okay you guys, this is an amazing cookbook, everyone needs to look at it! sorry i can’t do a direct link to it right now, but i’m on a macbook without a mouse and for some reason wordpress won’t let me cut and paste website links without a mouse. GRRR!

so i haven’t actually gotten a chance too cook anything from it, as i just got it and we are still in alaska at pat’s parents house. BUT–i had to post about it even so because i’m so excited about it! it looks awesome. i’m sure some of you have heard about it on NPR? maybe? maybe not? at any rate, i have read it back to front. it’s definitely much more than recipes. there are fun cooking tidbits and stories and trivia as well as cooking tips.

and for you vegetarians out there–this is not a veggie book, BUT i’d say at least 70% of the recipes are vegetarian, so it would be totally worth it for you too.

oh, and a little shout out for eve-i read this bit about salt and immediately thought of you! “When To Salt: salt when you begin to cook, and you win on two counts. if you salt the meat or onions at the start of a saute, or salt the vegetables or the fish as they go into the oven for roasting, you use less salt in the end and BUILD DEEPER FLAVORS. With onions, for instance, salting at the very beginning of a saute speeds up browning. the salt encourages the onions to give off their liquid. Among other things, that liquid contains sugars which encourage browning, so the saute goes faster. At the same time, the salt infiltrates the onion, which makes it taste better. Talk about a win-win situation.”

will try and report back as i actually begin cooking these recipes.

I’m not really sure which category is best for this topic. I’ve recently been using facebook more often. I still prefer myspace, but I find myself procrastinating with facebook more regularly. Today I started along a path beginning with Jodi’s page, and found a new, fun, and potentially exciting group to join. You all should check it out. It involves wild animals, ninjas, students, and objects flying through the air. Kind of reminds me of The Princess Bride.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2201691174

Not that I’ve ever tried one, but I saw this in a yahoo article…

The Unhealthiest Drink in America
Baskin Robbin’s Large Heath Bar Shake (32 oz)
2,310 calories
266 g sugar
108 g fat (64 g saturated)

Let’s look at America’s Worst Drink in numbers:

73: The number of ingredients that go into this milkshake.
66: The number of teaspoons of sugar this drink contains.
11: The number of Heath Bars you would have to eat to equal the number of calories found in one Baskin Robbins Large Heath Bar Shake.
8-12: The average number of minutes it takes to consume this drink.
240: The number of minutes you’d need to spend on a treadmill burning it off, running at a moderate pace.

Makes me wonder how some of those other milkshake-like drinks compare… yikes!

‘Darth Vader’ spared jail in Jedi church attacks

Just hope that you new and newish mommies had a great Mother’s Day w/e!  I was thinking of you and your wee ones!  Hugs!

see the nice thing about expecting the worst is that when it doesn’t happen you are pleasantly surprised. not that i was expecting a baby with genetic problems, but just that i was expecting more rounds of testing. the ultrasound machine was much better than the ones at swedish (when i was last pregnant that is, maybe they have upgraded). so we got some really clear views of the baby’s face which was super cool.

and…drumroll…it’s a girl! i’m really excited. as most of you know, i like girl names much more than boy names. plus, i thought it would be nice for the two youngest to be the same gender. the dr. assured us that she wouldn’t say gender unless she was positive, so even though i’m only at 16 weeks i’m going to trust her. especially since the baby’s older brother seems gifted with second sight. he’s been insisting that the new baby is a girl.

so, philippa una mccann. nice ring, yes?

…at least according to Antioch…
Earlier this week, I received my for-real diploma stating that ‘the Academic Degree of Master of Arts in Education’ has been ‘conferred’ upon me. And at some point I’m sure I will have to do my final revisions on the thesis itself (shall I post it for everyone’s reading enjoyment, ha, ha?), should my advisor get back to me on that….