Let it snow...

I'm a HUGE fan of snow. Always have been. It's part of that kid in me that refuses to grow up and believe that big people don't get snow days. Plus, it's so unbelievably beautiful and peaceful. Made even better by the glorious fact that I never have to drive in it here!

Every morning when my alarm goes off I grumble, curse, and grab my phone to check what the weather holds in store for us this week. And if I don't like the answer, I usually check again in 10 minutes to see if the weather guys have changed their minds. During the winter I'm pretty much always looking for those pretty little white flakes to show up on the screen. So imagine my delight when I checked the weather forecast today and this is what I saw:


That's four freaking fantastic days of snow!!! [I'm very pointedly ignoring the rain forecast in there]. This is following the Nor'Easter we had last week that gave us a good 6+ inches of snow! It's like Mother Nature's ongoing Christmas present to me for being good for *most* of this crazy past year.
And as you can see below, snow makes me smile! A lot. So bring on the flurries, weatherman. I have the boots, scarves and mittens lined up and ready to go!

Red is the new Black

I've always been a big fan of neutral colors. Ok, I really just love black and gray. I mean, LOVE them. I think it's ridiculous to spend tons of money on flashy, trendy clothes that are out of style in 2 blinks. Which sucks, because I like to look cute as much as the next girl. I just squirm about jumping on trend bandwagons and looking "so 5 minutes ago" about 5 minutes after I buy new clothes. So I buy the colors that never seem to go out of style.

Needless to say, my wardrobe is a little on the stuffy (read: boring) side. Every time I go looking for something fun and exciting to wear, I find my trusty old gray sweaters. Topped by my lovely, well-cut, but extremely predictable black coat.

So this year I thought, "gosh, I'm single, out and about a lot, acting far younger than I really am, and I'd really like to start looking it". Well, what's a girl to do but find herself a new gay best friend to have bottomless mimosa brunch and go shopping with! Enter Joey, and a fabulous brunch spot in the West Village.
Joey, being the newest and most wonderful shopping buddy that he is, has no patience for all that gray/black/navy/cream/brown stuff that makes up most of my outfits. He goes straight for bold, god bless him.
Here are the results of said shopping trip:

Ok, to be fair, this is really the result of said brunch. *Note to self: drunk Joey equals great accessory model. Must bring along for every shopping trip!!*

So this is the final result of said shopping trip:











It's a super stunning red wool pea coat, bought at half price from Banana Republic, and it makes me smile every time I put it on. And look how much the coat stands out in the crowd of very definitely New Yorkers, all dressed in their standard-issue black.


There's one problem, though: every other New York woman must have had the same crazy idea this year, because half the city is wearing red wool coats right now!
I guess this is what happens when I embrace a trend. Now I look like every other twentysomething (*ahem*) girl out there, bucking tradition and daring to stand out in a crowd... or blending into a new red one, as the case may be. For the next 5 minutes, anyway. At least I'll have a big bright smile on while I blend! I think I might just LOVE red.

Updates

Hi all! I know I've been very lax in updating the blog, but mostly because I like pictures and I've been way too busy (read: lazy) to upload photos to my computer and then attach them. So much work. Really.
So I finally did some updates, but they are randomly scattered around from when I started them. So take a peak back at November and check out the Thanksgiving and 'Bama posts. And whatever may make it up tonight before I can't keep my eyes open anymore...

It's the most wonderful time of the year... for a party!

I've been looking for excuses to cook more, clean my apartment, and have a housewarming party. And what better excuse is there than a Saturday? Well, a Saturday at holiday time, perhaps!
This last Saturday I threw a little shindig at my lovely Queens apartment and managed to drag about 20 of my closest friends into one of the most hated boroughs in New York.
*Disclaimer: Pretty much any borough not named Manhattan or Brooklyn is in tough competition for that beloved honor of being most hated. I think Staten Island may actually take the cake, but there's not much love for the rest of us either.*

Every party needs a menu, so I think I blew a good 4 hours digging around on allrecipes.com and foodnetwork.com until I had the perfect combo of easy party foods and drinks. Final menu selections: deviled eggs, meatballs in cranberry and chili sauce, baby BLTs (cherry tomatoes stuffed with bacon, mayo and green onions - little slices of heaven in bite-sized doses!), snickerdoodles, brownies, hand-dipped chocolate-covered pretzels, a chocolate chip cheese ball (huge success!) and spicy pecans. Drink menu: hot buttered rum and spiced wine, and countless bottles of wine.

The only hiccup in this lofty plan was the ridiculous cold I'd been fighting for weeks and the torn intercostal muscle causing me grief from way too many hours of coughing. I was exhausted and in pain for a good chunk of my cooking time, which is probably why I thought it was ok to deep-fry pecans at 2am when I've never deep-fried anything, ever. I was fairly close to having to send the regretful "sorry the party's canceled because I stupidly burned down my apartment" email, but somehow managed to salvage the pecans and my apartment, and had some damned tasty nuts to show for it.

The hot buttered rum was a recipe I found online that made my tummy smile and my teeth ache in fear. The recipe calls for 1lb butter, 1lb powdered sugar, 1lb brown sugar, 1qt vanilla ice cream, cinnamon and nutmeg. People, that's 4lbs of essentially pure fat and sugar! And I've never tasted anything quite so scrumcious!








The chocolate chip cheese ball, which apparently tastes just like cannoli filling, had cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and mini chocolate chips. Easy as it gets, and wins friends over left and right.

As for the snickerdoodles, well, those cookies have won me two marriage proposals so far! If I'd only realized sooner that you can rule the world with just a little good food... suffice it to say, it's a good thing I'm using my powers for good and not evil. So far.





All in all, the party was a smash hit for the first party I've really ever thrown. Most of the food was gone in a blink, as was all of the alcohol. And I mean all of it. Followed up with a rousing round of karaoke in Manhattan. And all done in my new super-cute Kenneth Cole sweater dress! Who could ask for anything more? (The face of a girl who has been up cooking and cleaning way too many hours
in a bathroom mirror in midtown Manhattan at 12:30am, avoiding
singing in front of complete drunken strangers. No smiles left.)

Tomato Soup

As winter starts to set in more and more, there's nothing quite like a hearty bowl of soup to make the short, cold days feel warm and pleasant. Now I've dabbled in soup for a while now, having almost perfected the art of homemade chicken noodle soup, and nearly succeeding at a great batch of lamb stew. For this project, though, it was time to inaugurate the immersion blender with something more substantial than a blueberry/raspberry smoothie.

Winter soup round 1: creamy tomato soup with a touch of chili pepper. Made from fresh tomatoes and other such real ingredients that didn't come out of a can. Blended to smithereens by Iggy the Terrible (yes, I just named the blender Iggy. If you know me at all, you know that's par for the course. Babo, Ike, Juan Carlos, Camilla, Lucy, Daisy, Jade, Mickey, Floppy, Mork and Mindy all approve).



Below is the final result. It was a beautiful soup, and another good first attempt. I definitely have some tweaking to do, including finding the right base to start from. But overall I'm calling it a success. If for nothing else than that I found yet another ridiculous name for yet another inanimate object in my apartment.
Did I say 30 going on 20?? Maybe off by a decade or three.
And laughing all the way. =)

Top 5...

As the days are getting shorter and shorter with each passing day, I've found myself watching way too much tv again. All of these online shows were bad enough, but then Netflix had to go and put all kinds of terrible (and addicting) movies online too. The supply of garbage to watch is virtually endless! As I have too much free time and a burning desire to share some of it with my 5 or so regular readers, here are a few of my Top 5 lists a la High Fidelity.

Top 5 shows to watch online

1. Glee (Fox). OMG, this show makes me laugh like nothing else. It's genius.
2. House (Fox). Who doesn't love an egomaniacal, manipulative doctor with addiction and commitment issues?
3. How I Met Your Mother (CBS). Another genius show, made even better by Neil Patrick Harris as the most ridiculous womanizer ever. It's legen - wait for it - dary!
4. Gossip Girl (CW). Ok, I know. But did you see the name of my blog??? I'm clearly reliving my younger years, and thus living a little vicariously through the shenanigans of some rich UES-ers.
5. Cougar Town (ABC). Who better to get advice on acting young and stupid from than a 40-something trying to pass herself off as 30? Thank you, Courtney Cox, for showing me how good 40 can really be.

And in honor of this lovely holiday upon us, here is my list of Top 5 things I'm thankful for this year.

1. A well-paying job. Seriously, a good chunk of my class seems to still be looking for work, 10 months after we graduated.
2. A truly wonderful place to live. This apartment is HUGE and comfortable and mine. And the prospects for making it cozier are nearly endless.
3. Freedom. And not in the cheesy national pride way, but in the I'm-finally-free-to-be-me way. After years of trying to be someone else, I'm finally just embracing the quirks that make me me. And really liking the freedom to be whoever I want that comes with it.
4. Family. All of you, whether by blood or just whole-hearted love. And this includes some of the greatest friends a girl could ever ask for, who've stood by me through one of the roughest years I hope to ever see. Thank you all. *sniff*
5. Hope. For the first time in a very long time, I am hopeful. Hopeful for a blessedly happy and fulfilling future, with all the amazing possibilities that lie before me.

They say that life is a journey, and mine has certainly had it's share of peaks and valleys to cross. I think every journey needs a soundtrack, because everything is better with a little music. And of course when I'm feeling down I want to drown my sorrows in the most miserably sad (and sometimes most miserably awful) songs I can get a hold of. So to beat a dead horse of top 5s, here are my current Top 5 break-up songs (with links to the youtube videos, ).

1. White Horse by Taylor Swift
2. Need You Now by Lady Antebellum
3. Sometime Around Midnight by Airborne Toxic Event
4. Already Gone by Kelly Clarkson
5. So What by P!nk

I know most of those are very cliche, but they're the ones that ring true right now. Soon to come, the Top 5 list of reasons why being single is so awesome, complete with it's very own soundtrack.

Thanksgiving in New York

I have to say, for all the times I've hated this city or grumbled about the complications of living here, there is nothing in the world quite like NYC for the holidays. The whole feeling of the city changes - quite possibly because natives all beat it for somewhere saner and the city fills up with tourists here for the parades and the tree at Rockefeller and the most expensive Christmas shopping they could possibly do.

But there's a wonder to it all, an awe produced by being in one of the greatest cities in the world during a magical time of year. And that feeling is here now, flown in from all over the world for the Macy's parade tomorrow, and with no regard for the fact that I'm just not ready for the year to be over yet! And maybe I'm glad it came along without asking me, because I would have grumbled that this whole holiday thing is silly and could wait a little longer, and I would have missed out on a great day in NYC. I wandered through the city and toured the 42nd St. library - a visit induced by watching Ghostbusters, of course - and was reminded just how awesome this city really can be.



So I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving, and hope everyone experiences some of the awe and joy of the holiday season, wherever you may be.

Faux Thanksgiving

Last night was faux Thanksgiving with the Brooklyn friends. The Soup Maestro outdid himself with possibly the best batch of butternut squash soup known to man. It was truly amazing! He also made up game hens with pear and cherry compote and stuffing. I sauteed some green beans with olive oil, butter, garlic, shallots, shiitake mushrooms and salt and pepper. Oh goodness, they were good! For dessert I slaved over a dump cake. If you've never had dump cake, it is the genius invention of what could only be a Southerner, as it's way too sweet, and way too easy to make. To make it you pour a can of crushed pineapple in a cake pan, pour cherry pie filling over that, add a bag of yellow cake mix over the fruit, and then slice up 1/2 cup of butter into pats and place all over the top. No stirring. No splattered cake batter from the electric mixer. No clean-up. And then you bake at 350 for about 45 minutes until the top gets crusty and bubbling. Quite possibly the easiest dessert ever, unless you find opening cans difficult. Which I definitely do not.
Needless to say, we were all in food-induced comas last night. Which didn't prevent us from jamming out to RockBand for a bit and butchering some classic Beatles tunes, but did make for a long commute home.

Roll Tide Roll

When did I turn into a football fan?! Seriously.

Seems like all I've wanted to do this Fall is sit around and watch a game. I have no idea why this came to be, but why fight a good thing, right? A couple of weeks ago a friend from work who grew up in Alabama talked me into watching the University of Alabama game with her and then convinced me that this weekend was a good time to head down for some good old Alabama Crimson Tide football spirit. And of course, I said "sure, why not?". Football, friends, food... Where's the flaw in this plan???
Some wonderful schedule fairy arranged a 6-day weekend for me at work, so this was the perfect time to sneak in an early Thanksgiving with Mom in Nashville and catch my first ever college football game. Mind you, if you count community colleges I've been to 5 - yes, 5 - colleges. And I've never been to one of my own schools' football games. So why not skip straight to the big leagues with a 'Bama game, where football is way more than just a game, it's a way of life? Seriously, they have a Roll Tide radio station. Just plays football coverage. Yeah.
So Friday morning I hopped a plane and flew down to Nashville, visited with Mom for a few minutes, and then headed on down to Alabama in my Ikea of rental cars. 3 hours of country music and bleary-eyed driving later, I made it to Birmingham, AL to visit with my good friend Jen who is in medical school at UAB. I managed to drag Jen away from her studying long enough to grab a bite at the most incredible barbecue place ever. They actually had a "pig in the garden" salad that may be the most genius entree the south has ever produced. I had barbecue chicken that was so tender it melted in your mouth and tasted more like slow-cooked ham than chicken. Delicious! And a mudslide, in a martini glass. I'm pretty sure they saw "Yankee" written all over me and pulled out the special glasses just for the occasion.
Wild and adventurous 30-somethings that we are, Jen and I didn't go to bed until the wee hours of the night (ok, 11:30pm), so getting up for that football game just didn't seem to be in the cards. Also, turns out we didn't have tickets, it was probably going to rain, and the stadium was a 2 hour drive in bad traffic to Tuscaloosa. Needless to say, I slept in and helped Jen study for med school stuff instead.
Alas, still no college football for me. But it was nice to get out of the big city and see how the rest of the world lives again. And Thanksgiving dinner at Mom's (one of three pending for this holiday) was absolutely perfect. Still to come: friend Thanksgiving at the Soup Maestro's apartment, and a work feast on Turkey day. That will make heading back to NYC not so tough!

Word to the Wise...

**Disclaimer** This is not a cheerful post, but a reminder to take care of yourself.

As a nurse on a transplant floor in NYC, I see a lot of crazy stuff. Really crazy. But perhaps nothing like the patient I had over the weekend. A gentleman in his late 50s came into the ER with a foot sore that he's had for about 6 months and has been treating at home. Now he's always thought of himself as healthy, so thought very little of this sore and figured he could take care of it himself without going to the doctor. Trust me, I get that, as I hate going to the doctor as much as anyone else. But 6 months! He finally came in because the sore got worse and really required medical attention.
Now here's the kicker: this "healthy" man hasn't been to the doctor in 2 years, and thus didn't know that he'd developed diabetes and had a diabetic foot ulcer. So the surgeon came in to see this man and said pretty much this: "I'm Dr. ____, I'm going to take care of you, we'll get you down to the OR today because this is pretty much a matter of life or limb, and hopefully we won't have to amputate your whole leg". How's that for a zinger of an introduction! And you know what, they ended up amputating his big toe.
Moral of the story: Feeling healthy isn't the same thing as actually being healthy. Please go to the doctor every once in a while, if for nothing else than to support those poor starving nurses trying to pay off their student loans. And seriously, if you have a gaping wound in your foot, march yourself into the doctor! No one wants the "life or limb" speech.

**Addendum** That same patient went for an echocardiogram today for a funky heart beat. Turns out his left anterior descending artery (basically the big whopper of blood supply to the heart) was 99% blocked. In fancy shmancy medical terms, this is known as "the widowmaker". Ok, maybe not so fancy schmancy. This guy is pretty much a walking time-bomb, possibly days away from the most stunningly awful heart attack nature makes. Maybe that little foot sore was a blessing in disguise. I don't envy him the disillusion, though.

This is the Life

As some of you may already know, I've been dreaming about a food processor ever since I figured out that I could actually put 2+ ingredients together and it wouldn't kill people. Or me. Which has only been for about a year, but man I can dream! Think of all of the soups and dips I could make! I've hemmed and hawed over what kind of food processor I wanted, how much to spend, how often I would ACTUALLY use it, and whether I wanted to deal with one more thing to pack when I inevitably move yet again in less than a year.

So imagine my delight when this baby jumped out at me from the shelf whilst enjoying a stroll around Target (hey, shopping in NYC is way more difficult than it looks, we have to enjoy the simple pleasures like an afternoon stroll around Target, Starbucks in hand, whenever we can):


Sexy, isn't it! It's small, versatile, RED, and affordable. Who could ask for more???

So now I have a new toy to play with and one less excuse for making dinner instead of buying from the taco truck on Queens Boulevard.

Tomorrow's challenge: breakfast smoothie a la immersion blender without covering my whole kitchen in milk. And the great thing about living alone: if I fail miserably, there's no one here to see the mess!

After all the hardcore shopping I snuck in a nap on my friend's couch with this big lug, and couldn't help but think, "Man, this is the life". Good friends with couches to crash on, new toys to go crazy with, and 15 pounds of head-butting love to catch some zzzzz's with. Can I be born a cat in my next life, please?

Soup Night!

I have this friend out in Brooklyn who used to be a chef, and a damn good one at that. These days, however, he's doing the 9-5 in a cubby, but every once in a while he gets the urge to cook for everyone he knows. And thankfully, I'm on that lucky list of people.

Last week he made the infamous tomatillo soup, and it was such a smash hit with everyone there that it looks like Soup Night will be a regular occurrence. Sweet! Another excuse to test my cooking limits, AND get delicious soup out of it!

Last night we had a sweet and spicy buffalo chicken soup with sour cream and a side of to-die-for garlic and asiago toasted baguette slices. And of course rice pudding for dessert. To make the experience even better, we dined while watching Wayne's World. I haven't seen that movie since probably the mid-90s, so I forgot how rad it is. Schwing! Perfect match for the crowd and the meal.

Next on the soup menu: Vermont cheddar soup.

I could get used to this life.

Rice pudding, a la Alton Brown

I've had this super craving for rice pudding lately, but it seems ridiculous to spend like $4 for a tiny tub of it at the grocery store when it will last half a blink. Plus, I need new stuff to cook, right?

So I dug around on foodnetwork.com for the perfect first rice pudding recipe, and of course went straight for Alton Brown. For those of you who haven't seen his show, he's the quintessential scientist who channels his geekiness into cooking. If you ever want to know the ins and outs of cheesecake, butter, the perfect turkey, etc. he's the guy to look to. And Alton never does a recipe halfway, so naturally his rice pudding is Indian rice pudding, cardamom and all.

Total cooking time: about 30 minutes.
Total shopping time to find cardamom and coconut milk in Sunnyside, NY: um, 3 days?? It's like mission impossible to get spices in this neighborhood. I finally found cardamom at this little spice counter at the Grand Central Market. Yes, there's a food market inside Grand Central. What won't New Yorkers come up with to save a few minutes?

Final product: so worth the hunt for ingredients! I added a little nutmeg and cinnamon for my own flavor. Yum! So good, in fact, that I may have to make another batch for Soup Night. But that's a whole different blog...

Halloween

I know I'm a good week late on getting Halloween pics posted, but here they finally are!

This year I dressed as Tom Cruise from Risky Business, tighty whities and all!



I slid in to a party at a friend's apartment on the Upper East Side with some of the best people you can find in the city. My friend Marta (dressed as the Morton salt girl) was in town from Seattle, too, and we had a great time!

Our one mistake for the evening: partaking in the Bloody Brains. Don't ask.

The start of it all

Oh lord, here I go again with another blog. I can't promise regular postings, but I will definitely try to keep this up to date when I can. Here goes!

I'm 31, single, living in NYC, and maybe, just maybe, living as ridiculously now as I should have been at 21. So why not share the embarrassment and awesomeness with those I love the most?!

Living in New York City can be one tough adventure when you're a book nerd from Seattle. Made even worse by being buried in nursing school and beginning a new career. I've been here for over 2 years now and I'm just just starting to get out regularly and appreciate all the character and uniqueness of the different parts of this crazy city. And did I mention that I only work 13 days a month? I think that means it's time to get out more!

Meanwhile on the home front, I'm also discovering a new passion for crafting, cooking, and general shenanigans. Well, the shenanigans aren't new. But the cooking definitely is! And since most of my loved ones aren't close enough to experience this in person (and probably won't believe me anyway!) I'm going to let pictures speak their thousand words. So to inaugurate this blog, I'm posting a picture of the apple pie I made a few weeks ago, from scratch. Yup, I did it all by myself, crust and all. I'm such a big girl! It was a huge success with Book Club and may even make an appearance at a Thanksgiving table or two in a few weeks.

I hope to use this blog to keep you posted on what's going on in my part of the world. Ok, really it's to have an excuse to make more cool stuff and post pictures of it. And to document a few of the shenanigans, as half of the things I do I can't believe myself. Hope you enjoy! And feel free to send suggestions, for food and/or tomfoolery.