Gluttony Primer: Peach Cornbread

I apologize for my absence. That was rude, I'm sorry, mistakes were made...
FORGIVE ME!

So Mandrew and I went down to the Dupont Farmer's Market to pick up some veggies for a dinner party. While we were standing in line for bread, I noticed their specials list had "Peach Cornbread" crossed out, because the angry mob that is all city folk had bought it all. THE INDECENCY!

Back up! Back up! Peach Cornbread?
What means "Peach Cornbread?" How have I never heard of this? This is just slightly worse than that time I was 19, and I learned I had been spelling my middle name wrong - my entire life.

Anyway, I couldn't find a decent recipe on the grand 'ol interwebs, so I made one (with the help of Cook's Illustrated).

You heard me internets, you don't know everything.

Peach Cornbread

2 tablespoons unsalted butter (melted)
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
5 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk & 2/3 cup regular milk
(or substitute 1 1/4 cup milk & 1 tablespoon vinegar)
2 peaches (skinned)
one diced for batter, the other thinly sliced for top

Directions
1) preheat oven to 425 degrees and butter and flour 8 inch baking pan
2) whisk all dry ingredients together
3) create well in flour mixture, beat eggs into well and add milks
4) add melted butter and 1 diced peach
5) pour batter into baking pan
6) place sliced peaches on top
7) bake 25 minutes, or until golden brown and edges have pulled away from the sides of the pan

WARNING: Peach Cornbread doesn't keep outside the fridge for more than a day or two.

Yes, I am speaking from experience, disgusting-horrific-disheartening experience

Gemini: Bear Traps Are Not For Sitting

You've always been handy with a bow saw, which is good news, as you've never been handy with a bear trap.

(Photo: mouton.rebelle)

Nesting: House Plants

We've been adding plants here and there. I went a little crazy with the wheatgrass, but it has since died. BOO. The iron cross clover is the house favorite. It just keeps growing.

Reading Rainbow: Omnivore’s Dilemma

“Whatever we may have liked about the era of cheap, oil-based food, it is drawing to a close. Even if we were willing to continue paying the environmental or public-health price, we’re not going to have the cheap energy (or the water) needed to keep the system going, much less expand production. But as is so often the case, a crisis provides opportunity for reform, and the current food crisis presents opportunities that must be seized.”

“…tear out five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn and plant in their place an organic fruit and vegetable garden.”

- Michael Pollan, “Farmer in Chief,” The New York Times, October 12, 2008.

After Michael Pollan’s October article in The New York Times, I made a mental note to read his books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. After his inspiring interview on Bill Moyer’s Journal, I put a star next to that mental note. Then, when the White House announced they were tearing up some of the South Lawn for a garden, I said, “DUDE! OK ALREADY. I WILL READ YOUR FREAKIN’ BOOK!”

Well, Mr. Pollan, I’m sorry I yelled at you. I read your book, and I liked it a lot. But now when I walk into the grocery store, I see row upon row of processed corn dripping poisonous pesticidal grime. In the produce aisles I see out of season vegetables drowning polar bears in the melting Arctic. And when I pass McDonald’s, I see the children of our nation’s founders wallowing in type 2 diabetes and their own adipose tissue.

Hyperbole aside, I appreciate Mr. Pollan’s even-handedness. While expounding the problems of industrial food practices (which are MANY), he also explores the contradictions of the industrial organic movement (Whole Foods), and the limitations of locally grown foods (e.g. I shouldn’t expect fresh tomatoes in January. BOO). He explains the challenges of eating ethically but provides the impetus for doing so through simple exploration of our current food system.

This is the most influential book I’ve read in a while, and I’m making some changes. 1) I’m growing basil, chives and tomatoes on our tiny balcony (a somewhat pathetic but well-intentioned token of self-sufficiency). 2) I’m cutting back on CAFO meat (SO happy to be dating a vegetarian – maybe it will finally rub off on me). And 3) I’ll try to rely more on the local farmer’s market for seasonal produce, eggs, dairy & grass-fed meats than the grocery store.

BONUS ROUND

4) I will fill our bathtub with soil and being growing squash, green beans, bananas and pineapple trees (joke – no such thing).
5) I will become an insufferable critic of the lunch choices of my boss and co-workers. (A BANANA, BOB! Do you know they have to ship that all the way…)
6) I will knock Big Macs out of the hands of tourists and replace them with homemade bread and leafy greens grown locally (not to exceed a stone’s throw away from the U.S. Capitol Building.)
7) I will send barrels of high fructose corn syrup and caged poultry to all 50 senators to help them visualize the tragedy that is the industrialized food system.

COME ON PEOPLE! I AM THE FOOD REVOLUTION (AND SO CAN YOU!)

Gluttony Primer: The Cake of Pompeii

After conquering the unicorn and rainbow cake, I moved onto volcanoes. It’s the natural progression, I swear.

There was a double birthday party, and a cake of Pompeii miraculously synchronized interests of both birthday boys: disaster response and ancient Rome (It’s important to have a diverse group of friends).

I made marshmallow fondant once again, but put cocoa in it. This turned it into more of fudge than a fondant, and it was incredibly uncooperative. SOOO uncooperative that even after a good beating (kneading) and spending hours in refrigerated time-out, its disposition had not changed whatsoever. I HATE YOU CHOCOLATE FONDANT. But somehow I persevered and managed to cover the chocolate and red velvet cake without any tearing.

Mandrew designed Pompeii and make some really rad trees. He graduated from college with a degree in the classics, don’t ya know. As a final touch, I bought some dry ice for the volcano.

NOTE TO SELF* Never listen to the dry ice vendor when he says you can keep that stuff in the freezer overnight. He is lying and should be run out of town. You’ll end up making another trip a few hours before the party to replace what has mysteriously vanished.

Gemini: Better Than Rilke

Critics will call your first poetry collection a "stirring work of utmost courage and beauty," which just goes to show how much mileage that man from Nantucket has.

(Photos: Old Sarge)

Nesting: Home Sweet Home

Mandrew went home for Easter this last week, which meant I had a lot of time to myself. I mostly did a lot of cleaning. Our apartment starts clean, gets progressively more and more cluttered, until I can't take it anymore and have to clean it or I WILL JUMP OFF THE BALCONY TO ESCAPE THE DIRTY DISHES! THE DIRTY FLOORS! THE DIRTY LAUNDRY! THE DIRT!!!

I am becoming my mother. The woman that grounded me when I would say, "Come on, Mom! My room doesn't smell THAT bad."

The apartment really feels like home now, and I've been wanting to put up some kind of "Home Sweet Home," or "Home is Where Your Heart Is" decoration to punctuate the sentiment. But since I can't needlepoint, I made the following:

Now I just need to find the right frame.

Update: 8 x 10, Kinko's color toner on watercolor paper (hat tip: Rebecca)

Reading Rainbow: Atheists and Foxholes

Last week I went binge buying on Amazon and ordered Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Great American Hypocrites and God is not Great. I’d seen the various authors give intelligent interviews, and I wanted to read more of what they had to say.

Don’t worry mom, I am not a vegan food terrorist, hubristic partisan hack, or atheist out to make everyone worship Darwin… at least not yet.

I had the books delivered to me at work, and our BYU intern brought one to my office. She’s always been pleasant, even though she knows I’m an ex-Mormon that’s “gone off the deep end.”

She handed me the package, and I said, “Yeah! One of my books arrived.”

“Oooh, what’d you get?” She said.

“Let’s see,” I replied, opening the package to find the book that mocked her religion and framed me as hostile to her and all other believers. WHY COULDN’T IT HAVE BEEN THE GARDENING BOOK! THE ONE ABOUT HOMEMAKING AND CANNING TOMATOES!

I blushed a severe shade of red and hesitated.

“Do you not want to share?” She said.

I didn’t want her to think I’d just purchased How to Enslave and Eat Innocent Children, so I pulled out the bright sunny cover of God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and laughed with obvious embarrassment.


Luckily this intern has a sense of humor/strong sense of civility and laughed so hard that my face returned to its natural color.

Gemini: Drifting With the Current

Sometimes it is best to simply let events unfold. However, doing so for the last 25 years was probably a mistake.

(Photo: čolinica)

Life is a Mix Tape: Max Richter & Limitations

Walking home after work, I was listening to Radiolab's podcast The Obama Effect, Perhaps, which discussed the result Barack Obama's presidency may be having on the stereotype threat or the influence of group stereotypes to affect intellectual performance.

Since Obama's presidential nomination, some researchers have noticed a performance gap between whites and blacks narrow (on a 20-question test). *The findings have yet to be peer reviewed, and further replication is expected. However, the stereotype threat is a well documented phenomenon that can affect all groups of people.

While Radiolab's Jad Abumrad was discussing the power of stereotypes to distract and then discourage achievement, the song "Vladimir's Blues" by Max Richter played.

The music made the metro car glide on the rails, rather than speed forcefully onward. People began waltzing past, instead of rushing about gracelessly. And I stood at the center of it all, waiting for my train, wondering about my limitations.

The real subtle power of a stereotype isn't that it prevents you from doing what you want to do, it distracts you, for just a beat, from doing the thing you want to do. And that may be all the difference.

- Jad Abumrad, Radio Lab

This is another gem by Max Richter, "Fragments."

I also recommend "The Nature of Daylight."

Gluttony Primer: Rainbow & Unicorn Cake

Part 1 - Rainbow Cake

Years ago, while enduring late night pancake cravings with Ash Mae, we were inspired to make pancakes out of cake mix. Some inspiration comes from an inner voice, and some inspiration stares at you like a Duncan Hines mix adjacent an empty bag of Bisquick.

We colored every pancake green and then stacked them with vanilla pudding in-between each layer. We covered the cake with Cool Whip and devoured the best midnight snack every created.

While making cakes for a friend's birthday, I got A LITTLE carried away. This time around, I decided to make a rainbow cake by coloring each pancake a different color.

I told the birthday girl, "Pretend that I'm Ace of Cakes (and therefore insanely unlimited by reason or artistic ability). Name three things you want." She said, "Chocolate, Raspberry, Unicorn." If she had said, "Starship Enterprise, Non-Fat, Barack Obama," she would have been out of luck, and the whole "Pretend I'm Ace of Cakes and you can have anything you want..." exercise would have been a complete waste. Luckily, she picked the only three things I am capable of.

I decided to make an accompanying rainbow cake, because 1) I needed an excuse to try it out, and 2) she is one of a handful of people that can appreciate that much food coloring.

*It looks slightly burnt, and it is, in that "I'm-so-overwhelmed-by-frosting-and-color-that-I-can't-even-tell" kinda way.

In the end, I covered the colored pancakes in cream cheese frosting resulting in a very sad minimalist-looking rainbow-shaped cake (sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the final product).

However, when someone cut the first slice, the people rejoiced, Pocahontas appeared singing "Every Color of the Wind," and sparkles fell from the stars turning us all into our spirit animal.

Instructions
1. Make cake mix.
2. Color a 1/2 cup of batter any color of the rainbow.
3. Fry it like a pancake (Use lots of cooking spray)

Part 2-The Last Unicorn Cake

The chocolate cake & raspberry filling recipes are here. Smitten Kitchen, marry me.

The marshmallow fondant recipe is here. I'm convinced MM Fondant would have made more Republicans vote for the stimulus bill (I've forwarded this recipe to Obama's Chief of Staff).

Mandrew made the raspberry filling for the cake and then listened to me freak out as I tried to roll the fondant without tearing it.

"AAARRRHHHH. I'm RUINING it!!!!"

"Calm down. It's just a cake for a friend."

"NO! THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I WILL EVER DO... [unreasonableness] [more unreasonableness] [long tirade of childish unreasonableness]."

Somehow Mandrew managed to calm me down, and I placed the fondant on the cake and decorated it. The party-goers loved it, and the birthday girl was happy.

And here it is, the pinnacle of my life's work. Every moment has only been in preparation for this cake.

Gemini: You'll Need to Google "Rhombus"

Jealousy, suspicion, and utter confusion will be yours this week when you find yourself at the center of a bizarre love rhombus.

Happy Freakin' Valentine's Day

(Photo: julianrod)

This I Believe: Making Friends at the Office

Meet Stanton the Office Cat. A co-worker found him in the park across from the office when he was a kitten. He’s been at The Firm for ten years. The first day we met he was anything but standoffish. He followed me around the office, making sure I felt at home.

Unfortunately things deteriorated quickly thereafter. When I petted his spit-shined coat, I promptly rubbed my fingers in my eyes. Every five-year-old with allergies knows you wash your hands after touching an animal you’re allergic to, but in a rush to make new friends, I forgot my allergy-smarts.

The rest of the day was spent sneezing and fumbling blindly around the office in search of eye drops. Stanton got the message that I was more of a dog person and started ignoring me around the copy machine.

He’s taken our relationship to the next level by scratching his cat-parts all over my keyboard and puking hairballs under my desk. Sometimes if he’s feeling especially cooperative, he’ll poop in my office, rather than his litter box.

I’m returning the favor by forcing him to watch Live Puppy Cam and making Lolcats out of his pictures.

Hey STANTON! SUCK IT!

Gemini: Pancakes are the Root of All Evil

They say you love money more than anything else in the world, but then, they've never seen you around a stack of pancakes.

(Photo: Bunnyrel)

Underage: Pants on Fire

It would appear I began telling lies the moment I exited the womb. At the time of this writing, I was in 3rd grade.

My mother says this actually happened when I was in 2nd grade, while we were living in Arizona. At a parent teacher conference, my teacher congratulated my father on the great season the Phoenix Suns were having and asked how he found time to attend parent teacher conferences.

After a moment of confusion, my mother asked my teacher what she was talking about. My teacher told them I had told the class my dad was an NBA All-Star.

Most likely my dad paused to ponder where he failed as a father before explaining that he was not indeed the great Charles Barkley, but merely an engineer at Intel with regular hours.

I can only imagine that the meeting moved forward with my teacher explaining to my parents that I was a special child that might need more attention in spelling and truth-telling.

My Mother and Father
have told ME stories about
When I was a little kid.
Here is one of the Stories
I like best. I was when
I was two years old.
I was watching basket-
ball. My dad has a hop
I saw the hop and
I saw the basketball
then when I went to
school. I mean preskol
I told my teacher
my dad was
in NBA.

Pioneer Craft Hour: Old San Juan

We were in Puerto Rico last weekend for a wedding. Old San Juan was pretty amazing, but after walking all 10 blocks a million times we were ready to head home. Stories to follow, but for now, here are photos Mandrew and I took with our new Canon PowerShot.

Updated Camera Total: Eleven
Level of Ridiculosity Reached: Higher than Eleven
Canon Endorsement Deals: Zero

Life is a Mix Tape: One Year Anniversary

Here's to an entire year of Mandrew putting up with my blogging.

A big thank you to Narwhal who tipped me off to this song, "Find My Way Back Home," by the enchanting Priscilla Ahn. HALFIES CLUB!

Pioneer Craft Hour: A Telephone Conversation Juxtaposed with B&W Photographs

I worked with a job placement specialist a little more than a year ago when I was trying to find a job that would keep me in DC. She and I talked again last week. The doubt produced by that conversation stands in reassuring contrast to the determined first photographs I took with my BlackBird Fly in New York.

Telephone Conversation with Job Placement Specialist

Specialist: You’re not really going to UDC, are you?
Me: I really am. I did apply to other schools but only as a plan B, C & D.

Specialist: We throw away resumes that list UDC as an educational institution.
Me: Do you mean the University or the Law School?

Specialist: They’re not one and the same?
Me: The University may not have a good reputation, but the Law School has an amazing clinical program. It’s perfect for the kind of public interest work I want to do.

Specialist: I dunno. It’d be a waste of your talent and dynamic personality.
Me: Thanks, but I’ll find a way to make it work.

Gemini: Wearing Down Fate

The stars effing give up—if you want another slice of blueberry pie, just go ahead and have another slice of blueberry pie.

(Photo: thebittenword.com)

Remember: That Time You Got Into Lawyer School

Applying to law school is like competing to be America's Next Top Model, writing an epitaph and appealing an approaching death sentence. Only you have do it all while being chased by angry bulls, AND munchkin goblins are shooting you with rubber bands. (Photo: gnackgnackgnack)

I apply first to my #1 school, The University of the District of Columbia, David A. Clark School of Law. This school is devoted to generating lawyers committed to serving the public interest. Tuition is relatively inexpensive, so students can actually afford to work for non-profits after graduation. And all students perform a minimum of 700 hours of faculty-supervised representation of low-income DC residents. Whoo!

ALSO, the bus that goes to the school stops at my FRONT DOOR.

Preparing my resume and writing the personal statement takes three weeks; it also takes a village. In addition to getting comments from people I actually know, I solicit comments from Oprah, Obama and the Dalai Lama.

My Mom: "Honey, just be yourself. You haven't turned it in yet!? The earlier..."

Mandrew: "Calm Down."

Friend Nikki: "Dude, TAKE your mission off your resume!"

Oprah, Obama and the Dalai Lama: No Response. (Gerks)

I finally get all the application materials together and send them in the week before Christmas. I hold my breath. I smile. I pretend that my entire future doesn't rest on 1373 words and a bad LSAT score.

After a few weeks, anxiety overpowers reason, and I start furiously applying to backup schools I have no great interest in. (Note: Applying to random law schools is an expensive habit. Next time, try smoking instead.)

The day after paying a few million dollars in application fees, I get mail from the University of DC. The envelope looks like it contains more than a single rejection letter (Had a letter from the school arrived in a regular sized envelope, I might have imploded). Luckily Mandrew is spared my dramatics, because it's an acceptance letter to the only school I really wanted to attend!

THANK YOU ADMISSIONS GODS!

and THANK YOU VILLAGE OF HELPFUL FRIENDS!

Gemini: Adopt Dog. Buy Samurai Battle Armor.

Don't spend the rest of your life wondering "what if?" Dress the dog in full military regalia before it's too late.

(Photo: gizzypooh)

Pioneer Craft Hour: Redscale Film

If I wasn't lazy, I would just make it myself, but Urban Outfitters sells redscale film which is just too convenient. I bought a pack before Mandrew and I headed to Chicago, and it was worth all seventeen sacajaweas.

We stayed with a few friends in Wicker Park, which is a lot like walking into a ReadyMade magazine. All the kids are hip, artsy and eco-friendly. When we got off the elevated train, I had two thoughts. First, "I'm gonna take photos of EVERY SINGLE PERSON we pass", and second, "where are all the adults?"

On Monday while our friends were working their day jobs, Mandrew and I headed out to see Chicago's art district. We had quite the time walking there in a foot of snow, in the bitter cold

(Note: Boat shoes--deceiving as they may be--are not snow appropriate).

Although EVERY single gallery was closed and the trip was incredibly disappointing (Monday, I HATE you), we did cross a bright red bridge which was worth photographing (more here) .