Only a match made in heaven if somebody kills me first

When I started this blog, I mentally made a promise to myself to try not to be mean spirited or to talk about dating. This post might be a little bit of both. I live in a very nice looking condo. However, it has walls made out of tissue paper and floors made out of something else that has really good noise conduction/really bad sound insulation. My downstairs neighbor and I have a significant difference of opinion on how loud he should be. I asked nicely once, and passive aggressively twice, and he basically told me he had no intention of being considerate and neighborly and turning his music/sound system/chasing his dog around and making weird noises down. I think he plays Call of Duty on Tuesdays and Thursdays (with the headset), turns his hip hop music on at 9 am (he wants to be a "balla, shot calla, 20 inches rims on my Impala") on the weekends, and apparently my tiny request that he turn the bass down a tad has "ruined his enjoyment" of football. I contemplated multiple options of revenge and retribution. I gallop and stomp around in my heels. I pondered poisoned baked goods, but such a waste of baked goods for such a meanie. He has old lady perfume as an air freshener or incense or something and it wafts through our shared duct work and inexplicably under my kitchen sink. It makes me want to keep the heat off and wear three sweaters. And earmuffs to block out the noise. It makes me literally crazy. The other thing that makes me crazy is internet dating. Dr. Neil Clark Warren's personality algorithm matching system is all kinds of broken. Because I got matched up with my downstairs neighbor. True story.

Walking in a winter wonder...cake

I don't often think about my baking in food blogging terms, with words like luscious swoops of snowy whipped cream that make you think of the magic of Christmas, and the time of year when you believe that every wish you ever make can come true as long as there's a light snow falling and the twinkles of Christmas lights on a woodsy fir tree... and words along those lines. But I baked this cake this weekend for a holiday party and that is exactly what I thought. It is like a Christmas candy land cake. And I totally forgot to have a bite of it at the party. I did check in on it at one point to see how it was doing (i.e., see whether people were gobbling it up and providing me with validation) and the top two layers had sort of slid off the bottom two layers (whipped cream frosting does not provide a lot of structural support). I believe my reading public will be proud to know that instead of trying to prop the cake back up again and looking like a crazy person, I just went and had another glass of wine.

The recipe: Devil's Food Cake with Peppermint Frosting
The only thing I did differently was to ditch the marshmallow frosting, because it is a colossal pain, and doubled the white chocolate cream frosting instead. I don't regret that change for a minute. And my arms thank me for not hand whisking egg whites for 15 minutes.

Turkey, traffic, and textiles

Last Thanksgiving, I drove from Philly into NYC via the Lincoln Tunnel, picked up my sister on the Upper West Side, drove back through the Lincoln Tunnel, and we continued on our way to Ohio. Lots of traffic, but I don't mind the Lincoln Tunnel, despite the lack of organization to the merge. I foolishly believed that upon moving to Ohio and leaving behind the most congested portion of the 95 corridor, my Thanksgiving travel would be a breeze. The drive between Cincinnati and Cleveland looks really innocuous; bucolic farmland, Columbus to break things up in the middle, outlet malls, truck stop after truck stop after truck stop, flat and generally pretty boring. And totally unpredictably crazy, stop-and-go, Lincoln Tunnelish traffic.

I had the best intentions of blogging Thanksgiving dinner, which obviously did not pan out because I spent half the day chopping root vegetables. The essence:
Successful turkey! Not dry, cooked all of the way through, tasted good. Science and methodical recipe research do pay off.
We made lamb tongues, a popular Syrian dish around the holidays. They don't taste like chicken.
My favorite pie crust recipe
I made French macarons that looked pretty and tasted better, despite all the drama on the blogs that they are très impossible!
I bought a mandoline (the slicer, not the instrument) and attractively and creatively sliced an apple, since we were all out of root vegetables.
I knitted 2 1/2 hats.

I was and am thankful for many people and things this Thanksgiving holiday, except for the rain and traffic that prevented me from getting back to Cincinnati in time to have knitted 3 hats.

How the "smoky evening eye" plays out at Costco

So I'm going to totally come clean on why I have not been blogging: my recent attendance at an ethics CE course on social networking, etc. Sometimes I think it would cause me much less anxiety in multiple realms of my life if I had just gone the bakery route. They don't have confusing and vague guidelines about what is actually my private versus professional life. I really like blogging. It makes me sad that I'm not sure what the best way is to continue to do it. I'm not giving up yet, just pondering.

In other news: I had a birthday, which I did not blog about because for some reason, for the first time in my life, I felt kind of bummed out to be growing older. And this is definitely not a sad sack blog. I did, however, treat myself to some makeup and a trip to Costco on my birthday. Costco is really close to the mall and every gal likes to look pretty when doing warehouse shopping. I seem to have developed seasonal allergies during my stint in Philadelphia, so I decided a jaunt to my favorite store to buy Claritin D in bulk was in order. Some of you may see where this is going. I have said before that I have a what feels like a freakish amount of education and am sometimes sadly lacking in common sense. They don't sell things that can make meth in bulk. Even at Costco. Duh. I made do with some bottled water (not Aquafina, I'm so sorry) and a giant box of instant oatmeal. 34 promises to be a good year, filled with plenty of hot cereal, congested sinuses, and enough bottled water to get me to 35.

The first date that almost happened

Yesterday, after a delicious, healthy, farm-raised, organic brunch with my friend, I decided to go with her to look at the gym she was joining. This was after she'd asked if I belonged to a gym, and I responded with wild suspicion and paranoia that she had overheard conversations I had with my sister about how I should join a gym. Let me just get this out there: I hate exercise. I don't get a runner's high. I don't like competing with myself on the treadmill. I am not driven by the pure, unadulterated joy of endorphins, and I don't believe everyone can run a marathon. I mean if you're training for a marathon, I believe you can do it, just not that I can or should. This might be because I am not from an intensely athletic family and was not raised to enjoy the spirit of competition... It might be because I'm kind of nerdy, and did better at the brain-based competitions like math contests than I did at the sports-based competitions. I don't know. It might be just that I'm lazy and I don't like being sweaty. Anyway, so I went to this gym with my friend, and it's pretty cheap. And I need a gym, you know, so I can go work out and be healthy and not be lazy. So I toured the gym, which had a lady's workout area for "religious reasons or something," said the salesman. Hmm okay. And a fancy free weight room, with weights up to 125. The five pound ones make my arms quake in terror. The selling point for me was the cinema workout room: movie on the big screen, lots of cardio machines, and it's too dark for me to see the other people running faster and/or looking more coordinated than me. I have often compared my running gait to a wounded water buffalo so the fewer people that can see that the better. So then all of a sudden we're sitting at the tables being presented with price packages; $59.99 with the "all you can tan" option. Perfect! Or $24.99 for the bare bones membership... sounds good to me; not so expensive that I can't convince myself it's okay to skip a day here and there. So I'm all ready to say, great, I'll think about it (i.e., stall another two months) and it happened so fast and it was a deal that was only occurring that day and if I didn't do that it was going to be one million dollars a month and so here, sign here, on the dotted line. I read the fine print of the contract: I am in violation of gym rules if I (a) have body odor or (b) do anabolic steroids. Good to know. So then they try to schedule me for a personal trainer consultation. At this point I'm so far outside of my comfort zone. I haven't gotten to ruminate on the gym membership at all, I just impetuously signed up. And now I have to meet a personal trainer?? I took his card and promised I'd call... in a month, when I worked through my motivational issues and decided the gym would be a good place to meet a man friend (I mean get in really good shape so I can lead a long and healthy life). And so now it's today, and there were four missed calls on my phone from an unknown number. So I answer it, finally, and it's the personal trainer from the gym. He says, "Oh, hi, I'm just giving you a call to see if you want to schedule your initial consultation." I say, "Umm, sure. Let me just check my very important and busy schedule." He says, "I am here tonight. What time do you want to come in?" Stop! Too fast! Slow down buddy! I get so flustered and randomly pick 7 pm. He tells me, ok, make sure you don't eat for an hour before and we'll do your orientation session. Which sounds suspiciously like a trick. I'm not ready to work out. Don't these people understand joining their crazy gym was a big step?? I 100% bailed out on my personal training session tonight. But I at least called to cancel, and told him I got stuck at work which was a big fat lie. But I totally promise I will consider going to the gym tomorrow. Maybe.

Too bad Siri can't paint

Do I blog about the my new iPhone, with which I am obsessed or my recent home improvement projects, which have left me exhausted? Perhaps a bit of both. First, Siri is all she was promised to be. It fascinates me that people hate on Apple so much, and were so overwrought there was no major design change with this new phone. Our expectations as a society are totally outrageous - first world problems, says the girl who had her loving brother pre-order the phone at 3 in the morning last Friday so I could get the phone with a minimum of standing around in the Apple store, and bought a Kate Spate case for it to boot. I've really been talking it up to people, which I think is probably making me sound like a huge dork. An example: I asked Siri to "wake me up at 8.30 tomorrow" and she set the alarm for 8.30. I said "thank you," and she said, "your wish is my command." Indeed it is. Just please don't come alive in the middle of the night and terminate me.

On the home improvement front, I spent the last two weekends doing some painting. My bedroom put me over the edge. On or about the 415th square foot of wall I sat down on the floor and internally began to sob. About 200 square feet earlier, I'd broken the roller and had to tape it back together again, which caused me to have an awkward arm motion while painting. Some people might have gone to the hardware store to buy another roller, but I was afraid I would just give up if I left. As I was sitting on the floor, considering whether I could live with a 4 foot square area of white in the midst of a yellow (I know! Brave!) wall, I got some sort of superhuman strength and finished it up. Two bathrooms, a living room, and kitchen to go! Or perhaps I'll just leave them white with their color sample squares for some pizazz.

My room before (that purple square on the back wall is a color that didn't make the cut because I don't like to sleep in a tomb)

My room after (look at all that wall space!)
Benjamin Moore Ylang Ylang

Guest after
Benjamin Moore Limesickle

It's fall because...

I made pumpkin chocolate chip bread. That is more predictive than equinoxes and weather as far as I'm concerned. I don't know why fall is so pumpkiny tasting. I was going to type I don't know why pumpkin is so fall-y tasting but my typing produced the first version instead. Oh the wonders of the subconscious. The leaves are changing here in southern Ohio, and the weather has vacillated between freezing cold, quite pleasant, and hotter than is to be expected in October. I'm not complaining... winter is around the corner, which tastes peppermint-y, in case anyone is wondering.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
3 cups white sugar
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
4 eggs
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
* You could probably also use 2 tbls pumpkin pie spice instead of cinnamon and nutmeg)*
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips (or regular sized but the minis disperse better in the batter).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease three 9x5 inch loaf pans. In a large bowl, combine sugar, pumpkin, oil, water, and eggs. Beat until smooth. Blend in flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts. Fill pans 2/3 full. Bake for about 1 hour, or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Cool on wire racks before removing from pans.

For me, the recipe makes 2 big loaves + 12 mini muffins. You can always throw extra batter (or all the batter) in muffin tins. My one piece of advice: do not overfill loaf pans; they take forever to cook, the outside gets burned and the inside is uncooked. Don't fill more than 2/3 full. Mini muffins took about 18 minutes. The loaves take about an hour.