Quick...

This is a quick message, just so you know I haven't dropped off the face of the planet. I spent a good deal of this weekend cooking. They were delicious things, if I do say so myself. The highlight may have been the creamy sorrel soup with dill. Which I totally made up. Sorry for the lack of pictures... I kinda forgot to take my camera out.

Today, however, I made new mast cell themed cake for my good friend Ethan's B-exam (that is the final test you take to get your PhD, in case you don't know). Yes I am a huge geek- I make cakes with cells and cell signalling on them. I'll post pictures for all the world to see, officially ending any thoughts that I might be normal. But now, I have to get going, because I have an early morning date with the confocal microscope... I know you wish you could be me.

Better than it was

The last time I was here I laid out some rather grand plans for self improvment. I suppose I could call it my plan to unslothify (yes I totally made that word up... what are you going to do about it?). So, here is my first update.

Goal 1(that whole exercise thing): I've been pretty good about getting to the pool. Yay for me! Now for the bad news- the mangled ankle is a bit slow in recovering. Perhaps re-twisting it yesterday morning was not the best thing in terms of its speeding recovery.

Goal 2 (the Chair): Ha! Nothing happening here. Still need to order that silly cotton batting. Besides the chair is currently buried in sewing projects/items needing ironing. Crap. Those also need to be added to my goals. Just to give you an idea, this is what the chair looked like 2 years ago when I had just started working on it. Yes, it really is pretty hideous, as is the foot stool. And no, I haven't finished reupholstering it either.

Goal 3 (cleaning): Okay, here I definitely made progress. I've now got 3 bags of stuff to go to the salvation army. What I learned from this cleaning experience is as follows. (1) I have way, way too much stuff. (2) The last time I read a magazine was approximately 3 years ago. I know this because I have about 100 magazines in my apartment that need reading. I really want to recycle them, but I am going to force myself to read them first. (3) I need to repeat this cleaning process at least 3 more times, only then will it approach the level of cleanliness and order that I had envisioned. But here are some before and afters:

Goal 4 (knitting extravaganza): A non-starter. Well maybe this week. Can't you see all my time was taken up with exercise and house cleaning?

Goal 5 (work, I mean where they actually pay me): See goal 4... the answer is exactly the same.

So, all in all, I guess I could have done a little better, but I could have done a lot worse too. Besides, I also was dog sitting, visiting with my super cool friends Megan and Joshua who were only in town for the weekend and dealing with the sudden death of my wireless router (sadly, I require a wired connection to my modem, until I decide on which new router to purchase).

Therefore, I'll call Operation Unslothification a success (so far).

Countdown

I am seriously excited for September 17th. That is the day one of my favorite TV shows returns for the new season. Wanna guess which one?

Motivation, or lack thereof, and how to get it back

I'm sorry. Really, I've been meaning to post something, anything, for the last five days. I don't know how it happens, but the days seem to just keep flying by, and somehow I don't manage to get a single word written here in Norahland (or much else done, for that matter).

Kinda sad.

So today I am writing. It finally turned to summer here in the finger lakes. Hot and sticky. Just in time for the invasion of the U-Hauls and the return of the students. Invasion is definitely the right word here- it is a bit frightening. I'm gonna miss the quiet, and I'm not even really a quiet person, although I may be becoming more quiet with each passing year. Do you think it works that way?

Anyway, on to more important matters.

Lately, I've had a distinct lack of motivation in nearly all of my endeavors. That includes this blog, my work, cleaning my apartment, exercise... you name it, and I've become a sloth in that area. Let me tell you, I'm getting sick of being this sloth; I don't know that I recognize myself anymore. It's starting to annoy me. Which I guess is a good thing, because maybe the annoyance will get me moving.

Soooo, really, what is my random blog about myself and my (non)adventures for if it isn't a place for me say what I want to do, and then see how I do in progressing towards that goal (or multiple goals.... I have a small tendency to bite off a bit more than I can chew). Maybe this small amount of accountability will help in the grand scheme of things.

Here are some things that I haven't been able to get up the energy to do, and now perhaps how I plan to work through the stupid, sloth-y haze.

(1) Get back in Pre-Brazil (or better) shape.

You know how I said I was going to be the size of a house by the time I returned from Brazil? Well its true I'm a lot bigger and a lot more out of shape than I was 4 months ago. Totally worth it, but I've got to stop the trend somewhere... and I refuse to buy more clothes, unless they are smaller than the ones I already own, and walking around naked is totally not an option.

Plan: Start swimming and sign up for a half marathon. Thanks to my friend Sheri, I think I might have gotten the kick in the pants that I needed. I've logged a couple days in the pool and about 11 miles on the road, and only have one slightly mangled ankle. Pretty good start. I'll let you know how it goes.

(2) Upholster the it's-been-half-finished-for-three-years chair that is sitting in my living room.

Plan: order the cotton batting necessary to get on with it (yes, that is pretty much what is holding me back... I'm an idiot). I'm sure you'll enjoy the pictures. The last time I upholstered chairs I got addicted to Gunsmoke. Now that I've got my nice new TV, there must be some good upholstery-worthy TV viewing. Any ideas?

(3) Really, really clean my apartment.

Plan: Fall cleaning is the new spring cleaning for me. Maybe I'll try posting some before and afters to get me motivated to really scrub what needs scrubbing.

(4) Finish the knitting projects I've started, so I can make some headway on the gigantic pile of yarn in my stash.

Plan: First up, the black sweater vest that is almost complete. Did you know I was a knitter? If not, be prepared to see a lot of knitting and purling.

oh yeah, and...

(5) get caught back up and on top of things at work, so I have more time to do all the fun stuff.

Plan: Not sure... but anything is better than my current state of frazzled disorganization.

Okay I think that is over ambitious enough for now, I'll let you know how it goes.

Cook this today (no. 9)

dinner

A nice spinach-dill cream sauce on rice. Yum. And I also happened to have a all the ingredients. Definite comfort food.

Chicken Batch reactor??

Okay, so this just weirds me out (it is a link to a cnn article about invitro meat product development). I understand the need for sustainable food production, and am pretty scientifically forward thinking, but my first reaction is pretty much UGH. Plus it isn't like you don't have to feed them anything.... you are just feeding a reactor of bodyless muscles instead of the animal.

P.S. Somehow it seems a bit odd that PETA would have a prize for development of in-vitro chicken.... where will the chicken embryos will come from? (but I probably don't know what I'm talking about)

Lake weekend

Ah, the lake. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I love this place. In the summer, as often as I can, I make a beeline up to the Adirondacks for some quality time on Upper Saranac Lake. No matter what the weather it is a lovely place to be.

This weekend, it's been fantastic! Various Rice family members from my Mom's side of the family have been here all this week- which always makes me a bit jealous ( I want to be here all the time). However, it has been great to see them. I've even managed to acquire a bit of sunburn, which, given the way most of this summer has been (rainy and overcast), is actually a bit of a surprise. Rather entertainingly, it is limited to the portions of my body exposed during our little canoe trip yesterday. So there is a 6-8 inch swath of red from mid thigh to knee, my face and my arms from mid-bicep down. Ah well, it was totally worth it, but next time I should probably remember the sunscreen. Although it had the rather pleasant side effect of keeping me warm during the cool night.

The other thing we always do here is eat. And drink. Amazingly good food. Maybe it is the fresh mountain air, but I don't think so. My family really likes to cook. Last night, we had some lovely smoked salmon that my uncle made with cocktails out on the porch. That's my gimlet below, next to my dad's G&T. That was follwed by pork chops and zucchini that were amazing- those were compliments of my mom and aunt (with a little guidance from Donna Hay). Then I made molten chocolate cakes with fresh raspberries (also thanks to DH) to finish off the meal. Then we all fell into a food coma. Heaven.
(my gimlet here was in honor of my finally finishing Julie & Julia- Julie is a big fan of gimlets, so it seemed only fitting. I definitely recommend the book- but that is for another post, maybe my next one...)

Traffic

Don't you hate when you get stuck in traffic that crawls about 1 mph (for no discernible reason)for 90 minutes? Especially when this makes your 4 hour car ride that same 90 minutes longer.

Well at least I made it in one, slightly exhausted, piece. Welcome back to the lake, me.

FfNl: Seared Feta

I bet you thought I forgot all about FfNl. I didn't I swear. It turns out I have this little thing called work that occupies a bit of time, perhaps you've heard of it? Also I didn't want you to worry overmuch about my food obsession. Anyway, today's edition of FfNl concerns the delicious looking item below:

What you see there is tasty, salty, delicious seared feta cheese. I made it for redemption. My first run-in with this species ended not so wonderfully. It may surprise you, but I am a rather temperamental chef. My first attempt at feta searing involved a pretty Donna Hay recipe, a sticky non-stick pan, not enough heat from an electric element, and a bit of over-ambition. The result was me throwing cheese, insulting my mother and generally ruining an otherwise lovely evening. Luckily for me, my mom is a forgiving soul, and she still speaks to me, even if I can be a really sucky daughter.

So earlier this week I bought more feta. It was a chance to face my newest cooking nemesis (my oldest is perhaps tapioca pudding, which is rather ironic, given how much I love it). If it works, searing feta is a pretty simple thing that tastes divine and makes for an incredibly attractive salad. Lucky for me it worked this time.

I grabbed a non-stick pan and put it on high heat on my gas stove. And I waited until it was hot, really hot. Then I placed slices of feta, slices that had been blotted to remove excess water and brushed lightly with olive oil, on that hot, hot pan. Sure enough it started sizzling and not melting into a heap! It is perhaps possible that my smoke detector might have gone off at this point, causing me to run like an idiot into my bedroom to get it to stop beeping (just maybe). The tricky part was flipping the pieces- it definitely required my sharpish, metal, definitely not recommend for non-stick pans spatula to keep the crispy seared goodness attached to the rest of the cheese. But I was careful, I swear, so that the non-stick remained as such. And Viola! Lovely seared feta.

I put it on top of some balsamic sautéed zucchini with tomatoes, which honestly, was a little lackluster. That seared feta, though? That was a work of art. Maybe in a decade or so I'll try making it again for my mother.

Summer's harvest

My friend Sarah and I had been trying to get out berry picking here in Ithaca for the last month. Between work and the seemingly constant rain, I was beginning to think it would never happen, but finally, Monday, we managed to get out to a couple places in nearby Trumansburg to pick blueberries and raspberries. It was an absolutely gorgeous evening and we picked heaps and heaps of berries (but not quite as many as the people at the blueberry place that had $150 worth of berries, I'm not sure they actually were able to fit all of them in their car). I picked black raspberries at Sliver Queen farm- they were so pretty I couldn't resist them! Turns out this was a pretty good plan on my part, as the season for these black raspberries is significantly shorter than the normal red varieties, so I can always go back and pick more (if I can figure out where I can store the various byproducts). When I got home I threw them all in my refrigerator, but spent tuesday determining what to do with the bounty.

The problem was that my refrigerator is a bit small and with all the CSA produce and other foodstuff there wasn't much room for all sorts of berries. Plus, last week I might have gone a little crazy and bought 2 quarts of currants at Westhaven Farm, and as a result I was feeling pressured to make use of them before they went bad. So the equivalent of an entire shelf of my refrigerator was filled with currants, black raspberries and blueberries. So I did the only thing one can do in this kind of situation: Jellies, Jams, and freezing.

First up: Currant Jelly. I've never made jelly before, so this was pretty exciting.

Second: Freeze black raspberries (freezing them in a single layer on a pan first works really well!)

Black raspberry Jam. Yum.

Worthwhile sticky mess:

Third: Freeze blueberries. Sleep. Work. Blueberry jam.

Awesome. I love summer.

Cook this today (no. 8)

So it is a little late for most east coasters to be cooking this today, but maybe you can make it tomorrow. There is no link for this tasty salad because it's pretty easy and I just threw it together for dinner tonight. It is your basic Panzanella (Bread Salad). So do this:

1. take some fresh tomatoes and slice them.

2. cube some chewy holey bread ( I used some tasty, tasty ciabatta that I got at the farmers market this weekend)

3. cut up some fresh mozzarella (or get the little balls)

4. slice some fresh basil into strips. Throw everything in a bowl.

5. Add sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, white (or regular) balsamic vinegar, and olive oil (I add all these to taste.)

6. Toss together and serve!

Easy, I tell you . It is the perfect way to enjoy some fresh summer tomatoes and basil.