Nancy Pearl Wannabe

Something you may or may not know about me: I love to cook. My special brand of cooking is less following recipes, more improvisation, which in some cases produces amazing results and in some (rare) cases produces a meal fit for the garbage can. So I signed up for Nic and RA’s Whip It Up Challenge, where a whole bunch of us are going to try one new recipe a week right up through August. The suggested theme for the first week was pasta, so I made this awesome dish with cavatappi and artichokes and a whole bunch of deliciousness and when I went to upload the pictures I got the dreaded message: CARD READ ERROR.

Nooooooo!

So I had to decide on another recipe quickly, and since I just got the new KitchenAid mixer I wanted really badly to literally whip something up. Luckily, the lovely Allie had just sent me her tried and true recipe for flourless chocolate cupcakes. NPW: Baker Extraordinaire!

I started out by gathering up all the ingredients, something that would never normally happen in NPW’s world of cooking, since half the time I don’t know what I’ll end up adding in “to taste”. For this recipe I needed eight large eggs (that’s a lot of cracking!), two sticks of butter because it’s a good blood thinner, 1/3 cup granulated sugar, 10 ounces or 1 2/3 cup of dark chocolate chips (I used 70% cacao, but you just need anything above 60%), 1/4 cup water, 1 tsp. instant coffee, and powdered sugar for dusting the tops of the cupcakes. I skipped the powdered sugar because Whole Foods tried to con me into paying $8.99 for a small box and I already had to buy instant coffee. I ain’t no fool, Whole Foods, even if your packaging is pretty.

No idea what I’m going to do with the rest of that instant coffee, now that I think of it. Anyway, I chopped up all the butter into chunks.

After chunking up the butter I realized I had no idea what I was doing, since I didn’t have the recipe in front of me. IPod touch to the rescue! I love that this thing has WiFi, it’s like having an electronic recipe card. Ohhh, right, preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

After rereading the recipe I remembered I should get the eggs going first, so I cracked all the eggs into a big ass Pyrex and scooped out the numerous shell bits. My impatience does not pay off in baking, apparently.

YAAAAAAAAY MIXER!

On high for five minutes, until the eggs double in size. While those were getting whipped into shape, I threw the butter, water, instant coffee, and chocolate chips into a saucepan.

Chris decided halfway through this process to come in and pester me with questions and comments on how I could do things more efficiently. Which, in case you didn’t realize, is totally annoying. I shooed him away, but not before he mentioned I should have used a bigger saucepan. Who’s cooking here, anyway, me or Chris?!

Of course he was right, which was even more annoying. So I scraped all the gooey chocolate mixture into a bigger saucepan and added the granulated sugar, stirring it until it was smooth.

Then I folded in a third of the egg mixture until fully incorporated, and kept doing so until all the egg was mixed in and I had a giant batter.

Because I am awesome and a huge nerd, I had already laid out the cupcake liners.

I filled them all to the top, since the cupcakes do not rise very much. And also because I wanted giant cupcakes ALL TO MYSELF.

Seven to eight minutes later, the cupcakes were ready! Slightly dry and spongy on top, super light and moist on the inside. It was almost like a warm chocolate mousse.

The recipe made a few more cupcakes than I realized. I have cupcakes for days, yo.

When my cousin got home from school I waited for her to eat dinner and then served her a plated dessert like I was on Top Chef. I didn’t make the ice cream (how ambitious do you think I am?!), but if you are curious it is the Turkey Hill Duetto- cherry gelato and vanilla soft serve twist.

Yeah. Yum.

The cupcake recipe was deceptively easy- very minimal actual work- and made a ton of delicious cupcakes. I think the next time I make these babies I will make sure I have a crowd to feed because as it is I had to send Chris off to work with a giant plate of them.

And in case you dislike following a pictorial, full recipe after the jump!

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Well hello there, internet friends o’ mine! I hope you have enjoyed your weeks as thoroughly as I have enjoyed mine. You all deserve this long weekend. I commend you for even making it to work at all this week when there are so many fun things to do! Anyway, because tomorrow is a national holiday I am posting my Photo Friday a day early even though I am sure 90% of you have already skipped out of work and headed to the beach. Or lake. Or wherever you go to get your BBQ and firework fix. Still, my photos will be here waiting for you with open arms when you get back!

A few things I’ve been enjoying:

Amazon told me my awesome Fourth of July present to myself wouldn’t be shipping until July 7th. Imagine my surprise when the UPS man showed up with the giant box today! I am ridiculously excited to start mixing things. Any suggestions as to what I should make first are appreciated.

Also: please note the environmentally-friendly boxed wine to the right of the mixer. Because nothing says class like four bottles of red wine in a recycled cardboard container. Also, the shiraz is pretty good.

Moving on, yesterday I spent the morning at the beach with my sister. We would have stayed longer, but a lifeguard came to kick us off the beach because of impending thunderstorms. Apparently Boston now has Florida weather, where it is disgustingly hot and humid, then there is a sudden, giant storm, then things cool off and get sunny again. This has been happening for two weeks now. Hello, global warming! We stopped into a beach store to see if they had any ice. They didn’t, but they did have lots and lots of skull jewelry that they were very proud of.

Speaking of the humidity, I have viewed the July weather as an opportunity to experiment with not blow-drying my hair every day. It has been semi-successful, in that no one has stopped to stare open-mouthed at the nest of crazy waves emanating from my skull. So what do you think? I want the truth! Unless the truth is unnecessarily mean, then keep it to yourself.

And finally, this is not so much a photo as a chance to pat my own back: I finally updated my WordPress to the newest version. BY MYSELF. I did not wake Chris up to help me, despite every inch of my central nervous system twitching while reading the directions. Even when it seemed like the directions were mostly warnings of what NOT to do. There were a few harrowing minutes when I thought I had damaged my poor abused blog irreparably because some of the files refused to transfer, but in the end it all turned out okay. Hooray, me!

Happy Independence Day and beyond!

Normally I am not one to complain about people commenting on my posts. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that I am slowly overcoming a serious comment addiction; basically, I am in love with every person who leaves me some feedback. If I am to believe what I see on the television, every comment is a little bit like being on Ecstasy, where I want to personally and profusely thank you for being such a lovely, lovely person, and maybe caress your face a little bit.

Fine, maybe just a thank you.

Which is why this is hard for me to say, but I have to get it out there. Anonymous commenters: you can blow. I got a comment yesterday from a “david” and it was rude. He didn’t leave a website and the email address he provided was fake. In the grand scheme of things, his rudeness was only mild. He basically said he was glad he didn’t know me because I was ungrateful, that my parents had no way of controlling what kind of teeth I was born with.

And originally I thought, whatever, obviously this dude (or woman) does not understand sarcasm or hyperbole, nor does he/she know how much I actually do appreciate having such awesome parents. Also, I put this stuff out on a public forum, I can’t expect every comment I get to be filled with adoration, nor can I expect that every person who stumbles upon my writing will have a sense of humor or reading comprehension skills higher than a second grader. I resolved to leave the comment, stupid as it was.

But then I slapped myself in the face and my senses returned. This is MY blog. This is my life. I am not getting paid to do this. If I felt that a comment was critical but in a constructive way, I would have left it. I am not going to get all self-righteous about a meaningless remark on how ungrateful I am to my parents when it is clearly ridiculous and untrue, but I also don’t have to leave it there. Guess what, “david”? Here on this blog I have ABSOLUTE POWER, and that means I absolutely clicked that delete button on your ass.

BWAHAHAHA!

And now I am off to the beach, playas. Oh, and dear Mom and Dad: the sensitive teeth weren’t enough of a genetic burden, you also had to give me pasty pale skin? You have SOME NERVE.

A handful of people asked where I got the shoes from my last post, so in case I did not reply by email they are from Sofft (stupid name, sounds like toilet paper), and you can find them on the Sofft website or, if you are a bargain hunter like me, at ShoeMall.com on clearance. I would like to add that when I went to go search out that website for you I had to refrain from purchasing even more shoes. Someone needs to restrict my bank account access to groceries and gas because suddenly I’m acting like I’m made of cash and it’s a little worrisome. Maybe I can make Chris hold on to all my credit cards and debit card. And un-memorize all the numbers.

Except then last night Chris found a deal on Amazon whereby KitchenAid mixers were on sale for 60% off their normal price of crazy expensive and without even batting an eye I purchased one. I did promise myself the last time they were on sale and I missed it that I would totally buy one the next time I found a good deal, so I kept that promise to myself even though it means another bout of buyer’s remorse. I guess I just have to keep reminding myself that the next time I want to make the Alton Brown soft pretzel recipe I won’t have tennis elbow from kneading the dough for forty-five minutes. Plus, the mixer is sleek and black and will look nice in my kitchen in the little spot I’ve already cleared for it next to the margarita blender and mango corer and collapsible salad bowl. Sigh.

The real reason I shouldn’t be plucking the dollars from my cash tree is that I have some dental work coming up that is going to be expensive and likely painful. I’m pretty sure I have discussed my feelings about dental work here before but I would like to reiterate that I feel as though paying a dentist to cause me pain and anxiety is the number one worst way to throw away a grand. No matter what I go to the dentist for, even a routine cleaning, I feel like shouting, “just take them! Take them all out! Give me fake ones that will never get cavities or wear down or need whitening after three Starbucks drinks!” That’s how much I hate dental work. And by the way: thanks, parents, for giving me genetically soft teeth that are prone to cavities, making all that toothpaste and floss another useless expense.

In other news, I was just relaxing on the couch with my mug of tea and this laptop when I heard shouting. A couple was standing in the street fighting. I recognized the girl as one of our neighbors from up the street when suddenly she yelled, “I’ve had better sex with my DAD!” The guy’s face pretty much summed up my response of OH HOLY GROSSNESS, and then he walked away. I think it’s time to find a new neighborhood. Or buy a house, since apparently I’m rolling in it.

Two full, glorious days of vacation under my belt. This is the good life. So far I have kept myself busy despite being missing from the blogging scene for two days. I would make some ridiculous promise about trying to write more often but I don’t like lying to you so let’s just play it by ear,  yes?

Anyway, I know you are super-excited for my Photo Friday so let’s get down to it. Chris made me a sweet graphic:

Woot! He even made it Foto with an F, just to make all you spelling experts crazy in the head. Isn’t he thoughtful? Moving on, Wednesday I spent most of the day helping my six-months pregnant cousin paint her house so that she didn’t have to haul herself up a ladder. My karmic reward was an evening spent at Fenway, watching the Red Sox kick some Arizona ass.

They even wished me a happy birthday! Okay, not really. I actually went with a co-worker; she was supposed to bring her twin daughters for their birthday but they were throwing up. Always helpful, I agreed to take the tickets off her hands. They gave us hot dogs, pizza, Skittles, and a pennant. Plus, I saw this:

Dudes: KOSHER VENDING MACHINES! I went to a mostly Jewish university and I have never seen these. I also loved that they offered “hot nosh, 24/6″. Because of the Sabbath! Sorry, no potato knishes from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Hilarious.

Today I went over to Wheel Works and tried out a bunch of different bikes. I really liked the sleek hybrid bikes like the Specialized and the Bianchi, but the most comfortable ride was definitely the Trek 7100. So I think this weekend I will take all that Quiz Bowl money and purchase a sweet new ride. Feel free to weigh in: too girly girl?

Chris and I finally stopped drinking out of our poisonous Nalgene bottles but needed something to replace them. So we bought Sigg bottles and never looked back. Except to wonder what the heck we’re supposed to do with the old plastic bottles, since it doesn’t seem environmentally-friendly to recycle poison. Being conscientious is hard, yo.

I’ve also been tending to my garden. My second story, enclosed porch garden, that is. So far I have a mint plant that is threatening to overtake my apartment, sweet basil, chives, parsley, and three or four other things that I told myself I would remember as I was throwing away the plant markers and promptly forgot what they were. Maybe you can clue me in.

Oh, and I got my new shoes in the mail. Unfortunately, the boots were a smidge too small for me. But the second pair are cute and comfy and they are a silvery color that I didn’t already have. Plus: bows!

So what are you loving about this summer?

Oh, hey.

So guess what?

I don’t know if I mentioned this yet, but as of this afternoon I am officially on vacation. Until September. Yeah, I know, it’s pretty awesome. I probably would have talked it up even more, this whole vacation thing, but I’ve really been savoring the overwhelming feeling of relief that I am done for the academic year. This year in particular has seemed really long and difficult, one random problem after another, but the end of June brings a sweet release from having to tell one more kid to put away his damn phone because the library really isn’t the place to discuss which girls he thinks are “total dogs”.

Plus, I wouldn’t want to make you feel bad or anything about all the time I’ll be spending at the beach by talking about it at length. I mean it’s not my fault that the next two months are going to be spent in sunglasses and sunscreen, sipping iced tea and reading Sweet Valley High, right? And I would totally invite you to come hang out with me except I know how you have all those deadlines and Very Important Things going on at work that you couldn’t possibly miss!

So today will be spent getting my library ready for the hot humid months without me. They will supposedly be painting over the horrid pepto pink color in favor of a deep blue and tan; it’s hard to believe that when I come back things will look very different. Then again, if the building maintenance people don’t get in here when they say they will I’ll have to come in to kick some serious ass so I will be in here anyway. Do you think paint kills mold? And bugs? God, I hope so.

Happy summer, people. SCHOOL’S OUT!

As I lay here listening to the dulcet tones of machine gun fire and police sirens I think, how did I ever fool myself into believing that the equation {Chris plus XBox}  would equal anything but a headache for me? Earlier he actually paused the game to run to his computer in order to find out where the internet stood on his dilemma: should he sniper shoot the dirty police officer or the police officer’s drugged up brother? Originally he tried to shoot both, like he was some kind of vengeful video game god, punishing the fictionally crooked characters. But the designers of Grand Theft Auto IV scoffed at this and made him re-do the mission, this time killing only one shady character, thank you very much.

Forced to make a decision he turned to the wise minds of the interwebs and discovered that guess what? It made no difference at all which person he decided to shoot, the outcome would be the same. Which, funny, I believe that’s exactly what I said when asked my opinion. Except I believe I phrased it more like, “who the hell cares?”

Personally, I prefer games that are cute and fun to look at it. Mario and Yoshi making out in the Mushroom Forest and all that happy crappy. I’d rather be collecting Star Bits than punching prostitutes. What can I say? I’m just not cut out for a life of make-believe crime. Even watching the car chases and bank robberies makes me feel a little ill, and only partially from the motion sickness of watching second-hand on such a giant television screen. What happened to the days of Dr. Mario and Tetris? Now I have to take Dramamine just to sit in the living room.

I could never condemn Chris for loving his games. Hell, I was enthralled with Maniac Mansion more than any geeky teen girl should have been. I would play Wii tennis for days. I become completely mesmerized by the most ridiculous of computer flash games, like Sushi Go Round and Peggle. But sometimes, late at night, when I hear the screams of the innocent bystanders of Liberty City getting run over by Chris’s stolen Humvee I can’t help but wish he would pick something a little less gruesome the next time around.

After much drama yesterday, Chris decided to accompany me to see Shear Madness at the Charles Playhouse. The drama was caused when a friend bailed on me at the last minute, for understandable yet still frustrating reasons. Luckily, Chris had read the great Yelp reviews of the show that afternoon, which helped him make the decision to skip his band practice and accompany me to the show. Sometimes having a boyfriend whose life decisions are based on the internet actually does work in my favor.

Before the show we decided to stop at the Chipotle right near the T station to split a veggie burrito. Three pounds of guacamole later we started walking to the T, only to hear my name called out on the street. I turned to see my ex-best friend, her fiance, and two other friends that were lost in the ex-best friend divorce proceedings. We had a surprisingly non-awkward chat for five minutes, I learned that she was fired from her teaching job for budget reasons after three years (go, Massachusetts!) and she was moving to Philly in a week. I have long felt it would be awkward to run into her even though we live about a ten minute walk from each other but when it eventually did happen I felt more weird about how not weird the meeting was. I guess that’s what happens when you were friends with someone for twelve years.

After the chat we were already running later than we planned so we barreled down the escalators to the train at Davis and just missed it. The next one came soon after and we made it a few stops before the train got stuck at Central. This is the third time our train has gotten stuck when we have somewhere to be and I have no idea what the problem is, but if the MBTA wants people to stop driving their cars they better start stepping up their game. They might also think about fixing the speakers since we sat for 25 minutes on a slowly-filling train, listening to the teacher’s voice from Charlie Brown. They could have been telling us to evacuate the train and we would have still been sitting there until the track blew up and the roaring flames engulfed us.

We finally made it to the Theater District where we went down into the basement of the Charles Playhouse, basically underneath the floorboards of the Blue Man Group show. I have to say, when Universal Hub gives away tickets they do it up right. We were in the very front row, almost directly in the middle of the stage. Of course, the theater is tiny and intimate anyway, so that meant I could have reached out and grabbed any of the actors as they walked by. I didn’t, FYI.

They also gave us free drink vouchers and we stocked up on beers beforehand because guess what? There’s a BAR. Right there, in the tiny little basement theater. My kind of play! We noticed a couple of people next to us also talking about their blogs; during the brief intermission we chatted and I discovered that one of the women had graduated from library school with me (I didn’t know her, she’s a corporate librarian), and the other wrote posts for the Bostonist.

The play itself was pretty hilarious in a totally cornball, Bostoncentric way. Boston is a great city for in-jokes and the entire show was filled with cracks about living in Brookline versus Brighton, Boston cops with their Dunkin’ Donuts, and the many awesome sports teams. Some of the jokes were definitely cause for eye rolling, but I think that was part of its charm. The kids in the audience were cracking up, even though I’m pretty sure they missed the thinly veiled jokes about the gay barber and his supply closet. Since half of the show is based on audience participation the actors had to be on their toes for the murder mystery questions and the ad-libbing was probably even better than the scripted part of the show. Being front and center we were easy targets for the actors, who asked if I had seen what the gentleman had put in his briefcase ten minutes earlier. And because I have a memory the size of a pea I couldn’t recall, which was the cause of some ribbing from the actors. Doh.

Overall I thought the show was pretty great, even though I was a little concerned that I was laughing when my blogging cohorts were not. What can I say? I am easily amused, and not always by erudite, highbrow humor. I did feel better that Chris was cracking up right next to me, though, ’cause man, that ish was funny. And as for whodunit, do you really think I would ruin it for you like that? You’ll just have to come to Boston yourself to find out.

I recently started reading Universal Hub, which is an awesome blog about random Boston news. What I love about it is that they also write about all the surrounding ‘hoods, including mine, and not just the hoity-toity goings-on of Newbury Street and Beacon Hill. Sometimes their posts are hilarious, like the one titled, “There’s a lot to like about Philly”, where the body of the post just says “Ok, not really. Seriously.” Sometimes they are informative, like the post that alerted me to the fire that took out portions of the subway Red Line. And sometimes, they score me free tickets to otherwise expensive theater shows, including cocktail vouchers! If only I had known that this blog would bring me riches like free books and play tickets I would have started writing one back in the days when my computer still had to call up AOL to see how things were going before I could cruise the web.

So Thursday night I will be attending an actual play (I am not including the middle school production of The Hobbit, even though the set and casting were great), and that play is Shear Madness. According to their website they have shows in Boston and in D.C. I know they have been here for quite some time- at least 10 years- because I remember people going to see it in college. Somehow I never made it there, probably because I was too busy seeing Blue Man Group seventy kabillion times. Has anyone else seen it? It’s been so long since I’ve been to the theater that I am afraid I am going to hate it and I have no idea why I feel that way. Totally irrational, but there it is. Still, free is free and I intend to make the most of that comped alcoholic beverage of my choice beforehand. I’ve really hit the big time now.

The rest of this week is looking similarly booked. The entire school faculty is going to an ALB baseball game tomorrow night and we are bringing spouses, significant others, etc. This will be the first all-school event that Chris will attend since I have not asked him to any of the holiday or retirement parties. And lest you think I am a big jerk for not inviting him I assure you that I am only trying to spare him the pain, boredom, and exorbitant prices of our faculty functions. It’s no Red Sox at Fenway but baseball is always fun and there are lots of us going, so I am kind of looking forward to it.

Friday night is the long-anticipated 80’s night at a Cambridge bar. A bunch of my co-workers and I have been trying to coordinate this plan since October and apparently we are very bad at planning, because this is the first date we could come up with when we were all free. Three days before school ends. But if I get to hear Corey Hart’s Sunglasses At Night it will be so worth it. Saturday, of course, is the American Craft Brew Festival, where I am sure we will be completely tanked by 4 pm. I’m kind of glad I skipped the Scooper Bowl and saved all those extra calories for beer because there will be no room in this belly for dairy once I’m done sampling fine craft brews from around the country.

I hope your weekend is looking as awesome as mine. Anything good coming up?

Much like this time last year I have been sitting around wondering when an awesome summer job that pays tons of money is going to fall into my lap. And much like last year, the chances of that actually happening are smaller than small. This year I don’t even have a sweet gig at a gym lined up! So I have been half-heartedly searching craig’s list for jobs that require only 1/3 of a brain, which is an approximation of how much brain I have left after spending a year with middle schoolers. I’ve almost resigned myself to once again spending the summer collecting my school checks, drinking sugar-free Koolaid through a crazy straw, and not earning any extra money. Because, you know, it’s not like I ever, ever want to be able to buy a house or anything.

SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE ME A JOB!

Ahem. I do have a few things lined up for the summer that might prove lucrative and/or entertaining for you all. I just dashed off an email to the Asst. Superintendent of schools asking that she give me money to come in over the summer and take inventory of the library. If you ask me, I should make triple-time money for that job considering the heat and general nastiness of my library in the summer months. Whether or not she will agree to give me money in exchange for work remains to be seen; most likely she will email me back telling me to get my lazy ass in here for free since it’s MY library.

I also signed up to take another class for the summer that will be a week long. Last summer I took one in short stories for the middle school, which was more work than any other class I’ve taken thus far. I also noticed that everyone’s favorite class, Technology for the 21st century classroom, is being offered this summer. If they would pay me to take that again I might consider it- a week of getting paid to check blogs in the AC sounds damn near delightful in the face of my current zero prospects. Alas, I can’t take the same class twice, so instead I signed up for Movement in the Classroom. I have no idea what it is, only that a co-worker friend of mine is teaching it and she promised it will involve lots of games. I like games! I like free graduate credit! Score.

We also just RSVPd for a wedding in July, for which we will travel to the wilds of northern Jersey for one night. The wedding is for one of Chris’s roommates from college whom I have only met once, at the wedding of another friend. Memories of that first wedding are somewhat hazy (open bar), but I do recall that there are cleavage pictures out there of the soon-to-be bride and I. Also, the stories Chris has told me of the soon-to-be groom include such hits as the time he went beserk and threw the entire contents of the fridge all over their college apartment the night before they were supposed to move out, or the numerous occasions where he didn’t make it to the bathroom in time. I am just thankful that as I get older and more and more of our friends are already married off, the number of weddings we are required to attend has been decreasing exponentially.

So those are my current summer plans. I suppose if worse came to worst I could always take my Dad up on his offer to pay me to help repaint their house. Spending the summer up on scaffolding with my Dad should definitely earn me enough to buy my own place, right?