Nana on my mind.

It may seem strange to remember my Nana most when it comes to Superbowl.  She wasn't a football fan, I don't think she'd ever watched a game her whole life. But my parents have a big party every year,  and every year she would come, ringing the doorbell at a house that everyone just walks in and says hello.  She would bring her wings, and I think about her in her kitchen, cooking them up, for an event that she didn't care about, for her family, that she did, very much.

Of course I have lots of memories of her- twenty seven years of Christmases, birthdays, family get togethers, sleepovers at her house, twenty seven years of love, and kindness, and beauty. But this is one that sticks to me, I can almost see her, sitting at my parents' dining room table, cup of tea in hand, the game blaring in the other room, catching up with my cousins, who she hadn't seen since Christmas.

When I close my eyes and concentrate really hard, I can still feel like it was to hug her, bending a little, because she was shorter than I was (imagine that!) warm, and soft, and comforting. She was a great hugger.

Memories of her are hitting me hard lately. but that's what grief is, right? Rolling waves that ebb and flow, sometimes threatening to overwhelm you, but you hold your breath, let them crash over you, and when they recede, it's a little easier to take than the last time one hit you.

I think about the things she's missed since she is gone, and it makes my heart ache.

It's been almost three years.  I still miss her so much.

This entry was spurred by this article, which I just read, and brought up a lot of stuff for me.  If you've ever given a eulogy for someone, or think you may one day, you should read it.
                       

October's Over!

So I have emerged from the craziness that was my month of October.  It began fantastically- an amazing weekend at the beach with my mom, aunt, cousin and sister.  I went back to work on Monday and then on Wednesday, I ran back to New Jersey to pick up my birthday present (the fancy-ass camera that took all of these pictures!) and then I had to go to the courthouse downtown, because I was called for Jury Duty on the 6th.  I sat there, confident, when the judge said that it was a three week case, because I knew I wouldn't be called. It would have been a financial hardship! My job doesn't pay for jury duty!  I was called up to the judge and told him that, and sat back down.   And then, at the end of the day, I was called up. Instead of being dismissed, I was put onto the jury. For three weeks.  And because I don't get paid for jury duty, I had to use my vacation time at work, and work on the days that I wasn't on jury duty. Which meant that yesterday was my last day off since October 6th.  It was glorious. 

So that debacle is over, thank goodness, and I can focus on the good things that are happening. 

For one, I got the TV that has been traveling around in my backseat for... a long time into my apartment! Check it out- it's so huge! 

Also on my day off, I put together these shelves, which house my kitchenaid, my "bar area" with my new bar stuff from my aunt, and other various and sundry kitchen things. 

Also: I've been dating a totally cute girl who is, to use my favorite adjective, quite awesome. 

And aside from the fact that I haven't been there that much, work has been great. 

Plus! I have had some time in the kitchen- I made a roast chicken, and my own stock, and chicken and dumplings... all fall flavors and deliciousness.  Now that I have some more time, I'm looking forward to having more time to play around. 

If I compare where I'm at this year to the same time last year, I think last year Val would be super impressed. It's been a long hard road, but I am finally happy. 

To end, some gratuitous Earl pictures: 

For real, he's super cute, right?

Ten things that are making me happy right now

I haven't done this in a while!

1

Cousins, and the most wonderful birthday weekend ever. 

2

Duckpin bowling

3

Sunsets 

4 My crazy cat, who is not currently biting my feet right now, but is looking at them hungrily. 

5 Temps dropping to the fifties

6 Glee Tuesdays

7 Picking up crocheting again

8 Spiced Apple Cider

9 Work is really, really good (if exhausting, at times)

10 My fancy-ass new camera that I love SO MUCH.

30/30th 50 Cheeses

When I was having Birthday At the Beach this past weekend, we had The Cheesing Hour on Saturday and Sunday. 

On Saturday, we had a selection of three cheeses: Stagnola Blu, Brie, Mini Brie Bites, and Cranberry Chevre. 

The brie that we had was 62% Brie, which was super creamy and buttery.  In the background, there are brie bites, which come five to a package and are really cool- I'm a fan of having them in the fridge in case I need a quick hit of brie and I don't want to buy a huge wedge. 

The Stagnola Blu is a cheese that Trader Joe's carries, but it is about to be discontinued- I'm not sure if you can get it other places, but it's a great blue- creamy, and has a real knockout flavor. 

Chevre and Cranberry are two of my favorite combinations, it's a really great combo in this cheese too. I think after the brie, this was my second favorite of the cheeses. 

Sunday night we had some harder cheeses, a Manchego, a Cinnamon Dusted Toscano, and I also wanted to try out a Hot and Sweet Pepper Jelly that I had gotten from Trader Joe's, so I served that over a brick of cream cheese. 

The pepper jelly was really good, except the "hot" part of the Hot and Sweet was.... missing.  It was tasty, though! It is definitely going on my next party menu. 

The Manchego was really nice- a milder cheese, salty in  a good way.  I didn't really prepare as well for this cheesing hour in terms of accompaniments, and I'm a little bummed out. I think it would have worked really well with some olives, or maybe a slice of apple. 

The Cinnamon Toscano was really different.  It is a really strong tasting cheese- and then to add a powerhouse spice like cinnamon ups the flavor to eleven.  I liked it a lot, even though it's definitely a "holiday" cheese- the cinnamon reminded me of Christmas.   My mom said that she thought that this cheese would go really well with apple pie, and I would have to agree. I think that would be awesome. 

So!  Six cheeses down, 44 to go! 

30 in the 30th

Without Further Ado.....


1 Write up my list and hang it somewhere in my apartment so I can be mindful of the list. 
2 Couch to 5K
3 Call G/Grandad at least once a week
4 Update my blog at least once a week
5 End the year ten pounds lighter than I start it. 
6 Go as many as I can of the restaurants in the CityPaper's Best of Baltimore List
7 LEARN HOW TO CAN THINGS
8 Create 12 new Ice Cream flavors (or make a different ice cream each month. or sorbet)
9 NYC for the weekend!
10 Learn how to bake bread. 
11 DFTBA Tattoo 
12 Go to Rhode Island 
13 Make a concerted effort to schedule more 'sister' time with jack
14 Be better at keeping in touch with friends and family
15 Read books from five authors I have never read before
16 Try 12 different kinds of wine
17 Go to a Scotch tasting with Julie
18 Go on 30 dates. 
19 Go to Boordy for a wine tasting. 
20 Perform six random act of kindness
21 Create a Val's guide to Baltimore and write it up on my blog. 
22 Throw a party!
23 Try 50 different cheeses 
24  Take photo portraits of my family and friends 
25 Volunteer for a day somewhere: soup kitchen, City Year, something
26 Read five classic books:  Definitely on the list: Jane Eyre, The Scarlet Letter, and A Tale of Two Cities
27 Try to maintain a more positive and less self defeating attitude. 
28 Take a photography class (or photoshop) With Katie.
29 Make ten cocktail's I've never made before using my new barware cocktail set (fancy!)
30  Write and mail actual, physical birthday cards to my friends, because it's awesome to get real mail. 

29 in the 29th- a Roundup.

With a week and a half of my twenties left to go, here's where the list stands: 

1) Go see a taping of Wait Wait Don't tell me. Nope! And they even came to Baltimore, which was SUCH A BUMMER to have missed. I was pretty broke at the time though, so no Wait Wait for me. 


2) Take advantage of a Southwest sale and go somewhere with Julie that we've both never been. Sadly, nope. 


3) Redesign my website. Buy a domain name and move the blog there.

 No, not this one. Maybe if I can be a little bit more disciplined about posting, I will think about it this year.


4) Enter a cooking contest. (a real one. not one at work. With real judges and everything) 
I entered one at my last workplace (which doesn't count... I know, but it was still a contest) and.... lost. Sad Clown.

5) Buy a video camera and make and edit more videos (even if it's just a flipcam)  

No, but I did put up more video content this year! This Video is the reason I get like, 90% of my google referrals. heh. 

6) Update my blog at least once a week. I was not so successful at this, but it's going on next year's list.  I need to remember that I can't abandon things when i'm sad (the cause for this year's earlier abandonment) or busy (the reason why I haven't been updating so much this recently)


7) Plan fun things to do to show Jackie Baltimore, now that she is living here. We've done a couple of good things, but we could definitely be doing more. 

8) Go to a restaurant for restaurant week. DONE! Went to Dogwood with Jackie this summer. It was AMAZING.  I am still thinking about the chevre that they served on the salad I had there. So creamy!


9) Go tubing down the river (I don't know which river. Any river. Preferably with Paul, who suggested this list item) 

Nope! 


10) Take more pictures, post more pictures. 

I think I've taken more pictures this  year.


11) Taste 20 types of beer.

 Eh, I've decided I'm not such a huge fan of beer. my tastes tend to go to Miller High life... classy, I know. but I couldn't justify the expense of trying all those beers when I know how delicious gin and tonics are. 


12) Continue my tradition of Top Chef Wednesdays and Glee Tuesdays. 

Glee tuesdays stuck it out for much of the year! And we've started up again now that the season has started. This is really, really one of my favorite things- I look forward to it every week. 


13) Donate money to causes I believe in. 

I have!


14) Go to NYC for a weekend. 

I have not!


15) Go somewhere where there is not much ambient light, and look at the stars. 
Chincoteague, 2011. So. Many. Stars.

16) Learn how to identify more constellations than just Orion. I found The Big Dipper and Cassiopeia! 


17) Master bread baking (this guy is also going to be baking bread this year, and I want to bake some with him!) 

Nope, sadly

18) Help someone else complete a List item on their list that isn't on my list.

   I feel like I've done this one, but I can't remember. If i helped you with a list item, would you let me know via comments? I know I've helped inspire some other people to make their lists, and that's quite awesome. 


19)  Go on a picnic. 

I went on a great picnic with my sister Jackie and my cousin Kate, and Jackie even did all the cooking for it! it was really awesome. 

20)  Figure out what I'm doing with my life professionally. 

This was my big one, this year- I was really really miserable and unhappy in my last job, and I made the move to a new one- which has its own challenges, but I am so much more happy professionally that on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is my old job, I'm about at a 15. 

21) Set one weekly excersise goal every week and then meet it. (even if it's small: i.e. 3 days of wii fit a week, two long walks around the ten hills neighborhood,  walking up the giant hill in front of my house)
Uh, no. but! with the new job comes a lot more activity, and i've gone down a few pants sizes!
22) Move to a new apartment when my lease is up, with the following requirements: decent size kitchen. hardwood floors, fun area of Baltimore. (optional but would be nice: washer/dryer combo)
Nope
23) Go to one of the City Year Events in DC (or philly, or NYC, or RI- Just do one event with them)
Nope
24) Decorate a cake with fondant. 

Nope

25)  Learn how to can things.  Seriously. Making this happen. For real this time. 
Seriously, I need to get this one together. it's going on next year's list. 
26)  Go to see a drive in movie. 

Nope

27) Do one social activity that is outside my comfort zone per month. 

No, not really. 

28) Go down to Florida to visit G; make it home to visit my Grandad more often. 

I didn't get down to Florida this year, sadly. 


29) Go to some kind of food festival. Whether it is barbeuce, or Garlic, or a Pickle festival. 

I went to the Baltimore Food Truck Rally but it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too crowded, and the lines were insane, so we ended up going to Ze Mean Bean instead. Maybe the next time they have one, it'sll be in a little bit less claustrophobic space, and I can actually get something to eat. 

So all in all, not a great year, in terms of getting things done (all told, it was a pretty horrible year all around, actually).  The one important thing that I really needed to do, #20, got done so for that I'm considering this years' list a success. 

 but I'm working on the new stuff (and keeping some of this year's stuff) and will come out with my 30/30th list next Sunday! 

Cheese-a-day: Chevre with Honey

This is a picture of the view from the back of the house we're staying at- at five this morning.  I was up, so i went out to go watch the sunrise, which I tried to do, until the bugs were eating me alive, and I had to come back in and snuggle back into my bed for a few more hours. 

Anyway.... so the cheese yesterday was a Honey Chevre, which you can read about here

I served it with toasted Tuscan Pane bread, and apricot jam, and there was also a little container of dark chocolate almonds with turbinado sugar and sea salt to snack on at what we've dubbed "the cheese hour"

I thought it was REALLY good.  the honey adds a sweetness, and there isn't any of the chalkyness that you sometimes get with chevre, and I had let it sit out about an hour before serving, so it was room temp and really pliable.  I think the honey emulsifies the cheese a little- it was really spreadable and delicious, and you could taste the honey in it.  The family liked it too, even more than yesterday's brie, which I thought was surprising.

We still had some cheese left when we were running low of things to put it on, so my sister toasted some more bread, and let me tell you- when it's on warm toast, this cheese goes from a solid, standard cheese, to something amazing and wonderful.