beenie

Birthday wishes...

I've been remiss in my blogging duties this week!

Big huge happy birthday wishes go out to my dad, my Uncle Joe (happy milestone birthday!) and my cousin Mike.

An actual happy birthday to Kathy's new bundle, and congrats to the newly expanded family! :D

Weekend Food Pr0n, 6/25/05

Three letters...

B

L

T

This morning's farmer's market haul included broccoli, tomatoes, seedless cucumbers, green onions, red potatoes, freshly laid eggs, honey and two different kinds of lettuce. And since Saturday is bacon day at our house, I couldn't think of a better treat than a nice BLT with some of the lettuce and those beautiful yummy tomatoes.

The picture's a little blurry, but you get the idea. :)

And I have to start my new job WHEN?!?!

My weekend:

Friday night: massive amounts of company, go late-night Wal-marting with friend to escape company

Saturday afternoon: shop for contents of prize bags for bridal shower games

Saturday night: bachelorette party. Have a GREAT time sitting around BSing and reminiscing with girlfriends. Get so drunk that I vomit before we even leave the hostess' house to go bar-hopping (apparently there was more alcohol in that pitcher than I thought!). Eat some tortilla chips and feel fine a little while later, proceed to bar-hop. Back to hostess' house, eat pizza. Arrive home at 3:30 AM, bed at 4:00 AM.

Sunday morning: wake up to phone ringing at 8:00 - bride-to-be tells me that I left my cellphone at hostess' house, but that she'll bring it to the shower (why I needed to know this at 8:00 AM I'll never know). Wake up for good at around 9:30. Brunch with in-laws for Father's Day.

Sunday afternoon into evening: get back from brunch, scramble to get ready for shower and put together gift bags for game winners. Get in car, remember that the salad container from Friday afternoon's lunch is still in backseat due to overpowering stench of 100-degree hot feta cheese and caesar dressing combo. Head to shower, see bride-to-be in her coconut bra and grass skirt (it was a hula theme), have fun with girls, eat too much food, come home to napping husband (bachelor party was Saturday night). Call dad for Father's Day, wake up husband, order dinner, eat, blog.

Is it time for bed yet? And after all that, I have to start a brand-spankin' new job tomorrow morning. Joy.

Babies and houses and jobs, oh my!!!

More happiness and excitement.

After many trials and tribulations on both their parts, I have two friends (Casey being one) who are pregnant. With everything they've gone through, I couldn't be happier that they're finally going to have the babies they've dreamed of.

And I can't wait until we know that Kathy's baby has safely arrived. :)

Hopefully these wonderful events will provide good tidings to another friend of mine who has been trying to get pregnant for over a year (if you're reading this, and you're not Bryan, you probably don't know her).

And another friend is closing on a house in the coming weeks, with her wonderful honey. And she recently asked us some not-so-hypothetical questions about engagement rings and wedding bands.

And I start a new job tomorrow!

After a streak of bad things happening to people I care about, it's nice to see some good things coming everyone's way.

Giddiness

There's something going on in my little world that makes me so giddy - a couple of people from one of the message boards in which I participate have themselves a little luuuuuv thing going on. She visited him last month (I even got to give him some pointers on where to take her - eee!), he'll be visiting her in the not-too-distant future, and well, heee!!!

She's a peach - she was my Secret Santa on our board's holiday gift exchange last year, and she got me something I'd only mentioned in passing - MONTHS before - that I'd like to have. How thoughtful - and what a memory! And she's a big sweetie.

I really like him - he got a bad rap as the board snark, but since being with her, he's done a very nice 180 (well, maybe a 179 - he still snarks occasionally, but nowhere NEAR as bad as he was before). He's a good guy, and I'm so happy they found each other. Yay!!

Happy Daddy's Day!

Taking a cue from Sherri, here's a pic of my dad. Not one of the two of us (like hers), but one of him before I was even so much as a glimmer in his eye. This was taken just before he left for his high school prom - June 1970 (or was it '71?).

Love you, Daddy!

Yes, I'm 28 years old and still call my father "daddy." Wanna make sumthin' of it?

Almost like being at the beach, but not quite

I spent my last two days as an employee of {insert name of now-former employer here} at the corporate office, training the woman who will be taking over my accounts. Time for fun lunch!!

I treated myself to food from the yummy salad bar at the newly remodeled grocery store in that town on both days.

Now, Bryan and I both love couscous, but the grocery stores in town only have the small side-dish boxes of the Near East stuff, which we both like. But I've been keeping an eye out for either a larger package of plain couscous (which Wal-Mart didn't have, despite having an ethnic foods aisle with about 20 different kinds of rice) or a store with bulk foods (not likely any time soon in our little town). BUT... the newly-remodeled grocery store in the town where corporate is located has bulk bins! And one of them had couscous! :D

Either nobody in that town likes couscous or they had just refilled the bin - it was full - and I mean F.U.L.L. - when I went to fill my baggie with the heaven that is bulk couscous, some of it spilled on to the floor. I was wearing open-toed slides, so some of it got all in between my toes. I felt like I was at the beach. Only not quite. But the closest I've gotten in quite some time, since we rarely visit any place with a snady shoreline and I only seem to visit my family either during the winter.

Annoyed

There are a few things in regard to the job situation that are annoying me.

1) When I first interviewed for my job (the one I'm leaving), I was told during my second interview (not with by boss, who did my first interview, but with the VP of Marketing, who happens to be the owner's son) that they would be looking to close the store and move operations to the corporate office within 3 months to a year. One of the reasons I took the job was because my boss denied it when I asked him about it. But still, word of the closing was not a huge surprise. However, when it was originally discussed in my interview with the owner's son, it also came with an assurance that my position would be moved to corporate. The call I got today was essentially "as of July 1st, your store is closing and you're out of a job." And yes, the words "out of a job" came out of my boss' mouth. So not only did my boss lie to me, the owner's son/Marketing VP did too.

2) Why is my position not being absorbed into corporate? My boss told me it's not performance-related in the least, so it's not that (he didn't offer that information - I asked him about it point-blank, because I've butted heads with production several times in the last few months). Did they decide not to have me move to corporate because they were confident I'd find something else? Doubtful - honestly, I don't think they ever had any intention of moving my position to corporate. There are more than enough people working at corporate that my duties could be absorbed without much fuss, so why keep unnecessary personnel on payroll? It wouldn't make sense - so while I agree that they're making a sound business decision in eliminating my position rather than moving it, it doesn't change the fact that I was lied to.

3) Right after he told me that I was "out of a job," my boss told me that he knew I'd been looking, so he knew I'd be alright. Just how exactly did he know I was looking anyway? I thought things like that were supposed to be confidential? Not that it's a large enough company to have a human resources department - there are under 100 employees, and any HR-type stuff is handled by a gossipy girl in accounting and the owner's son. Gee, I wonder how my boss found out?

I'm annoyed, but certainly not surprised.

Corporate America Strikes Again

First, a little backstory...

I interviewed for a new job last Wednesday. It was offered to me on Friday afternoon - yay! However, due to a few factors, I had planned on declining - boo! But in my infinite wisdom (LOL), I asked for the weekend to think about it. This turned out to be a big yay.

Not too long before I was going to call to decline the job, I got a call from my boss. Due to management's desire to center more things around the central production/corporate facility and take even more of the focus off of the walk-in/retail aspect of the company's business, my sales office is being closed as of July 1st and my position is being eliminated. I never in a million years thought I'd be in a position to say this, but I've been downsized.

So now I have no choice - I'm taking the job. Training starts next Monday, so this is my last week here.

More adventures in bacon

No pictures today, but we had a nice morning, breakfast and otherwise.

We awoke to a nice fresh pot of coffee, made from freshly ground beans (thanks to this little gem).

Coffee made and loaded into travel mugs, we set out for the local farmer's market, where we got tomatoes (large red and small yellow), HUGE freshly laid brown eggs, leaf lettuce, onions and strawberries.

Then we stopped at a few rummage sales, then at the library (after one of the rummage sale people mentioned that the library has a program where you can rent a small patch of land on which to garden if you don't have the space). In addition to inquiring about the gardening thing, of course there were books. Bryan checked out several, and I checked one out (Queen of Dreams by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, with whose work I am fascinated) while putting 5 others on hold (Gone Bamboo and A Cook's Tour by Tony Bourdain, America (The Book) by Jon Stewart), Freakonomics by Steven Leavitt and Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss) or requesting them through inter-library loan. One more rummage sale after the library and we were on our way home.

Bryan just wanted the standard this morning - bacon, dunkin' eggs and toast. But with all of those lovely fresh tomatoes, I had a hankerin' for some salad. I used some of the leaf lettuce, some fresh spinach from last weekend's farmer's market haul, the small yellow tomatoes, sliced mushrooms which I marinated in olive oil, cider vinegar, garlic powder and Italian seasoning with parmesan cheese (a blend I get at PS Seasoning and Spices), shredded sharp cheddar cheese, chopped bacon and a couple of chopped hardboiled eggs. For the dressing I made a bacon dijon vinaigrette - a small amount of bacon drippings, a little olive oil, some cider vinegar and dijon mustard. I also made some homemade croutons by cubing up a hard roll, tossing with a little bacon grease and baking at 400*F until GBD (Golden Brown and Delicious). Yummy!!

Format change hits close to home

Many radio stations change their format each year, but I just learned of a format change that is hitting very close to home and has me on the verge of tears.

WCBS-FM 101.1 out of NYC has changed format - after 33 years as an oldies station - to "Jack." "Jack" is a format in which there are no disc jockeys, and the station has a much larger playlist than other stations - about 1200 compared with other stations' 300 or 400. I haven't found any concrete stats on this, but I've also heard that just about all songs on any given "Jack" station were at one point in the Top 40.

Now, don't get me wrong - top 40 nut that I am, I love "Jack" stations. But CBS?!?! I remember dancing to CBS around the kitchen with my mom. Every Sunday night after dinner, my parents would turn on CBS we'd all listen to Cousin Brucie. I remember my parents joking that even though the music played was from three decidedly different decades, Cousin Brucie always started his show with a 50s song. CBS is one of the radio stations that always let me know I was home. It was just as much a fixture of my childhood as going to Grandma's on Christmas Day.

:( {sniff}

Brekkies - aka Weekend Food Pr0n

Saturday morning is "big breakfast" morning in our house. It always involves thick-cut bacon. I figure hey - I eat low fat vanilla yogurt with thawed frozen fruit every morning during the week, so a little bacon on the weekend isn't a sin.

Usually I just make the same thing for both of us - bacon and eggs*, toast and coffee.

However, yesterday morning Bryan was craving a full English breakfast and I wanted French toast. Off we went to the grocery store. I got strawberries and peaches for my French toast, Bryan got some blood sausage - we already had the rest either at home or in the car (fresh from the local weekend Farmer's Market).

First thing I did was get the bacon started. Not wanting my own food to get cold while I made his, Bryan's food was up first. I sauteed some mushrooms and scallions with S&P in a little bit of bacon fat. When they were almost done, I cut a tomato into 6 wedges and fried them in the same pan. On to the plate they went. Then the blood sausage (yuck), cut on the bias and fried for just a minute or so on each side (it tends to fall apart if left any longer). Then I popped the bread into the toaster oven and made the eggs.

Butter and cut the toast, assemble plate, bring to hungry spouse, see hungry spouse get wide-eyed and practically kiss my feet when he sees his plate. Fabulous!

Then, on to my food. I cracked a couple of eggs in a shallow, square Ziploc box. Added cinnamon, nutmeg, some vanilla yogurt, vanilla extract and sugar, put the lid tightly on the box and shook until scrambled.

Before I started cooking the toast, I assembled the fruit so it would be ready when I needed it. I sliced about a pint of strawberries and diced a couple of peaches, put them in a bowl and mixed in maybe half a teaspoon of sugar. I used Texas toast for the bread (basically thick-sliced white bread) and dipped until the bread was saturated but not falling apart. Fried for a few minutes on each side, put the slices on a plate, cut them in half, separated the halves and put the fruit - which had just started to get glossy from the addition of the sugar - between the toast. Dusted with powdered sugar, and it was good to go. Yum!! The only thing that could have made it better would have been some heavy cream, whipped to perfection with a hint of almond extract.

I don't have a picture of Bryan's plate, but here's mine:

This has been your first edition of Weekend Food Pr0n.

*Cooking methods for the best bacon and dunkin' eggs can be found in the extended entry

For the bacon, you'll need a half sheet pan and a cookie cooling rack (or any baking sheet with sides and rack that sits above it). Put rack on sheet, lay bacon strips across rack. Place in a cold oven, turn to 400 degrees. Bake to deisred doneness.

For the eggs, you'll need a small pan with a lid - you can use whatever you'd like for the lid. Heat the pan to medium-hot. Put your lubrication of choice (oil, butter, bacon fat, etc.) in pan, bring to temperature of the pan. Eggs in pan (careful now, don't break the yolk!), sprinkle with salt and pepper. Turn heat to lowest setting, put lid on pan, cook until the whites are almost done, slide on to your plate (once removed from the pan, carryover heat will finish cooking the whites).

Stupid Weather Channel!!!

We were supposed to meet some friends this morning to go caching. As of last night, it was supposed to storm all day today. So, we called off caching and stayed up really late (the late part was partly due to the thunderstorms and tornado watch we were under until 4:00 AM).

We woke up this morning to bright, brilliant sunshine. It's still sunny. We don't even get up any higher than a 40% chance of showers until freakin' 3 o'clock. THREE O'CLOCK!!!! We totally could have gone out today.

But now we're home, because the stupid weather people called it wrong, we've already hit all of the caches in our immediate vicinity, it'll be raining by the time we get anywhere else, and we're too broke to do anything else (caching is really cheap once you get the GPS).

Couple that with the relatively decent weather we had yesterday and the fact that we made a conscious decision to stay in yesterday to save money, and you have two stir-crazy grumpy married people. Great.