The Heat

Sorry for the delay in posting, but everything decided to happen all at the very same time. You've seen that bumper sticker, "They say to take one day at a time, but lately several have attacked me at once?" That's been me. My one great hope is to get to the gym this week. If I could get 2 days, I would consider myself accomplished.

So, here's what's been going on...I got a little catering job, a brunch for about 15 people, on a Saturday. I thought, hey that's swell, I could use the extra money. Then a day or so later, the owner of where I work says, "Hey, I'm having dinner for about 20, can you cater it?" and it is...wait for it...Saturday night. So I have to get everything together, keep my receipts all seperate, make list after list after list, make an emergency run to Target for ramekins and work a straight 16 hour day. But all was not in vain, everything went well. People came, they ate, they seemed to enjoy it. I washed so many dishes that I thought my hands would fall straight off, but they didn't. I crawled into a hot bath at 1130PM.

This is why I don't do two shows a night, babe, I just won't do it.

Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

Maybe you don't realize, but not all apples hail from Washington. North Carolina is big apple country. So last weekend, the Divine Mrs. M (yep, she's back!) and I rode up to Hendersonville to Stepp Orchard to pick some apples. It was warmer than we might have liked, and we probably picked way more apples than we needed, but hey, if we get tired of canning and pies, there's always cake, bread and cookies. :-)

My computer is now deciding it won't load my pictures, won't save them as jpegs and is openly mocking me. I will post pictures soon.

Stay tuned...

Not Fade Away

I always post something for 9/11. It's such a huge part of my life, not in the sense that I know anyone who died, or survived, but that it is the marker between child and adult for me. One minute I was 21 years old, finishing up my less-than-stellar college career and my biggest worries were where we were going to hang out that weekend and would I find a job once I graduated. At 10:00 AM that morning, those worries ceased to be important. Meg and I came down the stairs just in time to see the first tower fall and we just stared. Our lives altered in that one morning and they've never been the same since.

The History Channel has been running their documentaries all week. I watch some of them, avoid others. There is one thing that sticks out in my mind every year this day comes around. The thing I notice most is this: I have lost faith in my government. My security has been shown to be as spurious as starlight. But I have never lost faith in the people of my country. Every year, I see the evidence, as I watch those towers come down over and over again. Because while everything else was crumbling, these people did not fail. We did not go gently into the night. We ran up the stairs, into the flames, fought for our planes and brought them down. Our government failed us, but we did not fail ourselves. We did not fade away. We were Americans.

And I'm proud of that.

Alpha

It's been awhile since I've posted but I've been busy. Getting ready for a new school year, turning 30, trying to lose weight, you know, the usual suspects. So while I technically have a great many stories to share, I can tell you that I doubt I will get to them all.
I can tell you that in honor of my 30th birthday, my beloved sister attempted to kill me by dragging me up a cargo net ladder and down a zip line. She did it too, but she waited till I went off the platform first, and when I didn't die, she went. However, in a weird genetic similarity, we both have a lack of coordination that refuses to let us do something like that and land on our feet. So we both landed on our, ahem, posteriors.
In retrospect, though I went over and tried to help her up off the ground, considering she tried to kill me...

I should've kicked her.

Measure for Measure

Recently, a question was presented to me. Why do we use different measures for liquid and for dry product? Well, the short answer is because they are different things that measure differently. Here's the ugly truth though. Neither one is entirely accurate. In a kitchen, weight is a more accurate measure. Especially with dry goods. But who in the world keeps a scale in their kitchen? Very few.
So here's the skinny: Liquids and dry goods measure differently because they have different masses. So 8 oz is a cup in liquid, but pour it into a dry measure cup and you will come up short; because the dry measure cup has to account for things with more mass than a liquid. Cups vs ounces, but a pint is a pound the world around.
I encourage everyone to try this experiment in their home. Pour a cup of water into a liquid measure, then pour it to a dry measure of the same amount and see what you get. Then do the reverse, with flour or sugar, keep in mind if you use flour you have to level and tap it down. Sugar doesn't have that issue, since it is granulated.

Well that is my kitchen physics lesson of the day.

"Some rise by sin, some by virtue fall" ---Measure for Measure, Shakespeare

The Quiet

Aaahhhhh...and that's the game, folks.

Farenheit 101

13 days left in this year. Not that I'm counting. I got another health inspection, and rocked the house with 101 points. Finally beat McDonald's. 2 more weeks of kids getting crazier and crazier until they implode, or I do. Managing my recalcitrant kitchen equipment, threatening and cajoling by turns. Propping everything up for just 2 more weeks.

And this morning, flying ants in my dining hall.

Must be Thursday.