Under the Weather

is an understatement. Adam and I have been sick the past week and are now beginning to feel healthier. The upside was I didn't have to miss school or work or anything so I sat around the apartment for the better part of a week. We did catch up on a lot of our tivoed shows while we were both home with the sniffles. We watched a ton of King of Queens and felt justified for watching it after reading this NYtimes article. We started watching Murder in Suburbia and I watched an entire season of Ugly Betty. Love that show!

Pow Wow

Last Friday, Wheezy and I went down to Charles Street and met up with Steve for lunch. It was a mini pow wow just like the good old days back when we worked together. We ended up at FIGS because Upper Crust and Paramount were unbelievably crowded. Steve wasn't hungry, but had a beer though he did eventually eat some of our food so he could technically claim that he had some lunch with his beverage. After lunch, Wheezy and I walked over to Newbury Street where I bought Adam 18 pairs of socks at the GAP. It was a unbelievably good buy and Adam desperately needed non-athletic socks ever since I informed him that white athletic socks are not particularly "stylish" when worn with leather shoes like his Campers.

Christmas In Boston...A Roaring Success!

Adam's parents flew out from California to spend Christmas this year in Boston. We enjoyed lots of good food thanks to mom and dad and received lots of nice presents, thanks again to mom and dad. Here are some holiday highlights from the past week.

Thursday 12/21: We checked out Galleria Umberto in the North End where we feasted on pizza, calzones and unbelievably delicious arancine, these massive baseball sized deep fried balls of rice/meat. It was super cheap to boot. We walked over to Maria's pastry shop where Adam bought a mini cannoli. The rest of us had turned him down on cannolis, but proceeded to devour his mini cannoli so he went back in to buy a regular sized one whiche we then devoured as well.

Friday 12/22: After discovering that rack of lamb cost $32 a pound at Savenors, we bravely ventured to Whole Foods to shop for our Christmas meal. We managed to find and buy everthing relatively unscathed, but it sure was crowded. I baked up a loaf of the super easy/crusty no-knead bread which we enjoyed with grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner. Then, we went bundled up and went to a Holiday Pops concert where a lady handed me a light up pin and said, "Enjoy this light up pin from Fidelity Investments who is excited to have young people here at the concert." Please note, Adam did not receive a pin. I spent part of the evening wondering just how old the lady thought I was.

Saturday 12/23: Adam's dad's birthday. We spent a lot of our day saying, "Well, Dad should decide what we should do, it's his birthday," "Dad shouldn't have to browse in shops if he doesn't want to on his birthday," "Dad should pick the game we play, it's his birthday." I think there were times when Adam projected his own desires on Dad by framing his own preferences in terms of "it's Dad's birthday." On the culinary front, we went to Formaggio's Kitchen in the morning and we treated Dad to dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse downtown in the Old City Hall on School Street. The steaks were cooked in their proprietary 1800 degree oven, served on a 500 degree plate coated in melted butter...they were really tender and delicious. The sides were pretty good, but lukewarm do the steaks were the real stars of our dinner. I ate at least 12 ounces of steak.

Sunday 12/24: We went to church where the sermon included a clip of a scene from the movie Elf...it was relevant to the sermon and highly entertaining. We went to Legal Seafood for dinner where our waiter was super earnest and helpful, almost too helpful. Adam's parents were staying at the Charles Hotel so we checked out their newfangled bathroom TV. The TV is part of the bathroom mirror, turn the TV on using the remote and the TV appears from behind the one way mirror...very cool.

Monday 12/25: CHRISTMAS! PRESENT DAY! JESUS's BIRTHDAY! I was overly excited about the presents under the tree and had a mini [private] meltdown because I didn't want to wait to open them. We made yummy pancakes and bacon for breakfast. We ate cheese for "lunch." I learned how to bake an apple pie and we cooked a delicious Christmas dinner of rack of lamb, scallopped potatoes and orange/fennel salad. I insisted we watch ELF. We also called Zess who is not into talking on the phone these days. She said, "Merry Christmas, I'm all done talking on the phone, good bye."

Tuesday 12/26: Adam's parents were heading home that afternoon so we ate brunch at S&S, checked out Christina's spice store in Inman, played Bohnanza and headed to the airport. All in all, an excellent visit.

It's Christmas Time

...at the Zakun's. Adam's parents are in town for Christmas and we even got our very first Christmas tree. I'm proud to say we decorated our tree with a lot of homemade or found objects. I made a ribbon garland and origami crane ornaments. We fashioned a tree skirt out of a Pottery Barn Kids Christmas tablecloth plasticmom and I bought a few years ago on clearance. We hung up some Christmasey small cake pans MGDub got me one year. We did buy a tree topper and some glass ball ornaments, but all and all we did pretty well. Our tree looks very festive and we spent a lot less than I thought we'd have to. Score one for the Zakuns.

"Hot Cocoa For Sale...for sale for sale"

There are these three really cute girls selling hot cocoa outside the Porter Square Shaws. I thought they were girl scouts or something, but their signs seem too homemade to have any official affiliation. I couln't resist so I bought a cup of hot cocoa for $1.50, I even got whipped cream (from a can) and a lid for my hot cup. The hot cocoa was very hot, but not that great. I think it's Swiss Miss or some kind of powdered hot chocolate. I'm not sure how much money they're going to make, but it looked like they only had a couple of bucks in their tin "cash register."

Cooky

Adam and I celebrated Christmas with Wheezy tonight at Chez Henri. We all got vegetarian Cuban sandwiches and festive looking cocktails. Wheezy got us this awesome old school Betty Crocker cookbook, the "Cooky" cookbook to be exact. It has all these great photos of cookys from back when food styling was less advanced. I can't wait to try the Snickerdoodle recipe Wheezymom makes from this book, I hear it's a Wheezyfamily tradition.

Ever since Wheezy started her new job which involves programming in Stata, I've been wanting to ask her all about the programs she's writing, the macros she's creating, the data she's merging and the variables she's generating. Imagine how excited I was when I opened my gift, it was an official Stata coffee mug. The only think that would make it more perfect would be if it read, "I [heart] Stata," but I suppose it wouldn't be very professional. I'm totally taking it to work next year along with my Hello Kitty mug.

In The Neighborhood

It's 1pm and my pink phone rings.

plasticann: Hey Steve!
Steve: Hi [plastic] Ann!
plasticann: What's up?
Steve: I'm in your neighbornood. I'm on my way to the doctor.
plasticann: Great!
Steve: I'm half and hour early.
plasticann: OK
Steve: [pause] Are you wavering because your apartment is messy?
plasticann: It is messy, but I don't really care.
Steve: You should see my apartment.
plasticann: Would you like to come over?
Steve: Yes!

The Great Cookie Contest

I'm one of the co-presidents of the Tasting Club here at school, it's basically a club devoted to all things food. Our Great Cookie Contest was today and the turnout was awesome. 18 entries, who know so many business school students baked cookies. We even got these awesome official looking medals from this place online. They were so cheap, I wanted to buy them for everyone for Christmas. I offered to get Adam a "world's greatest husband" medal, but he declined and said he wanted a real present. We sold the cookies at 4 for $1 plus the right to vote for the fan favorite. I won the Tasters Choice award for my Chocolate Ginger, woohoo. Adam, Laurel and Adam's mom all really like the Chocolate Ginger Cookie so this win is for you guys.

Holiday Brunch

By going out for Thanksgiving dinner, Adam and I saved up all our energy for our brunch on Saturday. We cleaned our apartment, rearranged our furniture, shopped for food and baked up a storm for our 23 brunch guests. We thought we made just enough food, but we had way too much. We also thought we'd been really good about planning ahead, but we were still scurrying around a lot so we took notes on how to improve for next time. Here's our menu:

Beverage:
Coffee and OJ

Buffet:
Chedder Scallion Biscuits
Yogurt & Homemade Granola
Pumpkin Coconut Bread
Sour Cream Coffeecake
Oranges in Lime Sugar Syrup
Cheesy Potatoes
Scrambled Eggs with Avocado

Grill (manned by Chef Adam):
Pancakes
Bacon
Sausage

Cookie Bar:
Adam's Favorite
Chocolate Ginger
Oatmeal Raisin
Mexican Wedding
Chocolate Peanut Butter

The Cheesy Potatoes were a huge hit and ironically the easiest to make. Tator tots, sour cream and cheese all baked up in a casserole...what's not to love.

The Purpose Of Blogging

plasticann: So, how was your day?
Adam: Oh, it was good, blah blah blah. I made myself some lunch today. You wouldn't want to know what was in it.
plasticann: [grimacing] Was it reeaaallly old food?
Adam: No, I chopped up the leftover chicken and rice from Blue Fin, fried it up with pieces of the bacon waffle from last night and pieces of the last scallion cheddar biscuit.
plasticann: [long pause, slightly unsure] You know I love you regardless of what you eat.
Adam: Yeah I know. Brian walked into the kitchen while I was making my lunch and gave me a weird look.
plasticann: Did he ask you what you were cooking?
Adam: No. I'm glad he didn't though because I was kind of embarrassed.
plasticann: Maybe you shouldn't eat it if you're embarrassed about it.
Adam: It looked weird, but it tasted good.
plasticann: You know that this is blogworthy.
Adam: Don't blog about this. You should blog about how I made bacon waffles last night and how they were good.
plasticann: Perhaps, you've missed the purpose of blogging.
Adam: To make fun of me?
plasticann: Exactly!

Adam made bacon sausage waffles for dinner last night. Waffles with bits of sausage and bacon inside. The hybrid dish was pretty good I must admit, but I must draw the line at super hybrid dishes where hybrid dishes cooked with other foods.

Kabob Factory

The weather on Thanksgiving was awful, it poured all day and we got soaked on the way to dinner. Fortunately, Friday was beautiful and sunny so we had to get out. We walked over to Inman Square hoping to check out All Star Sandwich, but the line was too long and chaotic so we walked back to Kabob Factory for their lunch buffet and it was delicious. Not your average Central Square Indian buffet, Kabob Factory had little cups of chai, little bowls of spinich soup on top of all of your usual buffet favorites. The naan came fresh in a little basket. "Yum-O" as Rachel Ray likes to say annoying.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Adam and I decided to pass on making Thanksgiving dinner. Instead, we went to Excelsior for their turkey dinner with some friends and decided to save our energy for the holiday brunch we hosted today [more on that later]. We feasted on the following and splurged on the paired wines. One of my favorites was the delicious warm chocolate cake:

Maine Lobster and Sweet Potato Bisque Cranberry Beans, Ham Hock and Basil Pistou Alma Rosa ~ Chardonnay, Santa Barbara County 2004

Oak Leaf Lettuce Salad Fuji Apple, Vermont Goat Cheese and Pole Beans, Vanilla-‘Hard Cider’ Dressing L’Aventure ~ Roussanne, Paso Robles 2005 Roast Organic

Amish Raised Turkey Wood Roasted Chestnut, Turkey Sausage and Semolina Bread Stuffing Foraged Mushroom-Giblet Gravy Anise Honey Lacquered Autumn Vegetables Brown Buttered Brussel Sprouts Buttermilk Mashed Bliss Potatoes Cape Cod Cranberry Relish Fess Parker ~ Pinot Noir, Santa Barbara 2005

Warm Valhrona Chocolate Cake Pumpkin Ice Cream, Spiced Caramel and Candied Pecans Grant Burge ~ 10 year Tawny, Barossa

Adam Bakee

Last week, Adam discovered that his coworkers' kids are fixated on his name. Andrew and Val, who had just given birth to son number three, were driving their three boys to the Arboretum when they called Adam so he could experience the extent of their fixation. The following is a reconstructed conversation by way of Adam. Note that the kids are all under the age of five and "Son 1" happens to be my favorite introverted child:

Val: Hi Adam, we're on our way to the arboretum with the boys and we thought you might like to hear this. Maybe you'd like to talk to them.
Boys: [in the background] Adam Bakee Adam Bakee!
Adam: Hi, where are you guys going?
Son 1: We're going to the arboretum. I'm in the car with mommy and daddy, little brother and baby brother who just came out of mommy's belly.
Son 2: [in the background] Adam Bakee Adam Bakee Adam Bakee!

Val and Andrew have tried to explain to the boys that Bakee is not actually Adam's last name, but Bakee is apparently much catchier and easier to chant.

Grendel's

I met up with Wheezy for lunch today at Grendel's. She's adjusting to her new job at the Kennedy School. I ordered the french dip sandwich from their 3.95 lunch special menu and it was quite tasty. Crusty baguette, roast beef and a bowl of au jus. I even splurged for some ginger ale. Wheezy got the falafel wrap which looked tasty, but was not a 3.95 lunch special.

Kashi Is The Man

School has become an occasional source of in class embarassments especially when professors poll the class. This morning's discussion on the cereal industry was "classic:"

Prof.: How many of you occasionally eat Kashi cereal?
plasticann: [raises her hand along with a number of others]
Prof: Ann, why do you eat Kashi?
plasticann: Um, my husband likes Kashi and sometimes I run out of Lucky Charms so I have to eat the Kashi.
Prof: Okay...now is there anyone who voluntarily eats Kashi?

True, Kashi Go Lean is not my favorite and for good reason as I learned today, it has an obcene amount of protein and fiber and no sugar. Unfortunately, I've now been pegged as someone who only eats Lucky Charms, which isn't entirely accurate. I really enjoy a bowl of Lucky Charms every so often, but I do eat other slightly more redeeming cereals. Somehow, I had a mental block when called upon. I wanted to say, "Raisin Bran Crunch," but I ended up saying "Lucky Charms." Raisin Bran Crunch is no Kashi Go Lean, but at least it's not associated with screaming temper tantrum throwing six year olds. On another note, I also learned that Kashi got bought by Kellogg so for all of you who buy Kashi partially to stick it to the "man," Kashi is the man. No one can escape the [cereal] man!

It's Good To Have Friends

Last night, I had an interview downtown and my friends Steve and Kathleen were also interviewing at the same time. In some ways, it's an amusing situation interviewing for the same job with your good friends, but in other ways, it's really nice. I was the last candidate to leave last night and when I got down to the lobby, Steve and Kathleen were both waiting for me. It was really awesome to see two friendly faces. Go BIT solidarity...it's good to have friends who root for you even when you're all sort of competing in a way.

Ruby + Dash Baby Clothes

Adam forwarded me this new online baby clothes store from his coworker Angel who received it from her husband Chris who in turn received an e-mail from his brother and sister and law, who are the folks in charge of Ruby + Dash. A long story short, check out their site, they've got cute onesies and shirts and such. Too bad they don't make bigger people clothes, I could go for a red polka dotted rhino tee...I do like polka dots.

Success

I was determined to bake bread before I left for NYC this weekend for a school trip and to visit MGDub. The recipe called for at least 12 hours of dough proofing, preferably 20 hours. I went with 14 and the results are pretty good. The bread it self is tasty, a bit bland, but the crust is very crisp and delicious. According to Laurel, proofing it longer will improve the taste so next time I'm planning on the full 20 hours. True to the recipe's word, no kneading.

[Slowly Baked] Homemade Bread

I've always aspired to bake bread, but I'm utterly intimidated by the entire proposition so I got really excited when I saw this article on easy foolproof bread baking in the nytimes today. It takes a really long time so it's high on patience, but low on actual work. MGDub and GJDubya have a Ukrainian phrase they like to use for these types of projects which essentially means something like, "why bother." Unfortunately, the entire bread baking process takes nearly 21 hours and I can't figure out how I'll manage to schedule this bread baking without having to rush home in the middle of the day to work on my dough. Without rearranging my current schedule and disrupting my beauty sleep, I can only practically start the process of baking bread on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. All other days, I'll be stuck at school at a critical point in time when I need to be home. Given that each loaf is 1.5 pounds, I shouldn't have to bake bread more than twice a week in order to feed the two of us.

Recipe: No-Knead Bread

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street BakeryTime: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Not The Neatest Bears

Adam and I may be pretty smart bears and very hungry bears, but we are not the neatest bears. We're motivated to straighten up when

a. things have gotten utterly out of control and we no longer have clean spoons
b. we have guests coming over
c. all of the above

The state of Bakun-land's clean spoon supply has been especially bad ever since we moved to an apartment with no dishwasher. However, our bank statements are very organized and our bills are paid on time thanks to Adam Bear.

Why would someone go to Newark or JFK?

The following is a reconstructed in class discussion about airlines and aiports in the NYC area:

Prof: So, on the weekends, the price from Boston to Newark is more expensive than Boston to La Guardia. Why is that? Why would someone prefer to fly to Newark or JFK instead of La Guardia on the weekend?
[baffled silence]
Prof: Come on guys, what do you think?
Student: Because Newark and JFK are gateways for a lot of international flights so maybe people have to fly there to make a connection.
Prof: That's true, but gateways aside, why would someone want to fly to Newark or JFK?
[silence]
Another Student: I'm not sure, but maybe for the "Jersey Shore?"
Prof: [Exasperated] Yes! People live in New Jersey and they vacation in New Jersey so they want to fly there. There's this place called Queens, ever heard of it, a lot of people live there. You people think that Manhattan is it, then there's San Francisco and maybe there's Chicago somewhere in the middle. People not only live near Newark, there's this whole state called New Jersey.

Too Young To Be Married!!!

The following is a reconstructed conversation between plasticann and the sandwich lady (SL) at New Saigon downtown:

plasticann: [talking to Adam on new phone while waiting for sandwiches] Yeah, I'm at the sandwich place so I can get you one for tomorrow. See you later. Bye!
plasticann: [to SL] I'd like to add a teriyaki chicken sandwich to my order.
SL: Ha ha, your friend knew you were here so they called for a sandwich.
plasticann: Yeah, it was my husband, he wanted a sandwich for tomorrow.
SL: You married?
plasticann: Yeah!
SL: [maternally] You're too young to be married!
plasticann: [sheepishly]Well, I'm not really that young. I'm 28.
SL: 28! You're [nineteen] seventy-nine like me!
plasticann: No, seventy-eight! [pause] So I guess I'm actually older than you.

Not only is the sandwich lady a year younger than me and positively 27 not 28, she has two kids, ages ten and eight. Too young to be married my "Gluteus Maximus!" I'm positively over the hill and barren to boot.

Frightful Halloween Visitors

Overheard through my new [pink] razr phone was the following reconstructed scenario involving Steve, one of his roommates and a Halloween visitor:

plasticann: OK, so what should we do about the paper?
Steve: Well, I think...[ding dong doorbell in background]...wait, we have trick or treaters. [yelling to roommates] Do we have candy? [panicked hollering] Where's the candy?
Steve's Roommate: [garble garble garble]
Steve: Oh no, we don't have candy for the trick or treaters! Oh, it's a delivery person. Did you order food?
Steve's Roommate: [garble garble garble, but I assume he answered "yes."]
Steve: I thought the delivery person was a trick or treater.

Let this be a lesson to us all, don't be stranded without candy on Halloween. Secondly, unless little kids have taken to dressing up as delivery people for Halloween, look twice through the peephole before freaking out. Steve will probably disagree with my interpretation of the scenario since I wasn't there, but it's my interpretation of what went down as I heard it over my phone...my new pink phone.

A walk down memory lane

I started rereading archives of this blog in order to prepare for an interview with Google next week and I've noticed a few consistent themes. First, Steve's antics are featured prominently throughout the years and he is always hilarious. Secondly, plasticmom and I are obsessed with Nalgene water bottles, especially plasticmom. My archives indicate that I've purchased almost every new bottle introduction for plasticmom: one liter, mini-grip, n-gen. Also, her bottle count has increased from 3 to 5 to 6 to infinity over the years. When Adam and I visited plasticmom for Laurel and CAD Cowboy's wedding, I noticed that she had FOUR super tall 1.5 liter bottles in her kitchen plus an entire basket of empty bottles. Mindboggling! I'm responsible for some of it, but not all. I suppose Adam and I would have just as many if not more water bottles if Adam had not boldly proclaimed, during spring cleaning, that we would be strictly a four water bottle household, two big plus two small. I even insisted plasticmom take one of my small bottles while she was in Seattle after she mentioned leaving a small bottle behind in Cambridge just to uphold the four bottle rule. Since plasticmom clearly doesn't have a four bottle rule, I think I might get her either the flask or the sippy cup next time.

Diamonds and Coal

Diamond: My managed to fix the water damage on my leather bag by dunking it in a bathtub full of water...it's like new [almost]
Coal: Adam and I both had a stomach bug this week.