Enjablog

Totally forgot to mention how technology saved the day yesterday!

So, the park we went to watch the meteor shower from was about an hour East of Annapolis with no cell signal within a couple miles of it. We were meeting a few people who had also never been to this park before. When Ian and I didn’t find the field we were advised to use on our first pass through the area, we decided to go find the map he looked at online the day before.

We backtracked to the last place we had consistent signal and used my phone’s internet connection to tether the shiny new [hand-me-down] netbook Anna gave me (Ace). We looked up the map, downloaded a local copy of it, and then called the people we were meeting to make sure they had directions to meet us at the site.

A little while later, we were happily star-gazing! I used my compass app to position our blankets in the direction of optimum meteor sightings. And, as it turns out, the sky map app on my phone works without signal/GPS activated! It takes your last known position or you can enter in a position and it’ll show you the stars in the sky from your position.

Technology is the best! :)

Went out last night with a bunch of friends to see the Perseids meteor shower. I haven’t been out to see a meteor shower in years, so it was pretty cool. We had fun staying up, eating snacks, and listening to music waiting for the clouds to move by. Saw about a dozen or so meteors over the course of the night.

I tried a few times to take pictures, but my camera doesn’t have the option to leave the shutter open as long as I needed. This was one of my best pictures. ;)

Got to the airport bright and early to try and get an exit row seat for Ian, but AirFrance was no help. We hung out at the airport until it was time for our first flight to Charles de Gaulle. We got there with little incident, but had a lot of difficulty trying to find a board that would tell us which gate our connection was. We finally had to go to the info desk to ask someone to look it up and tell us.

We made our way to the signs pointing to the terminal we needed… took a shuttle that dropped us off outside some locked doors. After waiting a few minutes for someone inside to notice us, a security guard let us, and our 20 new friends, in. We followed the signs, again, to the direction of our terminal. Only to find that we were now outside the secure area and had to go through security again.

The place was a mad house. They were moving people through pretty quickly, but it was still really crowded. I went through my bag trying to find the liquids I had gotten out since the Copenhagen airport and put them back in my ziplock bag. Found the 1/2 liter bottle of water I refilled past security in Copenhagen, which I needed to be rid of. I wanted to keep the bottle, though, in case I wanted water later. So, I started chugging while taking off my shoes and digging out my laptop… Ian took pity on me and had a swig of water to help me finish it off. Made it through security and booked it over to our gate… which got moved! Fortunately, it only moved a couple gates over and the line was being held up by a big group of American teenagers.

The flight back was pretty uneventful. Each seat had a TV in front of it, so we had our pick of movies and TV shows to watch the entire flight back (watched How to Train Your Dragon, Date Night, Inglorious Bastards, and a couple episodes of the Simpsons). They kept getting interrupted by announcements though, which were incredibly difficult to understand. At one point, I realized I understood more of the French than I did the English. And when I mentioned it to Ian, he didn’t even realize they were speaking English!

Finally made it back to VA! Ian and I very diligently documented all the items we brought back on the customs form, so we would be ready when we arrived. When we got up to the customs agent, he asked us what food we brought back. Various Danish candies, crackers, and other snacks. The guy looked at us like he was trying to stifle a laugh. He waved us past and we were on our way!

Lenny was awesome enough to pick us up from the airport, so we got a chance to stop in and say hi to Steph and the nieces. E2 was so happy to see Ian! And E1 was excited to show me everything that had changed while we were gone. It was nice to see them, but we were tired and so ready to get home. Steph was nice enough to send us home with some fresh fruit though, so at least I didn’t need to worry about scrounging up snacks later.

Headed straight home, lugged all our stuff up to our apartment… and then discovered that we were locked out. While we were gone, we had Steph’s uncle in doing some contracting work for us, so we gave him one of our keys. We gave our other key to Yenny so she could water our plants. We can buzz ourselves into the building with our phones and our front door has a mechanical punch lock that doesn’t require a key, so we figured we could get home and then retrieve the keys from people later. Except that we also have a deadbolt that we don’t use… but after the last time building management locked me out of my apartment, I started carrying that key around just in case. And so that “just in case” key was used and we had no way in.

Tracked people down… The construction guy had the key, which he dropped off in the uncle’s mailbox since the uncle was out of town, and I went to pick it up from his house. And an hour later, we were finally inside our home and everything was as it should be (plus a fancy bathroom!). Until we did our first load of laundry and the washing machine flooded the kitchen again.

Home, sweet home.

The whole family went up to NY this weekend for Sonny & Anna’s Chinese-y reception with our extended relatives.  As usual, lots of photo ops.  And the night ended with Anna and Ian fending off what seemed like an endless supply of kids and napkins.

Today was Ian and my 1-year anniversary!  So, it was pretty fun to be up with all the family for the banquet the night before.  We met up with relatives for dim sum takeout for breakfast and to have an early celebration for grandpa’s birthday. Then we spent the afternoon in the car with my sis coming home.  Spending the rest of the evening at home and just hanging out.  :)

I spent the week before the wedding getting cake stuff together. Actual man-days was probably 4, including the shopping and prep work Ian did.

A week in advance: Ian’s shopping trip.
- 8 pounds of butter
- 6 pounds of cream cheese
- 6 pounds of cake flour
- 5 dozen eggs

Already had the sugar, 20 lemons (zested and juiced), and pre-ordered:
- 9 lb white chocolate
- 6 lb semi-sweet chocolate
- 10 oz lemon oil

A week in advance, made a double batch of lemon curds. Made simple syrup (unflavored). Pre-measured all the dry ingredients and pre-cut parchment paper for pans.

On Tuesday, I bought the final ingredients: buttermilk, heavy cream, and blackberries. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I baked all the cakes for the wedding and rehearsal dinner and made a double-batch of frosting.

Thursday morning, Ian helped me load up the car with all the cakes, fillings, frostings, and decorating supplies to bring over to his parents’ house. They were kind enough to offer me access to their 2nd frdige, as well as their dining room and kitchen for cake assembly.

I spent Thursday leveling, torting, filling, and frosting the cakes. I also plated the blackberry chocolate cake and made ganache to cover the cake. Surprisingly, I finished 3 hours earlier than I expected according to my schedule!

Friday, I was back over bight and early for a day of decorating. I started with the bottom tier, but was unhappy with my decorations so I ended up starting over 4 or 5 times before deciding the cake had been out too long and should go back in the fridge.

Out came the middle tier… I looked up a few pictures of baskets and different basket-weave cakes for some inspiration. I decided my weaves were spaced too far apart, which was why it looked unrealistic. I also tried applying more pressure to the tube so the frosting would come out more evenly instead of gapping everytime I hit an air pocket. This was also around the time I experimented with the textures on my chosed tip… and deciding, again, that the cake had been out too long and needed to be re-chilled.

After all the practice, the top tier went very smoothly. I tried out a border that I was happy with and then I made some little flowers using frosting and the lemon curd filling. I did learn from that though… put the border on last! Every time I made a flower I didn’t like, I had a tough time re-smoothing the cake while trying to avoid the border.

Once I had the pattern set from the top tier, I took a second shot at the bottom tier. It went *so* much quicker the second time around! After that, the middle was a breeze!

I did the bottom border on the bottom tier and called it a day. I was relatively on schedule for the day, but hadn’t planned for transit time back home to change before going to the rehearsal dinner. We were also bringing plastic & paperware for the event, so I figured we should probably get there on time/a little early. So, I grabbed the undecorated chocolate cake and headed out!

Saturday: The Big Day!

Two weeks earlier, I made Ian do a dry run with me to his parents’ and then to the restaurant to time the route and do recon to check if we’d be faced with stairs, obstacles, etc. I took those times, added some margin, and estimated how long it would take to load the car based on Thursday’s loading time.

Ian’s mom was kind enough to loan us her Honda Fit — super cute and really roomy with efficient design. We were able to load up the car with all the cakes and supplies in under 15 minutes.

We took the scenic route to the restaurant and still got there 20 minutes earlier than the event planner said she would be on site. After the designated time had come and gone with no sign of the event planner, I wandered into the kitchen area of the restaurant from the loading dock.

I found the manager who was incredibly helpful and got me set up with a cart to move the cakes, an area out of the way for assembly, and some space in the fridge to store the cake when it was complete. Ian helped me stack the cakes and went in search of other entertainment while I worked on the final decorations.

It took about an hour to finish up, with plenty of spectators passing through throughout the process. (Ian was bringing tour groups by to get a behind-the-scenes look.) As we were wheeling the cart over to the fridge, Ian spotted a digital scale. I could definitively answer my question of how much the completed cake weighed!

I made a spreadsheet of all the ingredients for the whole project and associated weights for each ingredient, including average weights of eggs and egg yolks. The maximum weight of the cake based on all the ingredients was 40 pounds. Final cake: 30 pounds!

Once the cake was safely put away in the fridge, my responsibilities were complete! The staff set it out on the pretty table and whisked it away after Sonny and Anna did their cake-cutting ceremony and took care of serving it.

From Sonny & Anna’s karaoke wedding. Lots of awesomeness all around. I can’t wait to see some of the videos other people got!

From Sunday brunch:

Congrats to Sonny and Anna! :)

The wedding:

Sunday brunch:

I’ve got a bunch of videos from the wedding too, but have to get permission from people to post up!

So, I woke up this morning to find an email from my sister with The Blogess‘s latest adventure brushing her teeth with eyelash glue.

I sent her the following response, including picture:

Ok, so, first. I read this before getting out of bed this morning and then had to explain to Ian who the blogess is. “Some lady who blogs.”

Second, I can tell you how my call will go. For the past couple… holy cow. For the past *2 years*, there has been a tube of silicon sealant on my night stand, aka super glue.

We got this when Ian replaced the faucets and needed to attach the new drain pipe to the p-trap or something plumbing sounding. Anyway, it got moved to my nightstand when we emptied out the master bath to remove the vanity.

I don’t know why it hasn’t gotten moved, but I keep it there next to my similarly sized/colored tube of skin cream. I know that the contents have completely different consistencies and color, but every morning, I’m still a little paranoid about it. I guess it’s part of my waking up process now.

The glue was previously in the bathroom next to the toothpaste… where I often brush my teeth without glasses/contacts. So I feel like I’ve made the right move here. In that the right move is the least action and slightly less terrible results should a mix-up occur.

Anyway, just in case, you might want to pre-look up what to do in case someone super glues their hand to their arm. I’m glad my phone has voice dial. And it wouldn’t be the worst if my phone where permanently attached to me, right..?

We have since decided that the glue should probably get moved to somewhere not on my nightstand. I’ll consider it.

We finally had our buttercream party to clear out some freezer space! Had about 15 people stop by throughout the day. We started out with just the pre-flavored items I had leftover from cakes in the past couple months:
- Remy Martin buttercream
- Caramel
- Semi-sweet chocolate ganache
- White Chocolate cream cheese frosting
- Chocolate buttercream

We had cake, cupcakes, sugar cookies, and cardamom cookies. After the initial diabetic shock, there wasn’t much interest from anyone to try new flavors in the unflavoried frosting, but we made a decent dent in the leftovers. By the end of the day, I reclaimed 4 containers, and consolidated into 2 of our tiny snack-size containers. I might make another batch of the chocolate cookies I made a couple months ago to finish up the caramel.

Many of our guests were also kind enough to take goody bags home with them, including people willing to take a container of unflavored buttercream to experiment on their own! I have 2 containers left in the freezer, so enough for a cake that I can bring in to work or something.

This was also the first time Ian and I have had guests under the age of 17. Our place? Definitely not child-proof. Our low shelf with plant fertilizer, glass tables, electronics out everywhere, remote controls for everything… They seemed to have fun exploring though. And no injuries or broken items. One spilled drink, but that wasn’t even a kid. ;) And we did get a notification that the item we requested was available for our Chumby. Guess they’ll have to wait until next time to see it!

Ian and I have been getting disappointing results from our fridge for the past few years and finally got to the point where we were looking at replacing it. A few people had commented on the quality of the refrigerator brand we had, so Ian did some research into it.

Originally, we figured there was just an issue with the seal around the doors, but there were mixed reviews online as to whether you should replace it yourself. It seemed like a relatively minor investment compared to replacing the whole thing, so we called in a professional. (We had never even thought of doing that before! We’re slowly learning how to be functional adults. Slowly, but surely…)

Last week, Maani from All Year Appliances Repairs came to take a look at our fridge and didn’t think the seal was an issue. It was a relatively quick diagnosis once he opened up the vent covering the condensers.

Apparently the vent/condenser is supposed to be vacuumed every 3-6 months, but based on the condition of it, Maani guessed that it had never been cleaned. The fan was working fine, but the coils were so coated with dirt and residue, they were producing a lot of heat and not cooling anything. It was in such bad shape that he had to bring in the industrial blower because a vacuum wouldn’t do the job.

As a result of this, dirt from the condensers was blown all over the kitchen. I wasn’t actually home during all this, but Ian reported that the guy got completely covered in this residue and apologized for the mess. There really wasn’t much he could do about it while still getting the job done though.

Ian warned me of the state of the kitchen before I got home and even though he had done his best to clear stuff out of the kitchen before the blowing started and had vacuumed/cleaned some, it was still pretty clear when I got home that the fridge had been pretty gross. After a day scrubbing cabinets, walls, and counters, I was able to start a staging area for non-fixed items to be washed. And, as of today, our entire kitchen is back to being functional again!

Plus, our fridge works! It took a couple days for the temperature to normalize, but our freezer makes ice that’s completely frozen now and our fridge feels cold when you open the door. It’s pretty fantastic! :)

As I sit here procrastinating on my homework, I figured I should post up some pictures of all the things I’ve been up to in the past month or so.

My original plan was to get all the sample cakes for Sonny and Anna made and tasted by the end of February so I could offer them more options if they weren’t set on one of the original picks they made.  February got a little away from me, so my new goal was the end of March and then I could still have a couple weeks for any follow-up options and still have a month to practice.  I finished 3 days behind schedule, but it’s sounding like they liked a couple of cakes they tried, so I’ll still have over a month to make sure I have the recipe down.

My nieces had a big pool party birthday bash for their first and third birthdays.  I had a lot of fun, but we were only there about 3 hours and that was enough for me; I was exhausted!  E2 kept drinking the pool water every time her face got anywhere near the surface and E1 really wanted to go down the water slide.  Or at least play in the pool area where the water slide ended.  Just didn’t seem like a good idea… ;) They both really enjoyed being in the pool though, so it was fun watching them play around.

No pictures, but I went to my first Passover Seder party last week. Very educational and fun. Ian was able to modify his mom’s cabbage salad recipe to make it kosher for passover and we’ve been eating extras of that for the past week. So tasty!

Volunteered to help with setup for the FIRST scrimmage:

Volunteered to help judge the Center City Public Charter School science fair:

Happy belated birthday to E2 (my youngest niece)! She turned 1 on Thursday!

I’m also just now realizing how few pictures I have of her where she’s smiling. She has this huge, happy smile where she can’t even keep her eyes open, but I haven’t been able to capture it.

Pita

Ingredients
1 1/8 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

Directions
1. For those of you without a bread machine, proof dry yeast in warm water with the sugar (about 10 minutes).
2. When foamy add oil and pour into the flour that has already been mixed with salt.
3. Knead by hand or machine until it’s smooth and elastic. You should have a moderate dough (not soft and not firm, in the middle). Don’t worry if it’s a little sticky. You can add flour when rolling out if needed.
4. Let it rise for 1.5 hours (until dough had doubled in size)
5. Cut dough into 8 equal pieces and roll into 6-7″ circles.
6. Cook on med/med-high in a frying pan on the stove like a pancake, but without any butter or oil. Takes about 1-2 minutes per side; bubbles were starting to form on the uncooked side when I flipped and were done when just starting to brown in spots.

Spicy Chickpeas and Spinach

I kind of made a mesh of these two recipes: Spicy Chickpea and Spinach Curry and Pakistani Spicy Chickpeas.

Stephanie made something similar to this a while back when I visited for dinner one evening and I really liked it. She got me some curry and cumin so I could make it myself. She assured me it was easy, but it sounded like a lot of ingredients so I didn’t end up making it until now. I should’ve listened to her!

Ingredients
2 (15 ounce) cans garbanzo beans, drained
2 (15 ounce) cans tomato paste or canned tomatoes
1 onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon curry
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cups frozen spinach

Directions
1. Put all ingredients except for spinach in slow cooker. Cook on high (3-4 hours).
2. Mix in spinach about 30 minutes before serving.

Falafel

Last week, Ian and I visited Sonny and Anna twice for doggy play dates. As part of these outings, Anna cooked dinner for us. It seemed like something they did often… you know, this cooking at home thing.

I asked Anna if she cooked the same things every week or if she made weekly meal plans to have all the ingredients on hand, etc. She does a weekly meal plan with 3 or 4 recipes she wants to try out. I was so impressed that I asked her to email me her meal plans so I could try some of her recipes too! Although, now that I think about it, she should really start a food blog.

In any case, one of the recipes for this week was falafel. I had no idea it was something I could make at home! I combined her recipe with one for Falafel Burgers for tonight. We’ll see how they turn out…

Ingredients
2 cups canned chickpeas, drained
1/2 large onion, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons parsley flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1/2-1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper
4 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon baking powder
4-6 tablespoons flour
Soybean or vegetable oil for frying
Tahini
Pita bread

Directions
1. Place chickpeas and the onions in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Add the parsley, cilantro, salt, hot pepper, garlic, and cumin. Process until blended but not pureed.

2. Sprinkle in the baking powder and 4 tablespoons of the flour, and pulse. You want to add enough bulgur or flour so that the dough forms a small ball and no longer sticks to your hands. Turn into a bowl and refrigerate, covered, for several hours.

3. Form the chickpea mixture into small patties.

4. Heat enough oil to cover the bottom of a large skillet over medium heat. Place the burgers in the hot skillet, and fry for about 5 minutes on each side, until nicely browned.

Some stuff from last weekend while Ian and I were out exploring:

After finding out we couldn’t keep Lucy, Sonny & Anna offered to take her in. We had a couple of doggy play dates to introduce Lucy and Rora, but in the end, they didn’t seem to get along.

We did have a lot of fun with her for the week though. We brought her back to the kennel yesterday before snowpocalypse struck. And I’m sure she’s having a blast playing in the snow at the ranch now anyway. :)