I’m gonna go ahead and apologize, because I have yet another recipe that triggers an immediate inside joke… ‘cept this one is between me and anyone who watched the soup in 2010. If you’re one of those people, I’m willing to guess you couldn’t help but hear this in your head when you read this title:
I’m not going to link the longer clip (just look up “chicken tetrazzini” on youtube if you’d like), but be warned it’s NSFW. Or children. Or your sanity.
chick-en-tet-ra-zzini.
So, where were we? Oh yes, chicken… chicken tetrazzini. Despite the fact that The Soup has pretty much made this dish a joke in our household, it is DELICIOUS. And it’s easy to make ahead of time, freezes nicely and travels well. The recipe came from Wino Emily and she’s made it for us on many occasions. When I was getting married, I had a kitchen/recipe shower and this was the recipe she gave me.
It makes a lot – you could do either one big lasagna dish or 2 small 9×9 dishes. I did 2 small ones, so we could eat one and give one away. I again used my big serving of pre-cooked shredded chicken for this one.
4 cooked chicken breasts, shredded 1 can cream of mushroom soup 1 can cream of celery soup 16 oz sour cream chopped pimientos, drained and rinsed small container of fresh mushrooms, sliced 1 small box of spaghetti noodles 2 c shredded cheddar cheese 1 onion chopped 1 green pepper chopped
1. Cook and shred chicken. 2. Cook noodles according to box’s directions. 3. Mix soups, sour cream, and salt and pepper. 4. Saute onion and green peppers. Add mushrooms. 5. Add noodles to soup mixture. Stir/toss (it will be very thick.) Add sauteed veggies and chicken. Pimientos are added last so they don’t color the sauce. 6. Place in a greased dish. Top with cheese. 7. Bake uncovered at 350 for 1 hour or freeze uncooked to be baked later.
I actually made a double batch to have some more for our freezer, and it was so big I had to get out my giant salad bowl to mix it in.
Unless you’re feeding a crowd, you don’t have to double it. We’ve got chicken tetrazzini to spare. (Luckily, it freezes beautifully!)
I forgot to take a finished product picture, but to be honest – it’s not the prettiest dish. You’re just going to have to trust me that it’s a crowd pleaser and easy to boot. It’s obviously a pretty calorie dense meal, but a small serving goes a long way. Pair it with a simple side salad, and you’ve got dinner – for a few nights or for a big group.
Or, to seduce your best friend’s boyfriend.
The next few day’s posts will be featured in one post at the end of the week explaining how I cooked *all* these meals in one day. Yea, I’m superwoman. No big deal.
On Christmas Eve, we hosted Matt’s parents for dinner and a gift exchange. I had had a hard time deciding what to cook for dinner until I saw that prime rib was on sale at Harris Teeter, and knowing that was a favorite of Matt’s, decided to go with that. The day before, I emailed my Dad to ask for directions since it was my first time cooking prime rib.
Or so I thought, until a few days later when I looked back at a post from Christmas last year and saw that was my first time cooking prime rib.
Not only that, but the battery in my meat thermometer died again this year.
Or more likely, I haven’t used it since then.
I don’t know why but 2010 seems to have gone so fast. Maybe because there weren’t as many hugely significant events this year as last year (2009: buying a house, getting a dog, graduating from med school.) When I think back on 2010, things like California in March, or going to Utah in January, or running my half in September all seem to have transpired in just a few weeks time. In fact, it seems like Christmas 2009 was just here, and yet somehow the calendar tells me it was a full 365 days ago. When I was looking back on last year’s post (and discovering that my memory is not so sharp), I felt like I was reading something I had just written a few days ago.
Anyways, I’ll save those musings for my year end review post.
I didn’t attempt to make homemade yeast rolls again this year, but otherwise the menu seemed to be quite similar from last year’s: roasted asparagus, roasted sweet potatoes, salad and rolls. I guess I have a go-to Christmas menu now. (No one seems to be complaining…)
I also added a new dessert to my repertoire: jam cake. I had never heard of jam cake, but Matt’s Dad had asked me a few weeks before Christmas if I knew how to make it and said it was something his Mom always had at Christmas, so I set off on a mission to make it. Matt enlisted the help of his Dad’s former next door neighbor, and she sent us a recipe via Facebook. Using that recipe, and a few iterations from ones found online to make a brown sugar glaze (heaven), I made jam cake.
I was so excited for my big reveal…. until I learned that Matt’s Aunt Paige had also made jam cake the night before! She had come across a recipe in a cookbook, so we’ll have to compare notes later. Anyways, it wasn’t quite as exciting or nostalgic as I had hoped, but Matt’s Dad seemed pleased to have a second crack at it. After dinner, we did a gift exchange with Matt’s parents and sent them home with hugs for Nanta and Pa, and of course, the remainder of the jam cake.
Christmas Day turned out to be rather quiet and uneventful. Matt and Buddy snoozed for most of the morning, so I did laundry and cleaned the house, just like a regular Saturday!
After Matt went to work, I was feeling sort of low that it was Christmas and I wasn’t really doing anything Christmas-y so after far too long reading about other people’s Christmas on Facebook, I shut down the computer and picked up one of my favorite books, Two From Galilee.
Matt had been given this book from Nanta a few years ago, and I stumbled upon it when we were packing him up to move in together. It’s the story of Christmas, but it’s told from the perspective of Mary and Joseph. I remember picking it up to read one night when I was looking for something to read before bed, and becoming totally transfixed. I never had really given much consideration to what Mary and Joseph must have experienced. I think about the stigma that’s attached to unwed, teen mothers today and imagine that it must have been a thousand-fold worse for Mary. And for Joseph, to have believed that she hadn’t been unfaithful to him and to stand by her, was incredibly courageous, and then the way he falls in love with his infant son despite it not being “his” is so endearing. The story moved me the first time I read it, so I decided that it was the perfect way for me to remember that while there’s Christmas (celebrating with family, opening gifts, eating sticky buns), there is also December 25th: the birthday of Jesus. We celebrated Christmas with Matt’s family on the 24th, and were going to celebrate with mine on the 28th, so this ended up being a perfect reminder of what December 25th is really all about.
My parents and brother arrived Sunday evening, after a harrowing 12 hour drive through some major snowstorms. We had a nice dinner together, and sadly, an early evening as I had to go to work the next day. Katie and Dylan arrived on Tuesday, and when I got home from work, we kicked off our Claffey Christmas. It was an odd mash-up of traditions: Dad wearing the Santa hat handing out gifts one by one (although we always claim he does this to save all of his for the end), opening our stockings, getting a new pair of PJs, laughing and making fun of each other. But there was much that was untraditional: for starters, that we were celebrating at night time and took a break when dinner was ready. (Prime Rib, round 2.) Instead of our breakfast Bloody Mary’s, we had vino and beers that were kept cold in the snow drift on our back deck. And of course, that we were at our house instead of home in New York in our living room. But the most important pieces were there: we were all seven together, celebrating Christmas and Dad got a Dilbert calendar.
My favorite gift was to my parents from all us kids. At home, there’s a picture of the 3 of us – Michael, Katie and I – on the mantel that was taken in 2003. It’s a nice picture, although Katie doesn’t like it because it was during her Barbie-blonde hair and super thin eye brow stage. Guess I wouldn’t have wanted a picture from my senior year of high school captured forever on our parent’s wall either: my Fiona Apple middle part hair and penchant for tube tops were no better. Anyways, my mom has been saying for the last 2 years that she wanted an updated picture, now that Matt and Dylan were part of our family. (Well, to be honest, Dylan still has 6 more months to decide if this is in his best interest.) So I enlisted the help of Jamie over Thanksgiving, and us kids snuck off to do a little photo shoot. Jamie was a trooper, because it was dark outside and there were five of us to round up. But with a heavy dose of patience, a good use of flash and a little photoshop to lighten, we got a good shot and had it blown up on canvas and framed to give to my parents. Here’s the pictures we used. And my favorite, an outtake.
On Wednesday, Mom made her traditional sticky buns and we tried to create some order out of the wrapping paper chaos. Matt hit the slopes for some snowboarding on Wednesday, so the rest of the clan got ready to head down to Charlotte to spend the rest of the week since I was still working. We hit the road at the same time, and I waved good-bye to them as I took the exit for 40-East and they went 40-West. I got a little knot in my throat as I watched them drive away in the rearview mirror, because the holidays were officially over.
Fast as they got here, the holidays seemed to go by even faster. I’m thankful that both sets of parents, Matt and mine, were accommodating to our crazy work schedules (mine was the unforgiving one this year!) and were willing to make the trip to see us, or celebrate on non-traditional days. It was nice to extend our celebrations out over almost a week, and sure helped delay the onset of post holiday blues for a couple extra days. (Although it does make for one long blog post!)
Merry Christmas, ya’ll. Hope that no matter what day(s) you celebrated, you were with loved ones!
When I was little, I really wasn’t that big a fan of Thanksgiving. Probably because it couldn’t hold a candle to that other holiday that comes 4 weeks later that just so happens to involve a whole lot of PRESENTS, and while I’m a big fan of mashed potatoes I could really care less about turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. I know, I was a regular Thanksgiving Scrooge. The older I get though, the more I appreciate that Thanksgiving is one of the few times a year that is really sacred for families. I don’t know many people who have entire extended families sharing zip codes anymore, so having that time reserved for family get togethers is more important than ever and I’m pleased that despite the busy, work-work-work culture we live in, most businesses continue to give people the time off to gather together with their loved ones. Of course, we have the added challenge of the emergency room residency schedule that doesn’t always allow for traditional time off! For instance, this year Matt was working 5:30pm-5:30am the entire week of Thanksgiving, with a day off on Saturday and a 24 hour shift on Sunday. Needless to say, when he wasn’t working, he was sleeping. Both of our families have been really awesome about working around our crazy schedule, whether it’s meant celebrating our holidays on days other than the actual holiday-day or making the trip to come see us when we don’t have enough time off to get there.
This year my parents drove down to Charlotte, where we celebrated Thanksgiving at Katie and Dylan’s home. I have to confess that Katie and my mom did pretty much all the cooking, while I took full advantage of a lazy day off and read, napped, walked my doggy around Katie’s cute uptown neighborhood, and chatted with my fam. (Don’t be fooled by that picture of Katie sleeping – that’s after hours of food prep!) I did contribute a pecan pie, so I wasn’t a total culinary mooch. Our meal was delicious, and I was super sad to have to leave my family Thursday night but given that either route home from Charlotte involves passing a mall I decided it was in my best interest not to wait until Friday to make the drive.
On Friday, my hubby slept off another night shift and I used the free day off to get caught up on some housework and projects. Saturday my family came up to Winston, and Matt, Dylan and my Dad spent a chilly day on the golf course while I recruited Mom, Katie and Michael to help me lug Tupperware tubs of Christmas decor out of the attic. Lucky them. After the boys got back, the children embarked on a secret mission to obtain my parent’s Christmas present (not telling) and then we reconvened at Riverburch for a yummy, wine-y, happy family dinner together. It was hard to say good-bye to my fam after what felt like an incredibly short weekend, but I’m thankful to know that they’ll be in just a few weeks for Christmas and that we’ll also get to spend some time with Matt’s family in a few weeks too.
And with that, the holiday season has kicked into high gear! Somehow I think that 4 weeks away other holiday is going to be here before I know it. Happy Thanksgiving, ya’ll!
The text came at noon and I spent the rest of the afternoon in anticipation.
I was there 20 minutes early, but luckily Anne was there already – as was an opened bottle of Pinot Noir.
Once our crowd grew bigger than the small tables indoor would hold, we switched to outside tables. I already love Mozelle’s for their delicious incredible seasonal yummy food, I love them for their 1/2 price wine Mondays and $4 glass Thursdays, but I fell even deeper in love on Monday for the snuggly bright green fleece blankets on each chair outside.
Southern hospitality? You doin’ it right, Mozelle’s.
These are my happy hours: delicious food (Anne and I shared a fried goat cheese salad, and the table shared artichoke dip), great wine (thanks to Sonoma, I now appreciate why people always say red wine is for cooler weather… it just is) and most important, some of my most favorite people ever crowded around a table, talking and laughing.
My mom and sister arrive from New York tonight! I wonder if my Mom knows what she’s getting into.
It has been really, really, really hot here. Really hot.
I’m going to cook flat-iron steaks with a balsamic vinegar reduction sauce tonight. I really like saying “reduction sauce” because it sounds fancy, but it really just involves leaving something liquid on the stove for a long time until about half of it evaporates.
When you do that accidentally it’s called “getting distracted.” BUT, call it a reduction sauce and suddenly it sounds fancy.
My mom and sis will head on down to Charlotte on Wednesday, where they have wedding dress shopping plans all day. I’ll join them Thursday, to hopefully help narrow down some finalists.
Friday, my mom will return to me where I shall put her to work helping me get ready for our garage sale on Saturday. Like I said, I wonder if my Mom knows what’ she’s herself into.
I think some gene gets activated when you have kids that makes you suddenly and selflessly okay with doing what would otherwise be intolerable activities, all because your sweet precious babies asked. I mean, I adore the Budster but he’s never asked me to help him move, organize a kitchen, iron a shirt, pick him up from softball practice, quiz him for a spelling test, or make a grilled cheese sandwich. Now that would test my love.
Then again, I’ve never asked my Mom to take my crate out back and hose poo out of it every day for an entire year. So, yea. Gene activated.
Totally innocent. No idea what this “crate business” you have mentioned?
The only thing better than spending an entire day touring Sonoma vineyards… is doing it twice in a row.
Thursday dawned, and we were awake (again) to see it. Although I think we slept in til seven this time. By the time DJ, our driver, had backed the Suburban up the long, windy driveway we were ready and waiting for our second day of tours to start.
Breakfast of Champions
We started off at Benzinger, which included a tram tour. Personally, I had a bit of a rough day – criss-crossing the rough terrain of northern California in the back of an SUV left me car sick for the first time in my entire life! When we pulled up to Benzinger, the only thing I wanted to drink was a Sprite out of the vending machine. Unfortunately, the car sickness stuck with me through the next 3 places so I can’t tell you much about the wine, just about the vineyards.
Benzinger was awesome, and definitely a place to go if you ever go out to Sonoma. The tram tour was educational without being boring. We got a tour of the grounds, and they explained their biodynamic garden philosophies which were really incredible – it’s obvious they’ve put a lot effort and money into making their vineyards a sustainable place and I think their success speaks to the idea that you reap what you sow And they sow some yummy grapes. While I didn’t try any that day, fortunately I found a bottle of Benzinger Chardonnay at my local Total Wine when I got back and it was every bit as yummy as my friends had promised.
Various of Views of Benzinger
I’ve always bought wines based on the label (and the price), but understanding where wine comes from and how it grows, and how things like soil, or climate or lifespan affect the grape and thus the wine appeals to me in the same way that understanding where food comes from and how it grows. I don’t fancy myself ever becoming a wine snob (although I do catch myself swirling and sniffing on a regular basis now….) but I like understanding things, and knowing why I like what I like and why I don’t what I don’t. I like understanding what maloactic fermentation is, and that a peachy fume blanc doesn’t really have peach in it.
After Benzinger, we went on to Chateau St Jean which was one of my least favorites of the day – it was more your typical chateau-y looking vineyard. Then our driver asked us if we would be okay going to a really unique place that was a reds only… and I was ready to take a breather (since I’m not a reds only kinda gal), so we went on to Kaz. Kaz was an experience. According to the red drinkers, it was not the best wine they had all week, but the experience was totally unique, in that the wine came straight out of a barrel into your glass or bottle.
After Kaz, we went on to a place called Family Vineyards. Pam and I had actually taken this off our list, because it looked like it was just a house on the road that represented five or six vineyards – and no actual vineyards there. I ended up being very glad our driver had put it back on the list. First of all, our pourer Stephanie was hilarious… she entertained us to no end. I had made a spontaneous recovery from my car sickness and was ready to taste again. Lucky me, because Family Vineyards ended up being home of the Sparkling. I love me some sparkly stuff, ya’ll. Since we were the only ones there, Stephanie tailored the tasting to us – mixing and matching from what she had on hand, diverting from the actual tasting menu – I had three white sand three sparkling, while some of the other girls had more reds, roses and just a few sparklings. I had two sparklings there I had never had – a raspberry flavored Framboise and an almond flavored Almonide. I bought them both to bring home, they were that good . Stephanie also had us do a few “experiments” – drinking a Zin, eating a piece of dark chocolate and trying the Zin again to see how it tasted, and then repeating that with a Late Harvest. Listen, any place that’s going to combine chocolate in its tasting experience gets two pinkies up from this girl.
After Stephanie declared that she was all out of experiments, we headed down the street to Kunde. I liked Kunde, but like Chateau St Jean, it felt more commercialized and our pourer gave us the hard sell on the wine club. This was the first place out of anywhere we went to where we felt like were being “sold” to (and consequently, we didn’t end up buying anything…)
All of us at Kunde
After Kunde, our driver sat in the parking lot deliberating something… then pulled out his cell phone and made a quick call. “Ok, we’re in” he said, explaining that the next place we were visiting was rather picky about large groups and often turned down drivers with groups. When we got to VJB Cellars, I couldn’t help but feeling like The Godfather himself had waved us into his home. VJB was owned by a sweet little Italian gentleman who regaled us with stories of Italy, wine and “the familia.” Even though I’m not a huge fan of reds, I drank every single taste he poured… I’m not sure if it was out of respect or fear! I ended up buying his Primitivo to bring home to Matt. We stayed there until the sun set and until our lovely host, Vittorio, had run out of stories.
Dinner on Thursday night was shrimp and salmon on the grill by Emily, fried goat cheese salad by me and molten lava cakes by Jenny. We did not hurt for calories that evening, let’s just say that. We had a bottle of Prosecco from VJB Cellars to go along with our dinner.
We sat around the table, reminiscing about stories from the ten years we’ve known each other, finishing each other’s sentences and laughing in anticipation as someone would begin rehashing a story we had heard before. There’s no better way to end a day than laughing so hard your stomach hurts and Prosecco nearly comes out your nose (ow) with your best friends.
Growing up, my mom always made corned beef & cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day. I guess I’ve never asked, but I’m assuming she started doing it for my Dad, whose father is Irish. (Although, from what I’ve heard about my Grandma Swales, my mom’s mom, boiling everything in one big pot would have been right up her alley when it comes to cooking!)
This was my first time attempting to cook it myself, and I was pretty pleased with the results. (I actually made this on Sunday, but it seems appropriate to post it today.) Then again, you basically just continually add things to boiling water: meat first, then potatoes, then cabbage. Making the sauce involves stirring and microwaving. It’s pretty much a no-fail, and it goes a long way. Definitely can see why my Grandma Claffey (my Dad’s mom) would have been a fan of this, since she was tasked with the challenge of cooking for nine every night!
I could hear her voice while I was cooking, with one of her most famous quotes:
“If potatoes weren’t so common, they would be a delicacy!”
I guess this should go on my cooking blog, but then again, it’s not the healthiest meal I’ve ever made, so between you and me, let’s just agree to leave it here.
Did I mention soda bread? Mmmm, soda bread. We’ve been eating this for almost a week now.
I love being Irish. Growing up in the North I experienced a big focus on “where your family comes from.” Maybe it’s because the northern states were “melting pots” much more than the South, but I’ve not come across this same fascination with the place of origin in the South. Here, when you ask someone where they are from, they are likely to tell you which county their relatives have lived in for the last 100 years! That kind of longevity of place is a bit of a novel concept for most Northerners.
In 3rd grade, we had to make cut out paper dolls to represent our family’s country of origin. I specifically remember using an excessive amount of red yarn for hair, and plenty of freckles. In 4th grade, we had to interview an older relative about their relatives – during this project I learned my great aunt was supposed to come over to America on the Titanic but fortuitously fell ill and couldn’t make the departure! In 5th grade, we had Immigration Day in elementary school. We had to dress up from whatever country our ancestors had come from, and if I recall right, there was a pretend Ellis Island type experience and a swearing-in assembly. Oh, us melting pot of Western European suburban kids!
I was very conflicted as to whether to represent my Swedish ancestors (Mom’s side) or my Irish ancestors (Dad’s side.) In the end, I choose Swedish for one simple reason: I was blonde.
Other than our somewhat odd fascination with immigration projects from 3rd grade to 5th grade, I haven’t dabbled much in my family’s roots. My brother spent sometime in college tracing my Dad’s line back to Ireland, and my mother’s father has a great record of his family dating back to England. The first time I learned that my Grandma Swales (Mom’s side) had descended from Swedish missionaries who had lived in Venezuela was at her funeral!
As I grow older, I find myself being tugged back towards my roots. I know very little about my family beyond my grandparents – which is the complete opposite of my “100 years in one county” husband who can tell tales of a great-great uncle who was a physician who traveled on horseback throughout Lincoln County and a great-great grandfather who was a pilot. It wasn’t until about a year ago, when putting together a family tree in my wedding scrapbook, that I learned that my sister’s name – Kathryn – was my great-grandmother’s name.
I know that, strangely enough, this is some of my reason for blogging. Ever since learning my great-grandmother’s name, I’ve wondered who she was. At 27, what was she doing? What did she think? My mom has recently found and shared some writing from my Grandma (her Mom) and there’s something that seems magical about hearing the voice of the people who came before you. Especially, in the case of my Grandma, hearing her voice as a wife and a mother, before she played the only role I knew her as – grandmother. I blog for myself, to shake the voices and stories out of my head, to supplement my not-so-trusty memory, but also to put my voice out there for my someday children or their children to read and know who I was, before I play the only roles they will know me in. Isn’t that the fascinating thing about people? We play so many roles in our lives, yet we generally only know each other in one or two of them.
Maybe it’s the process of beginning to start a new branch of a family tree – getting married, the joining together of two families – that makes the desire to know more about where you come from grow stronger. Maybe it’s totally random. What do you think? Do you know much about your family line? Have you ever been curious to know more? Where would you start, if you wanted to know?
Who knew a blog on boiled cabbage was going to end up being a soliloquy on immortalizing my own voice? I think I forgot to mention another reason I blog: it turns out I can, and will, talk about anything I want.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, from a 25% 5th-Generation Proud to Be Irish Woman. Although, you should know, that’s just one of my roles.
Oh, weekend. You could not have gotten here any sooner. I usually don’t feel that way… my weeks often go by so fast, the Friday afternoon almost catches me off guard. This was one of those weeks that somewhere around Tuesday I was like a lil kid sitting in my front window just waiting for Friday to show up. Just one of those weeks.
The weekend ended up being just the perfect blend of social time, me time and house-restoring time. (And when I say restoring, I do not mean Bob Villa style… I mean restoring order, calmness, sanity and the throw pillows that somehow always seem to end up bunched in one corner of the couch.)
Friday night we had a very casual dinner at La Carreta with Zac + Jamie, and Matt + Donna. I don’t think I’ve been there since college… but it hadn’t changed a bit. Same wait staff, same cheap pitchers of margaritas, same never ending chip basket. After dinner, we went downtown and Donna + I accompanied Jamie on a walk around the art district to complete her night photography assignment. The boys busied themselves with the drafts at 6th & Vine. I had taken my camera card out to upload the day before, and for the 2nd time that week, had forgotten to put it back in. So I’m waiting on you, J-boo, to live vicariously through the awesome night pics you took!
Saturday was the first hint of our long overdue Spring, and I’m pretty sure all of Winston found a way to be outside. Matt finally got to crack open the golf bag, and I took Buddy on a long run after getting the house put back to order. It seems like no matter what we do, sometime around Wednesday or Thursday our house starts to look a little bit like a tornado passed through, dropping Vera Bradleys and junk mail and pocket-sized medical references in every corner. Thank goodness for Saturdays, and the chance to put it all back together. (Literally. My house and my self.)
Saturday night we got together with a bunch of the other Emergency Medicine interns and their wives for a wine and cheese party. The premise was simple: bring a wine and a cheese to share and sample, but the outcome was superb. (I think there’s few comestibles I love more than wine and cheese, so I’m fairly easy to please.) Our hostess, Kim, went out of her way to make some other tapas, including an asparagus-prosciutto combination that Matt and I were still talking about 24 hours later and a fiery Spanish tomato dip called Romesco. Imagine my envy when Kim described a 2-week cooking experience in Spain she and her mother had attended. Oh my sweet heavens. Who wants to send me? I regret that I didn’t get my camera out, because the food was simply gorgeous. (It tasted amazing, too, which I suppose is equally as important to non-food bloggers.) I still feel a little hesitant to whip my camera out and start photographing food in places other than my own kitchen.
Sunday we headed down to visit with Matt’s family and celebrate the March birthdays, including my mother’s-in-law tomorrow. Matt’s aunt was in charge of the cooking, which was as delicious, abundant and Southern as any family gathering could hope for. I consider myself very fortunate to have married into a family that is as loving, welcoming and accepting as the one I was born into. I know this isn’t always the case, and any time I listen to a girlfriend tell a “mother-in-law” story, I send a little thanks up to my lucky stars for giving me such a wonderful second family.
Matt’s family lives about 90 minutes west of us, but it doesn’t take 10 minutes of being on the highway before I am sound asleep, every time. There is something about good food, warm homes and cozy conversations that knocks me out every time.
It doesn’t take much to put me back together after one of those weeks: a clean home, some yummy food, and time well spent with friends and family. It’s my very ctrl + alt + delete button that gets me ready for another Monday.
It’s always something of a gamble, telling your friends about your favorite eating establishment. For most people, part of what it so delicious is the nostaliga that is so intricately woven into the flavors of the food that you begin to lose the ability to describe what exactly it is that makes you love it so much. I always feel this way describing Pontillo’s, my hometown’s local pizza place, because I know that it’s magic is one part grease puddles on curled up pepperoni’s and one part memories of ordering pizza at everything from slumber parties to after-prom parties.
When we first met our friends Zac and Jamie, they would tell us about this place they loved to eat in Utah called “Cafe Rio.” To me, it didn’t sound like that big a deal. How much different could it be then Q’doba or Moe’s, or any of the other countless Mexican restaurants that we have in Winston? I mean, c’mon. It’s a burrito, not your first love.
When we first flew out to Utah in 2008 with Zac and Jamie, Cafe Rio was on the to do list.
When we flew out to Utah this week with Zac and Jamie, I made it abundantly clear that I wanted to visit Cafe Rio, not once but twice. They happily obliged, grinning ear to ear, knowing that Rio had another victim, hook, line and sinker.
Guys, I’m sorry for any shred of disbelief I ever held about its deliciousness and I’ll be taking a vat of this creamy tomatillo sauce home in my carry-on now, thanks.
How can a salad be so very magical?
Don’t mess with this guy. That’s an empty burrito tin there.
Since my foray into the world of fudge making did not go so well, I was quite glad that I did indeed have a back up plan for my Dad’s Christmas present (besides the photo calendar that we do every single year and neither parents ever seem to tire of. Hooray for Snapfish!) One day, while digging in my pantry for a rub I had made awhile back and wanted to reuse, I got the idea to make a batch of rubs for my Dad, who is the ultimate grill-master.
And what goes better with a meat-theme gift than beer? I decided to put together a gift basket of 5 different homemade rubs and 6 different types of beers, sold as singles at World Market. I got the spice jars at World Market as well, and looked up different rub recipes online and in cookbooks that I had. This also turned out to be a great way to use up spices, since I seem to have some that harken back to my Baltimore days. Five years ago. Woops.
When compared to my fudge fiasco, this was infinitely easier. It basically involved measuring, funneling and occasionally liking my finger and doing an impromptu taste test. “Too much cayenne? Nahhhh.”
Fortunately, I had much more success with the rubs and beer than I did with the fudge. This was incredibly simple, and I would encourage anyone with a meat eater on their gift list to give it a whirl. Don’t forget the brewski basket: every good grill-master needs something to wash his steaks down with.
