Reading cookie recipes

I stop reading as soon as they list margarine or butter in the ingredients.  I can't take your recipe seriously if you would consider using fake butter, even though you're allowing me to use the real thing.  Sorry.

Laptop lunchin' it

I haven't read this book, but I beg to differ! Because I am totally interested in what these people are eating for lunch.  I've been watching this flickr group for awhile now, and I'm totally hooked. I got myself a little bento box so I could join in the fun.  It has totally made me want to pack a lunch before work, and I can't even begin to tell you what a feat that is.  I haven't been going to the market much (except for baking ingredients!), so I've just been throwing stuff together.  There isn't a lot of thought or variety in my bento yet.  But you just wait!  I'm so excited for fall and winter and all the yummy comfort foods.  And for extra motivation to pack my lunch: I don't want to have to leave work and walk in the rain to eat.  This lunch box is going to get a lot of use!

Since Maggie says y'all don't care what I have for lunch I'll try to contain myself.  But if you want to know... it'll be on flickr!  And if the LL bug bites you, too, I want to know!

Experiments in whole wheat and rambling

I decided to make these fabulous scones again this morning.  This time to keep all for myself.  Muahahhahahaha.  Then I decided to try them with a little whole wheat.  I'm sure you are thinking: Don't Mess With The Scone, Katie.  And you would be right.  These scones are purely delightful, and once you dump in cream and butter what's a little white flour?  Seriously.  Don't mess with the scone.  I did 1/4 whole wheat pastry flour to 3/4 white just as a small test.  They are still edible, good even.  Just not the delicious wonder they are when not messed with.  Oh, and did I mention I used the left over cream from last week and it was lumpy?  But I called Katie (who was also baking this morning!) and she reminded me that we eat sour cream, cottage cheese and all sorts of other nasty, curdled dairy, so I wasn't likely to die.

Leah requested a photo of my apron.  Did I mention I actually made this apron, too?  Seriously, I can get so much dorkier if you just stick around.  So here it is: me in all my nerdy glory, frosting a cake.

To lessen the complete loser I've proven myself to be, last night I went out for happy hour.  Betsy and I checked out the Sweet Basil in our neighborhood.  We weren't sure what to order, so our server said he would just pick a few things for us and bring them out.  So adventurous!  (This is seriously the exciting part of the evening.  Now that I've written this I'm not sure why it's the part that makes me feel like less of a loser.)  Everything was great, and the food was like $2.50 but the catch is you have to buy a full price drink for about $7.  Kinda silly.  After dinner we walked up to Washington Park.  I hadn't been there before.  The rose garden is amazing!  It just keeps going forever.  We also walked around Twenty-third and stopped at Bleuet for frozen yogurt.  This was like serious frozen yogurt, not the stuff that tastes like ice cream.  It was more like someone put plain old yogurt right in the freezer, ate it, thought it was good and opened a yogurt shop.  I didn't like it so much, but the shop design was cute!

Betsy borrowed the book Jesus for President and is getting ready to read it, so we talked about politics a little.  I was saying how I just wish someone could please explain to me how in the world the Republican party thinks it lines up with Christian values, because it makes absolutely no sense to me.  She said the thing she liked was the idea of smaller government.  She felt that if all of the government programs weren't around then people would help people at a more personal level, rather than a large government agency that loses track of people and money.  She said it more eloquently, of course, but it was the first time I could see where they were coming from with that idea.  I still don't agree at all.  It's totally idealistic and I don't think it would ever work for many, many, many reasons, but at least she didn't have to attack anyone to get her idea across.  It was a nice change.  Because reading comments from posts like this, this and this only fuel the fire of hatred that burns in my soul towards the extreme right.  And I know they feel the same toward liberals.  How are ever going to get over ourselves and DO instead of ARGUE?  I'm so over the sides and corrupted politicians and the hate I feel... and suddenly I remember there is another option.  Jesus.

Nerd alert

Most twenty-somethings spend their Saturday nights trying to get laid, but me?  I walk through the trendiest neighborhood in Portland with my apron on because I forgot to get cream at the market and I'm in the middle of baking a couple of new recipes.  And I'm planning to take the baked goods to church in the morning.  Because I am a seventy year old woman trapped in this body.  Good grief.

It really is the thought that counts

A package arrived with specific instructions plastered on the front not to open until Saturday morning.  If there is any willpower I possess, it is the willpower not to open a gift until the actual day of my birthday.

I have pretty great friends.  (I should write about them more.  I don't think I ever did post the blog I wrote about the road trip cds they made me when I moved to Oregon, but if I had, you would know just how great truly they are!)  Take Katie for example.  She says to me the other day, "I'm the best at buying useless things for presents, but I know you don't want useless things, so..."  And she's right.  I don't want to consume anymore useless stuff.  Being the sweet friend that she is, she thought up really cute ideas instead, and even got her rhyme on.  I loved it!

First, she sent me to the Flavour Spot for waffles.  She was on the phone with me when I pulled up and my reaction was something like this, "Uh, Katie?  This isn't a restaurant.  It's like one of those drive-thru coffee huts, except you can't drive through...  I love this city!"  I told the guy at the counter why I was there and that I had specific instructions about coming here for waffles.  He was baffled that someone in Phoenix who had never been to the Flavour Spot found it and got me there.  "Freakin' Internet!" was his reaction.  And then he gave me free orange juice because it was my birthday!

While I was enjoying my breakfast I had a weird little phone conversation with some guy who said he was at my apartment with a delivery.  So, I returned home to find him waiting with this:

Aileen totally surprised me with this awesome fruit arrangement!  It was completely as yummy as it looks, too.  After the special delivery, I was headed out on my next set of instructions: Cupcake Jones.  They were so excited when I walked in and asked about an order for Katie.  They said they had been talking about me all morning!  They were so cute.

And I was pretty shocked at how fabulous these cupcakes were.  I had the Downtown Cupcake Brown on another occasion or two, so I knew I LOVED the chocolate.  In fact, I loved it so much, I never would have tried anything else.  Good thing I have friends to help me branch out!  The Pearl (vanilla) was absolutely phenomenal!  I text Katie and said I was no longer a racist cupcaker.  I have her to thank.  The Rootbeer Float was super good, too, and tasted exactly like a rootbeer float!

After all the running around PDX (hi, katie!) I drove down to Salem to have lunch with Sheila.  We had some yummy Mexican food and good conversation.  Then I headed over the Davis's to chill for a bit.  The kids picked these flowers for me.  Aren't they so sweet?!

To end the day I spent it baking in my cute itty-bitty kitchen while blasting Stampead.  I got a great voicemail from Andrea during all of this.  I can't understand what she's saying, but I can hear "Commotion" clear as day playing in the background!  I love that band.

A totally wonderful birthday, thanks to my generous friends.  I really can't say enough about how nice it was to get texts, calls and surprises throughout the day.

And I'm trying not to think about what it means that food was the theme everyone thought of when it came to me.  If only I had willpower for that!

So much to blog about

I should make a list of things I want to write about, because I walk around thinking about little blog posts all day, but then never feel it when I sit down at the computer.  Then I forget all about them.  Sad day.  Anyway, here is a quickie to show what I've done today (which isn't much, as usual!).  Oh, and to document the super fun progressive dinner Katie and I had this weekend.

Here is my wall.  It isn't perfect, and there are a few I want to adjust a couple of inches, but I gave up on it being perfect because there are more important things in the world to do than make sure the picture frames in your living room look perfectly scattered and not at all like you spent hours arranging them to look un-arranged.  I'll just add more some day.  Here you have it:

I suppose you want to see photos of the rest of the apartment.  I never did post those, did I?  What can I say?  It's rough being unemployed without Internet access.  DID I MENTION I HAD INTERNET INSTALLED TODAY?  Because I did, and do I ever love it!

The mess the morning after unloading the truck.

The after shot of the living room.

[I'm trying to ignore the fact that I must have been smoking crack when I took these images because why the heck is the towel all crooked, and the bathroom isn't looking so hot, either.  Please don't look too closely!]  The kitchen is too small to really stand in it and take a photo, so you'll just have to trust me that to the left of the doorway there is a tiny little counter & sink, and to the right there is a tiny fridge with my microwave sitting on top.  There is only one electrical outlet in the whole kitchen!

Yeah, so pretty much same deal with the bathroom.  Too small to really show it to you, so why don't you just come visit and see it for yourself!  Hope you won't mind scooting under the sink to sit on the toilet.  There is a claw foot tub to the right.  It's cute, but not that fun to shower in.

The bedroom isn't anything exciting and it's too hard to get a picture of the closet you could appreciate.  It's surprisingly big, which is a good thing since everything else is super small and I need a place to put my spoons and toilet paper.

Are y'all on twitter yet?  What are you waiting for?  Just do it.  It only takes a minute, go ahead, you can come back.  If you're cool, then you already saw my tweets and know that Katie June was in town visiting me this weekend!  Sunday we spent the day eating.  Well, actually, we did take a couple hours out to go to church, but other than that I'd say it's a fair assessment to say we did nothing else but eat good food.

Started out at the Waffle Window for breakfast.  Before we go any further it just needs to be said that if you ever come to Portland and don't get a waffle here you have completely wasted your trip.  Katie had the huckleberry and Meyer lemon curd waffle and I had the Oregon strawberry waffle.  We split a biscuits and gravy (which were okay, but I've had better, and seriously? who needs anything besides a waffle here?).

Sorry the photo quality isn't that great, but it was a fantastic waffle!  Did I mention they charge a crazy $3.50 - 4.00 for these bad boys?  So. Good.

I mean how cute is the Waffle Window?  You know you're dying to check it out!  And I know what you're thinking... was this really last weekend or last winter?  Yes, my friends, its that cold here right now, you need to wear a sweater.  When I said I wanted seasons it was still supposed to include summer.  I have no idea what this is all about in June.

After church we wandered around a bit and I've been dying to show her City Market since I discovered it, so we tried their brie sandwiches (perfect, by the way) and sat at a sidewalk table and enjoyed the afternoon.

They had Mexican coke, too!  That was a treat.  

Afterwards we walked back to the apartment and chilled for a bit.  Thought about doing something with the day, but then decided against that.  We made a plan to do a "progressive dinner" and worked hard searching through magazines and sifting through menus to find where our palettes would take us.

The first stop was Serrato's, or the Snail Restaurant, as I like to call it.  We made it just in time for happy hour, so we each had a cocktail, and split a caesar salad and calamari.  Which was probably the best of both I've ever had.  I'll be going back often!  We walked all over Nob Hill and I showed her Zupan's before we decided on a dinner spot.  We chose Bartini since they have an all day Sunday happy hour and that's always a good thing!  We had smoked cheese fondue that was really good, and since it was happy hour was only $5.00!  So, we had martinis, too!

We had to go back to the apartment and change into elastic pants our shoes.  And I regret to tell you that I left my purse because we were just going to dessert, and well, forgot my camera.  So you're missing out on the most beautiful part of our progressive dinner!  We had decided to go to Papa Haydn's for dessert long before we thought up the dinner plan.  Their dessert menu is longer than the restaurant's, so we knew it had to be a good sign, and we were right.  It was a tough decision, but I went with the chocolate truffle cake and Katie had the lemon chiffon cake.  Oh good heavens!  It was just perfect, I don't know what else to tell you, except go there right now.  It was a lovely setting (we ate outdoors all evening), amazing dessert with great presentation and the server was super nice and very attentive even though we only had dessert.  Just go.

Our leisure progressive dinner lasted four hours, and Katie and I decided we could travel Europe together since we both love eating so much.  And at the Snail Restaurant when she suggested I make a notebook of places I've tried & what's good/what's not so I could recommend places when people come to visit, I immediately pulled a Moleskin out of my purse and started writing down hours, cross streets and notes on the food, because although she may have been joking, we both knew it was a great idea!  And she let me take pictures of our food.  These are important qualities in a friend.

Cornholio

My friends and I have a lovely three-way going. We pass books around three states for a cheap thrill. The latest whore: Omnivore's Dilemma. The first 120 pages or so are about corn. Seriously. So far I've learned about corn sex, which actually is quite fascinating (I know, I've hit a new low). In the next section he is talking about his experience with a corn farmer, and let me tell you: this grumpy farmer is a man after my own heart!

"Despite the promises, Naylor, unlike many of his neighbors, doesn't plant GMOs (genetically modified organisms). He has a gut distrust of the technology ("They're messing with three billion years of evolution") and doesn't think it's worth the extra twenty-five dollars a bag (in technology fees) they cost. "Sure, you might get a yield bump, but whatever you make on the extra corn goes right back to cover the premium for the seed. I fail to see why I should be laundering money for Mansanto."

God, if I ever have to marry again, can he please be a farmer?

I may only be 50 pages into this book, but already I'm quite sure this might be the best quote of all "...the shelled cobs were burned for heat and stacked by the privy as a rough substitute for toilet paper. (Hence the American slang term "corn hole.")" Nice!