Best burgers of the weekend

Memorial Day presents many opportunities to break out the BBQ, but these burgers I made today got rave reviews from our audience. I used 12 grain bread to make the breadcrumbs and also added some onion salt as grating an onion appeared to create mostly water. I also added a dash more Worcestershire than called for, for good measure.

Ingredients
1 pound ground chuck
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup soft breadcrumbs (homemade)
1 tablespoon grated onion
1/2 teaspoon Lawry's meat tenderizer seasoning
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
4 hamburger buns

Preparation
Combine first 8 ingredients, blending well. Shape into 4 patties. Grill, uncovered, over medium coals (300° to 350°) 15 minutes or until done, turning once. Serve on buns.
For broiling: Place patties on broiler pan; broil 3 inches from heat about 10 minutes or until done, turing once.
For panfrying: Heat a heavy skillet until hot. Add patties, and cook over medium heat about 8 minutes or until done, turning once.

Yield
4 servings

Nutritional Information
CALORIES 395; FAT 20.4g ; SODIUM 587mg; CHOLESTEROL 133mg

Macaroni magic

Why, no matter how many times you cook pasta, does that pound box just seem like it's not going to be enough?

I made macaroni salad today for a picnic this weekend. Now I have enough to feed an army because I overcompensated and bought two boxes of noodles, thinking that one box just did not seem like enough. I'm also related to Paula, a noted over-cooker, and her tendency to prepare too much food has definitely rubbed off on me. She's reading this right now saying, "Well, it's better to have too much than not enough! What if you ran out?"

Once that pasta hit that water and did its magical expanding act (note to self: see if pasta technology can be applied to bank account), I was up to my elbows in elbow mac. My biggest mixing bowl could barely contain it.

And the next time I make pasta, I will make the same mistake, forgetting about swimming through mayonnaise and celery seed. Pasta magic must bring on selective memory loss as well.

It's a good thing

Surfing around took me to Etsy today, where I found some really awesome, unique things. I got lost in the jewelry section and found a cute bracelet made out of old typewriter keys. I would love a lot of these handcrafted items! I will have to save my pennies.

Anyway, this woman can knit. Check out her other creations at her etsy store.

Sucking your vacation away

Since graduation on Friday, I took a few days off. Actually one of them was my regularly scheduled day off, and in one I went to NYC with my mother- and sister-in-law, (which deserves its own post) which had been planned for 9 mos., so I just decided to take the intervening day off, slap on a weekend, and make a vacation of the whole thing.

Boy, was that a good idea.

I've never taken a few days off just to do it, with no real plans and no destinations. It was great. I caught up with people, did some housework, did a little shopping, and just kind of hung around. It was a reminder to me that there is a beautiful sun which shines in our sky - I normally only see it when it is waking up and going to sleep. These last spring days were full of good weather, cool breezes and the smell of hyacinth. After 2.5 years of gogogogogogogogo with school, this was quite a relief. It was well earned.

But now, I've got to grind, grind, grind at that grindstone, as Bert says, and I'm back to work where my co-workers seek to reduce the pleasure of my days off by grilling me about it.

Last night as I was falling asleep, I was trying to look forward to coming back. It wasn't effective. But I did it nonetheless (though I was an hour late today, oh well) and as soon as I walked in the door, it was like being pulled into a dark closet, shoved onto a shaky wooden stool, and having a high-wattage bulb shined into your eyes. A lot of "look who's back" and "nice to finally see you at work," as if I didn't deserve to take the time off. Additionally, everyone wants to know where you were, what you did, and how it was, draining the enjoyable details of your life away from your mental inner sanctum.

They're like vacation-starved, enjoyment-sucking cretins from the netherworld (here's what I'm thinking) who are bound and determined to not let you enjoy the memory of your refreshing days in the sun.

Granted, there are some co-workers who I like very much and looked forward to swapping stories with. But the others - pasty, grasping, hollow-eyed goblins - get your own vacation days.

Just call me the masta

As some of you know, last Friday night was commencement at PSU Great Valley. I had thought for some time about whether or not to participate in this ritual, given that it was kind of merely a shadow of the real thing. In the end, I decided that I earned it and that these kinds of rites of passage were important to me. So, I dragged the family along as witnesses.

I guess this makes me a Nittany Lion...rowl!
There's my back...bad angle for the photographer.
Dr. Lee, my advisor for my thesis paper
Dr. Clariana
Two Penn State grads!


Edited to say that you can watch boring video and soon see pictures here.

The peace wave

We have noted a funny little phenomena at our church that I shall now record for posterity. Let me first set the stage.

In our little hamlet, there are 4 (count 'em) Catholic churches within walking distance. Granted, one of the churches serves as a worship site, not a parish, and is affiliated with our parish, but let's not get bogged down in the details. Our parish, like many of the others and a microcasm of the borough itself, it just busting at the seams with elderly folks. However, the relative size of our parish is not very large, and Masses are never too full.

Henceforth, during the kiss of peace segment of Mass, during which I generally kiss family members (and sometimes strangers; ask my cousins) and shake hands with everyone else, you will witness at our parish "the peace wave." In lieu of standard shake, the older members of our congregation will extend both arms at pew height and wave their hands back and forth, turning to the left and right, making eye contact and smiling. Their hands are shaking, so perhaps this is just an interpretation of "handshake" that I am not familiar with.

No palm to palm contact takes place. I'm not sure if this is a germ-prevention technique, or the sheer number of pews between one person and another is just too many for them to sally forth and tally ho across, but it happens. Kevin just shakes his head and gets a kick out of it every week. It is also subject to the domino effect, because if someone isn't reaching for your hand (and I've had people literally next to me refuse to shake my hand), you end up doing the peace wave as well.

Prior to this evening, when we attended Mass at another parish for the Ascension, we naively surmised that this phenomena was unique to our parish.

Not so, not so.

People at this parish did the peace wave too, with less smiling. It's a wave of the peace wave. It extends perhaps to our entire borough, PERHAPS to the archdiocese. More investigation will be necessary to determine if this is a demographic circumstance, or a geographic one.

Stay tuned.

Not really.

Worst. blogger. ever.

So I realize that I'm not the most prolific blogger ever. I barely update this blog once a week. I think the problem, which has been germinating in my mind for a while now, is that I stink at taking notes. For whatever reason, I feel like I should sit down in front of the computer and generate a catchy piece of prose with a nothing more than a little knuckle-cracking.

Currently, I'm reading "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion, who I've always enjoyed very much but haven't read really since high school. Unfortunately, this tale is about the death of her husband and how she processed the grief that followed. Not a story full of rainbows and peppermint sticks, but one worth reading nonetheless. I'm not very far into the story, but Didion notes that her husband, the writer John Dunne, always carried small personalized cards around with him so that when inspiration struck, he would not lose his thought. Didion says that he often chided her if she forgot her notebook, because "the ability to make a note when something came to mind was the difference between being able to write and not being able to write."

Though I obviously don't have as sad an experience as Didion, I experience this loss of jewels of thought often. Frequently, I write in my head while driving or walking or at the gym, and though these little verbal nuggets come together quickly and snowball into entire cohesive thoughts on life, I don't remember them later.

This reminded me of another author I read, Ann Lamott, who noted that she also always carried a very plain 3x5 card with her at all times, so that in case she was walking the dog and found the perfect lines of dialogue for her characters, she didn't have to a) rush back to her writing and take care of it, therefore halting life and perhaps inspiration, and/or b) forget.

Prior to this blog, I had a journal which I had lapsed from using. I think these episodes are a good reminder to me that I don't have to fore go the privacy and freedom of my journal and can in fact use it as a springboard for the writing on this page, creating a more bountiful offering for my audience.

Here's hoping.

Bananas and coconuts - a tropical weekend

Kevin was away this past weekend so I turned myself into a wandering minstrel. I headed out to York to visit with our friends Lindy and Jared and celebrate their daughter Taylor's first birthday. It was bananas. No, literally. We decorated everything with bananas and all the food was based around bananas. I am on a hiatus from the yellow fruit for the time being. On the way out, I spaced out on the turnpike and missed my exit. If you know the PA turnpike, it was a while to the next exit and then I had to get out my trusty map to find my way to York.

When I first started going to Etown, my dad had highlighted my map for me with the route he deemed I take. It was a bit out of the way, but it kept me away from the continual construction on one of the major roadways. It was also a lot of looping backroads, which are my dad's forte. Anyway, I had to take this route again, and I felt like God took me that way on purpose. It was a beautiful spring evening, the sun was setting, casting a golden glow on the intense green vistas of Lancaster county. It was really a relaxing end to my day and didn't get me to my destination that much later.

Today after Mass I went to my parents house to celebrate Mother's Day with the extended family. Since I've been named the new dessert queen (the torch has been passed from my Aunt Jo and mother to me), I decided to make a Pampered Chef recipe since they tend to make use of short cuts. This recipe went over big with our coconut-loving crowd, who said it tasted exactly like an Almond Joy bar. Remember, "Almond Joy has nuts. Mounds don't."

Chocolate Macaroon Pizza

1 pkg fudge brownie mix and ingredients to make brownies
2 egg whites
14 oz sweetened flaked coconut (you could probably do with 7-11 oz to get the coconut crispier)
14 oz sweetened condensed milk
1 pkg (2.25 oz) sliced almonds
2 tbsp semi-sweet chocolate morsels, melted
1 tsp vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place a 15 in circle of parchment paper on large round baking stone. Prepare brownie mix according to package directions in bowl. Pour brownie batter on parchment paper, spreading into a 14 in circle using spreader. (Do not bake without parchment paper or batter will run off baking stone while baking - this happened to me anyway, but I baked it in a drawer oven, so I think that was the problem). Bake 15-18 mins or until brownie is set. Do not overbake. Remove from oven to cooling rack (I'm not really sure why you'd do this b/c you pretty much have to put it right back in, but you could do this step ahead of time and maybe that's the point).

In clean batter bowl, combine egg whites, coconut and sweetened condensed milk; mix well. Spread coconut mixture over top of brownie to within 1/4 in of edge. Sprinkle with almonds. Return to oven and bake 20-25 min or until edges of coconut are deep golden brown. Remove from oven to cooling rack.

Place chocolate morsels and oil in small bowl and microwave, uncovered, on high for 45 sec or until chocolate is melted and smooth, stiring after each 10 sec interval (I didn't do this). Do not overheat. Drizzle chocolate over pizza. Cut into wedges. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

16 servings. Per serving: 450 calories, 22g fat, 35 mg cholesterol, 57g carbohydrates, 5g protein, 230mg sodium, 2g fiber

Immune from a good laugh

A co-worker and I were talking today on IM at work. He works for a different team, but we often work together, especially with this training module that we're working on, and we have a lot in common. The bottom line is, he has a quirky sense of humor and often makes me laugh.

We've both been married about the same amount of time and I asked him today if his wife laughed at his jokes. He said, "Not anymore." The same thing is true with Kevin and I. Not to say that our relationship was ever like the Laugh Factory, but we make each other laugh, and that is very attractive to the both of us. Growing up with the Casey's (and the Forsters, in a quieter way!), a sense of humor and the ability to make others laugh was very important.

However, as my coworker and I have discovered, when you've been with someone for a long time (9 years may not be long for some of you out there, but it's my longest relationship...and really my only!) the same old schtick doesn't quite get the same laughs that it used to. If Jeff Probst were calling the game in our house, he'd probably have some type of laughter immunity neckgear to give out when one of us didn't laugh at the other. It's become so typical that Kevin often says, "I knew you were going to say that," or I reply for him in my Kevin voice with his standard one-liners.

However, these same old jokes may kill elsewhere. I think my coworker is funny and he often makes me laugh. But, alas, his material probably elicits an eye roll at home.

It may sound like a sad situation, but the truth is, it just makes you work that much harder for a laugh, and it is that much sweeter a victory when you've earned it. Nothing like having a discriminating audience to refine your repertoire.

Friday

You Belong in Rome

You're a big city soul with a small town heart Which is why you're attracted to the romance of Rome Strolling down picture perfect streets, cappuccino in hand And gorgeous Italian people - could life get any better?

What City Do You Belong In?

Guess I should go!

Mini status report

I am having a salad for lunch. Bully for me.

It makes my day when people from faraway lands (like Cali-for-NI-A) call me at work. And they are my friends. I feel popular and loved.

Almost done briefing 13,000 people. Only 300 left to go. Small potatoes at this point.