It’s been a crazy few weeks over here in the B.A. After making the decision to move three weeks ago, we took a road-trip to Tallahassee to see my grandparents. Then, last weekend we took a trip to see my friend Amy in New York (photos to come!) and yesterday Cody left for a work trip to Japan. Then, as soon as he gets back we’re going to pack up the car and start bringing loads of our stuff to our new place of residence. On top of that, I took on some new freelance work, and put in my two week’s notice at my current job. So, yikes.

I’m the kind of person that tends to get a little overwhelmed by long lists of time-sensitive moving-related chores, so I spent a lot of this weekend procrastinating the packing and address-changing by watching chick-flicks that Cody couldn’t abide (one of the only fun things about Cody being away) and taking Murdock on rides in the car to listen to podcasts about Japanese culture and feminism (separate podcasts – I’m not quite that well-informed). The day before Cody gets back I’ll probably get hopped-up on crystal light energy drinks and do ALL THE CHORES I can think of for the move. That’s my “system” and it sometimes works.

I have also been spending my time nagging Cody for pictures of Japan and especially his food. Last night/this morning (it was 9am here, 10 pm in Japan) he had this bento box with eel and rice which he got through room service at his hotel for the modest price of FIFTY EIGHT DOLLARS. First of all, Cody is not an adventurous eater by any stretch, so he chose eel? Second, that better have been the most delicious smoked sea-snake of all time.

So, Murdock and I will be keeping each other company this week. There will be walks if the weather permits, rides in the car if it doesn’t, and probably a shared french fry or two, because what’s a ride in the car without a drive-through snack? Also, don’t I look like Elmyra in this photo? Do you even know who that is? I promise no animals were hurt in the making-of. Murdock loves a vigorous head-massage.

The last few weeks have been sort of eventful for my family. As much as it pains me to remind you, dear readers, (all 12 of you! xoxo) Cody and I are living with my parents at the moment. After a few months of waffling between future locations (Arkansas, New Mexico, Texas) my dad is officially accepting a job in Texas that begins this August, so that means Cody and I are moving too! Not to Texas, just to my grandparent’s house in the DC area for the time being (we’re getting good at imposing on our loved ones). We’ll be in our new digs by the beginning of May to give my parents time to start showing their house without a giant, stinky dog around to scare off buyers.

My family has lived in Bel Air since I was in third grade, so their move is a pretty big deal for us. We’re all making little lists of “must do’s” before we scatter to the four winds, and first on that list was a final Easter visit to Log Cabin candies.

This place is so adorably small-town kitschy that you can’t help falling in love.

Log cabin makes truffles and candies in lots of flavors, but they’re most famous for their unique collection of chocolate Easter bunny alternatives. This year I chose a turtle and a t-rex to give to my sister and her husband, who so graciously hosted us for dinner on Easter. Those eyes on that turtle are just the best.

Another thing they do really well at Log Cabin is toffee. I took these pictures in the car and, as you can see, the toffees didn’t go long in their box undisturbed.

I would like to note that the reason I referred to Easter as EasterS in the title is because of Nacho Libre. That movie is so quotable that I can’t even think the word Easter without thinking this:

Also, this weather lately! It has me singing a certain silly (and obnoxiously catchy) song from a certain charming-yet-eye-rollingly-sexist musical. SING ALONG IF YOU KNOW IT!

Spring is a good time for change.

In my opinion, the simplest and most rewarding vegetable-cooking technique is roasting. It requires time, yes, but 80% of the required time is inactive, which means you can use it to katch up with your Kardashian episodes. I like my roasted vegetables to be very crispy and caramelized, so I tend to roast them at a fairly high temperature, like 400 F or above. If you are roasting something with a high water content like tomatoes, you could go lower to let the flavors concentrate without too much browning, but I’d stay above 350. Roasting is one of those things you have to practice to figure out what you like and what your oven will do, but it’s forgiving enough that your experiments will always turn out edible, if not quite delicious.

For this demonstration I decided to make some roasted spring vegetables: baby red potatoes, pearl onions, and asparagus. The whole thing took about an hour, but the veggies all have different cook times, so I added them to the pan in order of how much time they needed. Start by cutting your potatoes in half or quarters depending on how large they are. Then pile them on a baking dish, (I like mine lined with non-stick foil) toss them with olive oil, and season them with salt and pepper. Spread them out, throw them in your pre-heated oven, and let them roast for 15-20 minutes.

While the potatoes roasted, I peeled my pearl onions. Peeling pearl onions without blanching them is stupid, but I was hell-bent on not adding another step to this process, so I stood over the sink for what felt like my whole life peeling these suckers by hand. And, obviously, it turned out to be a beast of a step anyway. If you MUST have pearl onions like me, just blanch them – the skins will come off easily and you will save yourself some grief. If you are smarter than me, get a regular onion, cut it in wedges like a normal person, and roast that instead. Put the onions and potatoes in the oven for another 25-30 minutes while you snap your asparagus.

Roasted vegetables usually taste amazing without any fancy seasoning, but if you want to gild the lily you can make dressing. I made one with lemon, garlic, parsley, olive oil and grated Grana Padano cheese. PS grating garlic on a microplane is a lot faster than mincing it with a knife (for me anyway). After your potatoes and onions have roasted, add the asparagus to the pan (with more olive oil and salt) and throw everything back in the oven for 10-15 more minutes.

The main things to remember when roasting any vegetable are: cook time, seasoning, and not crowding the pan. Any hard root-vegetable is going to require at least an hour of cooking, so plan accordingly. Onions and brussels sprouts can be done in 30-45 minutes, and smaller vegetables with higher water content  like asparagus and green beans can be done in 10-20 minutes, depending on whether you want them crisp-tender or just done. Always toss the vegetables with some kind of cooking fat like olive oil or peanut oil or butter, and always season with salt. From there you can add any spices you want. Even woody herbs like thyme and rosemary can go in and roast with the veggies. Fresh herbs like parsley and dill should be added at the end so they don’t burn up and lose their taste in cooking.

When it comes to crowding the pan, keep in mind that all vegetables contain water, and that the real beauty of roasting is that dry heat causes caramelization. When your pan is over crowded, your vegetables steam instead of roast and it makes it difficult for them to form any lovely brown and crispy edges. Aim for at least a half inch of space between all your veggies, but a little less than that won’t be the end of the world. If the pan is really tightly packed though, bust out another baking sheet and let everything breathe. If you line your pans with foil they might not even get dirty anyway.

Roasted vegetables are so simple and so much more delicious than steamed vegetables. If there’s any vegetable in the world that you think you don’t like, try roasting it and try not to change your mind.

Work and school were canceled yesterday in Maryland for some snow that only kind of happened. In my neck of the woods the snow had melted by noon, but I know others got hit a bit harder. It’s kind of silly how much people freak out about snow here on the east coast. If I still lived in Utah, today’s storm would have been like an average day in early April. Still, I like a day off better than trudging to work in the snow.

This past weekend I got it in my head that I needed to make pesto out of poblano peppers. I flew by the seat of my pants and it pretty much worked. I started by popping the whole poblanos on the bare oven rack a few inches from the broiler and letting them get nice and black. Some people really like the smell of charring peppers but, I have to admit, I think it smells like Warped Tour. Back when I used to go to Warped Tour. I mean it smells like the weed that I smelled at Warped Tour, since that’s the only place I’ve ever really smelled it. But I do love charred peppers, so I live with the smell.

While I was busy hot-boxing the kitchen, Cody was on call for photo ops. He kept himself entertained while I cooked by making Murdock yawn. It’s pretty funny, nine times out of ten if you scratch his ears just right he yawns. Predictable as clockwork.

Anyway, I made some pasta and some crostinis as vehicles for my pesto. Crostinis are just croutons made from sliced baguette. I make mine by slicing the baguette on the bias, drizzling the slices with olive oil, sprinkling with salt and pepper, and baking at 350 for about  15 to 20 minutes. These things are my favorite way to get most dips to my mouth, next to Utz ripples. There are occasions when Utz simply won’t do, and in these cases I usually make crostini.

To finish the pesto, let the poblanos steam in a covered bowl for a few minutes, until they are cool enough to handle. Then peel the skins from the pepper, remove the stems and seeds, and put them in your food processor. Add to that about a cup of grated manchego cheese (parmesan would work too), a quarter of an onion, a garlic clove, a jalapeno, lime juice, olive oil, and cilantro. Give the whole thing a few pulses and that’s my version of poblano pesto. You could also add marcona almonds, but I didn’t and it still tasted great.

Those pasta photos are pretty right? Cody takes a good picture but, in all honesty, I’m not awesome at making pasta and this batch was sort of meh. I mean I can get pasta out of the pot and on to a plate when it’s “al dente”, but I’ve had such glorious pasta in my life that I am painfully aware of how good it can be and how far mine is from being really good. So I’m on a quest for someone who can teach me how to finesse pasta into silk and love instead of stick and starch. Anyone have an Italian grandma or grandpa they’d like to share?

I told myself I’d try to post every week for a year, but the muses weren’t singing to me this week so you get a “best of” roundup instead of anything useful. You’re welcome!

1. Best drug-store nail polish shade: Revlon Top Speed in “Fire”. It’s very red and very firey with some orangey undertones. I always feel super sassy when I wear it, and it dries in about 3 minutes which is fab.

2. Best kitchen gadget that looks like a bedroom gadget (especially when held thusly): Cuisinart Smart Stick. This thing is a blender without the pitcher, which means you can use it to puree soup in the pot, emulsify salad dressing in a jar, and generally upgrade and simplify your life without adding to your dirty-dish load. I use mine every week.

3. Best little-known beauty trick: Fake it ‘Til You Make it. First coined by YouTube beauty gurus Michelle Money and Laura on the MM and L Show it’s my favorite tip for extending the life of a hair wash. For all you ladies trying to be more French  and wash your hair no more than twice a week to maximize texture and je ne sais quoi (I know I am!), this tip is invaluable. You basically wash the front of your hair, sectioning off a chunk that starts behind your ears and goes straight up your scalp to include your bangs. Put the rest in a bun (and a shower cap if you have it) hop in the shower, and shampoo (or do like they do in the video and use the sink). You get to freshen up the most visible parts of your hair while keeping all that lovely dirt and texture in the back, like a dirt mullet – a sexy dirt mullet that makes you feel like Brigitte Bardot.  Anyway, the MM and L Show comes off as a bit silly and the girls are so obviously from Utah, but they have tried every beauty product under the sun and after following many of their recommendations I have come to trust them implicitly. P.S. don’t forget the dry shampoo! Skipping washes is pointless without dry shampoo.

4. Best Fast-Food Fries: Burger King. It’s been a while since you’ve been to Burger King, amiright? While you were away they perfected the art of the fast food fry. BK fries are always crispy on the outside and fluffy and magical on the inside, unlike McDonalds fries which are usually more like rubberized, hollowed-out potato sticks. What BK figured out is that in order for once-frozen then fried fast-food fries to be consistently successful, they need to be thicker, or the middles dry out. A+ for Burger King in french fries 101.

5. Best French Rom-Com: Priceless. This movie is so charming and adorable. Audrey Tautou plays a gold-digger living in the French riviera who falls for the wrong guy. Predictable? Yes, but so fun and so pretty and I bet Ms. Tautou can go two weeks without washing her hair, with all that je ne sais quoi. Oh, the trailer is pretty bad too, but trust me the movie is awesome.

There are as many knife skills tutorials on the internet as there are food websites so I will likely be echoing a lot of the things you’ve probably already been told. That said, my personal knife philosophy is a bit simpler and further distilled than most, so hopefully you will find it useful.

There are three distinct knives that every functional kitchen should have in its drawers: a paring knife, a bread knife, and a chef knife. The chef knife will be used for ninety percent of kitchen tasks, but try cutting a bagel with a chef knife and you’ll see why a bread knife is mandatory. To be honest, I rarely do any paring, but it’s handy to have a smaller knife around for tasks where a chef knife would be clumsy. My chef knife is pictured above on the right. It’s a Victorinox knife with a “fibrox” handle, nothing fancy, but it’s sharp and comfortable and it was under thirty dollars. The other two knives are Wustof and they belong to my parents ’cause I’m cheap.

I have come away from reading and watching knife tutorials in the past feeling overwhelmed and discouraged by the delicate cuts, precarious positioning, and every professional chef’s ability to look straight into the camera while breaking down onions at a mile a minute. While the skills outlined in their tutorials will make you faster and safer (while cutting at sixty miles per hour), those of us who don’t need to be able to chop five pounds of potatoes in thirty seconds can get by with fewer rules. So here are my cardinal rules: Keep your knives sharp, watch your fingers, and hold your chef knife like this:

Pinching the blade like this will help you control your knife better. The sharper your knives are, the less brute force is required to cut your food, and the less likely you are to do anything spastic. Bread knives can be held without pinching the blade, but make sure you use minimal downward pressure when sawing into your bread, and let the bread knife’s teeth do the work. We’ll talk about paring later.

Now for some practice. Because I think my onion-dicing method is the best, I’m going to show you how it’s done. Start by removing the stem end of an onion and leaving the root end in tact (the root end is the hairy looking end FYI).

Then, cut the onion in half longitude-wise (you know, like on a globe) and remove the outer-most layer. Use the tip of your chef’s knife to cut the onion radially without cutting through the root.

See! That’s what radial cuts will look like on your onion half. From there, you just cut slices in the opposite direction (as pictured below) and end up with lovely diced onions.

As you can see, I haven’t mastered the art of keeping my fingers tucked in while chopping. Maybe one day I will, but in the meantime I’m going to watch my fingers and keep chopping precisely how I like.

Ah, avocados. However you like cutting these is fine with me, but I will offer this suggestion for removing your pit from your knife: pinch the pit from the opposite side of the knife until the pit pops off the blade. A little less dangerous than simply grabbing it, wouldn’t you say?

And here’s how you pare the peel from an orange. I like to start by removing the top, and from there you work the blade through the peel with your thumb, wiggling the knife back and forth as you go (since it’s hard to saw with such a tiny blade). It’s kind of hard to describe, but the pictures should help.

It’s not mandatory that you remove the peel in one solid coil. I have lots of practice because I was picky about my grapefruits growing up. No skin allowed.

Now I’m taking the sections of the orange out from between the membranes. All you do is slide your blade between the membrane and the fruit on either side of each section, and they will pop out easily. This would be stupid to do with a chef knife, obviously, and thus the paring knife finds its validation.

OH hey, while we were learning all about knife skills we prepped enough fruits and vegetables for a pretty salad.

Whip up a vinaigrette with two tablespoons of lemon juice, a tablespoon of red wine vinegar, three tablespoons of olive oil and a teaspoon of honey. Season with salt and pepper and top it all with crushed croutons (preferably homemade).

A fruitful conclusion to a very basic tutorial. Now go chop something.

We finally shook off the winter doldrums this weekend to visit with some friends and try some Pho. I know Pho has been the thing forever, but this was my first and didn’t disappoint. I had a giant bowl of “B1” which contained sliced beef (initially raw, cooked by the hot broth that was poured over top), brisket, tripe (!) and tendon (!). Having tripe and tendon was a fun experience, but the broth completely stole the show. For those of you who haven’t had Pho, know that tripe and tendon are not mandatory. In fact, most of the combinations centered around more traditional cuts of meat with rice noodles and more of that amazing broth. Pho also comes with plates of sprouts and fresh herbs and jalapenos and limes to garnish. It’s a hot, salty, fresh, spicy experience and an all-around good time.

I’ve been geeking out over the online menu and this place seems pretty legit. I can also attest to the deliciousness of the spring rolls and summer rolls, but there are whole sections of the menu I didn’t notice on my visit. There’s a “rice special” section that boasts a “broken rice” dish with pork and a fried egg. There’s also a “clear rice noodle and hot beef soup” section and just, I mean, I want it all (PS that’s the tripe, below on the right, pretty blurry).

In other news, I finally jumped on the high-waisted jean bandwagon, which may have already had it’s day. I was a little put-off by the uterus-highlighting effect of such a long fly zipper, but as long as I keep my shirts un-tucked, these pants are winners. Good-bye muffin top. Hello giant bowls of rice noodles and funky meat. 2013 is looking mighty fine from here.

Next week, the film adaptation of one of the world’s most beloved stories comes to an end. November 16th, the tale that captured the hearts (kidnapped the minds?) of a generation (or just girls aged 12-18…and 45-50) comes to it’s stunning conclusion. What I’m trying to say is that the grand finale of the TWILIGHT SAGA is just around the corner!

Some of you might be wondering why a girl of sound mind in her mid-twenties, like myself, would be excited about a marshmallowy pop-culture phenomenon such as Twilight. First of all, pop culture is fascinating. Second of all, I may have been seduced by the first three books in the series. It’s ok if you judge me. I would too. I woke up to the ridiculousness of it all one day, (when Bella got preg and I experienced the first screenplay) but by then I was already along for the ride. I have seen every Twilight movie within two weeks of it’s release and I will do so again next weekend. It’s practically tradition. My relationship with the movies may be tinged (soaked) with irony at this point but, honestly, I can’t say I haven’t been entertained.

Some of my favorite bits were:

-Edward dry-heaving the first time he catches Bella’s scent

-Jasper’s wig

-“Hang on spider monkey”

-Bella’s strobe-quick lash-batting

-Glitter skin!

-Victoria’s crackled stoney head laying on the ground

-“I AM THE SON OF EPHRAIM BLACK”

-Bella’s back snapping in half in the most heeeelarious way when she goes into labor

But this gem from the Breaking Dawn Part II trailer might take the cake:

No joke, this series has been the source of some major lolz in my life. I’m almost sad to see it go.

Can’t stomach Twilight? Have you heard of Rifftrax? They’re made by the minds behind Mystery Science Theater 3000 and they make the movies infinitely more watchable.

This year, you get the special privilege of a holiday greeting from Mr. T himself!

I pity this poor fool. He will do anything for treats.

I’m an incredibly lazy dresser. Living on the east coast has brought out a bit of my inner prepster (riding boots! blazers! navy blue and plaid!), which has been fun, but I feel like prep can be boring if it’s not tempered with a little edge and humor. And as a lazy dresser, I need accessories that I can throw on and mix together without worrying about coordinating much. Here’s what I’ve found lately that fits the bill.

lion phone cover, antler necklace, spike earrings, biker boots, spike ring, triangle necklace, creepy hug ring