New Me

Before:

After:

Misty Mountain Hop

One thing I like about it here is that between August and November, there is serious fog in the mornings until about 10:30 or so. Notice the sweater.

Waking up to weather like this really puts me in an autumn mood. It makes me want to read Wuthering Heights and drink hot chocolate.

Lovely Little Apple Muffins

Lovely Little Apple Muffins

2 apples, pealed and chopped small

2 c. all purpose flour

1/2 c. sugar

4 teasp. baking powder

shake of salt

1/3 c butter, melted

1 c. soy milk

2 eggs

1 teasp. cinnamon

topping:

1 T. sugar

1 teasp. cinnamon

Mix the dry ingredients with the apple pieces. In another bowl, mix the butter, eggs, milk. Combine the two carefully and don't over mix: stir until ingredients are just combined. Dole out into greased muffin tins, sprinkle with sugar/cinnamon mix, bake at 425 for about 20 mins. Makes 11 or 12.

Also required: a quiet afternoon alone with the muffin, a good book, and some tea.

Apple Picking Time

No blues this year: we have our own apple trees. With actual apples. One red delicious and one golden delicious. I don't know if these are good baking apples, but whatever. Does it really matter, when pie is involved? I made an apple pie and apple muffins.

We have just enough to welcome autumn with proper appley goodness. I've been really into muffins lately. I think it's a fall thing. September rolls around and I want to start using the oven again.

Kitty is the fruit

Kitty is mad at Apples

At the Back of the East Wind

Here is a quote to think about today about wind power:

Th[e] coastal region running from Massachusetts to North Carolina contained up to 330,000 megawatts of average electrical capacity. This was, in other words, an amount of guaranteed, bankable power that was larger, in terms of energy equivalence, than the entire mid-Atlantic coast’s total energy demand — not just for electricity but for heating, for gasoline, for diesel and for natural gas. Indeed the wind off the mid-Atlantic represented a full third of the Department of Energy’s estimate of the total American offshore resource of 900,000 megawatts.

Read the rest of the article here.

Whenever I see a wind turbine, it makes me a little happier. I've been casually following the Cape Wind saga for the past 5 or so years and I have developed an idealistic and curious interest in wind power. There are pros and cons to everything, of course.

The world is a strange place. For the wedding, I used a number of websites that had interactive, personalized lists that you could create to help you stay on track. They would send you email reminders about what tasks you needed to get done that week in order to stay on schedule. Why, the day after the wedding, did those emails suddenly turn into spam about having babies?

Gah. It's all too much. Can I live with myself for bringing another carbon footprint onto the earth at this time, when all I can do is think about how big mine is already? It's a stretch to connect wind power and babies, I know, but to me, they seem intertwined. At least, that's how I feel today and most days. Babies just seem to be the #1 topic for people to bring up lately. I can't go anywhere without people asking if I want kids and when. I don't know. There's entirely too much to think about. Ask me about wind power instead.

That was a total tangent. Apologies.

Pasties Defined

This is a little silly, but for those of you interested, NPR show Kitchen Window did a fun little edition on that talks about the art of sandwiches that gives a little history and definition of pasties. Listen here.

Scary Kid

Today, a four year old explained to me that she was having a Star Wars-themed birthday, then furrowed her brow and said: "but Princess Leia isn't modest."

I'm not sure what to chalk these words of wisdom up to. You learn something new every day? Kids say the darndest whatever? Modesty is a hot-button issue for the four year old set? Just not sure.

To re-cap:

1. Princess Leia: Not Modest
2. Child: Kind of Scary

pasties, meat pies, pastries: this place had it all...

As you know, we recently got back from a month or so in England. Aaron spent that time as a Traveling Academic (it sounds so romantic, doesn't it?) and oversaw a group of undergrads in a research lab at the University of Birmingham. And I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so I went along for the ride. It was a wonderful experience and a great chance for us to see how we would react to being together in a foreign country for that long (success). We learned some things about each other (Aaron hates tourists to an extreme. He'd rather not do/see something than have to be around/become one. I wonder what he learned about me).

The best parts for me were Wales and the Lake District. Really, really beautiful. I could live in Wales.

Also: Pasties. For those of you in the know: oh yeah, pasties. For those of you not in the know: a pasty is like a calzone, but with meat and potatoes and no cheese and it is probably the #1 traditional food where I come from in Michigan because it's a miner's food; it's one of my favorite food items. I really wanted to go to Cornwall, but it was just too far away to justify a trip just to eat a real, live, traditional Cornish Pasty. However, there were pasties everywhere, anyway. I don't remember there being so many when I went several years ago (of course, I wasn't pub-hopping that time, either), but I think it might be possible that the U.K. is experiencing the same Comfort Food surge we are? I don't know. Seems like what they do best is comfort foods (and they do everything else pretty poorly). But everywhere you went there were pasties, and I kept telling myself that I didn't need to try every single one. They even had fast food pasties in the gas stations and convenience stores...the equivalent to a frozen burrito here.

Though I didn't go to Cornwall to have the pasty of all pasties, I did notice some differences between the ones I know and love, and the ones I had there. First, their definition of "pasty" is a little more loose. Most notably, there were endless kinds of fillings and it seemed really natural and not at all novelty to have something like cheese and onions, or chicken, or even a curry pasty. Second, very often it would be a flaky puff-pastry crust, rather than the heavy pie-like crust. I have to admit, this was a little disappointing, because pasty crust is the best part of the pasty. I don't think all are this way, though. I think it is a time-cutting technique, but it was nation-wide. Third, they didn't use ketchup. I didn't notice them using any sauces because most of them were more moist than what we're used to. Fourth, the third reason is probably because of this: all of the pasties I had, even the "Oggy" (traditional Cornish style) used huge, real hunks of steak or pot roast that were so moist and soft. Also, English potatoes are a whole new world. I hate to break it to you, but we are eating sub-par potatoes, here, people! Fifth, in proud, Midwestern fashion, our regular sized pasty is closer to their "family size."

The best one I ate was a Steak and Stilton pasty. I loved it in every way. It married comfort and class, which is my favorite thing to do!


Also: meat pies. Pubs in England serve some of the best beer I've ever tasted (see Real Ale) and some of the best food. It isn't at all like "bar food" here. Pub food is kind of quaint and comforting, something dear ol' ma would make for you or something. I imagined a kitchen wench in every one, planning the day's meal according to what she could find to make into a pie. And there were all kinds. Steak and Ale. Game Pie. Pheasant. Everything. We took every opportunity to eat meat pies and came home feeling a little like meat pies ourselves.

On our last night there, we drove all the way to Wolverhampton so that Aaron could eat a 4lb. steak pie. He finished it and ate what was left of my human-sized pie.

There was something I should mention that we were really let down about, though. And that's Indian food. Britons themselves say that the National Dish has become curry. Birmingham has a huge population of Indian immigrants (it was a colony, after all) and they pride themselves on having the best Indian food outside of India. They even invented a new British-Indian food called Balti. (Yes, there were balti pasties, even.) There is a section of town called the Batli Triangle that has dozens of Indian restaurants.

We tried five. Five different Indian restaurants. Ones recommended by friends as "the best ever." We really gave it a good go, but it was disappointing. It just wasn't as good as the Indian food we could get in Boston. There was something different about it. The naan felt a little like pizza dough and the sauces didn't feel quite as fresh as Namaskar in Davis Square and Cafe of India in Harvard Square (Whoa, did you know that Cafe of India is owned by the same people as Diva? Why is the food so much better at CofI?). It wasn't even as good as our old local, Punjabi Dhaba. The samosas weren't even as good as that weird Indian-Irish market thing in Davis.

Aaron and I really thought about the reasons why this could be and came up with a few good arguments: 1) If you live in a snooty place, you get snooty results. The demand for the highest level of quality is so huge in the Boston area that you would be run out of business if you didn't meet the standards. 2) Perhaps Indian food is a little like Mexican or Chinese food here. Personally, I find it hard to get really good Mexican food at all in the US, even though it's everywhere, because it's just so saturated into our culture and what we're eating isn't Mexican at all but some kind of American-"Mexican," Tex-Mex/Spanish thing. If I want greasy Mexican, I can go to a number of places even here in Morgantown and get something pretty decent. However, if I want something a little more refined, I've only found one restaurant: Ole in Inman Square. You need to get the guacamole. So, what I'm saying is, maybe it's too close to the heart to maintain a level of quality.



Geez, I've only talked about food from the trip! Argh. Here are some pictures of the rest.

May 17, 2008

Please see the sidebar or click here to view photos the assistant photographer, Stephanie Smart, took of our wedding. Finally. More to come, I'm sure.

Change is good

We've lived here for a year. That's insane. The time went by so fast. We moved far away! We bought a house! Got pets! Got married! Planted a garden! Spent a month abroad! Got wisdom teeth removed! Went back to school! Got various crappy jobs and one good job! Wow, what a year. I'm exhausted. Seriously, I am ready for a long, uneventful winter in hibernation.

But, I am happy. I am more happy than I've ever been, I think, thanks to living here. We've been so busy and it's been nice to live in a place that...isn't busy. There are things we miss about Boston, but also new things that I've always wanted that I wouldn't get there. Change is good.

Things I miss about Boston:

• Great food - I didn't really think of it as a food-capital or anything, but there is some dang good food in Boston and that is something to mourn the loss of. Darwins, Indian food, good sushi, good coffee, good coffee shops (1369, oh how I miss thee), good tea, great pizza (trust me...even your crappy pizza is good compared to what they make here), great markets (International, specialty, and otherwise) and a million other great foods. I could go on and on.
• Cobblestone (never thought I would miss this deathtrap...)
• Great beer almost everywhere (who would have thought it would be so hard to come by?)
• Close friends
• Lots going on all the time
• Shopping
• Culture - at times, very missed.

Things I like about here:

• My house - I love my house. I love it.
• Nature
• Mountains
• Pets - we never could find an apartment that would take pets. They are a key ingredient.
• Yard/garden - the windowsill just didn't cut it anymore. I love working in the garden more than I ever thought I could. It is so rewarding. I feel about my garden the way I imagine some people might feel about their career. It feels like a calling.
• Time - I always felt like I was running around in Boston. Even though we've been busy, it just feels like we have time now. (The friends thing has way more to do with this than anything else...our base is just much smaller here, which can be very nice and, to be honest, I've tried to maintain that aspect of our time here to some degree. I think of it as Our Hermitage.)
• Gabes! - Best store ever invented. Seriously, I could start a blog based on my Gabes Finds.
• Monte Cristo - one thing I can say about the food here is that they know how to make a mean Monte Cristo sandwich. "Turkey, ham, cheese double-decker, you say? And you'd like all of that battered and deep fried? Coming right up!" S&S, eat your heart out!

Things I don't particularly like about it here:

• Bad drivers - yes, I think they're worse than Boston. Everyone talks on their cellphones and make really stupid mistakes. They all drive huge trucks, too.
• Bad food - what is the obsession with chicken wings around here? Seriously, it's a problem.
• Frats
• Walking - almost impossible here due to lack of sidewalk. Also, when there are sidewalks, I'm pretty sure they're made of a 1:1 mixture of vomit and broken beer bottles (see previous bulletpoint).
• Lack of literary discussion - it's probably out there somewhere, I just can't find it.
• College sports
• no public hang outs - we share a car, which means always waiting around for the other person. There isn't anywhere we can just plop down and wait outside without buying something.
• the homeless are more scary here

All in all, it's been a great year. Thanks, West Virginia.

Wedding Pictures

We received our wedding photos today.

It really was a beautiful day.

I guess this means we need to write the rest of our thank yous.

harvest

We harvested the first veggies from the garden today:

Swiss chard!

They were just a little young, but we wanted to eat some before we left on our trip. They are so colorful and delicious. And very good for you. Better than kale, which is why we chose to plant chard.

Here is how I prepared it tonight: on medium heat, I put a teaspoon of olive oil in a pan and added 1 coursely chopped garlic clove. I put the colorful chard stalks in first, let them saute for a minute, and then added the leaves, which I had cut in 1/2. When it seemed it was getting dry, I added a sprinkle of water. I also added salt and pepper. I let this cook until the leaves were wilted, but not much longer. That's it!

Delicious!

I'm a firm believer in vegetables tasting like vegetables.

We also picked some of these hot mommas. I'm no slouch when it comes to heat, but man, these are spicy. We'll have to use these with a lot of caution.