Saving the World One Banana at a Time

Last night was eco-hour or something. Unplugging me is like asking Paula Deen to forego butter, but we did a tiny part to save the planet, I finally made good on my eternal pledge that next time we buy too many bananas and let them get overripe on the counter I will make banana bread out of them instead of sending them off to a landfill. (Compost is another story.)

Anyway, I might as well just start calling this blog Elle Kasey Makes the Recipes of Elise at Simply Recipes Blog because every time I go hunting for a recipe and she has one, well, that's the one I'm going to make because it's going to be awesome. I don't know if I've ever made banana bread from scratch before. Maybe I have, but my mind is so darkened from treacly banana flavored box mixes that when I tasted the batter yesterday I achieved banana nirvana.

I made both a loaf of banana bread and these banana chocolate chip muffins because our overripe banana problem had gotten just that serious. So this morning we were rewarded with banana goodness in muffin form. I like to butter all my muffins and breads which is probably weird when the baked good is as decadent as these are to start.

Dog Day Morning

This morning the animals got me up early so I decided to find some excitement before Jac returned from his big business trip. It just happened to be Super Pet Expo!! weekend at the Dulles Expo Center. Then I faced a difficult choice. Leashed pets were allowed, and Lexi would of course behave perfectly, but little monster puppy... not so much. So I leashed up just the saintly dog and headed west to the expo.

We were among the first to enter. This was good planning because the place grew mobbed. It was definitely a playground for both dogs and their owners. I got a couple dog gifts, leashes with Kerry Blues and Wheatens (not easy to find in the real world), and Lexi got a feast of the senses. Several people correctly identified Lexi as a Wheaten and no one asked if she was any form of "doodle". I could have survived more and better booths, but it was quite nice as pet extravaganzas go.

Lexi isn't a dog foodie, she eats to live rather than lives to eat (strange), but I think even she was tempted by these amazing looking dog treats.

Crazy Caught Up

I am a list maker. Having a list means I have some sense of all the variables, tasks, possibilities. I don't have a single system for lists because I haven't found one that meets every need. Maybe some magical day my iPhone will be able to take it on, but so far it's just really good for grocery lists and some appointments.

I used to have those monster organizer calendar things but my first boss after college wooed me to a sleek little calendar so now that's just for time tracking. In any case, what with the working, knitting, dogs, houses, cooking, bill paying, television watching, and OCD birthday and anniversary fascination... I have long, long lists. I haven't even touched passwords and the expiration and renewal chart I have for every publication we receive (seriously).

So then how is it that after a frantic couple of weeks in which there were times when I literally did not have time to pee, I find myself momentarily...caught up.

It just happened, at 9pm. I finished a proposal I needed to write tonight because I have meetings all day tomorrow. Actually, it's finishing this very moment as I mentally check "blog today" off a list. The dogs are brushed, the work is done, I could actually do nothing. Hmm, maybe there are some things I need to catch up on on Tivo.

Fearless

It is fair to say that our little fraidydog Kirby is growing by leaps and bounds. This weekend was his first visit to the river and he took the place by storm. He and Lexi brought their traveling circus routine to the backyard, running big circles around both of us. He met Kahu the German shepherd and it was best buds at first sight. Then he discovered there was water nearby and that's when I really began to believe the myth of the Kerry Blue Terrier.

From Wikipedia:

The Kerry Blue terrier was first observed in the mountains of County Kerry in Ireland, hence the name of the breed. There is a romantic story of a blue dog swimming ashore from a shipwreck: the coat of this dog was so lovely that it was mated with all the female Wheaten Terriers in Kerry (or in all Ireland according to some), producing the Kerry Blue. Perhaps this story is not entirely myth as the Portugese Water Dog is often suggested as part of the Kerry's make up.

Horrorscope

I usually like taking a peek at the horoscopes. When things are tough there's always promise of "a pleasant surprise" or "romance tonight", but lately my horoscopes have been full of gloom and doom. I've been crazy busy lately so when I get a moment's respite and look for a little psychic boost I get:

Saturday, March 22
A variety of demands could be keeping you tied down today and a number of responsibilities could really be weighing on your mind right now. Just realize that if you ignore your duties and obligations, other people are likely to give you a bit of a hard time. So don't go looking for trouble today.

How Much I Hate the Ladders Commercial

You have seen this commercial. A Hugh Grant looking guy sets out for a lovely spot of tennis. Moments later the court is flooded by loads of losers. Now everybody's trying to play tennis at the same time. The Hugh Grant guy looks around and realizes this is ridiculous. It's chaos. He's better than this riffraff, they're literally on his turf.

The pitch is that the Ladders is a website with jobs "for 100k+ people". This makes me want to vomit through my eyeballs. Actually I may have. It's sure nice when you can make more than 100k, but does that make you a 100k+ person? God I hope not. It totally skeezes me out. 

I hope the Hugh Grant looking guy walks right off that tennis court and into a freshly fiesty Heather Mills. She clearly is a 100k+ person. They could go find their own tennis court where they'll play mixed doubles with another couple of their caliber.

Today's St. Patrick's Day, and for a bunch of Americans part of the celebration is about a mass migration of Irish people who fled famine with almost nothing and ultimately found their way into the fabric of America. 

Anyway, 100k ain't what it used to be.

The Perfect Pour

That Wednesday when they called for rain, the fourth street meter parking attempt of the week, that last grasp for a little tissue paper - all recipes for disaster, but on this one perfect Sunday morning when I popped out to the store for eggs and papers and bypassed the OJ (we have some, don't we?), I discovered the possibility of the perfect pour.

Wacky Wednesday Unleaded

With fuel prices so high, we've been forced to take desperate measures to keep our energy reserves up to make it to the weekend. Yes, we've broken out the vegetables. Jac and I have distinctly different veggie preferences so he dug into the asparagus while I continued my adulthood amazement that there's anyone on the planet who doesn't find roasted brussels sprouts to be sensational. They are so good that when I'm munching on them I can't help but feel like they're cheater vegetables like mashed potatoes or marshmallow topped sweet potatoes. 

Tomorrow? Probably fluffernutter sandwiches on doughnut bread.

Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without

I like two kinds of cookbooks - ones with big glossy photos for every recipe and ones without.

Ha! But the ones without have to have something special for them - say, being written by Julia Child... or being a part of my burgeoning church cookbook collection. I simply cannot have enough recipes for Snickerdoodles.

So it's rare when a relative unknown emerges from the pack and wows me with no lore AND no pictures. That's just what happened when Jac gave me The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without. Yes, it was on my Amazon wish list, but I'd only guessed at how good it would be.

A fairly fool proof method for great cookbook detection - I've found - is to open to any random page and see if the recipe is a winner. Braised Brussels Sprouts in Maple Mustard Sauce - you know that sounds like a winner to me. So does Tarragon-Pecan Asparagus. So were the next five I found. It's a subtle hint from Jac that spring is springing (whether I got my winter or not) and there might be a few less hearty casserole nights ahead and a few more zesty greens night. (The irony not being lost on me that for weeks I have decried Jac's general animosity toward all things rooted to the ground.) I wonder what will be on the menu tonight.

My Dinner Tastes Good: For The First Time

Dinner actually tastes good quite often, but now I have a recurring blog post title. Jac and I were both feeling pretty vegged out today and I lightly grilled fresh mozzarella with basil, cherry tomatoes, olive oil and balsamic vinegar and these are our lovely dinner sandwiches. Mmmm. Deliciousness.

Old Man Buys Milk: Moronblogging

Egh!! Get eout eof meh way. I'm nold man and I need to buy thiz melk nahrw! Shove-ity shove shove nudge.

You may have noticed that a fair bit of my moronblogging takes place in grocery stores. This is not only because the stores are well-lit and allow for stunning realism such as this, but also because people in grocery stores are hungrydammit and they want to put their hands in the Oreos nowdammit. In the case of the old man who nudged his way into the self-service line behind be barely granting me the supreme privilege of signing the credit card pad, I can only assume that he knows he has only one hour left to live and his dying wish is to prove that you can drink a gallon of milk in an hour.

Mobile Moronblogging

Enjoying dinner by my lonesome in Williamsburg. I found a quaint
little Italian restaurant in New Town. Behind me there is a woman who
has apparently befriended the people next to her. She has got the
strongest NY accent which is magnified by the volume of her voice. Mmm
glad there's bread. Also I would like some props for the over the
shoulder shot.

Puppies Ate My Brain Part 2

I don't know what Jac and I are going to do when we actually have to name a kid. Naming pets has proven quite a challenge. Kerries are Irish dogs like Wheatens and so I thought it'd be nice if we could find an underused Irish name. It turns out Irish names are quite popular. Jac likes names that are softer and "not pretentious" (scoff), I am not gonna name the dog Buster or Guinness or anything, but I'd like a little kick to it. 

Jac also has a lot of rules about the appropriate window of time for naming. It is not appropriate to discuss names before we have met the creature because we must know what he is like. But then, we cannot dwell on the naming process once in possession of such animal because he needs a name and we can't call him "boy" forever. No muss, no fuss, he argues. We have three names that didn't make either of us blanch. Pick one. Oh hell, one of them is the name of a comic book artist. One that he likes. And just like that, Kirby's your uncle. I mean your dog.

Puppies Ate My Brain

What the hell is this blog about anyway? Knittingfooddogssickpeoplemoronpeople, what?

Today it's about Kirby. We heard there was a Kerry Blue Terrier who'd been rescued and needed a home. We went through the adoption approval process. Then yesterday we drove to Philadelphia to get our dog. I don't know what the final tallies ended up being yesterday, but the rain had to be right up there with Noah's flood. It was a cloud of white water all the way from DC to Philadelphia. 

We met our boy at his foster mom's house. He was so scared. He cowered and pressed himself against her. He barely took treats from our hands. He had a housebreaking accident while we were there. But he and Lexi were okay with each other from the first moment. She's a little suspicious now that he's been in the house for 24 hours.

We then set off for the ultimate Philadelphia cheesesteak. I had scoured the web. If I'm going to have just one bite from another city, I'm gonna make sure it's good. I don't know if our GPS had a sense of humor or if we were just drunk on dog, but our drive to Leo's Steak Shop was surreal. The rain was coming down in tidal waves now. Jac was following every direction the Nuvi provided. Block after block we toured the sketchiest parts of Philadelphia. The dogs were oblivious, but all we could think about for an hour was finally being able to stop driving. And then on the horizon there was the first nice, upkept building we'd seen in quite some time. It was Leo's. The new dog had christened the car with carsickness, so I contorted to clean it while Jac walked, in the torrential rain, to the ATM. When he returned he was soaked through. We got the steaks, had a quick bite and got back on the road.

Finally, we got back to DC. The dogs frolicked in the yard. We dried out. We tackled scary things like noise, getting out of the car, going up/down the stairs, drinking water, climbing onto the couch, seeing cats for the first time ever! And he needed a name, boy did he need a name. 

Adding to the Family?

Could there be another member of the family arriving soon?

Familiar Ring of Spring

For weeks in the dead of winter, I'll look at my phone and check my email only to see the faintest existence of actual new work possibilities. Then, pop, pop, pop. And all of a sudden I don't know what to tackle first. Spring really seems to be sprung today, it's at least 66 degrees in DC and it's that ultra crisp Simpsonian sky thing. I never got my winter. I'm starting to suspect I'm going to have to rely on the next best thing - virtual visits to a quaint New England inn headed up by Bob Newhart and his wife. We're almost through the saga of The Bob Newhart Show, which means we'll be able to start watching Newhart very soon. The next few weeks look super busy (even without watching vintage TV on DVD for hours on end with Jac).

Before and After: A Too Productive Weekend

All I have is this pitiful before picture snapped during the Open House when be bought this house almost 3 years ago. You can see the sliding glass doors, the Broadway lighting and the jumbo 1983 beveled mirror. The oak vanity is another story altogether. The wall color could be described as musty.

Jac replaced the faucet a couple weeks ago. I found new spiffy hardware and fastidiously prepped and painted the room Ice Age (blue). Jac installed the new light fixture, mirror and a couple other chrome thingies not pictured. Now it's our pint-sized bathroom oasis.

Two Toasts

If you ask me, bread and water isn't exactly torture. I can think of a lot worse meals. Spam and Budweiser for example. We've had a couple nice takeout and dining out meals this weekend and in between it didn't make sense to make an actual meal, so a little bite made sense.

Herb Toast

Mix room temperature butter with parsley, rosemary and thyme. Garnish with a hint of salt and/or parmesan cheese. Bake at 350 until golden.

Apricot-Brie Toast

Coat with apricot preserves and thinly sliced brie cheese. Bake until well toasted.

Politics: I'm Just Sayin'

Obama's Audacity of Hope is one of the top sellers on iTunes. By contrast: