I’m still here…

Okay, well maybe I’m not really still here, since my posting seems to have become a 1-2 times a month thing. I just can’t guarantee that I’ll write here any more frequently in the next month or so. I’ll try, I swear, but a lot of smaller entries that I used to do (links, recipes [...]

Read Full Post »

another year passes by…

I had the best birthday yesterday. Usually people get less and less excited about birthdays as they get older. That was true for me through most of my 20s. As the years go by you wind up doing less for your birthday– spending the day working/writing and then going out to dinner or something with [...]

Read Full Post »

odd family recipes

Tonight for dinner I made Josephines. My Dad has made them for as long as I can remember. I always thought they were an old family recipe– like most of the other stuff Dad cooks (potato stuffing, spinach balls etc.) comes from his mother. Well, I found out tonight the recipe comes from some friends [...]

Read Full Post »

when the going gets tough…

the tough gets cooking.
Everything around me and ahead of meis sort of up in the air right now. And I’m in one of those non-love periods of my love/hate relationship with my dissertation. I’m sure I’ll fall back in love with it again soon– provided I (a) give it some quality, focused attention, and (b)  [...]

Read Full Post »

new adventures in cooking

I don’t write much about food here. I might mention my love of good dark beer, but that’s pretty much it. I love cooking (and eating) but rarely have time for the cooking part. For the last bunch of years I’ve been in grad school I mostly make quick meals, and eat the same thing [...]

Read Full Post »

leftovers

It’s the end of thanksgiving weekend, and back to the usual tomorrow. Actually, I anticipate this week will be a little more stressful than usual because my final dissertation proposal is due Friday, and well, I sort of worked on it less this weekend than I originally intended. I did get some little bits and [...]

Read Full Post »

happy thanksgiving

We’re heading over to my advisor’s soon for thanksgiving dinner soon. I gather the plan is to take a lot of time between courses to drag the meal out, and to eat and talk as much as possible. Sounds good to me!
I love thanksgiving– not because of the ridiculous mythological crap we learn about it [...]

Read Full Post »

chicken, and turkey and bacon, oh my.

As I’ve mentioned before, I started eating meat again this summer after 10 years of being a pescatarian. My first downfall was bacon. Bacon was always the thing I missed the most. I used to try really hard to convince myself (and others) that the morningstar farm’s fake bacon was just as good as the [...]

Read Full Post »

NY Lesson #4: Lesbian Bars

Aside from the great bagels, pizza, and diner food, one of the things I really miss about NY are the lesbian bars.
Yes, I suppose it is true that Madison is a very gay-friendly city– a pocket of blue in an otherwise red state. Lesbians are everywhere on this side of town. We go to the [...]

Read Full Post »

NY Food Lesson #3: its in the water

You know you’ve been in the Mid West too long. . .
when the bagels there (like Bagels Forever or Einsteins) start to taste pretty decent.
Now my taste for what others call “bagels” is again spoiled for a while. I’ve had a few really great NYC bagels since I’ve been here– each one was better than [...]

Read Full Post »

Hey Wisconsin: NY Food Lessons

I”m not even in NYC proper yet, and I’ve had more great food here than I’ve had eating out in Madison all year. Seriously. Now I know that those of us from the East or West coasts are quite found of complaining about Madison’s food scene, but there really is some substance to our complaints [...]

Read Full Post »

strange compulsions

I don’t know what’s happening to me.
Yesterday, after 10+ years of being a pescatarian, I was compelled beyond control to eat bacon. It was there. It smelled great. I ate it, and it tasted great. I ate 4 pieces before the meat-eaters around me even noticed. Then there was shock and awe.
Just now I was [...]

Read Full Post »

back to boring

Well, I guess I can’t milk my New Orleans trip any longer.
Sorry for my lack of blogging. I’ll blame it on the NSF dissertation grant application that just sucked an entire week out of my life. I almost blogged about running around campus getting signatures, forgetting signatures, writing and then accidently deleting 1 page summaries, [...]

Read Full Post »

New Orleans 3: Food & Festivities

One of the best things about New Orleans is the food. Seriously, this has to be one of the only places I have ever travelled where every single meal was amazing. So amazing, none of us could stop raving about the food through the whole meal.
The first afternoon we were there we went to the [...]

Read Full Post »

I’m clearly not Martha Stewart

Thursday my BBBS little sister and I decided to try making Christmas cookies. We went and bought all the ingredients and decorations with the idea that the cookies would end up beautiful enough to give as gifts. I thought making and decorating cookies was easy. Maybe I’d never done it before, but how hard could [...]

Read Full Post »

potential

So I have been messing around a lot with my blog’s template. I can’t decide on a look, or on what picture to use at the top. What I have now is okay, but not exactly perfect. It is very trivial, but I can’t make up my mind about it.

This is the abandoned house I [...]

Read Full Post »

reason #281: why I love my ipod

Overheard on my walk down Bascom Hill yesterday:
“I just don’t think people on welfare should be allowed to have babies.”
“yeah, I agree, they should have their tubes tied or something”
“Some people might think that it is draconian [yes she actually used that word] to think so, but if they messed up so bad to be [...]

Read Full Post »

news

It’s Monday morning and I am exhausted. I worked way too much this weekend, and while I got so much accomplished, there is still so much to do. Sigh.
Anyway, here’s some news for you.

According to a Trader Joe’s employee on this site, the store is slated to open October 20th!!
Sadly, I’ll be presenting at a [...]

Read Full Post »

hallelujah!!

I know I’ve been super-emotional lately, but I almost just cried when I saw this this morning. Woohoo!!
I’ve only checked the Trader Joe’s website every other week or since we moved here 4+ YEARS AGO waiting to see just that.
As I’ve said here before (and before, and before)– I’ll be there when the doors open! [...]

Read Full Post »

gin and tonic: not bad

Actually, pretty damn good.
And yes, I am drinking alone. Well I’m not really alone, I have the puppy with me, and she is presently making her stuffed lobstah toy squeak.
I don’t have much else to blog about. It’s Friday night, and I decided to give myself a Friday evening of not working. Yes, I have [...]

Read Full Post »

trader joe’s, finally!!

Finally, after a couple years of rumors, there is confirmation that Trader Joe’s is coming to Monroe Street in Madison (they applied for a liquor license). How many years have I had to suffer here without Trader Joe’s, for crying out loud? I look forward to not having to brave Woodman’s anymore. I know Woodman’s [...]

Read Full Post »

Fat Boy’s Drive In

One of my favorite things to do when I am in Maine is go to Fat Boy’s Drive In, in Brunswick. We’ve been eating here for as long as I can remember being alive, and the food is always the same- fresh and tasty.
I don’t know of many drive-ins that are around any more, so [...]

Read Full Post »

New Glarus day trip

Here are the pictures I promised from our trip to New Glarus on Friday.
The first place we stopped was the New Glarus Brewing Company. Since moving to Wisconsin New Glarus has become my favorite beer, so stopping there was a must. My very favorite of all time is actually Guinness, but I don’t think I’m [...]

Read Full Post »

a little blog mystery

(First let me say I have the flu and I feel like total crap.)
This morning I found 5 new comments posted to my blog, on this post written about a year ago. They were all from different names- things like "lucy" and "veggie." No email addresses or websites or any other info posted. The comments [...]

Read Full Post »

dinner party & magic show

After emailing my paper all of 7 minutes before it was due yesterday (ever true to my procrastination style), I went to a BBQ/dinner party (it was raining).
The company was wonderful and the food was amazing. The highlight of the evening, however, was the magic show. Nickels magically turned into dimes, spoons took pictures of [...]

Read Full Post »

hallelujah! good pizza in Madison!

Went to a very new restaurant tonight- La Rocco's on Willy St. It has only been open about two weeks.
Wow. Finally. Really good pizza in this non-city city!
I know people make a fuss about Roman Candle. I don't like their crust and their pizza is inconsistent. I really don't even want to talk about Glass [...]

Read Full Post »

curried squash update

My curried sqaush was a success. I don’t know why I didn’t make it sooner. It tasted nearly as good as what we always go to the Laotian restaurant to get. It was pretty easy to make (well, pealing squash always takes a while). Everyone in my writing group seemed to really like it. Next [...]

Read Full Post »

recipe sought

I need to find a good, quick and easy Squash Curry recipe. I’ve never made it before, and my writing group was okay with me making something new for them tomorrow night. I don’t even know what makes a good Squash Curry recipe- I just know I love Squash Curry.
allrecipes.com was a disappointment. The closest [...]

Read Full Post »

road slush

On our way home from an entire afternoon of shopping and errands, we stopped to pick up beer (shopping makes me cranky, and if I am going to get some actual work done today I will need the beer).
I’m a fan of New Glarus beer, and just as I was going to buy my usual [...]

Read Full Post »

freakin’ finally

Finally we found an excellent restaurant in Madison! Yeah, yeah we tried Cafe Magnus a couple years ago and liked it (Jo liked it, there wasn’t much in the way of vegetarian for for me). And I’ve heard good things about Harvest (another with mostly salads for vegetarians). I know people who rave about L’Etoile, [...]

Read Full Post »