Sick in Maryland

After my stunning digestive pyrotechnics on the Meadowbrook, I was still not feeling very well at all. I should really learn to just stay home one extra day before venturing back into my daily routine. I always push myself a little too hard and end up sick for twice as long because I didn't take the time to heal properly. Anyway...

We spent the next two days making apple pies and fruit tarts. They were delicious and looked absolutely amazing.

I really enjoyed making the fruit tart.  I like the very meticulous and creative projects the best.  Also I just like using knives.  For some reason I really enjoy the manual labor parts of baking.  Whenever we have something annoying to do I like to ask Brooke things like "can I chop the nuts?" or "I want to grate the carrots!"  I guess I'm just weird like that.

I was still feeling really shitty but I hadn't seen Chris for a few weeks so I was determined to make it down there somehow.  I contemplated taking the bus, but trekking into the city with my bags is pretty exhausting and I tend to get sick from all the random people and germs, so I was really not feeling like adding to my sickness.  Fortunately, Casey needed to go down to Maryland to visit her Uncle and cousins, so she offered to travel with me and drive my car down so I could rest.  In return I gave her family 3/4 of my cheesecake (I let Chris eat the rest).  Chef Katie was nice enough to bake and un-mold the cheesecake that I had made before I left for Seattle so I was able to get it out of the freezer and bring it home.  I got rave reviews from K's family about the cheesecake.  Apparently it was better than Junior's bakery cheesecake, which means a lot if you're from Brooklyn!

Casey dropped me off at Chris' parents where we would be spending the weekend dog-sitting for Abby while his parents were away in Phoenix for the week.  I lent her my car for the rest of the weekend since hers had recently been totaled in that stupid car accident.  I felt like such crap that I basically moped around in sweatpants for the majority of the weekend whining about how much my throat and stomach hurt.

Andy and Becky came up for dinner and a movie Friday night.  We had some pizza and watched The Proposal, which was surprisingly amusing, and then went to bed.  They left early in the morning because Andy had to be back in D.C. for a robotics competition.  Saturday I was determined to try one of the recipes that I had missed while I was absent.  I didn't want to get too far behind so I decided to make eclairs which included three elements that I had missed that week; pate a choux, pastry cream, and ganache. 

Even though I had asked Brook and Chef Katie about the recipes, copied Brooke's notes and basically made her act the process out for me like charades, I still could not manage to get it right.  I attempted pastry cream 3 times before I decided to call it quits for the day.  I felt so terrible that I was not concentrating at all.  I called the emergency number for my doctor's office and left a message.  I really needed to know if there was anything I could take for my upset stomach because all of the drugs I had picked up at the pharmacy told me not to mix with antibiotics.  Thankfully, my doctor got back to me and wrote me a new prescription for a different antibiotic which he called into the local CVS.  At this point all I was thinking about was how long I could stay on my feet before I needed to lie down.  So instead of baking anymore we went downstairs and watched Crank.

Chris' parents got home and we went out to dinner at Red Lobster.  I had never been to a Red Lobster and honestly, now having been there once, I think I'm all set for the rest of my life.  Granted, I was ridiculously sick and weak and feverish, but the food really sucked, and the waitstaff was not that great.  On the way to dinner we realized that the local CVS that was located in Sketchville, MD had closed early.  So I had to wait another day to get new drugs.

Casey showed up at Chris' on Sunday morning after breakfast while I was completing my eclairs.  I had finally gotten the stupid pastry cream right (apparently I had it right all along but I kept thinking there was something wrong with it.  Go figure.) and was filling my eclairs.  Since K is an amazing sisterfriend, she went to the sketch CVS and picked up my drugs while I finished the eclairs (which were delicious).  I packed up my stuff and the three of us had lunch before Casey and I left for home.

More to come... Julibean <3

Strep Throat

So our last day in Seattle we went to the park and took a bunch of pictures with Dan's new badass camera.  We basically just ran around posing and jumping in midair and such.  It was a beautiful day, clear blue sky, great temperature.  These are the days that make me want to move to the west coast.  Well maybe some day, but certainly not now. 

Later we packed up our stuff into Dan's car and then met his friends at a hibachi restaurant.  I've been to plenty of hibachi places, and I pretty much always love them, but the performance tends to always be the same.  However, the guy at this place was the best hibachi chef I'd ever seen.  He did awesome unexpected tricks, and was so nice, personable, and funny.  I would definitely go back there again.  Pretty much everyone in the restaurant was laughing and having a great time, the atmosphere was amazing. 

This couple that we had dinner with is actually getting married shortly, and Dan, our very own internet minister will be marrying them.  Trust me, I had the, "Dan should marry Chris and I" argument with my mom plenty of times and I'm just not even going to bother going there again.  It was pretty pointless.  It's a Catholic wedding for us!

We had a pretty terrible flight back.  Elise felt awful at dinner, and whatever she got slowly spread to me throughout the flight so by the time we got back to JFK we were both miserable.  I called in sick to school because I could not even keep myself sitting upright I was in so much pain and discomfort.  Turns out we both had strep throat and Dan got bronchitis.  What a lovely trip to Seattle it was!

Elise and I had crazy high fevers and went to the doctor.  Elise's throat was so sore that her tonsils were literally swollen and bleeding and she had to be prescribed pain medication.  I was told to stay home an extra day from school until I was on antibiotics for 48 hours.  I ended up missing Creme Anglase, Pastry Cream, Pate a Choux, Meringue, Chocolate Mousse, Eclairs, Ganache, and Paris Breast so I had a lot of catching up to do when I got back to school.

Unfortunately, whatever antibiotic that the doctor put me on did more harm than good.  Apparently when I was a baby augmentin made me very sick, but my mom failed to mention this to me, so I didn't know to avoid it.  I was incredibly sick to my stomach, could barely eat anything, had to use the bathroom a lot, and was consequently very dehydrated, still had a sore throat, and was light headed and dizzy from not eating.

I stuck it out in class anyway, after telling Brooke that I felt terrible and asking her to do anything that involved walking over to the hot ovens or stove tops.  I was really pathetic.  We prepped flaky pie dough and apple filling for a pie we were going to make the next day.  I made it through the day and then really started to feel sick as we were leaving.  In true Julie style, I managed to throw up out the driver's side door of my mother's car on the shoulder of the Meadowbrook Parkway after quickly drifting across three lanes with my mouth clenched shut.  Not one of my finest moments.  Needless to say I think I went home and went to sleep.  I don't even remember.  All I know is that those antibiotics were really not working for me, and my throat still hurt like a mofo.  

Back in Seattle

After we got home from the Olympics were were back at Dan's place in Seattle.  On Saturday we hung around the house and played some rock band.  Everyone was pretty sleepy and Dan was feeling like crap since his arm hurt and he was getting sick.  We took a quick trip to the supermarket to get some Seattle's Best coffee for Mama and then had some sushi for lunch.  On the way home we stopped by the Boeing Plant where Dan works because we saw the giant marshmallow plane taking off.  It turns out it was landing, but we got the chance to show Jason the planes and took a quick trip through the gift shop.  I picked up a few pens, a pair of really soft sweatpants, and a tee shirt for Chris.

Later that night we were invited out to dinner for Dan's friend Julie's birthday.  We had met her and her husband one previous time.  The last time Elise and I visited Seattle a few summers ago, we went to the Folk Life festival and the Space Needle, among other places, and had dinner with Dan's friends at Julie's place after we watched them play an indoor soccer game.  Before dinner we stopped by Dan's friend The German Guy's (Thomas') house and helped him pack up the kids, Runja and Leif, and bring them along to dinner.  A few years when we visited, Runja was just a toddler trying to crawl/run around.  It was great to see her all grown up as a 6 year old, and meet their baby son Leif.

Julie's birthday dinner was at a Moroccan restaurant.   None of us had ever eaten Moroccan food before, but it was absolutely delicious.  Everything I ate that day tasted amazing.  Dinner did take fucking forever, but it was more of an experience, than a meal. 

Julie eating her birthday cake. 

The Belly Dancer. 

 The waiter was really great with Thomas' kids, especially Runja who would not stop talking the entire night.  Julie's birthday was easily taken over by everyone talking to and paying attention to Runja.  Who is pretty cute, I'm not going to lie.  But I think she may have been the one to get us all sick...

Runja's little brother Leif with my sister.

Even More Things That Happened Months Ago!

So here we go again with me trying to catch up on posts.  I'll let you know when things actually get current again!

Julibean <3

Well Fuuuuuuuck

So I had meant to catch up on blogging when I had free time on the weekends.  I had a list written up of all the things I've done between my last post and now, but my computer seems to have eaten it.  So let's maybe do a quick picture montage?  Maybe I can remember everything that went down?  I doubt it.  But I can sure try!

1.  The Quest for Quatchi
Let's do a little history lesson about this post.  Spring break of Sophomore year, the fiance and the boys (Andy, Tim, and Ashley) had plans to go to the Whistler resort in Vancouver (the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics) to go skiing.  They had booked the trip before Chris and I had started going out, and I didn't ski anyway so I took them down to my house and dropped them off at JFK.  I spent the week doing a whole lot of nothing and staring at my phone hoping that Chris would brave the excessive phone charges and give me a call.  They spent the week skiing and hitting up all of the local bars and clubs, having a great time.  I go back to JFK on Sunday to pick them up so we can drive back up to school and the boys begin to strap their huge ski bag on top of the car while Chris walks towards me with a plastic bag with some squishy brown feet sticking out.

Enter Quatchi.  Chris and Ashley had decided that this strange looking stuffed animal in the Vancouver gift shop was the most adorable thing in the world and needed to be purchased for me. 

 So meet Quatchi.  He is a youth Sasquatch from the northern lands of Saskatchewan.  He enjoys photography, and ice hockey, and his favorite color is chill blue (the color of his earmuffs).  For a full biography, look here.  There are even fun Quatchi games to play and pictures to color, and yes, I have done all of that.  Anyway if you read his bio and think about how huge and hairy and shy a Sasquatch would be,  you'd realize that Quatchi and Chris are pretty much the same person.  So I began to call him my little Sasquatch, and when he gets upset he makes a "sad Quatchi" face, etc., etc. 

I'll admit that I became a little mildly obsessed with Quatchi.  He was in my bed every night, crooked under my arm.  If at all possible, Chris loves Quatchi more than I do and in the "hiatus", ("divorce"? "separation"? whatever you want to call it) Quatchi stayed with Chris, meaning he then went on a cross country trip strapped into the back seat of Chris' Sonata.  Here's a little Quatchi photo shoot, in case you were interested in some more Quatchi porn. 

One day while surfing the internet for hours at a time as the sister likes to do, she sends me a link to this picture:

Not only are there people wearing life sized mascot suits, but they are riding a three person bicycle! Look at the tiny little bike helmet on Quatchi's head!  So on our trip to the Olympics, I was on a mission to find these characters and get a photo with them to frame for the fiance.  Elise and I checked the Olympic schedule and found that they would in fact be in the Olympic City the day we were there.  I searched high and low, and did not catch a glimpse of them. 

The real kicker is, we went out to dinner with Dan's friends Sunday night before we had to jump on the flight, and they told this story about how they saw these gigantic mascots running around.  I was so jealous!  One day... I will find them.  Anyway, since we couldn't find the mascots, Elise took a picture of every Quatchi we could find throughout the trip:

More posts to come...

Julibean <3

Ketchup Post

I'm not even going to pretend that I had time to post in the past few weeks. So instead of back dating posts and trying to remember what happened at every point since February, I'm just going to start recapping with pictures interspersed wherever applicable. So here we go!

Kitchen Day 3: Cheesecake, Creme Caramel, & Creme Brulee

I have no idea how to make French accents in blogger, so I'm just going to pretend that all of these French words are spelled/accented correctly.

Kitchen Day 3 was the last day I would be in class before I left for Seattle to visit my brother and go to the Olympics in Vancouver. Since our flight was leaving at around 2 p.m., I was only able to stay for the first few hours of class. Brooke and I put together our cheesecakes and creme caramel, and then I had to get going. Sadly, I missed creme brulee and still haven't had the chance to try it on my own, but I'm pretty sure that as long as I can make custard (which I've got down pretty well at this point) then creme brulee wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Chef Katie was nice enough to bake off my cheesecake for me and use it to demonstrate un-molding during the next class and put it in the freezer for me so I could pick it up when I got back from my trip. I ended up giving the cheesecake to my friend Casey and her family who raved about it and said it was the best cheesecake they've ever eaten. I will have to make sure to try a piece next time I make one that comes out that good.

Creme caramel a.k.a. flan, was also pretty simple. We made caramel first, just heated water and sugar until it browned to a nice caramel color. Then we poured the caramel into small individual ramekins and let it harden, then poured the custard on top. I had to leave before they were baked, so I'm not sure how it came out, but it looked pretty f*ing delicious to me, so there you go.

Trip to Seattle and Vancouver

On 2/24 we flew to Seattle from JFK. The flight was pretty uneventful considering I can't remember what happened. The woman who had the seat next to Elise was nice enough to switch with me, so I got to sit with her and Jason, so that was nice. It's always better to be able to touch the person next to you without feeling weird about it. I listened to the Twilight books on tape for the majority of the trip. As embarrassing as it is, I decided to read the books after seeing the first Twilight movie. I'm not going to say that I am now a Twilight freakazoid and don't ask me what fucking team I'm on, I so don't care, but I liked the movie enough to be curious about the books. After hearing from Casey and Elise about how utterly ridiculous the story line was, I decided to see for myself. I'm never going to say that I enjoyed them 1/4 as much as the Harry Potter series. I am a true HP fiend at heart, and I am not one bit ashamed to admit it. However, being apart from the fiance for so long makes me really into love stories and happy endings. I was particularly interested in the Twilight movie because of the whole, "I can't kiss you even though I'd kill my rabbi with a pork chop to stick it in you right about now" mentality. The anticipation was very sexy to me and I got interested real fast.

Anyhoo, Dan picked us up from the airport and we hit the Seattle Ikea because Elise wanted to show Jason some of the furniture that she has so expertly picked out for his apartment that she doesn't live in yet. I wandered around and scoped out a few things that the fiance and I will be needing for the new condo, if and when we actually get our hands on it. I sat on a few of the couches and looked for some china cabinets that might be useful to us in the new place. Afterward we went to meet Dan's friend Christina for fo. I had never eaten fo before, and I will definitely try any food once, but it was not my favorite. Dan and Elise were really into it though so I just ate my meat and bean sprouts quietly until it was time to go.

We packed up our things for the Vancouver trip and then went to bed. We left for the Olympics in the morning after triple checking that everyone had their passports.

Passport Check

Apparently Dan had read the Twilight books as well and asked me to put on the audio book where I had left off over the car stereo. Let me tell you, my 27 year old brother Dan gives an amazing commentary to teenybopper drama novels. We had a great time laughing at him making inappropriate hand gestures and comments along with the audio for most of the trip.

We passed through the border to Canada with no incident, switched the GPS to kilometers so we wouldn't accidentally speed through Canada and break Dad's one and only rule for our trip, "no international incidents". We drove through the Olympic traffic of downtown Vancouver, parked the car and went to the will call office to grab our tickets for the Women's Gold Medalist Curling event we were to see the next day. Then we went for a walk to find the Olympic Superstore (touristy souvenirs) which was incredibly well hidden and once we finally found it after making several laps around the mall had a 3 block long line, and we decided to skip it, get back to the car and go to Stanley Park.





Stanley Park is a beautiful 1,000 acre park whose main attraction is little area with a totem pole exhibit. We checked the poles out for a while and then did some serious damage at the gift shop. They were carrying a lot of Olympic merchandise and since we didn't end up getting anything downtown, we bought all sorts of crap. The saleswomen were really nice and helped us pick things out for about an hour or so. We had a lot of gifts to buy for everyone back home.



After that we made another little trek to the Cappilano Suspension Bridge Park that I had been wanting to visit ever since I saw the pictures of Mom and Dad there with Dan a few years ago. It was beautiful and really cool. Here are some of the better pictures.

Fun in the gift shop.

A lot of the statues in Vancouver were decked out in Olympic gear.

The Suspension Bridge

D'awww

I'm a Tree Hugger

I love these pictures of us

Dan took a lot more awesome pictures on his badass camera, but I haven't gotten to those yet.

I've got my hiking face on!

After this we drove about an hour to our hotel, picked up dinner and hit up a liquor store, and then settled into bed while watching Olympic Women's figure skating. You've got to love Canada, they took American cash for everything and had two liters of delicious hard cider in multiple flavors. Why isn't America so accommodating?

Let's face it. Jason snores like a beast. My Dad is a terrible snorer, one you can hear from the opposite side/floor of the house, but Jason blows him out of the water. This is why Elise warned us, and equipped us all with ear plugs. I fell asleep fine and it didn't really bother me. Dan however, couldn't sleep at all, and unbeknown to us spent half the night screaming at Jason, throwing pillows at his face, and kicking him to make him shut up. At some point in there I did hear Dan say that he had had enough and was going to sleep in the bathtub, but I wasn't quite coherent. Apparently Dan slept in the bathtub for a few hours until he accidentally turned the water on himself. Add that to the fact that Dan is in incredible pain and needs surgery on his shoulder, and he was just about ready to kill Jason the next morning. We hit up a Denny's for breakfast and drove to the Olympics.

Olympic Curling

We spent a good 40 minutes looking for a spot in the parking structure of one of the local train stations. Finally we were able to stalk a nice Canadian man to his car, and Elise got out of the car, followed him to his spot and stood in it while he left. Everyone was jealous, but we had already claimed him. We got on a train for free with our curling tickets and traveled a few stops and then took a shuttle to the arena where the event was being held. It was raining at this point and we waited in line for security for about 15 minutes. After being very mildly molested by the security guards we made our way inside the arena and promptly got some Molson's at the concession stand.

We got to our seats with about an hour left until the event was scheduled to start, so we just got situated, people watched, and watched the staff prep the ice and the curling stones for the match.

Quatchi Hat

By the way, if you haven't figured it out yet, I take the worst pictures in the world. They're really terrible. It's a combination of me sucking and not holding the camera steady and the quality of my hand me down camera in the first place. But let's just say that if you think of them as art, they're really quite nice. And if you see a really nice looking photo on my blog at any time, chances are I didn't take it at all, it was probably one of the other members of my family.

Canadian Pride!

Let me just say that everyone we came across in Canada was incredibly nice, polite, considerate, and helpful. 95% of the people in the arena were Canadian, and there was a lot of national pride going on since their team was in the gold medalist match. As far as I saw, we were the only Americans in the bunch. The people around us were so nice and explained the entire game to us as it happened. We were curling novices compared to the rest of the people at the match and they were more than willing to fill us in on the rules and what kind of strategy they thought the teams were going to use and why. It really enhanced the experience for us, and gave me a great appreciation for curling, way more than I would have had, had the Canadians not walked us through it.

Checking out the Stones

Sweet Curling Hat

Prepping the Ice

The Swedes

The Canadians

Measuring to see whose stone is the closest to the button.

National Pride or Starving for Warmth? I think you know the answer.

Cowbell!

We rooted for the home team, cheered, rang our cowbell, and chatted with everyone around us. It was a really good time and I would absolutely do it again. The Canadians ended up losing to the Swedish, but Silver is still pretty awesome and we continued to show pride for our seriously terrible countrywomen who placed 10th out of the top 10. Yeah that's right, U-S-A! It was pretty dark by the time we got out of the arena and we decided to walk back to the train station this time. We made it back to the car and drove the 2 hours back to Dan's place then promptly passed out.

Medal Ceremony

National Anthem Time

Things I noticed while in Canada:
1. Everyone is super polite. One Canadian fan was heckling the Swedish skip, yelling and making a scene. Someone a few rows ahead of us stood up and simply called, "Excuse me, do you think you could be quiet? Thank you." Dan and I were laughing so hard at this. If we were in America, someone would have cursed him out and decked him by now.
2. The Canadians did a great job of running the events. There were volunteers everywhere directing traffic, everyone was friendly and helpful, pointing you in the right direction and answering questions. Their crowd control was great, and there were even people sitting on ladders with megaphones giving people directions and also giving the scores and outcomes of other events that were happening at the time.
3. Canada seems to be entirely on the honor system. No one checked tickets at the train station, there were cops everywhere and no one even asked. And yet, Canadians were lined up at the ticket machines buying them anyway.
4. When we went to go to the bathroom, Elise and I pushed open the normal door with the ladies room sign and suddenly found ourselves in a tent that was outside the actual arena completely filled with upwards of 50 porta potties. Totally not what we were expecting, but hilarious nonetheless.
5. Everyone was so friendly. I had conversations with the people on all sides of us in the stands, and everyone was nicely chatting it up on the lines for the bathroom and drinks. Asking where we were from, about RPI, how we got into curling, why we traveled to Canada, how the drive was, etc.
6. Even though you would expect mounted police officers to be, you know, mounted. There were mounties all over the place but none of them were actually on horses.
7. You can set off fireworks in the bedroom, and Jason still isn't going to stop snoring or wake up in the slightest.
8. The accents are adorable. They do say aboot, and other things like that, but mostly they sound like they're from Minnesota or something. And they don't curse. I felt like a drunken sailor on leave the whole time we were there and was constantly trying to hold my tongue.

I'll get through the rest of the Ketchup post tomorrow, it's almost 1 a.m. and I have class tomorrow. Until next time,

Julibean <3