new recipes for a new year

two perfect recipes for the new year: the best pancakes ever(the recipe calls for blueberries, but i used diced pink lady apples instead- yum!) and heavenly tiramisu. think of the pancakes as a good sunday morning waker-upper and the tiramisu as... another waker-upper. the espresso in it is really strong, so think about using decaf or 1/3 espresso and 2/3 coffee or decaf. really. you'll thank me later.


Blueberry Pancakes (From America's Test Kitchen)

When fresh blueberries are not in season, frozen blueberries are a good alternative. To make sure that frozen berries do not bleed, rinse them under cool water in a mesh strainer until the water runs clear, then spread them on a paper towel-lined plate to dry. If you have buttermilk on hand, use 2 cups instead of the milk and lemon juice.

Makes sixteen 4-inch pancakes, serving 4 to 6

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice from 1 lemon
• 2 cups milk
• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces)
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 1 large egg
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted and cooled slightly
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup fresh blueberries or frozen blueberries, preferably wild, rinsed and dried

1. Whisk lemon juice and milk in medium bowl or large measuring cup; set aside to thicken while preparing other ingredients. Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl to combine.
2. Whisk egg and melted butter into milk until combined. Make well in center of dry ingredients in bowl; pour in milk mixture and whisk very gently until just combined (a few lumps should remain). Do not over mix.
3. Heat 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes; add 1 teaspoon oil and brush to coat skillet bottom evenly. Pour 1/4 cup batter onto 3 spots on skillet; sprinkle 1 tablespoon blueberries over each pancake. Cook pancakes until large bubbles begin to appear, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Using thin, wide spatula, flip pancakes and cook until golden brown on second side, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes longer. Serve immediately, and repeat with remaining batter, using remaining vegetable oil only if necessary.

Tiramisu (From Martha aka Stewart, not Hirschman)

• 8 large eggs, separated
• 1 pound mascarpone
• 4 ounces small almond biscotti
• 3 cups brewed espresso, cooled
• 1/3 cup coffee liqueur, such as Kahlua
• 42 store-bought Ladyfinger biscuits
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Best-quality milk chocolate, for garnish
• 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

1. In a large bowl, whisk together yolks and mascarpone until smooth. Add 1 cup sugar; whisk until dissolved. Set aside.
2. Place biscotti in the bowl of a food processor; pulse for coarse crumbs. Fold biscotti into mascarpone mixture; set aside.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, add egg whites; beat until soft peaks form. Fold egg whites into mascarpone mixture; set aside.
4. Combine espresso and liqueur in a medium bowl; pour half the mixture into a pie plate. Quickly dip half the ladyfingers individually into the pie plate, and place in the bottom of a 13-by-9-inch glass baking dish; fit snugly to line. Evenly spread half the mascarpone mixture over ladyfingers; repeat layers.
5. In a large bowl, whisk together heavy cream and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar until soft peaks form. Spread whipped cream evenly over tiramisu; garnish with grated chocolate. Chill at least 2 hours and preferably overnight before serving.

Note: *Note: Raw eggs should not be used in food prepared for pregnant women, young children, or anyone whose health is compromised.
This recipe is courtesy of Carpenter Dean.

ode to james

today james moves away
to a place where germans roam and play
he'll fly far to meet matt
sleep, sing, and drool on the tarmac
and when he arrives, he'll drink real beer in a cafe.

last one's a stretch, but my other choice was just way too obvious. best of luck, james:)

i'm netting some flix

we signed up for netflix a few weeks ago. finally, with the promise of 4,000 united miles, it seemed worth it. now we get our movies delivered to our doorstep (or mailbox) and we don't have to trek to albertsons or into video to choose a movie from what's in stock. now, i don't mind taking my business away from albertsons, as their video section is actually run by some mormon company out of utah who screens the movie selections based on their conservative and non-polygamist values. that's right, that's why you won't find any michael moore movies there (because their conservative- nothing to do w/polygamy). but i really like into video- it's a local independent small business with a few locations in sf, and they carry a great selection of pretty much every movie, tv show, and special event you could ask for. plus they have free red vines. so while i'm excited about the frequent flier miles, i'm carrying around guilt and anger at myself for taking into video one more step towards extinction. at least i'll still go there for my p0rn. just kidding.

a little place like kokomo

i have 2 days left of my "vacation" before i go back to work on friday. end-of-the year check depositing really puts a kink in my plans to rest, read, relax, and runwind (sorry, needed another r). yesterday's to do list sort of got shelved. while i accomplished 3 major loads of laundry, the rain and sleepiness of the day encouraged me to read the last 30 pages or so of some psuedo-tom clancy novel, play with the kitty alot (he LOVES those catnip mice), swing by the grocery for some odds and ends, and download some new music from napster. so today's list of things to do must be somewhat adhered to:

• yoga (whether via video, lime tv, or $14).
• vacuum and mop bedroom floor. restrain self from using alphie as mop.
• paint finger nails and/or toenails.
• clean tub and bathroom floor (do before nails! whew, thinking ahead here.).
• attack closet and schedule donation pick-up.
• reorganize multiple piles throughout apartment. whittle it all down to just a few. do not define "few."
• make lunch out of bread and jam. think carb creation and not sandwich o'boring.

things i would like to do today, but won't:

• bathe alphie.
• hire a house cleaner.
• jet off to a sandy beach in mexico.

if i'm going to sing like someone else, then i don't need to sing at all

now that the holidays have commenced (there are several more days of the ukkah part of chrismakwanzukkah), i've been wondering why i give gifts. todd was questioning me on it, and i felt hard pressed to give some response. the right-wing conservative christians want christmas to return to the religious holiday it might have been and eliminate extravagent gift giving. so am i the antithesis of them? i would hope not. but i'm in the habit of giving gifts and have been since i was young. but why do i do it now? perhaps it's conditioning. i've grown accustomed to getting loved ones a present at this time of year. and maybe, as i don't celebrate the actual religious holidays, it's so that in some little way i'm celebrating their holiday with them. not by praying, but by giving a gift to say "hey, have a great (fill in the blank)." but really, i think it's because i've taken pick-your-holiday to mean "good tidings to all," as in, i hope you're all are safe, happy, and healthy, and i value you being in my life.

now, what does the gift signify? probably nothing really, except that most of us have been taught from an early age to give a gift for birthdays, holidays, house warmings, graduation, etc. so when the shopping malls encourage us to give gifts, that must be a holiday, too. right? wrong. but i sort of enjoy the whole holiday schmoliday thing. the pine tree scent, the fruitcake made by monks, the office holiday party where you get food catered and fun fruity champagne drinks... something about it all just hints togetherness, warmth, and worldy love. and i enjoy giving gifts. i HATE receiving gifts-- i get embarrassed everytime and worried about what someone may have gotten me-- but i love searching for the perfect present for someone. i want to show them that i made an effort, that i tried my best, and that i wanted to give them something to make them happy. now, here's a glaring red flag. why do i think presents make people happy? because in reality, i know that gifts don't make people happy. or at least they don't make me happy. what makes me happy is others being happy. peace on earth (yeah, it's corny, but true). love not war (cornier, but truer). no poverty, homelessness, disease, global warming. i'm not sure how this all translates into gift giving, but i guess what i aim for is to make someone's life a little better, even if it means massages and jam. maybe i can work on my gift giving-- either giving less or donating towards some charity. but what i don't want is for someone who doesn't think like i do to feel cheated or hurt or neglected in some way. so maybe in some inkling, i support the conservative evangelical almighty-worshipping christians who want to return the holidays, and especially christmas, back into what it truly was. a day of church and prayer. this way, i'd be $250 richer, and i could do something "good" with it. like get my hair cut. or take a vacation. or feed a family in the hills of peru for a few months.

holiday cheer

a package arrived tonight from my dad and his family. i wasn't expecting anything, as we haven't spoken in almost exactly a year, and the last time we did speak, things didn't go too well. i sent him and his family gifts for the holidays, you know, the usual: best buy gift cards, illegally shipped wine, cute hair accessories, and when i got this big box, i was thinking what a lovely box of coal! haha. but no coal. it's three boxes of breakfast type food.

first, alphie, our bomb-sniffing cat, checked out the package for anything suspicious.

upon finding it clean, he returned to his new kitty toy, determined to get high off of catnip for the 8th hour in a row.

but what was in the box, or boxes be to more accurate?

jam, coffee, tea bread, crumpets, and 3 things of english muffins. regifted, yes, and smelling like nitrogen or something similar, of course. but it's the thought that counts, right? let me know if you'd like some english muffins, i've got 15 of 'em.

dinner rocked

the weather's been raining and gross this week, and i've been working hard and feeling better. last night, i had dinner w/c., and i induldged in mini french fries, some creamy cheese with truffle oil, and fennel and blood orange salad with dates at absinthe. oh, and a great zin by limerick lane. yum. but i totally regretted all those good eats 3 hours later.

anyway, here's a nice little image i took yesterday right before the rains kicked in again. enjoy, and happy holidays!

definitely not cat stevens

sen. tad stevens of alaska supports drilling for oil in the arctic national wildlife refuge. now, i don't know what part of "refuge" he doesn't get. the american heritage dictionary defines refuge as:

protection or shelter, as from danger or hardship
OR
a place providing protection or shelter

how is drilling for oil providing protection or shelter to the animals and wildlife within the anwr? sure, some debt is supposed to be repaid to him even though the others in the deal died. years ago. but to make matters worse, stevens wore his hulk tie yesterday as the debate heated up.

good morning to you

we had a really neat sky around 7am this morning, so i thought i'd share. no snarky comments today, just pretty skies that may spell impending doom or rain.

ho ho hahahaha

my dentist is all normal, playing wild 94.9 and all while my teeth get miraculously clean. but todd's, well, it seems his dentist is a little nutty. todd always brings home some kooky object or something along with his new toothbrush and listerine. this latest time, it's.... well. take a look for yourself (the mouthwash and dental floss are inside the reindeer).

i'll be 1/2 a pound lighter

got my official diagnosis yesterday: multiple gallstones. multiple? like several? a whole family of little bits of junk floating around my gall bladder, having wild parties while i nibble on brown rice and quinoa (ick)? great. wonderful. just peachy. i'm still skeptical about the acupuncture, and the doctor said it won't help in the long run; but it might take the edge off for now. so sometime in the next 4 months or so, i'll be having laproscopy to remove my gall bladder. wonder if they can put it in a jar for me. i can put it on the shelf, right next to my wisdom teeth.

what uncle sam's mail carrier can do for you

this morning was the 3rd time i've been to the post office in the past few days. each visit occurred at a different time (really. 5:02pm, 3:38pm, and 10:41am). all 3 times, i've run into this little guy who's also shipping gifts, and it's odd. awkward, in fact. the first time, he was standing next to me in line (this was the 45 minute wait), and he kept chatting with me. wanting to know where i worked, where i lived, that this post office wasn't always like this, what was i shipping, to whom, who was i spending the holidays with, and i was finally like "my loving, caring, long-term relationship, amazingly handsome, funny, and TALL boyfriend." but i was just like "oh, my phone is vibrating. yeah." gasp. so when i walked in yesterday and stood in line, i didn't think much of him being there. until the woman next to me said "that guy over there is waving at you." oh no. so i just said hi and went back to reading my book. today, i walk in, and he's there. again. so i whipped out the book, as it seems to deflect him, or at least my conscious guilt, and read a good chapter. but can i ever go back to that post office? i need to keep doing click n' ship, and also sending packages small enough to fit in a mailbox. and must avoid short semi-creepy guys at post offices. or start going to the post office in the castro. then i can find a nice lesbian to cuddle up with.

just click and ship

during this busy holiday season, i highly recommend the postal service's click and ship program. it's simple:

1. weigh your package at work, home, at the market...
2. go online and fill out a package slip
3. enter your payment method
4. print your label
5. pay
6. affix label (or tape it) onto your package
7. drop your package off at your local post office or put in the mailbox or hand to a postal worker

this way, no more lines of 60+ anxious people at the post office. or at least you can just hand your package to the postal worker and run.

junk in my trunk

i have 4 email accounts. one for work, one for personal correspondence, one for personal spam and mailing lists, and one for todd and my's joint personal spam/mailing lists. and yet i feel like i need another one, for the non-personal personal spam/mailing lists/junk/etc. then i can weed out the real spam from the interesting spam. or the good mailings lists from the "i feel obligated to sign up on your list now that i've sampled all of the chocolate in your so-so boutique store" lists. but can i manage an additional email account with everything else that going on in my boring nondescript everyday life? and i'll need to remember another address and password each consisting of numbers, letters, and fun s!mb0ls. maybe it can be something easy to recall like dontsendmejunk at gmail.com or eyeMasucker. perfect.

what's in a name?

i had my first acupuncture treatment this weekend over on clement, and funny enough once i got all the needles in me, and i felt like hellraiser, the acupuncturist said "ok, just relax and stay there." um, it's not like i could really go anywhere! i had metal pins all up and down my body. but on the way home, i hopped on a 33 and there was this older woman behind me, yapping on her cell. it was just too good a conversation not to share:

wacky lady: so i had my appointment, and he was so great! expensive, but he told me that my problem is that my karma is bad, and it has something to do with the combination of my birthdate and name. now, if i keep going to him, and we search for my perfect name, then when i find it i can change it and my karma will be better, and i'll have a better life and a better future. positive. you know, you should do it too. uh-huh. change your name. it's expensive. i think i'll have to meet with him for a few months. but think of how great your life will be when your name and birthdate add up to a great future! no, i don't think you can change your birth date. unless you were born right around midnight. what? the appointments are weekly, and they're $75 apiece. yeah, i'm so happy!

what? my acupuncture treatments are $75 apiece, and my karma's still the same. dang. i'm going to the wrong specialist on clement. just call me princess consuela bananahammock.

26=

• baker's dozen x 2
• ineligible for the draft
• teddy roosevelt (26th president)
• number of letters in the alphabet
• number of full miles in a marathon
• ammendment giving those 18 and older the right to vote
• me!
  

my hmo still costs me an additional $65/month

why is it so hard to schedule an ultrasound? NO, i'm not pregnant. so stop the gaping. but i need to get one for my abdomen, and they keep telling me it'll be another week. and i'm in pain! which means i go to work, call all 6 radiology dept's to inquire for last-minute openings, look like sh!t, do my work in a daze, finally eat for the first time that day (2pm-ish) when i know i can't get the ultrasound, come home early, legally medicate myself (because i can't be too drugged at work), and trank out on the couch with the cat snuggled up in my arms and bad repeats on tv (although this afternoon they had the season premiere of project runway on, which was better than nothing). you'd think this is the life, but it's like being hung from a bridge by a bungee cord- i feel like i'm bouncing up and down, being teased with the thought of finally getting some answers one day... up and down and up and down and then i vicodin myself and splat. i'm done for the day.

sleepy thought

what goes up must plop down.

wise words brought to you by the makers of vicodin. or at least my brain, which is plopping on vicodin right at this very moment. whee... zzz.

conference don'ts

conferences are always great- time away from work combined with sessions on general topics allowing you to doodle and count down the minutes via hangman (although note to self: one-person hangman doesn't quite work). there are almost always little bugs at conferences, though, that keep it from running smoothly.

1. if you're not interested in the session, feel free to whip out your daily knitting. but make sure you're crafting a warm cashmere throw for yours truly. in purple, please.

2. some older women need to tease their hair. but don't tease and spray your bangs so they're the height equal or greater to the distance from your eyebrows to the top of your forhead (go ahead and measure-- it'll only take a second). because of your hairy situation, i'll blame the hole in the ozone layer on you.

3. don't build your conference rooms right underneath the streetcars or very close to the BART or underground. and if you do, make sure to provide motion sickness pills, ginger ale, and barf bags to your attendees.

4. so when offering breakfast, expect that people will want cream cheese with their bagels. don't push the big tubs of marmalade and pinkish jam and massive pads of butter. repeat after me: cream cheese, cream cheese, cream cheese!

holy roman empire of good for you vitamin c

behold the fractal brocolli, aka romanesco broccoli. sort of looks like a stegasaurous. or what i would imagine one to resemble if it were green and all horny. as in tusks, not anything sexual. really. and now i have to eat it.

as c. says, no more coffee

this morning, i decided to go get a soy hot chocolate with peppermint syrup. starbucks' is good, and jennifer garner and ben affleck seem to encourage me everyday to go drink the stuff. but i'm inclined to go to the neighborhood shop, eventhough they always over-soy my drink. it's all about supporting the little people, right? so i went, ordered, waited while the barrista filled another guy's order since he had to catch the bus that was 4 blocks away, grabbed my frothy looking beverage, and walked to work... and 15 later, took a sip. and i got a strange taste... like bitter, nutty coffee. coffee IS NOT hot chocolate. i don't drink coffee. ever. i had one long summer of dunkin' donuts coffee (couldn't help it- i worked 14 hours days and there was one on every corner in boston), and it did me in. i get twitchy and jittery and hyper and bad smelling breath and stuff. while it does help me concentrate, it's only for so long before i seem to be concentrating on too much and not on the project at hand. so here i had this warm, soy coffee drink w/peppermint syrup which i paid an arm and a leg for. of course i had to drink it. and now i feel like a mouse out to steal the cheese from some big, grey, furry, four-legged, pointed ear predator- i keep jumping at sounds, my hands are shaky, my heart is racing (thumpthumpthumpthump), and my brain feels like it's running (and i DON'T run) a mile a minute! must gather long, spindly tail between legs and run back to my hole in the wall...

the rain in spain...

today is a wet, wet day. and i'm referring to the rain outside. the awful, disgusting, pouring down rain that got me all soaked by the time i got to work this morning. my pants aren't even dry yet. and my feet still feel squishy. and it's dark and dreary and the trees are rustling back and forth. and cars splash you as you walk hurridly down the sidewalk. and if you get a tiny amount of water on your face, then your whole head of hair frizzes up or curls in random directions. oh yeah, and the roof to the library is leaking. everybody's working for the weekend...