Archive for the 'work' Category

And I will be here with my fingers crossed

Published
by
ashley
on November 4, 2008
in life and work
. 1 Comment

In 2004, I spent election night in my college newsroom, waiting to hear who our next president would be. I was a fervent Kerry supporter (though my real love was Howard Dean) and I had my fingers crossed. Part of me believed that the Bush administration could be voted out, that America had had enough, that John Kerry could actually be our next president. I sat in the ancient newsroom on the third floor, with its 1960s Eames couches (I still lust after my old office couch) and its musty smell and watched the tiny TV with my fellow newspaper staff. All of whom had voted for Bush. I was dismayed.

And then, of course, Ohio was called for Bush, and the newsroom erupted in cheers. And I sat at my computer, all alone. And then I got up, dramatically, and went into the closest office to lay on an avocado green vinyl couch, heartbroken and disillusioned in the political system I worked so hard to change.

One of the Bush supporters, one of his most loyal, the one I had gotten into the most fights with that election season, came over to me and made me hold out my hand. I did, and he dropped a little silver Hershey kiss in it, and said, “I’m sorry.”

That guy is voting for Obama this year. People do change.

I’ve been trying to embrace a more bipartisan lifestyle, though sometimes it’s a bit difficult.  I keep an open mind with things and I’ve done a fairly good job not shoving my politics down people’s throats.  I’ve tried to be very low-key this election and I’m pretty sure I’ve come out of it without any enemies.  My Republican friends still like me, so that’s one good sign.

And tomorrow I vote, and voting makes me excited, it gets me energized and ready for (dare I say it?) a great leap forward into an unknown presidency.  I love watching election returns, all of the coverage.  I don’t know why I thought I would not have to work on election night (brain damage?) but I was originally dismayed to learn that I would have to work.  I was hoping Marques and I could go to a bar, get ourselves nice and drunk and silly and watch the electoral votes climb.  Or climb in bed and eat popcorn and hot chocolate, anxious and eager to see the winner, whoever it may be.

However, now I am almost overjoyed to work during election night - it’s not glamorous or relaxed, but I have to pinch myself sometimes because I am here, in Washington DC, in a political newsroom during the most historical election of my generation and it is a far, far cry from where I was 4 years ago.

It is humbling and it is exciting and I will be here, in front of my computer, refreshing CNN, listening to the news being created, history being written.  And I will be here with my fingers crossed.

Bacon-palooza is not approved by your doctor

Published
by
ashley
on October 30, 2008
in baking, friends, life and work
. 1 Comment

I will say this now - I am not that big of a fan of bacon. I don’t like eating it by itself (I don’t like breakfast meats in general) but I love it on pizza and hamburgers.

And, I suppose, now brownies.

This madness started two weeks ago when I posted the link to bacon cinnamon rolls. I was telling my co-worker Scott about them and he got overly excited. He does that and it’s cute. It was a late evening, we were the only ones left in our department. When it’s just us, there’s lots of food talk.

Scott’s reaction to the bacon cinnamon rolls pretty much went like this:

Oh. My. Gosh.

(revered silence as he stares at the picture in awe)

This. Sounds. So. Good.

So we started perusing the Bacon Today website, just checking it out. And I found their post about bacon brownies.

Holy. Crap.

A plan was immediately formed. I would make the bacon brownies and Scott would make the bacon cinnamon rolls. Team Bacon is go!

I did not make homemade brownies. I was tired, I had already made pizza, and my entire apartment smelled like bacon. My best baking sheet had a half-inch thick layer of bacon grease on it. So I pulled a mix out of the pantry. Mixed it right up, poured it in a pan, and crumbled some cooked bacon on top of it.  It looked like this:

Ignore that tiny little unstirred chunk of brownie powder.  Also, this looks kind of disgusting.

I baked them for 30 minutes then took them out to cool.  The bacon pieces had kind of sunk down into the brownies, but you could still see them.  I was hoping the time in the oven would cook the bacon pieces into crunchiness, but unfortunately, they were still kind of chewy.  Here’s what they looked like after baking:

I thought they were okay.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I would’ve used more bacon.  The bacon definitely added a nice salty, smoky taste, but it was odd to eat a brownie and hit…. meat.

Scott really enjoyed the bacon brownies - he ate most of them.  Everyone liked trying them, though, and a lot of people who thought they would be grossed out actually liked them.  So bacon brownies = semi-hit.

This week, Scott made the bacon cinnamon rolls.  He just took a can of refrigerated cinnamon roll dough and rolled some turkey bacon up in it, then baked them.  Scott is clearly more health-conscious than I am because I used thick-cut fatty fatty bacon.  The bacon cinnamon rolls were good, too, even though Scott slightly burned them.  I’m the queen of burning things, so I had no problem there.  The turkey bacon had a lot more bite-give too - if he had used actual pork bacon, I think they would have been really chewy.

I couldn’t take a very good photo of the rolls, but here’s a photo I took on my camera phone:

So bacon-palooza is finished for now.  We might try to make bacon cupcakes, perhaps, but I think we need to give our arteries a good rest first.

Good thing Congress isn’t in session

Published
by
ashley
on October 9, 2008
in friends, i am ridiculous and work
. 0 Comments

If they were, we wouldn’t have time to make graphs about each other.  You might have to click on the graphs to make them bigger to see all the text.

Here’s a graph I made about Amanda’s distribution of time during her workday:

Here’s a graph I made about Scott’s workday:

Here are two graphs Scott made about me:

It’s true.  I love dinosaur chicken nuggets and I hate the gold dome on the W.Va. state capitol.

This is what I have to put up with all day long

Published
by
ashley
on October 7, 2008
in friends, i am ridiculous and work
. 0 Comments

I talk to my co-worker Amanda on iChat pretty much all day.  It’s entertaining.  Here’s an example why.  I’m the little Chuck Taylor shoes, Amanda is the old PostSecret postcard:

Cookiefest = resounding success and 5 pounds

Published
by
ashley
on October 6, 2008
in baking and work
. 2 Comments

Cookiefest 2008 has come and gone, leaving crumbs and an extra five pounds on my hips.  However, it was really fun and I think a great morale booster considering how much we’ve had to work since the conventions.  Recipes are under the cut.

Here’s my cookie:

I made a soft molasses & honey cookie.  It was pretty simple to make, though I did a few substitutions.  Instead of shortening, I used unsalted butter (look, I know I’m from West Virginia and all, but shortening makes me gag, it’s so gross) and instead of using just a straight up 4 oz of molasses, I did 3 oz molasses and 1 oz honey.  Mainly because I was worried the molasses flavor would be too strong.

I also tried to do a lemon-ginger glaze, but failed miserably.  I combined about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar with lemon juice, water, and ground ginger.  The glaze was a good consistency (a little thick, though) but the taste was off.  I don’t know what it was.  I only iced about 12 of the cookies and then decided that an unadorned cookie is better than a off-tasting iced cookie.

The cookies turned out very soft in the center and chewy on the outside - they were also perfectly shaped and rounded.  These would be really good with a tall glass of milk or a hot cup of coffee.

Here’s Scott’s cookie:

Scott made pumpkin chocolate chip walnut cookies.  These were delicious.  I considered making pumpkin ginger cookies, but I really wanted a chewy cookie and not a cakey cookie, and it’s near impossible to make a chewy cookie with pumpkin puree (unless you want to drain it on paper towels for like 8 hours).

Scott’s cookies, while not beautiful, are really really good.  So good.  I’ve eaten like 3 so far.  The walnuts are a good size and the chocolate is abundant.  It was a nice fall cookie, and I’m glad I have a stash of my own now to eat for the next few days.

Here’s Amanda’s cookie:

Amanda was worried going into this competition that she wouldn’t be able to keep up with her lack of baking skills.  So she chose a no-bake cookie, the cheater.

Seriously, though, I am a sucker for peanut butter anything, so this cookie was the winner to me.  It was like a combination of a Rice Krispie treat and a Little Debbie Star Crunch - it was pretty good.  I got a couple of frantic texts from Amanda on Sunday afternoon, demanding that the next cook-off we do should be pasta salad.  We’ll see.

The winner, well… there is no winner.  Our judges couldn’t decide the best cookie.  The best one to ME was probably Amanda’s, followed by Scott’s.  I liked my cookie’s looks, but in the end, I’m just not a ginger or a molasses fan.

You can see the recipes here. Continue reading ‘Cookiefest = resounding success and 5 pounds’

Is it excessive to have three pairs of eyeglasses? Maybe.

Published
by
ashley
on October 2, 2008
in cooking, friends, i am ridiculous and work
. 0 Comments

Let me just say the following five things:

1.  I am a web marketing genius.  More on this in the far future.

2.  I am also a cookie genius.  Cookiefest 2008 is in the bag.  I have found the perfect recipe that will produce a soft, chewy cookie with a very distinct fall flavor… with no divisive pumpkin.  Premature apologies to Scott and Amanda for taking home the gold.

3.  I tried to last the entire year without cutting my hair but unfortunately, failed.  My hair had grown a good 6-7 inches since August 2008 and it was long, but it had stopped growing, I think, due to my habit of damaging it.  So last night, in a fit of rage (and since I had finally found my scissors), I cut off about two inches from the bottom, hopefully removing all things dry and straw-like.  Hopefully this encourages hair growth.  Hopefully.

4.  I bought two pairs of eyeglasses from Zenni Optical today.  My last pair of eyeglasses broke and I had to get a new pair the same day because I am pretty much blind as a bat without them.  I paid $231 for my new glasses and spent the entire month seething in anger.  Then I found Zenni Optical and they charge TEN DOLLARS FOR EYEGLASSES.  Now I have three pairs and I won’t have to treat my current pair like it is encased in gold.

5.  Today, my co-worker Kate went to CVS.  She’s really into decorating for holidays and such, and she came back with this big plastic garland with dangly bats.  We all immediately decided to hang it up in our area and let me just say, it rules.  We are definitely the most festive group of our newspaper.  I’m just saying.

Cookiefest 2008: No ginger, no glory

Published
by
ashley
on October 1, 2008
in cooking and work
. 0 Comments

You could say that I am a competitive person.

I like to make up little games for myself to keep the day interesting.  Games like, “I bet I can walk faster than this person walking beside me” or “I bet I can cross K Street in 10 seconds”.  Marques and I play games of Connect Four to see who has to do the dishes or, you know, other sexy things of that nature.  When playing board games with a group of people, I am always the one who keeps everybody focused on the game - Marques jokingly-not-jokingly refers to me as “The Taskmaster”.  I am an extremely good Mario Kart player and will probably destroy you at it.  It’s a great thing to be me.

Enter Cookiefest 2008.

A few weeks ago, my coworker Scott said, “Hey guys, we should have a cookie exchange for Christmas!”

Both Amanda and I agreed.

And then we said, “Why don’t we have one now?”

So we planned a cookie exchange for October.

And then one of us came up with it being a contest to see who could bake the best cookie.  I’m pretty sure it was me.  It sounds like something I would do.

To which Scott replied, “Why don’t we have a themed ingredient contest like Iron Chef?”

And we all agreed: Best. Idea. Ever.

We scribbled out ingredients on pieces of paper and dropped them in a hat.  Things like broccoli weren’t allowed.  The three I threw in there were cinnamon, walnuts, and yogurt.

I drew first and came up with ginger.  Scott drew next and got walnuts.  Amanda drew last and got peanut butter.

So now I have to make 4 dozen cookies with ginger in the ingredients and on Monday, October 6, they’ll be judged by our bosses.  I haven’t fully decided on my cookie yet, but I think I want to do something with pumpkin - maybe a pumpkin cookie with a lemon-ginger glaze, or a pumpkin gingersnap.  Pumpkin is such a divisive flavor, however, and I’m afraid I won’t win if I use it.  Maybe lemon-ginger cookies with a green tea glaze?  Green tea-ginger cookies?  Decisions, decisions.  I will definitely cover Cookiefest 2008 and report back.  We have no prize for the winner yet, but since we’re all graphic designers, I bet we can make a really bitchin’ certificate.

Since we’ve been talking about Cookiefest, we’ve had the idea that we should do one of these challenges every month with a different food.  For Thanksgiving, Amanda came up with a stuffing challenge, but I don’t know if that’s very feasible.  We could do brownie challenge, pie challenge, sandwich challenge, leftover pasta challenge, cupcake challenge… the possibilities are endless.

Any challenge suggestions?