Frequent Citations

Today I Ate--

Two tiny cinnamon melt muffins. A small slice of leftover frittata.

A boatload of fresh-made guacamole with salsa and chips with a sprinkling of cheese melted onto them.

A hamburger with tomato slices and mustard but no ketchup, because we were out. A dill pickle. Salad with fresh herbs, cucumber, and kalamata olives.

And, probably for the last time this year, strawberries with balsamic vinegar and feta cheese. This time we threw in some blueberries too, and served shortbread cookies and plain crackers on the side. It was even red, white, and blue! Clever, no? Well, tasty.

I hope your Independence Day was a good one.

Farmers And Markets

There was a farmer's market right next to the bar course yesterday. Given its downtown location, it had more flowers and baked goods than it did produce. Nevertheless, I succumbed to a pint of fresh strawberries, small and dark.

I got inspired by PBB's description and sent TFL to fetch feta. Please don't tell anyone, but I'm not a fan of goat cheese at all, so I'm passing on the chevre. (The movie of that name is quite amusing, though.) I have a bottle of one of the bottles of wine I got for graduation that should go perfectly with it.

Sometimes I really enjoy puttering around in the kitchen. Mostly, when I don't have to and I'm not so ravenous I'd eat an arm--I guess that means I prefer it when it's for fun and not work.

Alaskan King Crab Legs

I still love them, fyi.

Also: Shaw's Crab House makes pretty decent Cosmos.

The Obligatory Whither Now? Post

Lots of law school bloggers find themselves wondering, whither now? Do we keep blogging when we can no longer complain about professors? Is there much point to blogging when we can't say one word about work, which will consume 110% of our waking hours?

I started this blog to keep my family apprised of my continued existence while buried in the non-stop fun and games that is law school. I don't see my life becoming less hectic, even if it becomes less share-able.

One of the main benefits of the blog for me has been the way it forced me to look up from my mound of work sometimes and find something else to say about life. Whether it was noticing that the trees were, in fact, blooming again, or ranting about some current event, I would occasionally break out of the law school mind set and that was good for me.

So for the moment I think I'll continue. I'll regale you with the thrills of my Bar preparation adventures, agonize over the unsold status of our flat, keep you up to speed on our progress to the new and improved location.

Bonus picture: GirlChild's wall pocket with a flower.

Playing With Food

As I was cutting up vegetables for the salad tonight, I never thought about doing this with them:

Coconut Cake Is Not For Dogness

I made a coconut cake for yesterday's dinner. It was partly Easter dinner dessert, partly TFL's birthday cake. Having your birthday on the day of my tax final and the day before my Con Law final is not the way to get a big celebration.

The cake itself was basically a pound cake--dense and rich--with a cream cheese and coconut frosting. Not bad, all things considered. Dogness thought she should have some. Dogness has a thing for cake, and kept staring intently at us while we ate it and made it clear she was pretty miffed that we weren't sharing. She even tried to investigate it when we set it on the counter. Sadly for her, we were watching. Now it's tucked back in the fridge and as long as it's there it's safe.

But woe unto us if we leave it out, because she will eat it. And there is no justice, because she won't get sick from it.

Hope you all had a lovely Easter.

Dangerous Celebrations

I have an announcement:

I did not, I repeat not, fail Con Law.

In a modestly celebratory mood, I decided to make cookies. Or I decided to make them because I am an evil person who must not be stopped, you decide.

It is possibly one of the most dangerous batches of cookies I have ever made.

Still A Rock Diva

A somewhat unusual assortment of good friends came over for Pizza Night last night. It was chaos--everyone crammed into the kitchen, cooking and chopping and eating and drinking and carrying on several different conversations at once.

We made a Mexican pizza (hot sauce instead of pizza sauce, and cheddar instead of mozzarella), and a Hawaiian pizza but with turkey instead of ham because the deli made a mistake. GirlChild made a rosemary-potato pizza that was heavenly. It was all pretty yummy. And we made Ugly Cake for dessert, which was just pure evil.

And then they kidnapped me and forced me to play Rock Band. It was a riot. I will draw a veil over how much alcohol was consumed. But we had an excellent time mocking my hopelessly inept performance on guitar (they only let me try that once!) and slightly more ept performance on drums. Everyone else did an outstanding job, of course. Frankly, I monopolized the microphone and had a great time doing so--even on the songs I didn't even know and accordingly failed.

I feel that the next time I play it I should dig out some of those absurd outfits from my days in the band... And there will be a next time, because that was just way too much fun.

Part 3 of 7: Tradition

On Thanksgiving it seems appropriate to reflect on tradition and the role it plays in my life. Ok, Mum, you can stop humming the song now. And that, folks, is one of many traditions in my life--people in my family sing at the drop of the hat, provoked or inspired by whatever turn the conversation takes.

My mother was not a traditional cook (that's another post entirely) but on holidays we did it right: turkey, ham, or lamb with all the trimmings. Everything from soup to nuts was made from scratch, never a bag of stuffing or can of anything in sight. Whatever I thought about food the rest of the year (again, another post) I knew I would love the holiday meal. Whether it is a result of that part of my childhood, or just due to my ornery and conservative nature, the menu on Thanksgiving is allowed only the most minor of variations. Maybe the potatoes will not be mashed, or the stuffing will have a slightly different list of ingredients (but always, always sage), and the pies vary most years, but the basics of the menu are engraved in stone. If there isn't turkey with stuffing, potatoes, rolls, cranberry sauce, and pies, Thanksgiving Did Not Happen.

I value tradition enormously. Maybe because the best parts of my childhood seemed bound up in it with not just holiday meals but other, daily customs. My mother read aloud after dinner as we sat around the table and my dad sliced up apples and shared a slice or two, and I did that with my family for many years. We have family sayings that are directly traceable to some fairly distant ancestors. We have stories of even more distant ancestors, going back hundreds of years. Every tradition binds us to the people we share it with, today and all those yesterdays.

Sometimes I struggle with TFL over traditions, because he's such an iconoclast he doesn't ever care to do something just because that's how it's done. That's good for me, because I need to be challenged regularly--we all do--or I risk becoming stodgy and boring. (Ok, not really. I mean, I'll always be too snarky to be that stodgy.) Challenging tradition keeps it alive, I think, and meaningful. But sometimes you have to give in and do things the long way just because. Because you realize when you don't, when you try to take a shortcut or get too busy to bother, something is missing, not quite right, just a bit less than what it could be. Maybe it's the stuffing, maybe it's life.

Every tradition has its starting point, of course. LL and I have already discussed future reunions that we'll have. We'll go to Texas sometimes for fun and great TexMex and margaritas. They'll come to the City sometimes for fun and shows and shopping (oh yes, she'll spend more than $200--I'm a BAD influence!). 

Beanie, you love golf and that game is all about tradition. What are 7 things we should know about you?

Fun And Games: Or, Go Illinois!

Last night was lots of fun. It was great to see people relaxing and laughing, enjoying their food and each other's company. We even had a smidgen of pizza , a wedge of pie, and a smallish pile of brownies left at the end of the evening, and a shelf of beer in the fridge. (It was the miraculous never-empty shelf, as it kept getting restocked during the course of the evening with beer off the back porch. Clever, huh?)

I'm just hoping someone's cleaned the kitchen by now. Most of it got done last night, but it was still semi-disastrous when I left to go back to school today, after working at home and listening to Michigan lose to Wisconsin. It's always painful when they lose, but it's just insulting when they lose on a combination of bad calls and idiot plays. But wow, how about Illinois? I want to give every player on that team a hug for beating OSU today, bless their hearts. Now if Michigan could, finally--no, I can't even say it.

Suffice it to say, the game next weekend will be as dramatic as any in the series. Go Blue! Meantime, I'm going back to my endless reading.