Knitty Kitty

Today was a day where I stayed up late working, went to bed and couldn't fall asleep - in some ways aided by other creatures in my bed who were dream destroyers. I then needed to wake up early to get back to work. Suddenly I have to write three kind of important documents in the next 5 days. When I am in the midst of them the work is kind of fun, but I am the type who has trouble cracking the book open, and no trouble plowing through he work when I get in there since I do enjoy this type of work. 

I went to knit night tonight and was so glad. Those ladies are just lovely and our evenings are so comfortable and free of stress. We even had a dizzying selection of gourmet cupcakes to make it super super great. I arrived with a hat and left with a scarf. The hat I had been knitting would have fit Dumbo and I am aiming a bit more for items that will actually fit my friends and family for this holiday season.I love the pattern I've cast on and hope the recipient enjoys it too.

I am eager for the arrival of sleep tonight -- too many nights of too little sleep. But there's just one more pair of hurdles to get over tomorrow and I will be sailing into the weekend.

Requiem for a Decent Meal Part Two

Sometimes, when you blog, you can paint yourself into a bit of a corner. My multi-post stories can be a little like that. Best to be pithy and succinct. Get it all out but try not to use a million words. But when I last talked about dinner in the Northern Neck, I was right there in that corner staring out at confining paint all around.


See, "the River" is worthy of nurturing. Our beloved escape is so wonderful in part because it is undiscovered and unrefined. We bemoan the silly snobby "Come Heres" who fret about not being able to find a "decent meal". You didn't come here for the meal, trust us, it was something else.


So when someone makes an effort to do something new (for the River) at the River, it's a big deal, and one I think everyone hopes will succeed. But when those ventures fail, oh how we long for what they could have been.


I have been spending a lot of time reading Chowhound reviews of Boston restaurants and the snooty foodies on there decry Boston dining as positively backwater since everything on earth is better in NYC. I just chuckle and add more Boston gems to my trip plans. If those Chowhounders found their way to Seven in White Stone they would never ever stop snarking about it. (Uhh kind of like I'm doing now.) Our meal at Seven has been so memorable that I am fearing every bite of meat now that it could be as atrocious as the last bite of Beef Stroganoff I had at Seven. I am pretty picky about where I'll eat meat, so I only remember one other time that I've had beef that dreadful. It was a refrigerator section ready made pot roast that I served Jac years ago and it was gross. I think the Seven bite was worse. I will try to spare you the worst of it, but imagine wrapping several sheets of unflavored gelatin around a bland slimy piece of beef. I warned my waitress that I'd spit out (what I could) into my napkin.


What ensued at our table was a lengthy discussion of Sysco Foods - the provider of supplies and prepared food items to food establishments everywhere. I am certain most of that Beef Stroganoff came out of a food service bag, but I don't know who to pin that bad beef on. So Seven isn't on my list of places I want to go for dinner in the Northern Neck. (My dessert was barely thawed cake.) Unfortunately there aren't many other choices there for now. To the experienced, adventurous restauranteurs out there I say: Beat a path to the Northern Neck as soon as possible please. And when you get here keep those Sysco orders reasonable. Make us most of what you serve, don't re-heat it.

Butternut Squash Pasta

Jac is definitely a hunter, not a gatherer, when it comes to food. He'll take fruit of the sea over fruit of the tree any day. The Atkins Diet would be like a wild bender for him rather than a hellacious nightmare (as it would be for me). So squash night isn't too frequent. I try to space them out until the memories of the last one are just faded enough that he can't protest, "But we just had squash on Wednesday!"


But I love butternut squash. I didn't have it until college. I even secretly think the first time I had it was at a Golden Corral buffet. It came in the form of a fried nugget. The insides had turned into creamy golden goodness. Butternut squash is so decadent I can scarcely believe it doesn't come with a hazard warning. 


I made us butternut squash with pasta in an herb cream sauce. I didn't measure as I cooked (bad blogger!) but for two servings I would estimate: 1/2 butternut squash, cubed and roasted until soft (about 45 minutes at 350 degrees); 2 tbsp butter; 1/2 cup milk and/or cream (I mixed skim milk and half & half); 1/2 cup ricotta cheese; 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese plus topping; 1/2 tsp parsley; 1/4 tsp rosemary (but I would have preferred sage); and salt and pepper to taste. I cooked the pasta and drained it. In the pasta pot I warmed the milk, butter and cheeses. Then I returned the pasta to the pot and coated it with the cream sauce. Lightly toss the squash with the pasta and top with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

This One Commercial Part 2

When we last met I was rambling about the Chase Sapphire commercial where Molly spends an awful lot of rewards points on a stupid dress while her husband is fantasizing about touring the Cote D'Azur by boat. 


I was just about to confide that last week we got a letter from Citibank raising the interest on Jac's Citibank card to 29.99% otherwise known as thirty percent! We carry a balance which is a good thing for a credit card company - they make money from us! We pay on time. We have been customers for a long time. And now we're closing our account.


Twitter was all aflutter about the Citibank rate hike. (#badcitibank) I watched breathlessly all week as the news nets decried "fees" from the credit card companies we all just bailed out. I waited for a story about this insane usury but there was none. (Lo how twitter is so much more relevant...) 


Anyway, we had been on a mission to use points as we earned them for a while. Credit card companies have been slashing benefits and devaluing points by upping the exchange prices for a while. When the letter came in we began to abandon ship. It is infuriating that closing the account will have a negative impact on his credit score. 


So the economy is in the tank, and credit card companies are going bananas in advance of the enactment of the Credit Card Reform Act. Chase is legendary on Consumerist for its abusive practices. Americans are taking staycations and supposedly discovering that "less is more". But in Chaseland there is a beautiful and magical couple who only have opulent desires. I mean, haven't they seen Real Housewives? All the Real Housewives are downsizing, getting evicted, filing bankruptcy, not marrying Big Papa... 


The Chase Sapphire ad is the most wildly off-tune ad I've seen since McDonald's declared, "I'd hit that!" They've got Americans over a barrel right now, but eventually things will turn around and I hope we all remember then what insanity they put us through now. And then we go buy ourselves foofy dresses with cash.

This One Commercial

Something about the Chase Sapphire commercial that has been running for months has really chapped my ass, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Actually, I was putting my hands all over it. Every time I saw it (which was often because I watch a lot of basic cable) I found something else to dislike about it.


Breaking News 24/7 says "Chase Card Services, a unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said Wednesday it will now offer a rewards card designed for wealthy customers.

The new card, called Chase Sapphire, is designed for the top-earning 15 percent of U.S. households. It offers travel services, access to round-the-clock customer service and a rewards program." A scant bit of research puts a goodly number of dual-earner Washingtonian households in that target audience. In a fit of craziness it might even theoretically include mine. (Laughing uncontrollably.)


First there was the nagging question: Who is that woman? WikiAnswers had had the incorrect answer -- Julia Roberts. Someone corrected it to say Molly Culver of VIP (with Pamela Anderson) fame. I thought she was a model. Anyway, there's that vague familiarity breeding a little contempt.


The premise is a whole lot like a Cyalis ad only substitute a hella expensive dress for a suspiciously handsome middle aged guy getting his schwerve on with his wife on Saturday afternoon. 


Molly prances in like a second-grader with her new Easter dress. She is tilting and hinting at her pricey smock. Meanwhile, like the disembodied head from so many drug ads, her husband is recounting the finer details of Chase Sapphire. See, her husband wants to tour the world with the points they racked up at Le Bernadin and she's giddy about her secret -- she blew their points on a dress. A freakin' extremely ordinary dress. Am I the only one who thinks this is completely effing crazy? Fortunately the Internets had the same response.

So Molly has a new dress and that is stupid. Point One. But also, this commercial is a perfect example of stereotyping by opposites (I just made that up) that is so rampant in advertising. It's when you see some characters interacting and they're clearly playing (a very intentional) opposite to some historic cultural or advertising stereotype. In today's commercials the wife is always scolding the stupid oafish husband about cleaning/health/travel, the black guy is always the informed best friend cluing in his doofus white dude buddy, and the woman is always the doctor giving credibility and weight to the value of the pharmaceutical product. It's the archetype of Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, Family Guy... It's not that the wife, buddy, doctor wouldn't have authority in real life; it's the heavy-handedness of the roles. 


I automatically reverse the roles in my head when I hear them and am often startled at the idiocy they imply. Doing it backwards doesn't make it right. How about being a little more clever and developing some new paradigms for advertising?


But back to Chase Sapphire - which is airing this very moment - Molly has blown all their points (Enough, her unsuspecting husband thinks, for a sweet vacation involving motorcraft.) on a stupid dress. Molly's done this behind her husband's back - like the Drapers would do. They must be the modern-day Drapers ("You have everything! And so much of it!"). Chase Sapphire offers all the standard credit card rewards - gift cards, travel, badly priced shopping options. Who, in this suckalicious economy, is blowing their rewards points on a dress? We just cashed some of ours in last week on our dreadful (and soon to be closed) Citibank card...

The Not-Nice Girl

When I was a little girl, someone from school remarked to my mother that I was just the most cheerful thing. I smiled and said hello to everyone. I still have some of that girl, but these days I can find it more difficult to warm up to someone I know than someone I don't.


Our neighbors at our old house were the devils incarnate. They pushed us around and we were young and polite and put up with more than we should have. I wanted to like my new neighbor but soon found that they shared the "my property rights extend as far as my eye can see" philosophy in the middle of the city that my old neighbors had. I was polite and laid low. A thousand disturbances and inappropriate "requests" were met with pleasantness and civility. When they crept across the property line, we gnashed our teeth but decided not to start World War III over it. When they nudged us to pay for a pricey upgrade that was somehow on the property line they'd just squatted right over, we complied rather than get into it with them.


And so today, when I got home and discovered that Amazon had utterly inexplicably shipped an order of tea to my house with signature required and that the delivery had been attempted during two of the whopping four hours I'll be away from the house this work week I was peeved. Knowing I will miss the second delivery attempt was extra special. When my stamp printer ran out of labels and "ate" a couple dollars worth of postage and forced me back into the endless line at my post office, I steamed. When I couldn't watch either news channel because they were both so inane and third hour of the Today Show-esque, I sighed.*


Cut away to a scene three weeks ago when our other neighbors who have a monster gardening fetish and matching contract had a gardener walking around with a leaf blower. Gardener fine. Leaf blower fine. Gardener who uses leaf blower in 100,000 on/off pulses in an afternoon you are going to destroy that thing, but not soon enough. Jac and I remarked to each other about how unthinkable it was that a leaf blower could be made exponentially more irritating, and that this guy had somehow found the way. (Aside to the aside: I am not talking 30 second pulses while he moves a pile and goes to gather more, I am talking about a rhythmic pulsing of the leaf blower like a blender gingerly cracking one ice cube at a time - for an entire afternoon.)


So when our nearer neighbor hired that same pulsing leaf blowing guy, I didn't even have to look out the window, I knew. And when Jac got home from work I thought just commiserating with him would be enough. But for the 100 other little inconveniences this day it might have been. I opened the door just to peer out, to see when the hell this madness might end. Before my head knew what my feet** were doing I was out the door on the way to kindly suggest to the gardener that he might be ruining his equipment.


Only I was sort of charging apparently and I had failed to notice the neighbor standing in her yard (duh of course I believe we have covered the fact that the neighbor lives in her front yard how could I forget that even for a moment) and I traipsed right past her. "What's wrong???" she demanded. Shit.


I kind of suck at artifice. I mean I can tell a good story but I generally have trouble concealing the truth. Particularly when it is sweating out of my pores like garlic. I told her I had never heard a leaf blower operated in such a manner and it was driving me kind of nuts. I was dumbfounded when she responded with all the entitlement I'd always presumed she had that it was only once a year and he was almost done and no (of course mother earth goddess that she is) she does not like leaf blowers and no she hadn't heard anyone use a leaf blower quite like that either but effyouverymuch (implied). I looked at the leaf blowing gardener. I stammered something non-noise related at my neighbor. I walked home. 


And the thing is, for all the thousands of times I have wanted to change the behavior on my neighbor's property, this is the first time I have ever said a word and yet I was received with all the indignation of a perennial pest. So my intuition is validated. My resentment is redoubled. There are some people on the playground who just can't be won over with that little girl's cheery disposition. I hope they get an irresistible job offer in Timbuktu.


And I come away from it like a clumsy lover who knows she accomplished nothing. I had no sense of relief or victory, only the feeling that it had unfolded all wrong.


*Not that hours one and two are remotely watchable. Is there a fourth hour? Hell I don't know. (Avarice with Kathy Lee!)
**Odd since generally my head must make numerous increasingly threatening demands to my feet and ass in order to get them to go forth boldly.

It Was a Long Day in October

Right now the sight of Logan from Gilmore Girls, Christine Baranski and Julianna Marguiles on my tv is one of the most delightful parts of this long, long day.

I went to bed late last night, too late. I thought I'd sleep in since my commute to work consists of the living room floor. But Jac's day started off rough - he'd misplaced his keys. He usually does all of his morning stuff and gets out the door with me none the wiser. Not this morning. Holy moly those keys were so elusive. Finally I turned on the lights and there they were. He dashed off to work, but sleep was gone.

I woke up to wall to wall Rush Limbaugh on the morning news shows. You would think MSNBC had stock in the man. Blech. That's not a good way to start the day. Then a customer who'd recently tried to find greener pastures emailed all in a tizzy over something their boss had determined while we were working for them. I sent off a response and haven't heard back. Then I tried to print postage for some stuff we'd sold on Amazon and wasted some cash.

It'd be nice to have that cash though, because Jac recently acquired some phat dental work. I'm talking about his second gold crown. Seriously! That freaking dentist put a gold crown in the man's mouth a year or so ago and Jac went back for more. I am married to Flavor Flav. I could point out that this is the same man who nearly ripped his own dental work out when he discovered a dentist had given him a silver filling instead of a white one. Now he's chewing with gold nuggets and he isn't outraged. Our lovely dental bill arrived today and I got the damage for the well, damage they did to my husband.

Without going into detail, I also got my own confirmation of the state of the economy and lending crisis today when we learned tapping into your equity is not the free-flowing party it once was. That was another fun part of the day.

I also had to begin plotting my revenge for the utterly outrageous Virginia driver's license I received in the mail yesterday. Curse those terrorists (real ones not DMV people) for screwing up our driver's licenses. Now we have to have these crazy "no smiles" black & white "natural" pictures. Next time I am wearing a burka. The DMV chick had chatted with her co-workers the whole time I was there, taking a good twice as long to do each task as it would have taken me, completely un-oriented, if I'd hopped behind the counter to do it. I know there are good, hard-working DMV employees but lo you were not at the South Arlington DMV last week. So out of nowhere DMV Lady says something chuckle inducing. This prompts me to lose my perfectly practiced sleek chin pose and scrunch up my face and nose, blow out my cheeks and turn my eyes toward her. I know this because I will have a lasting image of that for the next TEN YEARS. Thank you deranged slacker shecky DMV Lady. Thanks soooo much. I look like Joan Cusack in Sixteen Candles.

Since I'd had little sleep and I needed to be on top of my game for a late afternoon marketing meeting, I thought I would try to sneak in a cat nap. You would think working from home napping would be a common thing. But it's far more common for Jac to come home and find that I am still wearing yesterday's clothes. I have not been to the bathroom since 10 and hell no I have not touched the dishes or the laundry -- I'm woooorking. So it was with an almost clear conscience that my head graced the pillow and my eyes closed. Of course six minutes later when my cell rang my boss wanted to chat and schedule a redundant meeting for later in the week,  I sprung into instant wide-awakeness.

So I put all the Amazon stuff out for the mailman. I was doin' all that risky home postage printing for the sheer and utter joy of handing off packages to the mailman instead of hauling them to the post office. But no, he left all my packages sitting on the front porch untouched. I was in for a trip to the post office at the crossroads of the world.

I love my neighborhood. I love living in a diverse metropolis. I do however wish that we had an orientation system for the post office. I feel like I never go to the post office, but when I do, the same people are always there. There's the guy who wants stamps, wants to know about the future of stamps, wants to get stamps that are not kept out front but in some secret cache in the back under a heap of postage due fruitcakes from 1987. There's the woman who is not going to understand what he means by "Do you want to require a signature?" no matter how loudly or slowly he says it. There is the guy who just moved who goes to the counter empty-handed for a change of address form who will fill it out standing at the counter. And I will be waiting behind all of these people with something that simply needs to be handed to the postal clerk. (All set, postage, labels, good to go.) And while I am gnashing my teeth at how there should be an express lane for handoffs only, someone will charge to the front of the line to ask a couple dozen questions and then end up filling out a form next to the address change guy. And yes she wants stamps. What do you have in a Love stamp? Are there any new designs out?

Requiem for a Decent Meal

It was my dear husband, Jac's birthday. My parents invited us to Seven, a martini bar. I had apprehensions about Seven from the first I heard of it. Seven is inside the White Stone Events Center in White Stone, VA. I am telling you this now because I doubt you're going to want to find out where it is later.


Seven just looked wedding reception-esque. (Not my perfect reception or that of any of my friends or family whose weddings I ever attended, ours were all perfect.) It looked like a community center hall, rented by the half-hour and loaded with 8-top rounds covered with cheap but durable tablecloths.


See here's where I start to feel guilty. I feel guilty because my beloved Northern Neck is determined to field a home team. We don't have Applebee's (thank all that is holy). We don't even have a Starbucks. The Northern Neck is homegrown to the point of suspicion of all things "Come Here". It is at once charming and bedeviling. I love it because there is one stop light in my county. I love it because the biggest traffic jam I'll be in all day is two people deep behind a 147 year old lady who can't find her bonus card in Food Lion. Indeed, I even love the absence of the dining scene that inspires my cooking and blogging the meals I make at home.


But when we do want to go out, say to celebrate Jac's birthday. It is a dreary endeavor. For a bit more than a year, the "scene" (if you can call it that) was boosted by the presence of Swank's on Main. It was a little outsider. It was definitely pricey for what you got. It was pretty and clean and new and gourmet inside. And now it is gone. To be continued... 

Planning a Trip to Boston?

I am and let me tell you, we'll be heading straight to Ristorante Toscano because "A TripAdvisor Contributor" has taken many females there.

A Wonderful Wedding in the Palmetto State

Hmm, I don't think I'm down with the Palmetto State as a moniker but maybe that's just because palmetto doesn't feel conversational. But South Carolina, you are a lovely state. You are also edging ahead of Virginia in progressive state symbols after all we still have a bizarre 1850's minstrel song as our "state song". Headdesk.


We went to South Carolina for cousin JJ's wedding and it was a beautiful day and she was a beaming bride. I think my favorite sights of the day were her kids tearing up the dance floor and my cousin Joe getting hopped up on OJ from the OJ Fountain! OMG an OJ Fountain has to be the best thing in the world to a four year old. Heck, if it were Coca-Cola or champagne I'd install it in my foyer. Or as Jac would say in my fwayayyyy.

She Said We'd Like it None of that Tex-Mex Junk

To be honest, I love Tex-Mex. Give me white meat chicken and goopy cheddar cheese and I'm a happy girl. I'm sorry I know I'm ghetto. But I'm proud ghetto.


We went to Rosa Mexicano in National Harbor. It was a bright respite on a cool and rainy afternoon. 

Half the fun of coming to Rosa's is the table-side preparation of guacamole to taste. As a child to who dreaded the annual (and very public) gym class skin-fold test I learned that avocados contained lots of fat. Back then there was no distinguishing between "good fats" and "bad fats" like there is today. I tasted avocados and rejoiced - it was a "fatty food" that I could very happily live without for the rest of my life. It was like God had taken spinach and pureed it with 2/3rds warm ice cream. Blech.


Fast forward 20 years and now there are "good fats" only they happen to exclude the fun fats in most cases. But I now had a free pass to re-examine avocados. Okay, not so bad, and you get to surreptitiously nosh them with chips or tortillas. I can support that.

In addition to the tortilla soup and guacamole above, our party tried the enormous and tasty short ribs: Tablones / Short Ribs, 18 oz. of grilled boneless beef short ribs served with a mestiza sauce (tomatillo-tomato-chipotle) and rajas (slow-cooked Mexican peppers).

We tried the Alambre de Camarones / Shrimp Brochette Grilled shrimp marinated in a garlic vinaigrette over house rice with onions, tomatoes, serrano peppers and roasted tomato-jalapeño-caper sauce.

We had to have sides of plantains but I find queso fresco wildly forgettable.

I ordered the beef Mole de Xico / Beef Two soft corn tortillas filled with shredded chipotle beef, topped with Veracruz mole made with raisins, plantains, hazelnuts, pine nuts and mulato, ancho and pasilla chiles. Garnished with crema and queso fresco. This elicited a quizzical "Have you ever had mole before?" from my waiter. What do you read my blog and know that I like Hershey's chocolate and cheddar cheese and therefor have a completely unrefined palate or something?? Yes, I'd had it before. This mole was spicier than I remembered but that just meant Jac was happy to devour the leftovers for lunch the next day. It was one of the most beautiful dishes I've ever been served. (Don't be deceived by the poor lighting.)

Rosa Mexicano is a beautiful restaurant. It was getting dark out by the time I remembered to snap these pics so you can't see the lovely views of the Potomac here. You'll have to go there yourself.

Autumn - A Love Song

I am a Fall fanatic. What is not to love about autumn? The temperature has regained its civility. The days are not too short and not too long. The food is a-may-zing! The arrival of October means our birthdays are on the way and the best holidays of the year - the Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas trifecta are just weeks away.


We have Halloween plans for the dogs of the house, but they'll stay under wraps for now. What? Oh dressing up our dogs? Yeah, but only once in a while and only if there's a compelling reason like All Hallows Eve.


I've already made apple crisp and it was so heavenly I can't wait to make it again. I was inspired to toss a couple of waning graham crackers into the crust and I was transported back to the delectable apple treat Roy Rogers used to serve up in a little red tin when I was a child.


Ahhhh, Fall. You are here. Stick around. Stay awhile. We've missed you. It's been far too long. Sit a spell. Have a cup of cider.