In an attempt to avoid such lengthy delays in posting, we're blogging from the road this time. Part 1 of the big Road Trip 2009 took us from Chicago to St. Louis in around 4.5 hours, thanks to Speed Racer AKA Matt. We got in 11:00pm and found a Holiday Inn Express (free wireless and breakfast!!).
In the middle of the night Matt woke up, which woke me up and he asked "did you remember the baseball tickets?" Me: "Crap crap crap crap crap!!" - which is shorthand for "you mean the tickets that have been on my bulletin board in the office for 6 weeks? Those baseball tickets? The ones that were $75 each? The ones that are now 4.5 hours away in the opposite direction we're going? Those baseball tickets? No, as a matter of fact I don't". And that's how both of us lost a night's sleep, annoyed with ourselves and wondering how to fix this costly little kink in our vacation plans.
Luckily, Matt was able to access the email with the confirmation number and called the box office the next day to explain that we "didn't have the tickets with us". Which wasn't a lie. But if they chose to think it was because the tickets never quite made it to us in the mail, well, that was fine. Blame the mail system in Chicago, they mess up enough of our mail anyway, they have it coming. So long story short, we can pick up reprinted tickets before the game. Whew!
Next stop Carthage, MO because we MUST see the Precious Moments Chapel and Museum. If you plan to go, just be aware - there are signs about every 20 feet along the highway, but once you take the specified exit, there's not a sign in sight telling you how to find this mecca of adorableness. Serioiusly, they make a big deal of it for miles, then nothing. Thanks to the miracle that is the iPhone (at this point, Apple owes me big for all these iPhone mentions) and the Google Maps, we found it.
Now I was all prepared to be cynical and mocking - it should come as no surprise that neither Matt nor myself are Precious Moments collectors. But apparently a lot of people take it very seriously and at some point it just felt mean to make fun. Plus, it is a chapel, so a certain amount of reverence is called for. But that was just me - Matt was happy to let his snark flag fly. More than once I moved a few steps away, lest I wind up suffering collateral damage from the lightening bolt that was sure to come flying at him any moment.
Me (to Matt who is crouching down on the floor): What are you doing?
Matt: I'm trying to get a picture of the little Indians in the canoe in the same frame as the message at the top of the display. It says "Will you be ready when Jesus comes" and I think all the other little figures will be, but not the Indians. They don't believe in Jesus so they'll go to Hell."
Me (stepping away): Well, at least they'll have you there to keep them company.
The chapel is pretty impressive in a slightly strange way. I suppose if you're into PM, it's not so disturbing, but there's something about the paintings depicting stories from the Bible with PM figures that I find disconcerting:
Here's a bunch of other pictures:
I did not leave without making a purchase. I felt the need to make amends for Matt's disparaging comments. I am now the proud owner of a Precious Moments Santa Christmas ornament. This should not be mistaken for a sudden appreciation for and need to collect Precious Moments, so please don't start buying me those things for gifts.
Next we headed for Tulsa, OK, which seemed like a good place to camp out for the night. And by "camp" I mean "find another Holiday Inn Express (free wireless internet access! Free cinnamon rolls for breakfast!)". After a much-needed nap (who knew Precious Moments would be so exhausting?) we looked for a place for dinner. The latest issue of "Oklahoma" magazine was helpfully placed in our room and it was the "Best Of" edition. There was an article for a Mexican place called Elote' Cafe which immediately caught my eye. Matt kept suggesting other places and finally I had to say "Dude, how many times to I have to repeat MARGARITA'S and PUFFY TACOS? Do you really think we're going anywhere else tonight? Why do you so seem to hate a place we've never been?" And then I realized the article had talked about the cafe's mission to use organic, sustainable, local sourced ingredients, and the food is healthy, which Matt thinks is code for "dirty liberal Democrat hippies and yucky food". I'm pretty sure he's afraid the "hippies" will immediately smell his Conservative Republican "I hate the environment" vibe and contaminate his food with liberal love. Or at least that's what I told him he was afraid of. He, of course, denies it all. But we did go to the Elote Cafe and it was fabulous, even he had to admit. It's one of those places where everyone is super-friendly, lot's of local folks who are obviously regulars and our waitress Heidi was cute as a bug. Yes, I had puffy tacos (how can you resist any food called "puffy", I ask you?). We tried to order a hot & spicy ice cream sandwich for dessert, but Heidi came back to our table - "Bad news bears. We're out of the ice cream sandwich." So we had the baked apples with home made vanilla ice cream topped with home made pecan granola and honey. Which Heidi informed us was the "healthiest" dessert! I'm pretty sure that balanced out the margarita and puffy tacos.
Tomorrow we head for Dallas/Fort Worth! More to come when we get another free wireless connection, but I'll make little posts on Facebook if anything interesting happens.
It seems I'm posting the last vacation just in time to leave for the next. Don't judge me. So waaaaaayyyy back in March, we went to Sonoma, California for an extended-weekend vacation. And I took lots of pictures and little notes and promised myself I'd blog all about it as soon as we got home, but then life got in the way as it always does. See Matt got this awesome iPhone app game called Drop 7 and now we're slaves to it. Peek in our window any evening and you'll probably see both of us on opposite ends of the couch staring into our little iPhone/iTouch screens poking away and occasionally muttering an obscenity when the stupid ball doesn't drop in the right place. It's our nicotine.
So, here's the long-over-due post about Sonoma, which is fabulous (Sonoma, not the blog post. Although hopefully that will be informative and entertaining too!)
Day 1 - immediately upon arrival, Matt looks up the nearest In-and-Out Burger location on his iPhone (I swear, we're not being paid by Apple to mention iPhones every paragraph. I wish.) Because every trip to California must begin with a gut-busting visit to In-and-Out Burger. I prefer to think of it as laying down a good fat foundation to soak up all the alcohol we'll be consuming, just being responsible about our drinking! And not only did we find IAOB, we found one attached to a Krispy Kreme! Which led to all kinds of speculation and ideas - why not put a burger ON a Krispy Kreme? Sweet & savory, all in one serving, and your arteries would probably just burst on the spot.
Our next stop was lovely Petaluma, California. Matt listens to a podcast by Leo Laporte. Recognize that name? Congrats, you're a tech geek! He broadcasts from a studio in Petaluma and with a little internet stalking investigating, Matt found the coordinates to the studio (which he plugged into Maps on the iPhone, natch - golly that thing is handy!) We arrived at a sweet looking little house with a open porch bearing a big TWiT sign (This Week in Technology, for the non-geeks), a small fridge, coffee maker and wicker patio furniture. We hovered on the porch a bit, not sure if we should go in further and Matt was getting ready to go when a guy came out on the porch and put on a kettle of water for tea. And that guy was Leo LaPorte himself. Of course, I was clueless but Matt introduced himself and we were invited into the studio to watch the broadcast. It was really impressive, lots of computers and screens and lighting and cameras. He was conducting a discussion with a couple of guys via computer (Skype?) and I have no idea what they were talking about - it was something related to space exploration and stuff. I just sat and pretended to listen (I barely passed Astrology 101 in college). But this was a pretty big deal for Matt and he was in Geek Heaven. We hung around for about 20 minutes and Mr. LaPorte could not have been nicer or friendlier. Not many guys would just invite a couple of strangers in to watch him work. Very cool guy.
Next stop, Lagunitas Brewery also conveniently located in Petaluma. I don't like beer, but this place was very cool. The tour begins with a generous tasting in what appears to be the company lounge. It's a great space, a cross between a dive bar and someone's basement rec room (except it's a loft). I imagine they have some excellent parties up there.
The first photo shows kegs marked to be delivered to the Windy City. Then we have Matt hugging a keg (why do I feel I could be so easily replaced?). The last 3 pics are in the "tasting room". There was a very interesting lighting fixture made from Barbie dolls, a view of the foosball table and the fridge, which included a copy of a traffic citation from a customer who was stopped for drinking Lagunitas beer while driving. It was less a traditional tasting room and more like your best friend's basement. And that's a good thing.
On to Sonoma. We stayed in Santa Rosa, which seemed to be a good central location. Dinner that night was over in Napa however, at the Rutherford Grill. In the "small world" category, our waitress was from Chicago and had worked at Bandera, one of my favorite places, which is part of the same restaurant group (Houston's) as Rutherford Grill. However, Bandera does not have the yummy blue-cheese covered potato chips we had at Rutherford Grill (it's OK, I had a salad for dinner, so it all balanced out). Our fabulous waitress clued us in to topping them with tabasco, taking the yum factor up a notch.
Day 2 - We started with a lovely drive to Healdsburg in Dry Creek Valley and picked up breakfast sandwiches at the Jimstown Grocery. We decided to spend the rest of the day in Dry Creek Valley, which is Zinfindel central in Sonoma. We'd done some research and wanted to focus on places that were smaller, not as readily-available at home and specialized in Zins, which we love. Most of these places don't hold regular tasting hours because they're run by the owner, so we made reservations. It's interesting because we were the only people and the tasting was conducted by the owner/winemaker, so we learned a lot about the wine and process.
Our first stop was Unti Vinyards. Great place and we walked away with 3 bottles. Next stop was Talty Vinyards. We were greeted by a big fluffy dog (a shepard mix?) who trotted up to the car, tail wagging with one of those big doggie smiles, and escorted us to the tasting room like a welcoming committee. Just outside the tasting room was a little yappy fluffball, also happy to see us. As we entered the tasting room, the big dog grabbed the little dog by the ear and then the tail to drag it back and keep it from going in with us. It was so funny - neither of us has ever seen a dog so clearly communicating "no, you can't do that" to another dog.
Last stop was Hawley another family owned-and-operated winery completely hidden up in the hills. One of the sons conducted our tasting, and another son had taken the pictures for the guidebook we were using (an excellent book if you're planning to visit Sonoma). And the mother is an artist, painting gorgeous wine country landscapes.
We bought 2 bottles at Hawley, bringing us to a total of 5 for the day. Before we started I'd said "OK, we really shouldn't buy any more wine, unless it's really special, because we have so much at home right now." As you can see that didn't last long. Now the goal was to limit ourselves to a case.
Friday night we had dinner at Zin's Restaurant and WIne Bar in Healdsburg, mostly because Matt read something about a popular appetizer, beer-battered fried green beans with mango salsa. This is how we plan vacations, around things we see on the Food Network or read in Food & Wine magazine - "hey, that looks good, let's go there!". I'm totally not even kidding. So yeah, we got the green beans and they were pretty tasty.
You wouldn't necessarily match up green beans and mango salsa but it worked. After way too much good food and a bottle of wine we waddled back to the hotel and fell into a food coma.
Day 3 - we set off to find a place for breakfast, hoping for a cute little local diner. We lucked out when we found Garden Court Cafe & Bakery in Glen Ellen. Their motto is "If You Leave Hungry...It's Your Own Fault". And they aren't kidding. This is one of those places that's been there forever and where everyone knows everyone (except you). It was exactly what we needed to lay down a solid foundation for drinking wine all day.
We had planned our trip during the Savor Sonoma festival, a barrel tasting event. 20 wineries were offering barrel tasting (where you can taste wines that will be released in 3-9 months) and food. It was a great deal, $50/person for 2 days of tastings and food. There was a nice mix of large well-known producers as well as some smaller wineries we'd never heard of, so it was a good opportunity to find something new. Our goal was to visit 4 places each day (we've learned that's about our limit, then everything starts to taste the same).
We started off at Muscardini and Ty Caton, two wineries we're very familiar with and really like. We had never heard of barrel tastings before, so it was fun to meet the winemakers and hear about the process they go through when making the wine. And yes, we bought more wine. Next stop was Wellington, another winery we've purchased a lot of wine from but never visited. Not surprisingly we picked up a bottle there too. I'll just come clean and tell you we ended up with 12 bottles of wine, which we shipped home.
After heading home for a little nap, we decided to drive to Bodega Bay. It was a gorgeous drive, if a little foggy. We passed by so many farms and fields, with cows and calves (or as we like to call them, veal - hey if we weren't meant to eat them, whcy did God make them taste so good?) Very pastoral.
That night we had dinner at The Girl and the Fig in Sonoma. And kudos to them - I totally screwed up our reservation, somehow making it for the following Saturday night, which of course would not do at all. But they very nicely fit us in and were even kind about it (poor girl, she can't even read a calendar properly. How does that guy put up with her?) Not only that - they sat us at a table next to James VanDerBeek (remember, Dawson, from Dawson's Creek?) Matt was oblivious. I passed him a note (because I'm subtle that way) saying "James VanDerBeek is sitting to your left" and he looked at me and shrugged. Then I made him eat silently so I could eavesdrop on JVDB all night. He looks really good - much younger than I'd thought. Because how often do you get a chance to do that? He seemed like a nice guy. Of course I'm way too cool to say anything but then what would I say? "I liked Dawson's Creek for a few months and I haven't seen anything you've done since then, sorry!" Oh, and I just read he's getting a divorce from his wife, which is sad.
Day 4 - started with a very looooonnnggg drive over twisty mountain roads to Napa. We wanted to have brunch at Ad Hoc, the newest restaurant from Thomas Keller. We can't afford French Laundry but we've always had great meals at Bouchon, his other restaurant, so we wanted to try this one. The deal with Ad Hoc is each day there's a 4-course meal for $49. You eat whatever they're serving, no choices, so it's a bit of a leap of faith that you'll like what they're serving. We made reservations for 10:30a, since we wanted to do more wine tastings later in the afternoon. That should have been fine, but there were some "issues". We were 1 of 2 tables seated at that time and service was REALLY slow. In my opinion, if you open at 10:30, you should be ready with your "A" game at 10:30, especially if you know what everyone is going to be eating because you're in charge of the menu and you're charging $50 per person. So it took a few minutes after being seated to get water, then a few minutes more to get coffee. Which they brought in a french press (yummy!) and told me it should be pressed in 4 minutes. But don't press it myself, they prefer to do that themselves. OK, fine. But after 5 minutes, no one had come back. And if you let the coffee steep too long it gets bitter. So screw it, I pressed it myself. I have a french press at home and it's not exactly rocket science - you just press the top down. Can you unscrew the top of the milk jug? Then you can handle a french press. Also, there was a bread basket with sourdough bread, but it was cold. How hard would it have been, and how much nicer, to just heat the bread a little bit?
Brunch started with a nice little salad. Then they brought biscuits with homemade raspberry preserves (heavenly). The main course was pork belly, a very simple rolled omelette, and hash brown potatoes. The omelette was severely underseasoned. The potatoes were nice, but the pork belly was just crazy good, the best we've ever had. The final course was a danish-type thing, good enough, but I would have rather had more biscuits and raspberry preserves.
Service seemed to pick up a little by 11:00am. But I was still annoyed at how the meal had started. With only 2 tables, it should have been much better early on. Overall though it was a nice meal.
Next we headed back to the Savor Sonoma festival. I think we hit 5 more wineries, probably 1 more than we should have. As we drove past a beautiful field I commented "Wow, that cow is HUGE!" Matt said "That's because it's a horse." OK, enough wine then. Time for a nap.
We decided to head back toward Bodega Bay, since it had been so foggy the day before. This time it was more clear but really windy. Still, the drive along the coast is spectacular.
For dinner, Matt had read about a brew pub he wanted to try, Russian River Brewing Company. I wasn't expecting much, but this place was great. There was a band playing, people were dancing, everyone seemed to know everyone, the place was packed. The food was fine, but Matt was really thrilled with his beer flight. I just enjoyed the people watching, the band and the general atmosphere.
Day 5 - before heading for the airport, we decide to visit the Charles Schultz Museum. Who doesn't love Peanuts? The museum had a special exhibit about Snoopy and his involvement with NASA. Apparently Snoopy was a mascot to the astronauts. They even had a Snoopy award for safety.
Across from the museum is the Charles Schultz ice skating rink. He was a big hockey fan and every day he ate lunch at the Warm Puppy Cafe, and watched the kids ice skate. The rink is really cute, very retro and if we'd had more time I would have rented skates and gone for a spin.
Another cute feature is a live web cam outside the rink. We sat on a bench, then called my mom so she could jump on the computer and see us sitting there.
Alas, all vacations must end, so we headed back for the airport and home.
Yes, I know once again I have been negligent in my blogging responsibilities. I owe you an update on the Sonoma trip. But I've been soooooo unmotivated to do anything, it's been rainy and cold and yucky and the couch is so cozy and the remote control fits so nicely in my hand. You see where I'm going with this. I'm too lazy to even move the laptop close enough to me on the couch to type a little. But today everything changed. Today I did 3 loads of laundry, vacuumed, recycled all the old newspapers and magazines, cleaned all the dead plants out of the backyard planters, worked out AND made banana nut muffins (from a mix, but still!). I suspect someone at Starbucks got tired of seeing me dragging myself in there with bedhead and the same pair of sweats 7 days in a row and decided to slip a little "something extra" into my mocha. Thank you Starbucks!!
Or maybe I just needed to make sure I had no distractions so I can read this:
Anyway, I have loved all of Jen's previous books and read her hilarious blog (www.jennsylvania.com) regularly. I can't wait to start this one - and I'll be back to let you know what I thought of it. And, I swear, with all the details on the Sonoma trip (including the "oh my gosh, is that Dawson from Dawson's Creek" moment...)
SO – yeah, it’s been a while. Long time no blog. But I have a really good reason. I have a very boring life. Maybe not so much boring as unblogworthy. Do you really want to hear about how I worked all day, came home, made dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, then watched Public Television, (OK, you got me), America’s Next Top Model, then did a little knitting, some reading, and went to bed? Then got up the next day and did that same thing again (except substitute maybe Survivor or CSI for ANTM). Because that’s what my winter has been like.
Except finally last week we actually did something that involved leaving the couch. We went to Navy Pier to the Flower and Garden Expo, then to see the movie Watchmen on Imax. It was a mutual compromise – you do my really cool fun thing and pretend not to be bored, then I’ll tolerate your geeky superhero movie and pretend not to be bored.
By the way, if you bring a baby to an R-rated movie filled with ear-splitting explosions and blood-splattering violence, you have failed Parenting 101. And if you let the kid cry for the first 15 minutes of the movie without getting up and leaving, then you’ve failed Decent Human Being With A Fraction of Common Sense 101 as well. When I point out how annoying people are, Matt tells me “you’re so angry grrrr!” but I prefer to think I just have a low threshold for stupidity. (And no, it doesn’t make me less angry when he points this out, although I can’t help smiling a bit when he goes “grrrr”, which is probably why he does it).
Anyway, here are some pictures from the show (not Watchmen, I’ll spare you the hatchet in the head, arms getting sawed-off blood splatter. You’re welcome.) It was so refreshing to walk into the expo space and smell the flowers. And even though it’s way too soon to plant anything, it definitely got me in the mood. It was also an unseasonably warm day, so we were able to walk outside along the Pier, where the ice in the water reminded us that winter was still around.
Matt says no hot tub. He thinks hobos and rats would make our yard their new party central. Maybe. But I'm pretty sure you can get covers that lock. He still remains unconvinced. I'll have to keep working on that one. I can be very annoying tenacious when I want something.
This was a big display made out of Lite Brite pegs - hard to see here, but it was really cool.
Not sure what this was all about, but I thought it was creative. The bed reminded me of something from a fairy tale.
I loved the little scottie dog made out of, well, I'm not sure what that stuff was... rattan? Whatever, it was cute and I have this thing for garden animal sculptures. See below:
Moving on... One part of my life that isn’t usually boring is my commute. The 20 bus is such a deal, $1.50 each way and there’s usually a little show going on. Matt hates it, he cranks up his iPod to tune out the crazy, but I embrace the crazy. Well, not literally, the crazy usually smells and can be a little scary, but there are things you never witness anywhere but the 20 bus. Such as:
A guy sitting in a seat, in such a way I can only describe as folded in half, his head on his knees. Kind of like a human pocketknife. Passed out cold from whatever substance he was abusing, every time the bus driver put on the brakes, he’d slide forward in the seat. I was holding my breath because he was one really good slam of the brakes away from flying into the seat in front of him head first and probably breaking his neck. He finally sat up, looked around, decided it was time to get off the bus. He stood up, something in an open bottle in his pocket spilling out onto the floor (please don’t let it be pee). Unfortunately, his way-to-big pants did not quite make the trip and my “quick-look-away” reflexes were too slow, and I now have the sight of his bare ass permanently imprinted in my brain.
Then there was the little soliloquy by the drunk in the back of the bus (where I normally don’t sit, because it’s like “hobo central” on the 20). He was going on and on for the entire ride about all his various injuries, how he’d been stabbed 17 times and shot 8 times, the government was trying to have him assassinated, etc. I pretended to listen to my iPod, but I had the sound off because the conspiracy theorists are the most entertaining people on the bus. When he got off, the guy sitting across from me started in on how he’d had to listen to the guy for the last hour and he thought he might have to stab him himself. The 2 junior high kids sitting next to me were laughing so hard, I couldn’t help but start laughing at them laughing. Which the guy loved, now he had an audience and he just went on and on, it actually was pretty funny. Just before he got off he paused, then said, apropos of nothing “there’s nothing like putting on a new pair of socks”. And then he got off. Words of wisdom, if you ask me.
On the same ride the junior high girl sitting next to me was watching my iPod screen as I scrolled through the artists list, looking for something to listen to. She said, surprised, “you listen to the same things I do!” I wanted to say, jeez, hold old do you think I am? Then I realized the answer would be “really old”. So instead I just said “yeah, I like pretty much everything but heavy metal.” And we talked about our favorite singers and inside my head I’m thinking “hey, I’m still cool!”
And occasionally there’s a guy dressed from head to toe in white, with a white Bible, preaching. It’s a stream of consciousness rambling, he just strings together his thoughts about sinners and evil mixing in a random Bible verse or two and sprinkling in the occasional profanity. The first time it kind of caught me off guard – I mean, I don’t remember the f-word being used in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, or even Revelations, where it might actually be appropriate. But then I thought maybe he was reading from the New Urban Edition Bible. I’ll give him credit for trying to reach the people on their own level.
The 20 bus is definitely PG-13 and sometimes R. There’s a very large segment of society for whom profanity doesn’t exist. They don’t distinguish between swear words and all other words, it’s all the same and I honestly don’t think they even know that some people are offended. On woman recently had “the nerve” to tell a teenage girl to watch her language. The suggestion was not appreciated or applied. In fact, the girl seemed confused about exactly what it was that was offensive and an argument started. What made this amusing to me was neither party was willing to let the other have the last word. Finally they were just mumbling “mm hmmm”, “that’s right”, “I said”, etc. back and forth. It came down to who would make the last sound or word fragment.
So there you go, that’s got to be about a month’s worth of posting. We’re leaving for Sonoma tomorrow (Yay, vacation! Vacation involving wallowing in wine and cheese!!!) so I should have lots of pretty pictures and interesting stories upon our return. Ciao!
I'll update soon, I know it's been forever. Until then, here's a cute picture of Matt with his dinner at a restaurant in Juno Beach, Florida. He's had to travel for work a couple of times and I think this restaurant is the only reason he's not completely unhappy about it. That and the fact it's 80+ and sunny in Florida and cold/rainy/crappy here at home.
Of all the things I thought I'd never try, headcheese is right up there at the top of the list. But a new restaurant opened in our neighborhood and it's gotten excellent reviews (The Publican). We love the other 2 restaurants owned by the same group (Avec and Blackbird). And the specialties of the house are beer and pork, two of Matt's favorite things, so a trip to Publican was really a no-brainer.
The beer list is staggering, over 100 bottles, plus over a dozen on tap - I don't know anything about beer but Matt was really impressed and over the night ordered 3 different beers (which was perhaps 1 too many - these are not Budweiser's, but big, strong porters and ales, serious beer). One, a vintage ale, smelled absolutely lovely. I don't like beer at all, but this smelled so great I had to take a sip and it was actually pretty good. I kept picking up his bottle and smelling it and thinking how nice it would be to have a candle that smelled like that. Kind of malty/woodsy/spicy. They have a nice wine list too and I ordered 2 glasses (which was perhaps 1 too many - they were served in little carafes which were actually 1.5 glasses, so 2 glasses becomes 3).
For appetizers, we decided to jump right into the house specialties and get a lot of pig. We ordered pork rinds and the charcuterie plate. I think I've tried pork rinds maybe once in my entire life and they weren't great and I generally think of them as white trash food. These were nothing like that - light, crispy, spicy, not a hint of grease, and melt-in-your mouth. And surprisingly they went well with the shiraz I was drinking. The charcuterie plate included the aforementioned headcheese, a terrine of foie gras and duck, lardon, pork pie, 3 different mustards, some pickled asparagus, cornichons and caper berries. Generally not things I'd order, but when nearly every review of the restaurant raves about the charcuterie plate, you kind of have to trust they know what they're doing and it'll be good. Besides, Matt was picking up the tab so if I didn't like it, I could just go back to eating the awesome crusty bread they served with sweet goat butter.
We both just sat there for a moment when they brought the plate to the table, taking it all in. Neither of us had ever tried most of the stuff on the plate and it was a little intimidating. Sure, we'd had asparagus, cornichons and caperberries. And mustard. But that's about it. So Matt starts with the lardon and I teased him for being a wuss, since it was the least adventurous thing on the plate - it's basically thinly sliced pork lard (but really, it has the consistancy of butter and tastes the taste is much more subtle than bacon. Think "essence" of bacon that melts in your mouth). I jumped right into the duck and foie gras terrine. It was really tasty - wrapped in bacon, studded with fig and pistacios. I adore figs, and that sweetness just worked so well in the terrine. Then I moved on to the headcheese.
Now, I have to confess, I had no idea what's actually in headcheese. The name is not promising, but I assumed that it's one of those foods that has a weird name that doesn't have anything to do with the actual incredients (like, "welsh rarebit" which was originally "welsh rabbit" which actually turns out to be melted cheese on toast and doesn't include actual rabbit. Or Welshes). I decided I'd just think of it as "sausage" and dig in. And it was, not surprisingly, good. Especially with a dab of the grainy mustard and on bread. It did pretty much just taste like a mild sausage. But the terrine was my favorite, I think I got the better part of that.
The rest of the meal was less adventurous and even tastier. Matt ordered country ribs. You may think you've had good ribs, but trust me, unless you've had these, you haven't really ever had ribs. These rate as one of the most wonderful things I've ever eaten. If I had to choose one food to have on a desert island, it might just be these ribs. They were tender, moist, perfectly cooked and seasoned and practically fell apart but not mushy. Crazy good. The menu lists the farm they came from (Slagel Farms in Fairfield Illinois) and I suggested we write them a thank you note for providing such incredible piggies.
I deviated a bit from the pig theme, ordering the half chicken with frites (although it includes 3 huge slices of grilled summer sausage, because everything must inlcude pig). It was very good chicken and the frites were fabulous (I'm very picky about my fries), but after the ribs, anything else just fell a bit short. It's really not fair to compare anything else to those ribs. And after all the other food, I couldn't even come close to finishing half a chicken. The leftovers will make a nice lunch later today.
Matt got a charcuterie cookbook for Christmas and when we got home I looked up headcheese. It's probably just as well I did it after dinner. According to the book, headcheese is "not a cheese at all, this delicacy is pieces of cooked meat from a calf's or a pig's head combined with the gelatinous cooking liquid. Once cooled and formed in a mold it is easily sliced and eaten at room temperature." The recipe in the book calls for: 1 pig's head, 4 fresh pig trotters or hocks, and 1 cured pork tongue. We will not be making our own anytime soon. I mean, really, if we have a taste for headcheese any time soon, it's much more time and cost-effective to just go back to Publican and have it there. Although the thought of Matt coming home with a pig's head and trying to figure out how to cook it is kind of amusing. If it ever happens, I'll be sure to get video.
By the way, one chapter heading in the charcuterie cookbook is FAT: The Perfect Cooking Environment. Best. Cookbook. Chapter. Title. Ever. HA!
So once again the holiday season has passed. As they go, this one was a very nice one, no drama (for a change) and very relaxing. I was home for several days and I'm sure there's a permanent indent in the couch the exact shape and size of my butt, since that's where it was planted most of the time. It was a little strange being home for Christmas, in the house in Elmwood where we grew up. I kept looking around with that feeling of deja vu, it was so familiar and yet different. The house could not have possibly shrunk, but it feels like it did. Did we really have 5 (and for one year 6) people living there, sharing 1 tiny bathroom? Was my bedroom really that small? I can picture where my bed, desk dresser and bookshelves were, but how did they all possibly fit? When we were little we ran through the dining room and did cartwheels in the living room - how did we not break our legs on furniture? How did a couch, 2 chairs, 2 coffee tables and a TV fit in that room? It honestly never seemed that small, it just felt cozy.
Since I've gotten home I've been quite the cook. In the last few days I've made homemade salsa, guacamole, BLT dip, loaded baked potato soup and chicken/mushroom/spinach enchiladas with homemade tomatillo sauce. I usually don't have the time to spend assembling ingredients and cooking multi-step meals, but the last few days have been less busy so I decided to take advantage. I got the Mexican Everyday cookbook for Christmas and was inspired to try a few things. It's a great cookbook - the recipes are complex without being complicated. So far, so good and tomorrow I'm making chicken tortilla soup.
Here's a picture I took just before Christmas, at Daley Plaza, of the tree, with the Methodist Temple in the background:
Happy New Year!
I love Ebay. I'm convinced you can find anything you want there, eventually. Case in point: when I was in high school I had a pair of little silver bell earrings from Avon. They're the only Christmas jewelry I regularly wore and I loved them because they were tiny and subtle and adorable. So last year when I lost one I was really bummed. I immediately got on Ebay and did all kinds of searches and discovered Avon had put out a lot of silver bell earrings, or bell earrings, but I couldn't find the exact ones I wanted (maybe because they were officially called "Jingle Bells", which I didn't realize and didn't search for). However, kept searching periodically and this year, just at the perfect time at the beginning of this month, I found them. And I won them for the low, low price of under $10 including shipping, a true bargain because I would have easily paid 3 times that to replace them. Definitely puts me in the mood for Christmas again!
Not to brag or anything, but Matt's Wii Fit Age was 52. Now I'm not sure it's all that meaningful, since it seems to calculate the "age" based on your actual age, weight and a balance test. But I was just happy to beat him at something since he always wins. And he's not really a graceful loser - his comment when I informed him that my age was 34 was "congratulations, you're really good at standing still". And I said "yes, and I'm still better at it than you!"
Actually, I beat him at Wii tennis too, so I'm really liking this Wii thing. He beat me at bowling but that's not really fair since he bowls in 2 leagues and gets more practice.
I might be able to come close to beating him at Scrabble now - I've been playing a lot on the iPod Touch and I can beat the computer over half the time. I'm learning all those 2 letter words that no one ever really uses but "xi" can score a lot of points if you lay it down on a triple word or triple letter square.
You know those Doc Martens from the post below, the black flats with the roses embroidered on them? I got them on sale, $45.00 with free shipping! I don't want to brag (again) but I think if there was a Wii shopping game I'd win that one too.
Woo-hoo! Pandas for Obama!!
This has got to be about the cutest thing EVER. As if I wasnt' already obsessed with pandas, this one puts me over the edge. I swear I'm going to get to China to that preserve I saw on the Travel Channel where you can pay to HOLD. A. PANDA! I'm starting the "get to China and hold a panda" fund immediately. Just after I buy this pair of Dr. Marten's:
I know, adorable, right? And they're very reasonable - $70 - which is a deal because Dr. Martens NEVER wear out. I've had one pair for over 15 years and they still look great. And they're extremely comfortable.
Speaking of cute shoes - I got this pair from Ebay:
These are Marc Jacobs black patent leather flats with little mouse faces on them. I have been lusting after these since I saw them last winter at Macy's but, unfortunately, they were a bit out of my range. Like $325 out of my range. They went on sale once for $225, and I admit, it crossed my mind to put them on my Macy's charge but common sense prevailed. And then last month I stumbled upon these on Ebay from a seller in Australia for $80, brand new, never worn and authentic. And after much angst, Matt gave me the $$ for them because he'd tried to get them for me for my birthday but couldn't find them anywhere. (Cue the "awwwww, isn't that sweet?") I had to have them stretched due to my big Frankenstein feet and they still hurt but when I look down and see those sweet little mouse faces looking up at me, the pain disappears. A little.
Also, I had a Nordstrom gift card from a work bonus and after much shopping around for just the right thing, I got these:
Tory Burch silver ballet flats. Every time I saw someone wearing these, I loved how they looked. But $195 is crazy for little silver ballet flats. Unless you have a $200 Nordstrom gift card. It was between that and a massage/pedicure and I finally decided the shoes would last longer. And yes, they had to be stretched too, but I've discovered this great shoe repair place that does it for $7/pair and it's money well-spent. The shoes go from "you'll have a blister the size of a silver dollar within 10 minutes" to "wearable, but don't plan on walking more than 20 minutes in them". So these are in the "going out to dinner when we drive and valet park" category, at least until I break them in a little more. But still, cute, right?
Seriously, I've given up on finding shoes that don't kill my feet. The only ones that don't are my workout shoes and my Dr. Martens. And my cowboy boots. That rather limits my options. Luckily I can get away with pretty casual shoes for work, but I refuse to wear the workout shoes for anything but working out. I've tried so many things and ultimately they all hurt in one place or another. I have mutant feet that are wide in all the wrong places, they don't make shoes in this shape. I've learned to carry a bunch of bandaids in my purse, as well as blister blocker, and little peds stockings. Usually I can get by with some combination of the above.
We're on a theater-going binge these days. We have season tickets for 2 theater groups, The House and Steppenwolf, and November is a big month for us. We saw "Dave DaVinci Saves the Universe" at The House, a fun science fiction, time-travel love story, complete with robots and a huge monster that was impressively designed. Then "Kafka on the Shore" at Steppenwolf, which I still can't tell you what the heck it was about. Very avant-garde, lots of symbolism, dream sequences, talking cats and Colonel Sanders. Crazy stuff, indecipherable, but not boring. And we're going to see the musical "Grey Gardens" in 2 weeks, which I'm totally excited about. Matt has no idea what it's about (he's a good sport though - if I buy the tickets he'll go see anything, unless it involves ABBA), but I've seen the documentary about 3 times and I'm fascinated with the story. That's more than we usually see in a whole year. Then in December we see "Dublin Carol" with William Petersen at Steppenwolf.
Matt has discovered baking as a new hobby. He started with making chocolate chip cookies and they turned out really good. Inspired by success, he made bread last night. And that was very tasty too. So now he's the official "baker" of the house. And I can feel my waistline expand. The cookies are not such a big temptation, I'm not much of a cookie monster but the bread, oh my gosh! I love bread. I could barely contain myself yesterday, the smell was so incredible. And the warm, soft, smushy-ness of fresh white bread..... mmmmm....
Unrelated sudden switch of topic: we have a new president-elect, have you heard? We're our own little version of James Carville/Mary Matalin here (no points for guessing who is who), so election season is interesting. Let's just say I was trying very hard to be reserved in my jubilation Tuesday night. I didn't join the crowd for the big celebration in Grant Park, I didn't dance around the house or pop open champagne. But I did smile a lot (quietly, to myself).
I didn't hate McCain, I just really liked Obama. And I'm not one of the brainwashed throngs who thinks he's the new king of the universe and it's going to be all rainbows and unicorns prancing in our backyards, everyone holding hands and singing Kumbaya. And I underestimated my fellow Americans - I never imagined the vote would be so overwhelming in favor of a multi-cultural candidate. So that made me happy.
I didn't hate McCain, but oh, my, did I really dislike (to be diplomatic) Sarah Palin. I felt like she was dumbing-down the election, trying to show how she could "relate" to the working class, "I'm just one of you", etc. If I heard "Joe Six-Pack", "soccer mom" or "Joe the Plumber" one more time, I'd scream. It wasn't so much the "trying to relate - I'm just one of you" thing that bugged me, it was that they were saying "we know you're under-educated, and those elite Democrats are talking with their big fancy words so we're just going to dumb things down for you". Not in those words obviously, but that was the attitude. I thought it was insulting. Especially since McCain is such a "regular guy" he has so many homes he didn't even know exactly how many he had. Just like me!
That said, it's really annoying that the McCain folks are throwing Palin under the bus now, blaming her for losing the election. I never felt like she was qualified, but THEY were the ones who picked her, knowing she was under-qualified, then for weeks tried to sell us on how great she was. So basically, they're admitting they were big fat liars and she didn't even know what countries are in NAFTA, that Africa is a continent, etc. In my opinion, that makes them look a lot worse for picking her and lying to all of us.
Not that any of this matters now. It's going to be interesting to see what happens with Obama. There are 2 kinds of people who voted for McCain - the ones who are disappointed but want Obama to succeed because that's what's best for the country. And the ones who want him to fail so they can say "I told you so".
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