Nicole

Family puts the Fun in Dysfunction

August 23, 2009

My family is a cast of characters. when we get together things get a little crazy. My dad and oldest nephew’s birthday was on Saturday and we got together at the boat club for a BBQ. The weather was hot a gross so we stayed inside the main rec room while Michael, my brother in law, and my dad’s cousin manned the grills. Much appreciation for our great burgers, hot dogs, and sausages. Plus we had Greenwich Prime Meat’s (formerly Maneros) Gorgonzola Salad, which is one of my favorite things to eat.

Its really funny to see how much my brother TJ and sister Kristen are alike when we get together. We pick up on jokes, hand gestures, & laughs. Like my brother can hear a noise, which reminds him of a song, which I can get in about 4 seconds of him humming. Or when we and mention ‘ objects in mirror are closer then they appear’ and K&T’s mom says ‘like the dinosaurs!’ I knew she was talking about the 3 second bit in the first Jurassic Park movie.

jpark1b

So our time together is usually hectic with joking around, catching up on life, and patroling my three nephews running around. They were even more zany since it was Keagan’s 7th birthday and the twins, Grey and Cole, turn 6 on the 29th so there was some kid electricity in the air. Once I gave them their gifts things got worse with excitement and fighting. Price is just shocked that my sister can think through all of the noise.

Cole

Coleman coloring with Poppy Spaz (this was actually one of Keagan’s gifts from their grandma)

Grey with his remote controled spider

Keagan playing with his hovercraft (horrible blurry action shot)

After dinner there was more playing (chaos!) and running around until we sang Happy Birthday to everyone and they they got cake and patries so they were buzzing around on a sugar high.

Ready, Set, BLOW!!!! Love how Keagan had his collar popped the whole time.

In the end my sister and I were talking about another visit with the boys coming up to Boston. They were up last October so I think a year between visits is good. I think our apartment is finally clean from the sand, spilled juice, and general debris from their last visit 😛

Smile…. it’s the law!

August 20, 2009

Today at lunch I went into the memorial services for Bob Wright held at Park Street Church.

I only go into churches to examine them architecturally. In fact, I was bribed into going the last time I attended services. (Don’t get me wrong I love to learn about religion. I just took a class called World Religions- sweet, I got an A.) But I felt okay about going for a stranger. Maybe it was because I owed nothing to him, except to smile.

Bob was a homeless man that sat outside Park Street Church in the mornings with a sign that read “Smile…. It’s the Law”. He had a rough life with parents that abandoned him and his brother, going through the foster care system, he was a coppersmith, and became homeless when his rooming house in Framingham, MA burned down in 1995. He lived on streets until October of 2007 when he moved into Ruggles Affordable Assisted Living Community. He continued to go to the corner of Park Street and Tremont with his clam shell of birdseed and his sign.

Today’s memorial was really moving with its attendance that I estimate was well over 100 people. When I first got there it was standing room only, luckily someone started to bring out more chairs quickly. I don’t sing in church, apparently the woman next to me doesn’t either, but they had Amazing Grace accompanied by a guitar. Afterwards Christina Nordstrom read the lyrics of a song she wrote about Bob. The song Angel with an Attitude was eloquent and really insightful. She really took the time to get to know Bob and as a result also wrote a book called Park Street Angels about the experience. After scriptures (Matthew 25:31-40) there were more tributes. All of these people shared a bit more about Bob than the last, from that fact the he was a writer to an artist. Jenn Eisenhein (I think?) read his journal entries that he passed on to her. And another man shared artwork that Bob gave him one year for Christmas.

I did not talk to him aside from ‘hello’, and we generally just smiled, nodded, or waved to each other but I still value that he was there, sitting under the clock the told me if I was on time or running late to work. On the days that I was running late his smile mattered even more.

Bob Wright

August 31 1949-August 16 2009

Smile… It’s the Law!

Memorial Gifts

Bob Wright Memorial Fund

Hearth
1640 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02118
Attn: Hearth.org

It looks just like Greenwich!

August 18, 2009

I went to Newport RI this past Saturday to visit my Dad and Robin. He was in town for a Total Marine Rendezvous. We ment for dinner and a sunset cruise around the harbor. Eating lobster is really the once acceptable time to use a bib past the age of 1 1/2. You must embrace every opportunity!

There is something comforting and familiar about getting a guided tour on the water of the mansions on the water. Ahh it reminds me of all the homes in Bell Haven and Indian Harbor back home.

Do you need a house that has a dining room table that seats over 120 people?

All of this reminds me of the endless time when my sister and I would sit on the front of my dad’s boat and pick our houses when we would leave the harbor. ahh to dream…

Orange Poppyseed and Lemon Poppyseed Cupcakes

August 17, 2009

I use any excuse to bake. Shakespeare in the Park for The Boston Couples Meetup was a great reason. Cupcakes are my favorite… the perfect portion of cake. Well, I have had Cupcake Heaven by Susannah Blake for awhile and figured now is the time to crack it open and give it a go. I picked her recipe for Orange Poppyseed Cupcakes but made some modifications to it and made a version with lemon (thanks to a suggestion from Ben at work).

Orange/Lemon Poppyseed Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

1/2 cup of sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

4 tablespoons of orange juice or 3 tablespoons of lemon juice +1 tablespoon vanilla extract

zest of whole orange/lemon

1 cup of self rising flour

1 tablespoon of poppyseeds

Marscapone Frosting

8 oz of marscapone cheese

1 cup of powdered sugar, sifted

juice of orange/lemon

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Line a 12 cup cupcake pan with wrappers.

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy and pale. Gently beat in the eggs one at a time. Add in the zest, juice of the citrus, and poppyseeds, then sift in the flour and fold all to combine. Divide the batter evenly between the cupcakes. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until toothpick is inserted and comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack. Once the cupcakes have cooled completely ice them with the frosting. decorate with sections of citrus, sprinkles, or candied citrus.

The frosting is made by combining the mascapone in a bowl with sifted powdered sugar and juice until desired consistency and taste is reached. Mix until smooth.

*There will be a little batter in each wrapper, but it rises substantially to fill the cupcake wrappers

Creaming the butter and sugar

Add in the poppyseeds and zest

Flour has been added

…. almost done!

Marscapone Frosting

Gazpacho and Shakespeare

August 14, 2009

I could never understand gazpacho. It just seemed like people were eating salsa but calling it cold soup, yeah that makes it okay then. Well I finally caved and had it one day and I have been hooked. It just screams summer to me.

I made I big batch to bring to the Couples meetup for our Shakespeare in the Park picnic. For one thing it was fun to watch Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors but it was also great to meet new people and have great food. Who knew that you could have a conversation about Extra Virgin Coconut Oil? Well I have to find some and give it a try.

Gazpacho

1 English Cucumber, Diced

1 red/orange pepper, diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 red onion, diced

2 large tomatos, diced or 1 pint of grape tomatos diced

1 1/2 cups of corn, fresh or frozen

2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 quart, 14 oz of tomato juice (very large can) *

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lime

Hot Sauce

Salt and Pepper

Dice all vegetables and add to tomato juice. Add in red wine vinegar, olive oil, and lime juice. Add hot sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy.

*I try to use low sodium so that I can adjust the salt myself

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I love Frankmusik

August 13, 2009

Frankmusik is a UK based electropop musician. Vincent Frank got his start beatboxing but now he goes by Frankmusik and has been working the Pop/electronica scene. I have been listening to him for a while and impatiently waiting for his CD to come out. He was releasing is CD earlier this year but then it was pushed back…. so disappointing! Well, now his CD is out and I am very happy 🙂

I ordered Complete Me online and arrived on Tuesday Night! The best was that the ebay seller would send me all these emails saying my order was received, being processed, shipped, and it’s estimated time of arrival!! I anxiously awaited its arrival and then it came!!

Now with it in hand I am driving Price crazy. Complete Me is constantly playing on my iphone and in the apartment. Lots of boogying around on my part. I even asked Price if I could cut his hair like Vincent’s and he said no. I even tried to suggest I cut it close on the side and keep it long and style it tall in front (like the top photo)- I still loose. (Side note- Price would rather grow a mullet and a fu manchu next year for our RV roadtrip. I’ll believe it when I see it!) I love it all but I have my favorite songs…..

In Step

3 Little Words… the video has a piano like the movie BIG!

Better off as Two

Plus I love this clip of Frankmusik Beatboxing

On top of getting his CD this week, I just bought a ticket to see him on @ the House of Blues on 9/14. Perez Hilton has a new label and has organized a tour with a few of his peeps (Ida Maria, Ladyhawke, FrankMusik, Julian Perretta, Eric Hutchinson, Semi Precious Weapons and Sliimy) I would have loved to have seen Julian Perretta also but he is the part of the tour that is on the West Coast. At least I get to see Frankmusik… it will help me get my LAST semester started!!!

I love Jim Gaffigan

August 11, 2009

I love Jim Gaffigan. He is hilarious on so many levels. Comedians are amazing… Tom Papa, Dane Cook, Daniel Tosh, Ricky Gervais. Emily and I even went to see Eddie Izzard and Louis CK. (My hatred for Cottonwood Cafe will be ignored right now…. Emily knows why.)

So I bring him up because Price and I watch his special King Baby all the time. And he does it amazing bit about camping. Price and I watched that part several times right before we went to NH.

Jim on Camping

Jim on Hot Pockets

King Baby – Part 1 (you can continue on from there on youtube.)

‘Don’t try to run away from us.. I mean THE BEARS!’

Bacon over the campfire?!?! But of course.

August 10, 2009

Price and I went to Franconia Notch State Park this past Friday-Sunday. It was our second visit to the area for camping. Price is starting to get to know the area well because he is working on hiking all of the 4,000+ foot mountains. He has done some really hard ones so he thought our little hike on Lonesome Lake trail was easy. I wanted to hurt the earty crunchy man that was sprinting up it. The hike was well worth it in the end because we ended up at this fantastic lake. We went a tiny bit off trail to get to the water and sat on some rocks to have our picnic lunch of pepperoni, cheese, crackers, and wine. Needless to say splitting a bottle of Chardonnay leads me to giggle (especially when price slipped in the mud- ‘It’s the wine laughing, not me!’) and have a better outlook when it comes to getting back to camp.

Once back at Lafayette Campgroundwe regrouped for dinner. After a quick trip a grocery store in Lincoln, NH we got our dinner of hamburgers ready. It is so much fun to cook over the campfire. I stopped off in the camp store to get a smores stick and found our that the temps would get down in the 40’s that night. What the hell?!!? It’s August!! Thankfully I always keep a blanket in my car so we had the extra one that I used to stay warm with when were were relaxing by the firs after dinner. Yes, I was sitting in front of the fire. Yes, I was still cold. Repeat: temps quickly dropping to the mid 40’s.

We survived the night. I thought I would have frozen to death but my 2 shirts, fleece, pants, and socks kept me warm enough. Another quick drive down to the grocery store (forgot a spatula) and a cafe for some coffees and we are ready for the day! What better way to start the day than cooking bacon over the fire?!?!? I wish I could cook bacon over a fire all the time. 1) so much fun 2) such a good smokey flavor.

After breakfast we headed up to Echo Lake for some Kayaking. I had not been kayaking since camp (ah I miss camp) but that does not make me forget how to kayak! Our kayak was possessed!!! We paddled on the right, assuming like a normal person that it would turn left, but it went right. We paddled on the left, and it went right, duh! We paddled evenly and it went right. So after some lovely circles in the middle of the Lake we decided that the hour was enough and went back to sit on the beach and watch others have better luck than us.

Back at the camp site we got to relax, read, and nap. I finished Spook by Mary Roach over the weekend. (I’ve read Stiff that I passed on to Price’s dad so I will read Bonk next). Taking an 2+ hour long nap always makes for a good day.

After we finally got up from our naps we did our last dinner over the camp fire, had some roasted marshmallows and watched the fire change to blue and green from this HIGHLY toxic powder I bought at the camp store. Really cool effect but your pretty much dead if you ingest it. Our plan to get up early to swim at Echo Lake was squashed when we realized how cold it was AGAIN that morning. So we drove around the area to see Indian Head and check out Harman’s Cheese, where we got Emily maple cotton candy.

All in all a great weekend. We had a great hike, fun picnic, doomed kayak, lots of good naps, great food, and lots of fun together. On the negative side…my car smells horrible since it is a lovely combo of dirty clothes, dirty shoes, dirty cooking utensils, garbage…. well, you get the idea. Febreeze is my friend.

Carrot Cake- Time to Celebrate August Birthdays

August 6, 2009

There are a lot of people who celebrate their birthday’s in August, including my family and the people I work with. I try to bring in a cake or cupcakes for the people I immediately work with to help celebrate their birthdays. But this time, 8 in one month was a lot to take on! So I figured that I could bring in 1 big one for the office to enjoy with the all the birthday people. I love to bake but I am not bakery! Especially with 4 birthdays in a row!

I made a massive carrot cake for the 8 people who have August birthdays. Requested by Kellie (August 8th birthday)

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Serves 24 (but you can get 36 decent pieces out of it)

2 pound of carrots

3 cups of all purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons salt

5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

8 eggs

4 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed

2 cup granulated sugar

2 1/2 cups vegetable oil

1 cup raisins

2 cups walnuts, finely chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Line and grease 2 11”x8” baking pans.

Peel and grate carrots (fine shred with a food processor is okay but a grater has the best results)

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

In a very large bowl, beat the eggs until blended. Add the vanilla, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and oil and beat until well incorporated.

In three batches, add the dry ingredients, mix well.

Fold in the carrots, raisins, and walnuts until they are mixed evenly throughout.

Divide the batter evenly between the two pans.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, test for doneness.

Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. Let it cool completely on a rack prior to icing.

Cream Cheese Frosting

24 oz (3 8oz packages) cream cheese, softened to room temperature, cut into small pieces

¾ cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, cut into small pieces

2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

8 cups of sifted confectioner’s sugar

Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the vanilla extract to the mixture. Slowly add in the confectioner’s sugar. Beat until fully incorporated and smooth.

This recipe can be reduced in half.

The last time I made this recipe I left out the raisins and walnuts (afraidof nut allergies in the office) and it was a lot drier. This cake was very moist but not as easy to work with, especially when icing it!

It was nice that we were able to gather the majority of the office to get together for some cake and signing instead of our teams. We figure that we will now have a birthday cake for the month and it will be done during the staff meetings. hmmm what will I make for September?

Banana Pecan Muffins

August 5, 2009

The last time I made banana muffins I was doubling the recipe and made a big goof because I did not double the sugar…. I tripled it. In the end I ended up with sugary banana pucks- not dense, just no levening. They were really good, they just gave you a cavity in the process.

Well, I got bananas this past weekend for the purpose of banana muffins- I had been craving them recently. So I got out the mixer and all my ingredients tonight to get some serious banana pecan muffins going.

Banana Muffins with Pecans

18 muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 overripe bananas
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease the muffin tins .

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In a small bowl, mash 2 of the bananas with a fork so they still have a bit of texture.

In a large bowl, beat with an electric mixer, the other 2 bananas and sugar together. You want a light and fluffy mixture, approximately 3 minutes. Add the melted butter, eggs, and vanilla; beat well. Mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Fold in the nuts and the mashed bananas with a rubber spatula. Divide the batter evenly between 18 muffins.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. You may need to rotate the pan periodically to ensure even browning.

Cool the muffins in the pans for 10 minutes or so, and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

I felt like mixing things up a bit and used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour. The muffins had the same great texture and taste but they did not rise much, compared to when I use all purpose flour. No worries, taste is more important than appearance to me. Plus I made 12 muffins and I used the rest for a mini loaf that I am going to take with us when we go camping this weekend.

Bananas, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla have been incorporated at this point

Adding the whole wheat flour.

Ready for the oven.

A typical Thursday night?

July 30, 2009

Going to Michaels and seeing pumpkins on display?!!? I stress this because it is JULY!!!! JULY!!! JULY!!!

finishing Season 2 of Big Love from Netflix?

starting episodes of the French Chef? Ah I love Julia Child!

attacking slugs that are destroying your plants?

I wonder what tomorrow night brings…

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive.

Time flies by

July 30, 2009

I can’t believe it has been a year since our last visits to New Hampshire and Maine. I am afraid we won’t make it to Deer Isle this summer but we have our NH trip scheduled for two weeks from now. Last year’s attempts at kayaking on the Saco River were foiled by too much rain (made the river too fast) so this year we figure not to even try since we have had the wettest June on Record here and July has not been so great either. So we are sticking to kayaking on a lake in the White Mountains. It will give me the perfect chance to take some great pictures… for scrapbooking. Big surprise there.

Anyone in the White Mountains should see The Flume Gorge and go on the Kancamagus Highway. The Kanc is 32 miles of winding road through the White Mountain Natioanl Forest. A must see in the fall!

Or take a trip to Deer Isle when in Maine. Its sorta in the middle of no-where but it is just amazing. We specifically stay on Sunshine. How can you not enjoying a relaxing time on a place called Sunshine? Plus it is where Price’s mom grew up so it is fun to hear all her stories about life growing up there.

When in Deer Isle head over to Nervous Nellies Jams and Jellies. They have the best jams and jellies! Last year we stocked up and got a case. Their Hot Pepper Jellie is just fantastic! In addition to the jellies you can check out Peter Beerits‘ sculptures on the property. You have not been to Deer Isle until you have seen a dragon made out of ‘junk’.

Supplies:

‘The Flume’ Page- Stampin’ Up! Paper, felt flowers, and brads

‘1 Man’s Trash’ Page- Stampin Up! Paper, HamblyStamped Alphabet rub-ons, Halfway Cafe Diecuts from Cosmo Cricut, and Glitter Mist from Tattered Angels