In which I turn out to have had a way more eventful week than I thought I had!

I keep thinking it's going to be ok to post only twice a week or so, because who needs to post every day, and then we do tons of things and I'm suddenly way behind! So this is another biggish post – get ready ;)

On Thursday, I taught piano lessons! I agreed to teach half hour lessons to the three kids in one family. I'm pretty excited about it. These first lessons, they didn't have books yet and I was just meeting the kids and getting know where there piano skills were and what they were interested in, so each lesson was only twenty minutes, and I was in and out in an hour. I'm eager to get into lessons, to get to know the kids better, to exercise some pedagogical skills, and to be a little more in touch with the year-round Skagway locals. The other gals in the cast are getting their fingers on the local pulse at least a bit by trying out different churches every Sunday. Since I'm not interested in church, I'm hoping that teaching lessons will do that for me a little bit! There are apparently other families hoping for lessons, since the local piano teacher is out of town for the summer, so in the next couple days I'll post on the Skagway Swap facebook group to let people know that I have some limited availability to teach.

After I got back from teaching and the gals got back from dinner at Starfire, we headed out to meet up with our friends Chris, Adam, and Gabby – the ones we met at the lodge in Dyea. They'd invited us up to the RV Park where they're staying for forshpayz and wine at the picnic table outside their (rented) RV. The seven of us hung out for a while and chatted at first, munching on leftover popcorn Steph and I had grabbed from the theatre and fresh-toasted bruschetta the Oregon gang had whipped up. It was great to start getting to know them a little better! They're a bit nerdy, which I really appreciate.

After not too long, other people stopped by. Mike, the brewery owner and the Oregon gang's boss; Gregory, the manager and dance teacher at the brewery (he used to play violin in pits, and then for some years he made violins, and then he found that too lonely, quit, and has since done other work plus also in the last four years gotten way into social dancing, particularly blues); and a few other people who live in the RV park, including a mom (Jess?) and her kid Logan. We hung around for a couple hours, eating and drinking and frisbeeing and talking, until it started to get cold and buggy, and which point Mike invited us all over to his place for a campfire. So we spent the rest of the night around a crackly fire, chatting and listening to music and, well, just being in Alaska! Finally it was (mostly) dark (around midnight) and we headed home for the night.

On Friday, we were supposed to have three shows, but because one of the two cruise ships scheduled to port in town that day canceled and the other had fewer than a thousand passengers, we sold no tickets to the first two shows and therefore did not perform them. Of course, we had to be in full makeup and costume until five minutes before each show was scheduled to start, just in case we got a sudden influx and could go on! Apparently this used to happen much more frequently both early and late in the season; this year the theatre has been doing extremely well. Allison and Jon were thrilled that we had lasted this long without a cancellation.

Anyway, instead of doing those first two shows, the gals and I rested a bit at home; got ice cream at the Kone Kompany (I really do hate arbitrary Ks, by the way), where I said hi to McKenna (whose name is not Michaela) and John; and I spent my usual hour or so on my bench in the sun. (Well, there are two benches, really: The bench on the post office side of the street is my morning bench, and the bench on the Bites side of the street is my afternoon bench. I appear to be becoming a town fixture.)

The evening show was the town show. Locals can see the show for free at any time, but the town show is the specific night dedicated to them, when everyone comes. And I mean the place was packed. Every seat was full, all extra folding chairs were full, and what little standing room space exists at the gills was full. It was great! I must have been pretty excited at the top, because as soon as I started my little intro rag I realized I was top-speed-ing it! But I made it through at said top speed with no bumps, and the show got underway safe and sound. There is really nothing like performing for a completely full house of somewhat intoxicated people determined to have a great time. And everyone was super sweet on the way out, including McKenna, who gave me a hug! I think that means we're friends :p

Plus, Niles and Skipper had brought up a whole tray of homemade pastries/cake in honor of the town show, so that was great too! And Jon bought us all a drink and some snacks afterward at the Aerie – the Eagles' Lodge, which is in the same building as the theatre. I felt like I was in on something quite mysterious and fraternal, although it was really just a room with some people and a bar.

On Saturday we did two shows, got tacos at the once-every-second-Saturday craft mart (so. good. and so desperately needed. Tacoooooooos), chilled out at home for a bit, and then needed to get out of the house. Plus Sunday was our day off, so we could properly go out! We hit up the Station – the only of the three bars in town none of us had been to yet – for a quiet drink, and then moved on to Bonanza. Bonanza started out as a pretty quiet drink also, but it was dance night, so before too long it was pretty crazy in there. The gals and I had some fun dancing, seeing old (by which I mean new-ish) friends (Greg, who is always, awesomely, corralling people to dance; Mike; the redhead who works at the jewelry store next door) and meeting new ones (Trevor, who is from Phoenix and in town for the summer, and his friend Kale, who is from Oklahoma and in Juneau for the summer). Tess and I met one woman in the bathroom, when she started talking to us from the other stall about how her sister had just called her to let her know that she's seven months pregnant and got married last week! Once we burned out a little on Bonanza – I would have been happy to keep dancing, but it was just so loud – we headed to a house party down the street that we'd been invited to the day before by Nick and Jess, whom we'd met on the street! Jess is a portrait artist, although he spends most of his day working on the Fast Ferry, and actually he'd taken a photo of the cast after the town show so he can draw us! The party was pretty calm by the time we got there, but we stayed long enough to determine that Nick and Jess are pretty normal, chill guys, and that their house is awesome, so hopefully we'll hang out with them again!

On our way home, we saw a few very pale streaks in the sky – first glimpse of the Northern Lights! We're hoping to catch them for real in September, when it gets darker again.

It was almost two by the time we got home – by far the latest I'd stayed up since I left New York! We all crashed, and had a slow Sunday morning. But by the middle of the day, Tess and I were antsy, so we went morel hunting. It took us several tries to get to our actual destination, since I had been there with Michael but wasn't totally sure where it was (it turned out to be slightly outside of town; hence the confusion), but once we got there and really got hunting, we hit the jackpot!

Thirty-eight morels!!!!!

It was super awesome to find some for the first time and also awesome to get some quality time with Tess and with the Alaskan outdoors. Now we gotta look up some recipes!

And now I'd better go to bed – three shows tomorrow, and the start of a thirteen day, thirty-nine show work week! See y'all on the flip side :p

ALASKA

Here I am in Juneau! I'm going to try to post properly for the next five months, since I'll (hopefully!) be going on adventures and meeting cool people and doing fun things and having interesting thoughts as I live and work in Skagway.

Here's the debrief for today:

Got up at 4:45 am! Caught at cab at 5:30 am! Got to the airport, only to find that while my ticket said Alaska Airlines from JFK, there is no Alaska Airlines at JFK, and it took 15 minutes and 4 airport workers to figure out that it was run through Delta! Also found amid all that that I had left my cell phone in the cab! A nice security guard let me borrow his phone to call Alex to get the cab company number (because I only had it programmed in my phone...) so I could call the cab company and ask them to look for my phone. Which they told me they couldn't find. So I gave them Alex's number for if they found it, and gave up and went through security, since I had only five minutes left to check in. (They put me through the expedited security lane, which was awesome, btw! Didn't have to take off shoes or jacket or accessories! Didn't have to take out my computer!) And then as soon as I called Alex (on a coworker's borrowed phone), when I got to the gate, he reported that they had found it and called him but now the cab was too far from the airport to bring it back (plus we were boarding in like five minutes), so he had to go to the cab depot, and hopefully it is now on its way to me via the mail! Augh.

So, you know, one of those mornings. But flying is lovely, and here I am in Juneau! The day is beautiful! I AM IN ALASKA WHAT

The thing about flying into Juneau is that you are for hours just flying over snowcapped mountains, and it's like, where are we going to land? We are just in the mountains? Where is Juneau? And then boom all of a sudden you have landed in Juneau. Which is tiny. But not as tiny as Skagway! Anyway, I don't know that I realized that THERE ARE NO ROADS THAT GO TO JUNEAU. I guess that's a thing that everyone knows, but I didn't. I've been joking that going to this job is like going to Siberia or something, but it's not that far from the truth in terms of how hilariously isolated and far from everything these parts of Alaska are. Weird. But cool!

BTW, flying into SEA-TAC for our brief layover was also freaking gorgeous. I don't remember ever really seeing Seattle from overhead like that - maybe it's always been overcast when I flew in, or maybe I was never on a window seat. But - wow. And the airport itself is lovely, too! Props, Seattle.

I'm wearing out a bit on telling the story of my day, since I'm exhausted (but trying to stay up until 8pm at least, though I got up at 4am Eastern and now it feels like midnight to me, since ya gotta fight the jetlag immediately yo) and have been telling various parts of it to various people. But in brief, it is beautiful and sunny (although the locals were raving about how it was an unusually nice day, which is a bit alarming, and kept telling us how windy Skagway is, which is also alarming); I got to know a couple of my coworkers and they are great; Juneau is just gearing up for the season, so many of the shops are not open but some are, and the owners are just hanging around being friendly; you can walk around the whole downtown in two hours, which is ridic to me for a state capital but neat; and we learned from some locals that yes, those giant crows were actually ravens, and also they are bringers of light in Tlingit stories.

Also, this happened...

http://www.adn.com/2014/04/24/3439788/skagway-ferry-dock-sinks.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ALASKA

So we'll not, obviously, be taking the ferry to Skagway as planned tomorrow. We will be taking a 6-person propellor plane, over glaciers and evergreens and fjords. I am freaking psyched. Updates ASAP! :) :) :)

OMG I AM IN ALASKA

AND LOOK AT IT

FREAKING LOOK AT IT

WHAT

Books

1. I posted my list of books I read in 2011 on facebook! If you read this blog but are not on facebook (there are a couple of you!) and are actually curious about this list, let me know and I will either post it here or email it to you!

2. I've decided that in 2012 I'll actually use my Goodreads account, which previously I used only to follow 2 friends and had never posted on. If you have an account, you should let me know and I will befriend you! If you're interested in following mine, you can probably find it by searching for "Shoshana"; if you can't, let me know, and I will send you the link. My first (brief, as probably most of them will be, because I'm generally more interested in talking about books than writing about them) review is now up, of The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt.

3. I promise I will post again soon! I have lots to tell about - Christmas and Merce Cunningham and New Year's and some other stuff. But right now I am tired of writing internet-y stuff, so it will have to wait. Maybe later today. No promises :p

Happiness!

P.S. I feel super awesome for having just figured out how to embed a song. Although I don't know if I could do it again.

Yesterday

was super fun!

It was Alex's second day off in a row, after almost a month of nonstop work. So we made a day of it!

First, we went ice skating in Bryant Park!


This was fun. It was not even too cold, and by the time we'd been skating for half an hour, I had taken off my gloves, scarf, and hat, and unbuttoned the top of my coat! It took a little while to find my skating legs, but then I got pretty good. Today my hip flexers and the tops of my quads are so sore!

Anyway, once we stopped ice skating, after about an hour, I was suddenly so hungry I could barely function. So Alex took charge, and found us a little Cuban restaurant on 45th and 5th - and it was a total find! Alex ordered empanadas, which were only ok - Mama's in Sunnyside is much better - but I had a pork sandwich with sweet plantains and green salsa and onions, and it was just the perfect combination of flavors. And I don't even really like pork!


Escape to Cuba!

After eating, we thought we would continue subway stopping the 6 for a while. So we wandered over toward the 51st St. stop, drifting at one point into a very very fancy hotel-type building, all lit.


Eventually, we got on the subway, and emerged several stops later at 86th St., as we had last left off at 77th. The area around 86th and Lex is not particularly interesting, as far as I can tell, but there is a cute bakery we did not enter.


There are also pretty lights, and a good looking restaurant that was closed.



We had walked east a couple blocks at this point, and started heading north toward the 96th St. stop, and come 90th St., we happened upon Ruppert Park. I am interested in parks, so we wandered through!


One tree looked like it was conducting!


Once we had crossed through the park to what I guess was 91st St., we found that for a block it was a pedestrian-only street, which is great.


We also passed the Tasti D-Lite that Alex and Meredith and I stopped at a year and a half ago when we were walking down from the top of the park looking desperately for frozen yogurt!


Also, we found the super sexual pill.


We eventually achieved 96th St., and took the train one stop up to 103rd, which housed a lovely mural.


We also stopped at the East Harlem Cafe, which was cozy and lovely and delightful despite their bad hot chocolate. I would go back for the coffee and the atmosphere!


Across the street were some truly great murals.


We reached 110th St. and turned left, heading toward the 2/3 stop at Malcolm X Blvd at the top of the park; we had some business on the Upper West Side, which shall remain unelucidated because it involved buying a present for somebody! On the way, we walked along the Harlem Meer, which is beautiful in the evening.



After our business on the Upper West Side, we headed down to Finnerty's at 13th and 2nd - the only 49ers bar in the city, as far as we can tell! It was great to walk into a sea of red, to feel at home among California expats for the '9ers-Steelers game - especially because the game was so so great and satisfying and exciting and fun!

We were among friends.


Anyway, there are more pictures from yesterday, and I'll post the full album on facebook, possibly as part of a winter album. (Although first I should make sure I've put up all the fall pictures I want to!) Tomorrow I'm having a latke party, so I'll have to keep y'all updated!

P.S. Usually when I go to create a new post on blogger, it gives me the options of viewing what I'm doing in html or in, I don't know, regular, where it actually has buttons to do what I want to do and format how I want to format. But today it is only showing the html option! This is a pain, because I don't know all the html codes for centering text, changing font size, etc. Does anybody know what the deal is or how to fix?

Everything, but Mostly Food!

So I've been at home for a couple weeks, and baking up a storm!

I made Practically Perfect Cookies, which I thought was Aunt Carolyn's recipe but which she doesn't recognize the name of, but anyway they are delicious chocolate chip cookies and I used Ghirardelli bittersweet, semisweet, and white chocolate chips in them and it was great.

I also have made two loaves of sourdough since I've been back. I made the first one in a loaf pan, to be sure it would rise up instead of out (the problem I had with my last few loaves);

the second one I made into a free-form boule loaf but rose it for only 4 hours instead of 12-until-doubled, so although it rose out instead of up in the bowl, it had some rising power left to poof in the oven. It didn't poof as high as it was supposed to (maybe the dough was too soft and not gluteny enough? I'll try adding more flour next time) and was quite dense, but it wasn't the biscotti loaf of August.

That said, neither of them tasted of sourdough! Which is very confusing and frustrating. I know my starter is still alive - and for the second loaf, it was freshly fed - because it is rising the bread, and also it still smells like it did before. But it must be a starter problem, because what else could it be? I wish I'd frozen a bit of the starter before I left for Maine, in case something went wrong like this. I'm going to keep trying for a couple more loaves, and ask the internet some more about what might be going on, but I am kind of bummed.

Oh well! I have also made regular white, whole wheat, and butternut squash bread since I've been back, and also a beautiful butternut squash pie,

Also I made a tiny adorable pastry roll-up

with the leftover pie dough.

It was delicious.

and also a really weird attempt at chai ice cream,

The makings of chai. So beautiful!

Too bad it turned out so

chewy

and so weirdly

pumpkin-pie-tasting.

and also a delicious dark chocolate ice cream! So food is going well :)

Alex and I have been buying our groceries at the farmers' market and Trader Joe's as much as we can (there are THREE Trader Joe'ses in New York now, so they are all much less impacted!), which is leading us to cook more, as we have more ingredients and less pre-prepared/box food. We made free-range chicken breast with mustard sauce (a recipe my mother modified deliciously) the other day, on whole wheat rice, and it was great! And I cooked up some whole wheat rotini one day, and tossed it with olive oil, parmesan-like cheese from the farmers' market, and garlic and fresh basil also from the farmers' market. Mmm, delicious!

I don't know why this is sideways.

And Alex has been learning to make pasta sauce out of fresh tomatoes.

It is a good food month!

Also, Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Thomas were in New York the other night, after what sounded like a lovely two week trip through autumnal New England, and took Alex and me out to dinner at Manetta's Fine Foods, a lovely and scrumptious Italian restaurant in Long Island City near Hunter's Point. I had spaghetti carbonara; Alex had smoked salmon pasta; Aunt Carolyn had linguini nere (colored black with squid ink!); Uncle Thomas had lasagna; and I finished with a delicious (but large!) creme brulee. I will be going back there, for sure!

While we're talking food, I should mention the date Alex and I went on while still in Maine. We decided we'd head for the coast, although we didn't know where. We located a little town called Richmond on the map, only half an hour away, and headed that way. The drive was beauuuuuuuutiful, all fiery trees and winding highways and rain;

Richmond was less beautiful, as it was neither exactly on the coast nor a cute town. Tiny and economically depressed looking, actually. But we drove on down the highway, wandering in and out of towns, until we found Freeport, which is not on the coast either, but which is super cute! We wandered in and out of stores and around the streets, looked at restaurant menus, and finally went into the Azure Cafe, and upscale and relaxing little joint that made us feel very adult. (Although, as Lorelei put it on an episode of Gilmore Girls I just watched: "You know what grown-ups never do? Talk about how grown up they are.) We ordered an appetizer of spinach artichoke dip with crostini; the crostini were perfectly crunchy and neutral, and the dip felt like delicious, delicious air in my mouth. It was like nothing was on my tongue except the taste of heaven!

For our entrees, we went all out: "Filet Tartuffe," a filet mignon with black truffles and crimini mushrooms and gorgonzola mousse and garlic mashed potatoes; and, of course, lobster!

Also, by the way, there was delicious salad,

and I don't even like salad.

I don't know why this picture is sideways either.

Lobster. Also, butter.

Oh, what a good day.

Now out of the reverie and on to today! I'm going to break topic and not talk about food, now!

Yesterday was lovely. Alex and I went on a walk and ended up in the park, where we sat and played cribbage at one of the chess tables (adjacent to the chess table occupied by the regular chess-players). That is what we do recently to get out of the house and relax, and it is great. Then Jamie and I went shopping, and I bought a black blouse in an effort to diversify my work clothes, and a purple sweater at Express. The sweater was $40, but it was the most beautiful thing I have seen in weeks, and it fit me perfectly, and I don't have anything that color, and I hardly ever buy clothes anyway, so there.

It is more beautiful without the belt,

and it is also more purple than it appears in this picture.

Hopefully, you will see it in person soon!

I also, much to his delight, bought Alex a purple button-down to replace the one he lost while I was at camp. I also tried on a really cute, pseudo-business-y grey dress at H&M, which I don't need but might go back and buy with my gift card, and also at Express a pale pink strapless ruched minidress, which looked super hot on me but was $98 and which therefore I did not buy.

I want this dress.

Then, when Jamie had to leave for rehearsal, I took the train up to Bryant Park, where I tried Lilly O'Brien's for the first time. It's a "chocolate cafe" on the south side of the park, with all different kinds of hot chocolate and coffee and hot chocolate coffee. I got a dark hot chocolate (and a couple pieces of dark chocolate), which was delicious, and sat and read my book (Insatiable, by Meg Cabot, which I wasn't going to read because it is a vampire romance and it got bad reviews, but which I picked up in the library and ended up checking out because I feel that I should always give Meg Cabot a chance because I love so much of her stuff, and because it references Dr. Zizmor on the first page, and Dr. Zizmor is my favorite subway advertisement by far. Unfortunately, it is not a good book. Everything else I've read by her [and I think I've read everything she's written, including her adult romances under pen names, excepting her Allie Finkle middle-grade series] is light and goofy but engaging and clever and well-written and fun. Insatiable, on the other hand, is info-dump-y and heavy on the description and poorly edited and has an awkwardly brooding vampire male love interest, and also I am pretty sure her publisher just insisted that she capitalize on the vampire trend, because A) it is about a TV writer who is forced to write a vampire plotline even though she doesn't want to because she is tired of vampires in the media and thinks the whole shebang is misogynist and stupid, and basically it is like Sara Bareilles telling her producer via song that she is not going to write him a love song, except if that song were also a love song; and B) it does not read like a lot of effort went into it. That said, I am still reading it.) and it was lovely, and then I went home and watched football and also the baseball playoffs, although I had to turn off the Giants game in the 5th or 6th inning because it was too depressing. At least we are back in PacBell for the next game! That park is our 10th and best fielder.

Anyway, that is all for now. I will try to blog more often, and then I will only have to do little blogs, like when I started, and then I won't procrastinate it because it seems like so much work and time to catch up on everything! That said, it is fun when I am doing it, so I shouldn't procrastinate it anyway :) The end.

In Which I Do Productive Things, Eat Delicious Things, and Tantalize You with Promises of More Excitement to Come

Hello! It has been a while! This is because I was at camp for two months, where I worked super intensely and also had limited internet and no computer. It turns out it actually would have been really useful to have my computer, and almost everyone else on the theatre staff had theirs, but too bad. Sometimes it is nice to be disconnected. But also not nice! Because I cannot update you all with my glorious adventures! At any rate, I am back, and I will bring my computer to my next job.

Here are how things have gone since I got back:

I got home at 11:30 PM two weeks ago. Alex met me at the 40th St. stop and walked me home, where he had a pan of brownies waiting for me! He is great. He had to go to work the next day, but during that time I opened the present he left me, which was a book called Strange Maps, which is exactly what it sounds like, and very exciting. And then the next day we made chicken fajitas, which had been marinating for two and a half days and were super delicious! All in all, an excellent return.

For my first week back I was very productive. I was kind of still in work mode, and I had an enormous list of things to do, including such entries as the following:

buy desk, TV table, dresser, bookshelf

sell furniture that Jen left, including awkward dressers and inconvenient desk

buy umbrella for Alex because I lost his at camp

make sourdough starter

unpack/organize - once furniture is workable!

make sure I will get copies of dvds of shows I worked on at camp

research music director work

advertise accompaniment/transcribing

paint bedroom

blog

write letters

figure out what to do for a workshop for Vancouver

and many other things which I have forgotten because I got them done and then threw out the list. But you get the idea!

Anyway, my advertising needs have been minimized for now, because I got a new job already! So that is nice. Cross that stuff off the list; add new stuff involving getting to Maine next month (where I will be working! As a music director! For Pirates of Penzance! And Alex will be starring! How great is this? More about this new job later), filling out contract, determining what to pack, and getting a subletter for September.

So probably five days out of my first seven back were involved with furniture. One afternoon Alex and I picked up the new dining room table (to replace the one Jen took) and two chairs from an old Jewish guy in Forest Hills and carried it back on the subway; one evening we spent a couple hours at IKEA picking out a bookshelf for everyone (to replace the one Jen took) and a laptop table and desk and set of drawers for me (to replace other stuff, some of which Jen took); one morning we picked up a couch from a woman down in Park Slope (Alex thought we were going to take that on the subway, but he was incorrect); one day we picked up a little dresser to put the TV on (to replace the awkward dresser on which it currently sits, which we have yet to sell) from some artists in Rego Park and carried it across town on the subway; and one day we picked up two solid wood dressers from someone down on Avenue M, which is, like, practically to Coney Island. Fortunately, we had a dolly for that trip. I say fortunately because if there is anything we learned last week, it is that transporting furniture across town on the subway makes me incredibly irritable. Good thing we're done with that. Now we just have to get rid of the extra furniture cluttering up the place, and paint the bedroom, and it will be glorious in here! Well, also it will help if the sporadic cockroach sightings go away. But that is a whole different issue, and one that is thoroughly upsetting, not to mention somewhat embarrassing to me, as it involves standing on toilets, so we will not discuss it.

Anyway, besides finishing stuff on my list, here is what I have been doing since I got back:

1. Making ice cream, and

2. Making sourdough bread.

Much more fun to talk about than all the random crap I have typed so far in this post!

The first ice cream I've made since being back was maple pecan. It could have been sweeter and maple-r and creamier (the lack of sweetness and maple taste were the fault of the recipe; the lack of creaminess was my fault, as I ran out of cream and had to substitute milk for half of it, in addition to the milk that was already called for), but it was actually delicious anyway. I would make it again, with a few changes.

Then Jamie got back from China, and presented to me not only a pearl bracelet but a book of Ben and Jerry's recipes! This is great, because now I can cut out my final holdout Nestle purchases (how upsetting is it that B&J's ended up in Nestle hands, btdubs?) and make delicious frozen goodness on my own! As we have discovered in the last week, homemade Ben and Jerry's recipes have the best of both worlds - absolutely tippity top notch recipes - it can be hard to discriminate appropriately when looking up ice cream recipes online - and perfect fresh creamy homemade texture. So far I've made chocolate peanut butter - which Jamie, Alex, and Jillian all said was the best ice cream they had ever had in their lives - and chocolate mint, and, today, mocha chip. Who knows what will come next? I went on a grocery trip they other day specifically for all the non-perishable ice cream ingredients I might ever want, and I came away with chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, Andes mints, Reese's peanut butter cups, malt balls, peppermint extract, walnuts, pecans, ground coffee, and an order into Foodtown for heath bars. Now all I want are carob chips, coconut cream, Kahlua, chocolate-covered almonds, and about half a dozen other deliciously obscure ingredients that probably necessitate a TJ's trip (I would head to Whole Foods too, since it is right across Union Square from TJ's, but I think it still has bad labor policies. Stupid unethical companies, keeping me from shopping at you.). Anyway, maybe I'll go for something non-chocolate next: peanut butter, or vanilla after-dinner mint. We will have to wait and see!

So that's it on the ice cream front. Now for the sourdough front! I've been desperately missing good San Francisco sourdough since I moved to New York, and I've been intending to make sourdough starter for about six months, but I had to wait for the warm weather, as it needs to sit between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit while it develops (after that, you can keep it in the fridge when you're not using it). I finally got to it this week! It's mostly been under 85 here this week, at least, which is a big change from before (still unpleasantly humid, but that's another story - and it cooled down a lot and rained today, which was exciting!).

Sourdough starter pretty much just consists of flour and warm water, mixed together and set out for several days to catch and grow wild yeasts from the air. If you cheat, like I do, you also add store-bought yeast at the beginning, to facilitate initial growth. I used these instructions, although I made only a half batch at first, because I wasn't sure my glass container was big enough (I am using my one-quart batter bowl, as I could not find a larger glass container at Foodtown [or, for that matter, any glass containers], and it has, in fact, turned out to be big enough, but it does mean that I no longer have the use of my batter bowl. Oh well; it has been sacrificed to a great cause!). Once it's bubbly (although I have found that mine is frothy very inconsistently, and frequently - almost every day, when I go to check on it and feed it - has formed not only hooch on top, but a pretty solid skin atop the hooch, which I also have to stir back in. This worried me initially, but as it is still alive and delicious, I am no longer worrying about it) and has a "pleasant sour smell," it is ready to be fed every day. This means that you remove one unit of starter, and either throw it out or use it in something, and replace it with one unit of flour and one of warm water. Super easy! You can also take out arbitrary amounts of starter when you want to cook something, as long as you replace with more flour and water; it doesn't seem to hurt if you feed it more often than once a day, although I think if you do it too much, you have to give it a little while for the yeasts to catch up. Plus, if you keep it in the fridge, you only have to feed it once a week (although you do have to plan a day ahead if you're going to make bread, and take it out early to warm up), and you can even keep it in the freezer!

Anyway, I have been using it to make sourdough! I made the first loaf when the starter was only 3 days old, so it had only the barest hint of sourdough flavor. Also, it was small, because I only made a half recipe (found here), because I didn't have enough starter for a whole one (I have been gradually increasing my amount of starter since then). I did as the author suggests, and did the second rise overnight in the refrigerator, which I assume strengthed the flavor, but which did not get it to twice its size. Oh, well. It was still good, and got eaten in a day.

The second loaf I made was the next day; same size, same recipe, slightly older starter; stronger flavor. Did the refrigerate rise first this time, according to Debby's suggestion. This time it didn't rise at all in the fridge! I rose it in a warm oven the next morning, and - maybe because it was on a pan instead of in a bowl? - it rose more out than up, although it did go up some, and then when I slashed it across the top per instructions, all the air went out and it deflated like a quiche. I stuck it in the oven anyway, and though it was denser than the first loaf (which was a fraction too dense to begin with), it was still delicious. We ate half of it and saved the other half for French toast this morning.

And I made another loaf yesterday/this morning! This time I used this recipe, and I think I like it better. It had a much stronger sourdough flavor - possibly just because my starter was another day older, but I think also because of the larger and more equal amount of flour and warm water added to the starter at the beginning of making the dough - and also made a lot more bread. It was actually supposed to be two loaves, but when I rose them on a cookie sheet in the oven (not turned on; just trying to keep open food out of the kitchen due to a problem mentioned previously in this post) overnight, they rose completely out instead of up, and ended up smushed together into one big loaf. Next time I'll rise them in a bowl. But I stuck it in the oven anyway, took it out when it was done, let it cool around 20 minutes, spent another 10 minutes prying it off the cookie sheet with my spatula (guess I didn't use enough cornmeal...), and then cut it, ate it plain, and made delicious delicious French toast out of it! The smell of the loaf made me feel like I was sitting on the wharf, which I think is a good sign that I've made some good bread! I will definitely be using this recipe again - although I have also, with just a cursory web search, found about 20 other sourdough - and chocolate sourdough and cheddar sourdough and sourdough pancake - recipes that I'd like to try.

In other news, Edlyn came over last night! Yay yay yay yay yay! And she thinks (cross fingers) that she'll have more free time as a second-year intern, and we might hang out more often than every four or five months! That would be great. She and Alex and I talked and reminisced and traded stories for several hours, and ordered super delicious Indian food in (it was pooooooouring out, and there is this really cool site called Seamless Web where you can order takeout without ever picking up the phone!), and in general had an excellent time. Also, she liked the sourdough.

In other other news, I finally watched one of those movies about the food industry, which movies and books I have been avoiding for the last couple years, because I knew they would basically keep me from ever eating again. But Jamie's mom had sent her Food, Inc. and she really wanted to watch it, and I do have some modical sense of social responsibility, so she and Alex and I sat down with it.

Oy. I can never eat again.

Actually, that's a lie. I will just have to start spending more on food, which is frustrating because I am a pauper, but what can you do. Jamie and Alex and I want to join a CSA (I've wanted to for a while, but they are prohibitively expensive); now it just comes down to finding a winter CSA (the summer/fall ones are already more than halfway through their season) that is affordable split among the three of us (i.e. probably $300 or less, total; $100 or less each). I've found one or two, but their registrations forms aren't up online yet, which makes sense because it is August. So in the meantime, it is the farmers' markets for us! I also kind of want to join the CSA for the Piggery, not because I am normally particularly enamoured of pork, but because I know all about them from some transcription work I've done! They are super great and ethical and, apparently, produce delicious (and healthy) meat, and I want to give them a go! Maybe I will have to find the NYC farmers' market they attend, and try out their stuff. Did you know that healthy pastured pork fat is equivalent to a mixture of half butter and half olive oil? I love my job.

Anyway, I think that's all for now! I sold the inconvenient desk today (yay!), and Alex and I bought our Greyhound tickets to Lewiston. Watched three episodes of The Daily Show (which reputedly has woman-hiring problems I don't want to know more about because I love this show so much and I can't have yet another progressive facade come crashing down on me right now, plus Kristen Schaal was on it the other day and I love her so much too), ate some mocha chip ice cream, time for bed! This was an enormous post, because it was so catch-up-y, but I am hoping to post more regularly through the next few months, and they won't have to be this epic! For the next post, you may look forward to the story of getting hired with Monmouth, pictures of my new furniture, and possibly, if you are lucky, the lyrics to a song titled "I Only Love You For Your Warts." In the meantime, you may enjoy these pictures:

This was supposed to be two sourdough boule loaves...

...uh...

...but I guess they are a hilariously large,

hilariously flat,

hilariously tough-crusted-on-the-bottom loaf

instead.

Fortunately, they are still incredibly delicious

and remind me of home.

NB

I just made a post about my mother's visit. It is called "Maternal Escapades." But because I started it before I made my last two posts, it is posted below them, and I can't figure out how to move it to the top! So you will just have to go down below what you have probably already read in order to read it.

I Have Not

posted much of anything recently because I have not done much of anything recently! This is because after that lovely long weekend where I did many things, I was sick for four days, and then I was catching up with typing and staying inside so as not to cough and cleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaning the apartment like a madwoman, and also reading a lot and watching movies.

BUT

Do not fear! I will return with adventures galore in the blink of an eye, for soon my mother will arrive and we will carry on in an exciting fashion!

PLUS

After that, I go to Jew conference, about which I feel sure there will be much to tell!

ALSO

It will be Alex's birthday soon! Perhaps we will do something exciting.

NOT TO MENTION

Meredith's and Ethel's upcoming June visits, a Concrete Blonde concert in three weeks, and the assuredly crazy time I will have packing for camp!

Soon, before your very eyes, this blog will burgeon - burgeon, I tell you! - with more excitement than any one person can reasonably handle! Prepare yourselves!

P.S. I did bake this week, so that is something noteworthy! Plain muffins and cocoa apple cake and maple walnut bars with maple cream cheese frosting. Alex joined me in making the latter two! It was fun. I love to bake.

maple walnut bar with maple cream cheese frosting,

cut into a beautiful diamond!

Things That Will Soon Be Covered On This Glob

Gendered words;

Burt Bacharach;

Angry box office denizens;

Bald chefs;

Kosher champagne;

My New Favorite Pastime, as compared to my Old Favorite Pastime;

Regrettable culinary coastal disparities;

Emma Lazarus.

In the meantime, I am busy hanging out with Cheryl!

There Was Something Else

fun that I was going to post about, that I thought of yesterday or the day before, but I have forgotten it. Dang.

You May Not Have Been Able to Comment

on this blog. Now you can! And you should, because I like you sooooooooo much!

Salve!*

So I've had at least 5 people in the last few months tell me I should start a blog, because apparently having-moved-recently-to-New-York-City-and-trying-to-find-work-in-music-slash-theatre = having an exciting life. And I admit, the prospect of sharing my thoughts on life more publicly than I probably should has grown on me the more I've thought about it. So I caved. Hello! Here I am!

Be forewarned: I am given to purple prose and the excessive use of parentheses. Furthermore, I am inclined to scribble down things that I think at the time are poetical and profound, and it takes some time for me to get over my initial flings with these scribblings and realize how ridiculous I am being. Please bear with me during these unfortunate episodes.

Also, alliteration is my second favorite literary device. Ten points if you know or guess my first favorite; if you can recognize its use, twenty extra points!

As far as I'm concerned, those are the relevant introductory glob** facts, especially since if you are reading this you are most likely well acquainted with me to begin with. Let the wild rumpus start!

*For those of you who did not take four years of Latin (or live with me while I was taking four years of Latin), this means "Hello." Or, more literally, "Be healthy!" That said, rest easy: I am not likely to indulge in classical pedantry on a regular basis on this glob, given that I have forgotten most of it.

**I accidentally mistyped "blog" as "glob" in the first footnote, and I'm kind of enamored with it.