Follow-up

1. The beef stroganoff I made for Dan's birthday was a success! At least, he and Steve pretended to like it. What I made turned out to be more of a beef bourignon because I used red wine instead of white. No fancy-pants cream of mushroom soup for my man! Instead, I used nonfat greek yogurt, a little bit of cream and butter, and a lot of seasoning. I didn't really like cooking the beef (mostly because it made the house smell like cooked beef) and I managed to figure out a way to cook the mushrooms and onions separately so I only ate that part and not the beef part. The rest of the dinner was egg noodles (a must with beef stroganoff), a salad, and a fantastic chocolate cake, the recipe for which I will post tomorrow.

Dan said he had a good birthday, so that's what matters. I gave him a nerdy t-shirt designed by Wil Wheaton, a copy of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, and a bottle of fancy Jameson's Irish Whiskey.

2. My leg is having sympathy pain this week or something. I woke up yesterday morning with a nasty charlie horse in the same spot where I tore my calf muscle last year. Today is the one-year anniversary of that injury, so yesterday I took it easy in the class where I had the initial injury and it was OK. You'd think that my leg would have gotten it together to heal completely in a year, but it hasn't - I still have days where it hurts or aches, and there's still a funky divot when I flex my calf muscle in a certain way. Here's your lesson, kids: don't tear your calf muscle. It sucks and won't heal for a really, really long time.

3. Let's just say Project Hott is not going anyplace fast. I looked at the photos from my friend's party again for additional motivation and it just made me feel worse. It hasn't helped that my leg has been bugging me all week and that I can't do all of the abs portion of my classes because I've been having nasty vertigo for a few weeks now (Sunday was the worst; I had blurred vision and felt like I was falling-down drunk after we were out walking around the neighborhood taking photos, which is why we had to go home and didn't get more accomplished). Doctor Google tells me that there are three possibilities for why I'm getting this oh-so-fun sensation, and in all three cases the solution/cure is "wait and it will eventually go away."

Sorry I'm not all sunshine and rainbows coming out of my butt. I guess everybody has bad weeks. (Also, work stuff. I'm not even going there.)

The one really good thing that happened this week, though, was that I reconnected with an old friend who I'd lost touch with (from the same site where I met Dan). He's living in LA, working on films, was teaching high school for a while, and seems to be in a much better headspace than he was five years ago. (He even ran the Great Wall marathon with only two months of training! That is some serious business.) Once upon a time we were pretty tight, so it's nice feeling like I have my friend back again.

Grace in small things (because I haven't done this in a while)

1. Spoons.
2. Friend gave birth yesterday, 3 weeks early but now she no longer has pre-eclampsia.
3. Videos of Wombat and Spats.
4. Head rubs.
5. Husbands having good birthdays.

Happy birthday, Super Dan

Today is my husband's birthday. I think he is awesome, and am so glad he was born so 32 years later I could turn him into a burrito in the bed and zerbit his arm to say good morning.

This weekend some stuff happened, namely, I didn't suck nearly as badly as I thought I would at the softball stuff (who knew I could throw accurately, though perhaps not with great force, and manage to connect bat with ball more often than not?). Also, we spent several hours on Sunday walking around the neighborhood so Dan could take photos for a school project. I took photos of flowers and crap because that's how I roll.











Tonight I am making Dan a nice dinner and a birthday cake. I told him I would make him anything he wanted in the whole world, even if I had to make something different for myself, so he told me he wanted Beef Stroganoff. Beef Stroganoff it is. I haven't cooked beef since probably 1996 sometime, so I hope I don't do too badly at it. Go over and wish him a Happy Birthday!

Here there be dragons (and blankets)

Since everyone I know appears to be spawning, I've been busy with some knitting projects recently. My cousin gave birth to Baby #3 last weekend, and named her something I actually don't hate: Eliana. (Her first two children have kreeyative names using "k" sounds; my cousin and her husband both have K names as does their last name start with a K.)

Cousin's first baby gender-determining ultrasound showed fetus to be a boy, so I bought yarn accordingly. (Generally I try to make blankets somewhat gender-neutral, but I found this yarn I really liked and, well.) Then gender-determining ultrasound #2, a few months later, determined that no, she was actually going to be a girl. Hm.

I went back to the store, but didn't find any good "girly-colored" yarn that exactly matched the already-purchased stuff. So I found something else that would work (not nearly as soft, unfortunately) and came up with a design to use all three yarns - a blues/greens/purples (original), a whites/blue/green (original), and a light purple (new). If you look closely at the photos you can see my pattern - it's actually basically the same pattern I used for my other cousin's baby blanket I made a couple of months ago, except without side borders and with an outer edge of crocheted-on light purple. I like it a lot.


The other project is actually the second one I've made of its kind (or very similar). Back in December I made a green and yellow dinosaur for Wombat and it got sent out to California along with the other stuff we sent the Agirlandaboy family for Giftmas before I got a chance to take photos of him. Leah has been kind enough to do so here, along with a very cute baby who appears to enjoy how the dinosaur tastes. I wanted to do something similar for Spats, except in perhaps a more feminine vein, so instead of a dinosaur I made a dragon. She's mostly yellow with two kinds of purple (some of the leftover light purple from Eliana's blanket), and I'm sorry Jive Turkey I wanted to save it for a surprise, but you'll be getting the dragon in the mail in a few days and I wanted to post photos.




I've got two more projects in various stages of completion for yet another friend due in May; a skater or snowboarder-style baby hat (finished!) and some matching booties (not finished!) that I'll display before I mail them out. This baby will be a girl and her name will start with the letter E, because she's going to be named after an ancestor and that's how they roll in my friends' family.

* * * * *

I'm thoroughly uninterested in food these days because our weather finally seems to be cooperating and giving us nice, warm spring days. I'm hoping the lack of interest in food will bring a lack of appetite, because it's about time my body gives up the ghost of the winter layer and starts slimming down. It's been more than six weeks since I gave up eating chocolate from the work candy jar (haven't slipped up yet!) and I haven't really seen any results. It's really frustrating, and I am not sure what else to do. I'm already in the gym about 6-7 hours a week and have started walking or running some days after work as well. For example, I went running in the park on Tuesday after work (only 1.5 miles) and my legs have been killing me since. Today the left one only feels somewhat sore but the right is still bugging me. I hope it's better by tomorrow, since that's when our new work softball team has its first practice (!) I don't know what convinced me to join such a thing, but I did, so there you have it. I haven't played any softball since sometime in middle school and I have no idea if I have any ability to hit a ball with a bat, but I can run so that's something at least.

Also, the instructor for my two favorite classes at the gym (the ones I have been going to for a year and a half) finally fessed up to being pregnant on Monday. Since she's about a size zero, the little belly bump she's got going on made it pretty obvious (Suck in your abs! she yells, and her belly doesn't move). She is due in October. I am going to make her baby something as well.

In which we go up a tower and get some free Wurlitzer

When we left the Governor's Mansion, we walked up Logan Street to head toward downtown and the 16th street mall, and along the way we passed by the Denver Women's Press Club. This is a funny little brick building in the middle of a sea of parking lot, and we used to walk by it nearly every day, so I was always curious about it (and about why it was the only building on the block). It happened to be participating in the Doors Open Denver event, so we decided to stop in for a minute to see the inside. The members of the club (which is 111 years old!) had fruit and snacks available, and were super friendly, chatting up everyone who came in. Because of National Poetry Month, they handed out poems to each visitor. We poked around a little bit and then Dan realized that it was a good opportunity to work on the final project for one of his classes (a flash-based online tour of Capitol Hill) and he got to interview one of the members about the club, the history of the building, and the club's role in the neighborhood, using the video function on my camera. I didn't get any photos, but it was still a pretty neat experience.

Because of our detour, there was only an hour and a half remaining during which time the two remaining places we wanted to see would be open. We hightailed it across the capitol building area and hopped on a free mall shuttle (normally, we would have walked, but were pressed for time) and also, I desperately had to pee. Since it was Sunday I wasn't sure what my options were (and I spent a good amount of time fruitlessly searching the Tabor Center for open restrooms) but finally realized that I could go in the basement of the D&F tower, which was our next stop. This tower has been around a long time and was once the tallest building west of the Mississippi. It's been a Colorado landmark since it was built in 1911 as part of a department store. The store is long gone, but the tower remains, primarily serving as office space. We tried to go up the tower last year (the public is welcome to tour the 17th through 21st floors during the Doors Open Denver event) but the small lobby was super crowded and I got a little bit panicky and claustrophobic so we left. This year, Dan held our place in line while I looked for a bathroom, and by the time I came back it was our turn. Score!

We started on the 17th floor, admiring views and taking photographs. At this point, we were underneath the clock face, and had fun seeing the vantage point from all four sides of the building. Also, there were a ton of other people up there, most of whom had either cameras or babies strapped to themselves (or both).


View from 17th floor of the mountains.


Under the clock


16th street mall from the tower, also visible: the state capitol (capped with gold).

After we'd had our fill of 17, we headed up the metal staircase to the remaining floors. I found something interesting or unusual about each one, and enjoyed the minimalist '30s decor (black chandelier!). There were interesting chairs on some floors and objets d'art on others. It was interesting to see that the mechanism that ran the clock was not very big at all (as compared to the ones you see in the movies.) On the topmost floor, there was one final super-narrow balcony (above the clock faces) and I leaned out to get a photo of the top of the tower, complete with flag. I'm glad the bell didn't ring while we were there; we would have been deafened!


The clockworks.


Looking up the tower. I leaned out pretty far to get this. Luckily, the railing is about 4 feet high so only my head/shoulders actually leaned.


Flag detail.


Swanky and jet-black!


On the 21st floor, stairs leading up to the bell and the rest of the tower. Obviously not accessible to the public.


Finally, my vertigo got the best of me and I needed to get out of the cramped tower, so we headed back down the elevator and walked quickly up the mall to the Paramount Theater, which was once a movie house but is now a place where people like Patti LaBelle perform when they come to town. The sign outside said Organ - Free so we went inside and watched an old man play a Wurlitzer pipe organ. (Gee, Dad, it's a Wurlitzer!) He played a few show tunes (including a rather dirge-like "Surrey with the Fringe on Top") while we sat and rested our weary bones.


The organs were set on platforms that were lifted up to the stage.


What a cool machine.

By this time, I was pretty much starving, so instead of taking advantage of any of the other free museum days (free Modern Art museum, free CO History museum), we went home and ate homemade guacamole. It was a great end to such a grand Sunday adventure.

In which we get to see the insides of all kinds of cool buildings, part the first.

This weekend was Doors Open Denver, which I was looking forward to because we had so much fun last year. And this year my camera actually talks to my computer, so I won't have to wait six months to post the photos of our adventure.

I actually forgot about it until Sunday morning, but ultimately I guess that was OK because Saturday it poured freezing rain all day long and the six inches of snow we got on Friday (wet, slushy snow) didn't melt! Like, at all! The weather was gross and weird so the only thing to do was go shopping. The clothing acquisition part of the shopping excursion was mostly unproductive, because nobody seems to be selling work-appropriate tops or shirts that are knits (not button-down, since those just don't seem to fit me anymore) that are less than a million dollars. (Seriously? I'm not paying $50 for a shirt that's kind of ugly, Macys. You disappoint me.) I found a couple of things at Old Navy (one of which I'm sporting today) and a couple more at NY and Co, one of which was on clearance (woot!). Then we went to Blood Bath and Beyond and, with all our coupons and the remainder of a wedding gift card from Dan's aunt and uncle, we got $200 worth of stuff for $80. Plus, did you know BB&B is selling toiletries and cosmetics now? I had no idea! We hadn't been in there since sometime last year and when we walked around a corner there was a whole makeup and bath product section, and I found some brands of things I haven't been able to find anywhere else in years. So I stocked up on my favorite conditioner and deoderant.

It turns out that Cost Plus World Market (next door to BB&B) no longer carries our favorite Russian chocolate (the best chocolate on earth, in my opinion) which put a damper on our recession-be-damned spree at BB&B, but the tasty blood orange sody pop kind of made up for it. (A quick consultation with Google tells me this is no longer available at all since the maker of the chocolate was bought out by Wrigley. Boo.)

But all that was on Saturday. On Sunday, it was gorgeous and sunny out, with a blue cloudless sky and water everywhere from all the rain and melting snow (highly unusual for Colorado at any time of the year). As Dan was making breakfast (pizza omeletes, breakfast potatoes made with sweet potatoes), I suddenly remembered that it was Doors Open Denver weekend and went to the website to look up what places were participating this year, since I hadn't remembered seeing any of the signs while walking around. Luckily, there was a big list of places that were open (especially several museums which were FREE during the event) that we wanted to see, particularly a couple that we missed out on last year due to timing or claustrophobia (mine). So over breakfast we planned out an itinerary, showered, and headed out for the day's adventure to explore the innards of some of Denver's most well-known (and least-explorable on a daily basis) places.

Our first stop was the Molly Brown House Museum, which is in our neighborhood and only about a block away from our previous apartment. I'd walked by it oodles of times and always wanted to go in, so was really excited about going to see the inside of it for free. We got there about 10 minutes before the first tour but weren't able to get in until the second tour because so many other people were excited about seeing it for free, too. To kill time, we wandered around the outside of the house taking photos and then (just like last year) my camera suddenly decided its batteries were low. I went into the gift shop to see if they sold them (no) and then I audibly exclaimed over some cute hats they had and was told not to take photos of them. Because I had a camera in my hand. This kind of pissed me off, so I snarkily asked if there was anything else in the gift shop I was prohibited from photographing (no). You know, there were a lot of things in that gift shop I might have wanted to buy, but there's no way that I was going to buy anything after getting that from the salesperson. We hightailed to the corner store up the block and paid federal pound-me-in-the-ass prices for 4 AA batteries and got back in time to wait another 10 minutes on the front porch for our tour.

It's also known as the House of Lions.

Succulent in the sun; the shady side of the house was still snowy.

Once inside, though, the tour was pretty awesome. I highly recommend it to any Denver resident interested in Denver history or Molly Brown (her name was Margaret, the tour guide told us, she never went by Molly, that was bestowed after she died) or what the houses of rich Victorian-era folks looked like. The tour guide (or docent, maybe? it is technically a museum) explained what the functions of each room were (entryway, with statuary holding trays for calling cards; formal parlor and what one could discuss in there (your family, my family, and I think maybe the weather?); library; formal dining room on the first floor (and an explanation of Victorian custom regarding meals, how many one ate a day, and nothing about how one stayed thin when eating 12 courses at dinner)), why photos weren't allowed (something to do with the antiques that furnish the house, many of which are original, aren't owned by the historical preservation society that owns the house but instead by other people? probably just a ruse to get people to buy postcards.) and what Margaret Brown's life was like, her relationship with her husband, when/how they came to Denver, how they ended up with all that money, etc.) and then we went up to the second floor, where she told us about the Titanic-related stuff and explained the function of each room we would see. The second floor had a bedroom for their daughter (but not their son; apparently he was mostly away at boarding school), for her parents, for her, for him, and perhaps the original Man Cave aka his study. Also, one bathroom. For the entire household. But in 1894, to find a great big house with running water, indoor plumbing, and heat and electricity, it was probably worth every penny of the $30,000 they paid!

After we oohed and aaahed over the fainting couches and the gorgeous stained glass, we went down the servants' staircase to the kitchen, with a dry goods pantry and a butler pantry. The back porch was closed in, and held the laundry drum and the ice box. There was one more room, I guess where they have different exhibits and you can watch a movie about Margaret and her family if you like. The exhibit we saw was about lingerie during Victorian times, aka unmentionables for men and women (13 pieces! for women. 13! Sheesh.)

After we left the Molly Brown House, we headed up the street to the Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art, which was mostly full of paintings by Vance Kirkland and whole crapton of stuff like you might see in a Modern Art museum (you know, things like chairs and teapots that are DESIGNED but probably not especially FUNCTIONAL). We spent about 15 minutes walking through rooms that were so full of stuff that you couldn't really SEE anything, but it was still kind of interesting. Plus, the building is where Kirkland's studio was, and he was a short guy who felt that his paintings shouldn't have an up or a down (he sometimes would sign in two different places to encourage this) so he had this funny rig set up so he could paint horizontally (and also used skateboards to move his unfinished paintings around. or something). It reminded me of Maude Lebowski's paint swing system, so I got a photo of it.

Kirkland painting. We couldn't use flash, so the photo isn't great, but I was trying to get a sense of the texture.

Brochure for some sort of "snack server" suggesting you serve snacks after (or during) bridge, movies, golf, motoring(!), boating, and football games. What, no tennis? Mah Jong?

And here's the "snack server."

I didn't find the painting underneath to be especially vaginal.

We headed south to the Governor's Mansion (and yes, the governor of Colorado and his family actually live there, though only the first floor was open to the public) and admired the opulence of all the different formal rooms (dining, library, solarium, etc.). The mansion was first lived in by the widow of Walter Scott Cheesman (who now has a park named after him, since he's buried there along with a bunch of other people) and was later bought by the Boettchers, a well-known wealthy Colorado family. Apparently most of the furnishings were purchased by the Boettchers and never replaced, so there's a lot of Art Deco-ish stuff, gilded French decor and repeated motifs of things like flowers and faces. I enjoyed seeing the inside of the house and also the grounds, which would be a perfect place to hold a wedding and grand reception.

Fancy lighting.

A whole lot of stuff in the house looked like this.


Back of a chair - but there were faces everywhere.


Also in this room, but not pictured: the desk where Obama signed the stimulus bill (transported to the Nature and Science museum for the occasion).


Sign of habitation: laundry basket on the second floor.


Back side of the house.

Mountains, museum, no emergency room

My cousin Scarlett was visiting for this past week, ostensibly in town to attend an event at the school where she'll be starting a graduate program in the fall, but also to spend some time hanging out with us (I love it that she visits us!) We were able to have some adventures on Saturday and Sunday, and yesterday I took the day off to enjoy one last adventure before she left.

Saturday, we drove up to Estes Park to show her a mountain town, because when she visited last year while headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park Dan ended up in the emergency room for several hours having a rusty roofing nail removed from his foot. Luckily, this year there was no need for a visit to a local hospital, so we drove on up to Estes and wandered around the touristy bit. I was able to check Jive Turkey's twitter updates (knowing her water had broken) through Scarlett's crackberry, so that was helpful. We watched the taffy pulling machine and admired the rocks in the rock shop and bought some fudge, and I was very disappointed to find that the glass shop was no longer there.

Taffy

Water wheel
After determining that Scarlett's wallet was in the car (and therefore her ID), we drove down the canyon to Fort Collins and had some lunch in Lucky Eddie's (it's kind of like old-west saloon meets Irish pub, and they have a big barrel o' peanuts at the front and you can grab as many as you like and throw the shells on the floor. So we did. I was bummed that I'd left the camera in the car, because there were some seriously impressive peanut shell piles on that floor.

The line on the back said, "Their old flames." My knee, she has been slapped.

Our last stop of the day was at the O'Dells brewing company, where Scarlett wanted to do some beer tasting. Dan sipped a bit of each, but he was driving, and I tasted one or two of them but only found one (I think it was a light-colored wheat beer) that I didn't find thoroughly disgusting. I took a shot of Dan with the beer for his brother, who loves O'Dells, checked the crackberry again to determine that JT had, in fact, had a bouncing baby Spats (hooray!), and we headed back down to Denver.

I drank some of the one on the far left.

He's a beer man.
Sunday we all slept in really late and didn't get going on our adventure until the afternoon. It was also steadily drizzling rain all day long. Even so, we walked to City Park and went to the Nature and Science Museum. I found some cool things to take photos of and really enjoyed the wet air, such a rarity in Colorado. On the way back, we stopped in at the Tattered Cover on Colfax and spent some time browsing. We tried to get ice cream at Lik's but it was closed for Easter.

Rainy flower


This makes a roaring sound when you put a coin in it. Dan said every time he hears it he flashes back to being five years old.


Mined in Colorado


Hee. Nugget.


Aquamarines, also from Colorado.


Tri-lo-biiiiite!


I love so many of the things in the Prehistoric Journey exhibit.


Spine and shadows.


Tortuga!


This thing is enormous. How did they manage to hold their heads up?

Monday was gorgeous and warm, and Scarlett and I walked down to the commercial strip around first and Broadway. I'd heard a lot about the stores in the area (particularly Fancy Tiger) but had never been there other than to go to a movie at the Mayan. I also thought that Scarlett might be interested in some of the stores, and I was right. We ended up seeing all kinds of cool stuff in a shop called Decade (complete with a male cat named Stella, or Stella the Fella as the cashier called him) and having a fascinating conversation with a shop owner. On the way home, we stopped for lunch at the Spicy Pickle at 9th and Lincoln. When we got back to our house, Dan was home from class and eventually we returned to Lik's and got ice cream, then popped into the pub next door for some beer (and girl beer for me; I call hard cider girl beer for those who might be interested).

Stuff is finally starting to put out leaves again.


It's a candy store! and an appliance store? Floor wax and dessert topping?

It was a great long weekend and a great visit. Today I am still quite tired, and somehow with all the walking we did I appear to have hurt my leg again (same leg, different spot), but I'm glad we were able to have so much time to spend with my cousin. She rules.

Iron Chef MLE presents: Tangerines around the world

Iron Chef MLE presents: Tangerines around the world

We begin in South America, the tropics of Brazil. You may have had a caipirinha before, one made with the traditional limes, but feast your eyes (and tastebuds) on this delicious alternative.

Tasty beverage: Tangerine Caipirinha - South America
2 oz cachaça
1/2 tangerine, halved
2 tsp granulated sugar

Sprinkle the sugar over the tangerine pieces, and muddle them in the mixing glass part of a Boston shaker until the sugar is dissolved and the tangerine juice is released. Pour an old-fashioned glassful of cracked ice into the mixing glass, add the cachaça, and shake to incorporate. Return all the contents to the old-fashioned glass.

Heading north, we shall make a stop in the Caribbean sea. The islands have a wonderful mix of food and culture, and here you have a twist on an old favorite, shrimp ceviche. The flavors of shrimp and tangerine combine with jicama, red onion, and garlic, with a little spicy kick, and are garnished with tangerine segments and avocado. Before you I unveil the ceviche - in a giant blue-rimmed margarita glass. Here are some white corn chips to accompany the dish. For this presentation, I have left out the cilantro, as I know some find the flavor disagreeable. The hot sauce I used is Maya-Ik, available in Guatemala.

Appetizer: Shrimp ceviche with tangerine and avocado - Caribbean
(serves four)

1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined, chilled
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1/2 cup tangerine juice
3 tsp lime juice
1/2 cup finely diced jicama
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro (optional)
2 cloves finely minced garlic
1 tsp hot sauce of choice
salt and pepper to taste
1 avocado, peeled/pitted and diced
1/2 tangerine, peeled, segmented, and coarsely chopped

Prepare all ingredients. Coarsely chop shrimp and put in a medium-sized bowl. Add tangerine juice and lime juice, mix well, and let sit for at least an hour or until shrimp turns opaque. When shrimp is ready, add onion, jicama, garlic, hot sauce, and salt and pepper to taste; mix well. Serve in a giant margarita glass or four smaller margarita glasses with white corn tortilla chips. Garnish with avocado and tangerine segments.

Far to the west, we cross the international date line, and find a dish with flavors gleaned from the Far Eastern nations of China and Japan. On a white rectangular plate you see before you a composed salad of baby greens, dressed with a tangerine and rice vinaigrette. Atop the greens are thin slices of lightly seared tangerine-marinated tuna steak, crusted with sesame seeds, and topped with a soy-tangerine-wasabi glaze. To add visual interest and crunch, I have included a small sculpture of oil-puffed rice vermicelli. Pleaase enjoy a glass of chilled plum wine to accompany this dish.

Salad/Fish: Tuna steak and tangerine over greens - Asia
(serves four)

1 lb tuna steak/s, 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick
1-2 cups freshly-squeezed tangerine juice
sesame oil and black/white sesame seeds

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup honey tangerine juice
1/4 cup mirin
1/4 tsp wasabi

1/4 cup tangerine juice
1/8 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 cup vegetable oil (canola or similar)
4 cups baby salad greens

1/4 cup vegetable oil
handful of thin rice stick noodles

Marinate tuna steak in tangerine juice (enough to cover tuna) for 30-45 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine soy sauce, honey tangerine juice, and mirin in a small saucepan. Stir slowly over heat until reduced by half. Add wasabi powder and set aside.

Make salad dressing: combine tangerine juice, rice vinegar, salt, and pepper. Slowly drizzle in 1/2 cup vegetable oil while whisking juice mixture until combined. Toss with 4 cups of baby greens; divide.

Heat vegetable oil in a small frying pan. When oil is hot (but not smoking) throw in the handful of rice noodles. They should puff up quickly (within a few seconds). When this happens, scoop them out with a heat-safe utensil and let drain on paper towels.

Heat a well-seasoned cast iron skillet. Brush tuna steaks with sesame oil and dredge in sesame seeds on both sides. Sear tuna steaks for approximately 2 minutes on each side in hot cast iron pan; remove from pan and let sit for a minute or two to cool down. Slice tuna steaks thinly and arrange 1/4 of slices over each salad plate. Drizzle with soy-tangerine glaze and garnish with puffed rice noodles.

We swoop across Asia and Eastern Europe to find ourselves in the French countryside. A glass of spicy French syrah accompanies a white bone china plate with French blue accents. On the plate is a chevre- and herb-stuffed chicken breast topped with grilled tangerine slices, over a bed of white bean and garlic puree, drizzled with tangerine balsamic from Modena, Italy.

Entree: Chevre- and herb-stuffed chicken breast with puree of white beans and garlic - Europe
(serves four)

4 chicken breasts, rinsed and patted dry
4 oz mild goat cheese
1 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh chives
2-3 tangerines sliced into thin rounds
3-4 tsp tangerine balsamic vinegar

Heat oven to 375 F.
Cut a 2x3 inch slit in the thick part of the chicken breasts to make a pocket in each one.
Combine goat cheese, pepper, salt, and chives in a bowl. Stuff each breast with 1/4 of the goat cheese mixture.
On a 15 inch square of foil or parchment, lay 2-3 slices of tangerine, top with one chicken breast, and place additional tangerine slices on top. Fold parchment or foil into a packet and bake for about 25 minutes.

2 cups canned white beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 c olive oil
1/2 bulb pureed garlic (see below)
salt and pepper to taste

Peel skin from cloves of 1/2 medium garlic bulb. Cook in 1/2 cup chicken broth until soft. Remove from liquid and mash with a potato masher. Add garlic and cooking liquid to beans and oil and process in a food processor until smooth and combined. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Grill 8 slices of tangerine briefly on each side in a grill pan or countertop grill.

When serving, remove tangerine slices from around chicken. Place a dollop of white bean puree on a plate, top with a chicken breast. Top chicken breast with one or two grilled tangerine slices and drizzle over all with tangerine balsamic (available in specialty stores).

Finally, after one last ocean crossing, we end in the good old US of A. An adult version of a childhood favorite, the creamsicle, sits before you in a chilled martini glass rimmed with caster sugar. You see a parfait of fresh tangerine curd topped with a dollop of vanilla whipped cream, garnished with a thin slice of tangerine peel.

Dessert: Adult creamsicle - USA
(serves four)

Zest of 2 tangerines
1/2 cup honey tangerine juice
2 splashes tangerine liqueur
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
4 eggs
1/8 tsp salt

1/2 pint light whipping cream
2 tsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Chop zest as finely as you can. Then, in a food processor, process chopped zest and sugar until zest is in tiny bits. Transfer sugar/zest mixture to a stand mixer and add butter; cream together. Add eggs one at a time. Add juice and liqueur. Transfer to a medium-sized saucepan and cook over low heat for about 10 minutes or until thickened. Pour curd into four sugar-rimmed martini glasses and chill about one hour.

Whip cream with sugar and vanilla to stiff peaks.

To serve, top tangerine curd with whipped cream. Garnish with a curl of tangerine peel if you like.

Edited to add: This was my entry in an Iron Chef competition on a message board I read. The intent is to garner points for presentation, flavor, and originality while keeping it all in the world of the internet - though I think my recipes sound good enough that someday I'll actually make them.

Second Harvest

Did you hear about the lady who got a court order to preserve her murdered son's body so she could harvest his sperm?

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And why did she want the sperm? So she could use it to impregnate a surrogate and get some grandbabies.

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As someone who is interested in reproductive issues in general, I find the ethical dilemmas surrounding fertility and parenthood to be endlessly fascinating. I even wrote about it once after reading a (kind of old) book on the subject. Sadly, this is not the first I've heard of someone wanting to harvest the sperm of a dead son in order to get grandchildren. When I read this news story, I was a bit taken aback for a while, and had to figure out what I thought about it. My reaction (in this order) was:

shock
disgust
pity for the potential grandchild
pity for the dead kid

In no part of my reaction did the feeling of "This is a great idea!" come up. I'm sorry, but violating your child's dead body in order to possibly carry on your genetic line is NOT OK. It's just not. Even if you have tons of money and resources to throw at a surrogate and a child, what gives you the right to bring a person into the world who's got one dead parent and one stranger for a parent? All to appease the sensibility of a neurotic grandparent? No. It's not OK. It's not ok to take the sperm from someone who never consented, or to take eggs from someone who never consented, and make a new person who is going to be born into a psychological mess.

The way I see it is that you get your own shot to make kids. If you have kids, and they don't end up having kids (for whatever reason - they die, they don't want kids, they can't have kids, whatever), TOO BAD. You raise children to become adults who make their own decisions about whether or not to reproduce. You are not automatically entitled to grandchildren, even if medical science will allow it.

Does this woman know whether or not her son would have wanted children? I know ultimately it shouldn't matter, since after he died what was his body just became a collection of cells. I am glad the woman opted to donate her son's organs so that other people can have better lives. I am NOT glad that the courts decided she should be allowed to take his sperm in order to make grandchildren for her.

I've heard of similar situations, where the significant other of a dead/dying man wishes to harvest his sperm in order to have his child. I find that to be kind of bothersome as well, but at least there was theoretically a decision made by the couple beforehand, or some discussion, as to whether or not to have children. I can understand wanting to have a living reminder of a dead partner. But once you're a generation removed, I'm sorry, but no dice. No person's DNA is indispensible enough that it should be postumously used to fuel someone's desire for grandchildren.

If you're really that desperate to have grandchildren, have you ever heard of this program called Big Brothers Big Sisters? Or considered becoming a foster parent? Or doing some other sort of service work with children who need parental figures? Because there are a heck of a lot of kids out there that need people like that already. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved. This, on the other hand? This I can only see as lose. It's lose for the dead guy (who didn't get to have any reproductive choice). It's lose for the potential child who will never know his or her parents. And it's lose for the grandparent who, lets be honest here, is grieving over losing her own child and is just looking to replace him with an updated model.

So, lady who just harvested her son's sperm in order to get grandbabies, to you I say: FAIL. You are wrong. This is not OK.

New Digs

What do y'all think of my schmancy new banner, courtesy my handsome and talented husband? Last night, I told him, hey, I think I need a new look around the blog, and in an hour he had whipped this up for me.

He rules.

On tap for this weekend: Hauling out Petra's room so Scarlett has a place to sleep, playing in the snow we're supposed to get, a consultation with my June bride (the one I'm doing flowers for!!!), and a lot of sleeping. This has been a tough week; I can't wait for it to be over.

Thing that has been captivating my attention, thanks to having cable: VH1's Top 100 One-hit Wonders of the 80s. I remember most of them, and it's so much fun to think, oh yeah! I remember that song! because I have no idea who the artists were on most of them (I was 1-10 in the 80s) so I didn't realize they WERE one-hit wonders.

Also, I love the Food Network. I love this show they have called Chopped, and love Ace of Cakes (mmm cake), and love Iron Chef. Food porn is great.

And, in honor of Food on Friday (something I think I've neglected for a couple of weeks now), here's what we had for dinner last night. (Granted, I made this a few months ago, so what we had was actually reheated from the freezer.)(we also had salad to go with)

Healthy-ish Lasagne by MLE

1/2 box of whole wheat lasagne noodles (cooked)(about 9 noodles)
2 cups lowfat ricotta cheese or cottage cheese
2 cups grated part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
1 egg
herbs of your choice (fresh or dried) (I use italian herbs like oregano and basil)
jar of pasta sauce (if you're lazy like me)
1 tube of ground turkey (I think this is 16 oz), browned and drained
1 zucchini, chopped into rounds and quartered
6-8 white mushrooms, sliced
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
2 cups fresh baby spinach, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup diced yellow onion
1-4 cloves fresh garlic, put through press (depending on how garlicky you like stuff)

Preheat oven to 375. Boil noodles in large pot of water until done but still al dente, about 5-7 minutes. Chop veggies and cook ground turkey. Sautee all veggies (including garlic but not including spinach) in a very large frying pan in a bit of olive oil until soft; add cooked ground turkey and jar of sauce (you may not need the whole jar). Heat through. Meanwhile, in a large bowl mix ricotta/cottage cheese with 1 cup grated mozzarella, egg, and whatever herbs you'd like.

When sauce is heated through, mix in chopped spinach. Drain the noodles. In a 9x13 pan, lay 3 noodles lengthwise. Top with 1/3 of the red sauce. Top with 1/2 of the ricotta/mozz mixture. Lay 3 more noodles, sauce, and the rest of the cheese mixture. 3 more noodles, top with the last 1/3 of the sauce. Top with remaining cup of shredded mozzarella, any herbs you like, and some grated parmesan if you'd like. Cover with aluminum foil and bake until you can see the stuff bubbling in the pan and the cheese is melted, 30-50 minutes. For the last few minutes, you can uncover the pan and let the cheese brown if you'd like. Makes about 8 dinner-sized servings; I always make a full pan and freeze the leftovers in 2-serving increments to have later.

A bolt from the blue (or the yellow) (or the green)

Oldest Friend hired a professional photographer to document her birthday ball last month, and she's spent this week posting the photos on her facebook account. I looked through them, happy to see so many of her having a good time, remembering what a good time I had, and honing a critical eye on the job the photographer did of capturing the evening. Luckily, I think he did a fantastic job, especially considering how dimly-lit everything was.

Unfortunately, I found virtually every photo I was in (and I was in a lot!) to be unflattering in the extreme. One of them actually made me wince when it popped up on my screen. I thought I'd looked good in the dress, in the heels, with my hair curled and my makeup done and my dead grandma gloves, but damn did I look terrible in that photo. It may very well be the most unattractive photo of me in existence.

I was chatting with Oldest Friend about it the other night, and chatting about my current gym habits and eating habits. I told her about the swearing off of chocolate at work, and about how much I'm working out these days (a lot, especially with the snowshoeing we've done on the weekends). I told her about how the only ways I seem to be able to lose weight are a) exercise compulsively and obsess about what I eat, which is what I did to lose weight for my high school reunion in 2006, and b) travel to another part of the world and spend a few weeks walking around (I lost probably 10 pounds in 3 weeks when we went to China, and even lost a few pounds when we were in Italy last January despite the weather).

Oldest Friend, being even more into fitness and health and exercise than I am, she of the Iron Man finish last August and multiple triathalons a year, she who posts daily about her 30 and 60 mile bike rides and her training runs as FB status updates, said to me that it's possible I'm working out too hard.

(cue sound of record scratching)

Whuh? was my initial response.

Yeah, she told me. Some bodies are more likely to lose weight when doing long periods of low-intensity exercise, rather than shorter periods of high intensity exercise. Do you have a heart monitor? she asked.

No.

Thinking about it though, it kind of makes sense. If I'm walking around for 5 or 7 hours a day, for a couple of weeks, I lose weight without even trying. I can eat whatever I feel like eating (and our eating habits in China weren't great; lots of processed white flour stuff, lots of oil, and lots of sugar and not enough fresh veggies; because of the risk of hepatitis, all veggies we ate the whole trip were cooked), and I still lose weight. I'm not thinking about it, not trying to do anything except enjoy myself, and I lose weight. Every time.

However.

I live in a world where I earn my keep by sitting on my butt for 8 hours a day in front of my computer. I don't have time to walk for five hours every day. And what kind of exercise do I do in my daily life? Without fail, it's usually high-intensity stuff because of the limited amount of time I have in a day to exercise. I walk to and from work, which is relatively low-intensity, but that's only 15 minutes in each direction. I take the stairs at work sometimes. At the gym, I don't feel like I'm doing much unless my heart rate is up - bike, treadmill, elliptical, strider, weights class, cardio/weights class, all of them get my heart rate up pretty high, according to the machine heart rate monitors. I live at a reasonably high altitude, and my heart rate is usually somewhere between 160 and 180 for the majority of the time I'm exercising. As soon as I'm finished, however, it goes back down to my resting rate in a very short period of time - which leads me to believe my cardiovascular fitness is excellent. (Also a good sign: I can do snowshoe hikes uphill for hours at very high altitudes.)(The corollary to this is that when we go down to sea level I have to work like crazy to get my heart rate above 140. It's seriously difficult.)

But honestly, I don't do a lot of low-intensity stuff. The pools around here are mostly outdoor (and therefore not open this time of year). I haven't done much bike riding, again because of the season/weather. I don't do a lot of weight lifting outside my classes because I feel like weights twice a week is enough since I'm not looking to bulk up any more. I haven't been doing yoga anymore because every time I do it my neck hurts for days afterward. So what can I do?

I'm going to try some new classes at the gym, probably add a few pilates classes since the pilates instructor I like came back. I'm going to try some spin classes, where I can control the amount of difficulty. I'm going to cultivate the habit of walking for an hour or so after work now that it's light so late into the evening. (YAY!) And this weekend, I'm going to buy a heart monitor, and I'm going to do what Oldest Friend suggested - spend a month doing only (or mostly, I'm not giving up my cardio weights class!) low-impact activity and see what that does to this body of mine.


This is what I looked like when I was 22. A friend of mine posted this photo for me today, and I'm glad he did, glad someone caught an image of what I looked like back then. I didn't appreciate the body or the health I had then, and I probably don't appreciate the body I have now as much as I should. But I'm glad that body was captured for posterity, and here it is for the world to see. I'll probably never look that good again, but that's OK, I'm not 22 anymore. (Also, I prefer being a c-cup to an a-cup). I do think I can look better than I did at the birthday ball, though.

An expensive year for fruit

Once these were new baby green leaves. Now they are dead.

Yesterday I was in a bad mood. One of those grumpy funks that you get into once in a while, the sort of thing that you feel like you need to get away from everything in order to get back to your normal, evenly-tempered self. By 4:15 I hadn't taken a lunch break so I decided to go home, change my clothes, and go out for a walk rather than hamstering away yet again in the smelly gym.

I changed into a bright red zip-up hooded sweatshirt and one of two pairs of jeans I currently own that a) fit, and b) don't have holes in them*. I decided on what we'd have for dinner, made a mental list of needed grocery items, and put a bag in my pocket (reuse is good). And I headed out the door and up the street, looking for signs of spring, for anything to help me feel better about the world and my life and all that crap.

Usually, this time of year there are things blooming. This year, not so much - everything started blooming a week ago, right before our big snow storm. Then everything got frozen in the storm. The flowers that were buds during the storm? Dead. The flowers that bloomed right after? Daffodils, especially, faced the ground all bent over under the remembered weight of heavy wet snow, despite the sun. I got to the park and walked around the perimeter, trying to get my heart rate up while keeping an eye out for things to photograph. I saw a stuffed lamb in a tree (a beanie baby, maybe?) and a few daffodils that weren't actually touching the ground. I shot the one plant/tree/bush that looked like it had actually put out some green in the past week (most of the new growth on everything had been frozen and turned to brown or yellow crispness). I shot a tree that looked dead against the gorgeous blue spring sky. And as I headed out of the park and down the street to the grocery store, I found a tree that hadn't budded before the storm, though some of the paperthin baby green leaves had charred-looking edges.


Stranded toy



Just about the only green in the park. Note the curled edges.


Someday this tree will have leaves on it again.


Note the buds, the fresh leaves, and the brown edges.

As I was walking home from the store, I shot this:

1990 called, it wants its mall hair back.

And remember the photos in this post and then here?


Same tree as the last two times

I took this photo on my way to work this morning. As you can see, the flowers are dead. There was no time for anything to be pollinated. Dan told me he heard the trees on the western slope (where most of Colorado's produce is grown: peaches, plums, etc.) were budding before the storm, and most of the flowers died. This is going to be an expensive year for fruit in Colorado.

*Then, last night, the jeans developed a hole. Guess I'm going jeans shopping this weekend.