On top of spaghetti, covered with my true love

Published
by
ashley
on March 1, 2009
in cooking
. 1 Comment

I get made fun of this fact a lot, but I make out a weekly menu before I go grocery shopping.  It’s just a way that I can get my thoughts organized so I don’t go to Wegmans and buy 8 boxes of macaroni and cheese and 2 pears.  That’s entirely possible.

I had originally planned to make little mini turkey meatloafs for dinner tonight.  I’ve been craving a big hunk of meatloaf since all my co-worker Amanda talks about is how much she wants a meatloaf sandwich RIGHT NOW.  I can’t blame her.  I love meatloaf sandwiches.  Meatloaf sandwiches are the best part about making meatloaf.  With ketchup.  Lots and lots of ketchup.

However, this morning, I woke up to Marques giggling like a schoolgirl that we’re supposed to get 8 inches of snow.  The minute I heard that, my carb-loving neurons sang out PASTA PASTA PASTA.  Pasta is definitely my comfort food - it’s definitely the first thing I turn to when I’m feeling blah or uninspired or cold or in the need of something warm.  Thick chewy pasta with a thick, meaty tomato sauce that’s been simmering on the stove all day is exactly what I’m in the mood for.

I started my sauce at 4 p.m. and right now, my apartment smells like the inside of an Olive Garden (minus the breadsticks).  It is safe to say that it smells delicious.  I just dropped some turkey meatballs in and will let those cook in the sauce for another hour and a half.  My ultimate goal here is to curl up on my couch at 9 p.m. with a hot, steamy bowl of spaghetti and meatballs frosted with parmesan cheese while watching Big Love, as I have a giant crush on Margene.

Now would be a good time to talk about my parmesan cheese obsession.  I love parmesan cheese.  I love parmesan cheese, freshly shaved, and I love parmesan cheese from the green can.  I like to call it green can parmesan cheese and I probably go through a can every month.  Marques thinks this is ridiculous, and berates me for it constantly, but I don’t care.  My love affair with parmesan cheese will never die, and these words were never truer spoken.

The week up ahead is going to be a busy week, much like the previous two months.  If you’re not already on the twitter feed, that’s probably the best way to see what I’m up to.  Be prepared for an onslaught of what I’m eating for lunch.

Daring Bakers: Flourless Chocolate Cake

Published
by
ashley
on February 28, 2009
in baking
. 1 Comment

Alas, I did participate in the Daring Bakers challenge this month, but my pictures were corrupted so I can’t technically prove it. Sigh.

I’ll just tell you about it.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

The challenge was a flourless chocolate cake with a homemade ice cream.  I originally had planned to do a white chocolate ice cream, but after eating butterscotch sauce with dessert one night, decided to do a butterscotch ice cream.

I used the recipe from David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop” book, which was pretty easy.  I was concerned about my custard, but my ice cream came out rich and buttery and sweet and creamy - delicious.

The cake, on the other hand, I felt was just a wee bit rich.  I could only manage a few bites before feeling sick of it.  It was very fudgy, rich, chocolately.  It was easy to make, but I’m not a fan of melting chocolate so
I got annoyed at times. I used Trader Joe’s chocolate, a mix between milk and dark because I’m not a fan of dark chocolate.

I was going to make a butterscotch sauce to drizzle over it, but really, it was unnecessary.  Too sweet as it is.

I recommend making the cake, though - it’s really a great easy cake to impress someone.  This was also the first time I used the ice cream maker I got for Christmas, so that was fun.  I’m hoping we have more ice cream recipes!

Infinity times infinity

Published
by
ashley
on February 18, 2009
in i am ridiculous and marques
. 3 Comments

So today marks an important occasion, one of my favorite days of the year. It’s my anniversary today, which means that for another year, I was not annoying enough to drive Marques away.

I credit Marques with a lot of things - he really boosted me up and out of the self-destructive phase that I was going through when I met him. He’s taught me a lot about being fiscally responsible and why it’s not a good idea to go to Target and spend 67 dollars on clearance junk when you only have 80 dollars in your bank account (for the record, yes, I used to do this, and it was much more helpful when Taco Bell had burritos for a dollar). Together, we’ve discovered a lot of new things (much of it related to television and/or food, our two favorite things) and places. We moved to DC together, we’ve lived together for essentially the entire time that we’ve been together, and I somehow managed to cure his cat allergies by constant exposure to Waylon.

This is the earliest picture of the two of us that I have, I think it’s from spring 2006. Marques has a lot of hair in this picture - he has much less hair now. I have not a lot of hair in this picture - I have much more hair now. I still have my lip ring in this picture, but it fell out about 7 months after this trip. We look really young. This was taken in Pittsburgh, actually, during an Ikea/Andy Warhol trip. We bought a new blanket there that day, and we still use it every night. In the hotel room that night, I ripped it open and spread it on the bed for us to use (I hate hotel room blankets and I bring my own) and Marques spilled Gatorade on it. The cherry stain is still on the blanket to this day. I look at it in anger.

I cannot tell you how many times Marques has had to hear something like, “Baby, what if I only had one leg, would you still love me?” or “Baby, in the upcoming zombie apocolypse, would you be able to shoot me if I was a zombie?” or “Baby, don’t you think our life would be better if we had robots?” or the inevitable daily “Baby, if we had a bowl of ice cream/bottle of water/insert thing I want Marques to go get here, I’m pretty sure that we would be much happier right now.”

If we were ever to procreate (fingers crossed on the never), he would want to name our child Althea after the Grateful Dead song. This has caused more arguments than you would ever know. I want to name our kid Magnolia, so I suppose I can’t talk.  Sidenote: there are WAY more nicknames for Magnolia than Althea.  We don’t know what we would do if our unborn child was a boy.  Maybe he wouldn’t have a name.

He gets angry about little things like stoplights and missing the first 5 minutes of tv shows. I get angry about stupid things like not having mayonnaise on my sandwich or Marques stealing my pillows. I have a specific order of pillows that I have to have on my side based on the pillows - it goes Cowboy pillow, green pillow, Batman pillow, blue pillow, Gnome pillow. Sometimes when I get home from work, I will see Cowboy pillow on Marques’s side and know that he is a STEALER.

We don’t take very good photos. Inevitably, one of us looks horrible while the other looks passable. Photogenic we are not.

When I first met Marques, I was working a 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift, so when I got off work, we would drive to Taco Bell and eat burritos or we would come home and eat popcorn and popsicles for dinner. SERIOUSLY. I’m surprised I didn’t die of scurvy. We drank a lot of Kool-Aid Jammers, though, so perhaps the citric acid in my Tropical Punch cured that. I couldn’t cook in the first apartment we lived in - it was tiny and cluttered and had carpet in the bathroom and was always full of dirty dishes.  I remember I bought a fan near Easter because he was always complaining about how hot it was (no central air - this is what happens when you spend all of your money at Target and Old Navy - you can’t afford a decent apartment) at night. We put the fan in the window and it made the bedroom smell like the outside. Sometimes I’ll be outside at night and the air will smell just like the way our bedroom smelled and it makes me smile.

I don’t know what our anniversary plans are - dinner, of course, and then Lost (appropriate, as Lost was the first show that we started watching on DVD). Curling up with Waylon and eating popsicles sounds fun too.

Happy three year anniversary, shmoo. I so look forward to the next one. And the next one. And the next one. Infinity times infinity.

True fact of the world: Don’t wake me up before 9 a.m.

Published
by
ashley
on February 16, 2009
in i am ridiculous and true facts
. 0 Comments

Or else this will happen.

Note: extremely accurate artist’s rendering.  This was taken a few minutes after I woke up in front of my computer.  Glasses on and everything.  This is what I like to think my computer was looking at for 45 minutes.  My hair is dirty and unkempt - will fix that later when I actually leave my bed and go take a shower.  Also, yes, my pillowcase has gnomes on it.  I’ll never gnome alone.

And a happy Valentine’s to you as well.

Published
by
ashley
on February 16, 2009
in i am ridiculous, life and marques
. 0 Comments

This weekend, I felt like the following five things:

1.  A big giant ass because Marques totally knew what his Valentine’s Day/anniversary present was (the complete series of The Wire) and I didn’t even wrap it in a inconspicuous manner (you know, the old box-inside-the-box trick) and when I DID wrap it, I had to wrap it in CHRISTMAS PAPER with doves on it saying ‘may peace be with you’ (none of that religious Jesus paper in this household, no sir.  Other Christmas paper themes that I have banned include anything to do with Santa Claus, anything elves, anything poinsettas, basically anything to do with Christmas.  The only reason that we had dove paper was because we got a free roll at World Market and I cannot pass up anything free.).  He was very happy with his present, though, because he loves The Wire a LOT and I actually love The Wire too but I did technically fall asleep during some season 1 episodes and honestly, sometimes I get a little confused as to who people are and their real names versus their street names.

Anyway, I was a bit disappointed because the other night he had guessed it was The Wire.  BUT I suppose that’s what happens when I buy people’s presents 6 weeks beforehand and I can’t keep things a secret.  Here are some sample statements I told Marques about his present:  “You’ll like it a lot, it’s like one of your favorite things,” “Hey baby, let’s watch The Wire on OnDemand OH WAIT I should’ve gotten you The Wire for Valentine’s Day so we don’t have to wait 4 weeks for new episodes,” “I spent between $65 and $95 for your present,”  “It’s no bigger than the Baking with Dorie Greenspan book and no smaller than your average hardcover book.”  I mean, honestly, how could he not have guessed what it is?  I try to plan ahead for things and always fail miserably.

2.  Unable to breathe. I’ve been sick all weekend, culminating on Friday with a fever that made me delusional that Marques was actually in the kitchen making me dinner (he actually did).  I rarely ever get SICK sick - I normally just get a slight case of the sniffles or a tummy rumble and it usually happens if I don’t get enough sleep.  I like to think that I am like a robot in that I need a certain number of hours of rest to recharge, otherwise I am less than at optimal perfomance and that’s when the germies swarm in.  But this weekend, I was sick-sick, in that I had a fever and I moaned and groaned the entire weekend.  Friday was the worst - I got off the metro with chills and feeling just awful, but I was determined to eat red velvet cake ice cream at The Dairy Godmother to kick off Valentine’s Day weekend. And I did, but then I quickly had to pump myself full of over-the-counter medicine.  Now I just can’t breathe out of my nose, which is fine, who needs to breathe anyway?  Needless to say, this weekend was chock full of the sexy.  If by sexy you mean my blowing my nose every 5 minutes and occasionally having snot trickle out of my nose without my knowing it.

3.  Very loved.  Even though I’ve been sick, Marques did a really great job taking care of me.  He made my favorite sick dinner on Friday (chicken and noodles) and did laundry and cleaned the house a little.  He made me bowls of cereal and took me to see Coraline and was really just the kind of boyfriend mom’s wish their daughters had.  I think he’s just preparing me for spring training, where my kind sweet loving boyfriend will disappear into a puddle of Albert Pujols goo.

4.  Who the f is Daniel? This feeling would only make sense to Battlestar Galactica watchers but seriously, WHAT BATTLESTAR?

5.  Very full of sugar.  Marques bought me KitKats, my favorite candy EVER, and I made a pineapple cake for us due to a severe craving brought on by multiple viewings on foodgawker.  I have to make the Daring Bakers challenge sometime this week too, and let me just tell you right now that I might as well just apply it liberally to my hips, the amount of cream and chocolate in this recipe.

Our anniversary is Wednesday, though - that’s three years together for those of you keeping score at home.
Three years is a really long time for me and I’m grateful everyday to have a boyfriend who so willingly puts up with my annoyingness.  Though I am still annoyed that even after three years of keeping the lights low so he has to squint to read, Marques still doesn’t need glasses.  Science doesn’t work.

We could do it if we bought a loveseat

Published
by
ashley
on February 12, 2009
in life
. 5 Comments

These are serious times, and they call for serious measures.  Like asking ourselves, “If we got rid of the dining room table, could we fit in a 550 square foot efficiency?”

Marques and I desperately want to move away from suburban paradise.  There are pros and cons to moving, obviously - we’d be trading safety for possible muggings, but it also wouldn’t take me 35 minutes to get to work every day.  That in itself I would gladly be mugged for. As long as knives weren’t involved.

It’s a bit moot right now, as we are stuck in our corporate lease until July.  But we are already on the prowl for the perfect apartment.  Happy hour drinks last week with a work friend led us to fall in love with her Friendship Heights efficiency and has us wondering how much junk we would have to get rid of for our lives to fit into her square footage.  Could Marques and I go from a 1 bedroom down to an efficiency without too many problems?  These are questions that I am pondering.  Other than the lack of a wall between the living room and bedroom, her apartment had everything we need sans washer & dryer and was only in the mid-1300s to boot.  Utilities included.  We could potentially pay less to live much closer to my job, albeit in an apartment about 200 square feet smaller.  Who needs all that room anyway?  Haven’t you heard of this green movement?

Then today, I saw an apartment advertised on craigslist in Old Town which I immediately fell in love with.  For one thing, old-timey chandelier!  For another thing, fireplace and built-in bookshelves with hardwood floors!  I am in love with old apartments, the kind with the squeaky floors and uneven doorframes.  However, this place was missing a serious divider between the kitchen and the living room, so unfortunately, it was taken off my list.  Also, I forgot how truly awful parking is in Old Town and it would probably force us to have to move the car every 3 hours to avoid being ticketed.  However, bonus points for being so close to the Dairy Godmother.

Another co-worker of mine is in the Arlington camp, specifically the Courthouse/Rosslyn area.  So much that she made up a cheer for it which is basically just Court! House! Court! House!  I’m not adverse to living in Courthouse or Rosslyn, but I am definitely searching for just the right apartment this time. When we moved here initially, we rented over the internet because we couldn’t visit to apartment hunt.  I want to do things properly this time, with lists and pros and cons and driving around looking for FOR RENT signs.  I want an apartment that allows multiple cats without a multiple cat deposit, a place with hardwood floors and built-in bookshelves, that allows you to paint the walls and doesn’t raise your rent after your initial lease is up.  A place within walking distance to Metro, with a gas stove and big windows.  I don’t think that I’m asking too much, but maybe I am.

But at least I still have 4 months to find it.

Do good unto others and you shall receive a cheap laptop bag

Published
by
ashley
on February 4, 2009
in apartment and marques
. 1 Comment

This is why you should do good things for other people.

This evening, Marques and I left the apartment to go laptop bag shopping for my new laptop -  wheeeee!  As I stepped into the parking lot, I noticed a brown leather wallet on the ground.  I immediately bend down and pick it up and look inside to see if it was anybody we knew.  Unfortunately, no.

The next step was to go to the leasing office so they could get her name from her license and go to her apartment and give it back to her.  Unfortunately, when I got there, they had apparently decided to close early for the day.  Ugh.

I look through her wallet, hoping to find a business card of some sort, or some sort of card with her address on it (her license was an out-of-state license).  No dice.  So I decide I’m going to knock on some doors in our building and find this girl because I know that if I had lost my wallet, I would be on the phone with Wachovia, crying profusely.

So we start knocking on some doors.  A lot of people weren’t home yet.  Finally, after the fifth or sixth door, we find her, and I give her back her wallet.  She didn’t really thank us, which I found a bit odd, nor did she seem all that grateful, but I chalked it up to disbelief in the fact that she dropped her wallet in the parking lot.  Good deed done for the day, no money stolen.  As we were on our way to Target, I told Marques, “Good karma will come back to us for what we just did.”

At Target, I’m searching for a laptop bag.  I am reluctant to spend more than $35, but the shelves are not making that very easy for me.  Everything is 50 or 60 dollars.  I am annoyed.

I finally find a purse-type bag on clearance for $27.98.  It’s not bad, comfortable, kind of cute even.  I decide on it, partly due to the fact that it’s 28 dollars, and head for the checkout.

When it rings up, it rings up $9.98.  The first thing that goes through both of our heads is, “This is because of the wallet.”  I pay, take my bag, check the numbers to make sure it hadn’t been mistagged, and head home.

Do good things for people for whatever your reason.  I would’ve returned that wallet with or without my awesome laptop bag discount.  But I firmly stand by what you put into the universe comes back to you - this I believe.