We went to the holiday party last night for David’s office. In recent years, it’s been an enjoyable enough affair, especially after they stopped booking the DJ nobody liked… but the experience we had was somewhat beyond our wildest expectations of a nice evening. Meson Sabika was the setting, a large mansion in Naperville, which is one of the few Chicago suburbs with a sense of its own history. First settled in 1811, it’s set in gently rolling country, with a vibrant and architecturally appealing downtown, with public space and art everywhere. We drove down after work, and I was…
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I admit it, I have Turkey Anxiety. I’ve never actually cooked a complete Thanksgiving meal, and in fact I very, very, very rarely cook at all. David handles most of the day to day stuff, although I have a few things that I make for the two of us. We never entertain, because the house is almost never company-ready. There’s too much stuff to put away and no place to put it, and yadda yadda. But every now and then, I get the wild urge to make a turkey dinner around the holidays, with the side items that are my…
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Being part of the family here in Chicagoland (actually, Northwest Burblcavia) means that I get to partake of some seasonal delights and occasionally take a stab at cooking them. Take latkes. Please! Take another! I like them a lot. But they can be really greasy and high in calories. A few years back, I had run across a really great recipe that makes a huge amount of latkes, but it also calls for a boatload of oil. It also comes with philosophical musings: The Constitutional Foundations of Shirley Edelman’s Latke. However, I happened across the following recipe in my news…
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My life doesn’t really run to a narrative. There’s the basic “get up, go to work, come home, eat something, do something, go to bed” framework, but there’s no grand sweeping Story of my Life. It’s just a collection of random moments. That being said, some days are a little out of the ordinary in minor ways. Today started out normal, got different, then got normal. It was very slow at work – as in, frighteningly, “when are they going to start training us on other accounts” slow. Not terrifyingly “when are they going to start to pull in the…
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Oh, yeah! PvPonline! I used to read the strip a lot more consistently. I should try and get that set up in Google Reader, I had it when I was reading via Bloglines. This reminds me of a wacky experience we had at our favorite sushi-teppanyaki joint, Kampai (which is conveniently located close to O’Hare, visitors stranded at the airport!). They have a very large location, with the floaty-boat sushi bar at the left hand end (with its own entrance) and the steakhouse/”hibachi place” restaurant at the right hand. They actually had two full-size dining rooms on the main restaurant…
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BBC NEWS | Health | Broccoli ‘may help protect lungs’ A substance found in broccoli may limit the damage which leads to serious lung disease, research suggests. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is often caused by smoking and kills about 30,000 UK residents a year. US scientists found that sulforapane increases the activity of the NRF2 gene in human lung cells which protects cells from damage caused by toxins. The same broccoli compound was recently found to be protective against damage to blood vessels caused by diabetes. Brassica vegetables such as broccoli have also been linked to a lower risk…
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This morning when I got to work, I had a notice that one of the hotels where I’ve got a group booked was going to be in the office with treats. After dealing with some morning stuff (why can’t people plan in advance?) I wandered in to the board room where they were set up. MMmmm! Breakfast pizza! That’s nice and fattening and full of calories and sodium! (and it was delicious too). This evening, after futzing around meal-wise, David and I decided to forage in the cupboards and fridge. I had a vague idea I’d heat up some soup. “Oh,…
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My sister-in-law made these the other night for Easter dinner, and the “whack-a-mole” method of dealing with the potatoes seemed like a good stress-buster. Besides, we have a long-handled meat tenderizer with a flat side, which worked extremely well at smacking the potatoes (we didn’t cut them in half, as they were smaller than the ones the other night). However, the cutting board did not survive; it already had a couple of splits and was not very high quality, and it split right down the middle as we whacked away at the spuds. It did work really well to hold…
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My husband David will be so disappointed to hear this: ‘Fraudulent’ British celebrity chef faces sack from US TV show after claiming he made Diana’s wedding cake | the Daily Mail A celebrity British chef who has his own TV show in America faces the sack after he was unmasked as a fraud. Robert Irvine claimed he had helped make the wedding cake for the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana. And in a bid to impress Americans the former royal chef said he was knighted by the Queen – and even boasted that he had been given a castle…
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Chicken Piccata Recipe | Simply Recipes Ingredients: all we need are capers! 2-4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (1 1/2 pound total) 1/3 cup flour 2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese Salt and pepper 4 Tbsp butter 4 Tbsp olive oil 3 Tbsp lemon juice 1/2 cup chicken stock or dry white wine 1/4 c. brined1/8 c. capers in balsamic vinegar 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley When I got to the store, all they had were capers in either plain vinegar, or balsamic, not brined (unless that’s the same thing… ). The recipe calls for either butterflying thick chicken breasts, or…