Channeling Martha

I meant to do some urban explorations this weekend but I had a bad case of the Lifetime movie marathon and, you know what, I don't regret a moment of butt-glued-to-couch.

In an effort to do something I put on my Martha hat and took to the kitchen. I'm always tempted on Sundays to cook up a HUGE amount pasta with savory and cheesy things all mixed up in there, but since R is away I thought better of that gorge-fest of an idea.

Big M. made these guys look pretty spectacular



and since she threw in the word 'Light' it was clear to me that I would actually lose weight by eating these cheesy pups.

I was first told to throw the (ew) raw chicken into (what?!) salted boiling water. Ugh, that seems all terribly unsanitary and, really, only 12 minutes hanging out in that salmonella-laden water? I didn't trust that one bit so I kept that chicken cooking in that bath for, ohhh, 20 minutes.

Then Martha had me shred those guys, which, I will say, is a bitch of a task. My face is being steamed over this hot chicken air and I'm sweating beneath my sweatshirt because the oven is heating and I left the stove on (cause I'm not SUPERwoman) and my hands ache with the awkward grip I have on the forks.

On the plus side, I got to meet canned chipotles in adobe sauce for the first time - that was a messy treat.



And thus the adobe sauce with too much flour



met with the pulled chicken, which got wrapped up like kiddies in little whole wheat blankets.



Though I was all to conservative with the portions in the beginning so my last blanket bundle was on steroids.

All into the pan they go



top with (fancy) Montery Jack cheese



Let the oven do its magic and enjoy the slightly burnt, spicy dinner.



Voila!



Indeed.

xoxoL

Sponteous Saturday

R's away for the weekend and I feel the need to:

get a puppy

get a tattoo

bake something completely indulgent.

yesterday was pay day and to my complete surprise my check was MUCH smaller than I or my credit card had hoped.

It's a new day and I need the comfort of spontaneity. The problem, of course, is that all of those things involve some to a great deal of money.

Turns out slumping in front of the tele and my computer does not require cash and watching the 2003 classic Uptown Girls feels as spontaneous as anything else.

I may not even wash the dishes...I'm just saying...crazy things are happening over here. Just try to keep up.

xoL

The Round up

What's shakin' sluggers? I can't figure out this scheduling thing for this here round up so this is going to be a roving round up for now.

Enjoy...whenever it happens (which is totally going to be regularly)

To check out:
I am generally jonesing for clever illustrated design-y type things, which, when blended until chunky with my love of NY, THIS wonderful poster of the NY subway system as seen through the eyes of Julia Rothman is the must have of the week.



The little detailed drawings against that putty-colored background would go so nicely on our orange walls. It's all so tiny and intricate you could stare at it for at least an hour. Awesome (via Oh Joy)

To procrastinate: I'm taking some inspiration from the Olympics with this cuddly video about snow sled dogs. Hello world, it's Isabell, the BLIND sled puppy. I mean if she can do it, I can do...something.

What, the Olympics aren't about dogs? Fine. Here's a clever little video from Steven Heller (YES, the same Steven Heller of Iron Fists by Phaidon Press) about the pictograms of the games over the years. And if that isn't enough there's always Izzy the, uh, whatzit. Don't remember him? There's a reason.

Completely unrelated to that thing that's making my shows go to repeat, this is one of the best/ridiculous video lists provide by Time: Top 10 awkward press conferences. A weepy sandford and blubbering Tiger are definitely better the second time around.

To long for: It's randomly cold in my office so I would live for one of these cuddle monsters:

From Yokoo

Thanks to New York Fashion Week I'm longing for some architecture in my 'fits. Voila, Karen Walker



Perhaps sans the tall knitted hat.

J.Crew is doing this arch thing nicely and (more) affordably. swoon.

To cuddle:: finally, puppy or baby sheep?



You decide and then send it to me nonetheless. Then check out the rest of the best-named-photo-slideshow from Slate: Animals eating

xoxoL

Adventures in the South End and my kitchen

Alright, Boston, I said to know one in particular, it's time to figure you out.

What I know of this fair, historical city are the big box items: Museum of Fine Arts, Top of the Hub, Freedom trail. That's all well and good, but I'm going to need something grittier. Something I can step in and drag around with me.

So R and I headed to the South End. "It's up and coming," said one Bostonian. "A good place to start," quipped another.

So away we went...driving. Yes, ever since I started to drive to work it has been hard for me to get back on that T. We found (voila!) a parking space, filled it with all the quarters we could find in the back of the wagon (5) and hit the streets.

I'm not going to sugar coat it, I was underwhelmed. I had heard it was a good place for galleries and since it's also home to the Boston Center for the Arts I figured there would be some good contemporary creativeness oozing from the building's brick walls onto the streets.

Nothing oozed except for a ridiculously long line of 20-something kids dressed in black.

But we drifted up and down the streets anyway. And it wasn't all bad, in fact it was quite cute though sparce. Beautiful victorian town houses lined the streets peppered by modern design and clothing boutiques and dark tavern-like restaurants. I did walk past the winter skeletons of a few community gardens that made my heart flutter in yearning for warmer months.


Finally we hit upon the heart of the South End. Like the sprinkling of gingerbread pieces, our path to Union Park Street and Shawmut Ave was trickled with puppies!





And, ultimately, cupcakes



The South End Buttery was the journey-end treasure where I found, get this, cupcakes NAMED after puppies!



A true cross-section of this blogger's life-loves.

We went with the Harriot because the cupcake looked yummy and the puppy photo looked cute. It was moist, sweetly tart and carrotastic. It was a delight, just as I'm sure Harriet must be.



There was an obvious mutual affection.



Walking down Union Park Street we found a row of fantastic spaces - grand but rustic with white-painted wooden floors, overstuffed couches and giant mirrors. And, yes, of course, beautiful things to buy. My favorite was Looc Boutique for its stunning jewelry made my local designers (always a good sign). The necklaces were my faves - a mix of textures and patterns, heavy metals and soft fabrics. I want. The space appears sparse for, well, clothing, but I found it refreshing being someone incapable of making a choice. Like a well-tailored menu at a ten-table restaurant, Looc made each piece of clothing special and drool-worthy. It was expensive, but being broke, everything is.

I mean the food in the South End is definitely something to check out. Before leaving work on Friday I was given a lengthy list of caloric venues, Buttery being the only one I ended up visiting. That's all well and good and I think that unique and tasty independent restaurants are a good sign of a growing creative vitality...it's still not there, or at least not impressing me.

I need to find more. And that was only the start. next weekend...

After our South End romp and a RUDE parking ticket R & I hit the grocery store for a sexy saturday night shopping spree built around a tart that I fancied making.

Smitten Kitchen is one of my go-to food blogs and low and behold, the first post on there was the onion and cauliflower tart..I was being begged.

Now, I'm not really a tart-making kind of a girl and R's kitchen is still bachelor-sheek, but damn if those photes aren't tantalizing. And so it went...





There were a few hiccups - an overflowing pie-filling and the omission of the nutmeg - but all in all I think it turned out down-right delicious.

mmmmmmountains of caramelized cheesy goodness:




And hello lunch.



xoxoL

Namesake read

I'm a commuter now...actually, let me specify, I'm a driving commuter. Yup. I haven't done this since it was J$ and me in the Corolla (back in the 90s).

But it's kind of nice, you know, no major traff to contend with, I can hit up NPR there AND back and there are seat warmers.

In honor of my new commute, the instant road rage I feel and the singing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs I feel I'm allowed to do, I give you this awesome New Yorker article from 2007, aptly named: There and Back Again: The Soul of a Commuter, by Nick Paumgarten.

I expected it to be just a little read, it felt that way starting out, but it turns out its a fantastically entertaining investigative piece on the art and scarring pit falls of The Commute. Be it public trans, car pools or an endless landscape of bumpers, the commute is a sacred thorn in our side. It's funny, it's interesting, it keeps you reading paragraph after scrolling paragraph. This is damn good writing.

Just so I can get your tush tingly with excitement here are a few of my favorite lines:

"The driver's seat is a lonely place. People tend to behave in their cars as though they are alone in the room. Road rage is one symptom of this; on the street or on the train, people don't generally walk around calling each other assholes."

"You could drive to work without your pants on and no one would know."

"The smaller the triangle, the happier the human, as long as there is social interaction to be had. In that kind of life, you have a small refrigerator, because you can get to the store quickly and often. By this logic, the bigger the refrigerator, the lonelier the soul."

"Atlanta is perhaps the purest specimen of a vexed commuter town, a big-fridge paradise."

xoL

The round up

Not that it's an excuse, but I started working again, hence the lack of blog posts.

[sigh]

I forgot how hard it is to conjure up that ol' writing inspiration after facing a computer all day long.

BUT no need to dwell on the excuses. Let's hit a much delayed round up of internet lusts.

To read: I've been on a military kick. It started off with Jon Krakauer's latest reportage: Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. Tillman is a man that some of the best and strongest characters are made of so, it would be difficult not to cling to this real-life tragedy.

However, Krakauer's clear and present distaste for the Bush administration muddled my reading of the book, especially in the beginning. But the combination of Krakauer's obvious intense and thorough reporting of the football star-turned army Ranger and Tillman himself shines through. By the end I was tearful and shocked by the guy's inevitable fate.

I became obsessed with Tillman. Googling him and his wife and his family. I came across some good (read: sad) articles just after his death and found (basically what I was looking for) the hope that this would soon be a movie that I could hide behind my hands and watch and weep. Get excited. And by exited of course I mean depressed.

Some time during my deep Google search, my former teacher twittered about this New York Times article about the breadth of first-hand writing that is coming out of the war. The article does, as he noted, have the best lead. How can you NOT continue reading on?

To top it all off it was Presidents Day yesterday and there appeared to be a multitude of soldiers returning home from war footage/photography. Like this one in the Chicago Tribune. [Tear]

To watch: Ultimately all of this war talk led to the dvd that happened to be on the top of our queue: Hurt Locker. It should be noted that this is not my kind of flick as it grossly lacks the romantic/comedy/cartoon prequisites of my movie entertainment. Buuuuut everyone said it was amazing and I still had Tillman on my mind so I sat down (behind my computer screen) to take it all in.

I'm a wimp with movies but this was playing directly at my tightly wound heart strings. Especially when the lead befriends this adorable kid selling smutty DVDs - there's really only one place for that relationship to end and yet I was still surprised when things turned glib (in, of course, the retelling of the story by R as I was in the bedroom busying myself with distractions). Anyhoo, for those of you with stronger stomachs and nerves DO definitely test it out.

To long for and finally, totally separate from any war stuff, how AMAzing is this knitted hat?


I saw some kid riding his bike with it on and I thought: GENIUS. It's perfect for R and his wintery bike-to-school jaunts. I think the 'Grandpa edition' will suit him just fine and will certainly compliment my 'Bunny edition'. Won't we be a sight. Totes happening when I get paid.

finally, FINally to cuddle:
This guy



and this guy



Get into it.

xoxoL

Supermouse, the end is near

The house smells like a candy cane. It's sickly sweet and minty. I can barely enter the house yet SOMEHOW this mouse of ours has made himself veeeeeery comfortable. Very comfortable indeed.

Last night I packed my lunch in preparation for an early departure. Nothing flashy, in fact it involved a can o soup. But, as always, there was a bag of goodies - nuts, raisins, pretzels. Well it seems my furry friend betrayed me, he went behind my back, nibbled his way into my zip lock bag and ATE my SNACKS.



The worst? He at the best part of the mix - The peanut butter pretzels!!

Fuzzy turncoat.

I tried to help you little guy. But I'm afraid I can no longer stand in the way of whatever R has in store. I'll tell you this, it won't smell like candy cane.

xoL

p.s. I'm suuuuper behind on the blog and round ups but there's one coming after the weekend. Get excited.

p.p.s I should throw out that bag, right? I shouldn't eat his leftovers? [sad face]