Is my Alma Mater saying I turn it on?

A few days ago I received a valentine from the most unlikely of sources, the Office of Annual Giving at my Alma Mater or if taken literally, the even stranger source of a light switch.

Now I'm all for almuni donations, and I make a small contribution every May, but somehow, I doubt this is really going to rack up the donations for old WU.

I tired to photograph the card, but it was too long to get the whole poem in clearly, so for your reading pleasure, I shall transcribe it here:

Sometimes it's a student's hand,

Sometimes it's a prof's.

They come and flip my switch straight up

Or sometimes switch it off 

So much learning goes on here.

You help me play my role.

It's not just intellects we shape,

But hearts and minds and souls.

I couldn't do it without you.

I couldn't light the way.

Your love for this place makes me shine,

That's why I want to say,

If you keep giving every year

This room will ne'er be dark.

Your gift, no matter big or small,

Always gives me a spark!

All my love this Valentine's Day!

-Light Switch by the Door, Eaton Hall, Room 212

-------------------

In other news, when I bought him the blue argyle sweater I knew it was only a matter of time before it happened, so of course it happened on Valentine's Day.

Oh well.

This was totally unintentional, but I guess it means we're officially "those people."

Chocolate Banana Bread Cake

The way these recipes are coming, people are going to start to think that the only place I ever ate decent food was in Portland, Maine and that I don't live in a rather major U.S. culinary city these days - because, yes, today's recipe was inspired by something I ate in Portland, Maine.

The restaurant in question today is Bibo's Madd Apple Cafe. This lovely and eclectic little spot is right next door to the theatre I used to work at. Actually it's the same building. In any case, this is one of my favorite eateries in the city and exactly what I like to think a cafe should be: classier and more adventurous than a diner or sandwich/burger joint, but not so intimidating that you couldn't eat lunch there. That is, a place a low-paid twenty-something could take both her friends and her parents. The jaunty atmosphere doesn't hurt either.

The first time I went there for lunch I sprung for dessert: the ever-so-delicious Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding Cake (with a warm chocolate center and whipped cream). Now as readers of this blog may know, I love me some banana bread. I also love me chocolate. So this dessert was right up my alley.

Though my Chocolate Banana Bread Recipe isn't the same as Bibo's (frankly, I'd have to try it again to get a better feeling of the dish), I'm pretty happy with how this variation turned out. This recipe is based on the aforementioned banana bread recipes and Clotilde's Chocolate and Zucchini Cake from her cookbook. I wanted a texture that was somewhere between cake and bread and this does that pretty well. The chocolate flavor is prominent, but not overly sweet and a sprinkle of powdered sugar makes a sweet compliment. I don't know if I'm completely finished with the recipe, but I've made a lot of banana bread in the past month or so, so I'm giving it a rest for now.

Chocolate Banana Bread Cake

(inspired by Bibo's Madd Apple Cafe and Clotilde's Chocolate and Zucchini Cake)

Makes 1 medium-sized loaf

• 2-3 overripe bananas
• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
• ¼ cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp lemon juice or vinegar
• 4 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate melted and mixed with 1/2 a cup of granulated sugar (or 4 oz. of chocolate chips).
• 1¼ cup all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup wheat flour
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 1½ tsp baking soda
• ½ cup unsweeted cocoa
• ½ tsp salt
• powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350° F

Break up the bananas and butter into a large mixing bowl. With a sturdy whisk, mash together the butter and bananas until mixed well - the butter will still be a little chunky, but should be about pea-sized. Add eggs, milk and lemon juice, adding the juice last. Pour in the melted chocolate and mix well.

In a separate bowl, mix flours, brown sugar, cocoa, soda, and salt. Add to wet ingredients and mix well. If desired, you could add some unmelted chocolate chips at this point. Pour into a greased loaf pan.

Bake 55-60 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Lent Week 1

1. No Jeans Lent - Day 1, 2. Paperwhites, 3. Lent Day 2, 4. Lent Day 3, 5. Lent Day 4,

6. Lent Day 5, 7. Lent Day 6, 8. Paperwhites, 9. Lent Day 7

(click on the titles if you want to see the whole photo) 

You know those moments when you're looking at something, but not actually looking at what you're looking at?

Um yeah, that was me in the closet this morning. Not to say that I'm running on empty on day seven here, but that the continuous really cruddy weather here in Chicago makes getting dressed less about choice and fashion and more about "what will get me to the train station without freezing."

The best part of this experiment thus far? Finding ways to make daily pictures of myself interesting to myself. The basket on my head? Only the beginning my friends, only the beginning.  

40 Days

Today, as most of you know, is the first day of Lent.

Now I'm not Catholic, I'd definitely say I'm Protestant, but to get more specific than that, it gets complicated.

I hold no allegiance to any particular brand of the Christian church, but if you want to go about it chronologically, I've gone to the following churches: First Baptist, non-demoninational home church, Evangelical Free, Methodist, First Christian, United Church of Christ and, currently, United Methodist. Oh and four months ago I got married in a Baptist Church in a service officiated by my brother via the Universial Life Church, just to make it more fun.

So if I'm not Catholic, why am I talking about Lent?

In truth, several more traditional Protestant denominations including Lutherans and Methodists still practice some form of Lent, but the reason I do it tends to be less spiritual in natural and more of a challenge. That is, what change can I make in my life for 40 days?

Like many quirks, this is something I started in college. My friend James and I decided that we would go forth and celebrate as many holidays as we could: we did Rosh Hannah, Yom Kippur and Lent our Freshman year. We always forgot when Ramadan came around, and really the whole plan never got that far off the ground, but Lent stuck.

That first year I gave up orange soda. I've also given up chocolate (twice) and two years ago I gave up complaining. Not exactly meat on Fridays, but I do what I can.

This year? I'm giving up jeans.

Day One

Yes, for the next 40 days I shall refrain from wearing the all-American classic. Why? Because feel like I've gotten lazy when it comes to getting dressed in the morning, especially since my work dress code is so lax. Mr. Cleaver and I joke about how he's going to "mix-it-up" and wear a sweater and jeans for the umpteenth day in the row, but it's true for me as well. Now, with Lent and Easter being so early this year, I'm at a slight disadvantage when it comes to dresses and skirts, at least for now (with the mounds of snow piling up outside), but I'm going to tough it out. And while I doubt I'll post everyday, I'm going to try to take a picture of outfit for the next 40 days as proof.

I do get one exception though - if I am painting, building or striking a set for the show that my theatre company is putting on in the next 40 days, I get to wear jeans, because if nothing else, they were meant for that sort of thing.

Barbeque Chicken Pizza

A bit blurry, but you get the idea...

Back in the day, when I was interning at the Goodman Theatre, I brought in a slice of my BBQ chicken pizza for lunch. I was walking from the microwave to the room where we were having a lunch meeting and several other interns started hovering over my lunch, as hungry interns are  often wont to do.

Now, I like to think the admiration of my pizza was due to the pizza and not just the noon-time hunger striking, but the world may never know. Unless, that is, you try out the recipe!

This is another one of those I-kinda-stole-this-from-a-Portland-restaurant recipes. For backing when I was interning in Maine (Yeah, I've done a lot of internships, five in fact. Six, if you count the two seperate summers at NVSF), my roommates and I fell in love with a pizza called the "Harbor Master" at Portland Pie. I'd never been much for chicken on pizza before, but man - this one was good.  And now that I'm approximately 1,086 miles away from a Portland Pie, I had to start making them on my own. My biggest change is the removal of a standard pizza sauce for straight-up BBQ sauce goodness.

Depending on what I have around the house this shifts around a little: sometimes they'll be bacon, sometimes basil, sometimes just chicken and cheese. Pizza's good that way.

BBQ Chicken Pizza (adapted from Portland Pie Co.)

• 1 large boneless, skinless chicken boob cut into small pieces.
• 1 package of pizza dough (mine's wheat and from Trader Joes, I've used the Pillsbury in a can quite often, and of course, you could always make your own if you're feeling fancy)
• corn meal for the pan/stone
• barbeque sauce - my ultimate favorite is the Chicago-based Sweet Baby Ray's, but as Mr. Cleaver and I learned when we tried to bring some to his mom as a gift, it's available all over the USA now.
• ½ white onion, diced (optional)
• 3 strips bacon, chopped (optional)
• basil (fresh or dried or optional)
• cheese (so not optional) I usually use a whole bag of the italian mix, but again, you could get all fancy and grate you own.

Preheat the oven to 400-425°F.  Sprinkle your pizza pan/stone/cookie sheet with some cornmeal to prevent sticking and place rolled out dough on top.

If using, brown the diced onions in a little butter, just enough to the the raw taste off. Remove onions and cook bacon in same pan.

At this point, I usually put the crust (sans anything) into the oven to pre-bake for about 5 minutes.

After the bacon is cooked, remove and drain any fat. Cook the chicken bits until throughly cooked through. Shred any large chicken pieces with a fork. Coat the shreed chicken with BBQ sauce.

Take your pre-baked crust and cover with BBQ sauce like you would any thin pizza sauce. (see below).

Once you're all sauced up, add the cheese. Then top with the chicken, bacon, onion, and basil, and maybe a little more cheese (I never said this was healthy). Put it all back in the oven and cook for another 5-7 minutes or until the cheese is all good and melty.

Let cool a tad (I'm notoriously bad for burning my mouth on food), slice and serve.

And see if a couple of interns don't start sniffing their way over :)

Snow!

With somewhere between 8.5-10 inches of snow on the ground outside right now, I thought this was as good as time as any to post some belated photos from my Christmas in Maine.  

Some serious icicle action, on a lovely red house.

I grew up in California, I have an entire childhood of snowball fights to make up for.

Make a little birdhouse in your soul.

Abercrombie & Stitch: a Sweater Adventure

The summer of 2001, my mother and I went to the mall in search of wool sweaters. I was about to go to college in Oregon and word on the street was it was cold there, so my sandal-shod self, flip-flopped my way through the American Eagles and Pac-Suns of the Fairfield mall in search of pac-northwest worthy garb.

For reasons still unknown to me, I made my way into Abercrombie & Fitch. Now, were this 1901, it would make sense, when it was an outdoor outfitters, more akin to the L.L. Bean than the Gap. However, it being 2001, Abercrombie was home to pre-frayed baseball hats and photos of men with hardly any clothing on, which always seemed like a terrible way to sell clothing to me.

Regardless of any disregard I may have for the store, in I went and purchased my favorite sweater for the next 6½ years: a grey wool, zip-up hoodie.

Me and my sweater on a "pumpkin patch" adventure in 2004.

I loved that sweater, but the years of wear were starting to show. First the wrists started to unravel and loosen. Then the holes started to appear at the seams. When Mr. Cleaver pointed out a nearly two-inch hole in the right arm pit, I had to admit it was time to retire the thing. But having immersed myself in the world of craft blogs, I knew this was not the end. Yes, my old sweater could have a second life -- felted.

Now, my blogosphere doppleganger beat to me to the punch with this post on sweater felting/crafting, but I figured after 6½ years of warmth, my sweater deserves a blog entry as a send off.

RIP old sweater...

I was first inspired by these coasters I saw on Design*Sponge. Then I saw this fabric box linked on Sew Mama Sew and thought it would would be awesome in felt (like I said, I read a lot of blogs, my work day is slow). Yes, I decided coasters would be a dignified end for my favorite sweater.

Original sweater on the left, felted on the right. Wasn't this thing supposed to shrink?

But before I could make coasters I had to felt the sweater. This proved more difficult than one would think. I mean, everyone is always saying "Don't put your sweater in the washer or dryer or it will only be fit for your Chihuahua!" The first two times I washed and dried this (both on high temps, mind you) it just got clean and fluffy. On the third try, it got a little felted. At this point I gave in and did it by hand, with the above results.

Coasters in action.

With the felting done, I cut out my pieces, used my sewing machine to add some decorative stitching and I was in business. I have to say, my old sweater works excellently as both coasters and a change bowl/box. Best part? I still have over half the sweater left and I just might have an idea of what to do with it....

I don't have a stick blender, so that makes it "Rustic"

See that texture? It's "rustic." And making me hungry.

As in, "Rustic Potato Soup."

When it comes to cooking, I have a number of solid family-inherited recipes that I use (many posted here) and as I get more adventurous I've begun to add some of my own, like the Chicken Satay. My process for making up new recipes, pretty much always follows the same pattern.

1. I eat something in a restaurant, see something on tv, or read about something that seems super-tasty
2. I pull out my trusty copy of The Joy of Cooking and see if they have anything similar.
3. I roam over to ye olde internet and look at epicurious.com and then search for recipes on blogs.
4. I write down the ingredients that seem to make sense or overlap from these sources and go shopping.
5. I cook using memory and whatever ingredients I have purchased.
6. I fiddle.
7. I enjoy.

And that's pretty much the process. A month or so ago I decided that I needed to try my hand at making soup. Mr. Cleaver makes a lovely chicken/turkey soup/stew whenever we roast a bird, but I had yet to delve into this food category myself. I decided to start with one of my favorites, potato soup.

Here's what I came up with, please note that it owes a lot, like a lot a lot to this recipe from Nook & Pantry.

I love it when there are so few ingredients, it's like that 5-or-fewer episode of Everyday Food. I also love cooking shows on PBS.

Rustic Potato Soup (serves 4-6)

• 5-6 potatoes, washed and peeled (keep the peels)
• 4 slices of bacon, chopped in to bits
• ½ onion, diced
• 1½-2 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups milk
• salt and pepper
• shredded cheese of choice for garnish (I like cheddar)

In a large stockpot, cook the bacon bits. At this point you can either cook the potato peels in the bacon fat for crunchy potato skins or you can drain the fat.

Chop the potatoes into about 1-inch cubes. Toss the potatoes, diced onion and half the bacon bits into stockpot and add the chicken broth. Add enough broth so it just covers the potatoes. Boil the potatoes until soft about 6-7 minutes. I usually test the potatoes by sticking a fork into the largest potato piece and if it slides off it's good.

Mash the potatoes with a whisk or a potato masher. Add the milk, stir and boil until the soup thickens some. The potatoes are so starchy that it's totally unnecessary to use any thickener (ie flour).

Divide into bowl sand top with cheese and remaining bacon bits, or other garnish of choice.

This soup is rib-sticking good and Mr. Cleaver-approved!

A Brief Article on Bathing

As of Wednesday morning, my building has been lacking that most modern of conveniences, hot running water, due to the change over in our hot water heaters. 

Now I am not one to take for granted hot running water. I love a good hot shower and you'd be hard pressed to find someone who enjoys a warm bath more than I do. When the days comes when Mr. Cleaver and I will buy a home you can bet your sweet bippy I'll be jumping into the tubs (dry of course) to test them for comfortabilty. Shower only? Forget it.

But for these past few morning I have been living a much less modern life, one with hot water pumping through the taps. So to find out how to deal with this development I decided to check in with a more antique source - enter Misters B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols.

Published in 1920 just a hop, skip and jump of my current home of Chicago, Searchlights on Health is an innvaluable source. In addition to being a guide to "Purity and Physical Manhood" with "Advice to Maiden, Wife and Mother" on "Love, Courtship, and Marriage ," it contained at least three section on bathing.  Jackpot!

My first though on learning we had no hot water  was, maybe I'll just skip the shower today. But Misters Jefferis and Nichols had something to say about that.

Important Rules

6. The Bath. - No person should think for a moment that they can be popular in society without regular bathing...

Well, I want to be popular, so I guess I can't skip the bathing then - ah, but it goes on

 A bath should be taken at least once a week, and if the feet perspire, they should be washed several times a week, as the case may require...

Okay, so perhaps I can skip a day...

Every lady owes it to herself to be fascinating; every gentleman is bound, for his own sake, to be presentable, but beyond this there is the obligation to society, to one's friends, and to those with whom we may be brought in contact.

So now I need to be fascinating and clean?! Maybe if I step it up on the cleanliness, they'll let me slack on the fascinating thing. So back to the cold water... but then I find in a second section:

Practical Rules for Bathing

7. Bathing in cold rooms and in cold water is positively injurious, unless the person possesses a very strong and vigorous constitution, and then there is great danger of laying the foundation of some serious disease.

12. A person not robust should be very careful in bathing; great care should be exercised to avoid any chilling effects.

I don't know how vigorous my constitution is, so bathing could put me in some dangerous territory. From the sounds of these guys a cold bath could mean my death! But this long tome is not lacking in answers. For with the help of a kettle I could find myself clean through simple means.

THE SPONGE BATH.

1. Have a large basin of water of the temperature of 85 or 95 degrees. Rub the body over with a soft, dry towel until it becomes warm.

2. Now sponge the body with water and a little soap, at the same time keeping the body well covered, except such portions as are necessarily exposed. Then dry the skin carefully with a soft, warm towel. Rub the skin well for two or three minutes, until every part becomes red and perfectly dry. 

 

Ah, clean at last!

Sewing Update or The Seven-Year Itchy Wool Dress Part II

So I'm still playing post-Christmas catch-up here, but if I keep my nose to the grindstone, I figure I might get all caught up by the end of January. 

That said, here is the sewing-centric companion to last week's knitting update.

Project #1: Christmas Apron

I wasn't one of the many bloggers who made the handmade pledge because I already knew what I wanted to get my husband, and while part of it was handmade by me (record bowls) and part of it handmade by someone else (Wilco silkscreen), the rest was not and it wasn't really an idea I wanted to give up. 

Not entirely handmade, but certainly appreciated by the recipient. 

That said, I did do some additional hand-made gifting, namely the apron below (on left). The pattern was based on a vintage apron I had (on the right). This was pattern-making at its, uh, well it involved some paper bags, a lot of folding and some high-class technical eye-balling and guesswork. 

 

Apron buddies! 

I didn't have enough material or know-how to make bias tape for the edging, so instead I did some decorative zig-zagging. All in all,  I think it turned out fairly well.  

Lord love the zig-zag stitch. 

And what did I get? In an awesome "Gift-of-the Magi"-but-in-a-totally-better-way turn of events, Kasey got me The Apron Book!

That is 100% Pure Excitement there. 

 Project #2: Plaid Wool Dress

 It took seven years to get the dress made, so it's no surprise that it's taken me so long to post about the completion of this project.

I finished the dress about a week and half before Christmas and have worn it several times since then, including for my Breakfast at Tiffany's book club meeting, but every time I wore it I forgot to take a picture. Hopefully I'll remember next time and can post a photo of the dress actually on me, but for now, I leave you with this: