Neato - Punchfork

Have you already heard about Punchfork? It's a recipe site that pulls content from lots of great cooking sites and compiles it all along with lovely photos!

It's searchable by all kinds of criteria (ingredient, dietary needs, allergies, prep time, etc) and the results appear as pictured above: with photos and links. I love it for two reasons really: 1) it compiles the sites I already know and like and some I've never heard of 2) it's visual based, and those pretty pictures always help me decide which one I should choose. Not that my food ever really looks like the photos, I mostly gulp it down too fast to pay much attention.

Weekend in Review

A was away camping with friends this weekend, and I had quite a few projects to finally get off my plate. In the between time I had a little girls night (nail polish, junk food, magazines, beer), spent some time with a favorite kiddo, a little cooking and a much needed very late night workout last night. Some snaps:

To do

Kid toes!

Plenty's cucumber salad in the making

Yummy beer

Iced Coffee

Coffee by the tablespoon

So, most of you probably already know how to do this, and you've probably been doing it forever. But, I just (fairly) recently learned about it. And I'm just now getting around to blogging about it because I don't care about you or your morning happiness. Kidding! I'm just a slacker about taking pictures at 7 am. I'm always tired and grumpy.

Anyway. I owe my sweet friend Michelle all the credit for this post. She sent me this great email about how to do it, and it was hilarious and the perfect representation of what our friendship is like. I should just paste that email here. Oh wait, I deleted it. Okay, then.

What you need

1) Get some delightful whole bean coffee*.
2) Either get your coffee place to grind the beans for you or do it yourself. Either way, extra coarse. We have a fancy pants grinder that I either got from my Mom for Christmas or that I got as a wedding gift. I can never remember.
3) Put that coffee into your french press**. I've found that I like to make it a little stronger than I do with hot coffee. Maybe start with your normal ratio and increase if you want to.
4) Add cold water. Filtered if you care. Tap water if you don't. Mix well.
5) Cover the french press with some kind of lid or aluminum foil. You can use the top of the french press "unpressed", but that's too big for my fridge.
6) Refrigerate for at least 6 hours. I just do it when I get home for the night and drink it in the morning.
7) Wake up. Press it!
8) Pour it over ice, and flavor however you want. I pour it into a giant travel cup and sometimes add a little vanilla almond milk. Sometimes I drink it black and just nurse it for the first part of my day. If you like to sweeten, I'd say go with some kind of liquid sweetener, since sugar won't dissolve.

*We've been into Counter Culture Coffee and our local Cups Coffee. A has a coffee bean roaster but we've been too busy to give it any real love lately.
**Reportedly you can do a similar process with a mason jar and some kind of strainer. That makes sense in theory but I've never tried it. If you do try it, let me know. It seems like that's some next level homemaker stuff.

Intensity

Earlier this week a friend of mine put together a workout playlist for me and tonight was the first time I listened to it. This song was one of the many I heard:

Thanks, Maggie!

A Lesson

If you take me to a romantic comedy (that isn't particularly clever, just run of the mill):
Do NOT expect me to cry.*
DO expect me to laugh. At all the wrong times.
Do NOT expect me to cheer for the bad boy/girl turned good boy/girl. I'm holding a grudge.
DO expect me to roll my eyes dramatically when anyone makes a noise that sounds remotely like speaking out loud during the movie.
Do NOT expect me to join in with any post-movie applause. Who are you clapping for? No one here is in this movie. Stop.
DO expect to share your Twizzlers. And by that I mean OUR Twizzlers.
DO expect to be made fun of gently for your choice of movie.
Do NOT try to retort by saying "Well, you're really excited for that dumb Lincoln movie." Daniel Day Lewis is awesome, I'm not going to apologize for that.

A loves rom-coms. As in, our Netflix On Demand is constantly polluted with the fruits of this obsession.

*I might cry, of course. But it's probably because I just decided I'd like a good cry and the movie is an excuse. I cried during the Little League World Series last night because a 13 year old sobbed about being taken off the mound. They're so small!

Weekend in Review

We had a busy weekend full of friends. A pretty sweet way to stay busy, really. It's especially nice to come off a super busy week and just spend time catching up, playing Rock Band (or Rock Band Hero, I don't know which one we played, honestly), drinking beer and watching our dogs play. I topped the weekend off with yoga class and True Blood. Not at the same time.

Early Morning June

Mid-Day Iced Coffee

Lunch for many 

Rocking

German Toast

More on the Quinoa-Broccoli lunch and the German Toast soon. I probably won't subject you guys to a video of me drumming, but I might. I'm shockingly good at any and all Pat Benatar songs.

Friday Listening

I had the honor to spend sometime with a few college-aged women last week while I helped out with a few Greek organization related things. (Recruitment) One of them has pretty bangin' musical tastes and ordered me to listen to this band, Elizabeth and the Catapult. I've spent the past week and 1/2 addicted, and I'm all the better for it! I'm pretty sure everyone who dates men can relate to the sentiment in that last song I've posted, Mama's Boy.

Weekend in Review

There aren't any photos from the weekend. But if there were, these would be the captions:

"Beer" "Wine" "Bar" "Friends" "It's 3 am?" "Hungover Sunday" "Gross hangover cure" "Fake cure" "True Blood is a disappointment" "HUMMUS"

All caught up? 25 is not 21, friends.

Favorites

What I've Been:

Reading: One Day by David Nicholls. I actually just finished it, it was really lovely. I'm about to start on Team of Rivals.
Wearing: This Skirt from American Apparel. In purple and in navy. It's on sale right now! (I maybe just bought the red one...it's only 16 dollars) I wear these so much that A finally commented. He can barely recall what color my hair is. Also, the AA website might not be safe for work? So gross.
Eating: This Salad from The Post Punk Kitchen. We mix it up, sometimes subbing in spinach or asparagus or lentils or...really whatever we find.
Seeing:  Mary Ellen Mark's 20x24 Polaroid shots seen here
Hearing: Noah and the Whale, discovered via NPR. (I assume everyone loves the Tiny Desk Concerts)
Watching: I'm mostly just waiting for The Debt to come out so I can talk more about how flawless Helen Mirren is. But I did see Captain America. The last minute of the movie is the best minute. Also, why does the Capt. always look so greased up? It's weird.

Flower Power

When we visited The Getty during our LA trip, we spent several hours wandering around the garden areas. I was organizing some photos this morning and came across these flower snaps and thought I'd share. Trying to figure out how to use these in a little wall art display, but also trying to hold off for some potentially big news soon. While we wait we'll settle for posting them here!

Weekend in Review (sort of)

So, I only took photos for a few hours of the weekend, and of the ones I took very few are even close to presentable. But, I'm back, friends! And I've uncovered the mystery of uploading my photos to my laptop. A hint: Turn the camera on. Pretty high tech of me, right?

This weekend I: cleaned, started a new sewing project, ate a ridiculous amount of carrots and broccoli (dipped in hummus), started a new book, watched The Town again (still super good, once again surprised to remember Ben Affleck directed and helped write it), forced a friend into an old stinky antique shop so that I could hunt down a very specific chair (which was not there), took a scenic drive and took some photos at night. I also made waffles. With walnuts. We live right on the edge of danger.

From night driving*:

A asked "Is this my official Pitchfork profile picture now?"

Obligatory night photo

Road companion

Res

Moon

*A drove, I just snapped photos and danced along to Earth, Wind and Fire.

Motto

It's been pretty busy around here, but I thought I'd drop a little note in! I drink coffee everyday, and I used to drink A LOT of it. (Whatever, undergrad and then grad school). So much that I'd get jittery and inevitably someone would suggest I try decaf coffee. Not just no, but hell no.

*I now only drink one cup a day, so I avoid both the jitters and the annoying advice.