Tuesday, April 30, 2013

the world is full of imperfection

Yes, yes, I know that the world is inefficient, broken, and full of typos. And I'm not supposed to get worked up about it all the time, but move through life with a Zen-like acceptance of imperfection. But sometimes, I just can't handle it.

Take, for example, this Cooking Light cookbook that I'm looking forward to using. It's a lovely wedding gift from family friends:


Eager to identify some new recipes I want to try, I opened the book and began to flip through the pages. Imagine my horror when I discovered this:


Yes, the cover was bound upside down on the cookbook, and the whole thing is backwards. Oxmoor House Publishing, I give you two thumbs down!

a wedding errand weekend

Everyone knows that wedding planning demands a great deal of time and requires a lot of decision-making. It's particularly difficult when planning a wedding from a distance! My mom has done an awesome job of helping us plan, but some things simply must be done in person. Right after my eye surgery (which I think went okay? At least I'm not yet "One-eyed Klu"), we drove to PA and arrived very, very late. Up until last week, it was practically still winter in Michigan – it snowed heavily last Wednesday. So I was delighted to see life and blooming flowers on the East Coast!


On Saturday, we headed to New Jersey for my bridal hair/make-up trial! No pictures here, but I liked the work of the ladies at Mane Stop Salon. Looking forward to getting gussied up with my bridesmaids there on the morning of the wedding! We headed to the cake tasting next at DiBartolo Bakery:


If you click on the link, you can see what the Bakery used to look like, just a few weeks ago. Apparently its makeover will be featured on the Food Network's "Bakery 911" show sometime this summer! The cake was okay.

And speaking of blooming flowers, here's a sneak peek of the Florette in her flower girl dress! We found a ribbon at Michael's that matches the bridesmaids' dresses – voilĂ ! a sash:


After a meeting with the DJ on Monday, we hit the road again for Michigan. I graded the last of my students' final papers in the car, which nearly became the proverbial straw on my camel back. Because I taught two writing-requirement courses back-to-back this year, I've had a pile of papers to grade every week since...early September. I don't know how Dave survived 10.5 hours of my moaning "EGGGHHHHHHH" and throwing my head into the window. My favorite line from this batch: "As demonstrated by the actions of the Gettysburg Museum of Los Angeles..."

Only a few days to squeeze in some work before graduation festivities begin later this week!

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Woe to the Blind

I still haven't forgotten the feeling of helplessness that overwhelmed me when I failed my first test: a vision exam at the nurse's office in elementary school. When I went to the optometrist afterwards, he slapped me on the knee and proclaimed, "Welcome to the club!" "What club?" I asked, desperately hoping that it was the Cool Club. "People who wear glasses," he replied jovially. How disappointing. And thus I became the first person in the whole third grade to wear glasses.

Dave scanned this picture for the wedding slideshow because he said it "was not too bad."

My glasses-wearing years were not exactly the best. I took more than one basketball to the face during that time, permanently skewing my glasses frames. When my parents let me get contacts(!) in eighth grade, one of my best friends exclaimed, "Whoa! You're pretty??" (HAHAHA!) I thought that was all bad enough, but the worst was yet to come. I am so near-sighted that my retina is stretched dangerously thin over the back of my eyes, leaving me at risk for retinal detachment. I had my first laser surgery just over ten years ago to sear the retina against the back of my left eye. My doctor shot laser beams from a headset into my eyeball. The future is here! From my perspective, it looked like a climactic battle from an episode of Transformers – pew pew pew!

I'm thinking about all of this because I have two eye appointments tomorrow. The first is for an updated prescription from my optometrist. Last year, she told me, "Well, the bad news is that your vision's worse; the good news is that you're not legally blind, yet." The second is with the retinologist, who will be doing a quick laser procedure, again on my left eye, to seal off a new little hole in my retina. Dave will pick me up from the appointment, and we'll immediately hit the road for PA/NJ for a weekend of wedding appointments. (My student health insurance cuts out in less than a week, so I'm trying to squeeze in all kinds of healthcare.) This will be my favorite kind of roadtrip: Dave drives, I nap!

Monday, April 22, 2013

the bachelorette

What a great weekend! Shuen and Julie flew into town on Friday, and we had a whirlwind weekend of good eating and drinking, chatting, and exploring! Though Julie's flight was severely delayed, we still enjoyed a relaxing evening at home on Friday:


On Saturday, we tried out the new Wafel Shop in Ann Arbor. The process:


The delicious result:


After that, it was time for our horseback riding lesson. We drove out to Rushlow's Arabians for a group lesson. The lesson was in an indoor barn:


Safety first, everyone!


We each rode a different horse (Eli, Hostess, Keebler, Rampage) and learned how to direct our horse to walk, trot, stop, and turn. No action shots, though – cameras weren't allowed during our lesson!


Here I am with my horse, Rampage. He was described as a grumpy old man who hates being around other horses. No one will be surprised to hear that we really got along:

 

Rampage is looking at you, and no, he is not amused.


It was really fun and totally unfamiliar and we all said we'd love to go back and do it again!

Then it was off to a wine tasting, paired with some snacky foods at Everyday Wines in Ann Arbor. We learned that a good Pinot Gris can, in fact, be paired with baklava with resounding success.


There was more eating and drinking and dancing with my friends from school – Beth, Brianne, Emily, and Charlotte – before collapsing after a long day.

On Sunday, we made a solid brunch at home (more waffles, please!) and spent the afternoon shopping at the outlets. Thanks for a great weekend, girls! Can't wait for the big one in May. =)

Saturday, April 13, 2013

peanut butter overload

I bought a chocolate cake mix from Trader Joe's 2 or 3 years ago, but never made the time to bake it. As part of my clear-out-the-pantry efforts, I decided to make it to share with friends this week. Dave is a huge peanut butter-chocolate fan, so a flavor profile was chosen! I baked the whole mix in a single spring-form pan (which I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do), and then sliced it into three layers (a slight dome had to be shaved off the top). I got to use my new cake decorating stand, a wedding gift from my friend Anna!

I filled the cake with peanut butter frosting from this recipe. I didn't have enough to make a crumb coating, so it ended up with a more "rustic look" (read: total n00b):


The presentation was not the most elegant, but once I sliced it up, it seemed to matter less! Stephen and Grace gave me their old ice cream maker, so we fired that up, too. I paired the cake with a peanut butter honey ice cream that was pretty good.


Alas, this combination was simply too much peanut butter. I couldn't finish my serving! Even Dave, the great lover of all things peanut butter chocolate, admitted that it was too much. I'll try to remember not to overdo it next time.

There was someone who didn't seem to mind: TUCK! Tuck, the world's greatest dog, has appeared on this blog before (here and here). Sarah and John were house-sitting again, and we enjoyed this dessert together. (You can see them preparing tea for us in the background.)


No cake for Tuck. Plenty of hugs, though!


Thursday, April 11, 2013

miracle bread

I hope to be posting more with cooking results in the next few months. There are several reasons for increased cooking activity:
– I finally have time and mental space to think about learning new things, now that the job hunt and the dissertation are completed.
– I'm moving into Dave's place soon and am determined to cook/bake through my refrigerator, freezer, and pantry. Not that it's so hard to move these items to his place across town, but I'd like a fresh start, as it were.
– We're receiving all of these nifty and intriguing kitchen gadgets as wedding presents, and I'm really excited about learning how to use them.
– Although I consider myself "someone who knows how to cook," I'd like to be more efficient, experienced, and confident. I'd like to be the kind of person who can buy an ingredient for a recipe and know how to use up the leftovers over the course of the week. I'm sure I'll be more stressed out when my job officially starts, so now is a good time to improve my skills.

I'm a little late to the party, but I finally tried my hand at making a loaf of bread! I used the popular Jim Lahey/Sullivan Street Bakery recipe, via Mark Bittman's old Minimalist column. Baking continues to astonish me – it always seems like a minor miracle is occurring. You start with flour, salt, yeast, and water:


And progress to dough that has all these air bubbles in it!


Pop it in the oven, and then out comes this:


And when you slice it open, it's like a loaf of nice bread! It was a bit wetter in the center than I would prefer, so I might add a little less water next time. But the crumb was delicate and flavorful, and the crust had enough heft and crackle without being difficult to chew.


This bread was pretty delicious. I served it with homemade chicken soup (made with stock from the new pressure cooker). I'd definitely make it again, but would like to jazz it up next time – maybe with some cheese and herbs.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

someone call a copy editor, please

Has anyone else noticed that the copy editing at the New York Times has become dreadful? I know we're all living in an age of the 24-hours news cycle, etc. etc., and that the constant updating of the webpage almost guarantees typographic errors (as well as errors in reporting and sourcing, but that's a topic for another time). This irks me frequently, but tonight reached a new low.

Sure, I'm not the biggest sports fan at UM, but Dave and I actually made the effort to watch the game tonight – the men's basketball national championship. We don't have TV, so we went to a pub with a friend and actually bought drinks and watched our team lose to Louisville. No amount of my encouraging ("More points, guys, MORE POINTS") or hectoring ("Rebounds are IMPORTANT") seemed to make a difference. I returned home to grade papers, which never puts me in a good mood anyway. So I was particularly annoyed to see the caption below this picture:


That's right, jubilant Louisville players in their red uniforms, accompanied by an erroneous caption that mocks our pain. No, Michigan did not defeat Louisville, 82-76, as the line directly below the caption indicates. This is a fact. But thanks for suggesting the idea. Get it right, folks.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Deposit

The completion of my Ph.D. has not exactly been the triumphant march I had expected. My dissertation defense was remarkably anti-climactic, and it doesn't help that I took a good four months to finish my revisions and deposit the final copy with the University. At least I had good reasons for being busy in January, February, and March! As I was frantically finishing revisions last week, I ran into a committee member in the hall who teased me, "What, you're still here?" Yes, I am still here. As much as I've tried to think of myself as "done" with UM and prepared to be faculty elsewhere, it turns out that a number of checklist items remain to be accomplished. My relationship with UM, it seems, will peter out in dribs and drabs over the next month or so.

I went to my final post-defense meeting at the Graduate School today. The administrator handed me a piece of paper with a URL on it; I used my own laptop to upload a PDF of my dissertation and a copy of my abstract. She opened the file on her own computer, checked it over for formatting, and printed out a certificate for me. Then it was over. That's it? This time, I didn't even get the satisfying feeling of thumping a large stack of paper down on the desk.


See the shiny gold sticker at the bottom? It arouses such conflicting feelings in me. On the one hand: shiny gold sticker! I LOVE IT. On the other: seven years of labor for a stupid sticker? When will I learn to stop caring about the shiny gold stickers??

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Milhaud's L'Orestie

Tonight is my last choral performance in Ann Arbor. For the past several years, I've been singing with the UMS Choral Union, a large community group that is probably best-known for annual concerts of Handel's Messiah and performances with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. There have been wonderful experiences – being part of Leonard Slatkin's debut as principal conductor of the DSO (Carmina Burana), singing Mozart's and Verdi's and Brahms' Requiem, performing On the Transmigration of Souls under the baton of John Adams himself – and plenty of frustrations. I'm assuming that I won't be singing in a regular capacity next year, what with the awkward transition to New York and getting settled into the new job. So I want to go out with a bang tonight!


Tonight's performance is intellectually interesting to me. It's an operatic version of Aeschylus' trilogy of tragedies that we call the Oresteia. It was composed by Darius Milhaud, a friend of Stravinksy's, in Paris between 1913-1927. This is the first full performance of the full cycle outside of Europe and will be recorded live for commercial release by Naxos. Some of Milhaud's choices I love (Athena is played by a trio of women, so there's always a halo of sound around her words); some I find baffling (when L'Agamemnon begins, Clytemnestra has already killed Agamemnon).

This piece is hard. The French moves quickly, the intervals are challenging, and even when we get it right, it sounds weird. And the pressure's really on! Milhaud's son has come to Ann Arbor for the show, and whatever we can't get right will be immortalized on the recording. The last time this group of choirs/orchestra/conductors were recorded by Naxos for a different project, in 2005, they won four (obscure) Grammy awards! Hopes were high for this project as well, I think, until rehearsals this week began. Not to put too fine a point on it, we were unprepared, and everyone became discouraged. We've redoubled our efforts, so I hope it goes well tonight. Wish us luck!

Monday, April 1, 2013

Easter 2013

Happy Easter 2013! I'm finally getting my life in order after all the stress and traveling of the past few months. One of the things on the list was getting back into learning new recipes and trying them out on friends. But first, I had to clean up my apartment. Notice the distinct lack of piles of papers and overdue library books on the table:


Our Easter dinner this year started off with a citrusy salad with avocado and almonds – served in our new salad set!


For my bridal shower, a very generous family friend gave me a Le Creuset dutch oven. I love the color – and the way in which it inspired me to learn to make SHORT RIBS.


The short ribs were tender and delicious, and the sauce was addictive (recipe here). Spring asparagus from Charlotte and mashed potatoes and parsnips completed the plate. But plating and food photography are not yet my strengths. I'd like to work on that.


And to finish, a dark chocolate mousse with raspberries. I now wish I had made a lighter dessert, since we all went back for seconds of the short ribs. But it's a mistake I'm learning to live with. ;)



During my first two years at Michigan, I had no one to share an official Easter dinner with. Weirdly enough, I ended up running into the older brother of a college friend (who had dated my brother) at church and going to brunch at a diner, two years in a row. It wasn't exactly a warm family meal. So this year, I especially appreciate the opportunity to get REALLY full with Dave and two good friends! It was homey and satisfying – not least because I've added a couple new recipes to the dinner party repertoire.