My stupid home computer is broken again. It happens every six months and is always followed by about 4 trips to Microcenter to buy and return various parts, much teeth gnashing, lots of cursing, and countless hours surrounded by cables and circuit boards. Thankfully the Lovely Suse is always patient with my tinkering.
Continuing with the theme of broken appliances, our newly repaired oven is acting up again. I think it’s the same part. At least I hope it is. This time, the oven just randomly shuts off randomly while baking. Thankfully, it was working on Saturday night as the Lovely Tess made her very first pizza. I have photos, but of course, they’re being held prisoner on my stupid broken computer.
Yes, I watched the debate on Friday night. If by “watch” you mean “watched for half an hour and then fell asleep and woke up and the Tivo had changed channels to record Cheers”. I can assure you that I will stay awake for the entire VP debate on Thursday. That thing is going to be a trainwreck.
I am ready to get no sleep for the next month watching baseball playoff games. Seriously, MLB, you can’t have games start earlier than 10pm? I’m sure all of you Yankee fans are feeling the same way. Oh wait…never mind.
Our search for good Mexican food has finally ended. The hole-in-the-wall Taqueria El Amigo, just five minutes from our house, has answered our taco-loving prayers. The place is about 4 tables, has the best tacos I’ve eaten possibly ever, and will become our new go-to lunch spot for a long time to come. I expect that we’ll go here about 5 times in the next month. Finally!
The Lovely Tess has learned to climb up onto our kitchen chairs. We are in trouble.
If you happen to be near a Sel De La Terre, do yourself a favor and go pick yourself up a bag of their potato chips. I think these might be the best chips I’ve ever had.
The Lovely Tess is now sporting a new pair of pink Chuck Taylors and she loves them. She woke up from her nap yesterday, immediately ran over to her dresser, pulled her sneaks off of it, gave them to me, and sat down on my lap so that I would put them on her.
I failed to mention it before, but we watch this video at least a couple of times a day. Some days, many many more. Try to get it out of your head. Go ahead, just try.
We celebrated the Lovely Suse’s birthday at Craigie Street Bistrot on Saturday night. Does it seem like we go there for every special event? That’s because we do. It’s hands down our favorite restaurant in town, and it’s different every time we go there. We’ve literally never had the same dish twice there, as they change the menu every day depending on what’s fresh and in season. They’re moving to a bigger space in a month, and although I’m sure it will be great, it will never be the same as this tiny little basement space. We had to experience it one last time. I might have to say that this was the best meal we’ve ever had there. Included in our dishes were rabbit, hamachi, cock’s combs, octopus, and lamb (three different ways). I also have to say that I think lamb belly might be as good, if not better, than pork belly. Not quite as fatty but sooooooo tasty.
Chicken recipe of the week: Hainanese chicken. This one is a keeper. Poach a chicken and use the resulting stock to make rice. Simple, easy, delicious.
We now have a 30 year old Raggety Ann kitchen set. Vintage, baby. There’s no lead in there, right?
How ’bout them Pats. Ugh. Is Tom Brady healed yet?
Forget about sharp knives. My Microplane is the most dangerous tool I have in the kitchen. I shave off a chunk of my finger every month or so. That’s not so tasty in pasta. Speaking of which, we made the easiest and best pasta sauce we’ve made in a long time. A bunch of olive oil in a pan, toss in a bowl full of cherry tomatoes that you picked just a few minutes earlier, add in a clove of crushed garlic, salt, pepper, cook until the tomatoes start to burst. Add in your cooked pasta, toss in a handful of basil and a bunch of grated parm. Done.
Don’t forget about George! He had a tough week last week with a teeth cleaning and some teeth pulling. He was a trooper though and got lots of extra attention.
We took the Lovely Tess out for Indian food on Friday, and man, that girl loves her some tandoori chicken and rice and naan. I think it’s funny that we always get put in the same back corner with all of the other parents with kids.
I think we need to take a Sofra break. The place has been open for not even a month and we’ve alraedy been there four times, including both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend. We just can’t help ourselves. I think the word has gotten out because the place is packed now.
I went ahead and Jailbroke my iPhone this weekend. There are some very cool things you can do with it that I hope won’t make it blow up.
We went on a mad cleaning binge this weekend trying to clear out a whole lot of junk from the house. Sometimes we get a little crazy and a simple “straighten up the house” turns into cleaning out closets, vacuuming the basement, scrubbing the entire kitchen including the walls, fixing the chipped bathroom wall, gathering clothes to take to goodwill, and on and on. It’s like a sickness. It’s nice to have a clean house, though.
The Lovely Tess has a very hard head. She walks into walls and falls on her face seemingly on a daily basis. But she cries for about 10 seconds and then is backing running around like nothing happened. She’s a little daredevil and it scares the hell out of me. She certainly doens’t get that from me. Although the hard head probably comes from me. I used to hit my head on things a lot. Certainly explains some things, huh?
My hair is about a week away from “shaggy”. I’m digging it.
We made some lamb burgers on Saturday. Mmmmmmm, lamb burgers. I can’t remember the last time I had a real hamburger, but for some reason, I got the idea in my brain to make lamb ones. Topped with some greens, tomato, onion, spicy mayo, and a black olive relish. That there is some good eats.
It was not a good week for the Carpenter ladies, healthwise. Hopefully I can avoid getting sick, but with the germ factory that our house is right now, I’m not counting on it.
Did you hear that sound that happened at about 1:30pm yesterday afternoon? That was the sound of the entire population of New England collectivey yelling “Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” when Tom Brady went down. I guess it was only a matter of time, but no one ever wanted to think that it actually might happen. Things are not looking good.
It only took us two months, but we finally hung the mirror up in the bathroom. Although it is slightly crooked. And i took a couple of chunks of out the plaster and paint trying to do it. Ugh. I’m a dummy.
We’ve had lunch at Sofra two Saturdays in a row. From Ana Sortun of Oleana comes this middle eastern bakery and cafe that is just unbelievably tasty. And about 2 minutes from our house. All sort of stuffed flatbreads, mezze, a the most ridiculously tasty chocolate earthquake cookies. This is going to be a problem.
Weighed down with about 10 pounds of tomatoes, we finally had to find something to do with them all. With the Lovely Suse knocked out by sickness, the task of making sauce was put in my hands. This is a big deal. I’m usually not allowed to touch the sauce. But I have to say, although it didn’t come out the same as hers, it’s still pretty good. Maybe I have some Italian in me after all.
I must say, I’m looking forward to the new season of Entourage.
I got roped into watching my favorite mid-90’s Doug Liman double feature on Friday night: Swingers followed by Go. I’m a sucker for those movies.
I’m officially into month seven of my MBA program. Only, um, 18 months to go. Oof.
Congrats to Jon for becoming the latest Carpenter to join iPhone Nation. I think he might actually like it more than I do, which is hard to believe.
While I was home with the Lovely Tess last week (she had the Pink Eye), we found a new game with some pipe insulation: Ninja swords!. We whacked each other in the head with them a bunch, which she found to be pretty much the funniest thing in the world. Yes, this is my child.
I’m struggling with the decision whether or not to renew all of my magazine subscriptions. I think I have about 6 or 7 magazines that I’ve been getting for years (GQ, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Wired, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, etc.), but in the past year, I’ve barely had time to read any of them. I’ll flip through them when the first come, put them down, and then a month later, realized that I never read and and we have a huge pile of magazines to recycle. I feel like if I stop getting them I’m going to miss out on something or start to become out of touch, and I wish I could just get digital versions of all of them to read.
I’ve officially given up watching Prison Break. I somehow convinced myself to keep on watching it last season, and I wish I could have back those hours of my life. It’s been all downhill since that first season. I don’t think the creators ever expected to make it past that first year, and they’ve been struggling to come up with storylines every since.
I made pizza in our oven for the first time since I repaired it a couple of months back. I’ve been grilling it outdoors during the summer, but it was time to give it a go indoors again. I think my oven is enjoying its new control board, and I think it pumps out even more heat than before. Very nice. Plus, we made the sauce with tomatoes from the garden, which was faaaaaantastic.
We enjoyed a lovely picnic at Beaver Brook Reservation yesterday, which I think the kids enjoyed. George got to run around off-leash and Tess enjoyed playing Godzilla on our lunch. I think she still has some hummus on her shoe.
Speaking of George, we took him to the vet for his yearly checkup a few weeks ago, and they were concerned that he had lost 4 oz. since last year (a significant amount when you weigh 4 pounds). We realized that he wasn’t really eating his own food and instead was just eating whatever the Lovely Tess would drop. We changed his food, he started eating again, and in a couple of weeks, gained 12 ounces. Whoa. That would be like me gaining 40 pounds in a couple of weeks. I guess we had been starving him for the past year. Sorry George!
Wondering if my Wii bowling prowess will translate into the real thing. 3 days ago
Chocolate mousse chilling in the fridge. Prep for rack of lamb, braised artichokes, and fennel gratin to follow. A new year's eve tradition. 5 days ago
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