A New Start!

Post-defence celebrations!

Many important things have happened since the last time I wrote here, the most important of which is: I successfully defended my thesis!  The defence itself went well, as did turning in the thesis, but the week prior to each was rather stressful, trying to get everything done. Not only that, the week prior to my defence I was feeling rather under the weather, and to top it off, on Wednesday night my computer DIED. And I hadn't backed up my slides and notes sufficiently. So I basically had to redo the majority of the slides for my defence which was NOT NOT NOT fun at all. As you can imagine, I was in a bit of a state. But as I said, the defence itself went well. The morning of, I actually found that a friend of mine had left "before" and "after" gifts for me on my desk -- the before was a stuffed snake toy (in reference to this amazing essay), and the after was a flask of whiskey. Both were very much appreciated and helped calm my nerves.

Not only did I defend, but I have also been hired as a post-doc at NRAO's Green Bank Telescope, in West Virginia, where I will be starting in late March! I'm really looking forwards to the new position, and I expect to learn a lot.  I've been joking that this will make me a "real astronomer" since I'll actually be working at a telescope and taking actual observations.  While I am an observationalist (as opposed to a theorist), all my data for my thesis has been from radio observations. So, while I wrote numerous proposals, got approved for telescope time, and had to figure out the details of the runs, I didn't actually do the observations myself --- I sent off  the relevant info to the VLA, and they scheduled the observations and sent me the data back. Even though I've been out to various telescopes, the only time I actually controlled a 'scope and took my own data on was on a class trip to MDM observatory in Arizona, and was for a class project, not my research (though it was a great experience). I am also not counting the observations I've done teaching labs or doing outreach, since those experiences aren't taking data for research so much as showing people the stars and explaining the awesome stuff that exists in the sky.

Anyway, I turned in my thesis on January 15th, and defended on January 29th. Since then, I've moved out of my apartment in NYC and shipped a bunch of stuff down to WV, where it is in storage. I stayed with my parents in Baltimore for a week, and now am in Cambridge in the UK visiting Benson. I'll be here for about a month, then going back to Baltimore until I move to Green Bank. I haven't bought a new computer yet -- I kind of want to wait until I've gotten to my new job, to see what kind of set up I will have there and what kind of computational needs I'll have. For now, Benson has kindly given me his old computer (very similar to the one I had that died) that he is no longer using, having upgraded about a year or so ago. So I can just use this one until I've decided exactly what I want/need to replace my old one. Happily, I did back up *that* computer regularly, even if I hadn't backed it up sufficiently close to the crash to save my slides, so I have all my work. The only thing I lost was the slides and notes. Which, well, was enough.

I've been having a lovely time in the UK. It is always good to see Benson and spend time with him, and it's been lovely to just relax and not worry about work, to take a real vacation. This past weekend, some good friends of ours -- Dahlia and Paul -- were in London for *their* vacation, so we met up with them twice! They came into Cambridge one day, and we went into London another. When in London, we went to a great restaurant -- Dinner by Heston Blumenthal -- which we all REALLY enjoyed a LOT. They take historical British recipes and modernize them somewhat to make an absolutely fantastic menu. We all got different things so we could try as much as possible, and split several of the appetizers and desserts. It's hard to chose favorites, since everything we got was fantastic, but I'd particularly recommend the roast marrowbone and meat fruit appetizers and the tipsy cake for dessert. The mains it's harder to chose one thing -- the duck breast was amazing, the ribeye was an extremely flavorful steak, and the halibut was a really well made dish.

Anyway, again, I've been having a great vacation. And I am both really happy and kind of sad about finishing my thesis -- it was so much work, it's very strange to be done with it. Even if research goes on and ever on, and I will be continuing my work on parts of it, having one big written work describing everything I have worked on is an odd experience. Here is 6 years of my life in 231 pages, right?? But for now, I'll relax a bit longer and then start on my next big experience!

Going the Distance

So, I just realized (today) that as of maybe a week ago, Benson and I have been dating for over 10 years now. We've never celebrated dating anniversaries or anything, and I don't know the exact day we did start, to be honest, just that it was a few days before the Superbowl, which is a thing that I can look up. (I just remember being super giddy and seeing the Superbowl up on a screen in the student center, so I can't really get much more specific then that. Kind of random how memory works sometimes.) We've been doing the long distance thing since graduation, which means of that 10 years, 6.5+ of them have been long distance. 

So! To celebrate/brag/give support to other LDRers on this occasion, here are some date suggestions and general advice for things that we've done long distance. I don't claim uniqueness or creativity for any of these, by the way... I've definitely looked at ALL the articles online on doing stuff long distance. 

- Talk. Skype. Call. Figure out what times of day work and just schedule when you can make time for each other, and make this HIGH priority in your life, even if you are going crazy with homework or presentations or paper writing.

- DON'T talk. You have a ton of work to do? So do they? Just put Skype up in the background and work on your stuff in companionable silence where you can occasionally glance up and smile at the other person and listen to them working while they try and figure out why their code isn't working, dammit, and you wrestle with trying to find the bit in this stupid paper that is relevant to your research. It doesn't even need to be work, just hang out and browse the internet together. Leading to...

- Youtube videos, articles, and general internetness. Just, if you are doing nothing and interneting or listening to music on your own (or simultaneously on each end of the line), if you find and interesting article or video... link it or play it back and forth. You know how the "oh that reminds me of this other thing" chain goes. Similarly, things like Podcasts and audiobooks and music *CAN* be listened to at the same time over Skype. 

- Music! You can play music together and sing separately/together. Just rocking out to Bohemian Rhapsody together or putting on some Sondheim and singing along to Sweeney Todd. Benson and I have also gone another route a couple times -- he plays the violin, so he's played some jigs and reels on his end while I danced to them on this end.

-Games. Games with remote co-op like Monaco or Castle Crashers or Portal (which we often do over Steam, which has the nice chat and voice chat options). Or Vassal is a free system where you can download and remotely play many different board/card/dice games, including straight up cards. We often play cards, or games like Pandemic or Ghost Stories. We've also both just gotten our own physical decks of cards and played things like Cribbage or other games where you don't have to actually interact extensively with the discard pile and it doesn't really matter if you are playing with 2 separate decks. You can also just separately play games and recommend them to each other and discuss strategy, of course. But I'm assuming that "tell your partner about things that interest you and you think they might like" is pretty much understood in a relationship, long distance or not. Actually, it can be pretty darn fun to watch your partner play something you've already done as you wait for something awesome to pop up so you can watch their surprise and delight. (Stanley Parable, I'm looking at you. Benson literally just watched me play that game as I DEVOURED it and he kept laughing at me as I worked through it and was being boggled and bemused at different parts of the game. It was quite fun.) Online puzzle games are also an option -- we have finished all but a few levels of the NotPron online riddle, and are currently working on the Tim Tang Test. We've both worked together and separately on the puzzles. We keep the solutions as we get them in a file in Dropbox, naturally. Also, good to note that screen sharing can be quite useful for solving puzzles and things like that. 

-Many many movies and TV shows. Download the thing, Dropbox it, get on Skype and IM and count down from 5 and press play at the same time, then mute them and chat on IM about the thing as you watch. We usually have multiple TV shows that we've got in the Dropbox so that depending on our mood we can go comedy, fantasy, sci-fi, drama, etc. We keep up with a number of shows (ie Game of Thrones, Agent Carter, Hannibal, Mad Men, Doctor Who, Mushishi, etc), but also glut on old shows we're interested in (ie. Farscape, The Wire, Twilight Zone, Arrested Development). Movies are generally for weekends where we have more time, and keep those in the box as well. 

- Books and stories. You can read the same books at the same time, separately, and discuss them, of course, like Benson and I did on the Game of Thrones series. You can ALSO just take turns reading back and forth chapter by chapter, like we're currently doing with Dune. Also, short stories are great for this. I've read Benson a bunch of fairy tales before bed, and am now going through Kipling's Just So Stories for short stories. 

-Write/be creative.  As per the previous suggestion, Benson has been reading to me from Burton's Book of One Thousand and One Nights. And from that, we're working on a grand index together, summarizing the events of each story, which level of story it is (meaning, tale within a tale within a tale and which tale it is within), and where Scheherazade breaks off the story each night and which night it is. We're keeping the master file in the dropbox and splitting it up by story. I imagine this could work for other types of things, too.

- A wild and crazy blast from the past: Actually write letters. Physical letters. We've not been doing this one since Benson moved to England, but let me tell you personally, the joy of getting an actual physical letter is well worth the 49 cents it costs within the US. And you can do stuff like write in cyphers or with constricted writing that you don't tell your partner what the key or rule was and they have to figure it out themselves. Or make crosswords and word searches for each other. Or send sketches. Or puzzle pieces. Or care-packages of goodies, of course, though this is more expensive.

- Cooking. What? Yes. Cooking. We've only done this a couple times, usually on special occasions like Valentine's Day, and it takes some planning. But. Choose a recipe, and each of you buy the ingredients. Then set up your computer in your kitchen so you can Skype. Start sautéing, or chopping, or prepping each ingredient at the same time. Alternatively, you can just eat and/or drink together without syncing to quite that degree.

- Time Zones suck. But sometimes it's totally worth it to go sleep deprived for certain things if you are both eager to do the thing together. This is why Benson got up at 6am to watch the Breaking Bad finale with me while I watched it at 1am here. And yesterday we did the same thing for the premiere of Better Call Saul. And when our time zone difference was a little less dramatic we'd do stuff like watch the State of the Union together.

There are many other things you can do, of course, but this is a good selection. But I feel that making the relationship and time together a priority is the most important thing for making things work. Within that, you can be pretty creative. Keeping positive, planning out visits and things to do together in the future, also good. And for us, Dropbox and Skype are apparently the key to our relationship. Thank goodness for modern technology!

Travelogue: Scotland

Eilean Donan Castle

Having never been to the UK before, I really wanted to see some parts of it that were a bit further afield. So it is important to grab opportunities to travel when they come. Last week, there was a mini nova conference near Manchester, just the local astronomers around the UK which they hold every 6 months or so, kind of informal but a good opportunity to see other astronomers who focus on novae and even some of my collaborators that I rarely see face to face. This was actually held on my birthday -- I made some comments to Benson about this, saying that the ONE DAY I knew I had to work ALL SUMMER without taking off was, of course, the day I'd most want to NOT work and take off and celebrate. So, anyway, the day prior, I rented a car, then woke up at 6:15am on my birthday to drive 3 hours to the conference (with Benson navigating/snoozing in the passenger seat -- he just worked in a nearby library the whole day while I was chatting with folk).

Benson and I at Jodrell Bank

All in all, it was a decent birthday (terrible traffic aside) - I had a lot of good conversations with people, talked about science, got some feedback on my research, and so on. But because we were already going up towards Manchester, Benson and I reasoned it was a good time to just keep going north. Which is why we rented the car for a full week and spent a long weekend in Scotland! So, after spending a chunk of Friday afternoon visiting a collaborator at the Jodrell Bank Observatory (the central hub for the radio telescope array eMERLIN, which is spread over the UK -- we got quite a nice tour of the facility, in fact) we drove up to Edinburgh. Our first night was a simple one -- we just checked into our hostel (which was made entirely of shipping containers and absurdly inexpensive), went into town and walked around old town. There, I lusted over the multitude of plaid clothing that was *everywhere* (if you ever look through my wardrobe, you may notice that I have a fondness for it), and, more importantly, went for dinner and drinks. Naturally, I had to have haggis for my first ever trip to Scotland... followed by four shots of whisky (divided by two, though, since Benson and I split them). You see, we deliberately went to a place called Whiski, which I would highly recommend, which has 300 different whiskies available for tasting. Which is a good selection, I think. We actually went back again on Monday night to get 3 more shots. Benson is a BIG whisky connoisseur, so I pretty much let him chose what we got. Between the 2 tastings, we got one whiskey from each of the regions -- Highlands, Lowlands, Islays, Speyside, Campbeltown, and the Islands, plus an extra Lowlands -- I don't quite recall what we got, honestly, you'd have to ask Benson -- but they were all very good. I tend to prefer whiskies that don't have an overly strong peat taste and that are smoother, but I'm also not that fussy or knowledgable about the whole thing. I know more now than I did at the beginning of the weekend though.

The next morning, we arose from our shipping containers,  bright and shiny early, and drove to the Isle of Skye. Which was a lovely drive across the lowlands and highlands, going through a national park at one point. Now, you'll note that I was driving. Benson hasn't really driven since he got his license 10 years ago, and doesn't really trust himself behind the wheel. Whereas, I actively enjoy driving (assuming no traffic). This was my first experience driving in Britain, however, and it took some getting used to not only DRIVING on the wrong side of the road (and through endless roundabouts), but also shifting gears with my left hand. Manual cars are the norm in the UK, and much cheaper to rent, you see. My dad taught me how to drive stick shift when I was in college -- he kept a manual car around in part for this purpose, and had me drive said car to my camp job over the summer every day, so I'd get used to it. So it's a useful skill! I never finished writing up my last summer's activities (whoops) but this came in handy last year when we were in Italy, as well -- we stayed at a friend of Benson's house, and borrowed his grandfathers car. Which was stick. And I was the only one of the four of us that could drive -- which made me the designated driver throughout the Italian countryside, and enabled us to see much more of it than we would have been able to otherwise. So worth holding back a bit more on those italian wines....

Anyway, the Isle of Skye was GORGEOUS. We did a lot of hiking over the weekend, drove all around the island, had lots of delicious fresh seafood (and were even taught how to shuck oysters by the proprietor of the wonderful Oyster Shed), saw a TON of sheep (sheep EVERYWHERE), visited the Portree harbor, and, naturally, toured the Talisker Whisky Distillery. Talisker is one of Benson's favorite whiskies, so we got to sample a few very nice ones, too. We stayed at a lovely little B&B which overlooked the Eilean Donan Castle in the town of Dornie (not on the Isle of Skye itself, but within driving distance). After we spent a very nice 2 days in Skye, we headed back to Edinburgh, to explore the town a bit more in depth. We still mainly wandered -- I bought myself some plaid items as souvenirs, we had more delicious food, more whisky at Whiski, visited the main castle there, and climbed up Arthur's seat for a gorgeous view of the city. All in all, a good trip! Now, we're back in Cambridge again, which means... we should probably start thinking about buying tickets and planning our trip to Greece for the last week of August. Yeah... things to get on soon...

The view from Arthur's Seat

Cooking in Cambridge

So again, I'm spending the summer in Cambridge, visiting Benson. Both of us very much enjoy cooking, and I've been eating better here then I usually do at home, since usually at least *one* of us feels like cooking, and it's a  lot more fun to cook for two then to cook for one. So, the result of this is that Benson and I have made breakfast (or brunch) at least once every weekend since I've arrived, which has been pretty awesome. I actually brought to England with me a small bottle of maple syrup which I bought in New Hampshire last week as a gift to Benson -- it's already over half gone!
We've done pancakes, omelets, Dutch Baby, the world's best scrambled eggs, Challah french toast (from scratch -- with my friend Zahava's amazing homemade Challah recipe), and this weekend we made Oeufs en Cocotte (eggs in a pot). I'd never heard of these before (and thus had never made them before), but while we were browsing in a kitchenware store (looking for a cheese grater, amongst other things) we stumbled across these little ceramic mini-casserole dishes which were just too cute for me to pass up (my one true weakness: kitchenware). So, while commenting to Benson, waiting in line, that I had no idea what we would make with them but I had to have them anyway, the lady in front of us suggested making Cocette - a french dish she knew, with eggs and ham all made in a tiny ramekin - perfect for the little crockery we were purchasing. So, with help from Google, we had this for brunch this morning.



Oeufs en Cocotte
4 eggs
150 grams (5.5 oz) créme fraiche
nutmeg (a pinch)
salt and pepper (to taste)
handful of fresh chopped dill
butter
Optional additions: chopped up ham, bacon bits, asparagus, smoked salmon, cheese, anything else that might go in a delicious eggy breakfast dish!




This dish was quite easy to make - first, preheat the oven to 180C/350F (switching units of measurements for temperature and cooking in England has been a tad aggravating, I admit, but I'm getting used to it). Mix the créme fraiche with dill, salt and pepper, and a dash of nutmeg in a small bowl. Then, butter 4 ramekins (we just did this in the 2 little dishes, but ramekins are usually smaller) completely, and put  a generous spoonful of the creamy mix in the bottom of each one. If you are adding ham, cheese, or other things, put those in next (we just used ham, which was a nice addition), and crack an egg on top of that (in our crockeries we put 2 eggs, since they were large enough). Finally, put a dallop of the créme fraiche mix on top of all of this, and put another sprinkle of salt and pepper and a dash of dill to garnish. Put your ramekins in a baking pan, and fill the pan with warm to hot water until it comes halfway up the side of the ramekins. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the eggs have set nicely.

These are great. I particularly like the taste that the dill gives to the recipe - dill is something I really like but don't actually go out and get very often (it doesn't dry well in my opinion, fresh is the way to go, and I usually don't buy a lot fresh herbs because they only come in huge packs at the store and they go bad before I can use them all). I also associate the taste and smell of dill with my grandmother (on my dad's side) -- she was a fantastic cook, and I don't think I encountered dill very often anywhere other than her house when I was little, so it's a pretty strong sensory memory associated with her. Can't have it without thinking about her. Anyway, so yes, a delicious brunch, and pretty easy to do, if you have ramekins.

Dinner is also a thing Benson and I have been making, obviously. So we also recently made the *best* chicken wings I've ever made in my life. We combined two recipes for the task -- first, Korean chicken wings are amazing, so we found a recipe for the sauce used in San Tung Fried chicken wings (here). We lack a deep fryer, however, so instead we decided to bake our chicken wings. However, the best thing about Korean chicken wings is how deliciously crispy they are. Which means we managed to discover a recipe which crispifies chicken wings in the oven extremely well instead (here)! We modified the crispy bit a little.


Crispy, Oven-baked San Tung Chicken Wings
Wings:
4 lbs chicken wings
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour

Sauce:
2-3 scallions
10-15 cilantro sprigs
2-3 tbs soy sauce
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup water
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbs rice vinegar (we substituted apple cider vinegar mixed with white wine)
1 tsp chili garlic sauce or red peppers (AKA - Sriracha sauce!)

Preheat the oven to 250F (yes, two hundred fifty, not a typo). Pat the chicken wings dry. Mix baking powder, flour, and salt and sprinkle/coat the chicken wings with the mix -- you don't want to heavily coat your wings, because then they taste like baking powder, but you want to cover them well. This is the agent which is going to make your chicken wings crispy! You can add the flour mix through a sifter or a mesh strainer to sprinkle it lightly over the wings if you would like, rather than rolling it in the flour mix to coat it.

You are going to bake the wings on a wire rack -- so you want to put the rack on a cookie sheet, with aluminum foil covering the sheet (for easier cleaning). Then evenly arrange the wings, skin side up, in a single layer on the rack and bake at 250F for 30 minutes (this dries out the skin). Then, increase the temperature of the wings to 425F for 40-50 minutes more, rotating the sheet halfway through. The wings should be lovely and crispy and brown at this point, so take them out and let sit for 5 minutes. Then, simply toss in the sauce until they're all coated and delicious.

Ah yes, the sauce. Also an important thing you should make. The sauce is quite easy though -- just mix all the ingredients in a sauce pan, put on low-medium heat, and simmer (stirring frequently) for 5-10 minutes until it has thickened. We found that starting the sauce right after you rotate the chicken wings is about the right amount of time, giving you 20 minutes or so.

These are AMAZING. We served them over rice -- we actually made a half recipe, which was plenty for two with the rice. But for a larger group, make more!

So, all in all, having a lovely time in Cambridge. I've also gone into London 3 times now -- once as described in the last post, once for a live show of a comedy radio program I really like, and once to go to the Victoria and Albert museum as well as to track down the *best scotch egg* in London. We succeeded in this second task, finding ourselves in a really great Michelin star pub for lunch which served game and had *perfect* venison sausage covered scotch eggs. That was a good day!

Until next time!

An American Abroad

So, as I may or may not have mentioned, I'm spending this summer in Cambridge, England, where Benson works as a postdoc. I've been here almost three weeks now, and overall, I'm just very content and happy. I've settled in here pretty well.

I've got official visitor status at the IOA now, and am moving from desk to desk as various astro grad students are on vacation, or working in the library when no desks are available. The people here are friendly and interesting to talk to, I've been having good conversations about science and about non-science things, too. I'm chatting with the grad students at lunch and during coffee and afternoon tea (both of which are daily here... which is good except it makes it overly easy to take breaks and not be working!). My paper is coming along, not as far as I would have liked, but I feel like I'm making progress. After work, Benson and I cook nice dinners together on almost a daily basis, then hang out, watch TV, play games, or even work a bit at home. Or we bike into Cambridge and watch 'football' (aka soccer) at a pub with some of his friends, or go to the market (there is a very nice market in the town square), or watch movies at his department. Watching the world cup has been a lot of fun here -- even if the USA is now out. We watched the USA/Belgium game at the "Isaac Newton Pub," where apparently a bunch of Americans had gathered to watch the game. (Our keen senses picked up on this when people on the other side of the pub started belting out the National Anthem at the beginning of the game -- of course, the Americans at OUR table then joined in as well.) Quite a gripping game, even if we got out at the end. Tomorrow for the 4th, we're going to a pub with a German friend of Benson's to watch the Germany/France game, then are going to wander the town and do *something* vaguely patriotic or celebratory, I suppose -- perhaps we can find other Americans out and about.

Benson's flat has the most gorgeous view out the back of a huge field and trees and whatnot in the distance. I'm biking to work every morning past horses (well, one field of them, anyway), but the town center is like 10 minutes by bike, extremely easy to get to, we go in pretty regularly.  And honestly, the IOA couldn't be closer to the department, it's like an 8 minute walk, which means it is barely even a bike ride. EVERYBODY bikes here, the town is *quite* bike friendly. It's also easy to get into London by train. We've only gone in once so far -- we went to the British Museum and attempted to do the entire thing in a day -- an exhausting and somewhat hopeless task, but we did walk through every room at least, even if we didn't look at most things closely. We then went around town to see all the big landmarks: Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, westminster abbey, the Eye of London, the Tower of London, the famed London Bridge (aka the Tower Bridge). A fun day!  And of course I've been trying to eat all 'typical' English foods -- bangers and mash, meat pies, fish and chips, tikka masala (which is as English as the fortune cookie is American, plus there is a LOT of good Indian food here).

As I mentioned, there is a market in town, so we've been cooking a lot. Mostly simple things -- stir-fry with rice, oven baked chicken, sloppy joes, the most gorgeous and huge artichokes from the market that I have ever seen, a homemade omelet and bacon (the bacon here tastes different, and is a lot leaner, which is fine, I guess, but leaves us without extra bacon grease with which to cook other things... and the bacon doesn't feel quite as *decedent*) -- but we've also done stuff like homemade wonton. And this weekend we're thinking of doing another French Laundry project, we haven't decided quite what to do. In general, I find it's a LOT nicer to cook for two than to cook for one, so I've been eating and cooking more here than I usually do back in NYC, with more variety and fewer leftovers. We're also planning on going back into London next Monday, do another museum (we're deciding between the Tate Modern and the Victoria Albert museum, we'll do them both eventually, it's just a matter of priority), get a nice dinner, and then I managed to get us free tickets to a recording of a radio show I like: John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (basically, a radio sketch comedy show). So that should be fun!

That's all for now, I'll be sure to post a few more status updates while I'm here.

Fun with Soup Stock

As I've mentioned in a few previous posts, I save chicken (and duck, and turkey, and lamb) bones in order to make my own soup stock. This results in me having, first, random bags of bones sitting in the back of my freezer, and second, large amounts of soup stock sitting in my freezer. Which means even when I'm busy, I have easy access to quality soup. It's easy enough to make soup stock: fill your pot 2/3 or 3/4 up the way with bones. You can add in some veggie scraps if you have them - or some garlic, or onion, or celery - for a bit rounder a flavor. I usually toss things like corn cobs in a plastic bag and save those in my freezer as well. Cover entirely with water, with a couple inches above the bone line to spare. Add in a bay leaf if you have one, and possibly a bouillon cube as a bit of a starter, and salt generously. Cover and cook. In a regular pot you have to cook for HOURS (and you probably want to smash up the bones with a hammer or something so they release their flavor a bit easier). However, I have a pressure cooker. Hence, I can just pressure cook the pot for about 45 minutes to an hour, and it's gonna be as good as it's gonna get! Once that's done, simply strain the soup thoroughly - first to get rid of the bones, then through a finer strainer to get rid of any small particulates which may have slipped through. Apparently fine restaurants strain their stocks up to 5 times to get them extra smooth, through increasingly finer strainers, but I generally don't go that far. Any sort of bones work here - as I've said, I've made turkey soup, duck soup, chicken stock, lamb stock, shrimp stock, and even veggie stock once (I didn't find that veggie stock was worth it, though - I'd have rather just eaten all the veggies and bought veggie stock - the difference from store bought didn't seem significant, except for a bit of a stronger dill flavor, but I digress). You can also make soup out of actual meat - buy a whole chicken and work from there - and that will end up with a delicious pot of soup as well - with actual meat in it to boot. But I rather favor this bone based method, as it's nice not to waste the bones from your lovely chicken roast and to reuse them for new, delicious purposes. It feels thrifty, and it turns out very well.

So in the past few weeks, I've made a couple different soups using my stock base (and yet, still have some remaining in the freezer). First, I made a sort of 'leftover' soup using a bunch of items that I had in my fridge I wanted to get rid of. This ended up consisting of onion/garlic/celery/cream cheese/parmesan cheese/heavy cream/chicken soup/cumin/bay leaf/chili powder/pepper/cayenne pepper/chives/corn starch/MSG/salt/anchovy paste/hot sauce! I don't have a picture, or even a recipe really other than my list of ingredients, because I just kind of kept adding things to the soup, tasting it, and whisking vigorously. So I guess this bit of the post is just a self-reminder and PSA that making soup once you have a good base is pretty easy and flexible. And there aren't any rules about it. Just stick things in that will taste good, and there you have it.

More recently, I decided to make some congee. This is also a relatively recipe-less dish. At it's most basic, it is rice in soup broth, cooked for long enough that the rice breaks down and becomes mush. So it is mainly a question of what you want IN your mush. However, I scandalized Benson by putting onions instead of scallions in my congee (one of these items I had, the other I didn't. The onions taste FINE, but admittedly the scallions are a BIT more traditional...). "Why would you put onions in congee? Nobody does that." I don't recall his EXACT phrasing, but the upshot was I was corrupting one of his favorite dishes, apparently. He also gets on me for putting sugar in my tea. Which is why I don't put sugar in green tea any more (but still keep to my sugared black). Anyway, this is an example of when I like to take full advantage of my slow cooker to just let the soup sit on my counter as everything cooks. So here are the ingredients I put into my most recent batch of congee - again, the only real things you need to put in are rice and broth. And scallions. And perhaps some ginger. And salt.


Congee
1 quart chicken stock+ 4 cups water (aka, 2 quarts soup)
1.5 c. uncooked rice
2 chicken thighs
1/2 diced onion (or, fine, SCALLIONS - ok? I had to promise Benson that if I ever made this for him, I'd only put scallions in.)
Ginger (alas, I only had the ground stuff this time, but I prefer to chop up a few actual chunks/slivers - that's what I tend to do. I usually have it around, but I recently finished off my last hunk.)
Salt
Pepper
MSG (see my post, Cooking For One, if you want to hear my mini-rant on MSG having a bad rep)
Soy Sauce
Maggie sauce
Sesame oil
Jyok3 sung1 - which is shredded... dried... pork stuff? From Chinatown. Added at the end as a kind of garnish, on top of the soup, not cooked with it. Also delicious over straight up rice. Or over other stuff with rice. Or on it's own. Just look at the picture, not really sure how to describe it other than kind of sweetish dried shredded pork.

Shredded dried pork product

I add the bit of water to my soup stock because stock is STRONG, and I added other stuff into it for flavoring, so I can get away with diluting it a bit. It goes further that way. But yes, toss everything in your crockpot, give it a stir, and let it cook for 4-6 hours until the rice has broken down and it's nice and porridge-y. That's when you taste and adjust the seasonings. Obviously, since I tossed in raw chicken, one can't taste until after it's cooked through. But I don't even bother taking the chicken off the bone - just tossing the whole thing on is fine, because after a few hours it falls OFF the bone. So yes, all of the ingredients, save the jyok3 sung1, into the crockpot for 4-6 hours. Stir occasionally. Or in an actual pot, but then you have to keep an eye on it and stir a heck of a lot more often. I mean, I put it in the pot and then watched a movie with Benson. Can't do that with a pot sitting on top of your stove. (We watched Hot Fuzz, which was great. And in case you are wondering how I watched a movie with Benson when he's in England and I'm in New York, we do this by getting the same copy of the movie, shared via Dropbox, getting on Skype, setting up the movie, and counting backwards to hit play at the same time. Then we keep Skype going, and usually IM comments back and forth throughout. It's nice. We do TV shows the same way.)

 So, that's it for now. Hope that this encourages folks to stop and enjoy some delicious, delicious soup. After all, when I was little, soup was my absolute favorite meal of all. I'd eat it almost every day. Nothing wrong with that - it's extremely versatile and a wonderful comfort food.

Summer Plans Confirmed!

So this is just a quick blog post in which I'm REALLY excited for my summer plans, which just came together over the weekend, in chronologically reversed order. So I wanted to gush about that for a little bit!

Benson is going to two conferences this summer, in July: one in Warsaw, Poland, and the other near Barcelona, Spain. I had originally been planning on flying out to California for his graduation in mid-June, but when he invited me to go around Europe with him for a couple weeks, I decided that Europa took priority over Cali. This weekend, we spent a large chunk of Saturday discussing our plans and booking flights. Since travel within Europe itself is relatively inexpensive, and we knew we wanted to take 2 weeks to travel, the whole continent was pretty much our oyster. Which turned out to be a little problematic, since we both love to travel and want to go EVERYWHERE, eventually.

Our planning went in reverse: We knew we wanted to end in Warsaw, of course, since that is where the first conference is and therefore where I must end my trip. I'm going to actually be there for the first few days of the conference, probably looking around Warsaw on my own while Benson does conference-y things. I've never been to Poland before, and Warsaw should be really interesting. Just prior to the conference, we'll be in Italy: a friend of Benson has family near Rome, and invited us to stay for the week before the conference. I've been to Rome before - when I was in undergrad, my family took a summer and spent 5 weeks in Europe, two of which were traveling around Italy and the other three in France. Rome was one of the stops we went to, so I don't feel the need to do ALL THE THINGS in Rome or nearby... it will be nice to explore smaller towns and take a more relaxed trip, and with people who know the area - not to mentioned home cooked Italian meals!

Prague was the last place we settled on - as I said, since travel is cheap within Europa, we could have gone pretty much anywhere before heading to Italy and then Poland. [An amusing side note: when Benson was describing this trip to his parents, they were apparently under the misapprehension that the conference was in PORTLAND instead of POLAND. A slight difference there...] Anyway, Prague was actually one of the places we had been thinking about before we got the Italy invitation, since it was within reasonable distance to Warsaw by train. So after about an hour discussion of all the awesome places to go in Europe, we kind of defaulted back to Prague on the basis that while there were many we want to go, most of them we'd want to spend more time than available (Istanbul, Greece, and Norway were dismissed for these reasons, for example, since although those are all trips we've been wanting to do for a while, none of them could be done justice in only 5-6 days). My parents have been to Prague, and they highly recommended it: they thought it was fantastic, like a fairy tale city with great music and culture.

So once Europe was worked out, we just had to figure out if we were doing anything prior. In order to see friends, not to mention so that we can take the same trans-continental flight, Benson is going to be in NYC for a few days prior to this vacation. Now, Benson very recently defended his dissertation and received his PhD in Physics at UC Santa Barbara. He'll be going to Cambridge, England, for a three year post doc starting next October. This, of course, is cause for great celebration.

Now, I did get Benson a present for graduating when I was out there over spring break: whiskey! Benson is a big fan of whiskey in general - he has been since undergrad. In fact, he was given a list of quality scotches by one of the professors at Brandeis, which he's been studiously(?) working through, trying all varieties. This is known as "Craig's List", after said professor. Education is a wonderful thing. [Indeed, once during a lab class with said professor, Benson was talking to him about scotch, and I had to interrupt, said I, "with a non-whiskey related question."   "You have to get your priorities straight" responded my professor.] We both like whiskey a lot, is the point, though Benson is more into it than I am - I appreciate it, but don't think I'm a connoisseur or anything. Before my 25th birthday we made a point to go out and drink scotch older than we were (25 year old Bowmore) at Angel's Share in NYC (a most excellent speak-easy, with great cocktails and liquor selection). Since then, we've actually managed to replicate this feat with two additional whiskeys, despite our own aging: my dad has a friend who collects whiskeys, and I've received a couple of very small (as in several ounces) bottles of whiskey since, as presents; so we've also tried 27 year old and 29 year old scotches as well, now. Since I wanted a nice, interesting gift for Benson's PhD, something he'd not gotten before, my dad's friend recommended several bottles of scotch that he thought would be good for such an occasion, from which I chose Aberlour A'Bunadh. Which is very nice indeed.

Now, after that somehow lengthy aside on whiskey (not a waste): Although I gave Benson a present for receiving the PhD, we wanted to go to a nice restaurant to celebrate his graduation, as well. I've mentioned before that we're both foodies to a certain extent, and I'm living in New York City. This means we have access to some of the finest restaurants world wide. This is not an exaggeration. Therefore this morning, exactly one month to the day prior to when we wanted our meal (and the first day possible for booking), at 10am sharp (when the booking line opens) I called Per Se. Per Se is a three-Michelin star restaurant. Last year it was number 6 on the worlds Best 100 Restaurants (which was top spot in the USA). You may recall that in February I was able go go to the restaurant on the number 61 spot, in Cape Town. This year Per Se was number 11 (second best in USA, the top being Eleven Madison Park, also in New York, which is the place I plan on going for MY graduation!). It is run by Thomas Keller, who happens to own TWO three-Michelin star restaurants, the other one being The French Laundry, in California. And as regular readers may recall, my most prized cookbooks is The French Laundry, which I have several different recipes chronologued in this blog. Yes, this is Thomas Keller's OTHER three-Michelin star restaurant. Repeat: I called right when the line opened, at 10am sharp, the earliest possible time. I then proceeded to wait on hold for 25 minutes, and, when I got through, there were only three time slots left. So Benson and I are now proudly possess a reservation at what will be the most expensive, exclusive, and hopefully amazing restaurant that we have ever eaten at to date. Benson is literally booking his flight around this restaurant reservation. To say this place is popular is an understatement. To say I'm excited is an understatement. And of course, finally, to say my summer is going to be awesome is hopefully also an understatement!

Pardon the Delay: A Months Worth of Doings

So! It's been a busy month, or there abouts. Apologize to people for the delay, but I should be back on schedule now. So the question is, what have I been up to?

Various holidays - going to Baltimore for Saint Paddy's day, for one. My family has a tradition of going to Jenning's Pub (in Catonsville, MD, a hop skip and a jump from our house) every Saint Patrick's day since I was a kid, for corned beef and cabbage, and mulligan stew. Every year, they have those dishes (plus corn beef sandwiches) for $3.17 a plate - I get one of each, my dad gets 2 CB&C plates, and my mom usually gets a sandwich. And since then, I've added beer to the order. This was, in fact, the place where I had my first legal drink upon turning 21. We've had the same waitress for years --  Peggy -- she has an amazing memory for her customers, and its lovely to catch up with her. So it was nice that the week  of Columbia's spring break, I was able to start by heading to Baltimore and enjoying the meal there.

Sea Lion Colony

After St. Paddy's, I flew to Santa Barbara. Spent a few days there with Benson, then we rented a car and drove up California's Route 1 to San Francisco - it's the most amazing and beautiful drive! Benson and I have done this drive before, in the opposite direction - a few years back we took about a week, driving down through Santa Cruz to see relatives, stopping at a B&B in Monterey for a few days, followed by a couple days camping in Big Sur and trekking about, ending in Santa Barbara. This time, we did it in a single day. In addition to a marvelous view of the ocean there are several nice stops along the way for a day trip, most notably an elephant seal reserve and Nepenthe, a lovely restaurant in Big Sur with a stunning view of the ocean and marvelous food. We even could see whales in the distance, in addition to numerous birds, and of course enjoyed our delicious beet salad, and a meal of some very tasty roasted brussel sprouts.

The view from Nepenthe

This was followed by a long weekend in San Francisco. I've visited Benson there enough that I have already done most of the touristy things, and often we find ourselves simply trying to find ways to kill time between meals. Because one of the finest things about SF is the food. My uncle also lives in SF, so it is always nice to see him, as well - we all went to the Asian Art museum and the SF Symphony together, for example, in addition to wandering about and eating delicious food. Meals of note include Indian (http://www.dosasf.com/ - South Indian food with a very nice selection), Dim Sum,  Shanghai, Japanese (http://kappougomi.com/ - has AMAZING fish, very traditional Japanese, but no sushi whatsoever), and Moroccan (http://www.aziza-sf.com/ - this place hass a Michelin star, but Benson and I first ate there before it got it and raised all the prices. However, we still return semi-regularly because it has the MOST AMAZING LAMB SHANK EVER. We also tried another lamb dish there this time, which was also delicious. But the lamb shank is still the best.) So California was also lovely. And then I flew back to NY and returned to work, of course. And returned to Baltimore the following weekend for Easter. Where my family played scrabble, dyed Easter eggs, watched movies (The lovely documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi", and an old comedy called "Darling How Could You?").

The Easter Eggs were particularly fun - it had been a while since I actually dyed Easter eggs, since usually we visit my grandfather in New Jersey, but mom wasn't really up for traveling this year, so I went home instead. So I made sure to go all out on the eggs - in addition to the dye (standard Red/Yellow/Green/Blue dye in hot water with a bit of vinegar, then mixes of colors once I had the solids), I also got a couple of candles to experiment with wax drippings. Now, when I was in 3rd grade, my class made decorated eggs using some very fine wax something or others - I don't recall exactly what, but it allowed you to make super detailed designs in wax on your eggs, then dye the eggs, then remove the wax to reveal the patterns. My make shift double candle and toothpick system wasn't quite as good, to say the least. After a couple of dry runs with solid colors, my first waxy egg (with "Mom" written on it) had the wax fall off entirely when I dipped it into the dye. So that one was a bit of a wash, other than being a nice blue color. My second egg ("Jen") had the opposite problem - apparently I was a bit careless where I rested the egg when I was decorating it, because instead of the wax falling off, there was wax all over it, not just where I intended. So decorating that egg resulted in a kind of swirly pattern on half of it that LOOKED pretty cool, but wasn't wholly intentional and you couldn't see my name on it. The next one however ('Dad'), came out pretty clear. You can see in the picture that it's actually legible.  The last egg I did was first dyed a solid yellow. Then I drew large circles on it with wax and dyed THAT green, so it came out green with yellow polka dots. I was quite happy with that one - it still had a bit of a swirl thing going on for part of it, but it looked pretty cool.

Easter Egg Waxing in Progress!
While the process failed on THIS egg, it worked
well in general, so I'd recommend giving it a try.

So I had a nice Easter. Since then, I've mostly just been focusing on work and catching up on things. Not that I'm just working. I've gone out with friends a few times (I have a semi-regular "girls night" with some friends from undergrad, for example). I've cooked a few things around the apartment, but nothing particularly special. I've been rereading (since getting back from South Africa) the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. The final book of the series was released recently, and it's been a while since I've read them and it's a LONG series and I've forgotten a lot of the plot threads. So the re-read is an ongoing project - I've just started "A Path of Daggers" (book 8/14) so I'm over half-way there! However, I'm going to have to put it on hold for a little bit, as some folks in my department are doing a read of "The Great Gatsby" in preparation for the movie coming out in a few weeks - so I'll be reading that at some point soon.

I'm actually home in Baltimore this weekend, and anticipate being here for the next several weekends (and back in NYC during the week), because my mother has just had hip-replacement surgery. So I'll be visiting with her, and helping out Dad, and generally just being around. I doubt I'll be going out much while here, other than to the hospital. She should be home by the time I visit next weekend, though, so I'll mainly be around the house. Plenty of work I can do at home, one of the nice things about being an astro grad is a flexible work schedule and being able to just work off my computer, pretty much anywhere. So that's that for now! I'll be aiming to start up my once a week blogging again, not quite sure how I got out of it - I skipped one week and then all of a sudden I hadn't updated the site in a month. Oh well!

The French Laundry's Gruyère Cheese Gougères

As I said in the last blog post, while Benson and I visited our friend Kaila in Waltham, we did a lot of cooking. This dish is from the same meal as the previous post, but I thought it deserved its own explanation. This recipe originates from the wonderful French Laundry Cookbook, featuring recipes from Thomas Keller's Michelin 3-star restaurant The French Laundry in California. It has amazing, gourmet recipes, with full explanations of WHY you do certain steps, and clear explanations of techniques which I might have thought were beyond me or too complicated until I tried them and saw how much they improved things. It was a Christmas present from a thoughtful, sweet, and hungry boyfriend. I've made other dishes from this cookbook, as well, and each of them have tasted delicious. My presentation skills usually are a bit lacking, but, well, the food is good. It's definitely inspiring me to improve myself, at any rate! Anyways, Gruyère Cheese Gougères are hot and crisp and moist in the center, great for a large group of people to munch on, and, despite the long recipe description, pretty easy to make!

This was the result of shredding
 a 3.5 oz block of cheese

Benson and I have made these twice: the first time, Benson described the taste as "like Goldfish" (you know, the little orange fish snacks?) - but the second time it didn't quite have that same flavor - it depends highly on the exact cheese you use. The first time we used an older, harder Gruyere and the second time it was a bit fresher and softer. Both times were good, but I could taste the difference. So, if possible, taste your Gruyere to make sure its a flavor you like. I think I'd go with the older hard gruyere, personally! You could use a different cheese for an entirely different flavor! Chedder, perhaps? I was pretty happy with Gruyere.

For another recount of this recipe, visit the excellent blog "French Laundry at Home" in which one woman cooks EVERY DISH from the French Laundry Cookbook, with her own minor tweaks and advice. Every recipe I've made from French Laundry, I've looked at her blog for advice. She also has a useful list of both the most approachable recipes, and her favorite recipes: and sometimes these two lists even overlap! Find that here.

Gruyère Cheese Gougères (makes 4 dozen puffs)

1 cup cold water
7 tbs unsalted butter
1 tbs Kosher salt (specifically Diamond Crystal, apparently)
1 pinch white sugar
1 1/4 cup white flour
4 to 5 large eggs

1 1/4 cup shredded Gruyere cheese (a 3.5 oz block is about right)
fresh ground white pepper

A brief aside on salt: I found these slightly salty (and I LOVE salt), so you might want to go a little easy on the salt. The book actually specifies Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, and warns that if you use some other kind of salt you may have to adjust your salt levels further, since different types of salt have different properties. Kosher salt dissolves fast and is good at mixing it's flavor into whatever your cooking. I've recently started using kosher salt a lot more in my cooking for this reason. I currently have not one, not two, but FIVE different kinds of salt in my house: iodized salt, kosher salt, a grinder full of sea-salt,  my flavored truffle salt, and my prized "popcorn and nut" salt . This last is a very uniform and fine flaked salt which sticks very well to things like nuts and popcorn (hence the name). I only use it for things like popcorn, nuts, and homemade fries - things that you want salted in THAT sense, not salted in the sense of a well seasoned soup. My dad always has this around the house, and, before the internet became so convenient for shopping, often had trouble finding it in stores. This resulted in him hitting up movie theaters (mostly the independent Charles Theater in Baltimore) and purchasing them directly from the movie theater. Though since he's a big movie goer, and after a while people recognize him at these places, he often gets the salt for free. This is how I got MY popcorn salt: when seeing Serenity (the movie from the tv show Firefly) in Boston, we noticed that the popcorn stand had laying out a ton of shakers of Popcorn salt. So we went up and asked how much they would sell two of them to us. This resulted in a couple very confused popcorn venders, who checked with the manager, who proceeded to just give us two canisters. It was awesome and highly amusing at the time. Anyway, that aside wasn't as brief as expected, but again, I really like salt.


Back to the recipe: Preheat the oven to 450F, then combine water, sugar, salt and butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add ALL the flour at once, reducing the heat to medium, then stir constantly for 2 minutes. During this time, the batter should reduce and start to dry up and form a ball of dough.

Next, transfer to a bowl and beat with a mixer with a dough paddle for 30 seconds. Or in the case of someone who doesn't have such a thing (*cough* me *cough*) just beat stir it with a wooden spoon.

Add 4 eggs, then mix more on the dough paddle thing (or at this point, blend it in an electric mixer on the "mix" setting). You want it to form a nice, smooth, silky dough, which when you lift up the mixer forms soft peaks which fall over at the tip. If its stiff, add the egg white of the remaining fifth egg, mix more, and if it's STILL too stiff add the yolk as well. Once its softly peaking, add 3/4 of the gruyere cheese and mix until smooth. Taste, and adjust the seasoning by adding additional salt (again, not TOO much) and ground white pepper to taste.

Now, line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or baking mat. In 1 tbs lumps (or perhaps slightly larger), you want to place the batter on the parchment, with 2 inches between each mound. Ideally, these are in nice little balls - we used a melon baller which worked nicely, though I think they turned out a little smaller than I'd like - when they're a little larger they fluff up a bit more. The French Laundry Cookbook recommends using a pastry bag with a pastry tip to put out the little balls - you can do this by stuffing the dough in a ziplock bag and cutting off the corner. Once you've done this, sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the doughballs, a bit of cheese on each one! About 1/2 tsp of cheese on each puff, ideally.

Just before baking

We halved the recipe, so we ended up with just over one baking tin full of these: if possible, you want to fit all of your puffs in one batch, since you will be changing the temperature of the oven partway through and thus will have to do each batch completely separately and wait for the oven to get back up to heat between if you don't manage it in one go. So, bake for 7-8 minutes at 450F, until they've puffed up a little and hold their shape. Then reduce heat to 350F, and bake for 20-25 minutes more until they're a lovely light golden brown, puffy and beautiful to behold. Biting into one at this point (careful, they're HOT), you'll find it's mostly hollow, slightly moist on the inside but still crisp on the outside. Absolutely delicious, and best when piping hot. The next day they're still tasty, but they lose a lot of the oomph they have right out of the oven. At any rate, a tasty and DIFFERENT type of starch/roll you can add to your meal, full of cheesy goodness!

A lovely toasty brown, with the cheese all melted into the puff!

Fun times with Kaila and Benson

This past week, Benson (my boyfriend, visiting from California for a wedding) and I went up to Waltham for a couple days to visit a friend from undergrad, Kaila. I lived with her for two years while I was at Brandeis University, in a house with 5 girls total, including us. And I miss her cooking, she's a great cook. All three of us, in fact, quite enjoy cooking and eating well, so we made a very nice feast on Tuesday night. Again, a good way to bond and chat with people, with a delicious result. First, the main course.

My co-chefs, Benson and Kaila

Chicken Cordon Bleu, as found on that very useful site, allrecipes.
6 chicken breasts
6 slices of sliced cheese
6 slices of ham
3 tbs of flour
1 tsp paprika
a handful of breadcrumbs (not in the recipe, but we added it anyway)
3 tbs butter
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup white wine
1 or 2 bouillon cubes
1 tbs cornstarch
1 cup whipping cream

We altered this recipe a bit, namely in our cooking method and the addition of breadcrumbs, but I think it turned out really nicely (we also halved it). Mix the flour and paprika (and we added some breadcrumbs), which will make up the crust of your chicken. Pound out the chicken breasts flat. Lay the cheese and the ham up in a roll, securing with toothpicks. Then roll in the egg, and bread with the crumb mixture. Next, pan fry the chicken packets in butter until they're nicely browned, and bake at 350F for 20-30 minutes, until fully cooked.

Meanwhile, for the sauce, mix the cornstarch and cream in a small bowl, and add to the skillet with the wine and a bouillon cube. Stir constantly until the cube dissolves (as cream can be finicky), and taste to see if you want a stronger chicken flavor - if so, add another bouillon cube. You want to cook this on medium-low heat until it has thickened into a nice saucy consistency. Then, when both sauce and chicken are complete, serve: pour the sauce over the chicken (or allow each person to do that on their own). Watch out for the toothpicks! It might be a good idea to remove those before serving to guests, or at very least warn them!

As sides, we also made Mashed Potatoes and Pan Roasted Parsnips. The potatoes were from scratch, and pretty straightforward (peel, cube, and boil potatoes; mash with butter, milk, salt and pepper until the right consistency and seasoning is reached! Add a bit of garlic for fun.) Similarly, the parsnips were another simple and delicious vegetable. If you haven't tried parsnips, they're really simple and easy to make. They look like giant albino carrots, and have a wonderful nuttiness to them. Here, we just peeled them and sliced them thin, and cooked them with a bit of butter, salt and pepper. Couldn't be more simple, couldn't be more delicious. An interesting and tasty vegetable! We also made Gruyere Cheese Gougeres (aka, cheese puffs), a recipe from the French Laundry Cookbook, but I think I'll save those for another post. They're a bit complicated, and French Laundry deserves it's own place to shine, really, it's a great book.


Finally, for dessert, we made:

Apples Pielettes (Cup-pies!)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3 TBS salted butter
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 tsp apple pie spice - aka some cinnamon, and a pinch each of cloves and allspice, with, in our case, a bit of nutmeg as well. Kaila cooking ALWAYS involves nutmeg!
1 tbs cornstarch
8 soft caramel candies
3 baking apples, pealed, cored, and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

Crust:
2 11-oz boxes of pie crust mix
1/2 cup water
1 egg, beaten

Anyways, you want to put the sugar, butter, apple juice, cream, spices, cornstarch and caramel in a pot on medium heat, so that everything melts all together, stirring constantly. Then add in the apples, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 8-10 minutes - you want the apples to still hold the shape, but the sauce to be thick and syrupy. Then remove from heat and set aside. This is delicious, and if you have leftovers, you can do what we did and make french toast the following morning and have this as the topping!

A dough blender

Heat the oven to 425F, then make up the pie crust. We actually used Kaila's pie crust recipe instead of the box kind: 3 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, and 1 cup crisco, and a bit of water to keep it sticking together, all smashed together with a dough blender (NOT electronic, though it sounds that way!). Usually, I admit, when I make pies or quiche I use the pillsbury frozen ready made pie crust doughs - the crust isn't pre-baked, it's still dough form so you can shape it a bit, and you can bake it exactly as required by the recipe, and that's just fine. They're pretty tasty. But I have been thinking I want to try my hand at making actual crust, especially as it's fairly straightforwards. If you have your own recipe for crust, you want enough for a two crust pie. So just make that up, and divide in half. Take one half, then roll it out to 1/4 to 1/8 thickness.  Using a 4 inch cookie cutter (or the rim of a 13-oz coffee can), cut out 6 circles which you put in the bottom of a cupcake pan as the bottom of the cup-pies, then cut out 6 smaller 2 3/4  circles (with a glass rim, perhaps), which you'll use as the top. Then repeat this with the OTHER half of the dough, for an even dozen.

Fill each of the up pie crusts with the filling, and put the tiny circles on top, pinching all around the rim to seal them - make sure they're sealed tight! then slice a few slivers through the pie crust tops so they can vent (in decorative patterns, preferably!). Brush all over with egg so the crusts are a nice golden brown. Bake for 15 minutes until nice and brown, then remove from the oven. You can remove these from the muffin tin after perhaps about 10 minutes of letting them cool. And then, delicious pie-letts!

Pumpkin Pie-lettes

We liked these so much, the next day we did the whole thing again, only with pumpkin pie filling, instead. Note that if you take a random pie filling recipe, you'll end up with extra filling, so we had to take some dough and make one extra big pie-lette (not shown).

Anyway, Benson and I had a wonderful time visiting Kaila. We didn't JUST cook, naturally, we also walked around Waltham, which is really nice to do, since I DID live there for 4 years; we went to see Wreck-it-Ralph (a lot of fun, worth seeing); we watched some Arrested Development (Kaila hadn't seen it, though Benson and I had); and generally had a nice time. Benson left to go back to California, and I stayed an extra couple of days. And cooked some more, but thats another blog post!

Dinner is served!!!