In honor

of St. Patrick's Day, the local classic rock station played 'Whiskey in the Jar,' a U2 song, and a Van Morrison song all in a row. It seemed a good omen for last night's 4.14 mile run, so I put on my neon green long-sleeved shirt (courtesy of the Stockade-athon, which I highly recommend) and set off with hubs and the dog. About half a mile in, when the past 3 weeks of complete inactivity threatened to completely derail my motivation, I had the following conversation with myself:

-God, why do I run? This is the worst activity everrrr.
-Shut up and stop whining, you sound like A.Leo.
-Nice. Real friendly.
-Seriously. Try singing in your head, that usually helps.
-I can't think of any good songs. I hate this.
-There's whiskey in the jar-o!
-You're right! There is whiskey in the jar-o!

And so for the remainder of the run, I sang the chorus over and over. And over and over and over. I think I need to learn some of the other words to the song.

Here it is for your viewing and listening pleasure.

Brobee.

Cutie patootee Carly turned one over the weekend, so I offered to make a cake for her Yo Gabba Gabba-themed party. When I first decided to do this, Marissa was going to help me with the decorating, as she is far more artistically inclined than I. But one week before the party, everyone she'd invited RSVP'd yes, so I suggested that instead of both of us stressing over the cake, I'd just take care of it on my own. Secretly I was pleased because I am not good at working with someone else in the kitchen. Ask hubs. He knows to stay the hell out of my way.

And so I created a monster. Seriously. I felt like Dr. Frankenstein. I diced and spliced and iced. And this is what turned out:

I learned several lessons. One, don't try to draw eyes upside down because they turn out crooked and funny looking. Two, if someone says to you, "don't you think you should smooth it out more," you probably should. Three, never underestimate the sheer amount of frosting required to cover one and a half 9x13 cakes. And four, it is not wise to start a project of this nature without first eating breakfast.

In the top right you can see the little smash cake I sloppily iced for Carly. I wish I'd had the motivation to make that into a character, too, but apparently I ran out of steam.

H-u-n-g-r-y, you ain't got no alibi!

One of the bloggers at the Times Union recently posted something that actually made me nod my head in agreement:

 Many of us feel hungry when we aren’t and then eat when we don’t need to.
Here are just some of the things (other than an empty stomach) that spell hungry for me:

• time of day
• deadline at work
• watching a movie
• watching someone else eat something good
• being bored
• being tired
• feeling anxious
• procrastinating
• being in the same room as ice cream
• the Food Network
• peer pressure
• knowing I won’t be able to eat later (I call it preventive eating)
• the smell of baked anything 

Don't you just agree with everything on here? I'd only make a few changes:

• being in the same house as ice cream, baked goods, or Halloween candy
• watching food commercials (especially ones that feature cheese or chocolate)
• watching TV without something in my hands like knitting or magazine-recipe-culling

What would you add to the list?

Liiiiiiverpool!

My family plays a card game called Liverpool. Very few people have ever heard of this game. A.Leo's family plays a card game called Liverpool. When we discovered this, we knew immediately that we were sisters from different misters.

We brought her then-roomie into the fold. Epic tournaments took place. Names were called, hands were slapped. I perfected the art of amassing as many points as possible (decidedly not the way to win). We took turns hosting and ate delicious food; I fondly remember the nutella pound cake we had one night, and the fancy grilled cheese sandwiches we had another. But eventually, time went on and everyone moved out of Albany and the games became few and far-between.

And so it was with great excitement that A.Leo and I planned a weekend in Long Island to visit her former roomie.  We drove down after work on Friday, ate dinner at a diner - omg the curly fries - and went to bed early.  A. and I went for a run Saturday, and then the 3 of us got breakfast sandwiches and took the LIRR into the city.

After a very cold walk from Penn Station, we got cupcakes for lunch at Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village, which is very famous as evidenced by the numbers of women stuffed into the tiny storefront. Then we walked (and walked and walked and walked) to dash, which is also very famous as evidenced by the honest-to-god LINE on the sidewalk. We did not enter the Kardashian's store. Then, one final stop at Macy's so I could see the wooden escalators which were so cool. I am embarrassed that we didn't get any photos of our day.

The true highlight of the weekend was Saturday evening. We played 3 games of Liverpool. I won the first game. I was perhaps a bit rude in my celebrations, as karma struck me down and made me lose the 2nd (ok, in reality, the tv was on and she is a cruel mistress. I felt compelled to watch it. Wouldn't you?). I fought back, though, and won the 3rd, too. It was glorious. As a habitual loser, I relished the feeling of victory - especially since I know it will probably never happen again.

My first!

During this week's menu-planning process, I decided I needed to make fasolakia to counteract the obscenely large amount of ice cream I consumed over the weekend. While my version is simpler and is basically just green beans, onions, and garlic stewed in tomatoes, water, and olive oil until somewhat soft, the dish in the link brings back fond memories of Greek tavernas.

A discussion of the merits of Greek cooking is not, however, the point of this post.  In an attempt to actually use some of the food I put up this past summer, I got out a jar of tomatoes in water. It looked a bit odd, but they were Brandywines. But then, I opened the jar with surprisingly little effort. At first I thought I had finally happened upon an easy method of taking off the stupid damned lids, but no. I am not that clever.

Instead: my first seal failure!!!


Ick. There was totally green mold growing across the inside of the lid, and chunk of white something floating with the tomatoes. I was skeeved. Now I have to figure out what went wrong - all of the other jars from that batch seemed to seal fine.

Last night was not simply a night of failure, though.  I checked on my pink sauerkraut and it's slowly but surely fermenting! I'm considering moving it to a warmer part of the house; it's already been close to six weeks and it doesn't have much kick. Still, given that last year the sauerkraut had to be trashed due to an overly generous application of salt, I am pleased.

Next stop, une choucroute garnie! Who's coming to dinner?

3...2...1.

M and I went to Woodstock VT for a 3 day weekend and had a great time. We spent most of Saturday on rented cross-country skis.  It was my first time x-c skiing, and for the most part I didn't feel like an idiot. The first 2-3 miles were practice miles on a golf course, which I enjoyed. The next 5ish miles were on Mt. Tom. I should have questioned the wisdom of skiing on something called Mt. Tom. All told, I fell only three times, a respectable number considering the sheer terror that consumed me.

Here's a brief pictorial essay of me skiing down a hill:

I survey my kingdom and assess my options for descent.

Panic mask firmly in place, I begin my descent. Note that I have not yet employed the snowplow braking technique.

I chose a graceful swan dive to finish.

This, kind readers, is why I prefer snowshoeing.

The Greening

Here's what my garden looks like now:

It's currently 3 raised beds with trellises at the back of each one; I'm trying to convince hubs to build me a 4th.

In 4 months, it will be filled with:
basil
bush beans
cucumbers
lettuce
peas
peppers, hot
peppers, sweet
tomatoes (many types!)

It's a little late, so I anticipate reduced availability, but seed shopping begins! I'm trying to determine which varieties of everything to get. At this time last year I was just beginning to think that I could produce some of our food, and it was an exciting thought.

Last year I had unnecessary success with the Sun Gold grape tomatoes and whatever jalapeno I planted, and pretty good success with the Brandywine tomatoes. Ultimately, though, we just don't eat enough fresh tomatoes to warrant planting more than one Brandywine - I hope to find more of a paste tomato and I have my eye on one that's designed for salsa and is nice and meaty.

Moderate success with the lettuces, though I didn't plant enough seeds to make it really worth my while. My sweet peppers didn't do so well - gorgeous foliage, but small peppers that seemed to take forever to mature. I bought them as starts from a local store and don't know the cultivar, but hope I pick a better one this year.

I don't even want to think about the tragedies that befell my cucurbits. Even though I managed to get some summer squash out of the deal, on the whole the entire group was just a colossal waste of time and resources.  I can't decide if I want to bother trying again this year or not... Today I lean towards not, to give the evil larvae that I'm sure made it into my soil a chance to die. I'll have to find another source of organic summer squash... And I think I know just the neighbor (cough*Marissa*cough) to grow them!