February 2009 Archives

Quick updates first: dentist on Thursday went swimmingly well. The final two cavities were filled sans novocaine and life is good. Cheers to being 100% on the dental health front. I've been keeping busy with cleaning and organizing and cooking. It's surprisingly easy to build upon previous successes, and I do think that we'll finally have a house that we're 100% proud of -- nothing lurking in rooms we don't go in, etc. It just takes a little effort and some thought.

It's exciting to be moving on to a different phase in life. The cleaning and organizing of our living space is just a part of the overall cleansing going on. I know there are some big things on the horizon -- the appointment on 3/17 is going to be stressful -- but I have a more clear vision of where I want us to be going forward. The whole experience of being ill, of having cancer, and dealing with everything that goes along with it, has been a positive overall. There's still some fear, but I lean into the sharp points and life takes care of itself.

There's been some petty drama involving a friend, and I just feel sad for him. I was offended for a moment by some of the things he said that got back around to me, but overall it just seems so small. Maybe someday he'll be in a place where he can have a broader perspective.

In other news, I'm getting excited about spring coming. I'm still trying to figure out if I'm going to garden this summer, and if so, how I'll handle watering while we're traveling. Last year's fiasco in watering when we went to Kentucky was quite demoralizing, but if there's one thing a gardener has in abundance it's hope. I learned a lot from last year's efforts though. This year I'd like to focus on jalapenos and poblanos, a few tomatoes, a tomatillo, more herbs, a bush cucumber, some bush beans, and some shallots. Habaneros are lovely, but I don't use them often enough, maybe one plant this year, not 4. And Bhut Jolokia was just a death pepper (though very pretty); I don't think I'll devote any space to it this year.

If things work out with potential surgery etc, I want to do more canning this year. I have the supplies now, and thankfully, I have the energy now as well to get some nice things going. Freezer jam is a definite, but as far as canning goes, I'd like to make some pickles, watermelon pickles, and some spiced peaches if the tree out back is as prolific this year as last. And come hell or high water, this fall, I'm making apple butter. Spiced apples would also be a nice addition to the pantry. We'll see what shakes out :)

In the more immediate cooking news, I continue to cook like mad, and I'm churning out some good stuff. I have some Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day bagel/pretzel/bialy dough in the fridge for tomorrow. I baked two batches of cookies tonight in preparation for sending some treat boxes out Monday morning. I'll make some more stuff tomorrow and decide who's been naughty and who's been nice :)

I had an awesome day -- lots and lots of stuff accomplished, but more on that later. I just had one of the most awesome Costco shopping experiences ever. We went at 6pm, and the parking lot was almost empty -- this is a very good omen for a painless trip! I had a list and a mission. The monthly coupon circular had a lot of cleaning products that we've run out of, and some really great deals. Because the store was almost empty, it was easy to find everything on my list. I noticed there weren't any of the food samples tables out this time; maybe that explains the lack of shoppers? It certainly explained the lack of inconsiderate shoppers with their damn carts splayed out everywhere circling the sample stations :) I saved $43 with coupons, and I had $90 in cash back from the past year of Costco shopping, so I got a cart load of stuff for under $100. YAY!

Tomorrow is the dentist, and I'm actually looking forward to it. To FINALLY have everything 100% taken care of after years of worrying about the state of my teeth just feels like a monumental accomplishment. And I don't have much to worry about -- just two more simple, one surface fillings :)

In other news, I'm currently being subjected to American Idol. Now, I will fully admit that I cannot sing. However, my inability to sing does not mean that I also cannot hear. It's been one bad performance after another. And no, I can't name any of the performers, but no one thusfar has been anywhere near star quality. I define star quality as would I pay money to hear this? Chris Daughtry and Kelly Clarkson are the only two money performers that American Idol has ever churned out. In 8 long seasons, of painful assaults on the ears, only TWO people I'd ever care to listen to again. I actually feel bad for these folks being trotted out and given false hopes. I'm very sorry but you're not going to be a star.

I'm still enjoying the light snot and congestion of whatever crud I picked up on the trip, but that didn't stop me from keeping busy today. I cleaned out the pantry, reorganized the shelves, and basically did a lot of cleaning. I also tried repurposing the Bread of Doom from Sunday. I thought hot turkey sandwiches would provide both moisture and cover up the taste. I was wrong! Richard did a very sorry reject of it, and I didn't much care for it either. The second attempted repurposing went a bit better. I made Apple Brown Betty with a good amount of the dense wheat bread. It didn't suck, but it was more work than it was worth.

Tomorrow Richard's going into the office, but I'm not entirely sure that I'm going to go in with him. There was musical chairs at the office and it's going to be increasingly awkward to tag along if I don't have other stuff to do in the city during the day. I want to work on my business plan, but the office isn't quite the right environment for that :) We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Winding things down here for the weekend, so it's a good time to recap the week. Monday was a bunch of getting ready for the trip to Virginia for Richard's exam. Dropped off Gbic, made sure the cat feeder worked and packed up our guns. Tuesday morning we were both up at 6am and out the door by 7am. We wanted to be sure that there were no problems with checking the guns and getting through TSA. We were also anticipating a fair amount of traffic, which was a good thing since we didn't get to the airport until 8:30 for a 10:05am flight. Fortunately checking guns is not a big deal -- it's similar to the post 9/11 days when you had to carry your own bags to the TSA xray machines. We didn't have to open anything or prove the guns were not loaded. Flight was fine, we landed at DCA, got the rental car and headed straight to Chick-fil-A for lunch! YAY!

After checking into the hotel, we took a detour to Equinix to install a card. Not much has changed there, but Ashburn and that whole area has grown up quite a bit in the 3.5 years since we left. Lots of new construction and new businesses. It's interesting to see the changes. We ended up down in Chantilly and stopped into Sheetz before heading back to the hotel. Richard did some more studying, and we watched American Idol. Then we decided to do a late night Amphora's run just like old times :) Amphora's Diner Deluxe is the same as it ever was, and a hot turkey sandwich is an experience not to be missed. I even converted Mr. Default to Hamburger to the hot turkey sammiches from there. After that, back to the hotel for more studying for the test the next morning.

Richard got a decent night's sleep, but I was up every hour thinking I was going to oversleep and Richard would miss his test :) I was supposed to meet up with Rob early and hang out for the whole day, but I needed a bit more sleep. Richard got on the road and to his test early, and I crawled back into bed. Then... the phone rang. I think it was around 8:45, and it was Rob and I figured that I could be up and ready to go in about 45 minutes. Or at least that's what I thought I told Rob. I layed my head down on the pillow for 10 minutes and then couldn't remember what time it was :) So, I got up and rushed around and got ready, and figured I was about 10 minutes late. I went to the hotel lobby to wait... and wait. Turns out I said I'd be ready at 10:30, not 9:30 -- I must have been doing the time zone conversions one too many times in my head. Rob was game, and drove over and we went off to breakfast at... Amphora's! I had french toast, which was most excellent as usual. We talked for a bit, and then headed off to Leesburg to buy ammo, and then head to the range for some shooting fun!

Blue Ridge Arsenal is where I took my first shots, so it was nice to come home. Rob took the time to retrain me on safety, aiming and stance, and then we went into the range and started shooting. I was able to correct some of my previous issues (improving my grip, my stance, and lining up the sights better), and get a little bit of confidence back. My groupings are decent for not having a lot of practice, and Rob introduced me to the wonder of dry firing. I can practice without bullets to build muscles and muscle memory for pressing the trigger etc, and I think that will help a lot. While we were in there, four men in suits breezed in and took two lanes to do qualification trials. The feds! And after a while, Rob leans into me and says quietly "Can you hear me?" And thanks to my amplifying and noise cancelling earphones, I could! Then Rob says "Your groupings are better than the feds in the next lane" Tee hee! I started watching them shoot and mine were better ;) I still have a lot to learn and lots of practice to do, but it was fun. I'm less afraid of the guns randomly exploding in my hands or anything weird like that, but I maintain the healthy respect that one should have for a deadly weapon.

After shooting, Rob and I went to Picante! for a late lunch. I had the magical chile relleno with meat filling that is just to die for -- it was just as good as I'd remembered it. As we finished up lunch and were deciding to go back to Rob's place to learn to clean the guns, Richard called and said he'd finished his test early. We decided to all go back to Rob's and learn to clean guns :) After we'd cleaned the guns and put them back in their cases, we coordinated dinner with Greg at Club TF (normal folks might know it as The Tortilla Factory). Good food, good company, lots of talking and laughter.

After the long day, we called it an early night and went back to the hotel and crashed. Thursday morning we checked out of the hotel, and headed back to Blue Ridge Arsenal for more range time. After going through 500 rounds of various ammo, we felt sufficiently ranged out (and thankfully that took care of all of the ammo so we didn't have to transport it back with us). We decided on lunch at Picante to kill some time before heading to the airport. Everything was wonderful as usual, and we set out for the airport. We figured that we have Admiral's Club access, so if we were super early, we could hang out there until our flight. The flight home was fine, and we were happy to see that there wasn't any snow on the car. Back home the cats were still alive and happy to see us.

Friday morning brought the second of three Hepatitis B vaccinations, and picking up Gbic from the kennel. In the afternoon, we met Mark for a working lunch, then back home to prepare for Richard's birthday on Saturday :) I did a little bit of shopping, and we prepared for the ZOMG!! GIANT SNOW STORM!!! Up to 8 inches! Except. Nowhere near here. I woke up to about 2.5 inches of snow, which I quickly cleared away. That lasted for a couple of hours until the winds kicked up and decided to blow all the snow into tiny drifts everywhere that I'd already shoveled. Oh well. I made Richard foods that he wanted, and in the afternoon, we went out and ordered another gun.

Today was the day of cooking failures, though. I started this recipe at 9:30am thinking I'd have fresh hot bread for lunch. I don't know if there's a typo in the recipe or what, but this dough would not rise. I checked the temp of the liquids before I added the yeast -- 110 degrees, check. The yeast was fresh and active, but this dough is just a brick. I finally gave up on it rising above the top of the bowl and formed the loaves around 3pm. At 5pm the loaves had risen just barely to the top of the pan, so I tossed them in the oven anyway. Let's hope the baking time is accurate and that this does something magical in the oven.

After waiting unsuccessfully for the loaves to rise, I decided to try the Chipotle Peanut Butter cookies from Anna at Cookie Madness. These were okay, but I'm not sure how I feel about them. I used a natural peanut butter that was very liquidy, so I think that might be what's making the cookies so crumbly. I'm also not sure how I feel about the chipotle in the cookie, but it is keeping me from scarfing down the whole batch, so maybe I should be adding chipotle to all of my baked goods ;) I also substituted some white/semi sweet swirled chips for the white chips or peanut butter chips.

I need to bake a turkey after the bread of doom comes out of the oven, but I'll do that the Adele Davis style -- 350 for one hour, and then 200 for as many hours as there are pounds in the bird.

Update: The bread came out okay. Not good. It was very dense and almost the texture of boston brown bread, but edible with massive amounts of butter. I wouldn't make it again, but it wasn't a total loss. I'll figure out some way to repurpose the bread (even if it's out for the birds).

Another nice day today. I'm settling into a routine with the treadmill in that I find I like doing the workout in the morning so I can get the sweaty stinky part of the day out of the way. 45 minutes today, and still doing okay with it all. I'd like to work up to an hour of the fat burning program, but I think that may be a few days off. Hopefully the treadmill at the hotel will be in working condition so I can keep this up while we're gone.

Today was filled with laundry and housework... nothing exciting, but it's still nice to be physically able to do stuff again. Blessed be the miracle of ferrous sulfate and megace! I wasn't terribly creative with meals with the trip coming up, but we did have salads with the leftover tenderloin for lunch. Dinner was cornflake chicken strips, mac and cheese and sugar snap peas. While I really dislike evaporated milk in general, I do have to give it props for making a perfectly smooth creamy mac and cheese.

Tomorrow we have a few quick errands to run -- we need padlocks for the gun cases, and I'm debating how much to make and bring in the way of treats. I'm more concerned about getting the house in decent shape than I am about packing for the trip. It's a short trip, and we're quite familiar with the area, so no worries if anything is left at home. I'm starting to feel the social bug again, so I'd like to have folks over to dinner -- pray it goes better than the last time! ;)

First of all, it was a great valentine's day. We had good food, we relaxed, and hopefully that will continue tonight. I sat outside in the sun for a while. I did my treadmill workout :) Breakfast was french toast and sweet hot bacon. Lunch was leftover baked ziti. Dinner was filet mignon, marsala mushrooms, mashed potatoes and green beans for Richard and steamed spinach for me. Yummy! Then for dessert, homemade key lime pie with a graham cracker and pretzel crust. Delicious.

Now for the crazy part. For some reason, I have always attracted people who lack self awareness. I tolerate it for a little while, but invariably the giant sucking sound becomes tiresome and I say, enough, and move on. This is completely and totally different from folks who have legitimate problems and most importantly, those who are actively seeking treatment for those issues. I have the utmost respect for anyone fighting that battle day in and day out. But these folks... are just in a different category all together. This morning I wake up to an email that looks like spam. I almost deleted it, but then I realized it was from a friend's crazy ex-girlfriend. Who I've not talked to in 3 years. Nor emailed. Nor chatted with. Oooookay. In the interest of minimizing drama, I'm gonna pass on renewing that relationship.

Later on, another of the lacking self-awareness folks messaged me for an ostensible end to that drama episode. Hopefully that will be taken care of by the end of the week. And once again I had to stand firm on my refusal to step back into the drama there. No, I will not explain to you again why we are no longer speaking. The fact that you can't figure that out from the very clear explanation I gave previously is proof enough that you lack enough self-awareness to take responsibility for your actions. Also honesty is much better than lies. Just fyi.

Two more days til the VA trip. I'm greatly looking forward to it -- getting good shooting lessons is priceless, and good company as well :)

It is 11:04pm, I have been up and cooking since 7am. Last night I passed on making the brioche for the UPS man mainly because the dough had quite a sour nose to it, and I wasn't sure it would be good enough for company. So, this morning I decided to make Peanut Butter Tandy Cake most recently seen on Sweets by Sarah. I also had a very similar recipe in the Old Jerusalem Church cookbook from my grandmother, but Sarah has it all typed out and on the internet already ;) I made a few changes, the first being making it in a standard half-sheet pan (12x18) rather than the 17x10 pan she recommended. I also recognized the cake as a hot milk cake, and mixed it accordingly. Namely, beating the eggs with the sugar until it ribbons, adding the flour and baking soda to that, and then adding the hot milk with the melted butter slowly. It came together beautifully and baked up nice and brown on top and perfectly spongy. After the cake part, I stopped measuring the rest :) So I just put on peanut butter until the cake was covered, and melted about a bag and a half of milk chocolate chips. The chocolate was set and ready for cutting by 11am. Not bad, and probably made possible by the fact that I lined the sheet pan with foil before baking... then after baking, I pulled the foil and cake out and put it in a fresh, cold half-sheet pan :)

I made a big box of squares for the UPS dude, and enclosed a baggie full of napkins and individually wrapped Purell wipes, since they are a bit messy with the chocolate and peanut butter. I also decided to send a gallon ziploc bag of squares to my mom since I was sending her a book anyway today. Then I thought well, I've not been nice to the mail lady recently, so I made up a bag, and taped on another bag of napkins and purell wipes to that to put out in the mailbox. Thankfully that took up most of the batch and we have about a dozen small squares for ourselves, yay!

And yes, the UPS man was not happy with the 3x 73lb boxes, but he was delighted with the box of treats. One of the reasons I bake is to make other people happy, and I think I did that for at least two folks today :)

That was the triumph of the cooking day. I also butchered a whole eye of round, ground it up, and made a good portion of it into meatballs. Big, honking meatballs. I figured I'd bake them, and then cover them in barbecue sauce, and bake some more. Sounds great, but I didn't cook off enough vinegar from the barbecue sauce, and the meatballs were strangling. I ended up throwing them out *sigh*. I hate wasting food, but I hate eating bad food even more. I had also made the Hard Rock Cafe copy cat recipe for twisted mac and cheese... with a few modifications. That came out okay, and it turned into the main dish.

After cleaning some stuff out of the fridge, the bin of brioche dough sent vibes of guilt out to me. Bake meeeeee, bake meeeeee, it called. I decided that I would try to make the dough into some sort of cinnamon roll -- that should be a good counterpoint to the potential super sour in the dough. The dough was really easy to work with. I was able to pat it out into a rectangle, which I always have problems with on conventional dough. As I was mixing up some melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, I saw a bag of ground pecans on the counter... so in then went to the filling. Patted the filling out on the dough, rolled it up, and sliced it up. The remainder of the dough made two 9x9 pans with 9 rolls each. I baked them at 375 for about 23 minutes. Then I made a normal glaze for one pan, and an orange glaze for the other. They turned out quite well -- there doesn't seem to be any overly sour or gameyness to any of it.

Will I try the brioche recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day again? Maybe. It was a good dough, and very easy to work with, but I have a hard time getting past 3 sticks of butter and 8 eggs.... even if it is making the equivalent of 3 to 4 loaves. I'm looking forward to trying other doughs from the book. I think it will be especially helpful when we have company -- the ability to churn out a whole bunch of fresh hot bread with little to no effort is definitely a bonus.

In other news, I actually got birthday and valentine's day cards, and managed to get my mom's out in the mail today! I also got the coolest gift for Mom (and I hope she doesn't read this). Struggling with finding a gift for Mom is a yearly tradition. If I ask her what she wants, she says nothing. If I send her money, she won't spend it on herself. I was thinking about something she'd like but wouldn't necessarily get herself. I decided that she might enjoy a CSA share for the spring/summer. Researching it online showed that there weren't any CSAs that delivered anywhere close to where she is, so I quickly envisioned this gift being something she'd resent every week rather than enjoying. But while I was researching this, I saw that one of the farms actually does home garden consulting. The farmer will come out to your site, look it over and help you plan out a garden that works with your particular site and soil and light. I emailed him right away, and got a response within 30 minutes... at like 9pm. This is a very good sign to me :) He and I emailed back and forth, and this morning I sent him a check for 5 hours of garden consulting with Mom. I GOT MOM AN ON-CALL FARMER! That is just so awesome, I wish I had an on-call farmer :) The second part of the gift is buying a similar block of time from her favorite handy man to get the raised beds put in once she gets the farmer's recommendations.

The rest of the evening was spent cleaning, and doing all the dishes from today's madness. I'm happy to report the microwave is clean, the sink is scoured and sparkling, the dishes are done, and the stove is wiped down. I think I have earned a good night's sleep :)

First of all, while I may hate MT templates, I absolutely adore Adamy, the original Ficus, and his neverending patience with the myriad of ways I manage to break all of this stuff.

The dentist appointment was nothing short of awesome. Only one shot for the up top fillings, the two bottom ones were small enough to fill without additional numbing. Start to finish done in about 50 minutes. I'm so happy that I got this done! Now I just have two small cavities to fill on the right side, and I'm back to normal :) I talked with them about Richard's remaining work, and he's got a lot to get done.

This evening we went and picked up our guns, and I am just in love with my little pink mosquito. We'll see how it shoots next week when we're in VA. The good news is that I think I have figured out my recent shooting woes. I think I forgot how to hold the gun :) Once I corrected my grip, it felt more natural and I felt more in control. Shocking, I know.

Later tonight I'm going to bake up the rest of the brioche as a peace offering to the poor UPS man. I need to have a fresh peace offering ready for him when he carries those 73lb shelves to the front door :)

And these stupid templates/styles that will not work. SIGH.

No cooking today, but it was monumental in other ways. I went to the dentist for the first time in years today. My general fears and anxieties about doctors always extended to dentists, but for good reason :) My last check up was in early 2002, and I knew I had some cavities lingering from then (when GX declared bankruptcy and took my uber insurance with it). Richard and I had done some research and he found a dentist he liked. We got him in last week to look at two teeth that had been bothering him, and then scheduled a follow up for both of us today.

The good news: my gums are in good shape, and overall my teeth are in good shape. Some staining from years of tea and soda, but they could tell that I do brush and floss. The not so good news, I have 7 minor cavities. No big deal, 5 on the left side, and 2 on the right. Tomorrow we'll take care of the left side ones, and then in two weeks, I'll come back to get the other two done. The doctor was excellent, and she did all of the scraping herself and even water jet blasted all my tartar off my teeth. I feel so squeaky clean! Having the minor cavities is far better than I feared, which was root canals and crowns and major work.

Richard had a bit more work to get done, unfortunately. Two cavities filled and two molars scaled. Ouch! While he was having that done, I ran over to Caputo's Market to check it out. It's a small market, but overwhelming with the volume of specialty items. I was absolutely in heaven. And they have amazing prices to boot! I picked up a lot of fresh produce including a kilo of Italian kiwis for $1.99, two pounds of strawberries for 1.49/lb, and cilantro at... 3 bunches for a buck.

I hope tomorrow's appointment goes well, but either way, it will be DONE, and that's a huge accomplishment.

It was above 50 degrees yesterday and today, I believe -- that's pretty much all you need to know! The snow has melted for the most part, which is good and bad. Yay for no more snow and ice, but it's kind of scary to think of spring and planting coming along so soon. I'm sure that we'll get more snow soon though, so I'm just going to enjoy the brief reprieve.

Yesterday was quite busy. I couldn't sleep so I got up at 6am and I made Whitewater Granola Bars from W.C.'s ReTorte blog. I had to substitute for the sesame seeds since I can't seem to find those in anything larger than a sub-2 ounce bottle, so I threw in some toasted wheat germ. That definitely gave them that "healthy" aftertaste ;) I also finally used a bag of those mini-chocolate chips, woo! I wasn't sure they'd be cool enough to take along in the afternoon, but they set up beautifully and I got enough bars to package for friends and still have a sane amount of the little bars of sin for us to enjoy at home :)

After everyone was ready to go, we packed up and headed out. First stop: Schweppe's. I left Richard in the car with a sidekick so he could entertain himself on IRC. And then I entered heaven... and shopped for 30 minutes. I went there to get some cambro containers for the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day recipes, and also to pick up some of the other recommended supplies. I had a cart full of random things, but thankfully they packed really well in a small box. As far as Richard knows, I just got a couple containers, and a tiny box of smallwares and ingredients. *cough* The real tally: six 2lb tubes of pastry fillings (cherry, bavarian cream, cream cheese, lemon, apricot and pineapple), chili powder, french onion soup base, a #16 disher, some 12 ounce squeeze bottles, some 24 ounce squeeze bottles, a bottom feeder squeeze bottle, an oven thermometer, a cutting mat, a strainer, some hand sanitizer wipes, a 2 pack of 6 quart cambros with lids, a 2 pack of 8 quart cambros with lids, a 12 quart cambro with lid, and two 1 quart cambros with lids.

After that, we headed up to Elk Grove where Jordan and company were at the new colo building it out. We took the tour of the facility, I dropped off the granola bars for the crew. We went with Jordan and Nevila over to Schaumburg to Fuddruckers for lunch. Nevila and I both had the buffalo burger and the sweet potato fries, and we were both thoroughly unimpressed by them :) The buffalo is very lean (yay!) but it was very overcooked and dry (boo!). The sweet potato fries were good, but not $3 worth of good. Still... better than the Dominican Republic! ;) We had a great time hanging out, and we totally need to do it more often.

After lunch, we went over to Hoffman Estates to Cabela's to pick up ammo and accessories for the new toys we purchased Friday night. Since we're going out to VA for a test Richard has to take on the 18th, I told him his Valentine's Day and birthday gift would be the Kimber 1911 that he wanted. We can go shooting with Rob while we're out there as long as we get the guns early. The range didn't have the 1911 that he wanted, but they had a Kimber Gold Match Stainless, used but in great shape. Richard decided he liked that one just as much as the 1911 (and the 1911 would take 2 weeks minimum to get in) so, he decided that would be the gun for him. While we were there, I happened to see that not only did they have the Sig Mosquito .22 that I wanted... but... they... had... it... in.... PINK!!!!. It's a relatively cheap gun, and Richard said that it was so me, and got it for me for Valentine's Day. YAY! We can pick them up on Tuesday.

After Cabela's we headed home, and did some cleaning. Dinner was leftovers from the previous days -- needed to clean out the fridge for the brioche dough that I was going to make that night. I washed one of the 6 quart containers, and read the recipe carefully. At first I was going to use the kitchenaid for mixing, but I saw there was a lot of liquid, and 7.5 cups of flour. In the morning, I tried mixing the granola bars in the mixer, and it was just too much stuff :) I ended up mixing that by hand. Wanting to avoid that mishap with the dough, I saw that the authors recommend mixing the dough directly in the storage container by hand. Soooo, I figured I'd give it a shot. Everything came together nicely, and rose beautifully... a little too beautifully, I think I got a tad too much yeast in the dough. But, undaunted, I tossed the dough in the fridge and went to bed. I think I only woke up twice in the middle of the night having the nightmare that there would be oozing dough everywhere in the fridge ;)

I checked the dough in the morning, and no overflow! Everything was fine and smelled great. There were some other things to make today, so I put off the brioche making until tonight. I'm making little brioche squares with fillings that I bought yesterday, and we'll see how they turn out!

In other cooking related news, I was going to try to make a dessert product that embodied the Dominican Republic trip. I thought about a chocolate cake with a rum syrup, and a coconut rum "gravy" type frosting and perhaps a rum infused chocolate ganache on top of that. I'd thought about it... until Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day arrived on my doorstep. So, we'll put that on the back burner, and explore the bread making for a bit.

The book inspired me to make one of my original recipes, Giovanni bread, to go along with our late lunch. The original recipe was a copycat of Macaroni Grill's bread, but it really wasn't much like theirs. It WAS, however, similar to the freaking awesome bread at Giovanni's in Berkeley, CA. We got back to Giovanni's a few years ago, and unfortunately, they've changed hands or something... but not everything was as it should have been. Alas, we'll always have the bread now! The bread relies on semolina for texture, and rosemary and good fruity extra virgin olive oil for flavor. Hot from the oven, it is crispy on the outside, and soft and fluffy inside. I'll take some pictures of the remaining loaf and clean up the recipe and post it tomorrow.

And finally, I've decided that I need to get my recipes online, but I'm not sure how I want to do this. I think I might start a new blog just for recipes, but I've not decided yet. Currently I have a ton of recipes in notepad files stored on a computer that is old and in the basement. I remote desktop in whenever I need a recipe and either copy it locally, or send it to my sidekick to take into the kitchen with me. I've tried printing them out, but that's a pain too. My only concerns are with copyright, both in retaining rights to my original recipes, and in posting recipes I use fairly frequently that are from other sources. I'll do some more research and figure that out.

Tomorrow's brioche will be my apricot swirled brioche, which is my usual standard. Then I should have enough for just a plain loaf the following day. Enough for now -- I really need to cut out these monster posts!

Finally back and settling in from the trip to the Dominican Republic. Did I enjoy it? Yep. Would I ever go back? Not a chance. We'll start with the positive. The weather was beautiful. In Santo Domingo, it was warm and sunny every day, not terribly humid, and usually a nice breeze coming off the water. The people were friendly, and for the most part the food was very good. I didn't get to do as much sightseeing there as I would have liked as I tweaked my knee enough being Frogger crossing a busy street that I had to stay off it for the most part. We had a lovely dinner with one of our vendor reps at El Meson de la Cava -- gorgeous setting, and really outstanding food. We had a manchego and serrano ham starter and calamari. Then I had this wonderful cedar planked maple ginger glazed salmon; everyone else had steak and were similarly impressed. Service was very good and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

The hotel in Santo Domingo was decent -- good food, good room service, spacious and a comfortable bed with 6 pillows! Sunday night we were taken to the Castle de Colombe I think it was, and given a reception by some government official. The alcohol was plentiful, but the food was not, so several of us snuck out of the event and went to find food. Fortunately there was a Spanish restaurant on the other side of the square. While service was extremely slow, we had some great food. Spicy chorizo in apple cider vinegar, patatas bravas, and this absolutely delicious paella valenciana. Other people had meat dishes, which oddly enough all came with giant plates of french fries. I was quite pleased with our selection :)

Monday was when I hurt my knee, so I spent a lot of my time after that in the room finishing up the togas and toga accessories. I'm sure the housekeeping staff wondered what the hell I was doing, but no one asked :) Tuesday was El Meson de la Cava, and Wednesday was the last day of the conference in Santo Domingo. We checked out of the hotel and boarded the party bus to Punta Cana! It was the rebel bus for the folks who actually wanted to respect the end of the first conference before taking off on an unnecessary sightseeing trip to the second conference. We stopped at a little market along the way and loaded up on overpriced rum and overpriced snacks. I got some cocoa powder to bring back, and had my first kola champagne which they call merengue flavored soda. Yummy in any language. The trip through the interior was a lot of poverty, cattle, and sugar cane fields. Lots of trash on the sides of the road, but the same could be said for Jersey :) We made good time and got to the resort around 5:30pm. We checked in, and tried to find our room, and were introduced to the not quite so helpful staff. Finally we found our room, tried out the facilities and changed for dinner. This would be the only nice meal we had at the resort in Punta Cana. The welcome dinner was a buffet of some really nice island food interspersed with other items. The sancocho stew was excellent, as were the rice and peas, the spiced honeyed turkey and the papaya ham. We met up with Jordan and had dinner with a bunch of folks (a table of 9), and had a good time, including a moonlight stroll on the beach, and getting our feet wet in the water.

That night the problems began... it was very humid, and we could not get the air conditioning to actually adjust down low enough to sleep. Richard got some sleep but I was just tossing and turning. I noticed that the a/c vent was aimed more towards the little couch in the room, so I thought I'd go there to sleep. Bad move. I have contact allergy sensitivity to mold. Usually it's not a problem (and it's never a problem for antibiotics or anything), so when I laid down on the couch and smelled the whiff of mildew, I didn't think too much of it. A few minutes later, I noticed my legs were breaking out in hives and itching badly. Quick! To the medical kit and the spray on benedryl, yay! I hosed myself down with that, grumbled a lot and went back to the bed to sleep. Richard had to get up fairly early that morning, so I explained to him that I was going to sleep in, and I'd catch up with him later that day. I was just getting up around noon when Richard bursts through the door and says "I need swim trunks by 2pm!" Allllrighty honey! I packed my bathing suit, but he did not pack his trunks. I checked the hotel gift shop, but I was rather rudely informed that they had nothing more than medium swim trunks. On the way into the resort the day before, I noticed... a shopping center. I'd planned to go there anyway, so I went to the front desk and asked about the shopping center, and one of the bellmen drove me in a golf cart to the mall. Yay! I met up with Gail there, and she directed me to the swimsuit store. They didn't have exactly Richard's size, but I got two pairs, and figured one might fit. If not, well he should have packed better. And $85 poorer, I rushed back to the hotel and fortunately both pairs fit, yay! Then we were off to the beach for a group activity that was entirely too complicated even for a bunch of engineers. I managed to get a tiny bit of color through my SPF 85 sunscreen, and after the activity was over, we spent a couple of hours at the pool relaxing. Then it was off to dinner at the teppanyaki restaurant at the resort. This was not so good. Everything was slightly off, and just overcooked. But it was food and it was better than the lunch buffet by a longshot. Disappointing, but edible.

Friday was more bad food, so after a failed lunch, I went to the shopping center in search of the other weird thing I saw on the way in: Hard Rock Cafe. There is no Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle, home of Jimi Hendrix, and grunge, but there is a Hard Rock Cafe in Punta fuckin' Cana, DR. But, aside from that irony, I walked in, sat down and ordered. Tupelo chicken tenders and a side of twisted mac and cheese. And it came out... and it was real food! It wasn't bastardized food like items. It looked like food, and it tasted like real food! YAY! I enjoyed my meal, and then set off to do some shopping. After finding most things hideously overpriced, I finally scored some larimar jewelry. We agreed to $320 for the 8 small pieces together and they rang it up in pesos. I went off with my spoils, including a bunch of snacks from a farmacia that was not hideously overpriced like the hotel.

Friday night was toga party night! YAY! Pictures are forthcoming, but we did an awesome job. It was a little disappointing that not everyone dressed up, but I was quite proud of our efforts, and we got a lot of compliments :) Unfortunately, the resort managed to ruin the mood again with crappy food. At this point it was just ridiculous, and we had come to expect it. So, we called it an early night (togas are quite warm in the tropics).

Saturday the conference was over and most people were heading home... so we had a free day. I checked my credit card, and saw that the jerk from the jewelry store had charged me $427, not $320. So, I went back with Richard and Tom, and said we agreed to $320, I got charged $427, fix it. The guy tried to argue with me, but he was using some bogus exchange rate, and then Richard stepped in to correct his math and mistaken logic. So, the guy said pick out $100 of extra stuff. So I got a nice larimar bracelet, and we walked away from the standoff. I felt like an extortionist, but don't shit in my hand and tell me it's chocolate.

We also had lunch at the other restaurant in the shopping center... Tony Roma's. That was okay -- still miles better than the hotel food. We went back to the hotel since Tom was leaving that afternoon... we saw everyone off. Then we changed into our suits and went down to the beach and spent 2 glorious hours in the ocean. It was more therapeutic than I would have ever imagined. The warmth of the sun, the floating in the water, and the closeness and intimacy with Richard was incredibly special. It made everything worthwhile.

After that, we were tired, and did the crappy buffet again. Bad mexican food, yay! Then we turned in early mainly because there was no more internet in the room. Wheee.

Sunday we got up, did the crappy breakfast buffet, and bid adieu to Punta Cana. 14 hours later we were home here in Chicago... 60 degrees colder, but home and happy. There are lots more little stories, but I'll save those for some other time.