Cooking Club (We decided NOT to cook again Edition) June 15, 2011

I think all of us are just a wee bit totally-burned-out at the moment, so we decided to take another month off from actually cooking for cooking club. Oops. Kenna had to sit this one out because she was traveling, but we’re all very excited to see her new house and cook in her kitchen sometime soon!

We spent a lovely, relaxing evening at Arrington Vineyards just a few miles down the road from my house. Anne made a great Greek salad and these little sandwiches I want to eat every day (black forest ham, Granny Smith apples, brie, and apricot preserves), and Melissa brought fresh fruit. Our resident baker, Karen, brought a blueberry cake and took some great photos (as usual). Be sure to hop over here to see them. We listened to the live music, marveled at the lack of cicadas (finally!), and pretty much did nothing. FOR TWO HOURS WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. It was a thing of beauty.

Insomniac party and an out-of-towner May 24, 2011

Hey, would you like to hear an incredibly boring story?

A bird started chirping outside our bedroom window at, oh, about 2:40 this morning.

Charming.

I woke up.

I started reorganizing my work-related, color-coded Outlook tasks in my head. Those little flags and checkmarks make me really insane, but necessary evil and all that. This is the first year I’ve gone totally electronic for all my planner/life organization needs–I’m disproportionately proud.

After about 2 hours (turns out that thinking about your to-do list is NOT an effective way to get back to sleep), I gave up and actually got on the computer and got my task list under (moderate) control.

The end.  

See?

Told you so. IF ONLY it were boring enough to lull me back to sleep.

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Anyway, I promised y’all reunion pics with my old friend Janelle. You remember her. After some false starts, we pulled it together and found a weekend for her to come down.

Okay, she looks precisely the same as she did when I met her on a beach in Michigan ten (eleven? ugh) years ago. I adore her despite this obvious personality flaw.

Please note: the only photo in existence of me with a tan. WEIRD.

Friday night, we joined my fun cooking club girls at Mama Mia’s. It’s a tiny BYOW place and would be an awesome date spot, despite the fact that it is located in a gas station parking lot (well, it is).

Saturday, Janelle and I browsed the downtown Nolensville shops, then headed out to the Nashville Farmer’s Market (where I spent $15 on perfect, delicious produce and my child chose artificially dyed rainbow colored popcorn as her bribe treat–of course).

Then we headed home, put Baby Girl down for a nap (I’m sure Janelle was very impressed with the glamour of my lifestyle at this point), and Janelle and I watched Tangled. In my defense:

1. She had never seen it, and

2. Shut up.

And for the evening, we headed to Sevier Park to see The Goonies. For free! So random and so fun. Andrew was sweet to keep Baby Girl so we could go (he’s been working very hard on his solo EP which is FINALLY off for mastering and the reason I have gotten a TINY, miniscule taste of what it must be like to be a single parent for the past few weeks–and today, I learned the title of it from his blog–hilarious).

Other highlights: Janelle made the rookie mistake of asking BG how many ponies she has and what their names are (THAT took a while), and she turned to me at one point during the weekend and asked me if BG ever stops talking (I think she asked if there was EVER silence in my life…). Nope.

Okay, I promised myself I would try to go back to bed at 5. Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Insomniac Party. Cheers!

Cooking Club, Thai Edition April 23, 2011

These may be my favorite recipes yet. Kenna chose the menu this time, and she did a great job! She spent a good chunk of time at the Bangkok Market learning about all these exotic ingredients, and it showed. She also brought us all some fish sauce to take home, so I was able to try these out again within the same week. I’ll have to find my way out there soon for sure. Kenna’s sister Carla joined us from Georgia, and we let her have the honor of (as instructed by the lovely people at the Bangkok Market) beating the lemongrass stalks with a blunt object. She appeared to enjoy this a little too much!

We made Tom Kha Gai, Pad Thai, and sticky rice with coconut milk and mangoes. See the mangoes in the photo above? The greenish ones are from Publix, and the yellow ones are from the Thai market. NO COMPARISON, people. The yellow ones were perfect–so much better that it was like a totally different fruit. Interestingly, they both had “Grown in Mexico” stickers on them, so I’m not sure what the difference actually was. I’ve made both the coconut soup and the mango dessert at home since then, and using the yellow mangoes instead of the ones I can get here at the local store would have been so much tastier.

It was refreshing to JUST SIT and be able to talk a million miles an hour for an evening not punctuated with having to jump up from the table every four minutes to serve someone else. As we always do at every cooking club dinner, we all marveled at the opportunity to eat a meal that was actually HOT. It’s the little things, right?

My one group shot is blurry and missing Melissa (maybe Karen got a better one), but you can get the idea.

Thanks, ladies!

*Friends Kelli and Stephen are living in Thailand (go take in some of Kelli’s great writing and current adventures featuring lizards in their bathroom and off-road training), so maybe she can chime in with some authentic photos. I’m sure we’re not even close, and that’s okay!

Cooking Club: Southern Menu March 12, 2011

Karen, you had me at peach cobbler.

This month, we gathered to create a traditional Southern supper: fried green tomatoes, mashed potatoes, fried chicken, buttermilk biscuits, and peach cobbler.

You can see why I love these people.

And why I can’t lose my love handles.

This time, we were joined by Jennifer (the lovely artist I mentioned recently), and Karen’s friend Brooke (who turned out to be a friend of mine/Andrew’s from about 13 years ago–small freakin’ town, Nashville is). This was my kind of meal! I could alternate Asian food and peach cobbler for meals for my whole life and never get tired of either.

Again, why can’t I lose the love handles?

The world may never know.

Links to people I like February 2, 2011

Hey! I know creative, talented people. I’m constantly reminded of this.

For example, go see my friend Melissa in all her crafting glory. I suspect she’s the reason I have this overwhelming urge to spray paint everything in my house teal these days (I have so far judiciously limited myself to some frames and one very large, previously very tacky mirror):

http://homeperfection-melissa.blogspot.com/2011/02/valentines-day-inspired-crafts.html

You can also catch a glimpse of my daughter covering Melissa’s kitchen table in glitter glue. Melissa, YOU ARE SO WELCOME.

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And this was my month to host our cooking club, which meant I totally forgot to ever pick up my camera. Karen took some great photos and blogged about it, so let’s not reinvent the wheel here, right? We’re all busy people.

http://ourcrazyblessedlife.blogspot.com/2011/01/spam-and-anchovies-cooking-club.html

Yes, that’s really what it’s called (I’m the one who always protests), and I’m also the one who couldn’t get over the green tea ice cream looking exactly like wasabi (even though I was the one who picked the recipe and made it). It was actually very good, but I couldn’t get over the look of it. Thankfully, the kid loves it and is eating a small dish every night until it’s gone. I did manage to get a few snaps of her helping me make the ice cream (and she was SORELY disappointed when I finally got her to understand that it wasn’t going to be pistachio–her favorite–and really, how many flavors of ice cream are that shade of green?) and the homemade gifts I made for the girls (DIY dry erase boards from recycled picture frames). You can see the other great gifts over on Karen’s blog.

 

Please note that I had just cut nine inches of hair the day before, and still had no idea how to fix it. It doesn’t look like that now (it’s very curly and beachy–which I’m not sure is an improvement, but it’s different). I am re-getting-over my aversion to styling products and embracing the idea of putting something actually called “texture paste” (doesn’t that just sound gross?) on my head every morning. I just pretend I’m about to head out the door to the ocean–where my hair always looks fabulous, by the way.

Spam & Anchovies December 19, 2010

Ladies, are we really, really calling it this? Cracks me up.

We were hosted by Anne this month, who planned out an amazing Spanish-themed dinner for us to prepare and enjoy. She has a beautiful house and roses on the table (I was unduly impressed by the roses!). I kidded several times during the prep that I’d never worked so hard for a meal in my life, and I wasn’t completely joking. The food was amazing, and it’s possible my attitude was affected by a meeting-induced headache. Anne will have to chime in with the full menu on her blog, but we made appetizers, chili-infused mushrooms (I infused chili oil–wonders never cease), paella, ribs, empanadas, and gingerbread cake (Kenna’s very first cake from scratch, which was delicious!). It was great to sit and swap stories and learn more about each other (Melissa’s the common thread here). Karen was teaching a class and had to miss this one, but we should all be back in for January!

Oh, and Anne taught us a better way to chop an onion and we totally doubted her–but it was VERY IMPRESSIVE.

 

It was a late night for me, and I had to make Melissa and Kenna leave right after we ate because I had an early meeting (can you see why I look so tired in that picture?). Can’t wait to do it again next month!

Spam and Anchovies November 20, 2010

Yes, folks, THAT is the name of the cooking club I have joined. Have I mentioned here that I love having weird friends?

Melissa hosted us, and that girl is all about the details. She had everything set up in these adorable little stations with recipe cards all ready to go. I gave my usual caveat of “I’m not so much about the measuring, but I mostly know what I’m doing” and we had a lovely, adult dinner. We missed you, Anne!

Never mind that, at one point, we MAY have been seen cutting apart a pair of pantyhose (NEW pantyhose!) in order to strain the tea after a tea bag came apart in the pitcher.

It was still lovely!