MntChcChp's Xanga

Good-bye xanga...

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:40:59 GMT

Hi friends,

After a few years on Xanga, it's time for me to say good-bye to all my faithful readers! I will no longer be updating this blog (although my entries were few and far between anyway), but hope to continue blogging more regularly on the journal page of my wedding website. Thanks for reading!!

For future updates, please go to Becca & Dean's Wedding Website.

Much love,
becca

Election Day through the eyes of 2nd graders

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:26:08 GMT

Illustrations that accompanied the journal responses for today's prompt (What are the qualities that make up a good president?):

"the debate"

"John McCain's White House"

"...to lower taxes"

"Obama"

It was interesting to see how the voices of the students came through in the drawings.

Purple and Orange

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:08:36 GMT

me: so, what do you think our wedding colors should be?
dean: how about purple and orange?
me: no, we are not having a phoenix suns-themed wedding.
dean: oh. it was worth a shot.

Easy-Bake Oven

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:19:06 GMT

For my Teaching Social Studies in Elementary School class tonight, we had to bring in salt dough to make topographical maps. So last night, before I went to bed, I prepared my dough (2 c. flour, 1/2 c. salt, 1/2 c. water). I put it in the refrigerator overnight, and this morning, I took it with me to work. The teacher had told us to take it out of the fridge and let it sit for a while before we use it so that it can have a chance to soften up. Well, I didn't want to leave it in the fridge at work, so I had no where else to put my dough but in my car. Little did I know that the temperature would hit 100 degrees today...probably even hotter in my car! By the time I got off work and checked on my dough, it had risen to twice its size and had turned into a lump of dough with the texture of banana bread. Who knew you could bake bread in your car? :D

Here's a picture of what the dough was supposed to be for (a classmate shared her [un-baked] dough with me).
Can you tell what it is? :)

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:09:11 GMT

It was raining really hard on my way home from work today. I was heading south on the 101 toward Mesa from north Scottsdale. Behind me, the sky was completely overcast and grey; in front of me, the sky was clear blue with light, fluffy clouds. As I got off the freeway, I was confronted with the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen. It was probably not the smartest or safest thing to do, but I just had to get out my camera phone and take a picture of it! :) The rainbow was so huge that when I looked in one direction, I saw one end, and when I looked in another direction, I saw the other end. It was pretty neat. What an awesome reminder of how cool God is!



On a side note...my teacher canceled class today due to the rain!   Haha...
When I lived in Regina, my sister and I never even got a single snow day. We had to walk to school in a blizzard when it was -40 degrees Celsius outside. But in Arizona, they cancel class when it rains... :D

Pork Sashimi

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:55:25 GMT

In a recent conversation with my sister, I found out that pancetta needs to be cooked. The conversation went a little like this:

Me – So what exactly is the difference between prosciutto and pancetta?
Jules – Uhh…well, you have to cook pancetta.
Me – WHAT!? ARE YOU SERIOUS!? I’VE BEEN EATING IT RAW! I thought it was cured like prosciutto!!!
Jules – Yeah, I’ve always seen recipes with cooked pancetta. You can wrap the slices of pancetta around some meat and roast it…or if they’re little diced pieces, it goes in carbonara…or you can put it in a tart and bake it.

Not that I have anything against eating raw meat - I like my steak rare, my fish sashimi-style, my chicken juicy and barely done, and I love my cured meats.

In fact, I try to taste the cured meats of every place that I visit (it seems that Arizona is the worst place for cured meats).

Cured meats in Barcelona, Spain

Cured meat sandwich in Paris, France

Cured meats and cheese in Boston, Massachusetts

Cured meats in Nice

And alas, cured meats in Mesa, Arizona (note the pancetta on the far right, next to the Italian dried salami).

After my shocking discovery, I quickly googled “Can pancetta be eaten raw?” and found many different answers. Here’s what OChef.com had to say:

...pancetta is generally only cured for two weeks, while prosciutto cures for 6 to 18 months. Prosciutto is drier, and the fat of even a fatty prosciutto seems less greasy to us than pancetta. We don't want to make sweeping generalizations, but it may be that many Italians relish a sliver of uncooked pancetta now and then, but we have not run across many people on this side of the Atlantic who eat it that way. Granted, we haven't met everyone on this side of the Atlantic, and we don't necessarily know what everyone we have met does in the sanctity of his or her own kitchen. But we doubt that many of them are chomping on a raw pancetta sandwich. Have a nibble, though, and see how you like it.

The general consensus seems to be that pancetta is usually eaten cooked, but some Italians like to eat it raw on occasion. However, there may be a difference between Italian and American pancetta, so it is probably not safe to eat the American kind. Eating American pancetta raw is essentially like eating raw bacon. Though I think I’d have to say that pancetta is far tastier.

In my defense, the pancetta was found in the deli section with the ready-to-eat salamis, prosciuttos, hams, and cheeses. Who knew it had to be cooked first? They really should put a warning on the label.

O Canada!

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 05:16:39 GMT

Happy Canada Day!!! :)

Yesterday we celebrated Canada Day at the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C.! :) We enjoyed a wonderful afternoon of free hot dogs and hamburgers, poutine, Canadian beer, and the company of many patriotic Canadians. :)

poutine!

sporting our canada tattoos!

Cheese part 2

Wed, 23 May 2007 18:03:05 GMT

this post is sort of related to my earlier post (just cuz it's about cheese), but i thought this article was so good that it deserved its own post!

was looking for more san francisco cheese related stuff and found this article....funniest/most interesting article i've read in a while (doesn't hurt that it's about cheese too!)

My big cheese smack-down

Hunting contraband fromage on the foodie front lines.
By Joshua Davis

In certain parts of the country, neighbors vie to have the hottest car, biggest house, or fattest bankroll. In San Francisco, my friends and I compete to cook each other the most mind-bending dinners. That’s what wins us bragging rights. It’s fun and deadly serious. Some people strut their stuff playing poker. We cook.

“I’ll see your grilled blah blah in a port reduction sauce,” I say to my friend Obie, a chef who’s invited my wife and me over for mesquite-grilled monkfish. “And I’ll raise you a wasabi-encrusted ahi steak next week.”

Obie frowns. “That’s so wannabe fancy.” His gut is already begging to spill over his belt and he looks a little tipsy, high on a combination of pinot grigio and a glowing sense of triumph. Sometimes I wonder why we don’t just wrestle and eat hamburgers.

“OK, you name the game,” I sputter, momentarily piqued. “What do you want to do? You want to barbecue? You want me to hit you with my special sauce?” I leer at Obie and he leers back. Then he smiles. “What, goddamnit?” I demand.

“You get some brie de Meaux and I’ll concede defeat. But the real brie de Meaux—none of the imitation stuff.”

I scrutinize him for a second. “You realize you’re asking me to commit a crime?”

Brie de Meaux is an illegal cheese. In 1950, the Food and Drug Administration enacted Title 21, Part 133 of the cheese code, banning all cheeses made from unpasteurized milk if aged less than 60 days. The FDA thought these young raw milk cheeses were likely to carry deadly pathogens, and notwithstanding the fact that the French have survived centuries of raw cheese consumption, the U.S. government put an end to its importation.

Of course, some of the best cheeses fall into this category, and San Franciscans aren’t about to let them go.

In a region as dedicated to its food snobbery as it is to its antiestablishment identity, the Bay Area is a prime breeding ground for serious cheese smugglers. Though I’ve never tasted it, I’ve heard foodie friends speak ecstatically about brie de Meaux, considered the king of bries. If I’m going to score, I’ll have to find a dealer. Maybe it’ll be as easy as walking down Haight Street listening for the mumblings: “Doses, cheese, dope, brie.”

“You’re on,” I growl to Obie, oozing bravado.

A sly grin creeps across his face. “Just don’t ask me to bail you out when you get arrested.”

The most dramatic approach would be to smuggle the cheese back from France myself. The problem is, I’m the nervous type. I could see myself having a panic attack on the airplane and ending up in the bathroom during the descent into SFO. I’d try to hide the cheese by cramming it into my mouth. The gagging would draw the attention of a stewardess, who’d knock and ask if I was all right. I’d open the door to prove I was fine, but telltale gobs of brie would be streaked across my cheek. She’d alert the captain and I’d be turned over to the FDA’s illegal-cheese rapid response team at the gate.

OK, so the FDA doesn’t have an illegal-cheese rapid response team, but it does have a sort of cheese vice squad. I call the local FDA and ask to speak to a cheese detective, but they tell me the inspectors don’t talk publicly about their work. They make it sound as if they’re undercover and don’t want their identities revealed.

This freaks me out even more. Undercover cheese detectives? When pressed, they say that in some cases the inspectors intercept suspicious cheese and ferret away samples for testing. If caught with illegal cheese, I could face a $250 fine and a possible black mark on my customs file that could lead to a lifetime of border-crossing harassment. But they really only stop commercial importers, not tourists, so I may be getting carried away. Regardless, I’ll leave the smuggling to someone else.

I’m getting desperate and I need some leads. So I call one of the Bay Area’s most respected wholesalers and press one of the salespeople, Jesse, for information. He says the FDA has stepped up its illegal-cheese raiding recently and that his company has no intention of being cited. Still, he does acknowledge that there’s a local underground cheese society. Some people smuggle cheese back from Europe personally; others have it shipped to a friend in Canada and then Fed Exed home. And some people, he says, are lucky enough to have a dealer who can “hook you up with the best shit ever.”

The large-scale dealers run shops that use legal cheese as a cover, generally getting their illegal goods through crafty wholesalers. When the wholesale cheese is airfreighted from France, a certain amount of the shipment is raw milk cheese either mislabeled as FDA compliant or simply unlabeled and hidden among the rest. The FDA cannot check everything, and just like cocaine moving through the Caribbean, what gets through is enough to justify the risk for both wholesalers and dealers. It wins the devotion of their clientele and makes them good money. A real-deal époisses—a rare, runny French cow’s milk cheese—can retail starting at $30 on the black market, and that’s for a piece that fits in your palm.

Those with the right connections get invited to illegal-cheese parties, like one recently thrown by a San Francisco lawyer who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. He tells me he smuggled a wheel of époisses on his way back from vacationing in Vienna. He wrapped the cheese tightly in plastic, buried it in his checked luggage, and invited his 20 most important friends over for an illicit-cheese party. “People looked at me a little differently after that,” he says. “There was more respect—a little bit of a ‘He’s not just a lawyer, he’s a wild cheese smuggler’ type of thing.”

“Illegal cheese is a status symbol,” says Jesse. “If you can bring a fresh raw milk brie or camembert to the table, it says something about your wealth and mobility.” I need to be saying things about my wealth and mobility. I need to speak loudly and carry some strong cheese. I need a dealer.

I spend a week visiting local cheese shops, lightly asking for “young raw milk brie.” I’m turned away a number of times, but then strike gold. One middle-aged cheesemonger pauses before he responds. “What exactly are you looking for?” he asks, lowering his voice. The shop is empty—it’s early afternoon. I decide to lay my cards on the table and tell him I’m looking for an unpasteurized brie de Meaux.

“Ah,” he says, with a sly, complicit grin. He pushes aside a wall of cheese in his refrigerator and pulls out a large disk of unmarked brie from the back. “I think you might like this.” I ask him what it is. He chuckles and, in a mock-confused voice, tells me he doesn’t know. It arrived unlabeled from one of his importers. “But it tastes like only one thing I’ve ever tasted.”

He cuts two thin slices—one for himself and one for me. I take a nibble and feel a sudden rush; it’s different from anything I’ve ever eaten. There are pastures in there; I can taste the fields and sense the end-of-summer grass. It’s a big, robust, whack-you-over-the-head-with-a-log-and-tickle-you-with-a-piece-of-straw kind of cheese. I can’t speak. I just stare at him with big eyes.

When the anticipated night finally arrives, the dinner begins calmly enough. We have a fresh spinach, pinenuts, and pomegranate salad and I pour a Côte de Beaune. Obie raises an unimpressed eyebrow and I pretend I’m worried. I let him think he has me on the ropes. I even serve the wasabi-encrusted ahi so that he calls me names. He disparages my kitchen and denigrates my olive oil. I’m smiling on the inside.

The denouement is delicious. When I pull the cheese board out of hiding, his smirk disappears. He looks worried for the first time in years. I lay the board down in front of him. There’s a knife, a few slices of Acme bread, and a wedge of golden, bulging brie de Meaux. He spreads a dollop, glances at me with panic, and takes a bite. “My God,” he says, and his eyes flash ecstasy, jealousy, admiration, and defeat all at once.

Cheese School?!!

Wed, 23 May 2007 17:48:30 GMT

so i'm currently in san francisco right now with my parents, and i was just surfing the net to see if san francisco offered any special cheese shops or factories that i should visit...and what do you know!!! i found the Cheese School of San Francisco! (*swoon*) i want to move here just so i can take all the cheese classes! :) it's the only insitution of its kind dedicated to, "helping people maximize their enjoyment and appreciation of cheese." how perfect is that?! one of the classes that caught my eye was called "extreme cheese." the description reads:

Go ahead and admit it. You love cheese. That’s for sure. But you’ve got this creeping feeling that the affair has lost a little bit of its zing of late. Maybe you know it all just a bit too well, and your taste buds have been lulled into a state of sleepy complacency. For those who already have the basics covered, this advanced class in extreme cheese will take your senses to new heights with big, bold, exotic cheeses that aren’t for the faint of heart. Take your relationship to the next level by diving into these distinctive cheeses from around the globe.

anybody up for another trip to san francisco to take cheese classes with me? :D

Monday, March 12, 2007

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 06:47:27 GMT

this week, my strawberry plant grew 3 new buds! this makes a grand total of 6 now! i get so excited about my plant that i find myself checking on it every few hours (i know, obssessive). but it actually does grow really fast. i found a new bud in the morning, and by nighttime, it had grown beween 1/8" - 1/4". amazing!!   it makes me want to start growing my own everything...hehe. yeah right. i had a few mishaps though. this plant is so tiny (the entire pot is about 3" tall) that i have trouble watering it sometimes. i've been watering it drop by drop, but i've found that drops of water tend to make little potholes in the dirt. so i tried using a spray bottle, but the water clung to the leaves and a few of them actually wilted. :(   so i've gone back to dripping. anybody know more about watering delicate plants?



in other news, i recently found out i will be going to new york march 23-26 with my architectural studio and will be making a stop in boston beforehand (march 22), so that should be exciting :)