Happy Snow Day Recipe

We did not actually get a snow day today here--all the dramatic lead-up (and New York does drama and anxiety in preparation for snow like nowhere I've ever seen before), and then we only ended up getting around 9 inches. And after the disaster that was the snowstorm a few weeks ago, city governments apparently figured out how snowplows work and got things cleaned up. But it did snow, and therefore it was a perfect day for making soup!

Wild rice soup is a favorite of both Carrie and me, so I thought I'd share our recipe with you. Both of our moms had slightly different recipes, and we've incorporated bits from each into our version.

Note: if you don't live in Minnesota or Wisconsin, wild rice may be tricky to find or obscenely expensive at your average grocery store. But I have good news--Trader Joe's sells it for a completely reasonable price! As an alternative, you could wait to see if Carrie's mom brings you some the next time she visits, but I think that's probably not the most reliable plan for most of you. If you don't have a Trader Joe's near you, I am truly sorry.

Wild Rice Soup
Makes 4-6 servings

2 cups cooked wild rice (2/3 cup uncooked)
5 Tablespoons butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup flour
4 cups chicken broth
pinch of pepper
pinch of turmeric
2 bay leaves
1 cup diced ham
1 cup half and half

Cook the wild rice first; it takes about an hour total, so you'll want to start this a little in advance of the rest of the soup. I generally use about three parts water to one part rice, so 2/3 cup rice and 2 cups water (this leaves a little extra water in the pan at the end, but you can either drain it off or just pour it into the soup with the rice). Put rice and water in a pan and heat to boiling. Reduce heat to simmer and cover. Cook for 45-55 minutes or until most of the rice kernels have popped.

Melt butter in a sauce pan and sautee the onion and carrots until tender. Blend in flour. Slowly add broth stirring constantly (A whisk helps at this point to keep the flour from getting lumpy). Keep stirring until mixture thickens slightly. Stir in pepper, turmeric, and bay leaves.

Add ham and cooked rice. Simmer for about 5 minutes. Stir in half and half and heat to serving temperature. Don't forget to remove bay leaves before serving!

We usually make a double batch of this--the leftovers are delicious! If you double it, make sure you use a stock pot or dutch oven because it's a lot of soup.

Fun with Census Maps

Hello friends. I could come here today and moan and complain about the buckets of money that we are pouring into my eleven year old car. I was actually going to do that. But I did a lot of private moaning and complaining, to Becky, to my coworkers, to my family. And now I'm moving through the stages of grief into reluctant acceptance.

So instead I will share with you a fabulous New York Times creation that Becky found for me to play with. You might remember my fascination with interactive maps. This one is pretty cool, huh? I love how populated New York is, and therefore how clear the neighborhood distinctions are. By either income or race, there is such an obvious line where Harlem meets the Upper East and Upper West Sides. By pretty much any measure Manhattan below 110th street is so very unusual; it is richer, more educated, whiter, rent is higher, and an absolutely insane percentage of elementary kids go to private schools. The whole crazy I-95 corridor from Boston to DC has these peculiarities to some degree too. The map of percentage of people without high school diplomas has a swath of color across the southern United States, even more than I would have expected. Check it out! And then come back and tell me what exciting things you learn! I need something to distract me from my poor decrepit car and its health care bills....

Knitting--No, I Haven't Forgotten How

It's been a slow knitting year for me; as with many things, it took a bit of a backseat during wedding planning. In the months leading up to the wedding, I did manage to finish off three pumpkin hats (last year's version featured here, and this year's version is here, both modeled by our favorite nephews) for Matthew, Thomas, and our friend Stephanie's daughter.

The pumpkin hat, along with the Christmas hats I made for the nephews last year, are from Susan B. Anderson's itty-bitty hats, which I highly recommend. I also came across a pattern in that book for a hat with little pigtail tassels, which I knew would be adorable on Stephanie's daughter--the perfect complement to her mischievous smile. I don't have pictures of her in the hat, but here are a couple pictures of the finished product.

I've knit a lot of baby/toddler hats in the last couple of years because they're so fun, so cute, and SO quick, but I think it's time to branch out and tackle something else. I haven't yet decided what that should be, but I suspect Carrie will probably argue that I should finish one of the several projects that I've started for her but never finished!

Are any of you knitters? If you're on Ravelry, add me--just search for duhbeckster. 

Zee Weekend

Last week felt a little bit like it would never end. I think this might be the unfortunate but inevitable result of an extended vacation. But the weekend did finally come, and we did our best to enjoy it.

Friday night we met up with our friend Kara, who is usually up for the wackier of our entertainment choices. For dinner Becky wanted to try something new (Shake Shack overload I guess) and suggested a Bosnian restaurant called Djerdan. I was doubtful, but agreed. Since I was running late Becky and Kara ended up first having a drink at a Spanish place down the block. Suffice it to say that the sangria was made with Carlo Rossi's finest. Alas. But Djerdan was excellent! We shared an appetizer of some doughyness in yogurt sauce that was decent. The highlight though was the main dish, the house speciality, burek. Becky and I shared, so we got to try slices of cheese and meat (spinach is the third choice). Burek is apparently a scrumptious stuffed phyllo dough pie. It was savory and greasy in the most delicious way, and each slice only cost $5! I'm quite excited that we now know of another tasty and inexpensive option that is convenient to Port Authority and most Broadway theaters.

We then headed over to Madison Square Garden for the entertainment portion of the evening: the 2011 Professional Bull Riders Invitational*! I had no idea there would be so many cowboys in New York City. The festivities started while Kara and I were buying pretzel beer (pictures of which are sadly on Kara's camera and therefore not currently available to me). But, as photodocumented by Becky, they poured gasoline on the dirt and lit a giant PBR on fire.
Good start, good start. An invocation was prayed, and then we sang the national anthem while saluting a giant waving American flag stitched together by tornado survivers from flag pieces somehow associated with 9/11. I think that speaks for itself.

Then came the bull riding!
Trusty Wikipedia, via the Motorola Droid, filled us in on the rules and various controversies related to the sport. Basically, each rider climbs on a bull and has to hang on with only one hand for eight seconds. If he (as far as I can tell, they're all men) succeeds, then his performance is ranked 0-50 and the bull's performance is ranked 0-50. The scores are combined, and the rides are ranked. Watching the bull-riding was moderately exciting for eight second increments, but overall a bit slower paced than we expected. At one point a rider was dragged behind a bull for a few seconds, and at another point a bull with a lasso around his neck pulled free of the cowboy who lassoed him.
Saturday we planned to do errands and all kinds of boring stuff around the house. We debated about whether to walk to the closer grocery store or to dig the car out of the snowbank and drive to Target and Trader Joe's. Digging out won. That is, until we went to start the defroster and found that the car didn't start. I spent nearly an hour on the phone with AAA and another hour idley waiting for the tow truck to come. Despite fears that it would be worse, we're fairly sure that the car is fine, but that the battery just couldn't hold a charge while parked in once place for three weeks in cold weather. Friendly tow truck operator jumped us and away we went. Except for one catch. The hood of the car will not completely latch, which seems to be related to some fraying of the cord near the hood release switch in the car. Becky and I know pretty much nothing about cars (a cause for some concern), but the tow truck man told us not to drive on the highway until it somehow starts latching... Troublesome.

Sunday we headed to Queens for brunch with our friend Stephanie. She made the most delicious baked French toast, eggy casserole, coffee cake, homemade hot chocolate, and served us mimosas. Yum. We provided raspberries, blackberries, and thawed strawberries from our summertime adventures. We had a lovely time chatting with Stephanie and playing with Stephanie's two-year old.

This evening we watched the Packers beat the Eagles - go yellow pants!

*No Friends of Animals protestors were injured in the writing of this blog entry.

Deliciousness in the Target aisles

Here we are in the midst of an exciting weekend in the tri-state area. It would be a lot easier if we actually lived in New York City, by the way, and could do things only in New York and be New Yorkers. But that's not the case. So anyways, what would a weekend in New Jersey be without a trip to Target? It's a magical land, where spending $100 is not optional, regardless of whether or not you cross start to get there. So, we're tooling along in the grocery section, trying to focus on buying the foods on the list, when what to our wondering eyes should appear...

Peppermint Oreos! And yes, I shamelessly stole that image from some other website. And no, I'm not going to credit them because I already forgot what website it was. Sorry, I accept the bad internet karma.

I had high hopes for the cookies. The fact that I chose them to be my one off-list splurge purchase should be evidence enough of that! (Becky chose chocolate goldfish with mini marshmallows, in case you're wondering. But I'm a nice wife, so I let her have some Oreos too.) But seriously? These cookies are delicious. The pink frostingy goodness in the center is just the right mix of minty fresh and cremey delicious, and the peppermintyness perfectly complements the traditional chocolate cookie covers.

Becky did some experiments and determined that her optimal frosting:cookie ratio is 3 chocolate wafers:1 frosting patty. As usual, I strongly disagree, and would instead argue that 1 wafer:1 frosting patty would be ideal. But don't trust our opinions; try it for yourself!

About that New Year Thing

It's the start of another new year. I have a long history of making New Year's resolutions and then failing to achieve them, but it still doesn't stop me from having a desire to start fresh and make changes as we swap in a new calendar for the old.

Last year was so dominated by the wedding and all the planning involved that it feels a little strange to not have one big project to focus on this year. I'm actually not mourning the loss of wedding planning or wishing for more DIY projects or anything like that; it's just that I don't have one big thing to obsess over so now I have space to figure out where I want to focus my energies.

I've read on a few blogs this week about the idea of One Little Word: selecting a word for the year to be a point of focus and reflection throughout the year. As far as I can tell, the idea started here and has now boomed into all sorts of internet craziness (you can pay to take a One Little Word online class?) I really like this idea though, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

For 2011, I think my word is intentional. Throughout the course of a day/week/month/year, I do all sorts of things without thinking about them. And thank goodness for some of that--imagine if I had to think carefully every time I brushed my teeth! But there are a lot of things I do that really deserve more thought and care than I give them. And there are many things I would not do if I was a bit more intentional in my actions.

In particular, I want to be more intentional about

• How I spend my time. I always feel like I don't have enough time (don't we all?), but let's face it: I waste an awful lot of time staring at my computer and doing nothing useful at all. That's time that could be spent exercising, cooking, crafting, reading (books, not facebook!), volunteering, exploring the corner of the world I live in, or millions of other things, not least of which is spending more quality time with my wife. In fact, even updating this blog more often would be a million times more productive than refreshing my facebook news feed or checking to see what the most emailed NYTimes articles are today.
• How I spend my money. I'm pretty frugal, but there are certainly things I spend money on that don't really bring me much happiness but still waste money. I'm trying harder to skip spending money on the candy bar that I only want because I'm bored or the Chinese food that we only want because we're too lazy to cook and instead save that money for something we actually want (and sometimes that something turns out to be Chinese for dinner!) And maybe, just maybe we could go to Target "just to pick up a few things" and not end up spending $100? I'm pretty sure we don't actually need to buy every random limited edition Reese's product ever made, for example...
• What I eat. I tend to go in spurts of eating healthy followed by long stretches of eating mostly crap. Don't get me wrong--we cook dinner at home most nights and don't eat a lot of pre-packaged foods by American standards, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. Like vegetables. I heard they're good for me. So this year I'd like to be more intentional about eating more vegetables, eating fewer processed foods, and trying new recipes. I get caught in food ruts, but between all the cookbooks I have and all the recipes I've bookmarked online, I think I should have plenty of new foods to keep me busy in the kitchen this year!

How about you? Do you have any goals or resolutions of sorts for 2011? And do you have any recipes you'd like to share? I'm looking for new ideas!

Wedding photos!

In all of the holiday craziness, we neglected to mention that our wedding photos finally came back!! Click here to take a look at the post that our lovely photographer, Becca Dilley, put up on her blog. Maybe someday soon we'll post a few more of the 700 or so that we received (don't worry, only immediate family have to sit through all of them! Speaking of which, are our parents and siblings still our "immediate" family? Inquiring minds have been inquiring.)

They're gorgeous and I'm very very happy with the pictures and of course the wedding. But a little part of me is sad to have everything, including the pictures, be settled and final and unchangeable. There's no more possibility that maybe we could throw another pose in or smile a little better or lose more weight or or or. I'm always looking for all the options!

We also got the video back from my brother-in-law over the holidays, as it had been previously held captive on his video camera, due to the power cord being left in Minnesota after the wedding. Videography is the one area that we ended up really skimping on, and had a friend video the ceremony using my family's camera rather than hiring a professional. He did a much better job than I ever would if someone asked me to do the same (take note, never ask me to video something important for you). The camera is steady, the sound is audible, and everything really important about the ceremony is captured. So, success!

Snowy New England Christmas

As mentioned in several previous posts, we spent Christmas in Massachusetts with my family. In a wave of brilliance, we created an itinerary that did not require us to drive at all. We took Amtrak (my first American train trip! Verdict: good, but no Shinkansen) to Providence, flew from Logan to Milwaukee, and then flew home to Newark. As we hauled our suitcases packed for both trips, 12lbs of cookie tins, and Christmas gifts into Manhattan, I briefly regretted this decision. All that was gone forever by the time we were nestled into our train seats, dining on traditional Wisconsin cheese and summer sausage and watching the Connecticut traffic through the windows.

My parents arrived by car from Minnesota the same night we did. Their car was piled up not only with Christmas gifts for everyone, but also with tons of wedding gifts we had been forced to leave in November! It was fun to see everything again, although only briefly: we weren't able to take anything with us, since we were flying out. But we'll go back in January with our car to pick our stuff up. Apparently destination weddings keep on giving!

Our adorable nephews continue to get more adorable. Thomas' truck obsession has only grown more intense, and dominates his small vocabulary. His favorite phrases seem to be "big truck," "my big truck," and "more big truck." He received Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go as a gift, and showed a surprisingly long attention span for it. The cutest part is a page that shows a big accident, with several trucks all tangled up together. When Thomas saw it he stared at it with a look of horror and announced "big truck uh oh!" And every time (which is many) after that when he got to the accident page, he'd repeat it over and over and over.
In contrast, Matthew doesn't have a particular affinity for trucks. Unless of course it happens to be in Thomas' hand, at which point whatever it is becomes the single most important thing in the entire world. He's more cautious than Thomas and more socially aware. His sneaky little grin, when he thinks he's getting away with something he's not supposed to do, is precious. I think his favorite phrase is "mo"(re), which can be used to demand more of a type of food, more snuggles, more off-key grandparent singing, more slides down the slide, more bouncing on the bouncy ball, or pretty much anything that could possibly be repeated.
We did our usual ritualistic Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, with new ornaments and stocking hanging and church and wild rice soup and oyster stew on Christmas Eve, and stocking opening and full breakfast with coffeecake and one-at-a-time present opening ordered from youngest to oldest on Christmas Day. The little boys enjoyed ripping the paper off and playing with their abundance of new toys, but had limited patience for the extended version that my family has elongated in the child-free years.

For Christmas dinner Sean cooked up a lovely bazillion pound prime rib (every good holiday meal has at least a few pounds of meat per person!), mashed potatos, Yorkshire pudding, and bread pudding.
Yum. Unsurprisingly, we also ate well the rest of the time there, with a birthday meal out at the best restaurant in Providence (in honor of my mom, myself, and Becky), egg roll weather, Breakfast Nook, and Chili's chicken crispers.

After the Nor'Easter we bundled up Matthew and Thomas and introduced them to snow. They had of course seen the stuff last year, but never really had a chance to play in it.

I think it might take a year or two to catch on.

We also spent a lovely afternoon at the candlepin bowling alley. Before we lived with Jen and Sean a few years back, I had never heard of this wacky Massachusetts tradition. They have their own style of bowling, in which the pins are skinny, the bowling balls are tiny and light, and you get three attempts to knock the pins down during each frame. Matthew and Thomas really wanted a chance to immitate the adults and throw the balls down the alley, but had to settle for handing them to us, rolling them around on the ball return, and crawling under every row of seats. Thankfully this was much cleaner than the smoky, stinky bowling alleys I remember from childhood!

New Year's, Badger Style

I managed to survive my first day back at work after 12 glorious days of vacation. My brain is still a bit fuzzy, but hopefully that won't prevent me from regaling you with tales of our adventures. We spent the first part of our vacation, including Christmas and the few days immediately following it, in Massachusetts with Carrie's family. I'll leave Carrie to tell you about those shenanigans.

After being thoroughly worn out by two toddlers, we flew to Wisconsin to spend a few days with my family. My parents picked us up at the airport and promptly whisked us off to Flat Top Grill, a Mongolian BBQ restaurant where you put your own stir fry ingredients in a bowl and they cook it for you. What distinguishes Flat Top from similar restaurants is, first and foremost, their roti bread; it's a delicious, flaky, buttery flatbread that I'm sure has an obscene number of calories but is totally made of WIN. Sadly, there are no pictures of said dinner on my camera because we ate too fast, but trust me, it was yummy.

My sister and her boyfriend drove up the next day, and we spent the evening playing multiple rounds of Cranium with them and my parents. Our time in Wisconsin was basically dominated by a. food and b. Cranium. Sadly, the Madison contingent dominated at Cranium, but we put up a good fight!

My other sister arrived home the following day, and we set out celebrating New Year's Even in style: with fun hats, more board games, too many snack foods (mostly puppy chow), and our beloved friend Asti.

We still didn't win at Cranium (or Pictionary, for that matter), but we dominated at Taboo! During downtime Carrie also created some lovely art for us to enjoy:

Old Man Cranium Clay

 

Carrie's depictions of me, Angie, Ian, and Jen

On New Year's Day we watched the Tournament of Roses Parade, then celebrated Christmas with my family. The rest of the family had celebrated earlier, but they decided to let us open our own presents. And Santa waited to fill all our stockings at once!

And of course, in a house full of Badgers, we watched the football team's valiant Rose Bowl efforts against TCU and their vastly inferior mascot. Sadly, Bucky was not victorious in the end, but it was not for lack of spirit at my house!

Why yes, as a matter of fact, I AM sitting on the floor cutting summer sausage in that picture. The smorgasbord needed to be spread, but there were still 3 minutes left on the clock and I was NOT about to miss it!

I hope that you and your family had a splendid time celebrating the holidays of your choice! Although I wish we'd had more time to spend with our families, I'm grateful that we were able to see everyone and celebrate with them for a few days.

Back to life, back to reality - 2011 style

Well blogging friends, welcome to 2011. Hopefully we've all safely arrived by now. I'd like to say this will be the year that we will buckle down and secure our blogging fame. But it probably won't be.

To my family, who are eagerly awaiting the Auntie Blogging, I do intend to get back to New England Christmas (complete with candle pin bowling!), but not tonight.

Becky and I rang in the New Year with red plastic champagne flutes, alcopops, and some intense competitive humming (Cranium) in the company of her lovely Wisconsin-based family. There was watching of the ball-drop (an hour delayed, naturally), toasting, kissing, eating, and all of the appropriate festivities. But then of course it was the weekend, and the rest of our vacation continued.

Now, the eve of January 2nd, feels like the real New Year's, in a much more mundane but realistic way. We've replaced champagne with diet pepsi (for me) and water (for her), extended family with our furry babies, and excessive quantities of holiday foods with our bare refrigerator. And tomorrow we will set our alarms for uncomfortably early hours and trudge our way back into the city that never sleeps, except of course when more than a foot of snow falls and then it hibernates for several days.

2010's contents felt pre-ordained (even if monumental) at the end of 2009. We got engaged in mid-November and knew that a good chunk of 2010 would focus on wedding festivities. We already had reservations for our major vacation of the year, and we knew that our other travel would be exclusively to the midwest for wedding planning and various other pre-ordained family functions. In most other ways we anticipated, it turned out correctly, that 2010 would be a year of stability for us. Perhaps in fact the most stability that we have had in any year since we met, and maybe the most stability that we will have for a few years to come too.

2011's contents are murkier. We've chatted about various goals, know we want to have a honeymoon, know we'd like to focus on being a bit healthier and on spending less time on the computer (but fear not, also blogging more! unfortunately for you, like most people, we have a history of failing at new year's resolutions), know we want to have a spring Ocean Grove weekend and a fall Vermont weekend, and know we'd like to someday find some more solid career direction. These and others are among the general partially formed plans we have all along declared for the post-wedding period. But, ready or not, 2011 is no longer some hypothetical distant post-wedding future.

I guess it's time to make it happen.

Welcome to 2011, welcome to Monday morning.