Sweetly Comforting Almond-Pear Oatmeal

I love, love, love everything about fall, from the color scheme to the fashion to the blessed relief from boiling hot air.  (I mean boiling.  In the sense that something needs to be liquid to boil.  Georgia air is like wading through hot mud, some days.)  I also love the recipes that come with fall, and eatingbirdfood posted an amazing oatmeal recipe the other day.  But then the boyfriend's mother took us to Publix and insisted on buying us over $100 of groceries (because she is spectacular), so I found myself with all kinds of amazing produce--and, first and foremost, Bartlett pears.

Now, I love pears, raw, in salads, marinated, in pies, and poached.  But I've never had them in oatmeal, and haven't always been the biggest fan of bananas, which is what this original recipe used.  So I tinkered around a bit, and this is what I came up with:

Sweetly Comforting Almond-Pear Oatmeal
Serves 1-2

Ingredients

• 1 cup plain almond milk
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 pear, chopped into cubes (preferably a reddish one, because the colors are pretty!  I realized this after I'd taken pictures of the recipe made with a yellow Bartlett pear.  Silly me.)
• Sliced raw almonds to garnish
• Drizzle of agave nectar

Directions
On the stove, bring almond milk, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla bean seeds to a boil.  Add in the oats, stir, cook for one minute, then cover, turn the heat off, and let sit for 3-4 minutes.  Stir in the chopped pear, spoon into bowls, and top with sliced almonds, a little more cinnamon, and a drizzle of agave.  Enjoy!

Note:  I've been experimenting with this since I ran out of pears and vanilla beans, and have found that adding a teaspoon of amaretto or a little almond extract instead of the vanilla is a fabulous treat, and apples are a much crisper alternative to pears.  I intend to try kiwi next!

What are your favorite oatmeal recipes?

Henna Extravaganza!

What's a girl to do if she's in the middle of a crazy football town on game day, is excited about Arabian Nights opening on Tuesday, and whose friend has just discovered the existence of Kimberly Roberts, a henna artist who works on Fridays starting at 10 AM at Worldwide Fashion & Gifts at 1375 Prince Avenue, Athens, GA?

Guys, it was awesome.  Almost every single girl in our cast showed up to get henna tattoos, both Friday and Saturday.  We didn't go all out and get so decorated we look like we're wearing gloves, but everyone has some really gorgeously decorated hands with different twining flowers--and this is the coolest part; Kimberly freestyled everything without needing to talk to us so much beforehand so that she knew us down to the deep bottoms of our souls, and the results were baffling:  each girl ended up with a design that matched her personality uncannily well, to the extent that one girl really loves lotus flowers, and another sunflowers--guess what ended up on their hands?  Exactly!  It was pretty darn cool.  And our timing was fortuitous--I learned today that Friday was their first day experimenting with the Henna Fridays, and miraculously that happened just in time for our Tuesday night opening!  (Thank heavens henna lasts two weeks or so.)

Being the slightly exacting dork that I am, I actually came with pictures.  I'm the only girl in the play who consistently wanders around in a state of moderate undress (well, a belly dancing outfit), and I spend a decent amount of time watching stories and alternately watching the king in a stricken little lovelorn state, all with my right shoulder to the audience, so that shoulder has a gorgeous design going all the way down the arm, and it's stunning.

And, having a penchant for history, especially when it comes to costume/makeup history, I asked a bunch of questions.  Apparently, henna originated as a cooling agent:  you press a dot of the paste in each palm and under the sole of each foot, and it cools you down.  Gradually, this extended to the breathtakingly gorgeous and intricate designs that you see all over Indian brides today.  And that tradition is pretty cool, too, and waaaay more involved than a bachelorette party:  traditionally, the bride is taken to her husband's family's house a few days before the wedding, and up to two days are spent doing the henna on her hands and feet.  And during this time, the bride doesn't even dress herself, but everything is done for her, as sort of a welcome to the family and also a chance for her to sit still and listen to advice about how to be a good wife and the ins and outs of marriage.  Ever so much more dignified than showing up on a rerun of Bridezillas with vomit in your hair after the bachelorette party.

Kimberly explained that henna is made of the crushed leaves of the henna bush (well, flowering shrub), and you mix the powder with an acid and an oil to make the paste.  Usually, lemon juice is the acid, but she said you could even use coffee.  The type of oil changes the color and intensity of the final product.  The paste dries quickly, but to prevent it from flaking off immediately, you either add sugar into the paste or you spray it with lemon juice mixed with sugar, which makes it more pliable.  (Lemonade.  My shoulder still smells like lemonade.  I wanted to eat my own shoulder, guys.)

So all the paste has come off now, and as promised, it is quite a bit darker around my fingers than it is on my shoulder.  But within the next three days it should turn brown, and in the few hours before the show I can even go back and get different kinds of glitter put on!  I have my eye on some gold and some opalescent glitter, which would look spectacular with our gold-based makeup designs, but she's got everything from red to pink to blue to lots of other colors, and the glitter lasts about three days.  We'll see if I have time, but I really hope I do.

By the way, can you see those earrings in the first picture of me?  They're spectacular:  gorgeous designs in red and silver for $18 at Worldwide Fashion & Gifts.  Thank heavens my school colors are red and black, because they had an amazing array of jewelry to match my costume...

Plus they have everything from zillers to bellydance outfits to really cute dresses and shirts that you can wear daily!  If you're in the area, go check it out.  Prices are really reasonable and it's definitely worth your time!  And the bar next door, Normal Bar, has a drop-dead-awesome Bloody Mary that's practically a meal in itself.  They make their own tomato mix, they make the okra pickles that near knocked my socks off, they were so good (and this coming from a girl who cannot stand okra!), they add a fresh olive, a huge lime wedge, small squares of celery, and a huge pepperoncini.  It's spicy, it's got a decent amount of vodka in it, you can drink it at the picnic table in the back with a lot of really friendly staffers from several restaurants on that side of the street, and you can do all of this while getting your henna tattoos done.  What an unbelievable afternoon!


Call 706-208-9915 to set up an appointment for a henna session, according to the Facebook page.  Better yet, get a group of your friends together and do it as a group!  We invaded Kimberly's life like a horde of fawning kittens and there were so many of us that she had to come back on Saturday to finish up our group, and she was brilliantly kind throughout both sessions.  

Speaking of kittens, I have a feeling that PETA may be on to something when they say that humans should not keep animals as pets.  I do not think that I made Simon feel loved today when I put him in his Halloween jester outfit.  But he is precious in his fury!  Isn't he?



Munched on snow pea pods for a snack this evening instead of actual chips.  Mmmmm....sweet, crunchy, and refreshing.  Awesome alternative!

A Tribute to Giada

I'd like to cast a vote wholly in favor of Giada de Laurentiis' presence on the Food Network.  I remember being terrifically bored when I was sick one day and this strange Italian woman with a big smile and a very interesting nose talking about grapefruit zabaglione was the only thing I was vaguely interested in.

But then, you see, I got interested.  I like watching her; she's incredibly pretty, and I like the way she dresses.  She's pretty darn good-natured and excited about what she's doing, which is sweet.  But she has these awesome close-ups of the food she makes which do focus a whole lot of the attention on what she's doing rather than how low her shirt is.  I love watching Alton Brown's half-cooking, half-science show on which he is ridiculous and entertaining, but I feel like I'm in the kitchen with that woman because she actually cuts up all the food she uses.  She's an innovative cook, too, I've got to give her that.  Anthony Bourdain, famously picky, noted that she was about the only Food Network chef who could actually cook.  She's got the Grand Diplome from the Cordon Bleu in Paris, meaning she specialized in both cuisine and pastry.  And she does fascinating things in the kitchen--I knew zabaglione as a combination of eggs, sugar, and Marsala wine--now, thanks to her, I've played around with lime, pomegranate, DiSaronno, and stevia instead of sugar in zabaglione.  (DiSaronno and pomegranate work brilliantly.  Lime doesn't mix that well with strawberries.)

I've added mint, Italian parsley, and lemon thyme to my balcony garden.  I've made my own tomato sauce.  I've roasted a whole chicken for my boyfriend--who will never be anything but my darling inveterate meat lover--and then made the cat really happy with the packet of giblets.  I marinate sun-dried tomatoes in a pretty glass jar with garlic, onion, oregano, lemon thyme, salt and pepper, and olive oil.  I infuse olive oil with dried garden rosemary and a clove of garlic or two--it's amazing for bruschetta and salad dressings.  I hosted a spring dinner for my boyfriend's professor with tomato-basil salad, grilled chicken with spinach pesto, lemon spaghetti, and the zabaglione over berries.  (Admittedly, I had a vegetable version, but that's what happens when the rest of the world isn't mostly vegan and doesn't want to be--you cook two meals.)  I've tried grapefruit in salad.  I've put mint in something that isn't dessert.  I've burrowed through my boyfriend's grandfather's cookbooks and have amassed a wide selection of everything from Food from the Arab World to Truffles.

Say what you like about her appearance or her cheerfulness, the woman's inspiring.  I've always liked cooking--my mother is absolutely brilliant at it and I discovered the culinary appeal of Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat in undergrad (her new cookbook came out on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010)--but Giada de Laurentiis is making me want to invent for myself--and see whether the amount of sugar she uses really is too much.  (It usually is.  But not for the zabaglione.)

And, yes, I can see why "cleavage" pops up as a google option if you type in her name.  But, seriously, to those few who have a problem with this--she isn't doing anything wrong.  She isn't a floozy, she's cheerful, she doesn't have a scandalous past, she isn't stripping, she isn't sleeping around to get to the top--what she is doing, in fact, is being a better, more passionate cooking housewife on national television than a lot of women have the energy or inclination for, and she's doing it effortlessly and with a smile.  No wonder a lot of very conservative women resent her.

I, for one, intend to toast her with the pitcher of champagne Sangria I'm making this weekend.  Although I'm leaving out half the mint syrup.

Gays and Unwed Mothers Shouldn't Be in Education

According to Republican South Carolina senator Jim DeMint, gays and unwed mothers should not be allowed to teach this country's children.

This comes after a slew of widely publicized suicides by gay teens as a result of bullying.

The gay thing I can sort of but not really understand, considering the stereotypical Republican homophobia.  It's disgusting, but it's not that surprising, sadly.  But unwed mothers?  Seriously?

Naturally, it's the women who are the problem.  Women, who are loose, who engage in promiscuous, immoral, adulterous sex, who become pregnant, and who should be punished forever after on earth and in the afterlife for their horrific deed of copulation.  Not men, of course.  Unwed fathers are totally fine.  After all, it's normal for a guy to go around whoring himself out.  It's just not normal for women to let them.

Of course, this initiative would assume that we scrap the whole "you can not be fired or hired on the basis of gender" thing that also includes minor things like race and religion.  It's not like it was instituted for a reason, anyway.  A good reason, at least.  Let's just throw out all old legislation that people fought tooth and nail and sometimes to the death for, and everything will henceforth be awesome.

Naturally, this crap is totally revolting, but the much more frightening thing about that statement is that it implies that it doesn't matter whether a teacher is good or not, whether children actually get an education--what is far more important is that their precious little innocent, moral minds aren't endangered.  I have some slightly unpopular ideas about children, but I'm going to voice them, because it isn't likely that other people will and someone's got to present an additional side to an issue.

We learn morality.  We aren't born with it.  If we were, we would understand the concept of "stealing", which a baby clearly doesn't, or "honor your father and mother", which has to be learned after the toddler is taught that the word "no" is bad.  It's why children are so horrible to each other; it's why they steal from each other, from their parents, and from stores.  Children are often merciless; they have yet to come to terms with themselves and very few of them have room in their hearts for others on this planet.  They exclude each other, they think they're invincible, they care so little about the feelings of others, even their parents, that many will throw enormous tantrums in the middle of grocery stores when a parent refuses to buy them something sugary or something plastic and expensive.  They're messy.  They rip up flowers and experiment to see what they can tear apart.  Their unconditional love for their parents does not translate into a healthy kind of love that respects and acknowledges the parent's feelings; how many children do you know who take well to a new stepfather or stepmother?  In short, they are not perfect when they are young, and every aspect of whatever morality they grow into is one they have to learn from others.  They have to learn to control their own selfishness, which is really all morality is.  Suppress the good of the individual for the good of the individual and the group.

You've got to do something pretty drastic to corrupt children, like force them into being part of a savage army or to abuse them.  Everything else is just running with their own instincts of selfishness and survival.  Education is the only weapon we have to fight this animalistic side of ourselves that, if allowed unbridled freedom, will explode our race into chaos.

Children ask "why" all the time.  They want to know why they're supposed to do something or not to do something, and the answer "because I said so" is always considered stupid.  If you want to know why you shouldn't hit your sister, the best answer isn't "because it's naughty" but "because you could seriously hurt her here and here and she could resent you afterwards and start to hate you and you would constantly get into fights and make your sister stop loving you.  You could also keep hitting people and harming them and the police would put you in jail to keep you from hurting any more people, and to stop this before it starts, I as your parent would have to make you stop hitting her and if you will not learn this way, I will have to punish you to make you understand that hitting brings punishment."  It's long and involved, but it gets the idea across that the child's actions have results.

Or, later on, when the child is old enough to understand this, the idea that "you cannot just take whatever you want" can be thoroughly reinforced by history, with choice stories like the banishment of the Moors from Spain, the taking of the Alhambra, and the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition.  Or the snatching of the New World, the beginnings of slavery, and the constant deaths and wars against the Native Americans and their eventual cultural eradication, leaving us with a capitalistic culture that ruins and rapes our earth and causes us to breathe in polluted air, ruin our ozone layer, and kill off hundreds of species of animals.

Or the answer to "Why can't I jump off the roof" can be slightly more thorough than "You will hurt yourself" (because the automatic answer is "Why?"), because you can invoke physics, geometry, force of impact, and a bit of anatomy into describing how hard you will fall and what you will break, how badly it will hurt, and how long you will be out of commission.

Basically:  kids need education to bring them up as something other than animals.  And we are living in a society that thinks that the teacher's private life is more important than the good job he or she may or may not do?  Seriously?  You'd pass over an amazing teacher who is gay or a woman left alone with a child (or, heaven forbid, a single woman in her forties opting for in vitro fertilization) and you'd rather pick an absolute moron who couldn't tell his ears from his behind if he's heterosexual?  What kind of education would that give kids?  Hello, children, we care more about dominating your minds with our morals rather than to give you an actual foundation of learning that will help turn you into a complete human being!  School?  Pssssht.

It's like saying "Forget school; just send kids to Sunday school and they'll all be fine.  The Muslim kids will be fine, too.  And the Jewish kids, and the Hindu kids, and the Buddhists and Agnostics and atheists and Wiccans and who knows what else.  It'll all be AWESOME when we force them to sit and recite the Bible word for word.  And when we don't let them ask questions about it.  Let some other country win the Pulitzer Prizes and win all the wars.  Pretty soon, we'll be conquered by other nations who realize that we don't even care enough about learning to manufacture suitable defensive weapons!  Wheeeee!"

I foresee the burgeoning of the private school sector.  And the gradual death of American intelligence.

Let's all just listen to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, shall we?  They can spoon-feed us our daily dose of unquestioning idotic hatred of everything , and we will grow into resentful, angry animals.  Excellent.

Slightly Manhattan Clam Chowder

I promised another recipe tonight, didn't I?  Well, although rehearsal for Arabian Nights went on till eleven, here I sit, flopped on the couch after being unable to contemplate an evening without cooking and therefore wandering into the kitchen and blissfully giving up sleep.

Seriously.  It's kind of embarrassing.  I get a weird kick out of chopping fennel and julienning basil.  I stand in the kitchen for an hour as the boyfriend patiently waits for dinner, shouting back "Yes, I heard that!" as he watches the latest recorded Jon Stewart or Community, and keeps hoping I'm laughing at the latest jokes.  Instead of, you know, doing a quick sauté of vegetables and snuggling up to him and to the cat.  (Oh, priorities.  But y'all, cooking is addictive.)  My mother and I have a very closely knit relationship over food:  on her last visit, we spent a morning on the balcony eating fruit spring rolls with mint and honey while relettering my spice jars to showcase her calligraphy skills.

By the way, I feel like I should explain the label pictured above.  The words "Crushed Red Peppers" are very difficult to translate into calligraphy.  I suggested "Crushed Slightly Orange Peppers", which looked much prettier.  It does make sense.  I swear.

But!  Here we go.  I do realize that the only relation this has to Manhattan clam chowder is the tomatoes, but this is called creativity.  And it worked.  And it's Natalia-Rose detox-friendly:  flesh-based.

Slightly Manhattan Clam Chowder
Serves 4-8 or 1 for two days

Ingredients
1 onion, minced
2 carrots, diced
1/2 large bulb or 1 small bulb fennel, diced
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
4 15-oz cans diced tomatoes, unseasoned (since you don't usually make soup when great tomatoes are in season)
2 cans clams with liquor (or about 18 scrubbed fresh clams; steam them for about 8-10 minutes in a covered pot instead of the 3-4 minutes at the end of step 3.)
1 cup dry white wine
2 cups vegetable broth
1 heaping tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp Herbes de Provence
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
1 lemon or lime (preferably lemon, but I've got to use up a whole bag of limes!)
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
Fennel fronds or torn basil leaves, to garnish

Directions
1.  Drizzle your largest pot with about a tablespoon of olive oil and turn heat to medium high.  When the oil sputters when you sprinkle it with drops of water, add the onions and some salt and pepper.  Sweat the onions until they turn translucent.

2.  Add the diced carrots, fennel, and garlic, toss, and season with more salt and pepper.  Sweat for a few minutes, then add the diced tomatoes in their juice.  Season with a little more salt and pepper*.  Bring to a slow boil.

3.  Add the clam liquor**, dry white wine, herbes de Provence, red pepper flakes, and the tomato paste, stir, and simmer for about 3-4 minutes.  If you like, you can add about half the mixture to a blender to make a soup with a slightly thicker texture; it makes for a slightly creamy-looking soup without actual cream...


4.  Add the vegetable broth, the lemon or lime juice, and the bay leaf.   Bring to a slow boil and then turn the heat down to low; simmer for 15 minutes.  Add in the clams and simmer for 5 minutes more, then serve, garnished with some fennel fronds or julienned basil leaves.  Also possibly a bit of cracked pepper.  Enjoy!

This soup, too, gets better the longer you allow the flavors to marry.

*The reason for the continual seasoning with salt and pepper is that each ingredient absorbs the seasoning as it cooks, thus giving you more flavor if you add salt and pepper gradually versus adding all at once at the end.
**Not the canned clams, not yet; just open the can almost all the way and keep the lid on to let only the liquor pour out while the clams stay inside.  They will get tough if you add them too soon.

The soup kick will be over soon, I feel.  And it's still warm enough for some truly out-of-this-world guacamole...

Mmmm.  I think I have to go shopping for avocados now.

Even Though Marie-Claire Hires Terrible Journalists...

At the point, who hasn't heard of the infamous Marie Claire article?

Well, obviously, those who don't care about the blogging world.  But otherwise, I'd guess, not many.  It's a piece that catches your attention, no matter which side of the aisle you stand on, but since there are so many well-written refutations and analyses out there, I'm going to keep mine to myself.  After all, the worst thing we can do for a journalist who isn't interested in fact but only in her own agenda is to give her national attention, which can easily be confused with respect.  (Oh, Fox News.  Don't pretend that this doesn't apply to you, too.)  But what kind of good can we glean from this article?

First, that Americans aren't as oblivious to their own health as we are generally portrayed:  not all of us are addicted to corn syrup and the deep-fryer.  Clearly, a significant number of people are passionate about health, both nutrition and exercise, and isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?  To wake up and smell the green juice?  To pay attention to our bodies, to give them what they need and to exercise them so that we are capable of reaching our fullest potential, instead of dying forty years too early from diabetes because we suddenly weigh 600 pounds?  I think that's a darn good positive side.

Second, that the health movement is influential, instead of fighting a crippled, dying battle.  It's nice to realize that Michelle Obama, as influenced by the lobbyist-created government food pyramid as her ideas are, is not singlehandedly trying to hammer down a pair of doors as massive and heavy as Mount Everest.  Not that we didn't know this already, but this article is publicly admitting, in a very popular magazine, that the health community has a great deal of pull.  That's pretty awesome to realize.

Third, that our dedication to publicizing the value of nutritional and physical health can net us money through books and/or hopeful sponsors.  Personally, unless you're just reccing something for the money without caring whether or not it's actually a good product, I think that seems like an awesome way to get publicity for hitherto unrecognized but really great foods, new restaurants, eco-friendly towels or toilet paper or clothing or anything.

Fourth, that we really need journalist reform in this country.  What kind of journalist runs a story without referencing the other side's opinion?  That's pretty disgusting and unethical.  I intend to send a politely worded letter to Marie Claire about that kind of fearmongering, biased writing.  It's pretty shameful.

So what I intend to do about this ridiculous attack on the health-centered blogging world is this:  I'm going to dust off every single cookbook and recipe collection I own.  I'm going to be doing my part to showcase (with pictures) the freaking awesome healthy, usually vegan, usually lowfat, often raw foods that I enjoy, and I intend to celebrate every quality of all this crazy hippie earthmother sunfood treehugger lifestyle that I embrace.  This dedication we have to healthy living that goes beyond our own personal wellbeing and extends to the lives and quality-of-life of others and our planet is a dedication that deserves to be celebrated.

So, guys, let's celebrate own own self-worth.  Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.


Tonight it's going to be a tomato-based clam chowder (hey, I've got clams left from the tomato soup!), slightly sweetened with thinly diced carrots and sweet onions, seasoned with a bay leaf and some fresh basil, and kicked up a notch with some dry white wine.  I can't wait!

Gorgeous Mirror-Themed Décor

There's something about decorating with reflective surfaces that makes a room look instantly more glamorous, large, and appealing than it did before.  Besides, they go with everything, and they're really fun to place a cat in front of so that he goes insane trying to play with the kitty in the glass.

So, I've got to share this with you:  it's the most beautiful light I've ever seen in my entire life, and the second I saw it in Macon, GA's Lemongrass Thai Bistro (picture on the right; isn't the restaurant gorgeous?)  I knew I had to at least know where to get it in case I ever made enough money to splurge on it.  So, away at graduate school and unable to wander in and just ask the owners (like a sensible person), I Google Imaged (yes, that's now a verb) until I finally, finally found the unforgettable Pistillino light.

Yes, it's expensive.  Unfortunately.  The small one, pictured top left (which throws the amazing light on the Lemongrass wall) is marked down to $299 from $399, and there's also a larger one, the Pistillo (pictured bottom left), which would run you $599 (apparently marked down from $1250).  Still, the Pistillino is so beautiful and throws such a breathtaking array of shadows and glowing light that it's all I can imagine wanting.  They were both designed by Studio Tetrarch in Italy in 1969, and you know it's got to be a beautiful product that gives you your money's worth if they're still producing and selling it.  The whole effect is actually made by just one 100W lightbulb with the top half of the bulb covered in a chrome mirror, which has the double effect of making the center look just like the chrome arms around the outside and reflecting light back to bounce off of the wall and arms and create those awesome shadows.  It's a masterpiece of lighting design, and there's a place for it in every home with a little modern touch.




Of course, I'm a total sucker for anything involving mirrors.  Speaking of which, CB2's Perspective Mirror is another one of my favorites, marked to buy whenever I get paid to do more than teach undergraduates.  $149 apiece, but look at how gorgeous those four look together.  The miniature mirrors are all slightly tilted to create a "funhouse perception"; what I see is a jumble of reflected light that adds immediate interest and focus to the room.

So what do you think?  Have you got any stylish mirrored favorites?  What's your favorite way to decorate?

Work Session with Nicolas Coster

I am so excited, y'all.  Nicolas Coster came to school today to work with the undergrads and the graduate students, and I just came from my session with this beautiful fuzzy feeling swarming around my heart like a furry snuggie blanket.

First of all,  he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and for five years with Lee Strasberg.  It's not like he got into the business thanks to nothing but dumb luck.  He comes to UGA quite often, usually to work with students and to help them, and then they go on imdb and stare at his excessively long list of movie/TV credits and wibble a little in their chairs.  So there was that.

I did a piece from The Battle of Bull Run Always Makes Me Cry, and to be totally honest, I've never done it before except in voice class for the New York accent recording.  I just knew I wanted to use it for this year's SETCs and wanted feedback.  My huge issue is speaking with full voice really down deep in my belly, since I thought for years that I was a soprano and speaking lower was lazy...of course, then I ran into actual voice teachers who said that I've got a pretty darn wide range, but my home is down among the lower notes.  Feels better, sounds sexier, and also sounds more powerful and yet more vulnerable, so that's cool.  But from the kickoff my voice was right where I wanted it to be, I took my time, and it came out beautifully.  He actually used the words "when something is that good, all you have to do is make a few brushstrokes to make it perfect" right before he had me do it again with a minor adjustment.  He was so kind, and so complimentary, and punctuated a lot of sentences like "That was really lovely" with "And take that as a compliment."

Oh, my gosh.  I am floating a few inches of the ground in happiness right now.

I love these moments in life.

Unforgettable Winter Potato Soup

I've been longing for this soup for ages, and finally it rained and dropped Georgia temperatures down to the 70s!  Not ideal, but, hey, I'll take what I can get.  I've loved this soup for years, and my mother, who is a brilliant cook herself, originated it one long winter when we had a whole lot of Yukon Gold potatoes in the house.  It's unbelievable.  


If you're not too worried about miscombining (a la Natalia Rose), add the clams (directions for those in italics).  It's out of this world!


Unforgettable Winter Potato Soup
Serves 4-8, or one for two days if you don't feel like sharing!
5 large gold potatoes (Yes, they must be gold potatoes.)
1 sweet onion. diced
2 large carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 carton low-sodium organic vegetable broth
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 lemon or lime, juiced
1/2 tbsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tbsp Herbes de Provence
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

1/4 cup Cognac or brandy (V.S.O.P., preferably)
2 small cans chopped organic clams


Directions
Prick the gold potatoes with a fork a few times and boil them in water with a tablespoon of salt until they're soft inside.  Drain, run cold water over the potatoes, and peel them quickly.  (Or don't, if you like potato skins.  I love them!)  Chop into cubes and set aside.


In the largest pot you have, turn heat to medium-high and add olive oil.  When the oil sputters when you flick a few drops of water onto it, add the diced onion, a pinch of salt and pepper, and cook, occasionally stirring, until the onions turn translucent.  Add in the diced carrots, celery, and garlic, season with a bit of salt and pepper, and cook for about 4-5 minutes, stirring.  


Add in the 1/4 cup Cognac or brandy and let boil for about a minute.  Open the cans of clams almost all the way and drain out the clam liquor into the pot, keeping the clams in the can.  Add in the potatoes, some more salt and pepper, at least a tablespoon of herbes de Provence, and the crushed red pepper flakes.  Toss the vegetable mixture so that each cubed piece is coated in everything and spends a bit of time cooking directly in the cognac and clam liquor.  Add the carton of vegetable broth and the juice of the lemon or lime.  Stir, and use the back of the spoon to mash up the potatoes a bit if you want a thicker broth (and this is why we wait to add the clams, plus they get tough easily).  


Bring to a boil and simmer for at least 15 minutes.  It gets better the longer it sits, although it will be most brothy in the beginning, before the potatoes have begun to absorb all the liquid.  I like my soup with lots of broth, so I add extra water and a bit of seasoning if I think it's become too thick.  Serve and enjoy!

Tips

• I use a Westmark garlic press, which is better than any American one I have ever found.  I grew up with it in Germany, and was desolate without it when I moved away from my mother's house until Amazon's endless suppliers saved me.  It's small, which means that it's lightweight, and all the garlic comes out of the bottom instead of spreading out and sneaking out the top of the press.  It's also easy to clean--just rub it under running water to get the bits of garlic out of the holes.  If a bit of garlic is really stubborn, blow through the holes and make a fun spitting sound that entertains children worldwide!  But the most brilliant thing about this garlic press is that it actually presses so hard that you get garlic juice, not just garlic pieces! It infuses everything you make with intense garlic flavor, so you get to save on the amount of garlic you use.  It's a win all the way around!
• You can use a tablespoon of butter instead of olive oil to sweat the onions; this is just the vegan version.  But nothing really beats the smell of onions in butter, does it?
• I usually add in a bit of water on top of the vegetable broth, just because I like to spoon liquid soup.  It's up to you!
• This tastes pretty awesome with a slice of the Publix gourmet Sports Loaf or Multigrain Loaf.  
• By the way, the Sports Loaf is on sale this week for $3.99!  Just be sure to ask for it in one of those bags covered with holes, and then take it out of the bag immediately upon getting home to preserve the crust.  I have a small wooden cutting board for bread, so I just cut whatever I want and leave it, cut side down, on the wood board.  The crust stays crusty until the bread is gone, which is usually very quickly!  If you don't have one specifically for bread, just use your regular one, although I'd prefer wood or bamboo.

I'll share more recipes soon!  Cooking, to me, is the supreme form of fun, relaxation, and winding down, so I get a whole lot of practice!

Why Dammann-Frères Is Probably A Beneficient Deity In Disguise

Whether we're detoxing, dieting, or indulging, tea is a completely guilt-free cup of happiness.  Some people may go for the white, green, or herbal teas, while some people love the zing of black tea, and others are addicted to the flavor of black tea with milk (which I was for a while after spending a semester in England).  Some people really can't deal with tea unless it's sweetened, and some people love the kind of chai you get at Starbucks (and I have to confess that one winter when our heating in our 1907 house was broken, my mother and I subsisted on boiling hot chai tea made from powdered stuff from Kroger, which is never the best thing for you unless it is keeping your safe from hypothermia!)  But, hiding out there in the exotic world of tea, mysteries await!  (And it's October, so I can finally blog about hot tea without sounding totally nuts.)

Well, it's a bit less romantic than that.  I was on a four-day weekend trip to Paris while going to school in England, and stopped by a Monoprix to buy a baguette and some apples.  Then I realized I hadn't bought forty gifts for my mother yet, and clearly she needed yet another souvenir from Paris.  We're huge tea drinkers, so I wandered over to the tea aisle to pick up some authentic French tea (from, uh, the cheap grocery in a basement on the Champs Elysées.  I figured she never had to know).  I found a really pretty embossed black box and bought it because it was gorgeous.  Months later, I unpack my suitcase in the United States, we make tea in celebration despite the boiling hot Georgia summer, and it was love at first scent.


I'd accidentally stumbled upon twenty bags of Dammann-Frères' Goût Russe Douchka, one of the most delicately flavored gourmet black teas I'd ever tasted in my life.  Dammann-Frères calls it "citrusy"; I call it "awesome".  We stretched those twenty bags out to last a year, and then my mother hit on the brilliant idea of checking to see if they had a website.  They did!  It was a miracle!  It seemed enormously pricey, especially with shipping, but we couldn't help ourselves.  For the winter holidays, we treated ourselves to a bag of Goût Russe Douchka and another of Earl Grey Goût Russe.  And we've never looked back.


The Earl Grey is the best I've ever tasted.  The bergamot is brilliant, the tea leaves are fresh, and there are actual pieces of orange peel and blue bonnet flowers in the mix.  It's lovely to look at, and the infused tea color is  a stunning golden amber.  The aroma has dashes of citron in it mixing with the oil of bergamot, and the flavor is beautifully balanced--it's 5 euros for 100 grams, and these leaves are such high-quality that two pinches are enough to infuse an entire teapot!


When last winter came around, it was my turn to splurge for my mother, and I went all out!  (Perhaps secretly knowing that she'd offer me some tea to keep me cosy in my apartment so far away from her.  But only perhaps.)  I ordered bags of the two I've already described, and found three others, mainly operating on pure luck and the knowledge that she doesn't like caramel...

Coquelicot Gourmand is just a gorgeous tea--look at it!  Pink peony and cornflower petals make up the color, and the flavors are a blend of tea along with poppy, marzipan, and whatever "biscuit" is.  It's a sweeter scent, and it reminds me a bit of a raspberry glaze over a tart.  I drink it whenever I feel particularly cheerful.






7 Parfums has my beloved bergamot oil and citrus, and gets its lovely color from actual red and white rose petals.  Stunning.  Absolutely stunning.  It tastes as luxurious as a red carpet gown.  It's not as candy-like as Coquelicot Gourmand, which I love--and when I'm not practically making love to the Earl Grey, this is my favorite tea.






Temple d'Angkor is a green flavored tea, and although the description says that it's got flavors of green apple, green lemon, and melon, the impression I got was somewhere between a faint flavor of a sour apple piece of hard candy and a piece of caramel.  Which, occasionally, I'm in the mood for--and my mother, who is an avowed despiser of caramel, loves it!  So you know.  To each her own.





This one is the coolest one ever.  I haven't dared to buy it, because it's so darn expensive (12 euros!) and presumably has only one use, but my gosh.  Look at it!  The Dragon Enchanté is an actual dragon!  It's tea leaves crafted together to produce a dragon whose eyes glow orange and whose mane swells when dropped into hot water!  You've got to have a glass teapot for this; there's no other way.  Wow!  Have you ever seen anything like this?

So there go my plugs for the most amazing tea I've ever tasted.  No, nobody is paying me to gush about these, but they make me so happy I cannot help myself.  If you, or anyone you know, really loves drinking tea, give this brand a shot.

 As a girl who has such an overwhelming love of really good bread, I have to say that the amazing flavor of these teas has often stopped me from inhaling an entire loaf of freshly baked bread in a morning.  It's a life- and waistline-saver!

La danse du ventre

You know, I despise the gym.  Really and truly despise it.  Obviously, I've never been the sporty type--no track athlete is going to title her blog "observations of an opera child"--but I've never seen the sense of shutting myself up in a room with a whole lot of machines to torture myself for an hour when I could take a ballet or modern dance class instead.  I like to think of myself as slim and flexible rather than an energetic, muscular powerhouse.  (Of course, I say this with an open bar of German nougat beside me.  So you see where my priorities lie!)  However, I'm the youngest girl in our graduate class, the slenderest, and the one who looooves classical and stylistic theatre.  So I was Eurydice in Eurydice, by Sarah Ruhl, in an authentic peach-colored 1950s bathing suit last year, had a kind of awkward post-sex scene in The Shape of Things, by Neil LaBute, as Evelyn, and this fall I'm Scheherezade in Mary Zimmerman's Arabian Nights.  And, since I'm a dancer as well as tiny (oh, that really terrible joke was so not on purpose, I swear), the first thought in everyone's heads was apparently "OMG SHE COULD BELLYDANCE!"


My first reaction, to be totally honest, was "Hot diggety!"  Haven't used that phrase since reading a childhood favorite about a girl dragged out west called California Morning Whipple.  My second was "holy mess, I feel like I am in trouble."

Now, I am not averse to bellydancing.  However, I don't have the faintest idea how.  Or I think I should say didn't have the faintest idea how.  For the past three weeks, I've been practicing belly rolls, undulations, different arm postures, head movements, isolations, hip rolls, floor work, shawl work, and y'all, my abs hurt like crazy.  But it is sexy.  I have never exercised in such a sexy way before.  I'm lucky in that it's fairly similar to ballet, but all you have to do is to watch a San Francisco tribal dancer to realize that this takes years and years of dedicated practice.  For inspiration, because I have to choreograph my own dance, I've been watching Bellydance Superstars Live in Paris at the Folies Bergère and On Fire! which are two stunning presentations, except for the Marilyn Monroe impersonator.  (Intrigued?  You should be!)

And I'm in love with Ansuya, a professional bellydance star from Miami.  Yes, she's the one in the picture on the right.  Both pictures, actually.  I am feeling crazy tugs at my psyche to go move to Miami and rob Cuban restaurants for money to take her classes.

The other truly amazing thing about bellydance is that any woman of any age can do this as long as she can stand upright.  Ten years old or ninety; you can do this beautifully; large or small, this is a gorgeous hobby or profession.  Imagine!  A profession in dance that doesn't require you to give up when you're thirty!  (Much as I love ballet, this is why I'm not a ballet dancer.)  And, y'all, the costumes.  Bedazzlement and fluttery silk!  And the muscle isolations in the stomach!  It is way, waaaay harder than it looks.

I've got to say, it's one of the best ways to exercise that I've ever found.  According to my crazy darling brilliant Polish friend, it also helps to massage your internal organs and ready your hips for childbirth.  I am not touting this as medical fact, but it sounds cool.  And I'm sure it helps you have better sex.  ;)  Show me the treadmill that can do that!

Anthropologie Fall Discoveries

I've got a seriously precious cat sitting on my lap, arrogantly perched so that he will fall the second I take my supporting arm away and confident that I would rather eat my own elbow than disturb him.  He is eating my buttons.

What buttons is he eating?  He is eating amazing buttons.  It's been awhile since I've spent serious money on clothes (that whole graduate student thing), but this fall season at Anthropologie has been so breathtaking that I couldn't help myself.  I've got to say, there are few materialistic things that tug at my heart more than fall fashion, especially when it incorporates an equestrian/British tinge.  So, after dreamily collecting a shopping bag of items I wanted (yeah, over $1000), my boyfriend's mother took me to Lenox in Atlanta, where she lost herself in Ann Taylor and accidentally left me in Anthropologie for three whole hours.  I tried on everything in that shopping bag, and, oh, boy.  Oh, my gosh.  I have been back to school for a week and I have never, NEVER received so many compliments as on the clothes I bought.  I've got to post pictures:

The buttons Simon is chewing on belong to the Rutledge Sweatercoat, a long sweater with the most stunning diagonal lines that flatter you in every way--making you look long and lean while thinning your waist and accentuating the hips.  The back is laced up and provides for some really pretty gathers--although there are two floppy bits that look like wings that looked pretty huge from the side, although all that took was a few stitches on either side and the whole look is stunning.  And apparently the buttons are yummy!

This next one has at least three different ways to wear it.  The Best of the Bunch Cardigan--it's comfy, it's great for southern climates (so even though it looks like a coat, it really is a sweater), it's fitted to the waist, and it might take you a few tries to figure out how to button it up, but I feel like a pretty little stylish French woman in it.  I love the ruffled space between buttonholes!  It's breathtaking, let me tell you, and sweet with jeans and knee-high boots, black or brown.  If I want to turn heads, either of those two sweaters is a no-brainer!

Either you can wear it this way, buttoned all the way up, half-buttoned and swinging like they show you on the website, OR you can keep the left side totally buttoned underneath the right shoulder seam and undo the right side halfway down, so you get some beautiful drapes hanging down attractively from your shoulder.  Either way, this sweater is brilliant!

The Eze-sur-Mer top is more of a basic, but I was in love with the navy/brown stripe combo from the very beginning and I found out when I tried on half the things in the store that the orange is beautiful on pale brunettes with a yellow undertone to their skin...in other words, if you can pull off Clinique spiced apple lipstick, this shirt will be stunning on you (that lipstick is my go-to in winter, fall, and summer; it seems to work for all three beautifully!  Don't let the website fool you; it's a gorgeous dark orange tint that has enough pink in it to still look natural on lips).  Slightly sheer, though, if you pick the more tightly fitted size, so with the XS I just don't wear a black bra and try to keep Simon-cat away from the gold buttons at the shoulders.  (I really don't know what it is with him and buttons . I think it's because they wiggle.)

The Two-by-Two Shorts are gorgeous.  They're soft wool, feel amazing, and are lined with some pretty quality lining.  However, they're on sale, and for a reason.  When I tried on the size 2, the shank of the top button just came right off the top of the button.  Luckily, the shorts come with an extra button, and the lovely people at Anthro gave me an extra $5 off, but...well, thank goodness I'm a seamstress; I'd have hated to leave these in the store.  They're pretty cute with boots and a blazer.  

The long and the short of it is that I spent waaay too much money and really wanted to spend more...just check out the River Tyne Tee in neutral, the stunning wine-colored Draped V-Neck, the adorably polka-dotted Coming and Going Skirt, the truly British Made to Measure Skirt, the gorgeously decorated Paisley Paths Skirt, the online-only (aaack!) Everything-In-Place Cape, with a fun splash of reddish-yellow plaid lining inside the hood, and the amazing, amazing Craftsmanship Capelet, which I totally would have bought had they had a size smaller than a Medium.  (For anyone considering this gorgeous capelet, DON'T SIZE UP.  I'm usually an XS/2 and the Medium felt like it had a foot of extra fabric around the waist.)

I'm officially in love with Anthropologie, the only place I've found in Georgia that sells clothing designed by people with creative minds who appreciate that we ladies want to look sexy, daring, classy, and gorgeous without being shunted into either the preteen section or into the boring country-club department!  Anthropologie, thank you for existing.

Also, please stop making your buttons so tasty.

The Mass of Stupidity

Why do some Americans consider themselves better than Muslims?

More to the point:  why do some Americans think they have the right to murder all Muslims?

I kid you not.  It's a revolting realization.  My two choice quotes from a recent debate are "there is no such thing as a good moslem" and "you fight your enemies the way they fight you."

I began this by responding to another person's letter to the newspaper, who claimed that President Obama's overtures to the Muslim world were despicable and were pandering to an enemy.  I put forward the opinion that the best way to create peace is to do so peaceably, that murder, war, bigotry, and hate only bring about vengeful suppression and breed people who are boiling mad, ready on a knife edge to fight back.  I suggested that, instead of lashing out vindictively at all Muslims, we employ a little bit of rationality and ask why the Muslim terrorists hate Americans in the first place and address that issue.  I pointed out that you don't fix a broken arm by cutting it off; you set the break, gently let it heal, and avoid precarious situations in the future.  Somehow, this was received as a green light for the spout of hatred to begin gushing.

If a Muslim believer lives by the Koran, he will go kill all Americans.  They have been promised lots of virgins.  They are totally responsible for their own actions and suicide bombers are not victims of anything.  They all want to see us dead.  We have to kill them first.  It is ridiculous to ask for the reason why 9/11 happened.  We should just hate.  Hate, kill, and alienate.

Fascinating.

Also incredibly stupid.

I know and am friendly with quite a few Muslims.  Aside from the insulting nature of all of this drivel, it simply isn't true. None of them have shown even the slightest desire to stab me with a pizza cutter over dinner or smother me with a couch pillow.  They don't start frothing at the mouth when they see me in a swimsuit.  And not only do they not want to kill all Americans, they aren't anomalies.

Human beings have to go through a great deal of psychological preparation before they can kill someone.  Their lives have to accustom them to the idea. Even impulse murders don't simply just happen; they are a buildup; that's why people without that necessary psychological makeup or training cannot imagine themselves doing that.  The necessary self-defense impulse can catapult a person into killing with a pretty large dash of fear.  Soldiers are trained for months to kill, and many still come back with PTSD and worse.  Killing someone of your own species is evolutionarily idiotic, and we have biological mental defenses against it.  It is pure ignorance to suppose that millions of people have managed to magically do away with this essential part of our biological makeup.  More to the point:  it's stupid.

Additionally, I'd love for someone to explain to me how all Muslims deserve to be lumped together into one group destined for American hatred when the Columbine shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing, the murdering of abortion doctors, and hundreds of other prime examples don't allow us to lump white people into a large group of violent terrorists who should be exterminated.  Just explain that logic to me, please.  Is it because Muslims believe in a different book?  Is it because they're mostly on the other side of the Atlantic?   Is it because you have actually never met one?

I really think that last is true.

So, moderate, non-fanatic Americans, wake up out of your moderation, because these idiot extremists have louder mouths than you do, and by virtue of shouting loud enough, they are managing to indoctrinate a lot of essentially good but really stupid people with this verbal excrement.  And you're making it really easy for them by minding your own business.

The people, taken together, have the I.Q. of a mob.  Do you really want that in charge of your country?  This mob of a people has actually decided that anyone intelligent is an "elitist" and they don't want someone like that in government.  These people want idiots in charge.  They want uneducated people with a loud mouth ruling them, because they are "just like us".

Let me tell you something:  we need people who are NOT like us in government.  We need smarter people.  We need people who would be better at their jobs than we would be.  We need the best of the best to guide our country through these inevitable periods of shameful public idiocy, not Joe Six-Pack, who would crumble into laziness and laissez-faire in the first month.

Let your own voice be heard.  It's worth more than anything Fox News blithers.