocolate mix.

The recipe goes as follows: milk, yogurt, cocoa mix, and ice. My other secret ingredient to smoothies is Ground Flaxseed, because it lends nuttiness and fiber, and as I'm sure you are well aware if you have been following this blog for any length of time, I am a big proponent of nuttiness (you may be less aware of my fondness for fiber).

Nom nom!

The best Nats fan

2010-05-08T10:31:00.000-04:00

Dear Diary,
Last night at the Nats game was incredible. I saw the best sports fan ever. His name was Terrance. I know this because it was on the back of his special red Nats Jersey. Terrance was a lively soul, rousing the crowd into cheers. When we were down in the 9th inning, Terrance was not dismayed. Terrance was in great cheer. He lifted us all to our feet with his exuberant bursts of team spirit. I've never seen anything like Terrance and his rousing of the crowd. It didn't matter that we were down by 2 to the Marlins. No! Terrance did a special dance to make us all love being Nats fans again. In my opinion, Terrance should be promoted from mere fan to Coach. Sorry Riggleman, Terrance is coming at ya. Instead of the coaches doing subtle signals, Terrance is going to wave his arms and get down.

Don't you worry about a thing, Terrance is gonna come to your rescue!

Yours truly,
Laura

Terrific broth

2010-04-28T15:21:00.000-04:00

I have found what I believe to be the most unusual ingredient yet. Spotted while on an unofficial tour of a molecular imaging lab:

If I drink it, will it make me terrific?

Golf

2010-04-23T10:37:00.001-04:00

I have been trying different outdoor activities this spring, and the latest one is golf. My golf career has been a long time in the making, starting with my many years of experience playing mini-golf on vacations to the beach. However, until about last year, I had never been to a driving range (what I like to call 'real golf'), so my loving boyfriend kindly took it upon himself to teach me a few things about golf. Quote, "You're taking an interest in what I'm doing!" As he has just now purchased himself a shiny new set of golf clubs, he has bequeathed the former set to me, so I am now, surprisingly, A Person Who Has Golf Clubs. The fact that I'm not totally sure what a wood is or does is besides the point (please leave snickering comments below). Now, I just have to get some practice in, and I'll be golfin' it up and making important business deals on the green in no time.

Luckily for me, there are a couple of places to practice golf around here, and I am happy to report that I have not taken out any people or small animals with any errant balls thus far.

One place to go is Top Golf down in Alexandria. This is a place where not only you can whack balls long distances, but you can play for points based on how far you have whacked said balls. It is like Mini Golf for Grownups.

Another place to go is the Paint Branch Golf Complex. It's only about 20 minutes from my house, which is better for me if I want to go hit some balls after work. To quote my boyfriend, "This is better than happy hour!" We went last night (which marked the third occasion of me practicing my swing), and I even surprised myself with a few good shots. I'm telling you, it's all that Tiger Woods Golf for Wii that I've been playing. The PBGC also offers lessons for about $150 for 6 lessons, which I'm thinking about doing. (Has anyone taken golf lessons before? Is this a good deal?)

So, have any of you readers out there ever played golf? Got any golf tips for me?

Panama city pirates

2010-04-23T10:00:00.002-04:00

During my trip last weekend to visit friends in Panama City, FL, we ran aboard some pirates:

Also:
-I was pooped on by a seagull (with good aim). Is that why they call it the poop deck?
-the sand on shell island is squeaky

Guest Post on Prince of Petworth

2010-04-15T11:55:00.001-04:00

I have a guest post featured on a noteworthy DC blog, Prince of Petworth. Go check it out!

http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2010/04/guest-post-takoma-park-silver-spring-co-op-and-recipes-by-laura/

I will be writing for Prince of Petworth about once a month on unique local stores and recipes, so stay tuned!

Mystery gift

2010-04-12T11:21:00.001-04:00

Have you ever received a mystery gift? A birthday present that you couldn't quite figure out the purpose of? Perhaps it came with no instructions and you weren't quite sure how to put it together. Or perhaps you're not really sure what the gift giver intended in giving you this present. Well, recently, I received one such mystery gift from my family. The box was labeled as "Hang and Store Expandable Laundry Rack," and supposedly you can hang laundry on it and then fold it up again when you're done. But, I don't think this name adequately describes it, so I call it the Alien Bacteriophage.

Laundry Rack Mystery Gift:

A Bacteriophage:

I am not sure that I can actually use this product because every time I look at it, I am having visions of it infecting my cells while I sleep. I think perhaps it could star in a great B-movie horror film. "LAUNDRY RACK COMES TO LIFE AND INFECTS PLANET!!!" Second only to the film, "Thankskilling", which is comedic gold. I highly recommend checking it out on Instant Queue Netflix if you have any affinity for B-movie horror. It makes Evil Dead II look like an Oscar winner. But I digress.

Now, once I get past my dramatic musings, I am trying to think of some other uses for this product. Something so strange looking should not be limited to a mundane usage such as laundry. By the way, laundry is the most vile chore of them all. Not only does it involve using up coping amounts of water and electricity and pouring soapy chemicals down the drain, but it wastes more of my time with sorting, hanging, folding, sorting again, pressing, hanging again, and storing again. What I really need is a gadget that will take my clothes, and automatically press, hanger, and rack them. The deluxe version would sort by color as that is the superior method of clothes sorting (the sleeve-length method is inferior as it does nothing to help you match your clothes in the morning). Dear inventors of the world, please invent this instead of wasting your time on scary-looking laundry racks.

Dear readers, do you have any ideas for me as to how I can best use my Mystery Gift?

flip flop weather

2010-04-12T10:55:00.001-04:00

During flip flop weather, there's nothing like being a tourist in your own city. Having recently put brand-new tires on my bike (thanks to the fine folks at Silver Cycles, who didn't swindle me when I came in to get it checked out), I've been out touring the trails and sights of DC - namely, Rock Creek and Mount Vernon trails. I think it would be cool to do a blog post on good bike-and-lunch destinations one day, so stay tuned for that in the future.

I spent this past weekend entertaining my parents, during their belated trip to wish me a happy birthday. They love to visit free museums, so off to the Mall we went. We went to the American History museum for my mom where we watched videos of Julia Child roast a lobster in 2 sticks of butter, and we went to the Air and Space museum for my dad. My favorite exhibit featured the history of passenger airlines, complete with a walk-in cross section of a plane.

It is funny that people used to get dressed up to fly on a plane. I am just glad that nowadays I can wear my jeans and flip flops and snuggle up next to the window whenever I fly. Plane naps are the best. Second to that are metro naps. See, normally naps make me feel like I am wasting time. But, if I am en route to a destination, I really don't have much else to do, so it is very efficient to both travel and nap. Plus, I feel somewhat victorious for being able to fall asleep amidst the noise of engines and people talking. I am flying this weekend, actually, to go visit some friends in a flip-flop friendly clime, so I am looking forward to some spectacular plane napping.

The Eat-cute: This one's a lemon

2010-04-01T00:07:00.002-04:00

Lemons! From the far corners of the citrus section at the grocery store, they cry out to me. They light up the dull potato existence of the fruits and vegetable section with their yellow skins.

Lemons are not just for lemonade, folks. I have bought them before and merely used them as garnish or juiced them to a pulp. But today I have decided that I will dedicate a post to seeing how to use every single last bit of one lemon.

1. Recipe One: Oven-roasted leg of lamb. The recipe required, among other things, lemon zest as part of the marinade for the lamb. Thus I derobed this lemon of its yellow skin. There are all kinds of fancy kitchen gadgets out there for zesting a lemon, but as I am a big fan of not having to run to the store every time I come across a new recipe or technique, I decided that the box grater was just fine enough for me.

Sprinkle the zest on the lamb with other seasonings that you like, marinate with apple juice, then take out of the fridge, pour out the juice, pour in chicken broth and wine, and stick it in the oven for awhile.

There is a lot of zest on these suckers, and only 1 leg of lamb for me (which makes me wonder, who out there got to eat the other 3 legs of this particular sheep?). So this is what I was left with, a whole bunch of lemon zest, all dolled up with nowhere to go.

2. Recipe 2 - dried lemon zest. It is fabulously easy to make. Stick it in a microwave (NOT on the foil! I left weird science experiments behind in the 7th grade after that frog dissection class). A couple of minutes later the zest will be all dried out, and you can store it in a jar to use for flavoring food later. I have mine in a spice jar with some other orange zest so I have a wonderful citrusy blend. That is, really, I am just running out of spice jars :)

3. Now imagine that this is a cooking show on TV...because now I am going to pull a fully cooked leg of lamb out of the oven not 1 minute after I discussed how to make it! Abracadabra....

Geez louise...I feel like one of those eating contest people, because honestly I have never cooked so much meat in my life! This thing was enormous. It is about 4 days later and I am still trying to get through this thing. Talk about leftovers, if that's your thing, lamb is for YOU!

4. Whoof! I almost forgot to mention the 3rd and final food recipe to get out of this one poor little lemon. If you have lamb, you will of course wanted some nice roasted veggies like eggplant and red peppers. This is great for busy people like me, who only have so much time to cook, because you can stick them in the oven at the same time as the meat. So all you have to do is just stick it in and hope for the best (my life motto which applies to just about any situation - try it). Back to the lemon. After they are done roasting in the oven on a long summer holiday in the 400 degree weather, you take them out. Then you - are you ready for this - you squeeze the juice from the lemon onto the vegetables. How amazing!

Just when you thought I could not come up with any more ways to abuse this lemon which had the unfortunate luck to fall into my crafty hands, I managed to stick the rest of it down the disposal which according to some folks "cleans" it out. Now I have not seen any scientific research studies showing any sort of correlation between lemon disposing and subsequent cleanliness, but suffice it to say that at least I gave every part of the lemon a purpose.

Until next time...I'll be finishing my leftovers.

Just a Nantahala-back girl

2010-03-26T22:37:00.002-04:00

If I haven't posted for awhile, it's because I'm still in a state of bliss from my recent trip to the Nantahala Forest in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. I went for the weekend, and it was nothing but rustic goodness.

First of all...I will never see a plain old hotel room in the same light again. I've been changed. Hotels have nothing on vacation cabins. Since we were in the mountains, we decided that the only way to go was to stay in a cozy pine chalet. This place was unbelievable. Vaulted ceilings, huge windows that lit up the whole place with mountain daylight, this otherworldly smell of pine everywhere, gorgeous views. It was like living inside the brain of a tree. Except with less termites, I suppose.

One of my favorite things was the totally awesome game room. It was however...a game room of awkward proportions. Think pool is easy? Try playing pool with a foosball table up in your grill.

Now as hard as it was to actually leave the cabin and its many amenities, we did manage to make a scenic drive out to Fontana Dam one day. I say drive because on the 3rd day of our vacation, it SNOWED and thus a full-on hike in the cold was not so appealing anymore. No worries, mom, it wasn't snowing that heavily but there were flurries nonetheless. Yes...us DC area residents bring snow with us wherever we go. It turns out that "Snowpocalypse" is a contagious disease. Here's some sights from the trip:

The nicest weather on the trip was on the day we left, so on our 9-hour trip back, we stopped and drove into the Deep Creek entrance to Great Smoky Mountain Park and did some hiking.

Now I have come back, relaxed and ready to enjoy the cherry-blossom love fest that is DC in the springtime. Ahhhhhh :)

Weekend roundup: Early shots of spring edition

2010-03-08T14:40:00.000-05:00

Wow! it was really beautiful this weekend in DC. I spent a lot of time outside walking around and even did a little biking. I really could stand a find a good bike shop, though.

I'm planning to volunteer this spring with the Parkview Rec Center in Petworth through DC Cares (a local volunteer organization). They have a garden plot which they'll need help with growing vegetables in during the spring and summer. The food all goes to the kids at the rec center, which is great because it sounds like a lot of the kids are on the school lunch program and don't get much healthy food on weekends. I went to a planning seminar this weekend and also had time to walk around the neighborhood a bit before the meeting. The neighborhood is typical of so many DC areas - boarded up businesses punctuated by liquor stores, but also a charter school, community center, and a friendly mom and pop antique shop.

This weekend ended with me crossing off another item on my Silver Spring to-do list: Samantha's Restaurant. It's a local mexican place that gives my other favorite, El Aguila, a run for their money. Samantha's has a delicious pulled-pork-and-mole-sauce dish, and great salsa. 4.25 stars - They get an extra quarter-star for being one of the only restaurants around MoCo that's open late on Sundays. Not everybody sits at home doing chores on Sunday evening, and we need to eat too!

The Eat-Cute: What to do with ALL of those herbs?

2010-03-08T14:32:00.001-05:00

On this week's edition of the Eat Cute, I thought it would be fun to see how to use up lots and lots of fresh herbs. Because it's winter now, I don't have an herb garden growing. During the spring and summer, I can just pick leaves as I need them. So, in the dreary depths of mid-winter, I had to break down and buy a big, expensive bundle of herbs from the grocery store. I hate doing this as the bundles are always just too big and I can never use it all up before it goes bad. I mean, there is a limit to how much parsley a girl can eat in a week. And it costs about as much as a whole packet of seeds would. But I digress.

What do you do with a huge bundle of parsley?

I bought the parsley for a recipe from the Herbs and Spices cookbook (as you might have guessed...it's big on herbs). Nothing fancy, but I wanted a simple twist on the basic Sunday morning scrambled eggs. A few herbs later, I had Scrambled Eggs with Mushrooms and Parsley. That's pretty much all it is - a few sauteed mushrooms with parsley, mixed into some eggs that have more parsley.

But here's the dilemma: I had to buy a whole bunch of parsley, when all I really needed was a few generous pinches of it.

That's when the next step comes in - find a recipe that uses herbs in a way that they can be preserved until I'm ready to eat them. Oh, and I get to talk about one of my favorite cookbooks in the process. I made garlic parsley butter. This recipe comes from Grilling: When there's Smoke There's Flavor, which is an amazing cookbook featuring recipes from around the world. The recipes show you how they can be grilled indoors or outdoors! The photographs are totally mouth-watering as well! I sneakily 'borrowed' it from my mom's collection, shh :)

Anyway, I've been wanting to try their herb butter recipes for years now, and this was the perfect opportunity.

Take the leftover herbs, a stick of softened butter, and add in anything else you want, like garlic, lime or lemon juice, hot peppers, blue cheese, olives, salt and pepper (not all at the same time - the one I made was just with lemon juice, garlic, and parsley). I think you could do any kind of theme here - maybe next time I will try an italian one with basil, oregano, and sun-dried tomatos, or a mojito version with lime juice and mint leaves.
Blend it. This is the part where I curse my old blender and wish I had a real food processor :)
Roll it up in some foil into a cylinder
Freeze it

Aside from sticky butter fingers (literally!), it's quite easy and quick.The other cookbook I mentioned also has similar ideas, but the grilling cookbook has more simple versions. As a bonus, they give you recipe ideas on how to use your delicious butters. I'm guessing you could do this with other spreads too, like margarine, and hopefully they would freeze and defrost the same way.

There are tons of way to use up herbs - this is just one idea. Other ways involve making pestos and salad dressings, making scented oils and vinegars, making flavored vodka, drying them, freezing them, and so on. Personally though, I think the butters are a food that you can make super quickly AND keep for months at a time.