Reminiscing

• 6 months ago, the city was still recovering from Hurricane Ike.
  

• 1 year ago, I think I was in the middle of job negotiations.

• 5 years ago, I was close to wrapping up my first year of graduate school. That was a tough year.

• 10 years ago, I was about to graduate from high school. Can't believe ten years have come and almost gone. Our 10 year reunion will be in June!

• 20 years ago, I was a 2nd grader who still had 20/20 vision (or close enough).

My, how the years have flown by!

Still cavity-free!

I had a successful appointment at the dentist this morning.

Successful = not gagging, crying, or yanking bitewing x-ray films out of my mouth.

The trick? Holding your breath. I could have saved many years of gagging if I had known this before. I learned today that gagging is a good reflex to have when something in your mouth is obstructing your breathing. By holding your breath, your brain doesn't get sent an "I can't breathe" signal. And thus, the dental hygienist can save herself from multiple saliva covered bitewings that I've spit out before the x-ray was taken.

Now I can look forward to the dentist. I have always enjoyed the cleaning and oral exam-- it's like a mouth massage and I think it feels great. It was just those darned bitewings that I hated. But now, it's no biggie. Bring on the dentist!

I suppose part of my enjoyment is due to the fact that I've never had a filling or any major dental work. When I had my wisdom teeth out last year, I was under IV anesthesia and didn't even know the procedure was over when I woke up. That was a breeze. In fact, I can't really relate much to this Bill Cosby act, but I still think it's a hoot.

Sing us a song, you're the piano man!

We finished celebrating my birthday last weekend. Nate had gotten us tickets in San Antonio to see Elton John and Billy Joel in concert. What a show it was. The venue was jam-packed and we were treated to over 3.5 hours of performance, with no breaks in between. Elton and Billy started out together, followed by a solo performance by Elton, a solo performance by Billy, and finally the two of them back together at the end. Elton is just brilliantly flawless, and you can tell he simply just loves to be out in front of the crowds playing the piano and wowing the crowds. Billy Joel was a definite crowd-pleaser, in constant banter with the audience and just having a grand ole time.

Here's Elton performing one of my absolute favorites: Levon. Nate didn't want me to post this because he doesn't think the video quality does the song justice, but in person, it was better than his album recording.

Introducing... The San Antonio Elton John Fan Club Chorus in Crocodile Rock!

Cranberry Coffee Cake

I bought a giant bag of fresh cranberries around Christmas-time and didn't end up using any of them, so I threw them in the freezer. A month or so ago I used about a cup for some apple-cranberry crisp, but that's it. Yesterday, as I was digging out some chicken from the freezer, the cranberries had to be shifted around several times and I decided it was time to use some more of them.

I found a recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook which was a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law, Bekah. This recipe is so easy and the end-result is to die for. I thought I would share it here, even though you probably don't have cranberries lying around in your freezer... do you?

Cranberry Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh or thawed frozen cranberries
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk (I used soy milk because that's all we ever have in the house anymore)
Optional garnish: confectioners' sugar

Put a rack in the middle of oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

Pulse cranberries with 1/2 cup sugar in a food processor until finely chopped; do not puree. Transfer to a sieve and let drain while you make the batter.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Combine butter and remaining 1 1/4 cups sugar in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture and mile alternately in 3 batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture and mixing until just incorporated.

Spread one third of batter evenly in loaf pan. Spoon half of drained cranberries evenly over batter, leaving a 1/2-inch border on all sides. Top with another third of batter and remaining cranberries, then cover with remaining batter.

Bake until golden brown and wooden pick or skewer comes out clean, about 50 minutes to 1 hour (It took my oven at least 1 hr 20 min). Cool cake in pan on rack for 30 minutes.

Invert cake onto rack. Serve warm or at room temperature, dusted with confectioners' sugar, if desired.

YUM YUM!

Home sweet home

Now that I've recovered from my business trips, and the sun has reappeared, I can resume blogging.

Up until Monday, the last shred of sunlight that I saw was in DC, a week earlier on Sunday (unless you count being above the clouds in an airplane). The remainder of my time in DC and then in Dallas was cloudy, dreary, rainy, and cold. Houston greeted me on Friday with several more days of rain. But the good news is that the rain brings spectacular weather behind it. We have been enjoying buckets of sunlight and perfect temps this week. And that makes me happy :)
On Friday evening we ventured out in the cold and wetness to the Rodeo. Despite the chill, we had a great time. Since our tickets were donated to us, we didn't have much of a choice in the concert performer that evening, who happened to be Clint Black. I wasn't expecting much out of his performance but I was pleasantly surprised. He is a great entertainer and I couldn't help but be reminded of high school days, as most of his songs he performed were popular at that time. Ain't it funny how a melody can bring back the memories? Clint is great on the harmonica and even the drums, and his saxophone player knows how to sing. A fun mixup for one of the tunes.

Aside from the concert performance are all of the rodeo events. Nate likes to watch the steer wrestling. "Big boys," he always says. From my viewpoint, you have this large cowboy on a horse, chasing after a calf-- and then he jumps down from the horse and tackles the calf and ties him up. To me it's a little distressing to watch even though I know no harm is being done. I think the calf scramble is the most entertaining. Take about 40 kids and 20 calves and let everyone run loose in the arena, and the kids who can drag a calf into the middle get a certificate to own and raise a calf to be shown at the next year's rodeo. It's amusing, for instance, to see kids being dragged around by calves while holding tightly to their tails. What a fun show!

Did you know that brown chickens lay brown eggs and white chickens lay white eggs, and that there is no nutritional difference between the two kinds of eggs? The only reason why brown eggs are more expensive is because it costs more to feed the heavier brown chickens! It is always fun to watch chicks hatching from their eggs. If you have enough patience, you can actually stick around to see a chick create a hole and break out of its shell, and then emerge in a suit of slime. So amazing!

Howdy- from the East coast

Whoever came up with the bright idea of having a meeting/conference the weekend of daylight savings time change is on my hit list. It ain't easy moving eastward AND moving clocks forward.

Oh well. At least I'm not from California. Those folks have it bad.

(Don't worry, I don't really have a hit list.)

Keep a green tree in your heart, and the singing bird will come

We don't eat out often, but tonight we headed over to dine at Pei Wei after an evening run. The food is nothing close to authentic asian food, nor does it compare to my mom's amazing home cookin', but the dishes are fresh and packed with flavor, and the price is right.

I'm one of those people who tends to order the same thing at restaurants over and over again. At Pei Wei, I usually order the Spicy Korean dish with chicken. But I decided to order something new: Thai Blazing Noodles! My voracious appetite was tempered by the spice in this dish. When they say blazing, they mean blazing. I am a huge fan of spicy foods, trust me. But this was crazy spicy. I am still recovering from that meal as I type.

One of my favorite things about eating out at Asian restaurants is that they give you a fortune cookie at the end of the meal. At Pei Wei, they leave their fortune cookies out at the beverage area in large bins so that customers can get their own. I think Nate and I made out with at least ten cookies. I really love those things... but I have been quite disappointed in their "fortunes" recently. Take these, which came out of our cookies tonight:

Big journeys begin with a single step (Oh? ok. But not a fortune.)

The simplest answer is to act (Huh? This is false and is also not a fortune.)

Your cheerful outlook is one of your assets (I do not wish to be told by a cookie about my personality traits.)

If you put up with small annoyances you will gain great results (well, this was the closest to a fortune.)

I never got rid of my all time favorite "fortune" which dispenses the best advice I've ever received:
Keep a green tree in your heart, and the singing bird will come

Is it just me, or did fortune cookies give better (and actual) fortunes ten years ago?