Back To Reality

Hey Mom?


I'm cold. Really cold.


Me too.


You don't even know.


It's so cold I have to tuck my nose into my tail.

Yeah, that's right, we're home! And when we got here, it was more than 20 degrees colder here than it was at the beach, and pouring rain. Enough to make a girl turn around and run South, but we persevered because we knew our beloved monsters would be excited to see us. Plus...


...we had beautiful red drum fillets to cook, which we caught just the day before! I got Cam a half day on a charter fishing boat as a sort of an engagement present, and it was a blast. We -- plus my Dad -- caught about 40 bluefish, these 2 drum, and all kinds of other fish too small or too junky to keep (flounder, black bass, grouper, pinfish, lizardfish, sea grunts). The red drum's a regional specialty, and Cam just broiled in it olive oil with salt and pepper, delicate, simple, delicious. I improvised a weird little recipe to use some beautiful Swiss chard and some leftover ciabatta.

I prepped the chard (learned a new method from a Cooks Illustrated video - hold the chard by the stem, and with a sharp knife, just slice down one side of the stalk, then the other, clearing the leafy part clean off the woody center. When you're finished, stack the leaves and leaf bits, then cut in slices. Worked like a champ.), then sauteed it simply with minced fresh garlic (seriously... If you use the jarred kind, chuck it out the window. Fresh garlic is the only garlic. Garlic powder is acceptable in certain applications, such as steaks before grilling, and garlic salt, in egg salad.), salt and pepper and olive oil. After 7 or 8 minutes, it was still chewy but tender. I took it off the heat, stirred in a big hunk of goat cheese, then spread it on toasted ciabatta.

Tomorrow we return to work! I'm packing a freshly baked apple cake to maybe cast a little of the attention in a direction other than the third finger on my left hand. Any bets on how well that'll work? Maybe I should also print out all these kitty pictures as an added distraction.

An Orangette Afternoon

Today, I took the day off of work, just for me. We've been on the road more than we've been home since late May, it seems. Certainly, we've had more weekends away than in the city.

Remember these two?


Winston and Sweeney spent the duration of our recent trip to the Salt Lake City area in the incredibly caring hands of my boss and her husband, the Watsons. When we got home after 5 days gone, these two felines, who usually act like we've been gone for months (the typical I'm-ignoring-you-oh-you-were-gone? made famous by cats only lasts a second around here), instead greeted us calmly, like at the end of a regular ol' workday. I tell you, the Watsons are the BEST at cat sitting. How to thank them?


Orangette's granola, modified slightly. I couldn't find rice syrup at the one store I tried, so I subbed in maple. As I'm sure you can guess, it worked just fine. I omitted the sesame seeds, and used half almonds/half pecans. It's my first attempt at granola, and it won't be long till I bake round two. The scent alone -- swoon! The house was still heady with cinnamon and ginger hours later, though it's currently being overtaken by lemongrass and ginger (not that I'm complaining! Cam's winging Thai for dinner.). Anyway, it's crunchy and sweet and nutty and delicious, and will disappear quickly heaped over yogurt, sprinkled on ice cream, and gobbled by the handful straight out of the fridge. Next time I'll be a bit more liberal with the salt, and cranberries, added after the baking, will fit right in.


Before I made the granola, I pulled together a batch of these Chewy Cocoa Cookies with Chocolate Chips, also courtesy of Molly Wizenberg. More accurately, I pushed and smooshed together a batch -- the dough is quite dense. The cookies, too, are dense, and so thoroughly chocolatey. There's none of that dissatisfaction I usually have with chocolate cookies. Chips I have no dissatisfaction with -- it's the stuff holding them together, when ostensibly chocolate, I generally find to be bland, even flavorless. But that's not an issue here.

So the house smells delicious and it's reasonably clean, and I have all manner of homemade goodies to share and to horde. To me, that's a solid day off. I'm so thrilled to have a relatively blank calendar for the next three weeks, to have time for farmers' marketing, for homecooked meals, and for the chance to make plans -- like the date I have with Tomato and Corn Pie. I promised myself to her, in writing, on this lovely blog, and I intend to call on that pie on Sunday. I can't wait.

Please Mom May I Have Another?

Because we're classy and have an enormous condo, Cam and I eat at the coffee table. We could eat in the breakfast nook, or the formal dining room, but that's absurd (and also more flat out lies. We have neither.). The coffee table's got shelves - a 2x3 grid of cubbies. Winston likes to lie in the one below my plate, per the above picture.


Then, at some point during the meal, he creeps out. Mom? Food? Me? Aren't I cute?


He then spends a lot of time staring at my plate, hoping. This is actually really polite behavior for him - he thinks nothing of standing up on his hind legs and fishing around on the counters for goodies. I'll try for a picture of that next.

Dinner, by the way, was rigatoni in a roasted red pepper & parmesan cream sauce, topped with windowsill basil, zucchini on the side. With homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Not too shabby!

Beans for the Beast

I have a secret.

When Cam's out of town - which isn't infrequent - I like to eat my dinner with my fingers. Last night I made a dipping sauce of greek yogurt and horseradish. I dunked cold steak and hot roasted baby potatoes, and it was nearly as good as the hot steak and roasted potatoes dinner Cam whipped up the night before. Dip, dip. And haricot vert on the side, sprinkled with salt. Next to the horseradish, the beans tasted so sweet.

About those green beans. I placed the plate of steak and beans next to the stove, then sat on the couch while I waited for the potatoes to re-heat. I looked down at my laptop for a few minutes, then realized Winston was on the counter, facedown in my plate. As soon as I looked up he felt my eyes and flew off the counter and under the chair, his prize in his maw. And what did he have firmly clenched between his teeth? Steak? Nope. A green bean.

Weirdo.

failure, pure and simple

so, clearly, i failed at nablopomo. but i'm a pretty stubborn kind of girl, so i'll try again next month. look for all sorts of resolutiony things, like typing with proper capitalization. and taking more photos. which shouldn't be hard because DRUMROLL PLEASE...

I GOT MY DREAM CAMERA FOR CHRISTMAS. well, sort of. what i actually unwrapped on christmas day (evening - a whole other story, but basically i work christmas so my family gets all millenial on things and time-shifts the whole affair to the evening. it's great. pajamas, coffee, waffles, bacon, presents, and adult beverages. plus my sister and her husband get the morning for his family, cam for his, and santa for last minute stage-setting.) was a block of wood in the shape of my camera, with a picture of my camera pasted to the front, and all sorts of switches and buttons and tripod mount and an sd card slot drawn on. it was freaking adorable, and nearly as awesome as the fact that though it is on backorder, at some point in the hopefully not-too-distant future, i will own a canon g10. thanks, cam, bbe!

in fact, a block of wood was not the only sorry/rad present i got. i also got a rock from my sister, on which she wrote "lump of coal." she buried this rock in the center of 8 layered boxes, each wrapped. it was a bit of subterfuge in case i remembered what she got me, which i didn't, so it came as a complete surprise when i unwrapped this badass watch in a nice normal watch-sized box. thanks, enna! fyi, winston has already chewed many little kitty teeth-holes into the strap. because he is a punk. but i love it (and him) anyway.

speaking of the cats (and don't pretend you aren't dying for an update), we had kitty christmas yesterday. winston and sweeney got a catnip lightning bolt, a new attachment for the fishing pole, cat grass, and new crunchy treats. it seems that in spite of the cereal-box-vampirism*, stinky butt problem*, and absolute refusal to sit for nail trims**, santa decided to visit. i tell you, winston must have been just a whisker from the naughty list.

*that's winston, and winston again.
*that's sweeney. she's actually really well-behaved.

just killing time

nablopomo means one thing for sure: kitty neglect. all the time i spend with my laptop in my lap is time spent with winston staring at me from the coffee table, walking on the keyboard, or smooshing his head into my leg trying to shove the computer out of the way. sweeney's a little better at dealing because she's so small, and she likes being beside me as much as sitting on me anyway, so.

here i am blogging about my freaking cats again. it seems to come to this, because when cam's out of town (which is a lot), i spend much of time at home with them. and work's been kind of intense lately (in a good way, i'm learning a new job). and i haven't been reading enough. and when he's gone, i watch too much tv. and that's not conducive to the deep thoughts. i could do a blog about crappy tv, but that would necessitate admitting how much of it i'm conversant in. right now i'm watching some poor kid on true life (oh, how i love true life) take his date to the prom, chauffered by his dad in the family minivan, in which, of course, the air conditioning is broken. and they're the first to arrive. awkward. an observation: how come high school girls think that if their dress is long, it's ok that it's extraordinarily slutty on top? like, cut to the bellybutton, and exposing the inside half of each breast? not classy. my prom dress was short, but i'm grown and not embarassed when i see pictures, so i still think it was ok.

deep thoughts, people. deep thoughts.

photo sesh

this is too funny not to share.

well, actually, i can't share it, exactly. i haven't really figured out the line between my blog life and my real life, and to do so would mean posting a picture of me and cam on the internetz, associated with my fake name. and then, if anyone really cared to do so - as if anyone reads this blog who doesn't know me, anyway - they could figure out who i am. i think my biggest impulse for anonymity exists because of my job. it's a pretty incredible job, and i'd like to keep it. i can't imagine ever saying something that could get me in trouble there, but since i blog as part of my job, too, completely publicly, it just seems sort of... weird. so, right. anyway. back to the funny.

today enna and i were chatting about what to give our grandmother, our dad's mom. she wants for nothing, and doesn't like stuff. you know, the stuff that clutters. anyway, enna's got a perfect gift for her - a picture of her and her new husband on their honeymoon. grandma loves photos. so the question became, what should i do? enna suggested a picture of cam and i and our kitties, kind of funny, but sweet, too. i was a little sketched about it - is it jinx-y, since we're not married? but i decided if cam was in, i was too. i gchatted him about it, and through the miracle that is gchat, i got no response, which of ocourse made me wonder, "does he think it's weird? is this just too too?" but when he picked me up, i asked him about it, and he said yeah, didn't you get my response? "should we get matching sweaters?" that's cam. hilarious!

so we sat down tonight with the camera on a 10-second delay, in front of the tree, and tried to grab the cats and make them face the camera, smiling all the while. cam and i did ok - our pictures were pretty good - but the cats... not so much. unsurprising, sure, but hilarious in that winston, who's generally pretty agreeable and completely photogenic, kept turning his head to the side, away from the camera, in every shot. he looked like a crazy no-eyed devil. sweeney, on the other hand, just exuded pain in every picture. she detests being held. she'll join you for a cuddle, or sit on your lap, but don't try to restrain her. the girl cannot be contained. so, instead of a hilarious outtake from the shoot, you get the cats, trying to compose themselves after we finally gave up (after about 20 photos). we got a decent one, and we'll tell grandma the story. and the cats? they've fully recovered.

capitulation

it sounds awful, but it really isn't. cam and i had planned for awhile to do it up right for our first christmas living together, which meant going to a christmas tree farm to cut down our own tree. unfortunately, our ridiculous schedules have conspired against us, and tonight i convinced him that we just can't wait till the 14th... what we need to get us de-stressed and excited about the holidays is a tree, fragrant and glowing in our living room. so tonight we climbed into lucy (his old ford pickup, she's awesome) and headed to a lot just slightly out of town. not 10 minutes later we had a perfect tree in the back of the truck, and now the cats are chasing each other around it, we've got christmas carols on pandora, and all is right in the world. plus, after about an hour on the computer, i'm nearly done my christmas shopping.

the whole recession thing is making for a strange holiday season, in some ways. a week ago, my work sent out a notice about the so-called holiday happenings around the building. conspicuously absent? any mention of a holiday party. my work used to really do it up this time of year, with a huge party to which all our loved ones were invited. this year, there's a hot chocolate happy hour. that's it. no bands, no santa for the kids, no disco in the mail room, no booze. it's kind of depressing, and i'm not sad i'll be missing it. then, today, cam emailed me the notice from his work, announcing the all-out cancellation of their holiday party. and then i heard the promo for all things considered this evening: "the latest casualty of the recession? the office holiday party."

the weird thing is, even though i'm a little put out that work's not putting on the dog and plying me with cocktails this december, i'm not that upset about spending less on gifts. there are few things i love so much as finding the perfect gifts for friends and family that make each recipient feel pampered and understood, and working in tighter financial parameters just makes it a little more challenging. i know i'm fortunate - for some families santa's not coming at all, and that's true every year - but it's changed my focus a little, and so far, i'm making the best of it. i do wish i had more time for homemade gifts (or better follow-through?), and that i'd make some headway on my christmas cards, but for now, i'm happy with a cartful of etsy purchases and a tree in the living room.

she lives in dreams

this morning i was looking at my cat, laying on the floor per usual. he's absolutely enormous - if you don't know winston, he's 16lbs of long, lean cat... which is HUGE. so huge that his vets (he has a couple he's seen recently for 1-year checkups) both exclaimed "oh my gosh, he's huge!" one had read his weight on his chart before actually seeing him, and she was like, "i expected this big fat cat, but he's not fat at all, he's just huge!" so yeah, winston's a monster. he's also the sweetest feline ever on 4 paws, but i digress.

anyway, this morning i was looking at him lounging, he never sits curled up or in a loaf, it's always an all-out sprawl. and it suddenly occurred to me how everyone always takes pictures of their babies on the floor next to their cats, and how when i have a baby someday it's going to be hilarious (ok, maybe not everyone takes those pictures, but i know there's one of me stretched out in front of the fire after a bath, our siamese suki next to me). so cam comes in from his shower and i'm just standing there laughing, and i tell him, "you know how people always take pictures of their babies and their cats on the floor? i hope win's still around when i have one, because that kid's going to be a toddler before he's bigger than winston!" cam just looked at me bemusedly and was like, this is what you're thinking about...? he laughs and counters with, "just picture our baby laid out beside our great dane!" so i guess we're getting a great dane, too. and then he said, well actually, maybe our baby won't be a shrimp, because babies in my family are BIG. he's talking like 10lbs big. yikes! babe, how do you feel about adoption?