kdiddy.org » food

concrete bunghole

kdiddy — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:34:26 +0000

I should have clarified in my last post that while my announcement of our upcoming trip to New York City was not an invitation to rob our house, it WAS an invitation to break in and clean the place, do the laundry, and remodel the kitchen. Or, at the very least, take our garbage and recycling to the curb because we forgot to ask my mother-in-law to do it and now, well, we are overflowing with blue bags and good intentions. I hate when you guys don’t read into what I write here.

So, yes. New York. Just like I pictured it. Skyscrapers and everything. This was my third time there and this was definitely my best visit. The reasons for this are threefold:

One: we had excellent hosts with good insight into interesting places to go. The first time I went there, we stayed with some very nice and gracious friends who were there for only a year and who had not ventured very far from their Manhattan apartment building. As such, when we asked them to give us some ideas for places to go, we ended up at The Hard Rock Cafe (museum that only sorta serves frozen food), Planet Hollywood (I don’t remember anything about this except for some facsimile of Sylvester Stallone hanging from the ceiling, watching me eat), and Fashion Cafe (filthy and really who goes to a restaurant owned by anorexic supermodels and expects a decent meal?).

Two: the weather was excellent. The first time I went was at the end of October/beginning of November and it was already freezing, a point that was driven home by the naked, shivering woman who had wrapped herself in a trash bag in Times Square. The second time was during BlogHer in August, at which point the city had become a festering asshole of humidity and garbage juice.

Three: I had nothing to do but be in the city. BlogHer ate up almost all of my time last time, leaving me with only one day to explore, which I spent at MoMA. That was great, don’t get me wrong, but this meant that I really hadn’t had a chance to experience the city as an adult.

Naturally, our trip was rather food-centric. Saturday, we spent most of the day in Flushing, which has to have some of the weirdest, hard-to-find delicious nosh on the planet. We first went to the Flushing Mall, which is a mall, but slightly off somehow.

This statue had a really weird effect on me. The optical trick was enough to make me want to cry. So weird.

We didn’t go there to shop, however. We were there to go to the noodle shop in the food court. It’s one of those places where the noodles are handmade and stretched, you know?

I don’t have any pictures of the actual noodles because once they arrived I couldn’t stop eating them. Also, looking through these pictures, I realized that my son now makes some version of this face in every picture. It’s charming.

Apparently the noodles or the grease from them had an adverse effect on a few members of our party, but I was fine and ready to move on to the next carb stop: the Ganesh Temple Canteen. I had heard about this place on an episode of Anthony Bourdain, which I think is uncool to admit? Whatever, dude and/or his staff can sniff out some good stuff. The temple itself was really cool because you’re just walking along a residential area when suddenly:

Quoi?

The canteen provided us with some of the best dosas and vadas that we’d ever had while we enjoyed a Hindu religious movie depicting some ancient epic battle.

Huge dosa commands your respect

The baby wanted to visit the actual temple, but I declined since I had no clue as to what the etiquette for something like that is. We did check out the entrance, which was beautiful, but then the husband panicked because we had shoes on and we weren’t sure if that was offensive and we rushed out of there so that we could be clueless white people in the safety of the bodega next door.

Frank, one of our hosts, then led us into another part of Flushing and scurried down the stairs of a non-descript storefront. At the bottom of those stairs was another “mall,” where mall is defined as “a haphazard collection of eateries and businesses arranged in an underground location that may have been burrowed out by those infamous New York City rats.” It was, uh, weird. And there wasn’t a drop of English to be found there, which really makes me want to take a gaggle of those, “Why do I gotta press 1 for English this is ‘Murrica!” toads there and watch their heads explode. But it contained an eatery that had done some really interesting things with duck heads and whipped up some of the tastiest dumplings I’ve ever put in my face.

We headed into Manhattan so that we could get some quality Central Park time in. The husband, baby, and Frank threw the frisbee around while I stripped my shoes and socks off and laid in the grass.

After a few minutes, I heard a loud THUNK. What was that noise? I wondered for a second before the pain set in and I realized that the noise was the sound of the frisbee hitting me in the head. The baby swore it was an accident, but I made sure to keep an eye on him the rest of the time. Matricide is no joke.

He ended up playing soccer with a bunch of kids which was one of those parenting moments that makes you really, really happy for no specific reason. “He’s playing soccer! In Central Park! With some kids he just met! That’s so awesome! Buildings! Grass! Yay!”

That night, Andrea made us Pioneer Woman lasagna (more noodles!). After the baby had been put to bed (er, put to couch as the case may be) under Andrea’s ad hoc babysitting services, we headed to Williamsburg to see some friends of ours, Beautiful Swimmers, play at a party in a warehouse. And it was all:

I know Williamsburg is supposed to be this hipster hell hole, and maybe it was the particular crowd we were amongst, but it didn’t really seem that bad. No worse than an average night out in Pittsburgh for us. I did take note of the apparent revival of the tiny backpack trend of the mid 90s, which is just so so dumb.

Sunday we got a late start and headed out to a record store in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn then took a long walk (stopped at a candy store, natch) to our dinner destination, Lucali in the Carroll Gardens section. We had over an hour wait for our table, during which three fire trucks responded to an apartment that turned out not to be on fire. The sister-in-law, Frank, and I walked to a nearby wine store and when we came back, that same apartment was getting a grocery delivery, so I guess all was well?

Our pizza was so, SO good. And our bill, $100ish for 5 people, was our most expensive all weekend, which isn’t bad at all. The baby had stated his desire to try cheesecake, so we decided to make the trek to Junior’s. This kicked off the low point of the weekend. The baby informed us that his seasonal allergy/lung funkiness was kicking his ass. The sister-in-law offered to let him piggy back most of the way there. She gave me her sweater to carry, which I dropped at some point. She and the husband hated me for this and I hated them for whatever so I went into the restaurant and tried to buy cheesecake. The cashier gave me some kind of lecture on saving money and long story short, I bought a whole cheesecake. Hilariously, the baby tried a bite and decided that he definitely does not like cheesecake. WHATEVER DUDE. We were obviously all way too tired, which the cab driver who had the misfortune of taking us back to Woodside had to discover. In other words, he got screamed at because nobody was escaping that evening without getting berated. On the upside, the cheesecake provided me with breakfast the next two days.

Monday, we went to Chinatown for dim sum and bubble tea where we got to see a vendor scream at some obnoxious girls. We then headed to MoMA because I wanted to see the Cindy Sherman retrospective and the husband and the baby needed to be there for the Kraftwerk show later that evening. Cindy Sherman was amazing and we took a quick peek at Starry Night and stuff.

At some point, the husband started running toward some guy and it took me a minute to understand that he had spotted Ralf Hutter, aka the Main Dude from Kraftwerk. He and the baby introduced themselves and I tried to take a non-obnoxious picture of the encounter.

That's Ralf on the right, looking a little scared.

For dinner, we went to the burger place that is hidden in the lobby of the Parker Meridien and then went to Momofuku Milk Bar to get some tasty things, like pretzel milk milkshakes, compost cookies, and crack pie. The husband, baby, and Frank headed back to MoMA for the show and the sister-in-law, Andrea, and I went to the restaurant in Momofuku, Ma Peche, to get drinks.

Frank texted me that people actually recognized the baby from the video of him finding out that we had gotten Kraftwerk tickets and a few even asked to have their picture taken with him. How adorable is that?

Tuesday we got another late start and didn’t get to pack in any last minute things before having to go to the bus stop, but I left feeling like I had really been there. There’s a lot that I don’t like about that city. It freaks me out to be confronted with how many resources it takes to run a city and I don’t know what drugs the mosquitoes take up there but I got a bite on my leg that is just ridiculous. But it was cool to be just one person amongst millions for a few days and to have the “problem” of too many wonderful things to do and see and not nearly enough time to do a tiny fraction of them. I got the sense a few times that New York is wasted on New Yorkers, who spend too much time immersed in it to realize all that they have (not that it’s awesome for everyone). But I felt welcomed and a part of it, the noise and the heat and the pulse. It really is one of the best places in the world.

He's an old pro at the MTA.

cheers and jeers

kdiddy — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:46:01 +0000

I’m ripping that post title off of JiveTurkey because this is really just a list of stuff I want more of and stuff I’m sick of. Let’s start with the negativity because that’s my favorite part.

I have had enough of:

Statements about Whitney Houston and addiction. I know her death was untimely. I know addiction is serious. I’m just so, “Oh…bummer,” about her death. People lead messed up lives, they’re taken advantage of, and then they die in the tub. Alone. Just like all the rest of us.
Chris Brown and the cloud of bullshit that comes with him. I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to talented people who are also piece-of-shit human beings. I do know that responding to the women who tweeted appalling requests after his Grammy appearance with, “They get what’s coming to them,” or “Someone should beat them so they know better,” is pretty vile.
“Kids these days” whining. They wear their pants too low. They listen to terrible music. They don’t know who Paul McCartney is. Yeah, you know what that makes you? A cranky old person set in their ways and the reason why no substantive changes ever happen. Shut up.
Valentine’s Day hype. “Wah, I’m single and this day is so hard for me,” or “Please validate my relationship by gushing over the gifts that my significant other gave to me.” It’s just a day. Do it or don’t.
Communities on the internet and, obviously, the internet in general. I think at some point I may have been concerned about the dynamics of any given group of people on the internet, but that’s not the case anymore. It’s just one facet of life. If people are being jerks to you, disengage.
This dress is a little too small on me at the moment. I’m wearing it today and the buttons are working kind of hard. I’m really ready to get back to a normal level of activity. Speaking of which…

Cheers:

My neck is definitely getting better. This morning I was able to put my left ear close(r) to my shoulder, which I wasn’t able to do even yesterday! (Note: I started writing this post yesterday, so that fact might be relevant when considering the jeers section.) And I thinkthe numbness in my fingers is pretty much gone. I definitely still have issues with stiffness and tightness and pain, but measurable signs of recovery are so exciting. Check out this exciting physical therapy action shot!
No, that's not a booger. That's my nosering.
The husband and the baby. I really do just love the crap out of both of those guys. Despite my aforementioned annoyed indifference toward Valentine’s Day, we had a sweet time last night getting ready for the baby’s festivities at school. He signed his Valentines while I worked my crafty magic into a Valentines box in a swirl of Spongebob wrapping paper, box cutters, pipe cleaner, and ribbon.
Hold on a sec, Martha's calling me.
The husband had another Pittsburgh Track Authority performance at Belvedere’s on Saturday and it went really, really well. Again, about 300 people showed up to hear them and the headliner, Kirk DeGeorgio, and it was really cool to see so many people dancing for them. I’m so proud of him and them. I think something big might be brewing for them.
Mine's on the left. Aren't they cute? All squished together and wondering what the hell they're doing? *
Once again, I done brought the bake sale vibe to this performance and made brownies, which everyone assumed had drugs in them. (They did not.) Both were recipes from blogs that I read that I had pinned to Pinterest. They were Peanut Butter and Fleur de Sel Brownies and Mexican Hot Chocolate Brownies.
Along those lines, I’m finding that Pinterest is much more useful than I thought it would be when I first started using it. I do, however, need to start a board called, “Stuff I Tried from Pinterest that SUCKED,” because there have been a few duds.
Completely unrelated, the phrase, “Where’s Wallace?” has been a common refrain in our house and circle of friends, even though the scene from The Wire that it originated from first aired like 10 years ago.

It’s all very serious and intense, but then we got a Steeler named Mike Wallace. Whenever he does something good, the refrain, “WHERE’S WALLACE?” or “WHERE WALLACE AT?” goes flying. Imagine my glee when I came across this children’s book the other day:I have now redefined my life goals and am going to become a preschool teacher so I can read this to my young charges. What could be more adorable than a bunch of 4-year-olds saying, “STRING?!?! STRING! LOOK AT ME!?”

*PTA image source

oh what fun it is n’at

kdiddy — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:04:06 +0000

The baby’s friend wasn’t actually wearing aviators. I added those to protect his privacy and ensure that I’m exploiting only my child. If that kid’s parents want to exploit him, they’re on their own. I can’t do everything for everyone.

Something (else) that my kid might eventually hate me for is conceiving him in March, causing him to be born in December. He hasn’t yet made it evident if he is at all bitter about this, but I’ve heard from plenty of people that having a birthday in December sucks. Apparently people experience their birthdays getting kind of swallowed up by Christmas, which I think makes Jesus, like, the most annoying first-born sibling ever, getting all of the attention and stuff.

From my perspective, my kid’s birthday falls in the midst of one of the busiest times of the year. There are lots of parties and events to attend, plus the irresistible urge to just DO stuff, like clean and decorate the house and go on baking rampages. When he was born, I ventured out of the house for the first time when he was about two weeks old to go Christmas shopping. I tell you that Hunter S. Thompson, with all of his fear and loathing, would not have been able to handle the experience of a Bed Bath & Beyond in December after popping Percocet for a few weeks and existing in a weird twilight of breast milk and interrupted naps. I nearly had a psychotic break. Also, I got people like the shittiest Christmas gifts ever. I think my mom got a picture frame and my dad got a handkerchief or something. The husband got a Kendrell Bell jersey, which was cool at the time, but quickly became a dud when Bell got injured 830 times and then fell off of the face of the earth.

Anyway…what was I talking about? Oh, yes, my kid’s birthday. If it fell during a less hectic time of year, I would be able to focus more time and energy on it. But as it stands, I’ve outsourced his birthday party almost every year. That way, he gets to have a special day and I don’t collapse in the corner crying. High fives all around. As a result, he’s had some really cool birthday parties at movie theaters, roller rinks, and museums.

This year, we kind of blindly decided on an arcade called Games N’At. We had intended on checking the place out first, but about a month ago I realized that we needed to just go for it, lest we end up with nothing to do. Let me tell you, if you have any kind of party coming up, kid’s birthday, adult birthday, holiday party, whatever, consider going there. It’s fantastic.

It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside there are all of these rooms with every kind of video game you could possibly want to play, everything from air hockey and skeeball to XBoxes and old school Pac Man and Dig Dug. I had told my grandparents not to come because they would probably find it too loud and crazy, but the big party room that we were in (one of two) was quiet and relaxing, with a fireplace and a nice big TV to watch if you needed a break. The kids were able to pick what they wanted to eat…basic party fare; pizza, nachos, chicken nuggets…nothing gourmet but on occasions like these I CARE NOT. Parents got to eat, too, which was awesome. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve nearly passed out at a birthday party because the food is only for the kids. The staff also provided candy bags, so all I had to do was bring cake, which was fine because the baby always has me make him cupcakes anyway. The kids each got free tokens for the games that dispense redemption tickets, but we got a few extra because they had double-booked the party room. Another party was slightly overlapping ours, which really wasn’t even an issue, but the owner was so apologetic about it, which was really nice of her. For three hours and all of that service and amenities, the total was about $180. I guess that’s generally kind of expensive, but I felt that it was a total steal.

I also have to talk about the cupcakes that I made. The baby always asks for chocolate mint cupcakes and for the past few years I used a recipe that I didn’t particularly like. Then, one of my favorite food bloggers, Annie’s Eats, posted a recipe for some fancier mint chocolate cupcakes just a few weeks ago. The moist cake with the mint ganache filling and the mint Swiss meringue buttercream was so much better than my previous iterations. But, as my mom pointed out, were kind of wasted on the kids. I had braced myself for this and thought I would be cool with it, but had to bite my tongue when one of the guests promptly scraped off the buttercream. “I don’t really like icing,” he explained. THAT’S NOT “ICING” YOUNG MAN! THAT’S SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM, GAWD!”

But the baby had an awesome time, which is the most important thing. I’m hoping to go back soon so that I might redeem myself on the air hockey table. The husband doled out a horrible smackdown and I had the added insult of getting laughed at because my gameplay looked like my coach had been our kitten. I got all dizzy following the puck back and forth.

don’t look at it, no matter what happens

kdiddy — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:00:50 +0000

So, I’m on this rosacea medication and that illicit acne cream. And I guess they’re working because, as I mentioned on Twitter yesterday, I feel kind of like this:

What’s even worse is that while I was searching for an image of that guy, I came across this:

Why, internet? Why?

It’s not that I don’t love Richard Simmons. I find him to be endlessly entertaining, especially since he only seems to pop up in the oddest places in my cultural existence.

I’m just unnerved by salad being potentially wasted.

Anyway, I had a somewhat exciting weekend in that I finally got a new phone. My iPhone 3G was 3 years old and not in terrible shape, but it was pretty slow and rickety. I ventured to the Apple Store twice in the space of one week on this quest and I think that place needs to come with some kind of warning. Despite the fact that there’s a recession, there are always 100 customers in there. Though, of course, they’re probably not all buying stuff but are instead there to huff the fumes of pretty shiny things. The, admittedly wonderful and numerous, staff are all so…buddy buddy. All of the Apple Geniuses that I interacted with were so…I think “stoked” is the best word for them. They were so stoked that I was there, they were stoked that I was getting a new phone, they were just really stoked. This is truly the genius of Apple: that gentle hypnosis that convinces that anything you want to buy is totally awesome and you so totally deserve it just for being you.

Speaking of happiness-inducing things, I’m starting to think about the cookies that I’m going to bake for this holiday season. I have a really good cache of recipes, but I always want to find some new ones to try every year. My source for that the past however many years has been Martha Stewart, who used to always put out a special holiday issue. She doesn’t really seem to be doing that anymore. She has a “holiday handbook” but it’s light on recipes and heavy on crafts, which I don’t really get into at all. Martha seems to be on the forefront of the shift to digital media, as her magazines are now available for iPad and iPhone, plus she released a “Cookies” app just in time for the holiday baking season. Iiinteresting.

kittens and husbands and whatnot

kdiddy — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:55:13 +0000

I finally managed to snap a picture of the little maniacal furball in our house.

As Sara noted, he looks very genteel, but looks can be deceiving. He’s either up and running all over the place or passed out, and he doesn’t pass out before going through an elaborate settling in ritual that usually results in bodily harm. Or rather, harm to my bodily.

When he snuggles, he’s heavenly. But he’ll attack me via flying leap and I have scratch marks all over me. I’m too embarrassed to admit that I’m getting regular beatings from a 3-pound kitten, so I’ve just been telling everyone that I’ve been in a knife fight.

We had another busy weekend, so I decided to take the day off of work on Friday to hang out with the dudes, since the baby didn’t have school. We mostly chilled out all day but did manage to check out the Alex Ross exhibit at The Warhol, which was just so, so rad. You should go.

However, I realized on Sunday night that I probably should have taken Monday off instead, since the husband and I had to be out really late. The husband and two of his friends started this…musical group? Band? I’ve also seen the term production trio thrown about. I’m not sure what to call them. But it’s the three of them and a bunch of synthesizers and keyboards and doohickeys and whatnot and they make dance music. They call themselves Pittsburgh Track Authority and things have really taken off for them in the past couple of months, with their tracks getting signed for release by dance music labels. Here’s one of their most recent compositions:

Archipelago by Pittsburgh Track Authority

They had their debut live performance on Sunday at the Shadow Lounge as part of the VIA festival wrap-up party. They were all pretty nervous about it in the weeks leading up to it, since it was a week after the main festival and on a Sunday night.

As it turned out, a TON of people showed up and I don’t think I’m biased in saying that PTA’s performance was the highlight of an all-around fantastic evening. They were preceded by Smooth Tutors and ELQ and followed by Dam Funk. People were dancing the whole time, but seemed to really get into it for PTA. I was so, so impressed with their music and was so incredibly proud of the husband for getting to experience that after so much hard work and so many setbacks. Plus, you know, it’s always exciting to get a post-performance kiss from the hot guy on stage.

Since I knew we were going to be out so late, I had to get lunches ready for me and the baby and decided to bake some cookies while I was at it. I made a batch of Martha Stewart’s pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing (going to write about them for Foodie Parent tomorrow) and toted some of them to the show in my uber-housewife covered pan/container thing that I got from The Cake Pan Lady. Frank, who was in town for the show, cracked up at me bringing treats to the dance music show, like, “Here boys! Brought you some goodies! Have a good electronic music performance! Make sure you use the potty beforehand!” It might have seemed absurd but let me tell you those cookies were gone by the end of the night, devoured by the performers and various attendees with much groaning in delight.

shearer’s knows me too well

kdiddy — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:00:09 +0000

Back during the spring, Shearer’s, the snack company, offered to send me a huge box of chips. My response was something resembling language, but was mostly a lot of exclamation points and grunts.

Shearer’s wanted me to know about two things: the measures that they’ve taken to become a “greener” company and some of the new delicious snacks that they’re rolling out. After reading another blogger’s report about their new manufacturing plant, it’s pretty impressive. Shearer’s earned platinum LEED certification from the US Green Building Council for their manufacturing plants, which feature lots of natural light, rainwater collections, and energy recycling. Awesome, right? Right. Now, what of the chips?

The idea was for me to have a party where my friends and I could sample some of the classic and new Shearer’s chips. I scheduled a party and was really looking forward to it…until the husband realized that he had double-booked himself. Argh. I made a couple attempts to reschedule, but then we started getting into the really busy parts of summer and the opportunity to have a party simply slipped away. But! I still had a huge box of chips and several family vacations to take. I had chips in the car on the way to Conneaut Lake, Washington D.C., and the Outer Banks, and plenty to go around for my whole family. It was cool! I became like my family’s own snack caterer. I would bring bags of chips to the lake or to the beach and say, “Please eat these!” Luckily, chips aren’t a hard sell.

I gave everyone free reign over the traditional flavors like barbecue and sour cream and onion. But some of the alternative (?) snacks were so delicious that the husband and I squirreled those away for ourselves. The two bags of whole grain Shapers in cheddar and cinnamon were quickly gone. The cinnamon started out kind of tasting like light churros, but were sweetened with sucralose which was all that I could taste. However, the cheddar flavor…

Yeah.

They also sent me a few bags of their riceworks snacks, which are so, so good. They’re kind of like rice cakes but chips, if that makes sense. I saved the sea salt flavor for the drive to the Outer Banks. It almost lasted a whole five seconds into the 10-hour trip.

Disclosure: Shearer’s provided me with several bags of their snacks and a $250 gift card to Giant Eagle to purchase party supplies. Since I didn’t have a party, I put those funds toward drinks and dips and whatnot during our vacations.

Aside to regular readers: I know product posts like these are considered increasingly gauche, but I like to support businesses and events that are in or near Pittsburgh. Shearer’s is from Brewster, Ohio. And while their likely allegiance to Ohio sports teams is unfortunate, I’ll support them anyway.

this house is clean

kdiddy — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 19:31:07 +0000

I write to you from day 3 of my juice cleanse and you know what? It’s not bad at all. I’ve been following the travails of the Serious Eats crew, who were one day ahead of me and decided to read the comments, hoping for some input from other people who have done it. The problem was that I forgot that Serious Eats is a huge site and has the douchey commenters to go with it, nearly all of whom ridiculed the juicers for being stupid and buying into fads. My instant reaction: “They hate me, too.” Because that’s the kind of super-sensitive-you-hurt-my-fee-fees week I’m having.

I mean, I get that plunking down some pretty serious bucks on 18 bottles of juice with perhaps little to no scientific research behind their efficacy is pretty dumb, but for me I was really needing to do some serious resetting. The cleanse gave me the opportunity to really examine how I behave about food and what kinds of hunger give me anxiety and what my instinctive reactions are. Do I feel “cleansed?” I don’t know. Physically, I don’t feel wildly different, and I didn’t experience any lightheadedness or other signs that I was without food, aside from an odd brand of dry mouth. (Though I did try to roll up my yoga mat while I was still standing on it yesterday, which was not my finest moment.) Mentally, though, I feel much better and I’ll take what I can get in that arena these days.

My point is, people spend a lot of money on much dumber things.

Just sayin'

Another cool side effect is that my sense of smell is super heightened. And not in the early-pregnancy “Ugh, what is that?” way. But everything smells so amazing right now. I guess my sense of taste is getting something of a rest since I don’t have the juice in my mouth as long as I do food, so my nose is picking up the slack. Yesterday, there was a mobile BBQ truck on campus for an orientation event and I swear I walked past it three or four times just to take in the aroma. Then I scowled at the people in line. “Look at them. Just grabbing the BBQ like it’s whatever. They don’t understand the magical meat that they’re holding in their hands!”

It’s also made me more excited about ramping up my already healthy eating. Like one of the Serious Eats writers, it made me a little more confident to have more vegan days during the week than I already do. Though, obviously, I’m not going full vegan any time soon (see: BBQ lust). This morning on the bus, a guy in front of me was having a frosted honey bun and a huge bottle of Brisk iced tea. It made me feel ill. But not sanctimonious! Eat what you like. Swearsies.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to take it easy introducing foods back into my life, but I don’t think I’ll be able to resist a bowl of oatmeal or my first cup of coffee since Monday (!). The caffeine part, by the way, was not too bad. Last night, I decided to drink some chai and nearly vibrated out of the house. I’m also surprised at my energy level, which I guess is the other physical effect. I don’t feel like I could run a 5k, per se, but I do feel light and unburdened.

Anyway, the husband and the baby are in New York this weekend. I’m excited to have some time to myself, but I do miss them something terrible. Especially when the husband sends me pictures like this:

He fell asleep reading last night. Could you die? Also, apparently one of the first things that he did upon arriving in NYC was to buy a Kangol hat.

I freaking love that kid so damn much.

beached

kdiddy — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:00:02 +0000

Oh, hello. We were in the Outer Banks last week and I’ve spent this week so far “not holding it together” as the husband would say. Crappy life stuff knocked me down so I took a few days off of work to recuperate. My recovery regimen has included sleeping a lot, watching Mad Men on Netflix, and doing a juice cleanse.

Yes, god, I’m doing one of those things. A blog that I read did one some time ago. And a few weeks ago, Tracey had expressed her plans for one while she and Charlie were here visiting. However, they were going to be doing the whole shebang with juicing their own produce and whatnot. I was intrigued, but knew that I wouldn’t be a good candidate for the homemade version. Too much work and I’m at the office all day.

Last week, while I was elbow-deep in one of my potato chip lunches, I noticed that I felt really…swollen. I knew exactly what the culprit was: incredibly delicious North Carolina barbeque, wine, chips, wine, chips, candy, chips, fish, wine, chips, wine, and chips. Having been on a similar diet just two weeks earlier while in Conneaut, to say that I felt kind of gross would be an understatement. That’s close to a month of eating like the apocalypse is upon us. So, I busted out my credit card and purchased a three-day Renovation Cleanse.

I had timed my cleanse for when the husband and the baby would be in New York City for the weekend, my reasoning being that I would be less likely to kill them should this whole thing go horribly awry. Also, coming back from vacation our cupboards were pretty bare so I wouldn’t have too much temptation.

My juices arrived yesterday morning and were waiting for me when I came home from a walk. I had planned to start it today but figured since there were already there and I was home, I might as well jump on in.

I find the juices to be just fine. The Pineapple Apple Mint is especially delicious. I have not, however, had the experience of the Serious Eats crew of feeling too full to finish any of them. I wasn’t starving, either, but I’ve definitely been hungry in between juices. I’m mostly dealing with a mild headache which is probably due both to hunger and lack of caffeine. I don’t think I’ve been doing as much extra flushing as I’m supposed to do, as I’m supposed to keep the water and green tea coming in between. Frankly, I’ve been afraid to go into the kitchen, lest I find myself munching on dry cat food.

I can tell you that I’ve noticed just how many food blogs I’m subscribed to, as I can barely stand to look at my Google Reader and all of its delicious things. I’m really excited to eat healthy stuff after this. My mom and I have big plans this Saturday to visit the new Target in East Liberty (it has a cart escalator!) and I’m sure we’ll have to veer over to Whole Foods so that I can stick my face in the salad bar.

By the way, “juice cleanse” is just one of the phrases that’s been falling out of my mouth lately that makes me want to punch myself in the face. Others include, “my therapist says,” “guided imagery,” and “energy.” I fear that I’m a vision quest away from carrying crystals around.

quite possibly the best weekend ever.

kdiddy — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:09:21 +0000

Not long after I published my post on Friday noting that I hadn’t uploaded last day of school pictures, I realized that I totally had and just forgot all about it. Dur. So, here is the (not so much) baby on his last day of third grade.

That crumpling sound you hear is my heart. Please ignore.

But anyway, I’m coming off of one of the best weekends I’ve ever had and I have the messy kitchen and piles of dirty laundry to prove it. Friday night I accompanied the husband to Eclipse where he was playing records. That place is decent, though I was a little put off by the Ikea-heavy decor and the odd 1998 look of the place. However, the original glass block bar is so cool-looking. I gawked at it for a good 20 minutes. We took off kind of early because we had a big day on Saturday.

I got myself and the baby up kind of early and my mom took us into Shadyside where I was getting a long-overdue haircut and pedicure. My mom dropped me off at home and she and the baby went to Legofest at the convention center and I made one more stop to the nail shop to get my fingers looking nice. It was, as Truvy from Steel Magnolias would say, “a full day’s beauty.” Then the husband and I got dressed and headed into town.

Aren't we swell?

We ate at Seviche, which we’d been dying to return to since we ate there last year, and had one of the best meals ever. Here’s our obscene list of tasty things:

Strawberry Mimosa Champagne Mojito
Cuban Pomegranate Martini
Trio of Chips and Salsa
Traditional, Curried Tropical Fruit, and Fire & Ice Seviches with Ahi Tuna, Scottish Salmon, and Hamachi
Mojo Criollo Nigiri
Bistec Bocadillos with Filet Mignon
Chorizo Wrapped Diver Scallops

I also made the executive decision to order a really expensive bottle of Malbec and noted to the waiter that we splurged because of the special occasion. As a surprise at the end of the meal, he brought us a piece of Tres Leches cake with fresh strawberries and two glasses of Champagne.

After dinner, we walked over to the Consol Energy Center for the Sade concert. It was a happy coincidence that it came around the time of our anniversary, because it was the no-brainer special event. And the concert was so, so amazing. Sade the singer and Sade the band are all so beautiful and talented and smooth and wonderful and sexy. Sade didn’t speak much, but when she did her soft British accent made things like, “Pittsburgh, you’ve built a lot of bridges and they all lead directly to my heart,” and “He charms the birds out of the sky because they want to bask in his light,” sound beautiful and poetic instead of kinda cheesy. The stage was gently lit and adorned with sheer white curtains that would dramatically fly away or drop into the recesses of the floor.

The music, of course, was beautiful. The highlight for me was “By Your Side.” I’ve always liked that song just fine, but never really regarded it as one of their greatest. But for that song the stage was lit in this warm, sunset color and at the end confetti was shot out over the audience. The husband and I were literally by each other’s sides and I knew that we would remain that way for many more years to come.

Edited to add: Can’t believe I forgot to mention Father’s Day, which we spent at my mom’s house with my dad, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. After a slight panic early in the afternoon, we had a rad cookout and then went to see Super 8 at the drive-in. Yeah. This weekend ruled.

day-twah

kdiddy — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:00:32 +0000

Over the long weekend, we made our annual pilgrimage to Detroit. After carefully considering the lineup and cost for this year’s festival, we decided to not attend the festival proper, and instead save our time, money, and energy for the after parties and the city at large.

It felt a little weird to not be marching down Jefferson toward Hart Plaza every day. But, as I explained to someone who asked, I just don’t feel like it’s for me anymore. The promoters are catering to a different crowd (read: wealthier and, I’m sorry, not at all sophisticated in musical taste or public behavior). The lineup is just not as worthwhile for me to endure the discomfort of sharing a space with people who are either too young or too old to act the way that they do…not that there’s a good age to wake up and say, “Today I think I’ll experiment with wearing just underpants.” Although, from what I understand, the behavior of festival attendees in general was extremely subdued compared to that of people in town a few weeks ago for a country music festival. Apparently, nightmares came to life and rode into town on John Deere tractors.

Anyway, our loose plan was to do some touristy things that had been on our list for awhile, take it day by day as far as the festival goes and set aside money for daily admission if there was someone who we really wanted to see and didn’t think we would have another opportunity. We would eat well, check out the sights, head back to the hotel for disco naps, and then enjoy the nightlife.

This worked out wonderfully.

My Twitter and Facebook remained virtually silent throughout the weekend, until finally I stopped laughing long enough to report:

By that point, I had spent nearly every minute since Friday afternoon with the husband, the sister-in-law, the sister-in-law’s boyfriend, Frank, and Noleian, plus other groups of Pittsburghers like Jwan, Liz, Adam, Preslav, Shawn, Kristine, Curt, Amanda, Tony, Sarah, and Arnie. We had been all over the city, exploring eateries and neighborhoods that we’d never seen before. Then we would go out and dance ourselves silly before returning to the hotel and waking the birds up with our slumber party antics. We had so much fun.

There was a decent amount of cutting loose, including an ill-advised plan on Friday to sample Four Loko and Blast by Colt 45. As I heaved the cans down from their shelves at the party store, I explained, “We’re all going to try a little bit of each. It’ll be like a wine flight!”

I took some tasting notes from the assembled imbibers:

“It smells like…something I’ve smelled before.”

“It looks like…something I’ve seen before.”

“Hmm…It’s like you soaked a urinal cake in beer and drank it.”

“Gives you corpse tongue.”

“Tastes like they had a bum swish this around in his mouth and then spit it in a can.”

The Strawberry Watermelon was terrible. The Blueberry Pomegranate was okay, but we were alarmed when a small amount spilled on the nightstand and stained it immediately, as we suddenly became aware of what this concoction might be doing to our insides. The Lemonade Four Loko was almost pleasant, but it’s worth remembering that we were probably irrevocably brain-damaged by the time we cracked that bad boy open.

With that milestone behind us, we headed out to see Suburban Knight and Juan Atkins. Suburban Knight was awesome. Juan was apparently hiding a wet blanket in his leather pants because he immediately made things weird and not fun, so we left.

On Saturday, the sister-in-law and her boyfriend and I went to Hamtramck, which is a city within Detroit, and met up with the husband, Frank, and Noleian at Detroit Threads. It was a cool record store but is also a vintage clothing store. This was a huge bonus for me. When I go on record shopping trips with the husband, I usually poke around for a little bit and keep an eye out for stuff that I know he’s looking for, but I can’t help but get bored after awhile. The selection of clothing that they had was really impressive and well-organized. The sister-in-law and I both actually found a number of items that were a) cute, b) decently priced, and c) fit us. It’s pretty hard to find all three of these qualities in many vintage stores, in my experience. I bought two dresses and a totally badass coat that I’ll have to take pictures of and show you. So excited about them.

We were going to go to Slows BBQ for dinner but they had a two-hour wait and we were getting murderously hungry. We ended up at Mexican Village, which was decent but not outstanding. I was pretty proud of us for going through multiple pitchers of salsa (yes, pitchers of salsa) and margaritas.

That night, we went to a cafe/performance venue to see Kai Alce and Omar S, which was so, so great. The venue is notoriously hot and within minutes we were all sweating. This did not deter us from going crazy the rest of the night, especially since Omar S’ set was completely bananas. I kept looking at the husband and saying, “What is this track?” and was frankly disturbed when he didn’t know any of them, because that dude is a veritable walking encyclopedia of dance music. I then said out loud, “I think maybe Omar S was abducted by aliens and they gave him a stack of records to play. I’m concerned.”

We finally got to a point where we had to step outside, and the husband and I bumped into Scott Grooves. He and the husband needed to exchange records, so we walked with him to his car. It was a unique kind of delight to come upon Scott’s mid-80s Pontiac Parisienne and to watch him open the trunk to reveal a meticulous collection of plastic bags. What an odd fellow.

On Sunday, we went to a Detroit Tigers/Boston Red Sox game at Comerica Park. It was slightly miserable for the first inning or so as it was in the mid 90s and sunny. But it eventually cooled down. It was cool to see a Major League baseball game somewhere other than PNC Park and we got to see Big Papi hit a home run. Comerica Park is very…busy. It seems like when it came time to decorate it, anything that was standing still was outfitted with a tiger, a baseball, a bat, a Chevy, a fountain, a bridge, or sometimes all six.

Also, this happened:

Which only bolstered my suspicions that aliens were present and indicated to me that CLEARLY I need to drink and get little sleep more often since it does so much for my critical thinking capabilities.

For dinner, we went to Buddy’s Pizza, which was ridiculously tasty. I’ve not done extensive pizza taste tests over the country, but I feel like, objectively, Buddy’s has some of the best.

The after party that we had planned on attending was shut down and without a real back-up plan we ended up just staying in for the night, which was kind of dumb. We should have just gone out, but oh well.

Monday we finally made it to Slows which was OHMYHOLYGOD delicious. Let me blow your mind here for a second (vegetarians, look away).

Green beans, pulled pork, chicken, and brisket. The brisket literally melted in my mouth.

An unfortunately too dark picture of our ribs, macaroni and cheese, black eyed peas, and baked beans. I wish I could have documented the meal better but my hands were shaking in anticipation from the meat fumes.

Banana pudding with banana slices and Nilla wafers. Swoon!

Then we were all kinda meat-drunk.

Since we were right by the iconic Michigan Central Station, we decided to walk off a little bit of our meal and check it out like good yuppie wannabes post-industrial ruin tourists urban explorers I-can-see-this-becoming-some-really-wonderful-loft-apartments-starting-in-the-low-300s!

It’s just…stunning. It’s huge and smells kinda weird but is still really, really beautiful.

Someone who used to work there just happened to drive past and told us how gorgeous and busy it used to be. He didn’t sound sad. Just matter-of-fact.

I felt kind of bad about the pictures that I took this year, since so many of them capture what people would see as negatives. But it’s hard to capture stuff like this:

…a grown man and his friends, laughing, for a few precious days not caring about whatever has them down, genuinely having a wonderful time with people who truly understand each other. Or this:

…the beauty of a renaissance center shrouded in fog late at night. If you’ve been there, then maybe you understand what I’m talking about.

Anyway, our last night was going to be at a house party featuring Andres and Malik Pittman, both of whom I adore. I was especially excited about Andres since he’s responsible for one of my personal anthems.

Unfortunately, the barbecue turned on me and I spent an ungodly amount of time in the bathroom. I resigned myself to the fact that I was too sick to go out. I crumbled into bed and turned on TV while everyone else went out. I was in the middle of a really depressing program about Gettysburg (the average time of a limb amputation in field hospitals was 12 minutes) when Frank texted me and asked if I felt like I could possibly make it out. “Maybe,” I replied. Then I decided that there was no way that I was spending our last night there in bed. The husband drove back to the hotel to get me and I shuffled to the car, ginger ale in hand. When we got to the venue, the bouncer let me in for free because I was wearing my Northland Roller Rink shirt. I was pretty proud of myself for rallying, even though I had to elbow some people out of the way to get some choice real estate near a window, as it was too hot for me in my, er, sensitive condition.

I came home to Pittsburgh feeling tired and kind of gross, but my spirits were totally rejuvenated. I love my friends. I love my husband. I love that we do this together every year.