You might think by looking at all the entries here that all I do is eat. This is only partly true. If there is one thing that I could do all the time without consequence, it would be to stuff myself silly. But like any other girl, I am afraid of getting fat. And so sadly, I'm forced to make up for my gluttonous tendencies by exercising.
My choice mode of exercise is running. I used to run a mile here or there and call it "running", but when I started grad school my good friend, Kate, was a legit cross country runner and I started actually trying to run because I wanted to keep up with her. She is still tons faster than I am, but at least I can hang in for the long runs. My first year of grad school was a trying experience (that's the nicest way I can think to say it), and the runs ended up being time where we could vent and get everything out of our systems. Those runs made running an enjoyable activity for me. Kate moved away (:( ), but I kept up with the running for the health benefits more than anything else. It wasn't nearly as fun as it was with someone else to talk to. Last year, another grad school friend, Danielle, prodded me into signing up for the Delaware half marathon, and we both finished! I did it in 2:05:47. Training for that half was great motivation for me to keep running, and so I've been signing up and running half marathons just to make sure that I keep moving. Earlier this month, I did the Broad Street Run and then a couple weeks after that, I did the Delaware half again. Amazingly, the second time around, I finished it 6 seconds faster than the first, but at least I didn't feel like I was going to die like before. I will get to a full marathon some day; it's now on my life list.
The other thing that I like doing is bikram yoga. Some people look at me like I have purple spots on my face when I tell them about this, but this is a yoga class in a hot box. The room is heated to 100+ degrees and like 50 % humidity (I'm not sure if these numbers are totally accurate, but the room gets HOT). I love the heat. I love how my limbs feel ultra limber from it, and I love feeling the sweat pour off me. It's relaxing and difficult at the same time, and stretches my body out thoroughly. If you've never tried it, fair warning. I've heard that it makes some people want to pass out or vomit, so I guess the hot box isn't for everyone.
You might be wondering what Mike's exercise regime is like. Mike is normally a pretty sedentary guy. I can't get Mike to move, but apparently, his co-workers can. They used to play ping pong all the time, but lately, they've been "tossing the bean" which is code for throwing a nerf football around. Apparently, they even run routes sometimes. I, on the other hand, can't get Mike to try running with me. I see all these other couples training for and running races together, but he won't budge. To be fair, he does wake up early and usually stands in the rain for a couple hours to see me run, but he won't actually join me in running. So that is his secret to staying thin: tossing the bean. Not running. Just bean tossing.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
I had to wear a Zena bow headband.
But it was for my bridal shower, and it was all in good fun.
Thanks to my maids and my moms, I had the most wonderful bridal shower. Most of all, thanks to my maid of honor, Deb, and my soon-to-be mother-in-law, Linda, for planning everything! Everything was perfect. Especially the cake. It was amazing. I still dream about it ... yes, it really was that good.
Thanks also to everyone who came and for all the fantastic gifts!! If it wasn't obvious from my registry, I love cooking tools and being around the bevy of brand new tools and appliances made me feel like a kid in a candy candy story. Better yet, I get to have all the candy, and I have you all to thank for that.
One of the gifts that got me the most excited was the KitchenAid mixer that I received from my parents. We also got an ice cream maker attachment so I wanted to make something with ice cream. I decided on ice cream sandwiches!!
The cookies are a chocolate sugar cookie, whose recipe I got from www.smittenkitchen.com (great, great food blog, by the way). It was pretty much a sugar cookie recipe with cocoa powder thrown in. I then rolled out the dough and cut out flower shapes. The ice cream recipe is also from smitthenkitchen, but it was basically whole milk, heavy cream, a little bit of vanilla, salt, and a jar of caramel ice cream topping mixed together (I then added chopped pecans later while it was mixing). I let the mixture chill for about an hour. This was not enough time! And so my first attempt at making ice cream was a big fail - the stuff never thickened. I poured everything out of the frozen container and put in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I tried again and got success! The ice cream attachment makes soft ice cream, though; it has to harden in the freezer another few hours to get hard ice cream.
Here are some shots of the mixer in action ... just because I like them.
Mike, me and my awesome and beautiful bridesmaids (L-R), Ami, Deb, Sheila, and Janice
Thanks to my maids and my moms, I had the most wonderful bridal shower. Most of all, thanks to my maid of honor, Deb, and my soon-to-be mother-in-law, Linda, for planning everything! Everything was perfect. Especially the cake. It was amazing. I still dream about it ... yes, it really was that good.
Thanks also to everyone who came and for all the fantastic gifts!! If it wasn't obvious from my registry, I love cooking tools and being around the bevy of brand new tools and appliances made me feel like a kid in a candy candy story. Better yet, I get to have all the candy, and I have you all to thank for that.
One of the gifts that got me the most excited was the KitchenAid mixer that I received from my parents. We also got an ice cream maker attachment so I wanted to make something with ice cream. I decided on ice cream sandwiches!!
The cookies are a chocolate sugar cookie, whose recipe I got from www.smittenkitchen.com (great, great food blog, by the way). It was pretty much a sugar cookie recipe with cocoa powder thrown in. I then rolled out the dough and cut out flower shapes. The ice cream recipe is also from smitthenkitchen, but it was basically whole milk, heavy cream, a little bit of vanilla, salt, and a jar of caramel ice cream topping mixed together (I then added chopped pecans later while it was mixing). I let the mixture chill for about an hour. This was not enough time! And so my first attempt at making ice cream was a big fail - the stuff never thickened. I poured everything out of the frozen container and put in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I tried again and got success! The ice cream attachment makes soft ice cream, though; it has to harden in the freezer another few hours to get hard ice cream.
Here are some shots of the mixer in action ... just because I like them.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Happy birthday, Mike!
Mike's birthday was last Saturday (3/27). Since he usually tells me what to give him, I can only surprise him by making a little something extra. In the past, I have baked him cakes, cupcakes and other treats (since this is where my forte lies), but this year, I wanted to do something a little different. I decided to try to make ice cream cake!
My original idea was to use Phillies Graham Slam ice cream in the cake. It's a specialty flavor made by Turkey Hill and it is SO GOOD. Accodring to the Turkey Hill website, it is "a concoction of graham "phlavored" ice cream swirled with graham cracker ripple and topped off with choco marshmallow cups." Trust me, this stuff is awesome. We ate it non-stop two summers ago, and then last summer for whatever reason we couldn't find it anywhere. A few weeks ago I saw a carton in my local Acme and picked it up. My brother and I finished it in less than 2 days - no joke. So I had high hopes that Acme would be stocking on this ice cream flavor all summer, but when I went to find it to make this cake, it wasn't there! Instead, there were TWO Yankees flavors available, which seems like kind of a slap in the face for all the Phillies fans. I live in Northern Delaware, which is Philles/Eagles country, so two NY team ice creams? Zero Phillies ice creams? Doesn't seem quite right.
The point of this short rambling was that I ended up choosing cookies n' cream as the ice cream flavor. I also picked up a box of yellow cake mix and a carton of Cool Whip (or rather, teh generic Acme Whipped Topping). This is the final product in all its glory:
And this is what the inside looks just so you can see the ice cream-cake layers.
Despite the shock and awe reaction I received, the cake wasn't hard to make. It was, however, time consuming. I made the cake one night, let it cool, and then put it in the freezer overnight. Then, I cut the cake into three slices and made everything even. By the way, frozen cake is much easier to cut than non-frozen cake, so I found that if you are trying to even out the top and sides, the cake is just easier to cut and trim when it's frozen. In any case, the ice cream has to be softened; I just let it sit out for about 30 minutes or so. When the cake slices were done, I spread the ice cream on top evenly and then topped it with another layer of cake. Since at that point, the ice cream is really soft and getting runny, I put it into the freezer and let it set for about an hour. I did the same thing for the second ice cream layer. Finally I coated the sides and top with Cool Whip and decorated with blue gel frosting stuff. That went into the freezer as well. I found that covering up the Cool Whipped sides with wax paper made the cake much easier to handle. The hardest part of this whole thing? Transporting the cake from my place in Delaware to Mike's place in Philly. It's a 40 minute drive and I left it on the floor of the passenger's side with the air conditioning on blast. Subsequently, my feet were freezing as well, but at least everyone enjoyed the cake!
My original idea was to use Phillies Graham Slam ice cream in the cake. It's a specialty flavor made by Turkey Hill and it is SO GOOD. Accodring to the Turkey Hill website, it is "a concoction of graham "phlavored" ice cream swirled with graham cracker ripple and topped off with choco marshmallow cups." Trust me, this stuff is awesome. We ate it non-stop two summers ago, and then last summer for whatever reason we couldn't find it anywhere. A few weeks ago I saw a carton in my local Acme and picked it up. My brother and I finished it in less than 2 days - no joke. So I had high hopes that Acme would be stocking on this ice cream flavor all summer, but when I went to find it to make this cake, it wasn't there! Instead, there were TWO Yankees flavors available, which seems like kind of a slap in the face for all the Phillies fans. I live in Northern Delaware, which is Philles/Eagles country, so two NY team ice creams? Zero Phillies ice creams? Doesn't seem quite right.
The point of this short rambling was that I ended up choosing cookies n' cream as the ice cream flavor. I also picked up a box of yellow cake mix and a carton of Cool Whip (or rather, teh generic Acme Whipped Topping). This is the final product in all its glory:
And this is what the inside looks just so you can see the ice cream-cake layers.
Despite the shock and awe reaction I received, the cake wasn't hard to make. It was, however, time consuming. I made the cake one night, let it cool, and then put it in the freezer overnight. Then, I cut the cake into three slices and made everything even. By the way, frozen cake is much easier to cut than non-frozen cake, so I found that if you are trying to even out the top and sides, the cake is just easier to cut and trim when it's frozen. In any case, the ice cream has to be softened; I just let it sit out for about 30 minutes or so. When the cake slices were done, I spread the ice cream on top evenly and then topped it with another layer of cake. Since at that point, the ice cream is really soft and getting runny, I put it into the freezer and let it set for about an hour. I did the same thing for the second ice cream layer. Finally I coated the sides and top with Cool Whip and decorated with blue gel frosting stuff. That went into the freezer as well. I found that covering up the Cool Whipped sides with wax paper made the cake much easier to handle. The hardest part of this whole thing? Transporting the cake from my place in Delaware to Mike's place in Philly. It's a 40 minute drive and I left it on the floor of the passenger's side with the air conditioning on blast. Subsequently, my feet were freezing as well, but at least everyone enjoyed the cake!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
The best meal that I ever made
I really love food. I love to eat, and I love to cook (which probably stems from my love of eating). When we get married, Mike is looking forward to me making meals for him, rather than going through his weekly rotation of take-out restaurants.
A couple of years ago, my brother gave me Think Like A Chef by Tom Colcchio (you might know him as the head judge on Top Chef). It's a neat book because instead of just throwing out recipes, it discusses some basic French cooking techniques and uses recipes to demonstrate how those techniques work. The later portions of the book show you how a single ingredient can be prepared in different ways and how you can combine them with other ingredients to make a variety of dishes. It's just a really informative and well-organized book.
Every Valentine's Day, I make dinner because the restaurants are packed and the meals are overpriced. I decided to make braised short ribs one year because it's a staple in every nice French restaurant and I was interested to make it for myself. So I deferred to Tom Colcchio to make the braised short ribs, and the final result was superb. To this day Mike still says it's the single best thing I ever cooked. I paired the short ribs with garlic mashed potatoes and green beans that were blanched and then sauteed in garlic and butter.
One warning ... the recipe for braised short ribs on p56 calls for Brown Chicken Stock (p70), and the recipe for Brown Chicken Stock calls for White Chicken Stock (p69). So, if you don't make the stocks in advance, this dish could take days to make. For me, I made the Brown Chicken Stock two nights ahead and I made the braised short ribs the night before Valentine's Day. Apparently, the meat should sit in the broth overnight and soak up the moisture. Then, I did the cooking for the sides the night of. I didn't make the White Chicken Stock because I cheated a little and just used canned chicken stock instead, which worked well enough. Even without the white chicken stock, there was a lot of cooking involved.
About a year later, Mike and I went to Tom Colchhio's Craft in NYC, and we tasted the braised short ribs there. Unfortunately, mine couldn't compare. I guess I still have a lot to learn. By the way, the food at Craft was pretty awesome; we had the best gnocchi I have ever tasted there, so I would highly recommend having a meal there if you can.
Monday, March 8, 2010
This is the story of us.
Year One.
We met in September 1999 when we moved into our dorm rooms our freshman year of college. We happened to be assigned to rooms that were right next door to one another, and Mike was one of the first people that I met in college. Since we were both in the engineering school, we ended up taking a lot of classes together, and as nerdy as it sounds, we got to be good friends because of class. We walked to class together and did homework together. (Note - we never studied together because Mike is a lot smarter than I am. He just wrote a bunch of equations on a sheet of paper and called it studying. I actually read the book and did extra problems to prepare for exams. He still got better grades than I did, anyway.)
I don't know how we actually started dating. Our mutual friend, RJ told me one day that he could tell that Mike liked me a lot. I decided to test this theory by asking him into doing my physics lab homework, and he did it without any hesitation. I could just be vain in thinking this, but I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't have done homework for just anyone.
I think the big moment came when he awkwardly asked me to go out with him, and I said sure. I don't remember when it was or how it happened. All I know is that we never really stopped dating after that.
Year Two.
I spent a good deal of the year watching Mike and Brian play Tony Hawk Pro-skater 2. How our relationship lasted beyond this year still bewilders me to this day.
Year Three.
I spent the better part of the year watching the tv show, The Practice. For some reason, it was always on tv in 3227 St. Paul St. where Mike lived with 4 other people. And yet, they watched this show maybe 3 times a day every day for a year. However, at this point, I lasted a year watching Mike play skateboarding video games so The Practice was a big step up.
Year Four.
We moved to the Subway House, which was a set of apartments situated above the new Subway (the sandwich place). This year made me have a strange aversion to Subway for the longest time. To this day, when I smell the nasty bread that they make there, I just want to vomit. That smell wafted up into our apartments, and we smelled it all the time while we were living there. But I digress ... this was also the one time we came the closest to living together. Mike lived on the second floor, and I lived on the third floor. This was also our last year or college and certainly the most fun. When we graduated from college in May 2003, we decided to just see how things went from there.
Years Five - Seven
During this period, I was working for Merck in Rahway, NJ, while Mike was working for CSC in Maryland somewhere. I lived in northern NJ and Mike still lived in Baltimore, so we got to know the I-95 corridor very, very well.
Year Eight - Nine
We got tired of working and applied to grad school. I ended up at the University of Delaware to get a PhD in chemical engineering. Mike went to the University of Pennsylvania to get a masters in computer science. Some people are surprised by this, but Newark, DE and Philadelphia are not that far from one another and the drive between our houses is about 45 minutes, so we're not actually long distance anymore. Yay!
Year Ten
At this point, I am kind of fuzzy with when exactly everything is falling in place, but I believe we got engaged at some point here.
Year Eleven
Getting married! Woot!
We met in September 1999 when we moved into our dorm rooms our freshman year of college. We happened to be assigned to rooms that were right next door to one another, and Mike was one of the first people that I met in college. Since we were both in the engineering school, we ended up taking a lot of classes together, and as nerdy as it sounds, we got to be good friends because of class. We walked to class together and did homework together. (Note - we never studied together because Mike is a lot smarter than I am. He just wrote a bunch of equations on a sheet of paper and called it studying. I actually read the book and did extra problems to prepare for exams. He still got better grades than I did, anyway.)
I don't know how we actually started dating. Our mutual friend, RJ told me one day that he could tell that Mike liked me a lot. I decided to test this theory by asking him into doing my physics lab homework, and he did it without any hesitation. I could just be vain in thinking this, but I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't have done homework for just anyone.
I think the big moment came when he awkwardly asked me to go out with him, and I said sure. I don't remember when it was or how it happened. All I know is that we never really stopped dating after that.
Year Two.
I spent a good deal of the year watching Mike and Brian play Tony Hawk Pro-skater 2. How our relationship lasted beyond this year still bewilders me to this day.
Year Three.
I spent the better part of the year watching the tv show, The Practice. For some reason, it was always on tv in 3227 St. Paul St. where Mike lived with 4 other people. And yet, they watched this show maybe 3 times a day every day for a year. However, at this point, I lasted a year watching Mike play skateboarding video games so The Practice was a big step up.
Year Four.
We moved to the Subway House, which was a set of apartments situated above the new Subway (the sandwich place). This year made me have a strange aversion to Subway for the longest time. To this day, when I smell the nasty bread that they make there, I just want to vomit. That smell wafted up into our apartments, and we smelled it all the time while we were living there. But I digress ... this was also the one time we came the closest to living together. Mike lived on the second floor, and I lived on the third floor. This was also our last year or college and certainly the most fun. When we graduated from college in May 2003, we decided to just see how things went from there.
Years Five - Seven
During this period, I was working for Merck in Rahway, NJ, while Mike was working for CSC in Maryland somewhere. I lived in northern NJ and Mike still lived in Baltimore, so we got to know the I-95 corridor very, very well.
Year Eight - Nine
We got tired of working and applied to grad school. I ended up at the University of Delaware to get a PhD in chemical engineering. Mike went to the University of Pennsylvania to get a masters in computer science. Some people are surprised by this, but Newark, DE and Philadelphia are not that far from one another and the drive between our houses is about 45 minutes, so we're not actually long distance anymore. Yay!
Year Ten
At this point, I am kind of fuzzy with when exactly everything is falling in place, but I believe we got engaged at some point here.
Year Eleven
Getting married! Woot!
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Welcome (again)
It's true, I did ask Mike for a blog. Wedding websites are usually kind of boring, right? All the important details are there, but why not add something a little more interesting?
I'll admit something here ... I am an internet lurker. I read other people's status updates and blogs without commenting. I try to extract as much information about someone as they'll let me - go through all of their pictures, read all of their updates and posts, etc. As long as it is public domain, I take the time to look at it. However, I don't bother to publicly divulge too much information about myself. It's mostly because I am a little lazy, and I am not all that interesting so there isn't much to say anyways.
Why the wedding blog, then? Because about half of our guests don't know me, and the other half don't know Mike. And it is a little strange to celebrate an event that is so important to us with people who don't even know either Mike or me or both, yes? It's nobody's fault, but I would like all of you to get to know the two of us a little bit before the big day so that you can get as excited about our wedding as we are. I'll (try to remember to) post cute stories about us and some insights to our hobbies, interests, and disinterests.
Almost five months left to the big day! I can't wait to celebrate the start of our marriage with all of you!
I'll admit something here ... I am an internet lurker. I read other people's status updates and blogs without commenting. I try to extract as much information about someone as they'll let me - go through all of their pictures, read all of their updates and posts, etc. As long as it is public domain, I take the time to look at it. However, I don't bother to publicly divulge too much information about myself. It's mostly because I am a little lazy, and I am not all that interesting so there isn't much to say anyways.
Why the wedding blog, then? Because about half of our guests don't know me, and the other half don't know Mike. And it is a little strange to celebrate an event that is so important to us with people who don't even know either Mike or me or both, yes? It's nobody's fault, but I would like all of you to get to know the two of us a little bit before the big day so that you can get as excited about our wedding as we are. I'll (try to remember to) post cute stories about us and some insights to our hobbies, interests, and disinterests.
Almost five months left to the big day! I can't wait to celebrate the start of our marriage with all of you!
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