Absquatulate

Surprise present, for MEEE?

The Good Book says, "Thou shalt not covet" but I also think the Good Book says, "Ask and ye shall receive."

I'll be at the GEL conference in NYC. If any absquatulators are going let me know, I'd love to catch up.

Which is more surprising?

Which is more surprising, the fact that A Perfect Circle is playing Rochester, or that there are still tickets available as of 2pm today, or that the hubby and I decided to peg the finger at adult responsibility and go to the show on a whim?

How "Kill Bill Vol. 1" caused marital strife...

"If you keep kissing me, I might change my opinion..."
*kiss*
...
So, who wants to go see Vol. II with me?

Love letter to Poland

One thing that keeps me coming back to Maciej's site is his thoughtful prose (another would be his devilish European demeanor). I cannot say if his writing style can be attributed to the fact that he is very smart, bilingual (and bicultural), patient, or all three, but there is something wonderfully enchanting about his writing that makes me feel like I've just had a conversation with him. If I could write half as well about my hometown I'd be quite satisfied. But since I don't (and tend to write off the cuff) you should read about Bukowina Tatrzańska.

Bread and Coffee: Festive Brie

I made this for a New Year's Eve party and it went over wonderfully! You can cheat like I did and get a pre-pastry wrapped brie at the grocery store, or be all authentic and wrap it youself with premade pie pastry, or be Martha and make your own pie pastry.

Ingredients:

• One small wheel of brie
• Pie crust pastry, if you don't get the brie pre-wrapped
• One egg, lightly beaten.
• About 1 c. of whole shelled walnuts
• About 1 c. of fresh cranberries, frozen in the freezer for at least 0.5 hrs.
• Honey
• A baguette, sliced into rounds and lightly toasted.

Utensils:

• A few bowls for mixing
• Baking sheet
• A nice platter for presentation

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350degreesF.
2. Put walnuts on baking sheet and toast for about 7 minutes in the oven. DO NOT LET THEM BURN. Remove from oven and put in bowl to cool.
3. If you're going to wrap your own brie, take brie out of refrigerator and unwrap about 30 minutes beforehand. Lightly flour a clean work surface and place pie pastry down, and place brie in center. Wrap the brie with the pastry crust like a present, pinching the folds underneath so that they seal. If you have left over crust use a cookie cutter or a paring knife to make shapes and press onto top of wrapped brie. Oooh, pretty!
4. Place brie onto baking sheet.
5. Lightly beat egg in bowl and use a pastry brush to brush egg over top of brie. This will give it a nice brown crust.
6. Bake in oven for about 25 minutes. Remove when the crust is puffy and golden brown.
7. While brie is baking, put the cranberries in a bowl and add enough honey to make them stick together. In a seperate bowl do the same for the walnuts.
8. On the platter, arrange alternating mounds of honeyed walnuts and honeyed cranberries in a circle. You'll be placing the brie in the middle.
9. Remove brie from oven and using a spatula carefully remove from baking sheet and place in center of plate.
10. Enjoy warm brie on the baguette rounds with dollops of walnuts and cranberries! The brie will stay warm enough if you need to make a quick jaunt across town to a friend's house. Trust me, the honey/walnuts/cranberry mixture will play wonderfully with the gooey warm brie. Try a pinot noir along side, or maybe a reisling.

Diversions

• Beautiful industrial design illustrations
• Courtesty of Mimi Smartipants, home of, "Receiving spam that told me to "update my johnson." I immediately forwarded this to LT, since he is still using Schlong 2.0."
• Vaguely naughty graphics make an excellent point about project management.
• A liberal political blog that isn't half bad.
• Absurd cartoon that makes me LOL.
• A conservative political blog that isn't half bad.
• Three places I won't be visiting: 1. 2. 3.

Memo to Self:

Read Shiny Shiny later when I have more time. But don't let that stop YOU from enjoying it now. :^)

Cheer me up.

I'm grumpy today; the kind of grumpy that not even shiny, new, or chocolatey things can cure. So rather than shelling out big bucks for therapy I'm turning to you! Put something funny in the comments for this post. It can be links, photos, stories, jokes, etc. Just be sure it's funny. I'm going to go get another cup of coffee. Caffeine will cheer me up, right?

Disclaimer: I reserve the right to delete anything offensive or decidedly UNfunny.

Also: I will share the source of my grumpiness relatively soon, I'm just waiting for the right time. Don't worry, nobody is dead, sick, or maimed.

On the other hand...

So despite my whining in the post below, I have to say that I've gotten more compliments on my new haircut (Julia, not the guy, thanks) than I have on any other haircut in recent memory. But I can't tell if it's a pity compliment, like, "Oh your haircut is so cute!" [OMG something new I can compliment her on so I won't look like an insenstive jerk for staring at that third head growing on her cheek.]

Pubescent... AGAIN?

This is the kind of story that, I'm afraid, will make you hate me and then give you that satisfactory catty HA! afterwards, but thems the breaks, as They say.

When I was in high school (that's over 10 years ago for those of you counting) I never had acne. I had the occasional pimple and maybe a red spot here or there, but absolutely nothing like what I saw my fellow comrades in hormonal flux were going through. I've always had absolutely beautiful skin, the kind that looked fantastic with merely a breath of powder and some blush and some chapstick. I loved it, because I had enough going on with all that other stuff girls have to contend with that not having acne was a blessing I surely counted. Braces? Check. Awful glasses? Check. Bad haircuts? Check. Even worse fashion sense? Check. So you see, no pimples was something I recognized as a blessing.

All of a sudden, say, starting three years ago or so, I started having acne. A blemish here and there to the point where I always had something going on with my skin. I was concerned but it was manegable with a careful choice of products that helped.

All of a sudden, in the last six months of so I've been slammed with acne that has become quite painful. Deep hard pimples that HURT like none other I've ever had along with skin that is out of control. It looks tired, ragged, dry in some spots, flaky yet oily in others, and all over these tiny little blemishes that just appear for no reason! So while I try to figure out what I can tell my doctors to have them take this seriously ( after ruling out the more common culprits, they now say, "I dunno, maybe it's just that you're getting older?") I'm curious if anybody out there has good acne treatment secrets they are willing to share? I usually don't do Clearasil or Oxy because they are way too harsh for my skin, resulting in irritation that burns and hurts tremendously. I've found some success with salicylic acid type thingies (this in particular is still good) but it seems that a regiment will work for a month and then magically stop working! So my cupboard is quickly becoming filled with half used bottles of toner and face wash that no longer helps me in any appreciable way. What have you found that works?? I'd be interested to know!

"Tonight is a special night for me..."

Epicurious has a gem of a peice about tipping and bluffing your way into posh eateries. It seems so old fashioned but apparently it's as modern as the Guggenheim. Of course this writer had the benefit of a corporate cheque to pay for the $1500 dinners, but it's a nice fantasy for the rest of us.

One thing he didn't touch on is whether or not a woman could have gotten away with it. I'm guessing it would have to be the right person and the right reasons; if I were with a man I'm certain decorum dictates that HE would have to do the talking, whereas if I were with three other girlfriends maybe I could get away with it.

The Tax Man Cometh...

I just came across this wonderful sight for the Tax Foundation. Since in the U.S. taxes are due every April 15th I thought this particularly timely. See how your state taxes compare with the rest of the country, read up on how some tax laws work, and see how much of different kinds of tax your state is collecting.

Happy Belated Easter

A belated holiday greetings for you and yours. I absquatulated to see family and eat way, and I mean, WAY too many canolis.

My big discovery of the weekend? Carmel Apple-tinis fucking rock (add a dash or more of Butterscotch schnapps to this recipe). Thanks Kat!

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Content is King

Jeff Veen has a very telling graphic up on his website. Do you deal with marketing departments for portals? Do you buy or sell online advertising? Then you should listen very closely to what Jeff is saying here. Advertising is okay in my book. I've always thougth Google had it right, and I don't mind when an advertisement is labeled such. Despite all this, there comes a point when enough is enough; take a look at Jeff's example. I think it's one of the seven signs of the internet apocalypse, right? (Zeldman has started writing in the first person, I think that's the first sign.)

Never Has Cake Looked so Revolting

There are perils to being married to a Medical Illustrator because the links that are prefixed with a "COOL!!!!" are so often so very very wrong. Kudos to the pastry chef for this confection, but I don't think I could have eaten a bite.

Updates

Sweet Moses do I write alot of CRAP. I've taken the time to update some old Absquatulate entries from sites past into TypePad: now select blatherings from the past year are available for you to peruse and trash. What an excercise in narcissism!

Bread and Coffee: Kris' Greens and Beans

Last night I made a dinner that surprised even me! Props go to Piggy for picking up some groceries on the way home, without which this dinner would never have happened!

Kris' Green Beans and Chicken. serves 4.

• two or three tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil.
• one small onion, diced.
• One or two cloves of garlic, minced.
• about 1.5 lbs of green beans, trimmed. Use more if you have a hungry bunch!
• 1 16 oz. can of no salt diced tomatoes, lightly drained, or the equivalent in fresh tomatoes, seeded.
• 1 16oz. can of chi-chi nuts/garbanzo beans/chick peas, rinsed and drained well.
• six or seven fresh basil leaves, chopped.
• a tablespoon or so each of fresh chopped oregano and parsley, or a teaspoon or so if dried.
• salt and pepper to taste.
• Fresh grated parmesan cheese.
• Four chicken breasts, grilled or otherwise cooked to your liking. If you like marinades, keep it light, such as some fresh herbs and good olive oil, or possibly lemon/herb. We had ours just grilled plain with a smidgen of good extra virgin olive oil. The smokiness of the grilling added a nice twist to the flavors in the dish.

1. Put on a pot large enough to accommodate the green beans filled with salted water. Bring to boil, then blanch the green beans. While waiting for the beans to return to a boil, slice chicken breasts into strips. You want the beans bright green and crisp, not mushy! Drain beans well and set green beans aside.
2. In same pot over medium flame, add olive oil. Let oil heat up, then add onion and garlic. Sauté until onion is just translucent, about 4 minutes.
3. Add chopped tomatoes, a crack or two of fresh ground pepper, about 0.5tsp. salt, and dried herbs (if any), and simmer for about 5 minutes or until the tomatoes start breaking down.
4. Add garbanzo beans. Simmer for about two minutes.
5. Toss in green beans and turn heat to low and add any fresh herbs. Taste, and add any additional salt or pepper you may require.
6. Stir, and let simmer for another minute or two for all the flavors to mingle.
7. Plate either on a deep dish or bowl. Put green beans and tomatoes on bottom, top with sliced chicken, and then a generous grating of fresh parmesan cheese. If you have any chopped fresh herbs left over, add them over the top.
8. Crack open a bottle of wine if you're so inclined, or enjoy with club soda and limes.

Bread and Coffee: an Absquatulate Review of Wegmans Tastings

Restaurant: Wegmans Tastings Restaurant
Location:3195 Monroe Avenue Pittsford, NY
Date and Time: Saturday 03.27.2004 11:55am
Meal:Lunch
Diners: Just me, OMG I ATE BY MYSELF!

Appearance:Tastings is adjacent to Wegmans Food Market. The juxtaposition is strange: parking next to the grocery store to go to a resaurant? As a consumer this bothers me a little: Why should I eat here when I can get the ingredients myself? Which is a very silly thought in and of itself; it's one I rarely think of when going out other places to eat. Exterior is rather unremarkable. Two floors with brown brick which is a TOTAL LIE because the restaurant is truly only on the ground floor (second floor contains event rooms.) They do have valet parking, of which I did not partake.

Interior/Ambience: Large wooden doors open to a small bar/cocktail/waiting area. Coat check available. Warm and cozy with lots of warm brown brick and black and cream. Low ceilings with arches give it the impression of a wine cellar, with chic light fixtures and stainless steel accents. The lighting is appropriate for all ages (read: ladies, you'll look good here.) Not much daylight penetrates the heavy wooden blinds but that adds to the atmosphere (and sheilds you from the banality of shopping families. ;^) The kitchen is open and you can get tables practically right IN the kitchen. So if a chef looks at your pan-seared salmon the wrong way chances are good you'll see it happen; this adds to the entertainment since people watching here is a rather boring affair. Tables are dark wood with white linen napkins and stainless steel salt and pepper mills (nice touch!) and stylish silverware.

Music: Nothing extraordinary. I would describe it as Hip Salon: I half expexted an offer to take care of my *tsk* neglected cuticles.

Clientele:I was suprised at the quantity of Blue Hairs here for lunch. I must have sunk the average age by 30 years just by walking in the door. On a previous occasion (also for lunch) I noticed the same phenomenon. I never would have guessed, but apparently this is THE new place for rich Pittsford ladies to lunch.

Beverages: Full bar and wine list. I didn't get the chance to peruse the wine list unfortunately. Beer comes in bottles only and they're expensive, averaging about $3 a bottle. Beer list fairly extensive but predictable (Sam Adams, Labatts, Amstel Light, Guinness, etc.) They do offer a full range of home brewed iced teas with daily flavors (such as peach and raspberry... no powder here, these iced teas come with real fruit still soaking in the tea!) as well as smoothies and soft drinks.

Menu: The menu consisted of appetizers and 'main courses'. I use scare quotes because is a sandwich considered a main course? No matter. The main courses included approximately 50% sandwiches with come with a choice of Tuscan Fries (basically seasoned french fries) or a field green salad (I like restaurants that give you a choice without charging extra for the salad) and 50% entrees. I will interject and say on my very first visit I had the crab cake entree and it was quite good!

Enjoyed:

1. Bread: (Free) The nice thing about Wegmans is that they can run out and get freshly baked bread right from their in-store stone hearth. They served a basket of warm mini-loafs in a wire basket with a neatly tucked white linen napkin. Varieties included a cheese/herb bread, a mini-ciabatta, and a third kind I didn't try (I can only eat so much bread!) Butter was served in it's own mini butter crock with stainless steel dome, quite elegant! The butter was soft for easy spreading and the bread quite warm. DELICIOUS. Crusty and chewey and soft all at the same time in good porportions.



2. Chicken and Sausage Gumbo Soup with Okra: ($4.00/cup) A small square cup of Gumbo Soup came on a square trivet. Groovy baby. The soup was a little spicy but not too spicy so spice-phobes order without fear. I felt the presence of the meats was a little lacking for a gumbo but the flavor was nice. I disliked the fact that it seemed to be thickened with corn startch; it had that goopy soup feel to it; but it didn't stop me from finishing the cup. Topped with a plop of fresh white rice and chopped chives it was certainly attractive, just not quite what I would have expected from a place that prides itself on gourmet.



3. Mac N Cheese: ($6.00) I'd heard rave reviews of this on LJCFYI.com and that review was actually the kick in the pants for me to visit Tastings a second time. The MnC was served in a deep round rice bowl and I'd estimate there was about a cup of MnC in there. Perfect appetizer size, but for $6? The elbow macaroni was topped with crushed seasoned croutons (breadcrumbs they say, HA I scoff! These are croutons, may as well fess up menu writer!) First bite was creamy, and suprisingly deep: apparently the white truffle oil really *does* make a difference! The sauce was creamy.. Hm, a little too creamy... a little too.... familiar.
   
   VELVEETA! That's what it was! I was in shock, I wouldn't say the WHOLE sauce was made with Velveeta, but I could tell that there definately was processed cheese in there.
   
   If I'm paying $6 a bowl for macaroni and cheese, I want aged cheddar and bit of kick, not Velveeta. I did finish the bowl and it is tasty but the feel of processed cheese with the delicate whiff of white truffle oil is like seeing a pig dressed up for the opera: sure the pearls are a nice touch, but it's still a pig.



4. Ice Cream Flight: ($5.00) I loved this idea. Rather than get a larger dish of ice cream, the waitress said I could get a "Flight": my choice of four small dishes with four different flavors of their homemade ice creams and sorbets! BRILLIANT! The Flight was well executed: four little square dishes all on a larger rectangular wooden tray. Each scoop was the size of a very large whole walnut and served with a demi-tasse spoon. I tried the Blood Orange Sorbet, Red Currant Sorbet, Vanilla Ice Cream, and Brown Sugar Ice Cream. Other choices included pineapple, passionfruit, chocolate, etc.
   
   First the Blood Orange: a dusky pink sorbet, perfectly sweet and orangy and bitter all at the same time. Excellent balance of bitterness and sweetness and creamy smooth.
   
   Next the Red Currant: Sour and strong tasting, I had the impression it dyed my tounge bright purple. Very enjoyable especially if you like Sweet Tarts.
   
   Vanilla: Oh, this was absolutely heavenly vanilla ice cream. Very pure and thick, not a lick of airyness to the ice cream at all. Bespeckled with vanilla beans it had great texture and an almost floral like flavor. I think it's the best vanilla I've ever had (Haagen Daas doesn't even compare to this, the closest I can think of is Ben and Jerry's Pure Vanilla.)
   
   Lastly, the Brown Sugar. It was icier than the vanilla but the flavor was deliciously subtle. A warm brown sugar overtone and a vanilla undertone, the light beige scoop quickly disappeared from my plate. A good bet for someone who wants something different than vanilla.



5. Coffee: ($1.50) Weak and slightly bitter. How disappointing! Sugar served in packets? Look people: If a restaurant can take the trouble to offer butter in individual dishes with a stainless steel dome, they can take the time to offer sugar cubes and tongs. I'm just SAYIN'. Creamer was half and half and served in an individual pitcher. Coffee cup generous but not huge, no offers to warm up but I didn't get through half of it anyway.

Service: The waitresses (all women on this shift apparently) all had on white button down shirts black skirts and brightly colored paper mache flower pins; a nice touch. This was a HUGE improvement over the wench look they had on my first visit: corset over a white blouse. WTF? Anywhoo, my server was very attentive and prompt which is nice for a lunchtime crowd where people are less likely to linger over coffee than dinner. She had good recommendations and plenty of smiles; apparently all Wegmans servers are required to try all the dishes on the menu when they are first hired. The upsell (What I like to call the "Salad Prompt") was refreshingly minimal and could almost fool you into thinking they were more intersted in your dining experience than making more money. Water glass was always filled and busing was never too long a wait from the last bite. Overall service was quite satisfactory.

Overall Recommendation and Final Notes: (Total including tax: $17.53 + tip) The Blue Hairs will make a lunchtime dining experience a little unusual for a twenty or thirtysomething but if you've got a group social awkwardness will be minimal, just keep the previous night's trysts on the QT. I would rate this as a Return Visit: that is, I would certainly return and take a stab at their sandwiches or other lunchtime entrees before giving an overall thumbs up or down. I found prices to be a little steep but if you're looking for an elegant place to bring the in-laws, parents, extended family, &tc. this would be a good spot. Besides, after you eat you can take them to one of the biggest landmarks in Rochester: Pittsford Wegmans!

Excellent Advice

"Never apologize for opening a bottle of wine."
- Pig