It's 8:42 and Google has not been working for me for about fifteen minutes. It's weird right now how strange it is that it's unavailable, and how much I use it without thinking. Google, I rely on you way too much. 3 times in a row I entered a term into the quick search box only to remind myself - over and over - that it's not up.
Also, the bad guy from 3:10 to Yuma (and I think he was in X-men?) is on Earl right now. I don't usually watch Earl - technically I have not ever watched it, because I don't think listening to the Beach Boys and blogging while NBC is on mute constitutes actual "watching" - but I'm waiting with baited breath for the Office to start. Casey made fun of me for "counting down the hours" until the Office, but it was more like 2 hours, not like 675, which would be crazy-obsessive-scary-like.
Okay, fourth time now! I just entered 3:10 to Yuma into the quicksearch box to find out what that actors name is, only to remind myself that it's down and I'm even blogging about it, so yes, I am currently "straddling the retard fence," as they say. Actually, I think only Bob Fossil says that.
UPDATE: I just used ask.com to find out that his name is Ben Foster, and he always seems to familiar to me because he was in this show I watched as a kid - Flash Forward! As Tucker! If anyone else remembers this, I love you. Also, looking at the show on IMDB - Ryan Gosling sure was in 2 episodes of that show. It was on television in 1996, so I was 13. I remember really enjoying it at the time...
P.S. Fifth time - just tried searching for Flash Forward in the Google box. I am ashamed.
P.P.S. Yeah, I said I was listening to the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys are awesome, and I do enjoy listening to them in my spare time. You wanna fight about it?
So, the HUB has started making a half-salad of my favorite salad, the Asian noodle. It's good, even though the dressing has fish sauce in it so I'm always worried I smell like fish sauce. It's good enough to be worth it. They are also still figuring out the pricing for the salad, so though I suspect it will go up shortly, I've been getting it for 3.00. A steal, considering it's really about 3/4 of the size of the regular (huge) size, and the regular size costs 6.50. I think I heard them say it should be 4.95, but I got lucky twice in a row (yesterday and today).
I also finished the issue-before-last of the New Yorker, which I thought was another abnormally excellent one. There was an article about Iraq, an article about colic, and a fascinating article about a pianist named Joyce Hatto. As usual, my theory that even the most boring articles in the New Yorker are always a lot better and more interesting than you expect, was proven correct.
Finally, I visited the Henry Art Gallery because I'm totally obsessed with the photography exhibit they have up there right now. I was thrilled to see a Candida Hofer (my favorite photographer) and some fantastic video pieces and now I can really not wait to go back on my lunch tomorrow.
Also:
The Office s4 starts tonight! I was less excited earlier this week but after some teasing teasers I'm totally ridiculously happy that it's almost here.
Jen informed me that this years Nonrequired Reading has a forward by Sufjan Stevens. Ahh, Sufjan. How I love your sweet sweet music. I'll even leave with one of my most-favorite songs of ALL TIME to commemorate this occasion:
Wow, it already feels like we're deep into fall in Seattle. Even today, a beautiful, sunny day, had the crisp edge and smell of fall. That, plus the floods of incoming students wandering around campus with half-bemused looks on their faces have conspired me to accept that Summer 2007 is completely over. A little bit depressing, but I get to pull out my sweaters and jackets and coats, my favorite things to put on my body!
Well, maybe it was the passing of summer that inspired me when I was making dinner today. I made crustless vegetable and basil quiche tartlets, and found myself with handfuls of leftover fresh basil. Not wanting it to go to waste, I whipped up a basil simple syrup and knocked out a couple of glasses of this summery pale-green lemonade. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was and how well it turned out, providing just the right amount of basil flavor. Totally recommended for anyone trying to think of new ways (read: sick of pesto) to use that basil from their summer garden.
You're going to need:
A couple handfuls of fresh basil leaves (about 1/2-3/4 cup lightly packed)
Around 3/4-1 cups of sugar
Around 1-1 1/2 cups of water
Lemons
Ice
Water
Put your basil leaves in a sturdy glass or ceramic bowl and pour sugar on top. Using a wooden spoon, work the sugar into the basil until the basil is well-bruised. Add more sugar if it seems like your sugar is getting too clumpy/too green. Pour leaves and sugar into a sealable container and add appropriate amount of water so that the ratio is about 1 to 1. Shake until sugar is dissolved. Strain out leaves.
In a tall glass, squeeze 1 large lemon's worth of juice over ice. Pour in about 1/4 basil simple syrup, add water and/or b.s.s. to get the sweetness level right, stir, and enjoy. 1 lemon should provide enough lemon juice for 1 large glass of lemonade (think 16 oz). Serves how ever many lemons you feel like buying, or however much basil simple syrup you have left.
Ahh, Monday. Looking forward to a week of blzzzzZZZZ. Okay, work is boring. So, about the weekend...
The Great Nabob was a lot of fun, and ended with watching the Mighty Boosh at Eric's house with Devon and Kessler and Kessler's giant giant cat. Also, drinking like 8 rum and cokes and totally regretting it on Saturday. Saturday I was sick pretty much all morning, pulled it together long enough to pick up Betsy and stop by Herb's place, and then go home and nap. The Huskies lost, obvs, to the surprise of zero people. Saturday night I had a mini-Bale-a-thon, watching Velvet Goldmine, followed by Batman Begins (which Casey watched too). I fell asleep on the couch and woke up at nine, crawled into bed-proper, and woke up again at - well, we probably shouldn't talk about that. Sunday was a laaaazy day. Casey watched the game while I slept, woke up, watched Man Stroke Woman, continued working on my back-up computer project (my computer is a mess and in desperate need of reformatting, but it's been a pain copying everything I need to backup to my external) and read. I made a delicious quiche, which turned out quite well though I think I may have added a bit too much milk, Casey ran, and I watched the commentary for half of Pan's Labyrinth and for a couple episodes of The IT Crowd. Graham Linehan constantly called the commentary watchers geeks, which I am, and is fine. But you know, I'm also not a total freak, so it got a little irritating. Also, it's FOX MULDER, not Fox Scully, goofballs. There were a couple discussions about American television where the British actors were like, what is it? Is it [something totally wrong]? We don't know!
I love commentaries, but the best ones are those that are 1. charming, 2. funny, 3. informative, and 4. self-deprecating. And I hate commentaries that consist mainly of complimenting everyone involved in the project, and/or self-congratulations, and/or redundancy, and/or actor jargon/constant references to director's/writer's/actor's past projects.
Quiche. I love quiche, and I really think the best quiche is the most basic quiche - cheese, bacon/sausage/ham, spinach/broccoli, bake it up. I made a fairly complicated quiche (caramelized onion/ham/swiss/apple/spinach) over the weekend (I still have Yakima apples to use up), and though it turned out well (I should have used more salt) I am anxious to try a tomato/mozzarella/basil quiche next. I have never found a quiche recipe that I love, but I think staying basic is better. I don't use cream or half-and-half, as some recipes call for, and it's always turned out fine.
4 eggs
1 cup whole milk
salt/freshly ground pepper/nutmeg
premade pie crust (get in refridgerated section near pre-made rolls)
1 medium sized onion
1-2 tbls butter
a little under 1/2 pound sliced ham, cut into 2-3 inch strips
1-1.5 cup shredded swiss cheese
a large handful of chopped fresh spinach
1 small apple, peeled and sliced thin
Pre-heat oven to 375.
Caramelize your onions in the butter. Basically, just let them cook in the pan, moving them around occasionally, until a nice, pretty brown color. I usually finish off my onions by deglazing the pan with a splash of balsamic vinegar, and I'll occasionally add an extra couple pinches of sugar in the beginning of cooking to make them extra sweet and caramelized. Adding sugar is called cheating, but I like the way it tastes better :) Set aside to let cool.
Whisk together your eggs, milk, salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg. I keep a little jar of whole nutmeg in my spice cabinet and just grate a little with a microplane - makes a huge difference over the pre-ground kind. Make sure to consider the salt content in your eggs - I used a hearty pinch for this and I wished I had used a touch more, but I didn't want to oversalt considering that there's also plenty of salt in the ham (and in the cheese).
Place pie crust in pan. Layer the following: a handful of swiss cheese over the bottom (keeps your crust from getting soggy), caramelized onions, another small handful of cheese, apple slices, ham, another handful of cheese, chopped spinach, and pour egg mixture over the whole thing. Press down lightly so you make sure that egg has gotten over everything, top with the remainder of your cheese. You can definitely get away with using less cheese, but my feeling is that 1. it helps to hold the quiche together, and 2. quiche isn't really the healthiest food in the world anyhow, you might as well accept this and move on. But I've been known to do the light layer of cheese on the bottom and a layer on the top and calling that good. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until cheese and crust is golden and pie has puffed up (it will go back down when it cools). Watch to make sure your crust doesn't burn - if it starts looking too brown, you can either drop the heat of the oven down a bit, say to 350, and/or cover the edges with foil.
Tastes better the next day.
Once this one is finished, I'm planning on using the same basic recipe and adding parmesan to the egg mixture and filling with fresh basil, tomatoes, and topped with fresh mozzarella. I'll let you know how it turns out!
Okay, first of all, I am a total candyblog addict. Cybele does an amazing job of sampling, explaining, and rating tons of interesting, different, new, and scary candy. I love her site and I visit it daily. Much of the candy I buy on a whim at stores is because of or affected by a candy review in her blog. Plus, she takes some gorgeous pictures, always a plus on food blogs.
Well, I've been eyeballing these new candies at the book store nearby - they are "local," in that they are from the Pacific Northwest (Coos Bay, Oregon) and I love that the flavor is described as "intense" and "fruity." Two of my favourite things! So I bought them, and I liked them so much I wanted to talk about them here. BUT, and here's where my previous paragraph comes in - I feel weird reviewing candy like this because, well, Cybele does it better than anyone, so I don't feel the remotest desire to make any kind of habit of this. Plus, I'd probably get really fat. I already eat enough candy as it is, much less need to eat stuff that I think is worth talking about.
Cranberry Sweets brand Pates de Fruits. Says the box "Intense best describes the flavors or our Pates de Fruits. Inspired by the traditional French confections, our jelly candies are handmade in small batches, taking several weeks from start to finish." Sounds good, right? The flavors in the little bag/box that I bought are (one of each): Cranberry, Ruby red grapefruit, orange, marion blackberry, key lime, and red raspberry. They are a little on the pricey side (3.00 for 6 pieces) but considering the ingredients (Cane sugar, fruit and fruit juice from each respective flavor are the first listed ingredients, followed by corn syrup, pectin, orange oil, lime oil, grapefruit oil, and tartaric acid) they are probably worth it. Especially because these are good! Really good. I was planning on eating one or two a day but now the package is almost empty.
I really enjoyed the raspberry flavor, as it was fruity and floral. Intense with the right amount of tartness, the granulated sugar coating gives way to a smooth jelly block and the flavor stays consistent the whole way through - no weird chemical aftertaste. Definitely a stronger flavor than most other all natural fruit candies I've tried.
Key Lime was one of my favorites of the bunch. I've had too many key lime candies that added too much vanilla flavoring to the mix - this one is pure tart, floral key lime.
I'm not a huge fan of marionberry things - blackberry is too subtle a flavor for me to be able to enjoy in any other form than fresh fruit. I don't know that I would buy the blackberry flavor again. I had the same problem with the orange - I'm just not an orange person. I like strong and sour, these were a bit too delicate.
I've yet to try the grapefruit and cranberry - two that I'm really, really looking forward to, since I'm always drawn to grapefruit flavored things (pampelmousse Mentos!), and cranberry appears to be their specialty.
You can order these from their website at www.cranberrysweets.com, or you can find them in a gift shop, like I did.
Hurrah Friday! I am looking forward to: not being at work. The Great Nabob tonight with Eric. The Greek festival and/or the Fremont Oktoberfest. Sleeping in. And not being at work. Wait, I already said that one.
This week has gotten progressively better, and J. is back from her honeymoon, and I'm not as behind as I thought I was on my tasky things I've been avoiding. Good new all-round.
ManStrokeWoman. Yes, (sigh) another import. It's a sketch show about men, women, and the relationship between men and women. It's got a pretty narrow focus (30-somethings, middle-class, white, about dating, parenting, and everything in between) but if you understand that going into the show, it's actually very funny. Plus, it has Nick Frost (everyone's favorite Point Break lovin' cop from Hot Fuzz) and Nicholas Burns (Nathan Barley, the King from Boosh, Jerome from the funniest episode of the IT Crowd, ever). AND it's produced by Ash Atalla (the British Office, the IT Crowd, Rampant Gay Man also from that hilarious episode of the IT Crowd).
Eating:
Jen, Drew and I went to Bizzarro Italian in Wallingford on Tuesday, and it was amazing. They make their own pasta, sauce, and their bread is like crack. It's a bit pricey (16.00/17.00/20.00) but the quirky ambience and fantastic food more than make up for it. Drew got the lasagna and it was a block of heaven.
Hearing:
I'm back to commuting via bus, and I've found that music and/or podcasts and/or audiobooks help alleviate the nausea quite a bit. Right now I'm listening Boosh radio show and - apart from making me look like an idiot by laughing to myself constantly - it's a lot of fun. You've really got to listen to it when you can focus - I've tried doing audiobooks and things at work and it just fails miserably because I can't listen to one thing while doing something else and accomplish both things, but commuting is perfect.
Oh, to give you an ol' tasterooni, here's a clip from MSW:
Jen has inspired me to blog. Lately I've been so fed up with my office that I'm really, really not the best person to talk to right now. I went into a meeting with my favorite boss and actually felt some frustrated tears brewing in my belly - it's been that bad. My new office is quiet. And lonely. And messy. And there's no printer. Or sink. Or mail. And my new huge cubicle has so far only inspired my coworker with whom I get along just great with to invade my cubicle space. Constantly. Thus making me less than friendly.
Basically, I'm miserable and have considered on multiple occasions over the past couple days to just go in and quit. Of course, I can't afford that, not even a little bit, nor can I afford to find a job that pays less but would be more fun to stand in its place. I can only keep looking, and cross my fingers.
So, I will probably be a less than fun person to be around for a little bit here. I apologize in advance.
In other news, the Alice Temperly collection has hit Target stores. It is by far my favorite of all the guest designer collections there, and I have something from almost every single one (I have a clothes problem, I know). On the internet, the collection doesn't look like much - kind of awkward, actually. But in person, it's very feminine and old fashioned, it's got this great art-deco air to it and I just think it's so pretty. I bought this gorgeous sweater dress and it was 30.00 and it's totally a great versatile dress that I'm sure I'll be wearing all the time.
In even more other news, I "watched" the Seahawks game on Sunday. Afterward, I found out that yes, I am still very allergic to cats. I watched 3:10 to Yuma and was intimidated by all the extreme closeups the movie had to offer. I was distracted by the sexy, dirty cowboy that is Christian Bale. So distracted, in fact, that I am still not quite sure exactly what happened in that movie. Also, I fell asleep during part of it.
Finally, do not play Trivial Pursuit when you are "not of your right mind." It will take you five minutes to figure out that a movie with Roy Schneider and some ocean joke is Jaws. You will feel dumb.
1. Intense, excruciating drunkenness that can only be brought on by drinking an entire bottle of wine, 1.5 bottles of hard cider, and 3 rum-and-cokes.
2. The most extensive discussion of the Crunch, ever ("You know nothing of the Crunch! You've never been to the Crunch!")
3. Spilling beer in D.'s eye, and stepping on his foot once he returned, beer-eye-free, in a miscalculated way to apologize
4. A severe hangover
5. Season 3 of the Office on DVD, my own Dundie award, and a mini-Dwight bobblehead
6. A beautiful day for a wedding; pink champagne; missing the Seahawks game
7. Lots and lots of dirty dishes.
This week went by fast! Probably because it was only 3 days long. That's a depressing thought, as there are no more of those for a Looooooong time. This weekend is actually moderately busy, J. gets married on Sunday! I'm still trying to decide what to wear. I have this super cute red linen dress from Banana Republic that is great for summer weddings, it's bright and ruffly and fancy enough and strapless. It also goes with the silver shoes and silver clutch I used at Jen's wedding, so double bonus. I don't really own any fancy dress purses, only giant bags that could probably fit the state of Delaware. They are large, my bags.
I also just received my black boots. They are the SEX! Seriously, they are hot. I wanted to wear them today but I wore boots yesterday (my riding boots) and didn't want BOOT OVERKILL. That's dangerous territory, y'all.
M. is also in town and Casey is going out with him at some point. Hopefully I will have time to go as well, because I like M. He is a lush, but a lovable one. Eric is supposed to come over and watch the LIVE Boosh but who knows. He's not a flake when he makes plans (actually very reliable, one of the many things I <3 about him) but wasn't sure if/when he would be free.
We are expecting Kiss Kiss Bang Bang from Netflix, because Casey needs to see it; Elizabeth, because we are both pumped for the upcoming sequel, ELIZABETH THE GOLDEN AGE; and The Wind That Shakes the Barley, because, well, it looks good. Also, Cillian Murphy.
Note to self: return videos to Scarecrow on Saturday.
Note to self: "I hate whites! I hate you, whites." -Bob Fossil
Reading:
Neil Gaiman's American Gods. One Gaiman book I've never read, it's one of Eric's favorites. Anansi Boys (actually a companion book to American Gods) is one of my all time favorite books, seriously amazing book, and American Gods has not disappointed.
Watching:
The IT Crowd. More Britcoms, I know. But the US remake (with Joel McHale! I <3 him) is slated to come out this fall (?) and the original UK version has Noel Fielding in it. Hurrah! V. funny stuff, totally chock full of nerd jokes, for anyone who enjoys them. It's not the best show ever - it's got this desperate "laugh at me" and "I'm in front of a live studio audience" fake laughs that make it noisy, and it takes a couple watchings to really get into the swing of it. The lead tends to yell a lot, as does the woman on the show - also loud. It *is* funny, but maybe also a little annoying. Anyway, worth a go for people who appreciate or understand all things computer-nerdy. Apparently the first episode on the first series DVD has subtitles in 1337, so there's also that.
Hearing:
Jens Lekman's new album, Night Falls Over Kortedala. I already blogged about how incredible this album is, I just want to restate it's absolutely breathtakingly great. I'm so in love with it already.
