Thanksgiving 2009

Continuing the Great Thanksgiving Travel Tradition, John and I took in some California scenery this weekend. Admittedly, it wasn't nearly as exotic as previous years' excursions (Rome, Buenos Aires), but it was considerably cheaper. The road trip earlier this year pretty much entirely destroyed my travel budget for the rest of the year (actually, it destroyed pretty much all my budgets, but hey. It was worth it).

We started with Joshua Tree National Park, continued to Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks, and ended the trip by coming down Big Sur and taking in Hearst Castle. It was great doing something that was in no way holiday related; as everyone else stressed over cooking the turkey and got caught in Black Friday traffic, we zipped through some incredible natural surroundings and ate potato chips and burritos. With almost no traffic.

Joshua Tree wasn't quite as alien a landscape as Badlands, but it was close. Strange trees, weirdly-shaped piles of rocks, desert. It was a beautiful clear sunny day, which provided us with some great views. And we saw a coyote. We spent the rest of the day driving up to Fresno, a convenient gateway to both Sequoia and Yosemite. Before I moved out here, I thought everyone in California was a surfer and a Democrat and smoked a lot of weed. You know, the classic stereotype. I was somewhat dismayed to discover exactly how many farms and farmers (and rednecks, and Republicans, and pickup trucks) there are in central/inland California.

We started the next day in Sequoia, where I got to drive some really twisty and fun mountain roads, and we saw some really big damn trees. Really. Big. Sequoia groves are eerily silent; maybe because the trees are so damn big, but I didn't hear any birds or see any other wildlife. No squirrels or chipmunks. The only spot of holiday traffic was in Yosemite; we got there about 2 pm on Black Friday, and apparently a great many people had the same idea, because it was really crowded. But it wouldn't have been a good day to visit, anyway; it was rainy and foggy, obscuring most of the famous views. All those people, and the rain, made me cranky. Fortunately, the rain provided an amazing double rainbow just outside the park's exit. I don't think I've ever seen a rainbow that was so bright or so close. Hearst Castle had a fair number of visitors, but there were only eight or so on our particular tour, and every other park/place we visited was almost entirely deserted.

It was great seeing Big Sur without all the traffic that I encoutered the first time I drove through; and it was also great taking the mountain roads there and in Sequoia without any traffic. John did at least half the driving, for which I was eternally grateful. It's very different seeing a national park from the passenger seat. He drives like my grandma, but it kept my road trip-related injuries from acting up (so I tried my damndest not to point out all the times when he was driving more than five miles under the speed limit). We road-trip very well together, my lead foot aside. Good tunes, an open road, and someone to share it with. What could be better? You can see the pics at Flickr.

Hearst Castle is the West Coast equivalent of Biltmore; an obnoxiously big and pretentious estate. There's some pretty stuff inside, but it's all thrown together. The house has no sense of itself. It's obvious Hearst was buying stuff just to buy it, to show off how much money he had, because why else would you ever put so much useless crap in one room? Decorative friezes, Greek vases, Roman statuary, medieval triptychs, Italian marble fireplaces, Renaissance portraiture, Turkish rugs, and Art Deco lamps have absolutely no business all being piled up in the same room. But there were amazing views, and I got the opportunity to drool over the enormous kitchen.

We got back late Saturday night and crashed (1700 miles in three days will do that to you). On Sunday, I ran errands and visited my friend Dave in LA. He works in a bar on Rodeo Drive, so I got to pretend to be well-heeled for the afternoon. We got in a quick drink at the Beverly Wilshire (of "Pretty Woman" fame) as well. I really like LA--I need to spend more time there.

John will be working late all this next week, so I'll be ramping up my cooking efforts and catching up on my reading. I'm eager to dive into the new Stephen King.

You know you're in California when... Part 2

I have just purchased earthquake insurance. Which, like flood insurance, is entirely separate and not covered in any standard homeowner's/renter's policy. It does not cover china.

San Diego Wine and Food Festival

This weekend I went to the annual San Diego Wine and Food Festival, held in Embarcadero Park, overlooking the ocean. First, let me just say that as far as I'm concerned, that is an ideal way to spend a Saturday. 70 degrees, sunny, on the water, wandering from booth to booth sampling great food, great wine, exotic liquors, artisanal chocolates and oils, cigars, craft beers, etc., not to mention collecting all the free swag (magazines, recipes, coupons, pens, blah blah blah). I discovered a lot of new and small wineries, and got some great ideas to apply to my own cooking (notable flavor combinations and ideas include: scallops with edamame puree, tuna tartare with lemon confit, gnocci with duck ragu, and hummus with pomegranate seeds).

I ate a lot, drank a lot, and took some great pictures of the water. Craft vodkas and tequilas were big, as were Mexican fusion flavors—I had at least twenty different variations of the classic fish-and-chile combination. I tasted a lavendar liqueur, wine jellies, and smoky mushrooms cooked in a Big Green Egg (which, FYI, I am seriously lusting after right now).

Favorite finds included:
Eclipse Chocolat. A local company specializing in some really awesome chocolates. Chocolate bar flavors include Sweet Basil-Mint, Gingerbread Crumb, Sea-Salt Nib, Blackberry Sage, Coconut Lime, Mango Masala, Orange Peel Anise, Espresso Walnut, Chile Hazelnut, Moroccan Spice, Macadamia Ginger, and Kyoto Green Tea. My favorite is the Sea-Salt Nib—big chunks of sea salt, with a hint of lavendar, spread throughout the chocolate bar. Sounds bizarre, but trust me, it is really really good. Especially for a salt fiend like me.

Temecula Olive Oil Company. Artisanal olive oils and vinegars, made from 100% California olives. Yum.

Forlorn Hope Wines. A small-batch Napa winery. Their La Gitana Torrontes is the only Torrontes I've ever had (including all the ones I had in Argentina) that wasn't cloyingly sweet. Phenomenal balance and fruit. The Mil Amores blend was also spectacular. I like wines like this—made from uncommon grapes, by a winemaker who's more interested in quality than quantity. The downside of that is that these wines will be hard to find—I'll probably have to break down and order them directly from the winery. But well worth it, in my opinion.

As an added bonus, the winemaker is really cute.

Peltier Station Wines. I'm not usually one for dessert wines. They also tend to be cloyingly sweet, and served with desserts that are already cloyingly sweet in themselves. But Peltier Station USB is one of the few fruity-but-not-sweet dessert wines in the world. I really liked this. It's 100% Zinfandel, technically a port, but called USB because a new EU rule dictates that wineries can't use the word "port" unless the wine was made in Portugal. So they called it USB instead...Get it? USB? Port? In another outstanding bit of geekery, the binary code on the front of the bottle translates to "Peltier Station." Awesome.

Caliza Winery. Azimuth: a blend of Rhone varietals, Syrah, Grenache, Mouvedre, Tannat and Alicante Bouschet. Very well balanced, and apparently Robert Parker's favorite of the bunch. Kissin' Cousins: another Rhone blend of Roussanne, Grenache Blanc, and Viognier.

Bonus points for their excellent font.

Vinni Bag. Why the hell didn't anyone think of this before?

Bledsoe Gallery. Because I'm a sucker for good travel photography—and pictures of wine corks.

You know you live in California when...

Last night I called a petsitting agency, to book someone to take care of the cats while John and I are traveling for Christmas. Here's an excerpt from that conversation...

Petsitter: "We can arrange to bring in your mail and water your plants, in addition to feeding the cats and taking care of the litterbox."

Me: "Oh! I hadn't even thought about that. If you could water the plants too, that would be great."

Petsitter: "Just so you know, we can't water any plants of the illegal variety."

Me: (...Pause.) "All my plants are of the garden edible legal variety, thanks. But...Really? Is that an issue? Does that come up a lot?"

Petsitter: (Darkly.) "Oh, you'd be surprised."

I had to laugh.

Holiday changes

OK, so, John's son will not be joining us for Christmas. H's mother neatly killed the idea of him on an epic road trip. It's sad, but I suppose the good news is that John and I no longer have to kill ourselves on the driving part to keep it as short as possible. We can stop and see things, and if we decide to keep driving, one of us can stretch out and sleep in the backseat. I hope to get a week (or close to it) with his family, and a week (or close to it) with mine. We may still have to haul ass on the way back, as I'd like to spend New Year's in Virginia. But having done this once by myself, I'm excited about doing it again with a co-pilot. I wonder what it's like going cross-country in the passenger seat.

In other news, I think I've officially settled in here. Since I've moved, I've been beset with troubling dreams (exes coming back to haunt me, my hair falling out), held captive by strange anxieties (I never, ever made the bed before, and I find myself needing to do it here. Why is that?), and just been generally tense about the future. Residual stress from being laid off/the road trip/moving? Perhaps. Intense laboring to get out from under the shadow of my past relationships? Probably. I've been here long enough now to have established a comfort level, and now the anxiety falls away? That's part of it, too, I'm sure. One day this week I woke up totally relaxed and happy. No more bad dreams, no more weird stressing about cleaning or making the bed, no more wondering if I'd done the right thing. I have. And it's amazing.

Oh, OH! And this weekend I'll be attending the San Diego Food and Wine Festival! All day Saturday! Look for happily drunk, drooly, generally inspired food-and-wine-related blogging in a couple of days...

Food, food, food...Christmas...some other things...food again

Hopefully everyone's had an opportunity to check out the new blog, www.brokefoodie.com, in which I wax rhapsodic about food, cooking, wine, food, and food. ("Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam..." okay, not Spam.) It's fun thinking about food all the time. I mean, I pretty much do anyway, being the glutton that I am, but now I have a reason to think about food outside of stuffing my own face. The site's still a little rough, but I'm slowly building it. Please let me know what you think! I'm also trying my hand at food photography. The results have been a little amateurish for my taste, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.

In other news, my Christmas shopping is done. "Done?!", you say. "It's not even Thanksgiving!" Which is why it's done. I hate lines, I hate crowds, and most of all, I hate combinations of those two things. The internet is the best thing that ever happened to Christmas shopping. Somewhere in late October/early November, I order everything I need (can you say amazon.com? 'Cause I can), wrap it, and shove it in a closet. There. Done. I'm always appalled by those people who wait until December 23 and then storm the mall. Hello? Christmas is the same day every year. It's not like it's a surprise.

And speaking of Christmas, I may be able to get a little more time off than I'd originally bargained for. Which would be awesome. I'm excited about the next cross-country road trip--well, of course Iam. I'm an old pro at this by now. John claims he's excited, too, and hopefully he actually is. The success of this plan hinges upon us driving and sleeping in shifts, so he'll need to be excited about it to get through. I think it'll be neat, driving for 28 hours straight between here and Missouri, but then, we all know I have strange tastes. He also claims his son is on board with the plan, though his ex is most definitely not. I'm continually amazed by how risk-averse some people are. I learned a long time ago that life is change; to claim otherwise, or to try to prevent change, is to fight a losing battle. The only way to get through is to embrace the change and uncertainty and ride it out as best you can. When I got laid off, I whined for a while, then I got off my ass, embraced the change, set out on a road trip, and completely changed my life for the better. Next time I won't even bother whining--I'll just look for the opportunity.

Okay, I'm veering off-topic here. My brain is a little all over the place these days. Once I stop thinking about food/blogging, suddenly it's like, "Oh wait! I have these other 49 things to think about," and then it's chaos for a while. But it's very nice to have a project, and something to fill my days other than just work/dinner/TV/a good book before bed. I've also got two trips to plan (Thanksgiving, in which we go to Joshua Tree National Park/Yosemite National Park/Big Sur again, and Christmas, in which we drive to Missouri and Virginia and become intimately familiar with I-40). And we all know how much I love planning trips.

Announcing my new blog!

www.brokefoodie.com

It's a little rough, graphically speaking, but it's out there. I'll be updating it regularly, and adding pictures/playing around with format. That'll be my cooking/food blog, and this will continue to be my everything else blog.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Ugh

John and I are both recovering from a nasty bout of food poisoning. Thank God for two bathrooms, that's all I have to say. Whatever it was made us both want to curl up and die, so I'm hoping it's run its course. Don't worry, it wasn't my cooking. It usually takes food poisoning about 72 hours to kick in, so I'm blaming the burgers we both had on Sunday night. Which puts all those recent articles about E. coli in ground beef into sharp perspective.

In other news, I'm offloading all the Broke Foodie entries into their very own blog. It's not operational yet, but I hope to get it up and running later this week. I also got a 2 TB external hard drive, and moved my iTunes onto it, freeing up about 85% of my C drive. Now I can start a long-planned iTunes expansion project. I'm feeling particularly tech-savvy this week. Noodling around on the computer is one of the very few things you can do while dealing with food poisoning.

Broke Foodie: Short rib ragu

OK, short rib ragu is not exactly the most economical choice, given the average cost of short ribs these days. But I discovered that Sam's here carries both short ribs and oxtail in bulk. I used to make this ragu with lamb shanks, but since short ribs are cheaper here than lamb shanks, hence short rib ragu.

Start by searing 2-3 lbs of short ribs on both sides in a little oil in a big cast-iron Dutch oven. You then remove the ribs, and saute a chopped onion, a couple of chopped shallots, and a few diced carrots and celery ribs in the same pot. When soft, deglaze with 1/2 cup or so of ruby port, and then add 2 cups of red wine. Let the wine cook down to about half, and add beef stock, several peeled whole garlic cloves, and seasonings (rosemary, bay leaf, thyme, etc.). Put the short ribs back in, and cook in a 325-degree oven for about three hours. Remove to the stovetop and remove the short ribs, letting them cool. Meanwhile continue cooking the sauce on low. When the ribs are cool enough to handle, strip the meat off the bone and add back to the pot, along with pasta of choice (penne or papardelle works well). When pasta is done, serve with lots of freshly grated parmesan cheese.

It's certainly not a light meal, but it's very filling and you get a lot of entertaining bang for the buck. Depending on how much you pay for the short ribs, you could conceivably get 2-3, possibly 4, quarts of ragu for under $10.

Broke Foodie: Pate

Pate is one of those dishes that sounds impossible to make, but is really pretty easy and inexpensive. I like to make it when I'm entertaining, and when I'm having a particularly bad foie gras jones.

1 container chicken livers, rinsed and patted dry
1 apple, peeled and grated, with all the juice squeezed out of the shavings (I like Granny Smith)
2-3 shallots, diced
2-3 T Calvados
2 T heavy cream
1 stick frozen butter, in pieces

Saute the shallots and apple in a tablespoon or so of butter, until soft. Dump this into a food processor. In the same pan add a little more butter and the chicken livers, cooking til brown on both sides. Add the Calvados and flambe until the fire is gone. Add the chicken livers to the shallot mix in the food processor (pouring off any excess liquid) and add the cream. While pureeing, add the frozen butter a piece at a time, letting it incorporate. Salt to taste. Pour this into a Pyrex loaf pan, cover with plastic wrap so that the plastic wrap touches the top of the pate, and let sit in the fridge for several hours. Serve with crackers or fresh crusty bread.

Chicken livers run about $2 for a container, another 80 cents or so for the apple, and the other ingredients I always have on hand. So for $3 or a little less, you too can have delish homemade pate. It makes a particularly decadent breakfast.

Birthday! Part 2

The rest of my birthday day was largely uneventful. After all, a birthday can only be so exciting if you have to work. John and I discovered a cute neighborhood bar in La Jolla. On Friday, T arrived from New York, and we spent the rest of the weekend exploring San Diego and La Jolla. My going-out budget is now shot all to hell, thanks to T, but John's entering a month-long crunch period at work, so I don't think I'll be going out too much anyway.

She was staying at La Valencia, which has the greatest seafood brunch ever. We ate our weight in fresh oysters, drank unlimited champagne, and looked out at the ocean. I've decided that if John and I ever have a really big fight, I'm going there for the night. We spent an afternoon at the zoo, and discovered an actual adult sit-down restaurant hidden away within the zoo. Saturday night John and I hosted our first party; not many people, but aren't those the best? When you can sit and eat and drink with people, and actually talk with them?

Birthday! Part 1

Temperature check: 70. Sunny.

Every birthday I've had for the last ten years, it was between 40 and 47 and raining. Possibly longer than that, I can't remember back that far. Today: I'm walking around in a tank top and bare legs. And I haven't touched an umbrella since I moved here.

Thanksgiving update: A big foodie extravaganza seems unlikely. John implied our chances of getting non-family to come over for Thanksgiving dinner was slim to none. Thanksgiving seems kind of beside the point without family, anyway, doesn't it? And while I'd love to cook a feast for the two of us, I suspect we'd both choke on the leftovers within six days. It's just not a proper holiday without a crowd. That's one of the reasons I've been traveling on Thanksgiving the last few years (well, that, and you can get amazing international deals then). So now I think I'll revive my travel tradition, rent a car, and see some national parks.

This may not sound like the most exciting vacation at first, but I missed quite a few of them my first time through California, and it'll make for a great frugal last-minute vacation. My plan so far is to rent a car and see Joshua Tree and Yosemite National Parks, then come back via Big Sur (I didn't get any pictures the first time) and Hearst Castle. We can pack sandwiches, sleep at the Motel 6, and photograph some amazing scenery. Looking through Ansel Adams' pictures of Yosemite, I'm pretty excited about this plan. Plus my National Parks Pass is good through May, so I feel obliged to get some more use out of it.

Thinking about Thanksgiving

I realized the other day that this will be the first Thanksgiving in a few years that I've even been in the country, and many more years since I've actually celebrated Thanksgiving (thank you, bad breakups). So naturally, I'll have to do something this year. Ideally, I'd like to invite over a bunch of people who don't have family plans already and do a big traditional dinner, complete with football and turkey and pumpkin pie. We'll see if I can manage to pull that off--perhaps John and I will just be eating Thanksgiving leftovers for the month of December, because I'll probably cook the same amount of food regardless.

D'Artagnan is selling fresh, free-range, organic, heritage breed turkeys. They're exponentially more expensive than the supermarket sale turkey (Safeway frozen turkeys, 8-12 lbs: $5), but guess which one tastes better? Also, can you really trust an entire 12 lb turkey selling for $5? D'Artagnan may end up getting a lot of money from me this month: they're also selling wild boar, tasso, quail eggs, duck bacon...I'll stop before I drool all over the keyboard.

Here's a possible menu:
Turkey and gravy (duh)
Butternut squash soup with fried sage leaves
Shittake mushroom stuffing
Beet-mashed potatoes
Cranberry and apple terrine
Bacon and almond quinoa
Edamame salad with beets and greens
Creamed spinach with truffle oil
Roasted sweet potato and okra salad
Possibly bourbon corn pudding
Fresh pumpkin pie

With a couple of nice pinot noirs. Oooh, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Now picture the above, and then compare it to this:
The 20 Worst Kids' Foods in America

Broke foodie: Zucchini "crab cakes"

I found zucchini on sale last week, so I bought a few. This week I realized I still had the zucchini, so it was time to eat them. Broke Foodie Tip #12: Don't throw food away. Try to use it up before it goes bad.

So I decided to try a new recipe--essentially I was making crab cakes, but substituting shredded zucchini for the crab. They were much better than I thought they would be--and except for the obvious green of the shredded zucchini, I may have been hard-pressed to know these weren't crab cakes at all. Proof positive that if you add enough Old Bay to anything, it will taste like crab.

Start with 2 cups shredded zucchini, with all the water squeezed out. Add 1 cup breadcrumbs, and mix together. In another bowl, mix together 1 egg, 1 T Dijon mustard, 1 T plain yogurt or mayo, 2 t Old Bay (I added more, I like Old Bay), 1/3 cup milk (I substituted slightly diluted cream, as I was out of milk), and chopped parsley (I used cilantro instead, I use cilantro in regular crab cakes and also I was out of parsley). Stir into the zucchini mix, form into patties, and fry just like you would crab cakes. Which is to say over medium heat, 3-4 minutes per side, in olive oil and butter.

Total cost: I doubled the recipe, to use up all the zucchini, and it yielded 8 big patties. $1.50 for all the zucchini, 13 cents each for the eggs, pennies for the additional ingredients...let's say $2.00 for everything. That's 25 cents each for the fake crab cakes. I served them plain, though you could serve with a variety of sauces or salsa, with a pear cobbler for dessert (to use up all the pears I got on sale).

We'll file these under "Duh"

The BBC is reporting on a study linking depression to processed foods.

And check this out, particularly this paragraph (italics mine):

In spite of their pledges to reduce unhealthy marketing to children, the large cereal companies continue to target children with their least healthy products. Child cereals contain 85% more sugar, 65% less fiber and 60% more sodium when compared to adult cereals. In fact, not one cereal that is marketed directly to children in the United States would be allowed to advertise to children on television in the United Kingdom. Only one, Cascadian Farm Clifford Crunch, would be eligible to be included in cereals offered through the USDA Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. In addition, 42% contain potentially harmful artificial food dyes.

Is it any wonder kids can't concentrate in school? Now, I'm not going to get all up on my high horse, because I've eaten several handfuls of Halloween candy in the last week. I will say, however, that I do not eat candy as a general rule; and if my heart races and my ability to concentrate plummets eating that amount of sugar as an adult, I can't even imagine what it must be like trying to process that much sugar in a 40-lb body.

Dad, this one's for you:
Junk food is as addictive as heroin.

Finally, a play

My refrigerator and my hard drive overfloweth.

Obviously these are separate issues.

This weekend, I decided to strike out on my own a bit and I rented a car for 24 hours. Zipcar operates within walking distance, but they’re best for quick, last-minute errand running, an hour or two at a time. For longer-term (and unlimited mileage) rentals, there’s an Avis counter at a hotel nearby, also within walking distance. Tres convenient. I walk to work every day, and there are several small errands I can run that are also within walking distance (library, drugstore, bank, drycleaners, the gourmet grocery store, etc.). But for groceries and bulk errand running, I’ve been dependent on John to drive me around on the weekends. I was tired of feeling like a mooch, so I took myself back out on the open road. I hit Sam’s, Ralph’s, and discovered a Trader Joe’s nearby. Then I drove up to South Coast Rep in Orange County to catch the new Noah Haidle play.

It was the first real driving I’ve done since I moved here (Labor Day weekend, for those keeping score). And as a side note, let me just add that rental cars have improved exponentially in the last few years. I can remember renting an economy-class car and getting just that--a car. Maybe a radio. No CD player, no AC, no power windows, nothing. These days, an econo rental will come standard with iPod hookup, GPS, and sunroof. Plus AC and power windows. Driving around town in a cute little snappy car buying groceries is one thing; taking it out on the open road for the 75-mile drive to Orange County is quite another. I’d driven that stretch of I-5 on the road trip, between San Diego and Los Angeles. The traffic was much heavier this time, but it’s still a fun drive. I always enjoy finding a highway where I can go 90 and people still pass me like I’m standing still. Especially with the sunroof down and the tunes blaring. Especially when completely independent, at least for the day. I’m going to have to do that more often.

South Coast Rep is a great theatre; I’m going to enjoy seeing other stuff there. I’m hoping to convince John to take his son and me there for some family-friendly fare in the near future. Saturn Returns had the usual regional theatre issues; an intimate small-cast play on a cavernous stage, in front of an audience of blue-hairs, with the glib slickness that so often accompanies these productions. The play was a little maudlin for my taste; but I’m glad I stuck it out, there was an emotional payoff at the end. It did seem to be a departure from Haidle’s previous work. Plays like Kitty Kitty Kitty and Mr. Marmalade were edgy and unpredictable; Saturn Returns seemed written specifically for the regional theatre audience. Perhaps it was; I was chatting with the bartender before the show and I noted that the crowd seemed sparse. He said that Haidle’s previous play there, Mr. Marmalade, had been very poorly received. “Oh, but it was such a great play, and he’s a lovely writer,” I said. “Yes,” said the bartender, “but the language was too salty for most people.” WTF? I moved away from the South to get away from shit like that. John keeps telling me Orange County is the DC of California, but I didn’t believe it until now.

Sunday involved a trip to the La Jolla Farmer’s Market, to pick up the first CSA box. I got fresh lettuce, Swiss chard, green beans, radishes, apples, guava, yellow pear tomatoes, and a huge bunch of dill. I didn’t do any other shopping, but I made some mental notes on the other stands there so that I can do some in the future. Coupled with the other grocery buys this weekend, the pantry, freezer, and refrigerator are all filled to overflowing. Which is fine with me. Nothing improves my mood so quickly as food and beverage largesse. The pantry is stocked twenty deep with non-perishables, the freezer is so full I had to remove some ice trays, I have two cases of cheap wine for everyday use, and the refrigerator now smells like a huge bunch of fresh dill. Yum. Plus the bowls of fruit, onions and garlic, and winter squash on the counters. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up poor or just because I’m a glutton at heart, but seeing all that food in my kitchen is deeply satisfying.

My hard drive overfloweth, as well. My iTunes folder has now officially eaten up my entire hard drive. It looks like the only solution will be to offload all those files to a much bigger external hard drive--and possibly I’ll also need to purchase a larger iPod at some point in the near future, as well. 80gb doesn’t go as far as I’d like. So I’ve been cleaning up my iTunes this weekend--deleting corrupted/duplicate files, completing partial albums, adding stuff I need that I don’t have, etc. I also had a bunch of stuff that I’d copied wholesale from ex-boyfriends, that I decided I would never actually listen to and could finally be deleted. It’s bad enough I once dated someone who owned the entire Enya catalogue--I don’t need that cluttering up my hard drive. The less said about the Megadeth albums I found, the better.

John and I have just gotten hooked on Mad Men. So much so that it completely derailed me from watching Lost. Well-written, well-acted, well-produced TV shows are so rare, aren’t they? I can count on two hands the number of TV shows ever produced, ever, that I think are worth owning/watching repeatedly. To wit: The Simpsons, South Park, The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Entourage, Freaks and Geeks, Slings and Arrows, and now Mad Men and Lost. Possibly Twin Peaks. Possibly Deadwood.

So this week I’m looking forward to a) fun with food, b) further fine-tuning of my music collection, c) my birthday!, and d) T’s impending visit! Yes, my first East Coast visitor will be here this weekend, just in time for my inaugural party. We’re currently on track to celebrate the first birthday without rain in...a significant number of years. I would like to point out that I had lunch today, outside, in short sleeves and bare legs. Last year on my birthday, it was 45 and pouring. Oh, and I got stood up. On my birthday. What a difference a year makes, huh? This year I’ll be celebrating with my SSO (Sexy Significant Other) in 75-degree sunshine. Turning 34 never felt so good.