My latest TV obsession

Let me tell you all about my latest TV obsession.

I know, I’ve had a lot over the years.  Some were more of an instant attraction that faded out, others have lasted past season 1.

I can’t say right now how long this newest obsession will last (given that it’s only aired 2 episodes) but I can tell you that it is simultaneously the most interesting and disturbing thing I’ve seen on television in quite awhile.

I’m talking about Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.

Have any of you seen this show?!  It’s completely amazing.  Jamie has set up camp in the fattest town in America (Huntington, West Virginia) to help reform the way these people look at and eat food.

Watching this show is kind of like watching stuff on National Geographic; it’s completely enthralling but totally foreign.  In the first few episodes of the show, Jamie met with a family who were all overweight (well, obese to be accurate) and he put something like a week’s worth of food on their kitchen table to show them how they were eating and the table was stacked a foot high with frozen food (pizza, corn dogs, you name it, it was on that table).  He also met with a first-grade class and showed them vegetables and asked them to name the veggies.  None of the kids knew what ANY of the veggies were!!  Don’t believe me?  Watch this promo clip: Potato or Tomato.

When I was 6 years old, I was planting radish seeds with my McDonald’s Happy Meal garden toy.  Anyone else remember that?  It was the Happy Meal that came with a plastic hoe and a packet of seeds and taught you how to grow your own garden.  When I was 8, I was picking strawberries (until my brother accidentally pulled the strawberry plant out b/c it looked like a weed during it’s off-season) and picking the wild raspberries that grew on my back hill.  To that end, when I was 3 I was picking wild blueberries with my dad in the backyard!

This show was both heartbreaking and disgusting.  Jamie did an experiment with the kids to show them how chicken nuggets are made.  He broke down the chicken and showed the kids which parts were good (breast, thigh, wing) and which were bad (gullet, carcass, etc.).  He then mashed up all the gross stuff in a food processor and placed it in the frying pan.  He asked the kids how many still wanted to eat it and ALL of them raised their hands.  They knew it was bad for them.  They knew it was made out of bones and blood and guts and yet still they said they would eat it.  It’s as though they associated “fried” with “good”, so even though they saw Jamie make these “nuggets” with rejected chicken parts, they didn’t care.

Your heart breaks for the people in this town.  The lunch ladies who would rather cook easy food than cook food that wouldn’t be sending these kids well on their way towards a diabetes diagnosis.  The m0ther who relied on a deep fryer to cook dinner.  The kids who knew about “tomato ketchup” but had no idea where that product actually came from.

I highly recommend that you add this show to your DVRs pronto.  You really won’t regret watching it.

la

(And while you’re at it, add Undercover Boss.  Boo and I have been watching that and it’s actually really awesome.)

Honey vs. vinegar

Remember the old saying, “you’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”?

It still holds true.

Recently I had a not-so-pleasant encounter with someone.  They took offense to something I did and rather than calmly ask for what they wanted, they were rude and confrontational.  It was a situation where a simple, “please, would you mind…” would have solved the problem but the other party made the decision to go the route of “legal jargon, angry tone, CAPITAL LETTERS.”

Now this person got the reaction that they were looking for.  Well, let me correct myself there.  They got the result they were looking for, but not the reaction.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this happen.  People spend most of their time these days with their fight-face on, ready to pick a battle with everyone they encounter because they think that these people will be planning to fight no matter what the issue is.

Towards the end of the summer I was taking a train out to Connecticut to visit Boo, as per usual for a Friday afternoon.  Since we had summer Fridays I was leaving from my apartment instead of the office and it was so hot and humid that I really didn’t feel like taking the subway to Grand Central so I went out to my corner to hail a cab.  As soon as I got outside I saw a mother with her newborn trying to hail a cab from the sidewalk.  Normally she might have had success but there was a truck parked on the previous block which was ruining any chance she had of a cab seeing her until it was too late to pull over.  So I walked past her, threw my arm up and, in all of 3 seconds, got a cab–for her.  I knew there was no chance she was going to catch a cab from there and no chance she was going to push her stroller into the street so I thought I was doing a nice thing.

She. Freaked. Out.

She ran up to me and the cab, yelling “you KNOW I’m taking that cab! I’ve been here longer!”  I looked at her, calmly, and said “yeah, I got it for you because I didn’t think you’d want to take your baby into the street and I knew I couldn’t catch a cab until you did.”  And then I walked away and tried to catch my own cab.  She had nothing to say.  She tried to open her mouth and mutter something before I walked away but she was far too embarrassed (or shocked by someone doing something nice) to comment.

But the frustrating thing about that whole situation was that I left feeling like I was somehow to blame.  I was trying to do a nice thing for someone and this woman was so quick to assume that I was a bad person, snaking her out of what was rightfully hers, that she flipped out, yelling at me, accusing me, and looking for a fight.  She could have said “would you mind if I take that cab, I’ve been trying to hail one for awhile” and I would have said the same thing– “yes, of course, I thought I’d try to help you out.”

Sure, I could have said something first, but the light had just changed and I knew I needed to just move.  So I did.  If I had stopped to ask her if she wanted me to hail a cab, we would have had to wait for a whole second crop of cabs.  Plus, let’s be honest, she probably would have been offended that I thought she was incapable of hailing her own cab.  And if I had just crossed the street and grabbed a cab from the other side, she probably still would have yelled at me.

This most recent encounter doesn’t leave me completely blameless.  It was a situation in which there was an annoying amount of ambiguity that led to the misunderstanding.  But my point is the same.  If you ask nicely for something you can get the same result as yelling and threatening someone but in the end, you’ll look like less of a jerk than if you do take the vinegar route.

But hey, some people prefer vinegar to honey and who am I to say they shouldn’t?

A message to squatters: I hate you. A lot. Get a life

So I did a little playing on the Internet today and do you know what I discovered?

I can’t buy the domain for EITHER of my blogs.

That’s right.  Now, I’ve known for awhile that streetcake.com was taken (when I started the blog I looked into just buying the domain but of COURSE it was already taken). But do you know what happens when you go to streetcake.com? You go to a GoDaddy page with links to cake-related sites. Some stupid squatter wrecked my hope of getting my own domain with the actual name of my blog.

And then today I looked into getting shenaniganist.com. Shenaniganist, if you’ll recall, is basically a made-up word. I mean, it’s not even on UrbanDictionary, it can’t be real, right?  (you’re noting my sarcasm, yes? Good.)  And yet, it’s been taken.  And do you know where that takes you?  It’s a re-direct to a vimeo page and that is beyond irritating.  I swear people get online, scroll the blogs, and then buy the domain names before the actual bloggers can just to be irritating.

So again, my message to squatters: I hate you.  A lot.  Get a life.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go come up with another suitable domain name.  Augh!

;)

I can’t wink.

Is that normal?

I mean, yes, I can do the physical action of shutting one eye and keeping the other open, but I can’t really wink.

Some people look so cool when they wink.  Some people can pull out one of those reassuring winks whenever they want.  Or a secretive wink.  Or a conspiratorial wink.  And they do it effortlessly.

But when I wink?

I look weird.  My face is kind of scrunchy and my “wink” doesn’t quite have the proper effect.

I feel like I’m missing out on some really cool skill set.  This is how I felt before I could do fish lips or raise only one eyebrow and I’ve mastered those now.  But a wink is more than just making the muscles do what I want.  It’s mastering the cool.

I think I’m too much of a goof to make the wink work for me.

I’ll have to just stick to reassuring fish lips.

Those reassure people, right?

Wonder what NAAFA thinks about this*

I’m sure that this is old news by now.  I’m sure you’ve all heard about it.  But I don’t care.  Because when this story topped my local news the other night, well, I was left speechless.

Nearly speechless anyway.

So if you didn’t click on the link, I’m talking about the 1/4 ton mom from NJ who may or may not be trying to eat her way to 1,000 lbs.

I just…I mean…what?!

I don’t understand this woman.  I don’t understand having a goal to gain weight, when you already weigh more than the other members of your family combined.  I don’t understand the people who are paying her grocery bills and sending her fatty desserts to help her pack on the pounds.  I don’t understand what basically equates to eating yourself to death.

I’m not alone here, am I?

I’m mean, I’m not the crazy one for thinking this woman is insane, am I?

la

*NAAFA for those of you not in the know (aka who didn’t see it on Perez yesterday) is the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance

The world’s best chocolate chip cookies, and no, I’m not kidding

This weekend I made the world’s best chocolate chip cookies.  I’m not joking, they were completely, unbelievably amazing.

And I used the recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate chips.

I’ve been baking chocolate chip cookies on my own for years.  Each and every time I baked them, I used the recipe on the back of the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip bag.  And they always turned out fine.  I mean, they were good, but they were never “drool at the thought of them, threaten anyone who stands in the way of you and these cookies, I’m serious, move now or I’ll kill you” good.

These cookies are that good.

I’m not bragging either.  Trust me.  I know when my food is good, when it’s REALLY GOOD, and when it’s “yeah, that could have turned out better.”  The last time I made cookies was around Valentine’s Day.  They were oatmeal chocolate chip and they were just “eh.”  They were really flat and crispy and that’s not what I was in the mood for at all.  I took a baking hiatus until after the cruise because really, we were in training mode.  There is a LOT of food to be eaten on these ships and I needed to make sure that I was in prime eating condition.

Anyway, after planning on making these cookies for like, a week, we finally did it on Friday night.

And we’ve been gorging ourselves since then.

These cookies were amazing and perfect and fan-freaking-tastic and they came from that same off the bag recipe that I’ve been using for years.

With a few modifications of course.

Modifications that I’m going to share because I like all of you.  And even though Boo is really angry at me right  now for sharing (when I reminded him that he wanted me to send the recipe to his brother, he said this was GOLD and needed to be kept in the family, man) I am sharing anyway because I am just really nice like that.  Plus, if I don’t share, I’ll be the only one gaining cookie weight and that’s just wrong.

So the original recipe, which can be found at the Nestle Web site, is as follows (but to make it easier for me, I’m going to put what I did in red):

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt (I used like, a teaspoon and a half.  Not even a full half.  But that extra pinch of salt is KEY!)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened (I used 1 full stick and 5 tablespoons from the 2nd stick)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (plus an extra splash)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
• 1 cup chopped nuts (no nuts, I never use them and I feel they sully the cookie.  Sorry Nestle recipe people.)

Directions

PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. (Okay, this was a big whoops, I put ALL of the “wet” ingredients in at once.  I don’t know if this mattered or not though….) Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown (We cooked for 8 minutes.  5 and then we switched the cookies to the opposite racks for the last 3). Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes (uh, yeah, we skipped this step and removed them right away); remove to wire racks to cool completely (we skipped this step too.  What?  We had to taste them right away while they were still gooey and amazing).

Now that’s the gist of what I did.  Actually, that’s everything I did.  Except for this one teensy addition.  I added about 3 shakes of cinnamon to the flour mixture before we blended it in.

The result?

Cookies that were thick and delicious, slightly salty (but mostly just not overly sweet), and with just a tiny hint of cinnamon–not enough for you to realize that it’s cinnamon but enough for you to realize that there is something different about these cookies.

And the best part?  They are still just as moist today as they were on Friday.

So go, little ones!  Go and bake!  And when you do, please come back and tell me how amazing they are!

Oh, allergies, I forgot about you….

There were some benefits to living in NYC, I will admit.  But, as with most things, for every upside, there was a down.

For example:

Ample shopping but no car, causing you to lug every bag with you to every store, and even more difficult, through every store.  Have any of you ever tried to navigate H&M with 7 other bags on your arm?  Not easy my friends.  Not easy at all.

Fetch‘s macaroni and cheese.  This mac and cheese is, hands down, the best mac and cheese I’ve ever had in my entire life.  And they were a mere two blocks from my apartment.  And they delivered–with no minimum delivery.  The downside to this of course was that I ordered mac and cheese for dinner something like twice a week for the last month I lived in NYC, causing me to gain some serious mac and cheese weight right before the wedding.  I don’t prepare for big life events like most people do.  Eh.

But if for every up there is a down, the reverse is also true.

There were no trees in New York.  Well, it’s not that there were no trees, I mean, I heard that there was one in Brooklyn* and there were a few in Central Park–I could see the tops of some of them from my apartment–it’s more that there were less trees in New  York than in any place I’d ever lived before.  During my two years in NYC, I missed the green, sure, but I didn’t miss the pollen.

Granted, I didn’t have much of a chance to miss the pollen.  I still got hit with allergies, but they were never as bad as, say, when I lived in State College.  You know, the college town surrounded by nothing but farms and mountains and pollen, pollen, pollen.  But now I’m back to living in a green-surrounded area.  I can see trees from my bedroom, grass from my living room, and there are probably flowers somewhere near here too!

Unfortunately though, for me, this means that I am getting hit with allergies waaaaaay sooner than I would like.  I’m used to maybe getting hit in April and I’m always full-force sneezing and itching eyes by May but if you’ll all take a minute and check your calenders for me you’ll see that it is actually only March.

March my friends.  A full month before I normally get sneezy.  Apparently when you take yourself out of the nature-infested areas and then toss yourself back in you get hit even worse than before.  Or, and you’d better believe I’m crossing my fingers on this, you just get hit earlier than ever before.  So far I’ve got the “I’m almost congested but not actually congested so I just kind of sniffle a lot and occasionally sneeze” thing going on.  Oh, and the sore throat.  Let’s not forget about the sore throat.  I’ll be rocking the sore throat until probably July, at which point I will take July and August off and then the sore throat will return again in September just in time for my fall allergies.

Like I said…for every upside there is a downside.  But if the upside is trees and birds and grass and things other than concrete?  Well, I’ll take it.

l

*Shame on me for using such an obvious literary pun.  And shame on you if you didn’t pick it up!!

Congratulations, U.S. government, you’ve just wasted thousands of dollars. Again

Yesterday when Boo grabbed the mail we saw that we’d gotten something from the U.S. Census Bureau and, stupidly it would seem, assumed that it would actually be the 2010 Census.

Nay.

It was actually a letter telling us that we would be receiving the Census in the mail sometime in the next week and we would need to fill it out and send it back in.

Seriously, Census Bureau?  You wasted thousands of dollars and killed countless trees to send me a letter telling me that you would be sending me something in the mail in another 7 days?  What could the point of that possibly be?  It’s as though they are acting under the assumption that no one in America owns a television or has cable or has been living under a rock and therefore has not seen all of the annoying 2010 Census commercials that have been airing for the past few months thus making it imperative that they send out this mailer to say they would be sending out the census.

Well, congratulations U.S. government, specifically the Census Bureau, for that monumental waste of time, money and resources.  Well done.

I’m baaaaaack!

I don’t know why I sound so cheerful about that.  I miss the ship!

Boo and I spent the past week (um, okay, well we spent last week because clearly I can’t post things on time!) on the Celebrity Century and we had an amazing time.  I could write all about it, but really pictures are usually more interesting right?  So I’ll go fifty-fifty for you guys.

We flew into Ft. Lauderdale  on Sunday and made our way to Miami which is where we would be sailing from.  We got on the ship around 12:30 and were greeted with champagne and mimosas which we enjoyed on the deck.

After lunch, we checked into our room and were greeted with a bottle of champagne and some fresh fruit:

This was actually the benefit of booking with Concierge class.  When we booked the room, we could have a random room selection which could have landed us in the front or back of the boat (a bad call if the water gets rough) or we could pay a few extra bucks, book a Concierge class room, have a choice of stateroom and a ton of other amenities.  Hm, let’s think about that for a second shall we?

Yup, Concierge class it is!

Okay, so we set sail Monday night for Key West.  Key West was the first excursion day but since Boo and I were just there in October, we took advantage of the practically empty ship and scored some poolside lounge chairs.  After a few hours in the sun it started pouring.  When the rain finally stopped, the captain announced that we would be leaving Key West early to try and beat the bad weather.

We didn’t make it.

The wind was so crazy that it blew my cover-up right off!

The waves were already big on our way out of Key West so we booked it.

Hence the crazy choppy water.

So those big waves got bigger and ended up being 6-7 feet high and as you sat in the dining room you could actually see swaying back and forth.  Our table-mates dropped like flies that night.  We started with eight people.  Two of the boys (Boo included) went to buy motion-sickness medication for their significant others.  While they were gone, our food showed up and we lost two more girls.  The guys came back; Boo stayed and the other guy took his girlfriend back to their room.  I bowed out before dessert.  Only Boo and one other couple lasted the whole meal.  It was a crazy night.

The water calmed down by Wednesday morning and Boo and I spent our day at sea sitting poolside in the sun.  Wednesday night was our formal night and since we were honeymooners, we got a cake and a song!  They made me split my cake up and share it with the table though.  I’m still bitter.  It was a damn good cake!

Thursday was our day in Grand Cayman and Boo and I swam with stingrays.  It was the coolest thing ever!  And the best part of the whole thing was that after 5 years of using digital cameras, we still got decent shots with our disposable haha!

(not from our disposable…)

(from our disposable camera…there’s definitely a difference haha!)

(tummy rub)

(back rub)

(and the totally cool stingray butt massage haha!)

Friday was another day at sea which translated into a little time in lounge chairs, a little time napping, and some fabulous room service cheeseburgers.  I’ll miss those.

At the end of our last night at dinner we decided to take a picture of the whole group.  We actually all got along really well and we hung out after dinner most nights.  So here is the gang from table 598:

Complete with our kick-ass waiters Ali (in the black) and Dejean (in the white).

Rough waves and all, it was an amazing cruise.  We had so much fun, we’re already talking about taking another cruise next year!

But for now, it’s back to reality.  Thankfully reality didn’t equate to temperatures in the 30s when we got back.

P.S. All the rest of our vacation pics are on Facebook, so if we’re friends, check them out.  If we aren’t friends, well, change that too!