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Thanksgiving Cornish Game Hens

Instead of turkey my husband and I had Cornish Game Hens

It was my first time making them, but they turned out really tasty. It helps they were roasted in salt, pepper, rosemary and margarine

The delicious spread, Yum o'la

1. If frozen, thaw before cooking

2. Preheat oven to 350°

3. Season hen with salt and pepper inside and out. Truss

4. Place breast side up on rack in shallow roasting pan

5. Roast, uncovered, basting frequently with butter for 1 hour (if hen weights over 1 lb 2oz, roast 1 hour and 15 minutes) or until juices run clear when thickest part of chicken is pierced and temperature on instant read thermometer reads 180°

6. To brown, increase temperature to 400° during last 10 minutes

5 Spot

I actually ate at 5 Spot in Queen Anne a couple weeks ago.  One of my friends suggested it, as I had never been there before.  But it was amazing.  The restaurant chooses a theme every three months and the theme when my friend and I ate there was the Presidential Election.  They went all out, which included a giant Papier-mâché donkey being ridden by Big Bird.  I had the Marion Barry Cakes, which are marionberry sauced lemon-ricotta hot cakes topped with candied macadamia nuts.  Delicious.  The next time I go though, I will probably get the Cinnamon Swirl French Toast, which is more like a desert than breakfast.  It's cinnamon bread dipped in vanilla batter and served with caramel.  I highly recommend it.

Croque Monsieur et Escargot

Yesterday I stopped for a rather French dinner at Matthew's at Lakemont.  There is a Boar's Head deli inside and I had the most amazing baguette, Brie and ham sandwich along with a festive almond, raspberry and chocolate square ( it had a frosting spiderweb on top).  I realized the key to delicious Brie is to have it toasted over ham!  Like Raclette or Emmentaler it is so much better melted.

Quite serendipitously there was wine tasting at the same time.  While I did not have any of the wine, I did have escargot!  I even fished the meat out with a toothpick.  I realized the meat is a vehicle for the pesto and garlic the snail was smothered in.  It was an experience, but I won't be eating escargot again  I'll stick with Pencove mussels, they actually taste good.

http://boarshead.com/

Note to Self

For my husband's birthday, I wanted to make cupcakes with superhero designs out of frosting.  Well, I was making score bar cake so I thought I would try using homemade whipped topping and food coloring instead of store bought frosting.  Note to self: whipped cream is not a viable substitute.  While the colors were lovely (the yellow was like a sunflower pedal)  the whipped cream didn't hold shapes very well.  The Ironman cupcake looked like an underwater pikachu.  Another note to self: do not try to use ziplock bags as frosting bags.  While I was adding a yellow bat to a cupcake, the bag burst and I got covered in yellow frosting.  Of course that is the precise moment my husband got back from work.  He thought I looked cute covered in yellow whipped cream.  Sigh.  Luckily in this case it was the thought that counted.  In the end we covered the cupcakes with fudge, carmel and toffee chunks, so they tasted amazing.

Student Study Tips

As some of you may know, I am a professional tutor.  I love my job and it keeps my mental skills sharp.  Anyway, I have been working on digitizing some of my notes and here are some study tips.  

Study in a study-friendly environment. This seems self explanatory, but is often overlooked.  
Distractions include, but are not limited to:

Music
Television
Roommates
A Messy Room
Your great aunt Hilda’s parrot that won’t stop saying “Walk the plank Harold”

If you need to, go to a library.  It is amazing what projects you can find around your home/apartment/dorm if you are trying to avoid studying.  Moreover, you want to be comfortable when you are studying.  If this means sprawling out on the floor you might want to reserve a study room.   

Have a friend change your facebook password and not give you the new one until you are finished.  This goes for youtube too.  You start out thinking, oh, I’ll just find a documentary about this subject and the next thing you know you have just spent three hours watching semiannual ostrich races.  

Be careful with Wikipedia.  It is a good source for information, primarily because if there is anything wrong posted there, some trolling nerd’s beard hair will start tingling and it will be corrected before you can type Supercalifragilisticexipalidocious. But beware of following unnecessary hyperlinks.  

Take breaks as necessary.  Effective study time varies from person to person.  When I was in college, I could study for five or more hours at a time.  It wasn’t until later I realized this isn’t the norm.  If you have reread the same paragraph or question more than three times, it is probably time to take a break.  

Get enough sleep.  Seriously.  Your brain needs time to catalog all the information you have crammed into it during the day.  

Eat a well-rounded breakfast and healthy food throughout the day.  Stick to whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean proteins and lean dairy.  (yogurt, almonds, apples, chicken, etc...) Also stay hydrated.  Headaches and lack of focus can be signs of dehydration.  Avoid coffee if you can.  While coffee won’t necessarily stunt your growth, it can stain your teeth and give you acid reflux. If you need coffee to stay awake, you might want to consider rearranging your schedule so you can get more sleep.  Don’t drink or do drugs.  Among countless other reasons, it’s hard to focus when you are high as a kite or hungover.  

No one else can force you to succeed.  That doesn’t mean your parents won’t try, but in the end, it’s your life.  So make it awesome.  

Special thanks to 0wlface (Hoot!) for the initial idea of posting tips and specifically for the facebook idea and introducing me to semiannual ostrich races.

Four Seas Restaurant

Tonight for fun, my husband and I had Chinese take-out from the Four Seas Restaurant in Seattle.  I literally have not had Chinese food for just about four years.  We ordered Pot Stickers, General Tso's Chicken, and Mongolian Beef.  The Pot Stickers were fried, not steamed, and they tasted really good.  The chicken and beef were really tasty too. However, it is not a light food and it is sodium rich.  If you love Chinese food, I would try it out.  I'll probably get Thai before I get Chinese again though.  Which reminds me, I need to scope out a good Thai place...

Little Women

I just finished Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.  It was my first time reading Little Women, and I loved it.  It reminded me of my mother, three little sisters, grandmother, aunts and cousins.  I have so many memories of wonderful times we shared doing womanly things such as canning, cross stitching and gardening.   My mother has always been a shining example of a capable, classy and loving woman.  Furthermore, I can truly say my sisters are all finely accomplished ladies.  Although, unlike the girls in the book, we sisters are lucky to have a wonderful big brother.

Throughout the book, Alcott uses the kind voice of Mrs. March to remind us all to be better.  Mrs. March sets a good example for her girls and gently reminds and teaches her daughters important lessons.  Furthermore, as the little women endeavor to make their mother proud and improve, it inspires the reader (and consequently me) to work on becoming more grateful, patient, and humble.

Amazingly, Louisa May Alcott's father was told by an editor of The Atlantic magazine, James T. Fields, "Tell Louisa to stick to her teaching; she can never succeed as a writer".  To this, Alcott told her father, "Tell him I will succeed as a writer, and some day I shall write for the Atlantic!"  She did write for the Atlantic and proved Mr. Fields wrong.  Ironically, Alcott's literary achievements are now significantly more famous then her pessimistic critic's (Smith).

Works Cited

Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. New York: Baronet /Playmore, 1989. Print.

Smith, Bonnie H. "Advice from Louisa May Alcott." Www.historysmiths. N.p., 2012. Web. 21 Sept. 2012. <https://historysmiths.com/Alcott.html>.

Butterbeer

http://www.bakingdom.com/2010/11/butterbeer-oh-yes-friends-butterbeer.html

Fall is practically here, so I thought I would post a good fall recipe, which is Butterbeer.  While I have not been to Potter World (Yet), I have on good authority this is the official Potter World recipe for Butterbeer.  


Ingredients:

•               2 tablespoons unsalted butter

•               1/4 cup packed brown sugar

•               1/4 cup heavy cream

•               1/4 teaspoon sea salt

•               1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

•               3 cups apple cider

•               1 cup ginger ale

•               whipped cream, for garnish

Directions:

Makes: Serves 6-8

1. Make the butterscotch syrup: melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar, 1/4 cup cream, and sea salt. Whisk to combine. Bring to a gentle boil and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.

2. Stir in vanilla and cider and heat until very hot, and the butterscotch syrup has dissolved. Remove from heat and whisk in ginger ale. Serve with loads of whipped cream on top.

Cactus

http://cactusrestaurants.com/

Today for lunch my husband and I ate at Cactus in South Lake Union.

http://cactusrestaurants.com/

We originally tried a pulled pork tostadas from Cactus at the South Lake Union Block Party a couple weeks ago.  The tostadas we tried looked like the Ceviche Tostadas shown above, but they had yellow corn tortilla chips, guacamole and pulled pork.  Unfortunately, Cactus does not actually serve the food they served at the block party.  I was rather disappointed.  

http://cactusrestaurants.com/south-lake-union/

The Restaurant decor was amazing.  

http://cactusrestaurants.com/south-lake-union/

I particularly liked the custom rod iron.  

http://cactusrestaurants.com/south-lake-union/

And vibrant colors and light fixtures.

http://cactusrestaurants.com/

For my drink I had the Strawberry-Tamarind Lemonade.  It was tart, but I could taste the real strawberries.  For lunch I ordered the Butternut Squash Enchilada.  It had white corn tortillas, Jack and goat cheeses, spinach, roasted butternut squash, caramelized onions, mole rojo and guacamole.  The guacamole, butternut squash and mole rojo was tasty but sparse, so overall, the enchilada was bland.  I feel like the restaurant focused too much on the building and interior aesthetic and too little on the service and food.  My husband ordered the Blackened Chicken Tamales, and he didn't love them.  According to him, they had too much corn and not enough substance.  My husband and I won't be eating at Cactus again, unless we are only ordering guacamole, but even that is a bit pricey. 

The Witch of Portobello, A Continuation

Following up on a previous entry on my blog, Paulo Coelho asserts in The Witch of Portobello, that there are four female archetypes, the virgin, the martyr, the saint and the witch. 

I found this idea interesting, and spoke to my husband about it.  He mentioned that Coelho may have made up those particular archetypes, so I thought I would do some research.  I found the article Jung's Archetypes as Sources for Female Leadership by Lieutenant Colonel Prisco R. Hernández.  

According to Hernández, "Archetypes are, by their very nature, universal and indestructible. The complementarily of opposites assures us that, even in patriarchal cultures that are hostile to the feminine, feminine archetypes cannot forever be suppressed. Archetypes are not irrational forms of thought; rather they are supra-rational, beyond the parameters of logical thought and if we accept the idea of the “collective unconscious” as an image for the deep cultural substratum common to humanity, they are universally present—hence their power to move, to affect, to influence" (Hernández 56).  

The concept of "the immortal" brings to mind The Sandlot.  According to Babe Ruth, "Remember kid, there's heroes and there's legends. Heroes get remembered but legends never die" (The Sandlot).  There are degrees of awesomeness.  To be remembered you have to do something heroic, but to have your memory live on forever, you have to do something truly epic.  

This notion also reminds me of Ducard (or Ra's al Ghul) speaking to Bruce Wayne, "You must become more than just a man in the mind of your opponent", "You have to become an idea!", and "A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed, or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely...A legend" (Batman Begins).

I periodically watch Batman Begins as it is one of my favorite films.  Every time I hear Ducard give his spiel, I get chills.  It could be because Ducard is played by Liam Neeson, (let's face it, I would listen to him read the phonebook), but there is validity to the notion of living forever in an ideal.  

Many years ago my mother and I attended a lecture giving by Mitch Albom, the author of Tuesdays With Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven.  He spoke about living forever through your good deeds to other people.  Every good deed is like a penny in a can of memories.  

Moreover, Albom asserts in Tuesdays with Morrie,“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning” (Albom).

The archetypes Coelho describes apply to multiple stages in a woman's life and all lead to personal discovery, while the stages Hernández discusses are directional and culminate to one archetype, the Queen.  It is difficult to say which archetypes of the two paradigms correspond with each other, if at all.  

While the Queen doesn't seem to have a similar archetype, the Faerie seems to be similar to the Virgin, "She places herself outside any man’s power; thus, she has the power to inspire, to attract" and "The Faerie... is the symbol of all that is fair, all that is beautiful, all that transcends material existence" (Hernández 52).

The Wise One is the other archetype that eludes categorization.  "Another alternative in the path to Queenship leads through the archetype of the Wise One. If the Faerie inhabits ethereal regions where all appears as bright and luminous, the Wise One inhabits the shadows. She is at home near the earth, even inside the earth, inside the dark, moist, primordial womb, the source of all fertility. The Wise One is no longer young. She is mature, rooted. She is likely to be old and she is a Mother, or more likely, a Grand-Mother" (Hernández 52).  

I could be having trouble placing this archetype becuase I'm slightly confused by the phrase, "Inside the earth, inside the dark, moist, primordial womb".  Where is that?  Underground somewhere?  

The Witch finds her path through endlessly seeking pleasure, which seems to most closely resemble the path of the Lover.  According to Hernández, "The fourth archetype of the mature feminine is the Lover...The Lover embodies the unrestrained embrace of the life-force... of pleasure, of life itself" (Hernández 54).

By the end of his paper, I didn't come to the same conclusion he did.  I'm not sure which qualities I'm supposed to emulate.  It would have been nice if Hernández described the archetype attributes in more tangible, attainable terms.  Is it bad all I can think of after reading Hernández's essay is an old lady trying to become a better leader by curling up in a damp badger hole?  Thank goodness for Shackleton's Way.

Works Cited

Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Print.

Batman Begins. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Liam Neeson, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Katie Holmes. DC Comics, 2005. DVD.

Coelho, Paulo. The Witch of Portobello: A Novel. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2007. Print.

Hernández, Prisco R. "Jung’s Archetypes as Sources for Female Leadership." Jung’s Archetypes as Sources for Female Leadership. Kravis Leadership Institute, 2009. Web. 6 Sept. 2012. <http://www.leadershipreview.org/2009spring/article2.pdf>.

The Sandlot. Dir. David M. Evans. Perf. James Earl Jones, Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Patrick Renna. 20th Century Fox, 1993. Videocassette.

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

I enjoyed rereading the next installment of the Sibling Book Club, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien.  My favorite character is by far Gandalf, but who doesn't love Gandalf.  In a former life he was Magneto.  Doesn't get much cooler.

I read this version of the book

Smaug in his lair

The Dwarfs and Bilbo

In the book, the dwarfs had hoods, alone, not connected to cloaks.  Initially I thought this was unusual, then I was remembered this hood from Boutique Knits.  I think it is adorable, but it would look especially chic under a pea coat.  Perhaps it will be my next knitting project. 

  

An End and a Beginning

I am beginning a new blog.  Only because my old blog won't let me add anymore pictures.  Apparently there is a quota.  Pity.  But, I am excited to switch things up a bit.