Hitched!

It’s highly advisable, if you can work it out this way, to get married in an “00” year because then your anniversaries just follow the numbers and neither of the parties involved will ever forget how many years you’ve been married! It’s October 14, 2011 and I have been married for 11 years – now that’s some easy math!

Lots of people have grand engagement stories – we don’t. It was just me and Craig, hanging out in his apartment in “Harlem” (we didn’t think 110th was considered Harlem back in the day; the kids that egged a group of us one Halloween shouting “Welcome to Harlem!” apparently did) and we decided to get married. Woot!

How we met is a better story:

It was 1998 and my company was moving into a new building which happened to be where my friend Rich worked. Despite being a huge city, New York is really just a small town – this is how it’s possible to explain that I worked in the same building as someone who I knew in Wilmington, NC (Side story: At one point in his NYC career, Rich worked for an insurance company and processed one of my insurance claims. Now that’s just bizarre. Rich - did I just make that up?) Anywho, Rich worked on the 25th floor, I worked on the 4th floor and up on that 25th floor Rich worked with Craig. How lovely. Rich and I would often meet for lunch. At one fateful lunch (at Daily Soup) I said “Which one of your friends can I date?” and Rich drew up a very impressive list. Craig was on that list! Yay! Raise your hand if you’re in a relationship that Rich orchestrated! (At least 16 people are raising their hands, I’m sure. Rich missed his calling as a highly-paid matchmaker.)

And what commenced was a very stealth shock and awe campaign to get Craig to like me. Probably what happened is that Rich when back to work and said “You should date and then marry my friend, Lisa” while I fretted and tried to play it cool. Rich, Craig and I (and the newsstand guys whom all three of us loved) had a series of coffee breaks in the lobby of 810 Seventh Avenue and then soon it was just Craig and I having coffee breaks. Likewise, we’d meet for drinks with friends after work and slowly the group would dwindle to just me and Craig having dinner. How very stealth indeed. Much of our courtship involved abusing the messenger service my company contracted, but don’t worry, the messenger service was in on it and loved it. I think one guy stuck around my building just to bring notes and letters between the 4th and 25th floor. This was before email was de rigueur. I think I still have some faxes from Craig - before Facebook, readers, we had to rely on faxing!

People assumed we met in the elevator of our building but, as any good New Yorker knows, that would be impossible: there are different elevator banks for the higher floors – c’mon people, get with it! I was smitten with Craig because he met a lot of the criteria I had on my “list” which included gems like “Can’t have played the flute in high school” and “Must know how to read”. As for what Craig liked in me, one time I left one of our drinks/dinner evenings to head to a midnight showing of “Titanic” which is exactly what a super fun girl would do and who wouldn’t be crazy about THAT?

And two short years later we got hitched! The brilliant Girl Wonder, Ella, is still mad she wasn’t “invited” to our wedding. Don’t be surprised if you get a wedding invite from us in the near future. I think Ella would very much like us to have another wedding. And, also, I would like to register again. Eleven years has been hell on some of my cookware.

Most importantly, happy anniversary to my dear husband who goes along with my every whim and continues to make me laugh! Hurrah!

The last few dredges of goodness...
hey, it might be good on those bananas back there!
 

 

The problem with this syrup is that it is such an easy and delicious caramel-like sauce that you will find yourself making meals just to have this syrup. After I made it I had no problem serving pancakes and waffles for every meal for three days in a row. It's THAT evil. It's good with breakfast foods, but would be good on ice cream too. I wouldn't know since I finally just started eating it out of the jar. Make this at your own risk!

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.
 

 

In this post, I recreate something I haven't even tried yet. My brother Gary told me about a food vendor at the Rochester Farmer's Market selling carrots dogs and, lo, people are lined up down the street to partake. What the what? Carrot dogs? I Googled, of course, and a few references came up for a steamed/boiled, marinated carrot which is then grilled and presented on a hot dog bun. Hey, why not? I went with this recipe which calls for a marinade of soy sauce, sesame seed oil, rice vinegar, garlic and ginger - very tangy. The recipe says the longer you marinate it, the more it tastes like a hot dog. Hmmmm. I'm not sure I would say they taste exactly like a hot dog. The flavors are overwhelmingly Asian (duh) but the hot dog consistancy is there as long as you don't boil the carrots too long. We top our hot dogs with salsa and mustard and that's what we put on the carrots.  While I wouldn't say we're total converts, we had no trouble chowing on a carrot dog (and washing it down with a real hot dog!).

 

 

 

Homemade marshmallows in s'mores! Mine is the one with the peanut butter cup! I baked these in the oven for a few minutes at 200 degrees. They made a giagantic but wonderful mess. Next time I will just warm the marshmallows in the oven and top them with the chocolate when they come out of the oven so we don't have to eat them with a spoon!

Homemade Marshmallows
From: Barefoot Contessa Family-Style by Ina Garten

3 packages unflavored gelatin
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Confectioners' sugar for dusting

Combine the gelatin and 1/2 cup of cold water in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and allow to sit while you make the syrup.

Meanwhile, combine the sugar, corn syrup, salt and 1/2 cup water in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Raise the heat to high and cook until the syrup reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. Remove from the heat.
With the mixer on low speed slowly pour the sugar syrup into the dissolved gelatin. Put the mixer on high speed and whip until the mixture is very thick, about 15 minutes. Add the vanilla and mix thoroughly.

With a sieve, generously dust an 8 x 12-inch non-metal baking dish with confectioners' sugar. Pour the marshmallow mixture into the pan, smooth the top and dust with more confectioners' sugar. Allow to stand uncovered overnight to dry out.

Turn the marshmallows onto a board and cut them in squares. Dust them with more confectioners' sugar.
 

To celebrate the first day of Spring (which was a bit premature since we just got some snow), I finally made a Hummingbird cake. As Ella likes to point out, “There isn’t hummingbird in it, it’s just the name!” I mentioned this cake a few post ago and my sweet hummingbird of a friend, Rachel, sent me a copy of recipe from a North Carolina church cookbook. I may be making up the church part, but it sounds good, right? I’m not making up the part about the recipe being submitted by a woman named “Cookie”. You just trust a recipe from a woman named Cookie.

This cake is very reminiscent of carrot cake – minus the carrots, raisins and walnuts and throwing in some crushed pineapple, chopped bananas and pecans. It calls for cream cheese frosting which I personally love and gave me a good excuse to call this cake “breakfast” on a couple of days.

From the info I could find on the cake, some speculate that it got its name because it’s sweet enough for hummingbirds; I think the name stems from it being so good you find yourself fluttering around it for just one more bite.

Hummingbird Cake

I made half the recipe below so I could bake it in these adorable 6 inch round cake pans I recently bought from Sur La Table. A half recipe still makes a lot of cake. A whole recipe will make a massive cake. This batter is really thick – I thought I missed a liquid ingredient, so don’t be surprised when you have to really spread it into the pans. Finally, to halve 3 eggs, I just beat them in a measuring cup and used half!

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 large eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, well-drained
1 cup chopped pecans
2 cups chopped bananas

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; add eggs and oil, stirring until dry ingredients are moistened. (Do not beat.) Stir in vanilla, pineapple, 1 cup pecans, and bananas.

Spread batter into three greased and floured 9-inch round cake pans. Bake at 350° for 25 to 30 minutes or until a knife or cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans, and cool completely on wire racks.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2 (8-ounce) packages ½ less fat cream cheese, softened
1 cup butter, softened
2 pounds powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla (I used vanilla syrup from Starbuck’s!)
½ cup pecans, finely chopped

Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating at low speed until light and fluffy.

Spread cream cheese between layers and on top and sides of cake; sprinkle chopped pecans on top. Store cake in refrigerator.

Don’t you just get tired of saying no all the time (especially as a parent)? Inspired by the book “Yes Day!" by Amy Krouse-Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld (great authors!), we decided to celebrate Yes Day! this past weekend.

In the book, the character and his family have Yes Day! once a year and everything he asks is answered with a “yes!”. Can I have pizza for breakfast? Yes! Can I stay up late and watch a movie? Yes! Can we have a food fight? Yes! Ella was obsessed with the idea of Yes Day! ever since we read the book. We did a little planning ahead of time and we also set a few ground rules so the day didn’t turn into a huge disappointment. For example, early in the week Ella wondered out loud how we would sneak a puppy into the house so she could ask “Can I get a puppy?” – we wanted to avoid these kind of scenarios! So we brainstormed ideas of stuff that she’s been wanting to do and planned accordingly. Also, Ella thought we should have “crazy” things to eat so I got a general idea of what she might want and ran out to the store the night before to stock up. I also planned an activity that I knew would surprise her (see below). As Ella gets older, we can probably celebrate Yes Day! with a little more spontaneity but, as it turned out, we had a super time and really enjoyed saying “yes!” to everything:

• Can I have cake for breakfast? Yes!

• Can I get a garbage can for my room? Yes! (Ella has, for whatever reason, wanted her own garbage can for quite

some time. I guess she’s tired of walking the 14 feet to the garbage in the bathroom to throw things out.)
• Can I watch SpongeBob SquarePants? Yes! (I abhor SpongeBob and usually don’t let her watch it.)

• Do you want to go swimming today? Yes! (I got to ask Ella this one and she totally freaked since it’s the middle of winter and how crazy is that!?)
• Can we get pizza? Yes! (This was asked after an hour and a half of swimming and it was only 3:30pm but swimming wore us out! So we went to our favorite place, Little City Pizza, which Ella calls “Superhero Pizza” because their décor is framed comic books.)
• Can we watch a movie? Yes!
• Can I have ice cream for dinner? Yes! (Mint ice cream with marshmallow sauce? Yes! See, you do have to stock the pantry beforehand!)
• Does Yes Day! have to end? Yes! (And thank goodness because we were exhausted!)
• Can we have another Yes Day!? Yes!
 

 

 

Since you know at some point this year you'll have to buy a gift for a wee tot, I wanted to give a shout out to great goodies that we've been enjoying immensely in our household. Here are some of the big hits:

Just Dance 2 – This is a game for the Wii and it’s so fun. It has 45 songs and you follow the on-screen dancer and rack up points for great moves. I’m the worst dancer ever which made it even funnier. Especially great was watching Ella dance with my Dad to a Ke$ha song! I am posting the photo below without the permission of Craig and my brother, Jim. I think they were dancing to "Wake Me Up!".
 

 
Think-its – Thinks-its are a collection of tiny little trinkets (most likely from a dollhouse supply company) in a mesh bag good for on-the-go play. There’s different games you can play, our favorite being the one where a story is started with one trinket and each person takes turns adding to the story based upon the trinket they pull out of the bag. Another toy along the same lines is Story Cubes which are tiny dice with different little pictures on each one, good for storytelling.

Capsters – From Klutz Books, this art book comes with bottle caps and glaze for making tiny little creations in the bottle caps. You can then make them into magnets or necklaces or keychains. (When you Google "Capsters" you also get a site selling "sporty hijab" head coverings. Now you know.)

Marbles and Block – These are old-fashion wooden blocks that can be constructed into a track for marbles to roll through. Very fun and creative. Buy two sets so you can make ginormous towers!

Mind Blowing Science Kit – Packed with basic household ingredients, this kit allows your budding scientist to conduct a dozen different experiments like growing crystals, making goo or erupting a volcano from stuff like baking soda and red cabbage powder. Craig and Ella did a few of the experiments on Christmas and they were impressed with their laboratory know-how!

Mini-American Girl Dolls – Ella would very much like a full-sized American Girl doll but I think they, along with their little clothes, are too expensive for a five year old kid. Luckily, the company had the foresight to issue these little dolls which Ella was thrilled with. They come with their own book but since the print is too tiny to really read, she got the full-sized paperback copies too.

The snow Connecticut got on Friday was pretty and fluffy, good for snow angels, not so good for snowmen. Ella headed outside on Saturday at 8am to play and took along the snowman kit we got last year (for free!) from The Children's Place (we added the hat to the kit). Since the snow wasn't cooperating, Ella went outside of the box and dressed up a tiny pine tree we have in our front yard. I can't stop giggling over the photo - it's the cutest (and cleverest) thing I've ever seen! I think dressing up this pine tree will become a winter tradition!!

We're back in Connecticut still defrosting from a week in Minnesota (Minnesota is evidentally the Native American word for "really really freezing cold"). Ella is still in shock being away from Grammy and Grampy who hook her up to a sugar and gift I.V. when we walk in their door and now she's back home forced to eat "nothing" but Cheerios and veggies. She's looking into flights back to MN as we speak.

A super special part of our trip was meeting our darling new niece and cousin, Lyla. She's the one in the pink whale suit below. She can pull off a pink whale look. By the way, those cheeks are truly as squishy in real life as they look in the pic. I was thrilled to be named her (fairy) Godmother at her baptism. The pastor suggesed doing something special on her baptism anniversary every year like presenting her with a different piece of a nativity so when's she older, she has a complete set. I was thinking more along the lines of trips to New York City to take in Broadway shows when she's older - not quite holy enough, right? I love Ella's face in the photo - she's been trying so hard not to close her eyes when the flash goes off but this results in a squinty eye look, as shown below.