Starting in the Basement

This post centers around Peeps, peep shows and sleeping cats.

Let’s start with Peeps.  I never knew anything about Peeps when I was growing up except that my mom would make a horrified “eww” noise whenever she saw them.  It’s possible my dad had some hidden in his car, because that’s where he hid his “eww” inducing candy, but I had never had one.  I thought maybe they were the same as circus peanuts, which should not even be considered a candy.  In my humble opinion.  

Then I went to college.  You learn a lot of things in college.  I learned about peeps.  One evening, around Easter, my roommate Betsy and I heard a knock on the door.  We opened it up and there was a Peep sitting there.  Squished into the floor looking up at us.  Nobody else around.  Here’s a reenactment.

Soon after I ate my first peep.  It may have been that one of the floor, I don’t remember.  But I remember thinking, “these aren’t gross at all!  Why have I been avoiding their marshmallow goodness?”  They are definitely not my favorite candy, by far, but if there is one sitting around I am happy to put it out of its misery.  

These yellow guys were “sitting” around at Walgreens yesterday so I had to take them home with me. 

Now onto the Peep Show.  This story is probably funnier in French but I’ll give it a try.  My sister-in-law, Vanda, is an actress in France and is married to a writer, Christian.  Christian wrote a book called Peep Show about a Hungarian serial killer Bela Kiss who killed 24 women  and then tried to pickle them in alcohol.  So when the authorities found the women they were all naked in these glass jars, like a peep show.  

Vanda and Christian are putting on a show at the theater they work at which included a dramatic reading of Peep Show. For the show they had to purchase some type of insurance.  Vanda got a phone call last week saying that she had been denied for the insurance because “they don’t fund these types of show.”  Vanda politely explained that that shouldn’t be happening because she has a friend who was insured for the same type of show.  The insurance woman sounded very surprised and asks the name of her friend.  Vanda is becoming very confused and demands answers. Finally the woman on the line says something along the lines of “um, I’m really sorry, but, um, we don’t fund Peep shows.”  Vanda is suddenly struck with understanding that this woman thinks she is putting on a nudie show!  After much laughter, she explains what the show is really about and she gets the insurance.  

Finally, here’s a picture of Loki deeply sleeping with our new Ikea pillows. 

I never win these giveaways but maybe you will be luckier than me.  

Pure Bar Giveaway

I bought some of the Trader Joe’s Lemon Curd a while back and have been searching and searching for a recipe to use with it.  It was not as easy as I thought it would be but I finally found something.  Lemon Cloud Tart with Strawberry Compote.  Even the name sounds divine.  The crust is a hazelnut crust while the filling is whipped cream mixed with creme fraiche and lemon curd.  Oh…My…God.  I know creme fraiche can be hard to find and sometimes recipes suggest substituting sour cream, but I think the creme fraiche really makes this recipe.  If you do use sour cream and decide to use the low fat kind, I think you will be making a huge mistake.  It just isn’t worth it.

The original recipe calls to make your own lemon curd, but I just substituted the Trader Joe’s lemon curd.  Also, the crust and I got into a huge, ugly fight which I think was caused by me not pureeing the hazelnuts fine enough.  I eventually had to just press the dough into the pan because I couldn’t get it to roll out without cracking, but it all worked out.  I will definitely be making this again so we’ll see if I can get it to work better by pureeing the hazelnuts finer.  If only I had a food processor…

Oh, and did I mention the bowl/beater licking possibilities?  Read the recipe and then think about it.  Amazing.

Hazelnut crust

• 1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon (packed) finely grated lemon peel
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Lemon crème fraîche

• 3/4 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
• 3/4 cup crème fraîche
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel

Grand Marnier Strawberry Compote

• 4 pints strawberries, stems removed and quartered
• 1/2 cup Grand Mariner (I used Cointreau)
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• Pinch (1/16 teaspoon) kosher salt

For crust:
Finely grind hazelnuts in processor. Using electric mixer, beat butter, powdered sugar, and lemon peel in medium bowl until well blended. Add yolk and beat until smooth. Beat in hazelnuts, then flour, and salt. Gather dough into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap in plastic and chill 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Roll dough out on floured surface to 12-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom; press crust onto bottom and up sides of pan; trim excess dough overhang. Chill 20 minutes. Bake crust until golden brown and cooked through, pressing with fork if c rust bubbles, about 25 minutes. Cool crust in pan on rack. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and store at room temperature.)

For lemon crème fraîche:
Using electric mixer, beat whipping cream, crème fraîche, 3 tablespoons sugar, and lemon peel in large bowl until stiff peaks form.

Spoon half of lemon curd and half of lemon crème fraîche into another large bowl. Using small rubber spatula, gently fold curd and lemon crème fraîche together, creating marble effect and being careful not to overmix to retain marbling. Spoon marbled mixture in dollops into cooled crust. Using tip of knife or small rubber spatula, swirl and pull mixture upwards in peaks. Repeat with remaining curd and crème fraîche mixture. Refrigerate tart at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.

Remove pan sides. Place tart on platter. Serve with strawberry compote.

Slip sheeting may have ended.  It’s possible we might get to work on Monday but that would probably be it.  Right now I feel motivated to find new jobs, do some volunteer work, do something.  I just really really hope this was the kick I needed to get things going.  If not, I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

I had a dream last night that Michael Phelps was slip sheeting with us.  I haven’t really thought about Michael Phelps much lately but then today my fellow slip sheeters started talking about Michael Phelps.  Does that mean I’m psychic?  I’m pretty sure it does.

Although it has been and will be brief, working has really shaken up my life.  I can no longer work out 2 hours a day, bake 4 hours a day, and eat and catch up on all my reality TV for the remainder of the day.  I mean, seriously, what if somebody actually wanted to become a millionaire, and then became a millionaire and I missed it?  Whoa, life has changed.  

Frenchie is also upset about the changes and wanders around the kitchen muttering, “where are the cookies?”  Then he gives me a pouty face and I throw a cookie sheet at him and tell him to learn how to make his own damn cookies.  I love working! 

All I want to do when I come home is sit on the couch, even though I know I should have plenty of time and energy to do all the things I did before, even if I don’t do them for as long.  Other people work all day, make it to the gym, cook dinner, blog and keep up with American Idol.  How do they do it??  

How do you do it?

Unfortunately I have not been very good about the yoga this week. Working, commuting and not sleeping well have all led to my ass being very lazy when I get home. I basically only did yoga Monday, Wednesday and today. But, today while I did the MTV Power Yoga I did notice that some of the poses are already getting easier. My low plank feels stronger and my shoulders feel a little looser than they did two weeks ago!

I hope this week I can do a better job! After 9 hours of slip sheeting, a little bit of yoga would probably be good for me.

I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to tell this story well enough to portray how funny/ridiculous yesterday was, but I’ll give it a shot.  

So what we are doing is putting document break sheets between, well, documents, so they can all be scanned and sent to England for discovery production for a hugemongous case.  The document break sheets are yellow but there are also green and blue sheets for special occasions that are way too boring and meaningless to go into.  Oh yeah, and salmon sheets that every box or folder gets but some people call them orange and some people call them pink.  After about 6 hours of doing this I heard somebody referring to pink sheets and thought I had missed something huge. 

Yesterday, after sitting around for a couple hours because they weren’t supplying us with enough yellow sheets, we got word that things were going to change and there would be a meeting at 2 to learn the new system.  Whoa.  Exciting.  

At the meeting, the head paralegal on this project tells us that now yellow=blue, blue=green, and green=yellow.  I…am…not…kidding.  This caused a huge amount of commotion because now everybody was confused.  What do we do if we encounter a 3-ring binder now?  Does it get a yellow, a blue, a green.  Ahhh!!  The world is ending.  And then there were the salmon sheets.  ”Are the salmon sheets still the salmon sheets?”  ”Wait!  What about the salmon sheets?”  OMG!  Luckily I have found a kindred spirit next to me and we were cracking up the whole time, like, is this meeting really happening?  

It seems that today everything has calmed down though so it was much more boring.  We had a brief discussion about maybe turning on some music but it was decided that might ruffle too many feathers.  Ugghhh.

of paper. What were thinking of dirty bird?

I got a call yesterday around 3:30 that there was a job available starting this morning doing something called slip sheeting. Slip sheeting is a fancy name for putting yellow, blue or green pieces of paper between other pieces of paper. And they need attorneys to do this. But of course I was thrilled! Finally, a reason to leave the house. So I showed up this morning at 9am to a VERY large firm in Boston in my suit. There were 14 other young attorneys waiting in the lobby staring into space. Nobody said a word. I tried to make conversation with the woman next to me and failed miserably. The only person that even made eye contact was the douchebag looking dude who was unfortunately the only other person wearing a suit. I wonder what that says about me?
We all sat in silence for 20 minutes until we were fetched, split up and set to work on our slip sheeting.
People warmed up a little bit as the day wore on, but it was pretty much a quiet room. Hopefully tomorrow will be more lively because I think putting papers between other papers might start to get a little boring. Not sure, but maybe.
Luckily and unluckily, the job is only 2 weeks. I can do anything for 2 weeks!
Ok, time to do my yoga.

I have been reading (slowly) a book called Ahab’s Wife: Or, The Star-gazer: A Novel (P.S.) by Sena Jeter Naslund.  It is the fictional story of the wife of Captain Ahab from Moby Dick.  OK, I’ve never actually read Moby Dick but I heard this book was good so I picked it up at the library.  It’s very long, and I’m only halfway through but it’s very good so far.  The book talks a lot about lighthouses and Nantucket so I thought doing a winter Nantucket trip would be the perfect weekend getaway for Frenchie and I.  Unfortunately, it turns out going to Nantucket for one night is not that easy so I stuck with the lighthouse theme and picked Portland, Maine.  

I have heard great things about “the other” Portland but have always felt a little animosity for it being confused with my Portland, especially on this coast.  I got a room at a B&B in the city called Morrell Mansion.  We really liked it except for a little incident with the continental breakfast.  Frenchie went to slather on a pat of butter on his bagel, took one bite and recoiled.  The butter had gone bad.  The smell was horrible (I didn’t taste) so he tried to tell the innkeeper but he didn’t seem to get it, or even check out the situation.  If a Frenchman tells you there is something wrong with your butter you listen!  Geez.  Hopefully nobody else wanted butter!  

The town of Portland is super cute, with lots of little shops and restaurants.  There was also a couple pirates on the street.  Ok, maybe they were just homeless, drunk fishermen, but I swear one of the them yelled “Arrrr” as we walked by.  I think that is how pirates ask for money.  Or booze.  

It was restaurant week in Portland so we ended up not going to the two restaurants recommended to us (sorry B!) but instead to a restaurant very close to our B&B called Local 188.  This place was SOOO good!  The best meal I have had in a really long time.  We started with some funky cocktails.  Frenchie’s was called The Corpse Reviver and included absynthe and mine was called a Moscow Mule and was vodka with ginger beer.  I am totally obsessed with ginger beer so any cocktail with ginger beer involved I have to order.

We both wanted seafood so I ordered “Seared Dayboat Scallops w/ house cured pork over white bean puree” and a salad with “Serrano Ham, Local Goat Cheese & Toasted Walnuts w/ Apple Saffron Dressing.”  The scallops were amazing.  Although this is probably true with most fish, the less scallops travel the better they seem to taste and I think these came from off the coast of Maine.  We had local scallops in Savannah Georgia that were one of the best things I have ever eaten.  The salad was good but had one little problem.  I thought the dressing could have used more tang, it was a little boring.  

Frenchie ordered the seafood paella with the yummiest mussels ever!  These were Maine mussels as well and oh..my…gosh!  They didn’t even taste like the mussels you usually get!  I’m not sure how to explain them, but so good.  The rice in the paella was a little too flavorless but the yummy, fresh seafood made up for that.  

Finally, we had dessert.  While we were waiting for our table I saw about a million tres leche cakes go by and was basically just eating dinner to get to that cake.  It did not disappoint.  Frenchie wouldn’t let me take a picture of it but it was beautifully presented and tasted wonderful.  In addition to the food, the atmosphere and the staff were all really nice.  

We also saw some lighthouses and had a picnic at the beach while we were there.  Here are some picture highlights.  Hope you all had a great weekend!

I have been doing really well with the yoga challenge.  I have only missed one day, which was yesterday because we were in Portland, Maine and then I had to make a lasagna.  Very busy.  Highlights of last weeks yoga

• MTV Power Yoga DVD from Netflix.  A pretty great workout and the people on the video are not annoying.  The only problem was a very long pose involving sitting on your leg with bent knee.  My right knee hasn’t stopped horrible painful popping since.  Next time I will skip that one.
• “Athletic Yoga” Friday night at the gym.  I have always gone to the bootcamp class before this yoga class and the yogis would always scoff and sneer at us to get our sweaty butts out of the room so they could get their zen on.  However, I was pleasantly surprised that people were nice.  I thought “Athletic Yoga” would be more of a flow class but it wasn’t.  It was a little tougher than the normal yoga classes at the gym but it definitely didn’t get my heart rate up.  Another problem with the old lady gym.  
• A gentle hatha yoga 20 minute session from yogadownloads.com.  Since I am an obsessive multi tasker, I did this while watching the news.  You definitely have to know yoga already to do these free downloads because they are just audio, no video.  Carrots ‘N’ Cake has a discount code for this website for the month of March.  

Please post your yoga suggestions for me!  I’m already sensing boredom with my current options.