Shop locally, Eat Gluttonously

I don't want to brag, but I ate freakin' awesomely this weekend. The best part of Chad's birthday every year is that for his big day he likes to eat well. And I mean well. Last year he ate so much kobe beef that he puked. This year it was blue marlin. Yeah, I know, totally crazy and environmentally irresponsible because we did not research its overfishing status until after it was in our fridge. Being bad never tasted so good.

We attempted to make up for it by doing a boatload of shopping at several local farmer's markets the days before the big cooking weekend. i love cooking food knowing that i have met and spoken to the person who grew it for me. My grandfather constantly laughs at me that I converse at length with all the vendors, but they know how to cook the food. So all the produce, fruits and herbs that I consumed this weekend are from within 100 miles of my house. That feels better than i thought it would.

So here was the menu this weekend:

Saturday Night
Rosemary from our garden crusted roast pork loin with tomato herb risotto and patty pan squash sauteed with prosciutto, onion and parmesan

Sunday morning
Scrambled eggs, with tomatoes from our garden, our cuban oregano, onion and cheese and pancakes with homemade (at our house) huckleberry syrup

Sunday dinner
Marlin in lemon basil buerre blanc, potatoes with roasted garlic and our chives, steamed green beans and grilled sweet onions

His birthday cake? Spiced carrot cake with vanilla cream cheese frosting.

Critical Mass Appeal

A lot of people are obsessed with those lists about yourself, some people are obsessed with top ten lists. I am the later. In case you haven't already figured it out. Angie posted about VH1's Top Songs of the 90's. Not that the 90's were the best times for music, but here is a painstaking top 10 (from the choices given to me by VH1) and the justification.

1) Beastie Boys-Sabatoge
Always awesome. To this day one of my favorites of all time. I still crank it loud and drive fast.
2) U2-One
This one deserves it because of how many times this song has been covered. Every artist ever wishes they wrote this song.
3) The Fugees-Killing Me Softly
I know this is a tough sell at #4, I would have chosen Fu gee La personally, but every fan of hip-hop cries at least once a week about the break up of this band.
4) Radiohead-Creep
You played this alone in your room after every break up too, admit it.
5) REM-Losing My Religion
Again, not my favorite REM song ever, but the video was killer weird and let's face it, they could have picked any REM song and I would have put it in the list.
6) Nirvana-Smells Like Teen Spirit-I could probably replay this video frame by frame in my mind. Nirvana probably justified the existence of every kid wearing black for twenty years.
7) Lauryn Hill-Doo Wop
I was really torn here. Two Lauryn Hill songs? I nearly picked Foo Fighters' Everlong, but then it would have been two Dave Grohl songs. What's a girl to do? I actually went back and listened to this album a few months ago and this was the one stand out.
8) Jay-Z-Can I Get A What
"Never test my patience nigga, I'm high maintenance HIGH CLASS, if you ain't rollin, bypass" It's the anthem of my life really.
9) Beck, Loser
Kooky, i loves me my Beck.
10) Missy Elliot-Can't Stand The Rain
I love when hip-hop artists remix songs I recognize from the original. I love "I Can't Stand The Rain" and was super excited to have such a classy song remixed by a female artist.

Go re-live the golden years of high school and college.

TGIF

i usually don't subscribe to TGIF. I have two kids on Fridays so it is usually my most difficult day. Today is looking good though, we were up early after getting a good night sleep, I don't have to cook tonight and we have lots of fun Chad's birthday related activities this weekend.
So here is sending good thoughts to everyone if today is seeming like your only barrier to the weekend.

Lovely

I love it when the blogs I love post about the things i love. One of my favorite kids' book of all time is When i Took The Moon For A Walk, which is put out by Barefoot Books publishing. Design mom highlighted them today. Other than maybe Chronicle Books out of SF I think Barefoot is the best in the kid lit biz. I think Miss Morgan will be getting one of their awesome gift bags for Hanukkah this year!

Back to school

Yesterday went a little better so I am willing to give in to the undeniable cuteness of my child. Just look at her and tell me you have never seen a more adorable back to school photo (I will allow exceptions for photos of your children). Mind you, the first day was yesterday and this photo is from today. She lost the privilege of wearing this yesterday because she hurled a cup of water in my face and then proceeded to try and empty the contents of her bath onto the floor as quickly as humanly possible before I could stop her. But, let's let bygones be bygones. Today the attitude remained solely in the inflections of her speech.

I have also included a photo of the latest incarnation of her art gallery. Chad calls this collection "New York Times With A Bunch Of Crap Glued To It."

So everyone feel free to change your wallpaper, this might be the last good one for awhile.

Brain Dump

Okay so here are my random thoughts, none of which are blog worthy on their own.

My magazine obesession has expanded to Nylon. Yummy photo spreads. However, I hate it when you find something you love in a magazine and you try to actually buy it, but it is not in the stores yet.

The new iPod had been out less than 24 hours and Chad has already made me crazy with his nagging.

Why, with all the running and the confiscation of the cookies, am i still as chubby as ever? And why after weeks of rain should we now be plagued with hoardes of mosquitos? It's just not fair, I itch everywhere and I hear them in my sleep.

Okay i think that's it.

What I Did Right

I suppose that I could blog about our Labor Day weekend, about Olivia's first trip to the Art Institute, the fun time that we had at the Milwaukee Children's Museum. Unfortunately, my child has sucked every inch of lively out of me. Anyone who has spoken to me in the last few days knows that we have been going through some challenging times with her, as is evidenced by my being woken at 6:30 this morning with slaps to the face.

So what do you do when you feel like you aren't doing anything right? My plan is to reorganize the linen closet. I guess parenting is all bout humbling moments. I think the Communists had it right here.

"If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much
today." Mikhail Gorbachev