I'm a bit too affected by certain TV shows.

My pasta carbonara was tasty. Yay!

The next night's spaghetti squash with ground turkey and tomato sauce was also tasty. Huzzah!

The next night's burritos were predictably tasty. Cheers!

The next night, both parents were out of the picture (they traveled away for a 21st anniversary getaway) so I made cauliflower soup with bacon. It was tasty. Whee!

And tonight was dumplings again. Tasty tasty. Wahoo!

I am feeling rather wildly successful with what I have chosen to cook these days. So, in this mood, I am going to tackle a fear: gelatin. I am making panna cotta tomorrow. Just watch. I even bought little ramekins at Goodwill today to mold it. And I'll make a little blueberry sauce to go with it. I anticipate tastiness ahead.

Oh yeah! My sister and I went shopping today! Super fun. I got some shirts, a scarf, a bag (I really needed one that wasn't ripped canvas from Hot Topic), a $2 wiggly butterfly ring, which got me a compliment and then got completely bent out of shape, the aforementioned ramekins, and a pretty teacup to go with my recently received Moste Excellent Elephant Teapot, Whom I Have Named Elwood.

The rest of my money goes to Italy, though. Honest. Well, that and bills.

On Wednesday, a neighbor of ours called me and asked if I could watch/tutor/supervise her kid in the mornings. He's homeschooled like I was, and she just wanted me to supervise his scholarly pursuits so that she could do other things in that time. I of course said YES I WILL and so Thursday and Friday mornings were spent watching Theo, an adorable and endearing and intelligent youth. Also they have chickens, so I get to collect eggs, which is way fun. I need some chickens of my own, clearly. And I make monies, which is how I was able to go shopping this weekend.

Also on Wednesday (and a bit on Thursday), I made my doctors' appointments. I was informed that my chest pains are caused by inflamed cartilage between my ribs (which I sort of knew because that's what my dad told me his were), that my boob-mole removal scar had turned keloid on me, that I'm pretty healthy, that I have a funky mole on my side that needs to get gone, and that my periodic barfy thing is probably a GASTRIC MIGRAINE, and did you even know those existed? I totally didn't. But it makes sense; my sister and my mother both get regular migraines. Why shouldn't I get the vomitous one?

Anyhow, tomorrow I go to church, read at church, and make macarons and panna cotta, because Sunday is the day I am allowed to break the Lenten fast and I intend to make the most of my free reign. Refined sugar, into mah belly!

Saturday's dinner was a delicious batch of meat pies. Oh, I'm so thrilled to have found the perfect pastry crust recipe. It really just makes anything fantastic. And I'm so much more likely to make fancy pastry desserts now that I know I can churn out a reliably phenomenal crust every time.

So. We made meat pies with lamb, they were tasty, people fought over the leftovers. The end!

The next night I made Indian saffron-cardamom rice pudding (kheer) which was also tasty but unloved by my brother, unadventurous youth that he is.

Sunday I called lots of people. I re-contacted my three restaurants, getting a definitive "We're not hiring" from Petros, which, great, now I don't have to think about them anymore, and they were my last choice, and leaving direct messages for the head chefs at the other two, which is farther than I've gotten before. So yay progress! And my mother talked to her friend CT who runs her favorite wine bar and is close with the head chef at Patrick's Side Street Cafe, arguably the best restaurant in town, and he said that working for Patrick would probably be just fine, despite his bipolar and unpredictable nature around his customers. Apparently he's a good guy to work for, and I wouldn't have any trouble getting a recommendation from him or anything, which is what my mom was worried about. He's also definitely the most qualified chef; he trained at the CIA, and I think he was an instructor or a demonstration chef there for a spell. So I'll be dropping off my resume over his soon. And hoping.

I also called my credit card company, because despite following the proper official channels for an address change, I have not received my bill for this month, which is infuriating. I would just like to pay it and be done! But when I called, they hadn't changed my address. So I tried to change the address with the Visa company, but they apparently couldn't take the information from me over the phone; it had to be sent to them from my bank. I changed my address at the Oberlin branch of the Ohio Educational Credit Union, but I needed to have the main office send the info to the Visa company. Which, apparently, they did, after I called and explained. So I'm going to call the Visa company soon to make sure they have the right info and are sending me my bill before it's due sometime in the next week. Pfft. This being a financially responsible adult thing is more trouble than it's worth.

Dinner last night was a fantastic rosemary-clementine roast chicken with root mash and salad. And then I craved dessert but we had nothing (and I'm still on that refined sugar fast) so I used some puff pastry sheets I found in the freezer and made some sort of puff pastry cake layered with a blueberry-maple compote. I also added a spoonful of unsweetened marmalade to the blueberry stuff, which made it so zingy and wonderful. I ate the last chunk for breakfast this morning, albeit sans whipped cream.

Dinner tonight: probably pasta carbonara. We've got all the ingredients, and it's perpetually tasty. I might throw some of the leftover chicken in there too. If I REALLY feel like making it difficult, I'll make my own pasta.

Probably not, though.

Anything tastes good on a pizza as long as it's Italian.

So my stash of frozen dumplings lasted a day. Everyone else liked them as much as I did, it seems.

Dinners!
Tuesday: French onion soup, made from the stuffed onions' previous innards. Very tasty, quite rich.
Wednesday: broccoli galettes! One was broccoli with peanut sauce, one was broccoli with balsamic vinegar and marsala wine.
Thursday: Family burrito night. I chose to flout tradition and had a quesadilla.
Friday: Pizzas! Two delicious pizzas, one Santa Margarita pizza (Santa Margherita? How IS that spelled?) and one eggplant, mushroom, tomato, basil, and sausage pizza. Oh, that one was good. The eggplant and mushroom were browned in olive oil and simmered in marsala wine before being added to the pizza, and then I sprinkled it with a couple dashes of balsamic vinegar and some Herbes de Provence and it was so tasty. I might have liked it better without the sausage, but we needed at least one pizza with protein.

I have also called many many places and set up approximately a zillion doctors' and dentist's appointments, for me and my mother, which I shall be attending over the next couple of weeks so they can tell me what's wrong with my stomach that makes me barf sometimes, whether I have any cancerous or pre-cancerous blemishes, what I can do about the pain in my chest cartilage, whether I have cavities or not, and how my mole removal scars are doing. I also got a little wart freezy thing for the wart I discovered on my foot between my toes. Ig. The last time I had a plantar's wart, it was painful, and I went to a podiatrist to get it cut out, and then I had a hole in the bottom of my foot that hurt, and I was on crutches. And then it GREW BACK, and so I used a $20 drugstore freezy kit as a last-ditch effort and it worked. So this time I'm skipping the expensive Dr. Sadist and going straight to the freeze-in-a-tube.

I mean, they have eggs in China, right?

Yesterday's dinner was super tasty! I made Sturdy's lamb-stuffed onions, and they were a wild success! We have a lot of ground lamb in the freezer, so I anticipate experimenting extensively now that I have so much to work with.

Today was mostly an errands day. I transferred my prescription for birth control back to our local pharmacy, made grocery lists, wrote the first draft of an angry letter to the website that sold me my boots because the sole BROKE after only a MONTH AND A HALF of periodic wearing. RRRRRG. The thing is, I really like the shoes! I don't want my money back, I just want my boots not to be broken. So I'm going to get them resoled or something. I guess, best-case-scenario, the company makes grandiose apologies and gives me either a new pair of the boots or the money for the resoling. So that's what I'm hoping for.

Tonight's dinner: a FANTASTIC batch of made-up potstickers/gyoza/vaguely Asian pork dumplings! Oh god. They were utterly delicious. And I'm super proud because I made the little wonton wrappers myself too, instead of buying them. I just futzed around with a homemade pasta recipe, figuring there weren't any ingredients in it that they didn't have in China, so somebody Chinese had probably made it before. It was perfect, yay me! It rolled out just right AND I ran out of little wrappers at the exact time I ran out of meat filling! We now have a tidy little stash of frozen potstickers just waiting to be my midnight snack. Mmm.

I have put together a possible appetizer menu for my sister's photography event, which will be held some weeks hence in the middle of the day. This is the second draft of the menu, drawn up in collaboration with my sister.

savory:
sundried tomato stuffed mushrooms
maybe bruschetta
curried carrot cream cheese spread, and crackers
bacon-wrapped dates
a cheese plate with tasty local cheeses, nuts, apple slices, and grapes.
and either sausage rolls OR Indian lamb meatballs with herbed yogurt

sweet:
double chocolate world peace cookies
lime meltaway shortbread bites
macarons
cheesecake squares
(macarons and cheesecake will be raspberry and coffee flavored, but not sure which will be which)

And the best punch ever, made from ginger ale, cranberry juice, and pineapple juice, with scoops of sherbet floating in it. Delicious.

I think about food too much. It's all I do these days.

I immaturely want to make macarons in the shape of macaroni.

Thursday, the day of macarons. The day I conquered one of my baking fears (next up: gelatin!).

I decided to make tiramisu flavoured macarons, because they didn't require me to go get any special ingredients to fill them with. I would have had to find chocolate for a ganache for any other flavoured filling, but I had mascarpone on hand, so I just blended it with a touch of Kahlua and some chocolate sauce to make a tiramisu filling. I blended a little coffee into the almond and powdered sugar mixture, and that also gave it a hint of a flavor. All over, they were very light, subtly flavored but well-balanced. I'm happy with the way they turned out.

Technically, they worked really well! I have so much more confidence now! I did make them a little too big for my tastes, but they spread more than I expected. I think they were also a touch undercooked; while the outside was shatteringly crisp, the inside was just a little too soft, I think. But I neither over- nor under-mixed, and they puffed up into perfect little domes, complete with macaron feet! The sign of truly great macarons! I was so happy when I pulled them out of the oven and saw each one ringed with that perfect little ridge.

Speaking of feet, I went shoe shopping on Friday! I had some money from Wednesday's babysitting, and while I SHOULD be saving up for this summer's Italy trip, I decided I needed some shoes that actually worked. The only shoes I brought home with me - the only ones I wear on a regular basis - were my falling-apart flip-flops, my black leather oxford-style heels, my brown leather boots, and my running shoes. Wearing running shoes as everyday wear is bad for them; they wear down too fast. My flip-flops can't be worn outside anymore; my heels are obviously not always practical; and my brown leather boots, as much as I love them and as much as I paid for them, got a split in the sole! On both sides! I plan to write an angry letter to Zappos. I wore them not even every day for two months, and they soles have split up the leather! Unfair. And liable to be damaging.

Point is, I needed shoes, so I went out looking for a nice pair of flat coppery sandals, something I've been idly browsing for for the past year or so. I found a few contenders, but fell in love with a pair at the Solvang Shoe Store (Danish pride!). The store tends to carry overly-expensive and kind of unattractive clunkier shoes, but I lucked out in finding a cute pair of gladiator-esque sandals with an astonishingly high-quality sole. The sole made all the difference, after all the other pairs of flat sandals with no support that I'd looked at. I put the shoes on hold and left, but returned two hours later because I decided I was ridiculous to imagine that I'd find a better pair and I should just fork over the $80 for a pair of shoes I'd wear forever. So I did. And I love them. And they're worth it.

Friday's dinner was turkey loaf and brussels sprouts. It was going to be Blair's bean stew, but I told this to my mom and she went OH NO I HAD BEANS FOR LUNCH so it became turkey loaf, by virtue of turkey being the only other thing thawed. I love my made-up turkey loaf recipe, and it went over very well. I made a little caramelized apple and honeyed mascarpone thing for dessert. No refined sugar, since I gave that up for Lent.

Today was another cooking day. My sister is getting our church to do an exhibition of her photography work so she can raise funds for some ambassadorship to the British Isles that she wants to do this summer, and I'm apparently doing the finger food. So today I experimented with mayo-free Thai chili deviled eggs and a curried carrot cream cheese spread with raisins. Both were super good. I foisted them off on my mom for her lunch (she forgot to bring lunch to work) but I wasn't sure if she'd like them so I made her some balsamic-braised brussels sprouts with bacon, because I know she likes that. Mere hours later, I was back in the kitchen cooking dinner for the family: Blair's Tuscan white bean stew! The bean stew was great; nobody disliked it, and there were many leftovers.

I think I spend too much time thinking about kitchens.

So Monday was fun. Dad left after visiting for the weekend, leaving behind a goodly portion of his weekly vat-o'-chili that he'll live off of for the next week. So we ate chili for dinner, and watched Whip It, that cute little movie about roller derby. It was Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, and it starred Ellen Page, and it was super cute and reminded me a ton of rugby. Awesome. It reminded me a bit of Stick It, too, which is a similarly fun movie about badass ladies. Way to go, badass ladies. I love you so.

And then on Tuesday I made followup calls to all the places I applied (because, you know, it's been a week) but I will be calling them all back again TOMORROW because I need to reiterate that I am looking for a KITCHEN job and so my application should not be shuffled into the large pile of wait staff applications that they don't intend to look at because they're not actively hiring.

Dinner was chicken-mushroom Marsala, with Blair's pear pie with nut crumble topping for dessert. It was all phenomenal. Tory in particular adored the chicken, which was, admittedly, awesome. Good old pan-fried chicken is just SO GOOD. The pie was also a smashing success, but hazelnuts around here are STILL impossible to find because of the E. Coli recall, so I used pecans instead. They were good. Hazelnuts would've been better.

And today I babysat for the entire day, except for a two-hour break in the middle where I went to the farmers' market and bought delicious seedless mandarins. Things we accomplished while babysitting today:

- baths
- a bike ride (his first on a two-wheeler since getting his training wheels off, which he totally didn't tell me until I was watching him whiz along expertly)
- duck-watching
- so much cooking

Jessie, you couldn't possibly have had time to cook today, you exclaim, for surely your charge of small children kept you occupied! Ah, but no, you see, because this family has the most irresistible kitchen, and I was there during lunch and dinner. So lunch was udon noodles with egg and scallions (very tasty) and apples caramelized in butter and lemon, which was utterly delicious. And at dinner, the mother of the family handed me two zucchini and said, "Get them to eat these" so I made zucchini fritters, although the frying might have negated some of the nutritional aspects of the zucchini somewhat. The rest of dinner was just a grocery-store rotisserie chicken and some salad. The fritters were well received, eventually by the father of the family when they came home to leftovers, so I'm happy with it all.

Tomorrow I make macarons, for realsies. The egg whites are finally aged enough. I'm playing with flavor ideas in my head. Raspberry-mascarpone? Saffron-cardamom? Lavender? Chocolate? Nutmeg-maple? Earl grey and honey? Tangerine? Caramel? Tiramisu? Oooh, tiramisu.

In ancient Rome, a "triumph" was a huge military procession, an honor awarded to a victorious general.

Yesterday I did little, but then I babysat! And the babysitting was good, oh it was good. It was lucrative, which is one of the important qualities that a babysitting gig must have in order to be considered "good." Other qualities include:

~ no meltdowns
~ laughter
~ bed on time
~ at least one silly childish game
~ I Spy
~ playing in the backyard
~ ice cream
~ a story at bedtime
~ at least one inexplicably naked child
~ babysitter falls asleep before the parents get home

Also, I made many monies. Over $12 an hour. And I was there for over 5 and a half hours, so yay! I am richer by some!

Today was an out day. We went to a concert of the Beatles in Santa Barbara. It was a collaboration between the Santa Barbara Choral Society and State Street Ballet. It had some piece composed by George Martin, and a series of love songs by the Beatles with a little ballet narrative. The ballet was fantastic. The music... mediocre. The chorus wasn't as together as they could be, which is unfortunate for a concert. And the soloist was ABYSMAL. But the ballet was amazing!

It was a fun outing; we drove down in a big bus with people from our church, at least half of whom were little old ladies wearing festive red shirts and/or hats. Then on the way back, everyone opened wine, and we passed around chocolates, because we are Episcopalians in wine country having fun, that is why. When we got home, I made my mother's birthday dinner and birthday cake, which was postponed a few days from her actual birthday on Thursday.

Also, today was Valentine's Day, so Danny got the Obertones five freshmen to serenade me over Skype in the dining hall while I was still sitting in my bed. It was hilarious, and wonderful, and really, really sweet. I cried a tear of happy. And then Danny got his gift, which was a package from Gibson's: chocolate-covered bacon and a ramen cup! How disgustingly perfect we are for each other. Gross. Ew. Chocolate bacon and long-distance public love songs. Sick.

Dinner was tomato-cream pasta with almond-crusted seared scallops. It was delicious, but the bechamel sauce didn't thicken right. It was infuriatingly runny, even if it still tasted fine. The scallops were possibly the best I've ever made. The cake... ah, the cake. It was this recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/you-are-owed-chocolate-cake/

My mom wanted chocolate (she always does) but she wanted something decidedly cakey. No fudgy flourless torte, no dense brick of chocolate dessert, she wanted a rich but cakey CAKE. So I decided on this recipe, which is, and I quote, "not so much a solid baked good but gigantic dewy crumbs loosely aligned in a disc-like format." It was delicious, but so moist and crumbly that it was very difficult to get out of the pans, even greased and floured like they were. It definitely fell apart, but mostly stayed in a cake shape, so I could ice it. Which I did! With Kahlua buttercream and designs in a rich, rich coffee and dark chocolate ganache. I piped little vertical lines all around the edge. It was so cute, it looked like a really short, fat fluted column. Adorable!

Also delicious. Despite its falling-apart-ness (and its overflowing-the-pan-and-spilling-on-the-oven-ness, which I forgot to mention), it was utterly delectable, and once iced, it looked fine. My father called it a "triumph." It was too rich for me to finish my slice, though, for sure.

Now we are watching a movie called Passchendaele. It's good. Written, directed by, and starring Paul Gross, whom I adore, it's a war movie, which is actually kind of depressing. But it is good!

Tomorrow is a holiday. I'm going to start calling the places I dropped my resume at so they know I'm interested enough to follow up. And then I think I'll begin preparing to make macarons. I will! I will make them! They will probably fail, but I'll learn something, I'm sure.