So. Many. Pictures.

Really, so much has happened since I updated last! I have pictures of a lot of things, but none of others. So I'll just start out the picture post and plow through.

This is a picture from the Galaxie, where we used to take Swing classes. We went to Fast Friday in January, and this is a picture from the Galaxie facebook page.

This is before the Fast Friday in February.

This is Moose helping Derek file his taxes. Isn't she helpful?

Pudd was hanging out with Gran.

For Valentine's breakfast, I made the Maple Cornmeal Biscuits from Happy Herbivore. I thought to myself, "Hmm, how weird that this recipe has no baking powder!" My instinct told me to add it, but in light of my recent baking failures, I decided to stick to the recipe. It provided us with six very tasty, but very flat biscuits.

For our meals that week, I decided to make Happy Herbivore's Aztec Soup, which was corn, black bean, and quinoa among spices. I never cook directly from a recipe like I bake, (I never measure out anything because I never want to make the same amount that the recipe yields) so I can't promise that it was exactly her recipe. It was so good though! I must've accidentally deleted the picture I had of it. It wasn't the prettiest soup, but it was very tasty and different from what we normally eat.

Well, what I do have a plethora of pictures from is the creation of the stuffed poblano peppers that we also ate that week. I cored the peppers and stuffed them with a mixture of rice, black beans, corn, diced chile peppers, cilantro, melting cheese, and spices. It could easily be made vegan, but for some reason, I've been craving a little more cheese lately.

Erika came over and we ate a very nice meal of stuffed peppers, homemade beans, rice, and salsa.

Although I had sworn off baking, I found it disturbing that almost no one in Chicago seemed to know what a King Cake is. Having taken a French class almost every semester of my life, I have become pretty aware of French/Creole customs, so when I brought up the majestic King Cake with its little baby hidden inside, I was completely surprised that no one else had heard of it. Not being one to go out and buy a pre-fab King Cake, I decided to bake my own vegan one. This was my first time working with active yeast, so I was kind of nervous that it wouldn't turn out. It was ugly and lumpy, that's for sure, but it was also delicious! Derek enjoyed a slice and then I took it to Lady Parts rehearsal to slap some Mardi Gras culture into my cast mates. And voila, here is the King Cake.

Thursday night Piercing Music played a show at the Bottom Lounge. The Bottom Lounge is a pretty serious venue in Chicago. They have some very famous bands play there. We headlined this show, which was wild to us because although Derek has been putting out songs for a while, we have only played as a group at one other show. So I was more than a little nervous to play at the Bottom Lounge. I had some awesome girls from my improv class at Second City come to see the show along with 5 people from Starbucks. It felt great to see my friends' faces out in the audience. The show went pretty well considering that we were only able to practice one time in an entire month. There were a few glitches, but for the most part, everyone was great. At the moment, there are only a couple of pictures on facebook of this event, and I am just a speck in the corner, so I'll wait until someone puts up better pictures before I steal them and put them up here.

The next day, Friday, we had Lady Parts at the Gorilla Tango. The Gorilla Tango is a great space in Chicago that people can rent out for their projects. It is quite well known and in Wicker Park, which is a very artsy neighborhood. This was only our second show this year, but we sold that theatre out! That means that we made a good profit on this show. Here are a few pictures that Derek took.

The opening dance number:

Two Girls, one Brownie Sundae. This is Jeph's idea of how the girls from Two Girls One Cup may act on a blind date. It was a huge success.

Furry Birthday. This is Dane and me greeting the clown we hired for our son's birthday party, only to find out that he is a Furry and always dresses like a bear.

As it turns out, I'm a Furry, too. A Golden Tamarin.

This is Prison Break, a skit about some guys trying to break out of prison, except one thinks that he is showing up for a tryst, not an escape. It was funny.

The cast after the show, telling people to VOTE FOR LADY PARTS to win $10,000 to produce our web series through www.webentertainmentguide.com!!!

This week I made potato soup. Here it is with broccoli and asparagus on the side.

I was off work yesterday and Derek didn't have to work until later, so I decided to remake those flat-yet-tasty biscuits with a little baking powder, and look! They were delicious.

Last night, I made sweet potato quesadillas. It is just mashed sweet potatoes with Mexican spices, black beans, and some cheese in a tortilla. It could easily be made vegan, but I had some leftover cheese from a pizza I made for Zach's birthday this weekend, so I used it up. There is some guac, although we didn't eat it all. The avocados were bruised. DO NOT SQEEZE AVOCADOS AT THE STORE, PEOPLE! That is not how you should tell if they are ripe, and if they aren't ripe yet, you have just created a bruise that will develop and make other peoples' guacamole bitter. Just touch the avocado lightly, pick it up if you want, and look at the color of the skin. You should be able to tell if it is ripe just by touching it, not squeezing it.

Anyway, here is the food:

It was very good.

I am still liking my job at Starbucks. I have reverted back to the old Americano with soy foam in the mornings. The flavored coffee was making me irritable. I am getting good hours and I like the people I work with. Today and tomorrow I am working 11-5. I really prefer the 6:30-12:30 shift because it is busier and there is more to do, so the time passes by. As much as I do like my job, I can't help but miss the manual espresso bar at Eclipse. When we move to Nashville, I am really serious about wanting to open my own coffee shop/performance space. I have wanted to do that for a while now, but it suddenly occurred to me that I should actually do it, not just wish that I could. So I am going to.

The wwoofing seems to be almost set. We'll be buying our plane tickets within the next 10 days, I would assume. I have talked to all of the hosts as well as Isabel and David, and we're all set for several months of European galavanting. When I think of waking up in France in the mornings, breathing in the French countryside and having French coffee and bread for breakfast before going outside to work under the French sun, I get tingles all over. I miss France desperately and I absolutely cannot wait to go back. I am going to turn 23 in France! Despite spending 3 summers in France, I have never had a birthday there. We will be in Paris with Isabel, so I bet we'll get a baguette and brie and fruit and go sit in a park and act very Parisian all day.

This weekend I am going to a bachelorette party for our friend Jessie. Derek is going to the bachelor party for Josh on Saturday, so I am going to hang out with some girls from work. It should be a fun weekend.

That is all!

Starbucks

I still love my job! I wanted to post with a funny little anecdote from work. We can get free drinks while we are working, and my first day, I made myself an Americano. When I asked the other workers what they were drinking, they gave me paragraph descriptions of the most complicated, high-maintenance drinks ever. I looked surprised, and Suzi told me that it wouldn't be long before I came up with my own high maintenance concoction. I was pretty happy with my Americano, so I said that I doubted that.

Monday I had an Americano.

Tuesday I had a triple shot Americano.

Wednesday I had a triple shot Americano with soy foam.

Thursday I had a triple shot Ameri-misto with soy milk, plenty of foam, and two pumps of cinnamon dolce syrup.

Today I had a triple shot Ameri-misto with steamed soy milk, plenty of foam, one pump of vanilla syrup, two pumps of cinnamon dolce syrup, and cinnamon sprinkled on top.

The monster has been unleashed!

In other news, after I went to the grocery store today for cat food, my car got stuck in the snow when I was trying to park on my street! I was scared that I was going to have to push it out. Luckily, Zach was in the apartment, so I called him and he helped direct me out with all of his South Dakotan snow wisdom.

Tonight Derek and I are going dancing at the Galaxie again. I'll post pictures when I get them!

My job and other things

I love my job at Starbucks! All the girls working there are so sweet and so much fun to be around. I am catching on very quickly and they seemed impressed that I was making drinks by myself on my 3rd shift. There are a lot of regular customers, which I really like. I thought that working at Starbucks would be so impersonal compared to Eclipse, but I am seeing the same faces consistently and that makes me happy. I do miss Eclipse and having the freedom to spend 3-4 minutes on each latte to make sure the espresso, syrup, and milk were all perfect and beautiful before handing to the customer, but this is Starbucks, and people expect speed.

I also love working at 7 AM. It is early enough that I don't have to stay late in the day, but it is late enough that I don't have to get up at an ungodly hour. I got up at 5:30 this morning. Derek and I rode the El together and I got off at my stop and he rode on to his. It was nice. I walked home from work even though there was about a foot of snow on the ground in places. I was freezing and my nose was dripping by the end, but it was good to be outside and moving.

Here is a picture of my backyard in the snow. It's hard to tell that there is even a backyard because the snow is so deep that it just extends from the porch all the way to the garage!

The landlord shoveled snow before I could get a real picture of it, but I like this one of the path that goes next to the garage to the alley. The stairs are completely covered with snow!

This week has been busy, and the weekend will be busier. I've worked every day this week, and I'm working Thursday and Friday. Tonight I have Lady Parts rehearsal and a possible Piercing Music rehearsal. Tomorrow night I may have Lady Parts again. Then Friday night we're going dancing for the Valentine's themed Fast Friday. Saturday I need to shop for more black clothes to wear at work. Saturday night is a Tracer Bullet show. Sunday is Valentine's Day, but I don't remember what Derek and I said we would do. It probably involves eating cheesecake. Maybe we'll go to Soul Vegan! I should bring that idea up to him. Sunday night we have band rehearsal. Then work again M-F next week, the Piercing Music show on Thursday, and Lady Parts on Friday, and then a Piercing Music studio recording session on next Saturday. I'm busy and I'm loving it!

Now on to the food.

A lovely sight indeed: a full and diverse fruit basket.

Alas, as tasty as this split pea soup is, it gets an F for photogenesis. What is the noun form of "photogenetic?"

I made some more barbecue jackfruit this week. Erika came over and we ate it with the best home fries ever and broccoli. She is an omnivore and declared that the jackfruit was just as good as barbecue pork.

A couple of weeks ago, Derek took me to his favorite Indian restaurant. I used to shy away from Indian food, but I really liked a lot of what I ate there. We ate this stuff called Garam Massala, which we both loved. I wrote down the name so I could try to recreate it at home. Turns out, garam massala is not a dish, but rather a combination of spices. I made a garam massala sauce here with tomato paste, soy milk, and spices. I pressed, froze, and thawed a block of tofu and cubed that into the sauce. Then we had seasoned brown rice with it. The meal was very good. Zach ate that with us. Derek and I both wished we had some naan with the garam massala sauce, but it was still good without it. I was happy with the recreation.

After my walk home from work today, I was freezing, and I never really warmed back up. I am now in my warmest pajamas and snuggled in bed with Moose and Pudd. In about 20 minutes, though, I have to go dig my car out of the snow so I can go pick Derek up from work. He has an errand to run that he needs to use the car for. Zach is here and he is about to go to a job interview. Let's hope he gets it!

That's all for now.

I should document the fact that I got the job at Starbucks! I am really thrilled about that. I had applied to what seemed like hundreds of jobs on Craigslist, which is ultimately really disheartening because people assume that since they are dealing with others via Craigslist, they can treat people like total crap. Not one of the jobs I applied to even responded with a "thank you for your interest, we will review your resume and contact you if we would like to set up an interview." They just delete your information and leave you uncertain about whether or not they even got the application. That is why I'm so excited about Starbucks. I'll be honest that in the past, I have been skeptical about Starbucks. It is, after all, the coffee face of America and I always assumed it to be the coffee equivalent of McDonalds. Well, maybe it would be more ideal for me to work somewhere like Eclipse again that takes a major interest in the quality of the beans it roasts and even more importantly, the quality of life for the farmers that grow the beans that it roasts. That would be wonderful, but the thing that won me over with Starbucks is that they interviewed me. I had two managers sit down with me, talk with me, and jot notes, and call me on the phone. Places like Panera Bread and grocery stores and Caribou Coffee had me fill out 30-minute personality quizzes online with questions such as, "I sometimes get angry." The answer could be chosen from Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Agree/Strongly Agree. Well who doesn't get angry sometimes? I felt like a bad person for choosing "Agree" because yes, I do get angry. Do I get angry at customers? Sometimes. Do I throw a fit and say inappropriate things to said customers? No. Why would they even ask that question?

Anyway, Starbucks took the time to get to know me. The managers met me, shook my hand, and laughed with me during a 30-minute interview. It was personal and friendly and encouraging, and I think I will really enjoy working there.

Now for things that have been going on.

Derek and I take swing dancing lessons at The Galaxie. They have several social dancing nights per month, so we went to Fast Fridays. We had a good time. It is always more educational to do social dancing than to just learn from class. The people in our class aren't always too great, so I feel like I don't learn much until I practice with Derek later. Anyway, I got all dressed up and then put on an ugly sweater because it was cold out. Derek took my picture, and here it is. It was funny, I thought.

This is Pudd messing up my clean laundry. Yes, that milk-of-magnesia colored thing on the right is my Snuggie. It is warm. I wish they fastened in the back like a robe or something because the way they fly open reminds me of a hospital gown. Lady Parts filmed a skit featuring Snuggies. It will be available to view later this month.

I have forgotten to take pictures of the last 3-weeks' worth of food! Derek and I have come up with a money-saving system for food. We spend $20 each per week on groceries, and on Mondays I go to the store and cook up a huge batch of bean soup and a large main dish that we eat all week. We're usually pretty sick of it by Friday, but it has saved us a lot of money on groceries. We usually eat out once a week or so. I have made all sorts of soup from black bean soup to white bean chili to lentil soup to black eyed pea and collard green soup. This week, though, we were kind of sick of beans, so I made tomato soup. For the main dish, I usually make some sort of casserole like a big tofu pot pie, a veggie lasagna, or something like that. We wanted something different this week, too, so I made pasta primavera with lots of veggies. Here are pictures of those things.

This is the pasta. It has red peppers, steamed broccoli, zucchini, squash, and peas in it. I seasoned it with italian seasoning, lemon juice, and olive oil. It was tasty!

These are the lovely tomatoes I used in the soup. Here they are looking so pretty in this bowl. I love preparing food and taking the time to wash and cut each tomato. Food tastes so much better when you cook with love. It sounds lame, but it is so true. Cooking angry never results in good food.

This is the simmering soup. After I simmered it down (tomatoes, caramelized onions, garlic, spices, and broth) for a while, I blended it in batches. Some recipes strain it from there, but I left all the chunks in it for a heartier soup. It tasted great!

This is what it all looked like when we ate it. It is all gone now, which is a couple of days earlier than usual, but we have had a lot of people passing through at lunch/dinnertime, so many more meals were eaten of this than usual, too.

I have come to the realization that I love cooking, but I hate baking. I used to bake more than I do now, but baking is so frivolous! Cookies, brownies, and whatever are not whole foods and they cannot satisfy your body's need for sustenance . Even "healthy" desserts are so unnecessary when you think about it. Don't get me wrong, I love eating desserts. I just have no desire to throw my time and energy into creating something that cannot and will not be used for any good purpose. When I cook, I am happy to know that what I am creating is made from fresh, wholesome ingredients that will work together to provide my body and the bodies of people I care about with health and energy. I made brownies for the Lady Party a few weeks ago, and making them was such a hassle because of the oil and the oven temperature and the fact that I was making gross, fattening chocolate blobs that would provide people with temporary happiness, but would ultimately cause bad health and low energy. I tasted these brownies and they almost immediately made me feel sick. I will stick to cooking and leave the baking up to those who enjoy it.

I start work on Monday! I am excited for that! Tonight Derek and I are going to eat at a restaurant near his work. He was the best seller sometime last week and his company awarded him with a gift certificate to this place. It is mostly seafood, but there are some nice looking salads on the menu. After that, we are going up north to see my friend from Mobile who I met at Second City perform at an open mic.

This month is going to be so busy! Tracer Bullet is playing a lot of shows, Piercing Music is also playing another show and recording in a studio, and Lady Parts is doing a lot of filming and has a show on Feb. 19th at the Gorilla Tango. So much going on, and I'll get to work, too! I am going to go walk a dog now for Erika. She is a dog walker but she is in Detroit today, so I'm walking this dog for her. I met the dog the other day, and she was so sweet. We'll have fun.