3 posts tagged “birthday”

I check Vox almost daily, but I haven't posted.  There's not a lot to write, honestly.  But I did get this cool new camera about 6 weeks ago.  Been playing around with it quite a bit.  I realized I could easily just post some pics with blurbs for an update. 

 

So, the first 1500 pictures were of our "kids".  They were willing subjects.  Two things I immediately loved about the camera: ability to manipulate settings to avoid using the dreaded flash, and being able to shorten my depth of field. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I bought the electric tea kettle from Sur La Table.  Well, you can get it anywhere, I think, but I had gift cards to SLT.  This thing IS everything it's cracked up to be.  Boils a full pitcher of water in 8 minutes, brings water to the perfect green/white/oolong tea brewing temp.  Seriously, it makes a HUGE difference, makes tea so, so... accessible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy had a birthday, which we actually celebrated.  (Seriously, we have to make concerted efforts NOT to let birthdays and other celebratory occasions fly by unnoticed.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, we took a week of evenings and installed a garden bed over this packed Texas clay.  Bought a roto-tiller in the process.  My mom's coming for a visit next weekend.  She's already been informed that she needs to pack her garden gloves and that I WILL be taking her straight to the nursery once she gets off the plane.  Okay, maybe I'll let her unpack first.

 

Oh, and we found out that Hugo likes to eat garden dirt.

 

 

 

 

 Then Easter.  We got together with friends and smashed eggs over each other's heads.  Why?  What did you do for Easter??

Of course, there was major cooking/baking/eating to be done.  I love having friends who love food as much as I do.  I was responsible for the cake.  Thanks again, Epicurious, it was delish.

 

What was your biggest cooking disaster?

Oh, that would have to be my husband's (then, boyfriend's) 23rd birthday cake.

See, I got cocky.  In college I worked for an ingredients company during my summer breaks.  My job was to bake cakes all day long, adding the company's emulsifier blends to the mix, then measuring how high the cake rose, the softness, grain structure, etc.  It was a lovely summer.  I made 40 yellow cakes a day.  If you ever saw the results of my tests, you would no longer wince when you read mono- and di-glycerides and lecithin on an ingredient statement.  In fact, you'd seek it out.  Because flour, sugar, and vanilla may make a darn good cake, but flour, sugar, vanilla and emulsifiers = HEAVEN. 

I digress.

I'd seen what making a cake from scratch could do.  Far better, I say, than making it from a box mix.  Rarely does a single college grad student have a reason to make an entire double-layer cake, but I had a boyfriend driving in from Chicago.  I felt the pull of the domestic goddess within me.  Andy was one of two men in my life, the other being my father, who adore yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  So that's what it was to be.

Scene: It's Friday night.  Your boyfriend is making the long haul down from Chicago to see you for his birthday weekend.  You want to impress him by having a freshly baked birthday cake waiting for him so that you not only have a gorgeous confection made by yours truly, but so that your apartment also smells like warm vanilla and chocolate.

I went to the store and bought my ingredients.  Now, I had no use for butter back then, and I had less use for milk - being lactose intolerant.  So I bought a little school 8-oz carton of milk, and 4 sticks of butter.  See?  Cockiness.  I had no room for error.  Yellow cake or bust.  And I busted.  During Attempt Numero Uno, I made a rookie mistake.  The recipe called for 1 cup of butter and I threw in four sticks.  FOUR sticks.  I don't know why I thought any recipe called for an entire pound of butter, but I had 1 stick = 1/4 cup in my brain.  I realized my mistake when I peeked in the oven and saw pools of butter floating its way to the top.  Yeah.  Ever seen that?

I'd used my cup of milk and my four sticks of butter, so back to the market I went.  I got back home and guess who was waiting on my doorstep?  The birthday boy.  At this point, I'm huffy, so I let him into the apartment, and commenced Attempt #2.  This one at least had all the correct ingredients in it. 

In an effort to be efficient with my time, I whipped the chocolate frosting, from scratch, while the cake was in the oven.  This came out heavenly.  But guess what, ladies and gentlemen?  Homemade frosting sets.  At least this one did.  So by the time my cake had cooled, I went to the mixing bowl where I'd left the frosting, and I found a flaking mess.  Not willing to run to the store a third time (a curious cashier may wonder why a young girl requires 3 pounds of butter late on Friday night), I smeared the mess all over the cake.  Well, okay, it didn't look good but it would surely taste delicious.

We decided to reserve our tasting until the next day when my parents made their way over to campus for a birthday dinner.  We went out, thank goodness, but came back for dessert.  I knew it when I cut into it, and it was confirmed by the first forkful.  I had made a kitchen sponge.  I still don't know what went wrong.  I think my baking soda pooped out.  Or maybe I mis-measured the flour.  I don't know, but it was baaaaaaad.  Not one to hide my mistakes, I blurted, "OH this is AWFUL!"  My parents, bless their hearts, put on the best smiles and said, "What are you talking about?  It's wonderful!!"  They are definitely "everyone gets a trophy" kinda people. 

So that was my biggest debacle in the kitchen.  There haven't been many, but I'm not too prideful to admit that that cake sucked. 

No, it's not a children's story about a Spanish kid's time travels.  These are the two restaurants that my husband, Andy, and I visited this weekend.

Trece was muy fabuloso.  Located in downtown Dallas, this is a fine-dining Mexican restaurant where no tacos or burritos will be found on the menu.  This dinner was hosted by my company as part of what we call the "See Dallas Weekend".  Every year, we invite all our R&D new hires (this is very shortly after they receive their offer to work with us) and their spouses/significant others to Dallas in January to look for housing and otherwise get to know the city they will be living in. 

We had a group of about 30 people, and the staff was unbelievably capable at handling the number.  Shortly after arriving, I forewent the traditional margarita in lieu of a pomejito - a pomegranite-infused mojito.  Yum. Yum.  The waistaff wheeled a cart to the table with all the fixings for guacamole.  Okay, so I've seen this done before, but it doesn't mean I didn't appreciate the humongous bowl of fresh guacamole deliciousness.  For appetizers, we had smoked chicken quesadillas with poblano sauce and lobster nachos.  Yep, lobster.  Andy and I both had the tortilla soup, which confused the entire table when the soup bowls came with shredded chicken, tortilla strips, cilantro, corn salsa, and cheese laying lonely in the bottom of our bowls.  Soon after, the staff flocked around our tables with big pitchers of hot tomato broth to pour over the remainder of the ingredients.  I had the sea bass for my main course, which was served in a shallow bowl with some very flavorful (and awesome) fish velouté.  Andy had the Budin Azteca, which is basically like a Mexican lasagna with chicken and cheese layered in between corn tortillas and poblano sauce.  I liked his dish better than mine, and I loved mine.  Dessert was Crepa Cajeta, which - if you speak Spanish - you know that's crepes with caramel.  The crepes were rolled around peaches, bananas and strawberries and caramel-and-cream sauce was drizzled over the whole thing.  After dinner, the waiter came around with a tray of dessert tequilas, of which I did not partake, but I did very much enjoy listening to him tell the story of each one.

Saturday night was a vast departure from Friday.  It was a friend of ours' 30th birthday, and his wife decided to give him a little surprise.  She told him she had reservations at a to-be-revealed restaurant for Saturday night.  So he knew he was going out to eat.  What he did not know, was that 12 of his friends would be at the restaurant to join them for dinner.  The place: Magic Time Machine.  I've heard stories about this place, but I guess it's just something that you have to experience for yourself.  Andy and I were the first to arrive.  I put our name in for a table, and the hostess invited us to wait at the upstairs bar.  So up the stairs we went.  There was a guitarist playing for the crowd.  Off to a room on the left, there were black lights and air hockey tables.  Straight ahead, there was your standard bar.  Andy and I walked up and ordered drinks from the bartenders.  We looked around and noticed the decor.  This place opened 25 years ago and looks it.  Wood paneling on the walls, loud design-laden carpet.  There are christmas lights strung everywhere.  The room off to another direction had just a bunch of tables and booths for patrons waiting on their permanent tables.  One of our friends described it best.  "Why does all the furniture in here look like it came from a garage sale?"  Then Tinkerbell walked by holding a tray full of beer bottles high above her head.  This is when the double takes started.

Our coaster buzzed and the whole gang walked down to be seated.  Our hostess walked us to our table.  Past all the other themed tables including but, oh, not limited to: a hollowed out school bus, a box of crayons, a jack o' lantern, Snoopy's doghouse, a merry-go-round, etc. We were seated in a room that had lost its theme.  There was a rosewood-carved Indian window, huge tethered pier posts like you would find on a dock, a meat grinder placed next to an old projector on a shelf behind the booth.  And on the ceiling?  Faux green grass with croquet balls, mallets, and stakes.  Oooookay.  Then G.I. Joe showed up.  He took our drink orders, informing us that water was "standard fare", and then he showed us to the salad car.  An old Ford with all the fixin's.  "GET in line, GRAB a plate..."  The food was good.  Actually not themed at all.  Andy had the southwest chicken and I had the chicken oscar.  Waiting for our food, we saw a ninja, Waldo (finally, I found the guy - it only took 20 years), Captain Jack Sparrow, and some creepy guy dressed in a shirt and tie holding an ivy branch in front of his face.  Consensus was that he was a stalker, but I'm still not convinced.

Anyhow, it was an entertaining weekend.  We didn't do much between meals.  I made chicken stock last night, just for practice.  Man, I can't believe how good the house smelled.  It took three hours, but in the end I had a gallon of chicken broth and 2 lbs of cooked chicken.  See, I opted to buy a whole cut up chicken, because I was able to buy a 5 lb chicken for $5 instead of 5 lb bone-in chicken breasts for $15.  I realize that I'd get more meat yield with the chicken breasts but certainly not 3x more meat.  I'm feeling very crafty about this.  :)