Gas Gauge

Uh oh. For the first time since I started tracking gas prices on my blog, gas has actually risen in price.

I paid $1.67 this morning to fill-up. It's already jumped 12 cents since last week.

Just Like Watching National Geographic

The highlight of my work day was seeing my first ever fox. I never really grew up in a place that had a ton of wildlife. You're reading the words of a girl who was thrilled to see squirrels and chipmunks for the first time during my freshman year at BC. The closest brush I had to nature before this was the turkey gang in Newton. Oddly enough, my Dad also reported a Tanuki sighting via email today as well, which I always thought were mythical creatures (or a suit that lets Mario fly in Super Mario Bros 3!)

Anyway, back to the office.
My office building is located in an interesting area. On one side of the building, you've got a parking lot and transmission towers, which are pretty close to a major road (Route 117) and 95. So you wouldn't expect a lot of wildlife.

However, on the other side, we have a gorgeous view of a brook, a pond, and a larger pond that is a filled-in quarry. We're used to seeing plenty of Canadian geese (and their droppings) but this was the first time a fox was sighted!



We all crowded the windows to see the fox make his way around the pond. He walked on the ground most of the time but was brave enough to cross the ice to make his way to the other side of the pond.



To quote one of my coworkers, a woman who isn't the brightest bulb in the bunch and let me make clear, works in a different department, "Oh, he's so pretty! He makes me feel bad for wearing fur. I want to go down and feed him. "
Another coworker replied, "What are you going to feed it? Meat?"
She replied, "No, I have strudel. Do you think he'll like that?"
Disgusted, I returned to my cube.

Feeling Lucky?

Then visit Banana Republic's Daily Bag Grab Instant Giveaway. You get once chance each day - through February 10 - to win a handbag.




I didn't win anything last year but it doesn't hurt to try.

I've never really won something myself but I did win a camera for my family one year. The Burger King on Camp Walker (Taegu, Korea) had a drawing and being savvy about age requirements, I entered my Dad's name and forgot to tell him about it. He was surprised when Burger King called about the camera but was smart enough to claim it. I think we used that camera for a good ten years.

Sunday Dinner - Pot Roast

My January submission for cooking and following a new recipe:

Pot Roast!



It took over two hours to make in my lovely Dutch Oven, smelled great (sitting in a combination of beef stock and red wine plus seasonings) and tasted pretty good. I just hope my pot will get clean after soaking overnight!

Grocery Shopping Observations

Just came back from dropping an obscene amount of money grocery shopping. Anytime I grab a cart instead of the basket I usually limit myself to, it's way too easy to throw stuff in. This time, I had a mission to stock up on soup and frozen meals (lean cuisines and lean hot pockets) that are perfect for lunch at work, fruit as a healthy snack, and yogurt and oatmeal to eat at work. Plus, I bought a roast to take a stab at making pot roast tomorrow. So it added up but there should be enough food to last me the rest of the month.

I hit Stop & Shop tonight as I haven't been there in a while. It's a slightly longer drive than the two Shaws and the two Whole Foods that are near me, but it definitely offers the best variety and prices. I knew shopping tonight would be a pain because people are always out in full force to stock up before a snow storm (like we'll be snowed in for days). Plus, I hate shopping with a cart because it makes it exponentially harder to navigate around the store. Some of the annoying stuff I observed tonight:

• People who eat while they're shopping. This goes beyond tasting a grape for freshness. I even understand mothers who are feeding little kids who can't wait (although I think it would be a good lesson in patience for kids to have to wait until they get home to eat stuff from the grocery store). I'm talking about the lady sauntering down the aisle while dipping her hand in a box of crackers. It just really annoys me for some reason.
• People who hold conversations in the store and stand at the entry way for an aisle. And despite the large numbers of people who stop, glare, say "excuse me" and squeeze by, they continue to stand there. There were two groups of people blocking the pasta aisle tonight and one of the guys talking just stayed right in the middle of the aisle. I kept glaring at him every time I encountered him in another aisle.
• People who leave their cart unattended right in the middle of an aisle. Everyone understands that it's easier to leave a cart and grab something quickly but why leave it in the middle when you obviously know it will be in the way?
• People who crowd you at the registers. Checkout was surprisingly unbusy (around two customers per line) and the Asian couple who lined up behind me were visibly impatient with how long it took me to load the checkout counter's conveyor belt. Even when it was clear that I had no room to load things until the customer ahead of me finished checking out. And they proceeded to stand right next to me while I handled the financial aspect of checking out, uncomfortably close as if it was going to get them to register even sooner. A good rule of thumb wherever you are in public, give people some personal space. Seriously.

So to sum up my shopping trip, people are annoying. Big surprise!

Blissful Friday Nights

...are staying in, warm and cozy (well, relatively warm considering the temperature my house is), watching episodes of Fringe and eating popcorn.

This is very similar to how Andrew and I spent New Year's Eve, if you add in a nap and laughing at people on TV who were dumb enough to stand outside in freezing temperatures for hours on end in the snow.

It's official folks, I'm in hibernation mode. Contact me in the spring - when temps hit the sixties -if you want to hang out. Otherwise, I'm not returning your call.

Ugh. Even More Snow.

How many times am I going to use that line as a title this year?

More snow is predicted for tomorrow, and yet again, the original estimate has crept up. This morning, it was 3 to 6 inches.

According to the weather report we just saw, now it's 5 to 8 inches.

I'm tired of shoveling snow, scraping ice off my car, salting the walk way and freezing my butt off.

They call this global warming?

Monthly Dinners With Jen

For almost a year, Jen and I have made a point of getting together every first Thursday of the month to have dinner together.

Tonight's choice was a favorite with both of us, the New England Soup Factory on Needham Street (which I call Highland Ave.). I think the original one is in Brookline, since I can see it from the D line but the only one I've ever eaten at is the one in Newton. They've got a nice selection of soups (duh), salads and sandwiches that make you feel as though you're eating reasonably healthy. Apparently, they have delicious chilled fruit soups during the summer, which I never have tried since I don't think of the Soup Factory as a place to go for dinner during warm weather. So tonight, Jen and I tried a sample of their Spicy Chickpea and Squash soup. It actually was pretty good, but like the name states, very spicy and almost Indian in flavor. We opted out of getting a full bowl of the soup and instead, I got the Hearty Italian Beef Stew and Jen went the Chicken Vegetable soup.

As we spent an hour eating and chatting, this is the Jen that I faced (admittedly, I caught her mid-hair flip):



But this is how she posed when I told her I needed a picture of her for my blog:



...to out her as a new owner of Ugg boots. I told her I wouldn't judge her (too much) about succumbing to this trend. Jen readily agreed that she referred to them as "fuglies" but told me that they were so comfortable, they felt like putting your feet into two halves of a teddy bear. At least, I think that's how she described them because I was still too busy staring at them!



All kidding aside, since Jen is forced to stand in crappy Boston weather each morning to ride the T to work, and then again to catch a bus, I'm all for her wearing anything that keeps her warm and dry. I'll just be watching to make sure they don't appear with a skirt anytime during the summer. That's when I'll know she'll have crossed over to the dark side and all gloves will be off in terms of teasing!

Blind Dates

At some point last year, I stumbled across The Washington Post’s Date Lab. Every week, the Post matches up two people, gives them a $100 to spend on dinner as well as disposable camera to take pictures and then chronicles the whole thing in a column. Predictably, most of the dates fizzle out since people are matched on what appears to be one common characteristic. Actually, I believe the Post as a joke, had a monkey pick two people to go out and that date actually ended working out so that shows you a lot about how many people will actually find true love through the column.

Anyway, it still makes for an interesting read to see what other people go through on a blind date. Especially since the column consists mostly of what the two people on the date had to say about the experience in direct quotes. This is why I was pleased to see that the Boston Globe Magazine was announcing a similar column called Dinner With Cupid (lame name, I know). It’s a chance to read about Boston people doing the blind date at places I’ll actually recognize.

My next goal is to get some of the single friends I know to give it a try. At the very least, they'll get a $100 dinner for free!

Gas Gauge - January 2009

I just realized I haven't done one of these posts in a while. Considering I just filled up for $1.55 and these prices are too good to last, I figured I would document it. So when we fast forward a few months to over $4 prices again, I can read this post and long for the good ole days.

Watching Fringe on Hulu

I've hit a point where I don't have much on my Netflix list except for new movies, which means Andrew and I don't have much to watch on the weekends and the days we're together.

We've gone through major tv show marathons where we've worked our way through all of the seasons of Scrubs, Dexter and How I Met Your Mother.


Our latest discovery is the FOX show Fringe, which we are watching on the website Hulu.com (I highly recommend this site!)



It reminds me of a more updated X-Files, although admittedly, not quite as good. Joshua Jackson is in it and investigates with "fringe" events with an FBI agent (sound familiar?) and his slightly-crazy Dad. I'm not doing the show justice in my description so you'll have to watch it yourself. We watched the first two episodes over the weekend and just watched three more back-to-back tonight. This will have to hold us over until True Blood gets released on Netflix.

Another Current Retailer Obsession

Is all Jen's fault. It started with a great birthday gift, a green ombre scarf from Martin & Osa, which put the store on my radar. Their normal prices put them way out of my budget. But with great sale prices and an extra 25% promotion running, I was like a kid in a candy store.

It all started with the Paradise Cardigan in Street Grey Heather. I had walked into Martin & Osa simply to return something I had decided against giving as a gift. The cardigan caught my eye as I made my way out the door. I tried it on, love it and the loved the fact that it cost less than $25 (down from an original $79) and bought it.

The picture doesn't do it justice - it's this beautiful silver shade, super soft and has a delicate knit. I wore it with a black tank over the weekend.

Because I liked it so much, I went online and ordered it in bilberry purple. And got suckered into a few other things along the way, like:

the Cowl-Neck Sweater

I've been obsessed with cowl necks for the past year and although I loved it in black, I already own a cowl neck sweater in that color. I got it in Raffia Cream (basically white) which confirms that I'm on a light color kick when you look at all the sweaters I listed in this post.

I went back to grey (called Boulevard Grey this time but it looks exactly the same as their Street Grey Heather) for the Gossamer-Ruffle Henley.

And because I'm a good sister, I also ordered one for Amy in black.

Finally, I gave into more ruffles at Gap with the Ruffle Placket Henley Sweater

I had been eyeing this sweater before Christmas but I'm glad I waited for the after-Christmas markdowns and additional 30% promotion they're running now. Although they had it in this gorgeous pumpkin color I've been unable to locate, I seriously adore how cuddly I feel in the dove white color.

I know it's disgusting to gush this much over clothing but it's amazing how cute, new clothing makes you feel. Especially when you got it on sale. Now I seriously need to go through my winter clothing to make room for these new purchases.

I Can't Help It!

I know all the clothing posts I do are about Anthropologie. But I can't help it. Although I think that a majority of their stuff is way overpriced and that a good percentage of it can be pretty ugly sometimes, they do hit the ball out of park with some of their items.


Like the Graphite Garden Scarf from their Spring line




Surprisingly, I love it in black and white the best since it really brings out the delicate floral print.
Admittedly, the lilac and chartreuse versions are lovely as well.




And the Curl & Twirl sweater - the name proclaims how cute it is!


I prefer the ivory color over the green in this case as well (not so much of a shocker when you consider that I don't like most pastels) but it was easier to see the details around the neckline in this shade.

However, things are all not rosy at Anthropologie.

Case and point, this hideous sweater, The-Rabbit-Hole. A cute name isn't going to help this time.



Seriously, who would pay $148 for it?

Chocolate Yule Log

One of the perks (or downfalls) about working in an office is all the free goodies that vendors send you for the holidays.

Different types of chocolates and goodies have been stacked along the back part of my cube (and on top of my filing cabinet) as this is my group's official food section. I think this happened as a result of the baked goods I bring to work and place in that corner.

I've been pretty good about ignoring all the Christmas junk food until the Yule log arrived today.

It's made completely out of solid, gourmet-quality chocolate:

And it comes filled with forty-five different chocolates, which I can confirm due to the flavor guide that came along with it:

I could smell the damn thing all day. I think I ended up eating five pieces of chocolate. They were all ridiculously good. But now I have a headache and I'm convinced it's my body crashing from this afternoon's sugar high.

Ice Capades

This morning sucked.

Not only was it the first official back-from-the-holidays, full day of work Monday but Boston also experienced freezing rain over night.

My walkway, the stairs and both driveways were one solid sheet of ice.



Of course today was the day I chose to wear my new Mariposa flats. Those shoes have no traction at all - seriously. The soles just have an imprint of Vera Wang's signature, which definitely does nothing to keep you upright on a sheet of ice. I gingerly made my way down the stairs, holding the railing and then thought better of it. I headed back in doors, swapped the flats for my hiking boots and went back out. Better traction this time although I was still slipping like a mad woman.


This is what my car looked like - even after ten minutes of running the heater! Luckily, this was one of the back windows and I was able to scrape everything off. Scraping with one hand, that is, while the other hand clutched a door handle for support and my feet were sliding down the driveway.



This is what I had to stand on:



After I scraped my windows, I thought the worst was over as I was now securely in my warm car. This was before my tires started burning rubber on the driveway as I tried to back out.

Five minutes later, after inching the car forward, trying to back out, having my tires squeal and smoke, having my car slide forward towards the garage and repeating the whole process over and over and over, I finally made it out. In the middle of all of this, I was sorely tempted to take this as a sign to work from home today.

Kind of Cooked For Lunch Today

After baking the Strawberry Muffins this morning, I was on a roll in the kitchen.

I was inspired to throw random things from my cupboard into a soup.

I pulled out my Dutch Oven and started by sauteing 1/2 an onion in some olive oil with garlic.

Next, I added a lone chicken breast from my freezer (I'm not vegetarian but I'm never inspired to cook or eat much meat at home) as well as two sliced chicken/apple sausages that I had just bought last week at Trader Joes. I figured I'd give Andrew some protein since I tend to prefer vegetable soups myself.

Next came six cups of water seasoned with 5 chicken bullion cubes, three packets of Goya Sazon seasoning, a can of Hunt's tomato sauce, a can of sliced carrots and a can of corn.

The resulting soup wasn't too bad. Andrew claimed to like it (he even had it again for dinner). I added some improvised breadsticks on the side (pizza dough in a can, I just cut the dough into strips, brushed on a little beaten egg white, sprinkled garlic and garlic salt on top and baked until toasted).

The soup definitely broke food presentation rules in terms of providing a mix of colors - I would've killed for some green beans but alas, I didn't have a bag of mixed vegetables in my freezer as I originally thought. I'm not going to include this meal towards my goal of one new cooked recipe each month since I technically didn't follow a recipe.

Strawberry Muffins

Andrew came home with a pint of strawberries on Friday. A coworker of his had brought strawberries to work, claiming her father had received a surplus supply of strawberries. Whatever the story, I now had a pint of strawberries to work into a recipe.

I found a highly-rated recipe on Allrecipes.com for Strawberry Bread and decided to turn it into muffins as my oven tends to burn anything that needs to be in the oven for over 30 minutes.

Strawberry Muffins (modified for 18 servings instead of the usual 24)

2 cups fresh strawberries (I sliced them and then mashed them lightly with the whisk I used to blend the dry ingredients)
2 and 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 and 1/2 cups white sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup chopped pecans (toasted in the oven broiler beforehand for 4 minutes)
3 drops of red food coloring (to make it a pretty pink color!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line muffin tins with cupcake papers.
2. Slice strawberries, and place in medium-sized bowl. Sprinkle lightly with sugar, and set aside while preparing bread mixture.
3. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in large bowl: mix well.
4. Blend oil and eggs into strawberries. Add strawberry mixture to flour mixture, blending until dry ingredients are just moistened.
5. Stir in pecans.

At this point, the batter looked promising - not too thick while being full with strawberries and pecans!

Next, I spooned the batter into pans, using pink cupcake liners to match the batter. I was aiming for 2/3 full but it was hard to control the size of some of the spoonfuls. Luckily, this batter doesn't have a tendency to rise too much and none of the muffins overflowed.



Afterwards, I served the muffins with fresh strawberry butter. I was actually inspired to make the butter while watching an episode of "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" on Food Network. He challenged a woman named Melba to see who could make a better fried chicken on waffle combo (which seems to be a mismatched item menu item to me but apparently, it's a jazz-inspired meal). Melba served her waffles with homemade strawberry butter and I decided that I could make something similar.

Joyce's Strawberry Butter (I improvised and it came out great!)
1/4 cup butter (softened)
4 -5 strawberries (sliced and then mashed using a hand mixer or a food processor)
2 tablespoons of confectioner's sugar

Simply blend all the ingredients together to form enough spread for at least a dozen muffins.

Serve muffins warm from the oven with a generous amount of Strawberry Butter!


The muffins came out pretty well. There was definitely strawberry flavor but I felt like the cinnamon and the pecans were the biggest taste points of the muffin. It was the strawberry butter on top of the muffin that made this a GREAT dessert - it captured the taste of fresh, ripe strawberries and brought a nice creamy texture to each bite of muffin.

It's a dangerous combo, I've already had three today! I'm sending the rest with Andrew to work tomorrow to get them out of the house.

Still Blooming

I have to say that I'm impressed with Kabloom.

This is how my roses looked today. The same bouquet that Andrew surprised me with at the airport over two weeks ago!




Perhaps the sub-arctic temperature in my house contributed to their longevity?

Union Street Bar and Grill

Andrew and I hit one of our favorite restaurants in Newton last night, after trekking over a mile and a half each way through snow and slush.

Once we made it into the warmth, I fortified myself with a Cherry Blossom - I can't remember all the ingredients but it had some sort of cherry-flavored vodka, black cherry puree, and Sprite.

Andrew went with a tall Sam Adams Winter Lager.

I ordered one of my favorite menu items - the Chicken and Fruit salad. It has chunks of grilled chicken breast, arugula, Mandarin oranges, strawberries, grapefruit, candied walnuts and citrus vinaigrette. With a side of Beer Battered Cajun Onion Rings, it was the perfect balance of healthy and salty/greasy (perfect for me, that is!)

Andrew got his favorite, the Chicken and Walnut Salad sandwich with a side of Waffle fries.

Baking is Even More Fun...

...now that I get to use all the fun things I received for Christmas!

I felt like a batch of chocolate chip cookies with walnuts and in the process of making the cookies, I used:

• My new collapsible measuring cups and spoons
• My new silpat mat
• My new OXO cookie scoop (that easily makes the cutest and most symmetrical balls of dough that I've ever seen!)
• My new Ove Glove (protecting my hands from the burns I invariably inflict on myself)

Phu and Pete asked me why I didn't use the apron and baking mitts that they had gotten me, but the truth is, they're too pretty to get dirty! I may have to get a junky apron to actually use while baking and use their gift while entertaining as a hostess.