Decadence

Decadence is:

• Telling your boyfriend you don't feel like going to the kitchen early on a saturday morning and him letting you sleep in with no guilt.
• Having your boyfriend bring you home the free lunch from the soup kitchen.
• Having that same boyfriend deal with your car which has sat in the driveway for four months.
• Having said car miraculously start instantly without even a jump and purr outside the window.
• Having grilled chicken for dinner (the first grilled food of spring -- that batch in Jan doesn't count).
• Having the windows open with the sun shining in and birds singing -- almost like a disney movie!
  
• Having more roasted garlic in the house than most self-respecting vampire haters (20 heads and 1 quart sized bag full of roasted cloves).
  

So a lovely day.

Ooh, and thank you to all of you who have donated to the walk for hunger! For those of you who still want to you can go here: http://www.projectbread.org/goto/get_bitter

Learning to Ask for Help

A friend of mine recently realized she has a problem asking for help -- for those of you who know me, this isn't a situation where I am using "friend" and meaning myself. I love this friend but I don't think she realizes the extent of her problem. I had actually emailed and talked to her several times OFFERING her help. It wasn't even a matter of asking, it was a matter of simply accepting ;). She has a problem accepting help, not just asking for it! Anyway, she's got enough on her plate now, she doesn't need to worrry about that at this point (and if by some fluke that friend is reading -- relax, we've got a plan, we'll be initiating it at 5:00 tomorrow it's all good).

It reminded me, however, about how I hate asking for things myself (unless of course you're my poor parents or my boy in which case I don't really ask I basically demand). In theory, I am doing the walk for hunger again this year -- strangely I feel even more unprepared this year than I did last year when I vowed I was going to train in the spring next time :). So if you'd like to support me, and by extension all the hungry people in MA, you can go to my walk website: http://www.projectbread.org/goto/get_bitter How fun is that? They totally let you just pick any old name for your website. The templates leave a little to be desired, but you can go over and take a look yourself :).

Also, I promise to post pictures of giraffes and maybe even blog about my trip to CO at some point :). In the meantime, if you're bored, you can go look at the project bread website. . . .

Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams

So I have a lot of other things I should catch up with as far as bloggable items (I was in Colorado Springs a week ago and got to feed giraffes for one thing -- I mean clearly cool things that I have negelected to share). I also have a small group study I am not making much progress on and which is really due tomorrow or I have to fake some long prayer thing. . . . There is also actual work, that thing that pays me. . . . sadly not enough to fulfill the dreams I have.

I have been looking at craigslist a lot lately trying to find my boy a place to live starting in August. I have found some gorgeous places. Of course they don't fit into the budget. I gave up for awhile and started looking at places to buy.

I found this one yesterday, it's less than a mile away from a train (according to google, though not sure it's a good walk since it's basically on the side of a minor highway) and has a HUGE yard: http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/rfs/635006983.html can you imagine? a single family home near an actual t station with a giant yard for entertaining? Lovely. sigh.

This place I found today is very urban and open to whatever changes one could desire: http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/rfs/635948150.html (it's not really convenient to public transportation either which is a major criteria, but it's in the underprivileged town where we spend early saturday mornings ;) and there's a studio in the building where if my boy wanted he could display his photographs. For more pictures (because I know you want to drool like I did) you can go here: http://www.abostonloft.com/chelsea_dudley210/photos.htm

Sadly, even though I grew up watching Robin Leach and being surrounded by the 80's affirmation crap that I could do anything, there's no way I can afford to buy anything any time soon. I'll go back to looking at the dives available to rent in the budget my boy has given, but wouldn't it be nice? Don't you wish I could afford one of these cool places? I promise I'd invite you over :).

So what's a month or so among friends?

I haven't been great about actually hooking my camera up to my computer and I didn't want to post about some things till I could put up the pictures and now that I have the pictures, it seems so long ago it's almost not worth posting -- see the vicious cycle? Anyway. . .

Here's a picture of a cupcake my boy and I tried to make like the kind we used to get at LuLu's Bakery in the north end (they've since changed it slightly -- perhaps they learned like we did that marshmallow cream melts fairly quickly):

We made chocolate cupcakes and a marshmallow frosting, we then inundated the marshmallow frosting with graham cracker crumbs we'd made in the food processor. My boy injected the graham cracker marshmallow frosting into the center of the cupcake (we need to work on the technique we don't have an actual pastry injector so he had to improvise) while I made a chocolate ganache. After the cupcakes were injected with graham cracker we put the chocolate ganache on top and then sprinkled more graham cracker crumbs on that finally we put a dollop of marshmallow cream on top and toasted it with a torch. As you can see, suzib doesn't seem to mind the melty-ness:

The other culinary feat we accomplished in the last month was bacon cups for a mini Cobb salad for our friend Debbie's bridal shower (her favorite foods are avocado and bacon so you can see how a Cobb salad was basically mandatory). A friend sent my the instructions from the not Martha website. I adapted her recipe merely by using disposable muffin tins and putting them in a disposable roasting pan so the drippings went into it instead of in the bottom of the oven. I also put the bacon once woven on the muffin tins in the freezer briefly so the shrinking was somewhat minimized. Again, I think there are kinks to be worked out. With our system we only made three at a time. With another roasting pan, I think we could have at least made six at a time. They were worth the effort though, they looked great at the party and tasted amazing!!

For a more in depth look at Debbie's shower you can go to Christina's website. I highly recommend looking at the memorable quotes section (the cutting board line is my favorite). Also, you can see the pretty "sheet" cake Christina and I made out of a king sized sheet set. It's not as easy as you might think from the many instructions available online, or, perhaps, Christina and I just aren't terribly coordinated :).

My Birthday Party Was a Disaster. . . .And Other News. . . .

So my party didn't turn out at all how I pictured it. My family makes fun of me because of my "pictures." They refer back to Lost In Yonkers and compare me to Bella. . . . My Best Friend told me in High School, never invite me to your wedding, I don't want to be there when you have a melt down because it's not how you picture it.

I didn't have a melt down (at least not a complete meltdown) on Saturday, but I mentioned a couple of times it wasn't how I pictured it. The party lacked organization, it lacked thought, it lacked food when people arrived and it lacked the proper equipment and instruction. . . So many things went wrong including poor timing on food which resulted in a glut of food left in our refrigerator and in the cooler we'd set up on the back porch. Every day since, we have had to come up with recipes to use up the massive amounts of fruits vegetables and fish we have left. It's a race to see who wins (general entropy of mold and rot, or us). It's also a reminder at every meal about how disappointing the party was.

Don't get me wrong, the lack of organization, the lack of food etc. none of it was the result of laziness on anyone's part (least of all my boy or suzib) it just happened. Also, the guests at the party were incredible, pitching in where needed being easy going and undemanding. Constantly complimenting and giving me even more wonderful gifts to add to the post before. I felt like I had failed my guests though, both with the food/planning issues and then with my inability to mingle, saying goodbye to some guests I'd only said hello to. . . . It was just a sad state of affairs.

The one good thing to come out of the party (besides the presents and knowing my friends really are chill and fun people) was a grasp of how loved I am by my boy. He had gotten up at 6am to take me to the library Saturday morning where we sat for over an hour waiting for work to be completed. Then he spent insane amounts of money on all of the food that now sits mocking us. He worked hard all day steadily chopping, stirring, cooking etc. and he took it as I got more and more shrill and panicky. He didn't demand attention at the party he'd worked so hard on and he didn't complain when he was kept up late (though he did fall asleep during the after party movie some of us watched ;)). I had time to think about all this as I was doing dishes at 1:30 in the morning. I am truly blessed.

I <3 Presents!!!

So call me selfish, immature and anything else you want, but I. LOVE. PRESENTS. LOVE them. I got some absolute gems yesterday, two gorgeous red knives from my boy.

A star of david bundt pan with a great book called Bundt Cake Bliss (which includes a recipe for a coming out cake which I think is hysterical, if I ever came out, I would totally want a bundt cake with the gay pride flag visible if you gazed down the center). I am very excited.

Oh yes, and I also got another le creuset whisk. I love them. They are something I think no kitchen should be without and with a little bit of hoarding and luck, I should never have to be.

It's my birthday!!!

So far I've gotten lots of ecards, and lovely daffodils and a star of david bunt pan (to name a few items). Ooh, and a cook book which includes a coming out bunt cake recipe. It's really funny. I'll write the description later. Anyway, happy day. I love birthdays, essentially people shower you with presents because you haven't died. That's your one accomplishment. And I know for people like Suzib that sort of is an accomplishment, but really for most of us, it's not that hard ;).