Limoncello and ice cream sandwiches on rosemary shortbread. What other happy things has life given you this week?
Tags: cocktail hour, meta, open thread, the jam thing looks like a cylon vessel
Limoncello and ice cream sandwiches on rosemary shortbread. What other happy things has life given you this week?
Tags: cocktail hour, meta, open thread, the jam thing looks like a cylon vessel
The epic custard pie failure of the contestants in the great British bake off this week. So hilarious. Best show.
I never make anything that needs to set or gel unless I’m among friends.
YES omg i loved it
I just got approval from work to move! Yay for good changes!!
… but then oh god how do I find an apartment/roommates/etc 800 miles away oh god oh god
Will you be working from home in your new city or at an office? If an office, is there anyone already there that could help you? I normally wouldn’t think to be so pushy and ask people to help me like that, but at my job we are constantly bringing people to us, often from other countries, and I always end up doing that stuff for them. Just sending links, telling them what neighborhoods are good, stuff like that. It seems like it helps…
I get 4 days off next week to spend with my mama, who is visiting from Australia! The BBs are loving their Nanna time.
Also, I wrote a thing (which will appear here soon!) involving some childhood friends of mine (and my experiences as a child visiting them) and was nervously trying to decide whether or not to tell them about it when my mama blithely announced she’d mentioned it to one of them. So I went ahead & told them about it and they are super pumped and happy about it! So that is a relief.
Made baked brie with raspberry jam for Monday’s Skins opener. The food was by far the best part of the evening. oh my god /what happened/
Also! After a few years of dabbling in knit and crochet, I have joined Ravelry, and plan to spend much of this weekend gleefully frolicking through patterns and yarn. I currently am trying to figure out what to do with three big balls of bulky red acrylic (the dog sweater I’m making used much less than I thought). Suggestions are welcome.
My bf and I are having a bonfire in his yard tonight. I am getting boozy cider and now I think I have to make a baked brie also. I sense a tipsy attempt to bake brie over the fire in my future….
Why do I not make baked brie more often? And do you think baking it will overrule the not-pasteurized issue that means pregnant ladies are supposed to stay away? Because I really really want some.
Google informs me that in order to be pasteurized, milk products have to be held at 165 F for 15 seconds. I’m not sure how hot Brie gets when baked, but you could mess around with a meat thermometer? Alternatively, the FDA says it’s OK to eat soft cheeses while pregnant if they’re made from pasteurized milk (like, it specifically says the milk was pasteurized on the label). So maybe you can find a pasteurized Brie at the store!
A quick yarn dump for what you want to get rid of would be a hat, I think. I’m anti-scarf, so ymmv, but I’ve found I can’t really do much with a bulky otherwise. ‘Tis the season for scarves (and a good excuse for picking up a couple skeins of fancy variegated for trying out entrelac if you haven’t yet), and modifying complicated patterns into a scarf-sized piece to see if you actually want to deal with the pattern for a bigger project is fun, because then if you hate it you can just give the scarf to a friend and they’ll probably like it.
As a relative n00b to ravelry as well, I say any patterns you like, add them to your library as a way to bookmark them, but if you actually decide to make the project, mos def read all comments and any mention of them on forums. Sometimes there are issues. (And if you want to make the crochet tank slippers, message me for my pattern mods/the pattern, bc I wasted at least a couple weeks on getting the sizing right and then it got worse. Not well written at all. I’m the same username on rav.)
I’M OFF TO HADRIAN’S WALL ON TUESDAY
And I just got done watching World’s End, the last in the Blood and IceCream trilogy (First two: Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) and I really enjoyed it. I like apocalyptic themes.
Ooh, ooh, now I remember what I want to do this weekend! I kind of can’t believe I haven’t seen it yet. I feel like a terrible apocalypse enthusiast. (I do have MaddAddam waiting on my kindle, but I want to have it to read on the plane on Monday, so I feel less bad about ignoring it).
THIS IS SO EXCITING CONGRATULATIONS
I AM SO READY TO GO
I HAVE UGLY AND PRACTICAL WALKING TROUSERS AND EVERYTHING
PICS.
There will be so many pictures you don’t even know. I’ll put them all on my flickr and link you when I get back.
Yay! Have fun, be safe, and go kick some stoney butt!
SMITE SOME PICTS. (Or don’t, really. I don’t think they’re around any more.)
PIcts or it didn’t happen!
I ordered myself vanilla beans* and a sample-pack of blush[er] (six colors!) this week! Who knew spending fourteen bucks on myself would fill me with giddy joy?
*turns out, Grade B beans are deliciously cheap and just fine if you don’t mind some minor cracks and dings.
wait, why would cracks and dings matter in vanilla beans? what do you do with them? … besides make vanilla extract?
You make vanilla bean ice cream!
Oh, I guess they’re also drier? The seller says “these beans will work just fine in your homemade vanilla extract, but are not ideal for baking or cooking with.”
They also describe them as much more dinged up than Grade A, but on cursory inspection, they look slightly more dinged up and not significantly drier than the beans I buy locally* for many times the cost, so I’m happy!
*I was planning to buy beans from a local kitchen store where they were ~4x the cost, but this month, the local store doubled their price. My “Buy Local!” turned into “Aw HELL NO.”
I’m in Canada with my family, and my almost-two-year-old can now say “I wuv oo so much” and sings songs and stuff. And my husband just texted to say he did not die during his ascent of the Matterhorn, so things are pretty good here. MOMMYBLOGGING OVER FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR.
noooo more mommy blogging! there hasn’t been any here! (by you anyway). also “wuv oo” *melt* is the best
Mommie blogging, Facebook, and actually being-an-aunt compose my entire access to adorable “i wuv you” content, so please don’t stop. I wuv it.
I’m good with mommyblogging being over for the rest of the year, or forever.
Make sure to record it because then in 12 years when they’re like “I HATE YOU!” you can be like “no you don’t, you love me, here I’ll show you.”
more mommy blogging. more toast.
i am eating avocado slathered on fresh sourdough. and my favorite cheese was on sale, so i bought three! small pleasures, y’all.
Avocado high-five! I’m eating avocado on homemade half-wheat bread. It is the best. (See also: last night’s honey and butter on homemade bread. NOM.)
I have a strength-exercise question! I really really loved the Week 1 Feel the Burn exercises and I’ve done them a few times. Does anyone have any recommendations for sites or apps that would recommend similar (all body-weight) exercise routines to tide me over until the next Feel the Burn? I like crafting my own circuits, but I’m having trouble building one that really works for me, especially since I’m so ignorant of what constitutes proper variety in exercise, etc.
You Are Your Own Gym is based on the idea that all you need are bodyweight exercises; the app includes different workouts at different levels and step-by-step instructions (with pictures; you can also get a free video add-on) for each exercise. The app is not free, but your local library might possibly have a copy of the book.
My students this year have been so awesome that they have restored my faith in teaching as a profession; then again, it has only been three weeks. However, I no longer want to quit and become a ___?___, which is where I was at the end of last year.
Tomorrow morning my husband and I will set off on a 5 hour (each way) road trip to see his parents and attend a wedding, and while I am looking forward to seeing everyone, I am dreading the drive, during which I imagine my pregnancy bladder will force us to stop a hundred million times and double the drive time. I’m gonna buy a ton of unhealthy snacks to make life more bearable.
HAVE ANY OF YOU EVER HAD THOSE WHITE CHEDDAR ORGANIC CHEETOS?!? So good.
Noooo, what? White cheddar! I’ve had the “less shitty but still pretty shitty for you, really” orange cheese “cheetos” from Trader Joe’s but I’ve never had a white cheddar cheeto.
Our Kroger carries them, and they are healthier and more delicious than regular Cheetos. They’re the puff kind.
They are the BOMB. But not as much as the Barbara’s Hippie Organic Kitchen ones.
How pregnant are you? I’ve found that my pregnancy bladder gets way better towards the second trimester, as my uterus migrates up, but before the baby gets big enough to start smooshing it. I did a Colorado-to-Minnesota road trip when I was about three months pregnant last time around, and it went much better than I was anticipating.
Unhealthy snacks are still a good plan, though.
Only 10 weeks, but I’m drinking more than twice as much water as usual (100 ozs just at work) and still feel dehydrated all the time, so I’m running to the restroom every 1-2 hours.
Is drinking more water and feeling dehydrated a pregnancy thing or does this mean something is wrong with me? I sort of assumed it was a normal thing.
Yeah, that’s a pretty normal pregnancy thing – we need more water when we’re pregnant because something something biology.
Once in great while, I think excessive thirst can be related to gestational diabetes, but mostly that doesn’t have any symptoms which is why we’re all tested for it. (I AM NOT A DOCTOR ask your doctor if you’re worried, etc etc.)
(I’ve been needing to refill my water bottle for the last ten minutes and this conversation is killing me and now all of a sudden I need to pee too please excuse me. I swear it does get better for a while, though – I’m almost 17 weeks and since about week 11 or 12 there’s been a noticeable change, including sleeping through the night again, for now, yay!)
Have a great trip, and stop if you need to! At the very least, you’re probably super-adept at peeing quickly by this point, no?
Ugh, yeah, I have not slept through the night in weeks. I must wake up at 3:30 on the dot and pee every night.
I felt dehydrated a lot at 10 weeks too, but drank ginger ale and cranberry juice rather than water because of wicked bad morning sickness.
I think it’s a normal thing, but check with your OB/midwife/health professional? Also, wondering if something is wrong with you during pregnancy because you’re drinking lots of water/not enough water/peeing all the time/peeing once a day/etc/etc is also completely normal.
I have made it this far without puking and have only had a little bit of morning nausea, so I hope that lasts. I see my doc next week for the next ultrasound, so I’ll check with her.
I as supposed to drink 3 litres a day by the end of when I was knocked up. You need HEAPS of water.
It is my birthday! My fiancee is taking me to dinner and a play in Niagara-on-the-Lake. 😀
She bought her wedding ensemble on Wednesday, and she looks like a gorgeous goddess. Just stunning. She’s really happy with it, which is great, because normally she takes a lot of convincing in order to believe that she looks good.
We had a lot of fun doing our engagement photos on Tuesday. Our photographer had never worked with a same-sex couple before, but he was completely respectful and he didn’t try to force one of us into the stereotypical “man’s role”.
Neither of us wears much makeup (eyeliner and mascara at most), but we’ve both had bad skin since we were pre-teens, so we both had makeup done to cover up years of hyperpigmentation and a couple of newish blemishes. I was afraid that I would end up liking it and feeling like I had to do it all the time, but surprisingly, it just made me miss my regular face, blemishes at all. If I’d known that all it took to be genuinely okay with the skin I’ve loathed since I was twelve was to wear makeup once, I’d have done it YEARS ago! She feels the exact same way.
So basically, it has been a very good week!
Happy birthday! And many good wishes for your wedding, and for your marriage — though perhaps good wishes are superfluous for such a sweet-sounding couple.
Happy happy!
I just want to say “yay!!” to everything in this comment.
So
Yay!!
Happy birthday! Have a wonderful time!
I don’t have skin problems really but I can relate to missing your regular face on the extremely rare occasion of wearing foundation makeup. It feels like a mask, or looking at a doll version of yourself.
You guys I’m leaving for Amsterdam on Monday! Other than hotel reservations, we have literally no plans. What should we do/not do?
Aside from going to all the great museums, etc., find an outdoor cafe and sit at it for a while. I once did that while movers used the giant hook at the roof peak of a neighboring house to move a piano into a third-floor flat.
Rent a bike and ride around. Take note of how clean and beautifully appointed many people’s front windows are.
Eat pannekoeken!
All great ideas! Go walk around the Jordaan and pick out all your future homes. Eat poutine.
Oh and pretty much all the museums are worth it. I particularly enjoyed the Van Gogh museum and the Anne Frank House (go toward the end of the day during the week to avoid lines. We had no wait about an hour and a half before closing on like a Wednesday or something), perhaps especially because I thought they’d both be exploitative tourist destinations, and I found them to be really not (exploitative. They are certainly tourist attractions, though!).
But yeah – maybe my favorite thing was having beers and drinking wine at outdoor cafes that were on canals – so what laurel says.
I really liked http://bazaramsterdam.nl/
Please, if you like apples, cake or pie, go eat the apple cake/pie(?) at Winkel in Jordaan. It’s a little cafe near the Noordermarkt, and damned if it isn’t the most wonderful apple pie in Amsterdam. Also, the cafes are great, (Papaneiland is near Winkel, and it’s a 17th century cafe. The beer is boring, but it’s proper ye oldey) and if you like beer, check out Arendsnest on the Herengracht. They have tons of Belgian beers and nice charcuterie and cheese boards. Have a great time!!
AHHHH TOASTIES I GOT A 10% RAISE AND IT’S MY ANNIVERSARY WITH MY BOYFRIENDDDD
sorry for all caps i am just so effing excited you don’t even KNOW
CONGRATS, YOU!
that’s awesome! I got a (mini) raise the other day too! The thing of getting such a big raise means they know they’re lucky to have you and want to keep you, which is a good sign.
A job opening came out, and this might be a terrible idea but I think I might try to convince my husband that we should both apply for jobs at a university in Ankara, Turkey. (Couples encouraged!) You get to teach in English. I’ve spent time in Istanbul and outskirts and liked it. Anybody have thoughts on living in Ankara??
I have never lived in Ankara but I have always, always wanted to go to Turkey (who even knows why?) so, ahh, that sounds so exciting!
I am having major EVERYTHING IS THE WORST feelings at the moment, but the BSG reference made me smile.
Yesterday I found on the internet a recording of my favorite band from an epic show 5 years ago, a whole hour fifteen minutes of it, and it was almost close enough to being at a show that it made things better.
And tomorrow night is a dear friend’s birthday party and I am making these cupcakes http://milk-and.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/chocolate… so maybe that will be good.
YOU just made me smile, because I totally missed that tag. Tell those feelings to take a long walk off of a short pier.
My two-and-a-half year-old daughter has become a puzzle nerd and it is super delightful. My husband bought her a big puzzle over the weekend and she’ll spend a solid twenty minutes at a time working on it. I’ve tried to teach her my late favorite aunt’s method – start with the edge pieces – but she likes to do it her own way, which is putting together the scenes and corners she knows, and then putting them together. Yesterday she only needed my help with one piece – she knew she had it in the right place, but couldn’t quite get it turned the right way. She held it up to me and said, “This piece is very tricky, Mommy. Very very tricky.”
I just want to smoosh her and then buy her all the puzzles in the land.
(She also discovered this one in a store last weekend and did it twice while I was browsing. This has led to a new round of “Mama, I have a vagina! Do you have a vagina? Does Nana have a vagina? Daddy doesn’t have a vagina,” which is cracking us up and vaguely shocking my in-laws. The other morning she was telling my husband that when she was a “teeny teeny baby” she had a “teeny teeny vagina,” in a very hilarious “baby” voice that she’s cultivated.)
Done rambling about my kid now.
I love your kid rambling! And way to go, Mini Roxythroatpunch, with the vagina talk that shocks the in-laws.
“Teeny teeny vagina,” I die.
Haha she is ADORABLE! The Bergy Bits like to discuss who has what (“I have ‘gina. [Boy Bergy Bit] no have ‘gina. [Boy Bergy Bit] have penis.”)
i just read the first three issues of the new x-men ~~crossover event~ (battle of the atom) and it’s so good, i’m so happy. i want to be one of the x-men.
might spend the rest of the night trying to work out what my mutant power would be…
My favorite person at the school I work at outside my department is leaving :((((
I might apply for her job, though? It’s in a very different area – web writing/editing – but I think it would be interesting, and I could learn very quickly how to do what they ask. But I’d be working with a lot of different departments instead of just mine, some of which are terrible. And with different people. But it’s salaried, I think. HMMM.
I read so much good stuff here this week, thank you Toast!!!!
Also, I like the new page thingy for stories. But can we maybe not have pages for comments? I like scrolling!
xoxoxo.
Or have a “single page” option, ala Slate. Or is it Salon. One of those.
I stopped by to see a favorite professor this week (upon whom I have more than a bit of a crush) and he mentioned that most people aren’t as cool as me and I blushed ridiculously hard and skipped out to my car, because clearly I’m about 8.
Also, tonight is stuffed roasted pork loin (stuffed with toasted garlic) and potatoes with bacon and onions; it’s been too hot to turn on the oven, and so I’m making up for lost time.
oh my goddddd I wish I had dinner at your house!
It turned out SO WELL. I was quite smug about it last night.
People more clever than me! What should I call my scavenger hunt team at work? We are the co-founder, the Tech-Ops and Bus-ops execs, and me (the junior HR girl), They are all older dudes. I am not. We need the bessssssssst name. And go!
The first thing that popped into my head is something I’ve used for trivia team names in the past — the Rural Jurors. (everybody has to be a 30 Rock fan though.)
Oh I don’t even know what 30 Rock is, I don’t have much hope for my team mates, haha. Thank you though!
Josie and the Pussycats
Jem and the Holograms? The Misfits (this can be a reference to the anti-Holograms band, the Danzig band, or the 1961 film)? My personal favorite (for trivia team names and such), is to scan the personal ads ad the back of the local weekly paper, and pick out the most ludicrous headline. Team Tights Forever will always be my favorite…
Obviously you need to name yourselves after an actual scavenger. Vultures? Lobsters? Basically any large predator on a bad day? There has to be a clever name with lions, tigers, and bears somewhere.
I’m almost done with my horrible emergency room rotation! I hate it so much, I can’t stand working shifts because it’s always different and I can’t ever develop a routine, plus i have to work at night randomly, which is the worst. Seriously, my body revolts and I feel sludgy for the next few days after a night shift. BUT! Only a week left, then one more 4 week rotation and I am off for 3 entire months! And I’ll spend those interviewing for residency and it will be very exciting and lovely and I’m just so happy I am almost done with this garbage can drudgery.
Also, my husband and I just spent an absurd amount of money on dog toys and a new bed for our terrier and he is just beside himself with excitement. He can’t figure out which toy he wants to play with first so he is just hiding them all under the chaise.
Your husband is hiding them, or the dog? 😉
i’m about to have some pumpkin ale (tis the season! rejoice! rejoice!) with baguette smothered in sweetened condensed milk. this is what life’s all about.
Today I found out that I passed a big test from a few weeks ago, which means I am officially qualified to teach high school in my state. I also spent all of yesterday helping teach/teaching middle school kids. They didn’t even throw rocks at me or anything. I am slowly beginning to feel confident about my abilities to be a teacher!! Yay slightly less crippling self doubt!!
I thought I would regret it, but I’m still glad as hell I ate that massive portion of chips & cheese.
This past week, I made (and ate) an entire kale, spinach, and butternut squash gratin. It was so amazing and cheesy and delicious, and I’m going to make another one tonight, and I’m very excited about that.
That sounds gorgeous. Tell us moar pls (liiike how to do it)
Basically it was this recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/11/swiss-char… buuuuuuut I made some changes:
1) I used 3/4 of a butternut squash (peeled, halved, seeded, and thinly sliced into demilunes), 3/4 of a bag of baby kale, and 3/4 of a bag of frozen spinach, and after I cooked the squash on the stove for a little while, I put the greens in with it instead of cooking them separately and I cooked them pretty thoroughly, because, you know, *kale*
2) I accidentally (“accidentally”) used a whole pint of heavy cream for the bechamel, and I wasn’t using as many pounds of veg as called for, so the bechamel-vegetables ratio was off …in a really good way
3) I totally forgot the thyme and parsley and I didn’t notice any lack
4) I used some leftover whole-fat mozzarella I had (maybe half of one of those small bricks – not the squashy white fresh mozzarella, the firmer stuff) plus the gruyere the recipe calls for; and because of the extra cheese, etc, I didn’t bother with salting the layers as I went (I did lightly salt the squash-greens mixture while it was cooking)
5) I baked it in a deep, round casserole rather than a shallow, rectangular casserole.
It was really good and I highly recommend it.
Where do they go, the advisors? Why don't they love us anymore?
One of the only reasons I finished was the fact that I was so so poor and needed to be done. It actually helped me to have a job lined up – it created a real deadline – but that might be dangerous for other people – I dunno (lots of people thought I was nuts for doing it that way, but I didn't really see why). I had short bursts of productivity between long stretches with none. The long stretches made me feel like crap about myself, which sucked. I have no good advice really other than to hang in there. Figure out what works for you and actually do it . Allow yourself to get to a point where you come to peace with the fact that your dissertation doesn't have to be the best thing you've ever written, and just GET IT DONE!
Good luck!!! YOU CAN DO IT!
Threading seems to have come back now! Thanks, Toast Glitch-Fixing Pixies!
So ads and hidden comment threads are a thing on the toast? Here is a thing you can do IF you go click the donate button first. Done that? Okay, here it is: turn off javascript. All the comments load expanded on one nice, easy to read page that doesn’t make my phone browser crash (everything makes my phone browser crash). I have two browsers on my phone one of which never has javascript on – same strategy can work on your computer. I’d rather spend my extra fifty to a hundred euros paying the toast to continue existing than buy a phone that can handle popunders without crashing.
Note to Mallory and Nicole: I hope this is okay? I solemnly swear to pay you at least 50 euros a year for this privilege. Which I did as soon as I noticed the donate button when I started reading the toast.
Also, Eds, I would strongly recommend an adblock detector like OKCupid. When they detect you’re blocking their ads they replace them with “Hey, we noticed you’re using an adblocker. Ads are how we put food on the table. Why not pay us 5$ (probably you’d ask for more? idk what your userbase is but probably less than okc) and we’ll never bother you again.” This strategy is ace, and they definitely got my 5$.
I will most definitely pay for services I care about. How much money would you get over a year for one user visiting each article you post once? I want you to end up getting more money out of me than you would if I put up with ads. Especially since popunders would really drive me away post haste :/
Tough problem, this, figuring out how to make money with content.
Yeah, aside from the annoyance and having to close a new, obnoxious ad (which lately the ones I've been getting are HUGE), the pop-up ads immediately call to mind sleaziness and cheap/free hosting (like the old angelfire/geocities stuff). Which is not what I think of when I think The Toast!
My weekend was sort of boring but in that nice way where I got a lot of writing done on Saturday and then I started Code Name Verity and then I played a lot of SWTOR and then I watched some football.
Oh, and I helped the husband bottle his latest homebrew (pumpkin spice!) so that was fun. Putting bottlecaps on beer bottles is fun.
Also, I really wish the weather would start matching the seasonal stuff that comes out, it’s still getting into the upper 80s/lower 90s here and it makes getting pumpkin spice ANYTHING feel weird and out of place. 🙁
My weekend was sort of boring but in that nice way where I got a lot of writing done on Saturday and then I started Code Name Verity and then I played a lot of SWTOR and then I watched some football.
Oh, and I helped the husband bottle his latest homebrew (pumpkin spice!) so that was fun. Putting bottlecaps on beer bottles is fun.
Also, I really wish the weather would start matching the seasonal stuff that comes out, it's still getting into the upper 80s/lower 90s here and it makes getting pumpkin spice ANYTHING feel weird and out of place. 🙁