Looking for a New Adventure? Splendid!

Do you think I’m fairly great with numerous talents and a sparkling personality?   

Is there a job in the greater Champaign-Urbana area that you think I would perform fabulously?  

If so, send me a link, because I am on the hunt!   

It's been the question on my mind and the minds of many others over the last few months, and a decision has been made.  I will not be returning to the theatre when it reopens, and I am ready for a new adventure.  I enjoyed my time at the theatre and the park district, but I really am open to trying something new.  As a guideline, I would absolutely prefer to work full-time at an organization that offers typical benefits like paid time off and health insurance, but if you know of a really sweet part-time gig for me, hit me up!

Valentine's Dinner? Splendid

Valentine's Day may very well be a holiday perpetuated by retailers, but I do love an excuse to tell people how much I love them.  My boyfriend and I went out for a fancy a fancy Valentine's Day dinner the first year we were together.  He was still trying to woo me, after all.  We went to a local Japanese restaurant to enjoy a fun meal prepared on a teppanyaki grill.  Of course, as one might imagine, the restaurant was incredibly busy that night, and there were at least 16 of us crowded around a table meant for 12.  The couple to one side of us bickered the entire time, and the couple on the other side didn't want the food typically prepared on the grill.  They ordered chicken teriyaki or shrimp tempura or something.  While we made the best of our meal, the ambiance certainly left something to be desired.

Not only did that experience turn us off to going out for super romagical (it's a word we invented) Valentine's dinners, but our anniversary is in late January, and both of us have birthdays in mid-March, so we have plenty of reasons to celebrate in the first quarter.  So now we go out for fancy dinners for our anniversary and take turns making dinner for each other for Valentine's Day.  We're slightly adorable.

This year was my turn to cook, and I started planning very early, as I'm wont to do.  I started searching my BFF, Pinterest, to come up with recipes for a Valentine's Menu.  I finally settled on stuffed mushrooms, spinach salad with warm bacon dressing, smoky pork pappardelle, and blackberry swirl pound cake served with vanilla ice cream.  Anyone who knows me relatively well is probably wondering if there were planning spreadsheets involved.  Yes, of course!  In my defense, there was only an actual spreadsheet involved for the grocery shopping, with every ingredient needed listed by meal component and section of the grocery store.

It was also a pretty busy week around here, so I knew that I wanted to serve the meal on Saturday, and I knew that I would need to do a lot of prep work during the week.  This is how I broke down the work.

First up was making the sauce for the pasta.  I used the Smoky Pork Pappardelle recipe from Food & Wine Magazine as my guide.  The recipe was very simple to follow, and I made three deviations from the original.  Despite the "smoky" moniker for the dish, I did not use smoked salt.  This was purely because I already have 3 varieties of salt on hand, and I really didn't feel the need to buy any more.  Along the same vain, the recipe calls for champagne vinegar.  I used red wine vinegar because it's what I had on hand.  Also, when the pork and sauce are done cooking, the recipe says to strain the sauce and gently push on the solids.  I wanted a really creamy sauce, so I used my immersion blender to mix it all together.  Once the sauce was blended, and the pork was shredded, everything went into the fridge till Saturday.  On Saturday, I started reheating it on the stove about 45 minutes before I wanted to serve it so  I could bring the temperature up slowly.  I waited till right before I served it to add the mascarpone cheese.

Sauce in three phases

Preparation Day 2 was strictly for the Blackberry Swirl Pound Cake from Martha Stewart.  After getting in a small domestic disturbance with my food processor, we were in business.  I didn't want to run out of puree in the middle of the loaf, so I was conservative with the amount I used in the middle.  That was unnecessary, because I have a lot of blackberry puree leftover now, which is fine.  I served the pound cake with vanilla ice cream, and we drizzled more blackberry puree over the top of the cake and ice cream.  When eating the leftovers, I've taken to nuking the cake for 20 seconds or so.  It's awesome.

Preparation Day 3 was really just about an hour I had before we hit the road to see Scott's friend direct big annual band concert in their hometown.  Since I knew I didn't have much time, I used that to prep the Stuffed Mushrooms from Delicious Meliscious (who got it from Ina Garten, according to her blog).  I cut the recipe in half and made 8 mushrooms.  There was nothing too surprising in the recipe, but it came together beautifully.  The stuffing is very flavorful, and using panko instead of regular breadcrumbs gave it a great texture.  My only note would be to lower the cooking time by a few minutes.  Mine turned out okay, but they could have come out of the oven a few minutes earlier.  I didn't take a picture of the mushrooms before cooking them, and the only picture I have shows the well-done final state, but in the interest of honesty, here you go.

This picture does nothing for the mushrooms.  They were good!

Preparation Day 4 was also Saturday.  The day I served all this food to my beloved.  Once we got home from Scott's hometown, I got to work.  Well that's not entirely true.  First I went out to buy "emergency fancy pasta" in case my plans didn't work.  Then I came home and got down to business.  It's been years since I made fresh pasta (hence emergency pasta), and the last attempt didn't go especially well (dysfunctional Kitchen Aid mixer).  Now armed with a new(er) mixer (Kitchen Aid customer service was excellent), the pasta maker attachment, semolina flour, and this recipe for fresh pasta from Got Mixer?, I set about making the dough.  I cut the original recipe in half, and I'm glad I did, because it might actually make a metric ton of pasta.  I certainly made more than enough.  (Also, holy parentheticals, Batman!)

We made pasta a few times growing up, and I remember having a blast making it together with my family.  We used a manual roller that clamped onto the table and had to be cranked by hand.  It was not really a one-person activity.  Using the Kitchen Aid roller was so helpful.  This part was definitely time consuming, but it was also by far the most rewarding part of making this meal.  A pound of semolina and AP flour, three eggs, and a few Donna Noble episodes of Doctor Who later, I had a gorgeous tray of thin fresh pasta cut into wide ribbons of pappardelle.

 

All that was left after the pasta was the spinach salad and warm bacon dressing.  I didn't really take any process photos of this dish, because there wasn't much to it.  I cooked the bacon, boiled the eggs, and made the dressing while I was waiting for the pasta dough to rest.  I used a recipe from Flavors by Four for the dressing.  I didn't have prepared honey mustard on hand, so I used dijon mustard and added honey.  I'm glad I went this route, because I felt like the sauce needed to be sweetened up a little, so I added more honey during the cooking process.  The finished product was delicious with the crisp spinach and bacon, and the nice contrast with the mushrooms and eggs.

Everything came together really well for the meal.  I'm very proud of it, and Scott said it was probably the best complete meal I've made for him.  That's pretty high praise, I would say.

Not pictured: Poundcake

Scott was such a good sport as I made him wait to eat so I could take pictures.  I promised him I wasn't going to become one of "those people", but I was am proud of the meal, and I knew I wanted to blog about it.  Because honestly, how good does this look?  Seriously, I spent a lot of the meal talking about how good it was, which earned me some teasing, but it was SO GOOD!

Even cutting most of the recipes in half, I still have so much pasta left, and I am okay with that.  I will happily eat this for the rest of the week if necessary.  

Who wouldn't want to eat this for a week?

Just in case you're curious, this is what my kitchen workspace looked like last week.  I've been taping recipes to cabinets for years now, because it puts them at eye level.  Since this meal was prepared over the course of 4 days, I needed the recipes to stay handy.

So, yeah.  That's what I was up to last week.  That's why I was Facebooking about the patron saint of cooking.  That's what I made for my man to celebrate our tenth Valentine's Day together.  When I was in Kansas City last winter, we visited a Penzey's store.  As you checkout from the store, they have bumper stickers that pretty much sum up how I feel about cooking for people:

 

More Orange Kitchen Favorites? Splendid

I've already written about some of the orange items you'll find in my kitchen, but that list of three things is by no means exhaustive.

Besides the orange pasta pot and drainer, Stacey also gave me a sweet orange knife for Christmas this year!  It's almost too pretty to use... almost.  It's lightweight, sharp, and it fits very comfortably in my hand.  Pretty color or not, I currently use this knife more than my santoku knife.

My friend, Ginny, bought me a couple of awesome orange melamine spoons for my birthday a few years ago, and I love them.  One is a slotted spoon, and the other is a solid serving spoon that's kind of squared off on the edge.  She bought them at a local store, Art Mart, and they don't have any markings on them, but from what I can tell, they probably came from Rosti Mepal in the Netherlands.  I love that they're heat resistant and sturdy, and if I take them to a potluck, everyone knows they belong to me!

Last December I "helped" (read: rode along with) my friend Matt move to Kansas City where he lives with my friend Elizabeth.  Elizabeth, being an exceedingly thoughtful gift giver as well as tour guide, took me to Pryde's Kitchen.  As she suspected, I was in heaven, and I would guess we spent more than an hour browsing all the nooks and crannies filled with Fiestaware and kitchen gadgets.  One of the best thing I stumbled upon was the orange happy spoon made by Zak! Designs.  It's funny because when Elizabeth lived in town, her roommate had the green happy spoon, and I had always loved it.  I had to have it.

Frank Sinatra once said "Orange is the happiest color."  I mean, obviously.  I have an orange spoon that is so happy it smiles at me!

For the record, as much as I want everything in my kitchen/life to be orange, I have quite a few orange kitchen utensils that I won't blog about because they're inferior products.  They're more like attractive people who aren't so bright: I just want them to sit there and look pretty.

The Fault In Our Stars? Splendid!

I’ve talked before about my love of reading, and my love of YouTube.  These two worlds came crashing together recently, culminating when I read The Fault in our Stars by John Green.  This is how it happened:

Step 1. Love Reading

Step 2. Discover Hannah Hart and My Drunk Kitchen.  Subscribe to her YouTube channels.

Step 3. Discover The Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube.  (Yay Jane Austen!  Yay Pride & Prejudice!) Submerse myself in all things LBD: YouTube channels (including Lydia’s, Maria’s, and Pemberley Digital’s), Twitter accounts, Facebook page, Tumblr blogs, the works.

Step 4.  Start paying attention to the different YouTubers featured in Harto’s videos, including DailyGrace and Hank Green.

Step 5.  Realize Hank Green is one of the creative geniuses behind LBD.

Step 6.  Watch An Evening of Awesome video – a celebration of the 1^st anniversary of John Green’s novel  The Fault in our Stars, mostly because Harto and DailyGrace said they were in it.  Enjoy the reading performed by LBD actors Ashley Clements and Daniel Gordh so much that I downloaded the book for my iPad that night.

Step 7. Instead of rearranging all the new furniture and storage options for the house that currently reside in the living room, employ favorite procrastination technique: read a chapter in a book.  Start with chapter 1 of The Fault in our Stars.

Step 8. Become so enthralled by the beautiful writing that all other goals for the day fall by the wayside.  Devour entire book in approximately 4 hours.

Seriously, I spent about 4 hours on Sunday reading The Fault in our Stars from electronic cover to electronic cover.  It's a really great story about how two sick young adults find each other in a cancer support group.  But it's so much more than that.  It's about making the most out of the life you've been given.  It's about being honest with the people you care about.  It's about pain both physical and emotional.  It's about love, young love that is real and magical.

The book is considered young adult fiction, but as many of my friends and I know, that's where you can find some of the best fiction.  Do yourself a favor and read this book.  Also, follow John and his brother Hank on their YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers. They use the catchphrase, "Don't forget to be awesome," and that's something I think everyone could stand to hear more often.

200 Years of Elizabeth Bennet? Splendid

January 28^th, 2013 was the 200^th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Pride and Prejudice is one of the most ardently admired love stories in all of literature.  (See what I did there?  Mixing two P&P references in the same sentence…) 

I think it’s so incredible that this story written published in 1813 rings true enough with modern people that they continue to retell the story over and over.  In the last twenty years, there have been numerous versions of the story produced for TV and film.  Of course, three of them really stick out for me

 

The 1995 miniseries adaptation for the BBC starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet contained six episodes and one lake scene that viewers won’t soon forget.  This version really elevated Colin Firth to stardom, especially in the U.S.

Bridget Jones’s Diary, the 2001 film adaptation based on the novel by Helen Fielding.  Elizabeth Bennet, or in this case Bridget Jones, smoked, drank, had a vulgar mother and verbal diarrhea, but Mr. Mark Darcy liked her anyway – just as she was.  Colin Firth playing this newer version of Darcy didn’t hurt his image with the fans either.  I always found it amusing that in the Bridget Jones book sequel, The Edge of Reason, Bridget interviews Colin Firth about the infamous lake scene in the 1995 version.  The interview didn’t make it to the final cut of the second movie, but you can find it on the DVD special features.

For a lot of younger fans, when they imagine Elizabeth Bennet, they picture Keira Knightley.  The 2005 film brought the classic story to a whole new generation of fans.  It does not hurt the film one bit that Dame Judi Dench plays Lady Catherine, because who doesn’t love Judi Dench?  No one.  She’s amazing.

A few months ago I stumbled upon the YouTube series TheLizzie Bennet Diaries.  It’s a modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that takes place through a series of short vlogs.  The main characters are all there in some form, though the Bennet family is slightly different.  There are only three Bennet daughters: Jane, Lizzie, and Lydia.  Mary Bennet is a cousin while Kitty Bennet is, well, the family cat.  Lizzie is a graduate student making videos as part of her course work, and her best friend, Charlotte, does most of the editing.  The Bennet sisters and Charlotte make guest appearances in a lot of Lizzie’s videos.

Charlotte, Lizzie, Lydia, and Jane

One of the most unique parts to the web series is the “costume theatre” Lizzie uses to reenact conversations. 

Lydia as Bing Lee and Lizzie as Darcy

The viewer has yet to see Lizzie’s parents, but she and her posse tell the viewers everything they need to know through recreations of the scenes that took place off camera. 

Lizzie as Mrs. Bennet and Charlotte as Mr. Bennet

Reenactments are how the viewers initially get to know Darcy, though he appears in later videos.

Darcy portraying himself and Lizzie in episode 80

I really love that the creators of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries have gone beyond Lizzie’s own videos to create a whole universe for the characters.  In addition to Lizzie’s videos, Lydia has her own vlog.  I find this particularly fascinating, because you really see how Lydia’s character develops throughout the story.  The characters also have Tumblrs blogs and Twitter accounts.  You can see the characters interact with one another, so even on days when there are no videos, the story continues.

Despite the fact that many of the viewers and fans of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries already know how the story ends, the writers and actors have us riveted.  They have done an incredible job of updating the story and making it relevant for modern fans 200 years after the original.

Lizzie’s videos are updated on Wednesdays and Fridays and Lydia’s videos are uploaded Tuesdays and Fridays, all at 9am Pacific.  You can subscribe to their updates on Twitter.  For all other information, including actor bios and the story behind the project, visit the Lizzie Bennet Diaries homepage.

Sisters in Music? Splendid

In the fall of 2003, I was a freshman in college.  I was having the time of my life, loving my new town, my new classes, and all the incredible new friends I made in the Marching Illini.  There was a group of about 10 junior and senior girls in my section who really looked out for me.  At the end of rehearsal one day, three of them approached me about joining their women’s music fraternity.  I had no intention of “going Greek” during college, and I initially told them I wasn’t interested.  They asked me to attend an informational meeting for the group before making any decisions.

Sometime in the next week, another trumpet playing music major friend of mine and I attended an information night about the group.  I like to say that the girl who ran the event started with the line, “You should join Sigma Alpha Iota because we like music and we like food… a lot.”  That may or may not have been a direct quote, but it’s the sentiment that counts.  It’s the same sentiment that worked to get me to another meeting.

In all seriousness, I didn’t really understand the scope of Sigma Alpha Iota when I rushed and was a pledge.  (Yes, we still called them that in those days!  Now it’s recruitment and members-in-training.)  What I did understand was that it was an organization of women who came together because of their interest in music.  I saw that the members of my chapter were leaders in ensembles and other organizations.  They were women I really admired.  As a member of a male-dominated trumpet section, it was great to have those role models.  Going through my education period allowed me to grow closer to the other members of my pledge class which was important.  Not only was my trumpet section male-dominated, it was also huge, so had it not been for SAI I probably never would have made friends outside my section!

Every SAI remembers her Initiation.

I loved my collegiate SAI experience.  I served on quite a few committees, held a position on the executive board, helped organize fundraisers benefitting VH1 Save the Music, and formed genuine connections with my sisters in music.

Sigma Delta Chapter 2006

Executive Board

It was a tradition in my collegiate chapter to share favorite memories and write letters to graduating seniors as a way to say goodbye.   I didn’t grow up with sisters, and I honestly didn’t expect to gain any through a Greek organization in college.  So imagine my surprise the first time I realized the stifled sobs during one of these events was coming from ME!  I was saying goodbye to my Pledge Mom (it was still okay to call them that back then!) and another of my very good friends in the trumpet section.  That was the moment I realized that they were my sisters.

My Pledge Daughter and I say goodbye to my Pledge Mom

I had no idea my journey in membership of Sigma Alpha Iota was just beginning.  Little did I know that I would continue to be an active member of the local alumnae chapter, an advisor to two collegiate chapters, and a Province Officer in the national organization.  But those are stories for another time.

Vita Brevis, Ars Longa

Orange kitchen accessories? Splendid!

I say I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I became obsessed with the color orange, but if I really think about it, I bet I know when it happened.  In 2003, I was waiting very impatiently for my acceptance to the University of Illinois.  I had wanted to go there for at least 3 years, and since I was applying for the Music Education program, it not only took a great application, but also an audition and an interview to be accepted.  I played in the combo for the high school show choir, and we were gone for the weekend at a competition in Iowa in early March.  When we got back to the school, my brother and I started to load our belongings into my truck to drive home.  As I came around the driver’s side of the cab, I noticed something pulled over my seat.  When I approached, I realized it was an orange Illinois sweatshirt – my first.  After calling my parents to ask them if it meant what I thought it meant, they assured me that my acceptance letter had come in the mail while I was gone.  I put on my sweatshirt, celebrated with my friends, and headed home.  Little did I know it was just the beginning.

Over the course of the next few years, I began acquiring more orange things.   It started with Illinois paraphernalia, and it grew from there.  I’m the girl with multiple orange purses, orange phone cases, and no less than three orange dresses, among other things.  I also really enjoy cooking and baking, so that means I am often the very lucky recipient of orange kitchen utensils!  My stellar roommate gave me quite a few orange goodies for Christmas this year to add to the already ridiculous collection, and I find them all splendid.  Clearly that meant I needed to write a post about orange kitchen accessories.  Clearly.

I should say that none of this is sponsored.   I own all of these items, many of them gifts from loved ones, and no one is paying me to talk about them.  (If someone would like to pay me to talk about orange things, I would be ecstatic to do so.)

For Christmas 2011, I was given an orange Cuisinart 5-quart enamel cast iron covered casserole.  I have searched the internets high and low for an image of it, but I couldn’t find one.  It looks exactly like the Le Creuset 5.5-quart round French oven in flame, except it’s not.

LeCreuset 5.5-quart round French oven

PLUS

Cuisinart 5-quart round casserole

equals my pot

I love this pot.  It’s big and tough, and obviously a gorgeous color.  It has the strength and versatility of cast iron while the enamel makes it easier to clean.  No seasoning necessary!  I’ve used it on a number of occasions, and it is my go-to pot for making the contents of chicken pot pie.  I will also be using it to make Smoky Pork Pappardelle from Food & Wine for Valentine’s Day. 
The only con I have about it is that the handle on the lid is plastic, so even though the pot can go from stove to oven, the lid is not oven-safe.

Speaking of orange pots, the aforementioned stellar roommate gave me the Biale 5-quart Pasta Pot for Christmas 2012.   We eat a lot of pasta at my house, so the pot will probably not spend much time in the cabinet because it will constantly be in use.  This is one of those things I didn’t know I needed until I had it.

Biale 5-quart Pasta Pot available at Target

The aspect of design that makes this pot special is the lid.   The lid has a series of holes on one half of the lid, along with ridges on the edge.  The ovular shape allows the lid to be “locked” and “unlocked” on the pot by rotating it until it fits.  Once the lid is locked on, you can dump all the water without fear of losing your noodles.  (Losing your noodles… I might start saying that more often.)  The pot itself has two features I appreciate.  First, the lip of the pot is indented to create a slight spout for pouring.  I found this helpful when using the pot to make hard boiled eggs the other day.  Sure, it’s technically a vessel designed to boil pasta, but a pot’s a pot.  Am I right?  Anyway, the other feature I appreciate is that the handles stick out further than on a typical pot.  They have a nice shape, too, so it’s very comfortable to drain the water without fear of accidentally burning your hands.  Not that I do that often…

So I already mentioned we eat a lot of pasta, but we eat other things, too.   It’s just that a lot of them involve draining a pot in order to eat.  I also really hate using a colander because it takes up so much space, and to be honest, there’s usually already a dish that needs to be washed in the skink, and it just stresses me out.  Before I got the pasta pot, I was thinking about how much I wanted a flat drainer that’s held up to the top of the pot.  Apparently my fairy godmother/roommate picked up on this and also gave me the Trudeau Pot Drainer for Christmas.

Trudeau Pot Drainer available on Amazon.com

So flat, so simple, so little space needed!   It’s a dream come true.  And it’s ORANGE!  Seriously, opening this on Christmas morning, I was almost as excited about this little piece of dishwasher safe plastic as I was the iPad Mini I received.  It’s just what I always wanted!  Much like my Microplane zester, it was something I wanted and not very expensive, but for some reason I just hadn’t gotten around to buying one.

At this point I could wax poetic about my orange kitchen accessories for many more hours, but perhaps I’ll just have to turn this into a series!