Circa Sample Bar

We stopped by the Levenger store in the Prudential to check things out. Wheezy and I happen to love the store since we love office products, but Adam find the store mildly intolerable and mostly agrees to stop in to humor me so he parked himself in a comfy armchair while I checked out the latest wares. I ended up by the Circa notebook section of the store when a salesperson, Bob, asked if I wanted a free Circa notebook sample, it's an eight dollar value. Of course I said, "YES!" so we went through 10 minute process of picking covers, picking rings, picking papers, etc. I felt kinda bad because Adam looked pretty bored on the other side of the store, but I was just so excited about the notebook. Adam finally wandered over to me probably intending to drag me out of the store, but I preempted him by saying, "Adam, check out my awesome new notebook...it was free." Bob promptly chimed in, "Yes, would you like a free sample as well Adam?" Adam started to say no, but then he noticed that I was nodding my head vigorously so he acquiesced and got himself a custom made sample as well. I'd assumed (incorrectly) that Adam would automatically hand over his notebook to me since he didn't even want it in the first place. Just because he's a super nice husband, he agreed to give it to me if it would make me happy. Yeah! So everyone, get thee to Levenger for a free sample Circa of your own.

Cafe Polonia

Adam and I finally checked out Cafe Polonia on Saturday for lunch. We've always wanted to go, but we thought it was hard to get to without a car. Turns out, it's only about a block from the Andrews T stop on the red line. We started with a basket of bread and a spread:

Adam: This spread is good, what do you think is in it?
plasticann: I don't know...probably lard.
Adam: Really?...[asking the waitress] Excuse me, what's in this spread?
Waitress: It's for the bread and it's made with spices and blah blah blah and lard. You should try it, it's very good.
plasticann: [subtly trying to push lard away from Adam] We've already tried it, we were curious what it was.
plasticann: I don't think we should eat any more of this.

We only had a little taste of the lard, but we did think of MGDub and her Ukrainian heritage as we polished off our lunch of pierogies, potato pancakes, cabbage roll, kielbasa and sauerkraut. I would highly recommend the potato pancakes...they were awesome.

Piggy

I walked into MBA admissions today and spotted this adorable piggy humidifier sitting on the receptionist's desk. Then I spotted a bunch of other cute animal humidifiers around the office as I walked through. Turns out, the head of admissions decided they should have a "spa" like atmosphere so they invested in some humidifiers. All I can say is, I love a school with cute humidifiers in admissions...take that Harvard with your fancy chandeliers and professional chalkboard washers.

Pen Pals

I was super excited to see I got some mail from my little niece Zess today. The envelope was festively decorated with Disney princess stickers and orange crayon scrawl. Inside, I received some awesome hummingbird fake tattoos. I have a funny feeling these are the very tattoos that she got for Easter and freaked out saying "get it off, get it off, get it off" when the fake tattoo was first applied. My favorite, a scrap of paper with orange crayon scrawl...love it. Don't know if it's a part of a series of abstract art, but I'm putting it up on my fridge.

Eye Doctor

I managed to finagle a long overdue eye appointment for this afternoon when I called yesterday morning. I was freaked out because I thought my right eye was getting blurry and my eyes were feeling tired. I had been trying to check my vision by closing one eye while looking out the other. Turns out, this is not how one checks their vision. Apparently, closing one eye can change the shape of your other eye and temporarily change the vision of that open eye which is why it's my left eye that's gotten worse not my right eye as I had self diagnosed. I was unconvinced that there was nothing significantly wrong with my eyesight and kept peppering the doctor, whom I had just met, with questions like

Q: Am I getting close to being legally blind?
A: No, blindness is measured by how well you see with glasses, you're very far off.

Q: Is a 10 degree rotation in my astigmatism alarming?
A: No, it happens all the time to almost everyone.

Q: How many spots would I see if I had a detached retina? One spot?
A: Not just one, a shower of spots.

Q: Will I be able to walk home once my eyes are dilated?
A: Most patients have no problem....haven't you had them dilated before?

Q: Why are my eyes aging, I'm only twenty eight? Is it the sun?
A: No, aging occurs in all ages, even 18 year olds and I've even seen it in 8 year olds?

Finally, he politely put an end to my questions with "I do this all day and there's nothing to worry about" and "why don't you do some research on the Internet, it'll be more informative than any explanation I could give you at this moment." On the way out, I asked when my next check up would be. I was internally freaked out when he said, "in two years," but then he changed his mind and said he would do another glaucoma test in a year. Woohoo! I have a feeling he was happy to get rid of me, but one has to understand that as a kid my vision deteriorated so quickly, I'd have to go every six months for a checkup so I'm perpetually convinced that I'll go blind spontaneously. I guess I should revel in my relatively good eye health rather than trying to conjure up reasons to be alarmed.

Cookies

Yesterday at work, Adam walked over to Kate and Alissa's office to offer them some sugar cookies I'd baked when he accidentally spilled them over Alissa's desk and bag. They salvaged most of the cookies, but poor Adam had to suffer through a day of, "Guess what, Adam tossed his cookies all over my bag and desk" Boah ha ha!

Everyday Food Easter

We had a bunch of friends over yesterday for an Easter potluck dinner. Adam and I made a bunch of stuff from Everyday Food magazine which all turned out great and was super simple. Our menu included (EF denotes Everyday Food):

Cheese Platter
Cheese Puffs - EF
Cucumber Dill Dip - EF

Apricot Mustard Ham - EF
Parmesan Roasted Asparagus - EF
Glazed Carrots - EF
Hash Brown Casserole
Spinach Salad with Goat Cheese and Nuts
Incredible Fried Rice

Strawberry Shortcake with Chocolate Sauce
Sugar Cookies shaped like Chicks

Namesake

We went to saw The Namesake tonight in Harvard Square and I was super excited because I really enjoyed the book. The following is a reconstructed conversation between my friends Zeff, Zatrick and me. Zeff and I have immigrant parents whereas Zatrick family lines goes back quite a few generations.

plasticann: I've been really wanting to see The Namesake.
Zeff: Yeah, I totally want to see that too.
Zatrick: What's it about?
plasticann: It's about...
Zeff: ...it's about the immigrant experience.
Zatrick: Well, I don't really know much about that, we go a few generations back.
plasticann: Well, you kinda "immigrated" to a different part of the country...Boston.
Zatrick: Yeah, where there are way too many people. I can't wait to leave and get back to the trees.

Zatrick grew up on a hobby farm with cows a milking where the land was a plenty. He finds Boston a bit constricting.

Back from the Holy Land

Israel was super hectic and jam packed, but fun overall. We visited a number of places including Jeruselum, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Caesarea, Nazareth, Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea and finally Eilat, a beach resort at the southern most tip of Israel next to the Red Sea. We're still pretty jet lagged from our trip, but we're doing our best to stay awake past 9pm. We ate way too much falafel, hummus and shwarma and we're happy to be home sleeping in our own bed and cooking our own meals.

Thurs/Fri Mar 22-23 - Travel: We flew Alitalia which was relatively uneventful. We had a stopover in Milan and the airport was not very exciting and overall the food on Alitalia was horrid.

Sat Mar 24 - Jerusalem: Jerusalem is a strangely disorienting place. There are so many holy sites and so many religions converging on one space. Then there are the contradictions between different interpretations so no one really knows what happened where and when. Thus, they call the mental insanity that ensues from this disorientation, Jerusalem Syndrome. We went to a bunch of holy sites including the wailing wall, the room where the last supper supposedly took place, King David's tomb, etc. I also bought a giant bagel from a street vendor. It was eight inches wide, that's how big. Not as tasty as an Iggy's bagel, but I was impressed by how ginormous the bagel was.

Sun Mar 25 - Jerusalem: We all suited up for a variety of business formal meetings. We visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where they confiscated our passports in exchange for visitor's badges. I even asked the guard, "Will I get my passport back when I leave?" She nodded yes and I felt pretty dumb for having asked. I mean, of course I was getting it back, how else would I leave the country? We then visited a street market where I bought some cookies that looked significantly tastier than they turned out to be. I did enjoy a small chocolate croissant that was surprisingly delicious. Next, we went over the the Orthodox Jewish quarter to look around and we were sorely disappointed. I guess we were unrealistically expecting the Amish. Basically, the folks in this neighborhood just dressed conservatively, but had cell phones, bought CDs, etc. Lastly, we went over to the Bank of Israel and heard from the govern er of the bank. Let's just say, I spent an hour digging my nails into my palms to stay awake and my hands hurt afterwards.

Gmail Paper

We got back yesterday from Israel and I totally fell for this new gmail feature when I logged on to check my e-mail. I forgot it was April Fool's Day so I was confused about gmail paper, but didn't pursue it any further. If I had clicked on learn more about gmail paper, I would have realized that I'd been had. Pretty Hilarious!

We're Off to the Holy Land!

Extreme Halitosis

We made these tasty sesame noodles with veggies on Friday, but somehow I just had a bad reaction to the garlic and onions in the dish. I woke up Saturday morning feeling like garlic smells were seeping out of my pores. I'm reminded of how MGDub used to love shrimp scampi and how GJDubya would have the open her windows the next morning because MGDub's entire room would reek of garlic. Brushing my teeth seemed to help a little, but then I made the mistake of eating leftover sesame noodles for lunch which caused what Adam termed as, "Extreme Halitosis." I brushed my teeth twice, brushed my tongue and the entire inside of my mouth, gargled twice with mouthwash and my halitosis still lingered. Finally Adam, out of desperation, popped three Listerine strips into my mouth which helped though it tasted disgusting. Ughh!. Oddly enough, Adam ate the exact same food and didn't seem to have any problems with it.

Everyday FOOD

I was home on Tuesday watching Martha on TV and they were promoting the new Everyday FOOD cookbook. Being a huge fan of the magazine and a total sucker, I immediately ordered it from Amazon. One of the editors from FOOD was showing Martha a recipe for oven fried chicken and the following is a reconstructed conversation:

Allie: So you want one four pound chicken cut into pieces.
Martha: [pointing] Is that one whole chicken?
Allie: Yes, it's one whole chicken.
Martha: [slightly confused] Why are there four legs?
Allie: [sheepishly] Oh, it must be four pounds of chicken pieces not one four pound whole chicken.

Suit Up

Adam needed a suit for our upcoming trip to Israel so we headed over to the Men's Wearhouse on Tuesday night to "suit up." Our salesperson was really nice and helpful, but he was up-selling and cross-selling us like crazy. My theory is they don't mark up their suits very much so they can sell them at an attractive price and then they make all of their margin on the extras like shirts, ties, suspenders, etc. I wanted to ask the sales guy about their margins, but didn't think we were good enough friends for such a question since he spent much of the evening referring to me as the "young lady." I did learn that the suits are sold in jacket/pant sets and usually have a 5-6 inch "drop," the difference between the jacket size and the pant size. A size 40 jacket comes with size 34 or 35 pants. He also spoke of the "executive" suits which have a 2 inch or even a 0 inch drop. In his words, these "executive suits" were for guys with "big bellies." Yikes!

Disclaimer: Adam did not buy an "executive suit."

Quatro Kitties

One of my favorite babies who's really a toddler by now, Zimo, used to like saying "Yah" to everything including, "Are you a communist?" Now, he's much more verbal at about two and Adam reports the following:

Adam: How many [stuffed] cats do you have?
Zimo: Uno, Dos, Tres, Quatro Kitties
Adam: [flabbergasted]

Zimo's giant brain shouldn't be a huge surprise since both his parents are wicked smaaaht. He named his [stuffed] kitties after real cats that he's either met or knows of. Apparently, he also knows the entire alphabet in, get this, sign language. To think I was impressed when I witnessed my one year old nephew ZP sign for milk. Before we know it, Zimo will be signing "Communist."

Parchment Salmon

Since we don't have a car, we usually only shop for necessities at the grocery store since we're limited by what we can carry home. Yesterday, we decided we were going to take a cab home from the store so we stocked up on everything we could imagine. I bought 20 pounds of flour, 7.5 pounds of sugar and two cases of seltzer water. Adam bought six boxes of chicken broth, that's 192 ounces, a gallon of OJ and a gallon of milk to boot. Talk about living the high life...exciting stuff. Alas, I digress. We also picked up a pound of salmon for dinner and we made this parchment salmon from FOOD magazine.

Parchment Salmon

.75-1 pound salmon fillet, cut in two pieces, rinsed and patted dry
2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 large carrots julienned about two cups

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees
2. Mix lemon juice, salt, pepper and carrots in a bowl. Coat carrots with juice.
3. Tear off two squares of parchment paper at least 12 x 12.
4. Mound 1/2 of carrots (without juice) in the middle of each sheet of paper
5. Dip salmon fillets into the remaining juice to coat.
6. Place salmon on top of mounded carrots.
7. Fold two edges of paper together in the center and fold down to seal, crimp and fold each end to basically form a little packet that won't open up. You can probably staple.
8. Bake on a baking sheet for 20-25 minutes depending on size of salmon.
9. Place cooked packet on plate, open packet and serve.

Black Bean Soup

Adam and his coworkers have a weekly soup potluck rotation where every Tuesday, someone makes a pot of soup to share. A few weeks ago, Adam was raving about this Black Bean Soup Alissa had made so he in turn made it for some friends who stopped by for lunch. It's delicious and you won't believe how ridiculously easy it is. I'd bet even MGDub could get motivated to make this.

1 can black beans
1 can refried black beans
1 can chicken broth (or veggie)
1 jar salsa

Dump all ingredients in a pot. Heat, simmer, stir for 20 minutes. EAT!

The Holy Land

It's the Lenten season and Adam is fasting from cheese and desserts while I am fasting from "non-purposeful" desserts. We did make an exception for "social" desserts, namely, if someone has a dinner party or a birthday party then we want to celebrate and enjoy desserts. Let's face it, I eat a lot of dessert everyday and I don't even think about it. Just the other day, there was a plate of homemade brownies and I unconsciously ate one. It wasn't until minutes later when someone offered me a cookie and I was about to turn it down that I realized I'd already eaten a brownie. I don't feel bad because I didn't break my fast on purpose, but I am being more vigilant about it. The following is a reconstructed conversation about our fasts:

plasticann: Adam, I think I'm going to break my fast when we're in Israel over spring break even though it's still Lent because there might be some really cool Israeli dessert I want to try.
Adam: Oh yeah, we can totally breaking our fasts in Israel. We'll be in the Holy Land.

Hello Kitty Paraphernalia

It warms my hear that Zess recently spent her red envelope money (2 bucks) at the Hello Kitty store for some Hello Kitty Paraphernalia.

Happy Birthday plasticmom!

We finally got plasticmom to ditch her prepaid cellphone by getting her a pink RAZR on our plasticfamily plan for her b-day. Now she has to talk to me on her cellphone and she can't claim that she's running out of minutes and that it's costing her money to talk to me.

Penpals

plasticann: Adam, Zara says Zess loves band-aids so I'm going to send Zess the rest of our Dora band-aids.
Adam: Remember how I was using the Dora band-aids and I got harassed about it?
plasticann: Yeah, I remember. I like sending Zess stuff in the mail. She's at this great age that she's actually excited about the same things like Hello Kitty. Zess is going to be my new penpal.
Adam: That's great!
plasticann: I'm excited....[pause]...[jokingly]...except when I think about it, Zess doesn't really take initiative with me sometimes. I mean, it's not like she really write me back.
Adam: Um, she is only three.

Adam has an excellent point, Zess is only three and I am definitely not three. Plus, she's still technically illiterate though I'm sure that won't last long given her giant brain. It's probably unreasonable to hope that she'll mail me letters. On the other hand, Zess did call me up while I was in California last month to ask me if I wanted to bake with her which I thought took a lot of initiative and was very sweet.

America's Test Kitchen

Adam skipped work this morning to join me and the Sloan Tasting Club for a tour of America's Test Kitchen. The test kitchen where the show is taped and the magazine operations for Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country are located right near the Brookline Village T stop on the Green D line in an unassuming brick building where their office suite is called "Boston Common Press." Walk up a few flights of stairs and you get a giant professional test kitchen, a library of cookbooks, giant life sized cow and pig to demonstrate the different cuts of meat, etc. Adam was hoping we'd get a discount at the "gift shop" and he wanted one of those cards that summarized what products they like the best so you can buy the best canned tomatoes. While there was no gift shop and thus no discount, Adam did get his shopping card and we all got a FREE cookbook to boot.

Chinese New Year: Postscript

Well, we had our friends Wheezy, Steve, Zara and Zobby over for Chinese New Year on Saturday when we inagurated our new shabu shabu hot pot cooking appliance. I was a little worried at first, but our dinner was delicious and people seemed to enjoy themselves. They all ate a lot which I take to be a good sign and we had so much extra food, we hosted a second dinner on Monday just to eat through our fridge. Because hot pot meals are full of liquid, Adam's belly was visibly poofed out after dinner...it was so alarming, I [insensitively] told him he looked kinda pregnant. A big belly is surely a sign of a good meal and a good eater. I was relieved to see that the belly poof receded quickly by morning.

Since we couldn't share our hot pot dinner with Zess and Zames, we sent the kids some red envelopes filled with cash...well a single two dollar bill. plasticmom was alarmed that I was violating the law by sending cash in the mail, but I reminded her that I was sending two bucks not loads of drug money. Rather than spending her two bucks or investing it in an interest bearing account, Zess has been playing with her bills according to Zara. I've also assumed that Zess has appropriated one year old Zames' two bucks as any big sister should...for safekeeping of course. Fortunately, the bills are crisp and brand new so Zara need not worry about Zess playing with dirty money that needs to be laundered. Happy Chinese New Year to all and to all a Happy Chinese New Year. [I just made that up.]

Prep Time Part II

Tuesday is community soup day at work and Adam was in charge of cooking yesterday. The following is a reconstruction of a conversation Adam reconstructed.

Adam: [time is 12:45pm] Sorry everyone, lunch was supposed to be at 12:30pm, but it's going to be more like 1pm.
Office: We know...we read the blog.

Saturday Adventures: Delux Town Diner

I was in charge of planning our Saturday adverture this weekend so I chose the Delux Town Diner. We got there around 9:15 in the morning and wait was around 10 minutes. We shared short stacks of their sour cream flapjacks, potato pancakes and a side of bacon. My goodness, the flapjacks were amazing. Fluffy, Crisp, Rich in Flavor! Some of the best I've had, I'm still fantasizing about them. I briefly considered scarfing down Adam's half of the pancakes before he could stop me, but I decided not to cross those boundaries for the sake of our marriage. Adam had no clue about where we were going for breakfast and I'm usually pretty bad about surprises. I even had him guess. [A is for Adam, P is for plasticann]

P: Guess where we're going?
A: Harvard Square?
P: No!
A: Soundbites?
P: No...we are taking a bus though.
A: Are we going to Arlington?
P: No!
A: Is it Medford?
P: No!
A: How about Somerville?
P: No, I can't believe you haven't guessed it.

And so the conversation continued even as we were waiting for the 71 Bus in the lower bus level at Harvard Square.

A: Are we going to Breakfast Club?
P: No!
A: How about Saugus?
P: Yes!
A: [full of excitement] Really, we're going to Kane's?
P: Uh..No! Saugus is really far.
A: I thought maybe you figured out how to get there by bus, but I guess it's more of a zipcar activity.
P: [Bus pulls up, flashing "Watertown"] Here's our bus. Don't look where we're going.
A: I looked, Watertown.
P: Do you know where we're going now?
A: Red Sauce?
P: Mmmm...Chicken Parm, but no!
A: I thought Red Sauce for breakfast would have been odd.

Turns out Adam had never heard of Delux Town Diner which explained why he failed to guess correctly. Unfortunately our bus was filled with overly helpful eavesdropping passengers who kept asking me what I was looking for and where I was going and whether they could help since they were longtime Watertown residents. Therefore, I had to make a mini announcement to half of the bus saying, "He doesn't know where we're going, it's a surprise, but I have a map so I think we'll be OK, but thanks."