Just Read: Middlesex

Author: Jeffrey Eugenides

As I start: This is an audible book for me. It makes my commuting more enjoyable. The narrator's voice, bugging me. I hope it doesn't color the way I feel about the book.

During: I'm liking this more and more. The narrator (well, really the writer) has taken a leap backwards into the past and is recounting the story of the grandmother. This is really where it all sort of begins or begins again with the recessive genes mixing. The grandmother and grandfather just happen to be sister and brother from a very small village in Greece. I didn't quite understand it, but since the village was so small, they were not only siblings, but also third cousins. They end up married and procreating. Sounds sort of gross by today's standards, ok, so by just about any standards I guess, but they loved each other. Ick, I've got to move past this, its freakin' me out. So far, so good. At this midway juncture, I'm recommending it. The storyline is quite interesting. The story is told from the perspective of Cal, born Calliope and due to the time in which the book is set and the prudishness of the people in the story, family and doctors alike, is raised as a girl. No one knows there is a problem, except for Calliope. And she only thinks she's strange and underdeveloped and can't quite get a grasp on why the other girls are filling out and getting their 'monthlies' and she isn't. So, in the interest of fitting in and getting her mother off her back, she fakes it. I would think, and I could be wrong, that today, this would have been figured out at birth, but, its a story, its fiction, so all the pieces have to fall into their place.

Its a tragic and sad and, in a way, hopeful story about coming of age and finding oneself. A thing that, even in the best of circumstances, isn't an easy transition for a girl, or for a boy. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for someone who is sort of neither, but a little of both.

Done: It took me forever to get through this book. It took a long time not because the book was boring or difficult, once I got past the beginning and into the rhythm of it. Its just that I listen to the book while commuting and I spent some time commuting with Mister. Saving gas and parking money are on our list of things to accomplish, so the sacrifice was worth it. No listening to my book for those weeks though. Also, my commute is so much shorter now than before Mister and I moved in together. I only get about 10 minutes each way and that's on the days that I'm not otherwise engaged in NPR or with something else on my brain.

I thought this was a good book. Worth the read. An interesting peek into intersexualality and some of the whats and whys and wherefores (sp? or is it just a made up word?)

Do you cook or bake?

Do you cook or bake with any regularity?

Well, do you? Or are you one of those people who really don't think about it much until your tummy rumbles or your pants suddenly slip off your hips or the spouse / significant other talks about their need to nourish? I am very curious. I'd like to know your stance on this topic. I've a few questions, below. I'll ask, then answer, then hope and wish and cross my fingers that you have a minute and feel the desire to contribute. If you want. No pressure. It really would make my day though. Just sayin'. In fact, I'd really like it, a *lot*.

Ok, here we go:

1. What is your favorite thing or things to cook? ~ comfort food, mashed potatoes, casseroles
2. What is your favorite thing or things to bake? ~ Familiar treats. I have a stack of 'stand by' recipes that I have literally had since I was pre-teen. (I've always had a fascination with being in the kitchen are creating food.) Oatmeal with golden raisins cookies are my 'go to' cookie - mmmmm. I love ginger cookies, but most often my recipes don't turn out like I want them to taste, so, I usually don't bake these. I also like pie. Mmmmm pie crust with just about anything as a filling. But, not blueberries. Fresh raw blueberries - ANY day of the week, but not as pie filling, ICK!
3. Are you willing to share the recipe(s)? ~ yes, and I have and I will.
4. What are you intimidated about whipping up in the kitchen? ~ Thai food. Mister would die and go to heaven if I would learn to cook Thai food. But for me, I want to go "out" and get Thai food. Its a treat. I've balked at purchasing the ingredients and learning the techniques, but mostly because I just want it to be special. I don't know about you, but I find that food is always better when someone else makes it. Even if Mister (or anyone... seriously, anyone??) makes me toast or anything homemade, its so much better than eating my own cooking. Unless its pie. Then I want to make it, or have my sister make it. That would be the exception I can come up with at the moment.
5. Do you have a favorite breed of dog? ~ I love all dogs. Dogs are so great, man's best friend. Mister (and others) get tired of me stopping to fondle nearly each and every dog (and cat) that we pass. I do happen to have a soft spot for Rottweilers though. This is Hannah, she's since gone off to a farm in Vermont to romp and play with the other puppies and kitties, but was my sister-in-law's pet. What a wonderful beast. My brother also had a Rotti named, Tasha. Tasha was THE FREAKIN' BEST dog EVER! I can't even tell you. She totally wanted to come home with me every time I visited my brother, really, she did, you could just tell by looking in her eyes that she thought I was doggy cat nip. Tasha also has gone off to a farm in Vermont to romp in the daffodils or tulips or whatever is in season there. I miss Tasha.

Do you have a recipe you'd like me to blog about?

~ This isn't one I'll answer because, well, its my blog and if I come up with just such a recipe, well, then you'll be the first to know about it.

Anyway, I've dazzled you enough with my wit for one week. Have a fabulous weekend and I'll catch you on the other side.

Ciao Bellas!

LOL

I've always just been this person, a bit serious, a bit melancholy, a bit maladjusted. I was/am what might be considered the black sheep of the family. I'm the one who is the least conventional, and let me tell you, I'm not that unconventional, its just that my family is Brady-Bunchish. At least to the outside observer. I moved away when I was just out of school. I think they all thought it was a phase I was going through. You know, move to the big city, stretch my wings a bit, then scramble on back home where it was safe and warm and 'known'. The thing they don't know and can't understand and I mean no disrespect or malice in these words, is that place called 'home' wasn't really a warm or safe place to me, even as I grew up there. Did I tell you I was a difficult child? Well, I was a bit difficult. On a scale of one to ten (one being easy and ten being difficult), I was probably something like a three. How can I say that I was difficult if I only consider myself a three on that scale? Well, you'd have to meet my siblings, then you'd understand. I love and adore them and my brother is probably my best friend on the planet, but compared to my siblings, I was a disaster. They were just so *good* and followed all the rules and I was always stretching the rules and then fibbing to cover my tracks. I can look back now that I'm past my 30's and be honest about it all, well, most of it. Some things need to stay inside my head and heart. Well, after years of my loving mother's attempts, some subtle and others downright guilt ridden, I bought my first house and I think they figured out I wasn't moving back 'home'. Portland had become my home.

Anyway, I'd had roommates over the years and the first time it came to my attention that I wasn't an out loud laugher was sitting in front of the television with a roommate. We were watching some sit-com, no idea what it was, not important. My roommate was laughing away histerically. I was doing my normal, sit and watch and take it all in. No big deal. She turns to me and asks, "why don't you ever laugh out loud?". I realized then that she was right. I have a pretty dry sense of humor and as a general rule sophomoric humor just annoys me. Now, if you get my brother and me in an empty room together, I will laugh with him until my eyes are watering and my stomach aches. I find I can do this with Mister too. When I am with my bestest from Sonoma, I will guffaw and donkey bray. Its a bit embarrassing actually. (Those are things I learned from her by the way.) Through paying attention to myself over the years, I have notice I've tried out different laughs. I went through a Betty Rubble phase. It wasn't a conscious thing, it just happened and one day someone pointed out to me that I sounded like Betty Rubble, that was a good time. Currently, I've adopted Mister's laugh which is a sort of a couple quick, forced air puffs through the nose. Difficult to explain, but signature of Mister. Laughing, as with a lot of things, also comes easier when I've had a glass, or two, of wine.

Why don't I laugh out loud? Its not that I don't know when to laugh because I always know when to say "that's funny". Or maybe I just know to say it because other people are laughing out loud. It may be a self-conscious thing, it may be I just don't have the sense of humor that most people have, it may be that I'm just an aristocrat beneath my blue-collar upbringing, I'm not sure which. It could be something completely different than any of those.

All I know is that I wish I could laugh freely and unselfconsciously and often. I admire those who have this talent. You may not think it a talent, but from those of us, and I have to believe I'm not alone (see "Scrubs" for the example, one of J.D's girl flings had the same problem - did you ever watch Scrubs, very funny show - I'm sure I said it over and over during the airings) who don't have the talent, it is wonderful to witness.

Keep on laughing folks, its good for the soul. Or at least I've heard it is.

Dutch Apple Pie

Dutch apple pie is the one with the sweet crumbly topping instead of a regular top pie crust. I think of it as the perfect thing to make when you can't decide whether to have pie or a crisp. This is sort of a melange of both. Tasty, flakey, comforting pie crust on the bottom and sweet, crunchy, topping that crumbles into each and every bite you take. Oh yeah and the apples in between.

I won't give specifics on the basic apple pie portion of this recipe. Everyone has their own version of what they like best. Apples sans spice or cinnamon or cinnamon and nutmeg or allspice or a little cardamom. The possible combinations are endless. Most people (maybe its just the bakers) have real opinions on which variety of apples make the best pie or crisp or muffin for that matter. Do you slice the apples and place them in concentric rings? Do you chop the apples into cubes or cook the apples on the stove top a bit before they go into the pie crust? Do you add other tasty ingredients like cranberries or raisins or maybe even some orange liqeuer, Cointreau anyone? Oh, and crust. All butter? All shortening? A magical combination of the two? To refrigerate that dough or not to refrigerate that dough? Deep dish pie or are you feeding an army (or maybe its just the full moon) so you need to make it in a 9x13 pan? Do you see where my mind goes?

I'm a baker by nature. We never had store bought pies when I grew up. My mother made them. I thought that was what everyone did, well, not really. I always knew I was one of the lucky ones even though I ate my fair share of Hostess pies. Ahem, moving right along.

All that said, my choices and combinations of the above depend on my mood. The pie I made a couple weekends ago, turned out an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. The filling could have been a little thicker and the topping could have used some tweaking. But, this was literally my first time making a Dutch apple pie. I've always eaten my sister's and hers is always amazing. I got her recipe and immediately changed it. (Just like me to change the perfect pie recipe!?! What's up with that? Don't answer.)

The basics are this. Use your favorite pie crust recipe. If that means going to your local grocery store and picking one up in the freezer section, then just get to it so we can get this party started.... Oy! the caffeine is starting to kick in. Line your deep dish 9 inch pie plate with that crust and set aside. For the apple filling, this time I used a combination of granny smith and golden delicious apples. It is a keeper! Tart and sweet and both apples held up very well under the stress of baking. I melted 5 Tbsp of Earth Balance (butter to those of you who eat dairy) and poured it over the peeled and sliced up apples. Lots of apples by the way. You are going to want that pie plate heaping with apples before it goes into the oven. Apples cook down, that's what they do. You can see in my picture that the apples are heaping. Anyway, I used melted margarine, cinnamon, some brown sugar and nutmeg on the apples. I would recommend also using a small amount of flour mixed into those apples too. Just enough to give them all a nice LIGHT coating. Mix that all up and set it aside while you make the topping.

This is my sister's version of the toppping without changes: 1/2 c white sugar, 1/2 c brown sugar, cinnamon to your personal taste, 3/4 cup flour, mix and cut in 5 Tbsp butter. Then add 1/2 cup chopped nuts and mix with your hands. This is the streudel topping.

Here's how it goes. Pie crust in your pie plate, spiced up apples into the crust then the streudel on top of that. Bake in a 350 - 375 degree oven until the apples are the texture you like them, at least an hour. Longer if you want less al dente apples (duh). Cool, cut and enjoy.

Ok, so my version of the topping went like this: 1/2 c white sugar, 1/2 c brown sugar, 2 - 3 tsp cinnamon, 3/4 cup oatmeal that I ground for a second in my coffee grinder (essentially oatmeal flour - we try to stay away from as much wheat as possible), cut in 5 Tbsp butter and 3/4 cup chopped toasted pecans, mix with hands. What I would do to make this better would be to omit the white sugar replacing it with all brown sugar, use 1/2 oatmeal flour and 1/2 regular flour and use toasted walnuts. I think that would be a great combination. All these photos are pre-baked pie. We were having people over for dinner, hence the pie, and I ran out of time to take post baked photos. The only thing I can say is that it was really tasty and those heaping apples ended up about half as tall after the pie baked and cooled as the pre-baked heap.

Happy first day of Spring.

Go make a pie. Really, its much easier than I make it sound, I'm a bit rambly this morning and hello! Its apple pie. Yum!

Ahhh, the beautiful and frightening morning

Pink, nearly magenta morning sky. Its scary that the sunrise and sunset are becoming more and more colorful in my part of the world. It means there is more and more polution in the air here. Bummer. I do intend to enjoy it though. Lemonaid from lemons, you know.

Discovering San Francisco

No, I haven't made a weekend trip to a fun city in California. This is a shout out to Alison, author of a blog I read currently entitled "Discovering San Francisco". I read it just about daily. Well, she's on my Google Reader, so I read her whenever I see she has a new post. I *met* her out here on the blogosphere through my much missed and blog originating friend CA. I linked out to Alison's blog, oh, quite some time ago and now I read her all the time.

I have to admit, I'm a bit envious of Alison. She's young, insightful in ways I'll never be able to express, athletic and pretty, articulate, thoughtful, environmentally aware and currently lives in San Francisco. A place I would have loved to live at some time in my life, but I know that Mister would never be comfortable there.

She blogs about her exploration of San Francisco (and the other wonderful places she has lived). She wanders around different neighborhoods and parks and tries out fun restaurants and talks about her adventures on public transit. She's up to date on local and global politics and the environment and has real opinions and thoughts and research links or books or news articles to back it all up. I'm a very middle of the road kind of gal. Always have been. Its just in my nature to see and empathize with both sides. I've always thought of myself as a peacemaker. What this really boils down to is that I have a difficult time taking a position on a topic and verbally supporting it. Oh, ok, this is not about me, but Alison.

So, I've put a link to her site on the sidebar. Check her out.

*Hey Alison!!!*

Shamrocks

Happy St. Patty's.

No pics of shamrocks, but here are some really small ferns where fairies or leprechauns may have tromped and some strawberry plants, they're green, that's all I've got for you today.

Ok, ok, so I'll try to be less lame about the photography here. Its been winter *forever* here, cold, very cold, wet, dark, dismal, dank. Not photo at all photo inspirational. So, I'll get off my duff, soon.

Soon.

Life takes all my time

One of my favorite things to do is bake. Its my hobby, like photography. The unfortunate thing about having a hobby like baking is the whole eating it after its made thing.

On one hand, I yearn to be one of those people who really doesn't care much about food. On the other hand, good food can be really good. I would also love to be one of those people who is naturally lean and lanky. I've never been that person. Even as a child, I've been, *well rounded*. I had a period of time in the late '80's and early '90's where I was about as thin as I've ever been. Those were not healthy times for me. Again in the early 2000's I had a lean and cut, muscular period. In order to get there and struggle to stay there, I ran 2 miles before work, worked out every day after work at the gym and ran mountains of stairs on the weekends and ate a low-fat diet. It was great on some levels, but, it was literally a struggle every day. Then life took over and I buried that person under a womanly layer of, let's call it, softness. Oh, underneath it all, I'm as strong as a horse, but its just a horse that's been feed grain and not worked.

Ok, digressing into my own little caffeinated ramblings...

I also like to share the fun and tasty recipes I find and create here. The problem is that over the last 3 months, I've gained a couple pounds.

The moral of the story is I'm going to try to stay away from the baking thing until after Italy. I just don't want to be that overweight American, you know. Its not like I plan to give up entirely on the baking, for example, I have a dinner to go to this weekend and I plan to make a dutch apple pie, how delicious does that sound. I've made mental notes to leave the extra pie with my sister-in-law so I don't have it around for days tempting me to snack. Its a good plan, I think. We'll see.

Wish me luck, I'll need it on quite a few fronts.

How are things with you?

Spring

...soon.

Pink

We stayed at the beach last weekend, in a house right on the ocean. Is there any other sort of place to stay when you go to the beach? While hanging out checking out the ocean, all of the sudden I see this cute, cute, cute little vision in pink who is having a blast walking down the beach with her parents. She is running along behind them, playing in the sand as she goes. What caught my eye initially was the bright pink she was wearing. She stood out among the grey and white Pacific Ocean and the grey sand and driftwood and the blacks and blues and greys that most adults were wearing as they meandered by. The pink of the girl's coat and bunny-eared hat caught my eye and as I look at her, she bends over at the waist, as only yogi's and children can do, and starts digging in the sand with her hands ala puppy dog style. Sand is flying out behind her. I pointed her out to my gal pals and we all laughed until our sides hurt. She was the cutest little thing. Then she stands up, runs to her family unit and walks awhile. I watched her walk up the beach and then back down again. She just kept loving the beach and stopping intermittently to dig in the sand. I was hoping these might turn out (I suck at processing) all by themselves a bit like maybe, possibly, something Anne Geddes(ish). You know, b/w with only one thing in the pic colorized..... anyway... did I say I suck at post production processing? Well, I do. And, for the most part, I'm ok with that. I'm a sooc girl to the core.

I'm ok with posting these pics of people I don't know and especially a child, but only because they are very blurry as I was at a bit of a distance and only have my point and shoot. (Note to self, buy Canon 40D.) (don't you love how I justified that... anyway) Instead of deleting these pics, I decided to share in the cuteness of them and send the peacefulness of uninhibited childhood out into the universe. Shared like a loving pat on the back, a hug, a smooch on the cheek between long-time friends.

I hope you enjoy or feel a bit warmed in your heart. I do, just knowing you are out there reading this.

Update - Snickerdoodle Blondies

I made these last night for a work thing today. YUM!

I don't have my own photo, mine did not turn out as pretty and no light in my kitchen at 8:00 at night.

To Die For!

Chocolate Orange Cake

I made THIS chocolate orange bundt cake for my girls beach getaway weekend. If you link out, the photo on the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen website looks much better than mine, for obvious reasons. I had just a smidge of orange zest left over so added it to the white drizzle on top. It tasted good, but not great and also didn't look great. In general, I didn't care for either of the two drizzles, one chocolate and one orange. The chocolate wasn't chocolatey enough and the orange was too thin tasting. Probably just my poor ability in the drizzle making category. This cake is also, in its original form, fat free. The recipe calls for soy yogurt, of which I did not have any plain. I substituted 1/3 canola oil and 2/3 applesauce. The cake was delicious, flavorful and really moist. I will definitely make this again and will also possible experiment with adding kahlua or other fruit flavors. Bottom line: Yum.

Snickerdoodle Blondies

Photo from The Crepes of Wrath website

I found this recipe for Snickerdoodle Blondies from the Crepes of Wrath, and plan to make it soon. The Crepes of Wrath website is a new one to me. I also plan to check it out for other tasty looking treats.

How delicious does that sound!!? Snickerdoodles are my most favorite go-to cookie. Ok, so those and anything gingery. What are your favorite cookies / bars?

Here's me, wishing us all a speedy recovery from this recession.